Australian Chamber Orchestra: Beethoven and Bridgetower
In the first concert in its residency, the ACO is joined by didgeridoo virtuoso William Barton for a programme bridging centuries and continents.
Beethoven fans might be unfamiliar with his Bridgetower Violin Sonata. You may be wondering if it’s a new discovery. Well, no. It’s his Sonata No 9, much loved and well known as the Kreutzer. Beethoven originally dedicated it to the black virtuoso violinist George Bridgetower, with whom he gave the premiere in 1803. However, the composer supposedly fought with Bridgetower over remarks he made about a woman and in a characteristic fit of temper, rededicated the work to Rodolphe Kreutzer – even though Kreutzer never actually performed the work and thought it ‘unintelligible’.
Bridgetower had been a child prodigy and had received the patronage of the future George IV, but died in destitution. This posthumous rededication is merely what he deserves, explains Richard Tognetti: ‘I came across Beethoven’s own original dedication, which read “Sonata mulattica composta per il mulatto Brischdauer, gran pazzo e compositore mulattico” (Mullatic sonata written for the mulatto Bridgetower, a complete lunatic and mullatic composer). The work was originally dedicated to Bridgetower, and arguably never should have been Kreutzer’s sonata at all.
‘It seems that Beethoven considered Bridgetower an extraordinary musician. He virtually sightread the sonata at its 8am premiere with Beethoven beside him at the piano. It stands as one of those performances that you wish you could have attended, no matter how rough and ready it was.’
As well as its nickname changing, Richard Tognetti has arranged the violin and piano parts for the string players of the Australian Chamber Orchestra. It’s his way of reimagining the work as a violin concerto, with the solo violin contrasting with the strings of the ensemble. He explains: ‘I dedicated this arrangement to the great Israeli violinist Ivry Gitlis, who performed it with the ACO in 2000. This piece is an outburst, the whole universe is thrown at it. From the drama of that massive first movement to the tarantella of its finale, based on parodic music, the structure is arguably incomprehensible. It has so many characters to it, and Beethoven wrote it in the style of a concerto so it got me thinking, Why not give it a go?’ He even decided to use the discarded finale of his Violin Sonata Op 30 No 1 for the last movement instead of writing an original one.
In his 1889 novella The Kreutzer Sonata, Tolstoy imagined a husband’s jealousy watching his wife rehearse the sonata with another man, leading him to murder her in a blind rage.
In a case of art imitating art, Leoš Janáček (1854–1928) bases his First String Quartet on Tolstoy’s story, painting in music the unsettling mood swings between desire, anxiety and fury. Tognetti expands Janáček’s canvas and colours by adapting the original four parts for the whole orchestra.
Bringing their very own cultural context to these European classics, the ACO begin the concert with two works by Aboriginal Australian didgeridoo virtuoso, composer, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist William Barton – Didge Fusion and Hypersonic. Barton fuses the unique textures and vibrations of the didgeridoo with musical depictions of Australia’s natural world and the orchestra’s own sounds. He explains: ‘My passion is to create a journey for people through music and present to them a diversity in musical styles with the didgeridoo and demonstrate to audiences the uniqueness of Australia.’
Turning to a very different tradition, shanties were originally songs that sailors sang as they worked on merchant ships. The insistent rhythms helped them work together in gruelling conditions while the words often expressed a longing for freedom, security and home. Thomas Adès’s new work, Shanty – Over the Sea, commissioned by the ACO, builds up these hypnotic rhythms, with 15 parts heard both individually and as part of the textures that ebb and flow like the sea itself.
Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901–53) may be revered as the head of the Seeger folk dynasty, but before she turned to folk music, she was one of America’s leading modernist composers, and the first female composer to win the Guggenheim Fellowship, leading to studies in Berlin in 1930. It was there she began her String Quartet, from which this Andante is taken, which has become one of her most popular works. She herself described it thus: ‘The melodic line grows out of this continuous increase and decrease; it is given, one tone at a time, to different instruments, and each new melodic tone is brought in at the high point in a crescendo.’
Originally a virtuoso pianist, George Walker (1922–2018) went on to become a composer, receiving commissions from leading American orchestras and becoming the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize for music. Lyric for Strings is one of his best-known pieces – full of warmth and beauty, but sombre and serious, too. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it was often played at Black Lives Matter vigils in 2020 – an appropriate contribution to a programme that aims to redress some of the imbalances of classical music.
© Ariane Todes
Details
Programme and performers
William Barton Didge Fusion
Hypersonic
Thomas Adès Shanty – Over the Sea
Ruth Crawford Seeger Andante for Strings
Leoš Janáček (arr Richard Tognetti) String Quartet No 1, Kreutzer Sonata
1. Adagio – Con moto
2. Con moto
3. Con moto – Vivo – Andante
4. Con moto – (Adagio) – Più mosso
George Walker Lyric for Strings
Ludwig van Beethoven (arr Richard Tognetti) Violin Sonata No 9, Bridgetower (previously Kreutzer)
1. Adagio sostenuto – Presto
2. Andante con variazioni
3. Presto
Australian Chamber Orchestra
Richard Tognetti director & violin
William Barton voice & didgeridoo
Artist biographies
The Australian Chamber Orchestra lives and breathes music, recognised around the world for its powerful performances and brave interpretations. Steeped in history but simultaneously looking to the future, its programmes embrace celebrated classics alongside new commissions, as well as adventurous cross-artform collaborations.
