MUSIC REVIEW

The Lyricism of Chinese New Year

By STEVE SMITH

Published: January 25, 2012

That the New York Philharmonic would salute China with a glitzy affair like the Chinese New Year gala it hosted on Tuesday evening at Avery Fisher Hall should come as no surprise. For years now China has been cast as the next great frontier for Western classical music: a place of crowded conservatories, hungry audiences and, possibly, bulging coffers. The Philharmonic saw the effects of this bloom firsthand during its concert tour there in 2008.

The critic Alex Ross, in a probing New Yorker essay published that year, described a more complex reality in which the spoils of success remain tied to bureaucratic aims. Still, there is no question that China has produced a significant number of prominent composers and outstanding performers. The nation’s biggest star, the pianist Lang Lang, was the guest of honor at Tuesday’s concert, presented to a house packed with tuxedos, ball gowns, Mandarin jackets and television cameras, and broadcast live on WQXR-FM as part of the station’s China in New York festival.

After a traditional dragon dance, performed across the front of the stage by the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, Long Yu, a distinguished conductor who holds prominent posts with several Chinese orchestras, opened the program with “Spring Festival Overture” by Li Huanzhi. The fizzy 1956 work fused a distinctly Chinese lyricism to a robust exuberance familiar from countless Romantic overtures. Bao Yuankai’s “China Air Suite,” drawn from a collection of folk-song adaptations, showed a sophisticated instrumental palette redolent of Debussy’s.

The Quintessenso Mongolian Children’s Choir made its American stage debut with five Mongolian folk songs, orchestrated by Zou Ye. The songs were reharmonized for Western ears — surely the ascending chords of “Ehulan, Dehulan” weren’t originally those of “Twist and Shout”? — and the choreography could resemble what you might see among Broadway tykes. Still, the tiny singers, adorned in fur hats, headdresses and other traditional finery, delighted the audience with their lilting voices and intense concentration.

The second half of the program featured three brilliant soloists. Liang Wang, the Philharmonic’s principal oboist, performed superhuman feats of circular breathing in the relentless flurries of Chen Qigang’s “Extase.” Junqiao Tang, a bamboo-flute player, was no less impressive in Zhou Chenglong’s “Raise the Red Lantern.”

Then came Mr. Lang, who brought to Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 all the steely athleticism and flagrant showmanship it warrants. His encore, “Spring Dance” by Sun Yi-Qian, set frolicsome volleys and exaggerated tenderness over a robust tango rhythm.

Finally the Quintessenso singers returned for what was said to be their first performance in English, a sweetly warbled “America the Beautiful.” If some of the pronunciation was slightly awry, it mattered not at all. Precocious children are a universal language.