H.K. Cultural
Centre Concert Hall. Stalls 1 (Seat J41,
HK$340.)
Program
Flying Towards
the Horizon by Ming-Hsiu Yen (b. 1980.)
Piano Concerto
No. 1, Op. 25, G minor by Mendelssohn (1809-1847).
Symphony No. 2,
Op. 73, D major by Brahms (1833-1897).
This was the
third concert we attended in eight days, and I must admit I was a little worn
out, especially since our visit to Hong Kong has turned out to be a bit busier
than I expected, even though some of the events have been social functions.
Nonetheless, I
saw this orchestra in Taiwan about a year ago, and was generally happy with
it. And I thought it would be an
interesting contrast to the first concert I saw during the trip: one by Hong
Kong Philharmonic. It turns out the Hong
Kong Philharmonic performed Brahms’s first symphony, and this afternoon we
would hear the second one.
It is
unfortunate that the first thing I noticed about the concert was the large
number of empty seats in the auditorium.
I would guess there were fewer than a thousand in the audience, in a
hall that seats about 2000. It is a real
pity that either folks in Hong Kong are not that much into classical music, or
that the promoters did a terrible job of marketing.
Yen (顔名秀) is a young
composer teaching at the Taipei University of the Arts, and this work was
commissioned in celebration of the school’s 30th anniversary. Per the Program, “the inspiration came from
observing the swallows that stayed in Taipei’s Guandu area during spring and
summer in 2012.” So the music describes
how the swallows raise their young, including the death of one of them. When I think of swallows, I tend to think of
small, elegant birds flitting about, chirping gently. The music started quietly enough, but
eventually climaxed to such an extent that one would think the whole building
where the swallows built their nests collapsed, with the baby birds screaming
(and I wonder how they could scream so loudly.)
The piece lasted a bit less than 15 minutes, but I quite enjoyed it,
even though I couldn’t quite correlate it with what I thought swallows would
sound like.
Mendelssohn was
all of 22 when he wrote his first piano concerto. The relative short piece (about 25 minutes)
is full of energy. The three movements
(Molto allegro con fuoco, Andante, and Presto – Molto allegro e vivace) are
performed without a pause. Certainly Yen
was up for the technical demands; indeed he looked relaxed during even the more
challenging passages. The balance with
the (reduced) orchestra was excellent, and the cooperation between the soloist
and the ensemble was evident. The one
complaint I have is many passages sounded muddled; we sat in similar seats a
week ago and the piano sounded nice and crisp.
I am not very
familiar with this piece, and am glad to have a chance to hear it. For encore Yen (嚴俊傑) played a piece based on the
Wedding March from Lohengrin. (Note: the
composer and the pianist’s last names are different Chinese characters; pianist
Yen also teaches at a Taiwan university.)
The Brahms
Symphony was very enjoyable. There are
many places – especially in the fourth movement – that could sound quite
chaotic if not executed carefully. For
the most part the orchestra did an admirable job, every now and then someone
(mostly in the second violin section) would jump the gun and come in a little
early. Similarly, most “naked” brass
passages were gracefully rendered, except for some tentativeness here and
there.
We heard this
symphony in late September played by the Cleveland Symphony. I must say I don’t think I enjoyed that
performance more. The four movements are
Allegro non troppo, Adagio non troppo, Allegretto grazioso, and Allegro con
spirito.
Lu (呂紹嘉) conducted
with quite a bit of movement, but drew elegant lines from the orchestra. If he, or the others, was disappointed in the
audience, it didn’t show.
No comments:
Post a Comment