Saturday morning
on ‘Straddie’ dawned bright and fair, as we tucked up our sleeves ready for
some serious Festivalling. Four concerts in two days. Well, there were actually
five, but Bach with Birdsong and Breakfast from 8am was a little matinal for me
…
Yesterday, I
thought, was going to be a hard act to follow. Oh, yes?
The Point Lookout
Hall is even better in the sunshine. With the doors flung open, the sun
glittering on the sea through the coastal mangrove trees, behind the piano, the
scene made a fairytale atmosphere for music. And the first half of the
programme was chosen, I am sure, in function. Peter Sculthorpe’s ‘Songs of Sea
and Sky’ is a clarinet and piano piece, in six sections, which takes the Torres
Strait Island of Saibai – somewhere out there beyond the waves -- for its
inspiration. A fair reference to the ‘Straddie’ situation, where the aboriginal
people make up an important part of the population. But was this 1987 piece,
written for an academic situation, going to be pretentious? approachable?
enjoyable? Easy answer: it is not at all pretentious. It is totally
approachable, and, as played by Irit Silver (‘I am the token wind-player’) and
Liam Viney, with a lovely little obbligato by an unscheduled, passing
kookaburra, I found it wholly enjoyable. And thanks to the combination of
subject and situation, a perfect choice for a sunny afternoon concert in the
ocean.
Before part two,
we had a kind of entr’acte. The grand piano for the Festival has to be brought
on the ferry, like us, from the mainland. But the concerts are held in three
different venues, so he has to be ever so carefully moved by the expert team
of Nigel Bland and wife, from hall to hall. Now, his
contribution finished for the morning, it was time for him to go. So our interval
entertainment was ‘how to strip and carry away a grand piano’. Much applause.
Part 2 of our
concert was the ‘Death and the Maiden’ quartet of Schubert. It’s thus called
because it uses a portion of the composer’s famous song in its second movement.
This one I had heard before. Well, I know its mostly in minor keys, with death
and madness references (I read the programme note) but it is in no way morbid
or depressing. It is simply quite, quite beautiful. And as played, in the
undeathly sunshine by the outstanding quartet of players
(Rowell/Smith/Henbest/de Wit), with the wonderful Sophie Rowell’s violin
soaring, whispering, fairy-stepping along on top, it was a truly a moving
experience. Grand. Fullstop.
Time to grab
something to eat – alas, the islands eateries are, it seems, mostly of the fish
‘n’ chips and burger styles – feet up for thirty, and then off to our 5.30 date
at the Point Lookout Surf Club. Tonight, we were in for something altogether
different. A tango concert. Yes, an entire evening of tango. Why? I thought.
The answer was soon obvious. The hall was packed to the rafters, with a waiting
list-queue for returns, there were people sitting on the bar staircase. And
huge enthusiasm was the keynote of the evening. The other reason was the star
of the evening. Cyril Garac, the violinist who had made such a success in the
Chausson, is a tango specialist.
Mons Garac is a
host in himself. Tall, dark and sparkling, with a great stage presence and a
perfect Maurice Chevalier accent, he would make a great television host. A
violin-playing Sascha Distel. He rolled the evening along deliciously, to the
audience’s delight, from one tango to another, ably assisted by Sydney’s Maggie
Ferguson on the bandoneon, a grown-up kind of concertina which is really at the
base of the ‘true’ tango.
And with the
superb soloists of the morning music as a kind of ‘backing group’! A very
democratic Festival, this!
I am going to have
to grouch about something soon, so I’ll make it now. There was too much talk.
Either we have a concert, with minimal talking and lots of music, or we have a
musically-illustrated lecture. I would have liked the latter (I began to get
rather tired of tango rhythms by the second half), but I think most of the
audience would have preferred the former. I’m pretty well musically educated,
but the rain of unfamiliar (foreign) writers’ names, and the apparently
non-linear chronology of the programme quite lost me. Experts sometimes forget
that we are quite ignorant of the subject of their expertise. Please give us
basics not specialist details. Or put it in the programme and shut up and play.
My favourite bits
of music were the grungy bits. Bandoneon absolutely necessary. The bits that
sounded like backstreet Buenos Aires and not Hollywood soundtrack. Like real
‘rock’ compared to today’s smoothed-down stuff. I’m afraid the popular Finnish
tango (no bandoneon) left me cold. But the whole was so joyously presented and
played, and the large audience so openly revelled in it … who am I to grouch
just a little?
Anyway I went home
with a new-found enthusiasm for the bandoneon, and an admiration for the
performance of Mons Garac, which was definitely shared by the swooning ladies
around me. And by the big, ageing Aussie bloke in front of me in the bar queue,
who turned to his wife and said ‘gosh isn’t he sexxxxy!’.
