Concert review | A brilliant West Coast debut for violinist Tianwa Yang

Concert review |

As the Seattle Symphony celebrated the release of its new recording of Mahler's massive "Symphony of a Thousand," it programmed chamber-orchestra sized works. This interesting and entertaining program included overlooked gems, but foremost, the introduction of an extraordinary violinist.

The music began with a quiet, cheerful piece for an unjustly overlooked instrument: the Concerto for English Horn by Donizetti. Seattle Symphony principal Stefan Farkas stepped into the spotlight with this larger, darker-toned cousin of the oboe. Donizetti is known primarily as an opera composer, and this instrumental work is rooted in that light, bel canto style. Farkas played with pleasing tone and flawless technique, bringing forward the instrument's understated beauty.

There was nothing understated about the music that followed. The headline soloist for the concert was Tianwa Yang, the Beijing native and former pupil of Isaac Stern, making her West Coast debut.

Yang performed two single-movement pieces by French composers, based on their travel to other countries. Those are the objective facts. Here is a highly subjective one: this young woman could outplay the devil.

Yang's splash on our coast was stunning, with Ravel's "Tzigane," inspired by Hungarian gypsy fiddlers. The work opens with a long, passionate statement from the lone violin, which Yang played with fire, as the orchestra listened in admiration. This composition was the perfect platform for Yang's talents, from the deep pentatonic declarations in the opening to the stratospheric harmonics and all the wild, infernal glissandos that slid in between. It's a madly magical piece, and Yang threw her whole body into it.

The Saint-Saëns "Havanaise" was gentler by comparison, but played with no less verve. This Cuban dance floated gracefully and showed new sides of Yang's technique. The crowd, the orchestra and Maestro Gerard Schwarz himself insisted on her playing an encore afterward, and she graciously obliged with the final movement from Ysaye's Sonata No. 4.

The post-intermission part of the program was a lightly staged, highly narrated version of Richard Strauss' take on the Molière play, "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme." This rarely heard work is musically delightful and punctuated with Molière's wit, in the capable voice of narrator Erich Parce. The entrance of the Fez-bedecked men of the Seattle Symphony Chorale added an amusing spectacle. It's good that the Symphony is producing these novel, rarely heard works. But the major buzz in the departing crowd remained the introduction of Tianwa Yang.