Orble - Five Passions - Cooking, Tennis, Taekwondo, Music and French

Five Passions - Cooking, Tennis, Taekwondo, Music and French

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Five Passions - Cooking, Tennis, Taekwondo, Music and French

Beethoven 4 - Australian Chamber Orchestra - Don't miss it!

November 16th 2009 03:08

Beethoven 4 - Hamer Hall, November 15th 2009.

Brett Dean's Testament provided the perfect introduction to Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto and Symphony. Testatment is a depiction in sound of what Beethoven may have experienced physically and emotionally when losing his hearing, and the piece was brought masterfully to life by the orchestra under Richard Tognetti's direction. Contrasting soundscapes were created using a variety of orchestral effects to evoke the panic and fear - morendi, pizzicati, rosined and unrosined bow work, and slightly distorted sustained notes. Contrasting this was the transient call out to the slow movement of Beethoven's Op. 59 No. 1 String Quartet, followed by the final section with its sense of terror and urgency. These musical and formal elements all combined to great effect to depict the flickering of Beethoven's hearing and to stimulate audience empathy for the composer's plight.

After the struggle of Testament, Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto in G Major sprang to life. Dejan Lazic is a truly mesmerising young artist, whose depth of phrasing and dynamics in the Beethoven was astonishing. His musicianship and technical mastery of the concerto were finely balanced - sparkle and drama in the more demanding technical passages of the concerto contrasted superbly with lyricism and musical tenderness where the music demanded it. With the orchestra's support, this was an electrifying performance. To conclude the first half, the young maestro played Schumann's Pleasant Landscapes from Forest Scenes, to a standing ovation.

To round off the Beethoven experience, the orchestra played Beethoven's 4th Symphony in B Flat Major with its usual flair and spirit, with some fine solo work from the 'cellos and woodwind section, particulary the principal clarinet, in the last movement. Lovely articulations and contrasts abounded, making for a satisfying dénouement to the afternoon.

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Boris Berman Recital - Piano! No No NO!

August 17th 2009 03:03

Late last week I attended one of the ANAM Piano! 2009 recitals – that of Boris Berman. The recital began with selected Chopin Nocturnes, (Op. 15, Op. 27 and Op. 32). Many of the passages that were improvisatory in these night pieces sounded glossed over, and I’m undecided as to whether I think it was pure arrogance on the part of the artist, or that was the effect he was looking for - only he could tell us more about that. I cannot understand why a pianist of such skill would seek to glide over passages of virtuosity in a haze of pedal, but this is largely how it sounded. By all means reveal your pianistic virtuosity, (preferably without ego) but perhaps think more carefully about the spirit of the repertoire. This type of shimmering belongs in the music of Debussy and Ravel, not Chopin.

The Opus 27 No. 2 in D flat Nocturne has the tempo marking Lento Sostenuto (slowly and sustained) but what I heard was too fast. I also felt the manner in which he played was larger than the piece demanded, the fortissimos being almost heavy-handed, and the pedalling lacked clarity. These pieces are chromatic and must be pedalled with greater precision than I thought was shown on this evening – everything seemed to be half-pedalled with the overall effect being muddy – he was playing on a beautiful Steinway grand, and it deserved more respect than that. Over all the first half of this programme was disappointing – apart from anything else, there were more wrong notes than one would have expected from a concert pianist of this calibre, and there was simply no love in the playing.

Enter the post-interval programme of Debussy – Images I and II, and Estampes. I was very apprehensive about the pianist’s ability to capture the essence of these impressionistic gems of pieces, but I was pleasantly surprised. Berman treated this repertoire with more like the delicacy it deserves and he even appeared to enjoy playing it. Again though, there were passages which I felt were heavy-handed – there is an accompanimental figure towards the end of Pagodes in the right hand which was too loud and drowned out the melody in the left hand. Things like this seemed to permeate the entire concert, and it’s a pretty basic thing to actually listen to what you’re playing and make the appropriate adjustments if something is too loud in one hand.

There is no doubting this man’s ability to play – technically he is astounding, but he failed to impress with his interpretations last week. It could have been an unforgettable concert with that great choice of programme, but sadly, not this time.

