Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 23 Sep 2016
The main billing was Elgar’s Cello Concerto, but Prokofiev’s 5th Symphony stole the show. Guest Conductor Michael Stern led the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in what was an engulfing performance.
Prokofiev wrote seven symphonies, and for my taste this is perhaps the best. Its strength and audacity is balanced by moments of great softness and aching tenderness. The briskness and spiky rhythms of the second movement are evocative of Prokofiev’s ballet scores, and contrast superbly with the stately regality of the first with echoes of its thematic material in the almost dissonant last movement.
Stern was at the top of his game. He plumbed the depths of the piece and produced a textured live performance that far excels many recordings. Guest Associate concert master Ike See was most engaging to watch throughout the performance. Like Stern, he ‘gets’ Prokofiev.
The concert began with a regulation performance of Debussy’s ever-popular Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, which if anything was slightly overpowered and less nuanced than it might be. Geoffrey Collins was his usual excellent self on flute.
It is a programming joy that the ASO occasionally chooses to feature its own principal musicians in concerto performances, and on this occasion Principal Cello Simon Cobcroft took the role of soloist in Elgar’s Cello Concerto and amply demonstrated that he is a world class musician. Cobcroft is a contained yet graceful musician, and his face is the window into his musical soul. The strained opening chords were matched by anxious grimaces on his brow, the forceful pizzicati in the slow second movement were punctuated by his defiant chin. The emotional third movement was written serenely in a half smile and Cobcroft worked very well with Stern in the fourth to keep up the pace.
Stern atypically addressed the audience at the conclusion of the concert to tell us something we already knew, that the ASO is class outfit!
Kym Clayton
When: 23 Sep
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
