Casanova's infamous friend the inspiration for a musical innovation
By Tony Way
November 3, 2021 — 12.00am
MSO Presents Evergreen Ensemble ★★★★
MSO.LIVE from November 3
As Melbourne celebrates a return to live music, one inescapable facet of the post-pandemic music scene is the continuing development of digital programming. The joy of performers reconnecting with audiences in performance venues will be tempered by the reality that artists, so long deprived of income, need to explore every avenue to broaden their financial and support bases.
Evergreen Ensemble perform for MSO.LIVE.
In a laudable move to share its resources with smaller ensembles, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra has engaged several groups to appear on its digital platform, MSO.LIVE. This month brings the release of the first four concerts, presenting a colourful cross-section of Melbourne's musical life.
Whetting the musical appetite, the Evergreen Ensemble's fascinating program explores the musical life of eighteenth-century Edinburgh through the lens of castrato Giusto Tenducci. Travelling far beyond his native Italy, he was befriended by Mozart and Casanova, painted by Gainsborough, and seemingly courted more infamy than fellow castrato Farinelli.
Equally revered for his performances of operatic arias as traditional ballads, Tenducci represented a fusion also reflected in instrumental works such as Oswald Thistle's Sonata in G that provides a jaunty curtain-raiser to this program.
The lustrous tone and engaging presence of countertenor Austin Haynes bring Tenducci's repertoire to life, firstly in J. C. Bach's rustic The Broom of Cowdenknowes. More operatic in style, Tenducci's own See the Purple Morn Arise allows Haynes further opportunity to display his effortless production over a wider range, while Giordani's Queen Mary's Lamentation confirms his passionate musical communication.
Tenducci's friendship with the "London Bach" is further celebrated in J. C. Bach's Concerto for Harpsichord in D, Op. 1 No. 6, whose last movement is a florid set of variations on God Save the Queen. Soloist Donald Nicolson, playing with his customary flair, wrings every last melodic and harmonic flourish out of the music.
Evergreen artistic director Shane Lestideau brings expansive, lyrical elegance to Corelli's Sonata for Violin in A, Op. 5 No. 1, sensitively supported by Nicolson and Lucy Price on period cello.
After this promising and well-presented start, forthcoming programs will be released weekly. These include the MSO's ensemble in residence, the Melbourne Ensemble, playing Nielsen and Bach; the Inventi Ensemble's quintet revisiting the exotic tale of Scheherezade as told by Rimsky-Korsakov; and members of the Partridge and Penny Quartets, separated by border closures, reuniting to perform Brahms and Schubert.
Musicians and audiences can only hope this initiative remains forever fruitful.
Evergreen Ensemble is available on MSO.LIVE from Wednesday