The Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts rounded out its summer concert season last night as Music Director Channing Yu as led the Mercury Orchestra and the winner of the Fou Ts’ong International Concerto Competition 2025 Kevin Ahfat. Mercury filled New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall with an all-Ravel program, ending with his orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition
Ravel orchestrated Alborada del gracioso from his collection Mirroirs for Sergei Diaghilev as part of the ballet Les Jardin d’Aranjuez; that orchestration began the evening with some Spanish spice before as if to season the subsequent meaty courses. The strings opened with a buoyant section pizzicato as the percussion, especially led by timpanist Jeremy Lang, startled the audience into the forte section. On occasion, the strings dominated the woodwinds, which was a shame, but the bassoons and especially the contrabassoon cut through the texture. Bassoonist Lauren Landry lyrically rendered the “sad clown” solo in the contrasting section; suitably melancholic and angsty, she never veered crooning sentimentality. Yu flowed throughout the opener, usually ending up lifted so that the sound he wanted carried out into the hall with breathless ease.
Pianist Paul Wittgenstein tragically lost his right arm in World War I. To maintain his renown on his instrument, he commissioned a variety of composers for piano-left-hand material that has certainty entered the canon. (see this reviewer’s article that discusses Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Wittgenstein-commissioned Suite for Two Violins, Cello, and Piano Left Hand [HERE]). Arguably, the most performed of these works is Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D Major, which Fou Ts’ong International Concerto Competition 2025 winner Kevin Ahfat undertook. Opening with a slightly too-murky double bass arpeggiation section, Douglas Wilkins on the contrabassoon barked out the nasal and biting contra solo, heralding in the soloist. With relatively liberal but intelligent use of the sustain pedal, a pianist can accompany his own melody when not supported by the orchestra. When the orchestra enters, the piano has to speak above it with less power and resonance at its disposal than the two hands can provide. Ahfat performed admirably in this role, bridging that gap with technical and musical ease as the left hand swiped bi-directionally across the keys. The most important moment for him, the second solo piano feature where the orchestra finally comes in to support the soloist, showcased Ahfat’s inherent musicality and grace at the instrument, contrasting his effective legato against the orchestra. Mercury’s winds and strings balanced with each other far better this time around, perhaps more sensitively listening to the soloist. Yu effectively matched the soloist’s wishes with his ensemble’s needs.
Ahfat’s propensity to grunt while playing more forceful and marcato sections proved very distracting. While understandable in the extremely masculine and aggressive sections of the work, and not without precedent (here’s lookin’ at you, Glenn…), and telegraphing how hard he worked in producing the sound he wanted, most of the time this tic diminished his audience rapport.
Yu clearly had a vision for Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s piano solo Pictures at an Exhibition, guiding the ensemble deftly through the meanders of Viktor Hartmann exhibition. Some choices, such as powering through the closing harmonies of The Great Gate of Kyiv rather quickly, this reviewer-conductor would not have made, but Yu certainly guided a personal and thoughtful gallery tour. Gnomus, Tuileries, and the Ballein went off without a hitch. Of note: on clarinet-turned-alto-saxophone Diego Bacigalupe performed the legendary The Old Castle so ethereally that it almost sounded as though his melody came from everywhere and nowhere. Tubist Timothy Sliski also gave an admirable rendition of the BydƗo solo (side note: the title more closely translates to what would be best described as a Russian redneck, not an ox-cart, according to this reviewer’s Russian speaking friends). Despite the occasional slip-up (the ending of the BydƗo, for instance, seemed to have issues with missing parts in the ending and the first Promenade stumbled once), the exhibition mightily impressed.
Mr. Schepkin is being much too kind. In American English, “redneck” has acquired a somewhat derogatory meaning. That is — as Mr. Schepkin surely knows — very unlikely to have been Mussorgsky’s intention, however. The composer, like most of his friends in Slavophilic circles, usually had an admiring respect for the Russian peasantry and its agricultural labors.
Comment by stephen wigler — September 17, 2025 at 4:21 pm
Mussorgsky’s manuscript gives the title “Bydło” in the Polish spelling (note the crossed-over L (Ł), a sonic equivalent of the English W). The Polish word means “cattle,” and indeed a Mussorgsky letter from the time of the “Pictures'” composition mentions an ox-cart in relation to this particular piece, inspired by one of Victor Hartmann’s drawings made in Poland. In the letter, Mussorgsky gives the movement’s name in (almost correct) Polish and mock-French: “Sandomirzsko bydło (le télègue)”; the last word is an ironic rendition of the Russian “telega” (cart), and the toponym “Sandomirzsko” means “from Sandomierz” (a town in Poland). While it is true that the Russian word “bydlo” (“cattle”, as in Polish) has later acquired the meaning described in the review, it might be a stretch to assume that this was what Mussorgsky really meant, however tempting the hypothesis may be.
Comment by Sergey Schepkin — August 31, 2025 at 1:32 pm