A Most Pleasant Surprise (意外驚喜)

It's not that often that we got the chance to hear some really good live chamber music. I got one last night. It was the Opening Night Gala Concert of the 4th HK International Chamber Music Festival 2013 organized Lin Cho-liang as its Artistic Director. We had some really good artists, performing either solo, in duets, quartets, sextet, octets and music from 18th century on but in different genres and styles, popular or not so popular.

The concert opened with two extracts (from a total of 13) from a familiar piece: Manuel de Falla's (1876-1946) El Amor Brujo, its Pantomine (Prelude: Adagio) and Ritual Fire Dance (Scherzo: Allegro Molto) (1897) but as performed by a sextet (Michael Guttmann, Lin Cho-liang, Toby Hoffman, Lenoard Elichensbroich, George Lomdaridze & Chen Sa), a work inspired by Andalucian gypsy dance queen Pastora Imperio about a young gypsy girl Candela haunted by her husband's ghost after she fell in love with another young man Carmelo which she and the other gypsies tried to exorcise by drawing the ghost to a bonfire as they danced in a kind of ecstasy around it, its pace becoming faster and faster as the dance whirled into a climax. They succeeded. We can almost feel the flickering of the tongues of fire as they jump up and down with the music. If the bass and cellos notes were a little less strong, it would have been perfect.

Next we had two seldom heard string octets: Shastakovich's (1906-1975) Two pieces for String Octet, Opus 11 (1925): Prelude in D minor (written in memory of one of his poet friends) and Scherzo in G Minor, both early works by the composer who was still feeling his way about. it's full of sudden switches of melodic motifs, giving it a very energetic but jerky dissonant feel but not lacking in smoother softer melodies, indicating certain unresolved conflicts. It was done by the Jerusalem Quartet with Lin, Guttmann, Hoffman and Elschenbroich.

Then we switched back more than a century to an early Beethoven String Quartet No. 6 in B-flat major (1800) performed by the Jerusalem Quartet (Kyril Zlotnikov, Amichai Grosz, Sergei Bresler,  Alexander Pavlovsky) in Allegro con brio, Adagio ma non troppo, Scherzo: Allegro, Finale: La Malinconia. It still showed heavily the the influence of the classical manner of composition in its first movement but then changed to something bearing a uniquely Beethovenian style from the second movement on, a style particularly marked in the last movement. The co-ordination between the members of the group was excellent as different instruments weave in and out of the music.

After the intermission, we had something altogether different again: three songs by George Gershwin(1898-1937) with his unique jazz style of composition: The Man I love, Someone to Watch over Me and But Not for Me (1924-1930). It was sung for us by a singer new to me, a full-bodied mezzo-soprano from America called Renée Tatum who first made her debut at the Met of New York in 2010, a good singer with a very rounded voice but to me, perhaps not so suitable for bringing out the kind of blue-sy jazz mood that one has come to expect from Gershwin's  type of music. She was accompanied by Taiwan pianist Wang Pei-yao, a very experienced chamber music pianist.

The next number from Gershwin is much better: An American in Paris for two pianos, played for us by a very talented and very lively Inon Barnatan with Chen Sa. He brought out fully the changing mood of the music, its swingy feeling and its verve. How I wished Chen Sa could have played with slightly more abandon and allowed herself to drown in the lilting rhythm of the music.

Then we got back to the romantic era with Schubert's Serenade done as a piano duet supposed to be done for us by Inon Barnatan and Evelyn Chang. But at last moment, the original pianist pretended to be totally unrprepared and Inon asked if anyone in the audience would be like to stand in for the original pianist. A  a lady member of the audience from the row in front of me raised her hand and was "invited" to play instead. This is probably just a ploy add some fun to concert. As it was an extremely popular piece, she played her part without any difficulty.

One of the highlights of the evening appeared next: Paul Dukas' The Sorcerer's Apprentice, the orchestral version of which I just heard last Saturday, but this time, by 4 pianists playing on two pianos: Inon Barnatan, Evelyn Chang, Chen Sa and Wang Pei-yao. They played perfectly. It was really fun to hear.

The final piece on the evening's program was Wagner's (1813-1883) Ride of the Valkyries (female warriors guarding Valhalla, daughters of Wotan)  by the same foursome. It was a completely different piece and certainly much more serious than the previous one. According to the programme notes, we hear in the music "the galloping of [the] airborne steeds, the rushing winds, [the] battle cries...the passionate tenderness as [Wotan] bids farewell to [Brunhilde, her disobedient daughter whom he condemned to become a mortal] , then a rocking lullaby sends her into an enchanted sleep. He surrounds her with a protective wall of fire." It was a magnificent performance and followed by an endless applause and an encore , Rossini's William Tell Overture.   A wonderful concert and a most pleasant surprise.