Relax. “No matter how little you know about classical music, it’s important that you’re not scared of going to a concert.” Yip Wing-sie, musical director of the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, touches on many people’s almost unreasoned recoil from the thought of going to a classical concert. Classical music, we may think, is highbrow, complicated and way above us. Yet we have all listened to and enjoyed the classics, knowingly or not, at one time or another – and in the orchestra’s upcoming concert, Inspired by Harmony: Grainger Quartet X Hong Kong Sinfonietta, many in the audience will say with some surprise, “Hey, I know that tune!”

In that June 24 concert, the Grainger Quartet – violinists Natsuko Yoshimoto and James Cuddeford, violist Jeremy Williams and cellist Patrick Murphy – will make their debut as artist associates with the Sinfonietta. But, in a departure from tradition and, Yip explains, “to give our players a good chance to work with the Grainger Quartet on an even more personal basis, [the quartet] will be leading and interpreting the piece, and our players will be responding to their demands,” and she laughs cheerily, “without the conductor getting in the way!”

The music chosen for the concert lends itself to a conductor-less programme. Three out of the five pieces are from the Baroque period and back in the days when Johann Sebastian Bach wrote the Brandenburg Concerto No 3 in G , Antonio Vivaldi composed his Concerto in B Minor for Four Violins and Allesandro Marcello wrote his Oboe Concerto in C Minor, orchestras were so small they didn’t need a person wielding a baton to lead them. As Yip explains, “We need at least 80 to 90 people to play a Mahler symphony but for Baroque music, we seldom have more than 20.”

Not that small necessarily means unimpressive or obscure. Yip says, “I think that with the exception of the oboe concerto by Marcello, all of the pieces are actually quite well known. And even people who may not know the titles of these pieces will probably have heard them somewhere before.” The music may be part of the classical repertoire but is also recognizable in popular culture. For instance, Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No 3 was used as the original theme of the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow while the prelude from Edvard Grieg’s Holberg Suite – one of the two non-Baroque works in the five-piece programme – appeared in an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer!“

Something else she hopes people realize is that music by composers who have been described as nationalistic – like Antonin Dvorák, whose Serenade in D Minor is included in the programme – aren’t necessarily solemn and “heavy”. This, she feels, is particularly true for Grieg, a Norwegian nationalist who found inspiration in his country’s folk music. Indeed, “Folk music can be a lot of fun, it doesn’t have to be really serious. In Grieg’s Holberg Suite, the first movement really has a lot of vitality, a lot of spirit and I’d never consider it to be a heavy kind of composition. In fact, the whole piece is quite light.”

Additionally, one of the two works by nationalist composers in the programme was written mainly for winds, the other for strings. So,
Yip points out, as with the three Baroque works, neither require a huge orchestra.

At the same time though, she believes that this concert’s attendees will be able to clearly distinguish between the nationalist and Baroque pieces. They were written in different centuries and in the nationalist works “the harmonic language is completely different from the time when, say, Bach wrote his piece. Everything is richer. You feel that it’s more romantic while the Baroque pieces
will sound more thematic and linear.” Then she adds with another laugh, “Having said that, not all the Baroque pieces are the same!”

Finally the Music Director stresses, “Attending a concert is different from listening to a CD. You get to see people in action” – rather than just hear them. And although it is not something people might readily think is the case, “that is in itself an attraction!”

Inspired by Harmony: Grainger Quartet X Hong Kong Sinfonietta will be performed at the HK City Hall Concert Hall, 8pm on Sunday, June 24. Tickets priced at $220, $150 and $100 are from URBTIX, 2734 9009.