April Music and other performances

This could be quite a long post as we are finding lots of events to go to this stay.

The music began with a visit to St Paul's Cathedral for an organ recital.  We took the grand-daughters along as it was still school holidays.  I really like some organ music - did I hear you say Bach?  This did not feature any of that tribe, but a much more modern set of 5 composers, 3 of whom I had never heard of.  

Oh dear: not a good introduction to classical music for the girls.   It did not begin well as we arrived about 10 minutes before kick-off to find the preceding service was still happening: in fact they had just got to Communion , so the concert was 20 minutes late starting.  Then the music was IMO boring and somewhat  discordant.  We threw in the towel after 4 of the works.

Potter Museum

Frances wasn't sure about this, but as we had never visited the Museum and many other things were booked out we thought it worth a try.  The Museum is in the Melbourne Uni campus, at the end of the tram lines.  The ride up was very crowded (possibly due to a game at the G) and slow but we got there in time.  The event "Untying knots in the sky"  was part of an exhibition about flowers etc.  The photo in the blurb has nothing to do with what we saw (other than there being 2 performers)!

It was hard to see, due to poor seating arrangement (and having a couple of people who were carrying a LOT of condition sit in front of us).  It was very slow movement and even having since re-read the blurb I am unsure what we saw!

The accompanying exhibition had some quite attractive works.

The tram trip back seemed much quicker.  I was astonished at the number of people around Swanston St at 8pm on a Thursday.

Melbourne Uni Symphony

This was a performance by the full orchestra - about 100 musicians - in Hamer Hall.  

We weren't quite in nosebleed country, but could see it behind us.  Faces obscured to annoy AI.

It was a much more 'standard' concert featuring 3 very well known Russian composers.  There were a few empty seats, but enough of a crowd to make well deserved noise at the end of each work.

The first work was Polotsvian Dances, taken from the opera Prince Igor attributed to Borodin, but finished, after this death by Rimsky-Korsakov and Glaznov.  Quite brief (~15 minutes) but very pleasant.

The second work was Sinfonia Concertante by Prokofiev.  This is effectively a showcase for a cello, performed by Ryan Xu.  He is a second year student  and I wonder what he is going to do in third year, as he is already the Principal cellist of this orchestra!  The program notes refer to the music linking to Prokofiev's ballet score for "Romeo and Juliet" and I definitely recognised a few bars of oboe from "Peter and the Wolf".  An excellent bit of work and Ryan got a lot of noise, leading to a very clever encore of 5 minutes duration.  The faculty has advised - very promptly - that this was Moderato by (another Russian) Rostropovich.

The biggest ticket item came after the interval: Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony.  Very enjoyable listening with a very unusual 3rd movement with the strings playing pizzicato throughout.  The final movement was full on big-band stuff with the finale particularly rousing. 

Getting back to the tram, a Southbank highrise was nice to see 

... as was the spire of Hamer Hall (the colour changed every few seconds).

Melba Hall: the Concert Band

We were originally told this was sold out, but we were able to get online tickets on the day.  I suspect that the high demand was family and friends of the 70 people in the band.  An unusual element was one of the Melba staff offering earplugs as "it is going to be loud".  As indeed it was! 

Here are a couple of snaps giving an idea of the size of the band.

The concert was very good with the conductor (an academic from the Southbank campus) talking about each piece between the works.  It was the band's 10th year and several of the pieces had significant anniversaries this year.  

I particularly enjoyed the Big Boots movement from "Big Things" a new work by Holly Harrison.  This is a new work premiered late 2025 at Purdue U in Indiana.  The tune seem to refer to West Side Story in the beginning and was very lively.  Possibly the loudest piece was the closing "Mont Blanc" by an Austrian composer Otto Schwartz.  It is a musical depiction of an ascent of the mountain, which I had more or less worked from listening.

After the concert it was quite amusing to watch the band pouring out of the backstage area.  I asked one of the performers if they all travelled around in a bus but she advised they usually travelled independently although the big instruments got some help.

We wanted to check out an area near Arden station so walked across there.  The route seemed quite complex, with the grid pattern getting interfered with, and not helped by Google maps changing its mind about the best route after we crossed Royal Parade.

These older houses were in Story St in Parkville ...

.. and these (I think) in Park Drive (also Parkville).

After crossing Flemington Rd much more modern dwellings were evident.  I think this complex was on Haines St, North Melbourne.

Once finished with our touring we hopped on a train from Arden Station, next to the Arden St Oval which looked derelict - a good metaphor for the North Melbourne AFL team.  A very easy trip back to ANZAC station and the tram home.

Southbank Trio

Again this was booked out when we first tried to get tickets but we scored on a second go!  No images this post, but lotsa interesting links.  This concert was at Hanson Dyer Hall in the Southbank Campus of Melbourne Uni.  The trio - pianist Andrea Lam, cellist Richard Narroway and violinist Sophie Rowell - are all members of the Fine Arts and Music Faculty with very strong CVs.  

The concert covered 3 works, each of which was introduced by a few words by the performers.  

1. Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805 - 1847): Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 11
2. Stuart Greenbaum: The Year Without a Summer
3. Felix Mendelssohn (1809 - 1847): Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49

All three works were very enjoyable.  It was amusing that when people applauded after the first movement of the first work Andrea politely said "I should have told you there are 4 movements in this piece." or words to that effect.  The audience - as usual mainly mature aged - realised what was meant and thereafter, no applause between movements.

Introducing the second work Richard Narroway merely introduced the composer, Stuart Greenbaum (also a member of the faculty) who spoke about the meaning of the work, which reflects on the effects of the explosive eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia in 1816.  He also described writing it in a room overlooking Auckland Harbour, looking at a volcano.  (He commented that this process was like going back to PhDland, when candidates are shut in a room for a day with a task of composing a work.)  One of the benefits of going to sessions put on by the Faculty is that there is often informative material like this as a bonus.

Leading in to the 3rd piece Sophie commented that when the eruption occurred Felix M was 11 years of age and Fanny 7, so both old enough to have been aware of the event.  She also commented that due to social attitudes of the time Fanny experienced problems being accepted as a composer and some of her compositions were published under Felix' name.  When he was presented to Queen Victoria she said she particularly liked one of his pieces and he confessed that it was actually written by Fanny.  Sophie didn't say if QV was amused by this.

Overall, another very good evening.