AFFINITY / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

AFFINITY

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Friday (8 September 2023)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 12 September 2023 with the title "SCO season opens with a bang".

 

Led by Quek Ling Kiong in his first full term as Principal Conductor of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra, the Opening Gala of its 2023/24 season opened and closed with a bang. Wang Yunfei’s Blossoms and Harvests made for an excellent curtain-raiser, a work lauding the virtues of hard work and preparation. It began quietly and evocatively with Zhou Ruoyu’s gaohu solo, its fairytale-like opening rising to a crescendo, then launching into a fast dance. Its rousing percussion-led conclusion was its just desserts, befitting an auspicious occasion.

 

Then followed three concertante works with SCO’s principals as soloists. Receiving its Singapore premiere was composer-in-residence Wang Chenwei’s Aleppo, a 2017 symphonic poem on the rise and fall of the war-torn ancient Syrian city with Huang Guifang on sanxian. This three-stringed plucked instrument is capable of playing microtones closely approximating timbres and inflexions of plucked Arabian instruments such as the oud.

The work’s narrative unfolded in seven parts, going through a musical arc depicting legends and lore of old, with the mellow but inherently vocal sanxian as vivid story-teller. The city’s sacking and destruction was heartrending, but an inexorable final march procession represented an undimmed spirit of hope for its future.    

 

The three movements of Kuan Nai-Chung’s The Butterfly Dream were essentially variations on a single folk-like theme with Yin Zhiyang’s qudi (a bamboo flute with lower register and darker colour) laying on the colours. The first movement painted an idyllic scene with the titular insect flitting with nary a care, and how this instrument was well-suited for its portrayal. A fugal section was followed by two contrasted movements which turned upbeat and dance-like. The cinematic feel of the music also added to its accessibility.

 

SCO concertmaster Li Baoxun swapped his gaohu for erhu in Wu Houyuan’s Red Plum Capriccio, a 1980 work which echoed much of the form, architecture and tropes of the much better-known Butterfly Lovers Concerto (1959). All Li was obliged to do was reliving its passion and requisite virtuosity. As a further point of similarity, he even had a short duet with Xu Zhong’s solo cello at its climax. One difference of this work was its celebratory apotheosis, transforming the tragedy of lost love into an unmitigated triumph.  

 

The two-hour concert was completed by Cheng Dazhao’s Yellow River Rhapsody, which had no obvious thematic links with the Xian Xinghai cantata or eponymous piano concerto. Also the most modern-sounding work on show, there was a strong percussion beat for most part, and showcased important solos for xun (ocarina) and suona.

 

The most memorable section was its tumultous ending which also involved mass audience participation with hand-held pellet drums. Conductor Quek, having well prepped the audience in advance, made sure there was no way this work (and concert) could have ended on a whimper. A quite spectacular concert season with the SCO beckons.  

 

Landmark: This is my 2500th article for The Straits Times, having started writing for the national daily since 1997.

VIRTUOSO SERIES III: WINDS / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

VIRTUOSO SERIES III: WINDS

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Saturday (25 September 2021)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 29 September 2021 with the title "Wind instruments take centre stage".

 

The third concert of Singapore’s Chinese Orchestra’s Virtuoso Series of chamber concerts was devoted to plangent sounds of Chinese wind instruments, focusing on the dizi, sheng and suona. Responsible for unique and distinct timbres in orchestral concerts, these took on a life of their own as solo instruments when played by the orchestra’s principals.

 

Guo Changsuo brought out a full range of colours from the sheng in Yan Haideng’s Alluring Span Of The Peacock, which included the tricky technique of tremolo-tonguing. Even with an instrument that plays multiple tones simultaneously, this lent an otherwordly feel to a rhapsodic work that began slowly but gave way to an exuberant dance. This same liveliness also possessed the Henan folktune Grand Prelude, arranged Li Guanglu, which was brief but unremittingly flashy.

 

Yin Zhiyang commanded two flutes, opening with the vertically-played xiao in the ancient tune Autumn Yearning At The Dressing Table arranged by Du Ciwen and accompanied by Xu Hui on guzheng. Lower registers were plumbed in this slow piece which expressed the melancholy of solitude like no other.

 

For the Hunan folktune Partridges Flying arranged by Zhao Songting, techniques of the transversely-played dizi were fully exploited. These encompassed fluttering trills simulating the flitting of wings, followed by circular breathing in the work’s dynamic final third. Here, the audience may be excused for feeling somewhat breathless.        

 

Suona principal Jin Shiyi opened accounts with Mao Kuangping and Hu Zhihou’s arrangement of  Eighteen Songs On Nomad Flute, which despite its title, was performed on the xinguan. This is a new reed instrument developed by Jin and his SCO colleague Liu Jiang which looks like a sawn-off clarinet, as well as sounds like one. In this meditative number accompanied by harpist Fontane Liang, a wealth of expressive feeling relived the trials and tribulations of Han dynasty heroine Lady Cai Wenji.  

 

Jin’s own arrangement of the Henan folktune Tribute To Homeland, accompanied by sheng and bangzi (wood blocks), was the perfect vehicle for his suona, played with the stentorian stridency of a ceremonial trumpet. Also filled with playful humour, there were slurs and slides aplenty which added to the sense of occasion.

 

Finally, an ensemble of nine assembled to perform Yu Huiyong and Hu Dengtiao Theme Of Pioneers rearranged by Yeo Puay Hian. There were now two each of dizis, shengs and suonas supported by three percussionists.

 

This Socialist Realist potboiler was a rowdy and raucous affair, celebrating the glorious years of “vigorous technological innovation” (as quoted in the programme notes) during the late 1950s. Was this referring to the Great Leap Forward? One surmises the “indomitable, courageous spirit of fearlessness” of the millions who perished should never be forgotten.

 

The hour-long concert was followed by an equally lively question-and-answer session where the spontaneity and candour displayed by the three principals revealed another side to their virtuosity.