First concert in Japan ...
Post categories: Radio 3,Ìýbehind the scenes
| 15:12 UK Time, Monday, 17 May 2010
Ö÷²¥´óÐã Symphony Orchestra sub-principal viola Phil Hall continues his blog from the orchestra's Far East tour...Ìý
At the first Tokyo rehearsal we compare notes as to how badly we slept and also our eating experiences. On the podium is our diacritical chief conductor Jiřà Bělohlávek. He seems wide awake which is just as well as this is the only rehearsal we have on the and the three encores which we're playing in four hours' time.
The concert venue is new to me, the NHK Hall. NHK is the Japanese equivalent of the Ö÷²¥´óÐã and they are also televising the concert. It's a large hall which feels a bit dry acoustically, but we warm to it after a while.
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The concert starts with Elgar's overture In the South, a piece the orchestra knows well having recently played it in the Barbican with Sir Andrew Davis. The two conductors have quite differing takes on the piece; basically Jiřà is faster in the outer sections and slow in the middle and Andrew takes the piece globally more slowly but gets more of a move on in the central viola solo.
The 23-year-old Japanese violinist turns out to play like a dream and fortunately is easy to follow. She does a Paganini encore that wows us and the large audience further.
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Jiřà must have conducted the Dvořák New World symphony more times than I've had hot clichés but he brings an elegance and love to the score that is infectious. The audience love it too and we treat them to all three encores, which sound far too good for the amount of rehearsal they had! Eventually we tear ourselves away from the stage, change out of our glad rags and there is just time to thank our Japanese promoters before climbing aboard the bus heading for the bar ... I mean hotel. A few of us plan to meet up tomorrow at 6am to take in the famous Fish Market before we leave for Korea tomorrow morning. I hope we'll be back in Japan soon - an incredible, friendly, unique and captivating place.
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