A mature Sino-Austrian symbiosis -- Shao-Chia Lü with the Taiwan Philharmonic and Bruckner's Fourth Symphony

Shao-Chia Lü (呂紹嘉), a Taiwanese conductor graduated from the Hochschule für Musik Wien with excellence in 1991, has won the International Kiril Kondrashin Competition for conductors, International Besançon Competition for Young Conductors (both first prize and Lyre d'Or award) and the Pedrotti International Competition for Orchestra Conductors. After having worked for more than 10 years in Europe, he became the Music Director of the Taiwan Philharmonic, also known as the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO), in 2010. A highly gifted musician, he has made many concerts with the NSO to great acclaim. He was featured in a previous NSO Live CD, recorded even before he was the Music Director of the NSO. The present 2-CD is his second in this series. Disc 1 includes Bruckner's Symphony No. 4, and Disc 2 contains The Swan of Tuonela by Sibelius and Pelléas and Mélisande by Schoenberg.

The Bruckner was recorded live at the National Concert Hall, Taipei on 25 September 2010, while the other 2 were recorded live in 2011. The conductor-orchestra rapport was so mature in the Bruckner concert that it come as a total surprise, at least to me, that it was only his second concert as Music Director with the NSO.

As you can see from the pictures below, the packaging is a lavish display of care and love, and it is not just skin-deep. The liner notes, attached to the inside front cover and of 23 pages, are what one would expect from a conscientious release. Bibliographies and essays are bilingual, in Chinese and English. What warms my heart is that the programme notes in Chinese are not mere translated copies of those in English, or vice versa. The English essays make use of Georg Tintner's notes from Naxos, while the Chinese ones are written by Prof. Lu-Fen Yen (顏綠芬), Professor of Musicology in the Taipei National University of the Arts. Even the recording equipment and monitors are listed at the end.

The beautiful cover with an attached bilingual flyer

The add-on bilingual back cover

The original front and back cover in English

The attached liner notes on the left and the inner cover for the CD trays on the right

The package fully opened showing the 2 CDs

How about the performance then? My simple answer is: every doubt, every incertitude, every misgiving about a Chinese orchestra led by a Chinese conductor in a Bruckner symphony is answered admirably in this performance by Lü and the NSO.

The music unfolds naturally with nifty phrasings and subtle nuances, but the wood is not missed for the trees. The long span of the structure is evident as Lü always shows a clear sense of direction, for example from the Hauptthema to the Coda in the first movement. Tempo relationships are finely balanced. The second movement, Andante quasi allegretto, is simply lovely. The cellos play with such cantabile that melts my heart. The flutes are like angels. The hunting Scherzo is fittingly lively and rhythmic. Lü's fine control and the orchestra's ensemble might are clearly shown in the crescendo and even subito passages in the Finale. When the symphony comes to its end, it finishes gloriously.  

The only minor problem is the recorded sound: the lower frequencies are lightweight. Thus in general the strings lack the body while the lower strings in particular lack the weight and darkness of many Austro-German orchestras. But the transparency of each instrumental group is a joy to listen to. This slight de-emphasis of the bass soon gets out of my mind as my attention is firmly grasped by the beautiful musical flow. To me the hi-fi element in a recording is only of secondary importance to the musical element after all.

Hats off to the maestro and the orchestra.

Timings:

I: 18'25"

II: 15'10"

III: 11'12"

IV: 22'24" with applause (Music ends at 21'07")

Anthology of the RCO -- Beethoven symphonies

Looking through the 7 volumes of the Anthology of the RCO, I found that a complete cycle of the Beethoven symphonies is almost present. Only the Second is not represented in this series. 

The 8 symphonies included are listed as follows:

Sym 1: Wilhelm Furtwängler, 13/7/1950 (Vol 1, CD12)

Sym 3: Nikolaus Harnoncourt, 16/10/1988 (Vol 5, CD12)

Sym 4: Willem van Otterloo, 19/3/1972 (Vol 4, CD4)

Sym 5: Erich Kleiber, 28/4/1950 (Vol 1, CD12)

Sym 6: Wolfgang Sawallisch, 10/3/1991 (Vol 6, CD3)

Sym 7: Josef Krips, 24/5/1952 (Vol 2, CD4)

Sym 8: Pierre Monteux, 14/5/1962 (Vol 3, CD1)

Sym 9: Mariss Jansons, 25/12/2006 (Vol 7, CD9)

From the earliest recording in 1950 till the last in 2006, this "cycle" spans more than half a century. Only the arguably least popular Beethoven symphony, the Second, is not included. It also features a formidable list of conductors, from the giants in Europe in the 1950's to the orchestra's present Chief Conductor. Many of these recordings are important not only in their historical significance, but also in their artistic value.

A new, cute and immensely popular Bruckner-Ikonographie in Japan

The six composers in the new pins series designed by Kazuo Ozawa and issued by Bookunion in Japan

The popularity of Anton Bruckner among classical music fans in Japan has never been in doubt, but how immensely popular it is is sometimes out of everyone's expectation. The six pins shown above are to be issued on 1 December 2012, but pre-orders for the Bruckner pin are in so overwhelming amount that this item had to be de-listed soon after it appeared on HMV Japan's online shop. However, all the other 5 pins are still available at the time of writing. If we assume that all the six different pins are issued in the same quantity, then Bruckner appears to be more popular than Beethoven or Mahler here. And if we speak of the 3 B's, traditionally referring to Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, this pins series has taken the position to replace Brahms with Bruckner. This may only be a tongue-in-cheek explanation. The official introduction has given the reasons for the choice of composers: 3 "kings of composers", namely Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, and 3 "modern" composers popular in Japan, namely Bruckner, Mahler and Shostakovich.

These are small nickel plated pins measuring H26 X W13-16mm and 0.7mm thick. The listed price is 630 Yen (tax included). The designer/illustrator is the famous cartoonist on classical music in Japan, Kazuo Ozawa (小澤一雄).