Omega Ensemble off to a breezy Gallic start
DEBUSSY’S sinuous flute solo Syrinx opened Omega Ensemble’s new season in a concert which was high on Gallic charm.
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THE weaving lines of Claude Debussy’s flute solo Syrinx formed a sinuous slow march as Sally Walker processed through the audience to open Omega Ensemble’s Summer Winds concert with a program high on Gallic charm.
Walker has played with some of the world’s top ensembles including the Berlin Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus and our own Australian Chamber Orchestra, but this was a far smaller and more intimate stage with the massive glass wall of the Utzon Room looking out on a grey and wet Sunday afternoon on the Harbour.
Her pedigree, however, spoke for itself as she teased out the seductive fluid phrases of the piece inspired by a nymph’s escape from the advances of the god Pan.
Omega founder and co-artistic director clarinetist David Rowden and regular bassoonist Ben Hoadley then took the stage for a charming three-movement duo attributed to Beethoven, though there is doubt about its authorship.
Whatever the case, the duelling instruments took it in turn in ever more ambitious passages, ending with a set of variations in which there was plenty of one-upmanship but no clear winner.
DELIGHT
The theme of the afternoon was the influence Bavarian flautist and goldsmith Theobald Boehm had on wind instruments with his homemade metal keys system which revolutionised flute, oboe and clarinet playing.
Paris became the home of wind music in the 1800s and one of the most prominent figures was the flute player Paul Taffanel, whose wind quintet closed the first half of this concert.
Rowden, Walker and Hoadley were joined by oboist Celia Craig and hornist Michael Dixon for this work with its lively outer movements featuring plenty of solos democratically distributed among the instruments, as well as some fine ensemble playing. Dixon introduced the noble melody of the slow middle movement before it was taken up by Rowden and Craig.
The second half of the concert was pure delight with a magnificent wind quintet arrangement of Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin. This suite is well known in its original solo piano form, but the composer orchestrated four of its six movements and the 20th century Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen turned this arrangement into a quintet.
What a find — especially the quirky Forlane and pendulum-like elegant swing of the Menuet before the raucous folk-inspired Rigaudon finale.
Three fun-filled sea shanties for wind quintet by English composer Malcolm Arnold made the perfect closer for this excellent and entertaining concert.
DETAILS
● CONCERT: Omega Ensemble
● WHERE: Utzon Room
● WHEN: Sunday, February 25