Sydney Reviews

Alex Raineri is a remarkable pianist, a ball of energy who is also the artistic director of the Brisbane Music Festival. He brings his formidable virtuosity to bear on his program 'Fairy Tales', which consists of five recently composed Australian piano pieces, four of which have been commissioned by him. His assured technique combined with his advocacy of recent Australian music reminded me of Michael Keiran Harvey, and long may such advocacy continue.

I know, from my experience as a composer and as a concert organiser, that presenting a program of exclusively recent music enters an unusual domain. Looking at the music criticisms of such concerts by the first great music critic, Robert Schumann, one encounters names which have been completely forgotten rubbing shoulders with names familiar only to musicologists, and also those which are household words like Chopin and Berlioz. It has always been the case that concerts of new music contain premieres of works that will be lucky to see a second performance, except at the hands of the musician who commissioned them, alongside, if we are lucky, a work of enduring appeal. This is not to be a criticism – I believe we have a duty to showcase modern music as much as possible.

Held in the beautiful Concert Room of the Northern Rivers Conservatorium, the concert began with an attractive piece by Katy Abbott, Glisten. Evocative of light glistening on the sea, this piece, with carefully judged harmonic changes, is in a most unusual form. The main part of the piece is repeated, as if it is the first section of a binary form piece, and is bookended with a short introduction and an even shorter coda. I was puzzled – but why not?

This was followed by John Rotar's Piano Sonata no 1, whose subtitle is Gongs and Bells from the Black Bamboo Cathedral. Rotar is an arranger, so it was no surprise that this work focussed on sheer sound rather than melody – some of it was like being inside an enormous bell, almost too loud to bear. The beautiful parts of the composition were all derived from Ravel, primarily his Concerto for Left Hand, which by a happy coincidence is one of Alex Raineri's favourite pieces. But the loud parts were an assault, the concert equivalent of violence. Would it have been more satisfactory softer? No, the loudness was the music, faithfully transmitted by Raineri with considerable virtuosity.

Relief came, in the shape of Michael Bakrncev's Elegy. This mournful comment of the privations and follies of the Covid period in Australia mirrored the directionlessness of that time, the sense that no-one really knew what to do. It was interesting to hear this piece in the wake of the recent release of the report into the Covid period, which explores the unease of the Australian public during the pandemic, and the deep divisions the pandemic brought to the surface.

Ian Whitney's Arborescent, we were told, was inspired by many fairy tales, and Raineri encouraged us to listen for Red Ridinghood's wolf. Well, that was clear enough, but I challenge anyone to say from one hearing which other fairy tales were referred to. The shape of the piece, from its bafflingly scattered opening through to a gradually more comprehensible harmonic stability, seemed the opposite of that of most fairy tales, which, while they mostly do have a happy ending, tend to move from the everyday to the perplexing.

My favourite piece in this program was the last, Melody Eötvös' Piano sonata no 2. In five movements, based on one of Hans Christian Andersen's lesser known tales, A Story from the Sand Dunes, this was an engaging journey. The first movement is welcomely tuneful, the second an exciting étude on repeated notes, the fourth dark and foreboding. I had the sense of a story being told by a composer who is a master of her craft.

Only Eötvös' work had any real connection with fairy tales, but this was nonetheless a remarkable concert. Every now and then the distant shadow of Ross Edwards' Maninya style was perceptible, in the additive patterns in Katy Abbott's piece, and fleeting glimpses in Rotar's and Eötvös' too.

This program is touring northern NSW under the auspices of Music in the Regions, a post-Covid initiative of the NSW government. Under the direction of the engaging Marika Nordquist, who introduced the concert, It aims to take classical music to regional centres, including quite small towns like Glen Innes and Tenterfield, to grow audiences in these places where classical music is a rarity. It is a wonderful initiative, and I wish it every success.