Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall, Balcony (Seat BF7,
HK$200.)
Program
Prelude a L’Apres-midi d’un Faune by Claude Debussy
(1862-1918).
Trumpet Concerto in E-flat by Johann Nepomuk Hummel
(1778-1837).
Ma Mere L’Oye (Mother Goose) by Maurice Ravel
(1875-1937).
After meeting up with Anne’s sister at the Hong Kong
club, we decided to walk across the street to City Hall to see what concerts
might be available. To our surprise, the
Sinfonietta was going to have a concert that evening. We bought tickets for ourselves and Ruth and
Stephen. For the following day
(Saturday) Lorin Maazel actually was going to conduct a performance, but we
wouldn’t be able to make it because of prior commitments. In any case, we had some time on our hands
this (Friday) afternoon, so we went to Mongkok East to meet up with Ruth and
Stephen, had dinner with them, and then came back to Central for the concert.
It so happens we had some exposure both to the soloist and
the Hummel piece before we left for Hong Kong.
WQXR was talking about Helseth and how she is considered to be a top trumpeter
from Norway. On a different occasion we
heard how Hummel’s concert was actually the first ever composed for the “modern”
trumpet (modern in terms of valves and pistons) and actually we also heard
Wynton Marsalis play the piece, although frankly I wasn’t paying a lot of
attention to the station. In any case,
this was an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.
The concerto actually was quite short at less than 20
minutes. As a first piece written for
the modern trumpet, it contains some virtuoso passages that no doubt were very
difficult at its time. However, I am
sure this is now rather standard repertoire for a professional trumpet player,
despite the glowing terms used in the Program Notes about the piece’s difficult
passages. Helseth certainly produced a
pleasant and clear sound, and she appeared to work quite well with the
orchestra. The performance, though
enjoyable, didn’t meet the hype generally given to this composition, or to
Helseth’s being called Norway’s best young trumpet player.
She played an encore by a Norwegian composer.
Debussy’s piece is quite popular,
and we enjoyed it. This must be the
second time we ever heard “Mother Goose” being performed, I guess I greet it with
the same attitude I did when I first heard it: with a shrug of the shoulder.
The orchestra actually played better than I
expected. It is larger than I anticipated
(18 violins, for instance) and generally plays with precision and good
range. The horns could get a bit
tentative, though.
The regular conductor is Yip Wing-see, whom I have heard
much about but have never seen; tonight’s conductor was British-born Jason
Lai. He used to be the associate
conductor of the Sinfonietta, but now leads an orchestra in Singapore. His movements were a bit on the exaggerated side, but get things done.
The seating capacity of the concert hall is 1400 or so, and there were many empty seats. Even with the many renovations done to it, the hall still feels a bit old. We were seated in the balcony, and the view of the stage was surprisingly poor. I still remember the excitement of walking into this brand new building when I was a teenager, and have performed on that stage several times.
Anne told her sister during dinner tonight that she
enjoyed the concert a lot; good for her.
No comments:
Post a Comment