MPYO concert again! National tour (Kuala Lumpur) review

Programme:

Wong: "Ria" Fanfare for Orchestra
Ahmad Muriz: Senandung Malaysia (World Premiere)
Brahms: Hungarian Dances 1, 3, & 10
Arnold: Four Scottish Dances
Vaughan Williams: A London Symphony

13 December 2007, Dewan Filharmonik Petronas, KLCC


The folks of MPYO went on their first national tour starting 7th Dec from Penang, then performed at Ipoh, Johor Bahru, Kuantan before playing their last stop back at their "crib" Kuala Lumpur. It is school holidays and the tour gives the MPYO players exposure on rigours of playing on tour (imagine 9 hours of bus rides, hopping from one performance to another in different state in two nights). While it is fun especially to orchestra members who are having their school holidays, their last performance here in KL may be threatened by exhaustion and burnout. However they managed to give a splendid performance yesterday night. Not to say the performance is entirely perfect though.

Adeline Wong's "Ria!" was the opening piece for their last debut concert and it was featured yesterday night. Again, I do not think the piece is appropriate for an opening act, because: 1)It is contemporary. 2) The piece is too demanding for an orchestra that needs to be warmed up, especially for a youth orchestra who only played together barely two years. Just imagine asking MPO to open a concert with Respighi's "Pines of Rome" and you get what I mean. At the beginning, the orchestra opened up with a riot of sounds, but that ain't exactly sensous. You can see the orchestra fumbling through here and there, trying to work their way through a mesh of a work. The percussions saved the day by churning out seductive Messiaen-influenced, gamelan sounds. If the last concert the piece sounded like Messiaen's Turangalila Symphonie, this time it kinda like merged with Gustav Holst's "The Planets".

Ahmad Muriz' "Senandung Malaysia" was a pleasant surprise because, the piece (sorry Adeline) was more cohorent in structure and it has more originality. The malay dances of Joget, Asli and Zapin were fused with western composition method producing a truly funky work*. Muriz didn't do what I would expect some Malaysian contemporary composers to do, quoting exactly Malay melody/themes and juxtapose them with each other then sounds like some pathetic medley for "Malaysia Truly Asia" or "Visit Malaysia 2007". You do not recognise the local themes at first in what sounds like a typical Western work until the percussionists start thumping out kompang tunes that comes right out of a Malay wedding. I thought it was brilliant. And the greatest compliment I can pay to the composer is that the narrative structure pays homage to Ravel's "Alborada del Gracioso" or Falla's "El Sombrero de tres picos" (Three-Cornered Hat) not to mention both also share groovy percussion beats.

For Brahms' Hungarian Dances, it looks weird to see Kevin Field trying something different, eh trying to be Leonard Bernstein. The dances were subjected to "Lenny" style mannerisms eg: stop-and-go, push and pull tempos. The orchestras didn't sound too shabby although the "oompahs" wasn't too clear. Thankfully, orchestra and conductor revert back to usual mode for Malcolm Arnold's "Four Scottish Dances".

Like the last time MPYO played Scheherazade, the band shines in "big feature" works and Vaughan William's "A London Symphony" showed what a truly professional class the whole ensemble sounded. The highlight was 2nd movement's "Lento" described by the composer as "Portrait of Bloomsbury". I have not heard MPYO strings played with such attentive concentration the pianissimi of the passages and Lee Chun Hawe's cor anglais solo was truly haunting. One of the true hallmarks of a professional ensemble is how well you can cope playing piano as soft as possible enough to grab attention and MPYO succeeded in doing that. I have not heard the work before, but can you imagine NSO tackling this symphony? Not a fat chance! Give the orchestra ten more years and they can tackle the most demanding and most difficult of repertoires, eg; Strauss' tone poems or 20th century orchestral works of Bartok or Stravinsky. Hell, maybe they can try tackle Mahler as early as their next concert!

I am very eager to hear MPYO again in concerts to come. But there is one peculiar habit I noticed and that the orchestra takes some time to warm up as they progress through the concert, from Wong's piece to "A London Symphony". I think Kevin Field should begin with orchestra overtures always a plenty eg; Brahms' Acedemic Festival or Tragic Overtures, Mozart's Le Nozze da Figaro, Beethoven's overtures like Egmont, Coriolan etc. As to Howard (MPYO oboist)'s question are there improvement, well...I need to hear one or two more concerts to make that verdict.


*I've ran out of bombastic, scholarly words to use, bleh.

Unlikely duo's Beethoven concertos produces a bang

Talking about quirky mismatch collaborations, some few I could think are Glenn Gould/Leonard Bernstein, Richter/Karajan and
Barenboim/Klemperer. Gould/Bernstein recorded a "Emperor" which was controversial in its eccentricity, and which even the very "schmalzy" Lenny finds it too hard to keep up (you get what i mean). Enigmatic Sviatoslav Richter recorded a Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto with Herbert von Karajan which critics pointed out as a classic "mismatch". A fiery, passionate Richter in odds with the cool, icy Karajan. They never recorded anything after that (although I do not know if the legendary Triple Concerto with Oistrakh and Slava were recorded before or after). And the recording I so want to hear for the hell of it; the same Beethoven concertos with Daniel Barenboim paired with the Otto Klemperer. That's right, how could a young brilliant pianist such as Barenboim be able to cope with Klemperer's granitic conducting and penchant for slow tempos? The only complaint criticism I've heard about the set is rather the recording quality, not the performers so I cross my fingers and hope to find it someday.

