In one of the most substantial performances of the year, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra delivered a concert of massive excitement at Winthrop Hall on the 2nd of October. Comprising of Copeland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, a new clarinet concerto by staple of WA composer James Ledger, and finished with Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 2. This huge concert reached to the very edges of music.
Fanfare for the Common Man is a classic in the brass repertoire. The inclusion of Aaron Copeland’s nationalist Fanfare created a bold start to the evening, waking people up as they trod in on the cool evening, but it was not the orchestra’s finest work. The upper brass brought a brilliant tone but never quite homogenised and peeled off each other with ever so slightly stuttered attacks. The lower brass gelled more collectively to lift the work from below. All that to say, the real beauty of this work is that these details are not so relevant; the work is rousing and inspiring in a way that does not require a practiced precision but rather poise and commitment which WASO brought in spades.
Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony. Credit Daniel James Grant.
Following this brassy beginning and an introduction from composer James Ledger came the new work – Clarinet Concerto. The last concerto I saw premiered by the West Australian Symphony Orchestra was Holly Harrison’s Superhighway, for saxophonist Matthew Styles. The work was intense and gritty, with a powerful energy pushing soloist and orchestra to the edge. James Ledger’s Clarinet Concerto drives an entirely different kind of boundary on the reed of soloist Ashley Smith.
Concerned with finding and expanding the threshold of possibility on the instrument, Clarinet Concerto, rather than doing so with the raw emotion and physicality of the work, does so with great poise and sophistication. Perhaps Western Australia’s premier orchestral composer, Ledger has a way of finding new sounds and techniques without the need for preparation or modification of instrument and notation. In Clarinet Concerto, it is the antiphonal orchestral clarinets echoing the soloist, the new textures created with unexpected combinations (clarinet and snare drum blending into a single sound, anyone?) and reaching into the extremes of the dynamic and timbral possibilities of the instrument. Ashley Smith navigated this expanse of technique in an effortless dance of the entire body. The quiet flutters, heights of the altissimo register, and lush multiphonics created almost imperceptible virtuosity using the clarinets, the most delicate of techniques – I only wish that I had been able to hear them.
Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony. Credit Daniel James Grant.
In discussion with another composer following the concert, the question was raised what degree of sacrilege it would have been to mic the soloist. I had the privilege of viewing a presentation on this work and its process in the lead up to the concert in which I was able to hear some of the exquisite detail that Smith speaks through the instrument. In its setting, with the weight of the full orchestra behind it, almost all this detail became imperceptible. Maybe a microphone? Maybe a chamber orchestra? Or maybe simply a matter of interpretation and balance, but without that opportunity to explore the work in advance, I may never have known just how extraordinary the work’s technical showcase really is.
Following the interval, the concert was not yet halfway done with the mammoth Rachmaninov Symphony No. 2 yet to be performed. Weighing in at just over an hour, this work is among the most substantial symphonies of the orchestral repertoire, a mode that WASO has been exploring a lot of recently. WASO performed the symphony with great vigour under the baton of chief conductor Asher Fisch. The waves of sound in the third movement were intense and the two steps forward, one step back dynamic build to the finale was performed without losing momentum as the orchestra cut back to push forward. It was difficult to properly engage with the work as the time ticked toward 9:30pm and beyond but the soaring brass and energetic strings kept bringing my attention back to the stage.