★★★★☆ Gaffigan and Gerstein prove once again that the devil gets the best tunes.

Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House
August 14, 2015

There was more than a whiff of brimstone in the air for this well-chosen programme of crowd-pleasers put across with devilish dash by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under American maestro James Gaffigan. The 36-year-old New Yorker is a rising star on world concert stages and with his ‘now he’s got a baton, now he hasn’t’ muscular conducting style he’s certainly highly watchable, seemingly inviting the music to take demonic possession of his modest frame.

Shakespeare’s witches opened proceedings in Verdi’s high-octane ballet from the Paris revision of his opera Macbeth. “You should be women, and yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so,” says Banquo of these snaggle-toothed hags, and if the idea of them cutting a pas de trois to inflame the passions of the infamous Jockey Club seems a bit kinky, it’s all great fun musically. It’s always nice to hear this kind of thing played by larger forces than you’d find in the average opera pit and Gaffigan and the SSO gave it a cracking workout, relishing its occasional crudities from opening schottische to final galumphing waltz.

Dressed in Satanic blacks, the Russian-born American pianist Kirill Gerstein arrived on the platform for Rachmaninov’s homage to the devil’s very own fiddler in the perennial favourite, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and proceeded to give it the kind of imaginative, considered performance that has made his name a byword for thoughfulness of late. Enjoying the opening grotesqueries, both men savoured Rachmaninov’s vulgar lurches and deliberate discords, while some of those early ‘galloping’ variations demanded a pace that was positively Mephistophelean.

As a player Gerstein combines tremendous strength when required with impressive dexterity, but crucially he is never four-square, exuding a former-jazzman’s ability to provide any given moment with just enough elbow room to allow it to live and breathe. At times Gerstein crouches over his instrument like the fiend himself, at others he’s leaning back to join in sensitive duet with an orchestral soloist. If at times this was the most ‘bluesy’ performance of the Rhapsody I can recall, it was much more of a mood thing than any liberty being taken with the notes. Call me a tasteless sensation seeker, but the big romantic variation could have wallowed a bit more, but otherwise this was a fabulously imaginative reading of a work that can easily feel overly familiar. Blumenfeld’s Etude for the left hand, one of those pieces you’d assume was for two unless you were actually watching it, was a magical encore.

For many, Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony is the ultimate dance with the devil, in this case the composer’s partner being Stalin himself. Its very provenance, coming after the disaster of Lady Macbeth and Pravda’s infamous “Muddle instead of Music” article, ensured that all eyes and ears were on Shostakovich in 1937 to see how he would respond in music. His reply was profound yet challengingly enigmatic, thus anyone taking it on has to adopt some kind of point of view as to what this music means. You may be wrong, but any undefined moment runs the risk of muddiness or intellectual meandering.

In general Gaffigan had good measure of the piece, his interpretation being dynamic, impassioned and big-boned, adept at bringing out the Mahlerian in the work. At times in the early sections of the first and third movements there seemed a little lack of purpose that rubbed off on the orchestra, and it took until the fortissimo passage towards the middle of the opening Allegro non troppo with its bombastic militaristic march for matters to really get into their stride. Once things picked up, however, it was a rollercoaster and when it was very, very loud it was very, very good. Pacing was excellent – the second movement fizzed – and the warm, sweetness at the heart of the glacial slow movement was enhanced by fine solos on flute and oboe. The end of the Largo with its delicate violins and violas and magical harp and celesta was spellbinding.

The Finale blazed brightly, just occasionally losing a little woodwind detail amidst the swell of strings, percussion and brass, but that certainly wasn’t enough to derail the thrills and spills in an exciting reading that drew healthy cheers from a third night audience that noticably contained plenty of youngsters (by which I mean the under-40s). The well deserved whistling and stamping during the individual bows at the end was more reminiscent of a footie crowd than a classical soirée, and that cannot be a bad thing, eh?

Kirill Gerstein plays Bartók, Bach and Liszt at City Recital Hall on Monday August 17 before heading to Melbourne for Rachmaninov with Sir Andrew Davis and the MSO from August 20-22.