A Weekend of Mozart

Friday, November 28^th

 

The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra invited some distinguished guests to for its concert this past Friday evening, and the results were outstanding.

 

The dynamic young conductor Joshua Weilerstein led the orchestra in the opening work, Adgilis Deda: Hymn for Orchestra by Samy Moussa. According to the composer, this was a piece inspired by a two-month stay in the Caucasus Mountain in Georgia. The brief orchestral work is a lyrical sonic tapestry that slowly unfolds over time. Quite often, the music felt like a film score – this is by no means a derogatory statement, but it merely describes the highly descriptive, evocative nature of the writing. Under this talented young guest conductor, the orchestra infused this work with great beauty of sound and depth of feeling. 

 

Pianist Zlata Chochieva is no stranger to Vancouver denizens, having already appeared in recital twice under the auspices of The Vancouver Chopin Society. For her debut with the orchestra, she performed Mozart’s Concerto in D minor, K. 466, a beautiful collaboration between pianist and orchestra. Chochieva brought out all the sturm und drang the work demands, but balanced it always with great beauty she drew from the instrument. Hers was and is not a prim and proper, Dresden China Mozart, but an interpretation that was filled with flesh and blood, with breathing room, and with flexibility of phrasing. There was also an element of freedom in her playing, as if she was not “performing”, but re-creating Mozart. In Busoni’s highly original cadenzas, effectively fusing different thematic elements from the movements, Chochieva let loose her considerable pianistic abilities and brought the drama of the music to an even more intense level. 

 

The soloist played but also interacted well with members of the orchestra, making it almost like a chamber music-like collaboration. And conductor Weilerstein listened well to his soloist, drawing lovely playing from the orchestra, especially in the writings for woodwinds that play such an important role in this concerto. 

 

Although entitled The Year 1905, presumably chronicling an important chapter of the Russian Revolution, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11 could just as well be heard as an impressive piece of orchestral writing, one that contains great emotional and dramatic weight. 

 

Weilerstein obviously felt strongly about this work, and drew truly impressive playing from every department in the orchestra, and every member of the orchestra truly rose to the challenges Shostakovich laid down in this work. From the bleak, wintry landscape evoked in the opening, to the searing anger of the second movement, and from the mournful third movement to the triumphant final movement, the young conductor paced the symphony effectively, and made the performance a truly captivating musical experience for the entire audience, who gave the orchestra the greatest gift it can give, complete silence and rapt attention. 

 

Kudos to the orchestra, the talented soloist and conductor for giving Vancouver audience this uplifting musical experience. 

 

 

Saturday, November 29^th

 

After the wonderful Mozart-Shostakovich performance last night, the only way to make the weekend better was to have more Mozart!

 

UBC Opera, under the leadership and guidance of Nancy Hermiston, is really rivalling many professional opera companies in the quality of its production and, in some cases, the excellence of its voices.

 

And so it was last night with the company’s presentation of Die Zauberflöte. They were fortunate to have had the services of the Vancouver Opera Orchestra, conducted by its music director, Jacques Lacombe. As usual, Nancy Hermiston directed a production that is in turn moving and truly humorous, and absolutely faithful to the composer’s intent – no Eurotrash here. Even in the “challenge” and very dry acoustics of the Old Auditorium, the music came through. The sets, with, I am certain, limited technology available to them in the aged hall, were beautiful and effective. 

 

Tenor Hexiang Wang stood out last night with the beauty of his voice as well as his stage presence. In the incredibly beautiful Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön, I felt that he could have taken much more time with his delivery, and held back at certain spots. To my ears, the performance sounded slightly rushed. Naturally, these are things that will come with experience, and experience is what Nancy Hermiston is giving these young singers.

 

Sarah Richardson sang Pamina with a very beautiful, round tone and always a beautiful sound. I did feel that sometimes she “hits” a note slightly too hard, especially when she reached for the higher notes. 

 

Neil Hong had great stage presence and really brought the role of Papageno to life. Papageno really has all the best “tunes” in the opera, and Hong sang them with relish and a palpable sense of joy. 

 

Jiru Wu played the part of Sarastro with great dignity and gravitas. I did feel that his young voice did not yet have the resonance and projection needed for his arias. This was most apparent in the supremely challenging In diesen heil’gen Hallen, when his voice sounded thin, and did not match the persona he was portraying. I imagine this would have been a most difficult role to cast among the young singers.

