Above: Alexandra Osborne and Peter Clark (violins), David Rowden (basset clarinet), Neil Thomson (viola) and Paul Stender (cello) opened Two Breaths with a fresh reading of Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet K581. Featured image: City Recital Hall was the venue for Omega Ensemble’s return to the stage and touring in 2022. Photo credit : Jordan Munns.
Composers featured in this exciting programme successfully introduced new sonorities into existing chamber music forms. A true breath of fresh air to mark the start of Omega Ensemble’s year, this concert showcased interesting and new nstrumentation from Mozart through to Peter Sculthorpe and William Barton.
The audience was obviously thrilled to be part of Omega Ensemble’s return to the stage. The ‘two breaths’ from David Rowden’s basset clarinet as well as William Barton’s didgeridoo and vocalisations were very special sounds to experience. In blending seamlessly with the Omega Ensemble strings, their unqie eloquence enabled musical and emotional journeying on a unique and important level.
Omega ensemble and its fans were reunited live through the humble genius which bristles in each part of Mozarts loved Clarinet Quintet. It was a gentle ecstacy to experience the structure of this work with the added depth of the basset instrument. Rowden traced the lines of Mozart’s filigree with the mellow fluidity this period instrument provides as its voice joined the strings in beautifully balanced voice.
The opening grace painted in this work was very nicely developed in shifting hues as the movements proceeded. Mozart’s love of the new clarinet voice with delicious dips into the low register and the use of the new breath were so well shared with audience here. The composer’s introduction of the basset clarinet and its possiblities for cantabile and athletic runs or articulation effect was fresh again for us.
Above: William Barton and Omega Ensemble strings perform Peter Sculthorpe’s ‘String Quartet No 16’. Photo credit : Jordan Munns.
The instrument Mozart promoted in this work interlocked so evenly with the strings, led with expert clarity by Alexandra Osborne. This work’s dreamy Larghetto was an expertly sung statement of serenity from all instruments.
Following the complex jauntiness of the third movment ‘s Menuetto and Trios , the final theme and variations featured impressive interplay. Neil Thompson’s viola emerging brilliantly from the tight tapestry for the minore variation was an earth cry of drama, emotion and Mozartean contrast. This freshly highlighted moment was a fine hint at the more contemporary statements in store.
William Barton joined the strings for an adroit and thorough realisation of Sculthorpe’s addition of the First Nations instrument to the European string quartet model, for String Quartet No 16 (2006). This performance was once more so successful in terms of blend and voicing that the instruments from their heritage worlds apart conversed as if such dialogue had many decades of concert history together, with a blend suited to the most intimate space.
The notion in this work’s five movements of trapped asylum seekers reaching freedom was realised keenly through dynamic playing of Sculthorpe’s subtle network of nuance, meoldic and textural depiction of character, environment and bird effects on all instruments in fragments or extended song.
The emotion and personal predicaments were especially evocative in angular, overlapping string motives and heartbreaking in the ‘Anger’ and ‘Trauma’ movements. The collection of effects were well harnessed by the group. No outcry or reiteration was too inaccessible for us or ever lacking momentum from the instrumentalists on this stage.
Omega Ensemble’s comittment to bringing new, highly original local music to life was brought to perfect fruition to end this event. William Barton responded the commission opportunity from Omega Ensemble in his inimitably excellent fashion with a work combining all instruments employed in this concert.
Above: Omega ensemble strings join David Rowden and William Barton for the premiere of Barton’s commissioned work ‘Gift-Our Breath of Life’. Photo credit : Jordan Munns.
His work Gift-Our Breath of Life for string quartet, didgeridoo and basset clarinet virtuosically amalgamated timbres, cultures, ancient performance practce and instruments with those heard across a few centuries of the Western tradition.
This composition uses vocalisation, percussion and didgeridoo utterance from Barton. His carefully chosen exposition of the colours of sound on contrasting instruments and from within us created a special new spiritual moment. On first hearing we wish to drift ourselves into the work again soon, to be further enrichedby its swoop.
This work, with shifting soloish and ensemble moments uses the voices of players separate to and simultaeously with their intstrumental figurations. It was a thrill to hear this much older practice of voice and instrumental playing from the same musicians be part of new Australian music now.
Above: William Barton welcomed us to the City Recital Hall stage in a special moment at the opening of this concert. Photo credit : Jordan Munns.
The positioning of this concert’s ‘two breaths’ beside each other onstage was a rewarding aural and visual experience. The working together of newly composed motifs on the basset clarinet beside didgeridoo, clapstick and voice was a significant and forward thinking musical, emotional and spiritual collaboration.
William Barton’s work ended a concert of fresh versions of three innovative journeys in sonority and performance practice. It craves recording and further distribution. The huge standing ovation illustrated our need for hope and recovery from recent and more distant pasts through the magic of ensemble music.