Photos from Book Launch of FROM CLEMENTI TO CARNEGIE, Autobiography of Singaporean Violinist SIOW LEE CHIN

Singaporean virtuoso violinist Siow Lee Chin's autobiography From Clementi To Carnegie was officially launched today (Friday, 31 July 2015) at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. 

It was already on sale last week at the Singapore National Youth Orchestra / Singapore Youth Chinese Orchestra concert at Esplanade Concert Hall last week, where she had given a concerto performance. It was also seen on the shelves of Books Kinokuniya over the weekend. This is an inspirational book of sorts, so buy it to find out how one becomes a Singaporean cultural icon!

Siow Lee Chin made her opening speech,
thanking all the guests and people who made
her musical journey a reality.

From girl next door to Miss Va-va-voom!

With the movers and shakers of Singapore's cultural scene:
Esplanade CEO Benson Phua, NAC CEO Cathy Lai,
Yong Siew Toh Conservatory head Bernard Lanskey,
Keppel Corp President Choo Chiau Beng
and humourist Sylvia "Eh, Goondu!" Toh Paik Choo.

With jazz supremo Jeremy Monteiro
& former Singapore Arts Festival boss Goh Ching Lee. 

Journalist and Lianhe Zaobao editor Hu Wenyan, 
Goh Ching Lee, Lau Wei Yi  and SSO violinist Karen Tan.

Singapore's champion sportsmen Ang Peng Siong
and C.Kunalan with their spouses.

Lee Chin's brother Dr Siow Yew Nam
and their mother Mdm Choong Siew Kum.

My little contribution to the book,
and how thrilled I was to find it placed
just below Gary Graffman's tribute!

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, July 2015)

IDIL BIRET

LP ORIGINALS EDITION

Idil Biret Archive 8.501402 (14 CDs) 

****1/2

The Turkish pianist Idil Biret (born 1941) was a child prodigy student of Nadia Boulanger, Alfred Cortot and Wilhelm Kempff, those combined tutelage nurtured an artist of catholic tastes, phenomenal versatility and uncommon technique. This box-set brings together all her LP recordings (on five different labels) dating from 1959 to 1986, including works by Chopin, Brahms and Schumann to the Second Viennese School and the avant-gardeists.

Among the latter is Turkish-American composer Ilhan Mimaroglu's Session, an aleatoric work with pre-recorded taped sounds dedicated to Biret, of which this 1976 recording is the definitive performance and entity. The composer had expressly forbidden any further performances or recordings (even by Biret herself) ever again. Her command of other 20^th century works by Berg, Webern, Boulez, Scriabin, Bartok, Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Miaskovsky has also much to recommend.

Of the mainstream repertoire, Rachmaninov's Corelli Variations and Moments Musicaux, Brahms' Handel and Paganini Variations, and Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit reveal a virtuosity that has been underrated. The best sound is to be found in Liszt's transcriptions of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique and Beethoven's Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, where her command of orchestral sonorities on a single keyboard have to be heard to be believed.  

BRITTEN Piano Concerto

BARBER Piano Concerto

ELIZABETH JOY ROE, Piano

London Symphony / Emil Tabakov

Decca 478 8189 / ****1/2

This is a most logical coupling, the only piano concertos by the most revered 20^th century composers of England and America, who happened to be close contemporaries and good friends. There were many parallels with Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) and Samuel Barber (1910-1981), in terms of their shared love for vocal music, use of dissonance and lyricism in compositions, and alternative lifestyles. Britten's Piano Concerto (1938, revised 1945) was a slick and bold work of a young man, while Barber's Piano Concerto (1960-62) was borne of maturity and experience.

Both have loud and percussive pages but are tempered with passages of songlike wistfulness. While Britten's strong suit is wit and humour, Barber draws on the extremes of violence and nostalgia. The performances by Korean-American pianist Elizabeth Joy Roe, one half of the famous Anderson & Roe piano duo, are elegant, incisive and often insightful, even if the recorded sound possesses a softer edge than some of her rivals. Her pair of encores are well-chosen, contrasting Barber's Nocturne (Hommage to John Field) with Britten's Night Piece (Notturno). This is wonderful programming coupled with playing of trenchant brilliance.      

ELIZABETH BASOFF-DARSKAIA Violin Recital with JONATHAN SHIN (Piano) / Review

ELIZABETH BASOFF-DARSKAIA 

Violin Recital with 

JONATHAN SHIN, Piano

Lee Foundation Theatre

Sunday (26 July 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 28 July 2015 with the title "Violinist and pianist display solid technique".

