Musica Viva, Richard Goldner’s gift

THE founder’s vision inspires 70 years of beautiful music.

Goldner’s gift

MUSICA Viva was established in December 1945 by Richard Goldner, a refugee who had discovered that Australia had virtually no chamber music. Goldner was on to something: the first concert of “Richard Goldner’s Sydney Musica Viva” was held at the Sydney Conservatorium on December 8, 1945. History records that more than 1000 people attended.

From very simple beginnings, Musica Viva has become the biggest presenter of chamber music in the world. It has branches in all the mainland states, and there is a local Musica Viva committee in each state.

My involvement in Musica Viva began in 1978 when I was invited to join the Victorian committee. The Victorian President of Musica Viva thought it was a good idea to have a lawyer on the committee. That doubtful logic may have been informed by earlier events. I have a copy of an ASIO minute paper, which recorded a meeting of “The Victorian Committee of the Musica Viva Society”. It noted those who attended: a distinguished cast of clergymen, doctors, professors and lawyers. One name had been circled, and there was a handwritten annotation: “This is the organisation which brings Greek and Yugoslav musicians to Australia.”

I do hope the person who made the note got along to hear some of those Greek and Yugoslav musicians.

My own interest in chamber music was largely shaped by Musica Viva. After most concerts, the committee members would have supper with the musicians. Typically, the supper would be held at the house of a committee member. While I had enough interest in chamber music to subscribe to the concert series, it was an after-concert supper that sealed it for me. It was 1980. The Tokyo String Quartet were on their first tour of Australia and I was interested to read that they played the so-called Paganini Strads: four instruments made by Stradivarius, which had once been owned by Paganini. All four were on loan from the Corcoran Gallery in New York.

At supper, I was chatting to the first violinist and asked him, tentatively, if I could see his violin. He immediately agreed, and got it out. It was a thing of great beauty. It had small gems – diamonds, rubies and emeralds – at the inflection points on the body. It had been made for, and played by, the Sun King. It is the most valuable thing I have ever held in my hands.

Someone suggested the quartet might play something. And they did. In an ordinary sitting room in suburban Malvern, with perhaps a dozen of us listening, the Tokyo String Quartet played the slow movement of Schubert’s Death and the Maiden. It took my breath away. Suddenly, chamber music made sense, and it has never lost its hold on me. Every person’s life has one or two sudden turning points: for me, that was one.

I am in debt to Musica Viva for another reason. It does not take a great deal of thought to notice that life as a composer is not easy. Other than life as a poet, it is hard to think of another essential occupation that would be more difficult. Having spent most of my life enjoying good music, it struck me that all this music comes to us as a gift from past generations, free of charge, and we should try to add something to the common stock.

Through my involvement in Musica Viva, the idea occurred to me of commissioning a composer to write a piece of music. It was a small way of giving something back. The problem is, commissioning music is not like buying a painting: you can’t just go to a gallery and order a string quartet. When buying a painting you know exactly what you are getting; when commissioning music you cannot know what the end result will be like. And whatever the end result is, you will not able to hang it on the wall and enjoy it every day.

I also had no idea how to arrange a commission. I spoke to people at Musica Viva and they liked the idea, suggested one or two suitable composers and put it all together. In due course, the work was performed in every state as part of Musica Viva’s national touring season. I cannot remember if I enjoyed the first piece of music I commissioned, but it was profoundly satisfying to know that, in a small way, I had helped bring a new piece of music into being.

From that modest start, I now commission one or two pieces of music each year and I am profoundly grateful to Musica Viva for helping make it possible. It is oddly comforting to imagine that some of the music I have commissioned will still be played long after I am gone and forgotten.

Presenting chamber music in a country like Australia is challenging: we have a small population spread across vast distances, and touring a group is a major enterprise. It is not like touring a group in western Europe. For 70 years Musica Viva has presented the world’s greatest chamber musicians to Australian audiences. Its contribution to the culture of this country is beyond reckoning.

Richard Goldner died in 1991. We should all be grateful for his vision. And we should be grateful for the discretion of an ASIO officer who, in other circumstances, might have prevented the arrival of those Greek and Yugoslav musicians.

Julian Burnside AO QC was a member of Musica Viva’s Victorian committee for 30 years and a member of its national board for 13 years. He has commissioned music from numerous Australian composers including Peter Sculthorpe, Nigel Westlake, Carl Vine, Barry Conyngham and Brett Dean.

Taking the cake

FOR its 70th birthday, Musica Viva is treating itself to a national recital tour by Maxim Vengerov. In his first recital appearance in Australia, the Russian superstar violinist will play a program of Bach, Prokofiev, Brahms, Dvorak, Paganini and more in Adelaide, Perth, Melbourne and Sydney in December 2015.

Leading up to that, a sparkling array of performers will play seven programs for Musica Viva’s International Concert Season. Canada’s Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra presents House of Dreams, a collage of images, music and narrative that leads the audience through five historic European houses, to the sounds of Handel, Purcell, Bach, Telemann and others.

Australia’s Goldner String Quartet will play Ligeti, Beethoven and Sydney-based composer Paul Stanhope. British cellist Steven Isserlis and Canadian pianist Connie Shih will perform in Australia for the first time, playing a mainly French program of Saint-Saëns, Fauré, Adès and Franck. British vocal ensemble I Fagiolini (“the little beans”) make their Australian debut with madrigals by Monteverdi, Croce, Poulenc and others.

Young Frenchmen the Modigliani Quartet will perform two programs of Haydn, Schubert, Beethoven, Dohnányi, and Perth-born composer Nigel Westlake. British pianist Paul Lewis plays early and late pieces by Brahms, bookended by Beethoven sonatas. And Austria’s Eggner Trio play works by the Schumanns, Dvorak, Brahms and Australia’s Dulcie Holland.

For the biennial Musica Viva Festival, in collaboration with the Australian Youth Orchestra, Russian cellist Mischa Maisky leads a line-up of international artists in a program of concerts, workshops and tutorials, including a masterclass by Maisky himself.

Penny Durham