The fiddlers - Part I

Just got back from a CO concert. Tonight's performance is the first in a series of two featuring two well-established erhu performers. I have been to Min Hui Fen's concert many years back when she performed Xin Hun Bie. It is typical of her to grace every performance with epic works. For tonight, it was the Great Wall Capriccio, a piece that has become synonymous with her name.

The concert hall was fully occupied. "Regular" concerts by the SCO don't normally see such fantastic attendance. She delivered small-scaled ensemble works before the intermission and played the Capriccio for the final piece.

One shouldn't attend Min's concert expecting surprises. Her performance was very polished and down to earth, but after the first half of the night I felt she was getting jaded after all these years on the concert track. She exuded a sort of Zen-like aura throughout. If I was seated further away, I probably won't noticed her blink. Perhaps the dainty good ol' ensemble works don't go well with bucketsful of passionate play. They require only that much, and not more.

But I felt the same when she played the Great Wall Capriccio. I see an interesting contrast in the level of energy between the orchestra performers and her in this work. She seemed like an oasis of calm in the company of visibly enthusiatic string players (some, if not most, of whom are qualified to play the concerto). My main beef was with the first movement. She sounded almost too pedagogical. If she was facing the string section, it would look like a lesson in erhu kindergarten. It's child's play to her anyway. Oh, and her glissandos usually ends a quarter tone to a semitone from the end-note. The applause in between movements was distracting too.

The evening gown she wore was the same one in her publicity photo. The encore was the same as that I heard at her previous concert and so was the rapturous applause.

No, it's not a bad performance. My palms were sore from the applauding and I thoroughly enjoyed her performance. I wondered how much of the appreciation shown by the audience was due to her reputation? And how much was out of courtesy? I felt I had watched a performance staged exactly the same way twenty times over, elsewhere in the world.

Well, not that it's a bad thing. I think I'm developing the habit of judging (and attending) music performances for their novelty that I get unappreciative of the well-established. Hmm... that's something to mull over.