Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 19 July 2008 - Toward the Light

Featuring:
- Richard Strauss Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks
- Saint-Saens Piano Concerto No. 2
- Carl Nielsen Symphony No. 5

Simon Trpceski - Piano
Thomas Dausgaard - Conductor

I'll be frank and just admit I subscribe to this concert because of Saint-Saens piano concerto. I wasn't familiar with the 2 other pieces when I made my decision to subscribe to this concert. It's a bit of gamble since I had bad experience with Richard Strauss music played by MSO. The last season concert of his 'Sinfonia Domestica' bored me - one of the concert that I just wished it ended as fast as it could. With Nielsen, I read someone saying in Amazon classical music board that he 'spoke as much as Mahler did with his symphonies but in half the time'. In other thread of the same forum when posters were asked to vote for the best symphony ever written, there are surprisingly a number of votes for his fifth symphony despite strong (and popular) competitors from say Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Bruckner, Brahms, Mahler, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn and Dvorak symphonies. I'm curious to see what the fuss is all about.

To prepare myself for the concert, I listened to Till Eulenspiegel and Nielsen's fifth symphony 2 days before the concert. I actually fell in love with Till in the first listening! A character of quick wits and plenty of tricks, he was portrayed excellently by Strauss - the opening horn solo depicting Till is just delicious. The music is also delightful with plenty of tongue-in-cheek passages throughout. I especially love the market scene where you can just listen to the havoc of the market from the music. And how about the whistling tune that is played after Till fooled the scholars? Fantastic. This piece and Also Sprach Zarathustra - which I spend one full evening on listening and listening to it again - now made me look at Strauss' music in a more positive way.

Nielsen's fifth symphony is a very modern symphony. One just needs to listen to the opening movement and will be taken aback on how modern it sounds. Despite being modern, it never reached to the atonality of Schoenberg. The symphony projects the impression of victory through struggle. It has a number of powerful moment and the best known moment in the whole symphony is when the snare drum 'fights' against the rest of the orchestra in the second part of the first movement. I was not entirely convinced with the second movement when I first heard it, but second listening should give me a better insight.

Now to the concert. The orchestra played Till very well. Individual solos were wonderful. However, in the end I felt the performance lacked in drama compared to the performance of Furtwangler or Karajan. Till's death scene may serve as an example to this. It wasn't as dramatic as it could be. In a sense it's too bad since the scene where Till was captured and whistling desperately was very good portrayed.
Despite all of this, it's still a very good performance.

You won't believe how the Saint-Saens piano concerto was played. Such virtuosity, showmanship and clarity playing. Simon Trpceski is one of the pianist to keep your eye on the next time he gives the concert. He was thoroughly impressive in the concerto, and very much comparable to Stephan Hough's performance of the fifth piano concerto with MSO last season. The performance started off with a bang, the long piano line was given such power that might surprise unprepared listeners. The technically difficult long cadenzas were nothing for the pianist, he played it off easily and such clarity in the playing. The playing was never muffled even in the stormiest passages. The orchestra accompanied wonderfully throughout. After the first movement, the pianist - would you believe it! - took some time to adjust his tie bow. He then proceeded and gave a most exciting Scherzo. In some points of the performance, he even moved his body as if he was dancing to the tune. This scherzo remained a crowd pleasing movement, several of the audience clapped after this movement. I don't blame them, the playing was just delicious. The finale started off in a similar fashion with the first movement - with lightning speed attack to the stormy opening. My heart started racing from the beginning of the second movement and it didn't stop until the last note of the finale. That showed how intense and exciting Simon Trpceski playing was. He gave two encores, the first one was very poetic - I regret not listening closely to him when he mentioned it before he played. The second encore was a composition by his fellow Macedonian composer. Both pieces were wonderful.

Nielsen's fifth symphony was next. A very good or rather, excellent first movement. The battle scene between the snare drum against the rest of the orchestra was so powerful and when the 'noble' theme came out victorious, I was emotionally overwhelmed. I again have a little bit of problem understanding the second movement, although the fugues (there are two fugues in the second movement) were now a bit clearer to me. The conductor is to be applauded for his energetic conducting and the powerful sound he extracted out from the orchestra.

Last note that I want to make about the concert is the number of attendance. Poor MSO, this concert was the less-attended concert that I've been to so far this season. Almost half the stall seats were empty! The circle seats were much better, it was 75% full. The balcony fared the worst, from a quick glance, I can tell that 80% of the seats were empty. This situation really saddens me and I can only think of one reason on the low number of attendance: this is the third performance out of 3 of the program.

Next concert: my highlight of this MSO season: Tchaikovsky's violin concerto and Brahms' first symphony on 2 August. Two of my favourite works. Can't wait till the day comes!