Few things excite me more than tickets to QSO. This season has been memorable for so many performances but three were the Favourites (which kicked off the season), Shakespearean Delights and Epic Sounds (with William Barton). In all the season was, to use QSO’s adjective, epic.
For the Gala program three pieces were performed: Rossini’s Overture to The Thieving Magpie (La gazza ladra), Debussy’s The Sea (La mer), and Strauss’s Suite from The Knight of the Rose (Der Rosenkavalier). As my companion noted, Rossini’s Overture is bombastic and stirring – as conductor Umberto Clerici told the audience, it’s political, like all of Rossini’s music. And The Thieving Magpie especially so – in this opera semiseria, a servant is accused of theft and scheduled to be executed; however, at the last minute it is discovered that a magpie was the real thief.
The opera was finished while Rossini was ‘imprisoned’ in La Scala, a director breathing down his neck demanding Rossini finish the overture for the premier the following night or else he would be tossed out of the window. Instead of Rossini, pages fluttered out the window and thus one of the best-known overtures was penned. No wonder the overture is replete with quasi-militaristic snare drums (for the march to the execution) countered by the twittering piccolo for the magpie. The spirited performance was soundly appreciated by the audience.
Debussy’s La mer combines the drama of Hokusai’s Great Wave with the softer daubings of an Impressionist painting; it’s composed of three symphonic sketched perhaps inspired by Debussy’s yearnings to be a painter. It’s an atmospheric piece that allows the cellos to heaving imaginings of a great wave followed by the rippling sea created by the harp and finally the strings, brass and percussion clash as the wind and the sea soar.
Finally, Strauss’s suite is the sexiest piece of the night. Taken from his opera, the suite combines the night of passion (thank you horn section); to the tender romance of the oboe and horn for the blossoming romance that is interrupted by a clumsy cousin. Naturally love triumphs with two wonderful waltzes: the first a gliding start to a heartier coda. Conductor Umberto Clerici was magnificent: from his appreciation of the orchestra members to his light-footed punctuation of the waltzes.
While the Gala might have claimed to “close the season” – there two more concerts to be performed: the Christmas ones. Symphonic Santa is sold out. However, there is still the Spirit of Christmas – 17th and 18th December. Queensland Symphony Orchestra, QPAC Concert Hall.
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