Threnody’s violent tones all too realistic, touching

Creating visual images in one's head can be a useful way of listening to symphonic music. But it would be best to halt the imagination somewhere around the middle of "Nanking! Nanking! A Threnody for Orchestra and Pipa." If this music were a movie, it would be one you watch only once, in horror.

Composer Bright Sheng wrote the work in memory of the victims of the 1937 massacre of civilians in Nanking, China, by Japanese soldiers. A threnody is an elegy or song for the dead.

Sheng's notes on the piece say it is "not a recreation of the barbarity." Yet this work, composed in 2000, contains some of the most literal representations of violence ever to be heard from an orchestra.

Under the baton of Arthur Fagen, a candidate for the position of music director, the Richmond Symphony performed this challenging work at Saturday's Masterworks concert with Yang Wei on pipa, a Chinese lute.

The quiet opening measures seem to set the scene in a darkened street, with water dripping from downspouts and lights dimmed behind shutters. Before long, however, the violence begins.

It's no stretch of the imagination to hear sirens, gunfire, engines and boots. Trumpets strafe the hall with insistent notes. The strings sing an alarm. When the pipa enters, it's with forceful slashes across the strings.

At one point, the brass play with mutes, giving a dreamlike quality to the sound, as if the residents of Nanking were asking themselves, "Can this really be happening?"

A section of hymnlike textures with hints of traditional Chinese melodies provides some relief, but the piece ends violently, pounding the audience into shock.

Fagen and the Richmond Symphony deserve high marks for introducing this piece to Richmond. It would have been much easier to do some piece Fagen had conducted and the musicians had played dozens of times. Something by Shostakovich, even, would have been safer here.

"Nanking! Nanking!" is music that helps us realize that even though not all emotions are nice, they're part of the human experience. This deeply affecting performance proves that the Richmond Symphony is willing to explore all kinds of musical territory.

Wei played two solo encores that demonstrated the gentler side of the pipa's sound. Though not an especially resonant instrument, it sang on a traditional Chinese tune and "Home on the Range."

After "Nanking! Nanking!" Franck's Symphony in D minor sounded like a soundtrack to a mid-century Disney movie. And that's a good thing. Fagen kept the tempos brisk and brought a full, balanced sound from the orchestra.

The evening started with Beethoven's Egmont Overture, which Fagen also kept moving along.