Surprises from the Land of Tulips

Saturdays have always been special to me. Not only do they mark the end of the week, they often mark the start of new musical experiences for me. Yesterday evening, I heard two pieces of music I never heard before. One was written in the late 19th century and the other was written as recently as 2009! They came to Hong Kong with an energetic conductor from the land of tulips and Phillips: Jaap van Zweden(perhaps a Dutch of Swedish origin?).

The first piece was the overture to Cyranno de Bergerac by Johan Wagenaar, a contemporary of Richard Strauss. The name Bergerac sounds oddly familiar to me. It's west of the beautiful Dordogne river in Aquitaine, France. I remember passing through it on my bicycle trip from Talence, the site of U of Bordeaux III, to Sarlat, the prettiest Medieval hill town with 14th century buildings, tugged amidst the green hills of South Western France. Cyrano de Bergarac is a romantic play written by Edmond Rostand about a guardsman with a huge nose which prevented him from having girl friends. Cyrano wrote Roxanne, his cousin such beautiful love letters for his fellow guardsman that she could not resist going to his friend in battle through enemy lines. His friend was touched by her ardent love and urged Cyrano to tell her the truth but he died before he could do so but later Cyrano himself also died and it was only then that his cousin discovered the truth and the fact that what she truly loved was Cyrano's mind and his sentiments. The music opened with a huge fanfare of brass and remained fast paced, exciting, full of color to simulate the drama of danger in battles of Cyrano but also has a slower more tender romantic theme about Roxanne. It was superbly played by the HKPO under the baton of Jaap van Zweden, who himself has a most energetic conducting style, with huge body movement as he arched his back and stooped forward from time to time to indicate to the orchestra to come in forcefully, brought his baton down in lightning quick stabs and let both his arms fly in the more romantic passages.

We next had Philip Glass's Double Concerto for the violin (Michael Guttman) and cello (Wendy Sutter). It's written in what's called the "minimalist" style, with just a few catchy motifs which are endlessly repeated first by the violin, then the cello, then by both together and then with either the violin or the cello playing with or against the whole orchestra in complex patterns. It was the premiere of this piece in Asia. I have previousy heard Philip Glass's "Einstein on the Beach" .  It's not at all a difficult piece to listen to. Even my normally very conservative concert companions all said they enjoyed it, saying that though contemporary, it was nothing like those pieces written by some of the contemporary Chinese composers. According to the programme notes, this piece was originally commissioned by the Netherlands Dance Theatre and premiered by the Hague Philharmonic (Residentie Orkest) on April 22, 2010 with Cecilia Bernardini as violinist and Maarte-Maria den Herder as cellist under the baton of Jurgen Hempel. It was written as the original score for the ballet Swan Song by choreographers Sol Leon and Paul Lightfoot.. The piece started and ended with duets, giving it a most intimate chamber like feeling. Is that why my companions like it although they were so critical of some of the compositions of contemporary Chinese composers?

The second part of the programme was one the Brahms' favourites: his Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op 98,  written whilst he was holidaying in Murzzuschlag, an Alpine mountain resort close to Vienna. Its opening theme which was later repeated throughout the piece has a very simple, direct but very endearing motif which I never tire of listening to. I love too its very romantic second movement, its joyous and delightful third and its more formal, almost solemn final movement. It also incorporates in its final movement the theme from Bach's Cantata 150, discovered just a few years before the piece was written with which Brahms fell in love.

My absence from the concert hall for two weeks made last night's performance particularly enjoyable. I was so happy to make my acquaintance of the two new pieces. I think the audience were of a like mind. Jaap van Sweden had to acknowledge our enthusiastic  applauses about 6 times!  I came home a happy and satisfied man.