SOUTHEAST ASIAN GOLDEN AGE SYMPHONY / Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Orchestral Institute / Review

SOUTHEAST ASIAN 

GOLDEN AGE SYMPHONY

Yong Siew Toh 

Orchestral Institute

Conservatory Concert Hall

Saturday (28 October 2023)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 30 October 2023 with the title "Ambitious new symphony by Asean talents covered panoply of styles".

New symphonies are as rare as gold dust. Prohibitive costs of commissioning, reluctance of orchestras and phobic audiences all militate against symphonies being principal vehicles of musical expression by composers. Thus when philanthropic entrepreneurs like Nicholas Nash and Phalgun Raju step up to finance a major new symphony in Singapore, it is cause for celebration.

 

The Southeast Asian Golden Age Symphony, a joint effort by seven composers from six Asean nations, was the crowning glory of the Performers(‘) Present 2023 symposium for international artistic research held at the Conservatory. Its seven movements were performed by the YST Orchestral Institute conducted by Jason Lai.

 

One could easily be bewildered by the disparate voices heard in its 55-minute collage of seemingly unrelated scores which covered a panoply of styles. It did not help that the hall was plunged into darkness, such that none of the programme notes describing each movement could be read, nor did screen projections indicate what one was listening to. Perhaps that was deliberate, so that the audience had to rely wholly on ears to make out what was going on.

 

The overarching theme of the symphony was tied to this year’s symposium, titled Flowing Resonances, which had rivers and the sound of gongs as unifying factors in history, geography and culture of the region. Southeast Asia is possibly in its golden age, with diverse nations busy in development, globalisation and wealth-making, all within a milieu of relative peace and stability. The sum of the symphony’s parts was to reflect this prosperity of cultures and ideas.

 

It could not have opened more grandly with Trail to the Highlands by Hoang Pho (Vietnam), with big brassy sonorities, vocalisations and foot-stomping, representing vibrancy and possibly violence. Percussion and gongs, naturally, stood out. Quivering woodwinds created an eerie and ethereal effect in Qilin by Lee Chie Tsang (Malaysia) which accompanied video projections by Moira Loh. Just a pity that the two screens were just too small to do justice to the art.

 

In Awakened by Syafiqah ‘Adha Sallehin (Singapore), the Southeast Asian theme became audibly more palpable, with flutes, xylophone and drums heard in scales common to Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia and Brunei. A taped recording of Azman Shariff represented the gruff voice of the gong.

 

For Te-Tabu(h) by Gema Swaratyagita (Indonesia), Tessa Priyanka trooped through the aisle playing a gong, then settling in the role of a vocalising dalang (puppet-master) accompanied by Bunga Dessri Nur Ghaliyah on rebab (spiked fiddle). Their roles represented female empowerment in Indonesia today.  

 

Bato Bato Pik by Danny Imson (Philippines), the Pinoy equivalent of scissors-paper-stone, was a reminiscence of childhood games, fronted by Roldan Ramonito Abantao reading Rodrigo dela Pena Jr’s texts on a loud-hailer. It also cheekily included a quote of popular song Dahil Sa’yo (Because Of You) within in the mix.

 

In Memory: Audiotape-Aluminium Foil-Styrofoam by Thatchatham Silsupan (Thailand), a multi-media piece, video footage were an added dimension but as before, screen size was the limiting factor. The symphony closed as sonorously as it began with Singaporean Jonathan Shin’s The Maker’s Last Gong, a rousing finale that encompassed the familiar sound worlds of early 20^th century composers including Scriabin, Szymanowski and Bartok. How the 75-strong orchestra lapped up this symphony, and the audience’s equally enthusiastic response showed this unprecedented experiment to be a stunning success.

