On a cool Sunday afternoon, the team at Arts in the Valley hosted a wonderful concert, programmed and put on by Music in the Regions (MitR) and performed by a quintet of principal players and founders of the Australian Romantic and Classical Orchestra (ARCO). Rachel Beesley (co-founder) and Alison Rayner (violins), Stephen King (viola), Natasha Kraemer (cello) and clarinettist Nicole van Bruggen (co-founder) played a program of Schubert, Mayer and Mozart for this, their final concert in the tour of the Southern Highlands under the umbrella of Music in the Regions.
MitR, with its aim to bring world-class talent to areas across NSW and Victoria (especially local youth and community musicians), and ARCO, an initiative of passionate conductor/educator Richard Gill AO, are an obvious match.
The hall was packed with an audience young and old, some of whom had been to a masterclass/education workshop a few days earlier given by members of ARCO and who were excited to see their mentors perform.
First, Franz Schubert
The wonderful hall acoustic was perfect for this program and right from the first few phrases of Franz Schubert’s early ‘D major Quartet D.94’ (written in 1811 when Schubert was just 14), we knew we were in for a treat.
The players enjoyed themselves right from the beginning of this piece, the sunny pastoral bagpipes and lyrical pretty tunes showing Schubert’s youthfully naive character. The second movement, Andante, was particularly beautifully balanced in the inner parts; the third movement, Menuetto, was wonderfully lively and joyful. All four players seemed to enjoy the final Presto movement, with humorous cadenzas, ‘Keystone Cops’ chases and wild scenes, with the cellist adding in pizzicato for extra fun.
After the Schubert, Rachel Beesley gave a lovely chat about making music contemporaneous, spontaneous, atmospheric and fun, which the quartet had just demonstrated in spades.
Next, Emilie Mayer
The second piece on the program was the Allegro Appassionato first movement from Emilie Mayer’s ‘String Quartet no.1 in G minor Op.14’. Mayer (1812–1883), in her day more famous than Schubert and often referred to as ‘the female Beethoven’, achieved wide recognition for her symphonies, choral works, piano pieces and chamber music, regularly performed throughout Germany in her lifetime. Her music has only been rediscovered in the 21st century.
In this performance, the quartet used the appropriate styles of portamenti and slides, traditional at the time of composition, and they played with energetic fervour, doing justice to the composer’s passionate, melodramatic music. This heartfelt, moody piece and its wonderful performance were a revelation – a huge thanks to ARCO and MitR for shining a light on this composer and offering us this insight into her life and work.
And after the interval, ‘Mozart’s Clarinet’
After the afternoon tea interval, Nicole van Bruggen took the stage to introduce us to ‘Mozart’s Clarinet’. The instrument she showed us was a replica made from an old drawing of a Basset Clarinet (bass), complete with a strange looking bobble on the end, four extra notes hit by thumb keys and some holes low down, unreachable by fingers, instead worked by bending forward to use the knee!
This basset clarinet had a beautiful mellow sound and a wide range of tonal colours, sometimes lacking on modern clarinets; the sound blended beautifully with the string instruments. This performance had all the fun, lightness and witty rippling runs that Mozart required in the score.
The first movement of Mozart’s ‘Clarinet Quintet K581’, Allegro, offered a lovely tempo and feel for the expansive opening. The second movement, Larghetto, was beautifully blended with the long suspensions drawn out. The Minuet and Trio third movement was stylishly ornamented with trills. The dramatic dialogue between first Violin and Viola was breathlessly expressed.
The final movement, Allegretto with Variations, gave us some more of those low notes being played with the knee, Nicole van Bruggen at times compromising her upright standing posture to lean forward and press the instrument into her leg to ‘stop’ the hole. Each instrumentalist took their particular time to shine with all the enthusiasm and abandon you would expect for the last concert of a tour. The Variation 6 Presto ending was triumphant.
A brilliant concert, mission accomplished! Richard Gill would have been proud.
