In this final instalment of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's Town Hall Series, conductor Benjamin Northey presented a motley of French and English works by Bizet, Saint-Saëns and Elgar. The polar difference between the two halves of the concert could not have been more stark, the former effervescent with festive, even frivolous tones, the latter so heartfelt and sincere that one nearly forgot it was a Friday night out in the city.
Bizet's Carmen Suite is a summary of the themes and musical elements that made the French opera a 'viral' hit of the 19th century. That is not at all to say the popularity of the tunes is unjustified; as any musician (especially composers) can testify, there is arguably nothing more difficult than composing a good melody, let alone an original one, and Bizet had the envious fortune of assembling numerous within a single opera. Northey and the MSO revelled in the various Spanish-inflected affects of the suite, and the crisp acoustic of Melbourne Town Hall was particularly suited to the work’s percussive effects and suspensory pauses. The oboe and flute in particular are to be praised for their rich, languid solos.
The featured soloist of the evening, Melburnian pianist Kristian Chong, presented a solid reading of Saint-Saëns' Piano Concerto no. 2 in G minor, famously and frequently described as beginning with Bach and ending with Offenbach. The opening solo, serving as a kind of cadenza at the beginning rather than the end of the movement, was well-timed and bore just the right balance of dramatic weight and virtuosic bravura. It is a shame that the finale relies so much on superficially brilliant scale and arpeggio passages, all of which Chong delivers exceptionally, but is rather flippant use of the piano on Saint-Saëns' part. From the ground level stalls, the piano was struggling to assert an equal balance with the orchestra, but its sound did cut through for the most part on the merit of Chong's technical consistency.