To better understand the inspiration and making of this symphony, watch this video:

Southeast Asian Symphony: The Making | YST Conservatory (youtube.com)

Experience the full performance here:

Southeast Asian Golden Age Symphony: The Premiere | YST Conservatory (youtube.com)

BENNETT & DUKE VIOLIN CONCERTOS + TCHAIKOVSKY 4 & 6 / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

BENNETT VIOLIN CONCERTO
AND TCHAIKOVSKY 4
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Friday 13 October 2023
Esplanade Concert Hall

DUKE VIOLIN CONCERTO
AND TCHAIKOVSKY 6
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Friday (27 October 2023)
Esplanade Concert Hall

This review was published in The Straits Times on 30 October 2023 with the title "Forgotten works ably revived in recording project". 

 

The latest recording project of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra showcased the revival and Asian premieres of long forgotten violin concertos by two 20^th century American composers better known for their work in popular and stage music. These were showcased in two concerts with British violinist Chloe Hanslip and SSO’s former principal guest conductor Andrew Litton, coupled with two Tchaikovsky symphonies.

 

Robert Russell Bennett (1894 to 1981) is remembered for his orchestrations of Broadway musicals including The Sound of Music and South Pacific. His four-movement Violin Concerto from 1941 straddled between serious and light music. Opening like an outtake from Leroy Anderson’s Sleigh Ride, the solo violin’s confident entry was however a show of serious intent.

 

Hanslip’s prowess was amply displayed in a serious old-school cadenza, and exciting perpetual motion later exhibited in the third and fourth movements. The latter possessed the same frenetic energy and pace in the finale of Samuel Barber’s famous violin concerto. The beautiful slow movement, with lush orchestral strings, hinted strongly that this was glorified film music.   

 

The following Friday saw the 1943 Violin Concerto by Vladimir Dukelsky (1903 to 1969), better known by his Americanised alias Vernon Duke. Composer of popular jazz standards like April In Paris and Taking a Chance on Love, his three-movement concerto was a longer work made of sterner stuff. To borrow a metaphor, Duke’s was chalk to Bennett’s cheese.

 

It was hard to discern what key the concerto was in, its dissonant and chromatic idiom defying attempts, but the virtuosity was never in doubt. Hanslip had to dig deep into a long and thorny cadenza midway through the first movement. The second movement was a waltz, but not anything like Strauss. Its mock sentimentality and elusive melody put paid to all pretense, besides it closed with three abrupt and bumpy chords.  

 

The imaginative theme and variations finale echoed modern German composer Paul Hindemith’s astringency, leading one to conclude that composers had be taken seriously if they sounded like neo-Bachian Hindemith or atonal Schoenberg, preferably both. Whose concerto would better stand the test of time, Bennett or Duke? Judging by these performances, the deeper and more substantial Duke would edge the lighter and more entertaining Bennett.     

 

About Tchaikovsky, one would scarcely have encountered a more passionate reading of his Fourth Symphony in F minor. Its opening “Fate” motif was brilliantly nailed by the brass in imperious form, summing up its gripping narrative on a whole. Rachel Walker’s solo oboe stood out in the slow movement while massed pizzicato strings swamped the Scherzo with a wall of sonority. The hell-for-leather ride in the blistering finale made it all the more memorable.

 

 

More melodrama came in the Sixth Symphony in B minor, or the Pathetique, one week later. If there were a composer’s suicide letter, this would be it. Unrelieved gloom enveloped its opening, conductor Litton’s vision ensured its grim message was understood by all. The furious fugato of a development was gripping, contrasted by the faux gentility of the second movement’s bittersweet waltz.

 

The Scherzo's relentless march was crafted as the ultimate study in crescendo (that is until Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony almost 50 years later) and a quickening of pace made it even more thrilling. As if to forestall inappropriate premature applause, the finale’s Adagio lamentoso followed without a break, and the composer’s desperate descent into despondancy became complete. Performed by the orchestra with knowing sympathy and requisite pathos, there could be no more gut-wrenching finality to a symphony such as this.  

