MESSIAEN TURANGALILA / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

MESSIAEN TURANGALILA

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (1 April 2017)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 3 April 2017 with the title "Exploring yin and yang".

There are some works of music that get heard here maybe once in a lifetime. Britten's War Requiem, Walton's Belshazzar's Feast and MacMillan's Seven Last Words come to mind. Rare as it may seem, Olivier Messiaen's massive Turangalila-Symphony featured on a Singapore Symphony Orchestra programme for only the second time.

Followers of the orchestra will remember the pair of performances conducted by Choo Hoey at Victoria Concert Hall in 1994. How those even got off the ground considering the orchestra's relative youth and that venue's small stage was a marvel. No such problems arose in Esplanade this time, with over a hundred musicians (including 10 percussionists) led by Shui Lan fitting comfortably onstage, and the vast auditorium to absorb its outsized sonic demands.

Comprising ten movements and playing for 75 minutes, Turangalila (composed in 1946-48) is an anomaly never to be repeated without the charge of plagiarism. Its title comes from Sanskrit words connoting rapid movement and life force. This was the French composer's grand conception of universal love, encompassing sacred, profane and carnal varieties. Often considered his most vulgar work, it is also his most popular.

These contradictions are reflected in its major themes, the monstrous and terrifying “Statue theme” brayed by the brass, contrasted by a soft and slender “Flower theme” heard on two clarinets. Recurring and balancing opposites, these represented masculine and feminine, essentially the work's yin and yang.

The same may refer to the soloists, pianist Andreas Haefliger's stentorian chords, lancinating trills and intoxicated cadenzas as opposed to Cynthia Millar's freewheeling on the Ondes Martenot. The latter is an electronic instrument, precursor of the synthesiser, producing tones from bass rumbles to high-pitched whistling, whining and glissandi in between. Both were excellent, and excellently supported by the orchestra.

The imposing opening was dominated by the “Statue theme”, its almighty strides conjuring a sense of dread which the “Flower theme” did little to dispel. Despite loud and deafening pages, there were also isolated oases of calm and reflection, often created by a few instruments. The deft use of percussion and unlikely combos (such as bassoon with piccolo) evoked Eastern mysticism, reflecting Messiaen's ecumenical spiritual worldview.

The 5^th and 6^th movements were the heart and contrasted centrepieces of the work. The unfettered outburts of frenzied sexual ecstasy in Joy Of The Blood Of Stars (almost a Karma Sutra set to music) could only be followed by the detumescence and quiet bliss of Garden Of Love's Sleep, where the indolent “Love theme” is introduced. At its serene end, one was left with a lingering echo of the Onde Martenot's last note.

By the 8^th movement, the mighty “Statue theme” had been vanquished, toppling into an abyss according to Haefliger's preamble. Replacing it in the joyous finale was a glorious preroration of the “Love theme”, hammered out by the entire orchestra. In the arduous journey of life, the greatest of all is love. Judging by the rapturous applause after the overwrought and terrific performance, Messiaen's message had been well received.

POSTURES / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

POSTURES

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Friday (4 July 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 7 July 2014

The Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s opening concert of the 2014-15 season gave the audience a sneak preview of the programme to be performed at BBC Proms in London on 2 September. Aiming to make an impact at its Proms debut, the orchestra served a heavy dose of familiar Russian warhorses as well as a new work by an Asian composer.

Conducted by Music Director Shui Lan, the orchestra began with Glinka’s Ruslan and Ludmilla Overture, a showcase of its prowess in short pieces or lollipops. From its outset, the furiously running string passages were well matched by the players, and when called upon, solo woodwinds and brass shone brightly. Within five minutes, the appetiser which piqued the senses was over.

Receiving its World Premiere this evening was Chinese-American composer Zhou Long’s Postures, a piano concerto co-commissioned by the Proms and SSO, and performed by the renowned Swiss pianist Andreas Haefliger. Taking away all connotations of the work as a kung fu inspired piece, its 25 minutes duration highlighted the piano as a virtuoso percussion instrument.

