ANAM winds

Last night's concert at ANAM was of music for winds. Four instrumentalists had spent the week working with the students: Wally Hase, flute, Dimitri Ashkenazy, clarinet, Lyndon Watts, bassoon, and Marie-Luise Neunecker, horn. Plus, of course, Nick Deutsch on oboe.

The program was varied beginning with the Wind Quintet by Harald Genzmer. He studied with Hindemith and the piece, to my ears, was more interesting than the Hindemith Sonata for 4 French Horns which followed.

The first half finished with the world premiere of Yitzhak Yedid's Music for ancient rituals. For the same scoring as the Strauss which finished the concert, it was quite noisy and busy, but I quite enjoyed it.

After interval we heard Divertimenti by Frank Bridge, for wind quartet. The inner two movements were duets, with the outer two involving all players.

My favourite work of the night (not surprise) was the Suite in B-flat major, Op 4, by Richard Strauss, a work I've known for a long time. It was wonderful to hear it in concert again (I think the last time was also at ANAM, directed by Barry Tuckwell).

A great night of music.

Orchestra Project

On Tuesday night B&P (freshly returned and relaxed after their Blue Mountains holiday) and I went to the South Melbourne Town Hall to attend a concert for ANAM. As it turned out we were there to celebrate the news that the academy will continue to operate as it is, at least for another year.

The Orchestra Project, a huge orchestra made up of ANAM alumni and members from many other Australian orchestras, played an all-Strauss program. The first half was the Four Last Songs, very nicely sung by Joanna Cole - such a treat to hear such gorgeous music so well performed. After interval the orchestra leapt into Ein Heldenleben, the massive ego-centric tone poem Strauss wrote about himself. It was terrific - Fabian Russell, the conductor, handled the huge work sensitively, allowing the music to breathe when necessary but allowing the players full-rein at the climaxes.

While the hall may have been a bit small for such large forces, I think I prefer it to Hamer Hall - the bass sound was fabulous, something I would never say about the concert hall, and I could hear most of the inner lines quite clearly as well. All in all, it was a wonderful night of music.