Favoured Son

This concert continues Orchestra Wellington’s season-long exploration of the works of Dmitri Shostakovich, spoiling us with the Aotearoa premiere performance of his Symphony No. 2 in B major, Op. 14 October. This challenging work epitomises a precious and precarious time in the composer’s career, when he was still the beneficiary of state support. October was commissioned by the Propaganda department of the State Music Publishing house to mark the 10^th anniversary of the October Revolution.

The orchestra opens with low muttering strings, a chaotic ferment of pregnant tension. Music director Marc Taddei’s command of the symphony’s moods and mutations is masterful, and the audience clings on through tempestuous, whirling themes and an almost sarcastic march. Brass shines throughout, glutting on variations of liminal and mocking tonalities. This crucible of sound is collapsed instantly by the wail of a factory siren, a simultaneously otherworldly and industrial interruption that summons the choir (Orpheus Choir Wellington) for the rousing and bizarrely banal finale.

In the interlude that follows, our conductor confesses into the microphone, “Bonkers is the word for this music”.

This is a night of delights for the Russophiles, with Shostakovich set alongside his fellow countrymen, 19^th-century greats Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. It’s smart programming – opening with the melodic refusals and polyphony of October allows for the full shock value of the work to ring out, and makes the lyricism of the following pieces all the more pleasing.

Celebrated pianist Jian Liu joins the orchestra for Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 75 and delights us with his adept and sensitive playing. The evening closes with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, a tone poem whose endless harmonic invention and reinvention on the same seductive tunes conjures the plenty of the Arabian Nights. Concertmaster Amalia Hall winds balletically through the yearning violin melodies, complemented by dynamic section soloists, including a deliciously expressive oboe. We leave Favoured Son stimulated, satiated, and eager to see where this season’s narrative takes us next.