荣誉会员
UID102
好友
回帖0
主题
精华
积分83454
阅读权限225
注册时间2001-8-31
最后登录1970-1-1
在线时间 小时
|
发表于 2002-10-28 05:06:00
|
显示全部楼层
杨雪菲皇家音乐学院演奏会观感（英文）
Hi guys,
Earlier this afternoon I went to listen to a concert at the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) over here in London. The orchestra was composed of students there, and it was conducted by Colin Metters. The programme was as follows:
Manuel de Falla: Excerpts from "El Amor Brujo",Mezzo soprano, Louise Reitberger
Joaquin Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez, Yang Xue-Fei, Guitar.
Jeronimo Gimenez: La Boda de Luis Alonso.
The concert was in the RAM's Duke Hall, which was a very intimate setting for a orchestral performance, and when I got there I managed to get a seat in the second row, less than 10 feet from conductor and soloist.
When the orchestra entered the room, the first impression was that they were mostly around my age, and (I couldn't help but notice this ;) ) the ladies were all dressed more daringly than most female musicians I've seen so far (ever seen a violinist in a strapless top?), and the only limit to their fashion seemed to be that they were all dressed in black.
The music from El Amor Brujo was quite alright, and the orchestra was in fine form, with the only weakness being the fact that the strings didn't seem as warm as most professional orchestras, probably due to the fact the most of the students can't afford good instruments. The music was atmospheric and well done, although the conductor, seemingly of the "wave arms around madly" school of conducting, was a bit distracting at times. The vocal parts were sung by Reitberger, and because I don't know much about vocal music, I shan't comment on it, except that it did not seem too challenging for her.
After that, of course, was the Aranjuez by Yang Xue-Fei. I was surprised to see that she had a mike set up, although it was pretty far away from her guitar, and the effect was subtle enough that I could not really tell the difference. When she started playing in the first movement, my first impression was not a good one, namely that her rasgueado seemed a bit too thin and indistinct for my taste.
For the whole of the first movement, she seemed to be playing with a touch of sul ponticello, perhaps to emphasise the "earthy" nature of the piece. I found the basses of her guitar to have a metallic tinge to it which I do not like, but overall her playing was nothing short of incredible, and she blazes through the scale passages almost nonchalantly. The scales were at an almost inhuman speed, to the extent that the mind almost could not register them, but there were still minor mistakes to be detected, buzzes, muffled notes etc.
For the Adagio movement, the opening chords were delicious in tone, although the cor anglais's tone wasn't very confident. Again, her playing was very strong and confident, and her tone was very sweet as well, although I again disliked the basses. In the part before the cadenza I had a moment of "IS THAT POSSIBLE??" when I saw her slurring what sounded like entire bars with her LH. Her cadenza, unsurprisingly, was very well done , but her final rasgueados again could have been better. Then comes my biggest bitch of the afternoon...after the rasgueado passage, the orchestra more or less screwed things up by taking too long of a pause before reiterating the theme. That completely spoiled the sense of momentum built up by the cadenza. At the coda of the movement, she made what was probably her most noticable mistake of the day by fluffing the artificial harmonics at the finale.
In the starting passages of the third movement, I felt she did not emphasise the syncopation of the counterpoint well enough, but the rest of the movement was well done enough to get my legs moving along with the music. There WAS a major fubar by one of the horn players at one point, but Xue Fei was not playing at the time, so it didn't have any bearing on her performance.
One thing which I noticed about her technique was that there was quite a lot of movement from her middle joint in her playing, and her right hand technique does not LOOK very secure, although goodness knows it comes out perfectly fine. At times there was quite a bit of wrist movement, which I believe would offend some particularly dogmatic teachers, although I would think there's no need to fix something that wasn't broke. As for the left hand technique, I have been rendered speechless!
The third part of the programme was Jeronimo Gimenez's "La Boda de Luis Alonso", and all I can say is that it is a loud and cheerful piece of light classical music, a cross of Strauss II and Spanish rhythms.
After the concert, being the thick-skinned SOB that I am , I went back stage to find her. She had already changed when I found her in one of the practise rooms, and she said she could vaguely recognise me, because she saw me in the Singapore Guitar Festival last year (she was watching me when I was demolishing HVL P5 in Ben Verdery's masterclass!). Anyway when I commented to her about the basses, she said something about having to bring out as much volume as possible for the concerto setting...my semi-literate Mandarin could not really cope with her rapid-fire Beijing accent!
About the loss of momentum after the 2nd mvt cadenza, she said that it was the conductor who was in charge of that, and in fact she had to slow down her cadenza to work with him :o !
She also said she is probably going to see Angel Romero's Aranjuez at the Royal Festival Hall on next Monday. After that (I was pretty self-conscious about my lousy Mandarin by then!), I said bye.
Overall, it has been an enjoyable afternoon. While her playing is as virtuosic as one gets, her interpretation had to compete with the ideal that has embedded itself in my mind from numerous listenings of various interpretations, so this review might have been a tad bit too critical. That said, I think her strength in solo playing is undoubted, and I would definitely try to catch her when she has a solo recital. She's going to play at the National Portrait Gallery on the 1st of November and at Purcell Room on 10th January, so I have those dates underlined already!
Regards,
Khee Gan
|
|
