Sydney Symphony Orchestra | Augustin Hadelich performs Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto
August 7, 2024, Sydney Opera House, NSW
Simone Young – conductor
Augustin Hadelich – violin soloist
PROGRAM
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) – Violin Concerto in E minor, Op.64
Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) – Symphony No.8 in C minor
Violin soloist Augustin Hadelich walked on stage and in seconds into the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto had the Sydney Opera House ‘full house’ audience spellbound as he spun a magical lyrical line that captivated everyone’s heart. And it only got better. Bravura passages dispatched at breathtaking speed were followed with phrases so sweet that it was almost too much. This performance with the SSO was simply as good as it gets.
The orchestra responded with elegant and charming playing from all the woodwind principals, Emma Sholl, flute, Shefali Pryor, oboe, Francesco Celata, clarinet and Matthew Wilkie bassoon and indeed the entire string section was as one in their musical support for the soloist. This orchestra always shows its appreciation of a fine soloist but I cannot recall the enthusiasm in its foot stomping and applause for Augustin Hadelich being given to another concerto artist. And it was led by the orchestra’s brilliant concertmaster Andrew Haveron.
This was a performance that I did not want to end. I, like the entire audience, wanted the magic to linger on and on. And maybe that longing for Hadelich’s performance to stay in the memory was the reason several hundred people decided to leave at interval.
Whereas the Mendelssohn concerto is full of memorable melodies and has virtuosic writing in abundance, the Symphony No.8 in C minor by Bruckner is, for many, more about the contrast of searching for a lyricism and loud bombastic sections and mostly it is the bombast that wins.
Simone Young sculptured her own vision of this excessively long and incredibly repetitive symphony by Bruckner allowing the brass free rein to let loose and with 15 brass players on stage there was power aplenty. The trombone section, Jonathon Ramsay, Scott Kinmont and Nick Byrne was a delight to hear as were all the other brass players and the woodwind principals. The SSO is a top class orchestra when playing Romantic Period music and it showed again in this concert what they are capable of achieving.
