Open Writing

“Back to the USSR”
Auckland Youth Symphony Orchestra
Roentgen Ng (piano), Antun Poljanich (conductor)
Forum North, Whangarei, Northland, New Zealand, 3 October 2010

For us in Whangarei this is rather more than “just another” concert, so I think a bit of background is in order. As a background, though, it’s neither comprehensive nor authoritative – I’m just giving you my own impression of the story behind the event.

A couple of years back, Whangarei woke up to the fact that top-class rugby players were becoming increasingly reluctant to come to the city. Since rugby is something of a religion in these parts, the problem was soon fixed – Okara’s primitive, uninviting ground facilities were replaced by a completely new stadium incorporating a “Regional Multi-Events Centre”.

Right, now let’s step back thirty years. The centrepiece of the city’s planned Forum North development was a concert hall. However, it was not to be. I get the impression that someone must have asked, “Why do we need to spend money on both a theatre and a concert hall? Don’t they amount to the same thing?” – and, since the flaw in the logic was either overlooked or ignored, the concert hall got the chop, and the planned building was magically metamorphosed into a new library (ironically, this stands directly opposite the Old Library, which is now used for, inter alia, chamber music recitals!).

Thus, classical music fans have found themselves in a pickle similar to that previously “enjoyed” by the rugby fraternity – apart, that is, from these two noteworthy differences. Firstly, in these parts, the chapel of Classical Music hasn’t got anything like the clout of the church of Rugby. Secondly, only large professional performing groups are deterred, since the Old Library accommodates small ones very nicely. This latter is particularly significant, because it means that Whangarei’s otherwise quite healthy classical music culture is deprived of what is generally, even globally regarded as the very cornerstone of any such culture – a professional symphony concert season.

A year ago, though, quite out of the blue, serendipity struck a potentially restorative blow. A professional-standard symphony orchestra, not only indifferent to our inadequate facilities but also demanding no more remuneration than the gate-money, gave a concert in Whangarei. This provided the city’s music-lovers with a golden opportunity to secure for themselves a regular fixture. O.K., so one concert a year may not a symphony season make, but at least it would be a start – and infinitely better than none at all.

Lady Serendipity, though, had done a less-than-thorough job – due to an unfortunate conspiracy of circumstances, the audience comprised a measly two dozen citizens, and it looked like the city had well and truly dropped the ball! Mind you, I must give the lady her due – she made amends, by stirring several people (including me) to have a go at picking the ball back up.

You might well ask, “What is this miraculous orchestra?” Well, I should say right away that it’s not actually professional, but a youth orchestra. Now, I’m sure that we can all name at least one youth orchestra whose playing is of a very high standard, but that’s by no means true of the general run. Typical youth orchestras, after all, are effectively “nurseries” providing experience to youngsters, including – and even especially – children. By that definition, the Auckland Youth Symphony Orchestra (AYSO) isn’t a “youth orchestra” at all!

In fact, when it was founded, in 1948, it was the first orchestra in Australasia that existed expressly to “bridge the gap between secondary school orchestras and adult professional groups.” Catering exclusively for young adults (aged between 18 and 24), the AYSO is a “finishing school” where fully-competent instrumentalists, typically on the brink of professional careers, get the opportunity to hone their purely orchestral techniques. Basically, that makes the AYSO only a pay-cheque short of “professional”.

Moreover, the members of the AYSO possess qualities that tip the scales in their favour. “Youth” means that they have unbounded energy and enthusiasm, “inexperience” means that for them music-making is an adventure as yet unsullied by long years of the professional’s daily grind, the “will to succeed” means that they’re hell-bent on proving themselves to anyone who dares to come within ear-shot, and a six-yearly personnel turnover means that the orchestra itself never gets “stale”.

Currently holding the AYSO musical director’s enviable position is the Croatian, Antun Poljanich. Having completed his studies at Leningrad’s Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory, he’s worked with numerous Russian and European orchestras. Although his job is to inculcate orchestral techniques, Antun also provides the benefit of his experience and wisdom.

