Chinese draw-card
Garth Wilshere
Postcards from Exotic Places – A Chinese New Year Concert, Michael Fowler Centre 29 January 2011, Reviewed by Garth Wilshere.
YOUNG Chinese violinist and highly regarded Naxos recording artist Tiawa Yang was the major draw-card for Postcards from Exotic Places.
She certainly has a big tone and amazing technical facility. However, her performance in Lalo’s Symphony Espagnole, while accurate and beautifully played, seemed rather clinical. With swift tempi from the soloist, sometimes at odds with the conductor, melodic lines couldn’t always soar as I wanted. What was missing was real Spanish fire and passion.
The opening work Postcards by Chinese composer Bright Sheng was technically difficult but interesting, each of the four movements imbued with exotic and different tones and timbres. Here, conductor Perry So was in brilliant and total control.
Another part of the concert was the selection of three arias from Jack Body’s opera Alley based on the life of New Zealander Rewi Alley who spent most of his life living and educating in Communist China, becoming a revered figure there.
Australian counter-tenor and cabaret performer, Jon Jackson generally negotiated the difficult vocal writing veering between baritone and falsetto counter-tenor well, a few significanttiming slips aside. Body’s spare orchestral language drawing on eastern tones and timbres was effective.
The audience-pleasing Dvorak New World Symphony was given a good straight-forward reading by So, although the orchestral playing reminded us that this was the first concert after a break, and I personally missed the “European” sound that NZSO conductor Pietari Inkinen achieves. Overall, it was a no-frills unindulgent interpretation, mostly well-played.
YOUNG Chinese violinist and highly regarded Naxos recording artist Tiawa Yang was the major draw-card for Postcards from Exotic Places.
She certainly has a big tone and amazing technical facility. However, her performance in Lalo’s Symphony Espagnole, while accurate and beautifully played, seemed rather clinical. With swift tempi from the soloist, sometimes at odds with the conductor, melodic lines couldn’t always soar as I wanted. What was missing was real Spanish fire and passion.
The opening work Postcards by Chinese composer Bright Sheng was technically difficult but interesting, each of the four movements imbued with exotic and different tones and timbres. Here, conductor Perry So was in brilliant and total control.
Another part of the concert was the selection of three arias from Jack Body’s opera Alley based on the life of New Zealander Rewi Alley who spent most of his life living and educating in Communist China, becoming a revered figure there.
Australian counter-tenor and cabaret performer, Jon Jackson generally negotiated the difficult vocal writing veering between baritone and falsetto counter-tenor well, a few significanttiming slips aside. Body’s spare orchestral language drawing on eastern tones and timbres was effective.
The audience-pleasing Dvorak New World Symphony was given a good straight-forward reading by So, although the orchestral playing reminded us that this was the first concert after a break, and I personally missed the “European” sound that NZSO conductor Pietari Inkinen achieves. Overall, it was a no-frills unindulgent interpretation, mostly well-played.
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