DeClassified Music | 2024

Grand Duet: Windows into contrasting worlds

Piano & Cello Recital | Brieley Cutting with Christopher Pidcock

"(Brieley Cutting is)... such a force! Incredible repertoire and delivered with so much power and conviction.”

Tempo Rubato

Performance:

Venue: Tempo Rubato, Melbourne (34 Breese St, Brunswick VIC 3056)

When: Saturday August 31, 8pm

This cello and piano program offers contrasting windows into the captivating worlds of commanding composers who are not heard enough: Rita Strohl and Nadia Boulanger from France, and Galina Ustvolskaya from Soviet Russia.

Strohl’s 'Great Dramatic Sonata' is a lush and passionate story of love, power and glory during the Roman empire, and the powerful Ustvolskaya gives us her 'Grand Duet', a work that is brutally uncompromising and thrilling. Programmed between these works is a palate cleanser from the influential Boulanger, her 'Three Pieces' being miniatures of intense character and unique precision.

Brieley Cutting with Christopher Pidcock - Grand Duet

PERFORMERS:
Brieley Cutting, piano
Christopher Pidcock, cello

PROGRAM:
Rita STROHL - Great Dramatic Sonata ‘Titus et Berenice’ (1898)
Nadia BOULANGER - Three Pieces (1914)
Galina USTVOLSKAYA - Grand Duet (1959)

The irregularity of the performance of the Strohl and Ustvolskaya works in Australia was confirmed to the performers as they worked to secure the musical scores. Both had to be sourced from Europe - one from a privately run website promoting French Romantic music, and the other from a mainstream publishing company who had to order the score especially.

However, the reasons for the infrequency of performance and unavailability of the musical scores is baffling considering that these major works are extremely alluring and sophisticated artworks from commanding composers: Rita Strohl from France, living 1865-1941, and Galina Ustvolskaya, having her life and career in Soviet Russia from 1919 to her relatively recent passing in 2006.

And between Strohl’s Romantic and passionate 'Great Dramatic Sonata' andl Ustvolskaya's innovative 'Grand Duet', are the 'Three Pieces' from the French visionary music thinker Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979), a musician remembered as "a capacious musical personality, whose creative agency and influence extended far beyond her teaching" (New York Times).

Clockwise from left: Rita Strohl, Galina Ustvolskaya, Nadia Boulanger

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS:
Both prolific and lauded Australian performers with extensive and diverse experience, Brieley Cutting (piano) and Christopher Pidcock (cello) began exploring repertoire together following Brieley's move to Sydney in 2020.

Brieley’s playing has been celebrated for its “myriad of different colours” and as being “technically assured”, and Christopher enjoys a diverse career as soloist and chamber musician whilst also being an orchestral musician with Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

Brieley and Christopher are both graduates of the Australian National Academy of Music and Fellows of the Winston Churchill Trust, and they have also both individually poured their efforts into creating and running innovative and supportive music platforms - Brieley having DeClassified Music events in Brisbane and now Sydney, and Christopher with his productions for Opus Now, also in Sydney.

Brieley has been a competition winner, including being National Keyboard Winner of the Symphony Australia ABC Young Performers Awards and received Second Placing in the Kerikeri National Piano Competition in New Zealand. Also a competition winner, Christopher was the First Prize recipient of the Gisborne International Music Competition in New Zealand.

Further experiences include Brieley being a graduate of the Royal College of Music, earning a Doctoral degree from Griffith University, and currently lecturing in Classical Piano at the Australian Institute of Music. Christopher remains a stalwart contributor to the evolution of contemporary classical music and is a current doctoral candidate at the University of Sydney.