Prison Yard Festival 2023: Music from within
The sounds of music cannot be imprisoned by lofty walls, barred windows and barbed wire. As music freely escapes from Tai Kwun’s Prison Yard, wafting gently upward into the night sky, music just as effortlessly drifts across land borders and sea crossings, using humanity’s shared primal response to music as its passport, and the act of communal music-making a form of intuitive diplomacy.
Revered conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim and the late Palestinian public intellectual Edward Said shared both a passion for music and a profound commitment to peace in the Middle-East. By forming an orchestra of Israeli and Arab musicians - the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra - every rehearsal, performance, recording and concert tour would be irrefutable proof that living, working and playing side by side in a shared pursuit of a musical ideal can create the common ground from which can grow empathy, understanding and reconciliation.
Tai Kwun is immensely proud to host the West-Eastern Divan Ensemble as our ensemble-in-residence in November 2023, comprising eight principal musicians from the Orchestra, directed from the violin by Michael Barenboim. The residency includes two full concerts featuring the whole ensemble in music by Elliott Carter, Fanny Mendelssohn, Beethoven and Schubert, a community outreach program, and opens with a Tai Kwun Conversation in which Hong Kong audiences will hear about the musicians’ experience of performing in the ensemble and the orchestra, gain insights into the challenges and triumphs which have defined the West-Eastern Divan’s 24-year history, and have the opportunity to participate in a Q&A on the opening night of the Prison Yard Festival.
Several of Hong Kong’s finest classical musicians perform throughout the Festival. Amongst them is the outstanding Hong Kong pianist Chiyan Wong, who will perform Mozart’s concerto in collaboration with the quintet from the West-Eastern Divan Ensemble in his recital; pianist Shelley Ng to whom we handed the challenge to devise her own, personal Beethoven by Moonlight recital under the November full moon on 27th, by using the Moonlight Sonata as a launch pad for a highly personal musical flight of imagination. Violinist Wang Liang once again assembles a close-knit quintet of like-minded musicians for Brahms’s serene and autumnal Clarinet Quintet before racing off in an easterly direction, dancing frantically in Bartók’s Transylvanian, Romanian, Arab and Turkish footsteps to arrive just in time for a Jewish wedding in the form of a Klezmer dance. The Prison Yard stage is opened to the musicians from The Orchestra Academy over the weekend, providing a platform for young talents to curate programmes and connect with audience.
Before each concert in the Prison Yard, we salute the centenary of the birth of the avant-garde Hungarian composer György Ligeti (1923-2006) with a series of short pre-concert happenings on the Laundry Steps, each of which includes a performance of the notorious Poème Symphonique for 100 metronomes.
Programmes
20.11.2023 (Mon) Tai Kwun Conversations
21.11.2023 (Tue) West-Eastern Divan Ensemble (Hong Kong Debut)
22.11.2023 (Wed) West-Eastern Divan Ensemble (Hong Kong Debut)
23.11.2023 (Thu) Wong Time to Play
26.11.2023 (Sun) Weekend Yard Music
27.11.2023 (Mon) Beethoven by Moonlight
30.11.2023 (Thu) West to east meanderings
20-30.11.2023 (Mon-Thu) Ligeti 100
Prison Yard Festival: West-Eastern Divan Ensemble ( Hong Kong debut )
Named after Goethe’s West-östlicher Divan, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra transcends the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by uniting young musicians from Israel and various Arab nations, to foster mutual understanding in a world marred by political and cultural strife. At the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra’s 20th anniversary in 2019, the West-Eastern Divan Ensemble was founded by concertmaster Michael Barenboim, to bring the unique artistry and personality of the orchestra’s players into an intimate chamber-music format. In their much anticipated Hong Kong debut, the ensemble presents two contrasting programmes to coincide with Tai Kwun’s Prison Yard Festival 2023.
