Downsized ACO nails orchestral blockbusters
WHETHER it’s downsized Debussy or wound-back Wagner, decluttered versions of big orchestral works rarely work, unless you’re the Australian Chamber Orchestra.
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IN the 1930s a British publisher of children’s literature brought out a series of pocket edition books featuring birds, animals, pond life or whatever might interest school-aged children on their trips to the country. Handy for reference, but not something you would put on the coffee table.*
My mind wandered back to my small inherited collection of these colourful and fascinating volumes as I listened to the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s latest tour, stripped back “transformations” of three much-loved orchestral pieces interspersed with some John Dowland and JS Bach.
Wagner decluttered and reduced to seven string instruments might seem a quantum leap backwards, but with ACO principal cellist Timo-Veikko “Tipi” Valve’s skilfully curated program the Prelude from Tristan and Isolde worked very well, helped by the fact that it was beautifully played, of course.
Led by principal violin Helena Rathbone, the tight-knit ensemble of doubled violins, violas and cellos with contrabass managed to sound, if not quite like the Vienna Phil, at least muscular enough to pass muster.
COUNTERPOINT
Richard Strauss’s 1946 grief-stricken memorial to a bombed-out Munich and Germany in ruins, Metamorphosen, fared even better. Originally written for 23 strings, the ACO has often performed this 30-minute work — once described as the saddest music ever written — in its larger configuration. But in its pared-back form the listener could track more clearly Strauss’s brilliant use of counterpoint, and guest violist Stefanie Farrands’ impassioned runs were a feature.
Mozart was a three-year-old when Rathbone’s loaned 1759 Guadagnani violin was made in Milan, and when he grew up the composer favoured playing the viola over its more glamorous cousin. Despite this he wrote five violin concertos but nothing for the viola other than his Sinfonia Concertante, in which the two instruments share the limelight, duetting above the string orchestra.
This work was lost for more than 100 years, only to be revived in concert halls in the 1920s, and an anonymous arrangement of it in chamber form also came to light around the same time.
Whoever made this skilful and mainly satisfying transformation was a little unkind to the viola, which lost a lot of its best lines to the cello. Valve, however, was more than equal to the task in this performance.
These three pieces were nicely contrasted by a Ricercar from Bach’s The Musical Offering and a rendition of Dowland’s Flow My Tears, in which Valve’s plucked cello imitated a lute and the other strings replicated the glassy haze of a choir of viols.
The concert is repeated at 7pm on Wednesday, September 19, at City Recital Hall Angel Place.
* You can still pick these up today if you go online. Some of them have become collector’s items.
DETAILS
● CONCERT: ACO - Transforming Strauss and Mozart
● WHERE: City Recital Hall Angel Place
● WHEN: Tuesday, September 18