This programme from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s latest subscription concerts demonstrated thoughtful planning: three significant compositions from three different eras, as if showing a kaleidoscope of Richard Strauss’ artistic life. It began with the chronologically latest work, Metamorphosen, a hauntingly moving string elegy to the burning of the Munich National Theatre in October 1943, that temple of music where Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg were premiered, and where Staruss’ father was principal horn for nearly five decades. Originally named Trauer um München (Mourning for Munich), from beginning to the last bars, it is an endless cry of grief, played here by the orchestra’s best string players.
Yet, the total impact of their performance did not quite equal the sum of its parts. There was a noticeable urge from Chief Conductor, Simone Young not to let the music become sluggish, which, however, resulted in a feeling of relentless drive, allowing very little time to the gentle lilting of dotted motifs and syncopated rhythms. Thus, the intimate feeling of sadness, the quiet sobbing of so many wonderful instrumentalists’ effort to create sorrowful chamber music together was never far away, but seldom truly palpable. Attention to fine detail, perhaps due to little rehearsal time, was lacking, for example in the opening 24 bars, where five musicians presented the first themes, artistically refined but without any noticeable effort to use the same or at least similar sonorities by matching the type of vibrato they used.
Burleske, that fiendishly difficult work for solo piano and orchestra, followed, performed with admirable ease and safe technique by Andrea Lam. The sheer volume of her sound was less than what one might expect from this work; nonetheless, her chromatic octaves cascaded with absolute control and her solos radiated with loving nuances of rubato. This performance was not “farcical” in the least (as a translation of the title would suggest), but more often gentle and thoughtful, incorporating waltz-like melodies with the influences of some of the composers the young Strauss admired, including Brahms and Liszt. Young and the orchestra accompanied the soloist’s lines sympathetically, with only the occasional ensemble problems in the woodwinds.
The magnificent masterwork, Friedrich Nietzsche’s challenge to Strauss, and in turn, his challenge to latter-day audiences about Man’s struggle for Meaning, even Immortality in life, Also sprach Zarathustra, was presented in the second half, with both orchestra and its conductor throwing themselves wholeheartedly into the task. Here, Young’s longing to drive the music forward resulted in a finely arched musical edifice, starting from the famous cosmic Sunrise of the opening bars to the stark seriousness of the murky fugue, all the way to the great build up to the Finale. In the brilliant concluding minutes, the ultimately unsolvable philosophical riddle of both the literary and the musical work left the audience being forced to make their own decision between two incongruent sonic worlds and keys, alternating high on flutes and violins in a B major harmony and low on cellos and basses in C major, without a definite verdict from the composer (bold and truly unsettling!). Some brilliant instrumental solos (above all, by concert master, Andrew Haveron, in the penultimate section, The Dance Song), well-honed dynamic and character contrasts and the orchestra's genuine enthusiasm made it a memorable performance.
