The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 131

Review piritual refreshment Mr JVI Ml VrMVIVL I I CLASSICS I HE older I get I the more con vinced I become about the power and importance seemed astray. Over and over again I yearned for extra crispness in the phrasing and bite in the rhythmic articulation volume is no substitute for them; for example, in the Sea Interludes which Britten extracted from Peter Grimes, the storm music was opaque. In general, the strings were warmly reliable but the woodwinds and brass were often assertive and without grace. This sparing subtlety was a disadvantage to Graeme Koehne's lush Rain Forest and it made the prolixity of Rachmaninov's Third Symphony all too obvious. The conclusion is that if Brabbins is to take full advantage of the energy and dedication of these splendid musicians, he must if he has the capacity listen more carefully to the individual and collective sound.

The soloist in this concert was the accomplished young cellist, Liwei Qin, who now lives in Australia. I found his tone in Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations rather edgy and he seemed to concentrate on achieving each note as an individual, with line less important than discrete clarity. The tone seems to need greater his flourishes at the end of the piece lacked emphatic power and by far the finest aspect of the performance for the orchestra, too was the justly famous sixth variation where everyone achieved a sweet and fluid melancholy. What would I give to hear this group of "fair and shining youth" under Simone Young's inspirational direction. Then would all the symbols of youth have become reality.

y-f, i iii mi ENERGY AND DEDICATION Australian Youth Orchestra. of symbols in our lives and society. The public celebration of marriage is one of those and a wedding should always be a great occasion. Rarely, however, is the event celebrated with the bridegroom's own music as it was in Sydney last week. How often have you seen bridesmaid and best man repeatedly disappear in order to contribute to the singing? Since this was the wedding of composer Elliott Gyger and his best man was Anthony Walker, the conductor of both the Contemporary Singers and the Phil-harmonia Choir, and since both the bride (the clarinettist and mathematician, Catherine Playoust) and groom are members of the Contemporary Singers, it must have required supererogatory discipline for them to stay put at the altar, rather than join in the music-making! For the occasion, Gyger wrote a complete but concise Mass, organ Processional and Recessional and two lovely settings of Australian poetry: Christopher Bren-nan's Sweet Silence After Picture: SIMON A LEKNA form and ever renew the Australian Youth Orchestra: on Thursday night they began a 10-stop national tour with a concert at the Opera House.

It is a major task to audition for this orchestra and then in a relatively short rehearsal time meld them all into the organism that constitutes a fluent orchestra. They are not yet the extraordinary ensemble which so excited me in Germany last year and I believe that this is partly because their British conductor, Martyn Brabbins, did not strike me as particularly interesting or galvanising. Indeed, his ear for orchestral clarity and balance often Bells! the music is both glistening and reflective and James McAuley's To The Holy Spirit, where poem and music exuberantly evoke the polychrome imagery of the Bird Of Paradise. Not even Mozart composed his own nuptial music! He did, of course, write memorable music for Figaro's Wedding and, thereby, created the greatest opera ever written. The Australian Opera are again serving up their eccentric production and I suppose that I'll get to it eventually, though I don't care for it Gyger's work was the centrepiece of a weekend feast of unaccompanied vocal music I followed it with the second concert by the visiting Tallis Scholars who, this time, were on their home ground of English music specifically, composers associated with the legendary Chapel Royal (plus an interpolation of that Allegri Miserere, sounding a little bored on this occasion).

What is striking about this ensemble is the success of their quest for perfection and purity of sound: every note seems to be individually tuned and polished and the lines seem to float miraculously in the air, like alluring incense. The words and thus the liturgical aspect of the music generally seem of secondary importance; textual clarity does not seem a priority. Their dynamic range can therefore appear to run the entire gamut from mezzoforte to mezzoforte. Nevertheless, they were extremely good in the pieces by Purcell, notably Hear My Prayer, Lord and Lord God Of Hosts, especially the harmonic tensions of its "Thou feedest them" section. I also enormously enjoyed Tomkins' great God, The Proud Are Risen Against Me and much of Cornysh's extended Salve Regina.

