Three decades on, Simone Young is in absolute control - and the orchestra rises with her

MUSIC
Sydney Symphony Orchestra
Sydney Opera House Concert Hall
March 7
Reviewed by HARRIET CUNNINGHAM
★★★★
The last time the Sydney Symphony Orchestra performed Peter Sculthorpe’s Sun Music III, part of a series that changed the way the world thought about Australian music, was in 1996. The conductor then - and now - was Simone Young. In 1996 she was making her debut with the orchestra. Three decades later, she is Chief Conductor.

Thirty years of perspective has transformed Sun Music III from startling newness to the pinpoint portrayal of a moment in time. The evocation of a gamelan orchestra feels quaint, momentarily, but the expanded palette of orchestral colours, not just in the percussion but, across the strings and brass, is brilliantly rendered, then and now.

Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma makes a triumphant return to Sydney performing Benjamin Britten’s Violin Concerto. Written in New York in 1938, as the composer watched the build-up to war in Europe, the work is shot through with restless anxiety. Lamsma overlays the sense of dread with a fearless, icy beauty of sound, cutting through the orchestral texture with radiant harmonics.

Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 6 bursts onto the stage with a cataclysmic roar, the kind of orchestral tutti you feel in your bones. The shrill of the piccolo, underlaid by spiralling virtuosity across the strings, sets in motion a gripping demonstration of the power of music, live and loud.

Beautiful solos, including from cellist Simon Cobcroft and from bass clarinettist Alexander Morris emerge from the welter of sound, as does the gentle surprise of Alice Morgan’s saxophone. But it is the sustained hush of the final movement that reveals the full range and delicacy of this fine band.

As Chief Conductor, Young’s work with the orchestra naturally focuses on her internationally recognised expertise in the repertoire of Mahler and Wagner. But it is good to be reminded that specialisation does not mean limitation: as the orchestra explores tough repertoire from less-travelled roads Young radiates an assured omniscience – a galvanising ‘I’ve got this’ - that gives the orchestra an unfettered confidence to play fearlessly.