Mozart, Beethoven & Prokofiev by WASO @ Perth Concert Hall
Friday, September 2, 2022
Having a night out at the Western Australia Symphony Orchestra is a pleasure that is available to Perthians on many weekends throughout the year, but for many, especially a younger demographic, it may be something rarely experienced. And so into a warm winter evening my companion and I ventured, to visit the Perth Concert Hall for a night of classical music.
The hall is quite rectangular inside and out, making a subtle but brutalist impression. Inside the foyer, the reds and massive spiral staircase take the edge of the angles, and inside the hall itself, the massive organ (although quiet tonight) makes for an impressive backdrop.
The pieces on the programme tonight included a bit of Mozart, a Beethoven piano concerto and a Russian symphony. Most evenings at WASO are cleverly programmed. The first half of the evening typically features shorter, more pacey compositions and the second half the longer, more dramatic pieces (although not always).
Tonight’s conductor is Otto Tausk from the Netherlands, who currently heads the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Tausk leads the short and rousing Mozart overture, The Abduction from the Seraglio (featured in the movie Amadeus) to kick things off. He’s completely in command of the orchestra and his flick of the baton has them bouncing and rollicking along to this well-known piece.
For some, the best classical pieces are experienced lying on their floor with the lights down and the music cranked up on the hi-fi (fair enough). For me, live, nothing quite compares with a piano concerto. Tonight’s pianist is Uzbekistani prodigy Behzod Abduraimov. He last performed with WASO six years ago at the age of 25, whose performance was astonishing and brought me back tonight.
Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 occurs in three movements and is just over 30 minutes in duration, but is packed with a bevy of flourishes and trills and spectacular runs providing an ideal showcase for Abduraimov to exhibit his jaw-dropping piano skills. Piano concertos have the effect of creating a kind of dialogue between the pianist, cast in the role of the individual, and the orchestra, representing more society at large, if you will. Call and response, mirroring and dovetailing, Beethoven’s piano concerto was a delight to soak up.
After a few curtain calls, Abduraimov regaled us with a brief and thrilling encore, not without a bit of humour to more applause before the interval. And off we went to collect our pre-ordered drinks to avoid the queue at the bar (a little hack for future visits), enjoying a nice of stretch our legs and chatting about the performance before the second half.
Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5 is also a rousing piece, but over the course of its four movements are quite lyrical passages (the woodwinds excelled here) as well as the intricacies and bombast from a fully engaged percussion section. Modern Russian composers are never too shy of a bit of dissonance, which makes for interesting shifts in mood and feeling throughout the piece. Tausk led the orchestra brilliantly over this enchanting symphony, again receiving rapturous applause at its conclusion.
While some orchestras have cancelled classic Russian composers since the war in Ukraine, WASO has continued featuring them in their programmes, with 2022 as well as the 2023 programme which was just announced – a reminder that the current regime there certainly does not represent the people who made this music. I applaud this stance, because when people ask me what kind of classical music do I like, I usually just answer with “the Russians.”
Owing to the concert hall’s central CBD location, after the show we were off humming into the night as it was still reasonably early compared to when you hit the footpath after a rock or dance gig. Witnessing things like Abduraimov’s piano playing and WASO’s world-class skills brings to mind that regardless of what style of music you’re into, a visit to experience your local symphony is always a wonderful place to spend an evening and an altogether different happening for younger audiences too.
PAUL DOUGHTY
Photos by Linda Dunjey
