BY ANGUS MCPHERSON
Romantic Memories
Sydney Symphony Orchestra
Sydney Opera House, 6 April
Alban Berg never heard his Violin Concerto performed, but it has become one of his most popular works, an example of the potential for lyricism and passion in 12-tone composition. Berg built references to traditional tonality right into his tone row, including folksong and even quoting JS Bach’s Es ist genug (It is enough) chorale from the cantata O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort. It is with this work that Christoph von Dohnányi opens his Romantic Memories program with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and German violinist Carolin Widmann. Subtitled ‘To the memory of an angel’, the concerto was dedicated to Manon Gropius, the 18-year-old daughter of Walter Gropius and Alma Mahler (Gustav Mahler’s widow), who died of polio. It would also be Berg’s last composition.
Making her Australian debut, Widmann brings a profound stillness to Berg’s opening broken chords. Her tone is bright in the upper register and deep and throaty in the low. And yet there is also a sense of camaraderie with the tutti violins, Widmann’s tone emerging and blending into the orchestral sound. In the second movement, she turns to play to concertmaster Dene Olding during their duet, and then to the rest of the first violins – as much a part of the section as she is a soloist. Her double-stopping is full and muscular, particularly in the second movement slides, and her final note shines, undimmed, like a beacon across the ensemble.
Dohnányi studied with his grandfather, who knew Brahms and was present to witness other giants of the 19th century, including Bruckner. It is this repertoire for which the younger Dohnányi is particularly revered, and his performance of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony provides compelling evidence as to why. His beautifully paced and controlled reading of the ‘Romantic’ symphony is achieved without need for a score and unfolds with serene beauty, Alpine gravitas and Wagnerian power.
There have been a number iterations of Bruckner’s Fourth, revisions and editions made by Bruckner himself as well as by his students and editors, however Dohnányi uses the 1878–80 version – the version used for the first public performance, conducted by Hans Richter.
Principal horn Robert Johnson has his work cut out for him from the distinctive opening calls of the first movement to the energetic hunting music of the Scherzo and the haunting horn-lines of the fourth. Carolyn Harris’s flute solo in the first movement is also a highlight, accompanied by horn and timpani, as are her lyrical moments in the Andante.
For this concert, the SSO performs on a tiered stage – a trial to help finalise designs to be constructed as part of the Sydney Opera House Renewal – which gives an added immediacy to the orchestra’s sound in the concert hall, if the musicians do look a little tightly packed.
Romantic Memories is musically sophisticated and epically vast, a challenging and rewarding program from one of the world’s great conductors. Dohnányi will remain in Sydney to perform a program of Lutosławski, Berg and Brahms later in April, which is not to be missed.
Image supplied. Credit: Ken Butti.
