If Taiwan's National Symphony Orchestra promoted Chien Wen-pin (
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 (
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 (
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 (
Sandra Wright grew up in Taiwan and will play the 2nd Piano Concerto on Sept. 20, in a concert that includes two of Beethoven's greatest symphonies, the 5th and the 6th (Pastorale).
And in the concluding concert of the cycle, Lina Yeh (
Chien said that he planned to present all the Beethoven symphonies in their original tempos. These are invariably faster than the speeds they have traditionally been played at -- the later 19th century sought to impose a grandeur on these works at the expense of incisiveness and astringency.
"Toscanini, Rattle and Erich Kleiber used these original speeds," Chien said. "It's not a problem actually to play them this fast. The problem at this speed is with the phrasing."
Beethoven had instructed his publisher to wait for his metronome marks (indicating speeds), and these are now available for anyone to see for each movement, and sections of movements, Chien said.
As for the size of the orchestra for the concerts, it's a compromise, half way between what authenticity might demand (Beethoven sometimes was content with as few as three first violins) and the giant symphony orchestras of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For all except the choral 9th Symphony there will be some 50 musicians involved.
Commenting on musical education for instrumentalists in Taiwan, Chien said that they were often trained as if they were going to become soloists. If you were a cellist, then you believed you might be a Yo-Yo Ma, and so on. Consequently students didn't always have very realistic expectations of what a life as a professional musician might hold for them.
I asked him if he ever considered giving performances outdoors for young people, perhaps in Hsimenting. "Too much traffic, too much noise," he replied.
Other strategies are being adopted, however, to attract new audiences. One is the inclusion of other, non-musical elements.
An example of this was the involvement of the If Kids Theatre Group in an NSO "Kids Concert" next March. They and their director are well-known in Taiwan through their work in youth-oriented programs on TV.
Also representing a move in this direction is the employment of high-profile figures from the arts world to add visual and dramatic elements to the series of semi-staged operas Chien Wen-pin is planning.
Although Chien works as an opera conductor when he is in Germany, fully-fledged opera productions Taipei have tended to be the province of the Felix Chen and the Taipei Symphony Orchestra. However, Chien is soon to start a series of complete opera performances with the NSO, taking place in the National Concert Hall but with a significant degree of staging.
Earlier in the summer he presented Act 3 of Wagner's Die Walkure. But on New Year's Eve, and then on Jan. 2 of next year, the NSO will be performing Puccini's opera Tosca, complete and with a major amount of spectacle.
A prominent Taiwan performing arts figure has agreed to undertake the staging, but Chien was unwilling to name a name at present.
Seeing that Tosca involves what is in most productions a lavish church procession at the end of the first act, minimal visual effects will hardly suffice. This NSO event will therefore be awaited with eager anticipation.
And in June 2003 comes something even more extraordinary -- a production of Wagner's five-hour opera Tristan und Isolde, in similar semi-staged fashion.
This massive work, one of opera's very greatest monuments, demands enormous stamina, concentration and talent from singers and musicians alike. It is hardly surprising that at present (and this may change) it is only scheduled for a single performance.
It almost certainly represents the first time any of Wagner's mature masterpieces have been performed complete in Taiwan.
At a rehearsal earlier this week, principal flautist Anders Norell, who comes from Sweden, talked about the concert last Saturday at which the legendary Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, now 75, was the soloist.
"The concert went very well," he said, "and was sold out long in advance. Rostropovich was demanding about dynamics -- where he wanted the orchestra to play softly and where loud. He's one of the great masters in music, and naturally we did what he asked.
"The acoustics here in this rehearsal room are terrible -- it was originally intended as a ballet studio. Everything sounds much better in the concert hall. I think when the architects designed this National Concert Hall building, they thought the orchestra could rehearse on stage. But there's so much going on these days it often isn't possible. We had two rehearsals with Rostropovich, one in this room, the other on the stage the afternoon before the performance."
Chien Wen-pin has high hopes for the Beethoven cycle -- good attendances and thrilling performances. When I pointed out that the opening concert [tonight] was on a "Friday the 13th", he said "Is it really? Do you know, I hadn't noticed that!"
Details of the Open Your Beethoven Vision concerts are as follows:
Friday Sept. 13: Symphony No: 1, Piano Concerto No: 5 (Emperor; soloist: Bobby Wang), Symphony No:7.
Saturday Sept. 14: Symphony No: 2, Piano Concerto No: 4 (soloist: Meng-Chieh Liu), Symphony No: 4.
Thursday Sept. 19: Symphony No: 8, Piano Concerto No: 3 (soloist: Daming Zhu), Symphony No: 3 (Eroica).
Friday Sept. 20: Symphony No: 6 (Pastorale), Piano Concerto No: 2 (soloist: Sandra Wright), Symphony No: 5.
Friday Sept. 27: Piano Concerto No: 1 (soloist: Lina Yeh), Symphony No: 9. Soloists: Kuo Chin-huei (
All concerts are with the National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Chien Wen-pin.
For more information call (02) 2343-1647 for English-language service.
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