When the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra planned a very beautiful program of popular orchestral music by Britten, Elgar and Vaughan Williams for the series of concerts in Melbourne Town Hall, Robert Blackwood Hall and Frankston Arts Centre, they could not have known how perfectly this would become a moving tribute to Sir Andrew Davis, who passed away on 20th April. We were all saddened and will miss this well-loved and respected MSO Chief Conductor (2013-2019) and Conductor Laureate (2020-2024); how timely, moving and fitting was this program as his musical tribute.
Initially commissioned as an educational “tour” of the symphony orchestra, Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra – tonight performed with its revised score without a narrator – is an engaging musical journey that takes performers and listeners well beyond the “entertainment factor”. When these “Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Henry Purcell” opened with a broad clap of thunder from a powerful bass tuba followed by brass, bass drum, and fortissimo xylophone, we sat up and realised how terrific the acoustics of Robert Blackwood Hall are. Sadly, this audience did not completely fill the hall, as city folk choose concerts in inner Melbourne busy venues, despite the ease of access with freely moving traffic on multi-laned roads out of the city, plenty of free parking adjacent to the venue, comfortable and spaced seating, and with elevated staged percussion and brass placing every orchestral instrument, including a grand pipe organ, in full view. For close to 100 orchestral players on stage, and room for more, RBH offers the best quality acoustic and visual experience. Food and drink, perhaps not so.
An excellent pre-concert talk by Carlos del Cuerto was a most welcome addition to detailed program notes, clearly signposting the content of each work. We knew to expect a first-class demonstration of the world-class musicianship of each performer, the personality and agility of each instrument, and the visually captivating highlight of a French horn quartet teamed with an athletic timpanist, plus the rare chance to see five double basses leading the ensemble with strong melodic lines and quirky accelerandos. The final grand fugue was full of royal splendour, with robust power and momentum, stirring our admiration for Britten’s ingenuity and for the precise orchestration and balanced MSO teamwork in a highly mature delivery. Most evident was the delight experienced by both performers and vocal audience members, as conductor Jaime Martin worked his way around the stage with each orchestral section standing for individual applause.
The Lark Ascending, Vaughan Williams’ “Romance for violin and orchestra”, also magnificently drew us in to a spiritually engaging reflection of the idea of the individual becoming part of a universal spirit, based on the poetic musings of the image of a bird hovering, rising, then disappearing – “singing till his heaven fills, ‘tis love of earth that he instils, and ever winging up and up”. Solo violinist Tair Khisambeev was simply stunning, his thoughtfully placed phrases and sensitive timbres emerging from the orchestra’s blended misty textures as his playing seemed suspended in light and air. Clarinet and horns warmed the orchestral atmosphere; we saw the colours of the English landscape in touches of traditional folk song themes in a graceful, often pulse free, description of repose and peace. Khisambeev showed finesse and tonal beauty with modulations from stillness in mid-air to the virtuosic freewheeling flitting and hovering movement of the lark described in George Meredith’s poem, with control and fluidity in gently accelerating improvisatory phrases. Final trills and spacious sustained notes evaporated upwards with the orchestra to heavenly heights into a wondrous fade to eternal silence. We held our breath.
Balancing the program’s fine trio of English works, Elgar’s most successful Enigma Variations were also a musical nod to relationships and friends. Although the composer added the initials of friends to each variation (with a surprising allusion to a Cathedral organist’s dog in one variation), Elgar said that the identities did not matter; it was the music that was the true zenith. After a sweetly expressive string opening, Romanticism was enhanced with full orchestral colours and flowing references to principal themes, while the finest golden brass and dynamic timpani rolls added mountainous effect. This was a richly coloured journey with broad rising and falling swells of full orchestral purpose and achievement, enriched by the superb acoustic of this venue. Like a royal pageant, this was a solemn but inspiring performance, at times soft and sorrowful, imaginative and foreboding with dramatic mood changes. The stage vision was most complete when driven by full-bodied choirs of brass, cymbals, bass drum, timpani and organ and with sudden dynamic climaxes and unified retreats to hold our attention; how we admired our MSO.
And how admirable was the principal leader, speaker, director and conductor, Jaime Martín, who communicates so personally to the audience, so passionately and warmly with performers, brilliantly sharing his musical experience in most energetic words and gesture. He closed our evening by speaking of the MSO’s sadness of the passing of Sir Andrew Davis, the wonderful acoustic of this concert hall, and presented a moving and solemn farewell with a further playing of the truly beautiful “Nimrod” variation. We saw and felt tears.
Photo supplied.
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Julie McErlain reviewed “Jaime conducts Enigma Variations”, performed by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at Robert Blackwood Hall, Monash University on May 2, 2024.
