Orange County Register

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REVIEW: China’s oldest orchestra is joined by pianist Yuja Wang. The Orange County Register, Nov. 25, 2009. SEE SLIDE SHOW

The Shanghai Symphony Orchestra played with a refinement that caressed the ear, Tuesday night at Segerstrom Concert Hall. Every color was brushed clean and bright, every phrase molded lovingly and elegantly, every reading constructed vigilantly from beginning to end. The care with which the orchestra’s performances were put together was palpable, and a source of satisfaction in itself.

The event was the final program in the Philharmonic Society’s “Ancient Paths, Modern Voices” festival, the first of annual collaborations with Carnegie Hall.

Founded in 1879, the Shanghai Symphony is billed as the oldest in Asia. At home in Shanghai it concentrates faithfully on the performance of Western classical music; its guest conductors this season include Bramwell Tovey, Okku Kamu, Neeme Jarvi and none other than Riccardo Muti, among others. The guest soloists include the internationally celebrated.

Tuesday’s concert, which brought together Mussorgsky’s Prelude to “Khovanshchina,” Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto (with Yuja Wang as soloist) and Qigang Chen’s “Iris dévoilée,” was directed with distinction by the group’s current music director Long Yu, one of China’s best known conductors in the West. He leads with authority, big motions that leave little doubt about what he wants, including subtle nuances.

The second half of the concert was devoted to Chen’s “Iris dévoilée” (“Iris unveiled”), a nine movement work premiered in 2002 that blends Chinese and Western music. The composer, who now lives in Paris, is a student of the late European iconoclasts Olivier Messiaen and Franco Donatoni (who also taught Esa-Pekka Salonen), and he accomplishes his multicultural feat with panache. The piece is a stunner.

It is for the most part quiet and rapt. Exploring nine aspects of the female persona (its movements carry titles such as “Chaste,” “Sensitive,” “Jealous,” “Melancholic,” and “Voluptuous”), the work brings together a symphony orchestra with a bel canto soprano, a Peking Opera singer, and a trio of traditional Chinese string instruments, the pipa, the erhu, and the guzheng.

Chen would appear to be a kind of Chinese Ravel with an updated idiom, unafraid of beauty, with an avid ear for piquant and magical orchestration. The work is characterized by arresting surfaces, clouds of sustained harmonies that dovetail in and out of dissonance, that meld and blend into ever new vistas. The bel canto soprano (Xiaoduo Chen) rides the waves, swooping and swerving, the Peking Opera soprano (Meng Meng) offers zinging glissandos and buzzing tones. The traditional instruments strum melodies, but also introduce modern techniques, providing steely color.

There are more volatile moments (in “Jealous” and “Hysterical”), but each movement is a character piece, easily comprehended on first acquaintance. Long Yu and the orchestra played it as if they owned it, and the soloists were supreme.

Yuja Wang, the third of a trio of rising Chinese pianists that includes Lang Lang and Yundi Li, gave an affecting and technically impressive account of the Rachmaninoff concerto. Her general approach was simplicity itself, calm and serene in the slower and lyrical passages, rich, warm and full of gusto in the virtuoso stuff. Forget mannerisms, or showboating; she trusts this music. It was refreshing.

Yu and the orchestra supported her handsomely, with an ample, dark and lush sound that relished the Rachmaninoff curves.

The concert began with Mussorgsky’s Prelude to “Khovanshchina,” a delicate evocation of “Dawn on the Moscow River” (its other name). The performance captured all of its sheen and sparkle with perfect poise and quiet feeling. A great night at the symphony.

• Shanghai Symphony Orchestra
• With: Yuja Wang, piano; Long Yu, conductor
• Where: Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall
• When: Nov. 24
• Next: The Philharmonic Society presents Fiesta Navidad Mariachi Los Camperos 7:30 p.m. Nov. 28
• How much: $30-$95
• Call: 949-553-2422
• Online: philharmonicsociety.org

photo: cheryl a. guerrero

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