In recent years, the AYSO’s teaching remit has been augmented by “real world” experience. Pre-funded public performances and touring – both at home and abroad – have now become established routine. What’s more, they are already going up in the world – in September 2010 the AYSO announced that it had been invited to the 2011 Young Euro Classic Festival in Berlin. It’s a double-plus, because the AYSO is the first New Zealand ensemble so-honoured, and this will be their first visit to Europe.

But, the nub is that EVERYONE WINS! The cream of NZ’s emergent classical talent gain that all-important performing experience, and the public – particularly in places, such as Whangarei, that are otherwise deprived of the privilege – enjoys daisy-fresh performances, brimming with brio. I can vouch for that. As one of last year’s “measly two dozen”, I heard them play Sibelius’s intoxicating Third Symphony, and it was a spine-tingling performance the equal of any I’ve heard in over 50 years of listening to music.

I hardly need to say that we did manage to retrieve our dropped ball, otherwise the review that follows wouldn’t follow, and then this preamble, bring redundant, wouldn’t precede, which means that you wouldn’t be reading this, but merely dreaming that you were, and as you’re not (dreaming, that is), I suppose that you’d better read on . . .

Even before a note was played, the air in the nigh-on full auditorium was already tingling, but the moment Antun Poljanich’s baton galvanised the Auckland Youth Symphony Orchestra, sparks started flying all over the place. Hand on heart, I am not gilding any lily – technically, the AYSO’s players may be still wearing their orchestral “L” plates, but, as far as the business of bringing music to pulsating life is concerned, they are already up there with the very best.

As Ira Gershwin famously put it, “Who could ask for anything more?” Who indeed? Not us, I’d venture. We were enthralled, not least by their ready responsiveness, electrifying unanimity, razor-sharp articulation and “bull’s-eye” intonation. It’s often said that he real test of an orchestra’s mettle is not how loudly it can play (anybody can make a right old racket!), but how QUIETLY. Well, as soon became self-evident, the AYSO is one orchestra that can pare its sound down to such a whisper that you have to hold your breath to hear it. Yet, still more impressive than all these “mere” technicalities was the sheer sense of utter conviction oozing from their every pore.

Nowadays, it’s all but mandatory for a concert to have a theme, and this one followed that unwritten rule to the letter, and with a bit more justification than most. Russian composers, and latterly composers of the wider Soviet bloc, are renowned for their exceptionally colourful, physically exciting music, concerts of which invariably induce paroxysms of ecstatic anticipation in habitual hedonists (like yours truly!). Hence, “Back to the USSR”, featuring music by Khachaturian, Prokofiev and Shostakovich, was a singularly tasty prospect.

Instead of any of Khachaturian’s own three standard concert suites, Antun opted to make his own selection from the score for the Gayane ballet, picking items that particularly emphasised the influence of those spicy Armenian folk-idioms. The apposite opener was “Dance of Welcome”, which was taken at a cracking pace. In the balletic context this would, in all probability, have had the choreographer tearing out his hair, but here it had the rather more desirable effect of setting a couple of hundred toe-ends twitching cheerfully.

“Backing” percussion created a magical atmosphere for the “Dance of the Old Men and Carpet Weavers”, in which smoky flutes and piquant oboe and trumpet solos threaded the music’s tangy clashing harmonies and exotic lilt. In the subsequent “Ayesha’s Dance”, the strings “leant” most seductively into the languorous melody, in which flexibility of tempo alternated with some deliciously accented cross-rhythms.

Antun drew uncommonly urgent expectation from the opening crescendo of the final item, “Dance of the Elders”. By contrast, this powerfully underlined the bone-weariness of the emergent main theme – I could almost hear aged limbs creaking (and they weren’t mine, since I hadn’t yet been sitting still for too long!). Lubricated by stylish woodwind, Armenian drum and strings, the music’s aching joints steadily gained mobility, expanding magnificently towards a noble climax.

Antun had demanded, and the players had dug out, every idiomatic nuance of the exotic rhythms, erotically coiling melodies and “lemon-drop” dissonances. Almost apologetically (“It is not yet fully prepared,” he said), he proferred an unadvertised bonus – and before we knew what had hit us the AYSO brought the house down with a rip-roaring rendition of the boisterous, whirling “Lezghinka”. I had to wonder what it will do to the house when it IS fully prepared!

