Be Shed was brimming for Beethoven, Beer, Bratwurst …and Bjork. Photograph by Richard Jefferson Photography.
The Bratwurst was sizzling and the beer flowing in B Shed, Fremantle Docks, when a string quintet from the Perth Symphony Orchestra opened its Beethoven, Beer, Bratwurst and Bjork concert with the bells of the Ave Maria calling the faithful to prayer. La Musica Notturna delle Strade di Madrid was written by Luigi Boccherini and consisted of five short tableaux evoking the aforementioned church bells; street dancers; the songs of blind beggars; a rosary prayer and a lively Passa Calle of street singers – concluding with a military band sounding the night curfew and the closing of the streets. It was a pleasant and undemanding start to a concert and gave a few of the string players the opportunity to shine.
Sean Tinnion’s Remembrance was then given its world premiere. Tinnion is a product of the WA Academy of Performing Arts and already an award-winning electronic film composer. His piece was written for chamber orchestra and choir and intended as a comfort for people who had lost loved ones. The Orchestra opened its account with an elegy for lives lost but soon the work rose and fell in power and sonority as the Rhythmos Choir, drawn from Curtin University, added its weight to the overall texture. It was an impressive and moving concert debut for Tinnion – and the choir, singing wordlessly in unison, was an inspired inclusion. Harpist, Eliza Bourgault du Coudray, was impressive with her solo introduction.
Bjork is an artist who defies characterisation and over four decades has developed an eclectic musical style. Two of her songs, the unusually named ‘Pneumonia’ and ‘Lion Song’, had been cleverly arranged for chamber orchestra by Jared Yapp, a violist with the PSO. Perth-based singer, Helen Shanahan, and the orchestra brought out the songs’ strangely chilling emotions and confused drama with a sense of fragility and authority, sometimes aggressive then meditative, leaving an overall feeling of loss. Not an easy sing; not easy to enjoy. The choice of Bjork was an interesting one. Her music seems to follow few rules and it must have been difficult for Shanahan and the orchestra to navigate the hazards of a tricky score and simultaneously convince people, like the writer, who had no idea what she was getting at.
To this point Gethin and Wright had crafted a program that suited the difficult acoustic of B Shed. That’s a big tick! However, it is a truth universally acknowledged that an audience partaken of beer and sausage is going to be restless. And indeed to this point, in Boatshed B, there had not been a moment of stillness. Paul Wright changed all that.
Soloist in the Rondo movement of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, Wright carried the music along its predicted path until he came to the cadenza. Then everything changed. All movement ceased; staff preparing for the interval fell silent; even people who didn’t know a cadenza from a carbonara knew they were hearing something special. Paul Wright was playing the cadenza. It was a stunningly virtuosic performance. Music lovers should not have been surprised. He’s done it many times before. Paul Wright is a national treasure.
After the interval, Jessica Gethin presided over a reading of Beethoven’s Second Symphony. Written in 1801-02 when Beethoven’s deafness was becoming pronounced, there’s little in the symphony to suggest hearing loss – or the lumbago that in other hands might have been thought worthy of a symphony – for the work is full of musical jokes, good cheer and vitality. The symphony is a continuation of the Viennese tradition but towards the end of the concluding Allegro molto, the writing seems to take a new turn. There’s a glance back to the classicism of Mozart and Haydn but in the final pages Beethoven seems to have found a new voice.
Jessica Gethin led the orchestra in a joyous and spirited account of the work, bringing forth a glorious string sound in the opening bars of the second movement. Not having had much to do until this point, Gethin allowed, encouraged – or failed to prevent – the woodwind and brass having a field day. It made for a boisterous and good humoured end to a fun evening, leaving the audience with something to think about as they made their way through the port city’s night life hoping to find their cars.
Rating: 3 1/2 stars out of 5
Beethoven, Beer, Bratwurst …and Bjork
Artistic Directors: Jessica Gethin (conductor) and Paul Wright (violin)
Producer: Bourby Webster
PROGRAM
Luigi Boccherini Musica notturna delle strade di Madrid, Opus 30
Sean Tinnen Remembrance (world premiere)
Bjork arr.Yapp Pneumonia/Lion Song (soloist Helen Shanahan)
Ludwig van Beethoven Violin Concerto in D major, Opus 61, Rondo (soloist Paul Wright) Symphony No 2 in D major, Opus 36
Perth Symphony Orchestra
Saturday 22 October 2016
B Shed, Fremantle Docks, WA
