HEROIC TALES OF RICHARD STRAUSS / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

HEROIC TALES OF RICHARD STRAUSS

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Thursday (5 October 2023)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 7 October 2023 with the title "SSO's take on Strauss' Don Quixote warmly received".

 

After the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s magnificent reading of Richard Strauss’s tone poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life) in July, it seemed appropriate to follow up with an entire evening dedicated to more of the German late Romantic composer’s music. Just 16 years separated the three works on show, but it was fair representation of Strauss’ enormous compositional range.

 

Led by music director Hans Graf, the concert opened with the Serenade in E flat major (Op.7, 1881) for thirteen wind instruments. Two each of flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons, four French horns and one contrabassoon accounted for this brief and mellow Andante. If the orchestra is famed for its strings, the winds also deserve plaudits in this lyrical showing which displayed both innate virtuosity and immaculate deportment.

 

Hans Graf spoke to the audience
about Richard Strauss' many heroes
and their deaths as portrayed in music.

Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks (1895) was a tone poem about the eternal jokester of German folklore, who goes to town on a serial trail of mischief. Its “once upon a time” opening and introduction of the ribald French horn, helmed with confidence by principal Austin Larson, immediately set the tone. Dressed in indelible orchestral colour, its vivid characterisation all the way to Till’s execution, with ominous drumrolls and brilliant clarinet solo, made it a performance to remember.

 

The big piece on show was Don Quixote (1897), almost three times as long as Till. Prone to rambling, Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes’ far more complex anti-hero had a more diffuse characterisation. Not strictly a cello concerto, it nonetheless revelled in a major cello obbligato part helmed with much sympathy by SSO principal Ng Pei-Sian. Introduced with him was principal violist Zhang Manchin who performed within the rank and file besides playing the squire Sancho Panza.

 

As with Till, Graf and the orchestra’s attention to detail was exemplary, this despite the profusion of ideas and events, and appropriately for the subject, frequent flights of fancy. After a lengthy introduction, Ng’s entry was nuanced rather than outrightly heroic, the cantankerous subject having to traverse ten “fantastic variations on a theme of knightly character”.

 

His tone was warm and commanding, well complemented by Zhang’s viola, which was sufficiently garrulous. The duo’s chemistry in closely intertwined adventures made the work’s longeurs all the more worthwhile. Adding a further layer, the vision of Dulcinee (the Don’s delusion of the idealised woman) found fruition in concertmaster Markus Tomasi’s violin.

Photo: Chris P. Lim

 

The battle with the sheep (Variation II) exploited woodwind and brass dissonances to startling effect, while the imagined flight in the air (Variation VII) employing a wind machine while firmly pegged on a pedal point in D was pure fantasy. Best of all was the Epilogue, with the cello’s pure voice unencumbered by further distractions, as the Don breathed his last, expiring with a glissando to the nether reaches.

 

There have not been many Don Quixotes performed in Singapore over the years, but this one garnered the most cheers.                                          

The review of the same concert on Bachtrack.com:

Singapore Symphony principals helm a memorable Strauss Don Quixote | Bachtrack