Beethoven Festival, Piano Concerto No 1. Photograph image via Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
The centrepiece of this ambitious and well-programmed festival presented by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra comprises the five piano concertos by Beethoven. Four concerts over eleven days supplemented by talks and events are directed by chamber orchestra expert Douglas Boyd, with the concertos performed by distinguished pianist Paul Lewis. The repertoire is drawn from the First Viennese School (Haydn and Beethoven) and the Second (Schoenberg, Webern and Berg) with fascinating resonances between works.
For the Classical repertoire Boyd changed the orchestra’s layout, with violins to the left and right of the podium. Vibrato was used sparingly and pace was generally on the brisk side. Doubtless his musical and historical approach in performing 18th-century music with modern instruments has been informed by his participation in the Beethoven symphonic cycle as principal oboist of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under Nicholas Harnoncourt.
So it is disappointing for me to report that the opening half of Tuesday evening’s performance, the opening concert of the festival, felt tense and underprepared. The Haydn Symphony No 102 lacked buoyancy, refinement and rhetorical subtlety; it all sounded ‘nearly there’, but lacking in polish. The Adagio never reached its enchanting potential, the Finale (Presto) struggling for wit. Schoenberg’s wonderful Chamber Symphony No 1, Op 9 also required more colour, rhetorical drive and narrative clarity. More rehearsal time may have led to a stronger understanding of how the work is held together, as well as for the musicians to become more closely familiar with the minute details of its inner intricate dialogue. Instead a sameness prevailed, and although the 15 musicians performing the work well fulfilled the work’s every virtuosic demand, I felt that all of its voices could have been more vivid, articulated, characterful and ‘sung’ out. It also felt like Boyd never had his foot off the accelerator. Sadly, even the ending was messy.
The Beethoven Piano Concerto No 1, however, revealed an orchestra playing with much greater confidence and stronger rapport. Lewis’s performance was profound and highly sensitive. The first movement (Allegro con brio) was technically sure and elegantly conveyed. The second movement was mesmerizingly still and the Rhondo (Allegro) was brimming with verve and ebullience.
One hopes that the orchestra becomes more secure and comfortable under Boyd’s direction as the festival continues. With so many guests playing in the orchestra over the duration of the festival, 17 string players alone and 10 of them comparatively junior, the orchestra will need to work hard to maintain ensemble and voice particularly in the more infrequently performed repertoire programmed.
Rating: 3 stars out out of 5
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Douglas Boyd, conductor
Paul Lewis, piano
7 September 2016
