Charlie Siem and Lü Jia triumph in Cremona with La Filarmonica A. Toscanini
Charlie Siem received an enthusiastic response from both audience and press following his appearance at Teatro Ponchielli in Cremona with Filarmonica Toscanini and conductor Lü Jia.
Reviewing the evening, the Italian press praised Siem’s performance in Édouard Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole, highlighting the brilliance, clarity and expressive intensity of his playing. His interpretation was described as both technically accomplished and emotionally immediate, drawing warm applause throughout the performance. Particular attention was also given to the remarkable sound of his 1735 Guarneri del Gesù “D’Egville”, heard again in the encore by Fritz Kreisler.
The reviews also underlined the success of the concert as a whole, noting the orchestra’s solid and refined playing in a programme that combined Bizet/Guiraud’s Carmen Suites with Silvia Colasanti’s Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth, performed with soprano Mariam Suleiman. Critics praised the artistic ambition of the evening and the strong response of the Cremona audience.
“Lü Jia proposes a reading that respects the established tradition without withdrawing from dialectic: what prevails, therefore, is a symphonic approach that reduces, without minimising it, the theatrical element, but insists on colour, nuance, instrumental prominence, agogics and dynamics.”
“Compared with lyrical and passionate momentum, Siem prefers a harsher yet at the same time crystalline approach. The sound is brilliant, precise and vaguely mathematical, but the virtuosity is galvanising.”
