Music Map for Germany

I bought this book called 德國音樂地圖——現場體驗的60種記憶 in one of the bookstores at Mongkok today. The author travelled around Europe and attended concerts and operas performance. This book is the memories about those places in Germany, including Berlin, Munich, Dresden, Koln, Bayreuth, etc. He also mentioned the CD shopping experience in Germany. I wonder when I would be able to travel around Europe and listen to different orchestras and be at different concert halls every day. How wonderful that would be!

Julia Fischer - Bach's Sonata and Partita for Solo Violin

I never thought such a young violist could play Bach in such a matured way. My version at home was Milstein, Szegeti, Kremer (not very good), and Grumiaux. But Julia Fischer's Bach has won so much praise and I just wonder why. Therefore I bought it. It was a pricy double SACD, which is the only available version. Fortunately, I don't have to buy it from Shun Cheong, which is selling it at over HKD260 (after discount). I got it from Amazon.co.uk, and it was only HKD236 (incl shipping).

I was surprised. It doesn't sound like she is young at all. According to her, she played Bach every day. And she has been studying Bach since she was a little girl. No wonder she has attended to the details of it. And the speed she took was relatively slow, esp for the Preludes and Sarabande. Her technique was impeccable, but it all sounded so natural. I once listened to Heifitz and I didn't quite like it. It was sounded not like Bach. Julia surely captured the elegance and warmth of one of Bach's most intelligent and intellectual works.

If you like Bach's Unaccompanied Sonata and Partita for Solo Violin, buy this. You won't regret. The recording quality was superb, too!

A Choral Piece Requiring Four Conductors

Attended the CBSO Chorus concert last night. What a wonderful chorus it is. I first came across them in Rattle's Mahler No.2 in a CD. And then when I went to university in the UK, they came to perform at our Arts Centre quite often - I still remember their performance of Elgar's "The Dream of Gerontius" with CBSO. That was over ten years ago though. Simon Halsey was orginally the musical director of my university and also the choral conductor of the CBSO Chorus, but he left to concentrate on CBSO Chorus the year before I arrived. What a shame! His successor was not as good as he is (I know because I was a member of the chamber choir and the orchestra and people always praise Simon Halsey).

Back to the concert last night. They performed a stange piece last night, which was quite interesting. It was composed by Julian Anderson. The piece was called "Beautiful Valley of Eden". It was an a capella piece. It takes four conductors to conduct the piece!! I have never heard anything like that before. The piece puts Sopranos, Altos, Tenors and Basses into entirely different meters and speeds, but each part would make harmonius sense with the other three parts. It really showed the virtuosity of the choir.

Faure's Requiem was not a typical Requiem. It hasn't got the traditional, loud, stirring Dies Irae. The whole piece was full of a sense of peace, comfort, serenity and calmness. It was beautifully sung by the CBSO Chorus. Simon Halsey was a very good choral conductor. He/the choir could maintain a maximum control and intensity even if it was pianissimo. And when it was fortissimo, the sound it produced was louder than you would have expected for a 120 people choir.

I'd like to see more choral concerts in Hong Kong. Human voice is the best instrument.

HKPO's Resurrection

I attended the Mahler No.2 by Edo de Waart and the HKPO last night. I didn't have much expectation. I attended the concert because any Mahler Symphony played in Hong Kong is an event for me. Edo de Waart is certainly not my favourite conductor. His conducting style is too feminine. Indeed, I heard a feminine Mahler 2. The opening of the symphony was supposed to be a conflict, but de Waart played it with much reservation. The sound of the violins (particularly the first violin) were weak. May be it is because of the seat that I was in (rear stall again).

The way HKPO played it made the first movement relatively boring. The speed de Waart took for the second movement was faster than usual, even faster than Rattle. That's fine with me. But the problem is he slowed it down towards the end of it. This gave the feeling that it dragged on a little bit.

The third movement was OK, but the strings were just too weak. The alto for the forth movement sang it with passion and everybody was hushed by her pure voice.

The final movement was the best part in the whole concert. And I would probably attribute it to Mahler rather than the conductor or the orchestra. The music was impactful. What interests me was that the CBSO choir was sitting down when singing for the first half of the final movement. They only stood when it reached the final part of the final movement. That's quite unusual. Their singing was superb. I look forward to attending their concert tonight.

All in all, the Mahler 2 by HKPO and Edo de Waart was just mediocre. Having said that, the audience seemed to be quite impressed by it and some people were even giving their standing ovasions for the orchestra. For me, I am glad that people love Mahler's music - his time has surely come!

Mitropoulos Conducts Mahler

I was so happy to have received this CD set. Mitropoulos was the one who promoted Mahler in the US when the composer was relatively unknown in the 1950s. He was the chief conductor of the New York Philharmonic. I heard that his mahler was very inspiring because he started everything from scratch, without consulting anyone and any other materials. I only listened to the final movement of Sym No.9 last night, and I fount it very inspiring. My Mahler collection at home is nearly complete now - I nearly have the feeling that I don't need any more recordings and I can live with the collection I have for the rest of my life.

慶公宴

We went there to celebrate Valentine's Day last night. The place was quite elegant, with traditional Chinese decorations (Qing Dynasty). They mainly serves tea, very good tea. But I brought my own bottle of wine (1982 Chateau Leoville Barton). They charged me cockage (HKD50) but provided nice glasses.

The food's presentation was excellent. The taste was also not bad. A bit of fusion, but suitable in Hong Kong. Waiters would come and explain each dish before you actually eat it. They have different menu set. We chose the middle one (10 dishes excluding dessert). It's not that pricy, given the location (Lan Kwai Fong), the food and the ambiance. Here is the menu:


We enjoyed it and would go back for another treat (for parents' birthday or whatever).