There are so many incredibly talented young violinists studying in conservatories around the world that it is impossible to count them all. Just witness the Singapore International Violin Competition in January, where margins separating each artist were so fine that the decisions to reward some and eliminate others seemed almost arbitrary. So count oneself lucky to have even heard any of them perform, and the same would apply to young Russian-American violinist Elizabeth Basoff-Darskaia who made her Singapore debut this evening.

Her teachers are a Who's Who of the instrument, including Ruggiero Ricci, Aaron Rosand, Pamela Frank and Boris Kuschnir. Perhaps one of them might have advised on her sequence of programming, because it is murder to open a recital cold with Brahms' demanding Violin Sonata No.3 in D minor (Op.108). Both performers and listeners have yet to fully warm up, and the results could be half-cooked or disappointing.

Thankfully, she had the technique to sustain its four movements with a sweet and somewhat slender tone on the 1745 Carlo Bergonzi violin on loan from the Rin Collection. The faster outer movements fared best while the slow movement came across as prosaic, and the playful scherzo on the staid side. By the time of Saint-Saëns' Introduction & Rondo Capriccioso, she had fully warmed up and pulled out all stops for a virtuoso display.

For her unaccompanied segment, Paganini's Caprice No.19 sounded exposed at its fastest bits, where the running notes were a blur. Much better was the Bach Chaconne in D minor which confidently opened the second half, with a more fulsome tone, perfect intonation and masterly pacing. This was the work she should have begun her recital with.

What followed was a lovely reading of Mozart's Sonata in B flat major (K.454), which displayed sensitivity and utmost sympathy for the Rococo style. Simplicity of form and beauty of lines ruled here. By now, one would have wondered who the pianist in the recital was. Young Singaporean pianist Jonathan Shin was every bit an equal partner in Mozart, Brahms and Saint-Saëns, a solid rock upon which the recital stood. So why was he referred to as just an accompanist and his biography not included?    

The recital closed with the Carmen Fantasy by Hungarian violin virtuoso Jenö Hubay, a refreshing departure from the frequently-heard Sarasate and Waxman incarnations. This version was more improvisatory, had more showy cadenzas, and included the Fate motif, Micaela's Air and Toreador Song before romping home with the scintillating Bohemian Dance.

Both performers received the loudest cheers and rhythmic applause. As there was no pre-prepared encore, Basoff-Darskaia emerged from the wing sans violin to play Chopin's Étude in F minor (Op.25 No.2) on the piano flawlessly and with teasing rubato. Further cheers brought out pianist Shin and the finale from the Brahms sonata was reprised. This time it sounded well done, and close to perfection.

A meeting of Russian virtuosos:
Elizabeth Basoff-Darskaia with
former SSO Concertmaster Alexander Souptel. 

SYMPHONIC GIFTS / Singapore National Youth Orchestra & Singapore Youth Chinese Orchestra / Review

SYMPHONIC GIFTS

Singapore National Youth Orchestra &

Singapore Youth Chinese Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Friday (24 July 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 27 July 2015 with the title "Youth orchestras make history and music together".

This will go down in history as a first ever collaboration between the Singapore National Youth Orchestra (SNYO) and the Singapore Youth Chinese Orchestra (SYCO), both National Projects of Excellent now under the umbrella of the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth. Its respective conductors Leonard Tan and Quek Ling Kiong (below) took turns to lead and play chatty and convivial hosts for the concert.

Western instruments conducted by Tan opened with Leong Yoon Pin's Dayong Sampan Overture, not merely an arrangement of the popular Malay song but a symphonic fantasy. Amid the obligatory dissonances and busy counterpoint emerged that catchy tune on solo oboe, accompanied by violin glissandi. The SNYO gave an assured account of what must be Singapore's best known orchestral composition.

SYCO then followed, conductor-less, to perform works of two popular genres: Jiangnan Shizhu and Chuida, representing a culture of strings with winds, and winds with percussion respectively. Happy Times was a showpiece of huqin prowess that progressed from slow to very fast. Li Min Xiong's A Well-Matched Fight featured a raucous duel between solo drummer Lim Rei centrestage (above) and seven of her percussionist partners against the entire band, with both groups coming out first among equals.

