THE
PLANETS
Orchestra
of the Music Makers
Esplanade
Concert Hall
Wednesday
(13 August
2014 )
This review was published in The Straits Times on 15 August 2014 with the title "Planets that are out of this world".
One
thing is for certain: the Orchestra of the Music Makers (OMM) just loves doing
big concerts. Its latest outing, guest-conducted by the Singapore Symphony
Orchestra’s Associate conductor Joshua Kangming Tan, had not just an orchestral
blockbuster, but a full-length concerto and choral work for good measure.
The
concert began with Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester
Psalms, joined by 100 voices from the Vocal Associates Festival Chorus and
Children’s Chorus singing in Hebrew. The sheer exuberance of the percussion
almost drowned out the singers in the jazzy and syncopated first psalm (Make a Joyful Noise), but it got better
in the second psalm (The Lord is My
Shepherd) when boy soprano Samuel Yuen’s silky voice rang out pure and
true. The final psalm (Lord, Lord),
with its contrite message, was a salving balm for the spirit.
The
orchestra then played sensitive partner to SSO first violinist Chan Yoong Han
in Jean Sibelius’s Violin Concerto in
D minor. How the ensemble responded to the fiery and virtuosic solo part was a
measure of how its young players have matured with each concert. The slow
second movement gave the woodwinds moments to shine, and the quartet of French
horns were a paradigm of perfect control and restraint.
Even
in the rambunctious finale, the very steady yet exhilarating pace maintained by
the orchestra allowed Chan’s flight of fancy to soar unabated to its brilliant
conclusion. His encore, a movement from Ysaye’s Fifth Sonata, was an ethereal portrayal of a nascent morn.
Gustav
Holst’s The Planets, the popular
seven-movement suite on celestial bodies and mythology, occupied the second
half. It may be said that his orchestration influenced several generations of
film composers, especially in the sci-fi genre. Given OMM’s love and sympathy
for celluloid music, this suited the players to a tee,
The
vehemence and violence of Mars, The
Bringer of War was trenchantly realised, and the debt to which the Star Wars franchise owes it becomes
immediately apparent. Excellent solos from horn principal Alan Kartik,
concertmaster Edward Tan and principal cellist James Ng distinguished Venus, The Bringer of Peace with its
tender entreaties.
Mercury, The Winged Messenger was blest with much lightness and
fluidity, while Jupiter, The Bringer of
Jollity, the hit tune of the seven, was given a grandstanding quality that
was wholly appropriate. Unusually cogent was the orchestra’s traversal of Saturn, The Bringer of Old Age, which
doddered so convincingly on creaky legs that its rejuvenation at the end became
a true revelation.
The
manic march of Uranus, The Magician soon
dissipated, with the wordless women’s voices diffusing ever so insidiously into
Neptune , The Mystic that it brought a chill down the spine.
Credit goes to chorus director Khor Ai Ming for so finely honing their
invisible act, which flickered ever so gently until they drifted out of orbit.
Loud and prolonged applause led conductor Tan to
poll the audience as to their choice of encore: Mars or Jupiter. Jupiter won handsomely and by its glorious
end, almost three hours had elapsed as if within an instant. That is relativity
for you.
Photographs by the kind permission of the Orchestra of the Music Makers.
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