Visiting Australia for only the fourth time in their 120-year history, the London Symphony Orchestra made a triumphant return to Melbourne on Friday night under the baton of its internationally revered Music Director Sir Simon Rattle, who in 2023 is leading his final season as LSO Music Director before taking up his new role as Chief Conductor with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks in Munich.
The LSO last visited this city in 2014, then led by the Russian conductor Valery Gergiev, who delivered an all-Russian program. In its first major international tour since the end of the pandemic, the orchestra, now under the baton of Rattle, chose Melbourne to host the finale for this year’s three-city Australian tour, having appeared in both Brisbane and Sydney in recent days. Featuring an eye watering entourage of 114 musicians, this is the largest orchestra the LSO has ever brought to Australia, and they did not disappoint, delivering a refined and virtuosic performance that emphatically demonstrated why the LSO is regarded as one of the world’s great orchestras.
In a nod to the host nation and the indigenous peoples of the Eastern Kulin Nations, the orchestra was joined by Yorta Yorta/Yuin soprano and composer Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO for a full-scale rendition of the now familiar Long Time Living Here, the musical Acknowledgement of Country commissioned by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in 2019. Whilst we have heard this piece presented in various guises over the years, it was a welcome treat to hear it performed by such a large orchestra and conducted by Rattle himself, rather than a delegated assistant, and the performance was given even more significance with the various indigenous languages suitably spoken and sung with authority by the composer, who used a microphone to ensure her words could be clearly heard over the large ensemble.
In an interview given just the night before this concert, Rattle spoke of his close association and friendship with the pioneering American minimalist-inspired composer John Adams (born 1947). It is therefore hardly surprising that Rattle would choose to begin the main program with Adams’ 1985 masterpiece Harmonielehre, named after the great “Harmony Lesson” written by the twentieth century composer and musical theorist Arnold Schoenberg in 1911. Arguably one of the most significant and sophisticated symphonic works of the late 20th century, Adams’ Harmonielehre blends the harmonic minimalism of Adams’ own sound world with a surprisingly expressive lyricism drawn from the high Romanticism of the late 19th and early 20th century that we recognise in the music of Wagner, Mahler and Strauss, rather than in Schoenberg’s atonality. It is a work requiring enormous musical forces, and in Rattle’s own words “is the kind of work that is normally too big for orchestras to tour”.
Perhaps Rattle’s own background as a percussionist may have influenced his attraction to the work. It is renowned for requiring a monstrous percussion section featuring multiple marimbas, tubular bells, triangle, glockenspiel, xylophone, crotales, cymbals, tam tams, vibraphones, and chimes. Beginning with a series of brutal repetitions of an unchanging E minor chord that start the piece like a musical battering ram, the opening of Harmonielehre was inspired by a dream Adams had of a huge tanker in San Francisco Bay. Watching this sea-borne giant, Adams dreamt that it suddenly took off “like a rocket ship with an enormous force of levitation”. From that dream, Adams conceived the opening of the piece, which explodes like a symphonic “rocket’” and is then propelled forward with a musical momentum using a series of complex rhythmic variations and devices now associated with minimalism and much more familiar to audiences today than they were nearly 40 years ago.
Despite the large string section, which included 16 first violins, there seemed (from my excellent seat in the front row of the Dress Circle), to be a lack of penetration from the strings in the initial onslaught of the brass and percussion-heavy chords that begin this work. However, I suspect this was more due to Hamer Hall’s infamously uneven acoustics rather than the quality or strength of the playing, and for the vast majority of the program the LSO coped well with the hall’s challenges. On the upside, one of the advantages of this hall is the extra warmth and resonance at the back of the stage, and this enabled us to hear every note played by the enlarged percussion ensemble – a vast array of instruments that filled the back half of the stage – from the smallest triangle to the softest vibraphone.
From the outset, the LSO demonstrated a clarity and impressive tone and intonation from the extended woodwind and brass sections that was second-to none. An immediate highlight was the impeccable blend of the flutes, piccolo(s), and trumpets (and the technical brilliance of the marimba solos) early on in the opening movement, which all blended into each other seamlessly. The constant surety and fine timbre of the horn solos, and the glorious tone of the upper strings (particularly in the highest registers) were to become other hallmarks of the evening’s performance.
Indeed, the sheer technical virtuosity of the entire orchestra was on display from the very first bars. From the impossibly in-tune playing of the high passages for piccolo and celeste, to the controlled double-tonguing of the brass, and the razor sharp and complex rhythmic variations of Adams’ score, the LSO were en pointe.
Watching Jane Atkins lead the violas in this piece was totally engrossing. Every bow of Atkins’ was executed with the energy and athleticism of a player completely possessed by, and devoted to, the music – as if their life depended on every note. The impressive unanimity of bowing from the strings in such a rhythmic piece contributed to an entirely impressive and homogenous sound throughout.
In Sir Simon Rattle, the orchestra was clearly in the hands of a master. Rattle’s incisive yet welcoming gestures in the more restrained, angst-ridden second movement The Anfortas Wound provided the space for individual players and sections to shape their parts, whilst he was constantly alert to the need for musical balance and emotional pacing. Adams references the bleak opening of Sibelius’s 4th Symphony at the start of the movement, and its climax is a rewriting of the terrifying chord that howls in pain in the Adagio of Mahler’s 10th Symphony. The softer passages enabled the cellos to shine, the nine players of the section producing a lovely warm, well-blended sound which was never harsh, and this contrasted nicely with the vibrato-intense sound of the violins’ lower register, and the sweet tone of the principal oboe and trumpet solos, which at times blended so well that it was actually hard to tell them apart.
