An afternoon of sun and romance to chase away the winter blues.

Sydney Opera House, Concert Hall
June 11, 2015

On what was a bleak, drizzly, winter’s day in Sydney, I was more than happy to settle into my seat and be warmed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s Summer Nights programme. However, in characteristically cerebral style for the SSO, the concert’s title is something of a wild goose chase. The three works on offer – Haydn’s Horn Signal, Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été (Summer Nights) and Schubert’s Symphony No. 4 – have some superficially sunny characteristics, but this is tinged with a darker hue. But what’s in a name? Yvonne Frindle’s programme notes on the relevance of Schubert’s subtitle, Tragic, observe that this melancholy can be applied to both the Haydn and Berlioz, and even to the concert’s moniker: in short a name “is a distinguishing rather than a defining feature.”

Not so perhaps in Haydn’s Horn Signal, which was defined by some very distinguished horn playing. All four horns maintained a clear tone and managed clean execution throughout, especially in the knotty contrapuntal writing of the Adagio – a standard set by Concertmaster Andrew Haveron’s finessed solo in the same movement. Here, David Robertson’s gentle coaxing...