★★★★☆ Robertson and co. give Stravinsky’s subtle and delicate score an appropriate treatment.

Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House
August 10, 2016

This was the second in the SSO’s concert series built around the three early ballet scores of Igor Stravinsky. It featured the earliest of these masterpieces, The Firebird, written in 1910. “Stravinsky at his most opulent” was the blurb. His most opulent? Arguably The Firebird represents the only piece of Stravinsky’s music that could be described as opulent (apart from a couple of minor, immature works). Firebird was the ultimate product of the composer’s lessons in orchestration under Rimsky-Korsakov; appropriately, since the ballet’s scenario dwells in the same fantastic fairy-tale world as Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas. An occasional moment such as the Infernal Dance of Kashchei’s Followers brings a hint of The Rite to come, but this is basically a subtle and delicate score, and Robertson and the SSO treated it as such.

The orchestra shimmered. Every colourful effect registered within the well-balanced textures, while rhythms – as ever with Robertson­­ – were taut. Woodwind solos were beautifully shaped, especially the clarinet and the important bassoon parts. I failed to fall under the spell of the mysterious opening, not because it wasn’t...