Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra
Jacqueline Porter, soprano; Rachael Beesley, conductor
ARCOCD-003
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When the late and much lamented Richard Gill founded the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra, he added another vital brick to the ever-increasing wall of Australian musical brilliance. The orchestra’s latest offering (at the moment available only as a digital download), features three of the late 19th, early 20th century’s greatest composers, Max Bruch, Benjamin Britten and Pyotr Tchaikovsky. The concert opens with Max Bruch’s Serenade on Swedish Melodies, a five movement work built around one of the composer’s favourite idioms, folk melodies. He’d already written works around Hebrew and Scottish melodies and the Swedish ones were added to the collection towards the end of his life. They are played by the ARCO with all the attention to detail that the orchestra is famous for. This care for detail is particularly noticeable in Benjamin Britten’s nine songs which make up his 1938 composition, Les Illuminations. Modifications of tempo and rhythm, coupled with various expressive devices of the time, were used by Britten to bring certain accents to his songs, all based on the poems of the French writer Arthur Rimbaud and Rachael Beesley has faithfully followed these. This is a real treat for Britten lovers. The concert closes with Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir of Florence, originally written for string sextet, but later arranged for string orchestra. A not particularly Italianate 36 minutes, but a fitting end to a wonderful concert.
– Michael Morton-Evans