The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra made history last night, marking the first time the 118-year-old orchestra has performed every bar of Clara Schumann’s riveting Piano Concerto.
Exploring works that express doomed romance and the intense emotions that come with it, the MSO’s Forbidden Love concert at Hamer Hall presented a soaring tempest of anguish and ecstasy.
Commanding the storm was French conductor Fabien Gabel, opening the night with a work from fellow countryman Claude Debussy, the suite of his opera Pelléas and Mélisande. The piece served as a dreamy introduction to the evening’s programme of love-laced works, decorated throughout with beguiling sonic textures. Under Gabel’s baton, playful brass trills and swift eddies of flute infused with shimmering metallic elements from xylophone and harp. It was a gentle, ponderous work and a strong demonstration of Gabel’s ability to interweave opposing call-and-answer melodic lines for strings.
-Liam Heitmann-Ryce-Lemercier, for Beat