By Peter McCallum
May 3, 2021 — 1.19pm
Musica Viva Australia
Konstantin Shamray, ANAM Orchestra
City Recital Hall, May 1
★★★★
In 1880, while writing the 1812 Overture, a task for which he expressed loathing and repugnance, Tchaikovsky also worked privately on a Serenade for String Orchestra, Opus 48 purely from an “innate impulse”.
This concert by the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) Orchestra led by Sophie Rowell made an oblique reference to this contrast by pairing the Serenade with the Concerto for Piano and Strings by Alfred Schnittke.
Schnittke’s concerto is a work of bold and striking ideas threaded together with singular intensity of expression that at times morph to obstinate extremity and obsessed mania.
One such moment is the hymn-like second idea whose first three triumphant notes seem to be a reference to the victory hymn at the end of the 1812.
When Schnittke brings this theme back later, surrounded by string sounds of nightmarish dissonance and disorientation, one is inclined to think that Tchaikovsky, for one, might have stood and applauded.
Konstantin Shamray navigated the fierce virtuosity and intense expressivity of the concerto dexterously.
Konstantin Shamray navigated the fierce virtuosity and intense expressivity of the concerto dexterously.
Seated with his back to the audience and the lid of the grand removed, pianist Konstantin Shamray navigated the fierce virtuosity and intense expressivity of the concerto dexterously, although the projection of sound, clarity and of the dramatic persona of the solo part was somewhat inhibited by this seating arrangement. Had this been a deliberate attempt to subvert the strongly etched ideas of the score, of course, such a counter-narrative would not have been inconsistent with the piece’s expressive tensions.
The concert started with an arrangement by violinist Harry Ward of the Piano Quartet in A minor written by the 16-year old Mahler, to which the ANAM players brought fine unanimity and balance. The work’s craft and expressive seriousness is remarkable for a teenager, though less so for Mahler.
Ward returned as the violin soloist in Estonian composer Mihkel Kerem’s Lamento for Solo Violin and String Orchestra. Ward sustained the fragile minor-key lament with poised musical maturity and control as it wavered through uncertain gloom before a hint of sun in a major key at the close. In the program’s first music of unalloyed cheer, Tchaikovsky’s Serenade, Opus 48, the ANAM players displayed admirably professional ensemble playing and tonal cohesion.