Above: Brass and percussion members of TMO. Featured image: Chief conductor Sarah-Grace Williams and TMO.
This stunning event, the final TMO Met Concert for 2022, was full of contrast, colour caricature and songs for a changed world . The newness of approach to concerto writing in Keyna Wilkins’ World Premiere Solar Triumvirate, a triple flute concerto, looked way past 2022 and this earth. The high calibre of performance in all works presented made for many scintillating moments in a star-studded programme of new and much loved orchestral music.
The Enigma Variations referred to in this Met Concert’s title occupied the entire second half of the programme after interval. Followers of TMO will remember hearing Sarah-Grace Williams and orchestra perform the ‘Nimrod’ variation as part of the 2019 ‘A Night at the Movies’ and last year’s ‘Classical Blockbusters’ concerts due to its use on the soundtrack of the 2017 war film Dunkirk.
This loved variation and seasoned part of TMO’s repertoire emerged with exciting calm emotional finesse at the ninth variation position. This movement’s gradual expansion and heart-swelling tuttis made it the success one would expect from the loved variation in Elgar’s work and as an established part of TMO’s repertoire.
It was a significant performance milestone for TMO to end 2022 with a performance now of the complete Enigma Variations. The Enigma theme opening this work was placed with superb clarity in the Riverside space. It exuded gentle poise, elegance and neat shape as a fitting start to the chameleon rush of the rest of the work.
Elgar’s personal, good humoured set of movements represent people in his family, friends circle and even a friend’s pet dog. The required knife-edge changes to each new mood or caricature of the individual for each portrait-variation were managed expertly here, The playing supplied an exciting string of dramatic contrasts to conclude this colourful concert.
Programmatic, pictorial and theatrical emphasis made this Met Concert a very entertaining journey. This journey began with the familiar shimmering shape shifting of Mendelssohn’s theatre overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. TMO moved through this prelude with an easy and sensible tracing of nuance and narrative.
Above: Composer of ‘Solar Triumvirate’, Keyna Wilkins. This work was heard in World Premiere at this concert
The performance was well graded through its sections. Some logical and solid, unhurried travelling through Mendelssohn’s intricate construction allowed for some satisfying building of climaxes and keenly varied hues in this soundscape.
This night’s definite highlight was hearing Keyna Wilkins‘ sensational new triple concerto for flutes, Solar Triumvirate, depicting three stars in a constellation and represented in the score by three flute soloists.
This new work from Wilkins, Composer-In Residence with TMO, moved with slick, smooth subtlety. As new music for our time it employs material with incredible freshness of gesture. Its steady lines for orchestra and trio of soloists melded into some beautifully stranded energy.
These lines are heard for individual flutes, flute trio together or as flutes pitted against an equally fresh orchestral soundscape. In the capable hands of the soloists and TMO as accompanying orchestra, this new music spoke with an exquisite, unforced natural newness.
Expression and the creation of expansive sound vistas was clear and clean. The writing in movement two for orchestra and soloists over the backdrop of recorded sound derived from wave formations sourced from the stars themselves was delicately handled.
The result of TMO’s deliberate tracing of all elements in combination for this work’s premiere was a vivid, streamlined promotion of Wilkins’ sincere, never superficial sonic mixes. Her writing ensured that the elements or resources within the trio of soloists were balanced and were super smooth when combined with orchestral accompaniment.
The colours and shapes needing to be achieved in the three movements of this work were communicated virtuosically by the triple concerto soloists: Jacinta Mikus (alto flute, C flute, piccolo) Svetlana Yaroslavskaya (C flute, piccolo) and Vanessa Couper (C flute, piccolo). The writing for various flute voices and these performers’ careful rendering of the atypical counterpoint was exemplary.
Above: Soloists for Keyna Wilkins’ ‘Solar Triumvirate’: Jacinta Mikus, Svetlana Yaroslavskaya and Vanessa Couper.
We witnessed in this composition the ethereal, shininess of alto flute with C flutes chiming elaborately above. At other times the reaching tone of flutes with piccolo featured. The glorious finale of piccolo trio was a successful and joyous innovation.
The orchestra part here, which moves in and out of the sonic sky, was never jarring or obtrusive. It was so well balanced with the trio of flute soloists itself, which was impressive given the exposed newness of melodic style and shape.
The soundscape created for this world premiere was spellbinding and special. As it was lacking in the traditional phrasing shapes, the innovation in the writing of short the longer fragments and their seamless, even unravelling resulted in a truly out-of-this-world sound.
This treatment of Keyna Wilkins’ clever new score made for a very forward-looking World Premiere performance. The success of this brave new sound world pointed to a future winking with many bright stars for both the featured composer and The Metropolitan Orchestra.
TMO performs ‘The Magic Of Christmas’, a Cushion Concert at Petersham Town Hall on December 10 and 11. On December 10 TMO performs the score live to the movie ‘A Muppet Christmas Carol’ at the ICC, Darling Harbour.
