BY LYDIA MCCLELLAND, WINNER OF THE INAUGURAL CUTCOMMON YOUNG CRITICS’ MENTORSHIP PROGRAM
Romeo and Juliet
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (Stanislav Kochanovsky, conductor; Yulianna Avdeeva, piano)
Hamer Hall, 10 May
The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s Romeo and Juliet, with Russian conductor Stanislav Kochanovsky at its helm, proves to be an evening of wonderful melodrama. As befits the Shakespearean title, the concert is dramatic and tragic in the very best of ways.
In the pre-concert warm-up, my ears prick at the sound of a single violin rehearsing the opening to Mussorgsky’s frenetic Night on Bald Mountain, a tone poem inspired by a witches’ sabbath. The racing vacillations, balanced on a knife’s edge, are an imagining of the chattering witches. Surely as with any musician who has performed a version of this, the work holds a special place in my heart. As the concert begins in earnest, I realise that really, the only thing that beats playing the work is hearing such a vital rendition of it.
The MSO’s production is not the well-known, polished Rimsky-Korsakov arrangement that premiered in 1886, but Mussorgsky’s raw original. Mussorgsky’s orchestration was not published until 1968 – just more than 100 years after its composition – and is darkly spirited. From the opening, the orchestra is all movement; as unified in motion as a darting shoal of fish. The MSO exploits the textural irreverence of this original version. In stark opposition to Rimsky-Korsakov’s quiet, reflective ending, this orchestration concludes with a resounding bang.
Next, pianist Yulianna Avdeeva takes centre stage. The winner of the 2010 Warsaw Chopin Competition makes her MSO debut with Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Thus, the Mussorgsky is succeeded by the lyrical, emotional wavering of Chopin. Avdeeva plays with restraint, supported beautifully by a smaller MSO. Her bass notes are resonant and higher registers are handled with a very light touch. While the dynamics are perhaps introspective, the piano is at its best in the dream-like second movement. Moments of interplay between the piano and orchestra are rare, but all the more beautiful for their scarcity.
Post-interval, excerpts from Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet are a rich contrast to Chopin’s orchestral writing. This! This is the expansive sound I was craving. Kochanovsky coaxes stirring contrasts from the orchestra, from heartbreaking cello solos to the immense percussive tension behind the bass trombone’s grunt in Dance of the Knights. Transitions between different atmospheres are wonderful, supported by underlying tension.
This performance of Romeo and Juliet truly seems to capture the hearts and minds of musicians and audience members alike, and I become sad that I can never return to this moment. Yes, I can listen to the MSO Spotify playlists of the works performed in its concerts (by other orchestras – see ‘msoplays’), but nothing rivals being there.
Am I being melodramatic? You can blame Shakespeare.
Images supplied. Credit C Schneider.
