SSO PRE-TOUR CONCERTS / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

PRE-TOUR CONCERTS

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

University Cultural Centre

Thursday & Friday 

(8 & 9 October 2026)

This review was published by The Straits Times on 11 October 2026 with the title "SSO delivers impressive sampler of programme for upcoming China tour".

Come 13 to 25 October, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra led by newly-appointed Finnish music director Hannu Lintu will embark on a seven-city tour of China, its first since 2011. Displaced from its usual performing homes at Esplanade and Victoria Concert Halls because of the Formula One Singapore Grand Prix, the orchestra’s two pre-tour concerts were held at the National University of Singapore’s Cultural Centre.

Despite a 1700 capacity and being perfect for university convocations, it is unfortunately not an ideal venue for symphony concerts. The orchestra nonetheless persevered, opening the first concert with Wang Chenwei’s The Sisters’ Islands (2006), the most performed 21st century work by a Singaporean composer.

It has weathered 20 years well, originally a work for Chinese instruments when it won top billing at the inaugural Singapore International Competition for Chinese Orchestral Compositions. A programmatic symphonic poem, Malayan scales and dances were used to narrate the legend about two sisters Linah and Minah who get transformed into a pair of islands in the Singapore Straits.

Highly accessible in idiom, it also scored a conch shell and ocarina to salute maritime origins, and is considered a prime example of Nanyang music, literally music from the south seas.

Photo: Aloysius Lim

Next came Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, with soloist Chloe Chua, now 19-years-old and pursuing undergraduate musical studies in Berlin. Since winning the Yehudi Menuhin competition in 2018, she has continued to mature musically. Her tone is warm and generous, exhibiting excellent intonation, and coupled with a winsome stage demeanour completely free of artifice.

Singing bel canto lines were brought to the fore in the opening and central movements. When the stops were pulled for the mercurial finale, Chua delivered without reservation, drawing loud cheers and prolonged applause from the audience.

Photo: Chris P.Lim

On Friday’s concert, she was joined by Chinese string virtuoso He Ziyu in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E flat major (K.364) for violin and viola. Both soloists played with the orchestra in the tuttis, and worked like hand-and-glove for the solo passages. The slow movement’s love-in was a clear case how both young musicians had grown with the work since recording it with Hans Graf in 2023.

Following the rip-roaring Rondo finale, the audience was rewarded with an encore, an exquisitely beautiful arrangement of Mongolian folksong Mu Ge (Pastoral Song) for both instruments by SSO violist Guan Qi.

Photo: Aloysius Lim

Both evenings closed with Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony in D major, also know as the Titan. The venue’s dry acoustics were unflattering, especially for unaccompanied winds and brass. Thus the first movement’s evocation of dawn lacked mystery and atmosphere, despite the players best efforts. However, once the strings sang out the Ging heut morgen übers Feld (I Went The Morning Over The Field) theme from the Wayfarer Songs, the ensemble began to settle.

The vigourous Ländler that followed was taken at a good whip, with the boisterous pastoral setting now firmly established. The droll canon with Frère Jacques in the minor key for the funeral procession was just as trenchant, but one wished the Klezmer episodes that followed had a little more swing. Perhaps that sense of reservation might scale down in subsequent performances.

When Mahler proclaimed the “symphony must have everything”, he also meant earthiness and vulgarity being among the attributes. It was no holds barred, however, for the finale’s “cry from the wounded heart” opening the tumultuous movement, and culminating with the eight French horns rising on their feet at the end being a particularly stirring moment.

Besides enjoying a more nuanced and settled performance, the audience on the second evening were treated to a further encore, Finnish composer Jean Sibelius’ luxuriant Andante Festivo for strings and timpani, performed with conviction and emotion. China, be prepared to be impressed.

Read Shawn Hoo's report on SSO's reception in Shanghai in The Straits Times:

SSO, violinist Chloe Chua kick off China tour in sold-out Shanghai concert | The Straits Times

The stars finally get to meet.
Photo: Yanhuipiaoliang's IG

SSO PRE-TOUR CONCERT: CHLOE CHUA & HANNU LINTU: JEWEL AND TITAN / Review

CHLOE CHUA & HANNU LINTU:

JEWEL AND TITAN

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

University Cultural Centra Auditorium

Thursday (8 October 2026)

An edited version of this review was first published on Bachtrack.com on 9 October 2026 with the title "Impressive Wang, Mendelssoh and Mahler from the Singapore Symphony".