Meanwhile the collaboration of Nikolaus Harnoncourt, one of early music pioneers and contemporary music specialist Pierre-Laurent Aimard doesn't really sound quirky. Both has in common intelligence and eagerness to find new life in an already familiar set of warhorses. Harnoncourt as we know, isn't really a pure HIP (Historically Informed Practice) scholar unlike some very dogmatic interpreters like Sir Roger Norrington and his Beethoven cycles on Teldec demonstrated his own sync of "Harnoncourt" mannerisms combining his decades of HIP knowledge with his own ideas of interpretation and orchestration. Pierre-Laurent Aimard was 20 when he graduated from Paris Conservatoire and was invited by Pierre Boulez to join Ensemble Intercontemporain as a founding member. Today he is a revered name in pantheon of today's celebrated pianists with his CDs of Ligeti, Debussy and live recitals critically acclaimed. From an article on New York Times, quotes "

Mr. Aimard admits that not long ago he would have deemed ''preposterous'' the very idea of adding yet another account of these war horses to a market already saturated with high-quality recordings. ''I had always preferred to do something 'useful,' '' Mr. Aimard writes, ''by recording music not found in catalogs, especially the works of our own time.''

But when Mr. Harnoncourt asked him to collaborate on the Beethoven project, he found the invitation too intriguing to resist. ''To some, we seemed to be fundamentally opposed through our musical cultures, the type of repertoire we championed, our respective images,'' Mr. Aimard writes. ''It turned out, however, that this experience was the most natural, the most moving, the most fortunate that one could imagine.''

I have to admit I was not exposed to monsieur Aimard's playing much (my first experience was sampling one of his Ligeti Etudes cd). What struck me first was the crystal-like clarity (typical characteristic of contemporary pianist) but also at the same time there's display of immense energy and at same time probing intelligence. But again, being familiar with 20th century composers such as Ligeti, Boulez, Debussy etc the fingerwork and pyrotechnics of these concertos are effortlessly tackled by monsieur Aimard.

I have grown to admire Harnoncourt's Beethoven and I think today he may be worthy to be placed alongside pantheon of Beethoven interpreters such as Furtwangler, Karajan, Klemperer etc. My experiences of his recording of symphonies with Chamber Orchestra of Europe is mixed, at times the results could be dazzling, revolutionary even and at worst, he typically will make you want to look at paint dry instead but like Furtwangler, he is a risk-taker and not the type who would stay safe like say, Mr K =P In this recording, his typical direction of the COoE players (50 players playing H.I.P style on modern instruments save period trumpets) ironically is safeproof because there is right amount of balance just to accomodate the soloist. Big band orchestras has tendency to overwhelm the soloist and too small, too H.I.P may sound a bit too "sissy" for the composer himself.

Reviews have been mixed, but for me these concertos is the one I will keep listening until I discover Serkin/Szell, Kempff/Ferdinand or even Klemp/Barenboim. There are some mannerisms that may be annoying (for instance the "delay" in chord punctuations in 1st movement of Emperor) and even a fluffed note (around 5 minutes in 1st movement of 1st Concerto) but if you love Beethoven, you must listen to this set. You will either love it or despise it and nothing else.


Recording: 9
Technical: 10
Interpretation: 9

Claus Peter Flor next Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra director

Ok, its been official for quite some time, maestro Claus Peter Flor has been appointed as Music Director for Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra come this 2007-1008 season. Since early this season, rumours had been abound this would be the last season for current Music Director Matthias Bamert. General consensus were despite his impressive CV (he studied conducting under Leopold Stokowski and George Szell, released a number of acclaimed recordings including Stokowski's Bach transcriptions), his leadership paled in contrary with Kees Bakel's ten-year reign at MPO. Everyone I knew who went MPO concerts would give a collective shudder everytime one mentions a Bamert concert. The management should be congratulated for making such a wise choice electing maestro Claus Peter Flor as the MPO's new music director. His concerts for the past few seasons since his debut in 2003 were much anticipated events. Although I only attended his Bruckner Fifth concert last season, the response of MPO under his leadership were clearly etched in my mind.

Most important for maestro Claus Peter Flor is to rejuvenate the programme repertoire which was as dull as dishwater this past few seasons, which he mentioned in last Sunday's interview with The Star that he would plus getting feedback from subscribers. There has been too many rehashes of familiar warhorses and diversity of repertoire were lacking. I remember looking back at Kees Bakel's 2000-2001 season was surprised by quality of the concerts (including late Mtislav Rostropovich's debut) including a Lutoslawski Concerto for Orchestra coupled with a mouthwatering Beethoven's Emperor played by Pierre Laurent-Aimard. I hope maestro Claus Peter Flor could generate similar excitement for next season's programme, boy can't I wait!

Bruckner 5 review: http://www.musicandcdreview.com/MPO-Bruckner5.htm