A review of the 13 October 2023 concert as published on Bachtrack.com:

Robert Russell Bennett’s Violin Concerto revived in Singapore | Bachtrack

BIRDSONG / Musicians' Initiative / Review

 

BIRDSONG

Musicians’ Initiative

Victoria Concert Hall

Wednesday (25 October 2023)

 

Orchestral programming is an important part of musical presentation, and Musicians’ Initiative (formerly known as The Young Musicians Foundation Orchestra) got it spot on with this concert built around the avian theme of birds and flying critters. All credit goes to London-based Singaporean conductor Alvin Arumugam for creating this innovative, interesting yet approachable programme that truly opened ears.

 

The evening began with late Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara’s most popular orchestral work, Cantus Arcticus (1972). Also titled Concerto for birds and orchestra, it uses recorded sounds of arctic swamp birds from Northern Finland in its lush three-movement canvas. A pair of flutes, ably helmed by Carolin Ralser and Paul Huang in sinuous song, opened proceedings in The Bog, ushering in clearly audible birds on tape. A sense of awe and mystery pervaded the music, with birds being the stars while humans provided support.

 

A fine eco-acoustic balance was struck in the middle movement Melancholy with fine muted strings. It got even better in Swans Migrating where birds and instruments achieved parity. With a return of flutes and woodwinds, the music rose to a sonorous climax, with a suitably big melody to match. There has not been a performance of this glorious work since the 1990s (by Singapore Symphony Orchestra in a bird-themed concert under Lim Yau), and this served a timely reminder that good music should never be neglected.

 

The concert’s selling point had to be the ubiquitous Butterfly Lovers Concerto by Chan Gang and He Zhanhao, performed by young violinist Jocelyn Ng. Ng will be remembered as the confident soloist in Vivaldi’s Four Seasons at those gimmicky Candlelight Concerts She furthered her resume with an enthralling reading that lacked nothing of passion and poetry. Playing completely from memory, she exuded a bright, lustrous tone, and exercised good intonation throughout.

 

It is probably best to ignore the work’s melodramatic story and wallow in the music making, which had top notch support from Musicians’ Initiative principals, which reads like a young Who’s Who in Singapore classical music. Opposite Ng was cellist Tang Jia, their duets portraying the romance of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai being particularly intimate. Tang, percussionist Benjamin Boo (on drum and clappers) and harpist Fontane Liang, all of whom Singapore Chinese Orchestra musicians and principals, were joined by pianist Aya Sakou. The orchestra generated a big sound, and this performance received the loudest plaudits of the evening.

 

The second half saw the Singapore premiere of young London-based Chilean composer Anibal Vidal’s Gliding Murmuration, a 10-minute symphonic poem inspired by starlings sighted at the Channel resort of Brighton. Its still Takemitsu-like opening with brass, piano and vibraphone could easily be called murmurs, but the sound palette soon expanded with lapping waves, rumbles of thunder and a shift from grey clouds to blinding sunshine.

 

Its range of shades and colours, from murky to iridescent, was very well brought out by the orchestra, then closing with gentle woodwind squawks, a reminder of feathered friends within the landscape. This very interesting work was not just about birds, but rather a portrait of nature, the sea and elemental forces of geography. The best part: at no moment was one reminded of the now much-imitated and hackneyed music of Olivier Messiaen.

 

The evening closed with Stravinsky’s not often programmed Firebird Suite (1945), which at 30 minutes is lengthier than the better-known suite from 1919. Its orchestral forces are smaller but nowhere were familiar tropes from the well-loved classic compromised. The dark subterranean grind of its opening was brooding, leading to the Firebird’s magical dance, sounding more coquettish than one previously imagined. Then came a sequence of pantomimes not heard in the 1919 suite, which distended the narrative somewhat without adding so much except for the Dance of the Princesses (Scherzo) with its playful prancing about.   

