Concert review
On Thursday night, for the first time since early October, Seattle Symphony Music Director Xian Zhang returned to the Benaroya Hall podium, this time with a program of striking contrasts. The first half ventured into unfamiliar territory with a contemporary work for which she has been a leading advocate, while the second turned to one of the 20th century’s blockbuster symphonies.
Lasting 40 minutes and heard in Seattle for the first time, “Iris Dévoilée” (“Iris Unveiled”; remaining performances are on Saturday and Sunday) offered a contrast-rich immersion in the shifting mood states of an imagined woman — a figure intended to evoke facets of the female psyche. It’s the best-known work by Shanghai-born, Paris-based composer Qigang Chen, with whom Zhang has worked closely.
“Iris” points both to the rainbow-bearing goddess of Greek myth and to imagery inspired by traditional Chinese lyric poetry, where the flower suggests renewal and vitality. That layering of intercultural references is mirrored by Chen’s larger design: a sonic world in which a trio of traditional Chinese instruments and the highly stylized vocal idiom of Peking Opera intermingle with the rich palette of a Western orchestra.
Rather than following a straightforward plot, “Iris Unveiled” unfolds in nine mostly brief, impressionistic movements. Each focuses on a distinctive emotional state signaled by a simple title, ranging from innocence to jealous rage to voluptuous self-fulfillment.
Chen hints at snapshots along a young woman’s emotional journey from first love to betrayal to calm acceptance. But he leaves it to the audience to thread these together into an implicit narrative of its choosing.
The laconic libretto consists of only a few lines of text — as if ripped from a diary or overheard in conversation — and much of the singing is wordless.
The sound world Chen creates is no bland “fusion” of Chinese and Western idioms. Instead, it thrives on subtle color and unpredictable combinations. With its sense of a weightless, suspended music of the spheres, the serene final movement bore traces of Olivier Messiaen — with whom Chen studied in Paris.
But the palette is not uniformly pastel. In movements evoking jealousy and emotional turmoil, textures thicken and intensify, daring modern harmonies pushing against the distinctive colors of the ancient Chinese instruments — bowed erhu (Cathy Yang), lutelike pipa (Yang Jin) and zheng (Lucina Yue).
On Thursday night, these instruments sometimes stepped forward with the clarity of solo voices, at other times folding into the orchestral fabric. Yang’s yearning erhu lines were seamlessly taken up by Noah Geller’s violin or Efe Baltacıgil’s cello, creating the impression of a single, extended hyper-instrument, while principal clarinet Benjamin Lulich threaded the texture with hauntingly mellifluous phrases.
The visual dimension of the performance added to the unique atmosphere of “Iris Unveiled.” Meng Meng, a celebrated Peking Opera virtuoso, was positioned high in the organ loft, resplendent in traditional costume. Her elevated placement lent a ceremonial aura. Mei Gui Zhang and Tess Altiveros contributed soaring soprano lines that emerged directly from within the orchestral texture. The staging subtly reinforced the musical design as an interplay of perspectives within a shared sonic space.
Zhang shaped the piece with delicate, almost calligraphic gestures, allowing Chen’s shimmering orchestration to resonate and fade as if part of a single breathing organism.
If her conducting in Chen’s score felt intimate and inward, Zhang’s podium manner changed dramatically after intermission. She shaped Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony with sweeping gestures and full-bodied physicality, at times leaping across the podium. As in “Iris Unveiled,” an implicit narrative seemed to animate the performance.
The opening movement unfolded at a forward-moving pace that gave the music urgency without sacrificing clarity of line. If a few passages seemed more hesitantly phrased, the larger architecture held firm — culminating in a devastating ebb at the close.
In the scherzo, Zhang kept the tempo taut and driven, the insistent repetitions taking on a manic edge that was less menacing than claustrophobic — as if trapped in a tightening circuit. The largo opened into chamber-like spaces whose vulnerability seemed newly illuminated after the inward world of Chen’s score. Demarre McGill’s flute solos rose with desolate clarity.
Zhang avoided bombast and irony alike in the finale, the symphony’s most heavily debated movement. The march gathered force with ferocious bite, while the detour into a fragile, suspended interlude rippled with suspense. Zhang opted for a conclusion neither grotesquely slowed nor frantically rushed — not a cynical triumph but a hard-won assertion of possibility.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yakimaherald.com ’
