Toyota Classics 2014

Tue 18 Nov 2014, 8 pm
HCMC Opera House

From Toyota Motor Vietnam:

Toyota Motor Vietnam (TMV) has honor to introduce the exclusive one-night concert Toyota Classics 2014, which will be held on November 18th, 2014 (Tue.) at 8:00pm in Ho Chi Minh City Theatre. This year is 17th year Toyota Classics is held in Vietnam by Toyota Motor Asia Pacific (TMAP) and Toyota Motor Vietnam (TMV) in cooperation with Vietnam Performing Arts Centre (Department of Performing Arts – Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism) to marks the 25th anniversary “Music that moves lives” in the Asia Pacific region.

With the innovative and discoverable desire, that enriches lives, moves society forward with music, in a quarter of a century, Toyota Classics has held 170 concerts throughout Asia, attracting 214,000 audiences, enhancing culture and music exchanges among different countries and bringing classical music to music lovers. The ticket proceeds of about 8,1 million USD has been generated for charity organizations, for social and cultural development, Environment Protection and Traffic Safety of 14 nations in the Asia Pacific region.

Celebrating 25th Anniversary milestone “Music that moves lives”, Toyota Classics 2014 is a feast of music that blends classical purity with classical interference with the performance of the Covent Garden Soloists from the renowned Royal Opera House – United Kingdom, a talented and masterly Spanish – born conductor Miguel Angel Navarro and the excellent couples: Pianist Pamela Nicholson and Violinist Vasko Vassilev. This is the second time Pamela Nicholson and Vasko Vassilev have joined Toyota Classics in Vietnam. In every performance of Covent Garden Soloists, Drama, Fashion and even Technology are also variously employed to create a sense of adventure, allowing audience and performers to explore new frontiers where tradition mixes with invention. This is the first time Toyota Classics takes a source of inspiration from the movie industry. The concerto arranged by the Piano/ Composer and Arranger Pamela Tan will bring listeners to different emotional tones, from sweet love to desire, provocation and unveil secret.

Toyota Classics 2014 in Vietnam will especially welcomes the performance of Vietnam Flute Soloist – Miss Nguyen Ly Huong with Flute Concerto of the famous composer – W.A. Mozart. Nguyen Ly Huong has been bringing her emotional flute to music lovers in Thailand, Japan, Germany… and one of her most honorable achievement so far, is the 1st prize of International Flute Contest at Nanning, China in the year 2013.

Toyota hopes that 25 Anniversary “Music that moves lives” will be a feast of music far beyond ordinary thoughts, move artistic senses to sublimely peak.

After 17 years coming to Vietnam, Toyota Classics has brought the world-level classical music to Vietnamese music lovers and also created good opportunities for local musical talents to learn experiences and perform with world-famous artists and orchestras and, for the reasons, Toyota Classics becomes one of the most expected music events in a year. Nearly 2,5 billion VND of proceeds has been used for cultural and art promotion activities and especially, from 2009, all ticket proceeds has been spent for “Toyota Scholarship for Young Vietnamese Music Talents”.

For 19 years, Toyota Motor Vietnam has continuously made efforts to the Vietnam’s economy development and social development as well. Always keeping the leading position in Vietnam automobile market with the accumulated sales record of 293,000 units, TMV has contributed more than 3.3 billion USD to the State Budget, and over 18 million USD to social activities, including Traffic Safety, Environment Protection, Education & training, Social Culture and Charities.

Tickets

Ticket prices: 700,000 ; 1,000,000; 1,200,000 VND

Tickets are available at:
HCMC Opera House – No 7 Lam Son Square, Dist 1, HCMC.
Tel: 09.8987.4517 or (08) 6270.4450

Program

Noble Rogues: Concerto for Piano and Violin with Orchestra (arr. Pamela Tan Nicholson)
© Klaus Badelt, Hans Zimmer

This version plunges straight into the first movement which is inspired by the noble rogues of the sea – The Pirates of the Caribbean. Originally composed for a large orchestra by Klaus Badelt when produced by Hans Zimmer, the film’s most famous themes are used and re-written with virtuoso embellishments to form the exposition and recapitulation of this swash-buckling concerto. The second movement pays homage to the heroics of Gladiator with the touching elements played out sweetly and movingly in the Intermezzo. The adapted film score loses nothing of the original’s dignity and romance. Dazzling solos and flashy orchestral punctuations return in the Coda to make a thoroughly rousing foot-stomping finale. Much of this music is inspired by the rhythms and styles of jigs and hornpipes, which are rumbustious dances associated as much with pirates as they are also with sailors.

