This is live music-making of the very best kind. Inevitably there are clicks and clunks here and there -- someone's score falling off the music stand, perhaps -- that wouldn't be heard in the concert hall but are unfortunately magnified by on-stage microphones. And there are moments of playing that a soloist might want to re-record in a studio version. But what you get in recompense is the incomparable feeling of a live performance.
These are CDs to be treasured by anyone who loves music and loves Taiwan. The concert ends with Joe Che-Yi Lee's Formosa Caprice, a five minute melodic rhapsody that, you sense, meant a lot to Mazer, with its strong sense -- simultaneously pastoral and patriotic, Western and Chinese -- of the island he made his home for 17 years.
Mazer worked in Taiwan from 1985, having previously been Associate Conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the famous George Solti. He never regretted his decision to come here and nurture the Taipei Sinfonietta (the smaller version of the Philharmonic). "This wonderful island has given me the best musical experience of my life," he once said.
There are other recordings privately made by local orchestras. The Taipei Symphony Orchestra, for instance, under their musical director Felix Chiu-Sen Chen, not long ago released an excellent version of Brahms' Symphony No. 1. The Taiwanese don't always realize just how good their local classical musicians are. One way of finding out would be to listen to this CD.
In other contexts it seems as if the essence of the Taiwanese soul is pure kitsch. But this is not at all the feeling these CDs give. And of course the Taiwanese classical music world as a whole is something very different.
In conclusion, I enjoyed these recordings of Mazer's as much as anything I've heard for a long time. Taiwanese people sometimes express an unwillingness to believe they can do things as well as Westerners. It's a view that's usually totally misplaced, and very often the exact opposite of the truth. But maybe this characteristic modesty of the Taiwanese is part of what so enamored an illustrious conductor to this ever-surprising island and its altogether exceptional people.
For details of how to obtain these CDs, contact the Taipei Sinfonietta & Philharmonic Orchestra at tel (02) 2397-0979, fax (02) 2395-1124, or visit their Web site at http://www.tspo.org.tw.
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