In Europe, Sebastian Weigle is largely known as an opera conductor, having built his reputation as music director of Oper Frankfurt for many years. But to Japanese audiences he is more familiar in symphonic repertoire, having led the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra as Principal Conductor since April 2019, establishing a strong relationship. He and the orchestra are about to embark on an overseas tour of Germany and the UK later this month, and in their concert last week, I heard some of the pieces they will be performing on tour.
It is customary – well, obligatory – for a Japanese orchestra to programme a work by a Japanese composer on tour and Takemitsu is an obvious choice, but Weigle and the orchestra went for something a little unusual. Three Film Scores for string ensemble, which Takemitsu himself compiled when he was invited to the CineMusic Festival in Gstaad in 1995, shows the lighter side of his output. The three vignettes are mostly tonal and easy to listen to, and were elegantly and touchingly played by the suave strings of the YNSO. Sandwiched between the bluesy Music of Training and Rest from the film Jose Torres and the sentimental Waltz from Face of Another, the Funeral March from Black Rain, a film about the victims of the Atomic Bomb in Hiroshima, is contemplative and its harmonic language is closer to his orchestral works.
The rest of the programme consisted of Tchaikovsky. In the First Piano Concerto, young pianist Yukine Kuroki was the soloist (Mao Fujita plays the tour). Kuroki, recent winner at the Dublin International Piano Competition, gave a brilliant and gutsy reading, if a little indulgent at times. The first movement was taken at a leisurely tempo – not one of those barnstorming performances – and there were many details to enjoy. She had enough weight in the opening statement, although a little hard-edged in the upper register. What I found slightly irksome was her tendency to make rubato at the end of almost every section, especially in her solos, which disrupted the overall momentum.
The second movement felt slower than the designated Andantino semplice – the opening flute solo (Hristo Dobrinov) sounded like a gentle lullaby – but Kuroki maintained the melodic line and intertwined with the woodwind solos. In contrast, she was capricious and displayed fleeting finger work in the Prestissimo section. In the finale, she articulated the folksy rhythm of the Rondo theme with vigour and despite her frequent rubatos, the orchestra kept up and they built to an impressive climax. Her encore was an ardent rendition of Liszt's transcription of Schumann's Widmung.
Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony followed the interval. Weigle must has a particular affinity with Russian orchestral repertoire as the two main works on their upcoming tour are this and Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony. Although his approach is not the highly charged, Slavic type, he brought out the warmth, elegance and, above all, lyricism of Tchaikovsky and it was ravishing to hear. Taking a broad picture of each movement, he built steadily up to the climaxes rather than taking off at full throttle, which may be too cerebral for some, but there was plenty to admire in the performance, especially the sonorous and supple string section (especially the cellos), the lush horns and the plangent oboe solo (Ami Kaneko) in the second movement, where one felt transported to the world of Tchaikovsky’s operas. The string pizzicato third movement was crisp but unhurried, contrasting well with the rustic woodwinds in the middle section. The finale was energetic and fiery but never bombastic (with percussion cutting through incisively), culminating in a satisfying climax.
