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Review: Plenty Pathetique
Review: Plenty Pathetique
Pathetique
New Zealand
Symphony Orchestra
Saturday, May 20
Reviewer: Max
Rashbrooke
Saturday night's concert kicked off with Embiosis, a delightful short piece by a talented young New Zealand composer, David Grahame Taylor. Right from its shimmering opening it managed to be both edgy, hovering on the edge of different tonalities, and lush, with deep, warm sounds from the strings. It was a fitting overture to two of the classics of the Romantic repertoire, and it'll be fascinating to see what Taylor can write at a larger scale.
The first of the classics was the Dvorak cello concerto, with young Armenian Narek Hakhnazaryan as the soloist. After a slightly hesitant opening from both soloist and orchestra, this blossomed into a fine performance. Hakhnazaryan and conductor Darrell Ang took a toned-down approach, sunnier and less tormented than, say, that of a Jacqueline du Pre recording, and while Hakhnazaryan doesn't have a huge presence he is clearly a very sensitive musician. His understanding with the orchestra was so strong that at times it seemed as if he and flautist Bridget Douglas, in particular, were connected by an invisible thread, and his playing in the quieter moments was meltingly soft. A moving Armenian folk song for his encore completed the picture.
After the interval came Tchaikovsky's
emotion-packed Pathetique Symphony. Ang handled the immense
first movement deftly, with clarity and balance; even
moments that often pass by unnoticed – an entry for the
violas, say – had real beauty. But I would have liked
slightly more variety in the texture – the later
iterations of the main theme, for instance, lacked the
silvery tone they're often given – and that was true in
the two middle movements as well. The uneasy waltz of the
second movement, for example, was certainly uneasy but
lacked the counterbalancing grace of the waltz. Fortunately
the last movement was more like the first, sensitively
played and delicate, a fitting end to a very enjoyable
concert.
Max Rashbrooke
Journalist
Max Rashbrooke is a journalist and author working in Wellington, New Zealand, where he writes about politics, finance and social issues.
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