Lakeland Sinfonia Concert Society

Hong Xu’s career began at a very early age, making his orchestral concerto debut in China at just 16 years old with Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto. More recently he has made his debut at Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, given a ten-city recital tour in Germany, recorded his first CD at the Banff Centre, and appeared as soloist with the Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and the Juilliard Orchestra, under such conductors Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Roberto Minczuk and Vladimir Ashkenazy.

He has studied at the Wuhan Conservatory, the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, and The Julliard School (where he is currently on the prestigious Artist Diploma course), under teachers including Douglas Humpherys, Jerome Lowenthal and Robert McDonald. In 2008 Xu represented the Julliard School at the Beijing Cultural Olympiad. Competition successes include Third Prize the Gina Bachauer International Young Artists Competion (at the age of just 17), Second Prize at the 2004 Hilton Head International Piano Competition and the Mozart Prize at the 2005 Cleveland International Piano Competition. Xu is a Laureate of Canada’s 2006 Honens International Piano Competition.

“As a child Chinese pianist Hong Xu would do anything to avoid practicing the piano. ‘I was a rascal’, says Xu. ‘Sometimes I would watch television at the same time as I practiced and I would get a terrible pain in my neck from craning to see the screen. But my father soon caught on…he would come home and feel the top of the set to see if it was still warm!'”

With his overture to Der Freischutz (1821), Weber created the ‘pot pourri’ or compilation style. This and subsequent overtures introduced audiences to a ten minute ‘taster’ of themes from the opera that was to follow.

‘Oberon’ opens with a horn call of three rising notes that is the summons to Oberon, the Elf-King, to rescue the hero, Sir Huon. A repeat of the horn call is answered by sounds from the elfin world on muted strings, flutes and clarinets. Distant trumpets add to the colourful scene.

A tremendous crash ends this elfin reverie and the strings depict Sir Huon and Princess Reiza, as they escape by ship from her evil father, Haroun al Raschid. The elfin music reappears before Weber’s favourite instrument, the clarinet, sings the melody of Sir Huon’s love aria from Act 1. In reply, violins take up Reiza’s aria, ‘Ocean, thou mighty monster’. Other material from the opera appears, including the elfin stamping dance of Puck and Droll. The conclusion of this colourful overture is in the hands of Reiza’s aria.

Although very ill with consumption, Weber conducted the premiere of Oberon on the 12th April 1826 at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden. It proved to be his final London triumph as he died in London on June 5th.

In an article, My First Success, written later in life, Grieg recalls his ‘cunning plan’ for avoiding school:

‘The rule at school was that a student who came late would not be admitted to the class, but as a punishment had to stand outside until the end of the period. One rainy day… when I came to school entirely unprepared, I arranged so that I was not only a little late, but I stayed down the street where I positioned myself under a drainpipe where I became absolutely soaked to the skin. Even when I was finally admitted… such rivulets of water streamed from my clothes down to the floor that the teacher, for the sake of both my classmates and me, immediately sent me home for a change of clothes. Because of the long walk to my home, this was the same as excusing me from morning school. That I repeated this ruse rather often was already risky, but when I finally went so far as to arrive soaking wet when it was hardly raining, they became suspicious and sent someone to spy on me. So on one fine day, I was caught (under the drainpipe taking advantage of the remnants of overnight rain) and then I received a memorable introduction to the ‘percussion instruments’.

I Allegro moderato – no ‘percussion instruments’ feature in the piano concerto, but the famous flourish, kicked off by the timpani, sets the seal on the display aspect of the work. After covering the length of the keyboard in this opening gesture, the piano yields to the tranquil main theme, softly in the wind section at first, but then taken up by the piano. The more lyrical second theme is introduced by the ’cellos, although Grieg, on Liszt’s advice, initially thought to give it to the trumpet. Both themes are developed before an extensive cadenza heralds the end of the movement, where the opening flourish makes a final triumphal return.

II Adagio – in the central slow movement muted strings prepare the way for the piano, now in a more contemplative mood. This most lyrical movement sees the writing for the piano largely decorative and ‘brilliantly gentle’. A short-lived climax fades away as trills from the piano and gentle horn calls lead us into

III Allegro moderato molto e marcato – here the rhythms and melodies of Norwegian dance and folk-song provide the main interest but a more lyrical element is never far away and it is this latter theme that leads to a majestic ending, where ‘Liszt’s trumpets’ play a major role.

It had taken some 20 years for Brahms to get through the painful process of creating his first symphony, which he completed in 1876. The often stormy and dramatic nature of that symphony is in marked contrast to this second symphony, which, amazingly, was completed just one year later in 1877.

Here is warmth and lyricism and an apparent ease of creation, although Brahms described the work as ‘dirge-like’ and said that the players at the dress rehearsal would wear black armbands and play from music with a black border! He did have a rather strange sense of humour!

Brahms suggested to his friends that the work owed much of its charms to the Austrian resort of Pörtschach where he had chosen to spend the summer of 1877. ‘Pörtschach is an exquisite spot and I have found a lovely and apparently pleasant abode in the castle’.

I Allegro non troppo – the symphony opens in a quiet mood with a profusion of short melodic ideas that occur throughout the work. The opening four notes on the lower strings and the reply from the horns are two of the melodic gems upon which the work is built. There is a seamless quality about the writing, suggesting how relaxed Brahms was in his pastoral surroundings. A longer second theme is introduced on the upper strings and this too is based on the opening notes of the movement. There are few moments of angst and the movement ends with a ‘sigh of satisfaction and contentment’.

II Adagio non troppo – the mood continues in this wonderfully melodic music. The central section has a more marked degree of agitation but perhaps no more than a ‘brief alpine disturbance on Lake Wörth’ before tranquillity returns to end the movement.

III Allegretto grazioso (quasi Andantino) (rather light and cheerful, graceful, smooth and elegant, as if a little slowly but moving easily) – it is clear from these written instructions that Brahms did not want a boisterous scherzo-like third movement in the Beethoven tradition. What he wrote instead is a succession of light and delicate episodes where there are only a dozen or so ‘loud’ bars among a largely quiet movement that again ends in a mood of satisfaction.

IV Allegro con spirito – here Brahms starts off with the opening three notes of the symphony, quietly ‘in an undertone’. The music dribbles to a stop, Brahms bursts into ‘laughter’ and the music surges and clatters into life. There are the inevitable moments of calm lyricism but in this movement the mood generally is more ebullient. The ending has trumpets and horns exchanging fanfares while trombones blare out chords that ‘would have echoed around the lake shores and high mountains’.

Here is triumph and pleasure and here is Brahms delighting both in his surroundings and in a symphony that had taken him months rather than decades to complete.