PROGRAM
MSO CHAMBER SERIES
Above Knowing Clara Schumann, von Bingen and Cheetham SUNDAY 14 MARCH 2021 / 11am Deakin Edge
The MSO’s International Women’s Day program is proudly presented by Equity Trustees.
Artists Christopher Moore curator, host and viola Deborah Cheetham AO soprano Astrid Connelly soprano Stefan Cassomenos piano Aleksandr Tsiboulski guitar Melbourne Ensemble together with musicians of the MSO Freya Franzen violin Tair Khisambeev violin Rachael Tobin cello Stephen Newton double bass Thomas Hutchinson oboe Sarah Beggs flutes David Thomas clarinet Jack Schiller bassoon Saul Lewis horn
Program VON BINGEN O virga ac diadema ‘Oh Branch and Crown’ SNIDER Daughter of the Waves DE LA GUERRE Sonata No.1 VON BINGEN O virga ac diadema ‘Oh Branch and Crown’ SHAW Valencia FARRENC Nonet: Movement 1 CLARA SCHUMANN Romanze CHEETHAM Above Knowing A musical Acknowledgement of Country, Long Time Living Here by Deborah Cheetham AO, will be performed before the start of this concert. Running time: Approximately 1 hour, no interval. In consideration of your fellow patrons, the MSO thanks you for silencing and dimming the light on your phone.
Christopher Moore
Deborah Cheetham AO
CREATIVE PRODUCER, MSO CHAMBER SERIES
MSO FIRST NATIONS CREATIVE CHAIR
curator, host and viola
Yorta Yorta composer / soprano
Christopher’s childhood was filled with the sound of music. His mother was a founding member of the Newcastle University Choir in 1977 (the year Christopher was born) and she played the organ at their local Catholic church. There wasn’t a weekend that didn’t involve some kind of musical activity; from concerts in the Opera House to music camps. The sort of stuff Christopher’s two young girls now complain about. Nowadays, Christopher is in high demand as a chamber musician around the country and overseas. Christopher currently holds the position of Creative Producer of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s chamber offerings and MRC chamber orchestra series. Christopher plays on a 1610 Giovanni Paolo Maggini violakindly on loan from and anonymous benefactor. He also owns a wonderful 1937 Arthur E. Smith viola which is on loan to William Clark. He hasn’t thanked Chris yet. Not even a bottle of wine. If you’re reading this William, Christopher Iikes anything but rosé.
Deborah Cheetham, Yorta Yorta woman, soprano, composer and educator has been a leader and pioneer in the Australian arts landscape for more than 25 years. In the 2014 Queen’s Birthday Honours List, Cheetham was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), for “distinguished service to the performing arts as an opera singer, composer and artistic director, to the development of Indigenous artists, and to innovation in performance”. In 2009, Deborah Cheetham established Short Black Opera as a not-for-profit opera company devoted to the development of Indigenous singers. The following year she produced the premiere of the landmark work Pecan Summer, Australia’s first Indigenous opera. In 2019 her work Eumeralla, a war requiem for peace received its orchestral premiere at a sold-out performance with the MSO. Recent awards and honours include: Honorary Doctorate from the University of South Australia (2018); Merlyn Myer Commission Prize (2019); Sir Bernard Heinze Memorial Award (2019); Melbourne Prize for Music (2019); and, Limelight Magazine’s Artist of the Year (2019).
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Astrid Connelly
Stefan Cassomenos
Soprano Astrid Connelly is a graduate of the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music and former choral scholar of the Trinity College Choir, Melbourne. Astrid is an active collaborator and performer in early music, new music, and interdisciplinary projects.
Melbourne pianist and composer Stefan Cassomenos is one of Australia’s most vibrant and versatile musicians. He has been performing internationally since the age of 10, and is now established as one of Australia’s leading pianists. As the recipient of multiple prizes including the Second Grand Prize in the prestigious International Telekom Beethoven Competition Bonn 2013, Cassomenos has performed throughout Europe and Asia, and now performs regularly in Australia, Germany and the UK. He has performed concertos with several major Australian symphony orchestras, as well as orchestras overseas. Cassomenos is a founding member of chamber ensemble PLEXUS, which since launching in 2014 has commissioned and premiered over 110 new works. Cassomenos’ own compositions are regularly commissioned and performed throughout Australia. Cassomenos is joint Artistic Director of Port Fairy Spring Music Festival, with violinist Monica Curro. Cassomenos is generously supported by Kawai Australia.
soprano
piano
Past work has included: Nervous, a collaborative visual art and music performance by artist Heather B. Swann at the National Gallery of Australia, with music by Thomas Green and ensembles PLEXUS and Continuum Sax; the Melbourne showcase of Mary Finsterer’s opera Biographica with the Flinders Quartet; Soprano Soloist for the Melbourne Opera Orchestra and Essendon Choral Society’s Messiah; The Lullaby Suite, an interdisciplinary visual art and music project with Heather B. Swann, Christina Leonard, Matt McMahon, and Joseph Nizeti, and a collaborative artist residency with the Phalène — Arts Pluriels, in Berry, France. Astrid has a sustained interest in traditional music and has performed with her ensemble at the Port Fairy Folk Festival and the National Folk Festival, among others.
