Sounds From The Deep: The Beauty and Power of Water, presented by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra as part of the Music on Sundays series
Conductor & Host Guy Noble
Guitar Karin Schaupp
Smetana The Moldau from Má vlast
Handel Water Music, Suite No.1 Mvts 8 & 9
Westlake Antarctica: Suite for Orchestra and Guitar Mvts 1 & 3
Myers orch. Jessica Wells Cavatina from The Deer Hunter
Britten Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, No. 3
J. Strauss Jr. On the Beautiful Blue Danube
Tchaikovsky Finale Act IV from Swan Lake
An Amusing and Impressive Celebration of the Beauty and Power of Water
Music on Sundays with the QSO is always fabulous family fun, with the highlight being Guy Noble as the host, and in this concert, also as the conductor. Guy has worked with the QSO since 1994 and is renowned for dressing appropriately to suit the nature of the concert. He stormed onto the stage wearing a yellow sou’wester with matching hat to fit in with the concert theme of the beauty and power of water, and introduced the pirate ship ruffians of the QSO, encouraging them to arrrgh at every joke. Ever the professional, he launched into conducting Smetana’s dramatic The Moldau from Má vlast fully clad in the restrictive yellow plastic, which he seemed to instantly regret, as he had to keep lifting the floppy hat to see the far sides of the orchestra. Fortunately Guy has a very conservative baton waving style, but after the 5 minute long piece, he had to be peeled out of the waterproofs by the first violins. The brass played the striptease theme as he struggled to extricate his shoes from his yellow trousers, causing raucous laughter.
Despite Guy’s wardrobe struggles, The Moldau was beautiful, providing a musical travelogue of the water flowing from the Elba, with rivulets of flutes and clarinets and stirring strings until an abrupt end at the sea with a B and E major chord. Terrence Malick’s dark esoteric award-winning film The Tree of Life famously used the movement because of its emotive charm. The Bourrée (a French dance) and the Hornpipe (a sailor’s dance) movements from Water Music Suite No.1 followed, which were written by Handel for George I to be played whilst he partied on a barge sailing up and down the Thames. Fortuitously for the QSO, they were not required to play the same pieces for four hours straight whilst balancing on a moving ship.
The two movements from Nigel Westlake’s Antarctica Suite for Orchestra and Guitar were the perfect opportunity to demonstrate guitar soloist Karen Schaupp’s skills. Karen is a Brisbane-born musician and Head of Classical Guitar at the Queensland Conservatorium and has released six best-selling solo CD’s. She further wowed the audience with Myers’ Cavatina from The Deer Hunter film, then gratified the audience with a brief solo encore on the classical guitar.
The concert flowed through Britten’s Moonlight from his Peter Grimes opera to Strauss Jrs’ delicious On The Beautiful Danube waltz. The movement famously accompanied the docking spacecraft in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, as the spacecrafts “waltzed” together in deep space.
After a brief introduction to the finale, and Matt on the trombone treating the kids in the audience to Baby Shark by PinkFong, the concert closed with a torrential version of Tchaikovsky’s Finale from Swan Lake. If only the dancers from the Queensland Ballet had been there, it would have been quite a sight seeing them trying to keep up with the ripping pace! As the delicate harp arpeggios and the iconic oboe melody drew to an end, so should have the concert. However, the QSO treated the appreciative audience to Hans Zimmer’s Pirates of the Caribbean, which was a fitting swashbuckling conclusion to an amusing and impressive celebration of the beauty and power of water though classical music.
Concert Hall, QPAC
4th August, 2019
Gemma Regan