MOZART’S STARLING
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Victoria Concert Hall
Friday (24 February 2023)
The Singapore Symphony Orchestra continues on its Mozart crusade, with another programme built around Salzburg’s greatest son. Conducted by Chinese maestra Xian Zhang, Music Director of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and making her first appearance in Singapore, the concert opened with Chinese composer Chen Qigang’s L’Eloignement (2004) for string orchestra.
Chen Qigang (born 1952),
Olivier Messiaen's last student.
The French term translates from the Chinese phrase zou xi kou, or “going west”, synonymous with parting or departure. Based on a brief nostalgic theme, resembling those heard on erhu or huqins, a quick succession of variations unfolded, lush with rich harmonies, long-held resonances, and mild dissonances not unlike those in Britten or Messiaen (Chen was the Frenchman’s last pupil). There were lovely short solos from the principals, leading to stretches of serene beauty, before culminating with an Elgarian climax albeit with a Chinese accent. A Bartok-like earthiness also coloured its final pages, with serene glissandi and harmonics before closing in utmost serenity.
Next came Mozart’s popular Piano Concerto No.17 in G major (K.453) with young Hong Kong-born pianist Wong Chiyan as soloist. Wong is known for very personal interpretations, often with revisionist ideas. Even seemingly sacrosanct Mozart was fair game in a performance which raised more questions than provided answers.
Appearing extremely restless during the orchestral ritornello, he would softly and randomly depress the piano keys, and also gaze at the audience. When the solos came, Wong evinced a crisp, crystalline and somewhat brittle sound, as if treading on eggshells. There was none of the “flow like oil” quality which Mozart would have liked. Liberally added notes and ear-catching ornamental passages sprung from his ever-active imagination, but there were also some wrong and missed notes. A very interesting and provocative personality nonetheless, he contributed his own cadenza which was creative, mostly idiomatic and none too obstrusive.
The slow movement had a stark and lean quality, as if describing a desolate landscape. The finale with its melody mimicked by Mozart’s pet starling (hence the concert’s title) became more fodder for Wong’s tinkerings. One cannot imagine a more freely re-written Mozart than this, like an act of a Hong Kong rebel sticking the middle finger at orthodoxy. Any other Chinese pianist (Yuja or Haochen) would have been sent for “re-education” in some Xinjiang gulag. While senses get piqued in concert, one cannot imagine living with a recording of this.
Wong is a “marmite pianist”, you either love him or loathe him. In this case, the audience leaned firmly on his side, their applause rewarded with a very brief encore, the first airing of his seconds-long musical doodling entitled Bone Dusting. The jazz harmony-inflected miniature referred to the Chinese practice of dusting one’s ancestors’ remains after exhumation. One also supposes the long dead could not be left well alone too.
The orchestra had been a respectful accompanist in the concerto, and its own showcase was Mozart’s Symphony No.39 in E flat major (K.543), part of his famous “final trilogy” composed in the space of six weeks. Conductor Zhang conducted from memory a performance of raw blood and guts, with none of the authentic period instrument prissiness. The opening E flat major chords (looking forward to Beethoven’s Eroica) packed a terrific punch, paving the way for a reading of unapologetic boisterousness.
The audience, filled with many newcomers (mostly Rotarian in a fundraiser marking World Understanding and Peace Day), applauded heartily between the movements, which Zhang even encouraged with her approving gestures. Smiling from ear to ear, the music traversed from a nicely phrased Andante to a rollicking Menuetto and trio (with clarinets in peak form) before closing with a mercurial but no-holds-barred finale. A performance of such unrelieved fun and good humour should not be easily forgotten.
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