New Zealand Saariaho, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky: Shan Liu (piano), New Zealand Symphony Orchestra / Jaime Martín (conductor). Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington. 24.7.2026. (PM)
Saariaho – Lumière et Pesanteur (2009)
Prokofiev – Piano Concerto No.3 in C major Op.26;
Tchaikovsky – Symphony No.4 in F minor Op.36
This concert by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra was given the title ‘Let There Be Light’, a quotation from Genesis 1:3 in the Bible, depicting the creation of light upon the Earth and its division from darkness – a theme which took different manifestations in the three works given in this concert by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and its guest conductor Jaime Martín, along with a major contribution in one of the items from the remarkable sixteen year-old New Zealand pianist Shan Liu, here making his mainstage debut with the orchestra.
Beginning the concert was a piece by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho. Lumière et Pesanteur (Light and Gravity) – the composer’s own notes regarding this work referred to it as a ‘gift’ to fellow Finnish conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen for his advocacy as an interpreter of an earlier Saariaho work, the oratorio La Passion de Simone, inspired by the works of 20th-century philosopher Simone Weil (1909-1943). The music for Lumière et Pesanteur was reworked by the composer from part of that same oratorio, the ‘Eighth Station’, the piece’s most abstract and orchestral section.
It began with the merest murmur of a percussion twinkle from celeste and strings, an evocation of space into which a lone trumpeter sounded a fantastical line – this gave way to various wind instruments whose floating tones spontaneously interacted, forming delightfully speculative colouristic and textural ambiences (such soft, muted brasses!). Over the top of these iridescences piped a piccolo, a foil for the occasional subterranean growlings welling up from beneath but countered by the continued effusions of wind tone supported by mysterious harp and brass sonorities.
Throughout, the poly-harmonic tones gave us hardly any consciousness of specific keys or modes, opening instead, our imaginations to scenarios of sonorities, textures and timbres engaged in some kind of mesmeric cosmic interaction, its growing to various stages of fruition and its equally enigmatic departure! – one in which the sounds seemed to play on at the end beyond what we could actually hear …
After this came the Prokofiev concerto, a different kind of journey, with its volatility and ‘take-it-as-it-comes’ attitudes towards darkness and light, with both players and listeners experiencing a journey disguised something of a roller-coaster ride! Pianist Shan Liu had already demonstrated his exceptional qualities on both the home and international pianistic arenas, here bringing terrific energy and momentum to his first entry via sparkling and brilliantly fluent finger-work before really opening up the pianistic throttle for the toccata-like exchanges with swirling winds and slashing strings and tremendous orchestral support in general! And so it went on, through various succeeding episodes too numerous to describe, except to say the pianist’s running unisons gathered up the orchestral forces in the tremendous and excitingly irresistible propulsions, taking the music to a triumphal final chord – at which point the Michael Fowler audience spontaneously exploded with delight and pent-up exhilaration!
The slow movement was all wistfulness and charm at the outset, the soloist completely at one with conductor and orchestra in the music’s bitter-sweet lyricism, until a sudden outburst brought a wild dance, which the cellos and double basses helped along. What a contrast with the magical ‘drifting dream’ sequences in the movement’s central section! – moments of fantastic, otherworldly music-making! And how spontaneously the rhythmic impulses seemed to come to life again, with dancing impulses sprouting from all about the orchestra – those amazingly jaunty passages then fused their energies with the return of the wistful melody that began the movement – what seemed like opposites enjoying a perfect partnership!
The winds had done a superb job of introducing each of the concerto’s movements, doing with same with the finale’s wry, insouciant bassoon-led opening, the piano joining in the fun with big-boned dance measures and playful competition with the orchestra via several glissandi-like skirling phrases added to the ‘quick march’ exchanges. There was so much to enjoy, with the winds (again) initiating a plaintive, bittersweet melody, the piano nonchalantly replying with a ‘walking’ theme, taken up by the winds, and a full-blooded return to that bittersweet theme on the strings – this was both voiced and embellished until the theme here got the gloriously ‘full Rachmaninov’ treatment from soloist and orchestra (though I am certain that neither composer would have thanked me for that heartfelt observation!). It was left to the soloist, conductor and players working up to full stretch with the music’s by-then heightened momentums, the concerto by the end simply overwhelming us with its power and brilliance!
After this, conductor Jaime Martín visibly insisted the young pianist play an encore! – most appropriately we were given Robert Schumann’s Traumerei from Kinderszenen, an appropriate antidote to the concerto performance’s intoxication in its simplicity and naturalness of utterance – even though it inhibited not a whit of animated discussion throughout the interval regarding what we had heard!
All such points of view having been shared, Martín returned to begin the Tchaikovsky symphony, the introduction getting spine-tingling brass-playing and dramatic whiplash-chordings from the full orchestra. The strings plaintively took up their own ‘first subject’, handing over to the winds and helping to further build up the tensions which became a kind of ‘pitched battle’ between the ‘fate’ theme and the answering lamentations! It was a properly dramatic and sonorous journey throughout, the eloquent orchestral detailing in every section by turns confronting (the ‘fate’ music and its insistent accompanying theme) and consoling (the folksy second subject theme and its major-key variant) right to the tumultuous conclusion of the first movement.)
Throughout the second movement I was freshly charmed by Tchaikovsky’s orchestrations, especially the many interactions between strings and winds so gorgeously and heartfeltly realised in this performance. Likewise in the famous pizzicato-led third movement the impact of the instrumental contrasts between strings, winds and brass were positively flavoursome from all concerned!
Martín then introduced the finale almost as attacca (not marked in the score), conveying the music’s tremendous urgency, the playing marked by fierce exchanges and great brilliance – similarly, the conductor brought the contrasting ‘Birch tree’ melody in up to tempo. maintaining the music’s delicacy but enhancing the excitement! The performance took us with increasing intensity to the final, tumultuous statement of the ‘fate’ motif, momentarily halting the music’s headlong flow, but whose quiet reiteration of the festive-like music represented the composer’s words ‘If you cannot discover the reasons for happiness in yourself, look to others…’. The orchestral frenzy unleashed for us at the conclusion of the movement embodied that fatalism with the utmost euphoria and excitement.
Peter Mechen