GURRELIEDER – ARNOLD SCHOENBERG
SYDNEY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
SIMONE YOUNG – conductor
Friday 15 March, 2024, Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House
Simon O’Neill – Waldemar
Ricarda Merbeth – Tove
Deborah Humble – Waldtaube
Sava Vemić – Peasant
Andrew Goodwin – Klaus-Narr
Warwick Fyfe – Speaker
Members of the Australian National Academy of Music
Sydney Philharmonia Choirs
and members from the Melbourne and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Choirs
When presenting works by the great composers from previous centuries most concert promoters will tend to concentrate on the works from the second half of such composers’ lives and we think of the compositions of Beethoven after he was 35, like the symphonies 5 to 9, the 4th and 5th piano concertos and all of Brahms’ symphonies come from this stage of his life, but when it comes to Arnold Schoenberg it is a different story as it is the works that he wrote in the first part of his life that we hear in concert by the big music organisations. These early works by Schoenberg are all heavily influenced by the romanticism expounded by Brahms and Wagner and later, that of Mahler. Maybe Arnold Schoenberg is really the ‘lost romantic’ from our music history and he is definitely, like great artists such as Beethoven and Picasso, an artist in two parts – the early work is from the time of his emergence as a creative thinker and the later works are the result of his great innovation.
Gurrelieder is the fruit of his early thinking and what a masterpiece of late romanticism.
Simone Young is renowned for taking on big works and particularly from the German Romantic period so expectations were running high for this concert. In charge of an orchestra that has never sounded better and having chosen a superb group of vocal soloists her interpretation of and control of this huge work was truly awe inspiring. Young searched for the nuances in the score and brought forward the colours beautifully.
The work starts with shimmering strings, harps, piccolos and flutes creating a fairyland sound for the solo trumpet and then solo horn to whisper an elegiac descending melody hinting at another time, another place. Trumpeter David Elton and hornist Premysl Vojta playing this delicate music were sweetness personified.
Then the work takes on its back and forth arias from Simon O’Neill (Waldemar) and Ricarda Merbeth (Tove). Merbeth was perfectly cast for this work as she effortlessly moved from singing totally within herself to being able to float on top of the huge orchestral canvas. O’Neill was on stage for the whole work and was in character from the very beginning giving additional power to the dramatic elements of this over the top romantic work.
He sang gently, he sang with guile and he was heroic. What a singer!
All the solo singers, Deborah Humble, Sava Vemić, Andrew Goodwin and Warwick Fyfe delighted the full house with their singing and immersion in the music and drama. Vemić was engaging as was the quasi-speaker part Fyfe presented. Goodwin was elegant and Humble showed she had the power and control to match the score. The choir finally enters in Part 2 and the thunderous vocal attack was electrifying. All the choirs were prepared by their various chorus masters to perfection to blend with ease to Young’s vision of this work.
The members of the SSO seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely playing this work from 111 years ago for the very first time. Committed playing from all sections and great cameo solos from the superb clarinettist Frank Celata was matched by Joshua Batty (flute), Shefali Pryor (oboe) and Matthew Wilkie (bassoon).
When the audience returned for the second half of the concert and saw an orchestra nearing 140 and a choir of way over two hundred it was an extreme sight and at times so was the power that the musicians delivered. Needless to say the applause was equally deafening!
Footnote:
For the sake of the continuance of musical history and the legacy of Arnold Schoenberg, let’s hope that more than just Gurrelieder and the ravishingly beautiful string work Verklärte Nacht are performed in this 150th birthday celebration year by the large music organisations.
The revered Melbourne pianist Danaë Killian is celebrating the big birthday by playing all his solo piano music in one night at Tempo Rubato, 34 Breese Street Brunswick (Melbourne) on Friday 13th September which is 150 years to the day after Schoenberg’s birth in 1874. What a great event. Killian is simply one of finest performers of this repertoire and her CD on the Move label, Arnold Schoenberg – The complete works for Piano, has been reviewed here on classikON.
