FIRE, FANTASIA AND PULCINELLA / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

FIRE, FANTASIA AND PULCINELLA 

Singapore Symphony Orchestra 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Saturday (12 October 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 14 October 2024 with the title "An enjoyable 'chamber' evening".

The music of Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) had been so underrated and under-represented that two works, a piano concerto and a symphony, were being performed for the very first time in Singapore. His only failing was being too prolific and not dying young enough, like Mozart, Schubert or Beethoven. The Singapore Symphony Orchestra led by Swiss conductor Stefan Blunier made up for much lost time in this intriguing but interesting concert. 

Haydn’s Piano Concerto No.4 in G major (even its title is Beethovenian) should have been heard more often, simply because of its sheer congeniality. An air of buoyancy and daintily plucked chords from the piano by German pianist Moritz Ernst established its place as likeable chamber music from its outset. 

There was no barnstorming, only music making of an intimate kind. Even the cadenzas at the end of each movement were more like episodes of solo discourse rather than opportunities for showy display. Awkward intonation from the winds coloured the beginning of the slow movement, which was mostly lyrical but without the same elegance of Mozart’s concertos from the same period. 

Moritz Ernst looks like
he's seven-feet tall.

The Hungarian gypsy-flavoured Rondo finale was a delightful romp which Ernst made the most of. His solo encore of George Frideric Handel’s Chaconne in G major nailed his virtuoso credentials firmly to the mast. 

Symphony No.59 in A major, also nicknamed the “Fire Symphony”, was unusual that Haydn turned the stereotyping of major and minor keys upon its head. Seldom has the supposedly jolly A major sounded this intense, especially so after conductor’s Blunier’s eruptive downbeat, which set its tone of Sturm und Drang (storm and stress). 

The slow movement was surprisingly untroubled for the moody key of A minor, except for a sudden interjection from two French horns, sounding like some wake-up call. The last two movements reverted to form, with the upbeat “hunting horn” finale providing the fireworks and fire of its title. 

Flanking the Haydn premieres were two 20th-century works considered neoclassical for their inspiration by older musical traditions. German composer neo-Baroque Hans Werner Henze’s Fantasia for Strings (1966), another premiere, opened the concert under a pall of grieving. 

Now does this music begin
to sound and look more familiar?

This austere but starkly moving music was adapted from an earlier movie score, with slow movements carrying the same weight of mourning as Samuel Barber’s Adagio, except being far less hackneyed. Movie buffs might recognise the violent slashings of its central Allegro as music heard in William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973). More importantly, this performance underlined the sheer intensity and excellence of SSO’s strings. 

The concert closed with Igor Stravinsky’s Pulcinella Suite, eight movements from his ballet recycling themes from Baroque Italian composers like Giovanni Pergolesi, Domenico Gallo and others. Its Punch and Judy elements of commedia dell’arte are hard to dislike, with the humour acutely captured by many solo instruments, including oboe, trombone and trumpet. It made for a satisfying and enjoyable end to a “big” chamber concert.

YUNDI LI PLAYS MOZART: THE SONATA PROJECT I / Review

 

YUNDI LI PLAYS MOZART 

THE SONATA PROJECT 1 

Esplanade Theatre 

Friday (11 October 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 14 October 2024 with the title "Pianist Yundi Li offers crisp, articulate readings of Mozart".

Fifteen years ago, Chinese pianist Li Yundi gave a most shambolic performance of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, reviewed in these pages as being “shockingly bad”. His star further fell in 2021 after being arrested for allegedly soliciting a Beijing prostitute, which saw him being cancelled from all concert activity in China. 

Yundi's latest CD,
the all-Mozart programme
he performed at the recital.

Surely every artist deserves a chance for redemption. This came in recitals of piano sonatas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, first in Australia last year and later in Europe. These were generally well received and judging from the full-house at Esplanade Theatre (with the Concert Hall undergoing refurbishment), it appears he still has a wide and loyal fanbase in Singapore. 

The good news is that he did not disappoint this time around. His Mozart playing is crisp, articulate and non-idiosyncratic, evident in the opening Theme and Variations of the Sonata in A major (K.331). That he chose to play all repeats gave a chance for this drawing room music to be savoured a second time round, and occasionally with unobstrusive ornamentations. 

