Team of Pianists

HAMILTON TEAM OF PIANISTS he origins of this recording Four members of the Team of Pianists has taken part in four recordings on the came from a recital given by the present mini‑recitals of music of their own Move Records label, playing solo music by Team of Pianists in 1989 in the choice, each including some Australian Brahms, Handel, Gifford and Debussy, and Town Hall at Hamilton, a rural music. An encore piece is provided by duet music with Max Cooke by Sculthorpe, cityT and well‑established cultural centre guest pianist‑composer Sonny Chua. Brahms, Fauré, Stolz and Grieg. in Western Victoria. The members of the A special highlight of his career was Team were so inspired by the magnificent Darryl Coote (tracks 1 2 3) to accompany Sir Yehudi Menuhin in a sound of the Steinway Concert Grand piano Melbourne‑based Darryl Coote has special concert of the Musical Society of and the acoustics of the hall, that they become established as one of the finest Victoria in 1988. investigated the possibility of making a pianists of Australia’s younger generation. (4 5 6) recording there. After a trial, arrangements Born in Korumburra, South Alexander Furman were made to record in February 1990, Gippsland, in 1963, he began his piano Alexander Furman, winner of but nature intervened. A hot Australian studies at the age of eight. In 1981 he the Clarke Scholarship, is a versatile summer produced a ubiquitous plague commenced the Bachelor of Music degree musician, whose activities include piano of crickets, which permeated buildings at the University of Melbourne, studying and fortepiano performances, recordings including the Hamilton Town Hall. The piano with Max Cooke. During his course and chamber music. As a member of recording was constantly interrupted by he was awarded several prizes, including the Team of Pianists, he has given many these troublesome insects. After repeated the Allans Award for high distinction in solo performances at major centres in attempts, even at 6.45 am on Sunday piano playing. In 1984 he completed his Melbourne, country Victoria and in morning, the recording sessions were Bachelor’s degree with first class honours. Newcastle, Brisbane, the Gold Coast and abandoned and the Team returned to The year 1985 brought Darryl good Canberra. Melbourne. fortune; he was the winner of the Victorian In 1989, at the invitation of the Sadly, due to the imminent departure State Final of the ABC’s Instrumental composer, he contributed to a collective of several members of the Team on and Vocal Competition, playing the recording of the piano music of Peter prolonged overseas sojourns, the project Rachmaninoff Concerto No 1, and he was Sculthorpe, he broadcast on ABC was transferred to the Victoria College in also the inaugural winner of the National Radio National and 3MBS FM, and he Burwood, Melbourne. Allans Music kindly Hephzibah Menuhin Scholarship, which participated in the video recording of the supplied a Steinway Concert Grand piano. enabled him to travel to Germany for books by Max Cooke, Tone Touch and Ultimately, the only work that could a year’s study with Kurt Bauer at the Technique. be salvaged from the Hamilton recordings Musikhochschule in Hanover. On his was Clair de Lune by Debussy. Despite this, return he completed his Master of Music in Linda Kouvaras (tracks 7 8 9) the Team wished to dedicate this whole concert performance at Melbourne. Linda Kouvaras is particularly recording to Hamilton as a tribute not only On the Australian scene he is active to the wonderful piano and marvellous interested in twentieth‑century music, as soloist and teacher, being a member and especially in music of Australian acoustic of the hall, but also to the citizens of the piano staff at the University of of the City of Hamilton, without whose composers. She has featured in the ABC Melbourne. As Artistic Co‑ordinator of programmes Showcase Australia, In friendship and support the project would the Melbourne‑based Team of Pianists, he not have been possible. Tempo and The Pianists’ Way, contributed to the Symposium on the composer given by Paul Badura‑Skoda, whom he met 1 HARMONIOUS BLACKSMITH Conyngham, and is currently involved in on an earlier overseas visit, and Alexander VARIATIONS research on the Australian Piano Concerto. Jenner. He has performed as soloist and George Frederick Handel (1685–1759) She included in her programme for the accompanist in concerts in Vienna and as Of Handel’s solo keyboard works, all degree of Master of Music at Melbourne accompanist in the USA. originally composed for the harpsichord, University a presentation of Broadstock’s Robert Chamberlain grew up in probably none is more famous than that Piano Concerto and the premiere public Canberra, and in 1981 he began a course known as the Harmonious Blacksmith performance of Sculthorpe’s Callabonna. for the degree of Bachelor of Music at the Variations. Once