LORENZO VIOTTI & ANDREAS OTTENSAMER / RAISE A GLASS TO MOZART, WITH ANDREAS OTTENSAMER / Review

LORENZO VIOTTI & 

ANDREAS OTTENSAMER

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Friday (10 December 2021)

 

RAISE A GLASS TO MOZART,

WITH ANDREAS OTTENSAMER

With SSO Musicians

Victoria Concert Hall

Saturday (11 December 2021)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 15 December 2021 with the title "Viennese warmth and informality in clarinettist's Singapore debut".

 

Andreas Ottensamer, Principal Clarinettist of Berlin Philharmonic, made his Singapore debut as guest soloist of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in a pair of orchestral concerts and a chamber concert partnering with local musicians. Given his high profile with recordings on the Deutsche Grammophon label, much was expected from his Singapore premiere of Brahms’s Clarinet Sonata in F minor (Op.120 No.1) accompanied by strings in an arrangement by one P.Cueto.

Photo: SSO / Jack Yam

 

Quite disappointingly, just two of four movements were performed. These, however, revealed a beauty of tone in the elegiac Andante movement and mellowness in the third movement which radiated pure Viennese warmth and informality. The absence of the four-movement clarinet concerto was partly made up by a selection of three Mendelssohn Songs Without Words, arranged by Ottensamer himself. The best of these was Op.67 No.5, sometimes known as The Shepherd’s Complaint, more like a lament for which the clarinet’s plaintive quality was eminently suited.

 

Led by Swiss conductor Lorenzo Viotti, Dvorak’s Serenade for Strings took on a polished sheen, its five movements sounding lush but also transparent such that finer details were also heard. Prokofiev’s popular Classical Symphony, so named as it was a pastiche of Haydn and Mozart, raced off at a blistering pace as to sound almost impatient. However, the exuberance of delivery in closing the concert was well appreciated by the audience.

Photo: SSO / Jack Yam

 

The title of the Victoria Concert Hall Presents chamber concert was somewhat misleading as the altered programme saw only one movement of four from Mozart’s late Clarinet Quintet performed. That was the Larghetto slow movement, for which Ottensamer’s honeyed lines were simply breathtaking, such that one longed to have heard the work whole.

 

As a sop for Mozart lovers, a suite of seven Mendelssohn Songs Without Words was offered, including three heard in the night before. The contrasted short pieces accompanied by five string players were quite lovely, especially the popular Spring Song (with pizzicato strings) and two gently rocking Venetian Boat Songs.   

 

This chamber concert took place in separate three parts, the first two featuring only SSO musicians. Percussionists Mark Suter and Mario Choo commanded three marimbas in Philip Glass’s Mad Rush and Ann Southam’s Glass Houses No.5. Both are minimalist works most pleasing to the ear, contrasting Glass’s alternating fast and slow machinations with Southam’s busier and more kinetically driven number, which relived polyphonic effects like those of the gamelan.  

 

Also not to be forgotten was Carl Nielsen’s Wind Quintet performed by Evgueni Brokmiller (flute), Elaine Yeo (oboe), Yoko Liu (clarinet), Liu Chang (bassoon) and Jamie Hersch (French horn). This cornerstone of 20^th century wind quintet repertoire received a marvelous reading, which revelled in piquant harmonies, occasionally pungent and occasionally perfumed. Tautly held together by a well-seasoned ensemble, might one have guessed that clarinettist Liu – with her excellent solos in the jolly and bucolic central movement - to be the equal of Ottensamer? It is in concerts like these where one realises that local musicians are also true virtuosos in their own right.