Organ Symphony

Asher Fisch
Principal Conductor & Artistic Advisor

A renowned conductor in both the operatic and symphonic worlds, Asher Fisch is especially celebrated for his interpretative command of core German and Italian repertoire of the Romantic and post-Romantic era. He conducts a wide variety of repertoire from Gluck to contemporary works by living composers. Since 2014, Asher Fisch has been the Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra (WASO). His former posts include Principal Guest Conductor of the Seattle Opera (2007-2013), Music Director of the New Israeli Opera (1998-2008), and Music Director of the Wiener Volksoper (1995-2000).

Born in Israel, Fisch began his conducting career as Daniel Barenboim’s assistant and kappellmeister at the Berlin Staatsoper. He has built his versatile repertoire at the major opera houses such as the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, and Semperoper Dresden. Fisch has conducted at leading American symphony orchestras including those of Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, and Philadelphia. In Europe he has appeared with the Berlin Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and the Orchestre National de France, among others.

Highlights of Asher Fisch’s 2021-22 season include Otello and Der Rosenkavalier at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Adriana Lecouvreur at the Vienna State Opera, a gala concert at the Hungarian National Opera with Kristine Opolais, as well as concerts with the Colorado Symphony, Naples Philharmonic, and New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Fisch’s 2020-21 season featured guest engagements with the Detroit Symphony, Utah Symphony, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Dusseldorfer Symphoniker, and a farewell concert at the Bayerische Staatsoper for long-time director Nikolaus Bachler. Other recent seasons included concert and opera engagements with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood, Cleveland Orchestra at the Blossom Festival, Sydney Symphony, Teatro Massimo Orchestra in Palermo, Carmen, Die Zauberflöte, and Parsifal at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Ariadne auf Naxos with the Bayerische Staatsoper at the Hong Kong Arts Festival, Tannhäuser at the Tokyo National Theater, and Pagliacci and Schitz at the Israeli Opera.

Asher Fisch’s recent recordings with WASO include Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde in 2018, which won Limelight Magazine’s Opera Recording of the Year in 2019, Bruckner’s Symphony No.8 and tenor Stuart Skelton’s first solo album Shining Knight, all of which were released on ABC Classics. Fisch’s recording of Ravel’s L’heure espagnole with the Munich Radio Orchestra won Limelight Magazine’s Opera Recording of the Year in 2017. In 2015, he recorded the complete Brahms symphonies with WASO, released on ABC Classics to great acclaim. His recording of Wagner’s Ring Cycle with the Seattle Opera was released on the Avie label in 2014. His first Ring Cycle recording, of the Helpmann award-winning State Opera of South Australia production, garnered praise and awards including the Prix Lauritz Melchior and Académie du disque lyrique Paris. Fisch is also an accomplished pianist and has recorded a solo disc of Wagner piano transcriptions for the Melba label.

Asher Fisch appears courtesy of Wesfarmers Arts.

Ottorino Respighi
(1879-1936)

Fountains of Rome

The Fountain of Valle Giulia at Dawn (Andante mosso)
The Triton Fountain in the Morning (Vivo)
The Fountain of Trevi at Midday (Allegro moderato)
The Villa Medici Fountain at Sunset (Andante)

Fountains of Rome is one of three sumptuous tone poems in which Respighi sought to depict some aspect of the city. He sanctioned the following note:

In this symphonic poem the composer has endeavoured to give impression to the sentiments and visions suggested to him by four of Rome’s fountains, contemplated at the hour in which their character is most in harmony with the surrounding landscape, or in which their beauty appears most impressive to the observer.

The first part, inspired by the Fountain of Valle Giulia, depicts a pastoral landscape: droves of cattle pass and disappear in the fresh damp mists of a Roman dawn. A sudden loud and insistent blast of horns above the trills of the whole orchestra introduces the second part. It is like a joyous call, summoning troops of naiads and tritons who come running up, pursuing each other and mingling in a frenzied dance between the jets of water.

Next there appears a solemn theme, borne on the undulations of the orchestra. It is The Fountain of Trevi at Midday. The solemn theme, passing from the woodwind to the brass, assumes a triumphal character. Trumpets peal; across the radiant surface of the water there passes Neptune’s chariot, drawn by sea-horses and followed by a train of sirens and tritons. The procession then vanishes, while faint trumpet blasts resound in the distance.

The fourth part, The Villa Medici Fountain at Sunset, is announced by a sad theme which rises above a subdued warbling. It is the nostalgic hour of sunset…

- Ottorino Respighi

First performance:
11 March 1917, Rome. Antonio Guarnieri conducting.

Most recent WASO performance:
30 April 2011. Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor.

Instrumentation:
piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, cor anglais, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons; four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba; timpani, three percussion, two harps, piano, celesta and strings.

Camille Saint-Saëns
(1835-1921)

Symphony No.3 in C minor, Op.78 ‘Organ’

I Adagio – Allegro moderato – Poco adagio
II Allegro moderato – Presto – Maestoso – Allegro

Saint-Saëns was something of an Anglophile. So it was a happy coincidence that when he was making plans for another symphony, the Royal Philharmonic Society invited him to perform as both conductor and pianist at one of its London concerts. As the non-profit Society could not afford the requested fee of £40, they suggested £30, plus a formal commission to write the Third Symphony under the Society’s auspices.

Saint-Saëns agreed and immediately began work on the symphony, saying to the Society: ‘It will be terrifying, I warn you.’ And he wasn’t wrong. Considering the Society’s financial state at the time, the prospect of an outsize orchestra complete with organ and multiple pianists must have struck fear into the heart of at least the treasurer.

