The Malta Independent on Sunday
Celebrating veteran musicians
AFoundation Day concert was recently held at the Mediterranean Conference Centre honouring past orchestra members. The Malta Philharmonic Orchestra and the Malta Youth Orchestra came together for an uplifting concert under the baton of Resident Conductor Maestro Michael Laus. Veteran guest conductor Maestro Joseph Sammut, now 97, directed the orchestra from his wheelchair in his engaging work Adagio which he dedicated to all those who passed away during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The audience spontaneously gave him and the MPO a standing ovation at the end of the piece.
Maestro Sammut comes from a musical family. His father played the bassoon with the Commander-in-Chief ’s orchestra as did his uncle. In a most interesting interview I came across on You Tube he explains in some detail how he unexpectedly became conductor. Among the personalities he met during his musical studies in Britain were the legendary Sir Malcolm Sargant. Back in Malta the new maestro led the orchestra from strength to strength training it to play not just light and jazz but symphonic music. In the interview Maestro Sammut also says that destiny had a hand in his life and his appointments. The music in his DNA must have had a great deal to do with it too I suspect not forgetting that he had great presence. He is known to have been demanding and disciplined but much loved.
In 1968 as a result of the services rundown the orchestra had to be disbanded. Suddenly some 20 musicians, many of them, including Maestro Sammut himself, with a young family, were going to find themselves without a job. Sammut managed to negotiate with the British and the musicians were to continue to receive their pay for another two years. The Commander-in-Chief’s orchestra would become The Manoel Theatre Orchestra and develop into the excellent orchestra we have today.
The programme that evening also consisted of two famous and well loved pieces: Johannes Brahms’ (1833-1897) Academic Festival Overture and Antonin Dvořák’s (1841-1904) Symphony No. 9, From the New World, Op. 88, his mighty No. 9. The music
flowed and the playing was consistently lovely for both pieces. The sweetness of the strings, even in the gentlest pianissimos was noticeable.
Brahms came from a relatively poor background,
from a good family who were no longer as rich as they had been. As a teenager he earned money by playing the piano in brothels around his native Hamburg. Brahms is often decribed as a Romantic in classical clothing. Driven by passion there is a sadness in much of his music. He was a lonely man.
That evening the Academic Festival Overature was polished and intense. Under the baton of Maestro Michael Laus, the orchestra presented the warmth of Brahms in full strength.
The very boiserous potpourri of student drinking songs towards the end of the Overature can never fail to delight us, most memorably, the broad, triumpant finale of the ever popular Gaudeamus igitur which Sigmund Romberg used in The Student Prince. It was in this film surely that I heard it and loved it first.
It was Dvořák’s Symphony No
9 next. This famous Czech composer, the eldest in a family of nine, did not come from a particularly musical family. His father juggled two jobs: a butcher by day, a pub landlord by night. This symphony is hailing from the composer’s American period and is infused with a sense of homesick longing. It was the lure of an amazing fee that persuaded Dvořák to venture to New York where he spent three years largely pining for home. It is widely agreed that AfricanAmerican spirituals were a major influence in this symphony.
Astronaut Neil Armstrong took a tape recording of the New World Symphony along during the Apollo 11 mission, the first Moon landing, in 1969.
I love how this symphony starts so quietly then builds to such life. Each movement is completely different. The second and third movements are true masterpieces of a musical genius where the moments of lyricism are divine.
Dvořák was the first Bohemian composer to achieve worldwide recognition.
I have to comment on clapping. We really cannot clap whenever we like in a concert hall. For many, when to clap is a bit of a minefield. Clapping can be really distracting especially for the people around you who will be used to waiting until the symphony, sonata etc. is over before expressing their appreciation. In some classical music environments, applauding midway through is positively encouraged: during an opera, for example, it would be seen as rude not to clap the soloist at the end of a well-sung aria. Otherwise clapping half-way through a piece is distracting for the musicians. It’s considerate to wait until the end of the piece. That evening many members of the audience were clapping hard between movements. It did not detract from my enjoyment but it did annoy me very much.
Having said that, it is well documented that at the premiere in Carnegie Hall of this symphony, the end of every movement was met with thunderous clapping and Dvořák felt obliged to stand up and bow. But this happened in the 19th century. Audiences have evolved since then. The New World Symphony was one of the greatest public triumphs of Dvořák’s career. When the symphony was published, several European orchestras soon performed it. As of 1978, it had been performed more often “than any other symphony at the Royal Festival Hall, London” and is in “tremendous demand in Japan”. It is a universal favourite. The MPO and MYO rose to the occasion. There was another long standing ovation at the end of this symphony. Now that was appropriate.
Let me not forget to mention the popular Joe Dimech who was compere that evening.
After the music was over, it was time for the Minister of Culture Dr Owen Bonnici and the new Chairman of MPO, Alfred Camilleri to go on stage and present an award to surviving members who formed the Manoel Theatre Orchestra in April 1968. They are Stephen Zammit who retired earlier this year after 45 years of service with MPO, Freddie Tonna, George Spiteri who was 1st leader of the orchestra and Mro Joseph Sammut, the first conductor of the orchestra.
That short ceremony was very moving and there was much clapping, and rightly so.
Brahms and Dvořák must be pleased watching, as they might be, from some corner of heaven where the souls of musicians gather for a natter. The MPO has come a long way since 1968. May it go on prospering and giving music lovers pleasure. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: ‘After a good concert one can forgive anybody.’