- Bright Sheng: Tibetan Love Songs
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4
The Tibetan songs are very loud. Large presence of wind instrument. I don't like it, but I appreciate Gerard Schwarz's willingness of staging new composition. At least it's short.
Cecile Licad is wonderful: tremendous power yet delicate at places. I almost forgot how I love this piece.
Tchaikovsky composed 4th symphony after a brief and disastrous marriage. However it sounds more upbeat to me than his own description (in a letter to Nadezhda von Meck, copied from the program notes):
- The introduction is the germ of the entire symphony. This is Fate, which prevents our hopes of happiness from being realized, which ... hangs over us like the Sword of Damocles, a constant, relentless spiritual torment. It is invincible, inescapable. There is no recourse but submission to suffering... Would it not be better to turn from reality and lull oneself with dreams? Little by little, dreams capture the soul. Despair and sadness vanish. There is happiness! But no, it is only a dream, which Fate dispels once more. So life swings constantly between cruel reality and ephemeral dreams of happiness.
The second movement expresses another aspect of suffering. It is the melancholy of evening, ... [when] memories flood the mind... How bitter yet sweet it is to sink into the past.
The third movement expresses nothing to definite. Rather, it is a succession of capricious arabesques that pass through the mind when one has had a little wine and feels the first glow of intoxication.
Fourth movement: If there is no joy within you, turn to others. Go to the people. They know how to lose themselves in revelry and pleasure... But no sooner do you abandon yourself to merriment than Fate reappears, reminding you of your suffering. The others pay no attention to your sorrow... They still enjoy simple, primitive pleasures; join them, and life will yet be bearable.
