Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 8 March 2008 - John Williams in Concert

Featuring:
- Olivier Messiaen Hymne
- Toru Takemitsu To the Edge of Dream
- Peter Sculthorpe Nourlangie
- Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 1 in D major

John Williams - Guitarist
Oleg Caetani - Conductor

The first 'official' concert of the season by MSO. This was one of the very first concert that I wanted to subscribe to. The reason was not the chance to see John Williams, but it was for the Mahler 1. I wanted to experience the blazing finale of Mahler's first symphony live. Not from the recordings. It also marked more than one year since I first discovered Mahler's music and his first symphony is the very first complete symphony that I listened to in full. The live Mahler was amazing, more about that later. Let's start from the first half of the concert.

The concert started with a piece by French composer, Olivier Messiaen - whose "Quartet for The End of Time" will I attend later this year. The piece is titled 'Hymne'. The piece is certainly more modern, not your average full of melody Romantic music, and there are some interesting passages in the music. However, at times, I could not catch up with the sudden change of mood and themes. This is a kind of piece that I believe need repeated listening to be appreciated better.

The second piece of the program is the one that I'm having trouble with. Takemitsu's work - noted as complex in harmony by John Williams himself and also the writer of the program notes - is a little too complex for me to enjoy. I have no other impression from this piece and for the whole time when the orchestra played the piece, I only paid attention to how John Williams played the guitar. I discovered some techniques on how to play a guitar (note that I have no idea on how to play guitar). His technique is amazing and every note is crystal clear.

The third piece pleased me the most out of the first half of the concert. Nourlangie is a depiction of Sculthorpe's feelings about Australia Kakadu National Park. It is an amazing piece of work and I loved it. The piece began slowly but yet it created a sense of being in a wide space and the solo guitar suddenly played a very nice melody - I guess it must be the folk song of Torres Strait islander. And then you heard some birds sound from the strings. A very nice effect and again it created the illusion that you are really outdoors. Then after a while, the percussion player joined the fun and played duet with Williams. The music got faster and faster just as what you expected from a movement marked "Poco Estatico". After that, the melody that we first heard from the solo guitar is now taken up by the violins and what fine melody it is!

When the piece ended, both Caetani and Williams gestured to someone in the audience, and guess who, Peter Sculthorpe in the audience. Knowing that the composer is there, the applause got louder and the composer himself looked very touched with the reception that he got.

Now for the Mahler himself, it was really really good. I thought Kubelik's recording of it is really good already, but this concert just reminded me that the best music is indeed live music. All of the sound produced by the orchestra is just superb with the woodwinds not over-powered by the brass. I am just amazed how beautiful the delicate woodwinds passages that I have not noticed before in the recording. The tempo itself is just right to my enjoyment and Caetani - conducting without the score - emphasised the contrast of the dynamics perfectly. Mahler's melody in the first movement is so infectious that I almost sang the lyric from "Ging heut morgen ubers Feld". The second movement was also well done, I enjoyed the Trio of this movement very much. The double bass solo that opened the funeral march of the third movement was also marvelous. Furthermore, because of this concert, I can further my enjoyment listening to this movement by paying more attention to the timpani strikes and the funeral march theme played by the woodwinds. The finale itself started out very loud - the loudest that music has been played in my concert experience - and played amazingly by the orchestra throughout. I especially treasured the lyric passages between the stormy opening of this movement and the second coda of the movement (when the trombone first announced the triumphant march of the very end of the symphony). The very end of the symphony was just unbelievable. What a feast of sound! When you listen to the triumphant march, you can almost believe that you overcome every problems that you will face. The audience roared right after the very last note was played. A very memorable experience that I will treasure for long time to come.

Next concert will be in 3 weeks time: the mighty Verdi's requiem. I need to start getting a recording of it now.