Plenty to love in Mendelssohn and Bruckner
A music review by Fraser Beath McEwing
Whether a chunky, all-embracing symphony appealed, or the preference was for a romantic, highly virtuosic violin concerto, the audience came away from this SSO concert last night well satisfied, because both were generously delivered.
Augustin Hadelich
Mendelssohn’s violin concerto in E minor, Op.64 opened the Emirates Master Series program with the immensely talented Augustin Hadelich as soloist. This was his return visit to Australia after he blew audiences away with his Brahms Violin Concerto in 2022. He is 40 years old and has performed with most of the leading orchestras throughout the world. Interestingly, he no longer plays a Stradivarius but switched to the supposedly better 1744 “Leduc / Szeryng” Guarneri del Gesu fiddle lent to him through the Tarisio Trust.
Augustin Hadelich was born in Cecina, Italy, to German parents. In 1999, he was injured in a fire on his family’s farm in Italy. After his recovery, he still managed to graduate summa cum laude from the Istituto Mascagni in Livorno, Italy, and successfully auditioned for admission to The Juilliard School where he studied with Joel Smirnoff. After graduating from there, he continued to make his home in New York and became an American citizen in 2014.
On to the music. Like many leading composers, including Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Sibelius and Elgar, Mendelssohn wrote only one violin concerto. It took six years to complete and premiered in 1845 with Mendelssohn’s friend Ferdinand David as soloist.
Hadelich’s reading last night succeeded in making the violin weep (along with a few audience members), such was the romantic interpretation he gave to the Mendelssohn, especially in the slow movement. But this was sometimes at the cost of volume and projection. And he took the third movement along at bullet speed – the fashionable way to play it these days – when I wanted to savour tone and subtlety a little more. But that’s a personal preference. Suffice to say this was a masterful, intimate take on the Mendelssohn and it wins out over most competing performances that I’ve heard.
His encore, which seemed virtually unknown to the audience, sounded like an American hoedown on steroids. It was fun, and staggeringly difficult, but I shall have to wait for a knowledgeable reader to tell us what it was.
The concert’s 80-minute blockbuster was Bruckner’s eighth symphony—the last he completed—but it had an earlier half-brother, which Bruckner re-wrote after trusted opinion mauled it. Even though the 1890 version irons out many of the perceived kinks, conductor Simone Young (she is far from alone) prefers the more spontaneous 1887 version, underlined by adding it to her briefcase for performances on an upcoming world tour.
Whether or not you feel an affinity for Bruckner’s Eighth doesn’t stop it from being unavoidably engaging. It demands listening, never exhausting a musical idea before moving on to the next.
Following the musical edicts of the time, it comes in four movements: Allegro Moderato, Scherzo Allegro, Adagio and Finale. There is plenty of horsepower on tap, and Bruckner makes use of all of it in an astonishing range of musical colours. The score calls for three flutes, three oboes, three clarinets, three bassoons, eight horns (which encompass four Wagner tubas), three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, cymbals, three harps, and strings. Bull fiddle count maxes out at eight. One of the beauties of this symphony that Bruckner often tames the beast into near silence.
The first movement began with mixed murmurs before it got into its workload of hills and dales of deep, expanded sound, largely brought about by the extent of the work’s orchestration. Simone Young and the SSO dealt confidently with the continuing challenges of keeping it all under control, with one exception early in the first movement when my ageing ears told me one top note was out by a semitone.
Apart from being too long, the symphony often falls into the pattern of promising material having nowhere to go. The first movement demonstrates this. Unlike most of his contemporaries, Bruckner sometimes forgot that every ship needs a mast or, in musical terms, a theme to which the score returns several times.
The second movement was a different kettle of fish. Strongly reminiscent of the music composed for The Game of Thrones, it had a throbbing rhythm that carried the narrative all the way through.
The giant third movement adagio is supposedly the highlight of the symphony, with its Wagnerian influence. But again, it suffered from tying to gild the lily when there was no lily to gild.
The fourth and finale movement was full of drama but never really told a story, despite having all the ingredients.
I take my hat off to Simone Young (who walked off the stage looking pretty spent) and her players for their stamina and sensitive realisation of a challenging work. They provided a treat for lovers of Bruckner even though I’m not among them.
Fraser Beath McEwing is an accomplished pianist and commentator on classical music performance and is a founding member of The theme & Variations Foundation Advisory Board which provides assistance to talented young Australian pianists. His professional background is in journalism, editing and publishing. He is also the author of three novels.He is a Governor of the Sir Moses Montefiore Home.
SSO Sydney Opera House concert 7 August 2024
