HANNU LINTU INAUGURAL SERIES: GIL SHAHAM & MAHLER 5 / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

HANNU LINTU INAUGURAL SERIES:

GIL SHAHAM & MAHLER 5

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Friday (17 July 2026)

Esplanade Concert Hall

This review was first published in Bachtrack.com on 20 July 2026 with the title "Hannu Lintu makes his mark in inaugural concert with the Singapore Symphony".

Until today, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra has had just three music directors in its 47-year history – Choo Hoey, Lan Shui and Hans Graf. Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu was introduced this evening as its the fourth music director. A towering physical presence with a hint of a wizened smile, he made his presence felt immediately.

Lintu’s inaugural concert programme consisted wholly of 20th and 21st century works, opening with the world premiere of Après l'Odyssée by Singaporean composer Tan Chan Boon (born 1965). The École Normale-schooled Tan is Singapore’s most prolific symphonist, and this nearly 20-minute-long commission is the first movement of his yet to be performed Seventh Symphony. 

His models are anachronistically Romantic, with Anton Bruckner and Richard Strauss coming to mind, not least the pastoral opening string melody backed by cascading woodwind chords. The movement’s title After The Odyssey was premised on the feeling of relief and uneasy calm after his Sixth Symphony (L’Odyssey, recounting the Covid-19 pandemic). Its breezy beginning was qualified by a fugal treatment of its second subject. Tension ensued with the introduction of brass and percussion, gradually building to a fulsome climax before receding in a quiet close that portends hope for the future. A performance of the symphony in full is keenly anticipated.

American violinist Gil Shaham made a welcome return to Singapore with the Asian premiere of Nomad Concerto by American composer Mason Bates (born 1977). Conceived in four movements, this deliberately exotic yet gratifyingly tonal work imagines an assemblage had Ravel been requested to expand his rhapsodic Tzigane and throw in some New World jazz for good measure. 

Photo: LG Lim

Shaham’s virtuosity defined its first two movements, Song of the balloon man and Magician at the bazaar, casting a spell as an itinerant entertainer journeying through Eastern Europe to the Middle East. The mystically desolate slow movement Desert vision: oasis quoted a Jewish song before the rocking syncopations of Le jazz manouche, à la Django Reinhardt as Bates’ own programme notes reminds, brought down the house. The ensuing cheers ensured that the Magician movement, with its John Williams’ Harry Potter moments, was encored.

The only familiar music on show was Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, in a gripping performance that was long on drama but short on bombast. Jon Paul Dante’s excellent trumpet solo set the tone for a deliberately paced funeral march, yet there was never a moment where the narrative lagged. In the tumultuous struggle of the second movement, the marking mit größter Vehemenz (with greatest vehemence) was taken most literally, yet the earlier march’s driving impetus remained fresh in the subconscious. The central Scherzo’s French horn solo resounded like an exultant call from the abyss, heralding a celebration of some perverse joy, such was Mahler’s idea of irony.

There were no doubts in the Adagietto’s love message, delivered plain and without neuroses by gilded strings and harpist Gulnara Mashurova. In the attacca finale, an initial French horn fluff did little to dispirit the clever counterpoint Mahler wove into his satirical Wunderhorn song Lob des hohen Verstandes (In Praise of High Intellect), wittily closing the symphony on a blazing high. 

The orchestra responded with the acute awareness of a band guided by a fresh and uncompromising new leader who knows exactly what he wants and how to get it. Hannu Lintu has just ushered in an exciting and enticingly interesting new future for the Singapore Symphony in seasons to come.

Photo: LG Lim

Star Rating: *****

The original review may be found here:

Hannu Lintu makes his mark in inaugural Singapore Symphony concert | Bachtrack

GIL SHAHAM PLAYS TCHAIKOVSKY / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

GIL SHAHAM PLAYS TCHAIKOVSKY

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall

Sunday (30 June 2018)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 2 July 2018 with the title "Shaham shines in spirited violin concerto".

The first concert of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra's 2018-19 season took place not at the Esplanade or Victoria Concert Hall, but on Kent Ridge at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music. Conducted by Music Director Shui Lan, it was part of the orchestra's outreach programme in July with concerts in various venues across the island.

