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Watts thrills
in season end

Honolulu Symphony with Andre Watts: Repeats 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at Blaisdell Concert Hall. Tickets $15 to $50. Call 792-2000.

By Ruth O. Bingham
Special to the Star-Bulletin

Child prodigies may be all the rage, but they can rarely compete with the polish and depth of age and experience. For the closing concert of the season, the Honolulu Symphony featured renowned pianist André Watts, an artist out to make not a name for himself, but music for all.

In a thrilling performance of Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Watts made musical sense of even the most awkward passages. Every note was in its place, revealing an unusually coherent interpretation.

Watts' unassuming manner understated the music he produced. Beethoven's whimsical "purple patches" (as D.F. Tovey called them) became the raw material for magic, as Watts sculpted the music with his mastery of timbres, tailored phrasing and silken trills. Of particular note were his luscious opening to the second movement, that startling and otherworldly transition to the third movement and his exuberant third movement theme.

Watts "spoke" to the orchestra throughout, dovetailing his comments as though the music were an intimate dialogue. As usual, Maestro Samuel Wong collaborated meticulously. It was a moving performance.

Wong opened the concert with a world premiere by Donald Reid Womack, associate professor of composition and theory at the University of Hawaii. Womack's "Emerald Sparks," a brief fanfare written to celebrate the Honolulu Symphony's 100th anniversary, presented the"green flash" of sunsets as a metaphor to close a century of music making.

Womack used the orchestra in a Stravinskian manner, focusing on rhythm and especially timbre, the musical equivalent of color. Rapidly shifting meters and rhythms and an array of percussion instruments generated excitement. Changes in timbral hues created the sparkle that drove the piece.

"Emerald Sparks" was no laid-back sunset; it concentrated on the energy and excitement of sunset. The music ebbed, flowed, shifted, ever building to its finest moment and climax, when the last flash of light evaporated into dusk.

Yesterday's performance, which took longer than the score's specified six minutes, could have been faster, but not without losing clarity: it was not an easy piece. Throughout the afternoon, Wong chose the elegance of clarity over the excitement of alacrity. His tempos allowed the music to expand into the fullness of the moment, emphasizing the depth of Beethoven's concerto, the breadth and darkness of Tchaikovsky's symphony.

The concert ended with Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4, which showcased the orchestra as soloists, as instrumental choirs, and as a unified ensemble. Wong strove for a passionate reading, making the most of those devastating chords preceding the triumphant close.

It offered a fitting conclusion to the Symphony's centennial celebration. Not so long ago, the symphony was likewise devastated, only to revive for an equally triumphant season.

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