BEETHOVEN'S ODE TO JOY / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

BEETHOVEN’S ODE TO JOY 

Singapore Symphony Orchestra 

Esplanade Concert Hall 

Thursday (25 July 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 27 July 2024 with the title "Standing ovation for SSO's take on Brahms and Beethoven".

Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s first gala concert for the 2024/25 season, led by music director Hans Graf, was headlined by two major repertoire works. The opening act was Johannes Brahms’ Double Concerto in A minor (Op.102) with violinist Chloe Chua and SSO principal cellist Ng Pei-Sian as soloists. 

Despite their age gap (Chua is 17 and Ng in his late 30s), the duo worked well together, reliving the parts played by original virtuosos Joseph Joachim and Robert Hausmann at its 1887 premiere. After an orchestral outburst, Ng’s demanding solo cadenza was rapt and ear-catching with Chua later joining in as an equal partner. Nowhere was she overawed and they were hand-and-glove throughout, with the orchestra’s discreet partnership allowing their voices to shine. 

The central slow movement had them in a silky smooth unison, with an evenness providing some of the work’s most sublime moments. The Hungarian-flavoured finale was a jocular jaunt, playful in exchanges yet cohesive to the closing chords. The vociferous response was rewarded with a substantial encore: the Handel-Halvorsen Passacaglia, another classic of sharing intimate moments together. 

The other blockbuster was Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in D minor (Op.125), his beloved Choral Symphony. There has been no better time amid tumultuous world affairs to relive this unifying work, the supreme espousal of Friedrich Schiller’s gospel of the universal brotherhood of man. 

Running for 67 minutes, Graf’s vision was a generally swift one. Following the opening drone, orchestral entries were brisk and crisp, yet with no hint of being hectic or strait-jacketed. The music was allowed to breathe naturally with a well-judged broadening of tempos when it mattered. 

Even when the Molto vivace second movement upped the ante, pulses quickened but never raced beyond safety limits, much having to do with Christian Schioler’s steady but emphatic timpani beats dictating the proceedings. The lovely Adagio slow movement provided much respite but was not allowed to languish or wallow. 

Then came the much-awaited finale. Its earth-shattering introduction relived moments from earlier movements, a summation of all that had come before. The first vocal was from baritone Liam James Karai, his commanding voice answered emphatically by 110 singers from the Singapore Symphony Choruses and Singapore Bible College Community Choir (Eudenice Palaruan, Choral Director & Wong Lai Foon, Choirmaster). 

There have been bigger choirs to grace the Ninth, notably Esplanade’s opening concert in 2002. However this group lacked nothing in pluck and confidence, delivering the famed Ode To Joy (Freude, Schoner Gotterfunken) chorus and tricky fugues with suitable eclat and ecstasy. 

The quartet of well-matched soloists was completed by soprano Johanna Falkinger, mezzo-soprano Anita Montserrat and tenor Seungwoo Yang, the last of whom conquered the Turkish march segment (accompanied by triangle, cymbals and bass drum) with much swagger. 

The symphony’s frenzied conclusion received a deserved standing ovation. Its message of world peace, delivered in harmonious Singapore, might however be a case of preaching to the choir.