 

The Khorovod (Round Dance) was sensitively handled and the Danse Infernale, always the suite’s rousing highlight, resounded with deserved trenchancy. It was not the most accurate reading, but a committed one with every player extended to the limits of their abilities. In short, it was exciting. The most beautiful moments came in the Lullaby with Kee Ruihan’s excellent bassoon solo, and the radiant beginning of the Final Hymn, lit by a gilded edge which the orchestra mustered with conductor Arumugam’s Midas touch. The crescendo generated in its final rally concluded a memorable concert on a high, likely the Musicians’ Initiative’s best in recent years. More of the same is hoped and eagerly anticipated.     

FORGING AHEAD / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

FORGING AHEAD

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Saturday (21 October 2023)

Singapore Conference Hall

This review was published in The Straits Times on 23 October 2023 with the title "SCO paints evocative scenes in spectacular with huqin player George Gao."

 

Want to experience the far-ranging capabilities of Chinese orchestral instruments en masse? One could do worse than attending this sonic spectacular by Singapore Chinese Orchestra led by Associate Conductor Moses Gay. Chinese orchestral music is largely programmatic in nature, narrating stories or painting sceneries, and the concert had much of both.

 

Beginning with Xie Peng’s Surging Forward, its quiet atmospheric opening was redolent of a corresponding passage in Debussy’s La Mer. The impressionism evoked and furthered by Xu Zhong’s cello solo was short-lived, leading headlong into a cavalry charge in full battle mode. Brilliantly scored with exuberant percussion in terminal velocity, this made for a very effective overture.    

Photo: Singapore Chinese Orchestra

 

Canadian-Chinese huqin virtuoso George Gao was guest soloist in two of his original works. Playing on a shaoqin, a modified erhu he invented and named after himself (Gao Shaoqing in Chinese), he amply illustrated the myriad possibilities that could be yielded from the seemingly humble instrument.

Photo: Singapore Chinese Orchestra

 

Gao’s Capriccio No.2, or Mongolian Fantasy, was a more traditional ethnic-flavoured concertante work. Employing similar virtuoso techniques and passages (including a florid cadenza), it had much in common with fiddle works from eastern Europe. Considering the full extent of the Yuan dynasty’s geographical reach, this seemed par for the course.  

Photo: Singapore Chinese Orchestra

 

The world premiere on Chinese instruments of his Capriccio No.6, or Shaoyin, delivered several surprises. Its modern idiom, evident from its mystical opening, and improvisatory nature set it apart from earlier Capriccios. A prayerful melody soon quickened in pace, culminating in its third section entitled Music, where Lalo Shifrin’s Mission Impossible theme was cheekily quoted and dizi player Lee Jun Cheng ushered upfront for a heady improvisation.

 

Then came the turn of conductor Gay, himself an erhu exponent, who played on Gao’s shaoqin and sealed his spot of improv with stunning spontaneity. The final section, Love, turned from sentimentality to perpetual motion for a final burst of prestidigitation. The usually reticent Conference Hall faithful roared its unequivocal approval, and Gao obliged with the main theme from Butterfly Lovers as a well-deserved encore.

 

Closing the concert was Wang Danhong’s Four Seasons in Lingering Garden, a 35-minute four-movement symphony inspired by Suzhou’s famous Liu Yuan classical garden. Not for the first time, Debussy’s La Mer was referenced, this time as a reflection on some body of water. In this very well orchestrated work, pride of place was afforded to dizi solos, with Lim Sin Yeo, Yin Zhiyang and Zeng Zhi doing the honours. The mellifluous and poetic quality of the flute permeated all the movements, a tribute to the ubiquity of bamboo in Jiangnan landscapes.

 

A recorded operatic female voice came on unexpectedly in the third movement Sweet Scented Osmanthus, intoning a poem in classical Chinese. This led without a break into the finale, Snowy Ke Pavilion, with dizi having a final say in a blissful close resembling Respighi in his quieter moments. With scarcely a break, the encore of popular Yunnan folk dance A Xi Tiao Yue (Axi Dancing In The Moonlight) completed the evening on a rousing high.

