Overview: 2023 Coriole Song Pageant

If there may be one reassuring factor that emerged from the ache of COVID, it’s the realisation that the fullest enjoyment to be won from track comes from other people in reality being bodily provide in combination and sharing within the enjoy of listening to it. One appreciates this increasingly as we emerge from the pandemic and take a look at to place it in the back of us.

Coriole Song Pageant’s go back, tentative to start with however accelerating every time, has subsequently been maximum heart-warming for individuals who have come to grasp and respect this annual tournament. On the identical time, it can pay to appear again and spot how the pandemic affected our lives – as a result of direction it did, very profoundly.

As Coriole’s incoming inventive director, Simon Cobcroft took on precisely this point of view within the concert events he richly devised. So in a trajectory of darkness to mild, of adversity to reaffirmation, listeners may just retrace a adventure as expressed thru artwork that perhaps we’ve got all been thru.

Widely known to many because the ASO’s predominant cellist, Cobcroft introduced alongside a phenomenal corporate of fellow musicians to perform this program. His personal chamber staff, Lyrebird Trio from Queensland, took a outstanding position, however many colleagues got here from the ASO and somewhere else from interstate. The musicianship they confirmed was once very good all the way through: intense however elating, and punctuated from time to time with sheer unbridled a laugh.

What other people won’t have identified, till Cobcroft took to the microphone, is solely how eloquent and well-read he’s throughout all of the composers who had been represented. He had many illuminating tales to inform when it comes to the 3 concert events of “Longing”, “Reunion” and “Savage Parade”.

Serving nearly as a clean canvas for the whole thing to be drawn upon, Monteverdi’s madrigal in reward of the nightingale, “Dolcissimo Uscignolo”, sounded natural and distilled in Paul Stanhope’s association of this tune for soprano, piano, violin and cello. Lyrebird Trio – comprising violinist Glenn Christensen, pianist Angela Turner and Cobcroft – then delivered an electrifying efficiency of Stanhope’s Piano Trio “Dolcissimo Uscignolo”, a piece that takes the similar madrigal into more and more manic territory. Providing quirky, even unruly a laugh from time to time, Nielsen’s Wind Quartet, Op.43, was once a pleasure due to remarkable enjoying from Julia Grenfell (flute), Joshua Oates (oboe), Dean Newcombe (clarinet), Mark Gaydon (bassoon) and Adrian Uren (horn).

A mighty two-piano efficiency of Rachmaninov’s “Symphonic Dances” performed through Kristian Chong and Daniel de Borah took all breath away within the exciting pleasure and remarkable self-discipline those pianists dropped at this maximum superb paintings. It was once intriguing to peer how another way they handled line and word – de Borah extra analytically, Chong extra gesturally – whilst combining faultlessly when it comes to timing. To tug this off so properly is a prodigious feat, as it’s certainly similar to Stravinsky’s two-piano model of “Ceremony of Spring” in rhythmic complexity.

Daniel de Borah and Kristian Chong offered a mighty two-piano efficiency of Rachmaninov’s ‘Symphonic Dances’. Picture: Frank Lynch

The second one live performance took the listener into a global of aloneness, by the use of quite a lot of solo works that culminated in a triumphal confirmation of camaraderie in Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E flat, Op.44. One of the solos possibly over-emphasised the theory of isolation of their meditative stillness, however Newcombe’s efficiency of “Abime des oiseaux”, from Messiaen’s “Quartet for the Finish of Time”, was once immensely expressive and beautifully achieved. The Schumann quintet was once one of the most triumphs of this competition. With consummate chamber enjoying from Lyrebird Trio joined through violinist Alexandra Osborne, violist Justin Julian and Daniel de Borah, this scaled the actual heights of chamber track.

Chilly, wintry climate posed no actual impediment all over the weekend, and audiences had been handled to a trio of recent works and a in point of fact impressive finale at the Sunday. As this yr’s commissioned composer, Anne Cawrse contributed a extremely memorable “Anniversary Trio” in honour of competition consumers Don and Veronica Aldridge. Flowing abundantly with inspiration and infectious rhythmic power, it is extremely impressively written for the medium of violin, cello and piano. Alongside the way in which we heard intriguing quotes from Beethoven and Billy Joel that, as Cawrse defined, recognize the musical personal tastes of its dedicatees. It’s almost definitely her greatest paintings to this point.

Two different very enlivening Australian works put fireplace within the stomach. With touches of Ravel and jazz, Joseph Twist’s “Dancing with Someone” for string quartet had a great rhythmic power and degree of pleasure; and Justin Williams’ “3 Intermezzi” for piano was once delightfully whimsical in its contrasts of jumpy rhythms and romantically-laden melody.

A trickier concentrate, Stravinsky’s Septet for blended ensemble is a vexatious paintings, stuffed with astringent, dotty complexity that turns out to deliberately attempt to unseat the performers and confound the listener. Its circus-like hijinks and “managed cacophony” proved but extra a laugh because of nice ensemble enjoying from the performers.

Each notable competition wishes a notable finale, and this time we had one that can have surpassed anything else Coriole has in the past presented. Britten’s “Les Illuminations” is a very arresting tune cycle for soprano (or tenor) and string orchestra according to somewhat demanding surrealist poetry through Arthur Rimbaud. It was once riveting right here in a powerful, vastly dramatic efficiency through Sofia Troncoso and 16 strings. The depth was once nail-biting and past anything else one may have imagined. What a marvellous singer Troncoso is, and the way properly the strings labored in combination with out the desire for a conductor.

When Coriole Song Pageant resumed in 2021 and 2022 underneath Anna Goldsworthy’s astute stewardship, it felt as though some kind of human victory have been received. Now underneath Cobcroft it feels doubly so. We will be able to simplest stay up for extra superb stories subsequent yr and the next underneath his course.

The Coriole Song Pageant was once offered on Would possibly 20 and 21 at Coriole Vineyards in McLaren Vale.

Supported through the Govt of South Australia