Melody Eötvös Hidden Wiring - world premiere
Beethoven Concerto in C for Violin, Cello and Piano, Op.56,
Shostakovich Symphony No.5 in D minor, Op.47
Conductor Alexander Prior
Violin Emily Sun
Cello Caleb Wong
Piano Aura Go
A Creative Neuronal and Aural Kickstart to Season 2020
The glory of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra returns, opening the 2020 season with Power and Glory, a powerful and electrifying World premiere from Melody Eötvös’ with Hidden Wiring, followed by Beethoven and Shostakovich.
The inspiration for Eötvös’ short, unique piece was the chapter “Hidden Wiring,” linking psychological neural connections from the book The Mathematics of Life by mathematician Ian Stewart on the role of mathematics in Biology. In the pre-concert talk, the Melbourne-based Australian composer Melody Eötvös’ described how her unusual simulation of a 5:1 Dolby sound system was to be mimicked by the brass musicians dotted around the Concert Hall, up in the boxes and surrounding the surprised audience. The composition was a psychological insight, seeming to mimic the firing and neural connections of the notes throughout the composer’s brain. The scattered bolshy antiphonal brass mimicked neuronal firing, crafted to demonstrate the Gestalt principle which describes how humans see and hear objects as a whole by grouping similar elements, recognising patterns and simplifying complex images.
The brass clusters of neurons were shooting the notes around the concert hall in a discordant but highly effective manner. With a lack of melody (ironic considering the composer’s name), the brass notes flexed and wavered across the audience creating standing waves. The experience is likened to using a binaural tones to stimulate theta brain waves. The brass tones eventually faded to oblivion leaving the audience with harmonised and stimulated brains. Overall the piece was reminiscent of the works of Vangelis, and even the brassy signature theme of the 1960s Open University series. We can claim Eötvös’ as an honorary Queenslander and possibly having some influence in her compositional creativity, as she studied at the Queensland Conservatorium, before completing a masters at the Royal Academy in the UK and a doctorate in the US, before lecturing at the Conservatorium in Melbourne.
Once the audience had been neurally stimulated, the program returned to the more traditional style with Beethoven and Shostakovich. The 2020 season is celebrating 250 years since Beethoven’s birth with a program exposing the audience to some of his less common pieces including the Triple Concerto. It is a unique piece, composed in 1804 for Archduke Rudolph when Beethoven realised his hearing was failing. It was the touch paper to fire him up to further experiment, using his incredible talent to compose “something of a novelty,” as he described the concerto, featuring three soloists on piano, cello and violin mimicking a double ensemble of a chamber orchestra and orchestra.
The opening Allegro is the longest in a concerto, with a soft start, and rhythmic strings swelling to the melody, interchanging between cello (Caleb Wong); piano (Aura Go); and violin (Emily Sun). Although unusual in nature, the concerto was standard chamber music with a generous accompaniment from the orchestra. Technically all three soloists were flawless, but did not seem to gel well together. Possibly due to each treating their pieces as solos and having little opportunity to practise together. It wasn’t until the final Polonaise, the most enjoyable of the three movements when the soloists became more musically synergetic.
Shostakovich’s Symphony No 5 followed the interval, conducted with an excited effervescence by the young guest conductor Alexander Prior, Chief Conductor of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. This is his first time returning to the QSO after his fantastic debut in 2018 conducting an Emotional Rollercoaster, whilst Alondra de la Parra was on maternity leave. After Prior’s more reserved conducting style in the first half he seemed to come alive, perhaps stimulated by a half-time tipple… He punched out every brass note and bounced with each bow of the strings seeming to be a one-man band, such was his delight for the piece when he introduced Symphony No 5 as one of his favourites.
Shostakovich composed Symphony No 5 in the wake of his condemned opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, which Stalin had hated, viewing the composer’s intentions as a threat to the Communist Party. Fortunately, Shostakovich saved his life with the exuberant reception of the symphony despite it being a passive-aggressive piece, laden with Shostakovich’s mixed emotions at the time. The tone of the music appears to delight in the might and power of the USSR, but with a underlying current of sarcasm and appeasement themed on the “making of Man”. The first movement was dark using the minor key effectively and the strings were broody, becoming more playful in the second, culminating in a hollow empty finale.
Although it was an unusual eclectic choice of program for the QSO’s season opening gala, not really befitting it’s title, all three pieces were enjoyable and well received with the World premiere Hidden Wires being the jewel in the crown and a neuronal and aural kickstart to the QSO’s 2020 season!
Concert Hall, QPAC
Sat 8th Feb, 2020
Dr Gemma Regan