★★★★☆ Crisp and refreshing – and the music is pretty good, too.

QPAC Concert Hall
May 20, 2016

According to popular wisdom, classical music has a bit of a problem attracting younger audiences. Opera audiences are comprised entirely of the aged and well-off, perhaps peering through a pince-nez, or with a fox-fur draped over one shoulder. General classical concerts attract only those driving the most luxury of automobiles. These wild generalisations are, of course, rubbish. I’m a bearded twenty-something who plays in a band, and yet here I am, reviewing Beethoven.

Personally, I think QSO is onto something with this performance. For this concert (the first of the Sundowner series), they’ve made a number of interesting changes to their usual method of doing things. First and most obviously, they’re giving out a bottle of beer with each ticket bought, in partnership with local brewery Newstead Brewing Co. As a method of attracting a younger audience to the concert, it’s not a bad idea. This pulls the concert far more in line with the experience of attending a rock gig in that you can enjoy a drink after work while watching a performance, something that I don’t think anyone could object to! More unusually, they’ve also partnered with 4ZZZ, Brisbane’s alternative radio station more usually associated with rock music than Beethoven. While 4ZZZ has dabbled with classical programmes in the past, it hasn’t been a primary focus by any means. 4ZZZ is a surprising choice for the event, and one that sends a definite message.

Both the Facebook event page for this concert and the relevant page on QSO’s website are entertainingly written – kudos to the bright spark in the advertising department who wrote it. However, there’s a fascinating discrepancy between the style of writing for this concert, and the writing for the same music, performed only hours beforehand as part of the regular programming (with no beer thrown in!). The pitch for Beer + Beethoven grabs the attention, coming across as inviting, humorous and playful, but the more considerably more plain writing for the earlier, beer-less performance doesn’t strike up nearly as much interest.

This concert was a short one at only 75 minutes, with no interval. I have to confess that, even as a die-hard classical fanatic, this came as a relief. I suspect that 75 minutes is about the right amount of time to maintain peak audience concentration, so to me this is a definite plus. 

The performance began with Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto. The QSO was in fine form here, perhaps invigorated by the prospect of playing to a different sort of audience. Nikolai Demidenko’s entrance came with assured poise, and a gracefulness and nobility to the more reflective passages. Similarly, Vassilis Christopoulos brought a sense of breadth to the phrasing of the second movement that allowed Beethoven’s music to speak for itself. The third movement was brought to life with a furious intensity from QSO, with particular mention needing to be made of the double bass section’s wonderfully fiery playing.

The Coriolan Overture was given a similar show of force, with a full, gutsy string sound doing much for the success of this performance. Demidenko returned soon afterwards with the Fourth Piano Concerto. Unlike the performance of the Third, this was performed without music and came off as a more confident performance, not that No 3 was lacking. Both QSO and Demidenko navigated the multiplicity of the changing moods of the Fourth Concerto with aplomb. Demidenko closed the concert with two encores, including a Chopin Minute Waltz that threatened to crack the fabled one-minute mark.

This was a very successful concert that could have pushed further out. I love the music of Beethoven, but what was essentially two piano concertos in a row (although fabulously played) became tiring. I would have liked more of a change of texture to really allow the pieces to shine individually – one of the shorter symphonies would have slotted in very nicely at this point.

I’ll definitely be looking forward to future events in the Sundowner series, but I’d like more adventurous programming. If audiences can enjoy howling feedback from rock bands, then I’m sure that some more experimental classical music (of any era) wouldn’t go astray either. That being said, this was definitely a worthy experiment

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