MOZART PIANO CONCERTO 24
AND BRAHMS SYMPHONY 1
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Esplanade Concert Hall
Thursday (18 August 2022)
When one has thought that every orchestral work by Robert Schumann has been heard in concert, up pops his Overture, Scherzo & Finale (Op.52), composed in 1841, around the same time as his Spring Symphony (Symphony No.1 in B flat major). This almost became his Second Symphony but it lacked a slow movement, and got neglected as a result. Its Singapore premiere was led by Swiss conductor Stefan Blunier, who made it sound like some forgotten masterpiece.
The first movement resembled one of those formal overtures that preceded an opera or incidental music (like Manfred or Genoveva), a slow introduction in E minor heralding an Allegro section proper with all the elements of sonata form. The playing was intense and incisive, its exertions greeted with premature applause (and not for the last time this evening) upon its conclusion. The Scherzo had fidgety jumping figures on strings which would have made an effective piano piece as well, before closing with a finale in perpetual motion. Here the musical paths of Schumann and Mendelssohn may have converged, with the obligatory fugato and an emphatic apotheosis to round up the work on a reverberant high. Unjustified neglect? Probably not. Would one like to hear it again? Yes, certainly.
The orchestra also provided a stirring ritornello to Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.24 in C minor (K.491), just one of two concertos in the minor key. Its sturm und drang set the tone for Scottish pianist Steven Osborne’s entry, voiced with crystalline clarity and elegance. This is how Mozart should be heard in the context of a modern orchestra, with melodic lines that “flow like oil” (to repeat a favourite description of his), contrasted with crisply delivered chordal phrases. Accompanying orchestral textures were always discreet and light, allowing the piano to project its full voice over the accompanying dramatics.
Nowhere was this better illustrated in the romance-like slow movement. Much like the corresponding movement of the D minor concerto (K.466), its purity of conception was well realised and the temptation to gild the lily with added ornamentations was averted. Osborne played his own cadenzas for the first and third movements, always tasteful and never overdone, but still in the vigourous spirit of storm and stress. The finale’s theme and variations romped home with an inexorable aplomb, and Osborne’s impeccable musicianship was capped off with a sublime encore: a hymn-like G major Keith Jarrett improvisation.
The serious tread of C minor established by the Mozart continued into the second half’s Brahms First Symphony (Op.68). Conducting seated on a high stool which bobbed up and down with every shift in bodyweight, Stefan Blunier coaxed a performance of utmost gravitas and grandeur from the orchestra. The opening movement was expansive with Christian Schioler’s ominous timpani beats broadly spaced out, but it felt just right. Anything slower would have been sluggish,and this built up to a most gripping of expositions and development. This great body of sound continued into the slow movement, which resonated with a beefy richness over which Rachel Walker’s piquant oboe and concertmaster Wang Xiaoming’s violin solo were highlights.
Brahms’ scherzos tend to be more tense than actually playful, but here a sense of levity dominated with Ma Yue’s clarinet solo providing a feel of lightness. At points, it sounded like one of his delightful Hungarian-styled dances. The finale alone was worth the price of entry; its portentous build-up, the brass chorales (never mind the odd cracked note) and the big striding hymn tune, almost Brahms’ personal "Ode to Joy". Here the expansiveness, evident from the symphony's very first bars, had come to a glorious and passionate fruition. This was one performance which relived the great recordings of the masters, of whom Klemperer and Jochum come to mind. The audience, segments of which had applauded prematurely after each movement, was however moved to give the loudest and longest of ovations.
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