This is set to be a Russian weekend in Taiwan’s classical music world. The young winner of last year’s International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition, Russian pianist Yulianna Avdeeva, plays tomorrow night in Taipei and on Monday night in Kaohsiung, while on Sunday afternoon the National Symphony Orchestra is staging a major concert entitled Red Russia that will consist mostly of works by Shostakovich.
There was some controversy in Warsaw when a jury of celebrity pianists including Martha Argerich and Fou Ts’ong (傅聰) chose the 25-year-old Avdeeva as the winner. Reviewers of her concerts have subsequently found her strong on aggression and less strong on sentiment, though always technically in the very highest class. This weekend audiences here will have a chance to judge for themselves.
She’ll play the same all-Chopin program in both concerts. They’re the works that she played in Warsaw too, so any assessment audiences give the young winner will be even more closely focused. It’s a substantial selection that includes four mazurkas, three nocturnes, a scherzo, the taxing Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor, Op. 35, the Fantasie in F Minor and the Polonaise-Fantasie Op. 61. And there’ll certainly be encores.
Photo: Reuters and courtesy of NSO
Prices aren’t cheap — tickets cost NT$700 up to NT$3,000 and more. But the promoter, New Aspect, is clearly anticipating considerable interest in both cities.
Taiwan’s National Symphony Orchestra has brought off a brilliant coup in arranging to perform Shostakovich’s Eleventh Symphony on Sunday. The symphony is entitled “The Year 1905,” and it was on Jan. 9 that year (according to the Julian calendar, then still in use in Russia) that crowds marched to the Tzar’s Winter Palace in St Petersburg to demand reform, and were shot at by troops. It was a Sunday, and the date this Sunday is also Jan. 9.
Shostakovich’s political position has recently been the subject of intense and inconclusive debate, but there’s little doubt as to where the Eleventh Symphony stands. In addition to its unambiguous title, it contains the music of nine revolutionary songs and its second movement is a direct pictorial evocation of the events of that “Bloody Sunday” — stark outbursts of drumming to imitate the gunfire, and so on.
Because of its political and historical nature this symphony is considered uniquely accessible, and though some critics have found this a shortcoming, most see its poster-art style as ideally suited to its subject matter. The whole concert is being conducted by Russian-Italian Oleg Caetani, the conductor responsible, together with Milan’s Verdi Orchestra, for recording Italy’s first ever Shostakovich symphony cycle.
The hour-long symphony is preceded by Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Minor. This could hardly be more different — packed with parody, comic in places, and almost everywhere youthful and high-spirited. In addition to the solo piano there’s also a solo trumpet, and in Taipei on Sunday these instruments will be played by the conductor’s wife, Susan Stefani Caetani, and German trumpeter Reinhold Friedrich, respectively.
Presumably because it’s inappropriate to bring such a celebrated trumpeter all this way merely to play a supporting role to a pianist, the concert begins with Haydn’s innovative Trumpet Concerto in E-flat Major, otherwise slightly out of place in a program largely devoted to 20th-century Russian music.
This looks like being a magnificent event and, considering the prices for Avdeeva, something of a bargain as well.
Yulianna Avdeeva plays at Taipei’s National Concert Hall tomorrow evening and at Kaohsiung’s Chih-teh Hall (高雄市文化中心至德堂), 67 Wufu 1st Rd, Kaohsiung City (高雄市五福一路67號) on Monday. Both concerts begin at 7:30pm. As of press time, the remaining tickets cost from NT$2,000 to NT$3,600 (Taipei) and NT$1,300 to NT$3,000 (Kaohsiung), available from ArtsTicket: www.artsticket.com.tw (02) 3393-9888 (Taipei) and (07) 226-5998 (Kaohsiung).
The National Symphony Orchestra’s Red Russia concert takes place on Sunday at the National Concert Hall, Taipei, beginning at 2:30pm. Tickets are from NT$400 to NT$1,500, available through NTCH ticketing or online at www.artsticket.com.tw, or by calling (02) 3393-9888.
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