Transfiguration : Asher Fisch Conductor, Auckland Town Hall, Auckland (NZ) - 7 sept. 2019

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra seemed determined to reward those who had been lured to its Transfiguration concert by one of the repertoire's most popular piano concertos.

With Wagner's Tannhauser overture closing the programme, we were immediately plunged into the full romantic drama of the celebrated Rachmaninov Second.

It can be difficult to hear this piece without being reminded of its tawdry afterlife, both on Hollywood screens and in unctuous pop ballads. However, the adrenalin dispensed in this performance dashed aside any such concerns, taking us back to what must have been a momentous 1901 premiere, with the composer as soloist.

Rachmaninov the pianist is a tough act to follow, but Louis Lortie was the supreme virtuoso from his massive tolling chords in the opening bars and dizzying surges of passagework to glittering moments in the finale, in which he might have been cracking a jewelled whip.

There was a special enjoyment too in the relationship between soloist and orchestra, which responded sensitively to Asher Fisch's incisive baton. Pliant textures, laced with rubato, created both anticipation and tension; one appreciated chamber music intimacy and finesse in the Adagio sostenuo but elsewhere, when Lortie occasionally struggled to rise above the orchestral swell, one wondered why a larger Steinway wasn't used.

The encore was a party piece, with pianist and conductor sharing the keyboard for a Dvorak Slavonic Dance that offered a sunny riposte to the Russian soul-searching that had preceded it.

Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18
Richard Strauss Tod und Verklärung, Op. 24 (Death and Transfiguration)
Wagner Overture to Tannhäuser, WWV 70

The rich, lush sounds of three great Romantic composers feature in this concert conducted by Asher Fisch, Principal Conductor of West Australian Symphony Orchestra.

Rachmaninov’s famous Second Piano Concerto premiered with the composer as soloist. The concerto was dedicated to the doctor who treated Rachmaninov through his clinical depression. French-Canadian pianist Louis Lortie is a world renowned soloist who tours a vast repertoire internationally. His versatility as a performer will be well suited to Rachmaninov’s athletic piano concerto.

Richard Strauss’s Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration) is a tone poem depicting a dying artist reflecting on his life. At the end, the moment of death is a sweeping upward glissando towards heaven. On his deathbed, Strauss said “dying is just as I composed it in Death and Transfiguration.”

Wagner’s opera Tannhäuser, about a troubadour who becomes the lover of the goddess Venus, tells a story of lust, love, and redemption. The overture contains many of the opera’s important themes.