SORA Ensemble, PPO concert: a musical mix of sweet and spice (plus a dash of confusion)

SORA Ensemble, Yoshikazu Fukumura
and the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra

The program for the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra season concert featuring the SORA Ensemble from Japan already promised a diverse offering with music from Dmitri Shostakovich, Franz Joseph Haydn, and Arturo Márquez that were totally unlike each other. This whirlwind of a program plus the confusion during the encore that I found amusing, all contributed for a memorable evening.

SORA Ensemble
bassoonist Rei Ishiguro, cellist Keiichi Yamada, violinist Kana Kobayashi,
and oboist Hiromasa Iwasaki

The evening kicked off with Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 9 in E-flat major Op. 70, a work that is appreciated more once taking into account the historical background behind the piece. Knowing how Shostakovich once fell out of Stalin's favor with this piece and how the revisionists view this currently, I couldn't help but wished for more a belittling character, dissent, and irreverence with how the PPO delivered this piece. I think that I was the only one who tried to contain his laughter once the trombone introduced the marching theme played by the piccolo.

By comparison, the Sinfonia Concertante in B-flat major, Op. 84 Hob. I/105 by Franz Joseph Haydn might have seemed quite bland and unexciting when compared to the Shostakovich that preceded it. But having the soloists from the SORA Ensemble, composed of oboist Hiromasa Iwasaki, bassoonist Rei Ishiguro, violinist Kana Kobayashi, and cellist Keiichi Yamada, provided interest and a needed breath of fresh air and lightness with their conversational approach to their solo parts.

Conductor Yoshikazu Fukumura and the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra

PPO Music Director and Principal Conductor Yoshikazu Fukumura had a memorable outing with Arturo Márquez's Danzón No. 2 in a previous concert and he was poised to deliver more spice with two of the Mexican composer's dances namely Danzón No. 7 and Danzón No. 8. By then, it seemed to me that the Haydn served to cleanse the palette in preparation for the Danzóns, with No. 7 featuring rich textures while No. 8 evoking an exotic take on Ravel's Bolero.

These two pieces were greatly appreciated by the audience and with the night still quite young, an encore of Danzón No. 2 was so imminent that I could almost hear the clarinet opening of that sultry music. But a bit of confusion regarding the score, which was not at the conductor's podium but rather offstage, forced Fukumura to do a repeat of Danzón No. 7 instead. The puzzled look of the harpist, who was already positioned at the piano, upon hearing a different piece was priceless and this became an inside joke to those who figured out this amusing detour.