Based upon a desolate soundscape, this movement grew in both volume and intensity towards a near apocalyptic zenith, before a haunting and sparse conclusion provided the listener with some of the most spine-tingling pianissimo playing one is ever likely to hear from an orchestra of this size.
The third movement finale, Meister Eckhardt and Quackie is announced through glimmering combinations of bowed chimes and cymbals, piano, harp, celeste and mallet percussion, accompanied by piercing and ethereal harmonic notes from the violins. The brilliance of the extended woodwind section here was another highlight. Four piccolos playing as one voice, and the section constantly transitioning between piccolo and flute so seamlessly that the changeovers were barely ever noticeable, were simply outstanding. Such was the superb tone and intonation of the entire woodwind section.
Adams’ Harmonielehre is an essay in polyrhythmic variations very much born of the minimalist school, combined with one of the most complex studies of orchestral tonality and colour ever composed. As each section of the orchestra is put to the test, first in relative isolation and then in brilliant and thrilling combinations, the music accumulates both in momentum and power as an epic “battle” between the work’s two opposing keys of D and E minor progresses. As the listener was projected forward towards the triumphant cries of the LSO’s famous horn section, it was easy to forget that there were some 100 players all playing their own patterns and that two different keys were still simultaneously fighting for ascendancy. Here Rattle unleashed his most commanding gestures, fully engaged with every section until the sheer weight of the lower brass and the aggressive and incessant timpani blows and screams from the trumpets dominated the battle until we reached a thrilling and almost ecstatic E flat chord that concludes the work. This was exhilarating music that sent the capacity audience out into the foyers with palpitations.
Debussy’s great tone poem La Mer provides a tapestry of ever-changing orchestral colours, and demands some important cameos from various principal players throughout the “three symphonic sketches” that make up the work. In De l’aube à midi sur la mer (From Dawn to Noon on the Sea) LSO Guest Leader José Blumenschein performed clear and elegant violin solos, which, despite the Hamer Hall acoustic and the enlarged orchestra, effortlessly soared over the turbulent orchestral colours being created below.
If the Adams demonstrated complexity of rhythm and orchestral timbres, Debussy’s music is equally impressive as a showcase for controlled dynamics and expressive playing. In Sir Simon Rattle the LSO enjoys the leadership of an incredibly self-assured and clear conductor who also knows when to trust his players and let the music just happen. Ironically, Rattle demonstrated a more minimalist approach to his gestures when conducting Debussy’s lush score than for much of the Adams. Conducting without a score, Rattle showed a complete understanding of the music and obviously took great delight in leading this magnificent ensemble throughout the many moods of this impressionistic masterpiece, with an impressive control of rubato and an ability to engineer a magnificent array of sudden changes of mood, intensity, and dynamic expression that is such a feature of this work. At once, Debussy’s score can be tempestuous, beguiling, surprising, hypnotising and unpredictable – just like the sea itself.
This was a masterclass in refined orchestral performance. The serene pianissimo sound produced by this orchestra was perfectly suited to showcasing the delicate and intricate impressionistic writing of this composer.
Completing the main program was the second Suite from Ravel’s ballet Daphnis et Chloé, taken from an erotic second century Greek pastoral. Again conducting without a score, Rattle led the LSO through one of orchestral music’s most luscious sonic adventures, with the sounds of murmuring water, bird song, the rising sun, and the chattering of nature all depicted by Ravel in one of the most beautiful nature painting introductions in all of western music. This music once again highlighted the homogenous sound of the LSO’s upper strings and José Blumenschein, who played with a security of pitch and glorious tone in the higher reaches. The uniform consistency of the woodwinds was sublime, with sensual and exquisitely controlled playing by principal flute Gareth Davies in a series of demanding solos requiring superb dynamic control and glorious tone, both demonstrated here in spades. This was utterly mesmerising stuff! You could’ve heard a butterfly breathe such was the spell of the LSO on this Melbourne audience.
Scintillating bursts of orchestral energy and power in the final Danse générale brought this great work to a powerful end, with Rattle throwing himself into the music with the gusto of a 20 year old, and Melbourne’s usually conservative audience was quick to offer a rare (and noisy) standing ovation to the visiting performers. It was not surprising that Sir Simon chose to walk amongst his players at the end of this performance and pay special homage to his hard-working and utterly brilliant flute section. Quite right too!
In a generous gesture, Rattle then delivered two encores. Firstly, in a nod to English music, we heard from Frederick Delius in the form of the lush Intermezzo from the opera Fennimore and Gerda, which provided a seamless transition from the music of Debussy and Ravel. It was a perfect vehicle to once again display the control of the LSO winds and the warmth of the LSO string section, and featured the language and effortless oboe solos of Olivier Stankiewicz. The work was one long, expressive, loving sigh from the orchestra.
In a rousing finale we heard the difficult ‘Fugue’ movement from Britten’s famous Young Persons’ Guide to the Orchestra. Rattle set a cracking pace, giving every single member and section of the orchestra a chance to once again demonstrate their technical virtuosity and finally show off the majestic LSO brass, who provided a final regal salute in the form of Purcell’s noble theme, and a most fitting finale to this memorable concert.
In their final concert of this Australian tour, the LSO and Sir Simon Rattle perform Mahler’s 7th Symphony on Saturday 6yh May at Hamer Hall.
Photo credit: Laura Manariti
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Andrew Wailes reviewed “London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle: Adams, Debussy and Ravel”, performed at Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall, on May 5, 2023.