Olivia Howe was most impressive as the Queen of the Night. She sang her two great arias with great confidence and assurance, and commanded considerable stage presence, remarkable for such a young artist.

 

Even the other, less prominent part, were sung with great excellence. The three ladies, as well as the three spirits (normally sung by boy sopranos, but was performed with female voices in this production) were beautifully sung, individually as well as in terms of ensemble. Kaitlyn Tse, even with her brief appearance, played the role of Papagena to a hilt, and brought much laughter from the audience. She has come a long way since I heard her last year as soloist in a Mozart Mass, both in terms of her vocal quality and projection. 

 

Even though this was, supposedly, a “student” production, it has nothing to apologize for, and Hermiston and her ensemble should feel very proud of themselves for so successfully mounting this incredible stage work. 

 

On a personal note, within minutes of the overture, I had tears in my eyes, moved by the sheer genius of Mozart and the incredible beauty of the music. In my mind, these young artists were successful in elevating our lives and making our sometimes-confusing world a slightly better place, even if it were only for a few hours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Worthy Winner

It seems that the dust is finally starting to settle after the announcement of the results of the 19^th International Chopin Competition. Being in the audience for many of the sessions of the competition has always been a great musical experience. That said, observing the competition and its aftermath has reminded me of the frailties of human nature, as well as the reality of the music “business” – oh, what a hated word to use in association with music!

 

First of all, I would say right now that I am overjoyed that Eric Lu received the gold medal. 

 

I arrived in Warsaw before Stage 3 of the competition, and so I heard Lu’s recital, which was ravishing from beginning to end. From the gently swaying waves of the Barcarolle in F-sharp Major, Op. 60, to the epic proportions of the Sonata in B minor, Op. 58, Lu played not as one who is trying to impress, but like a true artist, looking deep inside the music to reveal all its beauty and emotions. In the Sonata in B minor, the transition from one section to another, and from one movement to the next, was so perfectly gauged under Lu’s hands.

 

In the past, there have been Chopin Competition winners who have been incredible technicians, or colourful showmen, but Eric Lu is not one of them – this is not to say that he does not possess a stupendous technique, which he does – he does not set out to wow the audience (or the jurors) with the brilliance of his great technique, but invites us to journey with him into the core of the music and reveals to us its beauty.

 

That said, when the music requires brilliance or showmanship, as in his performance of the Polonaise in B-flat Major, Op. 71, No. 2, Lu was and can be as impressive as any 16-year-old whippersnapper. 

 

And Eric Lu is now the second person to win the gold medal of the Chopin Competition playing the composers Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21, the first, coincidentally being Lu’s teacher Dang Thai Son. Lu’s performance of the concerto, both during the final round as well as at the winners’ concert, was beauty personified, from beginning to end. 

 

One highlight for me was the encore he performed at the end of the winners’ concert, a heartbreaking, achingly beautiful performance of the Waltz in C-sharp minor, Op. 64, No. 2. Lu’s playing of this masterwork of Chopin has been haunting my memory since then. 

 

What shocked and saddened me has been the cruel and malicious remarks “music lovers” have been writing on the internet. Perhaps the complete anonymity afforded by social media seemed to have remove any consideration of remaining within the bounds of good taste, charity, decency or just simple courtesy. 

 

Any pianist who qualifies for this prestigious competition is already a highly accomplished musician that is worthy of hearing. Needless to say, we all have artists whose interpretations we prefer over another. What is sorely lacking on social media sites is respect for the artist as human beings with feelings. I cannot help but be reminded of Glenn Gould’s scathing statement of the “gladiatorial aspect” of the concert hell. If we like someone, we cheer him or her on, and if we don’t, we express our disapproval just as vehemently. Listening to a musical performance, at least on line, has certainly become a blood sport, certainly in this latest edition of the Chopin Competition.

 

Eric Lu is well deserving of the gold medal of this edition of the Chopin Competition. He will never be a musician who would create funny videos on the internet, or create social media content to increase his or her profile. What he will offer us, time and again, are performances that touches the soul and move our hearts. 

 

Let us please all allow Eric to be the musician and artist he deserves to be.

 

 

 

 

 

A Very Welcomed Return

What a stupendous performance it was!

