Conductors: Jan-Paul
Reinke, Leonard Weiss
Llewellyn Hall
Saturday 13 August 2016
Review by Len Power
It’s not often you get the opportunity to hear over 120 musicians
onstage at the same time so Llewellyn Hall was the place to be on Saturday
evening.
The program commenced with the visiting Mannheim Youth Symphony
Orchestra playing three works by Mendelssohn, Weber and Bloch. After interval, the Canberra Youth Orchestra joined
them for the major work of the evening, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 ‘Pathetique’
in B Minor, Op. 74.
Mendelssohn’s Ouverture the Hebrides, Op. 26 was played with
great confidence and clarity and Weber’s Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra in
F minor, Op. 73 was beautifully played by the orchestra. Clarinet soloist, Rebekka Rebmann, played
with great feeling after a slightly uneasy start. Ernest Bloch’s 1939 ‘Nigun’ from Baal Shem
was a rich work with Jewish themes. The orchestra
gave a haunting, atmospheric performance and the violin soloist, Lukas Ringle, played
superbly. The conductor, Jan-Paul
Reinke, produced a great sound from the orchestra who played all three works with
great precision.
The combined orchestras then played the Tchaikovsky Symphony
No. 6 under the baton of Canberra’s Leonard Weiss. The huge orchestra produced a wonderful depth
of sound in the quiet passages of the work and the emotionally dramatic sections
were awesome in their power. The lilting
second movement was especially well played and the great playing of the spectacular
ending to the third movement produced spontaneous applause from the audience
even though there was still one movement to go.
The more sombre last movement was movingly played.
The evening finished with Jan-Paul Reinke conducting both
orchestras in a spectacular encore of the opening section of Richard Strauss’s ‘Also
Sprach Zarathustra’. To hear this live
with such a huge orchestra was thrilling.
A massive undertaking, the concert could not have happened
without the generous support of the Germany Embassy and others and, with the support of the
ANU School Of Music, the concert was streamed live around the world.
Len Power's reviews can also be heard on Artsound FM 92.7 'Artcetera' program on Saturdays from 9am.