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Jaap van Zweden with the HK Phil. Photos: Cheung Chi Wai, Bert Hulselmans

Arts preview: Jaap’s Gran Partita matches Mozart with Shostakovich

Sam Olluver

Sam Olluver

 

Sweet and sour isn't just an appealing combo in the kitchen, as this concert is out to prove. Conducted by Jaap van Zweden, the HK Phil's music director, the programme juxtaposes two works from different centuries, countries, and corners of the heart.

The occasion also gives the orchestra's wind and string sections an opportunity to strut their stuff as individual departments.

Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony is scored for strings only, while Mozart's Serenade in B flat major, which is more often referred to as , requires just 12 wind instruments, along with a double bass.

It is cast in the mould of an 18th-century serenade, a term denoting light music to be played outdoors in the evening. But Mozart's work transcends this definition, and its chamber-sized resources disguise the weightiness of its place in his catalogue: it is his longest instrumental work, taking some 50 minutes to perform.

Of the seven movements, the third found instant celebrity when it featured in the soundtrack to the film of Peter Shaffer's play . On hearing the oboe solo, Mozart's rival Antonio Salieri declares: "This was a music I'd never heard. It seemed to me that I was hearing the very voice of God."

A different sort of voice haunts Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony, Rudolf Barshai's rescoring for string orchestra of the 20th-century Russian composer's String Quartet No 8.

Shostakovich spent all his artistic life ducking and weaving in the face of Stalin's totalitarian Soviet regime, sometimes kicking against the pricks by subtly stirring abusive thematic material into his scores. His String Quartet No 8 is dedicated to the victims of fascism and war.

It's also autobiographical in that the composer uses a cryptogram of letters from his name threaded throughout the piece, identifying personal scars inflicted by the era's tragic events. Shostakovich planned to commit suicide after completing the work.

With the benefit of this hindsight, audiences today usually emerge from a performance of the Chamber Symphony emotionally drained.

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City Hall Concert Hall, 5 Edinburgh Place, Central, March 28 and 29, 8pm, HK$160-HK$480 Urbtix. Inquiries: 2721 2030

 

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: A tale of two centuries
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