Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 21 Sep 2024
Some symphonies are as enjoyable when heard on a recording as they are when listened to in the concert hall. Elgar’s mighty Symphony No.2 in E flat, Op. 63, is not one of them, at least in the opinion of this reviewer. It begs to be seen as well as heard. By any measure it is ‘big’, and the best listening experience is to hear it live and see it’s awesome might unfold before your very eyes. It can be an all-consuming experience, and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s performance of it this evening under the expert and nurturing direction of British conductor Mark Wigglesworth bordered on the sublime.
Elgar’s Symphony No.2 was the main piece in Reflection, the sixth concert in the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s 2024 Symphony Series, and it was an astonishing success. The program also included Mozart’s ever-sunny Concerto for Clarinet in A, K. 622, with Dean Newcomb, the orchestra’s very own principal clarinettist, as soloist. K622 is almost a party piece for Newcomb – he’s performed it elsewhere, always to critical acclaim – and tonight’s performance was as good as any you will ever hear. Unlike the Elgar, the Mozart holds up well on recordings and is always enjoyable to listen to. It is quintessential Mozart, brimming with diverse lush melodies that are developed in surprising and interesting ways. Newcomb made it his own and dealt easily (seemingly!) with the technical difficulty inherent in the piece. He used that difficulty to bring the piece to life as if one was hearing it for the first time. Ambrose Bierce, an American writer, journalist and poet of the Civil War period, opined in his satirical book The Devil’s Dictionary that “…there are two instruments worse than a clarinet – two clarinets”, but tonight nothing could be further than the truth! (Newcomb and other clarinettists continued that excellence into the Elgar.)
In the right hands, the clarinet is sublime, and Newcomb produced the most gorgeous tones in the Mozart. The cadenza in the first movement allowed Newcomb to show his artistry in the lower register, and in the second movement his breath control in the softest sections was almost otherworldly. At the conclusion of the concerto, the large audience erupted immediately into deserved and sustained applause, with shouts of bravo and wolf whistles. One might suggest the audience is parochial, but Newcomb stands tall on the international stage and the audience knows it, as did Wigglesworth whose pleasure at the performance was clearly written across his broad smile. Newcomb took a risk and performed an encore of blistering difficulty that again showed his technical command and his innate feel and musicality for both ‘classical’ and modern repertoire.
A number of familiar faces were absent from the orchestra tonight, and those who played in their stead continued the high standard. Noticeably, associate principal percussionist Sami Butler slipped across the stage and stood in for absent principal timpanist Andrew Penrose. The Elgar demands much from the timpani and Butler was at the top of his game. He clearly looked like he was enjoying the challenge, and during the bows at the end of the symphony, Wigglesworth called on Butler to stand first and accept both his and the audience’s accolade.
A general member of the audience cannot know what the conductor’s instructions are to the orchestra, but it would be a safe bet that in the opening of the symphony Wigglesworth insisted on almost unbridled enthusiasm from the strings. This reviewer was astonished at the physicality of the principal strings: to a person they arched their backs from the outset and threw every emotion at the piece. The symphony is written on a grand scale, with recurrent melodic material including quotations, seemingly, from other Elgar masterworks, and a dynamic schema that is almost exhausting for the audience and musicians alike. There is wave after wave of elongated crescendi that are almost wearying (in a nice way!) to take in, which eventually subside into calmness before the passionate roller coaster begins again. Tension. Abatement. Repeat. Majestic relentlessness and insistence. Pure joy. After each movement, there were audible sighs from the audience – sighs of contentment and of emotional release. With the final bars dissolving away into the night, the audience was stunned, but silence soon gave way to enthusiastic and heartfelt applause.
Reflection indeed. The program put on display the best of humanity, something we sorely need more of in these trouble times.
Kym Clayton
When: 21 Sep
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
