BY ANGUS DAVISON
Acclaimed British pianist and conductor Howard Shelley returns to Australia in 2015 for the 30th consecutive year. Continuing his long association with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, he’ll present concerts in Hobart and Launceston in the joint role of soloist and conductor. The program is bookended by Dvorak’s ‘Legends’ and ‘Symphonic Variations’; fitting, given the Hobart concert falls on the exact 110th anniversary of the composers’ death. Faure’s ‘Dolly’ has an intriguing background, Howard explains.
“He had a passionate affair with the mother of this girl, Dolly,” he says. “And it really shows in the music, I find, because although there’s lots of lovely simple tunes, almost childish melodies, the harmony is fantastically rich and passionate and sensuous.”
Howard will then take to the piano for Mendelssohn’s inventive ‘Piano Concerto no. 1’.
“It’s one of the first piano concertos where the piano comes in with such drama very shortly after the orchestra has started. It’s a like a thunderstorm growing in the orchestra for a few seconds, then the piano comes in like the lightening after it.”
With a career spanning half a century, Howard has seen from the inside how classical music concerts and audiences have changed in the last 50 years. “There’ve been a lot of changes in the way orchestras and concerts are run, and unfortunately a lot of the changes have been driven by the economics of concert giving, which is difficult, to say the least. I hope and I think we’re attracting younger people to audiences now, but our core audience tends still to be older people,” he says.
To attract new listeners to classical music, he believes musicians must present it differently. “I try to be very relaxed. I don’t mind if people clap between movements. I think this notion that classical music is somehow terribly precious is nonsense.”
However, Howard observes that the issue is deeper than simply presentation. “There are inherent things in classical music, particularly the length of standard works that make it difficult to sell in the same way as you can sell pop music. So [the younger] generation needs to take classical music to people in a different way.”
Howard believes introducing children to classical music in their formative years is key. “It’s getting young people to hear classical music, to stop and listen to it in their very young years, that’s important to the future of classical music. It’s something that’s harder to pick up later on in life, I think. Schools used to do that, but that’s been eroded. When I was at school, we had a choir in which all the boys in the whole school, 400 of us, used to sing. You weren’t asked if you could or wanted to, you just did it.”
With a son who is now an established conductor, Howard is optimistic about the future of classical music, despite its challenges. “It’s incredible, the young musicians we’re turning out these days. It’s really heart-warming and I think that in itself means classical music isn’t going to die away.”
See Howard Shelley and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra at Hobart’s Federation Concert Hall, 1 May, 7.30pm. More info: www.tso.com.au/concerts/howards-way/.
Image supplied.
