BY ANGUS MCPHERSON
‘Pictures at an Exhibition’
Sydney Symphony Orchestra
The Sydney Opera House, 12 November
In its courtship ritual, a male lyrebird dances with tail spread over its head, singing a loud, elaborate song and kicking up dust and debris from the forest floor. This image inspired the cadenza for oboe and timpani in Alan Holley’s new oboe concerto, ‘A Shaft of Light’, which premiered in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ concert. Shefali Pryor, the SSO’s Associate Principal Oboe, conjured the lyrebird’s song, while timpanist Richard Miller led the dance with low, swaggering rumbles. Holley’s lyrebird was larger than life, timpani and oboe resounding throughout the concert hall, dust clouds dispersing in slow motion.
Holley’s intention in ‘A Shaft of Light’ was to “paint an aural impression of being in cathedrals”, exploring the way light filters through stained glass windows and the tree canopies and dust of the Australian bush. The first movement is titled ‘Palinopsia’, which refers to the visual phenomenon of images that persist after their corresponding stimulus has been removed. Blinding orchestral tuttis were followed by residual pitches, aural after images and musical eye floaters. Chaotic chimes from the winds flickered and congregated together suggesting a forest full of bellbirds. The lyrebird’s dance brought the first movement to a close. In the second movement, trumpet and flugel horn flanked the choir stalls, forming a triangle with the oboe, their calls and responses across the cathedral of the concert hall reminiscent of Renaissance antiphony. The nameless finale opened like a scherzo and brought together ideas from the preceding movements. Pitches and motifs moved through the orchestra, changing texture and colour, like the same patch of light passing over different surfaces. Pryor’s fluttering virtuosity and resonant tone infused Holley’s concerto with energy and life.
Holley’s was the second concerto on the program, following Ukrainian pianist Vadym Kholodenko’s performance of Saint-Saëns’ Second Piano Concerto. Kholodenko’s playing was polished and thoughtful, with sweetness and clarity in the soft passages, and cheeky rubato in the scherzo. Kholodenko’s easy rapport with conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya was evident, Harth-Bedoya leaning in close to listen to the piano. The two are certainly not strangers, having recorded this concerto recently with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra.
The SSO’s brass section opened the concert with a robust performance of Paul Dukas’ Fanfare to precede ‘La Péri’, the musicians deftly balancing power and mellow lustre. They brought these same qualities to the opening ‘Promenade’ of Mussorgsky’s ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ in Ravel’s colourful orchestration. Paul Goodchild’s muted trumpet was a distinctively plaintive Schmuÿle and Christina Leonard’s saxophone was stirringly beautiful in the mournful troubadour song of ‘The Old Castle’.
The SSO’s ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ immersed the audience in a musical experience full of imagery, but it was Alan Holley’s ‘A Shaft of Light’ that really engaged the visual imagination, his music evoking vivid scenes of light and movement.
Image of Miguel Harth-Bedoya supplied. Credit: Fabiana Van Lente
