Featured image: Artistic Director Sarah-Grace Williams conducts TMO.
The final concert in TMO’s Met Series for 2016 was as diverse and rich in entertainment value as all others this year. Two exquisite and challenging orchestral favourites were programmed alongside a recent Australian work featuring TMO’s Andrew Doyle as basset clarinet soloist.
Overture to a Midsummer Night’s Dream (1826) created by a teenage Mendelssohn and Symphony No 7 (1812) composed by Beethoven in the final fifteen years of his life framed an exciting central work, Ornamental Air for Basset Clarinet and Orchestra (2007) by Elena Kats-Chernin.
Regardless of the time period or purpose of the works, the contrasting dramatic essence was quickly and clearly defined in each from its outset by TMO and soloist.
Direct and well-communicated leadership from Sarah-Grace Williams ensured that all strands of Mendelssohn’s intricately orchestrated overture contained controlled and clear magic. Extremes of dynamics, especially in sections of hushed filigree alluded to delicacy, passions, slumber and the stuff of Shakespearean sprites.
Sustained woodwinds in this work were well-focussed and instantly created an atmosphere of expectation for both this overture work and our night with TMO alike. This colourful start to the concert was also a fitting prelude to the activity about to be unleashed during the Kats-Chernin composition.
Elena Kats-Chernin’s work for basset clarinet and orchestra was a solid showcase for Andrew Doyle’s new custom-built instrument. Using all pitches in the instrument’s range, including a syrup-like richness of the low register, this was a satisfying introductory treat to the basset clarinet for all assembled.
From the work’s opening, TMO accompanied with precise verve as the solo and orchestral figures danced before us with formidable energy. Doyle’s facility across the basset’s expansive span and timbral palette was quite dazzling. Cadenzas were eloquent and shifts across registers were smooth.
Doyle’s encore gift to us of the slow movement from Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto K622 was the epitome of smooth, beautifully phrased conversation. The tender expression championed this popular movement’s serenity via the depth and grace of this replica authentic instrument.
Throughout the Met Series concerts for 2016, TMO has presented major symphonies of the repertoire to fill the second half of its concerts. These have been well-executed, formidable vehicles with which to display TMO’s ever-growing level of professionalism, polish and convincing collective interpretation that does not lose courage when faced with works from the masters.
No work could have more fittingly concluded the 2016 Met Concerts whilst demonstrating the above-mentioned performance skills than Beethoven’s Symphony No 7 Op 92. A favourite symphony of many and reportedly even Beethoven himself, it crowned this programme with arguably the most captivating listening experience of the evening. The treasured movements were streamlined, self-contained and true to Beethoven’s experiments in expression.
Beethoven can be rendered on smaller ensembles, but here the fuller forces were well harnessed to offer crisp unisons and clean changes across the orchestra. In this symphony, momentum from the opening through to the finale was perhaps the most keenly cultivated of all works in the concert. The second movement Allegretto was built with mesmerising, measured success and the final Allegro bristled at its very brisk pace.
The 2017 concert season for TMO including Met Series concerts and other performances across Sydney is now on sale. It promises to continue entertaining us through its range of quality events.