SCUNA history » Concerts » 1971 - 4
Review by Hazel Reader | Review by W.L. Hoffmann
The New Music Society concert of religious music in the Church of St Andrew last night was a challenge to the audience as well as to the musicians.
It showed the increasing wealth of musical talent that is being fostered in this city, both performing and creative.
Two of the six contemporary composers represented in the program live and work in Canberra - Donald Hollier and May Howlett - the latter making her debut in this field.
Her settings of "Six Meditations on the Katha Upanishad" was sung by the combined ANU and Children's choirs, conducted by that outstanding musician Judith Clingan.
The composer has attempted to convey the mysticism and drama of the passage of the soul through the conflicts of life and death more through sounds than words.
Although the original Sanskrit was sung the atmosphere of the meditations often relied on agitated whispering, spoken and shouted sounds and the rise and fall of wailing noises.
Sometimes very dramatic, it must have been difficult to perform, especially for the very young ones, but Miss Clingan, whose excellent work with the Children's Choir is well known, held her forces together in a very creditable first performance.
The other Australian work featured was Nigel Butterley's unpublished setting of "Joseph and Mary"[,] an appealing piece of music in which Lois Bogg's mezzo-soprano voice and Margaret Crawford's soaring flute made a happy combination.
Two compositions for organ by Oliver [sic] Messiaen made compelling listening with their architectural type structure, although in other respects they were very different.
Four pieces from 'La Nativite du Seigneur' played with assurance by John Davidson had a satisfying cohesion that seemed to be lacking in the other 'La Messe de la Pentecote' played by Grant Hellmers.
Whether this was the fault of the soloist or the composition is hard to say at a first hearing, but the spare writing, strident dissonances and seemingly disconnected sequences of notes made it difficult music to come to terms with.
Donald Hollier's work for the organ 'Improvisations on the Old 124th' was given its first performance by John Davidson.
Like Messiaen, Hollier has an architectural approach, apparent in the block-like massive quality of several movements, and also like Messiaen's Four Pieces from 'La Nativite du Seigneur' his music is very descriptive.
But his scoring is much thicker and somehow this seemed to make it less forceful.
The rolling sonerous [sic] sounds one always associates with the organ were conspicuously absent in the work of both composers, being replaced by a stimulating exploration of the wider capabilities of the instrument.
- Hazel Reader
First performances of works by resident composers gave special interest to a program of contemporary music presented in St Andrew's Church, Forrest, last night.
It was the first public concert arranged by the recently-formed New Music Society and attracted quite a large audience.
May Howlett's 'Six Meditations on the Katha Upanishad' uses a Sanskrit text and is written for mixed choir, children's choir, organ and percussion. The voices are used with extreme freedom, so much so that on this first hearing it was difficult to discern when, or if, there was any definite pitch intention. However, the processional entrances, the varied vocal sounds produced, and the organ interpolations, all made for a variety of means which held the interest throughout the work.
The singers were drawn from the Canberra Children's Choir and the ANU Choral Society and the performance was conducted with considerable skill and assurance by Judith Clingan.
'Improvisations on the Old 124th' by Donald Hollier, the other premiere performance, is written for organ and was played by John Davidson. It explores the more unusual tonal resources of the instrument, with clusters of sound often thrown violently across the musical texture. It is certainly not an ingratiating work; but then it probably isn't meant to be, and it also held the interest of any listener willing to go along with it.
It is another step forward in Canberra's musical development that there is now a society willing to encourage and sponsor performances of new music such as these two works.
A third Australian composition was the short but delightful 'Joseph and Mary' for voice and flute by Nigel Butterley, expressively performed by Lois Bogg and Margaret Crawford.
The remainder of the program was mainly devoted to examples of the organ music of the contemporary French composer Olivier Messiaen, and provided an interesting comparison of approach between the two organists. John Davidson gave a rather sensuous performance of four pieces from 'La Nativite du Seigneur' while Grant Helmers was more austere in his view of 'La Messe de la Pentecote'. However both gave excellently conceived and executed performances.