His view of its slow movement, a minuet, was one of grace and delicacy. The sonata’s famous Rondo alla Turca (Turkish Rondo) could have had more oomph, as he maintained an unruffled and decorous demeanour throughout. One can almost guess how Yundi’s contemporary Lang Lang would have played this popular bonbon, with the diametrically opposite viewpoint. 

Out of a total of eighteen piano sonatas, Mozart composed just two in the minor key. Yundi performed both of these, first the A minor (K.310), which has some of his most tempestuous music. He brought out its Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) very well and the climactic highs were never made to sound over-congested. 

The slow movement was lovely, its smooth cantabile perfectly judged, while the finale seethed with an unnerving disquiet. Presto movements in the minor key somehow sound more urgent and menacing, despite a brief bell-like interlude in A major. 

Mozart’s other minor key sonata was in C minor (K.457), preceded by the discursive Fantasy in C minor (K.475), which has dissonances and harmonic surprises galore. This has to be his greatest single-movement work, and Yundi treated it as such by accentuating its sharp contours and unexpected dramatics. 

Continuing without break into the sonata caught the noisy audience by surprise, which had robotically applauded without truly listening and appreciating his nuances and cues, thus almost breaking the spell. Yundi persevered nonetheless, delivering what was the finest performance of the evening. The sonata had surging drive in the outer movements and genuine warmth at its pulsing heart of the slow movement. 

His encores of Ren Guang’s Cai Yun Zhui Yue (Colourful Clouds Chasing The Moon) in by Wang Jianzhong’s transcription and Frederic Chopin’s Nocturne in E flat major (Op.9 No.2) were just lovely and very well received. It was gratifying to see the sensitive musical soul of Yundi making an honest and gallant comeback.

What a full-house at 
Esplanade Theatre looks like.

LOVE FOR FRENCH MUSIC / OF WAR & PEACE / SSO Chamber Series & T'ang Quartet / Review

 

A LOVE OF FRENCH MUSIC 

SSO Chamber Series 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Thursday (3 October 2024)

OF WAR AND PEACE 

T’ang Quartet 

The Arts House Chamber 

Sunday (6 October 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 8 October 2024 with the title "Rarities aired at SSO's chamber series and T'ang Quartet's concerts".

It is always refreshing to see unfamiliar works of music programmed alongside more popular numbers of the classical canon. A pair of chamber concerts demonstrated that good programming will invariably be reciprocated by very encouraging audience response. 

The first concert was part of an all-French two-nighter presented by musicians of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. Camille Saint-Saens’ Fantaisie for violin and harp in A major (Op.124) is virtually unknown outside of harp circles, a late work of melodic invention and charm. 

Gulnara Mashurova’s harp was the anchor, providing steady accompaniment with the lightness and transparency of timbre that a piano could never replicate. Over this, Zhao Tian’s violin had most of the lyrical passages, later turning into outright display. In their hands, the music never descended into empty fireworks or frivolity. 

Receiving a local premiere was Bernard Andres’ Chants d’arriere-saison (Songs of a Season Past), unusually scored for French horn and harp. Its seven short movements could have posed serious issues of balance, but principal hornist Austin Larson’s tonal control was exemplary. 

He produced a wealth of colour and nuance, his excellent intonation also complemented by the harp’s varied textures. The music was Romantic in idiom and accessibly tonal, with autumnal and melancholic being predominant moods that was well worth listening to again. 

The evening was completed by Maurice Ravel’s popular String Quartet in F major, with Zhao and Zhang Sijing on violins with violist Janice Tsai and cellist Christopher Mui. Despite the foursome playing together for the first time, the result was a taut reading which lacked nothing in poetry and rhythmic vitality. 

The Scherzo with its pizzicatos and pentatonics relived the gamelan’s percussive clangour, and found a canny visual resonance with violinist Zhao’s batik outfit. 

T’ang Quartet, Singapore’s longest existing professional chamber group, also presented a programme of rarities. Founding members Ng Yu Ying and Ang Chek Meng on violins were joined by two young guests players, violist Patcharaphan Khumprakob and cellist Cho Hang-oh. Both were alumni of Yong Siew Toh Conservatory where the original quartet is resident. 

