pianomania: DRUMATIC FUSION / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

DRUMATIC FUSION

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Friday (12 July 2019)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 15 July 2019 with the title "Drumming up high-octane excitement."

This was going to be a percussion extravaganza like no other, and only one work out of six involved absolutely no percussion, Wang Danhong’s The Green Field from Crimson Sorghum.

In this lovely adagio for strings, erhus followed by gaohus created an elegiac mood through the arc of a rising crescendo. For many parts, it sounded like film music, one evoking vast and open fields with plucked strings adding bits of frisson.

Orchestral percussion had a field day opening the concert with Tang Jianping’s Dragon Leaps To The East. Its eight members worked overtime to create the perfect overture, one of high-octane, high-volume and razor-sharp synchronisation, with conductor Yeh Tsung’s dance-like moves on the podium furthering the excitement.

The twin-brother act of Chinese percussionists Gao Chao and Gao Yue stole the show in the concert’s first half. Wang Danhong’s four-movement concerto Heavenly Ford has a more poetic title in Chinese: Jin Jin You Wei. While being a play on the name Jinmen, cultural district of the city Tianjin, it also literally translates to “full of flavour”.

This is a portrayal of raucous sounds and aromatic scents afforded by the ancient district. A veritable musical picture postcard, its scenes traversed vigorous ceremonial drumbeats of antiquity, the pulse of nature (rainsticks and birdcalls), rhythmic street songs of itinerant sellers (concertmaster Li Bao Shun’s jinghu as protagonist) to the modern metropolis of today.

The final movement, 18^th Street, was a heady confluence of old and new, with a modern drum set thrown into the mix. The sheer exuberance of the duelling sibs brought to mind the Mambo episode from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story, but one with a distinct Han accent.

Dame Evelyn Glennie, this planet’s pre-eminent percussionist, appeared for the whole second half. Nebojsa Jovan Zivkovic’s Born To Beat Wild, originally scored for solo trumpet and bass drum, saw Glennie facing off with SCO suona player Chang Le. Described as a “musical dialogue” and “permanent crescendo”, it was more an improvisational shouting contest with both parties emerging primus inter pares.

Glennie took centrestage in Japanese marimba virtuoso Keiko Abe’s Prism Rhapsody, a true dialogue between orchestra and marimba. Melodic interest was strong, and Glennie’s marimba ranged from loud booms from low keys to ethereal heights of the treble registers. With many extended solo passages, this was a rare work combining quiet introspection and outright virtuosity. As many as six mallets were used in certain passages, and her uncanny ability to swiftly shift between diametric opposite dynamics and moods remain a marvel.

The final work, Kuan Nai-chung’s The Sun from The New Millennium Of The Dragon Year united Glennie with the Gaos, manning pitched percussion (marimba and timpanis) and unpitched percussion (drums, cymbals and the rest) respectively. Placed on opposite sides of the stage with the orchestra in between, this was not a pitched battle but a glorious meeting of minds, concluding this invigorating concert on a voluminous high.