Donald Runnicles Conducts Brahms 2

With his foot rarely off the accelerator, principal guest conductor Donald Runnicles drives the Sydney Symphony Orchestra through a roller coaster of emotional Romantic spins, with Brahms’ Second Symphony, Schumann’s only piano concerto and a satisfying homage to  Brahms from contemporary composer Detlev Glanert.

All three composers employ the full orchestral array of instruments to articulate this charged and passionate sweep through boisterous and dreamy, quiet pastures and alps, beauty and power, serenity and conflict, loyalty and freedom.   

Brahms’ wrote his second symphony in the Austrian mountains in 1877, and considerably faster than the 21 years he took to complete his first one.

It begins as a reflective pastoral work, with cello and double basses, then ripples out to each of the woodwinds, introducing shadows to this idyll, Runnicles allowing each instrument room and time to shine within the balance.  The job is all the easier in the now acoustically upgraded Concert Hall of the Opera House; the whole symphony a constant moving interchange of light and darkness. 

It concludes triumphantly in a blaze of brass, but Brahms still maintains this emotional journey within the traditional form of a four-movement classical symphony. Runnicles exercises this restraint and precision when his orchestral machine is so frequently at full power.

Earlier in the program, the New York-based, Australian pianist Andrea Lam excelled playing the yearning Concerto Robert Schumann wrote for his beloved wife and leading pianist of her era, Clara Wieck.  She premiered the concerto in 1845 and promoted its popularity long after Schumann’s early death in a mental asylum ten years later; she and Brahms, who was Schumann’s protégée, remained close friends for decades.

Schumann’s concerto juxtaposes a troubled yearning with the happiness of two people in love.  Andrea Lam constantly sweeps across the keyboard, from dark depths to fluttering highs, each snatch of melody answered by different instruments, again each perfectly balanced to the piano.  It’s a beautiful concerto, and Lam is mesmerising as she fiercely attacks, matching the the orchestra, or stoops low over the keys to detail each fragile note. 

The program begins with Detlev Glanert’s ten-minute work, Idyllium, the US premiere of which was conducted recently by his friend, Donald Runnicles.  It too begins with pastoral and mysterious qualities, then builds tension through ever faster sections, urgently building power, then retreating to calm. With his modern tonalities, Glanert’s homage to Brahms, this his third, is an interesting, well-programmed start to a concert thrilling in its musical and emotional leaps.

Martin Portus

Photographer: Jay Patel