Modern classics in young hands

Thursday June 25, 2009

by Ron Cerabona

The Canberra Youth Orchestra, conducted by Dominic Harvey, will perform three major 20th century orchestral works in a concert titled Yesterday’s Masterpieces by Tomorrow’s Greats tomorrow.

There is, Harvey says, no real theme to the pieces in the concert, but a desire for the music to appeal to a range of people.

Harvey says John Adam’s 1986 Short Ride in a Fast Machine is “very rhythmic and pushy … really good for a young group.”

It’s grouped with what he calls “two seminal works of the 20th century”, both by Russian composers.

Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 in E Minor premiered in 1953 after the death of Stalin. Harvey says, “Rumour has it, it had lots of musical codes in it: a melody there for one of his composition students he had his eye on … a compositional signature, spelling out his initials just like J. S. Bach did with B flat, A, C and H [B natural in German notation]. He used that to spell DSCH - S being the German E flat - thoughout a lot of his works. It’s scattered throughout this piece.”

People have also read other coded messages, such as relief, in the work.

Sergei Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor was, Harvey says, the composer’s answer to criticism of his first piano concerto.

“It’s one of his great classics,” he says.

Melodies from the work have been used in popular songs and is was used to great effect in the film Brief Encounter (1945).

James Huntingford, 19, is the soloist in the piano concerto. Harvey describes Huntingford, who is a second-year student at the ANU studying Music and Asian Studies, as “very talented, a very natural explorer of the piano, who plays the Rachmaninov with youthful drive.”

Soloist James Huntingford will perform his first full concerto performance.

Huntingford describes the concerto as “a very organic work, a complete piece with a huge range of emotions all tied together logically: “It’s a sensational piece of music.”

He played its second movement at a Canberra Youth Orchestra concert in April and is looking forward to the opportunity to play the entire work. It will be his first full-scale performance with an orchestra.

“I’ve been playing a lot of chamber music and a lot of solo performances,” he says, “and I toured with the Australian Youth Orchestra playing the celeste.”

When he finishes his under-graduate study, he hopes to travel to Europe, perhaps for further musical studies.

Yesterday’s Masterpieces by Tomorrow’s Greats is on at Llewellyn Hall, ANU School of Music, on Friday, June 26 2009, at 7pm.

First published in The Canberra Times, June 25, 2009

Update, September 7, 2024: James Huntingford website link here.