Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 4 December 2009 - The Slender Thread

Featuring:
- Brahms Song of Destiny
- Wagner The Valkyrie: Wotan's Farewell and Magic Fire Music
- Brahms Symphony No. 2

John Wegner - Bass-baritone
Melbourne Symphony Chorus - chorusmaster: Jonathan Grieves-Smith
Tadaaki Otaka - Conductor

This was yet another non-brainer concert that I picked when I subscribed to MSO earlier this year. The original program consisted of much loved Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, Schoenberg's supposedly moving A survivor from Warsaw and Brahms' 2nd symphony. However, due to Caetani's sudden departure, MSO decided to change the program as well.

Stepping in is Tadaaki Otaka, Principal Guest Conductor of MSO next year. I'm indifferent with the program change, as I love Brahms' Song of Destiny (Schicksalslied) but I'm sad not to see Schubert's Unfinished symphony on the program. I'm fine with Wagner's music, so again, I'm not entirely too concerned with the program change. I've found it a bit ironic though to see both Brahms and Wagner the only two composers in the program given their notorious relation in the past.

I'm not sure if MSO's staff read this blog, but certainly my hope for better concert is fulfilled. From the first few bars of Brahms' Schicksalslied, I have the assurance feeling that the concert will go fine. I have sung Schicksalslied earlier this year and have a fairly good knowledge about the piece. Inspired by a well-known poem by Friedrich Hoelderlin (pardon the absence of umlaut), it described two contrasting aspects of heavenly and earthly live. In the beginning of the piece, you can already feel a sense of doom or threat from the ever presence timpani stroke as the background to the heavenly melody. As a matter of fact, these timpani strokes very much reminded me of the famous obsessive timpani strokes in the 2nd movement of Brahms' Requiem - Den alles Fleisch, es ist wie gras which was written around the same time. The chorus then came in and describing the heavenly life, pictured perfectly by schmaltzy strings and woodwinds dominated music. MSO strings and chorus touched hearts here, beautiful interpretation. Trombones interrupted before the choir started singing the second stanza, perhaps signalling doom events that will come soon. No major complaints so far :).

The music makes a brief return to the opening of the piece, before it's interrupted by trombones, winds, and timpani. From there on, all hell broke loose. It is unmistakably the doomed fate. Definitely a worthy setting of the tragic third stanza from the poem, "A place to rest isn't given to us. Suffering humans decline and blindly fall from one hour to the next, like water thrown from cliff to cliff, year after year, down into the Unknown". I particularly like the setting of "Wie Wasser von Klippe Zu Klippe geworfen, Jahrlang ins Ungewisse hinab". Here, the choir sing aggressive steady rhythm against quaver note of the strings. My conductor mentioned that here Brahms is picturing the steady cliffs in the choir while the strings represented the water being thrown away from one cliff to the other. In terms of the performance, I perhaps desired more aggression from the choir at this stage, but otherwise, it was a great performance. After this violent section, the music reverts back to the opening heavenly theme and ended beautifully.

As an orchestra, MSO played well. However, from time to time, the discipline of coming in together was rather poor. I still remembered the LPO concert a few months ago where the whole orchestra really moved like one and came in at exactly the same time. In this performance, MSO players might come in half a beat early and it's really disappointing when this happened. Another thing that I noticed was there was a MSO chorister singing in a concert with a visual-disability. I commend her for her dedication to rehearse and sing in the concert (She was holding what looked like Braille annotated music). I also commend MSO chorus to have her on board although it might be difficult to accommodate such person.

Next program: the end of Wagner's Valkyrie. It opened with huge burst from the orchestra and I'm pretty sure at one point the brass played fragments of the main theme from the Ride of the Valkyries (I could be wrong or just imagining things here :) ). John Wegner as Wotan is seriously electrifying. With his intensity and gripping commanding voice, he captured the audience attention throughout the performance. His voice is capable of rising above orchestra's fortissimo. Magic fire music has this catchy tune that caught my attention. Wagner also did not allow the music to just simply slammed down to the home key without doing some tinkerings with it - I guess this is the part that influenced Mahler.

