Jolie’s recent revelation that she had a preventative double mastectomy has brought the couple even closer. “We knew this was the right thing to do for our family and that it would bring us closer. And it has,” Jolie said.

This is the central bit:

Opera Australia has put before the minority of principal singers who have been engaged on 52 week contracts a proposal to undertake more flexible employment arrangements. It is regrettable that this has been partially reported in the media. We think it appropriate to continue to discuss the proposals directly with the singers affected and their agents and union, before responding publicly to questions about any new arrangements.

There is more of the usual about the company’s financial position and the success of the company’s new strategies.  The estimation of that success is in fact the whole issue.

The whole thing is bookended by the following rather amusing paragraphs:

Opera Australia would like to thank everyone who has expressed interest in the future of the company and its artists.

and

Opera Australia  is continually working to respond to its audiences and improve its financial position. It is true that this change is challenging for the company and artists involved and we thank all of the company’s supporters for their concern.

SSO – 15 March

Joyce Yang played Tchaik 1; of the two obscurities, Dvořák’s Othello overture made a stronger impression than Tchaikovsky’s Fatum; Respighi’s Roman Festivals was the big finish. It’s too distant in the past for me to give any more informative or detailed comment.

SSO – 18 March

Joyce Yang in recital. I’m afraid despite her advocacy, I still cannot really warm to Bartok. It’s not just the idiom, I think it must be his personality. He is the composer of that kinky (and by contemporary standards also rather racist in the inscrutable oriental sense) Miraculous Mandarin, though I suppose he can’t be held entirely responsible for the ballet’s scenario.

SSO 5 April

Reinhard Goebel led the SSO through a rare excursion into earlier music. We got two out of three of the Water Music suites in what was claimed to be a more authentic sequence, though the lack of the first suite detracted a bit from that. The orchestra obviously warmed to Goebel but for me the venue is a bit big for some of this stuff. The revelation was the final Chaconne by Berton which is a bit of a calling card of Goebel’s.

Australia Ensemble 18 April

My friend P was following her son at a youth orchestra concert in Penrith, so I took my younger sister, visiting from rural WA.  My nephew (aged 12) also came.  He was a bit disappointed there wasn’t a trombone, since that is the instrument he is learning.  Faced with a Dvořák string quintet in the second half we let him play with his DS in the foyer.  The front-of-house staff offered him a free sandwich (more accurately, they are dinner-roll-sized little filled rolls) when they were clearing up.  I was shocked to learn he declined the offer.

SSO 2 May

This was a “Meet the Music” concert but it was also a program which notably drew out (if I may say so myself) the cognoscenti. The whole Dulwich Hill gang and their associates were there in force as well as other notables. The attraction was Thomas Ades conducting his own work Polaris (without the visuals commissioned from his better half to go with it on its first performance), matched rather well with the Lutoslawski Cello Concerto (Peter Wispelwey), Sibelius 6 and, less obviously, Beethoven’s Namensfeier Overture. The Lutoslawski and the Ades fared the best, though the effect of the Ades rather depended on not sitting too closely (as a friend of mine did) to one of the antiphonal gallery brass choirs.

SSO – 9 May Beethoven

Beethoven can still pack the house. This was also the first appearance (at least witnessed by me) since his appointment of Andrew Haveron, the new [co-] concertmaster.   It augured well. (Actually it seems from that link that Haveron is only here just now for a teaser and won’t be back for good until the beginning of next year.  It’s a bit like those government promises that phase in over a far-into-the-future period.)  Exceptionally, there were four men at the front of the first violins.

The concert opened with Weingartner’s arrangement of the Beethoven Grosse Fugue for string orchestra. This was testing for all and ultimately worth it, though I have to say there is something about a string orchestra which never really excites me. I know I’m showing my ignorance here but what exactly there was to arrange is a bit of a mystery beyond when to double the celli with the double bass and whether solo or tutti.

On the train home a friend offered the view that the Beethoven “Triple Concerto” is a “dud work.” I would say it is a bit at the “Wellington’s Victory/ Folk Song Arrangements” end of Beethoven’s oeuvre, but the thing about Beethoven is that in general (as you can see from the piano sonatas) he is almost incapable of writing a dud work. Is this the exception?

