REVIEW OF MANTRAS AND NIGHT FLOWERS – Piano Music of Ross Edwards and Carl Vine performed by Bernadette Harvey

Review By Mandy Stefanakis of the Music Trust  2016

I have very strong memories associated with the music of Ross Edwards and Carl Vine. I listened spellbound to Edwards’ Dawn Mantras, the sheer beauty of it, those sublime climactic notes from Jane Sheldon, as it was performed for the Dawn Service, part of celebrations around the world with the new millennium for which the piece was written. Later, riveted, I enjoyed reading about and unpacking the symbolic gestures and structure of it and worked with it many times with students. It was a purely musical indulgence for me.
My pivotal Vine experience is much more associative. I sat on the floor outside the ICU at the Epworth hospital in Melbourne waiting to be allowed entry to see my son and I had headphones attached listening to Vine’s String Quartets which I was reviewing. I could say it blocked out the hospital atmosphere, but rather, it was just unbelievably moving. There are, of course, signature passages in Vine’s works and in listening now to his Piano Sonata No. 1, the furrows in my bones, remnants of this experience, run a little deeper.
It’s strange then that what differentiates these two composers the most is that Edwards is almost always inspired by imagery – a person, a place, an aspect of nature. Even when he starts out writing from a sonic stance, his descriptions become metaphoric. There are always reference points. Conversely, Vine’s work, affecting me in that instance associatively, is most often purely concerned with sound. Any references tend towards the philosophical even when talking about spiders! He thinks in abstractions.
Renowned Australian pianist, Bernadette Harvey, brings both incredible virtuosity and sublime subtlety of articulation to her interpretations of the works on this album which are organised like bookends. It is such a generous CD of 72 minutes’ duration and there isn’t one second the listener would wish to be denied.

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© Mandy Stefanakis
The Music Trust © 2016