I was assisting October Concert for Tokyo Sinfonia. Mr. Amit Peled, an acclaimed cellist, a professor in Peabody Conservatory, played two romantic concertos, Schumann and Dvorak. Amit played so beautifully and convincingly and as soon as he started to play in our rehearsal, the we all knew we were facing with a world class musician. Wow wow. His concertos were so impressive and the concert went so well. Dvorak is not easy for conductors, as there are in a way, lots of communication back and forth, especially in the second and third movement. I enjoyed watching two world class musicians working together.
Just a side note, but two days before the concert, I was informed that I would be conducting a piece in the concert. I, a bit shocked, but quickly realized that I left my tail coat in my home and I have to go back to bring it. When I opened my bag up, yes, I could fit in the tail, but I would need a vest and a white shirt. I had to go to Aoki in Ginza and Sogo in Chiba to get all that I needed. Tokyo has everything.
Let me talk about a bit about Manfred. A British poet, Lord Byron made this strange play based on a man who exiled to mountains in Alps and start talking to spirits about his past and present. It reminded me of 80s film “Shining”. Recently, I had to conduct Brahm’s Serenade and I read a lot about his relationship with Schumann family. It is a tragic one and it’s sad how Schumann passed away, but I do believe Schumann was a fantastic composer. I never felt so good to conduct emotionally complicated piece. I cannot wait to conduct his other works in the near future.
Musically speaking…there is what I call Manfred theme. It’s symcopated block chords. Then it moves to a slow introduction. I tried to make it as spooky and cold as possible, very much like feel in Alps I imagined. Then, slowly, the introduction speeds up to Manfred theme, speed up about six times faster than originally started. Once music goes into allegro, several theme with different charcters are played. I changed tempos slightly, so it depicts the mood. In the middle section, music dies down all the way to pianissimo. But, you know it goes wild from then on! I added extra spice into cello and viola solis and it worked good. The music ends with the slow introduction with reminecense of themes you heard in the allegro section. It ends quietly.
Here is a video for our performance. Enjoy!
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