KVT – Imai Nobuko Plays Bartok

KVT with Viola and orchestra at Nha Hat Lon

We don’t often get real SUPERSTARS performing in Hanoi but once a year a really truly Superstar visits us from Japan and plays her Viola with the Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra.

Imai Nobuko was born in 1943 and at 71 plays her instrument with a passion that takes your breath away.

Every time other aging ‘Superstars’ perform for us they are definitely coasting along on their Once Upon a Time reputations for their legions of wrinkly fans. But this viola player is the real thing and in other parts of the world is still garnering fans from all age groups.

And she doesn’t let us off the hook very often and just about 100% of the time plays us some composition that is not from the repertoire of old classical chestnuts.

Last year she wowed us with a very modern piece by Albert Schnittke and had me on the edge of my seat for 18 minutes of his Monologue.

This year she chose something a little older- Bela Bartok’s ‘Viola Concerto’ which was almost completed when the Hungarian composer was on his death bed in New York in 1945 with terminal leukemia.

Always, when Imai Nobuko is soloing with them, the VNSO under the baton of maestro Honna plays superbly and the performance at the Opera House on 13 November was no exception. The presence of Japanese oboe-ist, Furube Ken-Ichi, guest playing with the winds added a great depth.

The concerto has 3 movements with no pause between making the 24 minutes a marathon of concentration for the soloist and once again it was a mesmerizing performance by Nobuko and the players of the Orchestra….one of those performances that make you feel shivery. People in the audience that I spoke to who stated that their classical musical appreciation hasn’t developed much beyond Beethoven were totally captivated

A 5 star superstar performance that deserved and would have got in less reserved places, a standing ovation and resounding bravoes. A performance that makes you feel so glad that Scots violist William Primrose, who paid Bartok $1000 to compose the concerto, made sure that it wasn’t changed into a cello concerto after the composer’s painful death

The last 5 bars of the concerto are as emotive as the score in Bartok’s handwriting in his last days

My listening love affair with Imai Nobuko is rekindled not only when I see her at Nha Hat Lon with the VNSO, but when I listen to her CD’s and downloads that I’m collecting…the latest a late 1990ies recording that indicates the SUPERSTAR’S fashion sense……..which was as superb as her playing on the 13th.

After a really grand performance encores are often a downer as the exhausted soloists often relax into something a bit too trite……but not Nobuko who played us a transcription of the Sarabande from Bach’s Cello Suite No I….which made everyone sigh in contentment and left many of us a little moist eyed.

After interval Honna and the orchestra got right into Brahm’s first symphony and my words from an opinion piece about the same work played by the same orchestra in 2102 can be repeated word for word… the woodwinds play a big role in a Brahms orchestra and that the flutes and bassoons as used by him are his signature sound, so throughout the night it was interesting to pay attention to this. Honna drew audience attention to them at the conclusion of the symphony…as he did to orchestra leader Le Hoang Lan due to her beautiful solo playing in the second movement where she draws its conclusion to a sustained whispering echo. The horns were also able to show themselves to good advantage.

The wonderful 4th movement that has you humming its hauntingly lovely folk tune while you are wending your way home deserves again the words of praise I wrote in 2012: When the orchestra got stuck into that gorgeous last movement (that does seem to pay homage to Ludwig’s 9th ) you start to feel all gooey inside…it’s one of those pieces that you never tire of with its delicious repetitions of the alpine shepherds’ tune which is as instantly recognizable as are chocolate-coated Tim Tams are in an Australian supermarket. The ending is enough to make the hairs rise on the back of your neck.

In that last movement you hear references to the last movement in Beethoven’s 9th and also, quite wonderfully, an echo of Felix Mendelssohn’s all too leg wobbling hymn “O for the Wings of a Dove”

Excellent night’s music which wasn’t at all deflated by a not quite up to scratch Prelude from Wagner’s ‘Mastersingers of Nuremburg’…but who cared an iota once the Viola led us into Bartok.

Thanks again Ong Honna for making it all so very worthwhile