Review: KONSTANTIN SHAMRAY at Elder Hall, University Of Adelaide

Reviewed by Ewart Shaw, Monday 21st September 2020.

The Firm, currently Quincy Grant and Raymond Chapman-Smith, have presented 128 concerts since 1996. This, featuring Konstantin Shamray, ranks amongst the most memorable and not just for the presence of a live audience in the Elder Hall.

The original alert spoke of miniatures by Beethoven, their posthumous composer-in -residence, and a handful of local composers. That the pianist was to be Konstantin Shamray was more than enough to draw a healthy audience to the Elder Hall. Most of them, while adhering to advice on social distancing, chose to sit on the left side of the chamber, so that they could see the pianist's hands as he played. There is a little dance that those hands perform as they rise, weightless it seems, from the keys before arching down to begin the next chord.

There is a challenge for any reviewer, any listener, when it comes to the first performance of a new work, especially one designed with brevity in mind. That first performance may be the last. If the concert isn't recorded for broadcast or live streamed in a way which allows for further hearing, a reasoned assessment isn't possible.

The concert began with a piece by Belinda Gehlert drawn from music she composed for the Silent Masters program at the Mercury Cinema the film she accompanied was Pandora's Box from 1929, a film by Pabst, starring Louise Brooks whose face and style are iconic for German expressionist cinema. It's the Lulu story, also taken up by Alban Berg, of the femme fatale. Gehlert's music was stylish and quirky, and brief.

Idle Hands by Luke Altmann is a work I can hear again as Konstantin Shamray has recorded the work and played four of the five movements. Up to now, all well and good. But there's Shamray, winner of multiple prizes at the Sydney International Piano competition seated at a Steinway, playing with perfect composure pleasant, very pleasant, but undemanding works. He stood up and announced an addition to the program, sat down and delivered a titanic performance of a Shostakovich piano prelude and fugue, from memory as you'd guess. The first works on the program were almost just a well crafted warm up for those hands.

He followed it with music by Quentin Grant, his Preludes, a work with enough character to maintain its presence after the Russian revolution. It became the precursor to the Beethoven which finished the first half of the program; not the Bagatelles but the Sonata No.6 in F major,Opus 10 No.2. Shamray described it as Beethoven being happy, indeed a little naughty. What a joyful expression it was.

The second half began with Le Tombeau de Satie by Stephen Whittington, I'd be cheating if I diverted you with comments on the French Tombeau/memorial tradition and Whittington's love of the quirky. I just want to hear it again.

John Polglase was commissioned by Tom and Olga Sankey to compose a piece in memory of Olga Sankey's mother Vera Marek. He chose to create variations on the Czech song Andulko, which had been a favourite song of mother and daughter. In his program note Polglase explains "I enjoy very much writing variations, particularly when the inspiration comes from direct and simple sources."

The benefit for the listener at the first performance is the opportunity to follow the theme through its changes, with those flashes of recognition that keep you engaged. I'm sure if you wished to commemorate someone, Polglase would be happy to accept the commission.

Raymond Chapman-Smith's Fantasien were the last of the new compositions and they were beautifully positioned ahead of some of Schumann's Waldszenen/Forest Scenes of 1849. Chapman-Smith's musical DNA stems from that Romantic period.

I was speaking to a friend afterwards and commented on the disparity between the new works and, especially the Shostakovich. He opined that there had been a failure of ambition on display. The thing about miniatures, though, is that they are posies, not hand grenades.

Thanks to The Firm for leading us into the sunny uplands of world class performance, and Konstantin Shamray for choosing to live here.

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