Sarah Chang's Bruch's Violin concerto in G Minor

Saturday night's fare from the HKPO at the Cultural Centre led by guest conductor Andreas Delfs was difficult to describe. It was not bad, but also not entirely satisfactory. The highlight was no doubt Sarah Chang's Bruch's Violin Concerto in G Minor.

 

Bruch' Violin Concerto in G Minor is one of the three written by him. Without a doubt, it is his most popular.   It was composed in 1864, when he was 26 but according to the programme notes,  he was extremely unhappy that people thought little of his other compositions. It is a concerto with a very catchy melody and made use of plenty of wind instruments like the oboe and the clarinet to dialogue with the violin and the orchestra. The first movement was in an ABA ternary form and right from the beginning, the principal melody established itself. No doubt Joseph Joachim, the most famous violinist of his day, might have helped him extensively revise and improve it. Whatever the truth may be, it establishes its main melody almost right from the start of the first movement. There is a strong lilting rhythm from the strings. The second movements, the Adagio contains one of the most beautiful and frequently heard melodies for the violin. In places, you could almost find the shadow of the Larghetto of Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D lurking behind the scene. There is no greater flattery he could have given to Beethoven. There are many variations of the main motif which gets endlessly repeated. The final movement in Allegro Energico again opens very strongly and ends the same way. Sarah Chang played very well last night. However, I do not know whether it is the fault of her violin, which has a very beautiful, subtle and mature sound for the middle and lower registers but somehow seemed to lack a sunny sparkle to its E string. The HKPO also, seemed not to have played as focrefully as it could have done.This gives the piece a tinge of melancholy and sadness instead of mere romantic  tenderness. I felt that in the finale, the HKPO could certainly have played with slightly more verve. Also, for the slow passages, the strings could certainly have played with more sustained but not explosive force to give the piece more life. If so, there would certainly have been a bit more musical tension. Last night, Sarah was dressed in bare-shoulder dress whose bottom tapered in and then flared out again with several layers of laces studded with some bright scale-like beads or sequin, rather more or less of the same overall shape as that often worn by Mutter. As always, she played with great skill. Above all, she played with passion. That's what I like about her. Whenever she finished a strong passage, she would then quickly remove the bow from the violin in an almost violent jerk and when she did so, with a quick motion of the arm first up and then very quickly down, as if she were forcefully trying to release herself from the grip of someone and as she did so, she would also step back a step or two at which point, the lowest part of her skirt would sway from front to back in a rhythmic motion. When she was in that dress, she really looked to like a silvery mermaid! Perhaps because of the rather muted sound of her violin, my friends were not too happy with the volume of sound from her violin. However, the winds were excellent! But the sound of her violin was excellent for the notes requiring  G and A strings, very restrained and controlled but with a subdued tension waiting to burst out.

 

What is said about the sound from the HKPO in the concerto applies to some extent also the final piece which is Brahms' Symphony No. 1. The HKPO could have played with more life and energy. To me, the dynamic contrast between the quiet passages and the strong forceful passages was somehow not that wide and thus to that extent it might have reduced the emotional tension between the quieter and the loudest passages.  It took Brahms some 20 years to write his first symphony. It was written in 1885, completed the following year and first premiered on 4th November, 1876. The first movement started again strongly with the second movement much softer and more lyrical. The brass and the other winds were excellent. I do not know how the piece would have sounded had they been less than perfect. The finale was really spectacular. To me, it was a fitting close to the evening. At the close of the concert, everybody gave a richly deserved long applause to the new American conductor, Andreas Delfs who has played with St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Hannover Symphony and Opera, Bern Opera, Orchestre Suisse des Jeunes, Royal Philharmonic of London, Dresden Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, LA Philharmonic, Sydney Syphony, NHK and Taipei Philharonic. etc.

 

The most unusual piece was the short introductory piece, called La Lugubre Gondola or the Black Gondola. It was a piece originally written by Liszt for the piano and has been now been adapted by one John Adams  for the orchestra. John Adams is one of if not the foremost composer of America. It has a very sad melody,  with the sound of the bass always hovering around, as if it were some kind of ghost bent on bringing death or threatening people. It melody too is quite haunting. It is the first time I heard this composition. But the HKPO managed to capture the sadness very well so that the entire piece was dominated by a kind of darkness, of disappointment and of frustration. Must find Listz's disc on piano and compare its effect with the orchestrated piece.