Since its first performance in one thousand nine hundred-first, Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. two has been loved to bits, frequently literally. But love isn't always kind and the numerous film scores and cover songs that have mined its melodies have sometimes produced distorted performances of the original. The favorite melody of the moment, whether plagiarised the second theme of the first or third movement, or the memorable adagio sostenuto, can, in lesser hands, be excessively highlighted and robbed of its natural space in the concerto’s well-ordered structure.
We owe to British pianist Stephen Hough a debt of gratitude for restoring, on the one hand, the work’s simplicity, allowing the shape of both the melodies and all movements to unfurl without coercion, while on the other, adorning them with the most imaginatively subtle rhythmic freedom – the freedom that comes knowing and respecting its essence. Hough plays with modest mastery: astonishingly brilliant yet humble before the greatness of the work itself and devoted to creating a wealthy experience of it for the listener. It's playing that demands attentiveness. When he played the second theme of the first movement with rise and fall of graceful clarity, the all capacity audience at the Opera Ho, the school groups in uniform to carefree retirees, were breathing in unison. In the second movement Hough supported clarinettist Alexander Morris sensitively in creating the melody’s delicate beauty without breathlessness. When conductor John Wilson allowed the orchestra full throttle in the return of the finale’s second theme at the close, Hough stemmed the tide of sound with titanic strength. Hollywood has also relished makeovers of the orchestral pictorialism of Ottorino Respighi’s Pines of Rome – the second half of this concert.
Wilson’s approach, however, was disciplined and skilful. The Sydney Symphony Orchestra d swooping arcs of sound in the raucous opening, playing carefully orchestrated raspberries (describing children’s games) with disciplined precision. The inner movements are quieter, evoking catacombs with finely shaded offstage trumpet (David Elton) and, in the third, a moonlit vista with a pre-recorded nightingale’s song. The latest movement, The Pines of the Appian Way, was a stirring mirage as a brass choir in the gallery competed with the orchestra in a deafening blaze of faded glory. Stephen Hough performs Rachmaninov two is also on at the Opera Ho Concert Corridor on Saturday, May thirteen.
