Music / “Winter Dreams”, Canberra Symphony Orchestra. At Llewellyn Hall, August 16-17. Reviewed by HELEN MUSA.

THIS was an extraordinarily well-programmed concert, thematically inspired by ice and snow, which allowed audience, instrumentalists and conductor Alexander Briger, to run the full gamut of musical experience.

Book-ended with a selection from Eric Korngold’s “Der Schneeman” (The Snowman), and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 1 in G Minor, “Winter Dreams”, which gave the title to the concert, it ranged wildly in style and difficulty, but was always was always accessible.

The evening opened with “Vorspiel” (prelude) , “Serenade” and Walzer from “The Snowman,” when Korngold was just 11 years old, well before he migrated to the US and became one of the world’s most famous film composers.

Written to accompany a ballet scripted by his father Julius, the scenario concerns the commedia dell’arte characters, Pierrot, Columbine and Pantaloon.

The opening romantic “Vorspiel” was a gift to the string section under Kirsten Williams, ample and lavish.

But as the short work progressed, most intriguing was Korngold’s nod to the popular music of the time, the waltz, in the tuneful concluding section. If he had stayed in Europe, the program speculates, he might have become the new Johann Strauss.

Next up, “Icy Disintegration” by Taiwanese composer Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh, proved to be a showstopper.

Hsieh is known for her conceptual music and sonic experimentations, but the moment we knew that the theme was the disappearance of icebergs in Antarctica, written following the breakage of the world’s largest free-floating iceberg, the work became crystal clear.

Hsieh sourced her sounds of cracking, floating, splintering and screaming from videos and scientific research centres, translating the samples into pitch materials and later, orchestration.

“Icy disintegration” held the audience spellbound and provided some additional entertainment as we saw pianist, Edward Neeman reaching inside the piano and harpist Rowan Phemister slapping the strings, both to disturbing effect.

Before interval, the tone changed once again with Frank Martin’s convention-bending work, “Concerto for Seven Wind Instruments, Timpani, Percussion and String Orchestra,” in which he brings the flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, French horn, trumpet, and trombone centre stage.

This was, from the opening allegro to the adagietto, this an intriguing opportunity to see the skills of instrumentalists, Kiri Sollis, Ennis Mehmedbasic, Alan Vivian, Ben Hoadley, Robert Johnson, Justin Lingard and Nigel Crocker.

As if sensible that the audience might by now be overwhelmed with musical experiences CSO artistic director, Jessica Cottis cleverly programmed Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 1 in G minor, op. 13 (“Winter Dreams”) for the second half, ensuring that the audience, who’d been glued to their phones at interval for news of the Matildas, would return.

This 50-minute piece swept by in an instant, opening with the two titled movements, “Dreams of a Winter Journey” and “Land of Desolation, Land of Mists”, the later offering a rare moment in the limelight for the horns.

The third moment, billed “allegro scherzando giocoso [playful]” in fact revealed a melancholy side to the composition.

The evening concluded with a finale where conductor Briger held the orchestra in perfect control, steering it between near-silence to full blooded drama.