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SEEN
AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL DOUBLE CONCERT REVIEW
The Salonen Touch -
America’s '20th Century Orchestra' shares the
Salonen legacy in Hong Kong with best-loved classics:
Yefim Bronfman (piano), LA
Philharmonic Orchestra, Esa–Pekka Salonen,
Hong Kong Cultural Center, Hong Kong, 29.10.2008 and 30.10.2008
(PL)
29/10/2008
Stravinsky:
Fireworks Op.4
Tchaikovsky:
Piano Concerto No.1 in B Flat Minor, Op.23
(Encore: Chopin:
Revolutionary Etude
and Scarlatti: Sonata in C Minor)
Stravinsky:
The Firebird (full ballet version)
30/10/2008
Falla:
El Amor Brujo (Love, the Magician)
Debussy:
La Mer
Ravel:
Ma Mère l’Oye (Mother Goose)
Ravel:
Boléro
(Encore: Debussy:
Death of Melisande
and de Falla: Ritual Fire Dance)
As one of the most culturally diverse cities on the world map, Los
Angeles has established itself as an emblem known for its rich
heritage in classical music, next to, perhaps, movie–making.
Composers like Rachmaninoff, Schöenberg, Stravinsky, as well as
exquisite musicians with the extravagant tastes of Rubinstein and
Heifetz, all had once made this city their musical center of the
universe. Today, the “City of Angels” is proud to be the home of a
group of musical angels, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra
(LAPO), an ensemble which will be celebrating its 90th
anniversary in 2009.
Since 1992, the dynamic Finnish conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen has made
an impressive mark as the Orchestra’s Music Director, building round
the great established classics of the 20th century,
mastering newly commissioned repertoire, and energizing audience
both locally and abroad with a solid representation of established
repertoire. By the end of the 20th century, the LAPO has
championed a name for its musical prestige. In fact, the Orchestra
has recently been coined. by one of its luminary guest soloists. as
“the Musical Crown Jewel of Orchestras; here lies the
Orchestra of our century.”
Hong Kong marks the final stop in the Orchestra’s long-awaited Asian
tour, after some 52 years when the LAPO first presented itself on
Hong Kong soil. Sadly, their present Asian visit also marks the
finale with Maestro Salonen serving as its Music Director, after an
impressive tenure of 16 years. “Since my American début at the age
of 26 in 1984 replacing the ill-disposed Michael Tilson Thomas, I
have already learnt of this great Orchestra - the LA Phil with great
admiration. It is really much of a coincidence how I got acquainted
with these musicians, a bonding that I soon knew was going to be an
important part of my life. For the listeners who will be coming to
our concerts, you will immediately recognize why we take such pride
of our Orchestra in LA,” marked Salonen before his concert on
Wednesday. “If you look at the present list of the Orchestra, I have
in fact hired over half of its current musicians. This is a BIG
step, and believe me, the LA Phil has given me such liberty, the
warmth and support in my music–making unlike any Orchestras I had
worked with before ……even to this day, the Orchestra and I have
shared a unique relationship with each other, vastly exceeding my
expectations. We explore new possibilities and adventures together
in a manner that I never dreamt possible, and I hope these Hong Kong
concerts will put this in appropriation.” Surely, to prove Salonen’s
words, these two concerts indeed have vividly illustrated the
transparency and homogeneity in tone and technique core to each
orchestral section. By and large, the selected Russian and Spanish
pieces featured were intelligently chosen to bring a perspective to
the different colourful palettes of the orchestra, resulting in a
level of music–making that almost seemed like mother’s milk to each
musician. It did not take long for one to appreciate the harmony of
the players and the clarity of middle voices, part of the expertise
of the LA Phil. “From the sound that I hear from within, to finally,
the music each player projects, this is in fact the result of a long
discovery process, an understanding that in a way seems almost
magical. The LA Phil is literally a dream come true for me as a
conductor.” One wonders if this affinity described by Maestro
Salonen is the so–called infamous “Sound of the LA Phil.” Surely,
for the ticket-holders who attended the two back-to-back concerts
last week, and regardless of whether you sat indoors, or experienced
the live broadcasts from the outdoor piazza of the Cultural Center,
the “LAPO sound” from America’s West Coast definitely got you
covered top to toe, and was simply irresistible.
The American ensemble opened its first evening with none but
Stravinsky’s best-loved classics for the Orchestra. The Fireworks
Op.4 in the first half was unerring and spectacular under Esa-Pekka
Salonen’s deft hand, while the complete ballet music of The
Firebird, in the second half, was by and large a musical
reminiscence of the flamboyant and warm–spirited atmosphere that
once turned pre–World War I Paris on its collective ear. Salonen has
built the LA Phil far beyond any major American ensembles in the
past decades, and here with the fiery musical portraits of
Stravinsky, Salonen restored the juice – the slashing colours and
rhythmic vibrance – that sent the fame of Stravinsky sky-high in the
composer’s own days. The Firebird, for instance, was wisely
programmed for Salonen as the ‘hit of the night’ to display an
orchestral sound unique to the LA Phil. The performance was noted
not only for its transparency, but equally, an illumination in the
middle voices and critical apprehension of the musical score without
losing the warmth and expression of the ballet music. This is no
simple task; normally, one would get one or the other, but seldom
both. Salonen shaped the colors, molded the rhythms and vitalized
the Firebird with a living breath on stage under the musical
spell of the players. The level of coherence and technical mastery
of the LA Phil marked an interpretation in the works of Stravinsky
which was second to none.
