Bing Wang Plays Saariaho’s Nocturne
The LA Phil’s Associate Concertmaster has a “dialog with the spirits”
The Los Angeles Philharmonic has performed many works by Kaija Saariaho, a celebrated composer-friend of Esa-Pekka Salonen. This gave our Associate Concertmaster Bing Wang a way in to Nocturne’s unexpected sounds and textures. Wang helps explain the various techniques that Saariaho uses in her short piece, including ponticello and tasto bowing (including producing a scratching tone, producing overtones), left hand pizzicato, trills with harmonics, and more. Because of the unusual sounds, when you hear a sweet harmony like a third or a sixth, played traditionally with vibrato, it really stands out to the ear. Bing Wang describes the piece as solemn and contemplative, as well as very free rhythmically. “It’s like having a dialog with the spirits,” she says of the piece.
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