Above: Sydney Symphony Orchestra played an all-French programme in this concert at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall. SSO was joined by Lang Lang for a stunning version of the Piano Concerto No 2 by Camille Saint-Saëns. Images: Jay Patel / Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
Whenever we have the chance to attend a concert of all-French music, we know a treat lies in store. Lush textures, virtuosic skills of orchestration will be on display and a colour palette plus narrative swoop will lend itself in each work to extremes of nuance and a keen sense of drama.
Sydney Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of conductor Benjamin Northey with nice attention to shape and structure. SSO displayed its fitness and fine voice when delivering the above-mentioned qualities of French Romantic music.
Add to this the global household name and inimitable interpretative, dramatic prowess of Lang Lang into the mix, and the audience was in for a rewarding, wild ride.
And the screaming, cheering, grateful crowd at this concert’s finale after the pair of solo Lang Lang encores showed that the audience in the full Opera House Concert Hall had a formidable ride through late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Seating right around the venue was taken, including the choir rows and seating behind the stage. The ovation and cheers in this stadium formation rivalled any rockstar or sporting hero event- which in the Arts is great thing to experience.
This programme assisted the SSO and visiting keyboard hero to make an impressive mark here. The intricate and measured, comprehensive statements from the three chosen French composers provided exciting and eloquent atmospheres for the crowd to lose themselves in.
Firstly, a tone poem from Nadia Boulanger’s sister Lili was a colourful start to the evening. Well contoured by conductor and orchestra, the rich orchestral tapestry in D’un Matin du Printemps was finely wrought, glistening and rebounded in well-paced, eventual climaxes across the Concert Hall venue.
Above: Conductor for this concert, Benjamin Northey. Image: Jay Patel / Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
From the vistas so capably assembled in the orchestration and broad strokes brilliance of this short-lived composer our attention was buoyantly carried to the classic three-movement favourite Claude Debussy, La Mer: Three Symphonic Sketches.
This triptych shone in the skilful hands of SSO musicians, especially from winds and the pair of harps assembled. There were pleased gasps and sighs from audience members about me throughout and at the conclusion of this programmatic masterpiece at the centre of this event’s programme.
Whether tracing the energies of the sunrise, waves or wind, the orchestra dug down deep into Debissy’s clever instrumental writing and slow-build moments, from solo or small ensemble stillness to some rewarding, rocketing tutti climaxes.
This conductor was nicely in control. He worked hard with SSO sections to search for contrasts in timbre and scope-and successfully found them to communicate in these musical portraits of environment.
After interval we were finally rewarded with Lang Lang’s commanding interpretation of Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No 2 Op22 from 1868. The oldest work on the programme, it did not pale beside the svelte more modern works with their progressive forward-thinking Romantic-plus sheens.
Above: Lang Lang performs with Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Image: Jay Patel / Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
The choice of this concerto allowed us to savour this legendary keyboard guru’s lyricism and his brilliantly punctuated phrases in the solo passages from the onset of the Andante sostenuto first movement.
The synergy between SSO and Lang Lang was complete and sincere. The chance to witness this superstar pianist’s focus, listening, and dialoguing skills throughout the remainder this work’s opening movement was immensely rewarding-it was real pinch-yourself stuff and the most elevated ear-candy experience. The fact that it occurred with our own local orchestra was thrilling.
The middle scherzo movement allowed the high profile guest musician to relax into his showy, playful and terrifically secure technical best. With sympathetic, precise troping from the orchestra, Lang Lang delivered all levels of bravura and all boisterous or smaller exuberances with his celebrated joy, colour and visually delightful gesturing.
Moments of frenetic filigree and virtuosic passages were breathtaking to watch from Lang Lang in this Saint-Saëns’ work. They were never self-indulgent nor wildly out of control. At all times the need for superb duetting with the orchestra in this sometimes underestimated composer was beautifully managed.
A pair of encores amazed the crowd. In keeping with the sentiment intime of this programme, we were treated to Debussy’s Clair de Lune, which was real edge-of-our-impressionist seats stuff.
In tribute to fellow superstar pianist and polymath Sir Stephen Hough (who has very recently played Brahms and Mendelssohn with SSO), the second encore from Lang Lang that dazzled our senses was Sir Stephen Hough’s arrangement of ‘Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf’ from Disney’s Three Little Pigs, originally composed by Frank Churchill.
This concert of French music from our Sydney Symphony Orchestra, with Lang Lang bringing another astonishingly varied set of fantastic jewels in its crown will remain a highlight of the 2025 season. We hope Lang Lang will come Down Under to speak to us, sing with our Sydney band, dance for us and surprise us with his novel keyboard control again soon.
