European tour program to surely bring the house down at the Albert Hall.

Hamer Hall, Melbourne
July 3, 2014

This was all in all a very inspiring concert, featuring works that the orchestra is about to take on its European tour. Kicking off proceedings, Brahms’s Academic Festival Overture was perhaps the weakest performance of the night taking a while to settle, but the ensemble got tighter as the Orchestra warmed up. It featured some nice mellow moments from the horns and gleaming rotary-valve trumpets, but felt a bit sluggish and lacklustre overall.  

Robert Schumann wrote his Cello Concerto in 1850 shortly after moving to Dusseldorf. In just three and a half years’ time, he would don an overcoat only, walk into the Rhine and keep on walking. Rescued by fisherman, he was, at his own request, sent to an asylum where he died two years later. A couple of bars of orchestral introduction and we are already plunged into Schumann’s particular brand of melancholy. Norwegian cellist Truls Mork, who has been visiting Australia for about 20 years, had no trouble at all being heard over the reduced-size orchestra. With his reedy tone blossoming effortlessly, he gave us playing of...