There was also an educational element to this ticketed event, in the form of a helpful preamble before the first work, Richard Strauss' tone poem Macbeth. Its main themes were explained and short excerpts performed by the orchestra. One of the German composer's earliest works, it was influenced by Beethoven (notably the hushed opening in D minor) and Schumann before taking on a life of its own.

Adventurous harmonies, which established Strauss as one of the great late Romantic composers, piqued the ears and soon it looked ahead towards the familiar Don Juan, which was not too far in the future. The orchestra, fresh from a month-long vacation, launched headlong into its martial and dramatic themes, revelling in the cut and thrust of the struggles of the Shakespearean anti-hero.

Soaring strings were pitted against strident brass, but the balance was just about right. In this generally reverberant hall where there was a tendency to harshness in fortissimos, the decibel quotient was easily reached but both conductor and orchestra instinctively knew how to attain that ideal without having to over-exert.

Despite some very enthusiastic accompaniment, American violin virtuoso Gil Shaham was in no danger of being overwhelmed in Tchaikovsky's popular Violin Concerto. His voluminous tone easily filled the hall, rising all the way up to the circle seats. This was matched by his natural virtuosity and barely contained enthusiasm, which quickly raised the temperature and spirit of the performance.

His solo entry was arresting, later followed up by the cadenza which sizzled with white-hot passion. In response the orchestra also upped its game. Despite the programme notes exhorting the audience not to applaud before the end of the work, the advice was roundly ignored with loud bravos issuing at the rousing close of the opening movement.

The hushed and melancholic air of the slow movement's Canzonetta was but a short respite, and here the woodwinds shined in ensemble and solo passages. Then it was in the finale where the violin fireworks ensued, with Shaham's dare-devilry dominating, supported by an almost choreographed footwork on the stage.

One might be hard pressed to remember a performance of the Tchaikovsky that oozed such irresistible elan, and the audience response with equally vociferous applause. As an encore, Shaham shared the spotlight with outgoing SSO concertmaster Igor Yuzefovich in the delightful Andante Grazioso from Jean-Marie Leclair's Sonata in E minor for two violins. This was simply a crackling start to the orchestral season.   

GIL SHAHAM. BRAHMS SYMPHONIES / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

GIL SHAHAM. BRAHMS SYMPHONIES

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Friday (7 July 2017)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 10 July 2017 with the title "A night of lovely fantasies".

The Singapore Symphony Orchestra's new season opened with the music of a Singaporean composer. Soir, Reves, Fantaisie (Evening, Dreams, Fantasy) is the slow central movement of Tan Chan Boon's Second Symphony. Beginning with a French horn solo from Marc-Antoine Robillard and accompanied by gentle pizzicato strings, it conjured vistas of a bucolic Alpine scene. This and a second theme from the strings formed the meat of the movement, which unfolded with a quiet majesty and aural lusciousness before closing in total tranquillity.

Composer Tan Chan Boon
with SSO Music Director Shui Lan.

Tan is a 21^st century composer with a 19^th century soul. Mining a rich vein ploughed by the Wagner-Bruckner-Richard Strauss axis, he has already completed five symphonies. On the form of this sensitive reading, surely the SSO and Music Director Lan Shui has it in them to explore more of Tan's rewarding music.

American violinist Gil Shaham, a regular visitor to these parts, was the commanding soloist in Prokofiev's First Violin Concerto. The enfant terrible of Russian music, Prokofiev was to painfully pique ears with his brand of lashing dissonance, one which Shaham delivered in shovels. Crafting a vitriolic tone that was wholly appropriate for the work's grotesqueries, this performance came into its own in the lacerating Scherzo.

Shaham's use of sul ponticello (bowing near the violin's bridge) to create a wiry metallic timbre made the hair stand, soothed only by the finale's fairy-tale soundscape which was beautifully rendered with a balance close to perfect. Like Tan's work before, there was a pleasing symmetry to its fantasy-filled dream-like ending.

As an encore with orchestra, the brief and barbed Scherzo was reprised to no less stunning effect. On his own, Shaham offered the Gavotte from J.S.Bach's Partita No.3, which elicited even more cheers from the audience.

