The Philippine Madrigal Singers. Mark Anthony A. Carpio, Artistic Director and Choirmaster. September 24, 2017.

St. Francis of Assisi Cathedral, Metuchen, NJ.  Nave ($25).

Program – A Musical Spiritual Journey

LH from our church alerted us to this “excellent ensemble,”  she got enough people to go that we got a $5 discount off the $30 ticket.

The group, technically the University of the Philippine Madrigal Singers (Madz for short) has been around for over 50 years, and has performed widely internationally, and sung in front of dignitaries from Popes to Emperors to Presidents.

For today’s concert, most songs were sung a cappella, with guitar used on occasion.  As far as I could tell, the group didn’t use any sound amplification systems, although soloists and the guitar did make use of one.  LH and I were having a discussion of how many parts were needed to make such a rich sound.  I said four would be sufficient, she thought more was needed.  (I won that argument.)

The songs were mostly in English, with two in Latin (clear enough what these were trying to say) and two in Tagalog.  Google Translate couldn’t understand the first one (although it did know it was Filipino), and the second one was translated as “Prayer in Openess.”

While calling this a “spiritual journey” may be too much, there was quite a few Christian songs in the mix.  We were inside a cathedral, after all.  One song that was somewhat out of place was “Let It Be” by the Beatles.  (Technically “Mother Mary” would make it religious.)

No lyrics were included in the Program Notes, which was cleverly titled “Pray Bill” (or perhaps too trite.)  They would have added a lot to the spirituality of the program, in my opinion.  Words to several songs could be found on the web, and I appreciated them a lot more because of that.

Clever, cute, or too cute?  And is this copyright violation?

It is always amazing to hear how harmonious some ensembles sound, and Madz is no exception.  Not being a fan of this sort of music, that awe went away after a couple of songs.

The cathedral is huge, seating 1000 people per its website.  The event was very well attended, our seats were more than half way towards the back.  Today was an unusually warm fall day, so we appreciated the air-conditioning.  However, the constant drone given out by the cool air rushing from the vents meant the audience had trouble hearing soft passages, and on several occasions they began to applaud before the soft endings of the songs were finished.  While I can't fault the group for being seated during the performance, it did make seeing them difficult for those of us in the back.

Madz at curtain call.

The concert started at 4 pm, and concluded at 6.  Anne and I went to a local Chinese supermarket and picked out take-home dishes so she could start her 8 pm class on time.

Yuja Wang and Members of the Hong Kong Philharmonic. September 6, 2017.

HK Cultural Center Concert Hall.  Stalls (Seat D49, HK$480).

Program – Yuja and Friends: A Chamber Night.

Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25 (1861) by Brahms (1833-1897).

Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 50 (1882) by Tchaikovsky (1840-1893).

Musicians

Yuja Wang, piano; Jing Wang, violin; Andrew Ling, viola; Richard Bamping, cello.

Between two concert performances with Hong Kong Philharmonic, Yuja Wang will perform in a chamber concert with several Hong Kong Philharmonic musicians.  The program is quite traditional (Brahms and Tchaikovsky), although each piece presents its set of technical and artistic challenges.

Both pieces were written as some sort of remembrance for the respective composer’s mentor.  In Brahms’s case it was for Robert Schumann, written in 1856.  It consists of four movements: Allegro; Intermezzo (Allegro ma non troppo – Trio – Animato); Andante con moto – Animato; Rondo alla Zingarese (Presto – Meno Presto – Molto Presto).  Plagiarizing the Program Notes, some of the characteristics of the piece are (i) having an intermezzo rather than the usual scherzo or minuet – although I am sure people would be okay if it is labeled as a scherzo; (ii) the “toy-soldier” theme in the third movement which is supposed to be the memorial; and (iii) the gypsy theme in the last movement marks the first time Brahms incorporates Gypsy elements in his work.

I listened to a YouTube performance of this (by a rather well-known quartet, but forget which one).  My reaction was somewhat of an “oh oh” as the piece was quite long (for today it was about 40 minutes); and I couldn’t quite make sense of it.

Tonight’s performance sounded much more coherent than how I remembered it.  The themes got passed from one instrument to another seamlessly, and the musicians came to the foreground and faded into the background naturally, complementing one another well.  I was impressed with the three Hong Kong Phil musicians.  The Program Notes also contained a brief mention of their biographies: Jian Wang is Chinese Canadian; Ling is a Hong Kong native, and Bamping is a Briton.  They were all good, and their instruments sounded superb.

