FLURRY OF THE FLUTE / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

FLURRY OF THE FLUTE

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (10 April 2021)

An edited version of this review was published in The Straits Times on 14 April 2021 with the title "Lyrical flute paints picture of lyrical bliss".

 

Judging by the concert’s title, one might have expected the flute concerto programmed to be its main draw. In that respect, one would have been right as the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s principal flautist Jin Ta gave a stunning performance of French composer Jacques Ibert’s Flute Concerto. The three-movement showpiece, although peppered with piquant dissonances, was mostly a lyrical work that suited Jin to the tee.

 

In its dreamy central slow movement, his pure and limpid tone painted a landscape of idyllic bliss, one that radiated the warm glow of summer. This was contrasted with virtuosic flourishes in the bustling opening movement, tossed off with an almost casual nonchalance, and the finale’s syncopations and riffs. A series of outlandish cadenzas, also cooly dispatched, completed its busy twenty minutes.

 

Led by chief conductor Hans Graf, the orchestra provided discreet and sensitive support but also  had the flexibility to let it rip when called upon. Jin’s encore, a jazzman’s take on the popular Love Song of Kangding accompanied by bassist Wang Xu, was simply delightful.

 

Social-distancing rules that limited ensembles to a maximum of 30 onstage performers led to rather creative programming choices. Two rarely heard symphonies, both in the dramatic and quasi-tragic key of C minor, were given deserved exposure on either side of the Ibert concerto.

 

Haydn’s Symphony No.95, receiving its Singapore premiere, does not have the dubious blessing of a nickname. While it lacked surprises, drumrolls and imitations of ticking clocks or clucking hens, it more than made up with the Austrian composer’s penchant with storms and stresses. The emphatic opening was given bold lashes, precisely hewn by the strings, its nervous tension balanced by a more sedate second subject.

 

This sense of push and pull provided the interest that was sustained all the way to the second movement’s theme and variations. Here and in the more lively Minuet and Trio yielded some beautiful solo playing by cellist Yu Jing. The finale had the lightness and ebullience of Mozart, finishing gratifyingly in the key of C major.

 

Mendelssohn’s Symphony No.1, last played by the SSO in 1980, had its cobwebs dusted off with vehement zeal. The utterings of a precocious 15-year-old in the thrall of the late Mozart were passionately driven in the stormy first movement. This was contrasted by a hymn-like countenance in the Beethovenian slow movement distinguished by fine wind playing.

 

An urgency occupied the third movement Minuet, which went full tilt in the finale where the pathos of Mozart’s penultimate symphony was fervently relived. Mendelssohn was not copying Mozart, but paying homage, including a fugal episode and a triumphal apotheosis as C minor morphed into glorious C major.

 

The pleasing symmetry afforded by both symphonies and ardent performances made this 100-minute concert without intermission (the longest post circuit-breaker) an unmitigated pleasure.