Alfred Einstein tagged Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto ‘the apotheosis of the military concept’. During Napoleon’s invasion of Vienna, Beethoven went to ground and accepted the hospitality of his brother Carl and wife Johanna. During his stay, despite the onslaught of gunfire, he wrote several of his most popular pianocentric works including The Emperor Concerto.
In the Queensland Symphony Orchestra’s first Maestro Concert of the year, you could hear the brilliance, the muscle of Anton Kuerti’s yesteryear performances of the Emperor through the ease in which he travelled the geography of the keys. It was there in the spinning delicacy of the passagework, the clarity of inner voicing and the warm precision in the LH’s pointed descent. Yet, not so much in the drama of exchange between orchestra and soloist, the Allegro’s warmongering flurries and the Rondo’s chordal fire. There was a deficit in theatrical bite.
Kuerti’s power shone in the reflective moments. The pianist’s heart-rending, whispered poetry in the second movement touched everyone’s heart.
Rather than the soloist or conductor Patrick Fritzsch, the star trooper on Saturday was the orchestra. As is all too frequently the case in orchestral concerts, the concerto sounded under-rehearsed and trailed a ragged hem. There were a few skating-fast-on-thin-ice moments. Yet the QSO stepped up, camouflaging the odd ensemble tear. Installed in the Southbank’s new-minted ABC building, perhaps rehearsing with a rewarding acoustic for the first time in professional history, the orchestra’s voice was convincing, sure-footed, spirited.
Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony Romantic is enduringly popular. The sweep of mediaeval pageantry, fanfares and magical forests inspired this impassioned music which the composer imbued with surprising harmonies and the ear-pleasing flavours of massed strings and extroverted brass. Fritzsch’ sonic vision for the startling, shimmered opening lacked mystery and wonder. Yet again the players were generous in their loyalty to the conductor.
There was stunning clarity from the horns, trumpets and lower brass, lovely cello tone, full-blooded, keening strings, convincing colour from the wind section. But the performance begged for interpretative subtlety. Formidable crescendos, though wonderfully invigorating in themselves, peaked too early, too often. Bruckner’s architecture begs for an imaginatively phased, artfully strategic rise in power to create coherence and acquit this blockbuster distinctively.
Rating: 3 ½ stars out of 5
Maestro 1: High Viennese Romantics
Queensland Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Johannes Fritzsch
Piano: Anton Kuerti
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No.5 Emperor
BRUCKNER Symphony No.4 Romantic
Concert Hall, Queensland Performing Arts Centre
16 February
