You don’t necessarily need to travel out of the Mitchell Shire to the Melbourne Recital Centre to hear top quality chamber music!
A lesser-known gem in our local area is the series of chamber music concerts featuring the best musicians in Australia, run for the last 14 years by Peter Hagen on his secluded rural property just out of Broadford.
His 2024 series of three chamber music concerts continues on Sunday, October 13, at 4pm with music for the harpsichord and flute.
Included are some rarities such as a sonata by Scheibe, a Danish composer and music critic who criticised the famous composer J. S. Bach for being too complicated in his style. Despite that criticism, Scheibe’s music is perhaps no less complicated! You get the chance to compare the two composers in this upcoming concert.
Add the composers Telemann and Bach’s son Carl Philip, and you have four top composers who wrote sublime musical works for obbligato harpsichord and flute.
Instead of the modern flute, a copy of an 18th century wooden flute is being used for this concert. This reflects the performers’ aim of getting as close as possible to the original sound of the music by using copies of the musical instruments used at the time and performing according to recent research into this 260-year-old music.
The term ‘obbligato’ refers to the music being fully written out with lovely melodies for the keyboardist’s right hand instead of the more usual figured bass, which requires improvising the right-hand chords. Hence, the concert title Equal Voices indicates that with the two instruments, we really have three intricate melodic lines, one for the flute, one for the harpsichordist’s left hand, and one for the right hand effectively making three instruments out of two.
The music results in a lovely woven texture of sounds and themes that are passed on from one instrument to the other. This process of copying, developing, and reinventing the themes and melodies between the instruments is a fascinating and uplifting experience.
Come share this experience for our local community with others that appreciate this music. There is a chance to chat over a drink after the concert with the performers, Peter Hagen, and Meredith Beardmore, who will be delighted to meet you and discuss the music.
Booking is essential with more information available at www.trybooking.com/CPKQA. A discount applies for booking more than 10 days before each concert. Parking is free and there are complementary drinks afterwards served by our boutique wine maker Mike Boudry of Nagambie Terrace.