I think it is, at least when management yields to the the temptation (because 3 soloists are required) to field a local team. Mediocre or mediocre-ish works are just the pieces which require top-notch soloists. How top-notch they are or not is relative to the occasion: it is possible that Kirsty Hilton, Catherine Hewgill and Clemens Leske would make a good impression with a lesser orchestra, but we are used to better with the SSO. In the first movement, thunderous interjections from the piano kept making me (inwardly) ask “What’s up with grumpy?” Probably drama was intended but discomposure was the result.  When I did a bit of a you-tube browse afterwards I could find performances which had more dramatic tension (the absence of this is partly, I think, a result of Ashkenazy’s rather genial approach) in the first movement and quite a lot more what I would think of as aristocratic “Archduke”-ish polish.  They restored my faith in the work but showed up what this performance was lacking.

Fortunately, the Pastoral Symphony in the second half made up for this. Being Ashkenazy, it was a mellifluous and pretty straight down the middle approach (nothing unusually fast) but none the worse for that. I remain a sucker for muted strings and the second movement therefore remains my favourite.

It seems my subscription commitments to the SSO and the AE have effectively crowded out any more ad hoc concert-going.  I should try to do something about that because they are not the only shows in town.

To prove that, I also went, with my sister and nephew to see the touring production of “One Man Two Guvnors.”  It was expertly done though my having seen the original production as part of the National Theatre Live franchise somewhat took the wind out of its sails.  They enjoyed it without this impediment.

Things are now being taken to the next level.  Apparently about 20 singers are to be “rested” – ie, laid off, for 6 to 12 weeks next year.  These are singers who up till now have been employed on 12-month contracts. Obviously, in the past, that must have included the odd gap between conspicuous onstage commitments (some of which would necessarily be taken up with preparation and also by covering others’ roles).

According to Lyndon Terracini, fresh from his astounding ten-year reappointment and much skiting at the annual general meeting,  if these singers are not singing they cannot be paid and it’s not good for them to be singing in parts for which they are not suited.  Get it, it’s for their own good!

An OA spokesperson says it is nothing at all to do with the projected production next year of the musical “Kismet.”

OK, yes, I know it’s “The King and I,” but so what?

Last weekend, when at Gulgong, we took a drive to Coolah Tops.

We had to revisit the grass tree colony once we were there.

Leaving aside the now (just a bit sadly, I think) proscribed old common name for these plants, there is still something oddly anthropomorphic about them.  In part, it’s their sociable habit of growing together.  I’m not sure of the exact reason for this – moisture and soil nutrients might be the entire explanation, but it is quite striking.

Our visit was all too short.  It is still my ambition to spend a longer time at this tucked away and (I’d say) relatively unknown national park.

My sisters and my younger sister’s son both visited me recently from London and WA.  Together we went to Canberra to see our father.  We also caught up with a paternal cousin who lives up the Putty Road.

He is a film maker.

I take that as the inspiration for this rustic trolly.  He has a number of such little wheeled items, constructed on the top of rescued toy prams and the like.

Our family hails from the West.  My father came to Sydney and my uncle lived for some years in Melbourne.

We, too, had a pack of  cards like one the packs in the picture. I suspect my cousin’s pack and our pack both came from our grandmother who came from Perth by train to visit us all a number of times.

This weekend, west of the divide, to Gulgong.

Since I last posted about this town (and here), the hospital has closed. There is a kind of clinic being constructed to replace it.

This is an unconstructed bridge for an uncompleted railway at Spicer’s Creek on the Goolma road to Wellington.

I am required to undertake continuing legal education.

Clause 176 of the Legal Profession Regulation 2005 imposes a requirement that in each three year period ending 31 March 2007, 2010 and 2013 (und so weiter), the continuing education I undertake must:

“include a component relating to the management of the practice of law that deals predominantly with the following issues:
(a) the principles of equal employment opportunity,
(b) the law relating to discrimination and harassment,
(c) occupational health and safety law,
(d) employment law,
(e) the management of legal practice consistent with paragraphs (a)-(d).”

A “component” means at least one hour’s worth.

Well the last three years are up. It’s kind of a Rumpelstiltskin moment.

I can’t remember whether I undertook “regulation 176″ CLE/CPD (“Continuing Professional Development”) in 2010-11 or 2011-12. I can’t be bothered checking.

Just to be on the safe side, I have watched on my computer a streamed video of a talk given a couple of weeks ago which was designed to meet the criteria. I am able to satisfy the requirement by watching a video in this way so long as I have already otherwise completed 4 hours of “face to face” continuing legal education.

