Violinist Brendan Joyce’s star turn kicking off 2025 is a piece of music originally written to feature a cello solo.
Joyce, who is leader and artistic director of Camerata – Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra, will be playing Robert Schumann’s Violin Concerto in A Minor (after the Cello Concerto Op. 129) in the orchestra’s first mainstage this year – Camerata & Brendan Joyce: Schumann. It’s on at the Armitage Centre, Empire Theatres, Toowoomba, March 12, and then the QPAC Concert Hall, Brisbane, on March 13.
So, is Brendan Joyce cutting the cello players’ grass? Well, just a little bit.
“I don’t want to be dealing with a bunch of irate cellists,” he jokes, as there will be half a dozen of them on stage in what will be a full iteration of the orchestra. That is, as well as strings, the concert will feature wind and brass (“The windies” as Joyce describes them) and percussion.
The size of Camerata as an orchestra waxes and wanes but this will definitely be a waxing with 35 musicians on stage to back him as he plays Schumann’s tender and rarely heard Violin Concerto (arranged from the Cello Concerto). The concert will also feature Poulenc’s light and charming Sinfonietta and a sparkling concert overture by Fanny Mendelssohn, sister of composer Felix Mendelssohn.
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Unconducted as always, this epic chamber music concert features rarely heard musical gems and it will be a rare opportunity to hear Joyce playing a 200-year-old borrowed Italian violin.
“With an overture, a concerto and a little symphony, it’s definitely a classic classical start to our year with a few trademark programming twists,” Joyce says.
“We’re playing an unknown overture by the underrated Fanny Mendelssohn, who was likely closer in talent to her brother than history would have us believe. I’m excited to appear as a soloist in the Schumann Cello Concerto , on the violin of course, as sanctioned and arranged by the composer, a composer that I’ve always felt very connected to somehow.
“Schumann apparently once said that to send light into the darkness of human hearts is the destiny of the artist, which is a pretty good motto for all musicians. But it also doesn’t escape our unconducted orchestra that he also said – ‘the orchestra must be like a republic, subordinate to no higher authority’.”
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As for the irate cellists, well, they will get over it. As Joyce points out, after writing the piece for cello, he wrote a violin version with the great Hungarian violinist, conductor and composer Joseph Joachim in mind.
“Joachim was the most famous violinist of the 19th century after Paganini,” Joyce explains. “And he was one of the first recorded. I have listened to some scratchy old recordings of him.”
Coincidentally, a Stradivarius once owned by Joachim recently sold at auction for a record $18 million.
“I’m playing a lovely old Italian violin that is borrowed,” Joyce says. “It’s not as famous but it is very beautiful.”
The final work on the program was recommended by bassoonist Glenn Prohasky during one of Camerata’s democratic repertoire meetings.
“At those meetings everyone throws in their 20 cents worth,” Joyce says. “In this case Glenn recommended a little-known piece of mid-century French music by the quirky Francis Poulenc. It’s a work that brims with joy and humour.”
Camerata’s second mainstage concert in early May will be Camerata & Paul Grabowsky: The Art Of, a collaboration with award-winning musician and composer Paul Grabowsky.
There’s plenty more to look forward to including a regional tour, also in May, which will take in Gympie, the South and North Burnett regions and the Southern Downs – Warwick and Allora.
The orchestra travels in a bus specially named for them by Mt Gravatt Coach & Travel. The bus is named “Cam” in honour of the orchestra, Joyce explains.
“Touring is tiring but great fun,” says Joyce, and the orchestra plays in halls, schools and retirement homes along the way. So, if you’re on the Bruce Highway heading to Gympie in the first half of May and you see a bus named Cam, you’ll know who it is.
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