Uncategorised
post

Editor’s Letter: July 31, 2015

On being reminded of the brilliance of Australian artists. This week we’ve been reminded of the brilliance of Australian artists, not once, but twice. Firstly on Monday the 15th annual Helpmann Awards recognised the achievements of the past year’s best performing arts events. As expected many of the biggest companies took home the top gongs, with Cameron Mackintosh, Sydney Dance Company and Sydney Theatre Company all taking home multiple laurels. However perhaps the most interesting success of the night was that of Leo Schofield’s Brisbane Baroque, which swept the opera categories winning five bobbys for its production of Handel’s Faramondo. This must surely have been a moment of blissful validation for Schofield, who after resurrecting his Hobart-based festival in Queensland in response to inadequate state funding from the Tasmanian Government, managed to dominate the goliath competition of Opera Australia in just about every category; a demonstration that big budgets and abundant funding are not the only paths to achieving great art. On Wednesday night, the Sydney Opera House’s concert hall welcomed an astonishing legion of Australia’s most talented orchestral players, united under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle for the Australian World Orchestra’s 2015 season. The tangible electricity of the audience’s……

July 31, 2015
Orchestral
CD and Other Review

Review: Stravinsky, Mahler (Australian World Orchestra/Mehta)

Last year’s celebration of Australia’s musical elite diaspora, the Australian World Orchestra, (plus a few resident players) featured Zubin Mehta on the podium. I’ve always regarded Mehta as a superb “technician” but, apart from a wunderkind debut Bruckner Ninth, while still in his twenties with the Vienna Philharmonic, I’ve never found his interpretations particularly engaging. However, my reactions to this two CD set of the occasion has somewhat changed my thinking. Their performance of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, in its centenary year, is very fine- without challenging Doráti’s, Bernstein’s first New York version or Igor Markevich’s old Philharmonia (stereo) version where the orchestral shriek at the opening of the second section is truly blood curdling. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the treacherous opening bassoon passage so beautifully shaped. The woodwind is also beautifully captured throughout. Mehta’s tempi are steady rather than headlong. The performance of  Mahler’s First Symphony was a treat. Mehta included the discarded Blumine (“Flowers’) movement ( as he did in his Israel Philharmonic recording in the late eighties) although Mahler was probably right to remove it, as it sounds genuinely, as distinct from faux, naïve. The string playing was of a caliber we seldom hear…

November 21, 2014