Concert contrasts composers to great effect
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Edo de Waart, music by Stravinsky and Rachmaninov Michael Fowler Centre, August 24 Reviewed by John Button
This concert contrasted the work of two Russian composers who lived at the same time yet whose temperaments, upbringing and training could not have been more different.
Stravinsky, an objective, emotionally detached composer, was a highly individual giant of 20th century music whereas Rachmaninov’s darkly romantic, tonally conservative, music mirrored his life and his emotional state.
Stravinsky’s brief Symphony of Wind Instruments dates from 1920 and was dedicated to the memory of Debussy who had died in 1918. It is a work of fascinating sonorities with hints of the Orthodox Church and Catholicism, whereas the Symphony in Three Movements which dates from 1945 could not be more different. Although it reflects, at times, the classicism of Beethoven, it also has echoes of the
Rite of Spring, the sensation of 32 years earlier.
Rachamninov’s
Symphony No. 2 in E minor dates from 1906 and followed the disastrous premier of his First Symphony, and is both his largest and most popular purely orchestral work.
It is replete with his long-winded melodies, dramatic climaxes and acres of taxing string writing.
In the right hands it can be a sensation in sound, but with the wrong conductor, and an orchestra incapable of meeting its demands, it can be an interminable, overly romantic, bore. Fortunately in all three works the NZSO was in fine form. The two Stravinsky works were beautifully opened out and the Rachamninov featured playing of great confidence and splendour.
Conductor de Waart was wonderfully knowing but there were times, particularly in the Rachmaninov, when I would have liked a hint more dramatic pointing from the brass – but nothing serious to take away from an involving, and thought provoking, concert.