KVT – The Europeans Do Music very Nicely Indeed
KVT gets invited to the dance.
The European Music Festival opened in scintillating style with Goethe organizing a repeat trip to Hanoi of Duo D’Accord, a world renowned piano duo.
Last time in Hanoi they were brilliant and this time even more so as they performed on two shining grand pianos.
It was a program about dance and particularly the drama and tensions inherent in four of last century’s landmark dance masterpieces
The pair invited us to the evening’s dance with Godowsky’s four handed paraphrase of Carl Maria von Weber’s ‘Invitation to the Dance’. This was originally composed as a description of the dancers and was an excellent way to lead us into the rest of the program which was full of the tension that comes with any outstanding interpretation of Prokofiev’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ ballet music and Bernstein’s masterpiece about the same young and fated lovers, ‘West Side Story’.
The most interesting and important aspect of the Duo’s visit to Hanoi is that they will be here for two weeks conducting master classes with talented pianists from the Music Conservatory of Music and other collaborations with local musicians.
The collaboration with percussionists Professor Vu Chi Nguyen and Doan Mai Huong was a great success and resulted in an edge of your seat interpretation of Part 1 of Stravinsky’s ‘The Rite of Spring’, collaboratively arranged by the Duo. This was full of primal celebration tinged with anticipatory tension bloodletting leading up to the human sacrifice that would occur later. A tour de force!
The foursome finished with Ravel’s ‘Bolero’, which was composed as a 20 minute dance piece in 1928 and with which Ravel was intent on re-inventing dance movements.
It was one of the most riveting ‘Bolero’ interpretations I’ve seen.
My young Vietnamese friend who has heard too many orchestral versions on online radio that he was a bit blah about another, was overcome by the vivacity and freshness of this one. As he said, the concentration involved on the part of all players to get this repetitive piece perfect and make you sit up and take notice, even want to dance, was almost nerve wracking to watch.
It was another grand, grand, grand, performance and a very grand way to get the European Music Festival off to a grand start.
Usually I make sure that, over the two week period of this annual festival that showcases some of the finest European performers who are doing Asian tours at this time of the year, I get free tickets to all of the events. But this year I’m off down south and am gnashing my teeth about what I’ll miss out on
Most of all I’m sorry I won’t get to see Emma Transtromer, the mezzo soprano daughter of Swedish Nobel Laureate for literature, Tomas Transtromer….whom another very young friend insists is one of the transformer family.
She’s on at the Youth Theater on Dec 2nd and will be sensational…….but then so will be the Empirical Jazz Trio on Nov 27…and pop singer Yori Swart on the 28….and so will ……………..Its just not fair!!!!!!
The other tension loaded dance of the evening was that by the little monkeys with the TV cameras who certainly could have done with a dose of Ravel’s re-invented movements as they dashed around the auditorium, solo-ed across the stage and pushed their lenses into the faces of the audiences and almost between the legs of the musicians. Quite an engrossing, though unnecessary, divertissement.
| Kiem Van Tim is a keen observer of life in general and the Hanoi cultural scene in particular and offers some of these observations to the Grapevine. KVT insists that these observations and opinion pieces are not critical reviews. Please see our Comment Guidelines / Moderation Policy and add your thoughts in the comment field below. |