Although the Singapore Symphony Orchestra is multicultural in its composition of players, it remains the only predominantly ethnic Chinese Western professional symphony orchestra outside of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Just like the nation and its population, Singapore presents an interesting curiosity to people from the mainland. Its seven-city concert tour to the People’s Republic of China from 13 to 25 October led by music director Hannu Lintu is the first since 2011.

The first of two pre-tour concerts opened with the most performed 21st century work by a Singapore composer, Wang Chenwei’s The Sisters’ Islands (2006). This programmatic symphonic poem is based on a legend from the Indo-Malayan Riau archipelago (which Singapore is part of), and uses the pelog scale for its thematic material. Malayan musical idioms and dances present an idyllic soundscape, before the intrusion of dissonance, a pirate attack when the eponymous sisters Linah and Minah are assaulted and shanghaied. 

The merciful gods turn them into a pair of islands, the call of a conch shell and ocarina signaling a return to harmony in the high seas. This work, originally written for Chinese instruments and transcribed for Western orchestra, is now considered representative of Nanyang music, literally music from the south seas (Southeast Asia).

Photo: Aloysius Lim

Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor (Op.64) was the showcase for Singapore’s best-selling violinist Chloe Chua, who is presently pursuing undergraduate musical studies in Berlin. Her presence alone would account for sold-out houses here and in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Finding celebrity at the age of eleven after sharing first prize at the Yehudi Menuhin competition in 2018, she has continued to mature musically, and this performance was a sign of this progress. 

Her tone is warm and generous, exhibiting excellent intonation, and coupled with a winsome stage demeanour completely free of artifice. Early Romantic music prides itself on singing bel canto lines, which were brought to the fore in the opening and central movements. When the stops were pulled for the mercurial finale, Chua delivered without reservation, drawing loud cheers and prolonged applause from the audience. The result should be no different in China, one predicts.

Photo: Aloysius Lim

The orchestra’s touring warhorse was Mahler’s First Symphony in D major, also known as the Titan. Because of the Formula One Singapore Grand Prix, neither Esplanade nor Victoria Concert Hall were available, necessitating a shift westwards to National University of Singapore’s Cultural Centre and its cavernous 1700-seat auditorium. Not designed as a dedicated concert hall, its dry acoustics were not ideal, especially for unaccompanied winds and brass. Thus the first movement’s evocation of dawn lacked mystery and atmosphere, despite the players best efforts, but once the strings sang out Ging heut Morgen übers Feld theme from Lieder eines Fahrenden gesellen (Songs of the Wayfarer), the ensemble began to settle.

The vigourous Ländler that followed was taken at a good whip, with the boisterous pastoral setting already well established. The droll canon with Frère Jacques in the minor key for the funeral procession was just as trenchant, but one only wished that the Klezmer episodes that followed had more swing. Perhaps that sense of reservation might scale down in subsequent performances. 

When Mahler proclaimed the “symphony must have everything”, he also meant vulgarity being among the attributes. It was no holds barred, however, for the finale’s “cry from the wounded heart” opening the tumultuous movement, and culminating with the eight French horns rising on their feet towards the end being a particularly stirring moment. China, be prepared to be impressed!

Star Rating: ****

The original Bachtrack.com review can be read here:

Impressive Wang, Mendelssohn and Mahler from the Singapore Symphony | Bachtrack

BEETHOVEN'S ODE TO JOY / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

BEETHOVEN’S ODE TO JOY 

Singapore Symphony Orchestra 

Esplanade Concert Hall 

Thursday (25 July 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 27 July 2024 with the title "Standing ovation for SSO's take on Brahms and Beethoven".

Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s first gala concert for the 2024/25 season, led by music director Hans Graf, was headlined by two major repertoire works. The opening act was Johannes Brahms’ Double Concerto in A minor (Op.102) with violinist Chloe Chua and SSO principal cellist Ng Pei-Sian as soloists. 

Despite their age gap (Chua is 17 and Ng in his late 30s), the duo worked well together, reliving the parts played by original virtuosos Joseph Joachim and Robert Hausmann at its 1887 premiere. After an orchestral outburst, Ng’s demanding solo cadenza was rapt and ear-catching with Chua later joining in as an equal partner. Nowhere was she overawed and they were hand-and-glove throughout, with the orchestra’s discreet partnership allowing their voices to shine. 

The central slow movement had them in a silky smooth unison, with an evenness providing some of the work’s most sublime moments. The Hungarian-flavoured finale was a jocular jaunt, playful in exchanges yet cohesive to the closing chords. The vociferous response was rewarded with a substantial encore: the Handel-Halvorsen Passacaglia, another classic of sharing intimate moments together. 