The first evening features atmospheric numbers by pre-eminent American modernist composer Elliott Carter (1908–2012), a two-time Pulitzer awardee with a prolonged career exceeding 75 years. His unwavering creativity is at full display with such works as Figment IV (2007), amongst a series of six delicate miniatures resembling Berio’s Sequenzas; Au Quai (2002), the title of which was inspired by Arnold Schoenberg’s short story To the Wharfs ; and Duettino (2008), dedicated to friend and fellow composer Milton Babbitt, and composed shortly before his 100th birthday.
Interspersing Carter’s late gems are two chamber staples from the standard repertoire, including Fanny Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in E flat major (1834), a compelling Romantic work buried in the oblivion of time only to be re-discovered in 1988. Beethoven’s Septet in E flat major, Op. 20 (1799), one of his most popular works during his lifetime.
The second evening features a delightful all-Schubert programme, the works of which display influences from Beethoven, whom Schubert admired deeply. In composing his String Trio in B flat major, D. 581 (1817), Schubert took Beethoven’s latter trios as model, which adopted a four-movement form like the string quartet. Schubert’s biggest chamber works, the Octet in F major, D. 803 (1824), expands from the scope of Beethoven’s Septet with the addition of an extra second violin.
Programme I (Nov 21)
Elliott Carter │ Figment IV for Viola
Fanny Mendelssohn │ String Quartet in E-flat major
Elliott Carter │ Au Quai for Bassoon and Viola
- Interval – (15 min)
Elliott Carter │Duettino for Violin and Cello - 3rd movement
Beethoven │ Septet in E-flat major, Op. 20
Duration: 1 hr 28 mins with a 15-min interval
Programme II (Nov 22)
Schubert │ String Trio in B-flat major, D. 581
Schubert │ Octet in F major, D.803
Duration: 1 hr 17 mins with no interval
Prison Yard Festival: Wong Time to Play
Hailing from Hong Kong and based in Berlin, the star of audacious piano virtuoso Chiyan Wong has been steadily on the rise in recent seasons. Following his own charismatically diverse tastes and curiosities, Chiyan sheds light on the hypnotic power of dance music spanning three centuries.
Chiyan opens the concert by conducting a spiritual dialogue with two important musical figures: Niccoló Paganini and Franz Liszt, who respectively through their instruments, the violin and piano, revolutionised the way we listen. Liszt’s Grandes études de Paganini, S141 (1851) which, inspired by Paganini’s ability to conjure up the uncanniest illusions on the violin, are not only amongst the most technically demanding pieces ever written for the piano, but also reveal an inner geometric sense of pattern-spinning.
What follows are a set of dances from the 18th century by Rameau in his Pièces de Clavecin: Suite in E minor (1724), leading to Moderne Tanzsuite, Op. 115 (1929) by Walter Niemann (1876–1953), which consists of five jazz-influenced dance pieces that evoke the sounds of 1920’s Germany.
Finally, musicians from West-Eastern Divan Ensemble joins Chiyan in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major, K453 (1784), in an arrangement by composer/conductor Ignaz Lachner for piano and string quintet. In it, you shall hear the pianist’s multiple curiosities – in improvising, in jazz, simply in playing with the material at hand, all come together in a piece which he terms as “drinking champagne through your ears”.
Coinciding with the concert is a mini-exhibition showcasing a number of Chiyan’s drawings, in which his unique eclectic taste in music is mirrored by a kaleidoscopic array of drawings consisting of people, landscapes, dreamscapes, illusive shapes and abstract images inspired by music.
PROGRAMME
Liszt │ Grandes études de Paganini, S 141 (Nos. 1, 4-6)
Rameau │ Pièces de Clavecin: Suite in E minor (Allemande, Gigue en rodeau I & II, Rappel des Oiseaux)
Niemann │ Moderne Tanzsuite, Op. 115
Mozart │ Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major, K. 453 (arranged by Lachner, for solo piano and string quintet)*
Piano Solo: Chiyan Wong
*With musicians from the West-Eastern Divan Ensemble
Duration: Approximately 1 hour 10 minutes without interval
Prison Yard Festival: Beethoven by Moonlight
Under the bright light of the last full moon before winter solstice, pianist Shelley Ng transports us from Tai Kwun’s Prison Yard, a symbol of physical/emotional confinement, onto a musical journey of self-reflection and re-connection.
