Snowmelt - Zoe Keating's New EP - a review

The opening chords of Zoe Keating's new ep evoke a stark icy landscape. This rapidly is broken up by rocks, then the life beneath emerging in a spring thaw. And this is just the beginning. Snowmelt is Keating's first new music in a few years, and comes with the byline, four songs for the end of a long winter, and the winter is definitely more than seasonal.

Zoe has been to the barren frozen lands of grief, even without knowing about her life, the sorrows of Icefloe, the second track, can only be created by someone who has spent time there. The tracks don't try to brush this off; a stay in such a place leaves permanent marks, but the music is a journey back through the tundra to the forests where I met Zoe on her last solo album (Into the Trees, 2010).

Touched, remembering, but alive and ready to continue the adventure. This is very clear in the deep, beating rhythms of Possible, the third song, which has flights of beauty over the resonating pulse; it is possible to escape the desert. The final track, Nix, is the relief of the end of the journey, the moment of rest before the next chapter begins.

In all, Snowmelt is a stunningly beautiful set of songs that gives solace and invites hope.

I listened to it on Bandcamp, it's also available on Spotify and iTunes.

SYO - The Masterworks

Last week I had the good fortune to attend Sydney Youth Orchestra’s third and final concert of the year, entitled The Masterworks, in Sydney Town Hall. As with the last concert, it was opened by the SYO Philharmonic presenting an overture by Wagner, this time the Rienzi. This was followed by Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in B minor and Brahms’ Fourth Symphony.

On the face of things, the Rienzi Overture is a curious choice for a concert called The Masterworks, as it comes from an early opera that is much less thought of than Wagner’s ‘masterpieces’. However, it is an impressive piece of work and bears all the traits that, to my mind, are characteristically Wagnerian. My own knowledge of the overture is interesting to note here too. In my late teens I bought many classical CDs sold in those wire bins department stores have for discount CDs and the like, including two collections of works by Wagner, who I then held as a favourite (blame Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd). I expected to have some overlap, probably from the Ring Cycle or Tannhäuser, but no, the only piece on both albums was the Rienzi Overture. So, even if the opera itself doesn’t do as well as Wagner’s later works, the overture remains a popular one for orchestras, and in the SYO Phil’s hands it was easy to see why.

Wagner is known for his use of themes, and for being grandiose, and the Rienzi Overture, in that sense, is very Wagnerian. The thing to remember is, for the grand moments to work, they must be balanced with sufficient pathos in between, and in those moments I think Wagner produced some of his best themes and thematic presentations. Working them in performance puts an orchestra to its limits, it must rise in subliminal glory, then sink back to gentle, without losing continuity or that Wagnerian vitality. The SYO Phil traversed the thematic shifts with aplomb, leaving us entranced and awed all at the right times. I always enjoy seeing the triangle come out in the percussion section, and I’m putting its role in this overture as the best triangle moment of the SYO’s concert year. That sounds trite, the triangle being the butt of so many jokes, but that’s why I love seeing it and hearing the extra effect it gives, which comes across more clearly in live performance.

Now, I’ve mentioned my love for Dvorak before, so I won’t go on about that here. The Cello Concerto was one of the first pieces of his I really knew – besides his ninth symphony of course – and his music’s place in my heart owes a lot to this. It was another of those discount albums that introduced it to me, I found it at the back of a Woolies in Bathurst … I know, weird, but clearly meant to be. It’s a very Bohemian work, not in the coloured skirts and crocheted ponchos sense you’ll find on Pinterest, but the style of classical music from Bohemia in the late 19^th century sense. Like Smetana’s Ma Vlast (My Country), there is a strong evocation of the natural landscape of Bohemia; soaring mountains and dark forests, matched with fields and friendly villages abound in my listening to much ‘Bohemian’ music. There are passages in the Cello Concerto which also remind me of Dvorak’s symphonic poems which tell of dark and tragic Bohemian folk stories, with wild and malevolent beings ruining people’s lives, but in such beautiful folkloric ways.

