Coriole Festival focuses on youthful masterworks

The consistently excellent Coriole Music Festival, in its first year under the artistic directorship of Anna Goldsworthy, focused in 2019 on youthful masterworks, a repertoire that is too often ignored in favour of compositions of great maturity.

And what abundant riches are to be found.

At the very beginning, Mendelssohn’s Overture for A Midsummer Night’s Dream – he was 17 years of age – in the composer’s four-handed piano arrangement, played brilliantly by Lucinda Collins and Konstantin Shamray, reveals intricacies unheard in the massive orchestral version to which we are accustomed.

Lucinda Collins at the piano at Coriole Vineyard in McLaren Vale. Picture: AAP/Emma Brasier

The Flinders Quartet was on hand for early Mozart – the Divertimento in D Major K. 136 (aged 16) and rather more interestingly, Saint-Saëns Piano Quintet in A Minor Op. 14(aged 19) which already demonstrates the extraordinary talent that would serve him so well in the remaining 70 (yes, 70) years of his long life.

The Mozart was underdone, more than a little untidy in places, lacking the sharp rhythmic pulse that makes it so much fun, and might have repaid another run-through.

But the Saint-Saëns was very instructive.

Most interesting was the premiere of … the Voices of Silent Things, a commission from local composer Jakub Jankowski, a vocalise for two voices and instruments – including slide whistles, glass harps and – wait for it – small stones rubbed atmospherically together by a rapt audience.

Mezzo soprano, Charlotte Kelso.Soprano, Miriam Gordon-Stewart.

Gimmicky, to be sure, but powerfully effective, especially with the glorious voices of Miriam Gordon-Stewart and Charlotte Kelso – what a talent – providing the vocals.

Konstantin Shamray was the star of the second concert, with teenage Bach (the fine Capriccio on the departure of a beloved brother BWV 992), Chopin Etudes (early 20s) and selections from Enescu’s Pièces Impromptues Op. 18 (30s, very old by comparison), and accompanying tenor Michael Smallwood in a magnificent performance of Schubert’s mighty Die schöne Müllerin (mid 20s, but at the height of his short-lived powers).

The second day began with a Bach cantata, the so-called Actus Tragicus, with Adelaide Baroque, a quartet of excellent vocal soloists (Gordon-Stewart, Kelso, Smallwood joined by bass Alex Roose) and visiting viola da gamba player Laura Vaughan (her second trip to Adelaide in a fortnight, pace the ASO St John Passion).

Early it might be, but this splendid piece again shows an astonishing mastery of instrumental and vocal forces.

The rousing final ‘Amen’ chorus was unexpectedly fast – a fact clear from the faces of all concerned – and a good time was had by all.

Then on to the most important piece of the Festival, the Australian premiere of Luke Styles’ On Bunyah, a setting of ten poems from Les Murray’s 2015 poetry collection, made poignant by the death of the author in the week before the concert.

Tenor Michael Smallwood was magnificent in these rousing, characterful pieces.

Resolutely modern without being abrasive, there are many ‘poetic’ moments, as befits the texts, like the emphasis on the final “sh” in “dish”, or the rhythmic ratcheting of the growth of mechanisation in early Australia, the summer heat and the overriding presence of nature.

A very fine piece indeed.

Korngold’s Six Simple Songs Op 9 from his teenage years already point to a composer with a gift for expansive melody who would write grand opera in the Wagnerian tradition within just a couple of years. Miriam Gordon-Stewart (soprano) applied her operatic skill fully to their performance.

Peter Burdon, The Advertiser

May 6, 2019 4:12pm