Conductor Daniel Blendulf
Soloist Pablo Ferrández, Cello
Chorus Canticum Chamber Choir
Skipworth Spiritus
Debussy Nocturnes: Nuages (Clouds); Fêtes (Festivals); Sirènes (Sirens)
Dvořák Concerto in B minor for Cello and Orchestra
A Mesmeric Maelstrom of Musical Delights!
The Soulful Journeys concert was part of the Maestro Concert Series was billed to be a night of breathtaking music and the evening certainly lived up to the promise.
The first composition Spiritus, meaning breath or spirit in Latin, was composed and introduced by the young Australian Lachlan Skipworth, and did indeed have the audience holding their breaths. Lachlan explained that his inspiration for the unusual elemental work was his “psychological and emotional response to the winds of my native Perth”. He was also inspired by the indigenous folklore of the spiralling willy-willy wind, from whence a menacing wind spirit emerges. The QSO filled the concert hall with the etheric sounds of the various winds from Western Australia, including the zephyrs and the Freemantle Doctor (a cooling afternoon breeze), courtesy of a thunder-sheet, the celeste, timpani and fluttering flutes. The cor anglais spiralled through the melody like a willy-willy, with the cello breezing in amongst it. The use of the brass blowing through their instruments without playing notes was particularly effective at recreating a real wind sound. Slapping double bases coupled with mournful strings and a magical harp encircled the audience in a maelstrom until petering out to a single sustained note as the winds died out. It was an inspirational and unusual piece, evocative of the spirit of Australia.
Debussy’s Nocturnes was the perfect accompaniment to Spiritus, continuing the elemental theme with Nuages (Clouds). Debussy was inspired by the Nocturnes impressionist paintings of Whistler, to recreate a triptych of the paintings by orchestral expression.
Debussy claimed that his orchestral illustration of the painting Nuages,“renders the immutable aspect of the sky and the slow, solemn motion of the clouds, fading away in grey tones lightly tinged with white”. It was a very slow with floating chords, again highlighting the cor anglais to reproduce the fluffy slow moving clouds of the painting.
Fêtes was a distinct contrast, in a kaleidoscopic display of colour and energy. Using two harps, the cor anglais, a snare drum and orchestra, it was bright, fizzy and vibrant.
Sirens was a real favourite, featuring the female members of the Canticum Chamber Choir, directed by Emily Cox. Their wordless melodies mimicked the hollering of the sirens luring the ships onto the rocks. The music was influenced by both Régnier’s L’Homme et la sirène and Swinburne’s poem Nocturne, describing the mermaid rising from the sea. The melody ebbed and flowed like the waves crashing against the rocks where the sirens lay in wait. The Scandinavian guest conductor Daniel Blendulf, seemed to be in his element, as he too swayed with the rise and fall of the beautiful flowing tones of the choir.
Pablo Ferràndez, 2016 ICMA Young Artist of the Year and XV International Tchaikovsky Competition prizewinner treated the audience to his beautiful cello solos in Dvořák’s Concerto in B minor for Cello and Orchestra. Brahms, a mentor of Dvořák’s, had exclaimed on hearing the concerto that if “one could write a cello concerto like that, I’d have written one a long time ago!” It was dedicated to his cellist friend Hanuš Wihan, who through some miscommunication did not get to perform the solo at the premiere.
Starting with soft clarinets the trumpets develop the theme with a technically challenging solo from Pablo Ferràndez, ending with trills on a high B. The Adagio is longer and slower highlighting a harmonic cadenza between flutes and cello. The Finale starts with the horn playing the theme quietly until the cello eventually takes over the theme in a strident loud tone, repeated by each section. With crescendos and contrasting volumes, the piece ends spectacularly with the full orchestra, enforcing Dvořák’s cello concerto to be known as the “supreme” one.
The Queensland Symphony Orchestra’s Soulful Journeys, was a mesmeric maelstrom of musical delights!
Concert Hall, QPAC
8th Jun, 2019
Dr Gemma Regan