[Music – Classical, SA, Adelaide Fringe Premiere]

Hounds and Grounds at Carclew – Wed 22 Feb, 2024

Adelaide based composer Mitchell Bartel summarises a decade of both life and music in his supremely touching Pictures in Time. A portrait of progression in both artistry and character, Bartel’s 10 piece suite of original piano compositions sparkles with delicate harmony and an agreeable smorgasbord of tonal variety. As the performance moves through works both “serious and silly”, in the composer’s own words, a picture emerges of an artist whose talent and virtuosity is only matched by his generosity of spirit and admirable lack of pretension.

Several pieces purely on their own merits are genuinely stunning – opener “For Jess”, written for Bartel’s wife, is a delicate and entrancing work that moves with an ethereal grace, while the penultimate “Rambunction Junction” is a skilful and ultimately awe-inspiring harnessing of total musical chaos. “Le Vol de Parreseux” pays homage to Bartel’s compositional heroes Debussy and Ravel, while “Brain Storm” traverses a mind in a state of at once painful and ecstatic flux.

Like any good show though Pictures in Time is most moving as a whole work, a testament to a life lived in the spirit of a passionate commitment to creativity. Bartel’s sweet introductions to his pieces throughout the show portray a man of great sensitivity and unconquerable passion for his art, and it is this quality most of all that makes this performance an incredibly endearing and inspiring experience.