CONDUCTOR HAN-NA CHANG DISPLAYS GREAT MUSICAL INVOLVEMENT AND SUPERB ORCHESTRAL CONTROL
Nicholas Wright (violin), Vancouver Symphony Orchestra/Han-Na Chang (conductor): Works by Borisova-Ollas, Prokofiev and Beethoven, Orpheum, March 3, 2023.
Korean conductor Han-Na Chang has been on the radar for at least two decades now. Her story is well known: starting as an exceptional cellist from her earliest youth – taught by Mischa Maisky and Mstislav Rostropovich – she recorded 8 widely-praised CDs for EMI from her late teens onward, collaborating with the likes of Sinopoli, Rostropovich and Pappano. She was deemed a ‘classical superstar of tomorrow’ by Gramophone in 2006. But the cellist was not satisfied. She wanted to be a conductor and to share more completely in the passion of music-making – and to bring that passion to the young. Chang made her conducting debut in South Korea in 2007, graduating to the London orchestras by 2012, and made her Proms debut two years later with the Qatar Philharmonic. Named Principal Guest Conductor of the Trondheim Symfoniorkester in Norway in 2013-14, she assumed the position of Chief Conductor in 2017, where she continues today. As was evident at the current VSO concert, highlighted by Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, Han-Na Chang has matured into a conductor who exhibits the strongest orchestral control, and has remarkable energy and commitment.
All Chang’s talents were on display right from outset, with a superbly-negotiated rendering of …and time is running past midnight… (2014), by Swedish/Russian composer Victoria Borisova-Ollas (b. 1969). There is great intensity to this composer’s music and her early prize-winning Wings of the Wind (1997) and Symphony No.1 The Triumph of Heaven (2001) have been recorded on Phono Suecia with the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra under Mats Rondin. The current score derives from her opera Dracula, and inhabits its same gripping emotional world. It was suggested to the conductor by her orchestra. While the composer aims to convey “time … running rapidly towards an unknown future”, in many ways the piece also conveys the idea that, while metrical time may be constant, perceived time varies with the emotional state. Thus, the latter can speed up or stand still, depending on circumstance – and this alternation seems to be one key to the work’s development.
Given the work’s title, one is not surprised by an allusion to the famous tick-tock passage in Prokofiev’s Cinderella, imaginatively put forth by jangling percussion at the beginning. The work quickly builds to frenzied passages for full orchestra with stabbing ascending glissandos on the strings, and insistent punctuating brass, only to die down briefly to quieter percussion interludes before the passionate energy of the full orchestra is unleashed again. There is always a sense of agitation and anticipation. In many orchestral passages, the enfant terrible Prokofiev again came to mind: the grating macabre of The Fiery Angel and Symphony No. 3. A later passage recalled Honegger’s Pacific 231. The important thing about this cavalcade of sound and emotion is that everything resolved perfectly at the end. Maestra Chung’s conducting was superlative: she found both the work’s spontaneous thrust and natural cohesion, and coaxed the orchestra to a showing of great clarity and power.
Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 proved a fitting companion to the opening piece, and provided a rare opportunity for the VSO’s concertmaster Nicholas Wright to feature as soloist. Wright originally came to the VSO from the London Symphony Orchestra. Unfortunately, I thought this turned out as a bit of a mismatch. While the orchestra was crisp, lean and dynamically attentive, the soloist’s first entries seemed to suggest an opposite posture. They were beautifully warm and full (one of Wright’s teachers was Gil Shaham), with a consistent legato emphasis and relatively few dynamic shadings. I quickly missed the work’s mercurial changes in emotional temperature and tone colour. The violinist seemed to approach the work more like a conventional 19th century romantic violin concerto, but the overall result was too heavy and generalized, and the execution sometimes seemed slow. The Prokofiev is a ‘romantic’ violin concerto, but it embodies the sharpness and cut-and-thrust of 20th century composition, and requires considerably more variation in dynamics and tone to penetrate its melancholy, wit and almost maniacal energy. The audience rightly enjoyed the many fine aspects of Wright’s playing but, on this showing, the reading remains a work-in-progress for the artist. It needs to add sharpness and range.
So, on to Beethoven’s Seventh, which produced one of the quickest and most volcanic interpretations I have heard. Frankly, I’m not sure where the desire for speed and visceral engagement in this work comes from in younger conductors. Perhaps it stems from the general trend these days to perform Beethoven ‘authentically’ at more urgent speeds, or perhaps it is the residual influence of Carlos Kleiber’s 1970s recording of the symphony which legitimized a more white-heat approach. Or maybe it simply reflects a movement to use the work’s tangible power and energy as a vehicle to communicate directly to a now-younger group of classical listeners.
In any event, Chang’s interpretation may have pushed this tradition one step further, attempting to project the first movement with almost the same force and molten energy as the famous finale. Add in the thrust of the Scherzo, and one has almost the complete package. The finale started at an absolutely terrific clip and built to a fevered climax where one felt the orchestra might truly enter a world of chaos if the intensity were screwed up any more. I fully enjoyed watching this design unfold. The conductor’s ability to articulate everything clearly at the fast pace and with a large orchestra was remarkable. One consistently noticed her left hand ‘daggers’ to secure exact string entries.
While one can scarcely doubt its musical commitment, this is probably not an interpretation of Beethoven’s Seventh that one would turn to every day. The work can become a bit unremitting under an approach that is so linear and driving, and it tends to lose some of its more mysterious half-lights and sense of nobility. While the conductor is always conscientious over detail, the fact remains that the winds simply did not have much room to display character, nor was there much scope for any selectively soft playing. More important, the famous slow movement lacked gravity under the fleet speeds and (surprisingly) warm and moulded contours chosen. Still, I regard the effort as fully genuine and thoughtful, and the orchestra must get the strongest praise for bringing this interpretation to fruition.
I felt considerable regret when Han-Na Chang put away her cello but I feel redeemed by her conducting accomplishments here.
© Geoffrey Newman 2023