It has been led by Artistic Director Richard Tognetti since 1990, and gives more than 100 concerts each year. Whether performing in Manhattan, New York, or Wollongong, NSW, the ACO is unwavering in its commitment to creating transformative musical experiences.
The orchestra regularly collaborates with artists and musicians who share its ideology: from Emmanuel Pahud, Steven Isserlis, Dawn Upshaw, Olli Mustonen, Brett Dean and Ivry Gitlis to Neil Finn, Jonny Greenwood, Barry Humphries and Meow Meow; to visual artists and film makers such as Bill Henson, Shaun Tan, Jon Frank and Jennifer Peedom, who have co-created unique, hybrid productions for which the ACO has become renowned.
Testament to its international reputation is the three-year residency (beginning in the 2018–19 season) here at the Barbican as International Associate Ensemble at Milton Court. This residency followed on from the success of ACO Artistic Director Richard Tognetti’s time as the Barbican’s first ever Artist-in-Residence at Milton Court Concert Hall.
In addition to its national and international touring schedule, the orchestra has an active recording programme across CD, vinyl and digital formats. Its recordings of Bach’s violin works won three consecutive ARIA Awards. Recent releases include Water | Night Music, the first Australian-produced classical vinyl for two decades, Indies & Idols, and the soundtrack to the cinematic collaboration, River.
In 2020 the ACO launched its inaugural digital subscription ‘ACO StudioCasts’, a critically acclaimed award-winning season of cinematic and immersive concert films.
aco.com.au
Richard Tognetti is Artistic Director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra. He has established an international reputation for his compelling performances and artistic individualism.
After studying in Australia with William Primrose and Alice Waten, and overseas at the Bern Conservatory with Igor Ozim, he returned home in 1989 to lead several performances with the ACO and was appointed the Orchestra’s Artistic Director and Lead Violin the following year. He performs on period, modern and electric instruments and has appeared with many of the world’s leading orchestras as director or soloist. In 2016 he was appointed the first Artist-in-Residence here at the Barbican’s Milton Court Concert Hall and he was Artistic Director of the Festival Maribor in Slovenia from 2008 to 2015.
His numerous arrangements, compositions and transcriptions have expanded the chamber orchestra repertoire and been performed throughout the world. He curated and co-composed the scores for the ACO’s documentary films Musica Surfica, The Glide, The Reef, and The Crowd & I, and co-composed the scores for Peter Weir’s Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World and the soundtrack to Tom Carroll’s film Storm Surfers. He collaborated with director Jennifer Peedom and Stranger Than Fiction to create the films Mountain and River, with the former going on to become the highest-grossing homegrown documentary in Australian cinemas.
Richard Tognetti was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2010. He holds honorary doctorates from three Australian universities and was made a National Living Treasure in 1999. He performs on the 1743 ‘Carrodus’ Guarneri del Gesù violin, lent to him by an anonymous Australian private benefactor.
William Barton is Australia’s leading didgeridoo player, as well as an esteemed composer, instrumentalist and vocalist. He has written works for didgeridoo and orchestras, string quartets, jazz and rock bands, as well as collaborations with some of Australia’s leading composers.
He started learning the instrument from his uncle Arthur Peterson, an elder of the Wannyi, Lardil and Kalkadunga people. His mother Delmae Barton, a singer, songwriter and poet who learnt to sing as a small child from listening to bird calls, also encouraged his love of music, leading him to work from an early age with traditional dance groups and fusion/rock jazz bands, orchestras, string quartets and mixed ensembles.
He uses his cultural heritage to present his didgeridoo fusion as a storyteller, engaging audiences in the uniqueness of Australia, its Aboriginal heritage and to challenge perspectives of the didgeridoo as an instrument. Throughout his diverse career he has forged a path in the classical musical world, working with leading ensembles including the Berlin and London Philharmonic orchestras and participating in historic events, such as the 2019 Commonwealth Day celebrations at Westminster Abbey, at Anzac Cove in Gallipoli and for the Beijing Olympics.
His awards include Winner of Best Original Score for a Mainstage Production at the 2018 Sydney Theatre Awards and Winner of Best Classical Album for Birdsong At Dusk in 2012. Last year he was the recipient of the prestigious Don Banks Music Award from the Australia Council.
Working with schoolchildren forms an important strand of his activities, and he gives workshops at schools all over Australia, where he teaches the next generation didgeridoo and storytelling.
William Barton has received honorary doctorates from Sydney and Griffith Universities, has released five albums on the ABC Classic label and contributed to several more recordings with prominent artists. Through his prodigious musicality and by building on his Kalkadunga heritage, he has considerably expanded the horizons of the didgeridoo.
