I have been a classical music fan for over 40 years, pre-dating my obsession with hifi by more than 10 years. Music lingers in the mind almost more than any other sensual pleasure. It's a corner you can call your own.
Other non-music art events that I find enjoyable shall also receive some treatment in this page.
National Theater and Concert Hall (Taiwan) 國家戲劇院/國家音樂廳
Most tourist would only visit these two traditional architectures in the day, which is a pity as the site is simply magical after sunset. You can stand anywhere in the huge park, breathe in the evening air (considerably fresher than HK), luxuriate in the stillness or gaze at the skyline faraway (even the awful Taipei 101 looks better in the evening). It'd be hard not to feel a little envy.
The interior is another matter. Some of it reflects the polyglot influence, but others are just simply gaudy. Mo matter, it's still much more of an oasis than our own venues.
If you love music, you should try to attend one of the events here. The Concert Hall is famed for its acoustics. You can hear a pin drop onstage. This doesn't mean it's perfect; my composer friend said musicians have to learn to damp their sound a little here or else there'd be a runaway feeling. And it'd be better to sit further from the stage or upstairs in case of a full orchestra. Admire the organ here while you're there.
GRAMOPHONE: Now FREE on line almost in its ENTIRETY
The UK classical music magazine GRAMOPHONE, certainly by far the longest-living magazine of its class (continuously published since 1923), and an industry benchmark, has in recent years made much of its content available online, but not to the extent now.
Gramophone has recently revamped its interface, and now, after a short registration, you can read almost the ENTIRE magazine archive/back issues, except for the most recent 2 issues!
"...The Gramophone Archive has been created using a process called Optical Character Recognition (OCR). Optical Character Recognition allows a computer to 'read' scanned versions of original magazine pages...". This means (by using Acrobat) you can read the magazine page by page. For those of you with fast computers this is a breeze, but for me it's a little cumbersome. However, isn't it "great" we live in this world of free newspapers and magazines?
The text will not always be read completely accurately, but most of it is. Of course, you can still search the vast archive for whatever you like, and it's a great source of information.
Sometimes we (including me) criticize these magazines (like we do hifi magazines) for praising too much and criticizing too little, particularly regarding all things English. However, careful perusal shows they criticize as many recordings, and damn even more with faint praise. Read it for a while, compare it with your own experience and you shall find critics that you share similar taste with, and know who not to rely on. For myself, I particularly enjoy Rob Cowan's brief surveys of historical re-issues.
What is undeniable is that the magazine is a great source of information and full of talented writers who have spent their entire lives listening to music. Yes, for a salary, but also for the love of it. Use it wisely and you shall learn a lot from it.
There are a lot of young firebrands now who claim the magazines are good for nothing, and "objective" stuff is ONLY available on the internet. There is a kernel of truth in that, but the proposition is unfortunately one flawed in logic and even perilous. Writers and Editors are not paid for nothing. If someone cannot even write decent English, or Chinese or whatever language for that matter, would you like to read their stuff in the first place? Come on, just because it's free? Read some of the writing, and you shall realize the mediocrity of most of what passes for music reviews in our Chinese hifi magazines and internet.
And how does the uninitiated sift out the bad from the good, in the vast sea that is the internet? One cannot achieve that without considerable experience. There's no short-cut, no substitute for experience. In hifi, I have seen by far too many young people researching on the net what's the "best" in this and that. But how do they choose who to trust and who not to? And just what do they end up with? I can tell you, usually nothing good. Same with classical music. You have to pay your dues. How much is up to your hearing abilities, but pay you must. The collective experience is not a personal experience.
There are good internet magazines and even more bad ones, but it'd be hard to get up to the level of the Gramophone, not to mention the American Record Guide for that matter. Maybe a survey is due in the future.
My journey to the SSO concerts, with its many hiccups, some exasperating and others just hilarious, is an odyssey. First, I shall try to help you navigate through the quagmire that is SSO, for this is an orchestra that you should pay attention to!
The SSO is I think run by the government, not itself, and there lies the big divide. The administrators, including the webpage designers, just don’t know what they are doing. On the net you can find many blogs and posts by ex-musicians, expatriates who got exasperated by the bureaucracy. Looking at the musician list you will find only a handful of expatriates now. In particular, I miss the fabulous Russian cellist Artem
Konstantinov, who was principal cellist. Visit the website as a rough guide but DON’T believe everything you read! View in particular the concert schedule.
The 2008-2010 seasons have fortunately been sponsored by 交通銀行, which, together with the appointment of German conductor Christian Ehwald as Artistic Director, shall hopefully inject some stability into the organization. I first noticed this not from the website, but from a flyer issued by the bank which I picked up at 大劇院.
