Oscar Yatco, Von Hehn: Stunning interpreters of German masterpieces

The concert of German music at the CCP main theater was enhanced, in a manner of speaking, by facts and circumstances surrounding both its conductor and violin soloist.

Conductor Laureate Oscar C. Yatco, based in Germany, taught for years at Hannover’s Hochschule. Before then, he served as first concertmaster of the Mannheim National Orchestra, and for five consecutive years was first concertmaster of the Wagner Festival Orchestra in Bayreauth. He was a member of the Stross Quartet which concertized in over 20 countries.

Himself a virtuoso violinist, Maestro Yatco, who obtained his Teacher’s Diploma at 15 from the UP College of Music before studying abroad, was performing at the CCP concert with German violinist Annette von Hehn in Mendelssohn’s Concerto in E Minor which Yatco had played several times as a soloist.

Tall, slim, attractive and simply dressed — she wore no jewelry — Von Hehn more than justified the many international prizes she had garnered as well as her engagement as regular soloist with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

Mendelssohn’s Concerto, arguably the most popular of all violin concertos, is regarded at par with Beethoven’s own concerto. Wondrously lyrical, expertly structured, its themes splendidly developed, the Mendelssohn concerto is played without a break, the movements tightly-knit together.

Von Hehn was a master of her instrument from start to finish, dazzling listeners in the single cadenza and in every movement, her bowing firm, her fingering swift and nimble even in the most daunting passages, the melodic line always surfacing.

The piece was an ideal example of a striking composition for a solo instrument with effective orchestral accompaniment. Yatco, the virtuoso violinist, conveyed his thorough conversance with the concerto he had himself played. Although Von Hehn arrived in Manila only the night previous, leaving time for only one rehearsal, rapport was impeccable. Flawless. Further, there was a joyful meeting of mind and spirit between conductor and soloist.

The prolonged lusty applause and curtain calls led to Paganini’s Caprice 24. Its arrangement for the piano contains an exquisitely lyrical portion that is missing in the violin score whose fiendish demands were unwaveringly and awesomely met by Von Hehn. Superlatives can be dangerous or wearisome but Von Hehn was superb. Richard Kunzel, director of the Goethe Institut which co-sponsored the concert, graciously handed the young soloist a bouquet.

Yatco’s dynamism, call it magnetism, drew the best from the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, an admirable cohesiveness in Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture, Fingal’s Cave, described as “one of the great seascapes of music”. The composer had visited the “wild scenery and ruined abbeys” of Scotland and Wales which served him as inspiration for a work of “surprising beauty and originality” — qualities which Yatco, himself highly inspired, delineated vividly.

So much praise has been lavished on Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony that its rendition elicits considerable expectations. Bernard Shaw thought “the first movement should be played by giants led by a demigod.” Others point out that the funeral march is “the funeral of a genius”, and the allegro vivace, “an outburst of tempestuous joy suddenly and mysteriously declared in the threatening drumbeats of a coda”. The final movement, however, is lowest in the estimate of musicologists who impute formlessness to it. The charge seems valid to a certain degree.

At any rate, the Eroica, as a whole, is a monumental masterpiece, and Yatco developed the themes with remarkable vigor and vibrancy, infusing the work with almost palpable drama and passion.

The applause was as tumultuous as that which Von Hehn had earlier received, but after the second curtain call, Yatco took the concertmaster by the arm and exited with him.

Heading the audience, besides Goethe Institut Director Richard and Mrs. Kunzel, were EU Ambassador Alistair and Brigitte MacDonald.