The last time she had visited Sydney, some fifteen years ago, she took her bows (pun intended) as the celebrated soloist in Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto no.1 with a young Yannick Nézet-Séguin directing the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. This week, Han-Na Chang returned to the Sydney Opera House, as the conductor to the same orchestra. As the famous Bob Dylan song put it, “The Times They Are a-Changin’”.
The all-Russian programme began with Mikhail Glinka’s Overture to his opera Ruslan and Lyudmila, glittering with energetic passages and immediately testing the players’ strengths with its virtuosic scalic runs. Following Chang’s confident tempi and precise beat, the orchestra responded in kind. The chemistry between them was tangible, with a well-maintained dynamic balance.
Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto no. 2 in G minor is famously one of the most demanding works in its genre. In a similar way to Rachmaninov’s third piano concerto (written only a few years earlier), it begins with a deceptively simple, brooding melody in a minor key, opening up its massive emotional turmoils soon thereafter, coupled with intensely difficult technical writing for the soloist. It is not a composition for the faint-hearted, enjoyed best with utmost concentration even from the audience, let alone the soloist, the conductor or the accompanying orchestra.
Uzbek pianist Behzod Abduraimov proved to be an ideal exponent of the work. His technical preparation served its rubatos well, and his concentration was unbroken throughout the four-movement arc. He guided the formidable cadenza of the first movement faultlessly to the exposition-like orchestral tutti at its end. Chang kept her players tightly together with the rapid unisono runs of the piano part in the Scherzo; their moto perpetuo feeling was assured in execution, yet disturbing in its incessant acerbic energy.
While this work accumulates nerve-wrecking difficulties, if either, soloist or conductor, suffered from nerves, they hid it well. Abduraimov’s firm touch on the keyboard, paired with a sparingly sophisticated use of the pedals, was particularly noticeable in cross-handed passages of the third movement (Intermezzo). Still, it was not all about thunderous power-play, as the last movement’s passacaglia and cadenza proved with his delicate approach.
Chang’s attention to the fine details of the soloist’s performance was impressive to the extent that she consistently cued (rather unnecessarily) his entries. Nonetheless, from her past years as a cello soloist prodigy, she would have remembered the value of assistance from a reliable partner on the conductor’s podium.
The orchestra was in splendid form already, and their showcase performance was yet to be delivered. A performance of the Symphony no. 5 in E minor by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, is always a highlight in any orchestra’s calendar. Chang needed no score for the Glinka Overture, nor this work. She did not fall for the often sluggish, overly sentimental approach of the first movement and dictated a good pace to the opening clarinet theme. In the slow movement, after its velvety horn solo opening, she sympathetically brought out the many polyphonic countermelodies and the Valse movement excelled with its gentle rhythmic lilts.
Chang’s pro-active conducting is full of effervescent gestures, with nimble technique and a near-constant smile – yet, at times, the orchestra could be slow in responding to her brisker than usual tempo choices, or some delicate details. To be sure, their playing was consistently solid, even beautiful, but often in a well-established way, rather than fully giving themselves to certain more unusual musical suggestions from their conductor. Tight schedules and not enough rehearsal time could potentially be blamed, even if the final result was a rewarding concert.