Please note 深圳大劇院音樂廳 and深圳音樂廳 are DIFFERENT venues!!!
(A) 深圳大劇院音樂廳
This is obviously part of the older 深圳大劇院, which, like some of our venues, has an opera house as well as a concert hall. It is in Lo Wu district, easily reached by taking the MTR to 大劇院 stop. It is close to the Lo Wu BookCity. The concert I am about to report was played here. The official website.
(B) 深圳音樂廳
(Shenzhen Concert Hall) is a much newer and outwardly chic venue, located in Futian district, in a complex that also contains the architecturally matched SZ Central Library and nearby Central Book City. It can be reached by taking the MTR to 少年宮 stop. The location is closer to Huanggang and Lok Ma Chau checkpoints than to Lo Wu. From the Lok Ma Chau checkpoint (can be reached on the HK side by MTR as well as KMB B1) you can get into the SZ MTR directly right after customs and not get on to the street until you have reached destination! The venue also hosts many visiting orchestras. Coming up are the Asian Youth Orchestra (same programs as HK), the Helsinki (with the excellent Okko Kamu!), to mention only two. Visit the website.
Now, to my odyssey.
Back a few months ago, before I got organized on the web, I only occasionally physically visited (when I visited the Lo Wu Book City) the 大劇院 for concert information and to pick up the good Shenzhen ARTMAP (published by the HK organization). This is really not that efficient nor reliable. I noticed a concert flyer and the Russian female cellist soloist caught my attention. But when I inquired they said “sorry, cancelled” even though the flyers were still out there. You can also see from a previous link that cancellation is rather common here! Here I issue
Advisory 1: For the SSO, don’t get tickets early to avoid cancellations.
The 交通銀行 sponsorship is a more recent thing, and it was only recently that I picked up the flyer. The flyer is almost exactly like this webpage。
At that time, I became interested in the 3 concerts of Ehwald, 11/7, 18/7 and 25/7. On the flyer, for ALL 3 concerts, the venue is listed as深圳音樂廳. I inquired at the box office of 大劇院 on 2 separate occasions and was told either “No information” (first time, earlier on) or “No tickets for sale, possibly internal event!” (second time, only 2-3 weeks ago!). When I came back to HK, I was stunned to see on the website that the venue is listed as深圳大劇院音樂廳 instead!!! Finally I visited深圳音樂廳 2 weeks ago and got the ticket for 18/7, indeed held at 深圳大劇院音樂廳.
Then, for the concert of 25/7, which I was interested in: The venue column on the SSO webpage was perilously left blank. But the concert hall webpage was more confident:
Since I trust the concert hall webpage more than ANYTHING from the administration of the SSO, I took it that the concert would be held at 深圳音樂廳. Here I issue
Advisory 2: As with many things in SZ, things change quickly. So, for SSO concerts, it is a MUST to (i) check out all the web info you can get and (ii) crosscheck info on all sites, keeping in mind that (iii) SSO webpage is the least reliable.
Finally I attended the concert of 18/7at 深圳大劇院. I couldn’t believe it, it was finally happening!!! However…not before some more hiccups. On that night, I noticed people outside the venue trying to buy as well as sell tickets, and it was sold out! More likely, tickets were given out by the bank to their VIP customers (said so on the flyer; there’s a hotline for such customers). I got there early, and the ticket window was mobbed (“Sound of Music” was playing at the theater). I wanted to buy the ticket for 25/7. The young lady said “Sure, available” and then ran into problems at the computer. Many minutes passed before another lady said “Tickets not sold here”. I was getting mad but walked away to cool off. Then I returned and asked another lady who told me they stopped selling tickets for the event because the ticket itself could not be printed properly on their machine. Apparently, unlike HK, tickets themselves are not unified. Organizations/venues supply their own tickets to be printed on the machine. That’s my understanding, or do I actually understand??? Here I issue:
Advisory 3: For certain popular SSO events (use your judgement), don’t buy tickets last minute either. Might be sold out! I know I know…
Advisory 4: It’s OK to buy tickets at the深圳音樂廳, but try to avoid the box office of the 深圳大劇院, for obvious reasons.
There are internet options as well as SZ local delivery hotline, but I haven’t tried them.
National Theater and Concert Hall (Taiwan) 國家戲劇院/國家音樂廳
If you love music, you should try to attend one of the events here. The Concert Hall is famed for its acoustics. You can hear a pin drop onstage. This doesn't mean it's perfect; my composer friend said musicians have to learn to damp their sound a little here or else there'd be a runaway feeling. And it'd be better to sit further from the stage or upstairs in case of a full orchestra. Admire the organ here while you're there.
