Entertainment Not A Dirty Word

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday March 20, 2000

Reviewed by ROGER COVELL

SYDNEY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Opera House

March 16

I think I'm going to disappoint Graeme Koehne, who's written a remarkable new oboe concerto and who obviously still hopes someone will assail him for dealing in accessible music and for liking popular musical genres.

First, I agree that there is often more skill, technique and imagination in the work of professional film composers than in a number of new pieces that aspire to the higher flights of concert hall music. I also agree that entertainment should not be a dirty word in reacting to a concert piece.

So the fact that he has entitled his oboe concerto Inflight Entertainment - implying an affinity with the kind of music you might hear on an airline headset channel devoted to film soundtracks - does not seem to me outrageously provocative.

The most exciting thing about the new piece is that it comes across as a congenial marriage of the talents of Koehne and the soloist, Diana Doherty. Her delivery of the solo part was surely as fetching and thoroughly prepared as any composer could wish.

She had memorised it no small feat in launching a concerto which is lengthy and copiously supplied with notes, tricky rhythms, irregular phrases and unpredictable intervals and her technical mastery of its detail was apparent. I noticed no more than a couple of notes which were a little off-target.

Koehne considerately allows the oboist to lead from the steadying vantage point of a solo cadenza, developing what could appear simple warming-up intervals into an elaborate chain of instrumental callisthenics. It is a winning gambit if the soloist, as was the case here, has the musical personality to take advantage of it.

Anyone who has observed Doherty playing from her regular principal's desk in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra will agree that she is exceptionally vivid in her physical characterisation of phrasing and articulation. Her head nods vigorously, her body sways sympathetically; her left hand performs all sorts of graceful flourishes and courtesies in addition to pressing down instrumental keys; and she does some of this even when she is counting silent bars and preparing for her next musical entry. This means that she acts the concerto soloist in a totally characteristic and unselfconscious way. She even gives the audience something visual to follow in a purely orchestral interlude. When she did a kind of dance shuffle to some of Koehne's pop rhythms her actions came across as the natural extension of her musical impulses.

Koehne's invention in the first movement (titled Agent Provocateur) was impressive in its scope. His technical challenges to the soloist in the second half of this extended movement were impressive and enjoyable.

The second movement (Horse Opera), relaxed in its loping stride, and the lively finale (Beat Girl) were pleasant enough but didn't add much to the outstanding opening movement. Perhaps there would be a case for treating the first movement as a concerto in itself, so unerringly does it aim for and arrive at an effective ending.

It was no surprise that Edo de Waart, a former orchestral oboist himself, communicated his enjoyment and involvement in supervising the performance of the Koehne concerto. This placed in relief the less than illuminating interpretation of Haydn's wonderful Symphony No 70, given a reading sober to the point of total abstinence, and the determined but not quite consummated vigour of the SSO's playing, on this occasion, of Brahms's first symphony.

© 2000 Sydney Morning Herald

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