This performance captured all of that. This was no doubt helped, not only by the skill and passion of the soloist, Umberto Clerici, but also his obvious rapport with the orchestra. Between solo passages Clerici not infrequently looked at and to members of the string section with encouraging nods and appreciative smiles. And the orchestra clearly responded, as, with Clerici, they evoked the fantastic forests and mountains within my imagination and thrilled me with the highs, and made me swoon with the slower passages.

As an encore, Umberto Clerici performed a piece by Giovanni Sollima, who I believe he said he is friends with. It was a shortened version of the piece ‘Alone’ and it was truly electric. I mean that in the way it was alive, and energetic, and liable to jump like lightning arcs in unexpected but utterly spectacular and completely natural ways. Clerici apparently recorded it for an album produced by ABC Classics, I’ll let you know more when I’ve tracked that down.

The final piece is one I can claim no prior knowledge of, which is a terrible oversight on my part. One thing it definitely is, is a great work to end The Masterworks on. Aside from one slow movement, it is all Allegro. It is energetic and full of passion – indeed the final movement is Allegro energico e passionata – and the orchestra rose to meet the demands of this thrilling score. It also features a number of solo moments that allowed members of the orchestra to shine and all who were called on to do so, did so with appropriate verve and skill. It was a fitting finale to both a great concert and a wonderful year for the SYO, I’m honoured to have witnessed the concerts. 

Joy of Russian Piano II - A Modernist and a Classicist

Continuing from yesterday, today I listened to two 'Russian' (more accurately Soviet) composers who I haven't heard much of before. The first one, Galina Ustvolskaya, I'd never heard of before, but she was under 'Related Artists' on Spotify's page for Shostakovich, of whom she was a student and who defended her music when it was attacked for its modernism (see Spotify's page About Galina Ustvolskaya). I listened to her 12 Preludes but I must admit they didn't capture me entirely, although at times they were quite moving. I can understand why she was attacked for 'modernism', but I don't think that's a bad thing, you just have to be in the mood for the discord.

Going back, I found Reinhold Gliere, who's name I knew but nothing else. There's a collection of his piano music performed by Anthony Goldstone and you can hear it on Spotify here. Gliere's music is much less 'modern' and is really quite charming. It's well worth listening to, even if few of the pieces stand out. I added the first of his 25 Preludes and the second of the 3 Mazurkas to my new Dancing Piano playlist, (which will continue to grow), but the rest blend into a delightful background piano set. There is more emotion in the 12 Esquisses, particularly the Agitato, but again there's nothing that really grabbed me.

As the music continued beyond that album however I accidentally discovered his 8 Pieces, Op 39, for violin and cello. These are beautiful short pieces in a number of styles. The cello provides a deep base over which the violin skates and twirls. The Gavotte in particular took me off to that lovely space where there is only music and the light of your own stilled thoughts. If you take nothing else from this blog, follow this link to the album. It also has pieces for cello and for two cellos. The Ballad, Opus 4, is like a mini cello sonata and quite beautiful, while the 10 Duos (for two cellos) range from sweeping slow movements to rapid pieces. The slow movements are the best in my opinion, particularly the Andante, as they have more emotion than the others. Finally, the 12 Pieces, for Cello and Piano, are sumptuous works that highlight the emotional power of the two instruments together, a wonderful collection.

Keep exploring!

New Year, New Listening Project

I'm back. Thankfully the music never left.

I'm doing a new listening project and thought I'd write about it here. It's called Pieces I Must Heat at Least Once a Year. Describes itself really.

The first piece I listened to for it was Elgar's Cello Concerto because I heard a little bit of it on the radio and just wanted to listen to it in full. It's a piece I discovered on a whim. I was looking at a sales page on the ABC Shop online and there it was on an album by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. I knew I liked cello concertos and I didn't have much Elgar at the time so I thought, 'why not?'

The disc arrived, I ripped it (I wasn't listening to many CDs at the time) and put it on my mp3 player to listen to at work. So I was sitting at my desk, earphones in, and I hit play. Those first notes knocked me off my perch, then there was that falling phrase ... I was hooked.

