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.