BEST CONCERTS DURING THE COVID PANDEMIC

BEST CONCERTS OF THE COVID PANDEMIC

These selections were part of an article published in The Straits Times on 25 March 2021 highlighting the best concerts (live and online) that took place during the period of lockdown and circuit breaker in Singapore over the past year.

Online Concert

BEETHOVEN 360°

Wong Kahchun, Conductor

Streamed on Youtube Live

from 30 July 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrjD6Npc7Pk&t=937s 

 

In what was possibly mankind’s darkest hour of the new millennium, Singaporean conductor Wong Kahchun’s “universal musical kampong” of over a thousand professional and amateur musicians delivered a heartwarming message in Beethoven’s Ode To Joy. Within a virtual concert hall with a 360° view of all performers, this marvel of modern digital technology and innovation made Schiller and Beethoven’s credo of “All People Become Brothers” a memorable and immersive experience worth savouring over and over.

 

 

Live Concert

TOGETHER WE STAND, LIVE AGAIN!

Ding Yi Music Company

Black Box, Stamford Arts Centre

15 November 2020

 

Ding Yi Music Company was one of the first groups to perform live concerts during the circuit breaker. It did so with fully-masked perfomers and wind players sequestered behind screens resembling Covid-swabbing stations. The audience was divided into two blocs, a gallery and onstage near the musicians, with a surround-sound experience being the result. Performing a programme of Chinese and locally-composed works, it was a contrapuntal stew which we could proudly call our own.   

CANDLELIGHT CONCERTS: VIVALDI'S FOUR SEASONS / Review

CANDLELIGHT CONCERTS:

VIVALDI’S FOUR SEASONS

Victoria Concert Hall

Monday (22 March 2021)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 24 March 2021 with the title "Candlelit concert a gateway to classical music".

 

After months of unrelenting online advertising, the fever has arrived in Singapore. One is not referring to some variant Covid-19 strain but the much-publicised Candlelight Concerts presented by event organiser Fever that have captured the imagination of some seventy cities around the world. Are these events for real and do they live up to the media hype generated?

 

This Candlelight Concert featuring Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons began at a later-than-usual hour of 9 pm. That gave the many young people and courting couples attending more than enough time to finish their dinner. And to make their way to a Victoria Concert Hall auditorium illuminated by the fiery glow of hundreds of electronic smokeless candles placed onstage and along the aisles.

 

The obvious gimmick and selling point of the concert certainly made for an evocative and romantic setting, but what about the music? For starters, Four Seasons are the four most popular and often-performed violin concertos among the Italian composer’s five hundred or so concertos. Originally scored for a chamber-sized group of strings and harpsichord continuo, what was heard this evening was instead adapted for just four players of a string quartet.  

 

Doing the honours was Vocalise String Quartet, a free-lance quartet that has performed at weddings, corporate events and diplomatic functions. Thus, it was unsurprising that the sonority generated was not particularly voluminous, but adequate to reach the concert hall’s circle seats. A performance of the Seasons would stand or fall on the strength of the violin soloist, and on this evening, first violinist Jocelyn Ng more than delivered the goods.

 

She exhibited a solid and robust tone, good intonation and was unfazed by the pyrotechnics called for in the concertos’ fast outer movements. Vivaldi, nicknamed The Red Priest, was himself a violin virtuoso who brought a host of innovative mimicking effects into his score. The birdcalls of Spring, pelting rain in Summer, barking dogs on a hunt in Autumn, and the reassuring warmth of a fireplace in Winter, Ng did them all, and some.

 

She was well-supported by second violinist Lester Kong, violist Andrew Fung and cellist Peh Xiang Hong, and the enjoyable 45-minutes of Vivaldi passed like a flash. Fillers for the concert’s full hour included the first and most familiar movement of Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, a most apt serenade for the evening and to close, Gerardo Matos Rodriguez’s rocking tango La Cumparsita.          

