Thoroughbass | Set in Stone: Music for two keyboards
13 July, 2024 Margaretta Cottage, Glebe, NSW
Performers: Diana Weston & Michael Tsalka
This was the first of a series of three concerts in historic stone buildings (‘Set in Stone’), with the two remaining concerts at St John’s College in Camperdown on Friday July 19th at 6.30 pm, and St Jude’s Church in Bowral on Sunday July 21st at 3.15pm.
Thoroughbass describes itself as “an early music ensemble with contemporary overtones. Our ambition is to make known the unknown, re-discover the forgotten and create the new”. This concert, hosted by David McIntosh, Artistic Director of the Glebe Music Festival, in his charming 1830’s sandstone cottage, in Glebe, certainly lived up to that description.
The scene is set as guests enter by a stone wall to cross a courtyard of broad flagstones past former stables into the back entrance of the cottage to the elegant double drawing room. One half is filled with comfortably cushioned chairs, the other transformed into music room by two harpsichords, a small grand piano, and an 1850 Knipscher chamber organ.
The audience of about 30 made for a full house!
Diana Weston – a Sydney GP, specialist in early keyboards, and guiding force behind Thoroughbass, and Michael Tsalka, an Israeli-born keyboard player, currently a professor in the School of Music at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, presented a most interesting program, ranging from Antonio Soler and Joseph Vanhal (‘re-discover the forgotten’), to two modern pieces by Leonardo Coral and Nicholas Smith (‘create the new’) written for Michael Tsalka.
There were also two familiar names in the program: JS Bach and Astor Piazzolla, but, as we shall see, Thoroughbass avoided the more obvious pieces from these composers.
Concerto II in A minor by Padre Antonio Soler (1729-1783)
Soler was a priest who was music tutor to the sons of Carlos III, like Domenico Scarlatti (who may have been his teacher) he produced a great many keyboard sonatas – probably for use by his royal students.
Soler’s Concerto II is from his Six Concertos for Two Organs (where ‘Organ’ may be any keyboard instrument) and Thoroughbass presented it on two harpsichords, nestled together with the players facing each other. This ensured precise communication in some of the more florid sections. Unlike the other two-movement concerti in this set, this concerto has three: Andante, Allegro and then a Minuet and Trio. Despite the seclusion of Soler’s monastic life, this music is cheerful and jolly, courtly, but passionate.
Sonata I in F major Op.32 for piano 4 hands by Joseph Baptist Vanhal (1739-1813)
Vanhal was an extremely prolific (at least 34 symphonies) Czech composer who moved to Vienna, where he flourished and was eventually able to support himself from his composition, rather than by patronage from a noble. He was 17 years older than Mozart, but the two were friends, and there is a contemporary account of Vanhal playing in a string quartet together with Haydn, Mozart and Dittersdorf in 1784.
In later life he recognised the opportunities provided by the emerging middle class and wrote a great deal of music for piano and small-scale chamber ensembles.
This sonata was charming, and expertly played on the small grand piano. The Secondo player (Weston) provided the usual flowing Alberti basses and arpeggios while the Primo (Tsalka) got the lion’s share of the melodies, but their excellent ensemble made it sound like one 4-handed player!
Soledad by Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) arranged for two pianos by Pablo Ziegler (1944-)
Ziegler was Piazzolla’s pianist for many years, and this arrangement of one of Piazzolla’s lesser-known compositions: Soledad (‘solitude’ or ‘loneliness’) was played on two harpsichords. (And why not? Is there any instrument that doesn’t have Piazzolla arrangements in its repertoire?)
With two harpsichords the players were able to capture all the lines of a five-member tango nuevo band in this slow, reflective piece.
Two contemporary pieces followed…
The first was Toccata (composed in 2016 by the Mexican composer Leonardo Coral).
It is dedicated to both Michael Tsalkas and Diana Weston who performed it on two harpsichords, with the two instruments competing in a sort of musical argument that created some amusement in the audience.
The second piece, Brushstrokes was written for Michael Tsalkas by a Hong Kong colleague, the English composer Nicholas Smith. It was a quiet, dreamy piano solo. Played with great tenderness by Tsalkas.
The final item in the program was the Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings BWV 1052. This concerto is thought to have been based on a lost violin, or organ concerto (musicologists differ…), with JS Bach responsible for the solo part and the orchestral parts completed by his son Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach.
It was the first of his eight keyboard concertos, with the usual fast-slow-fast structure. The players rose to the challenge of this energetic, and in places extremely demanding, concerto and it made a thrilling conclusion to the formal concert.
To the delight of the audience Michael Tsalka then played a short Bach piece as an encore, on what is thought to be the oldest organ in Australia (imported from the Netherlands in 1957 by a former owner of Margaretta Cottage).
The evening concluded with a delicious supper, also the occasion for guests to inspect the instruments and enjoy the view of the moonlit lawn and gardens from the broad, front verandah of the cottage.
Weston and Tsalkas are playing two more concerts in this series and the programs will vary, with some items repeated and new items, including pieces by Ann Carr-Boyd, Elena Kats-Chernin and Violet Dinescu. The Margaretta Cottage concert sold out, so get in early for the others!
