The Sydney Symphony presents the blazing talent of the Australian Youth Orchestra.
Tomorrow’s orchestra makes a welcome return to the Sydney Symphony’s concert season. The faces are new but the playing is as exhilarating as ever and brimming over with undisguised enthusiasm. As The Sydney Morning Herald said in 2002, “Hear it, feel it, this is what the orchestral experience is all about.”
For this concert, Danish conductor Thomas Dausgaard has chosen a masterpiece by his fellow countryman, Carl Nielsen. The music begins in a pastoral vein, with all the beauty of the orchestra on show, before things turn sinister with the entry of a side drum. And rhythm remains the driving force, bringing the symphony to its brilliant and radiant climax.
Debussy’s vast rendition of the sea is another piece to show off the talent of young musicians, with its mysterious colours and fabulous effects.
At the heart of the evening program is a new concerto by Carl Vine, written especially for Sydney Symphony concertmaster Dene Olding. Its starting point is the solo violin, quietly accompanied by orchestra – nothing, says Vine, has the potential to sound more alone. But in music, as in life, there’s a need for community as well as solitude – and perhaps only through music can we understand the tension between the two.
DEBUSSY La Mer
VINE Violin Concerto PREMIERE
NIELSEN Symphony No.5
Thomas Dausgaard conductor
Dene Olding violin
Australian Youth Orchestra
(Tea & Symphony: Debussy and Nielsen only)
Pre-concert talk by Genevieve Lang in the Northern Foyer at 5.45pm (20 and 21 July only).
AUDIO PLAYER LISTING
Track 1 – NIELSEN Symphony No.5: 1st movement (opening theme)
Track 2 – NIELSEN Symphony No.5: 1st movement (second theme)
Track 3 – NIELSEN Symphony No.5: 2nd movement (opening theme)
Track 4 – NIELSEN Symphony No.5: 2nd movement (second theme)
Danish State Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Thomas Jensen
DECCA ELOQUENCE 480 1858
Audio kindly supplied by Universal Music.