HANS GRAF FAREWELL SERIES: MOZART AND SALIERI / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

HANS GRAF FAREWELL SERIES:

MOZART AND SALIERI

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Victoria Concert Hall

Thursday (21 May 2026)

This review was first published in Bachtrack.com on 26 May 2026 with the title "Mozart and Salieri under the spotlight in Hans Graf’s Singapore farewell".

Let’s first get this out of the way. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) was a musical genius while Antonio Salieri (1750-1825) a skilled journeyman. The premise of Hans Graf’s final concert in his six-year tenure (2020-2026) at the helm of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra was not just to compare achievements of both composers, but to ponder the gulf between hard work and divine inspiration, and how we live with both.

The evening opened with Salieri’s Piano Concerto in C major (1773), from a rising 23-year-old who still had 52 years to live. The opening Allegro maestoso was a martial ritornello that exuded the same vibe as Mozart’s K.503, also in the same key. Big chords paved the way for young pianist Adrian Tang’s clean and accomplished delivery, which lacked nothing in polish and purpose. 

The problem was how Salieri worked his musical ideas and themes. While Mozart delighted in variety and nuance, Salieri resorted to what virtuosi of the day did best, note-spinning and striving for effect. The development and cadenza had lots of that, and one soon tired of listening. The slow movement in A minor had an opening solo resembling the corresponding movement of Mozart’s K.488, but fell short of his combo of gravitas and elegance. The finale’s Rondo saw delicate and nimble fingerwork on display with passages of Sturm und Drang by way of contrast. While pleasant and euphonious to the ear, it proved ultimately unmemorable.

Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.14 in E flat major (K.449) was premiered when he was 28, right at the cusp of greatness. What a big difference it made with the workmanlike Salieri. Young soloist Toby Tan did the honours, giving a dream performance of fluency and care for detail. He truly got into the spirit of Mozart, imbuing the score with a singing quality and en point articulation. 

The slow movement was a lyrical gift that kept on giving, milked for all its worth, while the finale’s theme and variations sparkled, going full buffo in a comedic coda for a final flourish. Both pianists, students of Albert Tiu, joined hands for a delightful encore, the finale from the Sonata for four hands in D major by ... Mozart (K.381), thank goodness.

Photo: Chris P.Lim

Toby Tan and Adrian Tang
with their teacher Albert Tiu

Rimsky-Korsakov’s one-act opera Mozart and Salieri (1897), based on Pushkin’s little tragedy from 1830 and sung in Russian (with English surtitles), received its Singapore premiere. This piece of speculatory fiction had spawned an industry built on the scurrilous rumour that Salieri murdered Mozart. He did nothing of the sort, but judging by Russian bass Mikhail Svetlov’s self-pitying monologue as the industrious but pedantic Salieri, might as well have done so. By poisoning the god-given genius of an irreverent and flippant Mozart, played by the much younger-looking Russian tenor Boris Stepanov, he was preserving hoards who bore the badge of mediocrity.

This was not so much a lyrical opera in the traditional sense but a psychological melodrama that pitted earth-bound against celestial talent. Rimsky-Korsakov was also comparing himself with the cultural giants that were Pushkin and Mussorgsky. 

Photo: Chris P.Lim

A chamber-sized orchestra accompanied the action, and there were cameos by Matthias Oestringer as the blind street violinist and Adrian Tang in the pastiche piano part. Members of the Singapore Symphony Chorus (Eudenice Palaruan, choral director), placed high in the balcony sang the opening page from Mozart’s Requiem, as the musical rivals memorably walked into the pages of infamy. Graf’s final act as music director of the SSO could not have been more poignant.

Rating ****

Posterity has shown
who's got the last laugh.

The original review on Bachtrack.com:

Mozart and Salieri under the spotlight in Graf’s Singapore farewell | Bachtrack

PRESIDENT'S YOUNG PERFORMERS CONCERT / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

PRESIDENT’S YOUNG 

PERFORMERS CONCERT 

Singapore Symphony Orchestra 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Friday (13 September 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 16 September 2024 with the title "Ebullient show at President's Young Performers Concert".

Graced by President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, this year’s President’s Young Performers Concert by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra led by Associate Conductor Rodolfo Barraez was a very accessible programme built around a common theme of youth and precociousness. 

Opening with Felix Mendelssohn’s Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, this work of genius from a mere 17-year-old was distinguished by feathery light string playing reliving Shakespeare’s realm of fairies and magical spells. Wry humour came in the form of repeated brays, musical representation of Nick Bottoms’ character with a donkey’s head, which was milked for all its worth. 

Two young pianists from Yong Siew Toh Conservatory’s Young Artist Programme, both students of Albert Tiu, had been selected from live auditions to perform for the president. The first was 16-year-old Toby Tan Kai Rong, who was awarded first prize at the 2023 Aarhus International Piano Competition (Denmark), in Sergei Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (Op.43). 

Seldom has someone this young left such an indelible imprint on a tried and tested warhorse, supremely confident yet highly nuanced was his memorable reading. Technically unimpeachable, he dispatched the harp-like Variation 11 and treacherously difficult runs of Variation 15 with seeming effortlessness. 

Furthermore, the manner in which he built up famous Variation 18, with restraint and no little rubato before the collective outburst of emotion, was the touch of a master. The work’s thrilling climax and laconic close drew the loudest cheers, to which he reciprocated with Rachmaninov’s “Little Red Riding Hood” Etude-Tableaux in A minor (Op.39 No.6) as an exciting encore. 

19-year-old Adrian Tang, 1st prizewinner of the 2023 National Piano & Violin Competition (Senior category) and presently his serving national service, was no less trenchant in Sergei Prokofiev’s youthful First Piano Concerto in D flat major (Op.10). In this heady mix of clashing dissonance and lush lyricism, an explosive energy characterised his opening salvo. Despite almost coming undone with a rash of missed notes, he kept his composure and never faltered thereafter. 

A more than secure technique and steely brilliance ensured this was an exciting 16-minute ride, including a hyper-Romantic central slow section and the concerto’s coruscating and breathless close. His encore of Moritz Moszkowski’s Etincelles (Sparks) was scintillating, after which he was joined by Tan for Aram Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance from the ballet Gayaneh on four hands, a gala of sweeping glissandi. 

The concert closed with Prokofiev’s First Symphony in D major (Op.25), also known as the Classical Symphony because it was crafted as a pastiche in the manner of the four-movement symphonies of Haydn and Mozart. 

Conducted by Barraez from memory, the first movement was led at a riproaring pace, contrasted with a graceful Larghetto slow movement and a quaint Gavotte dressed up with a generous helping of rubato. A blistering finale brought this enjoyable evening to an ebullient close.

Adrian Tang (who's doing National Service)
and Toby Tan with their teacher, Prof Albert Tiu
of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory.
Two further pianists who played for the President,
Hao Jia and Pualina Lim were also Albert's Tiudents.
Photo: Goh Kai Cheng (his turn coming soon!)

Review of the same concert that appeared on Bachtrack.com:

Young piano talents distinguish Singapore Symphony’s annual presidential concert | Bachtrack