And as the blood pressure of Society members rose, so too did the key of the symphony. ‘This imp of a symphony has gone up a half-tone; it didn’t want to stay in B minor and is now in C minor,’ Saint-Saëns advised the long-suffering Society members as he worked on the ever-expanding piece.

In the end, Saint-Saëns came up with a symphony in two parts, but still more or less using the traditional four movements. The first part consists of an Allegro and Adagio, corresponding to conventional first and second movements, and the second part is a scherzo and finale merged into one. The use of the organ was inspired by Liszt’s employment of it in his symphonic poem Hunnenschlacht (Battle of the Huns) and the published version of the Organ Symphony is dedicated ‘to the memory of Franz Liszt’, who had died shortly after the premiere.

That premiere occurred on 19 May 1886 in St James’s Hall, London, with the composer conducting, as well as appearing as soloist in his own Fourth Piano Concerto. On the whole, the reception was excellent, despite the best efforts of a few Wagnerians in the audience. Afterwards, the great admirer of British royalty was introduced to the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII). A Paris premiere, the following year, was a great success and prompted Charles Gounod to proclaim, ‘There goes the French Beethoven.’

Saint-Saëns summarised the symphony by saying, ‘I have given all that I had to give…What I have done I shall never do again.’ And he was as good as his word. The Organ Symphony was to remain his supreme achievement in music and it is still one of his most frequently performed works. In recent years it has achieved a certain popular success, following its quotation in the soundtracks for the movies Babe and Babe: Pig in the City.

Saint-Saëns was a virtuoso by nature. Indeed, the ongoing criticism of his music has been that his prodigious technical facility and ability to dazzle sometimes distract from the greater impact of the music itself. Certainly in the Organ Symphony Saint-Saëns gives literal meaning to the cliché ‘pulling out all stops’. While much of the organ writing is subtle, even understated, climaxes are marked by thunderous passages for the organ, and deliberately grandiose scoring.

The ‘first movement’ develops through a kind of Lisztian transformation of themes, whereby the thematic material appears in a series of varying guises rather than being developed in a strictly Classical sense. After the ‘first movement’ has led without pause into the ‘second’, the organ enters, surprisingly discreetly, as an accompaniment to the mystical main theme, marked Poco adagio. The scherzo (‘third movement’) begins the second half of the piece, and much of its thematic material derives – albeit vastly transformed – from the preceding Adagio. From here Saint-Saëns introduces all the fireworks he can. The tempo increases to Presto, the orchestration becomes more vibrant and new themes are superimposed over the existing ones, before the organ almost lunges into the finale.

This concluding section is a good example of the differing value-judgements which Saint-Saëns’ music invites. The climax builds through fanfares, four-hand piano figures, loud organ chords and extensive fugal writing, carrying the work through to its triumphant conclusion. Depending on one’s viewpoint, Saint-Saëns either demonstrates his unrivalled compositional virtuosity, or simply goes over the top. However, no one can doubt that the Organ Symphony has demonstrated its enduring appeal.

Martin Buzacott

© Symphony Australia

First performance:
19 May 1886, London. Saint-Saëns, conductor.

First WASO performance:
13 May 1971. Tibor Paul, conductor.

Most recent WASO performance:
15 & 16 November 2019, Lionel Bringuier, conductor.

Instrumentation:
three flutes (third doubling piccolo), two oboes and cor anglais, two clarinets and bass clarinet, two bassoons and contrabassoon; four horns, three trumpets, three trombones and tuba; timpani and percussion; organ, piano four hands; strings.

Philip Holdsworth
Principal Bass Trombone

What made you want to learn to play the trombone?

According to my Mum (I have no recollection of this) I was watching a brass band marching down the street when I was around four years old and said I’d like to play either the instrument at the back (the drums) or the instrument at the front (the trombone). I think I chose well!

Who inspires you?

At an early age my maternal grandfather was a great influence on my interest in music and brass in particular. He played piano, tuba, and euphonium, all amateur, but very well. I always wanted to be like him. In later times there was my teacher – Michael Mulcahy, then the Principal Trombonist with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and is now in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. I also always wished to sound like Ray Premru (Bass Trombonist, Philharmonia Orchestra) and listened to his performances at every opportunity.

Do you have any special preparation on the day of a concert?

I am one for following routines. I have basically done the same trombone warm up for the last 40 years, so that’s the start of the day. Usually we have a final rehearsal, after which I try to take it easy and rest before the concert. Once I’m at the venue, I tend to keep to myself as I find I can lose my concentration if I chat too much.

You’ve lived in several locations across Australia; which has been your favourite?

Each place I lived had its own merits; Perth is the favourite. It has been my home for the last 38 years and is where I met my wife and raised my two wonderful kids. Melbourne was where I got most of my education and where the opportunities to play in orchestras first eventuated. I was born in Renmark, South Australia; a town in which I spent just the first 2 years of my life and didn’t revisit until my fifties. Ironically, I then realised that it is one of the most beautiful towns in Australia.

What have been your 2022 season highlights?

The last three Masters & Classics concert are the highlights for me. Janáček’s Taras Bulba is great to play. Any Janáček is great for the brass. Saint-Saëns Third Symphony is always fun to play and was one of the first symphonies I played in my full-time professional career. Mahler is my favorite composer. His Third Symphony is immense and is a fabulous way to complete my full-time career.

Can you tell us some of your favourite memories over your 38 years with the orchestra?

I’ve been involved in so many wonderful concerts, it’s very difficult to pick and choose which one I’ve enjoyed the most. Working with the current brass section has also been an abiding memory and an honour. I have done many wonderful performances with them.