Wild Wild West: Concerto for Piano and Violin with Orchestra (arr. Pamela Tan Nicholson)
© Ennio Morricone, Elmer Bernstein
Music from Spaghetti westerns is as distinctive as the movie genre itself. The film scores accompanying Cowboys and Indians as they ride across the desert on the big screen are effectively symphonic poems in a modern medium. Vivid and atmospheric, this music paints pictures, represents characters and sets the emotional tone. Convention dictates characterizations akin to opera with heroes manly and brave, while women are desirable and beautiful. Nothing demonstrates this more aptly than Sergio Leone’s lauded ‘Dollars’ trilogy which starred Clint Eastwood and which forms the soul of this Concerto.

In keeping with tradition, this Concerto of Wild Wild West borrows the seething machismo and ominous tension of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in the first movement. The second movement, inspired by Once Upon a Time in the West, tingles with a languid beauty rivaling that of Mascagni’s intermezzo in Cavelleria Rusticana. The piano solo rings in the darkness of night with a mood suggestive of twinkling stars over the quietest landscape. A hum sung by the orchestra then settles like a lazy caressing breeze before the violin enters, singing as it softly weeps.

Like a western film, the return to action is inevitable so the concerto builds in excitement. A solo guitar starts the third movement before the violin enters on whistling harmonics. The music turns gutsy as the orchestra and voices join in, exchanging barbed interjections in For a Few Dollars More. These build up to a cheerful triumphant finish with The Magnificent Seven galloping across the prairies in the final fourth movement.

Love Stories: Concerto for Piano and Violin with Orchestra (arr. Pamela Tan Nicholson)
© Francis Lai, Max Steiner
The two love stories which provide a musical background to this concerto share coincidences. Both are tragedies with the lead female character dying and they boast two of the most famous quotations in Hollywood history.

Love Story the 1970 tear-jerker is the source of that most meaningful sentence ‘Love means never having to say you’re sorry’. The other ‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn’ by Rhett Butler is just one of many memorable lines from Gone With the Wind. One epic, the other intimate, both films are classics with music in the romantic mould lending themselves to treatment as a richly orchestrated concerto.

Francis Lai’s musical interpretation of young love suggests purity and generosity; and simultaneously, impetuousness and depth of feeling. The piano starts alone then the violin enters warmly to enrich the texture with stylistic devices reminiscent of Brahms and even Franck in their respective piano and violin sonatas. The orchestra enters to embrace the soloists with passion equal to the lovers in the film which comes to a sorrowful end as does this movement.

The next movement is inspired by Max Steiner’s score which is unmatched in grandeur by any, with its sweeping portrayal of Mitchell’s great love story as told by the film director Selznick against the landscape of America’s deep South. Tara’s theme is timeless in its reach. Led by solo violin, searing strings and impassioned winds build to a climax, their intensity matching the fierce frenzy of the exciting piano solo.

Flute Concerto K 313 in G Major – 1st Movement
© Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
In December 1777, Mozart was commissioned by a wealthy Dutch businessman to write 4 ‘easy’ flute quartets and 3 concerti. As was quite often the case in Mozart’s life, he needed money and was fully prepared to execute the commission for this keen amateur flautist. Unfortunately Mozart was expected to meet a deadline and he failed to do so. Consequently he delivered only 3 quartets and 2 concerti and was paid less. His excuse that he disliked the instrument is not borne out by the quality of this concerto, the first of the two he managed to complete. The more likely truth was his other excuse which was ‘lack of time’ seeing that he was then assiduously courting a young singer whose sister he ended up marrying. Indeed this concerto remains to this day a staple concert favorite. It is charming, perfectly balanced and allows the flute to show itself as the delightful instrument which it is.

