Music that imposed itself: a music review by Fraser Beath McEwing
Turley’s Mirage, Elgar’s cello concerto and Shostakovich’s 10th symphony provided a rich blend of styles at the Opera House last night.
Donald Runnicles
This was music that would pursue you if you tried to ignore it. And after a covid delay, conductor Sir Donald Runnicles was able to resume his role as principal guest conductor of the SSO. The mix produced a memorable concert – and drew a full house.
The curtain raiser was another of the 50 Fanfares Commission series, this time featuring the work of Alex Turley, a young Sydney Con-trained composer who has already made his mark with compositions that have won him awards, along with performances by a number of prominent orchestras and ensembles. His Mirage is a piece for brass ensemble designed to be spread out across the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall. Of Turley’s talent there was no doubt, but would this avant-garde instrument spacing work?
I was prepared to report that the five minutes of ensemble brass, with the musicians placed in a wide semicircle at the top of various sections of seats, was little more than a gimmick dreamed up by a young composer desperate to be different. Well, different it was, but this was no gimmick. The SSO brass section took on a life of its own as it wound through complex harmonies, often unworldly, but always astoundingly clear. I wanted more, but for what I did get, I take my hat off to Alex Turley.
While there are relatively few cello concertos on offer, there is no doubt that Edward Elgar’s sits at the top of the popularity stakes. The tragic unfolding of the love affair, marriage and divorce of Jacqueline Du Pre and Daniel Barenboim has become the ghost of this concerto. Written around 1918, it was Elgar’s last major work but, like some other famous premiers, got away to a shaky start because of under rehearsal. By 1922, and under the baton of Leopold Stokowski with Jean Gerardy as soloist, it was finally ready for the road – although early critics didn’t love it on first hearing. That’s all changed, and last night we heard a highly anticipated rendition of it by German-French cellist, Nicholas Altstaedt.
Altstaedt comes to Australia with a blossoming reputation as one of the world’s leading cellists. He was born in 1982 in Heidelberg, Germany – and playing cello is only one of his musical achievements. He is also a conductor and artistic director with a dizzying list of appearances and appointments to his name. His repertoire spans early music to contemporary.
I suppose I see the Du Pre interpretation as a benchmark, because I yearned for the opening bars to be overflowing with a passion that would continue. Altstaedt delivered a measured and professional example – which typified his reading of the whole work. That said, the lady sitting next to me commented that she was sick of the too-emotional performances of this work that had become the norm. What was not up for debate was Altstadt’s rich tone and his peerless technique, although, for me, his cello didn’t project into the concert hall the way I’d hoped – especially now that we had the overhead puce petals in place.
Fraser Beath McEwing
The after-interval major work was Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93, by Dmitri Shostakovich. One musicologist described it as ‘48 minutes of tragedy, despair, terror, and violence and two minutes of triumph.’ It was finished in 1953, almost as a nail in Stalin’s coffin after his death the previous year. Shostakovich had not only witnessed Stalin’s horrific cruelty to his own people but had suffered artistically under the repression of the regime. He spent years fearing he would be arrested for stepping over the capricious compositional rules set down by Stalin’s henchmen. The 10th symphony (Shostakovich wrote a total of 15) recalls the Stalin years rather than looking forward at artistic freedom.
At a time when most contemporary composers had forsaken the four-movement symphony, Shostakovich persevered with it, even down to sonata form – although it is buried in dark harmonies and dramatic outbursts. Shostakovich’s tenth is ranked among his finest – and most mysterious.
Led by Runnicles’ podium-bound leaping and waltzing, the SSO produced an outstanding performance, from murmurs deep in the strings (eight bull fiddles) up to explosions of sound that might have been made by a team of crazy blacksmiths.
It was obvious that a powerful collaboration of conductor and orchestra was in play to bring off what I found to be one of the most stirring performances I’d heard from the SSO. And for people who liked a cosmic climax, this was one of the petal-rattling best.
Fraser Beath McEwing is a pianist, commentator on classical music performance and is a founding member of The theme & Variations Foundation which assists talented young Australian pianists. His professional background is in journalism, editing and publishing. He is also the author of five novels and a Governor of the Sir Moses Montefiore Home. A body of his work can be found on www.frasersblography.com
