TAKE A BOW NATTAWAT
Fresh young Thai violinist raises the bar for instrumental prowess
Musical sparks were certainly flying around the Chulalongkorn Auditorium on Saturday, Nov 24. “The Winner Of RBSO Violin Competition 2018” was the title of the Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra’s “Classical Concert No.5”, performed to a very supportive audience that had been eagerly awaiting the appearance of Nattawat “Nok” Luantampol.
The previous week he had emerged as the strongest violinist from a highly competitive field of entrants, comprised of many of the most exciting and well-trained music students of Thai nationality. But the illustrious panel of judges had been unanimous in their praise for this exciting and welcome newcomer to the scene — he clearly stood out from the crowd in two demanding rounds.
According to a new initiative from the RBSO, the plan is to present an annual violin competition and winner’s concert from now on, a most inspiring development which will surely only serve to raise already impressive standards to ever new heights with each coming season. Nattawat made an inspired repertoire choice in order to display his full arsenal of violinistic capabilities with the RBSO — Henryk Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto No.2 In D Minor. The composer’s finest work by far, and a standout masterpiece which rightly deserves its place alongside the very best 19th-century violin concerti, it is perfectly attuned to the often impetuous sensibilities of idealistic youth.
Composed in 1862 and tailor-made for his own mature appearances throughout a rigorous touring existence, of course, Wieniawski had inherited the mantle of Paganini following a truly stunning career as a brilliant child prodigy, and this concerto is not surprisingly full of dramatic mood swings and impassioned outbursts of emotion. Sometimes joyous, at other times rather angst-ridden, one challenge for the performer is to manage these emotional extremes while still keeping a relatively cool head. This, Nattawat achieved with consummate ease, his unassuming and charming stage presence coming across as a pleasing mixture of controlled concentration and polite, mild-mannered artistic gesturing.
The many technical pyrotechnics which confront the soloist, particularly in the opening Allegro moderato and finale à la Zingara (in Roma gypsy style), were met with admirable confidence and assurance, confirming what the musical community here has admittedly known for quite some time: that the new generation of Thai musicians are indeed able to tackle the more difficult areas of virtuoso repertoire as never before.
Today there are more and more opportunities to travel and study abroad in the major musical centres of the world with some of the very finest professors, while at the same time the standards of teaching right here in Thailand are continuing to catch up, steadily but surely. In Nattawat’s case, he hasn’t in fact needed to venture as far as the US, Europe or even Hong Kong to attain his excellence, but ultimately discovered his own route to true artistic and instrumental mastery somewhat nearer to home, in Singapore.
Since 2015, his tertiary studies have been at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (Nafa) School of Music, on full scholarship, and he now also pursues a partner-university programme of study with the Royal College of Music (London). In 2017, he was awarded the Grand Prize with the Nafa-Kris Foundation Fund Concerto Competition, which enabled him to make his professional recital debut at the Singapore Esplanade, as well as appearing as soloist with eminent Singaporean conductor Maestro Lim Yau and the Nafa Orchestra at the Victoria Concert Hall, also in Singapore.
His homecoming, as represented by this special appearance with the RBSO (an orchestra with which he also played regularly before his move abroad), was clearly a highly significant moment at the outset of what promises to be a wonderful and long career.
Maestro Potavanich began the evening’s proceedings with a delightful and relatively seldom-heard work, Schubert’s Overture In The Italian Style D.590. Sprightly and polished first-violin-section playing steered the phrasing throughout, while a nicely balanced woodwind section supported their rhythmically tight ensemble. It was similarly a real treat to hear one of Beethoven’s lesser-performed symphonies in the second half — No.2 In D Major. The uplifting mood of the entire opus gives no indication of the turmoil that the composer was going through in 1801-02 (Beethoven was going profoundly deaf ), and indeed the entire RBSO shone with a memorable display of exuberant playing from beginning to end.
Nattawat made an inspired repertoire choice to display his full capabilities