It is a sublime repertoire and a spiritual refreshment to hear some of it again. IT IS also wonderfully refreshing once again to see the mass of our most gifted young musicians who Lynagh in Seven's play ORMER Wallaby skipper Michael Lynagh is the latest sports star to make the transition from ji. Graftonian and I have a lot of friends and relatives in this area so I have put the word out among them and they are simply not watching Channel 10 anymore. "If Channel 10 isn't loyal to the North Coast, why should the North Coast be loyal to Channel 10?" But Telecasters Australia Ltd chief executive officer David White said North Coast viewers were already serviced by two local commercial stations as well as the ABC and SBS, which is why he cut Ten Northern NSWs news service, replacing it with 77ie Brady Bunch and Neighbours. "The Brady Bunch and Neighbours are rating better than the news bulletin so it's unfortunate the mayor of Grafton has chosen to take this narrow-minded stance," White said.

Scorcher CHANNEL 7's top-rating drama series Fire has been burning up the airwaves in the UK, where it was sold to satellite operator SKY Television Network. Fire, which aired on Seven earlier this year, has stayed in the list of UK satellite television's 10 most popular programs since its premiere in May. The series, featuring Georgie Parker and Peter Phelps, has also been sold to Northern Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Thailand, Indonesia and New Zealand. The second series of Fire will go into production in November but it is still not known whether Parker and Phelps will reprise their respective roles. "They are still negotiating with the producers," a Seven spokesman said.

AM honours YOU win some, you lose some. Eleven AM reporter Nancy Farley was thrilled to receive a letter informing her she'd won a Tiffany Award for the Best Money Market Report from the CNN Network in the US as part of its annual World Report Competition. Channel 7 entered the 22-year-old reporter's story on alpaca farming in the contest and it was one of only seven reports worldwide to win the award. The only problem was the CNN Centre in Atlanta posted the wrong trophy to Farley. She posted it back to the US and is now awaiting her Tiffany Trophy with great anticipation.

Meanwhile, former Seven Nightly reporter Emma Rossi, who has been travelling the world on an extended six-month holiday, has returned to Australia and joined Eleven AM. It's a little known fact that Rossi's mother, Mary Rossi, was the first woman on Australian television and hosted her own show, Women's World, on the ABC for many years. field to commentary box. After announcing his retirement from rugby last week, Lynagh promptly signed a contract to join Channel 7 as a rugby union commentator. Now he has his work cut out for him with the State Of The Union game to air today and the Bledisloe Cup telecasts on July 22 and 29.

Lynagh will be ably guided by Seven's commentary team, Gordon Bray, Chris Handy and Andy Raymond. Teacher's pet VETERAN performer Diane Craig has cornered the market in school administration. Most recently seen playing a tormented teacher at Home And A way's Summer Bay High School, the actress has joined Heartbreak High's Hartley High as the headmistress from hell. Craig, wife of Garry MacDon-ald, is one of a number of new faces to join the fourth series of Heartbreak High, which went into production last week. Co-executive producer Ben Gannon has not sold the new series to an Australian network, although the third series is being aired by Channel 10.

RACHEL BROWNE AIRWAVES The fourth series of the drama was commissioned by the BBC in and other major European broadcasters which are airing the show. Heartbreak High has been sold to almost every country in Europe as well as South Africa, Zimbabwe and Indonesia. Under wraps THE producers of current affairs satire Frontline have achieved the seemingly impossible finding a replacement for the late Bruno Lawrence for the new series of the show which goes to air on the ABC on July 24. Lawrence, who died of lung cancer last month, put his stamp on the character of Frontline's morally-bankrupt executive producer. Frontline Productions said a replacement for LawTence had been found but they wanted to keep his identity under wraps until the media launch of the series on July 17.

TEAM: Michael Lynagh and Gordon Bray. Ten boycott THE normally laid-back residents of the NSW North Coast are up in arms about regional channel Ten Northern NSW axing its local news service. Grafton mayor Bruce Sahlqvist is leading a campaign to boycott Ten Northern NSW since the local news service was cancelled by the channel's Townsville-based owner, Telecasters Australia Ltd, in May. "It's really got my back up and I said Channel 10 can go jump," Sahlqvist said. "I am a fourth generation 134 THE SUN-HERALD, JULY 9.

1995.