This is a very odd
production of some quite interesting
late 20th century music by
Australian composers. Ostensibly a celebration
of the 60th birthday of Ann
Carr-Boyd, that composer only features
in three works. Why the other composers
are included is not explained, other
than that one of them (Soo Yeon Choi)
is a student of Carr-Boyd. There is
also a curiously unexplained quantity
of music for mandolin orchestra. But
then, four tracks are not for mandolins.
The recordings date from 1972, re-mastered
1998, through to sessions from that
same year, 1998. Productions range from
the ABC in 1982, to private studio recordings
from various dates, to a track made
at Frencham School in Mittagong, NSW,
to a polished TV soundtrack. What is
never explained is why these particular
selections were chosen; why these particular
recordings. It all seems rather random
and the programme suffers from this
lack of cohesion.
It all starts well
enough with the title track, performed
by The Sydney Mandolins, and recorded
in 1982 by the ABC. One is involuntarily
reminded of that famous Far Side
cartoon by Gary Larson, of the maestro
arriving in hell, being shown into a
room by a helpful devil with the line
"Welcome to Hell, Maestro. Here’s
your room". In the room is an unoccupied
conductor’s stand and row upon row of
grinning morons clutching accordions.
Somehow it seems to paraphrase too easily
to Mandolin orchestras… Actually the
fandango is undoubtedly the highpoint
of the disc. It is surprisingly effective,
with a jaunty swing and a rather stylish
performance. Later on the effect of
the massed mandolins does tend to pall
and the other recordings of them are
dry and brittle in comparison with this
first track.
The worst jolt comes
with the transition from track 1 to
track 2 – a pleasant if somewhat insipid
Flamenco Fantasy for two pianos by Soo
Yeon Choi. How any producer worth the
title let this recording on is a mystery.
The performance is fine but the quality
of recorded sound is just dreadful.
It sounds like it was recorded in my
living room with a walkman cassette
recorder; dry as dust, desperately in
need of some post-production manipulation.
The contrast is too painful to contemplate
especially as the mandolins at the beginning
were given quite a generous ambience
by the ABC engineers.
Ann Carr-Boyd returns
as composer and pianist accompanying
Corinne Laird in a charming romantic-styled
work called Brown Pansies. This
is appealing and beautifully sung. Carr-Boyd’s
Bendooly Variations (Bendooly
being the name of a 19th
century settler property) is also a
well-crafted work and the Sydney Mandolins
negotiate it with a certain panache.
The remaining mandolin works come in
a large block in the following three
tracks, by Eric Gross, Dulcie Holland
and Robert Allworth. By the turgid end
of the Allworth one has heard quite
enough mandolins, thank you very much.
And the contrast with
the final two tracks could hardly be
greater for there is no more of Carr-Boyd’s
gentle neo-romantic harmony, and no
more mandolins. The two Australian
Ark suites by Derek Strahan are
much more quintessentially Australian
‘landscape’ music, using extended techniques
and scalic structures based on Aboriginal
use. The music had its origin in a 1970s
documentary series about the Australian
Continent and has been effectively remastered
for this disc. Interesting music, probably
worthy of being released complete, on
its own. This seems a world away from
the gentle ‘music for amateurs’ style
of the rest of the disc. Its all rather
puzzling in the end. If you know one
of the people involved you might want
to buy the disc, but for the last two
and the first tracks alone it is not
easy to justify.
Peter Wells
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The Sydney Mandolins / Adrian Hooper; Corinne
Laird – soprano; Ann Carr-Boyd, Soo Yeon Choi,
Michael Taylor – piano; Bill Frater, Neville
Amadio – flute; John Cran – bassoon; Donald
Westlake – clarinet; Robert Miller – cello;
Derek Fairbrass, John Sangster – percussion.