Tag Archives: Rossini

Petite Messe Solennelle (Rossini)

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Conservatorium Chorale

Music Auditorium, WAAPA

 

reviewed by Neville Cohn

 

After enormously industrious years during which he churned out opera after opera (many of them masterpieces), Rossini devoted nearly all the rest of his life to laziness. As time ticked by, he began to worry how he’d be received at the gates of heaven. Would the shameless old wizard be ushered in with ceremony or turned away to a less than attractive eternity elsewhere? So he devised a sacred choral work that he hoped would be his entry ticket to celestial bliss. But, Rossini being Rossini, he couldn’t resist the temptation to send up the Mass – and a good deal of Petite Messe Solennelle is firmly tongue in cheek. It most certainly is not small and a good deal of it is anything but solemn. Most importantly for posterity which couldn’t care tuppence whether Rossini got into heaven or not, it’s full of good musical things.

 

A rare airing of the work on Thursday drew a full house to hear it to the

accompaniment of piano and harmonium – but one wondered why the second piano called for in the score was not used bearing in mind that such an instrument was already there onstage.

 

It is no small challenge to direct a work of this nature with a choir consisting of students from first through to final years, many with voices still very much in the process of development. Under these circumstances, the general quality of ensemble, despite occasional raggedness, was encouragingly disciplined with quality of corporate tone, for the most part, commendable. Certainly, momentum was very well maintained throughout.

 

Rossini’s Mass is peppered with solos and the standard of some of these was less than one might have wished. But two contributions stood out for their general excellence. Ryan Sharp – not to be confused with the racing driver of the same name – produced at all times a stream of finely shaped, warmly mellow tone. This is a voice that holds great promise.

 

As is often said, good things are worth waiting for – and this was most certainly the case here with the concluding Agnus Dei which was memorable for a frankly thrilling performance by Bernadette Lucanus. Clearly the beneficiary of the most skilled training, the musicianship she brought to bear on her solo, in which she clothed each note in beautifully refulgent tone, was one of the high points of the evening.

 

Micheal McCarthy, who works tirelessly in the cause of choral music, presided over events with distinction.

 

Lavish laurels to David Wickham whose musicality and musicianship at the piano deserve the highest praise. Stylistically, tonally and expressively it was musicmaking at a very high standard. And at the wheezing harmonium, Stewart Smith was no less on form, his solo near the conclusion of the Mass a model of its kind.


W.A.Symphony Orchestra

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Perth Concert Hall

 

 

 

reviewed by Neville Cohn

 

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Both Felix Mendelssohn and the TB-riddled Frederic Chopin tumbled off the twig before they turned 40. But they were mighty quick off the starting block. As teenagers, they both scaled Olympus: Mendelssohn’s Octet, heard here only the other day, was written at 16 – and Chopin’s Piano Concerto No 1 was completed when he was a mere19.

 

Alexander Gavrylyuk, no slouch himself – he won the Horowitz International Piano Competition when he was all of 15 years old – dazzled in music by both  Chopin and Mendelssohn at the Concert Hall at the weekend.

 

His account of the Chopin concerto was a marvel of musicianship: an imperious opening statement which gave way to wondrously expansive treatment of much of the opening movement. The nocturne-like slow movement was a model of refined expressiveness – and in the finale, fearless, infallible fingers wrought wonders in articulating the concerto’s villainously intricate solo part.

 

An audience that filled stalls, galleries and choir stalls to near-capacity could not contain its enthusiasm and burst into wild applause before the final bars of the concerto were played – unprecedented at a Master Series concert.

 

There was a sensational response with Gavrylyuk essaying Vladimir Horowitz’s horrendously demanding arrangement of Mendelssohn’s Wedding March. Here, those oh-so-familiar phrases were re-visited with such grandeur and brilliance that many in the audience rose spontaneously to their feet in acknowledgment of such pianistic wizardry. What a wonderful contribution towards this bicentenary year of Mendelssohn’s birth in 1809.

 

As curtain raiser, we heard a smartly detailed account of the overture to Rossini’s opera The Italian Girl in Algiers and, after the interval, Schubert’s Symphony No 9, known as The Great.

 

Of considerable length, the Ninth, in the wrong hands, can so easily sound  interminable. There was not a hint of that in Oleg Caetani’s direction of the piece. Clearly identifying closely with the score, which he conducted from memory, Caetani set and maintained tempi that ensured buoyancy of momentum. Occasionally, there was a need for the brass section to rein in its muscle-flexing to provide a more tonally discreet contribution – but this is a minor reservation about an interpretation made meaningful by close attention to detail without losing sight of the grand sweep of the work.