A WEEKEND WITH BEETHOVEN
Victoria Concert Hall
Saturday (25 February 2017 )
This review was published in The Straits Times on 27 February 2017 with the title "Display of passion and vigour".
The
orchestral works of Beethoven probably constitute the largest form of chamber
music that can be performed comfortably at the “new” Victoria Concert Hall,
which has developed a somewhat suspect reputation for over-reverberant
acoustics and boominess. Those fears did not transpire in the pair of
all-Beethoven concerts by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra led by eminent
Chinese conductor Yu Long, who is present Music Director of the China
Philharmonic Orchestra.
The
opening note and stentorian chords of Egmont Overture that followed were
delivered with utmost precision and conviction, setting the stage for a
performance that lacked nothing in passion and vigour. Short solos from oboe,
clarinet and flute were also excellent, leading up to a final blaze of heroics
which defined the ill-fated Dutch hero's defiant patriotism.
If
the orchestra was bold and brassy in the opener, it soon changed tack and
played sensitive partner to 12-year-old American Chinese prodigy Serena Wang's
solo for the First Piano Concerto in C major. She more than held her
own. Brimming with confidence, she projected well and clearly articulated every
note and phrase with the nous of one three or four times as senior.
Playing
accurately was never an issue, and hers were a nuanced reading which revealed
an astonishing maturity. The 1st movement cadenza had sufficient
bluster, and the romance-like slow movement radiated warmth and no little
Mozartean charm. The Rondo finale had both lightness and ebullience, and
none of the outrageous showboating that despoiled Lang Lang's 2010 performance
with the SSO.
As
if to further emphasise her fleet and nimble fingers, her encore of Debussy's Toccata
(from Pour Le Piano) flashed through like a bolt of blinding brilliance.
She is certainly ready to join China
The
same fervour that gripped Egmont Overture returned in the Seventh Symphony,
where conductor Yu's interpretive insight provided a highly satisfying
performance. Knowing how to build up tension in the discursive introduction to
the vivacious 1st movement proper was key, and the end result was
like the release of a tightly wound spring.
Enlivened,
the music leapt from the printed page with the orchestra responding as if its
sheer existence depended on it. The slow movement was just as good, its
variations unfolding with great purpose, culminating in a very well delineated
fugal episode.
The
final two movements shifted gear from very fast to even faster still, and with
no loss of concentration and pace at this risk-taking velocity. Richard Wagner
had hailed this as the “apotheosis of the dance”, but nobody was going to
replicate this on the Viennese dance-floor. Perhaps he had in mind Yu's nifty
footwork on the podium as the supremo of Chinese conductors commanded his
players on a headlong charge to what must be the most exciting reading of this
symphony in recent times.
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