Adagio Sostenuto – Piu Animato – Tempo I from Concerto No.2 in C minor Op.18
© Sergei Rachmaninov
Like Mozart, Rachmaninov performed his own concerti and he premiered this concerto twice. On both occasions, he was the soloist. This monumental concerto sealed his reputation as a composer and the second movement is in itself a concerto. The movement weaves its way through different tempi and emotional challenges. Allowing full rein for the showy solo part to shine through the rich orchestral accompaniment which envelopes the piano without ever swamping it, this movement is a perfect example of Rachmaninov’s virtuosity as a pianist and his skills as a composer. His concerti have been used in many feature films and as befitting a Romantic composer, they are all romantic movies.

Meditation from the opera ‘Thaiis’: Version for Violin and Piano
© Pamela Tan Nicholson
The Meditation is a symphonic entr’acte as it is performed between scenes in the opera Thaiis by Massenet. It was scored by the composer for solo violin, orchestra and chorus. The beauty of the work has elevated its popularity beyond its place in the opera and Meditation is often performed and recorded as a solo violin piece on its own. There are many arrangements and in one version, without the chorus, it is used by Frederic Ashton for one of his most famous ballet pas de deux. At its premiere, it had to be immediately encored in its entirety. As concertmaster of the Royal Opera House, Vasko Vassilev has performed this version to great success with and without the Royal Ballet. He has also performed and recorded a tender and delicate version for violin and piano, which is featured in this programme.

Action Movies: Concerto for Piano and Violin with Orchestra (arr. Pamela Tan Nicholson)
© Ennio Morricone, Nino Rota, Quincy Jones, Lalo Schifirn
This concerto references seminal films from the ‘action movie’ genre, typically providing excitement through physically demanding challenges for heroes and villains, with music provoking audience reactions from dark humour to tears and fears.

The first movement starts with a haunting duet of ‘Chi Mai’, arguably Ennio Morricone’s most famous work. Le Professionel, a 1981 French action thriller starring Jean-Paul Belmondo made a hit of this music, which had been composed ten years earlier. The distinctive repetitive piano arpeggios hint at the minimalist movement which started at around the same time. The duet then welcomes the larger ensemble without losing anything of the ephemeral sense of mystery.

Sinister pizzicatos lead into the second movement’s piano solo before the trumpet arrives with pent-up menace and masculinity. The success of 1972’s The Godfather was slightly over-shadowed by the disqualification of the music score for an Oscar nomination. Nino Rota drew inspiration from Verdi’s La Forza del Destino but he had used the theme earlier in 1958. This was frowned upon by the Academy. Nevertheless, he won an Oscar for the sequel. The concerto broadens into full cinematic grandeur before returning to nostalgic isolation.

The third movement is an instrumental play of ‘On Days Like This’ made famous by Matt Monroe in The Italian Job. There is no debate that the original 1969 film starring Michael Caine wins over the 2003 remake with Mark Wahlberg.

Action Movies Concerto closes with a blistering fourth movement using Schifrin’s theme from Mission Impossible.

Comic Heroes: Concerto for Piano and Violin with Orchestra (arr. Pamela Tan Nicholson)
© Charlie Chaplin, Leo Daniederf, Biddu
Amusing operas are known as opera buffa. Comic Heroes is a concerto buffa, inspired by funny movies and by the master of comedy Charlie Chaplin. Not only was he a great actor and director, but as a creative artist in living memory, he came closest to the genius and vision of Wagner. When ‘the little tramp’ first credited himself as composer in a film, eye-brows were raised. Chaplin was known to be at best a self-taught musician. Cynics suggested that his meagre contribution of a melody for orchestration by others did not warrant accreditation as a composer. However, as his films matured with increasingly dramatic music scores matching the emotional impact of his stories, his talent as a composer could not be denied. Two of his greatest films Limelight and Modern Times demonstrate how the touching quality of his films was complemented by the wistful beauty of his music. Not all film-makers have Chaplin’s ability to singlehandedly invent both visual and aural effects, but all good film-makers have a feel for the right music to enhance their films. When Hans Zimmer incorporated a cover version of the 1974 disco hit ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ into his score for Kung Fu Panda, the film-makers realized it was a perfect fit. The song with its famous ‘Oriental riff’ helped propel the film score to an Oscar. Concerto buffa is light entertainment and a reminder that joy and laughter are best enjoyed with music.

By Pamela Tan Nicholson

Watch the trailer “Toyota Classics 2014 – Music That Moves Lives”: