Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 18 April 2009 - The Emperor

Featuring:
- Mendelssohn Overture: The Fair Melusina
- Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 'Emperor'
- Stravinsky Concerto for chamber orchestra 'Dumbarton Oaks'
- Beethoven Symphony No. 8

Barry Douglas - Piano
Douglas Boyd - Conductor

Let's start with one good thing: I kept my promise and arrived (too) early for the concert. I had plenty of time to read through the program notes and seeing how much audience flocked in to the hall. With the program that MSO is offering for this concert, you would have expected to see a good number of audience, right? Beethoven's Emperor Concerto is a favourite classics - voted number 1 in ABC 100 classics concerto. Beethoven's 8th symphony - although not as famous as the odd-numbered symphony can attract some crowds too. Mendelssohn's and Stravinsky's pieces, as fine as they are, are probably just there to support the two Beethoven pieces. However, contrary to my expectation, the audience number is just disappointingly low. The balcony seats are virtually empty, and only 75-80% seats of the stalls are occupied. The circle seats fared much better, 90% of them are seated. So, why the low number of audience? Maybe people are just too sick with the 'Emperor'? Maybe because it's Saturday afternoon? Maybe because of Melbourne Comedy Festival? I have no idea.

To the concert: The Fair Melusina was executed sprightly with nice attack during the fast section of the piece. The opening movement and the end which are calmer were marked with excellent woodwinds playing from the orchestra. Good solid performance. Next piece is the 'meat' of the concert: the Emperor concerto. It started out promisingly, three nice chords with piano intersecting between them. Excellent opening. The pianist continued his fine playing, with the conductor provided excellent accompaniment. Then I realised something, the pianist, wonderful as he was, was not majestic enough in his playing. The big tunes in the first movement sounds a little bit underwhelmed, but it got better during the end of the movement. Personally, I got quite tired/bored with the big tune of the Emperor concerto after a while. The whole first movement is too long - "too many notes" - if I may say. Unlike most people who voted 'Emperor' as their favourite concerto, my favourite piano concerto of Beethoven is the subdued 4th piano concerto. Anyway, the cadenza was played much better, a fitting end to the end of first movement. The second movement is the highlight of the performance for me, now that was a gorgeous singing melody from the pianist. It almost hypnotised me, it was just dead gorgeous. The spell was broken during the transition to the Rondo, which was perfectly fine apart from a couple weird tempo choices in the middle. In the end, a satisfying performance, well worth listening especially the second movement. 3 curtain calls for the pianist, but no encores :(.

After the interval, Stravinsky's bouncy Dumbarton Oaks concerto bounced back my interest. Its cute, bouncy rhythm made me grinned - not unlike Prokofiev's. It started off imitating Bach's 3rd Brandenburg concerto jumping rhythm, but them it ventures out to do something else. The second movement was highlighted by some fine flute lines. The third movement was a quick one, ending with a glimmer of brilliance. Nice fine music. I have to thank my own ventures to Prokofiev music that have given my brain some 'training' to listen to this irresistible weird rhythmic music.

A straight, no non-sense playing of Beethoven's 8th symphony closed the concert. And yes, I never failed to grin throughout the performance. I loved every single bit of Beethoven's 8th symphony. It's compact, full of musical jokes and brilliant orchestration. I liked how the conductor emphasis the marching brass rhythm in the last movement. The horns are to be praised for their fine playing in the trio of the third movement. But the surprise was me finding out that the audience actually liked the performance as much as I do. Good surprise, because I have assumptions that people only like Beethoven's 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th and 9th symphonies. Oh yeah, I sure hope the other people did not notice my facial expression during the performance of this symphony. If I have a mirror, I'm sure I looked like a lunatic with never ending grins.

Next concert: Rachmaninov's ever popular Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini - next month.