Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 2 August 2008 - Passionate Panorama

Featuring:
- Delius Brigg Fair - An English Rhapsody
- Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto
- Brahms Symphony No. 1

James Ehnes - Violin
Christopher Seaman - Conductor

This is undoubtedly the concert that I've been excitedly waiting the most and the first concert that I decided to really go for when the subscription offer arrived at my mailbox. Tchaikovsky's violin concerto is my favourite violin concerto per se and my very first introduction to classical music. I still remembered waking up every morning to listen to the finale of this piece. Brahms' first symphony is a very special symphony that means a lot to me. I don't play this symphony very often in my computer since I always reserved it for a special occasion. I only play this symphony when I am doubting my own ability, when I think I've reached my limit in doing something or just pure self-doubts. By listening to this symphony, I put myself into Brahms' shoes when he wrote this symphony. He wanted to write something that is deemed worthy of comparison to Beethoven's ninth. He struggled a lot during the writing of the symphony and reportedly took 15 years before completing it. Talk about struggle! With this symphony completed, he overcame his own self doubt, he stretched his own limit as a composer and overcame his own fear as a human to allow his work to be compared to Beethoven's masterpiece. This alone is enough to give me motivation and I would always be lifted up, be able to face my problems straight in the face and most importantly I would start believe again in myself.

Now to the concert. The Delius piece is an impressionist piece which doesn't make a very big impression to me. It's nice and all, but in the end it's not satisfying. The orchestra played well and there are some interesting parts in this folk-song inspired rhapsody. As other Delius piece that I've listened before - it's a pleasant piece but quite forgettable, more so in this concert because the two works that followed are warhorses of classical music.

Next was the Tchaikovsky's violin concerto. The first thing that I noticed when the soloist, James Ehnes, played the very first few notes was that his playing is very gentle and sweet if compared to the Vadim Repin's recording with Gergiev. But boy he can play! I can certainly see why he is touted as one of the leading violinists now. The scary double stops and those technical challenges were nothing to him. His playing of the cadenza of the first movement showed this. The phrasing was well done the accelerando was wonderful and those triplets at the end of the cadenza was just perfect. The orchestra accompanied him very well throughout. Huge applause from the audience after the end of the first movement.

The second movement was poignant, restraint with the soloist accompanied very well by the woodwinds. In the finale, the soloist calmly removed some of the broken bow hair from his bow when he's not playing. I wondered how he could stay so calm and took his time to remove the bow hair. When the coda entered, the orchestra and the soloist puts their feet down the pedal and concluded the coda in such fast tempo. Huge applause from the audience and we were treated with the Preludio of Bach's third partita as an encore. I was quite lucky to get to talk to him in the foyer in the interval and got his autograph. He was very kind and I asked him if he's going to come again to Melbourne next year. He said he's not scheduled to come next year, but maybe the year after.

The last piece of the concert is the Brahms. The opening movement is taken at a faster tempo than those recordings of whom I am familiar with. With this taken, some of the majestic and struggle feeling of the opening was lost. None of this matters since the performance was so fine throughout. The violin solo in the second movement was lovely and the finale was so fine and hair-raising I wish it never ended. Loud applause followed after the final chord of the symphony.

To conclude: a very memorable night, probably one of the best concerts that I've attended to. The concert hall was almost full, I'd say filled at 97-98% capacity. Hope every MSO concert can be as brilliant as this concert.