In his uniquely energetic style, chief conductor Nicholas Milton led the orchestra on a tour-de-force of music stretching over 150 years, starting off with Nigel Westlake’s “Shimmering Blue”, which he wrote for the 75th anniversary of the WA Symphony Orchestra. It’s short piece that starts softly but quickly builds to a very rhythmic, bold and brassy finish. The orchestra gave a real shine to every colour of this vibrant piece.
Then it was time to open the piano for a performance of Rachmaninov’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini”, a demanding work of a theme and 24 variations for piano and orchestra, based on Paganini’s diabolically difficult “Caprice No 24” for solo violin, itself a theme followed by a set of 11 variations and a finale.
The soloist, Kristian Chong, was nothing short of brilliant, giving a heartfelt performance of extraordinary beauty and sensitivity with finely controlled expression, tempi and touch. The famous 18th variation was especially moving, played with deep thoughtfulness holding the capacity audience totally silent.
Two encores were demanded and featured another Rachmaninov work and a piece for left hand by Australian composer Miriam Hyde, written for Chong when he broke his right arm at the age of nine years.
After interval was Tchaikovsky’s “Symphony No 4 in F minor”, which Milton conducted from memory; to do so would be akin to reciting “War and Peace” from memory, for Tchaikovsky’s work is much like it. It is a piece of great complexity, power and drama, but with moments of respite in the inner two movements.
The third, a lively scherzo, featured pizzicato throughout for all the strings.The CSO strings, led by concertmaster Barbara Jane Gilby, handled it superbly, keeping in perfect time with really quite marvellous crescendos and diminuendos sending the sound back and forth across the stage in beautiful measure, creating a magnificent natural stereo effect.
In the outer movements the brass came into its own. All the brass were brilliant, but it was the French horns that really grabbed my attention. Their playing was the best you will hear anywhere in the world. Note accuracy was perfect. They dominated superbly when required, but blended beautifully when the score called for it.
This concert was a thrilling end to a year of very fine music-making by the Canberra Symphony Orchestra. It indeed was spectacular.
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