It’s difficult to see what purpose such compliance can really serve.

It says:

A panel of 15 expert critics and professional musicians from around the country – many of whom wished to remain anonymous – was sent ABC recordings of live concerts by the six orchestras from throughout 2012. The judges were left blind as to which orchestra was which (each one received a label from A to F) in order to obviate any prejudice or hometown loyalty. All attempts were made to match repertoire between the orchestras, and to include a variety of styles, conductors and soloists in order to capture the range of each ensemble’s expressive power. Each judge was asked to review all the works performed by each orchestra and to provide an overall ranking of the orchestras from one to six.

The teaser then goes on to say that the SSO comes in first, the ASO second then the QSO. The MSO is (surprisingly) fourth then the WASO and, by “trailing by a large gap,” the TSO.

This whole exercise strikes me as pretty silly. As silly as drawing any serious conclusions from a review of a DVD of last year’s Handa Opera production of La Traviata. I mean, in an event where the atmosphere and the place are a crucial aspect of the experience, what would you expect of a DVD recording?

The main reason why I think it silly is because, unless you are contemplating moving cities for the sake of the orchestra, or, possibly, going for a job in one, the question is pretty irrelevant. In Australia you pretty well only have one [ex-]ABC orchestra to go to according to the city you are living in and, let’s face it, if you are wanting to buy a recording of “the best orchestra” you are not often likely to be choosing one of the [ex-]ABC orchestras.

Even if you lived in London with a choice of resident and regularly visiting orchestras, the question of “the best orchestra” is probably a pretty stupid one. Associated artists and repertoire would all play a part.

And how valid a guide, even with all these qualifications, are the recordings?

The first person to comment on Limelight’s puff piece, “arpasquill,” asked:

“Was patching work taken into consideration when listening to recordings?”

This drew a response from “RJStove”, who outs himself as one of the “panel of 15 expert critics and professional musicians from around the country.” You can possibly judge that for yourself. Stove has written a faintly Quixotic and decidedly tendentious book on Cesar Franck which tells us almost as much about RJStove as it does about its ostensible subject.

Stove says

“I can only say that I didn’t take patching work into account. To this day I don’t know which recordings had patches and which didn’t…Except on the few occasions when audience applause was included, we weren’t even sure whether a performance was done at a concert or in a studio. So the question of patches didn’t enter my own consciousness, anyway.”

Precisely.

There is a more indignant response from conductor and broadcaster Graham Abbott, including as follows:

The alleged strengths and weakness of the performances reviewed could as easily be attributed in many cases to the recording, the hall, how tired the orchestra was, and especially the conductor.

Abbott gallantly illustrates this with a comment which (see below) I can report after my trip to the newsagent is dealt out in the article to the MSO under his own direction, namely that it is “heavy handed in Mozart.”

With some justification Abbott complains:

most appalling of all was the press release sent out in anticipation of this tripe. “Australia’s best and worst symphony orchestras named in first ever blind-listening test.”

He accuses the magazine of a cheap stunt to sell copies by denigrating the orchestras in question.

I’d say the “cheap stunt” bit is a fair cop.

Obviously there are many variables. The choice of comparable repertoire probably deprives a smaller orchestra such as the TSO of the chance to show itself off to advantage. But, as I said, what is even the point of the comparison when few really have a meaningful choice between these orchestras?

The low ranking of the MSO seems odd, and is probably a bigger upset than the relegation of the TSO to the bottom of the class. (After all, they are the poorest and smallest of the ex-ABC orchestras.) I don’t like to give the comparison too much credit by responding to it but I wonder if the outcome for the MSO is a result in any way of their prolonged lack of a chief conductor. [Postscript after a detour to the newsagent, see below: nor did it help them to have Brahms' Tragic Overture conducted by Richard Gill counted as representative of their work.] The quality of recordings made in 2012 likely to have been adversely affected by their exile from the Hamer Hall for two years prior to its reopening in about August 2012.

Of course I’m curious to see how the Limelight panel have reached their conclusions, but I don’t intend encouraging them by buying the April edition. I shall read the article for free at the newsagent.

The concert was billed as featuring Scottish accordionist, James Crabb, and I have to admit I was trepidatious. Despite the enthusiastic write-up by Professor Covell in the ensemble’s newsletter, I wasn’t too sure how I would feel about an entire second half of tangos and other squeeze-box numbers. I determined to keep an open mind.

