Music lovers came out in droves on Dec 15 to hear the Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra's last major concert of 2017 at the Thailand Cultural Centre. Conducted by one of its most frequent collaborators of recent seasons, the Canadian/Maltese maestro Charles Olivieri-Munroe, it marked the Bangkok debut for a truly remarkable pianist of Ukrainian origin, Valentina Lisitsa. She gave a spellbinding performance of perhaps Rachmaninov's most famous work, the Piano Concerto No.2 In C Minor. King Bhumibol's Royal Composition No.10, Sweet Words began the concert with a stable rhythmic opening played by the second violins, and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No.1 In G Minor, popularly known as Winter Daydreams, gave Olivieri-Munroe another platform on which to demonstrate his sure sense of grand symphonic structure.
Lisitsa has rocketed towards the upper echelons of the international concerto circuit by somewhat unorthodox means. Having first studied at her native Kiev Conservatory, winning many prizes in the time-honoured tradition of high-flying soloists, she intuitively realised that the fresh modern technology of social media was the ideal tool to develop a contemporary career. A slightly grainy YouTube posting of a single Rachmaninov Etude in 2007 may have been a relatively modest start, but the young artist's increasingly regular video recordings soon went viral, so that today her channel has an incredible 346,000 subscribers, with a staggering 147 million views. With an average 75,000 views per day, the claim that she is the first genuine YouTube star of classical music is indeed hard to challenge.
The brooding opening piano solo chords of the concerto's moderato immediately displayed fine touch and sensitivity from Lisitsa, before the full combined violin sections entered with strong, lush tones for their impassioned exposition of the first dramatic theme. Used in mainstream culture many times as a reference point for sentimental emotion, the principal melodies of the concerto are used copiously in the 1945 British film Brief Encounter, an association which invariably comes to mind when hearing this piece again. That classic mono recording by Eileen Joyce stood then as a benchmark for future pianists to match and live up to, right up until the present day, when the tasteful moulding of delicate phrasing is still of paramount importance for a successful, valid performance.
Lisitsa's interpretation certainly had all of that, the fluid rubato style ebbing and flowing like quicksilver up and down the ivories. However, it also had something a little bit extra about it, due in large part to the sheer physical power that her imposing, sturdy frame is capable of -- so that contrasting with the hushed pianissimos were fiendish passage work sections taken at breakneck tempi. In this sense she shares some pianistic attributes with the composer himself, who likewise had a famously large hand span. But then, she has previously achieved a feat which even Rachmaninov never attempted, demonstrating that stamina is clearly one aspect of performance with which she has absolutely no problems whatsoever.
And so it was in this concert, for although she played only the Rachmaninov concerto most firmly fixed in the consciousness of the public, she chose as an encore one of the most demanding, lengthy keyboard workouts -- Liszt's notoriously difficult Hungarian Rhapsody No.2. A whole 10 minutes of pyrotechnics, which she dispatched with a simply awe-inspiring, stupefying technique, the audience and onlooking orchestra alike sat in quiet amazement as Lisitsa aroused but one question in the auditorium: When might she be coming back to Bangkok? Mastery on this level is rare indeed, and wouldn't it be wonderful to have her play the other Rachmaninov concerti here with the RBSO.
For his part, Olivier-Munroe has of course impressed the Bangkok musical fraternity with Tchaikovsky before. In particular, he is a master of holding back big orchestral crescendi until the last moment, in order to create maximum impact for tutti fortissimos. This programme presented a particular treat -- namely the delightful 1866 first symphony, which the then-35-year-old composer himself dubbed Winter Daydreams. Orchestras absolutely relish the opportunity to play this true gem of the repertoire after so many repeat performances of his better-known mature symphonies. And this captivating reading by the RBSO, steered with charismatic élan by Olivieri-Munroe, reminded everyone why any great composer's first symphony is always a pleasure to revisit. It is one which Tchaikovsky himself looked back upon with great affection: "I have a soft spot in my heart for it. In many ways, it is richer and filled with more creative content than my later works." As conductor and orchestra worked their way through a thoroughly polished rendition of the sublime work, it was easy to identify with the composer's own sentiments in this regard.
