Carmina Burana – ArtsHub (subscription)

An exotic program of two twentieth-century classics.

Yu Longconductor via MSO.

Long Yu, artistic director and chief conductor of the China Philharmonic and music director of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, is perhaps one of the most eminent directors of Western classical music in Asia. His direction of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra on Saturday night was a dignified occasion featuring two major works from the 20th Century: Ravels Daphnis et Chlo: Suite No 2 (one of Sergei Diaghilevs Ballets Russes Paris commissions completed in 1912) paired with Carl Orffs Carmina Burana (composed between 1935 and 1936).

The opening movement of the Ravel, Daybreak, struck me on this occasion as being one of the most ecstatic musical depictions of a sunrise in the repertoire. Scored for vast orchestra and wordless chorus, Daphnis et Chlo was originally a ballet. Two orchestral Suites, the second of which is often performed, were extracted by the composer.

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus is sounding fine and performed both works well thanks to guest chorus master, Marilyn Phillips. Blend overall was good, though on occasion the chorus felt underpowered in the Ravel perhaps owing to its threefold separated proximity to the orchestra. I wondered if having the chorus seated was a wise decision. While the orchestra generally performed well under Yu, I yearned for more to be imagined and expressed from the woodwind solos. Ravels orchestration may be seen as chamber music on a large scale requiring intensely vivid personality and verve.

Although Orffs Carmina Burana was one of the most popular works of the 20th century, it is now hardly ever performed. On this occasion I was struck by how unusual this hybrid flower is, with connections to plainchant, Renaissance music through to Hollywood and with a strong flavour from Stravinsky, particularly from his ballet Les noces. The text is a collection of secular medieval poetry in Latin, Old French and Middle High German, discovered in the Bavarian abbey of Benediktbeurn in 1803. It describes the apparent futility of life symbolised as an ever rotating wheel where Fate randomly dethrones the exalted at whim, along the way providing various diversions of elation and distraction including sex and drink.

I concur with Alex Ross when he describes Orffs setting of 23 of the 320 poems as primitive unreflective enthusiasm. The opening movement O Fortuna has been used as signature music for many advertisements from aftershave to coffee. Indeed, one continues to hear imitations of this opening rapturous movement in film, television and even as background music to video games. The work was intended as a cantata with dance and sets and it would be interesting to see it staged. But in this concert form, even with its clean-cut and energetic Stravinskyan percussive writing, it seemed to me vulgar, simplistic and in particular, irritatingly repetitive. The work was to become Orffs one great success when, following its first performance in 1937, it appealed to the Zeitgeist of Nazi Germany, perhaps owing to its direct musical rhetoric and secular egalitarian Socialist resonance.

I wondered why Orff wrote such extreme ranges for his soloists. Tenor John Longmuir was excellent in his brief appearance as an unfortunate charred swan nostalgic for his former white beauty, singing almost all of the aria in forthright chest voice. Distinguished baritone Warwick Fyfe, however, struggled valiantly with much of his unsingable material set absurdly high for his voice type, particularly in Dies, nox et omnia. His Estuans interius however delighted for its suavity. I wondered if his awkwardness in attempting to realise the music was somehow Orffs intent and if so why. Eva Kong was superb throughout, though I wondered if the part would be better suited to a slightly fuller, more lyrical voice. The performance was distinguished by the appearance of twenty choristers from the National Boys Choir of Australia singing their parts from memory.

The work ends as it began with the rousing chorus O Fortuna (How horrid Life: / Now it blocks/ And now gives way/ A vicious mental game to play/ Misery and potency melt away/ Like ice.)

Rating: 3 1/2 stars out of 5

MSO Carmina Burana

Eva Kong, soprano

John Longmuir, tenor

Warwick Fyfe, baritone

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus

Marilyn Phillips, Guest Chorus Master

National Boys Choir of Australia

Peter Casey, National Boys Choir Chorus Master

Presented by Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne

Saturday, 22 April, 2017

8pm

First published on Thursday 27 April, 2017

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