Alternatives

The NCO concert was called Hope Struggle Victory, seeing as the program was Nat Bartsch Hope, Shostakovich Cello concerto no.1 (with Stalin as the struggle) and Tchaikovsky Symphony no.4 (all exaltation and excitement).  As for alternatives, there was a lovely Handel playing in town at the same time, which would have been nice.  Obviously you can't be in two places at once and playing this program was a blast.  It just goes to show that Canberra is a civilised place beyond its size.  I love that.  Meanwhile, the playing was great.  First up Nat Bartsch is all slow dynamics and tempo, swelling tones, perhaps filmic and absolutely beguiling.  It's not a hard read and not so long, but you find yourself feeling the slow bows and concentrating on the consistency.  Lovely.  Shostakovich was anything but lovely.  James Munro soloed and did a magnificent job every time I heard him, in rehearsal and performance: wonderfully confident, neat intonation up the neck, always expressive.  No brass, so they got to sit out.  I think it was Jeremy who said our role was like percussion, and that's some truth there.  Odd times, reasonably simple but hugely tricky lines, perhaps the only time I've had to read Fb, but I admired (not sure I can say enjoyed) the capricious count and the deviant melody.  Fabulous.  Then the biggie, Tchaikovsky.  I love his work.  It's not as idiosyncratic as Shostakovich or as hard to read, but massively exuberant and a joy and challenge to play.  In a different way, it's still hard work: way more notes that Shosta and the full pizz movement 3 and the dotted quavers in 9/8 time were a challenge along with considerable chromatics and blazing lines.  So a big concert and not a slouch.  Congrats to Louis Sharpe, our conductor.  Ever jokey and positive but also demanding and always with a Canberra suburb on call.  A great combination.  And nice to catch up with Leonard Weiss, previous NCO conductor, who's in town for West Side Story, and who dropped in to the warmup for a short time.  Again, evidence of an intriguing local community.  And a small world: my offsider Jeremy is playing banjo in Lenny's WWS production.

National Capital Orchestra performed Nat Bartsch, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky at Albert Hall under Louis Sharpe (conductor) with James Munro (cello) as soloist.  The bottom end were Juliet Flook, Jennifer Groom, Jeremy Tsuei and Eric Pozza (basses).  Sally Macourt (violin) sat in as concert master.