Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 18 July 2009 - White Heat

Featuring:
- Fraser Trainer for the living (Violin Concerto)
- Janacek The Fiddler's Child
- Stravinsky The Rite of Spring

Viktoria Mullova - Violin
Ilan Volkov - Conductor


This concert is one of the concerts that I'm not sure whether to subscribe or not. To be honest when I was finalising my concert choice last year, I never heard about Fraser Trainer or Viktoria Mullova, have no idea about Janacek's The Fiddler's Child and was uninformed with Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. I guess The Rite of Spring is the deciding factor after all, and I thought it's time to plunge myself into Stravinsky's ballet music.

The decision is paid off, the performance of Rite of Spring was electrifying. Anyway, let's start with Fraser Trainer's Violin Concerto with Viktoria Mullova as the soloist. It's interesting that the notes mentioned that this composition is a Concerto for AMPLIFIED Violin and Orchestra. I did notice that the 2 keyboards were amplified, but I'm not sure whether the violin is amplified or not. This piece is inspired by a poem by a British poet Lemn Sissay titled 'Advice for the living'. The unique thing about this poem is the word 'dead' is almost used in every line. I recalled 'dead straight, dead right, something dead, etc.' when Fraser who was present in the audience read aloud the poem. The last line of the poem is, IIRC, 'After all, life is not worth living, if there is nothing to die for'. For this piece, Trainer requires the orchestra to be setup in a different fashion, with the orchestra is divided into three groups, Left, Right and Center. Violin, cello, and bass sections are divided into two equal size, occupying Left and Right sections. On top of that, each section is topped up by a vibraphone, marimba, harp, and keyboard. The center sections contained all the brass and wind sections, and violas. A very unique setup which I haven't seen before.

MSO's size is enormous for the piece and there's nothing more disappointing than listening to a piece of uninspired music that requires large orchestra. This violin concerto is not the case, fortunately, and I was impressed with the rhythmicity of the piece in both outer movements (there's 3 movements in total). Main motif of this piece is a simple recurring rhythmic pattern introduced by the soloist in the beginning. As I've mentioned earlier, this piece is very rhythmic and the writing for different sections are very free. Different time signatures, plenty of offbeats which just seem not to fit the piece at all. Underneath all of these seemingly disorganised rhythms are the main motifs and important linking blocks in the music development. The soloist lines are also very free, almost like a fantasy. Also at times, it might seem to be obsessed by a small pattern. Ilan Volkov conducted MSO very well throughout this difficult and tricky piece.

It's not mentioned in the program notes, but I think I detected a Dies Irae motif in the last movement, which I think is a welcome wonderful effect. There's this moment in the finale where the violin solo which plays different lines than the rest of the violins sections unexpectedly joined by the whole sections to play the same melody, producing a great moment. Anyway, I think it's a good piece, and enjoying it live makes much more sense because you can see how the melodies or motifs are passed around in different orchestra sections. Good start to the concert.

After this piece, I half-expected Janacek's piece to be rhythmically driven, so that we have one unifying theme of the concert: rhythm (the Rite of Spring is a very very rhythmic-based piece). Unfortunately, this is not the case. I'm not gonna type up what Fiddler's Child is about because this piece is disappointing. I didn't find it interesting, although I'm grateful because the viola sections were given a rare chance to shine.

Finally, the orchestra size becomes larger in size for the performance of TROS. Imagine this: 8 horns (there's even Wagner tubas), 5 trumpets, 3 trombones, 2 tubas, 2 timpanis, a big percussion sections, and around 20 woodwind players. It was simply electrifying, from the mysterious bassoon solo to the very end. Abrupt rhythmic music following the introduction is simply amazing. On top of that, add the big sound that the orchestra made, thumping bass drums and timpani, and those brass dissonances : your hair will simply stand on end. I don't feel the need to highlight everything in this performance. Simply put, if you missed the performance, you missed witnessing something special. The performance itself is not well-attended, I'd say the hall is only half full.

Credits must be given to the conductor, for his success in pushing the players to their limits and gave a truly amazing experience. I'm looking forward to attending his Mahler 9 rehearsal and concert next week.

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.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert 28 November 2008 - The Firebird

Featuring:
- Beethoven Leonore Overture No. 2
- Debussy La mer
- Stravinsky The Firebird - complete ballet music

Oleg Caetani - Conductor

Last concert of the season for me - and it was wonderful!

For that night Town Hall series, Calvin Bowman played Bach's Kyrie, Gott heiliger Geist, BWV 671 and the organ rendition of the famous cantata Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme BWV 645, a rather short piece by John Stanley Suite in D, the fairy garden movement from Ravel's Ma mere L'oye and two pieces by Percy Whitlock Preambule and Exultemus.

The second Leonore overture is probably always been overshadowed by its more dramatic brother third overture and played much more infrequently. It's still one heck of a fine piece of music and MSO gave a wonderful reading of it. Caetani's elegant conducting was wonderful as usual. All sections of the orchestra were very fine but the performance was let down a little bit by a slightly inaccurate playing of the offstage brass. I was hugely disappointed by lukewarm applause by the audience - not even a curtain call for Caetani after such wonderful performance. Was it because this overture is not a piece that most audience is familiar with?

None of it matters since the next piece is - IMHO - Debussy's finest orchestral music La mer. It took me quite a while to like this piece when I first started listening to it. Until one day, I was lying on my bed while listening to it and the whole thing just clicked - the journey to midday from sunrise in the first movement, the playful waves in the second movement, and the stormy finale of the finale. In fact, the make or break of a La mer performance is whether the performance is able to make me feel and picture the waves come crashing down in the finale. That night's performance succeeded in making me feel that way but I have just slight reservations with the playing of the second movement. All in all, it was a very good performance. The icing on the cake is the sight of the orchestra in full force - I always love to see that.

The last piece of the night was Stravinsky's Firebird. When I first listened to it, I wasn't really impressed with the very long quiet opening, and the music sounded quite boring at times. I still have that kind of feeling when listening to it live in the performance, but this time, the marvelous ending won me over. The ending is uplifting as it can possibly be and the audience seemed to be very pleased with it. Huge applause followed and we were given an encore of another Stravinsky's piece Fireworks, a short piece showcasing orchestral virtuosity.

In summary, a very good night out and a memorable concert to end this season's concert-going experience for me.