Chinese and Spanish Maestros Conduct L.A. Phil in Diverse Programs
/By Truman C. Wang
11/28/2022
Conductors Xian Zhang, Gustavo Gimeno
In a span of two weeks, we heard the L.A. Phil play under two exciting new conductors – Xian Zhang from China, Gustavo Gimeno from Spain – who also introduced intriguing new works by their prospective countrymen.
On November 19, maestro Zhang opened the concert with Qigang Chen’s L’Éloignement (“Distance”), a moody piece about separation anxiety and nostalgia experienced by a settler in a far-away foreign land. The Chinese folksong-inspired music is both happy and sad, nostalgic and exciting. The orchestral sound, scored mostly for strings, was rich and nuanced, featuring slow glissando effects that were once fashionable in early twentieth-century Mahler playing.
Behzod Abduraimov, from Uzbekistan, was the pianist in Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2. This concerto did not quite catch on with the public like the first until the latter part of the twentieth century. Abduraimov’s playing showed forceful projection and colorful nuance, making the staggeringly difficult cadenza sound almost effortless and lyrical.
Smetana’s Má vlast (“My Fatherland”) is mainly known for its Moldau (Vltava) out of a total of six sections. In this concert, we heard three sections – Vltava, Sarka, Blanik – each played with great atmosphere but perhaps too much militaristic fervor by the Chinese conductor (turning the serenely flowing Moldau into a turbulent Yellow River). The L.A. Phil, particularly the winds, played with great flair and rhythmic suppleness.
Pianists Behzod Abduraimov (Left) and Javier Perianes (Right)
The concert of November 26 featured two Fifths by Saint-Saëns and Shostakovich. The new work Aqua Cinerea (‘Gray Water’) by Francisco Coll, belies its title for the brilliance of scoring and wide dynamic range. It’s a cacophonous, inscrutible piece scored for a huge orchestra like so much of the new music written today, where ostentatious display of compositional virtuosity takes the place of simple melodies and beautiful harmonies.
Javier Perianes was the pianist in Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No. 5, and gave a wonderfully atmospheric reading of the work’s Mediterranean warmth in the first movement, the ‘Egyptian’ love song in the second with a hint of the gamelan, and the rhythmic excitement of the finale.
In turn, his Spanish compatriot, Gustavo Gimeno, conducted Shostakovich’s popular Symphony No. 5 with splendid orchestral sonority and aptly-judged tempi. The politically controversial message in the final movement notwithstanding, it was a musically exhilarating performance that inspired hope and optimism in its listeners.
Truman C. Wang is Editor-in-Chief of Classical Voice, whose articles have appeared in the Pasadena Star-News, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, other Southern California publications, as well as the Hawaiian Chinese Daily. He studied Integrative Biology and Music at U.C. Berkeley.