CANBERRA — The Australian Chamber Orchestra turns 50 this year, a milestone that, in many ways, is inseparable from the presence of its artistic director and lead violinist, Richard Tognetti. For 36 years, Tognetti has been the ensemble’s magnetic leader, shaping it into an orchestra as fearless in programming as it is fiery in performance.
Tognetti’s often assertive leadership has long been part of the ensemble’s signature energy. Yet in this politically charged program on Aug. 9 in Llewellyn Hall, “Gershwin and Shostakovich,” currently on an Australian tour, a certain and welcoming mellowing was perceptible. With a newly commissioned work by the celebrated Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov and the programming of subversive works by Shostakovich, the evening offered a glimpse of an orchestra willing to embrace reflection as much as provocation.
Under Tognetti’s direction, the ACO has expanded the very notion of what a chamber orchestra can be — commissioning bold new works, staging cinematic and theatrical collaborations with artists as diverse as photographer Bill Henson, actor Willem Dafoe, and satirist Barry Humphries, and weaving itself into cross-disciplinary ventures with companies like the Sydney Dance Company. Its hallmark has been interpretations that place passion, expressivity, and risk-taking at the fore.
If applause were the measure of success, the evening’s marquee works — Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue — would have taken the laurels. The soloists, Ukrainian Australian pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk and trumpeter David Elton, delivered playing that made the audience swoon.
Yet the evening’s most penetrating music-making came elsewhere: in the world premiere of Silvestrov’s Moments of Memory (VI) for chamber orchestra and in Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony in C minor. Silvestrov’s score, episodic and nostalgic, unfolds like a fairy tale remembered in fragments, its themes poised between sweetness and bittersweetness. Far removed from his reputation as an avant-garde provocateur and political voice, the composer leans on the lyrical sensibility of his film scores, offering a work of deliberate simplicity tinged with irony. In lesser hands, it might have slipped into kitsch; under Tognetti, the orchestra gave it an exacting lightness, the phrases shaped with care.
The concertos, intended as the program’s centerpieces, were uneven. Gavrylyuk’s Shostakovich was unabashedly explosive to the point that a string on the piano snapped near the close — an accident that might be more a comment on the instrument than on the pianist. Gavrylyuk teased out the work’s sardonic humor and sly nods to Beethoven and Ravel with effusive tongue and cheek, at one point gesturing to the audience, while Elton’s trumpet lines offered pleasingly measured accuracy as a counterbalance to Gavrylyuk’s fervor.
The Gershwin, however, faltered. Elton’s slip in the opening solo (originally for clarinet) was compounded by deeper issues: Neither Bernard Rofe’s arrangement for string orchestra and trumpet nor the minimized ensemble could uphold the power or the colors of the original Ferde Grofé orchestration. Of more concern, the performance was oddly jazz-compromised, consistently sidestepping Gershwin’s intended looseness and swing. Rhapsody, without its swagger, feels like a starched shirt, no matter how glitteringly it is played.
Both concertos wrestled with orchestral balance problems. With the violas sequestered behind the piano, their contributions were negligible. Other fleeting inconsistencies suggested the need for a conductor to manage ensemble cohesion in real time.
The evening closed, however, on a bravura note with an ACO signature performance of Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony in C minor. Often paired with the First Concerto, this 1967 arrangement by Rudolf Barshai of the composer’s String Quartet No. 8 restored the program’s momentum. Tognetti, fully at the helm, inspired his virtuosic violin section to unanimous conviction, delivering an interpretation that combined precision with the simmering intensity the piece demands.
For an ensemble that has built its reputation on forward motion, the program felt almost like a pause — a moment to look back as much as ahead. At 50, the Australian Chamber Orchestra remains a group in full command of its identity. But in the subtler shadings of this concert, where political subtext mingled with musical elegance, one could hear the beginnings of a new chapter.
