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Bel Canto

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1.Fantasia sull’opera Poliuto di Donizetti

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2.Le Api, studio caratteristico

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3.Gran Concerto su temi dall’opera I Vespri Sicilani di Verdi

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4.Fantasia sull’opera Les Huguenots di Meyerbeer

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5.“Ricordo di Napoli” Scherzo Brillante

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6.Concerto sopra motivi dell’opera La Favorita di Donizetti

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Based on the academic preciseness and objectivity, scholars of music history would at times avoid emphasizing the achievements of virtuoso performers in the past.

That could be one of the reason why it is rare to have literature about the musical virtuosity. These virtuoso performers, whom audiences loved and adored, however, were no doubt the brightest stars on the music stage; such dramatic stories of famous castrato singers or violin virtuosos became the most elaborating topics in the movies like Farinelli (1994) and Le Violon Rouge (1998). As for the instrumental virtuosity, it started early in the 16th century and reached its pinnacle in the late-18th and the 19th century -- the golden age of the virtuoso. The term started to be used to describe the musician, instrumentalist or vocalist, who pursued a career as a soloist, even a virtuoso composer him- or herself. The tension about the merit of practical virtuosity started to grow at the same time and intensified in the 19th century, and has been debated ever since then. Even so, the virtuosos in the 19th century music were astonishing and fabulous in every way, and that is why we can easily have names that stood for it: Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), Giovanni Battista Viotti (1755-1824), Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840) of violin, Franz Liszt (1811-1886), Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), Clara Schumann (1819-1896) of piano, and perhaps the greatest oboe virtuoso ever in the music history -- Antonio Pasculli. He was born in Palermo, Sicily on the 13th of October 1842. Beginning his oboe performing career at the age of 14, Pasculli toured in Germany, Italy and Austria, and was famed for his light and effortless bravura style. His legendary abilities have often stimulated comparisons with the famous Paganini, and won him the title “Paganini of the oboe”. His appointment to the oboe and English horn professor of the Royal Conservatory of Palermo in 1860 officially put his itinerant career to an end, where he taught until his retirement in 1913. In 1879 he took over the directorship of the Palermo municipal musical corps, a position to which he dedicated much time and energy. In addition, he personally instructed all the wind instrumentalists there to play the string parts, thereby creating after a “symphony-band” capable of successfully executing, apart from its usual repertoire works of Pasculli’s contemporaries, previously seldom heard by the Sicilian audiences, such as Wagner, Debussy, Grieg, and Sibelius, along with some of his own compositions. In 1884, he gave his last public performance since his eye-sight was terribly impaired, and, according to his doctor, would risk total blindness if he continued to play. He spent the most of his lifetime and eventually died on the 23th of February 1924 in his home town Palermo.

Like many other virtuosos of the 19th century, Pasculli composed music mostly for his own use in order to exploit his mastering techniques of oboe playing, including some variations on popular operatic themes, and pedagogical compositions for the virtuoso oboe performing art. These oboe fantasies and concertos on themes from the operas of his era seemed to reveal the singing nature of Italian music in one way. Moreover, opera-based pieces, which variously named fantasia, capriccio and the like, were an extremely popular genre for the 19th century. No less than now, the audiences preferred the known tune to the unknown, so-called “favorite” melodies. Since the virtuoso performers were sensitive to public taste, scarcely was a concert given without one or more compositions based on themes from the current successes in the opera repertory (especially in France and Italy). Nor was it unusual for audiences to applaud ardently when a particularly favorite tune was heard to emanate from the concert platform.

Granting that the title “Gran concerto” can smack of hyperbole to modern ears, Pasculli's work on themes from Verdi’s Grand Opera I vespri siciliani is a true, 15-minute gem of a concert piece, one that would be equally effective with or without an appeal to the parent opera. The jaunty barcarolle “Del piacer s’avanza l’ora!” (act 2) forms the central section, and as the theme also provides the material for the introduction and stretto-finale, the work is in broad A-B-A-C-A form. The contrasting lyric sections are, first, Elena’s ingratiating cavatina “Arrigo! ah, parli ancora” (act 4) and Arrigo’s expansive catilena “Un sol tuo sguardo” from the trio-finale (act 5). Nicely handled developments and transitions blend these three melodies into a smooth, well-paced work, and the virtuoso oboe part tests the soloist’s mettle thoroughly. Adopting the similar operatic sources, Pasculli skillfully put the other three into oboe virtuosities: Meyerbeer’s Grand Opera Les Huguenots, Donizetti’s La Favorita and Poliuto.

Outside the opera repertory, there are two pieces recorded in this album to demonstrate the oboe virtuosity. The first one is a Scherzo Brillante named “Ricordo di Napoli”, for a random image of Neapolitan memory. After an agile introduction (Allegro prestissimo), both the lyrical Largo and the following Allegretto sections show a light-hearted, 3-beat nature of a Scherzo. The most brilliant part would be the last section (Allegro vivace) of the breath-taking virtuoso techniques of oboe. The other one is the fascinating Le Api (the bees), labeled “studio caratteristico” (a characteristic study), which actually means an oboe virtuoso étude to study and to imitate the rapid move of bees’ body and their wings in a speed like allegro vivacissimo. Considered virtually unplayable, this piece can only be performed by a real oboe virtuoso who has mastered circular-breathing technique. Though it is hard to relate this dazzling masterpiece to the pastoral nature of oboe, Pasculli’s Le Api is literally the best showcase of 19th-century oboe virtuosity and almost the same enjoyment as Rimsky-Korsakov’s the Flight of a Bumblebee to all the audiences.

Wan-Chen Hsieh was born in Taipei, and received basic music education in Taiwan. She won the first prize in the 2004 International Handel Oboe Competition in Germany, and in other numerous competitions. And since so on, her carrier begins in Europe. She gave performances as a soloist in many music festivals, including Bach Festival in Leipzig, Handel Festival in Halle, Deutscher Musiktag in Berlin, and so on. Otherwise, she plays also concertos with many orchestras in Europe and Taiwan, such like MDR Chamber Orchestra, Schoeneberg Chamber Orchestra, Adlershof Chamber Orchestra Berlin, National Symphony Orchestra Taiwan, Taipei Symphony Orchestra, and Taipei Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. At the mean time, she was chosen as “Young Stars” from the National Cultural Center Taiwan in 2000 and 2004, and gave numerous recitals in Taiwan until today. Wan-Chen lives now in Taiwan and works not only as a lecturer at the Taipei National University of the Arts, but also actively to cooperate with other musicians and artists to produce performances and recording.

Her first classical recording “Bel Canto”, and first crossover recording “Eastern Capriccio” are published in 2007 fall.

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