Food and wine are never far away from anything I do, even when I spent a Friday afternoon at a music recital. After attending the Sydney performance of Timeline and posting that on my Facebook page my friend Oliver’s Taranga winemaker, Corrina Wright added that she loved it and had been to see it in Adelaide. Here’s my thoughts…
“No man is an island and nature of course, abhors a vacuum. These precepts apply to music as much as they do to the rest of Creation, and therein lies the genesis of Timeline.”
Ignatius Jones, Director
42,000 years of music, 213 works, 1 performance: Timeline – Life Flashes Before Your Ears – the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s major multimedia program of 2014, was always going to be an ambitious project.
Do you close your eyes when you listen to music? In the intimacy of the Sydney City Recital Hall the wide screen video presentation added colour, movement and a greater historical perspective, yet at times and particularly during some moments of ACO musical brilliance, I honed the auditory, ignored the visual and closed my eyes.
Commencing at Creation (the Big Bang circa 13.8 billion years ago) the work slowly caressed its way through history: from 40,000 BC – Improvisation on Digeridoo by Mark Atkins – through the ancient drumming of China then Ghana, a Nordic Lur call, a Hurrian Hymn to Nikkai to a Gregorian Chant and then the traditional sweet spots of the ACO. The passing of musical history was soft and slow, and gently beckoned us. And during the era of chamber music the concert was all that it could be.
We moved through significant musical steps, through Vivaldi, Bach, Rebel, Rameau, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Mendelssohn. Circa 1800, European music was peppered with a Traditional African American Field Call and later mid 19th century, a Traditional African American Spiritual song.
“We cycle through epochs of simplicity and complexity, minimalism and maximalism, the overt personal expression of Romanticism and the formal constraint of Classicism. Each time it appears, we think we confront the new. Timeline shows that we are shocked with the advent of seemingly new forms, but that shock turns to acceptance, acceptance becomes insouciant overuse and we re-contextualise, before craving the new once more.”
Artistic Director, Richard Tognetti admitted “Of course we’ve left some things out, whole decades indeed, complete wonderful cultures, possibly even your favourite piece (if it is included then it’s most likely condensed or jammed up against something…)”
An interesting comment, which poses the question – what else would you or I include? I scanned the program before the performance, in truth a little overwhelmed by the magnitude of the undertaking. At a glance, it seemed comprehensive, complete. Yet during the performance, ensconced in my beloved Romanticism, I pined for Chopin. Debussy was included, but not my soulful Claire De Lune. Personal choices. Personal favourites.
After interval phrases continued to demonstrate musical leaps, change, evolution, the new.
Pieces were reduced, swept along by the speed of the 20th century. Stravinsky, Rachmaninov, Janáček, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Barber, Bartók, Shostakovich. Richard Strauss, Charlie Parker & Dizzy Gillespie, Little Richard, Chuck Berry. Roll Over Beethoven.
It was here that I wandered. Tight, constrained even, I longed for looseness, freedom. Musically I wanted less. Less perfection. More flow.
James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Miles David, Black Sabbath. Pink Floyd, Bob Marley, Sex Pistols, Donna Summer. But no ABBA.
The Presets swept us into the present. I was lost trying to clutch just bars, then notes, of this and that.
Talking Heads. Michael Jackson. Vangelis. Public Enemy. Beastie Boys. Björk.
Philip Glass Symphony No. 3: Movement III – interjected.
Eminem. Britney Spears. Aphex Twin. Moby.
Radiohead. Kylie Minogue. Bomfunk MC’s.
The Strokes. Baha Men. The Flaming Lips.
Life in the 21st century gets faster.
The White Stripes carried the bassline for a few bars.
Eminem (again).
Madonna. Kanye West.
The Pussycat Dolls. Christina Aguilera.
Justin Timberlake. Lily Allen.
The Knife. Rihanna.
Amy Winehouse.
The Presets.
Grizzly Bear (unfortunately) sat next to Justin Bieber.
Adele next to Frank Ocean.
PSY.
Gotye featuring Kimbra.
Lorde.
Daft Punk.
Flume.
Icona Pop.
Baauer.
An original composition – Continuum by Julian Hamilton, Kim Moyes, Richard Tognetti – was a marvellous final piece. Applause.
After the performance it was back to the usual suspects – food and wine – as we sauntered down the lane to Felix for late afternoon refreshments of wine by the glass and a cheese platter.