The concert closed with the First Symphony of Johannes Brahms. Like Beethoven before him, there can simply be no exhaustion from listening to Brahms' symphonies. Conducting completely from memory, conductor Shui took a more measured approach compared with his more mercurial stance on Beethoven's symphonies.

The sombre opening, full of foreboding and portending tragedy, was taken at a broad tempo. But this was not one of indolence or lack of volition, but one that gradually built up to a crushing climactic high. Like a skilled storyteller, the clarity and final aim of narration was never in doubt. The atmosphere was more relaxed in the slow movement, where Concertmaster Igor Yuzefovich's lovely violin solo capped a fine showing near its close.

Woodwinds had their turn to shine in the light and spirited 3^rd movement, paving the way for the dark clouds ushered in by the finale. How sternness and brooding in a minor key is transformed into major key sunshine, culminating in the finale's Beethovenian hymn-like melody was the miracle of this masterpiece. The opportunity offered to the orchestra was joyfully reciprocated as Shui led his charges to a glorious end, which was greeted by the applause it richly deserved. 

Conductor Shui Lan and violinist Gil Shaham
at the post-concert Symphony Chat.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, June 2016)

THE BERLIN RECORDINGS

SERGIO FIORENTINO, Piano

Piano Classics 0033 (10 CDs) / *****

The Italian Sergio Fiorentino (1927-1998) was possibly the greatest pianist nobody has ever heard of. His promising early career was curtailed by injuries sustained in an airplane accident, and he spent an inordinate span of his life teaching the piano. 

The great Arturo Michelangeli Benedetti referred to him as “il solo altro pianista” (the only other pianist), and these recordings made near the end of his life are a testament of a visionary musical mind coupled with transcendent technique.

His repertoire was immense, spanning Bach (original as well as his own transcriptions) to the late Romantics, with Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Franck and Liszt in between. Just hear his magisterial performances of sonatas by Liszt, Rachmaninov (both), Scriabin (Nos.1, 2 and 4) and Prokofiev (No.8) which capture the spontaneity and risk-taking of live performances which are rarely found in studio recordings. 

The bonus disc of Schumann's Carnaval and shorter pieces by Debussy, Scarlatti, Moszkowski, Fauré and more Liszt is sheer pleasure, comparable with the vaunted treasures of Horowitz or Rubinstein. Listen and believe!      

NIGUNIM

GIL SHAHAM, Violin

ORLI SHAHAM, Piano

Canary Classics  CC10 / *****

Nigunim is the Hebrew word for music-making, and it is the title of Israeli American composer Avner Dorman's Third Violin Sonata. In four movements and playing for almost 20 minutes, it is the longest work in this album of Jewish-inspired music by celebrated American violinist Gil Shaham and his sister Orli. 

Although the work does not quote pre-existing melodies, it is imbued with the universal feel of deep contemplation, inconsolable sorrow and unbridled celebrations associated with the trials and tribulations of God's chosen people.  

The term can be both sacred and secular. Its singular, Nigun, is the soulfully voiced slow movement of Ernest Bloch's well-known Baal Shem Suite, which encompasses different aspects of Hassidic traditions in music. In the same vein are Joseph Bonime's Danse Hebraique and Leo Zeitlin's Eli Zion, which are equally evocative as Russian Joseph Achron's Hebrew Melody Op.33 (his most popular work) and Two Hebrew Pieces Op.35. 

Although not Jewish himself, American film composer John Williams wins himself a special place for his score for Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning Holocaust movie Schindler's List, of which three pieces have been included here. The Shaham siblings' advocacy of their musical heritage is heartfelt and they are resonantly recorded.  

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, February 2015)

SOLOS & DUOS

MARTHA ARGERICH, Piano et al

EMI Classics 94044 2 (6CDs) / *****     

In the early 1980s, the great Argentina-born pianist Martha Argerich stopped giving solo recitals and turned her back on solo recordings. This fateful decision and apparent setback was thankfully channelled into increased activity in chamber music and piano duo repertoire with multiple fruitful collaborations. 

