Ten composers brought together by Katie Noonan and Brodsky Quartet
As a concept it’s brilliant, and in its execution it was well-nigh faultless. At the end was a standing ovation.
That it happened at all is an achievement in itself: 10 Australian composers brought together by Katie Noonan to write music for her and the Brodsky Quartet, all 10 works based on the poetry of Judith Wright.
As a concept it’s brilliant, and in its execution it was well-nigh faultless. At the end was a standing ovation, before an intense week-long concert tour that crosses the country.
Even the sequencing of the new works is ideal, the first half beginning with proven classical hit-maker Elena Kats-Chernin’s suitably come-hither Late Spring and ending with probably the best piece of a long night, Richard Tognetti’s spare, simple, utterly compelling Metho Drinker.
In between, a who’s who of Australian music’s finest wrestle scansions with the environmentally aware, socially progressive lyrics of a poet who was famous upon her death in 2000 but whose posthumous reputation looms even larger with each passing year.
David Hirschfelder provides To a Child with a soaring melody. Iain Grandage’s Night After Bushfire is impressively epic and even operatic. Carl Vine really builds the drama while allowing for perfect clarity of diction in The Slope, while maverick John Rodgers electronically transforms Failure of Communication into psychedelia.
But yes, Metho Drinker, Tognetti’s mesmerising, cello-pummelling setting of lines about flesh and bone parting ways under the influence of “his white and burning girl”, seems the keeper.
As for Noonan herself, there’s evidence right here that with maturity, her prodigious four-time ARIA-winning youthful gifts and her heavenly voice with effortless high notes have now entered an even more important creative phase.
The voice is more controlled, the dynamic only raised beyond a whisper when forced, or specifically when Bjork’s Possibly Maybe in the second half demands a bit of belting.
But for the bulk of two hours’ singing, the intonation and the purity of tone are so secure that mere volume isn’t required. The Brodsky Quartet seem delighted with the collaboration and they start the second half in excellent style with a triptych of Australian string quartets on their own.
And at the end, a stunning arrangement of Sting’s Fragile, reimagined with a classical sensibility, transforms into a hushed, spine-tingling communal singalong.
An artistic explorer, now more than ever Noonan is pushing the boundaries, magnificently.
No wonder the best in the business want to work with her.
With Love and Fury. Katie Noonan and Brodsky Quartet. Concert Hall, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, April 28.
City Recital Hall, Sydney, May 2; Albany Entertainment Centre, May 4; Perth Concert Hall, May 5.
I am maestro, hear me roar!
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