From the Podium (12th Dec 2004)
I expect our next concert to attract the biggest audience ever. On December 12th Balmain Sinfonia is being joined by Sydney Harmony, Sydney’s finest all-male barbershop chorus. These people are great ticket sellers so you are advised to book early.
The chorus will sing a few of their traditional a cappella songs and also some Christmas carols specially arranged for chorus and orchestra. However, for me the highlight of day will be our performance of Wagner’s Pilgrims’ chorus from his opera Tannhauser. I say this because the chorus is stepping outside its regular popular repertoire to sing this classical work. I’ve heard them in rehearsal and they sound fantastic. It’s a great tribute to their director Jim Catt who can make this group of men sound absolutely wonderful no matter what they are singing.
As a special treat we will have a guest appearance by FREEFALL who are Australia’s champion barbershop quartet. It is worth coming to the concert just to hear them, if nothing else.
The Sinfonia will also be performing Beethoven’s first symphony. This early work is very demanding to play and is a sunny piece throughout. That means that with the exception of Symphonies 2 and 8 we will have performed the complete set of the nine Beethoven Symphonies.
The concert will open with Sibelius’ Karelia Suite which is also an early and happy work by a composer who became more introspective with advancing years. This is music I know you’ll enjoy.
We shall conclude the concert with a work made famous by its annual inclusion in the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Years concert. It is the Radetzky March by Johann Strauss senior. It’s the one with the audience clapping at certain points. We are going to auction to the audience the conducting of this piece. The money raised will be given to a very worthwhile charity, Cure for Life, whose mission it is to eradicate the scourge of brain tumours. So if you have ever dreamed of conducting a large symphony orchestra, come along and bring you cheque book.
Gary Stavrou
The Artists (12th Dec 2004)
Sydney Harmony
Sydney Harmony is one of Australia’s leading men’s amateur singing groups in four-part vocal harmony. The group comprises some 70 competitive singers of various ages from all walks of life who love to sing in close harmony, particularly in the barbershop style. It was formed in May 1999 by the merger of the then two most successful singing groups, Broadway and Harbour City Harmony. Jim Catt was appointed as Musical Director and Steve Ferrick as Coach.
Sydney Harmony has distinguished itself in a number of ways, including winning silver medals at Australian National Barbershop Conventions in Melbourne (2000) and in Perth (2003). The next National Convention will be held at the Gold Coast in October 2005 where Sydney Harmony hopes to trade its silver medals for gold. Gold medallists are invited to represent The Australian Association of Men Barbershop Singers (AAMBS) Inc. at an annual International Barbershop Convention in North America, an event that attracts some 40,000 delegates from around the world.
Sydney Harmony also competes each year in the Sydney Performing Arts Challenge (SPAC), having reached the final-four choruses in 2000 and receiving Commendations in the 2002 and 2003 events. This year Sydney Harmony won the John Lambe Australasian Community Choir Prize.
In addition to challenging itself in the competitive areas, Sydney Harmony also performs for fun and relaxation. Fund-raising concerts have been held at the City Recital Hall, Angel Place in the last three years. At these concerts Sydney Harmony performed with many illustrious singing groups including The Waratah Girls’ Choir, The Australian Girls’ Choir, The Song Company and The Idea of North.
Within its own ranks, Sydney Harmony has a number of quartets including FREEFALL who are the current Australian National Champions. FREEFALL will make a guest appearance at the Balmain Sinfonia concert on December 12. Singing in quartets adds another dimension of challenge, fun and relaxation to barbershop singing.
Sydney Harmony sings with one aim in mind – excellence. Rehearsals are held each Monday evening at the Drummoyne RSL where visitors are always welcome. Weekly rehearsals are supplemented by a few weekend workshops throughout the year where outside coaches are often invited to help hone music and presentation skills.
Sydney Harmony is currently looking to expand its membership and would love to hear from men who sing well, love close harmonies, and would like to become part of a group with the highest musical standards.
Sydney Harmony is directed by Jim Catt. Jim started his musical career in England as a boy soprano in his local Anglican church choir. He continued with school choirs and a madrigal group, before following his parents into the local barbershop choir, Shannon Express, at age12. Within 4 years, Jim had become assistant musical director and by 18, was front-line musical director. In 1993 and 1995, the choir placed in the top 3 at a national choral competition and after winning the coveted National Barbershop Championships in 1995, went on the following year to represent its country in the Barbershop World Championships at Salt Lake City in the USA, where it achieved the highest place ever for a British choir.
Jim has coached and inspired many singers, quartets and choirs from all over England, Europe and Australia and it was his unique music teaching talent that led the Australian Government to award him a distinguished talent visa in May 1996; he migrated to Australia the same month. Jim became director of the Banana Blenders (Gold Coast, Qld) and in 1997 directed this group to a national gold medal, this time with the largest points victory so far.
