Barry Douglas brings mature reflection to Brahms

Barry Douglas performs Brahms
Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Opera House, March 27

★★★★
Bach, Sorrow and Joy.
The Choir of St Mary's Cathedral and The Song Company, St Mary's Crypt, March 29

★★½

Barry Douglas played Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat, Opus 83 with rounded sound and an expressive approach of ruminative reflection, avoiding any aggressive tonal edge or flashes of virtuosic brilliance in favour of mature musical thought.

Expressive approach: Pianist Barry Douglas was impressive at the Opera House.

After the beautifully finished richness of Ben Jack's opening horn solo, the first movement maintained initial reserve from Douglas and conductor Lawrence Renes, allowing tension to grow slowly to a natural point of architectural emphasis and drama as the exposition closed.

The second movement, Allegro appassionato, was phrased with phlegmatic vigour and accent leading to a still point of repose in the third movement, with cello solo from guest principal Rod McGrath and transparent precision of chord voicing from the orchestra.

Douglas and Renes played the finale with precision, clarity and contrast, capturing the elusive lightness of the main theme and indulging the second theme in just the right amount of popular sentimentality without overplayed expressiveness.

Before the interval Renes and the orchestra paid a bright 70th birthday tribute to Australian composer Richard Mills with a performance of scurrying energy and frenetic pace of his 1988 work Aeolian Caprices.

Of Sibelius' swirlingly amorphous Symphony No. 7, Opus 105, they created a rich single arc charting a slow swelling of the spirt through finely balanced complexity and peaks of increasingly burning intensity.

The Choir of St Mary's Cathedral and the Song Company joined forces in superbly resonant chambers of the terrazzo-floored, stone-arched St Mary's crypt for music of Bach, both as arranger and composer.

A highlight was the Song Company's Swingle-style vocal rendition of the final incomplete quadruple fugue form Bach's Art of Fugue. In Jesu Meine Freunde, the St Mary's boys choir and the Song Company combined with nicely balanced textures in the numbers embellishing the work's eponymous chorale.

The first half, Bach's arrangement of Pergolesi's Stabat mater as the cantata Tilge, Hochster, Meine Sunden, BWV 1083, featured richly balanced duos and beautifully projected solos form Susannah Lawergren and Anna Fraser, though the whole was marred by excruciating intonation from the violins in the accompanying instrumental group.

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