Friday, 28 February, 2025.

Sydney Opera House.

Sydney Symphony Orchestra. 

Andrew Haveron (violin)

It’s been a while since I’ve heard Carl Vine’s music in the concert hall. He’s been sorely missed since he relinquished the role of artistic Director at Musica Viva Australia, and now that he’s not busy running one of the world’s largest chamber music organisations let’s hope he has more time to create new challenging Australian compositions.

Dreams Undreamt was a commission under the orchestra’s 50 Fanfares project. These brand new fanfares have taken the role of the overture in a traditional overture/concerto/symphony program and Vine’s new work did the job splendidly utilising as many musicians as you would need for say…a Vaughan Williams symphony. I’m sure the 3rd desk players were grateful for the gig Carl, and here’s to dreaming more great music.

Next, the SSO’s regular concertmaster, Andrew Haveron, stepped into the spotlight as soloist in Elgar’s Violin Concerto in B minor. Composed in 1910 at a time when the friction between romantic music and modernism was at its most volatile, Elgar was firmly in the former camp with the romantic ideal still running strong in this concerto. While harmonically the piece jumps around widely, it is nevertheless strictly diatonic.

After a lengthy orchestral introduction, Haveron performed an assertive minor key declaration before the music morphed into an extended lyrical exploration of romantic themes, with occasional bursts of virtuosic fireworks. Haveron’s upper register didn’t always have the cut-through – often doesn’t in a large concert hall – but when he had a melody in the lower registers the concert hall hummed with the emotions he was evoking. I found the orchestration at times fairly heavy and pedestrian in the first two movements with cumbersome crotchet statements of harmony propelling an otherwise lyrical score.

But the emotional soul of the work was the extended cadenza in the final movement. Suddenly our ears pricked up as the lower string players started ‘thrumming’ by rapidly striking the strings with their fingers, creating a soft insistent hum. And over this unusual accompaniment, Haveron performed the most beautiful and evocative melody that had the audience spellbound. In this his tone was perfect and the whole mood of the hall was electrified. A deep emotional connection had been made. The audience got it, conductor Simone Young got it, but it speaks to Haveron’s modesty and humility that he was seemingly taken aback by the overwhelming response at the conclusion of the concerto. Bravo indeed!!!

The final work, Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 3, transported us from the concert hall of the first half, to an English meadow. From the opening violin solo taken up by the flute and then others, and the modally tinged harmonies, we were immediately in pastoral bucolic territory. This was a musical land of rolling green hills, slowly meandering streams and birds singing in the leafy green canopy. Interestingly the ideas for the Pastoral Symphony were devised while Vaughan Williams was serving as an ambulance officer in WWI. What better way to deal with the daily horrors of war? But there are still hints of the suffering bubbling along below the idyllic surface.

While there are no direct quotations of the folk music that the composer loves so much, there are hints of melodies and folk tunes scattered throughout the symphony. But like the Elgar concerto, it is a stroke of genius orchestration in the final movement that raises the entire symphony above the ordinary. At the end of the 3rd movement the orchestra lulls to a hush with Simone Young’s fingers expertly controlling the dynamic. Then a very quiet timpani roll introduces the soprano (Lauren Fagan) who appears in the elevated organ loft to sing a sublime wordless melody. Breathtakingly beautiful. Again you could feel the air in the room stand suddenly still – Simone Young really does know how to optimise those special moments in a score to get right into our hearts.

Overall a cleverly curated program of English music (with a side of Carl Vine) that contained brilliantly executed moments of exquisite beauty. Conductor, Simone Young made the type of emotional connections that you don’t ever forget. A standout concert!