Australian Chamber OrchestraRichard Tognetti (director)
Steve Davislim (tenor)
Tuesday 4 September 2001
Concert Hall, Perth
Pärt: Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten
Takemitsu: Death and Resurrection
Britten: Les illuminations
Schubert: Quartet in D minor, "Death and the Maiden"
(arranged for string orchestra by Richard Tognetti)
The Australian Chamber Orchestra,
under the direction of violinist Richard Tognetti, is commonly regarded in Australia
as a national treasure. People come from all over the countryside to hear them
(one woman was recently moved to write to The Australian newspaper from
the remote mining town of Kalgoorlie that she always travels the 600 kilometers
to Perth to attend their concerts); they maintain a heavy schedule of Australia-wide
and international concerts, always heavily subscribed. Their popularity is particularly
interesting in view of the fact that Tognetti is dedicated to promulgating new
music, often perceived as "difficult" by the generality of concertgoers.
The orchestra's latest concert program consists of three works from the 20th century (now, as the T'ang Quartet reminded us recently, the last century) and one from the remoter reaches of the 19th. For Arvo Pärt's Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten, the ACO's core of string players was joined by a gong, and the piece began with a gong stroke. It consists of a repeated falling theme, played at different speeds by the various sections, which gathers intensity as it goes, creating a shimmering veil of music. The work finished with a final stroke on the gong, at which all the players stopped with their bows upheld for a long minute as the gong faded (until the inevitable first cough sounded). With its fragmented phrases, Toru Takemitsu's Death and Resurrection, composed for the bleak movie Black Rain, was a considerable contrast. The ACO played the work with great intensity, bringing out its subtle strands of color.
Les Illuminations, for solo
tenor and strings, was composed by Britten in 1939 and sets to music a selection
of visionary poems by the French symbolist Arthur Rimbaud. 
The words are allusive and their meaning often elusive; the music
often seems to work against the tenor of the verses. (Still, it seemed rather
perverse for the organizers to provide a full text and translation in the
program and then leave the auditorium plunged in darkness.) Even though this
is not really a work designed to show off the beauties of the voice, having been
written for Peter Pears, the rising young Australian tenor Steve Davislim (right)
brought to it a fine, evenly produced sound and a dramatic presence. His conviction
and projection, and his ability to swing from lyrical intensity to glittering
irony to a tender caress of the visionary words, carried the audience in what
would have to be considered the most upbeat of the evening's offerings.
The final work was Tognetti's setting for the orchestra of Schubert's string quartet known as "Death and the Maiden." This fattening out of the original work added texture and color, but somewhat at the expense of its driven austerity — this arrangement does not really capture the morbid fascination of the quartet form. At times the forces sounded a little unbalanced, as Tognetti played solo while the rest of the first violins kept silent. The Allegro sounded rather more rollicking than usual, the Andante somewhat more lush; in the final Presto the orchestra whipped along to a sizzling finale. In all, the ACO fully lived up to its reputation with a diverse and diverting program played with dramatic flair and impeccable musicality.
