Finally, the long wait is over and the inaugural concert of Olivier Ochanine, the new music director/principal conductor of the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, has arrived. And as expected, I went to the Cultural Center of the Philippines and watched this concert which was the eighth and the last of the 27th concert season.
This concert had a very interesting programme. The first played was Dmitri Shostakovich’s Festive Overture in A Major, Op. 96. I am very familiar with this piece and it does sound like what the title suggests. And it’s a really feel good piece of music. And during the performance, I was a bit thrown off by how slow the brass fanfare was at the beginning. It made me quite anxious for it to finish so the piece could go on to the delightful clarinet solo. The slower fanfare did make the main theme sound a lot livelier in my opinion. By the way, Ochanine told me later on that the fanfare actually has been played a lot faster than how it was supposed to be by others and that was why I thought that his was a lot slower. Nonetheless, it was a nice and exciting start to the concert.
The next piece the orchestra played was Le Cid, Suite for Orchestra by Jules Massenet. I’m not really familiar with this piece but it was quite accessible. And I always get amused on how some French composers managed to write music that is inspired by Spain. The suite featured melodies that are easy to like, familiar rhythms and most important of all, a variety of percussion instruments which never fails to please the audience.
From the unfamiliar to a very familiar one was how the concert progressed. The orchestra then closed the first half of the programme with Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings. As the title suggests, only the strings played in this piece and it’s a very sad tune usually used in funerals/memorials. I am quite puzzled as to why this was the closing piece for the first half since I felt a bit drained during the intermission. This piece is definitely not one to listen to if one wants to get energized. But the audience gave a rather energetic applause after the piece was played.
So I tried to energize myself during the intermission by drinking wine and I knew that I needed a lot of energy since the second half featured a piece that made me exhausted whenever I listen to it actively: Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, Op. 57 by Dmitri Shostakovich. The concert started with a Shostakovich piece that I could just relax and enjoy listening to it and it ended with a piece by the same composer in which listening to it is not a walk in the park. Remarkably, watching it live for the first time didn’t exhaust me at all. It was a very different experience from just listening to a recording of it. And the menacing timpani during the last movement which is my favorite really got my heart pounding.
The audience really welcomed Ochanine when they gave him a nice applause that could’ve rivaled the intensity of the timpani during the last moments of the Shostakovich Symphony. And as expected, Ochanine and the orchestra did a trio of encores. And it’s quite embarassing that I failed to get the titles and the composers of these pieces. All I know is that the first was Edward Elgar's Nimrod from Variations on an Original Theme for orchestra, Op. 36 or Enigma Variations. The second encore was a medley of popular Philippine songs. As always, foreigners who make an effort to learn a Filipino piece instantly endear themselves to the local audience. The final encore was a lively number and unfortunately, that’s the only thing that I could say about this since it was the first time that I heard that piece.
So now that the 27th season is over, I must wait a few months until the next season begins. I already have a copy of what the PPO has lined up and while some pieces are unfamiliar, the ones that I know especially the piano concertos happen to be some of my favorites. I wish Ochanine well in his stint with the PPO and he can count on my support as I continue watching my national orchestra.
Conductor Olivier Ochanine
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