 

As expected from an audience not regularly acquainted to classical concerts, there was the usual inappropriate applauding between movements and towards the end, a photo-taking spree  (encouraged by the performers) for that perfect Instagram and Facebook post. As an entry point to classical music, first-timers could have done worse, but one hopes they will take the next step by attending concerts by re:Mix, re:Sound and Red Dot Baroque, which do not need candlelight for their music to shine.

 

HAYDN'S EMPEROR & TCHAIKOVSKY'S FLORENCE / SSO Chamber Series / Review

HAYDN’S EMPEROR

& TCHAIKOVSKY’S FLORENCE

SSO Chamber Series

Victoria Concert Hall

8 October 2020

 

This review was published in Bachtrack on 22 March 2021 with the title “Sunny chamber concert cheers hearts in Singapore”.

 

HAYDN:

Xu Jue Yi & Chikako Sasaki, Violins

Wang Dandan, Viola

Guo Hao, Cello

 

TCHAIKOVSKY:

Chen Da Wei & Nikolai Koval, Violins

Janice Tsai & Marietta Ku, Violas

Yu Jing & Wang Zihao, Cellos

 

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented upheaval in the world of performing arts, the damage of which will not be fully realised until normality returns. Even this normality will not be the same as before. Socially distanced and masked performers playing for limited audiences, drastically reduced ticket sales and the avoidance of large-scaled works will be the norm possibly for years to come.

 

Most acutely felt in Singapore was the suspension of concerts by the national orchestra, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. Mid-March 2020 was its last concert for a live audience before the pandemic struck the island-state, then came the eerie silence. Although there was a much-welcome series of pre-recorded online concerts, the feeling was however not the same. It was not until this concert, on 8 October 2020, that the doors of Victoria Concert Hall finally opened. Ten string players from the SSO presented two popular works from the chamber repertoire.

 

Haydn’s String Quartet in C major (Op.76 No.3) is likely the most popular of his sixty-eight string quartets, largely because of its slow second movement. It is a set of variations on Haydn’s own Emperor Hymn (Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser), later adopted as Austria and Germany’s national anthem. The arch simplicity of its melody and the subsequent variations were well-realised by the quartet formed by rank-and-file musicians. Incisiveness and clarity marked the opening movement, with hurdy-gurdy-like drones from viola and cello, coming midway, highlighting Haydn’s penchant for rusticity. Humour filled the third movement’s Minuet and Trio and the mood turned serious for the finale. However, the storms and stresses were soon dispelled as daylight shone at its conclusion, happily in the home key of C major.

What a socially distanced concert looks like.

 

Equally enjoyable was Tchaikovsky’s String Sextet in D minor, popularly known as Souvenir de Florence. Despite its minor key, this was one of the Russian’s sunniest scores, reflecting the Mediterranean warmth of its inspiration. The six players dived headlong into the music, with caution thrown to the wind. Mostly they functioned like a miniature string orchestra (the work also exists in a version for string orchestra, much like Tchaikovsky’s popular Serenade for Strings), one generating a rich plethora of sonority.

 

The slow movement with Chen Dawei’s soaring violin solo and Yu Jing’s cello counter-melody accompanied by pizzicatos, with the two switching roles afterwards, became an emotional highpoint of the performance. Livelier tempi of the last two movements also revealed Tchaikovsky’s skill in marrying Slavic folk idioms with Italianate dance rhythms, amply illustrated in the particularly infectiously exciting finale. Considerations of authenticity become irrelevant, when the music-making is vivacious and life-affirming such as this, coming at a time of depression.

 

One cannot overestimate the impact of this concert, tickets for which sold out within a couple of hours in online sales. It was a promising sign that despite the disruption caused by the pandemic, good music lives on, its appreciation and the enjoyment it provides cannot be quenched.    

FETE MUSICALE / MOZART'S DON GIOVANNI / Review

FETE MUSICALE

A MUSICAL CELEBRATION

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Wednesday (10 March 2021)

 

MOZART’S DON GIOVANNI

Singapore Lyric Opera

Victoria Concert Hall

Friday (12 March 2021)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 17 March 2021 with the title "Hand Puppets in opera a nice touch." 

The Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor Andrew Litton continued to display his prowess on the piano, this time by leading a scintillating performance of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major from the keyboard. In a work that headily mixed influences from Basque music, Mozart and New World jazz, he had all these disparate styles down pat with a combination of deft fingerwork and rocking syncopations.

 

Excellent solo work from orchestral musicians also contributed greatly to the success, not least David Smith’s tricky trumpet blasts, Gulnara Mashurova’s sweeping harp cadenza, and Elaine Yeo’s plaintive cor anglais in the sublime slow movement accompanied by Litton’s fine filigree. While Ravel was bold and brash, fellow Frenchman Debussy provided a more restrained face in his Petite Suite, orchestrated by Henri Busser.   

 

Much of its four movements were a showcase of examplary woodwind playing, backed up by svelte strings. Only a heart of stone would reject the niceties of this Belle Epoque creation, with flowing lyrical lines in En Bateau (On A Boat) and three jaunty dance movements that followed. This suite was a perfect mirror held up to Beethoven’s relatively brief Eighth Symphony, his only symphony  without a slow movement.

 

Lightness and buoyancy was the result, and under Litton’s firm guiding baton, nothing sounded hectic or rushed in its four movements. The ensemble responded with much unity and immediacy, and while this symphony seemed puny alongside the mighty Seventh and monumental Ninth, this lively reading made it stand tall.

 

While resembling an opera school production, Singapore Lyric Opera’s latest take on Mozart’s Don Giovanni still had much to recommend. Performed in Italian by singers from the company’s Artists’ Training Programme, an abridged edition of the three-hour long opera ran breezily just under two hours without intermission. Gone was the orchestra, but tireless pianist Aloysius Foong stood in as an excellent substitute.

 

Baritone Daniel Fong sang the serial philanderer, and opposite him was baritone David Tao as his long-suffering valet Leporello. The chemistry between master and serf was totally believable, with many moments of comic relief as the duo negotiated a series of romantic escapades. They were well supported by veteran baritone William Lim (a guest doubling as the Commendatore and Masetto), tenor Jonathan MacPherson (Don Ottavio), sopranos Zhang Jie (Donna Anna) and  Joyce  Lee Tung (Zerlina) and mezzo-soprano Chieko Sato (Donna Elvira).

 

All the famous arias, duets and ensembles were included and the numbers flowed coherently under Tang Xinxin’s direction. The novel use of hand puppets to suggest intimate scenes during these times of social distancing provided literally a nice touch. The set and costumes were kept to the minimum, but enough to aid the storytelling. With big budget productions attended by big audiences are no longer sustainable because of the Covid pandemic, this commonsense approach - where musical considerations come first - is the way to go.

MARK CHENG IN RECITAL / THE TROUT / Reviews

MARK CHENG IN RECITAL

Esplanade Recital Studio

Wednesday (3 March 2021)

 

THE TROUT QUINTET

Andrew Litton & SSO Musicians

Victoria Concert Hall

Friday (5 March 2021)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 10 March 2021 with the title "Pianists venture off the beaten path".

More pianists are venturing off the beaten path to perform works outside the core repertoire. Bored of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, why not build a programme around sonatas by Czech composers Jan Dussek and Leos Janacek, or the Russian Nikolai Myaskovsky? That was the mandate of Mark Cheng, lawyer, piano teacher and Singapore Dance Theatre’s Company Pianist, whose recital dwelled on the theme of mortality.

 

Within 90 minutes of simmering melancholy, brooding catharsis and violent death throes, Cheng emoted with a wealth of shades and emotions, even if these ranged from dark grey to jet black. The Sonata No.24 in F sharp minor or Elegie Harmonique by Dussek, a contemporary of Mozart, sounded so modern and decadent that it could have come from late Romantics.