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Triple J Hottest 100 Songs Of All Time - Are They Kidding?

July 21st 2009 05:55

Recently a friend of mine posted the songs she had voted for in the Triple J Hottest 100 Songs of All Time poll on her Facebook profile. Curious, I decided I should investigate this phenomenon. I’m not one who likes to select definitive lists of bests as they’re so subjective, and clearly they are at Triple J too. I began to select a shortlist of songs I considered to be among the greatest, but eventually decided not to waste my time. The reason? I wanted to select a song from Laura Nyro, a very, very influential songwriter of the 1960s who wrote brilliant songs, performed them in her idiosyncratic manner, but never knew major commercial success herself. I thought I should pay homage to her by selecting at least one of her songs – to my horror she was absent from the list. Not only that, I wanted to select at least one Rolling Stones track, but their Stones list was not comprehensive either. I simply couldn’t take the poll seriously then, and just let it go.

There was some uproar about the fact that so few women made this list – does this mean women have not contributed to great song-writing? I won’t even dignify that with a response. I also question the choice of the (arguably) greatest song of all time by Nirvana, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. I do like this song, but Mr Cobain really didn’t stick around long enough to prove himself. Interestingly, the last “greatest song” by Joy Division was also written by a man who hanged himself – I wonder if the next poll will have a Michael Jackson song as the number one? This morbid fascination for creative people no longer with us is perplexing, to say the least. Are the songs only voted as number ones because the artist is dead? What of the merits of the art itself? Can we then safely predict future number ones from Michael Hutchence, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, John Lennon and Bon Scott? Time will tell, I guess. I seriously hope we have a little more originality in our thinking than that.

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Taekwondo - Black Belts too Easy?

May 18th 2009 04:23

Are black belts in martial arts too easy to achieve these days? I practise taekwondo, and became a black belt after 2 and a half years of training. I did have to work hard at this – I was among the oldest in the training group, so I always felt behind the eight-ball in terms of flexibility, and had to work hard on the fitness side too. That never bothered me greatly as it was more rewarding for me to be disciplined. I worked hard and am very proud to have earned my belt, and I definitely respect the philosophy of the art. Is 2.5 years really a long enough period to have earned the right to a black belt though? I see teenagers and young adults who do not really show enough respect to their 5th Dan instructor during classes, just to give an example. Where’s the respect for the philosophy here?

I have long been a music student, and it seems to me that piano exams were way more rigourous than my taekwondo gradings could ever be. Why? Firstly because it’s one-on-one, so if there is a gap in knowledge, it cannot be missed. The en masse nature of the gradings, where several hundred children and adults are herded cattle-class into a large hall – in catering for the entire audience, the adults are patronised in a way that isn’t conducive to performing at one’s best. It just doesn’t really do the artform justice. It only serves to line the pockets of the brains behind it all, and they really do have it all figured out – books, training DVDs – a veritable marketing machine, at the end of which, every man and his dog come out with a black belt. Yes, determination, focus, discipline, confidence….. Stop right there though – doesn’t the speed with which the black belt is achieved cheapen its very value and that of the martial art itself? I suppose I’m really asking about fundamental values here – those running the show supposedly love taekwondo – they live and breathe it, and yet they can marry this with a money-making enterprise that I would have thought runs counter to its core philosophies

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Custard Schmustard - Klutz in the Kitchen II

