Diana Doherty and Bernadette Harvey – Heaven

Melbourne Recital Centre Great Performers Series – Diana Doherty and Bernadette Harvey

June28, 2022, Australian Digital Concert Hall

If you had a heart attack and woke to the sounds of Diana Doherty and Bernadette Harvey, you’d know you were in heaven. What a combination of musical talent. And how lucky are we that the Australian Digital Concert Hall afforded us the chance to hear it.

Antal Dorati is familiar to many as a conductor but not as a composer. In fact he composed and arranged numerous pieces for ballet and also some original works such as the Duo Concertante for oboe and piano. This is a lively piece based on Hungarian tunes and rhythms and makes one wonder why he composed so little – its style is more modern than classical.

After this, Diana introduced the unusual segue of Fantasias by Telemann and Sequenza VII by the Italian composer Luciano Berio – the Telemann, written for the newly invented flute, were attractive and all too short . Berio like Bruckner and Scriabin was addicted to grids and geometry. In my opinion, mathematics and music do not mix and the work is far too discordant and disconnected for my tastes.

We returned to earth, or perhaps not, with Tim Dargaville’s Spirit House which was especially written for this Duo. Hailing from Melbourne, he is a respected musical educator and composer who tends to emphasise intercultural musical experiences. Written in three sections, it reflects the composer’s musical and transcendental experiences in India and Bali combined with original Australian idioms. Easy listening and as relaxing as it is designed to be.

We were definitely on more familiar ground with an adaptation of Cezar Franck’s well-known violin sonata in A. I love this work and honestly feel that it does not suffer from the transition from violin to oboe. Lyrical in nature, the final movement stands out as a superb development of a simple statement.

This standout recital would not have been the same without the excellence of the two soloists whose enthusiasm carried us away.