A Pleasant Surprise in Kowloon Tong

I had a pleasant surprise at Kowloon Tong on Tuesday night. It all began when I was queuing up for concert tickets for some visiting overseas musicians at one of the Urbtix outlets on Hong Kong Island. I got talking to a young man standing behind me and before the ticket office opened for business, had already become friends because of our common interest in music. It turned out that he is a violinist studying at the Baptist University and an active member of one of few Chinese Music orchestras in Hong Kong.

I had absolutely no idea what I was going to get when I arrived at the Academic Hall of the Baptist University for the concert which was supposed to begin at 7.30 p.m but actually didn't start until a quarter of an hour later. The hall was filled almost to capacity with students, staff and their friends. I glanced at the programme given to me at the entrance. We were going to have first Mussorgsky-Ravel's Pictures at an Exhibition and then Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61. The first piece was not at all easy for a university orchestra made up of just students from various departments of the university, though most were music majors.  According to the programme notes, the Hong Kong Baptist University Symphony Orchestra, which would give two concerts per year, mostly on Romantic and twentieth century classics, would be conducted by Johnny M Poon, its music Director and head of the Music Department of the University. As violinist for the second piece, we had Ryu Goto, who was then conducting some master classes at the University. Johny Poon has had a very rich conducting experience in Italy, Sweden, Germany, England, America, Russia and China and got a Ph D in conducting at the University of Iowa and prior to coming to Hong Kong in 2005, had been the Music Director of the Evansville Collegium Musicum and the Associate Conductor of the Opera Festival di Roma. Ryu Goto was a 23-year-old Japanese American who first performed Paganini Violin Concerto No. 1 at the age of 7 at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan and has since gone on to perform as a soloist with such orchestras as National Symphony Orchestra, London Phil, Wiener Symphoniker, European Union Youth Orchestra, Shanghai Phil and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and has recorded for DGG and Universal Classics, Japan and has just graduated earlier this year at Harvard with a BA degree in physics. He plays a 1722 Stradivarious called "Jupiter" lent to him by the Nippon Music Foundation.

The first piece of music consists of 10 movements as follows:
1. Promenade theme
2.     Gnomus (gnome), depicting a gnome running with crooked legs in rhythm of Vivo and Meno mosso, pesante
3.     Promenade theme in Moderato commodo assai e con delicatezza
4.     Il vecchio castello (the old castle) in Andante molto cantabile e con dolore (with sadness) depicting a Medieval Italian castle before which a  troubadour was  singing a song
5.     Promenade theme in Moderato non tanto, pesamente
6.     Tuileries ( Dispute d'enfant après jeux) (Tile Kilns or the children quarrel after playing ) in Allegretto non troppo, capriccioso, depicting some children quarelling after playing in the Tuileries garden in Paris
7.     Bydlo (Polish for Cattle) Sempre moderato, pesante depicting an enormously heavy cart being pulled by a Polish ox, beginning slowly, builds to a climax and then receding
8.     Promeande theme in Tranquilo (quiet)
9.     Ballet des poussins dan leur coques (Ballet of the Unhatched chicks within their sheds) in Scherzino vivo, leggiero and depicting a scene designed by Hartman for the ballet Trilby or the Demon of the Heath
10.   Samuel Goldenberg und Schmuyle in Andante. Grave energico and Andantino, depicting two Jews, one rich and one poor
11.   Limoges-Le Marché (La grande nouvelle) Limoge, the Market or the big news) in Allegretto vivo, sempre scherzando depicting some French women quarrelling in the market
12.   Catacombe-Sepulcrum Romanum (Catacombs-Roman Sepulcher)  depicting Hartman examining a French catacomb with the help of a lantern. "
13.   Cum Mortuis in lingua mortua (with the Dead in the language of death) Largo for the Sepulcrum and Andante non troppo con lamento for (Cum mortuis) Mussorgsky wrote: "Well may it be in Latin! The creative spirit of the dead Hartmann leads me towards the skulls, invokes them; the skulls begin to glow softly from within.
14.   La Cabane sur des pattes de poule (Baba-Yaga) (The hut on chicken feet) in Allegro con brio, feroce and Andante mosso depicting a picture with a clock over which there is a picture of the hut of Bab-Yaga on feet like those of chickens with it the sound evoking  bells of a large clock and the whirlwind sounds of a chase.
 15.  La grande porte de Kieve (The Huge Gate of Kiev) in rondo form done in Maestoso, con grandezza" depicting the Bogatyr  Gates of Kiev in the shape of cupola in the form of a huge Slavonic helmet to commemorate heroes of Russian epics. This gate was designed by Hartman for Alexander II for his narrow escape from an assassination which happened there in 1866 which he thought his greatest work

It's a piece of music written by Mussorgsky in 1874 remembrance of his friend Viktor Hartman, an architect and artist whom Mussorglky first met in 1870 and quickly became close because of their common interest in promoting Russian art . However Hartman died in 1873 of aneurism, aged 39. This came as a great shock to Mussorgsky who felt deeply at the loss of his friend. His friends then organized an exhibition of over 400 of his works in St. Peterburg in the spring of of 1874 using some of the paintings Hartman gave to Mussorsky, who went in person to view them. He was very touched and composed within 6 weeks this piece, based on some of the water colors drawings of Hartman which the latter saw in his travels in France, Poland, Italy and Ukraine, Russia to record the kind of feelings inspired in him by looking at various of such pictures that he saw at the exhibition.  It was originally composed for the piano but has subsequently been arranged for the orchestra by a number of other composers, including Maurice Ravel, the most popular version of which is the one version we heard. We can hear the regular rhythm of his promenade through the picture gallery. Everything culminated in the final movement, the Great Gate at Kiev. But the work was not published until five years after Mussorgsky's death, his friend Rimsky-Korskov in 1886.The piece evokes many images in the audience's mind with its clocks, bells, chants and its rapidly rise and falls and its very dramatic sonic effects, some serious and some humorous, link together by the theme in the promenades. Mussorgsky says that he would rove through the exhibition sometimes briskly, sometimes leisurely, sometimes edging close to a picture to see it more clearly and sometimes felt sad whenever he thought of his friend. This is a favourite piece with Hi Fi enthusiasts because of its colorful orchestration. Despite some initial hitches by the trumpet, the piece got better and better until the finale.

The second piece is one of the favourites with many orchestras and just require being listened to. Despite his young age, Ryu is an excellent player but I wish he could have played a little louder in some of the passages. I was sitting in row 2 and still I could not hear very well some of the notes he played because they were completely overshadowed by the sound from the orchestra. There could certainly be some improvement with the brass section, especially in the first piece where there were an occasional disjointedness to the music but the strings of the orchestra were surprising good. It's always good to hear local musicians working hard at being professionals. I came away with the feeling that all is not lost with our younger generation as far as music is concerned What a pleasant surprise!