KVT – Ludwig, Johannes, Wolfgang and Gudni at Nha Hat Lon

By the beginning of next week we’ll have had three world class classical music events in 14 days at the Opera House.

By the beginning of next week we’ll have had three world class classical music events in 14 days at the Opera House.

Sunday, June 13 gave us famous and brilliant Sicillian, Giovanni Sollima on his masterful and aged cello. Totally memorable!

Friday, 18 gave us famous and brilliant German, Wolfgang Glemser playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 3 on the Steinway Grand with the Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra efficiently conducted by renowned Icelandic conductor, Gudni A Emilsson.

Glemser had us in the palms of his versatile hands as soon as his fingers took up the theme introduced by the orchestra in the first movement and he kept us there through the meditative Largo and to the end of the joyful final movement. The VNSO played beautifully.

Brahm’s Symphony No 4 is a great piece of music and especially difficult to get an interpretation that takes the symphony away from Brahms ironic description of it as a ‘bunch of dances and polkas’ and infuses it with an intent that it be experienced as a possible societal tragedy about to unfold. Conductor Emilsson wrung the most he possibly could out of the horns and woodwinds and the desired intensity of the fourth movement that makes it a tour de force ending on a dire tympanic note was almost achieved.

You were with the orchestra all the way as Emilsson pushed and caressed them and insisted that they dance with the beautiful gravity and force that emanates from Brahms last symphonic piece.

A grand night and we owe a huge debt to those Gorgeous Germans and their Gorgeous Goethe……..………………………………………and tonight there will be a really brilliant contemporary music concert at the old house with the very innovative and astounding musikFabric Koln ensemble presenting Vietnamese composer/performer Kim Ngoc’s new composition as well as three other recent compositions….AND WOULDN”T YOU KNOW IT!!! IT’S THE MUSICAL EVENT I”VE BEEN ANTICIPATING SiNCE JANUARY AND I’M BOOKED TO FLY AWAY TO COOLER CLIMES ON THE SAME DAY….Life can be so unfair……free tickets are at Goethe for the more fortunate and the stayers.