Gliding slowly through the orchestra and across the stage of the Royal Albert Hall to the conductor’s podium, Zubin Mehta, in white tie, tails and high-gloss patent leather shoes, had the dignity and bearing of an ocean liner from a golden age. Of course this 86-year-old, Mumbai-born Indian did not glide at all. He walked with difficulty, with the aid of a stick, but with a graceful determination that inspired welcome cheers from the Proms audience, who were there to hear the Australian World Orchestra make their debut as part of a UK tour.
This diaspora orchestra, founded in 2010 and consisting of Australian players from many world-class orchestras, has the energy of a festival ensemble. That they will only have come together to rehearse last week added to the sense of adventure. The first part of their Prom, Webern’s Passacaglia, Op 1 and Six Pieces for Orchestra, Op 6 (revised version, 1928), hardly yielded to the acoustic of the Albert Hall, though listening again on BBC Sounds it came across with subtlety and colour. Debussy’s Ariettes oubliées was sung by the soprano Siobhan Stagg in a delicate arrangement by Brett Dean, the Australian composer and violist who, on this novel occasion, was playing in the orchestra and rose from there to take his bow.
