Simone Young throws a party with plenty of musical surprises

Punters turned up at the Sydney Opera House on Thursday afternoon not knowing what they were going to hear when conductor Simone Young threw a musical party.

SSO chief conductor Simone Young threw a musical surprise party with the People’s Choice concert.

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Simone Young threw a surprise party for Sydney Symphony audiences with her latest concert, The People’s Choice.

Punters turned up at the Sydney Opera House on Thursday afternoon not knowing what they were going to hear. The printed and online programs gave away nothing – the only clue was an easily missed single sheet of paper with a list of 12 works.

These were the results of people’s votes which had been collected over a number of weeks. Young had given voters six categories each with 10 choices: opera, great composers, English works, Australian composers, the ABC’s Classic 100 and “musical discoveries”.

Young, aided by ABC Classics FM presenter and harpist Genevieve Lang, guided the audience through an entertaining two hours of favourites and occasional surprises. The first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony needed no introduction, and got none, the famous V for Victory “fate knocking on the door” motif opening the show.

The mood lightened with Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro overture before the trio of Greats was completed with some Bach – Anton Webern’s charming arrangement of the Ricercar from the Musical Offering in which just about every instrument in the orchestra gets a brief solo.

Contemporary US composer John Adams is no stranger to SSO audiences, his music having been championed by several conductors but especially David Robertson, Young’s immediate predecessor as chief conductor. However his motoric The Chairman Dances (Foxtrot for Orchestra) from his opera Nixon in China was a “discovery” for many of us in the audience.

The first half ended in the UK with Elgar’s moving Nimrod, from the Enigma Variations, and two of the powerful Sea Interludes from Britten’s opera Peter Grimes.

You couldn’t have a party without Tchaikovsky and the only problem is which favourite to choose. Young and her troops opted for the Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker. The choices for works by Australians were diverse, from Elena Kats-Chernin’s delightful Dance of the Paper Umbrellas to the searing Outback heat of Peter Sculthorpe’s Sun Music II.

Peggy Glanville-Hicks’s Gymnopedie featured a lovely oboe and harp duet, spotlighting Diana Doherty and guest principal harpist Lucy Reeves, who was joined on second harp by Lang who put the microphone aside for the Moonlight Music from Richard Strauss’s Capriccio after the string section’s poignant performance of the Cavatina from Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 13.

The concert, which is repeated at 7pm on Saturday, November 19, came to rollicking end with the Ride of the Valkyries showing us why Young is considered one of the leading Wagner conductors of her day.

She winds up her season with a concert performance of Beethoven’s opera Fidelio in the Opera House Concert Hall at 7pm on Thursday, November 24, and Saturday, November 26.

DETAILS

• CONCERT Sydney Symphony Orchestra: People’s Choice

• WHERE Sydney Opera House

• WHEN Thursday, November 17, 2022