 

Dies Irae, medieval chant of the Day of Judgement, possessed two works; reclusive Frenchman Charles-Valentin Alkan’s Morte and Myaskovsky’s Second Sonata. While done to death in Liszt’s Totentanz and Rachmaninov’s Paganini Rhapsody, this ubiquitous theme still insinuated itself into fraught situations which Cheng handled with utter self-confidence and understated virtuosity.

 

Some familiarity came in Enrique Granados’ Love And Death from Goyescas, inspired by Francisco Goya’s paintings, and Janacek’s Sonata I.X.1905, a powerful work that memorialised a worker’s murder at a demonstration. Cheng’s recital became acutely relevant given two million lives lost to Covid and more needless deaths in Myanmar’s civil unrest. His majesterial encore, the Funeral March from Chopin’s Second Sonata, said it all.          

 

Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor Andrew Litton took centrestage as pianist alongside the orchestra’s principal string players in an hour-long programme of Viennese chamber music. Gustav Mahler’s very early Piano Quartet, a single-movement teenaged effort, received a rare hearing.

 

It relived idioms of older composers Schumann and Brahms, with the morose subject from Litton’s solo setting the tone. Beneath its veneer of serenity laid a hotbed of neuroses gradually came to bear. After the piano’s outburst of octaves, tension and rage inexorably surfaced before Chan Yoong Han’s violin settled the nerves for a disquieting end. Little wonder this was used in the psycho-thriller Shutter Island starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

 

Dark clouds gave way for the sunshine of Schubert’s Piano Quintet in A major, popularly known as the Trout Quintet. The quartet of Litton, Chan, violist Guan Qi and cellist Ng Pei-Sian were joined by bassist Yang Zhengyi for this perennial favourite. Its five movements radiated a congenial warmth, led by Litton’s ever-busy part. While supporting the strings’ lyrical lines, it also had a fair share of outward virtuosity.

 

Particularly enjoyable was the fourth movement’s Theme and Variations, based on Schubert’s song Die Forelle (The Trout), hence the work’s nickname. Despite being familiar, the music never outlived its charm, boosted by five players who relished the sense of occasion, bringing the concert to a gemutlich (the Viennese adjective for being carefree) and delightful close.        

 

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR CONCERT 2021 / Ding Yi Music Company / Review

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR CONCERT 2021

Ding Yi Music Company

China Cultural Centre

Saturday (27 February 2021)

An edited version of this review was published in The Straits Times on 3 March 2021

 

There has been no live classical music during this Lunar New Year period, but trust Ding Yi Music Company to mount four sold-out concerts in the space of two evenings. The chamber outfit’s well-received programmes of festive fare at the China Cultural Centre have been de rigueur but after last year’s cancelled gigs, it rebounded with a vengeance.

 

Conducted by Dedric Wong De Li, the concert opened to the raucous strains of Li Bo Chan’s Festive Overture, where a celebratory dance of Central Asian flavour jostled for attention with a soothing serenade. This was followed by a procession of works based on popular Chinese oldies but updated to the present day.  

 

Ding Yi composer-in-residence Phang Kok Jun dressed up Liangxiao in the blues, with Chia Wan Hua’s erhu accompanied by an ensemble with electronic keyboard, bass and drum-set. There was some improvisation in this Liangxiao Jazz Ballad before the sentimental number revved up its pace to close emphatically.

 

Sulwyn Lok’s Eternal Shanghai Divas was a medley in tribute to legendary chanteuses like Zhou Xuan and Bai Guang, with melodies Shanghai Nights, Rose Rose I Love You and Ja Jambo paraded quite unabashedly. Upping the ante was Eric Watson’s Hard Rock Fight, based on Li Minxiong’s A Well-Matched Fight, pitting Chinese and Western drums in a take-no-prisoners duel. Percussionists Low Yik Hang and Cheong Kah Yiong did the honours with smashing aplomb.

