The initial fanfare in Richard Strauss’ tone poem was very familiar. It was the theme music for the Apollo space programme, and earlier in 1968 for Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey. After that a full orchestra, including Michael Bawtree on the organ, plunged into complicated depths and up to extraordinary heights. Richard Strauss had taken the difficult philosophical topic of Neitzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. One hundred years ago difficult theme were taken on by composers and popularly considered the most modern of music.
Tokyo born Kazushi Ono was conducting the RSNO for the first time and as a Richard Strauss specialist he knew what he wanted. Xander van Vliet, in his pre-concert talk, described the conductor as a man of few words who, in the two days of rehearing the concert, got it his way by going over and over those parts he needed to get right. And complicated the music seemed to be. There were times when the front desks were playing alone and then were at rest, whilst those behind were busy. Maya Iwabuchi was outstanding, and we heard cellist Aleksei Kiseliov out on his own too. On the way out I heard the word sensational several times.
Earlier we had heard one of the most lovely of Mozart’s piano concertos, No 23, played by Saleem Abboud Ashkar who born in Nazareth in 1976. His apparently light touch was magical. The audience loved it.
The concert had begun with selections from Prokofiev’s ballet music for his Cinderella, the last of the six he composed. Written during the Second World War it was first performed shortly afterwards in Moscow. And, of course, it ended with the twelve bells of midnight.
It will be hard to forget the self deprecating and yet bubbly enthusiasm of the Principal Second Violin in his pre-concert talk. Hitherto a first violinist elsewhere Xander van Vliet described the role of second violins as the orchestra’s engine house - and for him all the more enjoyable for that. Always on our edge and not sure what he was going to come out with next, his talk proved a great way to have started the enjoyable evening.
Event: Friday 23 November 2012 at 7.30pm