NEW YEAR'S EVE COUNTDOWN CONCERT 2020 / The Philharmonic Orchestra / Review

NEW YEAR’S EVE 
COUNTDOWN CONCERT 2020
The Philharmonic Orchestra
Victoria Concert Hall
Tuesday (31 December 2019)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 2 January 2020 with the title "New Year's Eve concert offers reflection and hope".

The last concert of every year now belongs to The Philharmonic Orchestra, its New Year’s Eve Countdown Concert being a Singaporean fixture and institution in its own right. Now in its ninth edition, the baton usually held by veteran conductor Lim Yau has been literally passed down to the next generation of maestros. On the podium this concert was Lin Juan and Edward Tan.

The evening opened with the familiar strains of Bernstein’s Candide Overture, led by Lin. The comedic elements of the operetta, based on Voltaire’s satirical novella, were unleashed with the fizz of uncorked champagne, and no little glitter or gaiety. Tan conducted the rest of the first half, beginning with Verdi’s Nabucco Overture.

Brass was on excellent form with its chorales and before long, the well-known melody Va, Pensiero (as in the Chorus of Hebrew Slaves) was heard on the woodwinds. The rousing end was balanced by Vaughan Williams’ First Norfolk Rhapsody. The serene and pastoral nature of this music was very apt for the yuletide season, cut from the same musical fabric as the English composer’s much better-known The Lark Ascending.

Instead of the violin, the more throaty viola was heard, lovingly voiced by Janice Tsai. There was also a busy fugue on a modal theme, but the lovely work ended with solace and calm. Skocna, a fast dance from Smetana’s opera The Bartered Bride closed the first half with a lively spring in one’s step.

One notable absentee of the concert was its usual master of ceremonies William Ledbetter. In his place was the younger and less self-restrained presence of Jasmine Blundell, whose entreaties and exhortations to the sedate audience (which had not imbibed enough champagne apparently) were over the top, to say the least.

The shorter second half, conducted by Lin, began with Dance of the Hours, the jolly ballet from  Ponchielli’s otherwise grim opera La Gioconda. If its melodies ring several bells, that is because this same music accompanies prancing ostriches and hippopotami in the Disney animated classic Fantasia.

As before, it was time again to reflect on personalities in music and the arts who passed in 2019. Sibelius’ hauntingly beautiful Valse Triste was the soundtrack as a succession of images flashed on screen, among them actor Aloysius Pang, conductors Andre Previn, Mariss Jansons and Stephen Cleobury, and octogenarian pianist Elaine Wu Yili. It was poignant to remember that Wu had collapsed while attending a concert in this very same venue in April.

The sound of fireworks from Marina Bay could be heard with increasing volume through Victoria Concert Hall’s rather porous walls, but there was one last piece to go – Saint-Saëns’ Bacchanale from Samson et Dalila. Its faux-Oriental feints and Middle Eastern dervishes were masterly negotiated, and the concert closed with a cascade of balloons and poppers. The hope of a better year in 2020 arrived just minutes later.     

NEW YEAR'S EVE COUNTDOWN CONCERT 2017 / The Philharmonic Orchestra / Review

NEW YEAR'S EVE 

COUNTDOWN CONCERT 2017

The Philharmonic Orchestra

School of the Arts Concert Hall

Saturday (31 December 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 2 January 2017 with the title "Countdown concert a boisterous start to the new year".

Now into its 6th edition, The Philharmonic Orchestra's annual New Year's Eve Countdown Concert has become a cherished local institution. A full-house greeted the year's final musical event, and a formula that has served well was relived. Host-of-the-evening William Ledbetter, sporting a gold top-hat, was his usual bubbly self and TPO Music Director Lim Yau conducted Hector Berlioz's Roman Carnival Overture as a spirited opener.

Bernice Lee's oboe solo provided a lovely prelude to the festivities that followed with a full-throated showing from the brass, led by a irrepressible trio of trombones. This was a good start, and the orchestra was just as impressive under the baton of prize-winning guest conductor Lien Boon Hua, recently appointed Assistant Conductor of the Polish National Radio Orchestra.

His first task was to navigate the ensemble through two Strauss favourites, Josef Strauss' Music Of The Spheres, a waltz as lilting and graceful as any of his famous elder brother Johann's, and the incessant chatter of Johann's Tritsch-Tratsch Polka. The latter was accompanied by projected slides of the orchestra's favourite moments of the year, with an inevitable salute to Joseph Schooling, Singapore's first ever Olympic gold medallist.

The dance rhythm was lovingly captured, and this continued into Bedrich Smetana's Die Moldau. A pair of flutes, skilfully helmed by Shirley Tong and Andy Koh, teased their way through the symphonic poem's evocative opening, leading into the broad melody which was gratefully lapped up by the orchestra.

Robust yet sensitive, the Bohemian spirit that pulsed through the splendid showing was repeated after the intemission's nuts and champagne, in two Slavonic Dances by Antonin Dvorak. Taken from the Op.72 set, the first dance's rousing fervour was contrasted with the quiet melancholy of the second dance.

Ledbetter reprised his annual circus ringleader act by getting the audience to follow his cowboy actions in Richard Hayman's Pops Hoedown. This year it was a rather tame sit-down affair, for fear of patrons seated in the Circle seats who had downed a little too much spirit. However, it was the busy percussion section that sounded the most tipsy.

As with previous concerts, there was a work of sobriety that gave time for reflection on the illustrious lives that departed in 2016. Former President S.R.Nathan, Thailand's King Rama IX, conductors Sir Neville Marriner and Pierre Boulez, pop culture icons George Michael and Carrie Fisher were among the names remembered as the orchestra played Jean Sibelius' Valse Triste.

For the final countdown, Respighi's ominous Pines Of The Appian Way was replaced this year by Georges Bizet's more cheerful Farandole from L'Arlesienne, now conducted by Lim Yau. Its driving beat, which got faster and more intense by the minute, steamrolled the seconds into 2017, and a much-loved cascade of gold and silver balloons.

There was enough time for one encore, the ubiquitous Radetzky March by Johann Strauss the Elder and its rounds of synchronised clapping. An auspicious new year for more good music beckons.