Chamber music, fine food and wine
The Coriole Music Festival was established in 1999. Held in the first weekend in May, it encompasses two days of beautiful chamber music, with meals and wine included. The programming often features rarely heard works, which are performed by the finest musicians from around Australia.
Twenty years ago the Coriole Music Festival was conceived by the Lloyd and Burrell families as a celebration of fine music in the McLaren Vale wine region. First held in 1999, it is now an annual event on the first weekend of May. Coriole Music Festival takes place at Coriole Vineyards in South Australia’s beautiful McLaren Vale. The concert venue (the barrel room replete with wooden wine barrels lining the walls) has a wonderful acoustic for chamber and vocal music.
Program
An introduction from the Music Director
Saturday Program – 5 May
Sunday Program – 6 May
An introduction from the Music Director
There are four separate strands to this year’s program. The ‘anti-Romantic’ Stravinsky’s own arrangement for piano four hands of The Rite of Spring is played by the two Russian first-prize winners of recent Sydney International Piano Competitions, Andrey Gugnin (2016) — Coriole’s featured pianist this year — and Konstantin Shamray (2008), who will also conduct a stellar septet of Adelaide musicians in The Soldier’s Tale. These two works and the Three Pieces for String Quartet are all from Stravinsky’s Russian period, whereas the Duo Concertant is neo-classical in style.
Bach goes well with Stravinsky. As celebrated pedagogue Nadia Boulanger put it, they both wrote “music of line”. Works by the great master start each concert and involve not only Gugnin and the members of our resident string quartet Tinalley — who once more are busy throughout the weekend — but also one of Australia’s most celebrated small choirs, from the church of St James in King Street Sydney, on its most welcome first visit to Coriole.
The third focus is on the music of Brahms and of Schumann, whose Liederkreis introduces this year’s singer. Young baritone Daniel Carison has shown a particular interest in performing art song. Finally, three contrasted compositions: Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen is a kind of requiem for Romanticism; Bartók’s first quartet starts with echoes of Strauss and then tips over into recognisably Bartókian territory; and a taste of Poulenc’s transparent simplicity shows his rejection of Romanticism.
All in all, plenty of variety but with some threads designed to add up to a reasonably coherent whole.
— Anthony Steel, Music Director
Saturday Program
10.15 am Talk by Anthony Steel with coffee and tea from 10 am
11 am Saturday Morning Concert
JS Bach Komm, Jesu, komm (Come, Jesus, Come), BWV 229
JS Bach Lobet den Herrn alle Heiden (Praise the Lord, all heathens), BWV230
The Choir of St James’
Stravinsky Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring)
Andrey Gugnin and Konstantin Shamray piano four hands
~ Interval ~
Schumann Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood), Op 15
Andrey Gugnin piano
Bartók String Quartet No 1 in A minor, Op 7
Tinalley String Quartet
1.30 pm Long Lunch (with Coriole wines)
5.00 pm Saturday Afternoon Concert
JS Bach Die Kunst der Fuge (The Art of Fugue), BWV 1080 — four excerpts played alternately by
Tinalley String Quartet, Andrey Gugnin piano
R Strauss (arr leopold) Metamorphosen
Tinalley String Quartet, Imants Larsens viola, Simon Cobcroft cello Jonathan Coco double bass
~ Interval ~
Schumann Liederkreis, Op 39
Daniel Carison baritone, Andrey Gugnin piano
Stravinsky L’Histoire du Soldat (The Soldier’s Tale)
Coriole Ensemble conducted by Konstantin Shamray
7.30 pm Supper (with Coriole wines)
Sunday Program
10 am Coffee and tea
11 am Sunday Morning Concert
JS Bach Chaconne from Partita No 2 in D minor, BWV 1004
Lerida Delbridge violin
POULENC Vinea mea electa (My Chosen Vineyard), FP 97
POULENC Sept Chansons (Seven Songs), FP 81
The Choir of St James’
Stravinsky Duo Concertant
Adam Chalabi violin, Andrey Gugnin piano
~ Interval ~
Stravinsky Three Pieces for String Quartet
Tinalley String Quartet
Brahms Piano Quintet in F minor, Op 34
Tinalley String Quartet, Andrey Gugnin piano
1.30 pm Lunch (with Coriole wines)