QSO’s Family concerts at the Courier-Mail Piazza. Image via Queensland Symphony Orchestra.
Peter and The Wolf remains one of the best loved of western musical tales. Prokofiev’s instruction was to cultivate ‘musical tastes in children from the first years of school’ and this he did with a work of adventure and excitement that successfully allocated a particular instrument and musical theme to each of the characters in the story.
In this version, presented by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra (QSO) as part of their Family Series at Southbank, the audience reaction was as enthusiastic as the quality of presentation was excellent. The orchestral sound was overall good despite a lack of a sympathetic acoustic in the cavernous and open-aired Piazza that required amplification. This was not ideal as it tended to give an imbalance to the sound, dependent on where you sat, but nevertheless the orchestra and individual musicians shone in their roles. Credit must be given to all four woodwind players who carried so much of the musical narration of the work, alongside solo work by French horns, brass and percussion.
Conductor, Nicholas Cleobury, crafted the whole together with great aplomb and precision in both style and delivery. A work that he clearly knows well, he added some nice touches to the many musical voices in terms of colour and nuance. The hero Peter was lovingly brought to life by the sympathetic strings, sunnily played by the violins and violas with later additions from the darker cellos and basses. We heard Peter with a distinct ‘skip’ in his step as he came into the meadow; the flute ‘tweeting’ in the voice of the bird; the duck’s ‘quacking’ from the oboe and some luscious ‘purring’ sounds from the clarinet, whose instrument is the perfect choice for the cat. The sternness and dark vocal quality of the bassoon suited the gruff grandfather’s voice while the French horns, underscored by the darker strings, added an ominous warning note to the arrival of the wolf. There were some first-rate percussive and kettle drum additions heralding the arrival of the Hunters.
Cleobury also integrated the music and text perfectly, with the musical characters brought strikingly to life with the assistance of a narrator, a role that has been famously played by Sir John Gielgud, Leonard Bernstein and Bill Clinton, among others. Actor and director Jason Klarwein narrated, and impressed with his energetic sense of fun and enjoyment of the work, relishing his engagement with a predominantly young audience, and responding positively to their involvement. He introduced appropriate spoken voices for the many characters (the cat was particularly suave and sleek) with impeccable diction.
In addition to Peter and the Wolf, which is a relatively short work, the orchestra also played a number of predominantly ‘animal’ related well-known pieces, introduced and explained by Klarwein, one felt as much for adults as children. The concert started with a fanfare introduction, the Trumpet Voluntary by Purcell, a particularly stirring piece that was well-played with an excellent trumpet solo. It then proceeded with two marvellous extracts from Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite – Morning, with exquisite strings and woodwind, followed by the darker strings of the troll In the Hall of the Mountain King. Respighi’s The Hen from The Birds Suite was an interesting choice with the trumpet making a fine rooster.
The last two pieces were Rimsky-Korsakov’s iconic Flight of the Bumblebee followed by an amusing rendition of the Toreador Song from Bizet’s Carmen, where the audience was invited to clap at strategic moments only, exciting the younger attendees. Maestro Cleobury managed this section very well indeed with great humour and good timing, and it proved to be a terrific ending.
All in all, this was an excellent and greatly enjoyable concert that was well-presented, played and conducted to an almost full house of mostly families and young children, clearly having a good time. Peter and the Wolf is the perfect piece to introduce new audiences, and particularly children, to orchestral music without dumbing it down and the QSO did this very well indeed.
Star rating: 4 ½ stars out of 5
QSO Family Series
Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev
Conductor: Nicholas Cleobury
Narrator: Jason Klarwein
Queensland Symphony Orchestra
The Courier-Mail Piazza, Brisbane
Sunday 23 October 2016
