The Australian Chamber Orchestra is justly celebrated for its highly disciplined, exciting playing and wide-ranging repertoire. It is a pleasure to attend one of their concerts devoid of dancing, slide shows, penguins on roller skates (well not really that last one …) This was an excellent and varied concert of 20th and 21st century music with an implied political message, featuring Ukrainian Australian pianist Alexander Gavryluk and music by Ukrainian expatriate Valentin Silvestrov, as well as the nominative Gershwin and Shostakovich.
The first item on the menu was by Claude Vivier (1948-1983), described as a “hell-raising Québécois”, which sounds like fun. His short one movement work Zipangu is said to employ Japanese sounds, as well as elements of south Indian Carnatic music. Given that it was presented by a standard western chamber arrangement of only strings these elements were hard to discern at first in a work more reminiscent initially of Arvo Pärt. Under the ACO’s regular conductor Richard Tognetti, it began on a chord followed by shimmering small variations, attenuating then swelling with wilder violin skirlings. Abrupt plucking of the cellos produced a more Japanese effect, with the violins then coming in with bat-like squeals concluding with a tutti bout of melody.
This was followed by the world premiere of Silvestrov’s Moments of Memory (VI), an equally short work but composed of seven movements which were quite fragmentary but played through without interruption. This time, Tognetti conducted from the violin in a work which was unexpectedly romantic in temper. The first movement Allegro could be described as quite sentimental, perhaps in keeping with the notion of memory. The overall effect was rather filmic in a nouvelle vague sort of way.
And so to Shostakovich. His Piano Concerto No 1 in C minor, Op.35 was written in 1933, the year before the premier of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk which put Shostakovich out of favour with the Soviet regime, and sees him in relatively light-hearted mood. The strings were joined here by Gavryluk on the piano and David Elton on the trumpet, with Tognetti again conducting from the violin, as for the rest of the performance. The first Allegro movement was played with urgency, remarkable for Gavryluk’s nimble and fleet fingering and Elton’s clarion clarity. The Lento featured a lyrical passage for the trumpet, then the piano leading the strings into the Moderato and finally the aptly named Allegro con brio, with nods to Beethoven and Haydn and a hint of Rossini from the trumpet; much applause followed.
After an interval we had Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, arranged by Bernard Rofe. The opening glissando for clarinet was brilliantly captured by the trumpet kicking off a high energy performance. The forces of piano, trumpet (including piccolo trumpet) and strings somehow managed to capture the scope of the original jazz band setting, or indeed larger orchestral arrangements, with bluesy notes, variegated rhythms and the final driving train ride, leading to an enthusiastic audience response.
The temperature was somewhat lowered for the final work, Shostakovich’s String Quartet no.8 in C minor, Op.110, arranged as Chamber Symphony, Op 110a by Russian conductor Rudolf Barshai (1924-2010). Reverting to the strings only orchestral core, the sombre Largo was in marked contrast to the high energy of the previous work, but soon picked up the pace if not the same bright mood for the Allegro molto, when we were in characteristic Shostakovich nervous breakdown territory. The dance-like Allegretto featured a dissonant violin passage, followed by the sonorous Largo (IV) with a mellow cello solo in Largo (V), and a final tapering off into a thought-provoking silence.
