Pascal Roge and the Hong Kong Sinfonietta
Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall
Reviewed: May 17
The Hong Kong Sinfonietta celebrated its return from La Folle Journee au Japon in Tokyo with refreshing renditions of feisty works by Maurice Ravel and Francis Poulenc.
Part of Le French May, the concert opened with six of the orchestra's string and wood-wind players accompanying principal harpist Ann Huang in an occasionally loose- limbed performance of Ravel's Introduction and Allegro.
French pianist Pascal Roge then gave an assured, low-key and absorbing rendition of Ravel's Concerto in G Major. If he failed to bring enough sparkle to the more pungent passages, Roge worked magic in the meditative opening of the slow movement, in which he created a feathery yet captivating staccato with his left hand while the melody unfolded from his right.