Sometimes called the “frost moon” or the “mourning moon”, this lunar event inspires us to meditate on what we’ve lost and what we hold dear before settling in to winter’s cold embrace. Solitude thus permeates the first half of the programme, with Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata giving way to darkness in Fazil Say’s Black Earth (1997). Then, George Rochberg’s mournful Ricordanza (1972) yields back to the light Bach/Gounod’s gesture towards the divine, Ave Maria.
The programme’s second half is all about earthly re-connections, with composers who’ve imagined one family under the same sky. Nikolai Kapustin’s Variations (1984) showcase the Ukraine-born composer’s passion for everything jazz at a time when the genre was not welcome in the Soviet Union. Ferruccio Busoni’s seminal transcription of Bach’s Chaccone in D minor breaks the boundary of time, while Jennifer Higdon bridges the aural and the visual with her Piano Trio (2003) inspired by pale yellow and fiery red. The concert ends with an excerpt most fitting for the full moon: Romance from Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1, arranged for chamber ensemble.
This introspective programme is curated by Hong Kong pianist Shelley Ng. Currently an Associate Artist of the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Ng has performed at the Tanglewood and Aspen Music Festivals and has been featured on RTHK Radio 4.
Programme
Beethoven │ Piano Sonata No.14 in C-sharp minor, Op 27, No.2, 1st movement
Fazil Say │ Black Earth Op.8
George Rochberg │ Ricordanza
Bach/Gounod │ Ave Maria
– Intermission –
Nikolai Kapustin │ Variations, Op. 41
Bach-Busoni │ Chaconne in D minor from Partita for Solo Violin No. 2, BWV 1004
Jennifer Higdon │ Piano Trio
Chopin │ Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11, 2nd movement
Duration: Approximately 1 hour 28 minutes including one 15-minute interval
Piano Solo: Shelley Ng
With Andres Hui (Violin), Chi Li (Violin), William Lane (Viola), Richard Bamping (Cello) and Simon Hui (Bass)
Prison Yard Festival: West to east meanderings
Bach’s instantly recognisable Toccata and Fugue in D minor opens this concert, not in its usual form as an awe-inspiring wake-up call on “the King of Instruments” but in a stark, pared-down version for a lonely unaccompanied violin which nevertheless evokes suspense and grandeur as the potency of Bach’s music transcends its instrumental setting. Violinist Wang Liang then invites his Hong Kong Philharmonic colleagues to join him to transform the mood from austere drama to the warm autumnal glow of Brahms’s serene and introspective Clarinet Quintet.
The mood lightens as Hungarian Béla Bartók shares some of the rich discoveries from his massive research project – a series of musical field trips to remote communities of Romania, Transylvania, Turkey and beyond, captured in all their raw authenticity on primitive gramophone recordings like a kind of sonic archaeology, and published in various guises – here in the composer’s arrangement for two fiddlers. Clarinettist Lorenzo Iosco returns to close the concert with Göran Fröst’s witty adaptation of the Klezmer tune Let’s Be Happy, filled with fiendish clarinet licks and cadenzas to bring the evening to an exhilarating end.
PROGRAMME
Bach | Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 (arr. violin solo)
Brahms | Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115 (1891)
Bartók | Selections from 44 Duos for 2 Violins, Sz . 98 (1931)
Traditional (arr. Göran Fröst) | Klezmer Dance No. 3
Performed by Wang Liang (Violin), Gui Li (Violin), Kaori Wilson (Viola), Richard Bamping (Cello), Lorenzo Iosco (Clarinet)
Duration: 1 hour 3 minutes without interval