Music / Haydn’s Passion, Australian Haydn Ensemble. At Gandel Hall, National Gallery of Australia, December 2. Reviewed by MICHAEL WILSON.
One treat in any performance of the Australian Haydn Ensemble (AHE) is hearing 18th century chamber music played on period instruments.
In many cases, the stringed instruments in the ensemble are 250 and even 300 years old, and the natural horn and baroque oboe produce quite a different sound compared to their modern descendants.
With an expert chamber orchestra and instruments like these, one can expect authenticity in sound and interpretation, and the AHE delivered this across an extensive program spanning Mozart, CPE Bach and – of course – Haydn.
Artistic director Skye McIntosh leads the ensemble on her 1770 Tomaso Eberle violin, standing, from the concertmaster’s position, using her body and ample eye contact with her colleagues, to manage tempo, spirit and dynamics.
This repertoire can be boring if performed without energy and contrast, but the AHE made it absolutely thrilling on a warm December evening in Gandel Hall.
Herein was the only major issue. While the intimate acoustic of Gandel Hall suits the AHE well, the cooling system is distractingly noisy – like a waterfall in the background.
Concentrating on tuning this out, the program’s signature work, Franz Joseph Haydn’s Symphonie No.49 (1768), La Passione, was played with precision and energy. Doubly mislabelled (there is no evidence the piece was written to portray Christ’s Passion, and the artistic period of “storm and stress” in Germany that it’s often associated with came after 1770), the F minor key gives the opening of the symphony an introspective – rather than melancholy – feel.
The predominantly strings-led approach of the first two movements then gives way to the natural horns and oboes in the lead, leading into the final Presto which the players clearly enjoyed.
For Mozart’s Violin Concerto No.3 in G major, McIntosh took centre stage as soloist. Because of the shallower soundbox, it takes more work to get volume from a baroque violin, but the trade-off is a rich and mellow sound extending to the very top of the register.
McIntosh’s mastery of the solo section in the allegro was breathtaking – almost like a meditation. The final rondo, with its Hungarian folksong passage, ends the piece, and the AHE executed this with modesty and without fuss.
The only brief moment of the AHE being out of sync was in the allegro movement of CPE Bach’s 11-minute Symphony in E minor, but otherwise this contrasting, elegant and dramatic work was delivered beautifully.
Finishing the concert with an audience favourite in Mozart’s Symphony No.29 was a great choice. The three-passage pattern building to a rapid bowing climax and resolution in the allegro is so characteristically Mozart, and was played with energy and drama. The horns playing in a high register created a magisterial atmosphere in the andante, before a lovely flourish ended the work.
It was particularly pleasing to see the AHE pause to tune thoroughly at regular intervals. Many Australian orchestras tend to rush this crucial process, as if embarrassed. This was yet another mark of the AHE’s confidence, precision and commitment to its craft, which resulted in an excellent, coherent, uplifting and joyful concert.
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