Home

Cygnus Arioso take Perth Concert Hall main stage to complete Chamber Music Weekend interrupted by lockdown

Headshot of David Cusworth
David CusworthThe West Australian
Cygnus Arioso plays Elgar’s serenade for strings for the Finale of the chamber music weekend festival.
Camera IconCygnus Arioso plays Elgar’s serenade for strings for the Finale of the chamber music weekend festival. Credit: John Broadhead.

Cygnus Arioso has wrapped up the longest weekend festival in chamber music, spanning six weeks from Saturday, January 30 — the last day before WA’s second lockdown — to Sunday, March 14.

Co-founder and lead violinist Akiko Miyazawa said the group had learnt to “play music as if it’s our last”, linking the group’s name to its translation: Swan Song.

Elgar’s Serenade for String Orchestra opened with a smorgasbord of established and budding talents in a swaying, sighing symphony, balanced and cohesive, the dance-like strains of the Allegro piacevole ending all too soon.

Larghetto followed, stately and restrained, tonal unity well polished for a recently assembled ensemble.

Get in front of tomorrow's news for FREE

Journalism for the curious Australian across politics, business, culture and opinion.

READ NOW

This was classic, pre-World War I Elgar with shades of Enigma in the ebb and flow of haunting figures.

Allegretto closed the work, lines combining and interwoven like dancers in a courtly cadence, as if swooning through each passage.

Akiko Miyazawa
Camera IconAkiko Miyazawa Credit: Nik Babic

Contentment gave way to the shock of the new in Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet in A major, now well known but in its day an experiment with a recently introduced instrument.

The familiar Allegro first stanza opened in strings before Ashley Smith’s clarinet warbled in echo, cascading up and down the register, answered in Sacha McCulloch’s cello solo; sweetness and light in Miyazawa’s violin again picked up by clarinet.

Meditation in the Larghetto was backed by rustling in the strings before Miyazawa and Smith in duet brought mercurial flair and silky skills to bear, sublime touches showering the audience in wellbeing.

The Minuetto third stanza brought measured dance steps, sharing the lead around the ensemble; Smith the perfect dance master, almost cutting the rug himself as he shaped the phrases.

Finally the simple tune of the Allegro con variazioni grew in embellishment as Smith took off in successive variations; intervals and runs ever-more elaborate.

Lachlan Skipworth, composer and co-founder of the group, explained that Mozart presented five voices in an equal collaboration.

His own Clarinet Quintet, by contrast, was more concerto-like, an individual voice leading over a collective accompaniment, augmented here to eight players, dominated by youth.

It also seemed to offer a contrast between the conformity of Mozart’s era and the rugged individualism of ours, and also our dysfunction (think social media, social unrest and COVID-19).

Harsh strings erupted into life, building a chord for Smith’s clarinet to intersect; the whole slightly dysmorphic and discordant, yet holding attention with its inherent cohesion, solo phrases echoing around the crystal lattice of sound.

Strings now dialled down tonal unity but co-ordinated technique, at times tapering to the faintest of harmonics while clarinet took stock of a stark soundscape as if exploring desert terrain; glissando effects on strings like wind across sand.

Mozart’s form and substance had given way to void and dissonance; solo voice once integrated now disassociated and constrained.

Andrew Nicholson
Camera IconAndrew Nicholson

The stage was then set for flautist Andrew Nicholson and harpist Yo-Yun Loei — with Miyazawa and Smith the established principals on the program — to steer back from the brink with Saint-Saens’ Romance; two voices seeking harmony and unity.

Emotional resonance and fluid phrasing rose and fell in dynamics and expression; each making space for the other, perhaps a model for successful engagement.

Warm tones of each instrument were broken only by moments of brilliance, fading to a heartfelt final figure.

The circle was squared when Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro brought all four principals together for the first time, joined also by violinist Alex Isted, violist Kathy Potter and cellist Sophie Curtis.

Rich strings over flourishes and runs in the harp sustained and nourished the mix before Loei took the lead, woodwind high above the ensemble then joining the dance.

While the piece was written to showcase harp technology and technique — giving Loei the lion’s share of the lead — it also completed the trip back from dystopia, coherence writ large in the vibrant group.

Get the latest news from thewest.com.au in your inbox.

Sign up for our emails