May 7th 2009 05:23

As I placed the vegetable slice I made for last night’s dinner in the oven, delighting in my own legend status, I began to ponder what I’d do with the three leftover egg yolks I had as a result of making it. The slice recipe calls for two whole eggs and three egg whites, and I really didn’t want to waste the yolks, given these trying economic times, so I began tossing ideas around in my mind. I could easily make the cardiology specialist’s mayonnaise, (what with three egg yolks isn’t going to be the cardiologist’s special?!) but the family was not eating an accompanying salad, so why make the effort? Instead my sense of ‘adventure’ conquered me and I decided on egg custard. It’s only adventurous because I’d never made it before, and I only fancied it because we were having stewed apples for dessert and I thought custard would dress it up nicely. So I set out to find a decent custard recipe, and although I didn’t have the exact quantities, nor a vanilla pod handy, I did have enough milk, castor sugar, some vanilla essence and the egg yolks, so I figured I could just wing it. So I creamed the sugar and egg yolks together and felt that was fluffed up well enough, so on to heating the milk. Apparently you can make custard with half milk and half cream, or just all milk. I decided on half low-fat milk and half full-cream milk – perhaps the first step towards deflating my buoyant ego. Things were progressing well, I heated the milk up and poured that into the egg yolk mixture and began stirring. I then had to place the whole mixture back into the saucepan and under the flame where, with a little (constant) stirring, the mixture would thicken and then turn bland stewed apples into the most exquisitely warming, silky autumn dessert ever. The mixture obediently began to thicken for long enough to lull me into a false sense of security, but just as I became complacent and decided the heat should go up under the saucepan to speed things along, I had vanilla-flavoured scrambled eggs. I sieved this ridiculous concoction in the vain hope that I might end up with a smooth mixture – it ended in the bin, along with my flagging legend status.

So now I ponder what went wrong – could there have been a little white in my egg yolks? Remotely possible, but I was pretty careful when I separated them. Did the saucepan have a heavy enough base to take the heat? I have an idea the answer may be no, but I can’t be sure. Should have I used full-cream everything to make this to lower the possibility of curdling the mixture? Yes and cardiologists everywhere would be thanking me, no doubt

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Would you like mashed tennis with that, or squash?

April 22nd 2009 02:28

I really love playing tennis – most of the time. Over the past few days I have had the joy of playing a doubles match with my brother, a beginner, and some of his friends. It sounds like a pleasant experience, right? Wrong – well, not for me anyway. The experience has led me to ask the question, what is good tennis etiquette? Conversely, what is poor etiquette and what constitutes poor sportsmanship? (Or, do I just have no sense of humour?)

As a competition player of many years, I have experienced the full spectrum of temperaments, tennis ability, sportsmanship, wins and losses, along with all the psychological drama tennis has to offer. (and some of my greatest battles have been with myself.) I believe I know my way around a tennis court and tennis behaviour, if one can credit oneself with such things. What I saw yesterday resembled a kindergarten playground. Picture a reasonable player and a novice (learning the basics and trying to put that into practice) on one side, playing against a couple of (gasp) squash players who are at best, two steps ahead of the novice, basically chopping the (flat) balls they were using at every turn, avoiding hitting to the reasonable player, then playing bodyline shots at the novice in order to win. After much back-slapping and high-fiving, they then laughed and celebrated their mean spirits under the banner of “humour”, all the while offering mock encouragement to the novice. I don’t have anything against squash players, except that they delude themselves into thinking they can play tennis, but that doesn’t matter. BUT, what of the treatment of the novice – the only way to improve on a tennis court is to play with players who are better than you are, and to use something other than your (limp) wrists in your shots to do it – ever heard of that, squash boys? Here’s a newsflash for you – playing bodyline tennis doesn’t take much brain power or skill, just a healthy lack of sportsmanship and faith in your own ability to play a decent shot. Patronising beginners by having a laugh at their expense is not only infantile, it’s simply poor etiquette, no matter what you’re doing

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Spanakopita Anyone?

April 8th 2009 05:47

My grandfather was a Greek migrant who married my grandmother, an Australian girl from the country, back in the 1920s. Over the course of their lives together my grandfather taught my grandmother to cook a number of Greek dishes, one of which was spanakopita. (George Colombaris would be impressed with my grandmother’s ability to cook Greek food with as much, if not more than the proficiency of the Greeks themselves.) When I was growing up, about once a fortnight, my grandparents would bring my family (and the families of my aunt and uncle) a spanakopita each. It would arrive in a thin cardboard box protected lovingly by a brown paper bag. As mundane as that sounds, it isn’t – my grandmother rolled the filo pastry for each of those pies with a curtain rod, painstakingly painting each layer with melted butter and olive oil. She would have spent the entire day baking, and she must have made at least 6 layers of pastry per pie. My family and I would rejoice each time we had the pleasure of eating it. There would always be a fight over the final pieces and who in the family ate the most.

