Morning Masterworks: Queensland Symphony Orchestra

Musical wunderkind Ray Chen displayed stunning violin mastery when he returned to Brisbane yesterday to appear with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in their Morning Masterworks series. Playing the first movement of Paganini’s notoriously difficult Violin Concerto No. 1, Chen’s bravura performance (on his 1715 Stradivarius worth a cool 10 million) was simply astonishing. Whether it was a solo passage, a fiery cadenza, or a succession of glittering double stop-thirds, his ability to perform miracles on his prized-possession (on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation), was superb.

With his handsome looks, warm personality and 2 million SoundCloud fans, it’s no wonder he’s classical music’s poster boy at the moment having just signed a lucrative recording deal with Decca Classical. And he’s Brisbane’s own, having been schooled here and played his first solo performance with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra when he was eight.

Although it was his skill that elicited the bravos, his performance was not without a little bit of showmanship with some dramatic sweeps of his bow when he ended a line, or a spectacular flourish delivered with passion. He was truly virtuostic.

Of course the QSO, under Simone Young’s astute and commanding baton, was more than mere accompaniment but stars in their own right. Young outdid herself in the second part of the concert with her and the orchestra delivering a dynamic reading of Gustav Holtz’s The Planets with brio.Requiring a full-orchestra, pipe-organ, and female choir, the piece is a full bells-and-whistles affair and a splendid orchestral showcase. Composed during the First World War, Holtz’s groundbreaking work has found its way into popular culture throughout the years, especially in the movies with Mars, the Bringer of War movement inspiring John Williams and his score for Star Wars, and the central melody of Jupiter being adapted into the Anglican hymn “I Vow to Thee, My Country”. The work finishes with Neptune, the Mystic and a fade-out ending, one of classical music’s first, with the voices of a women’s chorus heard off-stage and repeated until the sound is lost in the distance. This effect in the concert was hauntingly and beautifully achieved by The Australian Voices under the direction of Gordon Hamilton.

It was an exceptional concert with exceptional talent.

Peter Pinne