 

Pianist Sorita Kyohei made a welcomed return to Vancouver, and played to a capacity audience at the Vancouver Playhouse this past Sunday.

 

The concert began on an intimate note, with Es ist ein ros’entsprugen, one of Brahms’ 11 Chorale Preludes, Op. 122, No. 8. The work is in the same sound world as all those wonderful piano pieces, from Op. 116 to 119 that Brahms wrote at the end of his life. With the first notes, Sorita drew us into this innigkeit sound world that is so evocative of the late Brahms idiom, giving the music its own truly beautiful “fifty shades of grey”.

 

From the very private sound world of late Brahms, Sorita then presented us with the composer’s Piano Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 5, the last and arguably most popular of his monumental three sonatas. The artist identified completely with every aspect of Brahms’ enormous canvas, giving us playing of a truly grand scale, with a big, rich sound, and capturing the sweep and drama of this incredible work. 

 

In the second movement, inspired by the passionate lines of Otto Inkermann, or Sternau’s poem, Sorita’s playing brought out all the expressive beauties of the main theme, and he endowed the poco più lento (m. 37) section of the movement with special warmth and depth. The third movement, with his sweeping gestures and passionate outbursts, almost foreshadows the two Op. 79 Rhapsodies that would come from the composer’s pen later, was also perfectly captured by the pianist yesterday. Sorita’s pacing of the relatively brief fourth movement, indeed making the music here a perfect intermezzo between the two outer movements. He was in complete command of every musical as well as the inconsiderable technical demands of the final movement, with playing that captured our attention until the triumphant final chords, leaving the audience exhilarated but the piano limp, with much work for the piano technician to do during intermission. 

 

In September, Charles Richard-Hamelin gave a very fine performance of Chopin’s Four Scherzi. The truly incredible thing about great music is that another performer can come along and give us an entirely different and fresh interpretation of the exact same notes on the page, charging the music with new meaning. And that was exactly what transpired with Sorita’s performance. In his performance of these four towering scherzi, there was, from beginning to end, a sense of fantasy, of spontaneity, and a feeling that he was almost recreating the music in front of us, rather than merely presenting a performance he had prepared.

In the Scherzo in B minor, Op. 20, Sorita highlighted what Horowitz referred to as the demonic and angelic elements of the work. The outer sections were as dark, angry and brooding as the music demands, and in the middle section, the artist lavished upon the music all the tenderness and innocence of Lulajże, Jezuniu, or Sleep, Little Jesus, the Polish Christmas carol from which the melody was taken.

 

Under Sorita’s hands, I was reminded of how bold and original the oft-played Scherzo in B-flat minor, Op. 31 sounded. The beautiful melody, marked con anima, that first appeared in m. 65, was indeed filled with spirit. The more subdued A Major section was charged with meaning, and the many pregnant pauses filled with tension. The pacing throughout this work was impeccable. 

 

The pianist’s performance of the Scherzo in C-sharp minor, Op. 39, beautifully contrasted the light and darkness inherent throughout the music. I have rarely heard the cascading downward flutter of notes that appear so often sound so glittering and light, almost like a sprinkling of fresh powder snow. Sorita’s performance of the fiery coda took my breath away. 

 

Of the four scherzi, the Scherzo in E Major, Op. 54, is probably the only one that could aptly be thought of as a scherzo. Sorita’s performance of this, arguably the most technically and musically demanding, as well as the largest in scale, of the four, with nary a thought for its many hurdles. It was a towering performance that took the audience through the rapidly and frequently changing moods of the music. 

 

The cheering audience brought Sorita back to the stage for two encores. I was tremendously moved by his performance of Chopin’s Polonaise in A-flat Major, Op. 53, for the absolute “Polishness” of his playing. It was truly a performance that highlights not for its virtuosity, but one that truly embodies the heroism and pride of the Polish spirit. For his second encore, he gave a meltingly beautiful performance of Schumann-Liszt’s Widmung, the composer’s great love song for Clara. It was a performance filled with tenderness, passionate and ardour, a performance that touches the deepest recesses of the heart.

 

It has been two years since Sorita performed in Vancouver, and it was obviously that his art has deepened and matured. We must continue to keep our eyes and (especially) ears on this, probably one of today’s most original young musicians, an artist that truly has a unique voice of his own that needs to be heard by many.