5LEMENTS / Ding Yi Music Company / Review

5LEMENTS

Ding Yi Music Company

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (19 February 2022)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 23 February 2022 with the title "Elemental harmony a feast for the senses".

 

Wu Xing, or the Five Elements, are pillars which define Chinese phenomena. Earth, metal, wood, fire and water have pervaded aspects of Chinese culture and philosophy since time immemorial. Although rendered obsolete by modern science, these concepts nevertheless remain strong in symbolism and still hold sway in Chinese medicine.

 

Finding the right balance of forces and harmony in nature was the premise of the 70-minute long concert by Ding Yi Music Company conducted by Quek Ling Kiong, with music by well-known Chinese composer Tang Jianping, and stage direction by Goh Boon Teck. Commissioned by Esplanade’s Huayi - Chinese Festival of Arts, its world premiere was thought-provoking, aurally stimulating and visually satisfying.

 

Its nine linked movements opened with a Prologue, which saw conductor Quek amble on stage to box up his white physician’s coat, dusty tomes and a model of the human body, common fixtures at Chinese sinseh consulting rooms. It was time to store away items and ideas of a dated past, his body language suggested as barefooted musicians gathered to their stations. Then the music began.

 

Words in praise of the five elements were recited by Chinese actor-dancer Bai Ying Wen, who took up various poses and positions on stage. Projected texts and English transliterations were helpful in establishing the narrative, also constituting almost an ad hoc lesson on the subject itself.

 

Although the work was supposed to be Chinese-inspired, it was ironic that the Western cello stood out. Commanding soloist Leslie Tan (founding member of the T’ang Quartet) took on the Yo-Yo Ma role by exhibiting every nuance possible on the instrument. The cello’s embodiment of the five elements was also not lost. Strings of metal, body of wood, fluid lyricism, earthy tone and fiery passion were all part of one compact whole.

 

Also impressing were Ng Hsien Han on a panoply of dizis, occupying a world of different moods, and Yvonne Tay who dazzled on guzheng. Specific instruments like the xun (ocarina) made a cameo in the movement celebrating Earth, while percussion dominated the Metal movement, not a big surprise. Such was the instrumental variety afforded by a chamber force of merely 13 players.

Leslie Tan leaves his cello
to play with water.

 

Lighting took the form of suspended illuminated globes, with the hall bathed in red during the loud and flashily dissonant Fire movement. Blue was the habitat of the more serene Water movement, which also saw liquid in glass bowls being displaced and splashed around. With all the elements explored in detail, it was a matter of bringing them altogether in the exuberant 8^th movement entitled Complementarities.  

 

Conductor Quek’s acrobatic leap, about turn with theatrically raised arms elicited applause but the work had not yet ended. Its Epilogue, however, was a more muted affair, with cello and dizi having the last words. Meanwhile, narrator Bai had also restored the Chinese physician’s paraphernalia to their rightful place, indicating that yin and yang had been achieved, and all is right and healthy with the world.     

    

All photographs by courtesy of 

Ding Yi Music Company.