The ABC of NMC: Saturday Concerts Review

Highlights of the annual Australian Youth Orchestra’s National Music Camp include the two Saturday public concerts as the culmination of each week. This year the Alexander, Bishop and John Curro orchestras presented a varied, though often bleak, repertoire in the buttressed interior of the Elder Hall.  

The John Curro Chamber orchestra, directed by Dale Barltrop, began the afternoon concert with flair in their performance of Telemann’s Don Quixote Suite. The quartet section demonstrated particular delicacy, and the Gallop just enough roughness to suggest a speedy passage. Smalley’s Footwork provided a chance to show off their tango style and the versatility of the ensemble, led by Amy Brookman. The Curro Orchestra’s later performance of the Shostakovich ‘Chamber Symphony’ was even more impressive. This chamber orchestra setting of the Eighth String Quartet adds a richness to the sonic texture, though players were also able to produce sparse, pure tones when required. The work is bleak and shies away from musical resolution, and the final note died away into absolute silence and stillness, before the hall erupted in applause.  

The performances of the Bishop Orchestra were also notable. Strauss’ Death and Transfiguration is a significant undertaking. Unison lower strings showed great depth of sound, and under the free-wheeling and sometimes frenetic baton of James Judd the brass section laid waste to all before them. The Vaughan Williams Symphony No.6 featured some of the best playing of the evening. A piercingly intense opening threw the audience back in their seats, and the juddering rhythms of this underperformed masterpiece were perfectly together. The performance was dedicated to Queensland, in view of the recent catastrophic floods in that state (and all money for concert entry was donated to the Premier’s Flood Appeal). With such melancholy associations, the prolonged pianissimo of the final movement seemed particularly appropriate, though the silence following the work’s conclusion was soon broken by disconcerting simian hooting from the gallery.  

The Alexander Orchestra also demonstrated their versatility across the two concerts. Their performance of Stanhope’s Machinations was an exciting rendition of a crowded work, complete with solo for manual typewriter. The Saint-Saëns Symphony No.3 which concluded the afternoon concert was particularly magical. The beautifully filigreed Elder Hall organ easily provided both a subtle basis for rapturous strings and a dominating declaration in the joyous final movement. The Allegro Moderato was immediately gripping, calls and answers near perfect, achieved with a minimum of gesture from conductor Edwin Outwater. Trumpets were transcendent, and the inner string voices seized their opportunity to shine. Compared to other performances of the work, the immediacy and blend of organ and orchestra was notable. The music gave us goosebumps - a compliment of the highest order.  

All three orchestras shone, displaying their strengths to an extremely appreciative audience.   

  

Anna Doukakis  

Words About Music participant