This page presents sections of a review by John Carmody that featured in the Sydney Sun Herald, September 1995.
Review extracts follow.
…under the direction of Simon Romanos it seemed to be freshly rent from vast blocks of stone, as exciting to watch as it was to hear…
I don’t know if the three trombonists and two trumpeters who were Romanos’ collaborators in Xenakis’s Eonta (1963–64) were aware of Pierre Boulez’s comments on this immense piece which were quoted in the program — Boulez persuaded the composer out of concern for the players’ stamina, to use ten instruments for the premiere — but if they had read those remarks, they were remarkably calm in the face of this daunting challenge.
In fact they were so impressive — as they played from different positions in the Goossens Hall (sometimes clustering around the piano and playing into it to evoke sympathetic resonance of its strings, sometimes well away from each other, almost as free spirits) — that I confess they sometimes entirely took my attention away from the pianist.
How could they? you may ask. They simply matched Woodward as he stormed up and down the keyboard, arms flailing like a dervish. As I was exhilaratingly assaulted by the Jove-like thunderbolts of Woodward’s magisterial performance, I recalled being told that he has played this piece more than 100 times; more often, indeed, then many virtuosi have performed the Emperor concerto.
But on this occasion, under the direction of Simon Romanos it seemed to be freshly rent from vast blocks of stone, as exciting to watch as it was to hear.
The rest of the concert inevitably risked anti-climax, and in the sense that’s what it was, despite Woodward’s typically magnanimous gesture of turning it over to two young Sydney composers — taking literally the festival’s concern with new music.