The Sheldonian was packed out on Friday night, with locals and students alike, in anticipation of the Oxford University Orchestra’s take on three classic pieces. Although Shostakovich’s Festive Overture, Rachmaninoff’s The Isle of the Dead and Mahler’s First Symphony (or Titan) are all pretty important and standard pieces of any serious orchestra’s repertoire, they make slightly strange bedfellows. The first is lively and upbeat, the second is an exercise in unease and mournful disquiet and Mahler’s work is characteristically ironic and anthemic in equal measure. It is a tribute to OUO’s technical prowess and enthusiasm for the material that they manage to draw out the strands in each piece that tie the three together.
The Festive Overture should begin with a majestic fanfare. However, the OUO take a little while to warm up, and the result is that the opening seems to drag. As soon as the lighter, faster section takes hold, the woodwind take the lead and show us exactly how delicate and observant the orchestra can be at its best. A real sense of urgency and joy throughout from everyone involved (especially the conductor, Thomas Blunt) lifts the music from its rather clunky beginning, and the result is a bombastic and energetic take on Shostakovich’s overture – a piece supposedly inspired by the death of Joseph Stalin.
The next offering was a rather different affair. The Isle of the Dead begins by invoking the rhythm of Charon’s oars as the audience are guided towards the eponymous isle. To begin with, the OUO perhaps fail to mine the darker elements of the symphonic poem, but really builds towards a pretty uncomfortable climax before blossoming into something bittersweet and quite beautiful. The funeral march section of The Isle… is both stately and fleet-footed, the perfect expression of the theme of the piece.
The funereal themes continued as OUO took to Mahler’s Titan. Although the first movement celebrates the spring, and invokes the sound of the cuckoo, the symphony as a whole is a deceptively dark affair, with twists and turns leading the listener through many themes, moods and images. It’s the third movement that the OUO really take to. The funeral march to the tune of Frere Jacques and the faux-Klezmer section are two of the most darkly ironic moments in Mahler’s oeuvre, and the OUO really puts their all into it. It’s strange to hear such a sinister touch performed with such gusto, but it really works, taking the funereal themes from the past two (both light and dark interpretations) and mixing them into a synthesis of the two – a perfectly Mahlerian touch to the evening.
These three classics may not have been perfectly performed, but it’s a real nitpicker who will have come away from this concert without a smile on their face and real admiration for the work of the three masters and their interpreters, the OUO.
