Beethoven & Prokofiev (West Australian Symphony Orchestra)
Tony Senatore
<tonysenatore007@gmail.com>Beethoven & Prokofiev (West Australian Symphony Orchestra)
Will Yeoman
September 3, 2022
Behzod Abduraimov performs with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra in its Beethoven & Prokofiev concert, 2022. Photo © Linda Dunjey
Uzbek pianist Behzod Abduraimov never fails to impress, and it was terrific to hear him again in the excellent acoustic of the Perth Concert Hall for this dramatic, refined reading of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 3.
That’s not to say visiting conductor Otto Tausk’s leading West Australian Symphony Orchestra through Mozart’s overture to The Abduction of the Seraglio and Prokofiev’s Symphony No 5 wasn’t equally thrilling. Indeed, this classic overture-concerto-symphony program was remarkable for the same exciting sense of unity and contrast that characterises each of the three works separately.
Mozart’s overture to his famous rescue singspiel always makes for a rousing curtain-raiser, and on this occasion WASO and Tausk brought out the interplay between the crashing alla turca elements and a not-too-serious classical poise with a real sense of fun.
This whiff of fantasy was however quickly supplanted by Beethoven’s muscular abstractions when Abduraimov joined WASO and Tausk on stage.
From an expansive Allegro con brio replete with a sparkling, sonorous cadenza, through a Chopinesque reading of the Largo to an exuberant Rondo, soloist, orchestra and conductor projected a more symphonically integrated, more Brahmsian view of this concerto (despite Abduraimov’s jaw-dropping virtuosity) than one is used to. It provided the ideal preparation for the Prokofiev, which includes a piano in its scoring.
Russia might not be flavour of the month at the moment, but Russian music is a different story, even when it is itself born out of an earlier conflict between different forces.
Premiered in January 1945 with the composer conducting, Prokofiev’s triumphant Symphony No 5 was an immediate success. It’s not hard to hear why, especially in performances such as this one, with Tausk and WASO seizing on the expressive potential of Prokofiev’s abundance of melodies and richness of scoring to amplify the composer’s unique ability to undercut an ostensible patriotism with wit and irony.
The sheer gorgeousness (if that is the right word in this context) of the orchestral sound took me straight back to WASO’s recent powerful performance of Britten’s War Requiem under Asher Fisch. Ironic in itself, given that work’s pacifist origins.