After noticing that the violinists of the NCPA Orchestra of China took the unusual step of moving their own chairs to make room for the soloist, at their recent Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, it was of great interest to me to see that the Sydney Symphony finally did much the same – though only to fill the vacuum left by the departing guitar quartet. One never likes to underrate efficiency, however, and anything to keep the concert chugging along is a boon.
The venue was the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House, for the Sydney Symphony and the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet in a selection of Spanish works to soothe and enliven the appetite. Indeed, after the concert had finished, this critic had a weirdly specific craving for chorizo, as if some weird musical impregnation had given me pregnant pangs for foreign delicacies. (But let us move on from that not entirely pleasant image.)
The first work was Carlos Chavez’s Sinfonia india (Symphony No. 2), a lovely little 12 minute piece serving as the overture for the evening, and doing a fine job of clearing those persistent worries of the world away – a Concert Hall is no place for having outside concerns, after all. Plenty of energy and a balanced tempo by conductor Michael Stern.
Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concierto Andaluz for guitar quartet and orchestra came next and instantly expanded the musical consciousness of all those present. A guitar quartet is such an unusual soloist for a concerto (at least for Sydneysiders) that already there was a sense of freshness about the endeavour, a sense that was further pressed home by the actual performance. The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet (comprised of John Dearman, Matthew Greif, William Kanengiser and Scott Tennant) have a subdued charisma – partially owing, one assumes, to having to keep up with an orchestra behind them – but the stereotype of hypnotic classical guitar playing holds as true for them as any other. While one may not have been sitting on a porch with a sangria in hand, listening to a lone guitarist plucking the warm night away, there nevertheless was much the same vibrancy on display. The hypnotic in music is often the best, and such was the case here.
After the interval the quartet took to the platform once more with Manuel de Falla’s El Amor Brujo (Love, the Magician), which, while not as successful as the Rodrigo before it, was enjoyable nonetheless. After the quartet had shuffled off the stage, we heard John Adams’ Lollapalooza, a seven minute buildup that seemed less of a musical statement and more of a unbridled party, which sometimes is good and sometimes is not, and the work landed somewhere around the middle of those two extremes.
Alberto Ginastera’s Four Dances from the ballet Estancia finished proceedings, with a driving energy that the Adams piece, for all its rotating bluster and spinning momentum, lacked. It’s just the type of piece to send an audience home on a high, and it did just that.
Rating: 4 stars out 5
Spanish Guitars
Sydney Symphony
Los Angeles Guitar Quartet (John Dearman, Matthew Greif, William Kanengiser, Scott Tennant), Michael Stern (conductor)
Carlos Chavez – Sinfonia india (Symphony No.2)
Joaquin Rodrigo – Concerto Andaluz for guitar quartet and orchestra
Manuel de Falla – El Amor Brujo (Love, the Magician)
John Adams – Lollapalooza
Alberto Ginastera – Four Dances from the ballet Estancia
Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House
16 November
