Conductor Jaap van Zweden during the opening concert of his final season with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra as music director. He conducts a concert performance of The Flying Dutchman and two concerts titled Farewell to Our Music Director before departing. Photo: Keith Hiro/HK Phi)
The time has come for Dutch conductor Jaap van Zweden to sail away from Hong Kong, his home port of sorts for the past 12 years.
He is conducting two farewell programmes to mark the end of his long tenure as music director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra: a concert version of Richard Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman (geddit?) with one last performance on June 23, and a final programme on June 25 and 26 made up of excerpts of audience favourites and a new work by principal timpani James Boznos.
Van Zweden’s imminent departure, unusually before a successor is named, is certainly making this an extraordinary end to an extraordinary era at the city’s oldest orchestra.
For the past six years, van Zweden has concurrently been music director of the 182-year-old New York Philharmonic, which makes him the most high-profile conductor to have ever led a Hong Kong orchestra.
When we were on tour in Europe and mainland China recently, we were playing better than ever before, and that’s partly because we were not so terrified of Jaap
Lin Jiang, principal horn
The Hong Kong Philharmonic is much younger – it celebrated its 50th anniversary as a professional orchestra with a gala dinner on June 18, a red carpet event at the Regent hotel. And so the consensus on van Zweden’s legacy in Hong Kong is more positive than that in New York, which he is also leaving, after standing in the shadow of predecessors such as Leonard Bernstein.
Long-term HK Phil orchestra members credit him for raising the bar, even if his steely reign has admittedly been a source of fear and stress.
“When we were on tour in Europe and mainland China recently, we were playing better than ever before, and that’s partly because we were not so terrified of Jaap,” says Lin Jiang, principal horn.
Jaap van Zweden conducts the Hong Kong Philharmonic in Aix-en-Provence, France, during the orchestra’s recent tour of Europe. Photo: Desmond Chan/HK Phil
“I think after 12 years of rapport building and countless hours of demanding and sometimes highly stressful rehearsals, we now trust each other and are relaxed enough to create something really special for the audience.”
As The New York Times’ critic summed up this month, van Zweden’s “martinet forcefulness” was not as appreciated on the other side of the world and lessened the impact of his already short tenure, interrupted by the pandemic. (The maestro is not quite done with the New York Philharmonic yet – he is taking them on a tour in mainland China, kicking off with two concerts on June 27 and 28 at the Guangzhou Opera House).
Van Zweden is not without detractors in Hong Kong. There were mumblings about his long absence during the pandemic (he stayed with his family in Amsterdam) and reviewers have found fault with what they perceive to be a lack of tenderness and lightness in his treatment of Mozart and Brahms especially.
Still, even if some players might prefer a more easy-going boss who does not wield the baton like a cat o’ nine tails, audience and musicians alike have generally been appreciative of the levelling up, which became evident in 2019, when HK Phil won the Gramophone Orchestra of the Year Award with a recording of Wagner’s Ring Cycle.
Those conflicting emotions may reveal themselves in Dragon Factors, the tribute written by Boznos – who composes under the pen name OZNO – which premieres at the June 25 concert titled “Farewell to Our Music Director”.
James Boznos. Photo: Michael Li Yam/HK Phil
The composer says the piece embodies different aspects of dragons – sometimes they are a fire-breathing monster, sometimes they are an auspicious symbol of power and charisma.
Meanwhile, the wait for the next music director continues. Word is that young Tarmo Peltokoski is still in the running, which means the season finale, led by the 24-year-old Finnish rising star on July 5 and 6, could help seal the deal.
The first half of that concert features Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho in Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No 2, while the second half will see Peltokoski tackle Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, a work of vast emotional range.
Tarmo Peltokoski will conduct the Hong Kong Philharmonic’s season-ending concert in July and will be back to open its 2024/25 season, amid talk he is still in the running to succeed van Zweden as music director. Photo: YouTube/HR-Sendesaal
Peltokoski will be back for the new-season opener on September 5 and 6 as well, with Swedish violinist Daniel Lozakovich (who is a year younger than Peltokoski) joining him on stage.
Hopefully, all will be revealed by then and we can just focus on next season’s delightful line-up, which features the tenor Jonas Kaufmann, the long-awaited “return home” concerts of Hong Kong-born conductor Elim Chan, violinist Augustin Hadelich and, in case you are worried about having withdrawals, the dragon man himself: van Zweden will be back for four programmes in February and July.
