A CONCERT REVIEW.....................

MELBOURNE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, 23 MAY 2009
Programme:

Copland: 'Billy the Kid' Orchestral Suite
Bruch: Violin Concerto #1
Dvorak: Symphony #6

Conductor: Gerard Schwartz
Soloist: Sasha Rozhdestvensky

Sorry dear, who's symphony is this again?

2 out of 5 stars

Having emptied most of the retirement villages into Melbourne's Hamer Hall in some kind of keen anticipation for this matinee performance, the MSO launched into a tight and well-polished production of Copland's 'Billy the Kid.' An odd piece, nevertheless, and not a particularly well known Suite from the New World but well performed and fairly rousing for the oldies to get their collective teeth into.
Bruch's sublime Violin Concerto followed on, beautifully crafted and almost faultlessly played by Rozhdestvensky, although there were times when I wished I could have tweaked the volume knob up to 11 just to catch the lighter, softer notes. Otherwise, sheer joy.
The oddity of this programme was in its title: 'To the New World.' Having failed to notice the inverted number '9' in the programme, I settled down after the interval and waited, vainly as it turned out, for the that motif so familiar to us of English stock, and known famously as the 'Hovis' music.
Dvorak not being my most favourite of composers, I was even less than impressed at having to sit through the whole of his number 6 when it was supposed to be 'From the New World!' Number 6 is a searing, soaring and boring collection of movements that promises so much and fails to deliver at almost every level. A nod to Brahms here, a nod to Brahms there. I wanted just to nod off.
Don't want to labour this point, but why was there reference to the New World? Copland I get; Bruch had an American friend whilst Dvorak's connection to America was non-existent until circa1890, many years after his number 6.
The MSO marketing people did a number on me!