Concert Review: Hong Kong Philharmonic-Ainars RubikisSeptember 17, 2011, CCCH
Hong Kong Philharmonic-Ainars Rubikis-HKPO
Honegger-Haydn-Dvorak
Whether Edo de Waart is a great conductor is controversial. If you ask me, he is a good conductor, but over-hyped (only in HK) and not at all a great one. He has been promoted as an "orchestral trainer", but judging from the performance of HKPO in this concert (the playing of the Renes concert was not great either, mind you), that is an even greater fallacy. Would an "improved and trained" orchestra struggle so hard technically in the Honegger Pacific 231? The piece lost all of its brilliance.
Despite the lacklustre strings, Haydn Symphony 103, the Drum Roll, fared much better, better in fact than the Jupiter a week ago. Young, and very boyish looking, Ainars Rubikis has the full measure of this symphony, gave it good shape and managed some good pin-point turns, but overall this was not as much fun as the work Ton Koopman, not to mention Nicholas McGegan, did in similar repertoire.
Dvorak Symphony 7 was given a most "symphonic" reading, tight and at times exciting, but the reading lacked the genial and natural feeling, as well as perfect playing that Lu Jia achieved previously.
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