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Aleksandr Tsiboulski guitar
Melbourne Ensemble 2021 MSO ENSEMBLE IN RESIDENCE
Ukrainian-born Australian guitarist Aleksandr Tsiboulski’s playing has been praised for its ‘responsive virtuosity’ (The Age, Melbourne) and ‘sensuous intensity’ (Classical Guitar, UK). Both his Naxos releases Australia Guitar Music and Ponce: Four Guitar Sonatas received five-star reviews in The Australian.
The Melbourne Ensemble comprises seven innovative and dynamic musicians from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. The instrumentation of the group is based around the Beethoven Septet, but also reduces and expands as necessary to play music ranging from solos to octets and more!
He is first-prize winner in twelve international competitions and was a three-time finalist in the GFA International Concert Artist Competition. His first-prize win at the 2006 Tokyo International Guitar Competition was followed by an extensive Japanwide tour. A student of Timothy Kain and Adam Holzman, Tsiboulski also received mentoring from Ernesto Bitetti, David Leisner and Phillip Houghton. He was the Australian-American Fulbright Scholar in the Visual and Performing Arts in 2006–2008, and is the recipient of numerous scholarships, awards and honours from around the world.
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Melbourne Ensemble Bios
Freya Franzen
Tair Khisambeev
Stephen Newton double bass
Thomas Hutchinson
David Thomas
Jack Schiller
violin
clarinet
violin
oboe
bassoon
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Rachael Tobin cello
Sarah Beggs flutes
Saul Lewis horn
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About the Music HILDEGARD VON BINGEN
(1098–1179)
Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum: O virga ac diadema Astrid Connelly soprano In the Symphonia, the position of the Marian chants is curious. They hold second place within the hierarchical arrangement of the song cycle. Given that this hierarchical arrangement reflects Hildegard’s cosmology, the position of the Marian chants seems remarkable, as in that place, they interrupt the chants for the Trinity, in effect falling between those for God the Father and those for the Holy Spirit. By way of tradition, chants for the Son could be expected instead, but Hildegard does not write any songs for Christ. Rather, Christ appears as Mary’s son, whom, as the Mother of God, she elevates into a place within the Trinity. In all the songs for the Virgin, Hildegard celebrates Mary as the second Eve, the Mother of God who has made good what Eve had thrown into confusion. She is as pure as a resplendent jewel and as luminous matter. Because God has chosen her for the incarnation of his Word; Mary stands among the Trinity. We may conclude that Hildegard met the new Marian cult that developed so strongly in France during the twelfth century, where a host of new church buildings was dedicated to “Notre Dame.” Hildegard’s work on Mary, and particularly the prominent position allotted the Blessed Virgin within the Symphonia, can be taken as the German correlative to that movement.
The sixteen chants for the Blessed Virgin Mary and her Son presented here include two musical settings whose texts are already found in Hildegard’s Scivias. They close that book of visions (III, 13), along with twelve other poetic texts. It appears that Hildegard set these texts to music for the Symphonia cycle, either at the time of composing the words, or later in a separate compositional process. Some of the Marian chants belong to the liturgical category of the responsory. These types of chants are generally elaborate in their poetic language, their melodic style, and their formal structure. Hildegard’s responsories are her most lofty compositions, and are quite unparalleled in their melodic decoration by any other medieval composer of monophony. O clarissima mater, in praise of the Blessed Virgin Mary as the mother of sacred healing, may serve as an example. Abridged from a note by Marianne Richert Pfau Hildegard Publishing Company © 1997
SARAH KIRKLAND SNIDER
(born 1973)
Daughter of the Waves Born and raised in Princeton, New Jersey, Snider has an M.M. and Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music and a B.A. from Wesleyan University. Snider’s works have been commissioned and performed by leading orchestras and her music has been heard in concert halls around the world. She has contributed to numerous recorded albums and released three critically-acclaimed full-length albums.
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Daughter of the Waves is a bold octet for strings and winds. It was influenced by it being composed during Snider’s pregnancy and the title references both her daughter’s name (Dylan, Welsh, ‘child of the waves’) and the turbulent emotional states of pregnancy.
