A 'Rite of many passages

NE of the striking characteristics offered was as eclectic as it was

O . of Stravinsky's Rite Of Spring is

that each time I hear it, it seems to
be a different piece.
La st yea r the Melbourne
Orchestra played it under Hiruyuki Iwaki in
the Sydney Town Hall and it is their immense
wall of sound that I most forcibly recall; yet
when Charles Dutoit conducted the Sydney
Symphony Orchestra at the Opera House in
1988 he seemed to present the work as
chamber music. The result was one of my
revelatory musical ex periences - some
moments seemed to stretch back to Schubert
while others seemed to layout the rest of
Stravinsky's career, as if the Rite was the lode
which he would mine for his compositions
thereafter.
A combination of lucidity and great power is
the characteristic of the performance which
Willem van Otterloo recorded with the SSO
(also his last public performance here, as I
recall), before his untimely death in 1978. I have
been rediscovering that disc after the SSO's
Rite, under Gianluigi Gelmetti, last weekend.
Earlier in the concert this visiting Italian
had achieved, in his collaboration with Frank
Peter Zimmermann in the Tchaikovsky
Violin Concerto, a great sensitivity of
orchestral balance but an unsettling impreci- .
sion in co-ordinating soloist and orchestra,
especially at points of tempo change.
Zimmermann, himself, played with a rare
blend of lyricism and sweetness of intona-
tion. His harmonics were ethereally precise
and his bowing had the lightness of a fine
da nc er. It was not a "big" or fier y
performance but it had energy when needed.
The slow movement had an irresistible soft
glow - with lovely interplay between the
violinist and woodwind soloists - and the
JOHN CARMODY
musicianship. Though the plethora of wood-
winds which follow may be considered like
adolescents screaming to be chosen for a part
in the pagan rite to come, this time they struck
me as perhaps less than ideally cohesive. No
matter: we were soon enough confronted at
the beginning of Auguries Of Spring by the
minatory toughness of those repeated chords
for strings and horns and that virility set the
pattern with every section given its forthright
chances to dominate the scene. How well they
did it, especially the trombones, timpani and
those redoubtably brilliant trumpeters, Daniel
Mendelow and Paul Goodchild - and the
flutes at the very end, twirling skywards like
the spirit of the sacrificed virgin, before the
massive final chord.
That chord was as much an affirmation
that the SSO was concluding its season in
utter command as a defiant end to this
enduringly exciting, challenging masterpiece.
Rite was a revolution in its day. We have
since experienced or learnt about so many
revolutions that we may seem shell-shocked
or blase'. The electronics revolution has
changed our lives more than we realise and
has left an indelible mark on the ethos and
methods of the world of popular music.
broad-minded, as "abstract" as it was
politically committed.
Chris Dench's Heterotic Strings (1993) is,
as with all of his music, extremely complex in
intent; though this piece is more immediately
engaging. Flute, bass, cor anglais, bass
clarinet and violin are all amplified (the
strings with contact mikes) and this seemed to
have given the instruments an impulsive
independence and propensity for florid
cadenzas. The middle section was slow, even
alluring, while the conclusion, as a kind of
challenge to the intricacy which had pre-
ceded it, proved remarkable soft and fragile.
This piece seems a real step forward for
Dench as was Lines Of Light (1991-3) for its
composer, Ian Shanahan, who is also a
recorder player of high accomplishment.
Recorders in a high-tech concert? Shanahan
employed almost the entire range of these
instruments, all amplified, in company with
tw<? DX7 synthesisers and percussion : the
result was a kind of glittering ecstasy, light
feathery sound of harmonics and orthodox
fipple-flute notes complemented by exhila-
rant tubular bells.
Greg White's The Silence Of Eyes (1993),
for various instruments including computer
with keyboard and large screen, was more a
theatrical experience than a musical one
while Roger Dean's Silent Nuraghi (1992-3)
was anything but silent: a computer-gener-
ated combination of hoards of electronic
mosquitos and heavy-metal thwacking of
tree-trunks. FRANK PETER ZIMMERMAN: Energy swathed
Martin Wesley-Smith's Timor Et Tremor
(1991) - literally "fear and trembling" but
also a reference to subjugated East Timor -
was a characteristically accomplished confla-
tion of diverse, even incongruous, elements
Record of ye
HE ABC - FM Record of the

closing pages of the finale had an impulse
that was simply enthralling.
Even before John Cran, the principal
. bassoonist, embarked on his superl<itively
shaped opening solo in the Rite, I realised that
this would probably be the last time I would
hear him in this fearsome solo. As the sound
grew, with amazing control, out of nothing, I
knew that it was not sentiment that made me
fe el it was so good: it was supreme
Classical music has, for better or worse, been
rather refractory.
Australysis recently showed us what is
possible in the last of its 1993 "Superimposi-
tions" series: Re-designing The System. This
ensemble - which could be considered the
ABC Listening Room, live - is directed by
Roger Dean (cardiac biochemist, pianist,
double-bassist and composer). The program
including the songs of Francisco Baptista
Pires ("Quito"), a psychotic refugee from the
Indonesian tyranny, who committed suicide
in Darwin.
Under its composer's direction, it was
clearly and poignantly sung by the tenor,
David Hamilton, accompanied by tape,
computer-processed images and amplified
quintet: it was a moving experience and
would be powerful in a more theatrical form.
T
announced on Friday, is Venetian I
a re-creation of a Marian celebral
1643 under Paul McCreesh (Archiv 4375,
The best Australian record is of David
(cello) and Lisa Moore (piano) in som
Shostakovich and Schnittke (Tall p .
TPO 18). CDs of Monteverdi, Debuss
Hindemith won certificates of merit.