Towering Moments Of Power

Sydney Morning Herald

Tuesday December 2, 2008

Reviewed by Peter McCallum

SYDNEY SYMPHONY

MICHELE CAMPANELLA

Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, November 28

CESAR FRANCK brought German cogency to French romanticism and French sensuality to German severity. Avoiding the politicised polemics of late 19th-century music, he blended conservative form, progressive harmony and contrapuntal rectitude with expressive indulgence. This dichotomy is written right into the opening bars of his Symphonic Variations For Piano And Orchestra, which starts with a stern unison statement on strings, answered by a figure of longing from the piano.

Michele Campanella brought a highly original tone to the piano part, avoiding languor in favour of a deliberately austere and focused sound, held back like a conversationalist who gains attention through quiet, concisely pointed speech.

Campanella has remarkable control of sonority and his playing is always cogent. As the introduction unfolded and the variations began, he rose to those towering moments of implacable power that makes his playing so compelling.

There was plenty of brilliance and colour, though perhaps a little reluctance to let the joyously dance-like final section run away. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Campanella had programmed this work and came away feeling it was an original and intelligent approach to a work that was not his natural domain.

Before this, visiting German conductor Lothar Zagrosek shaped Mozart's Symphony No. 27 in G major, K. 199 with scrupulous care for the subtle nuances of phrase, colour and dynamic. Quiet phrases were not just soft, they were surprisingly hushed. In the slow movement, a bowed chord on violas was endowed with just enough edge to engender an unsettling quality amid the overriding sweetness.

In the last movement, Mozart makes a fugue from the theme of the first movement (an interesting idea for the developing 17-year-old) and Zagrosek gave this movement pointed energy as if an omen for what would come in the great fugal finale in the Jupiter Symphony 15 years later.

The same care for balanced texture characterised Stravinsky's Petrushka after interval, played here in the original 1911 version. This version uses a slightly larger orchestra than the revised version that Stravinsky created in 1947 (partly to recover his performance rights).

The colours were vivid, but the ensemble playing was occasionally slightly compromised by the delay in sound from the back of the orchestra to the front.

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

Back to News Index | Back to Home