Guest violinist Siow Lee Chin was the glamourous soloist in Kam Kee Yong's Kuang Xiang Qu (Chinese Rhapsody) for symphony orchestra, performing its fiendish free-wheeling part with the swashbuckling verve as if it were Ravel's Tzigane. The orchestration was not particularly Chinese, veering more towards the music for biblical epics by Bloch and Rozsa, and the end result brought out the cheers.

All ears were pricked for the second half's music, specially orchestrated for both ensembles combined. At this point, it could be said this was an exercise symbolic of solidarity between instrumentalists across the cultural divide rather than something truly practicable. But only time will tell.

Eric Watson's Tapestries – Time Dances now resembled a concerto grosso, with a core group of three Chinese instruments (ruan, dizi and guzheng) and four Western instruments (violin, cello, French horn and harp) backed by the over-hundred-strong mega-orchestra. One outcome was that Chinese instruments stood out in the solo parts because of their penetrating timbres, while violins, violas and cellos overwhelmed the huqins when massed strings sang. At parts, Watson's creation began to sound like those of his compatriot, Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Wang Chenwei's The Sisters' Islands took on a distinctly Nanyang slant, with its use of Indo-Malay melodies, and the symphonic poem had a particularly effective spell depicting an attack by pirates of the Singapore Straits. One only wonders which orchestra does a blown conch shell belong to. Both pieces were led by conductor Quek.

The concert ended with Jeremiah Li's arrangement of Kelly Tang's Symphonic Suite On A Set Of Local Tunes, helmed by conductor Tan. This medley mixed the Malay song Chan Mali Chan with Dick Lee's Home and Bunga Sayang and NDP favourite Singapore Heartbeat, with a Hollywood-like vibe. Home was accounted by solo erhu accompanied by yangqin, which lent a tender touch, and Tang's trademark in-joke was to throw in the fanfare from The Magnificent Seven, not once but twice.   

As an encore, the audience was given permission to whip out their handphones and wave their built-in torches (above) to the strains of Home. After which they gamely rode off into the sunset. 

Guest violinist Siow Lee Chin with Guest-of-Honour
Sim Ann, conductors Quek Ling Kiong & Leonard Tan,
with board members of the SSO & SCO.

Addendum

I am grateful to Professor Lim Seh Chun for offering this most interesting piece of history:

The SYO and SYCO has collaborated before, but way back in 1971. The two orchestras performed in several joint concerts in Singapore and in Lausanne, Switzerland at the International Festival of Youth Orchestras. The concerts were led by the legendary Goh Soon Tioe and two younger conductors Goh Say Meng and Lee Suat Lin. 

Members of the SYO then included Prof Lim himself, conductor Lim Soon Lee, violinist Tan Peng Tow (who was the soloist in Mozart's Violin Concerto No.5), her brother Tan Peng Chin and neurologist Prof Benjamin Ong. 

The SYCO reads like a Who's Who of Chinese orchestra music today, including the composer Phoon Yew Tien, conductors Lum Yan Sin, Yeo Siew Wee and Lee Hoon Piek, recording-meister Goh Aik Yew, high fidelity reviewer Tham Chaik Kong and SCO veteran Sim Boon Yew.

SSO CONCERT: TRANSFIGURED NIGHT / Review

TRANSFIGURED NIGHT

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Victoria Concert Hall

Thursday (23 July 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 25 July 2015 with the title "SSO returns to chamber music roots".

Moving back to Victoria Concert Hall to perform a pair of concerts, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra could be said to have returned to its chamber music roots. It was in 1979 when the fledgling outfit comprising 41 musicians took on the works of Beethoven and Schubert in its inaugural concerts. This evening, the concert's first half conducted by Music Director Shui Lan featured a work for wind ensemble and another for just strings.

Richard Strauss' youthful Serenade Op.7 was scored for 13 instruments: two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, three bassoons and four French horns. Yet the sound generated by these few musicians was voluminous, filling the reverberant hall with an ardent bluster. Thank goodness the playing was immaculate and crisp for this short single-movement piece, and muddiness in resonance was largely avoided.

It appears that the hall favours the strings, which have a mellower and soothing timbre. Thus in Arnold Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), where the original sextet was expanded to a large body of strings including double basses, the overall effect was closer to perfection. The music is programmatic, narrating the intense feelings of a man and woman who share a dark private secret in the deep of night.

