As part of Manchester's International Festival, The Halle Orchestra performed three works this evening in a concert titled, 'Sounds Of The East'. The idea being that although the music performed were Western pieces using majority western instruments, these pieces had been influenced by the music and sounds of the East.
The first of these pieces was 'Grand Spiral (Desert Flowers Bloom)' by Singapore-born composer Chinary Ung. Composed in 1991 and with the composer in attendance this evening, this was the most contemporary of the three pieces. We were told by Ung in a short pre-concert talk, that we should not look for a resolution in this piece, rather see it as a series of continuing but unconnected spirals, each one unique, just as every wave to break on the shore is never the same twice. It is a very busy and percussion-heavy piece which is without any discernible melody throughout, instead it offers a soundscape for the imagination to play upon. The piece was receiving its European Premier this evening.
Following this was Debussy's 'La Mer'. And our talk of unique waves breaking on the shore is brought into full focus here. Putting this piece in with a concert dedicated to 'East Meets West' seems a little strange at first perhaps, until we understand Debussy's fascination with Japan and that actually upon listening closely to this music, one can clearly hear oriental sounds and melodic fragments - something which I have not picked out before from my untutored listenings. Melodic fragments appear and disappear like waves and this is true musical impressionism.
After the interval and we returned to hear Kahchun Wong's arranging and orchestrating of Mussorgsky's 'Pictures At An Exhibition'. Here, we were told, that Wong was stuck in lockdown in Singapore during the Covid pandemic, and so more to relieve boredom than anything else, he engrossed himself in the instruments of southern Asia, especially those from China, and decided to rescore Mussorgsky's well known work to incorporate some of these instruments. This evening, five members of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra joined the Halle to perform this absolutely unique score. Conducted by Wong - as indeed was the whole evening - this piece was a revelation. The score had been deconstructed and then reconstructed again with surprising effect when the first melody (the famous introductory theme) was performed by the Chinese percussion. Further surprises were in store, as the Chinese flutes were given an ad lib bird calling session, sheets of tuned metal were banged liked gongs and resonated throughout the auditorium, and a taiko drum was used for the finale, whilst the orchestra members were tasked in humming. The bamboo flute, Chinese dulcimer, erfu, and Chinese lutes were given pride of place around the conductor and played most of the melodies between them. The resulting sound was extremely strange, interesting, and the whole became a most engrossing experiment in East / West fusion. However, there were times throughout the piece that I simply did not recognise the source material at all, so changed was the directing and interpretation.
The whole evening was of course, excellently performed with passion and skill.
Reviewer - Alastair Zyggu
On - 6.7.25
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