VIRTUOSO SERIES III: WINDS / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

VIRTUOSO SERIES III: WINDS

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Saturday (25 September 2021)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 29 September 2021 with the title "Wind instruments take centre stage".

 

The third concert of Singapore’s Chinese Orchestra’s Virtuoso Series of chamber concerts was devoted to plangent sounds of Chinese wind instruments, focusing on the dizi, sheng and suona. Responsible for unique and distinct timbres in orchestral concerts, these took on a life of their own as solo instruments when played by the orchestra’s principals.

 

Guo Changsuo brought out a full range of colours from the sheng in Yan Haideng’s Alluring Span Of The Peacock, which included the tricky technique of tremolo-tonguing. Even with an instrument that plays multiple tones simultaneously, this lent an otherwordly feel to a rhapsodic work that began slowly but gave way to an exuberant dance. This same liveliness also possessed the Henan folktune Grand Prelude, arranged Li Guanglu, which was brief but unremittingly flashy.

 

Yin Zhiyang commanded two flutes, opening with the vertically-played xiao in the ancient tune Autumn Yearning At The Dressing Table arranged by Du Ciwen and accompanied by Xu Hui on guzheng. Lower registers were plumbed in this slow piece which expressed the melancholy of solitude like no other.

 

For the Hunan folktune Partridges Flying arranged by Zhao Songting, techniques of the transversely-played dizi were fully exploited. These encompassed fluttering trills simulating the flitting of wings, followed by circular breathing in the work’s dynamic final third. Here, the audience may be excused for feeling somewhat breathless.        

 

Suona principal Jin Shiyi opened accounts with Mao Kuangping and Hu Zhihou’s arrangement of  Eighteen Songs On Nomad Flute, which despite its title, was performed on the xinguan. This is a new reed instrument developed by Jin and his SCO colleague Liu Jiang which looks like a sawn-off clarinet, as well as sounds like one. In this meditative number accompanied by harpist Fontane Liang, a wealth of expressive feeling relived the trials and tribulations of Han dynasty heroine Lady Cai Wenji.  

 

Jin’s own arrangement of the Henan folktune Tribute To Homeland, accompanied by sheng and bangzi (wood blocks), was the perfect vehicle for his suona, played with the stentorian stridency of a ceremonial trumpet. Also filled with playful humour, there were slurs and slides aplenty which added to the sense of occasion.

 

Finally, an ensemble of nine assembled to perform Yu Huiyong and Hu Dengtiao Theme Of Pioneers rearranged by Yeo Puay Hian. There were now two each of dizis, shengs and suonas supported by three percussionists.

 

This Socialist Realist potboiler was a rowdy and raucous affair, celebrating the glorious years of “vigorous technological innovation” (as quoted in the programme notes) during the late 1950s. Was this referring to the Great Leap Forward? One surmises the “indomitable, courageous spirit of fearlessness” of the millions who perished should never be forgotten.

 

The hour-long concert was followed by an equally lively question-and-answer session where the spontaneity and candour displayed by the three principals revealed another side to their virtuosity.