Fast-forward twenty years and I have been craving my Nana’s spanakopita. I have ordered it in many Greek restaurants over time, but all I have experienced is disappointment at the bought pastry used, the dull flavours in the pie mixture and the loveless manner of its making

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Dawn of the Soprano at her Peak – Dawn Upshaw with the ACO

March 2nd 2009 05:25

I recently had the privilege of attending a Dawn Upshaw concert with the ACO – I’ve waited a long time to hear her as she was due to tour here some 4 – 5 years ago but her voice failed her in Brisbane. So serious was her condition she was forced to take time off to rest for several months – very disappointing for all concerned.

Fast forward five years and she returned to Australia to continue her collaboration with the ACO healthy. She sang Three Songs for Soprano and Orchestra, written especially for her by Osvaldo Golijov, some Hungarian Folksongs by Bartok and arranged by our master violinist, Richard Tognetti, and finally, Richard Strauss’ Morgen! The Golijov was the highlight of the evening for me. Upshaw sang movingly, with commanding dynamic range and superior technique, and by her body language the audience knew she was singing from the heart. Quite simply, she had the audience eating out of the palm of her hand. The only tiny flaw in the Bartok was that the orchestra momentarily drowned out Upshaw at one stage. It would be difficult for the playing leader of an orchestra to be so aware of such things whilst listening to himself playing! Morgen! by Richard Strauss was the perfect way to end the evening. Whilst Upshaw isn’t quite the velvety lyric soprano, she again held the attention of the audience, singing beautifully – the deafening silence of intimacy was music in itself

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French Teachers, Read On And Weep

January 15th 2009 04:00

I recently had the (mis)fortune of reading through the year 12 exam paper in French, and all I can say is shame, shame SHAME on those who wrote this. Firstly the standard of the French in the reading passages was so basic it wasn’t necessary to fully understand the text to answer the questions. I believe competent junior to middle school level students could have answered these questions quite adequately. One of the texts is about someone trying to convince someone else to go on an outing - since when is arranging an outing ANYTHING other than what is learned from a decent year 9 textbook? In another text, there is a bland description of the walls of a tea room which is certainly not inspiring, and the students then had to pick out the three elements in the description of the room to earn their marks. Students learn about describing rooms at around year 8 level – again, the subject matter seems more than a little underwhelming. It was evident that this text was not well thought through at all – the descriptions were of umbrellas hanging off the wall, paintings of hunting scenes, and dogs. Funnily enough, dogs regularly appear in paintings of hunting scenes, and then there are other pictures of dogs? (This is an interesting take on what the French perceive to be quintessentially English, but that’s another story!) A contrast between these three elements may have made finding the answers a little less confusing for the students.

Structurally, it’s Interesting that the students were given no indication of the number of marks allocated per question – surely this is fundamental to the students managing time and effort in the pressure situation of an exam

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Beethoven, Beer, Elgar and the AFL

July 14th 2008 02:16

Why do advertising agencies persist in degrading master pieces of music? Obviously copyright considerations disappear from the equation because many of these composers have been dead for so long, and there’s no one around to object or protect their music. Beethoven’s 9th Symphony used to advertise Victoria Bitter though? It makes me want to weep – such a lack of respect, and worse, such ignorance! I wonder if these VB people know anything about the Schiller text of the final movement of that symphony. It’s all about the universal brotherhood of Man, and funnily enough, its noble intent just might be relevant in the 21st century. It’s pretty sad that there are people out there whose only associations with that music will be through that ad. Better to have that type of exposure than none at all? If people are that clueless, they don’t deserve to hear any Beethoven at all.

My other “favourite” is the use of Elgar’s Enigma Variations to advertise the 150th birthday of the AFL. Firstly, what is wrong with finding an Australian piece of music? To me it’s the supreme irony that the advertisement for the birthday of our “great Australian game” (with its gaelic roots) is accompanied by music from the writer of “Land of Hope and Glory”. Where are all those republicans and why aren’t they screaming about this? Actually, isn’t Bill Hunter, the narrator, one of them? I’m not sure what’s worse here – the selling out of the narrator, or the music of the “old Blighty” being used for such a huge Australian occasion

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November 2009

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