Affectionate tribute to China, but filtered through many tinted lenses
Philharmonia Orchestra Royal Festival Hall
The Chinese Year of the Rooster (signalling steadfastness and courage, but with a touch of moodiness) has just begun. That was one event that was celebrated by a Chinese-themed concert from the Philharmonia; the other was the 10th anniversary of the KT Wong Foundation, which was set up to foster cultural understanding between China and the rest of the world.
That’s an immense task, and what to tackle first, China’s ancient culture or the dynamic China of today, as eager for the modernist arts adventure as it is for computing and space travel?
This concert opted for the former, filtered through several coloured lenses of myth, fantasy and complex 20th-century history. The very first notes we heard were a shock. They came from the Spring Festival Overture, composed by Li Huanzhi during the turbulent early years of the People’s Republic. It was a charmingly old-fashioned depiction of country people’s jollifications, which sounded as if Mikhail Glinka’s Ruslan and Lyudmila overture of 1842 had been filtered through a Chinese sensibility. This isn’t so unlikely; Chinese composers often studied in Moscow or St Petersburg, and Russians were fascinated by the Orient; a performance of Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances, brilliantly energised under conductor Long Yu, edged close to some of the Chinese pieces we heard.
The biggest piece of the evening was the violin concerto from The Butterfly Lovers, perhaps the most famous piece to emerge from Mao’s China. At the time, it was frowned on for its overt romanticism; now, it’s enjoying a new lease of life. Russian virtuoso violinist Maxim Vengerov gave it a tender, aptly bitter-sweet quality, and Philharmonia cellist Karen Stephenson was every bit as expressive as the second of the lovers.
That was one charming moment. Another was the spectacle of 11year-old Chinese-Canadian violinist Paloma So, playing Pablo de Sarasate’s two-violin Spanish picture-postcard Navarra, with astonishing ease, alongside Vengerov.
Most winning of all was the Chinese bass-baritone Shenyang, the winner of Cardiff Singer of the World in 2007. He was equally as persuasive as the cynical Méphistopheles in Gounod’s Faust and the tormented lover of Rachmaninov’s Aleko, and, in an affectionate tribute to his one-time Welsh hosts, he sang Land of My Fathers in both Welsh and Mandarin. That must surely be a world first.