The longer Tchaikovsky Trio (47 minutes) contains only two movements: Pezzo Elegiaco (Moderato assai – Allegro giusto); Tema con Variazioni – Variazione Finale e Code.  The story as described by the Program Note is a little incoherent.  Tchaikovsky was of the view that the instruments didn’t work well together and he was thus not ready to write music for this type of ensemble.  It took the persuasion of his patron Nadezhda von Meck to convince him to do so, after the death of his former mentor Nikolai Rubinstein, who had criticized Tchaikovsky earlier work – the second movement of his second piano concerto which was effectively a triple concerto.

The Program Notes describes the first movement as an expression of the sorrow at Rubinstein’s death, and the second movement – variations on a theme Rubinstein loved – episodic descriptions of Rubinstein’s live.  Tchaikovsky himself denied it.  The coda was a solemn funeral march.  I couldn’t quite track the variations.

Throughout the performance, Yuja simply let the music speak for itself.  She was just one of the voices, her flamboyant outfits (lime green and bright orange)  not reflected in her playing.

 Jiang Wang handing Yuja Wang a bouquet.  Notice the two empty sections in the concert hall.

Two empty rows in the main auditorium.

It was a rather long concert, but enjoyable.  I was surprised at the large number of empty seats, there were two sections that had no people at all.

Hong Kong Philharmonic – Jaap van Zweden, conductor; Yuja Wang, piano. September 2, 2017.

HK Cultural Center Concert Hall.  Balcony (Seat M123, HK$680).

Program

Piano Concerto No. 1 in B Flat minor, Op. 23 by Tchaikovsky (1840-1893).

The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky (1882-1971).

As Chung Chu remarked on my Facebook entry, this was a great program.  Indeed it is, with Yuja Wang as the soloist, at that.

Perhaps I was somewhat disappointed at the last HK Phil concert I attended (in April), and perhaps my expectations were again quite high (I know these are counter-arguments in a way), I was somewhat disappointed at the performance.

Working from memory, it was a performance by Wang that brought out the Ravel Piano Concerto (in F?) for me, and I was fascinated by how adept she was in performing an arrangement of Mozart’s piece (the K.545 Rondo?).  And I saw her performance of the Tchaikovsky on YouTube which was really good.  Today was a few years later, so I was really looking forward to enjoy this war horse.

Wang did manage to make the piece look easy; perhaps not “one day in the office” easy, but there was certainly no anxiety that she might miss a note (not that I would necessarily notice), or some other mishap.

After a thunderous applause, she played as encore a piece that seemed to have moving pedal points with embellishments around them.  Perhaps pianists would appreciate the virtuosity involved, I couldn’t quite get the why and what of it.

My main issue with the Tchaikovsky was how disjoint the piece sounded.  Perhaps I exaggerate a bit, the performance was like a series of unrelated themes or passages stitched together.  The orchestra’s simply lurched from section to section, with precision problems every now and then.  My first encounter with van Zweden was a Hong Kong Phil concert in 2012, when he was a few months in his post.  My remark that his ego exceeded his capability needs to be re-visited in light of his appointment to the New York Philharmonic; however, while Hong Kong Philharmonic remains a competent orchestra, it has not made great strides in the intervening years since took over as music director.

That unease was confirmed with the Rite of Spring performance.  The introduction by the bassoon was tentative, and it took me a while to get over it.  There were moments of brilliance, but the performance was again marked by more disjointness (is this a word?) than I would like.

The annotator’s decision to include the “program” of the ballet in the Program Notes was certainly very helpful.  The young mother sitting next to me was going through the program with her son as the music progressed.  By putting in references to the instruments (e.g., “the horns dance cheerfully”) he made the music very easy to follow along.  The rest of the Program Notes was pretty boiler-plate, though.

The ushers were very strict about the "no photos" policy, even though it wasn't plainly stated in the program.  This out-of-focus shot of Wang and van Zweden leaving was the only photo I took after the Tchaikovsky concerto.

A full orchestra was used for the Rite of Spring performance.  Notice the two sets of timpanis.

One gets criticized for commenting on Wang’s sense of fashion; but if I walk on the street with a beanie cap with peacock tail feathers attached (think Cher), am I not inviting or even expecting remarks from others?  After much thought, the most politically correct way to say is Wang has the confidence to think she can pull it off with an outfit that would equally belong on a beach.  Another thought is many young girls were brought to this concert so they can be inspired by Wang, I wonder how many would want to grow up and emulate her fashion sense.

So happens I also attended Hong Kong Philharmonic’s opening concert last year; there I debated if I wanted to go because of the obscure piece on the program, and I ended up really enjoying it.  For tonight I had no hesitation to get a ticket (and solicited Tim’s help to do so as the concert was rapidly selling out), yet I ended up with a real sense of disappointment.

To put things in perspective, I also bought a ticket to the chamber concert this coming Wednesday where Wang will be performing with HK Phil musicians.  And of course overall I think the concert is worth the money and the time.