The Moldau – My Homeland. Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 29 Aug 2014
This concert, the ASO’s seventh in their 2014 Masters Series for 2014, was deeply satisfying and immensely enjoyable for three reasons: appealing programming, outstanding conducting, and prodigiously talented youth.
The programming was excellent and comprised three superb examples of nationalistic composition. Smetana’s ‘Ma vlast: Vltava’ (The Moldau) is a full-on crowd pleaser and everyone ‘knows’ it. Its sweeping melodies stir something deep within and it is exalted by Czechs as something that captures the essence of their country. Guest conductor Christopher Seaman handled the shifting dynamics with great care and ensured that when the orchestra played fortissimo key instruments still shone through decisively. His style was almost understated with no exuberant and over embellished gestures, but his control is palpable.
Richard Strauss’s ‘Tod und Verklärung’ (Death and Transfiguration), Op 24, is a broody and complex work that can be considered a herald of post-romantic German music. I adore it and get lost in its multifaceted expressions of joy, pain, hope and giving over to the unknowable, which are all indicated by the highlighting of various instruments – including harp, viola and tuba - as they state, restate and takeover various melodic fragments. Again Seaman extracted the full dynamic range from the orchestra but the music never lost its texture or dissolved into a sonic blur. There was always clarity.
Sibelius’s ‘Karelia Suite’, Op 11, is a sumptuously melodic piece that is revered by the Finnish people, and like ‘Ma vlast’ stirs passions of patriotism. Seaman was in his element with this piece – his enjoyment of its inherent joie de vivre was clear for all to see. The third movement (alla marcia) is the one that people quietly hum to themselves as they leave at the conclusion of a concert but Seaman extracted something additional from the first (intermezzo) that wasn’t too far from being hummed as well! Again, his masterful control of the dynamical shading allowed the colour of Sibelius’s superb orchestration to shine through.
As satisfying as the Smetana, Strauss and Sibelius were, the highlight of the evening no doubt was sixteen-year old Grace Clifford’s performance of Beethoven’s mighty and ever popular Violin Concerto. It is a challenging composition and requires technical skill and musicianship, but it is not ‘flashy’. It possesses elegance and simplicity in its structure, and is loved and well known by countless concertgoers who are alert to anything that sounds too ‘different’. Grace is the very recently crowned 2014 ABC Symphony Australia Young Performer of the Year, and she served up a performance that had a number of differences to excite and stir the audience. She took the work at a measured tempo with clearly articulated phrasing that allowed her to expose the intricacy of the score. In later years, when her strength has fully developed, she might choose to take parts of the piece at greater speed but this can also blur the full impact and sharp beauty of the double stopping required by the score. Beethoven did not write any cadenzas for the concerto, and Clifford chose to play the well-known ones written by famed violinist Fritz Kreisler.
Grace Clifford demonstrated composure, nascent flair, and a clear understanding of the score. The audience loved her and deserved her three curtain calls and striking spray of Tynte flowers.
Kym Clayton
When: Closed
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
