Reviews
Colbert’s massive construct begins with short spasms, sustained bands punctuated by abrupt flurries that introduce the composer’s trademark penchant for rhythmic subdivisions…
…a dynamically quiet start but the work is on the move, growing in contrapuntal density…
…a long-term duel loaded with mirrorings and interchanges while the short bursts and isolated intervals or chords expand into two-part dialogues.
…these conversations between lines are impossible to untangle, particularly in the long central argument of the work where the performer presents a mind-sharpening onslaught of material…
Previous experience with Colbert’s products may prepare you for his complexity of thought. His music has no compromises…
…a startling, exhausting opening track on this CD…Dancing to the Tremors of Time is a stand-out contribution to this country’s piano literature…
Packing just under 30 minutes into a single, frenetic movement that reflects the painting’s nightmarish figures, Colbert’s piece is explosive, exhilarating and exhausting for both performer and listener.
…the dynamic energy of (Michael Kieran) Harvey’s performance…Dancing to the Tremors of Time…is almost 29 minutes of the most virtuosic pianism you will ever hear…textural journey that takes the listener into Colbert’s musico-emotional translation of James Gleeson’s famous painting of the same name….
At 28 minutes long, Like a Maelstrom took its title seriously, hammering the audience with a relentless onslaught of sound for almost the entirety of that time. I would confess that at times this wasn’t easy, however this is not necessarily a bad thing: there is room in the canon for difficult music, that challenges and renders the audience uncomfortable. That Like a Maelstrom was able to evoke such a strong response speaks to the power it has as a work.
… an uncompromising voice, both enervating and exciting to hear in an age when contemporary composition is finding it difficult to sustain interest, let alone an audience. In that regard, …like a Maelstrom represents the sort of initiative for which the Arcko organization exists. Whether or not it offers pleasure is irrelevant; what it does give you without holding anything back is a horizon-expanding experience, one where your ears are challenged to an aesthetic confrontation. At a new music concert, I can’t imagine anything better.
…a wild ride… a fixation with the fast and the loud, together with a massive density…Yet the moments where the textures suddenly thin out…or where the effective tempo temporarily slows…are imbued with a dramatic power that is directly related to the mass and energy of the more maniacal passages – and the eye of a great storm does seem a suitable metaphor for this effect. The challenging solo parts are realised with fearless authority and flair by Bruno Siketa (trumpet) and Peter Dumsday (piano).
…a very beautiful piece for strings…Arcko Symphonic Ensemble has championed this work strongly and deservedly… it is a piece that is now somewhat overdue for wider recognition as among the finest string orchestra works by any Australian composer.
…a strong, two movement work…bustles through great swathes of notes, out of which many moments of interest flare and dissipate…the obsessive busyness is briefly and magically projected into a larger space… At the end, the energy of the work metamorphoses into lyricism; as the massed-quartet texture unravels, space opens up once again – this time for a beautiful line of slow moving notes on the cello
…starts out virtuosically and winds itself up from there in this thrilling performance by Phoebe Green. There is no respite, as the piece races inexorably towards a splendidly abrupt ending – and yet there is more to the work than just virtuosity…
…hero work of the night was a new work, commissioned by Arcko… Like a Maelstrom. And like a maelstrom it was…Colbert wrought an extraordinarily difficult concerto for trumpet (Bruno Siketa) and piano (Peter Dumsday) swirling amid fierce playing from 15 string players and two percussionists. ‘Difficult, demanding and uncompromising’ was the order of the day. There were moments when I watched Dumsday sweating over the waves of giant clusters he had to manage on the keyboard and I wondered if Colbert was just getting noisy…but then, out of the almost inchoate sounds, a direction always emerged, leading the piano and trumpet in and out of the body of sound
…Proxima for string quartet…was relentless with a solid sense of conversation between each of the four players while they yet maintained determined, individual lines…Silo Quartet worked hard, delivering a flawless, unified sound over the complex inner lines
…intense and dedicated musicianship…Phoebe Green gave a remarkably poised performance of Colbert’s Torque for solo viola…the piece was a tour de force of quite contrapuntal measures of virtuosic playing…
…attained a great sense of suspended beauty…Colbert’s floating in the void is intended as a fairly other-worldly experience. In the program notes he invites us to listen with our eyes closed. It’s hard to do that—watching each player take up his or her part and pass the music around the ensemble is too exciting.
Certainly the most challenging music presented, this work invited the audience into a mysterious and abstract sound world. The only piece on the programme to deal meaningfully with space and silence, layers of isolated pizzicato morphed into thematic fragments that explored and mapped out a delicate and complex web of events.
…a fond reminder of the extraordinary energy that characterized Melbourne’s compositional scene in the 1980s. This is music that is unforgiving, obsessive, saturated, as well as carefully controlled, precise and ambitious…
…is rich in clashing colours but at the same time the scoring is not densely packed. It is a work that should remain in active repertoire…
…intriguingly titled Slap, an engrossing piece in which the [bass] clarinet simulates the harsh and raucous squawks and warbles of some exotic, angry fowl.
…the fifth in a series of agitated pieces, was the work that sounded as if it might have the most consistent and forceful personality while suffering most from limited rehearsal time.
..Colbert’s response to urban dysfunction…pulsated with the rhythms of alienation.
…revealed in essence a reflection on more varied sonorous possibilities, an exploration of timbres elaborating the grades of pianissimo in a continuous search for new effects
…rapid, quicksilver music… The keyboard dominated the initial bars with a series of trills that emphasised the basis on which the piece is constructed…but the hard work fell to (the) guitarist who negotiated a massive, demanding solo…
…Its pointillist style and rapid transference of motifs and trills between instruments brought about some scintillating effects. The extended guitar solo was vigourously played…and the work’s jagged textures were underpinned by…sensitive percussion…
The combination of mandolin, guitar, percussion and harpsichord perfectly suits this music of rapid, obsessively ornamented figures…
Restless, uneasy and gripping from the outset, it was notable for the development of an argument, an instrumental discussion, that repaid concentration.