Jack Productions
with Ensemble Liaison
August 18
Elizabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre
Ensemble Liaison is rapidly becoming established as an exciting and innovative chamber music ensemble in Melbourne, both for the quality of its musicmaking and presentation, and for their openness to collaborations with musicians from different fields, such as jazz pianist Tony Gould or drummer David Jones. The core group is made up of pianist Timothy Young, cellist Svetlana Bogosavljevic and clarinettist David Griffiths. The latter is a natural on stage, whose introductions to the music strike just the right balance of informality and information, while his playing and his engagement with both the music and his instrument are a dance in themselves, illustrations of the colours, moods and technical aspects of the music he plays.
This time their collaboration was with JACK Productions, recently formed by senior members of the Australian Ballet and, as such, enjoying all the advantages and privileges of such an alliance, including artistic opportunities to showcase their work, and access to some of the best dancers in and out of the company.
The dancers were on stage in the second half of the program, comprised of an arrangement made by Timothy Young and David Griffiths of a selection from Manuel de Falla’s ballet El amor brujo and six of the Seven Spanish Folksongs. And the question was always going to be – was the dancers’ presence and contribution going to add to or to distract from the experience of the music?
As to the musicians, their playing was superb all the way through the program, beginning with Timothy Young’s rendition of Sgambatti’s arrangement of Gluck’s Dance of the Blessed Spirits, played with fine attention to colour and detail, the piano singing under his touch and more than compensating for the absence of instrumental colours with an abundance of its own. Young proceeded to demonstrate his fine grasp of ensemble playing in the items which followed, the piano always breathing as one with the other instruments, knowing exactly when to recede into a supporting role, and when to be an equal partner or a protagonist in the musical mix.
Young was joined by David Griffiths for Debussy’s Premiere Rhapsodie, something of a party piece for clarinettists, designed to show off their abilities and “tricks”, though still awash with Debussy’s colouristic harmonies. Both performers were in great form, while David Griffiths demonstrated again the sheer physicality involved in playing an instrument, showing how the best musicians allow music and rhythm to pass through their bodies in what becomes essentially a dance with their instrument.
The superb sense of ensemble continued in the performance of Shostakovich’s Sonata for cello and piano in D minor for which Young was joined by Svetlana Bogosavljevic, who gave an energetic account of this dark and difficult work, bringing out the emotional core of its doom-ridden third movement while equally at home in its heavy-handed sarcasm and humour. A difficult work stemming from difficult times (it was written in 1934 after all).
Which brings us to the de Falla collaboration between musicians and dancers which many in the audience had come to see. Not surprising, given the fact that it was an interesting idea, brimming with possibility, and featuring several senior AB artists - Andrew Killian, Rachel Rawlins, Marc Cassidy - and also Joseph Simons.
Lucas Jervies, one of the co-founders of JACK, was the choreographer. In an introductory speech, he made a point of saying that he was not out to follow the timing or the rhythm or structures of the music, but to portray its colour. This in itself can become a problematic concept, owing also to its propensity to degenerate into sheer predictability - for going against the structure and emotion of the music becomes itself very quickly a highly predictable strategy of going against the obvious. (For instance, if the music is fast and frenetic, the dancers lie still, if it is passionate, their movements are minimal and cool.)
This portrayal of the colour of the music took place in a largely neutral and abstract way, the dancers clad in white pajama-like outfits, and the choreography emphasising abstract rather than expressive movements. A lot of the action took place in the upper torso, with angular semaphore-like gestures of the arms. The dancers took care not to upstage the musicians - a hard task anyway, given the quality of the playing – but instead to step into the musicians' world, functioning often as a kind of backdrop, or, at times, as stagehands. But the biggest issue was the lack of emotional involvement with what is a highly expressive and passionate score brimming over with human emotion. If the musicians themselves had gone against the expressiveness and structures of the music would that not have greatly diminished their performance? As it was, the movements of the musicians often grew more naturally and imaginatively out of the music than those of the dancers, giving the players both stage presence and physical expressiveness.
As for the dancers, while they did not distract from the music, it is hard to assert that their contribution was in any way substantial. They were, mostly, underused, but there were some moments in a couple of duos and trios which stood out for their musicality, moments in which the whole did come together to become more than the sum of its parts. The musicians, on the other hand, did follow the musical rhythms and structures, as well as bringing out the colours of the music - all things which the best choreography naturally does.
In any case, the idea of dance combined with chamber music is well worth pursuing - Grand by Graeme Murphy, for instance, springs to mind as a very successful incorporation of piano and pianist into choreography. So there is much untapped potential here and many exciting collaborative avenues to explore.
- IRINA KUZMINSKY