BEETHOVEN, 1806 / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

BEETHOVEN, 1806

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Friday (21 January 2022)

This review was first published on Bachtrack on 24 January with the title "Major Beethoven makes a welcome return to Singapore". 

Concert life in Singapore has been inching its way to normality over the past few months. Audience and ensemble sizes are still restricted by social distancing rules, but concert programmes are reverting to their usual lengths. Just last week, the Singapore Symphony led by chief conductor Hans Graf performed a two-hour long concert without intermission, showcasing Schumann’s Piano Concerto (with Herbert Schuch) and two Mozart symphonies. This evening, two major Beethoven works were on the cards.

 

Robert Schumann’s description of Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony being the slender Grecian maiden between two Nordic giants was apt. Its quiet opening built upon a long-held pedal point on B flat, over which a motif (incidentally shared by the opening of the Fifth) is etched, was delivered with full restraint and total control. Despite being polar opposite of the Eroica and the Fifth, the approach Hans Graf took seemed to point to the future of the symphony form. In those early minutes, thoughts of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique and Mahler’s First came to mind albeit fleetingly,

 

The ensuing Allegro was no mere fast and loud outburst, but one of swift lightness, distinguished by lithe textures and clarity of playing. The slow movement continued along this vein, gradually building up in volume and intensity like a series of waves. Humour ruled in the Scherzo and Trio movement, where the deliberate impression of ungainliness was contrasted by courtliness. What impressed most was the finale, its perpetual motion of rapid tarantella rhythm delivered with a crispness and precision that seemed scarcely possible. This Grecian maiden can certainly fly.

Hans Graf demonstrates the four
timpani taps in Beethoven's Violin Concerto.

      

In lieu of an intermission, conductor Graf gave a short preamble on Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, demonstrating the four timpani taps that opened the work and describing that as its DNA. The monumental work, he assured, was to be pivotal in the history of violin concerto writing. It has been ages since this concerto was last heard in Singapore, and young Chinese violinist He Ziyu, student of the Mozarteum University Salzburg, rose to the occasion. 

 

Possessing the maturity and poise belying his twenty-two years, he carved out a rock solid reading characterised by clean and clear tone, allied with impeccable intonation. His entry was confident, and built on from there. The orchestra’s partnership was discreet, and even in the development section’s darker-hued pages, He weathered the storms with steadfastness and fortitude. Even the Romanticised and frankly outsized cadenza by Fritz Kreisler held no terrors for the young man.

 

The slow movement seemed like the model of chaste virtue, its prayer-like subject upheld by violin playing in the highest registers. He’s fine control held sway even when it seemed most uncomfortable to do so, and the Rondo finale’s romp provided just the release. Here, earlier trials and tribulations were cast away in a show of joy and jubilation. A dance-like buoyancy was maintained from start to end, with another implausibly anachronistic cadenza (Kreisler again) adding spice to the proceedings. It nevertheless made for a suitably spectacular end to the most sublime of works.

 

Despite a prolonged clamour for an encore, none was forthcoming from the young soloist. After that close to perfect show of Beethoven, anything more would have been superfluous.        

Rating: *****

He Ziyu photographs by Aloysius Lim, with the kind courtesy of Singapore Symphony Orchestra.