Concert
Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, dir. Silvia Massarelli
Lucia Clementi, harp; Maria Zahra, bassoon
Manoel Theatre

All the music was Italian and some of it very well known. Director Silvia Massarelli seems to have a bubbly personality and was a pleasure to watch at work with the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra.

If the source music was to be considered as sins of his old age, as Rossini was wont to say, then a special heaven must have been created for him for brilliance, melody, charm and wit

Launching into Gioacchino Rossini’s Overture to Semiramide, it was indeed a pity that the horns, so exposed soon after the work gets going, were in a long untidy mess.

A note or two could have been overlooked but I really do not know what happened to them. Thankfully they recovered and made enough amends later. The overture, with its combination of sparkle and drama, moved very nicely with very well-wrought and controlled crescendi.

The next work was Italo-American composer Anthony Sidney’s Concerto for Harp and Orchestra which he dubs “Florence” in honour of the city where he resides.

Well, who does not love Florence, so compact, manageable, beautiful and evocative of history, art and drama? Maybe after dozens of visits to this city I still do not know it enough... or do I?

I stretched my imagination and tried to picture most of the places mentioned in the detailed note which describes the concerto as a journey along various Florentine points. Try as I could, while admittedly enjoying most of the music, I felt no special link with those same places. They may have inspired the composer, but the music gave me no discernible link with those spots.

I liked Lucia Clementi’s performance and her interplay both with horn and oboe, as well as with the orchestra, the writing for which ranges from full to some lightly scored and rather disjointed, yet very effective, episodes.

The importance of a six-note motif and its frequent recurrence in various guises dominated the latter part of the work. The composer, who was present, acknowledged the audience’s warm applause.

It may be because the idiom and style are more familiar (apart rom Maria Zahra’s very accomplished performance) that audience reaction was even warmer in the Capriccio for Bassoon and Orchestra, attributed to Verdi.

Chances are very high that it is his but debate still rages about the matter. There is no doubt that the very catchy, tuneful melodies and the almost vocal treatment of the bassoon bear the same characteristics of Verdi’s early instrumental and operatic style. A rather poignant introduction leads to a set of variations which become increasingly more intricate and reach climactically virtuoso proportions carried off with flying colours by the young performer.

The orchestra concluded the concert with Respighi’s La Boutique Fantasque (The Magic Toy Shop).

Directional verve and the obvious fun the orchestra had performing this work was easily conveyed to the audience, especially in the faster dance sequences such as the Tarantella, Cossack dance, can-can and galop, which were effectively offset by the calmer tones of the Valse Lente and Nocturne.

The work ended as it had started: brilliantly and, of course, living up to the description of Fugue, allegro brillante. If the source music was to be considered as sins of his old age, as Rossini was wont to say, then a special heaven must have been created for him for brilliance, melody, charm and wit.