Van Diemen’s Band are touring nationally for Musica Viva. Members for this tour are (l to r) Simone Slattery (violin and recorder) Lara Vaughan (bass viol), Anton Baba (bass viol and cello), Julia Fredersdorff (Artistic Director and violin), Katie Yap (viola) and Donald Nicholson (harpsichord).
As a concert concept, Borderlands, with its connotations of cultural sharing, division, battle and even distance, isolation or loneliness is a meaty, still-relevant and emotional one indeed.
Artistic Director of Tasmanian-based early music outift, Van Diemen’s Band, Julia Fredersdorff, has structured an elegant, thought-provoking, emotion-stirring event to take on national tour with Musica Viva. It will charm, wow and impress both seasoned connoisseurs of early music and newcomers to HIP (Historically Informed Peformance) concerts alike.
Described as ‘Australia’s Baroque supergroup’, Fredersdorff and friends launch onto the Musica Viva stage with refined elegance, secure brand and innovative, intelligent band set list.
Assisted by Fredersdorff’s warm, candid commentary, the concert begins with the group’s signature seventeenth-century vibe. There are classic and new hits to be had here from the charismatic cohort.
What is instantly pleasing in this stunning tour songlist is the strength of character, line and gesture offered up by each player in Van Diemen’s Band. Individual voices ebb and flow, shine through for small moments , imitate each other in brief but dense dialogue, then bring numbers home in moments of thrilling unison mood or shape.
Born into the Hamburg climate of border defence, composer Dietrich Becker had a sense of place, but an eclectic playing and writing style influenced by trends various across Europe. This is keenly portrayed by the group in their rendition of swift-changing sentiments in his Sonata No. 5 in F (1674).
Following this is one of several impressve highlights in the concept assembled by Fredersdorff. This is her collection of short works known as the Borderlands Suite. This clevery chosen quintet of pieces emphasizes the nature and emotional consequence of clashing, interlocking border experiences. The emotional vignettes replace the Baroque dance-music-movement-medley craze as everything from culture sharing to the savagery of war is explored.
The short pieces contrast in a superior, svelte flow. The trumpet battle fanfares of the ‘prelude’, namely Samuel Scheidt’s Galliard Battaglia work well when painted instead in vibrant string guise.
This suite then combines cultures in a quasi Eurovision showdown as it dances firstly with death in Becker’s Paduan, the beauty of bass viol duet song in Sainte-Colombe’s Les Pleurs (that total hit from the ‘Tous les Matins du Monde’ soundtrack), jaunty anger or rivalry between countries in Scheidt’s Courant and closing clever caricatures in the final Chaconne from Erlebach’s Ouverture No. 2.
Complex but always played to emphasise the sonically sensual, is the quartet of movements making up Albinoni’s Sonata in C major Op 2 No 3 (from the turn-of-century Sinfonia à 5 of 1700.) to end the first half of the concert with accomplished fiery fugues and plaintive ballads. These are very nicely nuanced and expertly layered by Van Diemen’s Band.
Above: Maria Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir, composer of the work for gut stringed instruments and recorded sound, ‘Clockworking’ (2013)
The programme’s second half begins with music by Georg Muffat. The performance of his Sonata No 1 in D major (from the blockbuster 1682 Armonico Tributo) skilfully celebrates the composer’s command of shifting textures, development of rollicking line and knife-edge changes of mood or pace. It is a definite highlight of the early works heard in this programme.
It is always a special thrill when early music consorts collaborate with contemporary composers and juxtapose centuries of treatise-consulting, authentic instument tone with exciting modern performance techniques and ingenuity.
This scintillating set after interval includes two such works. Reaching up to the Icelandic border, Maria Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir’s composition for gut -stringed instruments and tape is a beautiful evocative border-collapsing moment , with an atmospheric light show to match. Seamless overlaps between the acoustic and recorded worlds will stun you with its new-performance-practice precision and group sentiment.
Above : Van Diemen’s Band harpsichordist and composer of the work Spirals (2022).
Following an adroit exposition of a somewhat tongue-in-cheek unpublished super-scherzo of an anonymous work, Sonata Jucunda (from a treasure trove of manusripts in the Czech Republic) Van Diemen’s Band paid touching tribute to the people of the current border crisis and war between Russia and the Ukraine.
The Band’s harpsichordist-composer, Donald Nicolson, virtuosically turns his hand at the repetitive passacaglia format in his work Spirals. The popular repeating bass-variation style spread from the Spanish borders across many borderlands in the past. In this 2022 premiere, the emotional work incorporates Slavonic Orthodox lament tune ‘Dusha moya pregreshnaya’.
The result, played with beautiful ensemble voice and attention to the minutiae of Nicolson’s cleverly morphed gesturing is a significant new work reacting to harsh environments, suffering and predicament. Its power, like the layered surfaces of all music heard in this not-to-be-missed pandemic and border-breaking tour programme will punch you in the gut-string pun here very much intended.
Featured image : Van Diemen’s Band are touring nationally for Musica Viva. Members for this tour are (l to r) Simone Slattery (violin and recorder) Lara Vaughan (bass viol), Anton Baba (bass viol and cello), Julia Fredersdorff (Artistic Director and violin), Katie Yap (viola) and Donald Nicholson (harpsichord).