Sunday afternoon concerts are my favourite, non better than at The Concourse, Chatswood for KPO’s debute for the year. The orchestra’s dance card is packed with a power punch to enliven the audience’s ears.
Music for the Royal Fireworks HWV 351(1749)
George Frederik Handel (1685-1759)
King George II was determined to present the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle to his subjects as a triumph after hostilities ceased in the War of Austrian Succession . His choice was non other than Handel who had established his pre-eminence in England as a composer of opera and then oratorio. The magnitude of this celebration was epic. It is recorded that a ticketed rehearsal of the Music for the Royal Fireworks, held in Vauxhall Gardens, drew more than 12,000 people who coughed-up half a crown to attend causing a three-hour traffic jam on London Bridge. The performance demanded a martial cacophony for the score, fielding the heavy armour of an engorged orchestra, including a large band of oboes, horns and trumpets, bassoon with three sets of Timpani. Bada-boom, indeed. The spectacle was a popular success, the emphasis placed on robustness, a martial tour de force.
It is likely that Handel’s music was played not as an accompaniment to the fireworks that included cannons for the ultimate effect, but with all the movements in the key of D-predominantly D major, with the Bouree and Menuet I in the minor mode. A solid four-voice texture prevails through most of the work, with different colours being created in the dance movements by varying the instrumentation in the repeats. Appropriately, “La Paix” (Peace) stands apart, with its more intricate texture and the use of a gentle ‘Siciliana’ style, which has beats subdivided into three. The mood changes suddenly with the noisy fanfares of the following movement, “La Rejouissance” ( Rejoicing). These are the two movements in the work that display titles specific to the occasion, although it is often suggested that the Allegro section of the overture, with its frantic semiquavers, represents war. The KPO accomplished this piece highlighting the whole orchestra’s extraordinary finesse and robust dexterity.
Concerto in D minor for Piano and Orchestra KV466 (1785)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ( 1756-1791)
Mozart is credited for the creation of the modern piano concerto as a means of supporting his career as a performer. Concertos were the natural solution to ameliorate his constant financial difficulties. This work is known for its dramatic and romantic character, the orchestra including trumpets and Timpani in keeping with the emotional depth and seriousness of the key of D minor, a key associated with Mozart’s Requiem and the damnation scene in Don Giovanni. The first movement opens with syncopated pulsing strings, setting the mood for the pianist, non other than charismatic Vatche Jambazian whose characteristic volcanic piano grace is outstanding as a visual performance as is his delicacy in evoking every emotion through the keyboard..he moves gracefully through the melancholic tune before brightening the mood with his gentle tickling of the ivories.
The second movement is a “romanza” where we encounter the fullness of Mozart’s musical beauty and lyricism. PThe tranquil opening is interrupted by the menacing score. The third movement opens vigorously with a rising arpeggios that drives the momentum, where we are catapulted into the pianos cadenza that showcases Jambazian’s mercurial skill. After the tumultuous encores he returned to titillate the audience with a tune from his homeland, Armenia.
Symphony No.1 in D major “Titan” (1883-1888)
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
The vagaries of musical popularity change frequently, as the first reception to the airing of this symphony proved, but changed three years later to a triumph. The robust score bursting with boldness and the fire of youth, displaying his burgeoning mastery of orchestration
LANGSAM.SCHLEPPEND (Slowly, dragging)
The crescendo grows from a quiet beginning dotted with bird calls replete with sound of emotional awakening. A fanfare of woodwinds followed by clarinets and trumpets usher the slow melody played by the horns with clarinets echoing the sound of the cukoo, eventually raising the energy with a French horn fanfare bringing on the movement to a fiery and jubilant conclusion.
KRAFTIG BEWEGT, DOCH NICHT ZU SCHNELL ( Moving strongly, but not too quickly)
The second movement recalls a hearty scherzo in the form of a Shetle- inspired folk dance starts with a solo horn introducing the Trio section ushering the renewed vigour of the peasant dance.
FELERLICH und Gemessen, one zu Schleppen ( solemnly and measured, without dragging)
A funeral march based on the children’s song Frere Jacques in a minor key version leads to a witty parody of military band music that proceeds through a chain of exotic rhythms and colours never heard or imagined in a symphony, rising in the movement’s dying bars to a “terrifying shriek” described by Mahler as the “outburst of a wounded heart”.
STURMICH BEWEGT-ENERGISCH (Stormily agitated-Energetic)
The finale bursts with an explosion of heated emotion, akin to a battering. Romantic yearning wages battle with dark sentiments, but positive feelings win the day. My partner expressed that she could feel the brutality of the Score, yet felt elated with the unifying ending in a lengthy and triumphant coda using fanfare material from the beginning. There was a rarely heard solo by the bass, quite extraordinary.
The emotional roller coaster ending…