ÉLISABETH JACQUET DE LA GUERRE
(1665-1729)
Sonata No.1 in B flat I. Grave 2. Allegro 3. Adagio 4. Allegro e presto 5. Adagio During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries France produced a number of distinguished musicians, not least among them Elizabeth-Claude Jacquet. Born in Paris around 1664, Elizabeth very early in life achieved fame as a harpsichordist and was engaged to provide musical entertainment at the court of Louis XIV. Her appearances as singer, harpsichordist, and composer elicited high praise and brought her great renown, even in foreign countries. After leaving her royal employ in the early 1680s and marrying the Parisian organist Marin de la Guerre, Elizabeth — now Mlle de la Guerre! — developed a wide following through ongoing activity as a composer and performer. Highlights of her early years in the public sphere included publication in 1687 of her first book of harpsichord pieces and production seven years later of her tragédie lyrique, Cephale et Procris, the first composition by a woman to be presented at the Académie Royale de Musique. In the early 1700s, following the deaths of her father,
son, and husband, La Guerre’s creative activity intensified. In fact, she issued most of her publications between 1707 and 1715. She also inaugurated a series of harpsichord recitals at her home where, until her retirement in 1717, “all the great musicians and fine connoisseurs went eagerly to hear her.” By the time of her death in 1729, La Guerre was considered one of the great artists of her time whose feats as composer and performer merited enduring recognition. La Guerre’s extant compositions include stage works, popular songs, cantatas, harpsichord pieces, and sonatas — a range of production that demonstrates not only her versatility but also her openness to new forms and styles. La Guerre’s sonatas were among the first composed in France. They comprise six unpublished works (two solo sonatas and four trios) that date back to at least 1695, and six Sonates pour le viollon et pour le clavecin published in 1707. The printed sonatas were issued in a double volume that included also La Guerre’s second book of harpsichord pieces. La Guerre’s sonatas as a whole contain four to nine movements arranged on the basis of contrast but without adherence to any one pattern. Movements with tempo titles prevail, but arias and dances are also present. Especially noteworthy is the preponderance of slow finales; eight of the twelve pieces conclude with either an adagio or an aria. The arias are particularly notable for their changes of instrumentation and for their soloistic use of the melodic bass instrument. Although La Guerre’s sonatas display a considerable variety of compositional techniques, they nonetheless exhibit several characteristic features, namely, simple yet artful melodies, repeated-note patterns, syncopations, major-minor
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inflections, and harmonic mutations. Frequent changes of mode and an occasional incorporation of contrasting keys attest to La Guerre’s love of tonal contrast. Carol Henry Bates © 1992
CAROLINE SHAW
(born 1982)
Valencia for string quartet The composer writes: There is something exquisite about the construction of an ordinary orange. (Grocery stores around the country often offer the common “Valencia” as the standard option.) Hundreds of brilliantly colored, impossibly delicate vesicles of juice, ready to explode. It is a thing of nature so simple, yet so complex and extraordinary. In 2012, I performed at the MoMA with the musician and performance artist, Glasser — a song which she described as being about the simple beauty of fruit. Later that summer I wrote Valencia, for a concert I was playing with some good friends in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts. I decided to channel Glasser’s brave and intuitive approach to melody and texture, such that Valencia became an untethered embrace of the architecture of the common Valencia orange, through billowing harmonics and somewhat viscous chords and melodies. It is also a kind of celebration of awareness of the natural, unadorned food that is still available to us. © Caroline Shaw
LOUISE FARRENC
(1804–1875)
Nonet in E flat major, Op.38: I. Adagio Allegro Louise Farrenc, née Dumont, was a French composer and pianist born in Paris in 1804. She came from a long line of royal artists, including women painters and a laureate sculptor. Her own artistic and musical talents emerged early in her life, and by the age of 15, she was a pianist of professional calibre and a student of composition under Reicha at the Paris Conservatoire. Her studies were interrupted by her marriage and subsequent travels, but her husband, himself a composer, scholar and flautist, issued some of her early pieces through his own publishing house. Schumann was impressed by her Air Russe, and her 30 Etudes became required study material at the Conservatoire. In 1842, Louise Farrenc had taken up the post of Professor of Piano at the Paris Conservatoire, and continued to teach until her retirement in 1873. She was unique among women musicians in the 19th century in holding such a senior post. Many of her pupils went on to be distinguished pianists, including her own daughter whose career was cut short in 1859. After her daughter’s and later her husband’s death, Farrenc published a collection of early keyboard music, including a study of performance style. She died in 1875. Louise Farrenc wrote two overtures and three symphonies, performed in Paris, Copenhagen, Brussels and Geneva. Her greatest contribution is her tasteful and attractive chamber music, which shows fine craftsmanship, but limited sense of innovation and adventure. She made her name with her two piano quintets, and
