The concert started with a commissioned new orchestral work by local composer George Lam. I admire and respect these new commissions for local young composers from time to time by HKS (while HKPO have the resources but no guts to do so). "The Queen's Gramophone", as the composer himself explained briefly on stage before its world premiere performance, is his imaginative "recollection" of our Hong Kong in the 1960s. How this young composer can write something about the place he left when he was 10 and about the era before his birth is beyond my understanding. Anyway, the music started with a slow and "lazy" dance melody (partly French and partly Spanish style to me) introduced by the bassoon over the pizzicato bass. The melody then was developed with transformation in terms of rhythm, harmonisation and instrumention, until it was chaotic enough to be recognised in the climax. Afterwards, the clarinet introduced the refreshing and jazzy dance music over the mellow brass, which interestingly have a similar texture of Wong Kar Wai's film music. The music however gradually and slowly died away in the end.
Yip Wing-sie's interpretation and leading was a bit plain and cautious, and the tempo changes were not done well and convincingly. A little more imagination and flexibility would be better for this "soundtrack-like" music. It didn't do the music enough justice, for it could neither stimulate emotion nor image from the audience. The bassoon and clarinet did quite well for their solo passages nevertheless.
In the Mendelssohn's violin concerto, Trusler's violin produced a distinctively sharp and penetrative sound. While many young soloists try to play this piece slower and to drill on the details, Trusler played it in a faster pace and in a straight-forward way as if it's a classical period music. He didn't use the vibrato excessively, and he avoided the temptation to romanticize the 2nd movement like everyone else nowadays. Instead, he concentrated on the momentum and articulation of the music. I found his spiccato especially amazing, and resulted in a red-hot exciting and vibrant final movement. Having said that, some very high notes were not steadily reached, and he even somehow resorted to "cheating" by using slides unnecessarily, which I strongly protested. The orchestra was not helping much either, as it was lagging behind the soloist slightly most of the time. Anyhow, in response to the warm applause of the audience, he jokingly said that he wishes to move here before awarded us the virtuosic scherzo by Kreisler, which sounded very well indeed (though not as Zino):
However, nothing prepared me for the disappointing Beethoven's 8th Symphony after the intermission. The tempo was too fast (I guess no one would stick to Beethoven's "crazy" metronomic indications nowadays for the big modern orchestra!), the "thick" sound too poorly controlled that it's intimidating and even suffocating. All I could experience was the repeated rhythmic strong blows to my head throughout without any harmonic layering or fine orchestral details shown, which were all lost in the forcefully energised propulsion. Maybe I don't understand fully and I can't appreciate them enough, but I thought Beethoven's 8th is one of his "smallest" and "lightest" symphonies until I heard it performed by HKS under Yip Wing-sie that evening........Now I'm beginning to admire and miss their playing of the Pastoral Symphony last month.
Hong Kong Sinfonietta concert
6th Nov 2009 8pm at HK City Hall Concert Hall
Music Director/Conductor: Yip Wing-sie
Violin: Matthew Trusler
Programme:
| George Tsz-kwan Lam | The Queen's Gramophone (world première) |
| Mendelssohn | Violin Concerto in E minor, Op 64 |
| Beethoven | Symphony No 8 in F, Op 93 |
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