NHK SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Esplanade Concert Hall
Wednesday (29 April 2026)
This review was published in The Straits Times on 1 May 2026 with the title "NHK Symphony Orchestra pulls out all the stops in exuberant showcase".
Commemorating 60 years of diplomatic relations between Japan and Singapore, NHK (Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai) Symphony Orchestra, the orchestra of Japan Broadcasting Corporation, gave a special concert at Esplanade Concert Hall led by its Permanent Conductor Tatsuya Shimono. The ensemble, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, is widely considered one of Asia’s top orchestras. And it did not disappoint.
Opening the show was the orchestra’s former Permanent Conductor Yuzo Toyama’s Divertimento (1961), three short movements based on Japanese folk tunes and dances. An air of exuberance characterised the opening dance, contrasted with the slow central air’s oboe and flute solos which conjured a dream-like atmosphere. The fast syncopated beats of the finale brought the work to a rousing close.
Kyohei Sorita, joint runner-up at the 2021 International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition, was the soloist in Sergei Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto in C major (Op.26). The enfant terrible of Russian music was in exile in America when he conceived this work that fused prickly dissonances and percussive gestures with a barely-disguised lyricism.
Sorita was very much up to the game, bringing hard-hitting incisiveness and athleticism in the opening movement. Often battling the orchestra to be heard, he was still sensitive to the inherent irony and nuances in the music, most notably the quixotic shifting dynamics in the central movement’s theme and variations.
The martial strains of the finale soon gave way to an aching lyricism which both orchestra and soloist milked to the full, before a final clash of the titans brought the work to a loud and tumultuous conclusion. To sooth the nerves, Sorita’s encore of the Schumann-Liszt Widmung (Dedication) provided welcome relief.
In lieu of a full-length symphony, the orchestra performed two popular showpieces of the orchestral repertoire. Richard Strauss’ early tone poem Don Juan got the full swashbuckling treatment its legendary anti-hero deserved. Fearless and extrovert was Shimono’s approach and the ensemble was on cue from start to finish. Particularly memorable was the pivotal moment when the French horns rang out, possibly classical music’s most memorable rallying call to action.
Very different were the Four Sea Interludes from Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes, which painted atmospheric soundscapes depicting the rugged and windswept Suffolk coast. Orchestral detail played a big part in Dawn, mimicking the call of seagulls and billowing waves. Excellent brass and woodwinds, punctuated by tubular bells, contributed to the pealing tintinnabulation of Sunday Morning, while Moonlight became the scene of uneasy calm, evocatively voiced.
It was left for the Storm to sweep one and all asunder, its unrelenting violence brilliantly capturing one man’s ultimately futile struggle against the elements and society. The orchestra brought out the dark colours and hues of this masterpiece with a biting trenchancy.
The vociferous applause accorded to Shimono and his charges did not go unrewarded, as the encore was another gift from the land of the rising sun - the vigorous percussion-driven Yagi Bushi dance from Toyama’s Rhapsody for Orchestra (1960), which was totally raucous and riveting.
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| Photo: Esplanade Theatres by the Bay |
