Beethoven and Sibelius - Queensland Symphony Orchestra

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Sat 02 Oct 2021

Grace Clifford is 22. At the age of 16, she won the Australian Young Performer of the Year and is widely regarded as one of Australia's most promising musicians.



We were looking forward to her interpretation of Sibelius' Violin Concerto in D and as she began to play we could sense that rapt silence within the audience as we were held spellbound by her passionate and energetic rendition of the many moods of the music. Alexander Briger (our conductor) and she seemed mutually intent as Grace with intense focus tackled the technical challenges of this complex and intricate work. Some instrumentalists have a studiously neutral body language, allowing the music to speak for itself. Others seem to have the music flow through them, and their body language eloquently expresses the passions of the piece. Grace is the latter, and our experience was enhanced by it.
Once again we felt fortunate that we could come together to be a part of such engaging music making.

Wagner's Prelude from Lohengrin preceded the Beethoven and the clashing cymbals, coruscating strings, and assertive trumpets of the QSO enthusiastically created the chaos which is the underlying theme of the work Again, you had to be there to observe the frenetic bowing, choreographed clashing, and tumultuous trumpeting. Just wonderful.

Which takes us to Beethoven's seventh symphony. The program notes told us that "Beethoven originally used two contrabassoons in his 7th symphony even though it's not notated. They played along with the double basses. It's a lovely effect, sounds amazing (and very different!) and the basses and contra player love it."

So, in our performance, principal contrabassoon Claire Ramuscak played alongside the double bass section.

And if you thought that the Allegreto was familiar, maybe your subconscious was remembering The King's Speech."Jubilant", "ecstatic" and "joyous" are how Stephanie Eslake describes the symphony in our notes, and she also tells us that Beethoven "considered this symphony his best".

I'm not surprised.

It was a most enjoyable evening, displaying the emerging and magical talent of Grace Clifford, the experienced musicality of Alexander Briger and the energy and skill of the QSO.

We were very fortunate to have been given such riches.

#classical_music
#concerts
#near_brisbane
#performing_arts
#shows
#theatre
#october
!date 02/10/2021 -- 02/10/2021
%wnbrisbane