Also noteworthy, in this first evening, was the featured
presentation of a concerto performance with one of Maestro’s Salonen
closest of musician friends, the humble pianist Yefim (“Fema”)
Bronfman. On a personal level, Fema is a very modest pianist, with a
great sense of humor and a humble approach to classical music that
remained very attractive to any listeners acquainted to his piano
playing. When Fema struck his fingers on the piano, as with the
Tchaikovsky First this evening, there was a clear priority
and direction towards his playing, through his choice in tempi and
phrasing. His interpretation was always one that placed the
composition above all values and he showed himself to be a true
servant of the composer – never did he attempt to convince others
that he was a showman, even in those demonic octave chords and scale
passages scattered throughout the first and third movements. This
modesty in Fema, and his tribute to the notated score, had given
musicians and listeners alike a deep sense of respect for the
American pianist, and his authoritative performance. The Tchaikovsky
Concerto was very much a new discovery for the both of them,
and, in fact, neither Salonen nor Fema had performed this
Concerto much together – Salonen may have done this Concerto
some 10 times in his entire career thus far, while Fema, only
started learning it approximately half a year ago, feeling that his
career had finally reached a stage where he could master this
challenging feat of Tchaikovskys, a work once deemed as
“unplayable.” Certainly, the Salonen-Fema interpretation of the
Tchaikovsky demonstrated the result of a partnership far beyond
simply ‘playable,” but the sweet fruits of two musicians sharing
their joys together enjoying a new missile of pianistic fireworks.
The outcome of this Asian première of the Tchaikovsky Concerto
certainly planted the seeds for future collaborations; next
time, perhaps, a project to showcase Salonen’s own Piano Concerto
(dedicated to Fema) would be warranted. Fema’s short appearance in
Hong Kong with the LA Phil was marked by two encores – Chopin’s “Revolutionary”
Etude and the C Minor Sonata of Scarlatti, both of which
displayed Fema as a complete pianist, the performance coming from
within, allowing the music to speak for itself. This is, perhaps,
the most difficult illusion to create for any musician on stage.
On Thursday evening, rather than feature heavy central Germanic
repertoire, Salonen chose to programme French and Spanish repertoire
noted for its imagery and narrative. The final selections from
Falla’s El Amor Brujo (Love, the Magician), Debussy’s La
Mer (The Sea), and the two Ravel pieces, Ma Mère l’Oye
(Mother Goose) and Boléro, clearly reflected an objective to
depict elements of fantasy and fairy-tale from a musical
point-of-view.
The concert opened with Falla’s El Amor Brujo and gave the
audience a good warm-up preview of the level of sonic intimacy
Salonen and the LA Phil would carry forwards in the rest of the
programme. Salonen recorded La Mer with this Orchestra, in
February 1996, and one striking difference between the Debussy he
understood then with the Debussy he conducted tonight was a very
picturesque feeling, and affinity, with the musicians which
overflowed as the musical waves gushed during these three short
character pieces. Beginning with the synchronous line of low basses,
then supported by a platform of strings, to the timid interjections
from the harps and percussion, these colorful figurations portrayed
an ocean floor escalating momentously as it reached the horizons
meeting the rays of sparkling lights. What was once remarked to be
“technically confident playing” from Salonen and the LAPO has now
reached an emotionally charged performance.
Much like complete Firebird ballet on Wednesday, the complete
ballet version of Mother Goose (Ma Mère l’Oye) was
given. This is rarely performed in full in public, except in the
days when strong advocators of the work such as Salonen’s
predecessors, André Previn and the late Carlo Maria Giulini, showed
the score’s very basis in lyricism and vocal sweetness of sonority.
Salonen was interested to display the full-blown lyricial
storytelling and was less bothered with the technical demonstrations
of the craftsmanship of Ravel’s instrumentation. To end, Boléro
made a particularly refreshing impression to the listeners, and,
arguably, this was one of those pieces that made the most impressive
stamp on the Salonen legacy with the LAPO. Steven Witser’s jazzy
trombone solo proved to be a crowd-pleaser, while the extravagant
new principal violist, Carrie Dennis, stood out on several
occasions, during the piece, to bring out the sensual playing in her
character. These examples reaffirmed why the Orchestra loves Salonen
– here is a Music Director that understands the players more than
they themselves.
The audience burst into spontaneous, and heartfelt, applause after
two evenings full of a rich palette of orchestral colours. The
rapport between Salonen and the LAPO was evident in every bar and
each section in which the Orchestra excelled. This was no exception
in the “Coda” to the second programme with two encores – Debussy’s
Death of Melisande, followed by Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance.
Patrick P L Lam