This was not a concert for landlubbers. It seems to have sailed under two flags, being titled both ‘La Mer’ and also ‘Siren Calls’, both appropriate in that it comprised works celebrating aspects of ocean. The highlight was the world premiere of an impressive new composition by Paul Stanhope. The opening offering, the overture to Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer was performed robustly under West Australian Symphony Orchestra’s Principal Conductor Asher Fisch. While making for a bright emphatic start, any subtleties were lost as the strings were barely audible; one of the drawbacks of Winthrop Hall is its favouring of the brass.
Stanhope introduced his work, entitled Mahāsāgar, the Hindi term for the Indian Ocean. It comprises five movements, scored for soprano and tenor, chorus, children’s chorus and a substantial orchestra. The first movement is by Kureng Wudjari Noongar poet Cass Lynch, entitled Naara koort, meaning seashore heart, celebrating the healing power of the ocean. Musically, it began with the chorus making gentle wave-like sounds, joined by sustained notes on the strings, then rippling, swelling, rolling effects with some light percussion. This section segues into the second movement, heralded by seabird-like cries becoming more rhythmic with trumpet and timpani.
The second movement, Lifesaver, based on a poem by Elizabeth Riddell. It describes a drowned man brought up out of the sea, and the first stanza features a soprano, Sara Macliver (for whose crystalline voice it was obviously written), soaring over the chorus in elegiac mood. In the second stanza, we heard from tenor Andrew Goodwin with ringing tenor tone and smooth legato. It concludes with a kind of recessional with a tolling bell.
The text of Silentio ad mare comes from a poem by two 11-year old Australian schoolboys, Alexander Maloof and Rhys Halkidis, and is a tribute to boat people – refugees desperately trying to come to a safer country. It is sung mainly by the tenor and chorus, but is interleaved with another short poem by Michael Leunig sung by boy choir Aquinas College Schola Cantorum. The forces of the orchestra variously depict the creaking boat becalmed at sea, the approach of authorities with flashing lights with urgent dissonances leading to a brass and timpani climax, and a final hushed chorus.
In another change of mood, The Osprey is based on a poem by Steve Hawke, starting with more bird like sounds, then the voice of “Anne” (Macliver) observing the gliding osprey, “soaring majestically”, like her voice. The chorus takes the part of the bird: “Like an arrow I fly”, and Anne and the bird alternate in describing its journey in the setting sun, promising to return tomorrow and “glide once more, the boundless freedom of the skies”, as the orchestra builds to a triumphant crescendo then settles into a gentle acknowledgment of that freedom. This movement segues into the last, a return to the Noongar verse, entitled High tide for healing, this time overlapping with an English translation, with the choir again emulating the sibilant waves until softly falling away into silence.
After the interval, Ravel’s Un Barque sur l’océan brought a more contemplative seascape, with rolling waves and gentler interludes, with occasional breakers, played with WASO’s usual suavity and precision. The final piece was Debussy’s titular La Mer, usually a high impact work on any programme, but here seeming a little overshadowed by what had gone before. Not that it wasn’t well played, and the big thundering climax was well-received, but perhaps we were just too long at sea.
