★★★★½ Robertson delivers a tale well told, whichever way you look at it.

Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House
March 2, 2016

“It was said that [Scheherazade] had collected a thousand books of histories relating to antique races and departed rulers. She had perused the works of the poets and knew them by heart; she had studied philosophy and the sciences, arts and accomplishments; and she was pleasant and polite, wise and witty, well read and well bred.” So said Sir Richard Burton in his famous translation of the 1001 Nights. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov took some of that and ran with it in Scheherazade, his symphonic poem in four movements depicting the siren voice of the storyteller as she tricks her domineering, bloodthirsty husband into letting her live just one more night in order to hear how the latest page-turner comes out. John Adams, on the other hand, sees her as more of a legendary feminist icon; a woman for all times confronting, challenging and ultimately escaping male prejudices through the medium of a four movement violin concerto aptly named Scheherazade.2. Programming them back to back is a great way to reflect on such themes as well as the developments in musical thought and gender politics over 100 years or so.

Opening with a mighty series of corpulent chords on trombones and tuba, Robertson’s reading of the Rimsky was grand and weighty when required, pulling back to a chamber-like dynamic to allow for dainty solos from viola, cello, flute, oboe and clarinet, each of whom were on terrific form. In complete contrast was concertmaster Andrew Haveron’s sinuous, sexy Scheherazade, weaving a spell with beautifully measured phrasing and delicate touches involving tiny, subtle slides and suspensions. The opening movement was all foaming main and wind whistling in the rigging, the climaxes handled with aplomb, before slipping into The Tale of the Kalender Prince with mournful bassoon and oboe duetting like a pair of lovesick muezzins greeting the dawn. Taking his time like the best story tellers, Robertson’s tale was full of dramatic twists and turns as the menacing patrols came and went on trumpets and trombones.

The Young Prince and Princess featured burnished, romantic strings, lovely roulades on flute and clarinet, and some delicately sketched percussion. Any warm fuzzy feeling was dispelled by the Sultan’s angry outburst and his wife’s desperate pleading, before Robertson plunged into the carnival atmosphere of Festival in Baghdad – Rimsky at his most dazzling and fanciful. The crashing shipwreck when it came was timed to a heart-stopping tee, before Haveron played the piece out with ineffable sweetness. A great reading, well served by a fine-fettled orchestra.

The Adams, weighing in at around 50 minutes, is no makeweight. A big, serious work, it was written for Leila Josefowicz as a reward for her dogged championing of the composer’s first violin concerto. “She’s played my first concerto, we think, over a hundred times, which is astonishing, and with almost every orchestra on the planet,” Adams told me earlier this year. “She’s also played another piece of mine, The Dharma at Big Sur, which required her to get a six-string electric violin and learn the instrument, which is kind of amazing too and was an indication of how devoted she was to my music. So I really did intend to write her a piece.”

A diminutive figure dressed in shalwar pants and sandals, Josefowicz looked every inch the object of a Sultan’s affection, and conveyed every emotion in the work, not just though her playing, but frequently through intense facial expressions helping her act out her tale. Her fine, silvery tone was a good counterpart to Haveron’s more copper-tinted take on the Rimsky, and especially interesting to contrast as Adams samples and flirts with many of the intervals in the solo part of the older work.

A flourish and a Ravelian shimmer sets the scene for the lengthy first section (Tale of the Wise Young Woman) in which the soloist debates with a frequently raging orchestra of “true believers”, the emphasis often on the lower-voiced instruments. A bow-ripping riot ensues in what is the knottiest of the four movements – quite a culture shock after the easy to absorb Russian opener. The following love scene (A Long Desire) comes as a welcome relief and is the most immediately attractive movement, an orchestral bedding of glistening strings on which Josefowicz laid her radiant solo lines. A passionate build turns violent, before calming music (with bowed vibraphone) led into an almost bluesy ending.

In amongst Adams fabulous, colourful orchestration there’s a cimbalom and he isn’t afraid to use it in the Scheherazade and the Men with Beards movement. Furious strings and clacking percussion are set in stark contrast to the soloist’s calm, measured responses. It seems to end badly though with the orchestral equivalent of a brutal condemnation. The final movement, Escape, Flight, Sanctuary emerges from a turbulent darkness as the soloist literally runs for her life before arriving in a place of ecstatic strings and an exhausted but serene play out, again with echoes of the Rimsky-Korsakov. It would be impossible to find a finer exponent of Scheherazade.2 than Leila Josefowicz, and Robertson’s experienced way with Adams ensured the SSO were sensitive, accomplished partners throughout. It’s to be hoped that a recording will emerge to allow a second and third hearing of this intriguing and challenging (in a good way) major work.

A final thought. There was something awfully apposite about programming works reflecting the life and story of a wise woman confronting a blustering tyrant on Super Tuesday. I’ll say no more.

The programme is repeated on March 3 and 4.