Camerata – Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra were joined by guest pianist Alex Raineri to open their 2024 mainstage season, with an exciting concert including works by Beethoven and Wagner as well as an unusual vocalist and unexpected new arrangement for piano.
Founded in 1987 by Elizabeth Morgan AM and becoming a professional chamber orchestra in 2005, Camerata has been a Company in Residence at QPAC for ten years. Camerata performs without a conductor and empowers its Artistic Associates and guest artists, like Raineri, to take full ownership of their music. This was especially notable and impressive with the larger ensemble of musicians in this concert.
The concert began with Beethoven’s overture to the play Coriolan, written by Austrian dramatist Heinrich Joseph von Collin in the early 1800s about the invasion of Rome by (possibly legendary) exiled Roman general Gaius Marcius Coriolanus. The overture is filled with drama and urgency as Coriolanus seeks vengeance on his home state, and his mother pleads with him to be merciful, winding down to a soft finish as he agrees but takes his own life to preserve his family’s honour. The bloodiness and intensity of this narrative was also emphasised by the red and orange lighting design by Richard “Zak” Harrison.
The concert continued with Richard Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, a symphonic poem that he wrote for his wife, Cosima, after the birth of their first son, Siegfried. The premiere of the work was at Tribschen, the villa in Switzerland where the family was living, when Cosima awoke on her birthday to a serenade by thirteen musicians – Wagner’s full title was Triebschen Idyll with Fidi’s birdsong and the orange sunrise, as symphonic birthday greeting. Presented to his Cosima by her Richard, Fidi being the family nickname for Siegfried.
Siegfried Idyll felt intimate and affectionate, gathering passion and intensity into something joyful with glimmering strings and the warmth of the brass underneath the brightness of the woodwinds. Some of the themes from this piece also appear in Wagner’s opera Siegfried, from his epic Ring Cycle. Speaking to the audience afterward, Camerata’s Artistic Director Brendan Joyce added that there are several myths surrounding the trumpet player in the original performance, from his practicing in the middle of the lake to avoid spoiling the surprise, to his learning to play the instrument specifically for the performance in the Wagner villa.
Camerata’s concert programs always include a “wild card mystery guest” and for this concert it was countertenor Adam Lopez. Joyce explained that a countertenor was a rare range, being a male adult singing voice equivalent to a soprano or mezzo-soprano. Lopez held a Guiness World Record, for highest vocal note by a male singer, from 2008 until 2018.
Lopez performed an eclectic set, beginning with the heartfelt aria from Handel’s opera Rinaldo, titled Lascia ch’io pianga (let me weep) supported by Camerata’s strings musicians. Lopez described his second piece as a “quirky arrangement” and performed a jazzy, acapella version of My Favourite Things, alternating from bass to soprano to create a fascinating doppler effect, intercut with scat singing.
The concert closed with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, his first concerto to be published although it was composed at least two years after his B flat concerto. After a grand opening the first movement, Allegro con brio, settled into a cheerful sound with a big, triumphant theme. I especially enjoyed the way that the themes passed between the soloist and the rest of the orchestra. The second movement, Largo, glided along like a river, with clarinets interweaving peacefully with the piano. For all the luxury and excitement of live orchestral music, sometimes it is so easy to drift away on the beauty of it, especially in a poetic movement like this.
From the Largo, Camerata leapt straight into the blazing third movement, Rondo. Allegro scherzando, which kept me engaged with its abrupt changes of pace and tone. Artistic Director and principal violin Brendan Joyce played with such passion that it seemed like he would leap into the front row, and the energetic ensemble was interspersed with Raineri’s intricate piano work, his hands moving rapidly backwards and forwards and crossing over on the keys. As a non-musician, it is hard to wrap my brain around the movement and the number of notes being played, at such speed but with such precision. When he wasn’t playing, Raineri swayed along with the music, and when his hands were on the keys he seemed to expand and contract around the piano as he played.
Following the concerto, once the applause had subsided, Raineri performed a rich and sombre encore – a new arrangement by James Dobinson of Radiohead’s 15 Steps for piano, which included the pianist slapping a beat on the underside of the instrument.
Camerata & Alex Raineri: Beethoven was full of unexpected surprises, in addition to the classical giants of Beethoven and Wagner, performed with the musical excellence and energy that Camerata consistently deliver in their performances.
Camerata & Alex Raineri: Beethoven was performed at the QPAC Concert Hall on 17 February 2024 and at Empire Theatres, Toowoomba, on 15 February 2024
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