Taiwan Philharmonic Performs at Lincoln Center

Details

Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Tuesday, 23 May 2023 14:43

Written by Jack Angstreich

Photo by Tey Tat Keng

At David Geffen Hall on the evening of Friday, April 21st, I had the pleasure of attending a wonderful concert—which was presented by the New York Philharmonic—featuring the admirable musicians of the Taiwan Philharmonic, The National Symphony Orchestra, under the estimable direction of Jun Märkl.

The program began promisingly with a thrilling rendition of contemporary Taiwanese composer Ke-Chia Chen’s compelling—indeed exciting and dramatic—and impressively orchestrated Ebbs and Flows, heard here in its New York premiere. Chen said the following about the work:

While composing Ebbs and Flows for the Taiwan Philharmonic’s 2023 United States tour, led by Maestro Jun Märkl, I kept asking myself one question: what theme speaks to people around the world and to the people of Taiwan? Growing up in Taiwan, an island nation surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, and now living in the United States, with the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean bordering its coasts, the beauty and wonder of the ocean came to the fore.

The massive ocean provides, inspires, and sustains. Seeing waves crash against the white sands of a beach or a rocky shore is a spectacular sight to behold. It makes one think of its enormous strength as it cycles endlessly. When humans come into the scene and harness this massive force through marine transport, exploration, and fisheries, to name a few, its wonder comes even more into focus.

I conceived Ebbs and Flows with this mind, casting the orchestra as a massive body of water, like the ocean. I utilized different sound sources from the orchestra to depict the ocean’s wonders and treasures. Furthermore, like a symphonic documentary, it tells stories of people’s lives — fishermen, sailors, and seamen — stories that have been passed down among families and cultures from generation to generation.

The ocean ebbs and flows throughout the Earth and throughout human history, at times peaceful and calm and other times an uncontrollable raging force. This composition, in its development, reflects the ebbs and flows of both the ocean and our humanity. The water nurtures the world; the music feeds a wandering soul! The piece is co-commissioned by the Taiwan Philharmonic, Washington Performing Arts, and Muzik3 Foundation, Inc.

She entered the stage to receive the audience’s acclaim.

The remarkable soloist, Paul Huang, then joined the musicians for an accomplished performance of Max Bruch’s enjoyable Scottish Fantasy for Violin and Orchestra. The Prelude to the first movement is passionate and Romantic while its main body—marked Adagio cantabile—is even more lyrical. In the lively Allegro that follows, the folk element is even more pronounced, while the Andante sostenuto is more directly expressive, even sentimental, and the Finale is rousing, but with more inward passages. The violinist rewarded the audience’s enthusiastic applause with a dazzlingly virtuosic encore: John Corigliano’s The Red Violin Caprices.

The second half of the program was even better, opening with an excellent account of Felix Mendelssohn’s magnificent The Hebrides Overture. Equally successful, was a laudable reading of Claude Debussy’s astonishing La Mer. In the first movement, titled “From Dawn till Noon on the Sea,” one can especially discern the influence of East Asian music; it closes majestically. The ensuing “The Play of the Waves” is more suspenseful and propulsive, and the closing movement, “Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea,” is the most dynamic and turbulent of the three. The artists garnered a standing ovation which elicited another delightful encore: The Angel from Formosa by the modern Taiwanese composer, Tyzen Hsiao. One hopes that these fine musicians will return to the New York stages before long.

• < Prev
• Next >