REVIEW | Tafelmusik

CONCERT
House of Dreams: Tafelmusik ★★★★★
Perth Concert Hall | Review by Neville Cohn

Near-miraculously linked in thought and intention, the players of Tafelmusik sound as if born to the job. In purely musical terms, the Toronto-based players are incomparable. They bring to everything they play an elegance, insight and nobility of tone that made this first Musica Viva concert for 2015 an event to cherish.

What places the ensemble in a particularly rare category is that it performs entirely from memory. Hardly any chamber ensemble anywhere is game enough to do this: the Kolisch Quartet did so decades ago and, more recently, the Chiara String Quartet.

But the hazards of playing from memory are compounded as the Tafelmusik musicians, instead of performing seated, as is the norm (apart from the cellists, of course), move gracefully around the stage with a bow here, a nod there as they deliver sonic magic.

Adding to the pleasures of the evening was a fascinating linking commentary by Blair Williams. Throughout, images of mostly very famous paintings of the baroque era and relevant to this or that composition, were projected on to a screen with a gilt border suspended above and to the rear of the players.

I cannot readily recall experiencing so satisfying a presentation in a long time.

But, reading the program before the performance began, my heart sank at the prospect of listening to more than 30 short items, mostly extracts from longer works by Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Telemann and Purcell.

Would this trivialise the presentation, making it the equivalent of a morsel of meat pie, say, a bite of truffle, a couple of potato chips and a lolly? My forebodings, it turned out, were unnecessary as music, movement, commentary and images combined to consistently fascinating effect. I particularly admired the Largo for two oboes and bassoon from a Bach cantata.

I hope very much that Musica Viva has invited Tafelmusik to tour Australia again. Judging by the ecstatic response of Thursday’s audience, I imagine full houses will be guaranteed.