The build-up from quiet calm to wracking emotional turmoil was a gradual one, and even if the opening lacked a degree of mystery, the climaxes were palpably vivid. The larger group of strings was also ideally balanced with the small quartet group, manned by violinists Igor Yuzefovich and Zhou Qi, violist Zhang Manchin and cellist Ng Pei-Sian.

Shui's firm guiding hand ensured that the catharsis was for real, and the subsequent transformation from agony to acceptance provided the music's defining moments. What was that dark secret anyway? The child the woman was bearing was from another man's seed. True love thus reigned in that transfigured night.    

Despite its pretensions to virtuosity, Robert Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor is in effect chamber music writ large. Russian pianist Nikolai Demidenko, well known for his Rachmaninov and Prokofiev concerto performances, gave an intimate and anti-histrionic reading. Sporting eye-glasses, seated very low and near the keyboard, his stance was not of self-effacement but rather coming to grips to the work's very personal message.

His sensitive playing blended with the orchestra like a snug hand and glove. This was nowhere more apparent than in the slender 2^nd movement's Intermezzo, where repartee between pianist and ensemble was deliciously kept up until the finale's energetic romp. Here Demidenko's much-vaunted technique more than held up to scrutiny, with the tricky syncopations and fast slightly off-kilter waltz dancing its way to a brilliant conclusion.

His two encores were equally delightful, with rare concert appearances of waltzes from Chopin's Op.64 set, including the Minute Waltz, which now really sounds like a little dog (Valse du petit chien was Chopin's own title for it) chasing its tail.    

ORCHESTRE DES CONTINENTS / Review

ORCHESTRE DES CONTINENTS

Esplanade Concert Hall

Wednesday (22 July 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 24 July 2015 with the title "Cross-continental orchestra serve a treat".

Orchestre des Continents is a new international orchestra formed by students from three tertiary music institutions - the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory, University of Music Lausanne and Geneva University of Music. It gave its debut in Singapore under the baton of renowned Swiss conductor Thierry Fischer, and will later perform at the Paleo Festival in Switzerland on Sunday.

Music is a truly international language, and thus with only a few rehearsals, the orchestra truly impressed at its first showing. The concert opened with Swiss composer Michael Jarrell's 3 Études De Debussy. There are not just mere orchestrations of Claude Debussy's late piano works but re-imaginations for orchestra.

How the piano's sound world and idiom translated so seamlessly into orchestral textures was the work of a master. The added layers of sound were sensitively realised, through the shimmering number For Repeated Notes, the languor of For Contrasted Timbres when muted woodwinds and brass stood out, to the virile athleticism of For Chords, where the exertions of the original piano pieces were all but forgotten.

Young Swiss-Chinese pianist Louis Schwizgebel then took centrestage in Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto. Although he took his time to ravish the work's opening series of chords, his was not an idiosyncratic look at a familiar warhorse. Neither did he feel the need to over-exert himself in order to be heard above the throng. This resulted in certain spots being submerged by the ever-willing orchestra.    

His musicality came to the fore in the lyrical slow movement, where the climax was gradually built up, with the best moment coming when the piano truly sang while accompanied by just strings. His mercurial fingers distinguished the finale, which was unfailingly exciting, and he was even allowed a minor lapse in the seemingly easiest of spots. This performance scored far higher in poetry than Denis Matsuev's running roughshod over Rachmaninov with the London Symphony Orchestra last year.  

Louis Schwizgebel
has legions of lady fans.

No symphony was performed but eight movements from Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet provided the meat for the main course. No longer considered fodder for orchestra pit bands, these have become bona fide concert showpieces requiring all-round virtuosity. The orchestra's prowess was immediately stamped in the Morning Dance and Juliet as a Young Girl, with playing of pinpoint precision and the ability to adapt to myriad shifts of dynamics.

From rowdy crowd scenes to a playful and winsome portrait of the tragic heroine, conductor Fischer kept his players on high alert in the music's many nuances. Extreme violence and crushing dissonances were delivered on triple-forte in The Death Of Tybalt and Montagues and Capulets, both bringing out the loudest brassy climaxes in the hall's reverberant acoustics.

The orchestra luxuriated in Romeo and Juliet Before Parting, which was the famous balcony scene, where its rapturous revelries soon evaporated for the sorrow of Romeo at Juliet's Tomb and The Death of Juliet. Seldom has string playing portrayed so acutely a sense of loss, such that the concertmaster's calming violin solo provided an oasis of equanimity. 