I couldn’t help but notice that the percussion balance had been a bit hit-and-miss. This will not have been entirely their fault, as they were playing on the stage of the theatre I mentioned in the preamble. Removing some half-dozen or more heavy wing curtains and drawing aside the drapes at the rear of the deep stage had improved things (compared with last year’s concert), but this amounted not so much to “better” as to “less bad”. So next time, I hope they’ll tweak their balance to compensate more effectively.

The piano, which featured in all three works, took centre-stage for the 20-year-old Prokofiev’s First Piano Concerto, which was written in 1911 to show off his prodigious talents to his “elders and betters”. Although this was some six years too soon for it to qualify as a Soviet work, it nevertheless sits comfortably alongside the products of the Soviet’s first decade.

The similarly youthful Roentgen Ng knew exactly how to tackle it – fearless of the knotty challenges, he reacted to the brass’s ripe invitation with reckless abandon. In his wake he left a smattering of fluffed notes, the detritus of his overriding determination to get right to the heart of the music. To my way of thinking, this was a smart decision. Nowadays, we get too hung up on note-perfection – whereas Prokofiev’s concerto is a work of wilful exuberance, so to play it with anything less than that would be a gross dereliction of duty.

Roentgen, it seemed to me, made but one slight tactical slip. Following the dewy-eyed, but in this performance not unduly languorous romantic interlude, he set off at such a hair-raising lick that he left himself no elbow room to elicit the “drunkard’s walk” feeling inherent in the notes. Otherwise, his judgement was faultless, reaping rich rewards as he impishly involved a far-from-reluctant orchestra in his multifarious, mischievous pranks.

Following a first half filled with fun and frolics, Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony comes as altogether a different proposition – over 40 minutes’ worth of concentrated, profound and involving music. Antun, wise to every twist and turn of the plot, was a sure-handed guide through the work’s structural and dramatic complexities. The AYSO responded with peerless playing that, by virtue of its intensity, actually made the work seem shorter. This was an extraordinarily potent Shostakovich Fifth, a performance to set above even last year’s Sibelius Third. It will long resonate in my memory.

The dry acoustic may have stifled some of the opening string canon’s deep bite, but it couldn’t cool either the petrified fire of their ensuing main subject, which at times almost scalded the ears with its piercingly precise intonation, or the fury of their vast, savage central climax – although, for all I know, it may actually have helped their matchless realisation of the conclusion’s remote, aetherial glistening.

The AYSO shovelled oodles of irony into the grotesquery of the Allegretto, lurching, in the manner of a “Punch and Judy” show, between slapstick vulgarity and surreal malice. The utter bewilderment of the poor oboe, emerging dazed from the mêlée, was at once comical and disturbing.

Antun’s expressive shaping of the Largo’s great curves, allied to the spine-chilling pianissimi, subtle phrasing and shading of the AYSO’s strings and woodwind, gave eloquent voice – and a more than usually Mahlerian flavour – to Shostakovich’s heartfelt song of infinite sorrow and isolation. I’ll admit, much as I admire this overall performance, I’ve occasionally heard each of the other movements done even better than here – but I have NEVER, in all my born days, witnessed such a haunting Largo as this one.

The undemonstrative Antun left no stop unpulled in projecting the finale’s frenzied tumult: brass blaring, tubs thumping and violins screaming streams of searing repeated notes, a cumulative tidal surge of sound, apparently unstoppable – until it hit that dreadful central buffer. The end was doubly triumphant. The leaden pounding of drums, relentlessly stamping on the main theme’s aspirational motive, flattening it face-down in the dirt, signalled the triumph of Evil over Good. But, in the torrential applause that followed, we the audience wholeheartedly acknowledged the triumph of the alliance of youth and wisdom.

Am I exaggerating? Well, look at it this way: if this performance had been recorded, I, a traditionally tight-fisted Yorkshireman, would pay good money for a copy, AND be happy to give in part exchange all my other recordings of this symphony.

After the concert, there came some good news for Whangarei’s music lovers – the AYSO will definitely be coming again! Who could ask for anything more?