Alexander Borodin’s First String Quartet in A major is far less popular than its successor, but got a fresh and invigorating reading it deserved. Ng and Ang’s vast experience must have indelibly rubbed on their former students as this foursome performed like a well-seasoned outfit. The rapt slow introduction was ear-catching in its voicing and precision, then giving way to the opening movement’s flowing main theme which quoted a late Beethoven quartet. 

No self-respecting string quartet would omit fugal writing, and the obligatory counterpoint in three movements was well-handled. The Scherzo’s prestidigitation was impressive, as was the mastery of syncopation and dotted rhythms of the furious finale. 

The all-Russian evening’s gripping tour de force was Dmitri Shostakovich’s Third String Quartet in F major, composed shortly after the end of World War Two. T’ang’s forte has always been Slavic music and this was right up its alley. The first movement’s irony and mock gaiety wore a poker-face throughout, later giving way to the slashings of the second movement’s demented waltz. 

Horrors and brutality of war were laid bare in the third movement, which must have given ideas to Bernard Herrmann’s film score for Psycho. A humanising voice would emerge in the slow movement’s moving passacaglia, and later in the finale’s Jewish-influenced dance. The audience held its collective breath at the work’s quiet end before erupting in vociferous applause.

Landmark: This was my 2600th article 

for The Straits Times.

BRUCKNER AND "THE GREAT" / PROGRESSION III / Braddell Heights Symphony & MacPherson Symphony Orchestras / Review

 

BRUCKNER AND “THE GREAT” 

Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra 

School of The Arts Concert Hall 

Saturday (28 September 2024)

PROGRESSION III 

MacPherson Philharmonic Orchestra 

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall 

Sunday (29 September 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 1 October 2024 with the title "Community orchestras prove mettle with ambitious programmes".

Community orchestras in Singapore have progressed so much over the years that they now comfortably perform repertoire that was once the reserve of Singapore Symphony Orchestra. Two concerts over the weekend eloquently proved that point. 

Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Tan commemorated the birth bicentenary of Austrian composer Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) by giving the Singapore premiere of his early Overture in G minor (1863). 

Just 10 minutes in duration, its debt of influence to Richard Wagner and Ludwig van Beethoven was evident. Despite a hesitant opening, the orchestra made the most of its fussy string figurations, busy counterpoint and brassy climaxes. 

More impressive was its take on Franz Schubert’s Ninth Symphony in C major, nicknamed “The Great” because of its “heavenly length”. Conductor Tan’s vision took some 49 minutes to complete, with tautness and cogency as qualities. The music benefited from his attention to detail and a propensity for good-natured humour. Nobody would have missed the finale’s heroics and its playful quote of Ode To Joy from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. 

The evening’s piece de resistance was young double bassist Julian Li’s fearlessly virtuosic solo in living Argentinian composer Andres Martin’s Double Bass Concerto No.1 (2012). Its accessible idiom encompassed tango and film music but necessitated playing in high registers approximating the cello’s. 

Li’s tonal projection, accurate intonation and utter confidence all through its three movements were an inspiration to behold. His encore of Giovanni Bottesini’s Elegy No.1, accompanied by his sister Gemma on piano, was simply touching. 

Equally impressive was the showing of pianist Clarence Lee in Sergei Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.2 in C minor with the MacPherson Philharmonic Orchestra led by Lester Kong. His was an expansive view, with big-boned barnstorming tempered by sensitivity and subtlety such to be able to smell the flowers. 

The slow movement’s full-on lyricism and the finale’s big melody could have been laid on with a shovel, but in Lee’s hands, poeticism ruled instead. Nobody could have expected an excerpt from Nobuo Uematsu’s Final Fantasy X as an encore, but it was lovely. 

Clarence presenting flowers to his mother,
bringing tears to her eyes.

The orchestra supported him to the hilt and was just as alert to the nuances of Gioachino Rossini’s Overture to The Barber of Seville. Its tricky dotted rhythms, decorative running note passages were well-negotiated, with wit and good humour being the end result. 

