KVT – Alicja Gave Us Wonderland

Alicja Gave Us Wonderland

I was going to begin this opinion piece with a teeny bit about how unnecessary speeches are before musical events at the Opera House and about how all of the foreign embassies etc should take a lesson from the French and just let it all happen etc etc. Even the invited excellencies would probably heave a sigh of relief at being spared the usual platitudes and readings from the program…….but after Alicja Smietana played Shostakovich’s first violin concerto I forgave them all, every single superfluous syllable….I even forgave the cameramen (and that’s a first for me!).
It was by far the best musical event in Hanoi this year. In fact I’d go so far as to say the best cultural event!
Polish violinist Alicja Smietana is super superb. She’s not yet 30 and is already bestriding some of the best concert platforms in the world and receiving super glowing tributes from many of the world’s best conductors and her more experienced violinist colleagues.

With a very good, young, Polish piano accompanist she celebrated Poland’s big day on May 5th with recitals of famous Polish composer Henryk Wieniawski’s ‘Legende’ and ‘Fantaisie Brillante on Gounod’s Faust’. Wieniawski (1835-80) was a genius on the violin and his compositions are not for the faint hearted player. Alicja made you realize why the composer is a national hero, has his head on a coin, has appeared on postage stamps and has had one of the most prestigious violin competitions named after him.

But it was when she played Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No 1 that you were hypnotized by her playing and talent.

Spanish conductor Carlos Cuesta led the Hanoi Philharmonic in what has to be their best performance ever and Smietana went into the first movement, the Nocturne, with an intense sadness of sound that I was as emotionally moved as when I first heard the ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’ by another huge polish talent, Gorecki.

Shostakovich composed the concerto in 1947-48 in Stalin’s Russia. He had been denounced and was in constant fear of being deported to the gulags of Siberia…or hauled off in the dark of night and summarily executed….or worse…his whole family being deported to labor camps.

So you can see why the nocturne is so tense…it’s as if black floodwaters of fear were slowly spilling into every corner of his life, congealing in oily pools, reflecting eerie distortions.

Smietana gave an intelligent interpretation that sawed at your emotions. You could have heard a pin drop in the auditorium.

Shostakovich’s works were banned by the Soviet government until 1955 and in October that year the concerto was aired in Leningrad and compared by violinist David Oistrakh to a pithy, intelligent protagonist in a Shakespearian tragedy.

Alicja played the terseness and tenseness superbly and for me the darkness at the heart of the concerto was at times black fear, black blood, devilish, full of demons. At times I was on the edge of my seat, and so much with the violinist that the tears terrors and crazinesses that her violin so eloquently spoke of  were for me, alone.

As I said before, the concerto can only be fully realized with the backing of a good orchestra and the Philharmonic was suddenly that. But the Philharmonic could only realize its best under the baton of a hugely talented task master. Thank you maestro Carlos Cuesta.

Fabulous!

As I write this it’s pouring rain outside, that rain that makes Hanoi’s summer heat suddenly bearable. The skies have become evening dark  in mid afternoon. As I listen to that nocturne again I can imagine being out there in the downpour; the rain sliding down my face like tears. Tears, because of the music, for countries like Poland -or Vietnam-whose people have endured cruel and fearsome occupations.

I’m feeling so indebted to Lot Airlines for their sponsorship of this totally high class event that I’m definitely off to Poland with them later this year.