Watch the Brahms Double Concerto (1st movement) here:

The other blockbuster was Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in D minor (Op.125), his beloved Choral Symphony. There has been no better time amid tumultuous world affairs to relive this unifying work, the supreme espousal of Friedrich Schiller’s gospel of the universal brotherhood of man. 

Running for 67 minutes, Graf’s vision was a generally swift one. Following the opening drone, orchestral entries were brisk and crisp, yet with no hint of being hectic or strait-jacketed. The music was allowed to breathe naturally with a well-judged broadening of tempos when it mattered. 

Even when the Molto vivace second movement upped the ante, pulses quickened but never raced beyond safety limits, much having to do with Christian Schioler’s steady but emphatic timpani beats dictating the proceedings. The lovely Adagio slow movement provided much respite but was not allowed to languish or wallow. 

Then came the much-awaited finale. Its earth-shattering introduction relived moments from earlier movements, a summation of all that had come before. The first vocal was from baritone Liam James Karai, his commanding voice answered emphatically by 110 singers from the Singapore Symphony Choruses and Singapore Bible College Community Choir (Eudenice Palaruan, Choral Director & Wong Lai Foon, Choirmaster). 

There have been bigger choirs to grace the Ninth, notably Esplanade’s opening concert in 2002. However this group lacked nothing in pluck and confidence, delivering the famed Ode To Joy (Freude, Schoner Gotterfunken) chorus and tricky fugues with suitable eclat and ecstasy. 

The quartet of well-matched soloists was completed by soprano Johanna Falkinger, mezzo-soprano Anita Montserrat and tenor Seungwoo Yang, the last of whom conquered the Turkish march segment (accompanied by triangle, cymbals and bass drum) with much swagger. 

The symphony’s frenzied conclusion received a deserved standing ovation. Its message of world peace, delivered in harmonious Singapore, might however be a case of preaching to the choir.

Watch part of the finale

of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony here:

CHLOE CHUA PLAYS PAGANINI / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

CHLOE CHUA PLAYS PAGANINI

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (2 September 2023)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 4 September 2023 with the title "Chloe Chua plays Paganini with stunning aplomb".

 

This concert was marketed with Chloe Chua Plays Paganini as its unique selling point but was in reality far more than that. In many ways, it felt like two separate concerts with vastly contrasted repertoire welded together at the hip, with a festive feel reminiscent of London’s BBC Proms.

 

The first half was early Romantic with a strong bel canto flavour about it. Rossini’s Overture to Il Viaggio A Reims (The Journey To Reims), his last opera in Italian, opened with a serious tone but soon lapsed into comedy. Lovely solos from cor anglais and flute, with excellent woodwind ensemble and an exciting series of patented Rossini crescendos ensured its success under visiting Swiss conductor Mario Venzago’s direction.

 

Paganini’s Violin Concerto No.1 with SSO artist in residence Chloe Chua was the ostensible reason why the hall was packed to the brim. She did not disappoint, comfortably mastering the fiendishly difficult solo part with seeming effortlessness and impeccable intonation. Even the inordinately long cadenza by Emil Sauret, lasting almost a quarter of the first movement, was overcome with stunning aplomb.

 

The reduced orchestration with all percussion (timpani, drum, cymbals and triangle) excluded certainly rendered the accompaniment more transparent. The slow movement basked in the lyricism of bel canto, an all too brief respite from earlier acrobatics that would also consume the finale’s Rondo.

Photo: Chris P. Lim

 

Paganini as innovator of technical devices such as the infamous double-stopped harmonics came to the fore, but that did little to faze Chua’s command and control as the work romped to an imperious high to close. With no encore from her forthcoming, the appreciative audience had to make do with her winning winsome smile instead.

Watch this video of Chloe Chua in Paganini:

 

The second half shifted to the late 19^th and early 20^th century with a moving performance of Debussy’s Three Nocturnes. More like vivid visions of musical imagery than actual night pieces, the opening Nuages (Clouds) could have done with a little more mystery but the cor anglais solo stood out with its plaintiveness. The far more lively Fêtes (Festivals) was delivered with a lean incisiveness, with a pair of muted trumpets driving its quite thrilling processional march.

 

Breathtaking in a different way was the seductive beauty evoked by the wordless women’s voices from the Singapore Symphony Chorus and Youth Choir (Chorus master: Eudenice Palaruan) in the closing Sirenes (Sirens). Homogeneous and haunting, this made for the work’s quiet and peaceable end.

