Sir Roger Norrington with Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra

After the series of misfortune and disappointment in this year's HK Arts Festival (which I think worth no further mentioning here at all but I'm sure all the other classical music fanatics would know exactly what I mean), I was soon again dismay and shocked by knowing that Hong Kong had failed to secure a concert by the well-known Roger Norrington and his Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (also known as SWR) here during their Asian tour, that instead included Macau and Shenzhen before going on to perform in the opening concert in Shanghai EXPO, and later to Beijing, Seoul and Japan.

With the glorious history of SWR and its line-up of famous conductors from Carl Schuricht and Hans Knappertsbusch to Sergiu Celibidache and Georges Pretre to the current Principal Conductor Roger Norrington, the orchestra's own trademark sound was secured with a vast repertoire and gigantic discography. All these tempted me to travel during a weekday to experience this "Stuttgart Sound" for the very first time.

The Programme showed the root of the Conductor - with the obvious "England" theme. So, the concert opened with Haydn's Oxford Symphony in D major No. 101 and ended with Elgar's Enigma Variations, while the Prokofiev's Third piano concerto was "enigmatically" performed in between, featuring an 18-year-old ABC pianist Huang Ci.

Before hearing a sound, something spectacular was noted from just the line-up of the orchestral members on stage for the opening classical symphony: The Strings (8/8/4/4/4) was unusually seated, with the first and second violins splitted on each side, sandwiching the cello and viola while the 4 double basses were placed horizontally in a row at the back behind them, just before the timpani, and between 2 horns and 2 trumpets on each sides. What's more bizarre was 2 flutes and 2 oboes standing on the left, behind the first violin while 2 clarinets and 2 bassoons standing on the right and behind the second violin!

Relating to this particular seating plan or not, the Haydn symphony was played wonderfully, with all the sections blended in perfectly. The sound was slim but warm and focused, transparent and clean yet in unison and harmony at every place. I was reminded of the sound of the early-instrument ensemble. Later, I found out that their deliberate lack of vibrato and the obsessively detailed phrasing and delicate dynamic control are the reasons, which Norrington's conducting (without the baton or the podium) was focusing all the way instead of steadily and merely beating time. Also, I found his choices of tempo (on the fast side for all movements) remarkable and the occasional speed change very convincing. He had a very good grasp of the whole framework and feel within each movement, and the resulted execution through the orchestra was exceptional, regardless of the simple and boringly-repeating "clock ticking" in the second movement, the dance-provoking minuet or the exuberant and powerful musical flow in the final. I simply can't think of a better Haydn symphony interpretation than this historically-awared and skillful playing.

However, I found the adoption of such a continuously vibrato-less playing a bit awkward and strange in the Prokofiev's concerto. Even after the expansion of the strings (12/12/6/6/6) and doubling the horns with the addition of 3 trombones, the sound was still a bit too slim to match the "wild and coarse" Russian tone. Besides, there was a carelessly notable slip in the oboe solo in the first movement and some minor tone defect in the horn and trumpet sections. Having said that, since the orchestral role there was just accompaniment, I guess it's still acceptable. What's not acceptable is the soloist's technical accomplishment far exceeding her musicality, together with her lack of expressing suitably the content of the music. Therefore, we witnessed her able and smooth tackling of this challenging music, especially the fast and demanding passages through her nimble and powerful fingers (though occasionally a bit too rushed and ahead of the orchestra), without really having a clear blueprint in mind in view of the structure and direction of the piece. More to it, she failed to enchant the audience emotionally or even sing poetically in the middle slow and endearing movement of variations. Her weaknesses were exemplified further through her choices of two virtuoso and technically dazzling yet musically shallow or empty show-off transcriptions of Gershwin's "Embraceable You" and Mozart's "Turkish March" as her encores. Quite a disappointing playing of this originally attracting and virtuoso concerto. Anyway, I'm now looking forward to Yuja Wang's performance of this same piece with HKPO next month~

After the intermission, a bigger orchestra was finally seen (strings:16/14/12/10/8) on stage for Elgar's Enigma Variations, and their version of it was full of surprises and inspiration. Once again, the vibrato-free pure tone sound of Stuttgart was used, and to my surprise, it still sounded quite effective and emotional even for this piece of very romantic music, for instance the famous Nimrod variation. It's good to listen to such a clean and innocent orchestral sound instead of the highly romanticised Hollywood style with vigorous and continuous vibrato which we're accustomed to nowadays. Also, the tempo used was "unconventional", so that the fast variations were played slower than usual and the slow variations were played a bit faster. It sounded a bit peculiar for those who are familiar with this music at the beginning, but later I was convinced that with this lessened tempo contrast among the variations, the fluency and coherence of the whole music were much enhanced. Furthermore, with this steadier and "medium" speed together with the pure tone of the orchestra, some inner voices, structures and contrapunctal lines which were usually obscured were now shown much clearer, and were expressed even better through Norrington's carefully analytical reading of the music. Regardless of some minor performing errors from the orchestra there, this was an alternative and acceptable yet not very crowd-pleasing version to this well-known piece. I'm sure not everyone would love it, but still no one could deny it either. I myself found this "Stuttgart Sound" experience "ear-opening" and this short trip worthwhile. And I returned home with the tune of the short encore piece of that evening - Walton's Polka from his "Facade" suite - echoing in my ears all the way.