A spirited evening of music wows a grateful crowd of 10,000.

Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne
February 14, 2014

After overnight thunderstorms and heavy rain, Melbourne obligingly turned on a sunny afternoon and a slightly overcast but warm evening for the opening of the 2015 Sidney Myer Free Concerts series. These summer concerts, a Melbourne tradition since the 1920s, have been held at the Myer Music Bowl since its opening in 1959, and if tonight’s capacity audience of 10,000 was any indication, they are a hugely popular and much-loved institution.

The love-themed Valentine’s Day program opened with Tchaikovsky’s Fantasy Overture, inspired by two of western art’s most famous star-crossed lovers: Romeo and Juliet. With Benjamin Northey at the helm, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra swooped and soared as Tchaikovsky’s instantly recognisable and gorgeously lyrical theme descended into a dramatic, anguished finale. The second of Ravel’s Orchestral Suites from the ballet Daphnis et Chloé began with a stunning musical evocation of sunrise, seguing into a pastoral idyll of twittering birds and fluting shepherds. Gradually, Ravel’s trademark lush dissonances and crashing cymbals and drums (for this work, the percussion section was expanded to eight performers) swept onward to a wild, thrilling culmination....