Go to their website:

www.clubqing.com

and have a look!

SFS & MTT - 3rd Concert

What a magnificent Mahler 10 that was! I was overwhelmed by it. The strings sounded totally different (eh, the lady on the last row of the first violin somehow disappeared!). The Mahler was so good that I saw MTT smiling to the members of the orchestra the moment when it was finished. I start to doubt two things: i) was it because of jetlag that their first performance was not good; ii) was it because of the location of my seat (rear stall) that affected the sound I got on the first night(this I am pretty sure)? The strings were so good tonight - together, sweet, bright. I heard MTT's Mahler was good, but I never thought it could be this good, and it was live! Perhaps affected by the Mahler, I think even the show-off piece, Dvorak No.8 in the second half, was also very good.

They played three encores tonight, two of which were repeated.

The concert hall was not full tonight. What a shame!

SFS & MTT - 2nd Concert

Well, their second concert was a bit different. First, there was a concerto. Lynn Harrell was the cellist, playing Schumann's cello concerto. Schumann's cello concerto was never an exciting piece. It was flat, without any climax or capturing melody. Perhaps it was my bias. Harrell's performance was average. But his encore was really crap. He played Schumann's Traumerei. It seemed that he was in a hurry. There was no rubato, no double stoppings - just a plain Traumerei. Yes, his bowing was good, but there was no music at all.

I shall not say much about the piece by Charles Ives because I don't know it, but the orchestra was much more together compared with the first night.

Brahms Symphony No.2 was the focus of the concert for me. This time the SFS lived up to the expectation. They were, again, much more together (I guess they were paying more attention in the second concert). The brass and the woodwinds were excellent, with a full but controlled sound; the strings were warm and sweet. I was listening to Carlos Kleiber's version before going to the concert. It turned out that MTT was quite close to Kleiber, except that his speed was slower than that of Kleiber in the final movement. Overall speaking, I am quite satisfied with the second half.

But the encores! I couldn't believe my ears - they repeated what they played on the first night, but only the Chinese piece and the Brahms Hungarian Dance! How could they do that? Am I going to listen to the same stuff tonight? They should have prepared more encore pieces for the trip. It is utterly not fair for those who attend more than one concert. I was quite disappointed about this. But then, it was kinda compensated by the excellent Brahms.

I am looking forward to attending the pre-concert talk tonight and the Mahler No.10.

San Francisco Sym (SFS) & MTT - 1st concert

I attended the opening concert of SFS and MTT tonight. It opened with a short piece by Copland "Fanfare for the Common Man". It is a familiar piece, but you never know it is composed by Copland. Looks like I have to listen to more pieces by American composers. The second piece was Petruschka by Stravinsky. I am not a fan of Stravinsky. Petruschka was also not my cup of tea. So I didn't pay much attention (plus I was quite sleepy).

The second half was Tchaikovsky Sym No.4 - a shallow piece. I enjoyed the sound of SFS produced. MTT was also putting much into it. The loud ending gained the approval of the audience. But I wasn't impressed.

The encore pieces were nothing special, except that one of them was "Choi Wun Chui Yuet" (colourful cloud chasing the moon) - this is a PR thing by MTT. The other two pieces were by Bizet and Brahms.

MTT's conducting was full of energy. But the orchestra was not paying full attention to him: the brass and the percussion were not together in the Copland.

I always look at the last row of the 1st violin to determine how good the orchestra is. And the lady sitting there failed to impress me.

I hope the two concerts on Friday and Saturday would be better. I very much look forward to the Mahler on Saturday.

Major

You scored as Philosophy. You should be a Philosophy major! Like the Philosopher, you are contemplative and you enjoy thinking about the purpose for humanity's existence. Linguistics 83% Philosophy 83% Mathematics 75% Anthropology 75% English 75% Theater 67% Journalism 67% Engineering 58% Psychology 58% Sociology 50% Art 25% Dance 17% Biology 17% Chemistry 8% What is your Perfect Major? created with QuizFarm.com

Mahler - Bertini's Box Set

I bought this box set of Mahler Symphonies from Pro-Sound this afternoon. It costs only HKD198. There are 11 CDs in this set - each CD costs HKD18.-! HMV also has this box set but they are selling it at HKD350!

I listened to No.2 first and it seems that Bertini played Mahler in a reserved way. Contrary to Bernstein, who played Mahler with intensive emotion, Bertini was very much a rationalist. He focused on Mahler's elegance. This was obvious in the first movement of No.2. I guess it is a matter of taste - some like it more emotional, some like it more elegant and rational. For me, I tend to like the more emotional versions, but I always respect those conductors who think otherwise. In any case, this set is a super value version given the sound quality and the price.

Got to listen to the other symphonies to tell more difference. I shall try No.9 next and then No.3 and 6. I heard that his No.7 is very unique.

Starbucks

I went to Starbucks to have an afternoon tea today. It was in Fortress Hill. The ambiance was not too bad, but it was very crowded and noisy. I was thinking of a relaxing atmosphere with some nice music and magazines, and a nice cup of coffee. It turned out that the coffee was not so bad, but it was just too noisy for people to enjoy there. Perhaps it was still holiday for so many people. And many insurance agents were meeting their clients there as well. It was definitely not the Starbucks that I like.

The Healing Power of Music

Listening to Classical Music does have a sort of healing power. Whenever I am frustrated, lost, or even depressed, listening to classical music energizes me. Now that I have a new CD player (nearly run in), the first thing I do when I get home is to switch my hi-fi on and play some music, sit down, and enjoy. What could be a better thing to do than relaxing with good music when one gets home after a busy day?

I listen to all kinds of violin and piano music, symphonies, chamber music, choral music, etc. Got to pick up some opera and contemporary music though.