David Garrett has had to overcome many obstacles in his rise to fame. It's been a hard slog from the back streets of Aachen to the hard seats of the City Hall Concert Hall in Hong Kong, where the violinist played two sold-out concerts over the weekend.
First, there was the embarrassment of having a name called Bongartz – solved by using his mother's maiden name. Then there were the inevitable comparisons with another crossover fiddler, Vanessa Mae – solved by an ability to resist the urge to wander into the sea in a T-shirt carrying an electric violin. Finally, the most serious of all the impediments, there were the comparisons with David Beckham – solved by demonstrating that he's good for more than just set pieces.
The Hong Kong Sinfonietta's well earned reputation for an acute commercial as well as musical sense was further enhanced by Sunday's matinee, as they served up a programme expertly tailored for spinster music teachers, 5-year-old Menuhin wannabes and Tom Lee Music Co. Ltd. alike.
It's difficult to attend a concert in Hong Kong nowadays without hearing Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite, so it's just as well that it's such a fine piece. While Grieg is famous for two compositions (his piano concerto regularly tops the charts at Classic FM – praise comes no higher that that), Bizet is famous for only one work, Carmen, which is a pity, since his Symphony in C, composed when he was just 17, is a delight.
If any piece has more tunes per square inch than the Peer Gynt Suite then it's the Carmen Suite, which made it a perfect choice to kick off the second half, given the attention span of the average Hong Kong audience, never mind those who'd been dragged along in their nappies on the off chance they would one day set the family cash registers ringing as the next Mae or the next Nigel Kennedy without the annoying attitude and the Aston Villa scarf.
But no one had come to listen to the Sinfonietta play, and the man who supplements his income by modelling for Calvin Klein didn't let his audience down. He bounced his way through a repertoire of well known pieces (the sort of things you've heard on the radio or as ads on the telly but couldn't put a name to), engaging in banter with the orchestra not just between items but during them as well, transitioning from a "three-four" at the start of one piece to a full "one-two-three-four" half way through it. Not since Sir Thomas Beecham was hamming it up with the Royal Philharmonic has chuntering your way through a performance been so in fashion, with Brahms, Sarasate, Strauss and Bach all getting the Garrett treatment.
As did Antonin Dvořák, though you wouldn't know it from the programme notes. There must be something about this fellow that makes the bully in us want to kick sand in his face. Rory Bremner lampooned Classic FM in its early days with the line delivered in the half-witted tones of Henry Kelly "And that was Dvořák, but I'm not sure who it was by!", and now the poor Bohemian had his Humoresque stolen from him and attributed to Brahms.
First, there was the embarrassment of having a name called Bongartz – solved by using his mother's maiden name. Then there were the inevitable comparisons with another crossover fiddler, Vanessa Mae – solved by an ability to resist the urge to wander into the sea in a T-shirt carrying an electric violin. Finally, the most serious of all the impediments, there were the comparisons with David Beckham – solved by demonstrating that he's good for more than just set pieces.
The Hong Kong Sinfonietta's well earned reputation for an acute commercial as well as musical sense was further enhanced by Sunday's matinee, as they served up a programme expertly tailored for spinster music teachers, 5-year-old Menuhin wannabes and Tom Lee Music Co. Ltd. alike.
It's difficult to attend a concert in Hong Kong nowadays without hearing Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite, so it's just as well that it's such a fine piece. While Grieg is famous for two compositions (his piano concerto regularly tops the charts at Classic FM – praise comes no higher that that), Bizet is famous for only one work, Carmen, which is a pity, since his Symphony in C, composed when he was just 17, is a delight.
If any piece has more tunes per square inch than the Peer Gynt Suite then it's the Carmen Suite, which made it a perfect choice to kick off the second half, given the attention span of the average Hong Kong audience, never mind those who'd been dragged along in their nappies on the off chance they would one day set the family cash registers ringing as the next Mae or the next Nigel Kennedy without the annoying attitude and the Aston Villa scarf.
But no one had come to listen to the Sinfonietta play, and the man who supplements his income by modelling for Calvin Klein didn't let his audience down. He bounced his way through a repertoire of well known pieces (the sort of things you've heard on the radio or as ads on the telly but couldn't put a name to), engaging in banter with the orchestra not just between items but during them as well, transitioning from a "three-four" at the start of one piece to a full "one-two-three-four" half way through it. Not since Sir Thomas Beecham was hamming it up with the Royal Philharmonic has chuntering your way through a performance been so in fashion, with Brahms, Sarasate, Strauss and Bach all getting the Garrett treatment.
As did Antonin Dvořák, though you wouldn't know it from the programme notes. There must be something about this fellow that makes the bully in us want to kick sand in his face. Rory Bremner lampooned Classic FM in its early days with the line delivered in the half-witted tones of Henry Kelly "And that was Dvořák, but I'm not sure who it was by!", and now the poor Bohemian had his Humoresque stolen from him and attributed to Brahms.
4 comments:
My son was dying to see that concert just based on the "cool factor" of the posters! But he was off with all the other suzuki wannabe's in Melbourne.
I must say Andre Rieu has to be worse than Vanessa Mae or David Garrett!
All very well, but you must admit that Vanessa Mae looks better in a wet T-shirt. (Don't tell Susan Boyle or she'll be wanting one too.)
I thought you were going to tell me that Mae wasn't wearing a T-shirt, PB, but I seem to have got away with that bit of inaccuracy.
GP, I half expected to see a little fellow with a violin queuing up for Garrett's autograph after the show.
I should add that Garrett seems the real deal to me. Zubin Mehta also predicts great things for him - and praise doesn't come much higher than from the only fellow with an ego, AKA presence and musicality, big enough to be entrusted with the Three Tenors.
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