Double basses a treat in daunting programme
Orchestra Wellington, conducted by Marc Taddei, with Diedre Irons (piano) Michael Fowler Centre, September 21 Reviewed by John Button
This was, quite simply, the most demanding programme that Orchestra Wellington has ever undertaken. It would daunt any orchestra anywhere.
When Leonard Bernstein recorded the Mitropoulos strings arrangement of Beethoven’s C-sharp minor Quartet Op 131 with the Vienna Philharmonic, they almost refused to do it. Yet here it was on a programme that used the same 60 strings to do Schoenberg’s Verklate Nacht (Transfigured Night) as well.
Did it work? Of course, it didn’t quite – but it was the most glorious failure imaginable.
Marc Taddei built the score up from listening to the Mitropoulos/Bernstein recording – one of the great recordings of all time, in my view – and startled the audience by having eight double basses supporting 10 cellos.
Beethoven’s great work had been played, in the Renouf Foyer, before the main concert in its original form by the New Zealand String Quartet – talk about sensory overload.
Technically, the Orchestra Wellington strings – with a small group of New Zealand Symphony Orchestra players as well – played with astounding precision but they are not the Vienna Philharmonic so the upper strings, in particular, were a little thin-sounding. But the drama and bite when called for was there and the sound of those double basses simply had to be heard.
It all worked better in the Schoenberg work, partly thanks to the orchestration, with the large body of strings richly impressive.
Dividing the two large works was Bach’s D-minor keyboard concerto played by Diedre Irons with 19 players, and if it contributed to a long concert, it made sense and was extremely well done.
What a concert – yet for all that it must have challenged the nearly 2000 present, it was clapped to the echo, and rightly so.