LUKAS GENIUSAS Piano Recital / Review

LUKAS GENIUSAS Piano Recital

Victoria Concert Hall

Thursday (19 October 2023)

 

It seemed strange to have had Anna Geniushene and Lukas Geniusas perform within two weeks of each other in Singapore, in separate solo piano recitals presented by two different presenters. The wife-and-husband pairing might have made for a superb two-piano recital. Being unlucky to have missed Geniushene’s solo recital (6 October) due to a conflicting concert, I had to make sure not to forego Geniusas’ recital, having seen attended his performances at Schloss vor Husum (Germany, 2017 & 2018) and Esplanade (2018), the last when he performed Rachmaninov’s Paganini Rhapsody with the SSO under Charles Dutoit.  

 

Lithuanian-Russian pianist Lukas Geniusas, runner-up in the 2010 Chopin and 2015 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competitions, opened his recital with a rarity. Schubert’s Minuet in C sharp minor (D.600) was once thought to be a missing third movement from an uncompleted sonata. It is a quietly charming miniature accompanied by soft left hand octaves, which could have been mistaken for a neo-Baroque dance from hyphenated Handel or Bach. Geniusas’ sensitivity in touch and tone made this a perfect prelude to Schubert’s Four Impromptus (Op.142).

 

From Geniusas, one got nothing less than seamless singing vocal lines and unfailing natural musicality. The first two impromptus breezed through effortlessly, but true tests came in the famous B flat major Theme and Variations (No.3) which could get fussy at times, and the Hungarian-flavoured F minor No.4, which required a fair degree of barnstorming. There were a few slipped notes but these did little to mar the impression of fine musicianship.

 

The second half was devoted to the original version of Rachmaninov’s rarely-heard Sonata No.1 in D minor (Op.28). Its rarity is well-founded, being the far longer, more blustery and thornier of the Russian’s two sonatas. Whoever knew there was even an earlier version? This was the edition premiered by Konstantin Igumnov in 1908, after which over 100 bars were excised to get the version we are now familiar with. Geniusas found the original score in a Moscow archive two years ago and has championed it, having also made a world premiere recording on the Mirare label. The programme booklet, probably written by some Music Elective Programme (MEP) student, made no mention of this nor its Faustian inspiration and narrative which so captivated Rachmaninov. (One certainly misses Lionel Choi’s knowing and erudite programme notes on such occasions.)

 

The small audience (which could not have numbered over 200 people) got to witness a Singapore premiere. And it was truly epic. Any pianist who would even dream of attempting this sonata will be armed with a formidable arsenal of technique and endurance. Geniusas possesses these in abundance and more. This version was distended to some 45 minutes, with the excesses limited to the first and third movements. Only the Gretchen-inspired central slow movement was spared cuts.

 

Following with score in hand, Geniusas hardly missed a note and one marvelled at the effort expended in the extra bars which came at the end of the first movement’s development. One might refer to this as a extended recapitulation. Does it work? Yes, but only in the right hands. Geniusas made the loads of original notes, which do not present new material or themes, sound convincing rather than superfluous.

 

Similarly, the finale had its extras past the midway mark, and Geniusas’ totally emphatic account was just as valid and a wonder to behold. One understands why Igumnov and Rachmaninov chose to excise all these bars (the accusation of being repetitious and note-spinning among the reasons), which is to spare the already beleaguered pianist further knotty knolls to scale. Having heard superb performances by Kun Woo Paik, Albert Tiu (twice!), Vadym Kholodenko and Zlata Chochieva, I am happy to add Geniusas to this hallowed list of great artists.

 

The cheering audience at its blistering and hell-for-leather conclusion proved that Geniusas made his point, and some. His encores of Godowsky’s Alt Wien (from Triakontameron) and Rachmaninov’s transcription of Mussorsgky’s Gopak from Sorochintsy Fair with fair dollops of rubato, were further icing on a more than well-baked cake.

Lukas Geniusas was presented by Finger Waltz Music Productions. 

With memories from Husum,
where Geniusas performed music by
Hindemith, Hahn, Desyatnikov and Arzoumanov.
Photo: Wu Yang