Lunch with Umberto
A Little Lunch Music is a long-running series created by the accomplished Australian pianist Kathryn Selby in 2007.
Kathryn Selby and Umberto Clerici
Tuesday’s “Lunch with Umberto” was sadly the last in the final series. The “Umberto” in the title is Umberto Clerici, former first cellist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra from 2014 to 2021.
He accepted the position of Chief Conductor Designate of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra (QSO) and will commence as their Chief Conductor in January 2023. He was also the conductor of the QSO for the outstanding Queensland Ballet’s performances of “Manon”, reviewed recently in J-Wire.
In her introductory remarks to the near-capacity level1 audience in the Sydney Recital Hall, Kathryn Selby told of her first few Little Lunch Music performances held in the foyer of the Sydney Recital Hall. Following “people hanging from the rafters” popularity, the concert was moved into the concert hall, its home since then.
She teared up when the audience appreciated her initiative and dedication, acknowledging her variety of programmes, from international celebrities to promising young performers, including many who have joined her various ensembles. In her introduction to Umberto Clerici, she told of her long relationship with the man she now referred to as “Maestro”.
Maestro Clerici and Ms Selby started the programme with a conversation in which the audience heard of Umberto’s start with the cello in the Suzuki method at the age of five in his native Italy. His first real piece of music was the Suzuki transcription for piano and cello of the Huntsman’s chorus from Carl Maria von Weber’s “Der Freischutz”.
He and Kathy Selby played it superbly, with Umberto playing his magnificently sonorous cello, which was either his Matteo Goffriller (Venice 1722) or his Carlo Antonio Testore (Milan 1758). Next, the audience was treated to two solo cello pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach, one of which was a Sarabande, which Umberto described as being regarded as “too sexy for 18th century audiences”. Although he spent a little time locating the music in the score, he rarely looked at it while playing the pieces. His entire body and being appeared involved in invoking the magnificent sound and emotion of the music, with his eyes frequently closed and his face facing the darkened ceiling.
Ms Selby returned to her piano for their impassioned rendition of Beethoven’s fourth cello sonata, which Umberto informed the audience was composed towards the end of Beethoven’s life and when he suffered multiple ailments, most seriously his deafness. Umberto commented that most composers of works for cello tended to do so towards the ends of their lives, indicative, perhaps, of the necessity for maturity to portray the richness and complexity of the instrument.
The final offering was composed 100 years after Beethoven’s, Debussy’s only sonata for cello and piano, and his third last composition because of his rapidly declining health. Maestro Clerici executed the bizarre “whorls of sound much in the manner of a moonstruck, crazed harlequin careening about the stage.” (Robert Markow’s description). Umberto’s execution of special effects for the cello including pizzicato, glissando, bowing over the fingerboard and other unusual sounds, were exciting and novel, with Kathy’s exuberant and occasionally frantic accompaniment.
Kathryn Selby and Umberto Clerici were awarded a standing ovation after the performance and the series by a grateful audience.
