Kyoko Yonemoto plays Dvorak with BSO. Photo: Bangkok Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Charles Olivieri-Munroe, the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra on July 24 presented a concert of Romantic Czech music by composers well known the world over for their popular works: Smetana and Dvorak.
Now residing in Prague, appropriately, Maestro Olivieri-Munroe opened the concert with Smetana’s largely unknown overture The Secret, written in 1878 and based on a Czech story similar to Romeo And Juliet but with a happy ending. It opens with an imposing minor-key passage in the lower instruments, but soon opens out into the rhythms and melodic shapes of Czech dance music to which the orchestra brought a certain Bohemian swagger. Perhaps less an overture than tone poem like the composer’s Ma Vlast, the tale was convincingly told.
Undeservedly less familiar than Bruch’s G minor or Brahms’s violin concertos, Dvorak’s received here a radiant-toned performance by the multi-prize-winning Japanese violinist Kyoko Yonemoto, whether in the lowest register or the very high A on the E string. Yonemoto can more than meet the demands of the concerto, and her experienced musicianship was evident in the rapport she had with conductor and orchestra, for example with the woodwind in the slow movement who shaped well Dvorak’s beautiful sonorities despite struggling slightly with tuning. Occasionally, it was difficult to hear the soloist where the orchestration was fuller. Nevertheless, it was a performance of warmth and lyricism enthusiastically received, as was the poised encore: Bach’s Gigue from the E major Partita.
The final item was Smetana’s String Quartet No.1, From My Life, but in an arrangement for full orchestra by George Szell. For anyone familiar with the quartet, some of the scoring seemed bizarre, but others helped to clarify the melodic lines and structures. Various orchestral soloists, including string principals and piccolo player (depicting with solo violin the tinnitus that plagued Smetana for years) contributed to a vivid performance of this concert rarity, rounding off an evening by a BSO and soloist in fine form, led by a conductor who seems thoroughly at home in this repertoire.
This source first appeared on Bangkok Post Lifestyle.