Music / Canberra Symphony Orchestra – Cottis Conducts The Planets,  Llewellyn Hall, November 6. Reviewed by GRAHAM McDONALD.

This concert was the final CSO performance for the year under chief conductor Jessica Cottis and included what they call their “signature blend” – something recent, something old but unexpected and a repertoire icon.

The capacity audience in Llewellyn Hall certainly got that combination of music, with a new(ish) work, Logos, from Danish/Australian composer Benjamin de Murashkin, a mid-19^th century collection of waltzes by Josef Strauss and Gustav Holst’s The Planets Suite from the second decade of last century. The linking theme was of things astronomical and astrological.

This was a large symphony orchestra, with 76 musicians on stage and 24 singers from the CSO Chorus singing off stage for the final section of The Planets. What was remarkable was the coherence and balance of the orchestra. Every section was just the right volume level alongside the others and it made for a delightfully integrated sound.

The concert opened with de Murashkin’s Logos. It starts with an amorphous wash of noise that gradually takes form with big shifting chords from each group of instruments before a climactic eruption of farting trombones and duelling cymbals. It then returns to the way it started in an exemplary piece of complex orchestration.

Josef Strauss’s Spharenlange – Music of the Spheres is a collection of five waltzes in typical Viennese mid-19^th century style, all very pleasant and cleverly orchestrated.

The main work of the evening was The Planets Suite, seven quite different pieces of music which took full advantage of the musical forces available.

Mars has tension in its 5/4 time, Venus has gently singing strings and horns, Mercury uses a fast skittering rhythm before Jupiter introduces its anthemic melody echoed between the horns and strings. Saturns returns to more contemplative music featuring two harps before a faster Uranus inspired conductor Jessica Cottis into conducting through a jerky dance. The concluding section Neptune finally used the female voices of the CSO Chorus, singing wordlessly from off stage to add yet another tonal colour to the mix.

Jessica Cottis certainly has this orchestra playing at a very high level. We can only wait in anticipation to what she brings next year.