RHAPSODIES OF SPRING 2018:
HOME FOR THE NEW YEAR
Singapore Conference Hall
Saturday (27 January 2018 )
This review was published in The Straits Times on 29 January 2017 with the title "Canine camp for the new year".
The
first music to be heard at the newly renovated Singapore Conference Hall
auditorium was Li Huan Zhi's Spring Festival Overture, providing a most
rousing start to the Singapore Chinese Orchestra's annual Chinese New Year
concert. Soon after conductor Yeh Tsung gave the down beat, one marvelled at
the venue's new found acoustics. Once considered over-dry, under- reverberant
and requiring audio enhancement, those criticisms will soon be things of the
past.
There
is now a naturalness to the symphonic sound, such that instrumental details are
better defined, rather than being submerged beneath unnatural echoes and
artificial augmentations. However hearing better sound does not necessarily
translate into hearing better music, as this populist programme proved.
Chinese
violinist Lu Siqing was guest soloist, opening with Eric Watson's idiomatic arrangement
of Vivaldi's Spring from The Four Seasons. This was the same
piece played by Joshua Bell in his famous SCO collaboration in 2016, and it
sounded just as good this time, thanks to Lu's innate musicality, virtuosity
and sympathetic orchestral accompaniment.
He
was also soloist in two short concertante works carrying the imprimatur of Chen
Gang, the better-known half in the composing duo of the Liang Zhu Concerto.
Basking in his sumptuous sound and Phoon Yew Tien's lush orchestrations would
be sufficent reward. But whoever dreamt of such titles like Golden Platform
Of The Steel-Smelting Furnace or Taking The Tiger Mountain By Strategy?
It seemed more like a marriage between Socialist Realism and the Butterfly
Lovers.
 |
| Suona principal Jin Shi Yi is the master of the single long-held note. |
The
best music came from Kuan Nai Chung and Law Wai Lun. Kuan's Instrumental
Guide To The Chinese Orchestra was the excellent Chinese solution to
Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide To The Orchestra. Its main
theme, Molihua, was subject to variations from all the traditional Chinese
instruments and aided by a witty and often mischievous narration by local
television personality and comedian Mark Lee.
Law's
highly evocative score accompanied the short 2011 film The Reunion Dinner
by award-winning director Anthony Chen of Ilo Ilo fame. Nostalgia
reigned supreme in this piece which espoused filial piety, family values, and
the good old days of not worrying about speaking in Hokkien.
As
the Chinese zodiac counted down to the “Year of the Dog”, there had to be
canine-related pieces. Eric Watson's medley of Gershwin's Promenade
(also known as Walking The Dog) and the Patti Page classic How Much
Is That Doggy In The Window? with winds simulating yelps from mutts was
camp beyond words.
Increasingly
resembling a television variety show, the concert came close to descending into
farce with the Chinese New Year songs and vocal/rap numbers penned by the likes
of Jack Neo, Kenn C and Mark Lee himself. Lee was at best a crooner while his
otherwise able co-host Chen Biyu tended to scream out the high registers. The
lyrics extolled wealth and prosperity, Sinophone audiences are parsimonious in
sing-alongs, but do have a happy new year anyway.
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