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Vincent Mak

London Symphony Orchestra

Cultural Centre

Ended last night

Early last year, it was announced that the London Symphony Orchestra would visit Hong Kong with world-renowned conductor Colin Davis. He was later replaced by Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, another venerated maestro, who was then replaced by twentysomething Daniel Harding.

Audience enthusiasm might have waned in the meantime but Harding, a wunderkind who is quickly making a name in the west, did not disappoint.

The LSO played with the kind of ensemble alertness that marks top orchestras; their verdant tone had an easy-going attractiveness. Harding steered his 'instrument' to create an atmospheric tone picture of the sea in the opening piece, Sibelius's Oceanides.

It was followed by Sibelius' Violin Concerto, with Sayaka Shoji, who is even younger than Harding, as soloist. Her tone and intonation were sometimes wobbly and she tended to play the phrases as pulses rather than smooth singing lines, but a number of passages were delivered with great intensity.

The orchestra was supportive with some sweeping playing.

The second half had only one work: Shostakovich's Symphony No5. Harding treated it more as a symphonic work than a bitter personal statement by a creative genius trapped in Stalin's Russia.

He paced the performance brilliantly, keeping the orchestra in fine balance and lithe agility, though there was a dearth of tragic profundity. But in delicate moments, such as when the flute played desolately above the soft notes of the strings, the LSO created a fulfilling concert experience.



LSO shines through, even minus its renowned conductor