This collection does not replicate her recordings on Deutsche Grammophon but complements it with live recordings from the Lugano Festival in a project named after her. The first disc however contains solo performances, an all-Chopin recital (Sonata No.3 and shorter works) recorded immediately after her triumph at the 1965 Chopin International Piano Competition and a Schumann's Scenes From Childhood of a more recent countenance.

Highlights of the 2-piano repertoire in this box-set include Liszt's Concerto Pathetique and Don Juan Fantasy, Rachmaninov's two Suites, Brahms Sonata in F minor and Haydn Variations, Prokofiev's Classical Symphony (transcribed by Rikuya Terashima), and two performances of Lutoslawski's Paganini Variations. 

More intriguing is the unusual coupling of Messiaen's austere but scintillating Visions De L'Amen with Gustavino's Argentinian Romances and three Piazzolla tangos, as if contrasting spirituality with comic relief.  Argerich's partners read like a Who's Who of great pianism, including Nelson Freire, Stephen Kovacevich, Yefim Bronfman, Piotr Anderszewski, Alexandre Rabinovitch and others. This is indispensable listening for pianophiles.  

1930s VIOLIN CONCERTOS Vol.1

GIL SHAHAM, Violin

Canary Classics CC12 (2 Cds) / *****

If one were to survey the 20^th century violin concertos most often programmed by the world's symphony orchestras, chances are many of these date from the 1930s. This era of eclecticism, experimentation and upheaval may explain the sheer diversity and heterogeneity, explored by American violinist Gil Shaham in this collection of live recordings.

No violin concerto is as melodious as Samuel Barber's (1939), unusual as it comprises two slow movements capped by a brief and frenetic finale, so difficult that it flummoxed its original dedicatee. By contrast, Alban Berg's (1935) written in memory of Manon Gropius (daughter of Walter Gropius and Alma Mahler), is atonal but orchestrated so lushly that it sounds late Romantic.  Karl Amadeus Hartmann's Concerto Funebre (1939) for strings quotes socialist and antifascist themes, a surprise that he even survived the Nazis.

The second disc couples Igor Stravinsky's neoclassical Violin Concerto (1931), a fond homage to J.S.Bach, with Benjamin Britten's early Violin Concerto (1939), which successfully combines gritty dissonance with long-breathed lyricism. Shaham performs all these with a natural flair and innate authority that is hard to ignore. His partners include the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, BBC Symphony, Dresden Staatskapelle and Sejong Soloists. Volume Two of this important retrospective is keenly awaited.

SSO Concert: The Ecstasy of Inspiration / Review

THE ECSTASY OF INSPIRATION
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Esplanade Concert Hall
Saturday (9 January 2010)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 11 January 2010.

The Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s first concert of the year was all-Russian, with four works from the first half of the 19th century. The curtain-raiser was the most modern-sounding; Stravinsky’s symphonic poem The Song Of The Nightingale bristled with dissonances. Liberally spiced with pentatonic melodies, this elaborate piece of chinoiserie was also influenced by Rimsky-Korsakov’s ear for exuberant orchestration.

The solos were particularly lovely; Evgueni Brokmiller’s flute and Alexander Souptel’s violin sumptuously portrayed the nightingale’s song while Laurence Gargan’s mellow trumpet provided a silvery sheen to the quiet ending. This set the stage for American violinist Gil Shaham’s (below) gala appearance in Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto in G minor.

The sonority he created in the opening solo, based on a G minor triad, was crystal-clear and awe-inspiring. He is one of those rare soloists who can confidently project through the hall without having to play loud or emphatically. This ease of delivery however culminated in the most delicately shaded of slow movements, which sang mellifluously over an accompaniment of gentle staccatos.

The stops came out for the rhythmically charged finale, and hardly a sweat was broken for the sole encore, more prestidigitation in the Prelude from Bach’s unaccompanied Partita No.3 in E major. True virtuosity is all about saying what you mean without making a meal out of it.

In lieu of a traditional 4-movement symphony, the juxtaposition of tone poems by Rachmaninov and Scriabin (left) was a coup of programming know-how. Contrasts between the two pianist-composers, who were classmates and sometime-rivals, were stark if not disturbingly fascinating.

