Hong Kong Palace Museum | Musical Journey | Botticelli to Van Gogh: Masterpieces from The National Gallery, London

© The National Gallery, London

MUSSORGSKY (orch. Ravel) | Pictures at an Exhibition: Promenade IV (©️ Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra)

In 1874 the Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881) visited a memorial exhibition for his friend, the architect Viktor Alexandrovich Hartmann, who had died suddenly the previous year. On display were four hundred of Hartmann’s drawings, designs, watercolours, and travel sketches. Mussorgsky decided to set ten of the images to music, coupled with a recurrent “Promenade” theme that would play as the audience walked from one room of the exhibition to the next.

Each Promenade conveys a particular mood, anticipating the work of art that the viewer will see. In Promenade IV, the woodwind section softly reprises the Promenade’s main theme before the strings take it up. The composition concludes with a new melody on woodwind to introduce Hartmann’s sketch Ballet of the Chicks in their Shells, filled with wonder and intrigue. The layers of emotion in the soundtrack echo the spirit of “The Red Boy”, which depicts a child lost in thought, imagining the adventures his future will bring.

© The National Gallery, London

BACH | St. Matthew Passion: Wir setzen uns mit Tränen nieder (©️ RTHK Radio 4)

Sacred music has played an essential role throughout the history of classical music. Passion music is a type of music composed to represent Christ’s suffering and crucifixion. German composer J. S. Bach’s (1685–1750) St Matthew Passion is among the most ambitious religious compositions ever written. With its complex theological and mystical symbolism, profound biblical teachings, and psychological depth, this iconic piece is one of the most monumental musical creations in the Western tradition. The two choirs play two roles: they are performers in action and they are onlookers reacting to the drama, much like the chorus in a Greek tragedy. Bach closes the St Matthew Passion poignantly in the concluding chorale, “Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden” (When once I must depart), written in a minor key with precise dynamic markings of musical expression. As the choirs exchange parting words – “rest well” and “sweetest rest” – the music concludes quietly in stillness.

© The National Gallery, London

DEBUSSY | Syrinx (©️ Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra)

Ancient Greek and Roman myths were important sources of inspiration for musical compositions and literature. In 1913, French composer Claude Debussy (1862–1918) wrote the short flute solo Syrinx to accompany a scene from Gabriel Mourey’s play Pysché, in which Pan dies. Syrinx is the Greek word for the popular folk instrument consisting of end-blown reeds, often known as panpipes. Both names are derived from the Greek myth of Syrinx, a nymph who escaped the unwanted attention of Pan, the half-man, half-goat god of wild nature, by transforming herself into a cluster of reeds. Hearing the sound of the wind blowing through the reeds, Pan used them to create the instrument so closely associated with him.

Clock of Nature

© The National Gallery, London

MOZART | Quintet for Piano & Winds in E-flat, K. 452: 2nd movement (©️ Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra)

The beauty of chamber music lies in the small number of performers, each playing a distinct and important role. The intimacy of chamber music lends itself well to expressing subtle and sophisticated musical themes that, in some ways, resemble daily human interactions. Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) completed this quintet in March 1784, describing it as “the best work” he had ever written. It debuted at Vienna’s Burgtheater. The second movement opens with an expressive melody on the oboe. The complete quintet – oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon and piano – responds, the music lyrically unfolding into the second section with its flowing melodies and vibrant passages.

© The National Gallery, London

MUSSORGSKY (orch. Ravel) | Pictures at an Exhibition: Promenade II (©️ Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra)

Life experiences, thoughts, and feelings inform artistic creation, whether painting or music.

Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881) composed Pictures at an Exhibition after visiting an exhibition commemorating his friend’s passing. He wrote several Promenades to link this suite of music. In Promenade II, the solo horn plays the main theme, answered by the woodwind. The dialogue is followed by the main theme played on woodwind. The strings respond, subtly concluding the conversation.

© The National Gallery, London

RACHMANINOV | Symphony no. 2: 3rd movement (©️ Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra)

Life experiences, thoughts, and feelings inform artistic creation, whether painting or music.

Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninov (1873–1943) was in exile in Dresden, Germany, when he wrote his second symphony. The slow movement is emotionally and musically powerful. Beginning with the gentle strains of a violin, it continues with a clarinet solo. The musical components expand with various compositional devices throughout the movement. It is charged with profound sentiments and fills the listener with a range of emotions.

© The National Gallery, London

MAHLER | Symphony no. 1: 3rd movement (©️ RTHK Radio 4)

Life experiences, thoughts, and feelings inform artistic creation, whether painting or music.

Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) was born in Bohemia. Mahler’s First Symphony is one of the world’s greatest symphonies. The third movement is a frightening funeral march based on the nursery melody Frère Jacques and partly inspired by Jacques Callot’s The Huntsman’s Funeral. The movement is known for its exceptional use of melodic and thematic contrasts, and regarded as an expression of Mahler’s contemplation of mortality.

© The National Gallery, London

BEETHOVEN | Symphony no. 6, Pastoral: 1st movement (©️ Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra)

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) was deeply inspired by nature. He claimed that he preferred trees to people, and it was said that he never carried an umbrella because he loved the feeling of the rain. Beethoven was described as “nature personified” by one of his biographers: “He was drawn to nature’s elemental strength rather than its laws. As a result, the spirit of nature manifested itself to him in all its magnificent might, endowing him with the ability to create a work that cannot be compared to anything else in the entire musical repertoire.” That composition was his Pastoral Symphony, which he composed over the course of two summers while living in the charming rural community of Heiligenstadt.

The first movement begins with a relaxed, open, song-like theme that is unlike any of Beethoven’s earlier pieces. The composer’s subtitle is accurate: this is not an outpouring of emotion, but rather a slow “awakening of cheerful feelings”.

© The National Gallery, London

SIBELIUS | Symphony no. 5: 3rd movement (©️ Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra)

The oeuvre of Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) is among classical music’s most fascinating. His stylistic development begins with his early experiments in the Viennese Classical school and early Romanticism, progressing through National Romanticism and Neoclassicism and then to an Expressionist–Impressionist intermediary stage. Finally, his style achieves a rebirth and crystallisation of symphonic thinking. Sibelius is best known for his seven symphonies.

The magnificent horn theme in the finale of Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony is called “Swan Hymn” after Sibelius saw sixteen swans taking wing and circling his country home before “disappearing into the solar haze like a glittering silver ribbon”. The climax begins with a rush of violins and violas, quickly followed by the chatter of woodwind; as this fades, a bell-like tolling figure develops in the horns. As the movement progresses, the texture thickens, loaded with dissonance and contradictory accents. The ultimate resolution – four chords and two unisons introduced after a little silence – is shocking in its simplicity and spareness.