Phil triumphs over aural challenge
City Hall is an aural two-edged sword. When an orchestra sounds good, it sounds very good. With slightest sloppiness, it sounds horrid.
For the most part, the Phil sounded terrific in their all-French programme last week. After all, Serge Baudo is one of the great Gallic conductors of our day. Without idiosyncrasy, with the lightest touch, he makes his composers speak with the greatest eloquence. But French music, like French painting, is best outside of the grand Germanic climax.
Both the Debussy Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn and Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique have moments of the spider-web filigree, and when a single instrument goes wrong, one almost shudders.
The Debussy opening revealed that infinitesimal sloppiness in the first measures, which would have gone unnoticed in the Cultural Centre, but here was too evident. Fortunately, it was forgotten with a beautifully structured flute solo by Andrew Nicholson. The rest of the work had the cool clarity of Baudo. His control of the languorous climax was positive and grand.
The last-minute substitute soloist for Ravel's G Major Concerto was the distinguished Anne Queffelec. Since winning the 1969 Leeds Piano Competition, she has excelled. Not like her countryman, Serge Baudo, entirely with French music, but the most endearing Liszt.
Her playing of the Ravel was light, elegant, never too fast, but with a silken tone. Yet this is a jazzy concerto , and one could have gone for some pizzazz in the opening and closing movements. The adagio assai was more Mozartean than I have ever heard it, with sensitive articulation by Queffelec.
The last two movements of the Berlioz are foolproof. But Baudo, with his grasp of the underlying rhythms of the first three movements (and fine solo winds) gave the appropriate nudges, trajectories and sudden violence to make them memorably alive. Hong Kong Philharmonic, Anne Queffelec, pianist, Serge Baudo, conductor. City Hall Concert Hall, January 31