In 1998, Jim and his family moved to NSW and in early 1999, he helped form and became Musical Director of Sydney Harmony. Jim says “ I look forward to directing a second Australian Champion Choir and to my ultimate ambition of leading a Sydney-based World Champion Choir”.Learn more about Sydney Harmony at its website: www.sydneyharmony.com.au
The Music (12th Dec 2004)
- Sibelius : Karelia Suite
- Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C Major Op. 21
- Wagner : Overture to Tannhauser and Pilgrims’ Chorus
Sibelius : Karelia Suite
The Finland into which Sibelius was born was an outlying province of Tsarist Russia, and far removed from the sophisticated and prosperous nation it has since become. Karelia, the isthmus between Russia and Finland, has had a turbulent history. Beginning in the late 13th century, Russia and Sweden constantly fought over the region, whose original inhabitants were a Finnish people. Russia won Finland from Sweden in the war of 1808-09. In 1812, western Karelia, “Old Finland” as it was called then, was joined to the rest of Finland. Finland was granted the status of an autonomous grand duchy with its own government and parliament, and declared its independence on 17 December 1917, proclaiming its neutrality.
Sibelius had visited the Karelia region of Finland in 1892. In the spring of 1893, the Viipuri Students’ Association, in a bid to raise money to counteract Russian cultural penetration, asked Sibelius to provide the music for a series of historical tableaux showing significant events celebrating former glories in Karelian history.
Sibelius composed eight movements of incidental music, consisting of an overture, preludes to each of the tableaux, a song and some background music. The concert culminated in a setting of the Finnish national anthem which brought the house down at its first performance. The Karelia Overture was published in 1895 as Op. 10 and the Karelia Suite was published one year later as Op.11. Sibelius took for the concert suite an Intermezzo, with prominent horn parts, the song re-scored as an instrumental Ballade 'in the style of a minuet', and the festive 'Alla marcia', which was later to win wide popularity on radio and television.Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C Major Op. 21
In the 1790s Beethoven discovered that he was beginning to lose his hearing. His earlier years had been spent finding his voice in piano sonatas, piano trios and string quartets. After an early concentration on these smaller forms, he now began to attempt more weighty works. His first efforts were two piano concertos, designed to show off his talents at the keyboard, but he soon turned to the symphony. The earliest sketches for the first symphony appeared in 1795 and Beethoven completed the work early in 1800. The first performance was conducted by the composer at the Hofburgtheater in Vienna on 2 April 1800. He had intended to dedicate the work to his former patron and employer, the Elector of Bonn, but Maximilian Franz died in 1801, five months before the publication of the orchestral parts. The dedication then went to Baron Gottfried van Swieters, a man who had been a powerful influence on the classical style of Haydn and Mozart and who had given Beethoven a warm introduction to Vienna.
Although his first symphony is obviously an experiment in an unfamiliar medium, it nevertheless contains clear signs of what Beethoven would soon become. There are classical elements in the structure, and the influence of Mozart and Haydn in the scoring is easily recognisable. However, unmistakable elements that made Beethoven unique are evident. A vigorous approach, more robust orchestration producing a more powerful sound, and a use of harmony as well as melody to express ideas marked the style of a genius. These beginnings would usher in an entirely new school of music, the 19th-century Romanticism that even today enthralls us with its depth and emotional complexity.Wagner : Overture to Tannhauser and Pilgrims’ Chorus
Born in Leipzig in 1813, Richard Wagner saw in music a means to communicate his ideas in a combination of words, notes and dramatic expression. As a young man, he envisioned a new “music drama” that would express the German soul and assert the cultural role of the nation. Wagner decided to use opera, for which he always wrote his own libretto, as a vehicle for his ideas. His first significant works were Der Fliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman), Tannhauser and Lohengrin, all based on German legends.
Wagner composed Tannhauser, both the music and libretto, between June 1842 and April 1845. The work was performed on 19 October 1845 in the theatre of the Saxony royal court in Dresden, where it was received with reservation. It was revised for a performance in Paris in 1859. Unfortunately the presentation was a failure due to political protests and its triumphal reception came much later when it became firmly established in the operatic repertoire. It concerns the medieval Minnesinger, Tannhäuser, and his search for purity which engenders a conflict between sacred and profane love.
The music that is most familiar is the soul-stirring overture and the Pilgrims’ Chorus.
The overture opens with the stately pilgrims’ chorus followed by the Venusberg Music. Both themes evoke spectacular examples of Wagner's ability to arouse our emotions and engulf us in a splendid array of artistic pleasure.
The first, that of the pilgrims, starts slowly and develops from an ascending melodic line. This distant music gradually grows closer, increases greatly in volume to rise to an impressive fortissimo and returns diminuendo to its melodic starting place.
The second theme, contrasting strongly with the first one, centres on Venusberg (a legendary mountain in medieval Germany) and Venus’s palace where the chevalier-poet Tannhauser forgets his sad mortal condition amidst all the pleasures. The intermingled motifs evoking the magic of the setting and modulated by the orchestra are followed by the invocation by the hero to the goddess, Venus. The insistent Venusberg motifs continue until they have to give way to the religious theme of the pilgrims, a symbol of Christian Saving Grace working over the deaths of Tannhauser’s young virgin lover Elisabeth and the death of the hero himself caused by the sight of this chosen victim of God.
The Balmain Sinfonia will be joined by Sydney Harmony, an all-male chorus, in this arrangement which combines the Overture and the Pilgrims’ Chorus.