Some Hiccups at Christmas with the Philharmonic

Blame it on an act of God: the snowstorms paralyzing European airports.Thanks to the blizzards, a concert orginally planned to feature some of Bach's Oratorio and Handel's operatic offerings by the famous English soprano Lucy Crowe under the baton of Harry Bicket had to be cancelled. The two pieces we could have but did not hear were Handel's Giulio Cesare (Julia Caesar)'s "Tu la mia stella sei" , (You're my star) "Sei pieta" (you're mercy) and "Da tempeste"( The tempest) and Bach's oratorio Cantata: Jaurchzet Gott in allen Landen BWV51 (Shout God in all the land). Instead we had guest conductor Ken Lam. The other parts of the programme however remained unchanged. They were Bach's Orchestral suite No. 3 in D BWV 1068, his Brandenburg Concerto No.3 in G BWV 1048 and Handel's Water Music Suite. The two originally scheduled pieces were replaced by Haydn's Trumpet Concerto and Handel's Solomon: the Arrival of the Queen of Sheba. In the end, it proved not a bad concert at all.

The evening's works opened with Bach's Orchestral Suite No.3 in D. It consists of an Ouverture, Air, Gavotte I and II, Bourrée & Gique, something he wrote whilst he was director of Leipzig's Collegium Musicum, a student orchestra at the U of Leipzig whilst he was simultaneously the Kantor at St. Thomas Church during which he wrote this work as well as the Brandenberg Concertos. As the names of the various pieces comprising the Suite indicate, they were a series of French dances, with various rhythms, moods, styles done by a typically small baroque chamber orchestra. The Ouverture (overture or opening) starts out rather formally as if the King were slowly entering the ballroom, and then changes into a more lively mood. Then comes one of the most famous pieces, Air on G String, played entirely on one violin string, the G string (connoisseur of female torsos may well have other ideas about what this means), a slow piece of exquisite elegance, nostalgia and reminiscence, followed by two measured but lively Gavottes, then a brisk Bourrée and then ending with another very lively Gique. This is a very popular piece with typical contrapuntal techniques which one has come to expect of Bach. As always, there is a lively swing and lilt to the music. I am sure that if Bach were living today, he'd probably have made an extremely good jazz composer!

We next had Bach's Brandenberg Concerto No.3. I first heard this piece together with Handel's Water Music nearly half a century ago, as the sound came out from two huge JBL horn speakers from a ground floor storeroom at the backyard of the drugstore below our flat. At that time, I was a Form 1 student and did not have the faintest idea what classical music was, nor what the names of the two composers stood for. All I could tell was that I was extremely attracted to the golden sound of the violins, the brilliance of the sound of the trumpet, the jollity and swinging rhythm of Bach's music. If I remember correctly, they were then played by St. Martin in the Fields. Of course, I have since heard these two pieces many many times. But music does have this peculiar property of recalling to our minds certain emotional experience one had whilst one was still very young. These were pleasant memories. I remember going down to that storehouse and moving between the huge carton boxes containing various types of over the counter medicine to be sold in bottles, packages etc and admiring the beautiful jackets of the huge vinyl discs and shaking, liftng or nodding my head and waving my hands along with the rhythm of the music as if I were really the conductor of the chamber orchestra. I would spend an hour or two listening to the music, being engrossed in it for reasons I did not really understand. They just seemed good. Bach's piece, an allegro, adagio and allegro, used one simple motif which got repeated successively by the violin, the viola, the cello in the first movement and got two chords in the adagio. In Bach's music, there is seldom any pause, whenever one section was about to finish their part, another section has already begun and there is this constant motion and constrast and counter points between the high and low notes which only come together at the end. The changes or modulations are always very slow and gradual so that it is often difficult to tell one piece of music from another. One has to have listened to the piece and played it many many times if one were not to make mistakes playing it from memory.

Then the we had Haydn's Trumpet Concerto in E. There are not that many trumpet concertos. The solo part was played by our principal trumpeter Colin Goldberg, from Colorado. He had already played under such famous conductors like Michael Tilson Thomas, Bernard Haitink, Ricardo Muti and Pierre Boulez. There is a brightness to the sound of the trumpet that makes it an instrument of joy, of cheerfulness, majesty, of stateliness, of dignity and glory which I like. And Handel's Trumpet Concerto must be one of the most popular trumpet concertos around.. The technique for making trumpet was not perfected until about 1795. The music was in turn rousing, sad, nostalgic, playful and jubilant by turns. Despite a few hesitations, Golderg was very good.

The next piece was Handel's the Arrival of the Queen of Sheba  from his opera Solomon. It's has got a very solemn and beautiful motif which perfectly matches the mood of the ceremonial arrival of the Queen of Sheba and is also one of the most popular pieces written by Handel.

Then the final piece was Handel's Water Music Suite. It was a most happy composition and according to biographers, it was first performed on a barge with 50 musicians playing other barges on the River Thames. It was a collection of different short pieces with certain repititions with prominence sometimes given to one instrument and sometimes to others. Overall, it was majestic and joyful. In fact, I do not know of any music he wrote which is not so. Theres is a theme which is solemn, majestic, played with the support of the trumpets and winds, which is often repeated and played in the finale as well which I particularly like because it brought back so much of my childhood memories of those wonderful afternoons I spent at the storeroom of the drugstore downstiar with my imagination transported to another world, a world unknown, a world full of mystery and promise and joy. I now know that world much more intimately. It is the world of sound, the world of dissonance and harmony, a world where our emotions can rise and fall with motifs, melody, chords, texture and rhythm. In short, it is the world of music.   

Our guest conductor obviously enjoyed himself. You can see his two hands describing huge circles in the air in front of his chest, waving them up and down as if following some imaginary wavetops and from time to time, he would bow his back ever so low and lower his arms to below navel level and gradually spread them out to quieten down the from particular or all sections and from time to time, he would bend his body to one side, lifting one foot which he would let stay in the air for up to 5 seconds before putting it down in tune with the music and from time to time he would almost jump up as if he were performing a dance. It's good to see a conductor enjoying the music. Somehow his movements cannot fail to infect you with his enthusiasm. That's why I like to attend live concerts. I was alone last night. I was quite surprised to find when the concert started that not a single one of my usual concert friends were there. But whether or not they were there, music will always be music and it will move your emotions the same way. The only difference is that if you wish to tug your companion arm to express how you are delighted, exicited, depressed, sad, jubilant, ecstatic etc.you cannot and can only talk to yourself as if you were two persons in one. It was a good concert. But some of the passages could have been played with more verve.