The Pastorale and a Cello Concerto

Last night's HKPO concert at the Cultural Centre was unexceptional. It was good but held no surprises. We had three popular pieces, Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 (Pastoral) In F major Op. 68, Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor O. 85 and Wagner's Overture to his Tanhauser.

Popularly known as the "Pastoral", Beethoven's Sixth was his most "programmatic":he gave verbal descriptions to each of the movements viz. Allegro ma non troppo ( Awakening of cheerful feelings upon arrival in the country ; Andante molto mosso (Scene by the Brook), Allegro(Merry Gathering of Country Folk), Allegro (Thunderstorm) and Allegretto (Shepherd's Song: Happy and Thankful Feelings after the Storm). In the first of this five movement symphony (probably the first in musical history), he depicts birds singing in a light breeze with a shepherd nearby and dancing peasants. The second is supposed to depict a gentle stream with birds singing nightingale (flute), quail (oboe) and cuckoo (clarinet) and the third the drunken scene at a country inn represented by deliberate non-synchronized play of the oboe, the basson with the rest of the orchestra during the merry making there. The fourth is the movement where for the first time, Beethoven used the Timpani to imitate the blows of thunder in the middle of the peasants' merry-making. The storm passed and the peasants resumed their joyful dance and celebration of their escape from danger in the fifth and final movement and then everything became quiet again. It was well played but the start of the second movement could have been a little quieter and the start of the third a bit less hurried.

Elgar's Cello Concerto was one of the best loved of his compositions. It has got four movement instead of the usual three. Right from the start, we got the cello instead of it coming in after the usual orchestral introduction as in other concertos. There is a desolation and a wistfulness in this concerto which makes extremely moving. One feels the blows of fate and man's dogged and heroic attempt to transcend it and to seek his limited freedom. I never heard the cello solist Paul Watkins before. A big fellow who walks on and off the stage brisk holding the cello with him, I was surprised at the delicacy and the sensitivity of his sound which is excellently supported by the HKPO under its guest conductor Mark Wigglesworth, who has very exaggerated movements which change from rigidity to more graceful wavy motion of his arms, hands and finger so quickly that I couldn't resist the thought of such motions being controlled by some kind of mechanism from commands from a computer chip buried somewhere inside his brain. Watkins got some much deserved long applauses which he acknowledged with the Sarabande from Bach's Cello Suite No. 3 in C major which shows his perfect control of the various sounds possible to this very intimate string instrument.

The final piece of the evening was the Overture to Wagner's fifth opera The Tanhäuser, the tale of love a noble knight who had been lured to the cave of Venus the goddess of love at the top of a mountain, where they revelled in song and dance but returned later to a song competition to win over Elizabeth, the niece of the region's ruler but foolishly sang not of the charms of his future bride but those of Venus whereupon the king's knights attacked him. He was however saved by Elizabeth who risked her life by putting herself between him and his attackers. He was asked to repent by going on a pilgrimmage to Rome. He did. But not seeing him amongst the returning pilgrims in her eagerness to see him, Elizabeth killed herself in her despair. When he returned later, a broken man, he learned of the death of his love. The Pope had given him a curse: only when his stick sprout leave would he be forgiven. When he lifted his eyes in grief, he saw something he never expected: the leaves were sprouting. The Overture, based upon this legend, was supposed to depict the arrival of the noble with his friends, their revelries at the mountain at Venus's cave, his celebration of Venus's beauty, the attack by the knights and the return of the hero. It was magnificently performed by the HKPO: we got the full Wagner sound, bright, majestic, forceful with hints of tragedy. It concluded another very satisfying evening. But a bit strange: an overture to conclude a concert. But it's not an ordinary overture. It was one by Wagner!

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