 

Quite different in mood was Qi Hao Di’s Tunes Of Zhejiang, a rhapsodic concertino for yangqin (Chinese dulcimer). Here, Tan Jie Qing’s mastery of rippling effects and piquant harmonies held sway in a substantial work that explored modernist idioms alongside the traditional.

 

It was no secret that singer-songwriter Nathan Hartono, Singapore’s star finalist of Sing! China 2016, was the big sell of the event with three songs. His own Insomnia began with a yawn and the trademark crooning that has made his name, in a Mandarin song that expressed his ennui in lockdown. Oozing charm from every pore, he made a cover of the Bee Gees’ How Deep Is Your Love his own, while displaying wide emotional range in The Longest Movie, arranged by Edmund Song.

 

The finale was a poignant short film Yu Sheng Mo Yu (A Silent Toss) directed by Jet Ho with music by Yvonne Teo. Set in the HDB heartland, its premise was a celebration of “lohei” in pandemic times, about how tradition may transcend constraints of social distancing and health precautions in a socially responsible way. When cheers and salutations fall silent, kindness, considerations and good thoughts take over.

 

No seasonal concert would be complete without the obligatory CNY songs, and Hartono returned to lead the proceedings. However, there was to be no communal singing but simply clapping along to the familiar music made the day.      

All photographs by the kind courtesy of Ding Yi Music Company.

CELEBRATING BACH II / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

CELEBRATING BACH II

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Victoria Concert Hall

4 December 2020 

(Streamed on SISTIC Live from 26 February 2021)

This review was published on Bachtrack on 1 March 2021.

With Covid-19 precautions in force, concerts in Singapore are still limited to chamber groups performing hour-long programmes for small and socially-distanced audiences. In the second of three concerts celebrating the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) continued on this thread but shifted the focus from Brandenburg Concertos and Orchestral Suites to his violin concertos.

 

It so happened that SSO had quite recently lost the services of two first violinists beloved and familiar to local audiences. Co-Leader Lynnette Seah, ever-present since the orchestra’s inaugural season in 1979, retired last year, while Concertmaster Igor Yuzefovich left to join the BBC Symphony Orchestra the year before. The performances of Bach’s two solo violin concertos were however in good and steady hands.

 

Chan Yoong-Han was the elegant soloist in the A minor concerto, exuding a warm tone and  healthy vibrato. Known as an accomplished chamber musician, he blended seamlessly within the ensemble in the tuttis, and illuminated his solo with ear-catching ornamentations. Exercising his right in all three movements, these were tastefully rendered and unobstrusive.    

 

Acting Concertmaster Kong Zhao Hui gave a more straight-forward account of the E major concerto, without adornments of his own device. Playing from a score, his was also a highly musical reading that revelled in the vigour and athleticism of the outer movements. It was the central Adagio with its songlike repose that lingered most in the memory.   

 

It was a stroke of programming pique to include music by Bach’s older compatriot Georg Philipp Telemann, which is rarely heard in Singapore. His seven-movement Don Quixote Suite or  Burlesque de Quichotte provided an early example of programmatic music. Depicting scenes from Miguel de Cervantes’ epic novel, the art of story-telling by varied orchestral effects was vividly unveiled by the ensemble. The Overture’s busy play of counterpoint was followed by a series of most amusing vignettes.

 

A delicious sense of irony dripped from its pages, such as the Don strirring from his slumber in a lilting rhythm resembling a cradle song, to tilting at windmills with octave leaps from the strings. Dulcinea’s sighs punctuated by the knight’s incessant laughter, Sancho Panza being roughly tossed, and his donkey’s stop-start forward motion were also sharply characterised. Even Don Quixote at Rest, which concluded the suite, was unusually animated, hinting at imagined misadventures to come. All these movements were possessed with a playful zest, performed tongue firmly in cheek, under SSO Associate Conductor Joshua Tan’s flexible guiding hand. Providing a cheery close to the concert, whoever said that the hyper-prolific Telemann had to be boring?  

 

Star Rating: ****