A new season, a new breath of fresh air and new MD (Claus Peter Flor) to spruce up the 3 years of stale musical air at the DFP. Indeed, the last 3 years under Matthias Bamert had dampened the MPO musicians' enthusiasm for coming half way around the world to bring classical music to Malaysia.
Generally, the musical planning of the new season is also superior to the last 3. I am able to choose at least 30 concerts I wish to attend, whilst I struggled to reach 20 in the past 3 seasons.
A pre-concert season highlighting the famous Borodin String Quartet was also a good musical idea, and besides performing on its own, the quartet played with the MPO in a number of concerts. The concert under review opened with the favourite Rossini William Tell Overture, which was quite well played. Lead cellist Csaba Koros was expressive in his opening solo and the MPO was by and large inspired by Flor's direction. Flor had changed the seating of the orchestra around - with basses to the conductor's left, cellos right of the first violin and the second violin on the conductor's right. This allowed for better sound separation. However, although the performance of William Tell was memorable, it did not wipe off the memory of the magnificent performance of the same by the La Scala PO under Riccardo Muti some years ago.
The next piece was indeed a rarity. It was Spohr's Concerto for string quartet and orchestra in A minor. I heard it years ago on our local classical FM radio channel here but had not heard it since. Spohr's most famous composition is his Violin Concerto No 8 which has some recordings but is still a rarity in the concert hall. (Perhaps our MD can be persuaded to invite Hilary Hahn (who recorded it for DG) to perform this at the DFP in a forthcoming season).
We could see that the concerto for string quartet and orchestra is not a major work and despite the great efforts of maestro Flor and the superb Borodin Quartet, it may be one for the curiosity bin as its lacks melodic and compositional value. Nevertheless, it was nice to re-visit the piece after so many years.
What came after the interval was a stupendous performance of the Dvorak New World Symphony. If DFP recalled the recording that Bamert did during one of the previous opening galas, you'd hear the difference in the great things that maestro Flor did on this opening concert for the Dvorak symphony that Bamert strived to do but failed to achieve in 3 unproductive years in KL.
Tempi were generally lively, with every detail of Dvorak's wonderful scoring pointed with a sure and deft touch. Maestro Flor gave every single tremolo clarity, played the dynamics of the score so surely (so vital to the rise and fall of the phrases with appropriate accents), introduced some relaxation of the basic speeds at the lyrical moments, ensured rhythmic accuracy and gave the other minor musical details (subsidiary musical lines that would have got lost under Bamert) a through scrub down.
All in all, this was an auspicious start to the season that promises to yield so much in musical riches to come. Bravo maestro Flor and bravo MPO - thanks to our new musical broom that sweeps very well - Claus Peter Flor!
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