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the two piano trios of 1844 were also very popular. Between 1848 and 1858, she produced a number of pieces of chamber music, including the Nonetto Op.38 of 1849, and a sextet for wind and piano. The Nonetto caught the imagination of the Parisian public at its first performance in 1850, when the violin part was played by that rising star, Joachim. Farrenc received the Chartier Prize for chamber music in 1861 and 1869. Louise Farrenc is more than a competent minor composer. She worked at a time when women rarely achieved recognition except as performers and at a time when only theatre and salon music were popular. Her compositions and her contribution to musical scholarship lay foundations for the revival in French music of the 1870s. Phylloscopus Publications © 1994
CLARA SCHUMANN
(1819–1896)
Romanze in B minor
and a husband who is always living in the realms of imagination do not go well with composition. She cannot work at it regularly, and I am disturbed to think how many ideas are lost because she cannot work them out.’ It may never be finally determined whether Clara took a back seat to Robert as a composer in deference to social pressures of her day, a belief in his greater genius, or simply an acceptance of her own specialised talents. Clara introduced many of Robert’s works to the concert hall, and after his death was the foremost interpreter of his works. But Robert’s envy may have been mixed into their relationship. During the joint concert tour to Russia in 1844, Clara, the established performer, received the lion’s share of attention, to Robert’s chagrin. But Clara stopped composing after Robert’s death in 1856. She resumed her concert career, retiring only five years before her death, and continued to provide Johannes with rigorous compositional criticism. Abridged from Symphony Services ©
Stefan Cassomenos piano The career of Clara Schumann, one of the great musicians of the 19th century, is often cited as a typical example of the difficulties faced by talented women in the 19th century. Her output, mostly songs and piano works, and some chamber pieces, reveal considerable talent and charm. Yet, once married, the famous touring pianist had to bear the responsibilities of a household (she bore eight children), as well as care for a husband who became increasingly mentally unstable. As Robert Schumann said in 1843, three years into their marriage: “Clara has written a number of smaller pieces which show musicianship and a tenderness of invention such as she has never before attained. But children
DEBORAH CHEETHAM AO
(born 1964)
Woven Song: Above Knowing Deborah Cheetham AO soprano The composer writes: Above knowing lies understanding How can we hope to understand if we consider ourselves above knowing? The Vel’ d’Hiv’ Roundup was a mass arrest of Jews in Paris by the French police, code-named Opération Vent printanier (“Operation Spring Breeze”) on July 16 & 17, 1942. The name “Vel’ d’Hiv’ Roundup” is derived from the name of the Vélodrome d’Hiver (“Winter
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Velodrome”), where the majority of the victims were temporarily confined. The roundup, assisted by French Police, was one of several aimed at eradicating the Jewish population in France, both in the occupied zone and in the free zone. According to records of the Préfecture de Police, 13,152 Jews were arrested, including more than 4,000 children. They were held at the Vélodrome d’Hiver in extremely crowded conditions, with limited food and water and no sanitary facilities, then shipped in rail cattle cars to Auschwitz for their mass murder. The Australian Embassy in Paris is built on the railway yards across from the Vel d’Hiv site. Outside the Embassy a bronze monument depicts a small group of people, including a pregnant woman, a sick old man and a child with a doll and a suitcase. It represents those who suffered at the hands of a brutal regime. It stands as a reminder and presents us with the invitation to know and an opportunity to understand. Many such roundups were conducted in Australia throughout the 18th, 19th and even early 20th centuries. In the Desert regions of Australia, Aboriginal men were chained by the neck, fed salt and forced to lead the colonisers to water. How is it that so many Australians know so little of their history? Where is the bronze staue to those who suffered this injustice? Or are we above knowing?
Her painting Creek Bed is a magnificent landscape depicting creation stories from the Western Desert and was recreated as a tapestry for the Australian Tapestry Workshop’s Embassy Tapestry collection. It resides in the Australian Embassy in Paris and now speaks to the memory of that place. As with many Indigenous artists, Nakamarra paints her traditional knowledge from an arial perspective, hence one layer of the title Above Knowing. Text Translation from the UN Declaration of Human Rights (from Pintupi) Article I All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. Article 5 No one shall be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Naampa 5 Wiyalpi ngaranyi, nyinyipungkunytjaku yitjipungkunytjaku. Tjukarurruwanangku pungkunytjawiyangku, palyangku yantantantjaku. Wiyalpi pungkunytjaku kutjupa kutjupa tjutanya. © Deborah Cheetham AO
In contrast to the practice of cultural amnesia which has plagued Australian society for two centuries, the artist Elizabeth Marks Nakamarra paints the rich depth of knowledge of her country and her Tjukurpa (Dreaming Knowledge) of the Pintupi, Luritja and Warlpiri people. Nakamarra paints to remember, to pass on knowledge and to honour her ancestors.
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