Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 17 October 2008 - Mozart's Requiem

Featuring:
- Mozart Symphony No. 41 'Jupiter'
- Mozart Requiem

Jacqueline Porter - Soprano
Sally-Anne Russell - Mezzo-soprano
James Egglestone - Tenor
Richard Alexander - Bass
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus: Jonathan Grieves-Smith - Chorus Master
Benjamin Northey - Conductor

As usual with Town Hall concert, there is an organ recital performed by Calvin Bowman. For this recital, he played Scarlatti Sonata in G; Mozart's subdued Adagio K. 356 showing that organ can be played in a tamely manner; Suites from Henry V by Walton (arr. Robert Gower/Henry Ley) which is rather nice with the outer marching movements sandwiching the more restraint middle movements. The third movement Touch her soft lips and part probably is my favourite moment in the recital. The final piece is a composition by Bowman himself Vexilla Regis which structurally similar to Walton's piece, with the theme in the first movement coming back in the last movement (if I remember correctly).

So, now on to the one of this year's most awaited concert. The hall is fully packed but not all the seats were occupied, contrary to the 'Sold Out' claim in MSO website. The concert started out with the energetic first movement of the Jupiter. Some nice playing in the brass as well, bringing out musical lines that I never really paid attention to before. I won't critique anything on this composition of Mozart - this symphony is just perfect and I always think that this is the crown achievement of all Mozart's symphonies. The second movement was full of nostalgia, although the movement could be carried out a little bit slower to bring out all the musical ideas there. The third movement was very fine, but I was anticipating for the finale the whole time in the performance. The finale of this symphony is my absolute favourite Mozart symphony movement. That five-voices fugue in the end of this movement is a very good representative of Mozart's composition power. The performance itself was very fine. The tempo was brisk, showcasing the virtuosity of the orchestra. I almost lost my self control and joined the conductor in conducting the orchestra I should say :). The audience only called for two curtain calls, which is somewhat disappointing after a very fine performance, but they might be saving their applause for the next giant, the Requiem, K. 626

A more than 100-members of MSO chorus joined the orchestra to perform the Requiem. An interesting note is that there is no clear separation in the seating of the four voices of the chorus. The seating was mixed with men seating flanked by two women. I wondered what was the reason for this. On the performance itself, the Introit was good and the soprano soared in 'Te Decet'. The chorus joined back soon after and set the tone for the next section - the 'Kyrie'. The 'Kyrie' was taken quite fast, but not too much. I preferred this approach very much compared to slower tempo that some conductors took. One small minor complaint about the chorus: the tenor voices seemed to be very weak compared to the other. I finally found out why when I looked through the program notes after the performance: the tenor has only half the number of the bass. Also, after 'Kyrie', I noticed that there is no organ accompaniment for this performance, which is a little bit disappointing. The 'Dies Irae' was scary as usual, all four of the soloists delivered magnificent performance in the 'Tuba Mirum' sequence. Credit also to the trombone soloist for fine accompaniment. 'Rex Tremendae' opened up with great cries from the chorus but soon subdued in the contrasting 'Salva Me'. The 'Recordare' again featured fine performances from all of the soloists. 'Confutatis' was furious, but lacking in tenor voices, it lost some power of the duet of tenor and bass voices in the opening of this movement. The female voices were angelic in the contrasting 'voca me cum benedictis'. 'Lacrimosa' was probably the pick of the night, although the conductor did not leave enough time for me to take a moment of reflection on it by starting 'Domine Jesu' a bit sooner. The rest of the movements were again very fine. And in the end, the Kyrie fugue but now set with different texts overwhelmed me. Loud applause followed.

To sum up, a very memorable night featuring plenty of fine performances. The conductor obviously has great talent and look forward to seeing him conduct MSO again.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 4 October 2008 - Handel's Water Music

Featuring:
- Solomon: The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba
- Julius Caesar: 'Va tacito e nascosto' and 'Dall'ondosa periglio...Aure, deh, per pieta'
- Alcina: Suite
- Rodelinda: 'Vivi, tiranno'
- Water Music (all suites)

All music by Handel.

Bernard Labadie - Conductor
David Hansen - Counter-Tenor

This is an overdue review of this concert. I have been very busy for the whole past month, doing research, writing paper to a conference, and doing assignments and therefore, my experience on this concert has been faded somewhat.

There are three things that I remembered fondly about this concert: First, the sound of MSO, second: the Theorbo; and finally, the voice of the counter-tenor David Hansen. MSO's sound was tweaked somewhat for this performance; it resembled very much the sound of a period-instruments chamber orchestra. The Theorbo is a very unique instrument - rather large in size, but produced very soft sound. I'll discuss the counter-tenor a little bit later.

The concert started with the bouncy The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba. The performance while good, was not that exciting either. The pair of oboes seemed to struggle somewhat. Next up is two arias from Julius Caesar. While I was left untouched by both arias, counter-tenor David Hansen delivered the surprise of the night for me. I was startled when he started singing, and never expected that a male can produce that kind of voice. His voice while refined, did not have enough volume to carry through for the entire hall, I believed. He did much better in the Rodelinda aria, showcasing his techniques and impressing the audiences with fiendishly difficult passages.

The Alcina suite was performed in between the performances of arias of Julius Caesar and Rodelinda. This was the best performance of the concert that night. The performance of Water Music, which is supposed to be the highlight of the night, ended up being average. The seemingly endless number of movements in all suites of Water Music ended up just a little bit too much for all audience to take (there are in total 17 movements - 8 for Suite 1; 4 for Suite 3, 5 for Suite 2 performed in that order). I noticed an old lady sitting beside me fell asleep somewhere in the middle of first suite. Fortunately, she woke up at the correct moment, in the Hornpipe movement of the second suite. That movement and also the Bourree from the same suites are probably the best performances of the entire suite.

Next concert: this Friday, Mozart's Requiem and Jupiter Symphony. Can't wait.