Rachmaninov’s Isle Of The Dead was inspired by Arnold Böcklin’s expressionist painting of the same title. It began as a lugubrious funeral procession through a dark, murky seascape of lapping waves, with motifs from the medieval chant Dies Irae waxing and waning. Music Director Lan Shui steered this vessel expertly, rising to the crest of a climax with characteristic sweep, before subsiding to a terminal repose.

Scriabin’s erotic The Poem of Ecstacy, occasionally referred to as his fourth symphony, was more impressionistic. Its iridescent flight of fancy soon took shape with Gargan’s soaring trumpet escapades, riding wave upon wave of highs. Whether this was a consummation of the creative process or a coital act, as the explicit title suggested, it mattered little. The journey from melancholia to megalomania by the SSO was an exhausting but mostly absorbing one.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, January 2010)

MOZART Violin Sonatas K.301-306
GIL SHAHAM, Violin
ORLI SHAHAM, Piano
Canary Classics CC01

****1/2

The violin sonatas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were designated as sonatas for piano with violin accompaniment. The composer, who was adept in both instruments, often referred to them as duets. For much of the music, the violin doubles what the piano is already playing although he does allow some degree of independence. The grouping of six such sonatas in a single opus from 1778 was common at the time, and this half dozen make for very pleasurable listening.

The best known of these is the Sonata in E minor (K.304), which displays a palpable pathos, a reaction to his mother’s miserable demise in Paris. It is refreshing to witness Gil Shaham so comfortable from his usual virtuosic persona, partnering his excellent pianist sister Orli in music that is liberating as it is relaxing.

SIMPLY DEBUSSY
Simply CD 046 (4CDs)
****1/2

This super-budget anthology of the music of Claude Debussy (1862-1918) is well-balanced if not comprehensive. The first disc houses his greatest orchestral works, including La Mer (The Sea), the three impressionistic Nocturnes, Prelude to The Afternoon of the Fawn and two Ravel orchestral transcriptions. The French and Japanese orchestras from Lyons and Tokyo give close to excellent performances.

The next two discs cover Debussy’s most representative piano music – all 24 Préludes, six Images, Children’s Corner Suite, Suite Bergamasque (including Clair de lune) and shorter pieces. The pianists read like a Who’s Who of Debussy playing, including Frenchmen Michel Beroff, Jacques Rouvier and Alain Plaines. 

The final disc is devoted to chamber music both great and obscure. The rarity is an early Piano Trio in G minor, influenced by Fauré, Saint-Saëns and the Belle Epoque. The String Quartet (from the Carmina Quartet) and Violin Sonata (with Chee Yun) leave one without doubt of Debussy’s greatness. At under $20, this collection picks itself.

SACRIFICIUM
CECILIA BARTOLI, Mezzo-soprano
Il Giardino Armonico
Decca 478 1521

*****

Forget the bizarre cover art grafting Cecilia Bartoli’s head onto a marble statue of a nude male. It’s ridiculous but the music, all written for the castrati (young men surgically emasculated to retain their high voices), is revelatory. There is a short bonus CD with three established castrati classics – including Handel’s Ombra mai fu (better known as his Largo) – but it is the main disc with 11 world premiere recordings that is the prize. 

There are five arias by Neapolitan Nicola Porpora (1680-1768), the great vocal teacher who taught Farinelli and Haydn. His 10-minute long Parto, ti lascio, O cara is a portrait of beauty and restraint, contrasted with mellifluous nightingale imitations of Usignolo sventurato, and the quickfire raves in In braccio a mille furie.

His rival Leonardo Vinci (1696-1730) is not outdone in Chi temea giove regnante, Berenice’s fiery aria of thunder and lightning, with orchestral sound effects to match. There are no castrati alive today, only countertenors who use falsetto voices, but they are no match for mezzo-soprano Bartoli’s natural vocal range, stunning coloratura runs and amazing athleticism, which have to be heard to be believed. The handsomely produced album also houses an encyclopaedia on the castrato phenomenon, including pictures of nasty ancient surgical instruments, graphically explaining the title Sacrificium. Ouch!