The rest of the concerto, to me, is a journey away from and returning to that opening section. I couldn't say much about it to be honest. It's good, very good in fact, but that opening ... blows me away every time.

I think I bought the album the same year as the Classic 100 Music of the 20th Century on ABC Classic FM, so naturally I voted for the concerto among other things. At the time I thought I'd be helping push it up the rankings a bit - my ignorance apparently. It was a clear winner of the whole countdown and hardly in need of my help. I shouldn't have been surprised, it is a remarkable piece of work and that opening phrase does speak loudly of some of the pathos and melancholy of last century.

If you've not heard it, here is what many consider the best rendition of it (first movement anyway) by Jacqueline du Pre. It's amazing just to watch her.

Bach's Birthday

The Bach family was huge and there are plenty of composers bearing the name, but if we ever hear the name referred to by itself we all know which Bach we’re talking about, Johann Sebastian. An undeniable genius in his craft and one of the foundation stones of Western music. And it’s his birthday, so to celebrate here’s a YouTube clip of three of my favourite pieces by the man himself, starting with what must be one of the most dramatic and iconic of all solo organ pieces, the Toccata and Fugue in D minor. This often reminds me of the image of the austere and mysterious hermit who plays the organ in passion while hatching his mad schemes of revenge or world domination.

Next, the opening of the fourth Brandenburg Concerto. One of my earliest albums – a cassette – was of these concertos and they remain, in my mind, one of the greatest of all orchestral works.

Finally, what would the world be with JS Bach’s Cello Suites? Considerably poorer I believe and that much less peace. Here’s the prelude to No 1.

Zoe Keating at The Basement

Last Friday night I had the pleasure of going to The Basement near Circular Quay in Sydney to hear Zoe Keating play live. Her support act was another cellist, Raven (aka Peter Hollo of FourPlay fame), while they both played cello and used technology to record and playback loops thus layering the sound and turning themselves into a group, the music they played was very different.

Raven was first, obviously, and had simpler equipment for the layering so there was less depth perhaps but that’s by no means a criticism. His music was quite varied actually; some of it was melodic with a good rhythm – which he lay down by tapping parts of the cello – while some of it was, to my ear at least, quite chaotic in terms of the melody. Some of those parts got a bit away from me but overall I enjoyed his performance greatly. It was also amazing to watch him experiment with the sounds he could create – he used the bow, tapped with the bow, strummed like a guitar and strummed the strings vertically. You can listen to his music at his bandcamp here.

Zoe did most of these things too (and even shook the bridge of the cello to create a drum-like sound in her Segue to Mad World) but mostly stuck to traditional playing methods, with some tapping to lay down percussion tracks in the feed. There are many more layers to her works though – she has the necessary equipment of course – and a more consistent sound too.

It was really interesting to hear her talk about the music as well. To me her pieces are very transportive, I can see fantastic landscapes – windswept plains and forests – and I wondered as I listened just where her imagination and creative spirit goes when she’s composing. Turns out landscape does play a big role in it, the title of her album Into the Forest is no coincidence and she spoke of the beach nearby as inspiring another piece on the album.

Another interesting point she made was about how she composed. One of her early works she called TetrisHead because it was about the mind-state she enters when composing, where she has these pieces and strands of music in her head that she then pieces together, layering them into the works we hear. That she can juggle all those pieces in live performance like that is simply remarkable. She has to not just keep track of the part she is playing, she needs to manipulate which layers are looping at the time, all of which have to be in synch so her timing must be impeccable, and with no errors. A mistake in the live playing may be over in a moment, but when laid down and looped it occurs over and over with echoing problems through the piece, making this style of playing an impressive feat unto itself. That the music is so evocative as well is testament to Zoe’s artistic spirit. If you haven’t heard her play I strongly suggest doing so, possibly starting with this video of her playing live, to see how she’s doing it. And this is her bandcamp.