Superb grand concert

The newly fledged National Philharmonic Orchestra, freshly augmented from the National Orchestra treated audiences to a superb grand concert in collaboration with the Ministry for Tourism and Culture last Saturday.

The concert had all the ingredients one could wish for to make it a success, among which the vital Czech input, made up of the conductor, Leos Svarovsky, the piano soloist Lukas Vondracek and a number of Czech musicians added to the orchestra.

Mr Svarovsky, artistic director of the Prague State Opera, first conductor of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, and conductor of the Prague Symphony Orchestra firmly and vibrantly led us on a path of exquisite music making, starting with Christopher Muscat's Elegy and moving on to Franz Liszt's Symphonic Poem No.3 from Les Preludes and Concerto No.1 in E Flat Major for Piano and Orchestra and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No.5 in E Minor Opus 64.

I find including compositions by members of the new generation of Maltese composers on such occasions goes a long way towards giving them the necessary exposure and making audiences more familiar with them. We have some very promising budding composers, among whom Mr Muscat, who has already left his mark both locally and abroad, as a result of his having won several coveted awards in international competitions of note. His Elegy, dedicated to the victims of the 2004 tsunami, is a very moving tribute in its evocation of a sense of hopeless devastation which is simultaneously void of hope and full of desolation.

Following this was Liszt's Symphonic Poem No.3 from Les Preludes, written in a style which became the composer's own special contribution to the Romantic movement ‒ composed in an effort to resolve the eternal question "What is our life but a series of preludes to the unknown song of which death sounds the first and solemn note?". The Poem vacillates between contrasting episodes of melodious calm and flurried frenzy, interspersed with ominous foreboding and finally culminating in an assertive clash of cymbals, indicative of man's return to the battle of life.

Liszt's first Piano Concerto, like the rest of his concertos, was primarily a vehicle for his own virtuosity; since then it has been a favourite tour de force for concert pianists everywhere. Last Saturday, it was the turn of 21-year-old Vondracek to reaffirm his virtuosity to our audiences whom he has regaled with his prowess on other occasions and who has to his credit performances with 42 orchestras all over the world, with 62 conductors and with a repertoire of 36 concertos.

A short forceful statement by the strings, in excellent form that evening, pronounced the first important theme which was soon corroborated melodiously by the piano.

The concerto evolved with various instruments indulging in dialogue with the piano, evolving into contrasting passages at times lugubrious, at others playful, sometimes sprightly, at others sonorous.

Played without interruption between one "movement" and another, the concerto is characterised by its practically ever present piano part which goes through the whole gamut of what makes for brilliant technique and stunning bravura. Vondracek lived up to these expectations admirably.

One of the great symphonic landmarks of the 19th century, Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony, begins with an insistent introductory theme, often referred to as the Fate theme on the clarinet and awakens progressively until it is taken up by the entire orchestra. The Fate theme is relentless and inescapable but it is impregnated with several secondary themes until it reaches its energetic end in a grand finale, consisting of a great fanfare of brass.

All this is manifest in passages of exquisite beauty with uplifting melodies sweeping across the whole orchestra, occasionally giving way to a very frenzied movimentato and sometimes heralded by the daring blare of brass. Svarovsky brought the best out of the orchestra (with a few brief exceptions, the most glaring being a weak French horn which seems to have featured solo in more than its fair due), conducting without a score and triumphantly bringing to a close what was indeed a splendid evening of music making.

Incidentally could somebody see to it that more discretion is resorted to on the part of cameramen on stage?