Transported to idyllic world
An excited audience packed the King's and Queen's Performing Arts Centre on Saturday evening to hear an exceptionally polished performance by the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra under the inspirational conductor Benjamin Bayl with guest oboist Robert Orr.
Three works from the Western classical repertoire transported the audience to an idyllic world of stability, exuberance and wealth as portrayed by three prodigious composers of the 18th and 19th centuries.
The highlight of the event was the Mozart Oboe Concerto given a stunningly beautiful performance by Robert Orr. Orr's exceptional breath control over long lyric phrases held true over increasingly technically demanding solo obligatii. Orr richly deserved the prolonged applause.
The reduced orchestration of Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks (1749) befits the concert chamber. Composed for extraordinarily large forces as incidental music in the days before loudspeakers were a thing, it invites its audience to celebrate peace by right, royally dancing the night away despite the fizzled fireworks display. Its catchy rhythms, rousing grandeur and the strength of the DSO's wind section created a successful performance.
Schubert's 4th Symphony, ''The Tragic'', has a Bryon-esque opening. It wallows in poetic gloom before the following movements emerge grandly frenetic. Reprieve comes in the briefly sweeping menuetto. Schubert is better remembered for his chamber works. The Tragic is built on standard classic composition techniques in which a small amount of thematic material is, to put it simply, echoed down and up the melodic scale through the various timbres of instrumental groups before upping the tempo with inverted thematic material. All credit to all sections of the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra and to the conductor for keeping the delivery crisp, energetic and tight while testing stamina.
The whole event was a sublime escape, leaving the audience feeling all the richer for the experience.
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