View from the Green Room: Loud and proud at Waterford's SETU Arena
The National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland with Bulgarian pianist Emanuil Ivanov performed at SETU Arena.
The Symphony Club of Waterford stages its final concert tonight in a packed SETU Arena for a blockbuster concert from the National Symphony Orchestra that would waken a deaf man in a coma in Ballybricken.
It’s a noisy, rambunctious programme from the NSO that’s interesting, dynamic and colourful, with lots of highs and lows along the way.
The NSO delights in performing big-ticket orchestral pieces, while also including pieces that are not that well-known.
I had never heard of Polish composer Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-69) but her short life was packed with incident. She was the first 20th-century female Polish composer to be recognised at home or abroad and produced some of her finest work in World War II Nazi-occupied Warsaw. Grazyna performed regular underground concerts for the besieged city’s residents and tonight’s ‘Overture’ was composed and performed a year before the Warsaw uprising in 1944.
The ‘Overture’ swirls with courage, honesty, emotion and patriotism, and is a massive shout-in-the-face moment to tyranny and oppression. Opening with the morse code sign of ‘V for Victory’ – three short and one long beat from timpani – the overture blazes with defiance in the face of a tumult of violence with gentle strings and wind echoing far off peaceful days in Poland.
Bulgarian pianist Emanuil Ivanov is faced with the daunting Tchaikovsky Piano Concert No. 1 and his performance is everything it should be. Dramatic, exciting, powerful and punchy. And it needs to be all of that because the audience is quite familiar with the work and its complexities. Rubinstein famously described the concerto as ‘unplayable’ although, subsequently, came to see its merits. Pianists that had played it advised revisions of the opening that Tchaikovsky took on board.
The opening Allegro is one of the most famous openings in piano concerti. It establishes the Romantic era's ideal of the soloist's dramatic struggle against the massive power of the orchestra.
Solid thundering chords over sweeping orchestral melody is a massive statement of intent. It’s hard to believe that the opening theme, given the fact that it’s so famous and instantly recognisable, only appears once.
A following Andantino is slow and sinewy and features some interesting interplay between piano and flute that’s followed by great work from the oboe.
A final Allegro begins with a big band sound with frenzied strings until the brass explodes across the floor of the Arena and a finale that is just sublime.
Conductor John Wilson’s connection with pianist Emanuil Ivanov is spiritual and the emotional range of Emanuil’s performance is extraordinary. He moves through every emotion with ease from dramatic and powerful to tender and moving and his interplay with the band is uncanny. An immediate standing ovation for Ivanov is well deserved.
There’s something about the Rachmaninoff Third Symphony (1873-1943) that never quite lands with me. It’s a thoughtful piece but the frequent abrupt changes throughout make it difficult to hang on to any sense of unity about the Symphony. It is blessed with a powerful finale as the strings pound along, although finding space for some sublime lyrical passages, until the power of the orchestra sweeps us up in a musical ballyhoo that sees us out into the October night.
Another powerful concert from the Symphony Club of Waterford.