Performances like these from Orchestre des Continents send a strong signal that the future of classical music for the world is indeed in good hands.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, July 2015)

MARTHA ARGERICH & FRIENDS

LIVE FROM LUGANO 2014

Warner Classics 0825646134601 (3 CDs) 

*****

The one defining feature of the Lugano Festival's Martha Argerich Project besides the legendary Argentine pianist's infectious musicianship is the sheer wealth of programming diversity on display, combining the familiar with the arcane. Her appearance in Mozart's popular Piano Concerto No.20 with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana conducted by Jacek Kaspszyk finds her in typically fiery form, revelling in the music's stürm und drang (storm and stress).

There are two piano quintets offered, a sassy arrangement of Milhaud's jazz ballet La Creation du Monde (Creation of the Earth) and Borodin's lovely but rarely-heard Piano Quintet. An absolute rarity is Busoni's transcription of Mendelssohn's Mozart-influenced First Symphony for two pianos and eight hands shared by Akane Sakai, Lilya Zilberstein, Anton & Daniel Gerzenberg, who rip into the work with real relish.

Cello fanciers will enjoy the sonatas by Frank Bridge and Francis Poulenc, performed by Gautier Capucon with pianists Gabriela Montero and Francesco Piemontesi respectively. Argerich's favourite chamber music partners, the veterans Mischa Maisky and Gidon Kremer also make cameos in Beethoven's Bei Männern Variations from Mozart's The Magic Flute and Polish-Russian composer Miecyslaw Weinberg's Violin Sonata No.5. These sparkling live performances capture the true collegial spirit of chamber music, and this budget-priced box-set should be snapped up without delay.

ÉTUDE

CLARE HAMMOND, Piano

BIS 2004 / ****1/2

This album may have alternatively been named “Future of the Étude”, as it follows the piano study from its humbler origins as mere finger exercises well into the 21^st century. It was Chopin and Liszt in the early to mid-19^th century who transformed the étude into an aesthetically pleasing art form. The Russian Sergei Lyapunov was clearly inspired by Liszt to write his own 12 Transcendental Études (1900), of which three – Terek, Nuit d'ete and Tempete - have been chosen for their variety of expressive devices. Here the prodigious pianism of Liszt is united with the Russian nationalism of Balakirev and Borodin.

The 12 Studies Op.33 (1916) of Pole Karol Szymanowski are barely one minute long each, but filled with light and colour which take on the hues of Debussy's impressionism. The Korean Unsuk Chin was a student of the Hungarian György Ligeti and her Six Études (1995-2003) pay tribute to his own Etudes, wondrous essays of rhythmic and textural complexity which are modernistic, dissonant yet totally engaging. Finally, the Ukrainian Nikolai Kapustin's 5 Études in Different Intervals Op.68 (1992) employ the blues, jazz harmonies and syncopations in service of entertaining finger-twisters. The young British pianist Clare Hammond's readings of divergent styles are a revelation, and make a welcome entry into an over-populated world of recorded pianophilia.

FRANCK'S PIANO QUINTET / VCH Chamber Series / Review

FRANCK'S PIANO QUINTET

VCH Chamber Series

Sunday (19 July 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 21 July 2015 with the title "An edgy and lyrical afternoon of chamber music".

There are so many chamber concerts by talented young musicians these days that it is easy to forget that the Singapore Symphony Orchestra's own chamber series featuring its players still provides excellent playing and value for one's time. This latest concert underlines the importance of this series, which will in time get progressively ambitious.

The first half featured Russian fare, opening with a piano trio arrangement of Rachmaninov's Vocalise (Op.34 No.14). Violinist Chen Da Wei and cellist Yu Jing got the share of its juicy melodies while pianist Yao Xiao Yun's role was that of able accompanist. Unfortunately, some of the harmonies employed in this score were unidiomatic (one doubts whether the composer would have sanctioned it) and the result was more sickly sentimental than melancholic.

No such doubts existed for Shostakovich's Piano Trio No.1, a student work from his teenaged years. In its single movement, one already discerns the sparks of genius that would light up his precocious First Symphony. His brand of bittersweet was unlike Rachmaninov's, and one tinged with irony and parody, which was trenchantly brought out by the three players. 

Emerging from occasional jarring dissonances, Yu's cello sang with much lyrical beauty but the throw-back to Romanticism was brief, soon to be overshadowed by the dark gloom that would mostly occupy Shostakovich's output. The trio responded well to abrupt swings in mood and dynamics, more than making up for the music's somewhat ambiguous ending.

