BRAHMS' MOTTO / Musicians' Initiative / Review

 

BRAHMS’ MOTTO 

Musicians’ Initiative 

Esplanade Recital Studio 

Thursday (27 February 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 1 March 2025 with the title "Musicians' Initiative proves small is big in Brahms' Symphony No.3".

Musicians’ Initiative (MI) began life as The Young Musicians Foundation Orchestra (TYMFO), founded by Singaporean conductor Darrell Ang ten years ago. Young local conductor Alvin Arumugam, who also directs the South Asian Symphony Orchestra, took over its reigns in 2017 and has distinguished its concerts with a curatorial approach to programming. 

Alvin is a very engaging host.

Works are selected for their synergistic qualities, and special effort is made to demystify classical music by down-to-earth and jargon-free preambles with performed examples. Presently based in the United Kingdom, Arumugam’s last concert with MI in December 2024 showcased a convincing and idiomatic performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the School of the Arts. 

Performing Romantic orchestral repertoire in the small confines of Esplanade Recital Studio is a challenge necessitating the use of chamber-sized forces, and that informed MI’s approach. Those accustomed to the big sound heard in more capacious venues (such as Esplanade Concert Hall) would be pleasantly surprised by what forty-odd musicians can do under such circumstances. 

The tuttis in Antonin Dvorak’s Violin Concerto in A minor (Op.53) could have been plethoric and nastily over-reverberant but that was largely avoided under Arumugam’s direction. Instead, the orchestra ably supported Japanese violinist Sayuri Kuru, second violinist in the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, for her impassioned solo. 

She possesses a voluminous tone and healthy vibrato which was ideal for this melodious concerto. The opening movement bristled with palpable tension, contrasted with the central slow movement’s lyricism where sweetness ruled. All the stops were pulled in the folk-inspired finale, where her virtuosity was greeted with the rightful plaudits. 

In his illustrated talk, Arumugam waxed lyrical on the conception of Johannes Brahms’ Third Symphony in F major (Op.90), defined by its opening motto theme F-A flat-F, representing the German words “frei aber froh”, or “free but happy”. He also touched on the friendships which the German composer had with his younger Czech colleague Dvorak, the Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim and Robert Schumann’s widow Clara. 

Such discourse helped remove the barriers between composed music, performers and the listening public, making for a more illuminating listen. What he omitted to mention was how the first movement’s theme was also derived from a passage from Schumann’s First Symphony. What had sounded retiring was now transformed into something empowering. 

The smallish orchestral forces employed by MI also had a precedent, in the Meiningen court orchestra which had premiered Brahms’ Fourth Symphony under his direction. “Small is big” distinguished this performance, which lacked nothing in grandeur and stature. The opening possessed heft and the development section readily brewed into a titanic struggle. 

Even better was to come in the slow movement, where its often overlooked dissonances were teased out, and has there been a more moving melody than the third movement’s Poco Allegretto? This performance pivoted around this emotional heart and never looked back. All four movements end quietly, making this Brahms’ least performed symphony, but also his most sublime.