After my devil’s advocacy earlier this week, I found myself surrounded by HIPsters* yesterday. The Australian Haydn Ensemble, playing Beethoven, in chamber arrangements, in Sydney Opera House, on original instruments. In 2016.
The AHE have been going for five years now, and they’re beginning to build momentum. Their chosen niche is late Baroque and early Classical repertoire, and they wear their scholarship with pride. Performance as research. Research as performance. Performative research. The question I have to ask is whether this approach is limiting, in terms of artistic expression and communication with the audience. Are we, the audience, being set free from preconceptions? Or are we getting tied up in HIPknots?
Yesterday’s performance suggests the former. In a packed Utzon Room, playing against panoramic views of a sunny day on Sydney harbour, the ensemble performed Beethoven in a way that reframed not just the sound but the rhythmic and textural structure of the works. It was, in a word, discovery.
Central to the performance was the triple-strung, wooden-framed fortepiano, a replica of an early nineteenth-century instrument by Conrad Graf. As guest soloist Neal Peres da Costa explained before they began, the instrument’s four pedals meant he could realise the composer’s markings in a way not possible on a modern piano. In particular, the una corda marking, which shifts the hammer mechanism so that it only strikes one string, produces a distinctly ethereal tone, bringing an other-worldly character to the second movement. Then the return of the una corda marking in the final movement was like a ghost from the past. Peres Da Costa was imaginative and bold in his phrasing, flirting with the inegale, and finding a fascinating range of tone colours. Forget the heroic, domineering piano virtuoso: this felt like the tentative steps at the start of a new relationship. Occasionally klutz-y but very exciting.
A quick reshuffle for a fine reading of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2. In this period arrangement for string sextet, flute and fortepiano continuo, some of the work’s signature gestures were missing – violas are not horns, and a period bow cannot sustain a note in the same way as a wind player can — but other, more intricate details emerged from the textures, which made up for the loss of that big orchestral sound. I sat there trying to imagine how I would listen to this, if I didn’t know it as a symphony but as a chamber work. Did it sound like the early string quartets? Would Beethoven have written it like this if he only had six voices? I’m not sure that he would have, but I found myself completely involved nevertheless.
Yesterday and tomorrow? That’s when the performances are. Go hear for yourself.
A few words about the Utzon Room. It has so much going for it: the kudos of being under the roof of the Opera House, and the support of the Opera House’s marketing efforts, a drop dead gorgeous view of the harbour and Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, and a perfect size for chamber music. It is always a pleasure to go there – it feels special. The downside, however, is the acoustic and sightlines. It wasn’t designed as a performance space, and it shows. We sat at the end furthest from the public entrance, on keyboard side but, after advice from another listener, I’ll try the other end, where the curve of the roofshell seems to give the sound a little more resonance. Indeed, it would be interesting to experiment with putting performers in that position, under the roof arch, to see if it throws the sound out into the room. Inconvenient for entering, perhaps, but if it improves the acoustic, worth a try.
*HIPsters – collective noun for practioners of Historically-Informed Performance.
Since the reduction in arts coverage at the Sydney Morning Herald there is almost no prospect of a review for most small to medium music ensembles in Sydney. I am doing my best to support artists in the best way I know how – by going to concerts, listening hard, and writing about what I hear. If you like what I’m doing, please follow my blog, like my Facebook page and support my writing by making a pledge to my forthcoming book, Sanctuary.