Beethoven heralds NSO triumph

If Taiwan's National Symphony Orchestra promoted Chien Wen-pin (簡文彬) -- its music director and regular conductor -- like a pop star they would get full houses wherever he performed. With a few well-chosen appearances on youth-oriented chat shows and the like, the fashionable and romantically-minded young would be battering on the doors of the National Concert Hall to let them in.

At 34, Chien is simultaneously charismatic and one of the most gifted Taiwanese musicians of his generation. After graduating from the National Academy of Arts in piano "summa cum laude" at the age of 20, he went on to learn German in a month, and then take the highest honors in his Master's (in conducting) at the National University for Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna.

He then moved into opera, first with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, then at one of Germany's biggest opera houses (one of the top five) in Dusseldorf. Last year he was asked to take charge of Taiwan's flagship orchestra, the National Symphony (NSO). He now divides his time between opera in Dusseldorf, and concert conducting here in Taiwan.

He says that this month's Taipei cycle of all Beethoven's symphonies and all his piano concertos has been one of his dreams for many years.

"In their 15 years the NSO has never played a full cycle like this," he says. "And if you know all nine Beethoven symphonies, then you know just about all there is to know about orchestral playing."

Beethoven wrote five piano concertos and nine symphonies. Entitled Open Your Beethoven Vision, the five Taipei concerts will mostly feature one piano concerto and two symphonies. The exception is the last concert which, after the 1st Piano Concerto, will be devoted solely to the massive 9th Symphony.

"My original idea was to use the same pianist for all five concertos," Chien said. "It would have been a big undertaking, and in the end I decided to use a different pianist for each one."

The programming has been astutely done by the National Concert Hall authorities, he said. The second concert, including the little-loved 2nd and 4th symphonies, might have been a hard one to sell. But by combining these with the widely popular 4th Piano Concerto, and selecting Kaohsiung-born pianist Liu Meng-Chieh (劉孟捷), currently at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, to play it, they have scored a hit. The event, which takes place tomorrow night, is already almost sold out.

In addition, a subscription scheme has been put in place inviting patrons to buy tickets for all five concerts as a set, and at a reduced rate. Some 200 seats have been sold on this basis, and an expanded subscription scheme is now planned for the 2003-2004 season.

The other pianists are equally charismatic. Bobby Wang (王青雲), who opens the series tonight with the 5th (Emperor) Piano Concerto, was born in Beijing, raised in the Philippines, and now lives in Taiwan. As well as piano, he plays the violin, viola and saxophone.

The Beethoven symphonies in tonight's opening concert are the 1st, and then, after the piano concerto, the 7th. This last work was said by Wagner to be music fit for "Dionysian rites," by which he probably meant orgies.

Zhu Daming (諸大明) is a very famous Beethoven interpreter in Taiwan, Chien said, and had recently performed all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas. He'll play the 3rd Piano Concerto on Sept. 19.