On the same edgy frequency was Cesar Franck's Piano Quintet in F minor, one of the great repertoire works for this medium. One will scarcely find a more cohesive string quartet group than the one led by violinist Lynnette Seah, which included violinist Cindy Lee, violist Zhang Manchin and cellist Ng Pei-Sian. Their opening register was gripping, a sinister growl that would define the work's starkly sombre tone.

Pianist Liu Jia's entry was more leisurely, even mellow, but soon she would be dragged into the music's mesmerising intensity. She played with piano lid half down, which allowed better integration with the strings, rather than stand out as a soloist. This unity brilliantly bore out the music's unfolding upheavals and turmoil without letting up for a moment.

There were spots of transcending beauty in the slow movement, where Seah's violin sang out as if it were waxing lyrical in Franck's popular Violin Sonata. The calm was broken with the final movement's manic march to the edge of sanity, with a terrifying sense of momentum. The five musicians were fully in control while the music seemed to hurtle dangerously towards parts unknown.

Little wonder that its original dedicatee, the genteel Camille Saint-Saëns was so incensed that he stormed out after its premiere. On the count of this afternoon's commanding performance, the audience would stride out of Victoria Concert Hall with nothing less than total satisfaction and admiration.      

Acknowledging the applause are Ng Pei-Sian,
Lynnette Seah, Liu Jia, Cindy Lee and Zhang Manchin.

SSO Music Director Shui Lan offers his
congratulations to the performers.

SSO CONCERT: WALTON'S CELLO CONCERTO / Review

WALTON'S CELLO CONCERTO

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Friday (17 July 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 July 2015 with the title "Sparks fly in fast romp".

The Chinese-Australian cellist Qin Li-Wei has become a permanent fixture in Singapore's musical scene, thanks to his position as Head of Cello Studies at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory where he trains young cellists to fill the world's orchestras. As a soloist, his appearances in concertos and chamber music continue to excite audiences and this evening was to be no different.

In William Walton's bittersweet Cello Concerto (1957), composed for the great Gregor Piatigorsky, Qin brought to bear his years of experience to give a totally compelling reading with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jason Lai. In the first movement's hushed and subdued atmosphere, the tone he coaxed from his 1780 Joseph Guadagnini was warm and transcendent yet keeping a cloak of melancholy and unease on.

He let it rip in the scherzo-like central movement with biting wit and edgy sense of irony. Sparks flew in this fleet-fingered romp which included double-stop pizzicatos and all manner of slaloming runs. The finale provided impassioned soliloquys in two cadenzas, moments of true catharsis before a return to the opening's lament and a final descent into depths of silence.

Qin, whom the audience genuinely warmed to, generously offered three encores by David Popper (Etude), Giovanni Sollima (Alone) and Prokofiev (March For Children), which displayed different vistas of his virtuosity. From this most eloquent voice, could one hope for local premieres of Britten's Cello Symphony or Frank Bridge's Oration?

The second half focused on orchestral fireworks and showcased SSO Associate Conductor Lai as an interpeter of real maturity. His was not the geriatric protractedness-as-profundity kind, but one of nuanced dynamism and fluidity. Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem, originally written for the Japanese empire but subsequently rejected for its Christian slant, uncannily foretold the carnage of war following its 1941 premiere.

The wailing horrors of the Lacrimosa was steadily built up to a shattering climax, followed by the shrill and strident sprint of death in the Dies Irae. Lai maintained a tight rein and when push came to shove, the orchestra upped its pace to match and it became a thrilling meeting of like minds. The Requiem Aeternam closed with a conciliatory balm to the earlier violence, with paired flutes singing like doves of peace, before a final climax of rising hope.

Equally exciting but of a completely different complexion was Richard Strauss' Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration), a tone poem about rising hope for the seemingly hopeless. Here, a man's struggle with painful death throes was portrayed with chilling restlessness yet sympathy, which Lai and his charges brought out with a show of instrumental prowess.

Solos from Rachel Walker (oboe), Jin Ta (flute) and concertmaster Igor Yuzefovich (violin) stood out, and a magical moment was reached with the brass chorale's chant of the work's big tune accompanied by singing strings. That was just one of many instances where both conductor and musicians served the big picture of a masterpiece, which went on to close with a most reassuring C major chord ever conceived. The fear of death was never to be the same again.