Reviewed by John Dally-Peoples
NIGHTSCAPES
Auckland Philharmonia
Auckland Town Hall
July 19
Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples
The Auckland Philharmonia’s latest concert “Nightscapes” went someway into describing aspects of the night, the night sky and activities occurring at night, so the opening work, a Strauss waltz was very appropriate.
For a Viennese at the end of the nineteenth century a nighttime’s entertainment would almost certainly involve dancing to one of the composer’s works.
The Emperor Waltz was originally called “Hand in Hand” and intended as a toast made by the Emperor of |Austria to the German Emperor on the occasion of his visit to Germany and at the time, seen as a toast of friendship.
Strauss’ publisher suggested the title Kaiser-Walzer, as the title could allude to either monarch.
The work created a night under the twinkling stars or the sparkling chandeliers of the ballroom. Filled with gay, celebratory music its swirling music suggests whirling dancers and conjures up images of a night filled with gaiety, romance and pleasure.
The second work on the program didn’t seem to have much of a connection to the theme of night or nightscape but was one of the highlights of the orchestra’s recent concerts.
Mozart’s “Sinfonia Concertante for Four Winds “featured Bede Hanley (oboe), Ingrid Hagan (bassoon), Gabrielle Pho (Horn) and Jonathan Cohen (clarinet).
The work provided the audience with the pleasure of a quartet as well as the impact of a full orchestral concerto in which the various soloists responded to passages from the orchestra , building on themes to create and elaborate musical work.
Each of the soloists played short sequences but generally combined with each other, notably the clarinet and oboe.
The low burnished sounds of the bassoon and the warm tone of the horn created some fulsome sequences while the sharper sound of the clarinet and velvety sounds of the oboe were in marked contrast. The four instruments showed the full range of the wind instruments – jaunty, reflective and dramatic all bound together with Mozart’s showmanship.
When the soloists played, they showed considerable skill both with their individual playing as well as their ability to integrate with each other and the orchestra.
For their encore they performed an arrangement of Libertango by Astor Piazzola where the jazzy Latin American sounds they produced were dazzling and inventive.
With the second half of the concert the two works on the program explored the notion of the nightmare and secret love.
First there was Richard Wagner’s Traume (Dream) featuring Andrew Beer as soloist.
Wagner composed settings of poems written by his lover Mathilde Wessendonck which eventualy appear as part pf his musical drama “Tristan and Isolde”. The Wesendonck Lieder portray an angel yearning for sublime bliss and eternity, escaping the sorrows of the world through death. This desire is linked to the eroticism and longing that encapsulate Wagner’s bond with Mathilde.
The music initially conjured up images of dusk and fading light followed by an ever-developing harmonies with moments of passion and stillness which are never quite resolved. Throughout the work Andrew Beer’s violin became an insistent voice in this melancholic tale.
Rather than end the dream summoned up by Wagner before beginning the final work Conductor Guiordano Bellincampi chose to seamlessly move the orchestra into the brooding final work, Schoenberg’s “Verklarte Nacht (Transfigured Night).
The work depicts a man and a woman walking through a darkening forest. She tells of having conceived a child by another man and he declares his love of both the woman and the child.
The music reflected the physical journey through the forest – the moon moving above the trees and the scudding cloud as well as the couples emotional connection with each other while the notion of the child’s transfiguration parallels the story of the birth of Christ.
The orchestra’s strings depicted the encroaching darkness and bleakness in which the couple walk. While these darker strings dominated there were also interventions by lighter strings which helped create this psychological tone poem. There was both the description of the physical environment as well as the psychological condition of the young woman who feels she has transgressed as well as offering some form of redemption, relief and spiritual calm.
The music presented a bleakness filled with sadness and anxiety but in the latter part of the work it became more joyous and lyrical with some ethereal bowing.
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