Asher Fisch returns for 2016 with a knockout Teutonic Trio.

Perth Concert Hall​
March 18, 2016

There are few more stirring orchestral works than Wagner’s Tannhäuser Overture and Richard Strauss’s tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra. But slap Schumann’s Symphony No 2 between these two, as Asher Fisch and the WA Symphony Orchestra did on this occasion, and you end up with a very savory symphonic sandwich indeed.

This was WASO Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor Fisch’s first appearance with the orchestra for 2016. German Romantic repertoire is very much his beat, and his first two years at the helm of WASO have already yielded, amongst other delights, acclaimed Beethoven and Brahms cycles.

So it came as no surprise that from the moment clarinets, bassoons and horns began intoning with such immaculate tuning and balance the hymn with which the Wagner opens you knew this was going to be a pretty good concert.

The Tannhäuser Overture duly unfolded with immense power and dignity, Fisch imploring with eloquent gestures every section, but the strings especially, to sing as they had never sung before. A finely responsive and alert WASO more than delivered.

Was the Schumann going to be a harder sell? His four symphonies have...