Last night, Chennai was drenched in a downpour of Mozart. With the woodwind and brass instruments bouncing spangles of light on The Music Academy’s teak walls and a conductor who had the audience at the tip of his baton, it was a concert that drew us into the beauty of Mozart, the genius of Zubin Mehta and the consummate musicianship of the Australian World Orchestra (AWO).
Seventy-nine-year-old Mehta, bestowed with every imaginable honour by India and nations around the world, returned to the city a decade after his last concert here with the Bavarian State Orchestra. Mumbai-born Mehta’s first music teacher was his father Mehli, founder of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra, and legend has it that Mehta’s earliest musical tool was a pair of drumsticks.
Among the greatest conductors ever, Mehta’s striking visage has graced the catalogues of some of the world’s most reputed orchestras such as Berlin, Los Angeles, New York and Vienna Philharmonics and he is now Music Director for Life of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.
The AWO, founded in 2010 by its acclaimed Artistic Director and Chief Conductor Alexander Briger, comprises Australia’s finest classical music talent from the continent and across the globe. Filled mostly with young Australians who are part of leading orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra and Australian state orchestras, the AWO gives them the unique opportunity to perform together.
The invitation to play in India follows the tremendous success that came with the concert series under Mehta two years ago. He has led the 80-strong AWO through two concerts in Mumbai, one in Chennai and will wrap up the tour with a performance this weekend in New Delhi. Greta Bradman, renowned Australian soprano and legendary cricketer Don Bradman’s grand-daughter, is a special guest for the series.
After brief introductions by pianist Anil Srinivasan and tennis icon Vijay Amritraj, the concert opened with a flutter of soft tremulous notes that suddenly exploded into a fanfare heralding the ‘Overture’ from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.
First performed in Vienna in 1786, with the composer himself directing, the piece has come to be hailed as a standard in operatic repertoire. The violins, trumpets and drums raced through this overture in D Major as it was meant to be played, without losing their individual sounds in the flurry of notes.
Bradman, recipient of the Australian International Opera Award 2013-14, sings from a vast array of music, spanning centuries. For this concert, she chose to sing ‘Der Hölle Rach’, the second aria from Mozart’s The Magic Flute. First performed by Mozart’s sister-in-law Josepha Hofer, the song is part of a collection of music from Earth on the Voyager I spacecraft.
A highly-demanding piece to perform, it requires the singer’s vocal range to span two octaves. Bradman nailed the high notes in the blazing brilliant aria introducing the audience to the vengeful rage of the Queen of the Night.
Bradman lived on as the charming performer in Gioachino Rossini’s ‘Una Voce Poco Fa’ from The Barber of Seville, one of the great masterpieces of comedy. Her upper notes, singing of love, were flawless, interspersed with a fine-grained pitch when the occasion demanded.
The Mozartean masterpiece, Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat Major, was next with Daniel Dodds on his 1717 Stradivari “ex Baumgartner” violin and violist Tobias Lea. In the hands of these two extraordinary soloists, the piece was austere and poignant in parts, with the vibrato lending the hall an air of romantic cheer.
The final piece was Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 2 in D Major, a pastoral music composed in 1877. The scherzo part was haunting with the pizzicato (plucking of the strings) rising and falling with precision and the woodwinds garnishing with metallic sounds. The sonorous quarter-tones of the brass instruments ended the symphony on a triumphant note.
All through the evening, Mehta conducted with charisma, the baton technique that singles him out as one of our best, intact. His commanding presence at the podium led the AWO to put up an exuberant display, including the piece for the encore — Antonin Dvorak’s ‘Slavonic Dance’. For a man who reveres his heritage and always proclaimed that he dreams of waking up in India — this week India awoke to maestro Mehta.