KVT – The VNSO Plays Pathetique

(A very short summary in Vietnamese available)

KVT and a night to remember at Nha Hat Lon

On Friday night the Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra gave a playing of the ‘Pathetique’ that just about fitted into the category of the sublime. Led by guest conductor Andrea Pestalozza, who always seems to get the best out of the players, they gave an interpretation that would have spoken to the soul of even the most jaded who thinks Tchaikovsky is too overblown and far too romantic.

As soon as the bassoon sounded the first notes of the first movement it was total magic and enclosed you in a cocoon of pleasurable but intense listening. It’s called the ‘Pathetique’, a French translation from Russian in which it means passionate or emotional. It’s meant to arouse pathos but not pity and like most of Tchaikovsky’s exceptional work is a complex layering of emotions. Sorrow and hope seem to balance each other and happiness is always shadowed by despair that hangs waiting in the wings.

I knew that magic was indeed abroad because my neighbors who whispered through the night’s opener, Tchaik’s Violin Concerto, were struck dumb. And the two young lovers a couple of rows in front, who’d been conspicuously canoodling, were silently swept up by all the lush and sensual longing inherent in that opening movement and remained wrapt through the amazing waltz of the second with all its grace laden with stuttering doubt, the vigorous march that is the third with its thrilling climax and right through the unusual finale that brims and seethes with stressful emotion until it fades into tearful exhaustion. Composer Arnold Schoenberg very aptly put it by stating the final movement ‘starts with a cry and ends with a moan’

The quietly discreet and humbling manner in which Pestalozza pulled in the orchestra for those few last precious bars was wondrous to see

I cant show you the excellent work by the VNSO but here’s one by the Seoul Philharmonic which will give you some idea as to why magic was in the air on Friday beneath the chandeliers at the grand old opry for 50 beautiful minutes

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDqCIcsUtPI[/youtube]

I read an online article recently that said of great music well played and experienced live…. ‘when my life finally burns out like a match, I’ll remembering these moments most of all.’ And Friday’s ‘Pathetique’, though not devoid of mistakes, may well be such a one for me and if you read the piece just substitute CSO with VNSO.

The night’s opener was also excellent and Vietnamese born violinist, Nguyen Huu Ngyen, who is now based in France, was joined by the VNSO in Tchaikovsky’s ‘Violin Concerto’, regarded as one the most technically difficult pieces in the violin repertoire…and being probably the most famous, takes courage and panache to perform, articularly in front of a ‘home’ audience.

Nguyen, under Pestaloza, shied away from the virtuosic bravura that a good Violinist can be tempted to display, and, being a very good violinist, instead of empty fireworks, gave us a feel of what the emotional heart beat of the work can be all about.

The whole 19 minutes was petty spellbinding. The long first movement was engrossing and the last two that segue together without pause, sometimes took you to the emotional edge of your seat.

The concerto is often referred to as one of the great warhorses of the romantic repertoire but Nguyen made it more like the young colt that stands in the apple orchard, comes up to you for a nuzzle now and then and then races off to kick up its heels in a proud prance before it comes back for a well deserved carrot. Tamable, lovable, yet still unpredictable.

I enjoyed it like that

After several final bows the yell was for an encore and thankfully Nguyen declined. It was most unnecessary after such well tempered playing.

The ‘Pathetique’ was right up amidst the top of the VNSO’s best of the best and I feel very privileged to have been there.

I knew that the night was going to be special as soon as that gorgeous cellist, Tran Thi Mo followed the violinists onto the stage, Your silver and black top, Ms Mo, was stunning and the ensuing music equally so!

POST SCRIPT:

Wouldn’t it be nice if the hot gloss about great artists remained forever in enclosed boxes so that we could experience their work without bias….take Tchaikovsky for example. His homosexuality , his perceived anti semitism, his suggested suicide, hangs over his last great work, his Symphony No 6 or ‘Pathetique’ like a big black cloud, ever since the veils of supression of information recently fluttered away
Tchaikovsky always claimed he had a secret agenda when composing the work and that’s led to heaps of modern musicologist speculation. One such person has suggested that the score is a homoerotic paean to a nephew with whom Tchaikovsky had a sexual relationship and to whom the symphony is dedicated. One story that is given some credence has it that Tchaik was ordered to kill himself due to the alleged incestuous affair so he drank contaminated water and became a victim of the cholera epidemic that was raging all around…in those days homosexuality was a considered a crime against the state and the church and incurred huge prison sentences.

The anti-Semitic allegations surround the march like third movement which, the conspiracy theorists say was composed to highlight and re-enforce the anti Jewish sentiments that abounded in Slavic countries.

The symphony was premiered 9 days after the composer’s death.

Pestalozza gave us an interpretation that made all the suppositions and squalid questions fade into insignificance.