Its biggest test was Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.5 in E minor, a concert warhorse so often heard as to be tainted with over-familiarity. Conductor Kong took the well-filled hall to be mostly concert newbies by addressing them and playing examples before each movement. 

The ostensible aim was to demonstrate the symphony’s “Fate” theme being transformed over four movements. That was laudable but the music’s natural flow was disrupted by these stops and starts, with audience applause between movements being encouraged. 

The performance itself was very good, with tightly-knit ensemble and a palpable pulse propelling the music along. The string sound had a nice sheen, and the brass was excellent, with the solo French hornist acquitting himself generally well in the slow movement. 

Breathless excitement ruled the finale and the inevitable happened, with an over-eager audience prematurely applauding at the climactic pause just before the coda. That would have been embarrassing at an SSO concert, but this was a family-friendly event, thus easily forgivable. 

As long as our community orchestras purposefully continue to engage the public and make new friends for the classics, that cannot be a bad thing.

Watch the Rachmaninov concerto performance here:

CLASSICS AT THE MOVIES / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

CLASSICS AT THE MOVIES

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Victoria Concert Hall

Friday (27 September 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 30 September 2024 with the title "SSO goes to the movies with feel-good concert with familiar soundtracks".

What would movies be without music? Silent. Even silent movies of the 1920s were accompanied by musicians performing live. In this Singapore Symphony Orchestra concert led by the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra’s resident conductor Gerard Salonga, the full range of moods and emotions provided by movie music was revealed to superb effect. 

Some of the music had been written many years before the advent of film, such as Franz von Suppe’s light-hearted Poet and Peasant Overture which opened the show. Salonga, who was also the concert’s affable host, recounted this to be madcap music heard in Looney Tunes cartoons, but this reviewer remembers washing detergent advertisements on television. 

Original music written for films would however predominate, including Maurice Jarre’s Building The Barn from Witness. This was the Harrison Ford-starred feature with the Amish, which thrived on fulsome string tones representing Americana at its most homespun. Similarly, Christopher Young’s Murder In The First, with echoes of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, sounded just as congenial and sumptuous despite its title. 

A completely different string sonority permeated Bernard Herrmann’s Suite from Psycho. Astringent ostinatos reminiscent of Shostakovich and a stress-laden quasi-Prokofiev melody ratcheted up the tension. Then the infamous shrieking strings arrived, a stabbing jump scare with the suddenness of Janet Leigh being offed behind the shower curtain. Movie music is deemed most effective when there is a collective gasp from the audience. 

There were solos too, with concertmaster Chan Yoong Han kept busy on the violin in Argentinian composer Carlos Gardel’s tango Por Una Cabeza with a rose stalk clasped between his lips. Far more serious were Three Pieces from John Williams’ score for Schindler’s List, channeling Jewish melancholy and Klezmer dances, in remembrance of the Nazi genocide in a Krakow ghetto. 

The other soloist was Filipino soprano Lara Maigue in two popular operatic arias by George Frideric Handel. Lascia Ch’io Pianga from Rinaldo was a display of pristine lines and feeling, while Ombra Mai Fu from Xerxes (better known as Handel’s Largo) was the epitome of baroque beauty. Both songs figured in the movie celebrating the legendary castrato Farinelli. Her encore was the wordless Winter Shades by Danish composer Soren Hyldgaard, a vocalise of seamless melismata. 

Howard Shore’s Suite from Silence of the Lambs, including the somber Main Title and Hannibal’s Escape, plunged the concert back into the realm of horror movies, but that was short lived. Nothing brings a smile more than the intergalactic jazz of Cantina Band from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope by Williams, where woodwinds, brass and percussion had their field day. 

The official programme had ended but Salonga and the orchestra had two more numbers up their sleeves in Alan Silvestri’s ruminative Main Theme from Cast Away and one of pop music’s greatest ever hits. Procol Harum’s A Whiter Shade Of Pale, inspired by J.S.Bach’s Air on the G String, had been featured in movies and covered more than one could possibly remember. With Joanna Paul’s pipe organ solo entering the fray, that provided a feel-good end to two hours of good music.