The first movement Pianodance saw piano and orchestra as equal partners, sharing in the rhythmic pacing that dictates its narrative. It celebrates the hunter-shaman of Northeast China, one who imitates the movements of animals in its game, and the dynamics range from roaring fortissimo to still pianissimo.

The piano dominated the central and longest Pianobells movement, with the orchestra relegated to soft background string tremolos and the occasion percussion outburst. The piano simulated many kinds of bells, from the deep stroking of its innards, chord and trills occupying the high registers and drolly repeated figurations.

Its dream-like sequence was shattered in the tumultuous finale Pianodrums, which recalled Beijing Opera and the most recognisably Chinese of the movements. Here the piano was integrated into the wider percussion ensemble of the orchestra, yet it found its voice in the form of a shrill battle cry which relived the exploits of the Monkey God. Cymbals, xylophone and a battery of drums kept up with the action, and the work ended in outright exuberance.

Nothing quite sounds like this work. Not even the super-violent and ultra-percussive Bartok First Piano Concerto comes close.       

The concert closed with Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony  in E minor, a Romantic throwback to the lush and unabashed emotionalism of Tchaikovsky. This is one of the orchestra and conductor Shui’s favourite showpieces, yet the risk of over-polishing the work to blandness was thankfully avoided.

The key to sounding fresh was to take certain risks, and that was apparent in the first two movements and finale, which strained at the leash without breaking out of control. The slow movement with Ma Yue’s leading clarinet solo was a thing of beauty, but the orchestra’s use of portamentos (sliding between notes) was somewhat overdone. When heard for the first time, sentimentality is sufficiently evinced but repeated hearings tended to descend into bathos.

Nonetheless the orchestra maintained its momentum without flagging through the 55 minutes. The chorus of bravos that greeted its triumphant end could soon be repeated at the Royal Albert Hall come September. 

HAROLD IN ITALY / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

HAROLD IN ITALY
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Esplanade Concert Hall
Saturday (14 January 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 16 January 2012 with the title "Crashing chords from Haefliger".

It is a rare occasion that one gets to hear two full length concertos in a single concert. That luxury was afforded as the two major works by Berlioz and Brahms were totally different. The term concerto may be used rather loosely here, as Berlioz’s Harold In Italy is more like a four-movement symphony.

The famous story was that he had written the work for the violin virtuoso Paganini, who rejected it because he was not required to “play all the time”. In other words, it was too simple, too non-virtuosic. The fact that a chair was provided for viola soloist Zhang Manchin on centrestage said it all, as she sat through long stretches of orchestral tuttis.

When the SSO’s principal violist (left) was called upon, she delivered with a throaty and sonorous beauty, as much as the Cinderella of stringed instruments allowed. Hers was a role of poetic presence, rather than spewing pyrotechnics, reflecting the more introspective musings of Lord Byron’s Childe Harold on his continental adventures.

Ably supporting her were other soloists, harpist Gulnara Mashurova in the opening mountain scene, and Elaine Yeo’s plaintive cor anglais in the Abruzzi villager’s serenade, who lent further sublime moments. The swashbuckling bravado came instead from Shui Lan’s orchestra, whose merry rather than bloodthirsty Orgy Of The Brigands pulled out all the stops.

The symphonic architecture and writing of Brahms’s First Piano Concerto may be seen as his first attempt at writing a symphony. The dramatic opening orchestral tutti, all lightning flash and thunderbolts, set the monumental tone for Swiss pianist Andreas Haefliger’s (left) disarmingly calm entry. With nerves settled, this soon worked itself into one of the most authoritative and stentorian of performances.

His big-boned playing of barnstorming octaves and crashing chords was equal to and sometimes surmounted the orchestra’s outsized gestures, and a titanic struggle ensued. Fired by his mentor Robert Schumann’s suicidal plunge into the Rhine, the passionate angst was only equalled by the tenderness and spirituality of the slow movement, an early manifestation of feelings for Schumann’s widow Clara.

Haefliger’s near-faultless account encompassed all of these, rounding up with an exciting romp of the final Rondo, where the orchestra backed up to the hilt with much immediacy and responsive playing. So was it two concertos or two symphonies heard this evening? The greatness of the music and quality of playing made these academic issues moot and ultimately irrelevant.