The final day was
an early start and, blow me down, Mr Piano had moved again! Across to the
larger Dunwich Public Hall. Conveniently, right next to the ferry. Another good
venue, but without the magic of Point Lookout. The morning concert had Haydn
and Dvorák scheduled. OK. Fine. Both pieces new to me, but I wasn’t expecting
any surprises. I mean, I know Haydn and Dvorák … Once again, wrong. I’m going
to have to stop ‘expecting’.
The Haydn was the
Piano Trio in E Flat (nice key) which, as the composer noted, is really a piano
sonata with accompaniment by violin and cello (Hankinson/Smith/De Wit). This is
chamber music. I was seated in the front row, and I could make believe that I
was in the Graf Esterházy’s drawing room, listening his court musician’s latest
composition (new one tomorrow, your Highness). It is delightful intimate,
personal music, that makes you want to get up and dance … which of course, I
can’t … if you had told me that a ‘simple’ (it’s not) Haydn trio would be one
my favourite items of the Festival, I would have been amazed. But I was
enchanted.
And the Dvorák,
too was a treat. A string quintet, with the addition of a double bass (Marian
Heckenburg) the end of whose bow flirted with my right knee. So I felt right
‘in’ the performance! But the feeling of being ‘in’ is wonderful. I much prefer
my chamber music like this, rather than in a theatre or concert-house sitting
in a stall. The piece is as tuneful and dancing as can be, and the use of the
double-bass as well as the cello adds so much depth to the music. I went off to
lunch in a very happy frame of mind. Since we found the Island Fruit Barn, with
excellent food (yayy!), I also came back in a very happy frame of mind for the
final concert of the Festival. It was subtitled Contrasts, and it certainly did
have.
We opened with
Prokofiev’s sextet Overture on Hebrew Themes (Silver/Garac/Smith/Henbest/King/Viney), which was immediately added to my ‘favourites’ basket. Another piece of
smashing programming. Then two Spanish cello pieces (King) and Ravel and
Stravinsky takes on gipsy music and the tango for the violin (Garac), then a
rather rebarbative Bartok work which seemed to be built around train whistles, and
it was time for the pièce maîtresse of the day. An original work, for piano and
string quartet, commissioned for the Festival, played here for the first time
by the composer, Paul Hankinson, by Cyril Garac, Rachel Smith, Caroline
Henbest, and Eric de Wit.
The programme of
the piece was certainly relevant. The hero was Mr Piano, whom we had seen
floated across the water, hefted from hall to hall and, in between, make some
magnificent music. The piece followed him in his travels across the bay, his
meeting with the musicians and their making of music together, ending with his
return voyage, full of happy memories, over the calm waters of Moreton Bay,
broken only by Migaloo, a passing whale.
It was an
enchantment. I was mesmerised in the opening measures, as the waters shimmered, by the pianist’s hands inside the
piano, plucking the strings like a harpist, mirrored in the lid of the piano,
as our Hero made his way to the island. Then he was there, and the music breaks
into a lively, warm and ringing dance as He makes his island tour. And then, in
perhaps the loveliest part of the work, we have his return … back inside the
piano, a long drawn out B, produced by a swatch of horsehair on the string,
leads Him to the end of his adventure.
The piece ended, I
shot to my feet (without my walking stick) in applause. Then I turned round …
the entire audience was on its feet clapping and cheering. And they wouldn’t
stop! Finally the players came out and played, not the whole thing again (as
someone shoutedly suggested) but at least the festival movement. And, once again,
those that hadn’t had to rush for the 4pm ferry, burst with applause. We waited
for the 5 o’clock ferry. Sometimes, on a ‘first night’ the aftermath is part of
the triumph.
But this ‘first
night’ was also the last night of the festival, and we (with Mr Piano, who had
been taking off his wooden legs as we sipped a farewell wine, not far behind
us) headed across the waters to the mainland.
The putting
together of Festivals of this kind is not only a vast amount of work but
requires a mind of a kind of genius at the helm. Because the choice of artists
and of pieces to be played is the heart of the affair. Volinist Rachel Smith is
the ‘artistic director’ heroine of this particular affair. The programming and
the players were both perfect. Even the one or two pieces I didn’t really
appreciate were interesting, and the huge majority were a total joy. And the
players … well …
Stradbroke Island,
the Quandamooka Festival and Redland County can be very, very proud of their
festival. And me? I’ve just had a whale of a time, been swimming in the best of
chamber music in a lovely place, and I hope very much that I will return soon.