included, with minor She has worked as a professional musician University of Melbourne, with piano studies alterations, in a Sonata per Cembalo, in a number of fields including theatre, under Max Cooke. He graduated in 1984 it eventually became the ‘Air’ and five rock bands, accompaniment and teaching. with first class honours in performance variations we know today, comprising the During 1983 and 1984 she studied in the and musicology, and was awarded the last movement of the Suite No 5 in E major. UK. McWilliam Prize for the best student in the Typical of Handel’s variations, these In 1988 Linda completed her Bachelor final year. are melodically decorative, with a feeling of Music degree at Melbourne University, Since its inception in 1983, Robert of spontaneity, but without introducing any gaining first class honours in all subjects. has performed with the Team of Pianists fundamental alterations into the harmony During her studies there, she was awarded in concerts in Melbourne, Canberra and and metre. The basis for variation is scholarships and prizes, including an in Victorian country centres, as well as on therefore melodic elaboration, with the Australian Postgraduate and Research radio 3MBS FM. He is a member of the possibility of further change Award and the McWilliam Prize for the best piano staff at the University of Melbourne, in the repeats, as the work is actually an ‘Air student in the final year. In her final year, and has spent some time at the Centre for with Doubles’. Thus the ‘hammer‑stroke’ she also gained the major award for piano the Performing Arts in Banff, Canada. quavers of the ‘Air’ become couched performance. She has given recitals and amongst the semiquavers of the first masterclasses and made recordings with (Guest Artist: track14) Sonny Chua variation, inverted in the lower and inner the Team of Pianists since 1986. At the age of eleven, Sonny Chua parts of the second variation, set with lively commenced music lessons, and one year running triplets in the third and fourth (10-13) Robert Chamberlain later he started to improvise and compose. variations, before the brilliant cascading Robert Chamberlain has an interest in His compositional output includes large scales of the last variation bring the piece to both solo piano music and accompanying. orchestral works, choral, vocal and a grand close. DC In 1985 he won the Apex/Robert Stolz chamber music. He works as a piano tutor Scholarship for studies in Vienna, Austria. and ‘resident composer’ at the Balwyn 2 CLAIR DE LUNE Working with Igo Koch on solo music and Primary School. The Team of Pianists (Suite Bergamasque) with David Lutz on vocal accompaniment, has invited him to be guest artist in this Claude Debussy (1862–1918) he was able to absorb much of Viennese recording. The inspiration behind Debussy’s Suite culture, making him ideally suited to the ● Bergamasque lies in seventeenth‑century performance of the Viennese classics. Italy in the rustic dances of Bergamo. Robert attended summer mastercourses Debussy characterized their theatrical unavailable, mean that the work has been 4 RONDO ALLA TURCA features, already satirized in the Paris seldom performed since its composition in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (l756–91) theatre, into a classical dance suite for solo 1960. piano comprising a Prélude, Menuet, Clair Whilst the thematic material of The Sonata in A major K.311 was de Lune and Passepied. the first movement Allegro Inquieto composed in the summer of 1784, and with Clair de Lune takes the place of a is mostly linear in content, there are its beautiful first movement in theme and slow dance in the Suite and reflects also many abrupt changes of texture, with an variation form, and the ever popular Alla the delicate refinement of the earlier extended harmonic palette. A harmonic Turca finale, it remains one of Mozart’s French school of ‘clavicinistes’. The lyrical analysis reveals the influences of several most attractive Sonatas for the piano. The sensitivity of Clair de Lune stems from European composers, notably Brahms and Alla Turca movement probably owes Debussy’s fine understanding of the piano’s Rachmaninoff. something to the highly successful Vienna resonant qualities via discriminating use The influence of Klangfarbenmelodie premiere of the opera Die Entführung aus of both pedals and the deployment of as practised by Webern is readily apparent dem Serail (1782), notable for its use of various sonorities: heard for example in in the intimately static quality of the second ‘turkish’ music in the overture. The Alla the nostalgic effect of a single note, C flat, movement Lento e Sostenuto, where the Turca effect is achieved by the alternation strategically introduced in the reprise (bar quasi twelve‑tone structure exploits well of major and minor modes during much of 59).

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