MEDIUM RARE
How often can we be thrilled at the sight and sounds of a cellist performing live, solo, with a full orchestra behind him or her?
The chance came on Friday the 13th of October, when the Swiss-born Wen-Sinn Yang took center stage at Samsung theater and took my breath away. Brilliant!, to describe the performance in one word – oh, that I could write like a professional music reviewer to put into words the feelings and sensations he coaxed out of his entranced audience!
Backed by the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of music director and principal conductor Grzegorz Nowak, cellist Yang moved with his body – the cello has almost a similar-looking body with shoulders, torso, waist, and hips – while his hands and bow went over the strings; best of all, he displayed his feelings and touched his audience, emotion for emotion. A pleasure to let go and be swayed by all those notes on four strings, rising and falling between allegro and adagio, andante and allegro vivo in Dvorak’s cello concerto in B minor.
Dvorak is not easy to play, whether violin, viola, cello, or piano. So what? Yang, as described by the CCP’s program notes, is “one of the most versatile cellists of the present day,” as much as he is praised for constantly searching for modern and centuries-old music to perform. He has played with the world’s most famous conductors and orchestras, his music preserved on more than 30 cd’s. He’s also a famous advocate for chamber music.
Thank you, CCP, thank you, sponsors, for music magic on that one enchanted evening. Indeed, let’s begin gathering a variety of instrumental soloists to show off their wizardry.
Nedy Tantoco, always quick to support music and the arts, sat happily applauding from a middling row. Margie Moran, former CCP president, was at row M. After multiple curtain calls and the lights came back, Chito Roño, Chito Vijandre and Ricky Toledo, Bobby Cuenca, Ping Valencia, Rose Zamora, Mau Lim headed for the exit.
Pablo Tariman, CCP’s newly recruited p.r.o., assures concert goers that Samsung has “778 parking spaces at the basement, plus another 210 at the multilevel parking.” Keep that in mind for Nov. 17, your date with a Russian pianist playing Rachmaninoff.