Brahms brought to Bangkok
The RSBO explores the Romantic era with the help of famed Japanese violinist Mayuko Kamio
Two favourite artists of Bangkok audiences are taking on two mighty works from the late Romantic era at the end of May. Mayuko Kamio will perform Brahms Violin Concerto with her 1731 “Rubenoff” Stradivarius, while Michael Tilkin, with a mere stick in his left hand, will perform Jan Sibelius’s
Second Symphony.
Both are extremely challenging works for any artist, but Kamio has proven herself up to the task, both locally and abroad.
Bangkok Post reviewer Tretip Kamolsiri felt her playing “fresh and profound”, and her Stradivarius “appeared to be an alive instrument”. The New York Times called her “a fresh young musician”.
The Washington Post gushed that she is a “worldclass virtuoso … with exceptional power and a fine sense of drama”. Reviewer Stephen Brookes called special attention to her interpretation of the music of Brahms.
“Ms Kamio delivered the Brahms Violin Sonata with ravishing tone and polished gleaming perfection.”
Then again, the Osaka-born artist had already won a Gold Medal in the world’s prestigious Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, after making her debut at 10 years old with the great Charles Dutoit and touring with the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Ivan Fischer. She also was awarded First Prize in the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, and Gold Medal at the David Oistrakh Violin Competition.
Performing under the late Yehudi Menuhin and Mstislav Rostropovich, as well as in orchestras around the world, she comes to Bangkok again to show her very singular stuff.
Her conductor with the Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra will be the very popular Michael Tilkin. This year, he became the music director of the RBSO, a worthy laureate, not only from his work with every orchestra in his native Belgium. He was assistant conductor to Kurt Masur and Zubin Mehta with the renowned World Youth Orchestra and gained the distinction of conducting the very first concert of the new millennium in Berlin’s Konzerthaus, starting at precisely midnight as the new dawn began.
Whatever their past histories, the two works being played here would tax any great violinist or any orchestra.
The Brahms Violin Concerto was originally (and still is) so difficult that the first reviewer called it a “concerto against the violin”. Then again, Brahms, not a fiddler himself, had sent the manuscript to the world’s great violinist, Joseph Joachim for “corrections”. Joachim did change things around, Brahms took no notice of his editing, and the first performance, in 1877 — with Joachim as soloist and Brahms the awkward conductor — was badly reviewed.
Part of this was because all the great post-Paganini virtuosos were writing their own violin concertos, all of them extremely difficult, and not terribly inspired. They were works to show off the soloist. But the Brahms Concerto, as Bangkok audiences will hear, is more than technically difficult. It has a serenity, a sheen, a glory, a gorgeousness of inspiration made for Kamio’s Stradivarius.
Later it gained great popularity in London, and by the beginning of the 20th century, it had become one of the most popular of all violin concertos, vying with Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Max Bruch, a favourite with every great soloist.
After the intermission comes a symphony from the far north of Europe, Jan Sibelius’ Second Symphony written in 1902. Sibelius was indeed a violinist (and his Concerto is among the most venerable). But unlike the “purist” Brahms, Sibelius was always the dramatist. He had written incidental music for plays, songs from great Finnish poets — and in 1899, as the “prophet of his people”, he wrote Finlandia.
Not only was this a stirring call for independence from Russia, but the government of Finland later gave Sibelius a yearly commission, making his life rather easy.
He wrote seven symphonies altogether, and the Second Symphony is the most popular. For certain reviewers (including this one) it is far from his best. But the Second Symphony is so emotionally powerful, its last movement with its massive extended chords, is such a muscular almost Herculean work of art, that nobody can come away without being exhausted, even overwhelmed by its might.
This Second Symphony is perhaps the last “romantic” symphony ever to be written. Sibelius himself changed his style, to become more inward, personal, even psychologically morbid. After him came Gustav Mahler, who, rather than writing merely “grand” symphonies, looked to the heavens, to poetry, to mysticism. In fact, Mahler met Sibelius, and they were decidedly different.
“Sibelius told me that he admired my logic, my musical sensibility. I almost shouted at him, ‘No, no, music must embrace the whole world’,” Mahler once said.
After Mahler, the great age of symphonic music changed entirely.
This, then, is an opportunity to hear the temporal (and sometimes emotional) climax of the Romantic era. Sibelius produced the grandeur of the Finnish forests in his music. And Brahms? Perhaps its dedicatee, Joseph Joachim, summed it up best in referring to the Violin Concerto.
“Brahms has a nature which can develop to its fullest bloom only in the most perfect seclusion; pure as diamond, soft as snow.”
Ms Kamio delivered the Brahms Violin Sonata with ravishing tone and polished gleaming perfection
“Mayuko Kamio Brahms ViolinConcerto” will be staged on May 30 at 8pm at the Thailand Cultural Centre, Main Hall. Tickets are 400, 800, 1,200, 1,600 and 2,000 baht. Contact ThaiTicketmajor at 02-262-3456 or visit thaiticketmajor.com. To contact RBSO office, call 02-255-6617/18, visit bangkoksymphony. org or facebook.com/royalbangkoksymphony.