Pausing outside the hall before the concert, P and I were surprised to see a security guard. He told us he was there because the governor general was expected. Later he asked us if we knew what she looked like because he was concerned that somebody was parking in a spot reserved for her. We told him to the best of our recollection. The car was moved on.

A little while later I spotted a a car with a furled flag and then a tallish chap in white dress uniform going through the crowd who was obviousy an aide-de-camp. Viceroyalty was amongst us.

The security guard asked us when we thought the concert would finish. P said she thought it would finish about 10pm.

The ensemble’s clarinetist, Catherine McCorkill, was indisposed. The newsletter announced that this went right back to Salome, last year, when CMcC played rather more E flat clarinet than she usually does. That’s the smaller, higher [-est, est?] clarinet, so I can imagine the angles for ducking your knuckle onto various keys might all be a bit more acute. Musician’s injuries are funny things – not in the ha-ha- sense of course, and not for the musician, but rather because of how the smallest physical injury can nevertheless have a big impact owing to the limited tolerances musicians play up against. The only silver lining is that at least CMcC sustained this shortly after she was appointed associate principal at the AOBO, though with modern reforms to workplace injury law that might not be such a comfort as once it would have been. Still, it would make things simpler than phoning in with an injury after a contract/guest engagement.

CMcC was replaced by Dean Newcomb, principal clarinet of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Dean is a milder-mannered player than CMcC, but then almost every clarinetist is.

The program was:

Vincent d’INDY (1851-1931):
Chanson et danses Opus 50 for flute, oboe, two clarinets, horn and two bassoons (1898)
Gioachino ROSSINI (1792-1868):
From Sins of Old Age (Péchés de Vieillesse) arr. Ian Munro for flute, clarinet and piano (1857-1868)
Giuseppe VERDI (1813-1901):
String Quartet in E minor (1873) – 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth
A James CRABB gallery of music for accordion, flute, clarinet, two violins, viola, cello and piano, with works by:
Torbjörn Iwan LUNDQUIST (1920-2000) – Movements this was a kind of mini concerto for accordion and string quartet
César FRANCK (1822-1890) Prelude, fugue et variation in B minor originally for harmonium and piano written for two sisters
Jukka TIENSUU (b 1948)- a tango.
Antonín DVORÁK (1841-1904) Bagatelles, Op. 47, for two violins, cello, and (originally) harmonium
Astor PIAZZOLLA (1921-1992) the famous Tango Libertad but as an encore another more soulful number called “Oblivion” – these both arranged for accordion and the Oz Ensemble’s full complement.

From the point of view of the regular ensemble, the d’Indy was a bit like the proverbial nail soup – only Geoffrey Collins was a regular member. P thought the ensemble a bit ragged. I didn’t mind that, to the extent that I picked it up, because I find all such wind ensemble music utterly beguiling, even when written by an anti-Freyfusard monarchist and anti-semite..

The Rossini was pleasant enough. Part of the “joke” of the middle one, which sent up alpine melodies of the sort assayed by Rossini himself in “William Tell,” was that these things go on rather a lot, which it did.

Despite the big write up by Prof Covell in his notes I can’t say I really adjusted to the Verdi. It still sounded like Verdi, especially a little vocalish ornament which recurs at the cadences.

The second half commenced energetically with the Tunquist and my reservations were immediately overcome. Of the other pieces, the Franck was the most pleasant surprise, and “Oblivion” (the encore) the highlight.

Crabb plays an accordion with buttons rather than a keyboard. It doesn’t seem to have chords as an accordion does. He can command a wide range of articulation in the sense of duration and phrasing of notes. As far as I can make out, there is a limitation in that the pressure of the air applies to all notes at once, but within that limitation, manipulation of the bellows provides an enormous range of dynamics and vibrato and other expressiveness within the notes coming together. This can be rhythmically very compelling.

The only reservation which remains for me is that the reed sound of the instrument, especially its upper partials, remained pretty persistent and, to me, at times a bit too insistent.

Maybe we started late. The interval was a little longer than usual, though it never conforms to its advertised 15 minutes. Before embarking on the encore, Dene Olding observed that this concert had set a new record for late-finishing for the the AE. By the time we left it was almost a quarter to eleven.

On our way out we explained apologetically to the security guard that the late finish was unprecedented.

I never did see Quentin Bryce. Apparently (though I didn’t see her either) Marie Bashir was there.