Cinematic Shostakovich and jazz-tinged Ravel in Hong Kong

As the anecdote goes, when Gershwin asked Ravel for composition lessons, Ravel was so flabbergasted by the amount that Gershwin was already making in music that the French composer replied, “Perhaps I should take lessons from you!” In a sense he did. Aside from its discreet sprinklings of oriental spice and Basque folk music, the influence of Gershwin in Ravel’s G major piano concerto cannot be ignored. 

But the “bluesy” jazz was merely one of the elements that French pianist Alexandre Tharaud wove deliciously into his performance with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta on Saturday. The ever-attentive Valencia-born conductor Roberto Forés Veses was at the helm, assuring a tight-knit partnership with the pianist from Ravel’s opening whip-crack on. Tharaud’s rhythmic passagework was unfailingly buoyant, sparkling with detail, marked by accents and staccato that were neither rude nor harsh. 

The Satie-like serenity that Tharaud conjured in the Adagio assai was thoroughly hypnotic, and when the unstoppable bustle of the carnival-like Presto was in full motion, he was again – in sync with Forés Veses and the Sinfonietta – animated with the spirit of jazz.

Time was the order of the day before that. The Asian premiere of Christian Mason’s An Ocean of Years opened the evening with mesmerising movements of sound. In this the third part of his orchestral triptych Time and Eternity, the sense of time as static, as well as flowing and waving in motion, was wonderfully captured by Forés Veses and Sinfonietta’s full battalion, Chinese opera gongs and all. 

Extended techniques were used to great effect in all three of Mason’s movements (indicated by Hypnotic, Heaven’s Chimes are Slow and Joyfully Resonant) in glass-like harmonics, fluttering flautando trills in the strings, poignant snarls from the brass, and hairpin crescendos and diminuendos that enhanced the swelling, wave-like motion.

And what wasn’t to love about Sinfonietta’s cracking performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony no.1 in F minor after interval? Both the bleaker aspects of the Russian’s graduation piece (likely borne of his own tuberculosis diagnosis and poverty-stricken family) and the edgy “cinematic” aspects were executed with solid conviction by the musicians under Forés Veses. 

Concertmaster James Cuddeford kept a tight rein on string detail throughout, ensuring some impressively tight and compact ricochet bowing in the violins. Shan Huang’s solo trumpet sparkled on numerous occasions and fabulous woodwinds peppered the score. Along with Alan Chu's fine solo piano contributions, the scurrying nature of the outer movements – deriving from the theatre music that Shostakovich encountered as a pianist for silent film – was vivid in its execution. 

The oscillation between the furious and the emotion-packed was managed with aplomb by Forés Veses, and when the heartfelt vulnerability of Pei-chieh Chang’s cello solo emerged before the final “happy-ending” orchestral onslaught, the unmistakeable stamp of Shostakovich resonated as clear as day... already at the age of 19.