Finally, we're back to Brahms again. Often described the sunniest of all Brahms' symphonies, the 2nd symphony indeed contains plenty beautiful melodies. Tadaaki Otaka conducted from memory and gave a great performance out of it despite my nitpicking: the lack of warmth and gentleness of the main melody of the 1st movement. He also didn't take the repeat of the 1st movement to my delight (I think this movement will be too long if the repeat is taken and the momentum is lost). The 2nd movement is much better with woodwinds section executed gorgeous phrases throughout. The tempo is a bit slower than what I usually used to, but to great effect: it brings out the little melodies in the quaver notes in both strings and winds. The 3rd movement is much more interesting now as Otaka gave a very much contrasting reading of both the melodic and the playful section of this piece. The last movement started out as a straightforward reading until the coda section where the tempo is halved but Otaka did a good job in accelerating the music in the end to great effect. Full brass sections blared out the joyful nature of this symphony and the symphony ends with 4 chords not unlike the end of Brahms' 1st symphony. A good performance that was well-received by the 85% Hamer Hall capacity audience.

With this kind of performance, I can probably expect a lot from Tadaaki Otaka's performances with MSO next year. To be honest, I have doubts whether he is a worthy successor to Caetani. Although I still have some reservations, I am now more reassured that the quality of MSO playing won't drop significantly. Ganbatte Otaka-san!

This is also MSO's last concert this season. Here's hoping for a better year in 2010. Finally, I want to bid farewell to MSO retiring musicians, Anthony Smith (double bass) and especially Rudolf Osadnik (principal second violin).

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 24 August 2009 - Davis Conducts Elgar

Featuring:
- Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4
- Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
- Elgar Falstaff

Jonathan Biss - Piano
Sir Andrew Davis - Conductor

Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major has long been my favourite Beethoven piano concerto. Its introvert nature made this piece feel more intimate and personal when compared to the extrovert and extravaganza of the first movement of the Emperor concerto (Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5). Jonathan Biss presented a delightful reading of this concerto, but I withheld some reservations of his performance. The magical opening chords were not so magical, but still okay. Both the orchestra and piano in the first movement sounded a bit muffled, lacking crisp and clarity in tone. Jonathan's performance is highlighted by strong bass chords presence and plenty of body gestures, and wonderful uses of rubato. I think Jonathan offered Beethoven's cadenzas for both first and last movement, but I could be wrong. In second movement, both the pianist and orchestra seemed like clicked into gear and producing wonderful tone. I enjoyed this movement a lot except from a slight moment during the not-so-together pizzicato entry of the orchestra and the soloist when the soloist played the second wistful theme which leads directly to a mini-cadenza. The conductor picked up the tempo in the last movement, and when Jonathan started his solo part, David Berlin accompanied him with his cello. Jonathan dashed through the coda, bringing the whole piece into an exhilarating ending. Huge applause followed and after several curtain calls, Jonathan gave the 2nd movement of Mozart's sonata in C major, K. 545 'Sonata Semplice' as the encore.

As the title probably suggests, the star of the concert is not Jonathan, but the conductor Andrew Davis. He showed his capability as a world class conductor in the second piece, Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis. The 'echo' group consisting of small number of strings is placed on top of the stage, where the percussion usually is. It's hard not to compare this performance to ACO's performance 2 weeks ago. IMHO, ACO's performance is very crisp while MSO's is very airy - perhaps due to significantly larger amount of strings that MSO use in the performance. Sir Andrew's masterfully build up the layers of wonderful melodies and the climax is very satisfying. Not to be outdone by ACO's section leaders, MSO's string section leaders also provided gorgeous solos. Nice, solid performance.

After the other players come in (Vaughan William's piece is only scored for strings), Sir Andrew gave a short speech about the next piece, Elgar's Falstaff and described it as 'a piece that he loved dearly'. Unfortunately, despite what Elgar said that this piece is unlike Richard Strauss' tone poem, I still think it's very much in the same spirit. Add to that my unfamiliarity of Falstaff's story and Shakespeare in general, the result is quite obvious: I can't feel as passionate with the music as Sir Andrew. I enjoy the drunken bassoon solo, but found the piece to be incomprehensible by large. A disappointing end to an otherwise wonderful concert for me.

I'm not going to Sir Andrew's next concert which is on this weekend. This is not because I don't like his conducting style (lots of big gestures!) which I enjoyed very much; but rather my unfamiliarity of the programs: Strauss' so-called-ethereal Four Last Songs; and several Wagner's music. I'm looking forward to my next MSO concert: Beethoven's Coriolan overture, Mozart's Sinfornia concertante for violin and viola, K. 364; and unfortunately my least favourite Brahms' symphony: the 3rd.