AWO is band with world at its feet

SINCE its launch in 2011 the Australian World Orchestra has become an international phenomenon with top maestros forming a queue to conduct it, the latest being Riccardo Muti.

Riccardo Muti and the Australian World Orchestra performing at Sydney Opera House. Picture: David Collins

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SINCE its launch in 2011 the Australian World Orchestra has become an international musical phenomenon with top maestros forming a queue to come to Sydney Opera House to conduct it.

It started in 2013 with Zubin Mehta, then Sir Simon Rattle two years after that and this year we have had the great Italian Riccardo Muti imparting his unique vision with this collection of Aussie musicians, many of whom work overseas in the top orchestras of Europe, America and Asia.

Last here for the Sydney Olympics Arts Festival in 2000 when he conducted the La Scala orchestra, Muti at 76 still mounts the podium with charisma to spare and a reputation for being an exacting and sometimes harsh taskmaster. He once walked out on Luciano Pavarotti mid-performance, telling him he could sing and conduct the orchestra himself!

But there were no such ructions for these two concerts in the Opera House’s concert hall where he paired a brace of orchestral warhorses — Brahms’ Symphony No. 2 and Tchaikovsky’s fourth — with a dash of Verdi for the dolce course.

NUANCE

I haven’t heard the Brahms played better. In fact it’s difficult to imagine that it could be done better. Perhaps we’ll find out later in the year when Daniel Barenboim comes to Sydney to conduct his crack Staatskapelle Berlin outfit.

Either way Muti and the AWO have set the bar at a Himalayan height.

Muti teased out every nuance and flicked a light on the little gemlike moments that often lie undiscovered under other conductors’ batons for this the most attractive and popular of the four Brahms symphonies.

Riccardo Muti conducting the AWO. Picture: David Collins

Natalie Chee, concertmaster of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra who led the first half of this concert, puts it eloquently: “I was very touched by the way he did the Brahms. He’s getting the orchestra to play extremely softly with a beautiful sound, very transparent — not this huge mega sound that a lot of orchestras play Brahms with. I really appreciate that because this is an amazing orchestra.”

Each movement was perfect in itself (attracting the inevitable inter-movement applause that still splits audiences). The tempos were finely judged. Brahms had joked to his friends about the funereal pace of the first movement but there was nothing deathlike here. More the glorious unhurried beauty of nature going about its business in the sunny Austrian mountains and pastures.

BLAZING

The finale danced and pulled back then gathered momentum for its blazing climax like a locomotive in full flight for one if the most thrilling finishes to any symphony in the canon.

Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s principal horn Ben Jacks was rightly the first to be singled out for an ovation followed by his SSO colleague oboist Shefali Prior. But all 86 members of the band were on top form playing out of their skins under the attentive eye of the Neapolitan maestro.

Muti’s philosophy of letting the music speak and the musicians play it was no more evident than in the second half performance of Tchaikovsky’s fourth symphony, which the composer said represented Fate knocking on the door — much like Beethoven’s Fifth.

Using minimal gestures — just giving the players the line — Muti allowed the AWO plenty of opportunity to express themselves, occasionally reining them in with a wave of the left hand and then almost dancing, or lunging with surprising grace, to accentuate the changing rhythms.

Tchaikovsky is the master of melody and rhythm, as we know from his ballets, while Muti is one of the most respected of operatic conductors. The combination of both elements proved irresistible.

After the massive emotional rollercoaster and angst of the first movement came the beautiful slow movement with the violins pouring out — there’s no other verb for it — the yearning melody of the second movement which followed Nick Deutsch’s lovely oboe solo.

Here the maestro let his swept back hair join in the dance as he occasionally levitated from the rostrum

The third movement — all darting pizzicato from the string players — fizzed and crackled before the rousing final movement, another barnstormer after the Brahms.

Then a few words to the audience before launching into Verdi’s showstopping — or show-starting — overture to Nabucco decked in streamers thrown from the upper tiers.

Here the maestro let his swept back hair join in the dance as he occasionally levitated from the rostrum, giving concertmaster Daniel Dodds approving grins.

As Zubin Mehta asked the audience after he’d conducted the AWO in 2013: “Do you realise what you’ve got here?” After a resounding “yes” from the audience, the maestro added: “Don’t let go of them.

And we won’t.

DETAILS

● CONCERT: Australian World Orchestra with Ricardo Muti

● WHERE: Sydney Opera House Concert Hall

● WHEN: Friday, May 4.