 

English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Toward The Unknown Region, with words by the American Walt Whitman, received its Singapore premiere. Euphemistically described as “a song for chorus and orchestra”, this 12-minute mini-masterpiece was a paean to the spirit of discovery and adventure. Now joined by men voices, the chorus of 67 members generated a bigger sound than thought possible, and with the help of Joanna Paul’s pipe organ, built up to a massive climax and valedictory conclusion. 

Chorusmaster Eudenice Palaruan
gets the plaudits with Mario Venzago
and everyone who performed.

A review of the same concert published in Bachtrack:

Spirit of the Proms gloriously alive in Singapore | Bachtrack

Watch this video of 

Vaughan Williams' Toward the Unknown Region:

Some post-concert shots, taken on a short walk from Esplanade along Elizabeth Walk to Victoria Concert Hall:

CHLOE CHUA & HE ZIYU / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

CHLOE CHUA & HE ZIYU

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Thursday (27 July 2023) 

   

This review was published in Bachtrack on 30 July 2023 with the title "Sterling showcase of Mozart and Richard Strauss by the Singapore Symphony".

 

It is no secret that Hans Graf, Music Director of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, has been honing talents for the future of classical music. The appointment of 16-year-old violinist Chloe Chua as the orchestra’s Artist-in-Residence for 2023/2004 was a case in point, as was his championship of 24-year-old Chinese violinist Ziyu He, now a regular in Singapore. Both were first prizewinners at the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists (2018 and 2016 respectively) and have also recorded Mozart with the orchestra.

 

The evening’s soloistic showpiece was Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E flat major (K.364), without doubt his greatest concerto for violin. An intimate sense of chamber music was established from the outset, with the orchestra kept on a firm leash such that the opening E flat major chords in the Allegro maestoso sounded politely voiced rather than hammered out. This paved the way for the soloists’ silky smooth unison entry. Chua’s violin and He’s viola are a well-matched pair, and despite their distant placements on either side of conductor Graf, they blended well together.

 

Sweetness of tone compensated for a deliberate repudiation of forceful projection, most evident in the first movement cadenza and the sublime Andante that followed. After luxuriating in the aria-like cantabile of the slow movement, stops were pulled for the Presto finale but decorum was maintained all through to the closing bars. Restraint and maturity would prevail over youthful impetuosity. As an encore, J.S.Bach’s Two Part Invention No.8 in F major, in an arrangement for two violins with a repeat performed in double quick time, was totally delectable.

 

Watch this video of the finale from Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante:

The concerto proper was preceded by Mozart’s Overture to The Magic Flute, which also opened with E flat major chords. Far more portentous this time around, it was later relieved by a delightful play of counterpoint, underlining the opera’s overt comedy and covert Masonic messages.  

 

The concert’s true highlight was Richard Strauss’ tone poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life), composed in 1898 and his most self-indulgent work. The German was just 34 and had a half-century more to live, yet this six-part monolith resounded with a definitive finality as to be hubristic. 

Opening in a plethora of sound with pedal-points pegged firmly in E flat major (that key again), the Hero’s grandiose visions were well characterised. Leaving little to the imagination, Strauss had cast himself as the striding autobiographical Hero. His Adversaries were, by contrast, snivelling and rodent-like, represented by squeaks and squeals from woodwinds and brassy grunts. 

His Companion was lovingly personified in guest concertmaster David Coucheron’s excellent violin solo, almost a concerto movement of its own. This was his portrait of Frau Strauss, formidable soprano Pauline de Ahna, who was both tender yet complex, but ultimately inscrutable.  

The Hero, his Companion
and their son.

 

A trio of offstage trumpets signalled the call to Battle, an almighty struggle led by the snaredrum’s martial beat. Here, as in the work’s opening, the volume generated at its shattering climax all but raised the roof. In The Hero’s Works of Peace, quotes from earlier tone poems appear fleetingly, notably Don Juan and Till Eulenspiegel, Straussian heroes and anti-heroes both. 

For this hagiography to wind down, what better than a mellow cor anglais and solo violin to seek a peaceable resolution? Finally returning to the warm embrace of E flat major, this outing worked because of Graf’s close to perfectly paced direction, without letting the fine details get in the way of the flowing narrative. For this, he and his orchestra were roundly applauded.    

 

Star Rating: ****

Watch this video of SSO's performance of Ein Heldenleben: