St Matthew's Chamber Orchestra

By TARA WERNER

It seems rather perplexing that the management of the St Matthew's Chamber Orchestra did not want their concert on Sunday afternoon to be reviewed. This was one of the group's better concerts.

By aiming at a difficult repertoire of Romantic heavyweights, the orchestra's "give it a go" attitude under conductor Michael McLellan paid off.

The combination of Bruckner, Beethoven and Franck, prefaced by a fanfare by Dukas, provided a solid mix that brought out the abilities of the brass and woodwind. And the addition of the talented Turnovsky Trio for Beethoven's Triple Concerto meant that the alchemy was right for something different.

Beethoven's concertante for piano, violin and cello coincidentally featured at the International Music Festival on Saturday night and the trio's interpretation did not suffer in any comparison. Cellist Ashley Brown, pianist Catherine McKay and violinist Justine Cormack played an elegant version that was full of understated drama.

Brown's solo passage at the start of the first movement sounded a little restrained at the beginning, but the three soon threw themselves into the score, playing together with obvious rapport.

Beforehand, the brass musicians proved themselves to be soloists in their own right, with a bold performance of Dukas' Fanfare La Peri.

Bruckner painted a broad canvas in his Overture in G minor, giving a taste of the vast landscapes inherent in his later symphonies. Although the strings took time to settle and there were some uncoordinated sections, it was a disciplined account.

The same problems manifested themselves in Cesar Franck's cyclical Symphony in D minor, where motives are worked and reworked almost to exhaustion.

The strings fared better despite the usual spectre of inaccurate intonation, and, once the "big" theme was reached in the opening lento, they appeared to bask in the composer's lyricism.

It turned out to be a gratifying performance of this passionate symphony, one well above the norm.