Stephane Tran Ngoc plays Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No:1

HBSO is presenting a very attractive program on 9th May. It consists of Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No:1 and Elgar’s Serenade for Strings, but the most important feature of the event is that the violin soloist will be the highly praised Stephane Tran Ngoc.

DETAILED INFORMATION

1. Time: 08:00PM, 09th May, 2018

2. Venue: Saigon Opera House, 07 Cong Truong Lam Son, Ben Nghe, District 1, HCM City

3. Ticket: 

650.000 – 500.000 – 400.000 – 300.000 – 200.000 – 80.000 VNĐ (students only)

4. Hotline: 028 3823 7295

Shostakovich is a controversial figure in the history of Russian music. During his lifetime he was considered by critics outside the USSR to be a loyal servant of the Russian state. But then a change took place, and before long he was being described as secret dissident who hid his opposition to Stalin deep within his music.

It has been suggested that Shostakovich wrote two kinds of music, a simple kind to please the censors, and a complex kind to fulfill his own artistic ambitions. His Violin Concerto No:1 undoubtedly belongs to the second category.

The work consists of four movements, more characteristic of a symphony because a concerto traditionally has only three movements. This four-movement form may indicate the importance Shostakovich gave to this work.

The first movement is a laid-back Nocturne, or piece of night music. Next comes a wild and frenetic Scherzo, to be played very fast. Next follows a Passacaglia, a form that’s something between a street-song and a court dance, but always very serious in mood. This is universally seen by commentators as the emotional heart of this concerto. It’s followed by a jokey movement, the Burlesque.
All in all, Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No.1 is a major contribution to the world violin repertoire. The composer wrote a second concerto for the violin, but it is universally considered greatly inferior to the first.

Many celebrated violinists play famous violins from the 18th century, the golden age of violin making. These are usually bought my international banks as investments, then loaned out to prominent instrumentalists. Stephane Tran Ngoc plays a violin made by the famous Venetian violin-maker Francesco Gobetti (1675 to 1723), which dates from 1709.

When Stephane Tran Ngoc was last seen performing in Saigon, in July 2017, he astonished his audience with not one but two encores, the first a deeply introspective piece by J.S. Bach, and the second a manically extrovert piece by Paganini, written to show just how technically brilliant a violinist can be. Stephane Tran Ngoc certainly demonstrated his own brilliant technique in his extraordinary performance.

It was notable that the conductor, HBSO’s music director Tran Vuong Thach, himself trained as a violinist, remained on stage to hear these encores. He will once again be conducting the concert on 9th May.

Before the interval we will hear Elgar’s Serenade for Strings. Few works could be further removed in atmosphere from Shostakovich’s violin concerto. Rather than being complex and introspective, Elgar’s composition is serene and lyrical, typical of much English music before the outbreak of World War 1. It was premiered in 1896, and is in three movements. The central movement is especially plaintive.

The contrast between these two works, plus the participation of Stephane Tran Ngoc, will make for an especially satisfying concert.