Anastasia Kobekina Alexander Malofeev Gabor Takacs-Nagy Verbier AYO

4 Brief Concert Reviews

These concerts happened quite a while ago, and were not written up due to various reasons on my part. As they have lost any possible timely relevance, these comments are capsular in nature.

March 1, Shenzhen Concert Hall
SZSO - Lin Daye - Gorini
Beethoven - Mahler

Concert opened with a competent Beethoven PC5 with soloist Fillipo Gorini, who played in a refined manner, yet was ultimately quite bland and failing in probing the Beethovenian spirit.

Given their previous decent performance of Mahler, I was eager to hear the Mahler 1st, but it proved somewhat fragmented and earthbound. The playing was not on par with their recent very good Mahler 3rd.

March 28, Shenzhen Concert Hall
Olivier Latry organ Recital

Programme comprised Guilmant, Liszt,Bach, Saint-Saens (le Carnaval des animaux), Vierne, Dupre, Alain, Guillou, and some improvisation.

Latry is an excellent organist but I could not enjoy the concert. From my seat higher up, deep bass was sorely lacking and that's a deep no no for an organ recital. I was surprised, as similar seating position at the HK CCCH has good bass.

March 29, Shenzhen Concert Hall
Verbier Festival Orchestra - Takacs-Nagy - Bouchkov - Kobekina - Malofeev
Ysaye - Tchaikovsky - Saint-Saens - Beethoven

This was a highly unusual concert, as it featured not one, but three! concerti in the first half, and the soloists were uniformly excellent.

The Ysaye Violin Concerto featured Marc Bouchkov, who played superbly and was totally under the skin of this still rarely performed concerto.

While Ysaye may be too cerebral for some (like me), Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations is certainly much more accessible. Yet this is not an easy piece to bring off, even on record. That, Anastasia Kobekina certainly did, with aplomb! She was every bit as wonderful as on her marvelous Sony albums.

As if that were not enough, then came Saint-Saens PC2 played by none other than Alexander Malofeev, who had been praised here before. Needless to say, the pianism was pristine, but I'd have preferred a little more romantic ardor from both the soloist and the orchestra,

On records I'm a great admirer of Gabor Takacs-Nagy (especially his pulsating Mozart). He and the Verbier Orchestra has also recorded a decent Beethoven cycle (DG). On this occasion, the Beethoven 7
has all his trademark litheness but was not entirely satisfactory. Most of all, this touring iteration of the Verbier Orchestra does not seem to be quite at the same level as on recordings. As an example, the woodwinds and brass are only good to very good in my book, not exceptional.

August 3, 2024, CH
Asian Youth Orchestra - Jader Bignamini
Gershwin - Bernstein - Respighi - Mussorgsky

It's been a while since I attended an AYO concert. I chose Program B, which featured American conductor Jader Bignamini.

Gershwin's Porgy and Bess Suite and Bernstein's West Side Story Symphonic Dances were very well played, but lacked the last degree of lift.

Most surprising was a cogent Respighi Pines of Rome. This piece is not a fav of mine, but this atmospheric performance was as good as any I have heard! In particular, I actually reveled in the majesty of the Appian Way. Great!

Unusually, this was followed by another blockbuster, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. The performance was fine but lacked the distinction the Respighi had.

It's a miracle the AYO has held on since founder Pontzious passed on. Although the current musical directors are much less known than before (likes of Commisiona, James Judd etc), they seem to soldier on. The musician standards remain very high