Reviewed 8pm, Friday 31st May, 2013
Adelaide Festival Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre, King William Road, Adelaide, South Australia
The Adelaide Festival Centre was opened in 1973 by then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, and the Premier of South Australia at that time, Don Dunstan. To celebrate that opening, the Adelaide Festival Centre and the
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra jointly presented this sensational concert. The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, with concertmaster Natsuko Yoshimoto, was conducted by their Chief Conductor and Music Director, Arvo Volmer. An interesting part of the evening was to learn that Anthony Steel, the inaugural General Manager and five times the Artistic Director of the Adelaide Festival (of Arts), was in the chorus once more for this production. He was noticeably happy to be there, in the tenor section.
The concert opened with a new work by Adelaide composer, Graeme Koehne,
Fanfare Festiva - fanfare for the next 40 years, which was specially commissioned for this event. This short piece and light-hearted piece introduced some rather fun elements, such as when the violin section lowered their instruments to strum them like mandolins (the two instruments have the same tuning), and had some thematic elements that sounded familiar. Fans of pop music might even be able to put a name or two to the themes. It was a markedly different approach to the fanfare from 1973, composed by another Australian composer, Richard Meale. This fanfare was bright and cheerful, although not greatly intellectually engaging, but that isa part of Koehne's approach to music. The orchestra gave a well-wrought interpretation, and gave the impression that they were having fun with its eccentricities.
The remainder of the concert was given over to Beethoven's magnificent and ground breaking
Symphony No. 9, 'Choral', Op. 125, the work having been played at the concert four decades ago to mark the opening. This incredible work, the first to bring voices into the symphony, is even more remarkable when one remembers that, by the time that he wrote it, Beethoven was already totally deaf. It is best known for that fourth movement, inspired by
Friedrich Schiller's poem
Ode to Joy, where the chorus and vocal quartet make their entrance, but the first three movements contain so much excellent writing, too.
In his first symphony Beethoven follows on from the Classical symphony, developed by the likes of Mozart and Haydn to what was then considered its ultimate form, but he was already experiments, even opening the work with a dissonance. By his fifth symphony he had moved so far from the first, with his imaginative use of the "fate knocking" four note theme, the first three being the same not repeated. The way he transforms this simple theme over and over again throughout the work is stunning. The sixth is a depiction of the pastoral life, and shows his sense of humour in the section where we hear the village band, with a less than competent bassoonist who makes his entries a little too late.
By his ninth symphony, Beethoven had taken the form to ever greater heights, incorporating a myriad ideas and a vast emotional content, hurling music towards the Romantic era and paving the way for Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Tchiakovsky, and the rest. The magnificence, expansiveness, and emotional demands of this piece, resulting in the enormous complexity of the score, means that very few orchestras are capable of doing justice to this work. Fortunately, we have one such orchestra right here but, just as importantly, in Arvo Volmer we also have a conductor who fully understands how to interpret the score, convey his intention to the performers, and bring out all of the power, and also the gentility and the subtle nuances encompassed in the piece.
Soprano, Sara Macliver, Mezzo Soprano, Sally-
Anne Russell, Tenor, Paul McMahon, and Bass, Stephen Bennett joined the orchestra for the fourth movement, along with the Adelaide Symphony Chorus, who had been waiting patiently on stage. With the opening fanfare of the fourth movement one could feel anticipations building and, when the moment arrived and the chorus let forth, it was only established concert protocol that prevented the audience from cheering.
We experienced a mastery of dynamics, a superb interpretation of tempo changes, and some wonderful care over balance between parts or, in short, an exemplary performance that, luckily for those who could not be there, the Australian Broadcasting Commission transmitted live to the rest of Australia. The loud and extended applause made it very clear that the evening had been a massive success in every respect.
