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[THE WEEKENDER]: Philharmonic, ESO hit the right notes

Bach's tender and scintillating B Minor Mass, one of the greatest monuments in world music, had never been heard live in Taiwan before Saturday night (in Taipei's National Concert Hall). The event turned out to be pure joy, a performance in a thousand. Helmuth Rilling coaxed a nimble, piquant period style from the Evergreen Symphony Orchestra, youthful as ever and dominated by female instrumentalists - even two of its three trumpeters were women.

The experience was delightful at every point, with the much-loved obligato solos for oboe, bassoon, trumpet and horn all flawlessly rendered. Only the Et in Spiritum Sanctum seemed a touch fast, making it hard to relish bass Liao Chong-boon's many vivificantens. This number should ideally wind its way at moderate pace through sunlit glades of pure pleasure.

The strong and disciplined Taipei Philharmonic Chorus was uniformly fine, rising to the great moments such as the twin Osanna in Excelsis outbursts when it bounded heavenwards with incomparable elan and brio. Never had this music sounded so joyous.

Stylistically this marvelous event couldn't have been improved on. There was no inappropriate pomp or melodrama, but instead a kind of sprung rhythm, with subtle changes of tempo within the numbers that was intensely enjoyable. Mezzo Anja Schlosser was superb in the Laudamus te (supported by Bach's slithering accompaniment), tenor Teng Chi-long gave us a serene Benedictus, while the beauty of soprano Lee Pei-ying's voice was everywhere apparent. Much effort had gone into this event, from among others the Taipei German Cultural Center's indefatigable director, Jurgen Gerbig.

Bach didn't live to hear his great masterpiece. By contrast, we were so lucky!

Also on Saturday, at the Taipei International Conference Center, Nanta (Cookin) took the stage to a packed audience of mostly parents and children, who cheered as performers banged, bashed and clanked all manner of kitchen utensils.

Billed as South Korea's most popular stage show, the kitchen shenanigans, audience participation and rambunctious pratfalls had the audience roaring with laughter throughout the show.

DANCING with CLOUDS

Cloud Gate 2 has always suffered in comparison to its older sibling, as younger brothers and sisters are wont to do. CG2 is not Cloud Gate Dancer Theatre (雲門舞集) but it shouldn't be expected to be. The dancers are different (read younger), they have not had the same training regime, and the choreography they work with is different.

However, CG2 looked better than they ever have last Wednesday night as the company opened its spring tour at Taipei's Novel Hall. The dancers' technique has improved, they looked tighter as a group and they met the challenges presented by the four pieces on the program very well.

That being said, there is still room for improvement, especially in the second piece, Change (變), by Cheng Tsung-lung (鄭宗龍). Change is a beautiful, complicated work, Cheng's best so far. But it is an edgy piece, and while a few of the dancers shone, the company as a whole lacked the crispness needed to really nail the piece.

The knockout of the evening was 25-year old Huang Yi's (黃翊) Body, Sound (身音). He had reworked the piece since I saw it at the press rehearsal two weeks ago, changing the order of the solos, and it was much better for it.

Body, Sound begins quietly, with Chen Li-ya (陳麗雅) moving to a soundscape of creaks, beeps, metallic rattles and other sounds that are hard to identify - until the later solos when Yang Yu-teh's (楊妤德) magnificent costumes come into play and you realize that the soundscape was created by the sounds the different costumes make.

The one drawback was the lighting. I know Huang likes video-work and playing with technology, but the different floor grids projected onto the stage were distracting and sometimes the overall lighting left the dancers shrouded in shadows. This is such a wonderful piece that the audience deserves to see every move, every twitch and every bit of the costumes.

The 10 dancers who perform in Lin Hwai-min's (林懷民) finale should be proud of their work. It is a test of stamina and breath, and they met the challenge ably and will be stronger dancers in the future as a result. The company starts its three-city tour in Taichung on April 11 before moving onto Hsinchu and then Kaohsiung the following weekends.
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