Recital
Concert of Symphonic Music
MCC

Three days after performing to a full house at home on the night the World Cup kicked off in Russia, the world-famous Saint Petersburg Capella Symphony Orchestra presented a delightful concert at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, in Valletta.

For the concert, held in collaboration with the European Foundation for Support of Culture, the orchestra was under the baton of Alexei Galea Cavallazzi, with renowned Arkadi Zenziper as guest piano soloist.

Composer Alexei Galea Cavallazzi directing the Saint Petersburg Capella Symphony Orchestra.

Rehearsals were held in St Peters-burg and the whole lot travelled toMalta on the morning of the concert that consisted of over one-and-a-half hours of some of the most exciting and difficult music.

The programme started with the Helios Overture by Carl Nielsen, followed by Sergei Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2. After the interval, the orchestra rendered the Linz Version of Symphony No. 1 in C Minor by Anton Bruckner.

Nielsen composed the Helios Overture in Greece, inspired by the sun’s journey over the Aegean Sea. His sculptress wife, Anne Marie, was there at the time, making copies of the bas reliefs/sculptures of the Acropolis.

The overture is a mellow piece, opening gently and melodiously with the strings, woodwind and horns building up to a full orchestra with a trumpet fanfare. The effulgence of the music reflects the waxing of the sun in its journey only to fade later as the sun returns to the embrace of the sea.

Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2, in which Zenziper featured prominently, was originally premiered with Rachmaninov himself as the soloist. It heralded the Russian pianist, composer, and conductor’s recovery from his depression. The concerto is one of Rachmaninov’s most popular compositions.

At first, the performance was very promising and confident. However, some difficulties surfaced during the slow movements when the pianist seemed, at times, challenged. It may have been the travail of all the travelling.

This wobble by the pianist, of course, taxed the orchestra, not least perhaps, the oboes. The conductor must be greatly commended for his directing the orchestra around the uncharted shoal to safer seas and the musicians responded ably to Galea Cavallazzi’s baton.

The musicians responded ably to Galea Cavallazzi’s baton

This concerto needs to be snappy and moving, without cotton wool sentimentality. Despite this, the public enjoyed the performance. It was a tribute to the orchestra and the conductor and the excellent rapport obviously forged between the musicians and the conductor enabled them to face and overcome the totally unexpected.

The Symphony No. 1 in C Minor by Anton Bruckner was, reputedly, the first of his symphonies that he was happy with. It is music of a great soulfulness, a journey of the spirit, bringing to mind the greatest of mountain treks. It explores different strands of musical ideas together, like interesting highways and byways during this trek. Despite this exploration, it brings all these strands together and maintains a strengthened, singular sense of purpose, meaning and identity to a goal of greater understanding, both for the player and the listener.

Great lightness of touch, like air, is needed to lift this work and carry it aloft to light up, to elucidate, all the colour and interest of the orchestral detail, to keep this music alive and vivid, vibrant and on track, not to lose it into a muddied stodgy track. The conductor and orchestra most certainly did not lose their way but rather excelled in maintaining a good tension, giving a beefy sustenance throughout all of the movements encompassing Bruckner’s visionary ideas and personal explorations.

It was a marriage of kindred souls. Joyful discoveries, etched alongside life’s craggy doubts, uncertainties and challenges, were met and meted out within the performance of this work. The conductor pushed the orchestra to bring out this unending testing, this forever challenging of the faith, the true pilgrim’s progress and that of the personal creative genius.

Bruckner was a modest, truthful pilgrim and a genius. The conductor, with the orchestra, recognised this and gave it full expression and made justice to a great work.