Private orchestras, almost by definition, enter into arrangements with private companies, including prominent financial ones. And so it is that next Friday the Evergreen Symphony Orchestra (ESO) is presenting a Yuanta Financial Holdings VIP Night entitled Dance With Johann Strauss. Most tickets are for sale to the public, however, with discounts including 50 percent off for students.
The program is much more interesting that it might seem at first sight. “Dance With Johann Strauss” suggests an endless progression of waltzes, but ESO music director Gernot Schmalfuss is not one to be satisfied with that, and he has in fact devised what looks like a rather interesting evening’s entertainment.
His key move has been to engage the services of two young Taiwanese wind instrumentalists, giving one of them a complete concerto to play, and the other two substantial movements. There’ll also be a popular orchestral suite, and finally, for incurable addicts of Viennese waltzes, a string of these to wind up proceedings.
Photo courtesy of ESO
The first of the items for wind soloists is Jan Koetsier’s Tuba Concerto. Koetsier was a Dutch composer and musician — he died in 2006. His tuba concerto will offer a chance to experience a sonorous and orotund instrument too rarely thrown into prominence in a solo role. The soloist is prize-winning tuba player Tsai Meng-hsin (蔡孟昕).
The other piece profiling a wind instrumentalist is Weber’s Andante e Rondo Ungarese (Hungarian andante and rondo), to be played by bassoonist Hsu Chia-hua (許家華). This item was originally written for violin but was adapted for the bassoon in 1813. It consists of a slow theme with three contrasting variations, followed by a skittish and frequently rather difficult rondo.
But before either of these we’ll hear from another, and much more interesting, Strauss, Richard. His most popular opera, Der Rosenkavalier (The Knight of the Rose), was presented in Taipei to great acclaim in 2007. Strauss made two orchestral suites out of its melodies, and the ESO will be playing the first of them.
Rosenkavalier was a pioneering mix of late 18th-century elegance, modernist orchestral effects and 19th-century Viennese waltzes. The result became the last of the European grand operas.
The concert begins, however, with Franz von Suppe’s light-hearted Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna and the second half opens with the same composer’s Pique Dame Overture. A selection of Johann Strauss’ well-known waltzes ends the evening.
The Evergreen musicians are always a delight to hear, and next Friday’s colorful and easily digestible program should prove no exception.
ESO plays at the National Concert Hall, Taipei, on Jan. 21 beginning at 7:30pm. Tickets are NT$500 to NT$1,500, with discounts available, including 50 percent off for students. Some details are available at www.evergreensymphony.org, or call the ESO directly on (02) 2351-6799. For reservations go to www.ntch.edu.tw or call (02) 3393-9888.
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