Birthday anniversary concert | Bangkok Post: Arts & Culture

Review

This year marks the 200th birthday anniversary of two great and beloved romantic composers in music history, Frederic Chopin and Robert Schumann. Many musical events around the world have been organised to celebrate this extraordinary occasion throughout the year. The Bangkok Symphony Orchestra (BSO) also joined in this bicentennial ceremony and hosted a special concert in which the whole programme was dedicated to the music of Robert Schumann. The event was co-presented by B. Grimm & Co R.O.P and Credit Suisse Group AG, and was well received by Bangkok's classical music enthusiasts.

Judith Ermert with the BSO.

The evening programme started off with Schumann's overture to his only completed opera, Genoveva, opus 81, which is based on the story of the mediaeval heroine, Saint Genovive of Brabant. Schumann himself conducted the work at its premier in Leipzig in 1850. Although the four-act opera was not well received by the public after a few performances, its overture still remains an enduring popular repertoire on the concert stage today. Maestro Michel Tilkin led the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra to bring out the beauty of Schumann's colourful orchestration successfully. The BSO performed with a great variety of contrasting moods and palette of sounds. Schumann loved to read and write, and we certainly heard these influences from the dramatic literatures here. And the string section performed with flowing beautiful melodies. Although it wasn't a flawless performance, the brass choir effectively caught the audience's attention with their lively and energetic senses. The give and take conversations between the woodwind and string section were convincing. Superb and colourful orchestration and the completion in itself has made this overture an often-played repertoire by renowned orchestras around the globe.