LAN SHUI & BOMSORI / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

LAN SHUI AND BOMSORI

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Friday (1 March 2024)

This review was first published in Bachtrack.com on 4 March 2024 with the title "Conductor Laureate Lan Shui's poignant return to the Singapore Symphony". 

This concert marked a return of Lan Shui, Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s second music director, after a hiatus of five years. His tenure from 1997 to 2019 was pivotal, transforming a competent regional orchestra to one of international standing with highly-acclaimed recordings and international tours. He assumed the post of Conductor Laureate after a farewell concert with Mahler’s Second Symphony in February 2019. 

The evening also saw Korean violinist Bomsori Kim return, remembered as the first international soloist to perform in Singapore after pandemic travel restrictions were lifted in 2021. On the cards was a relative rarity, Carl Nielsen’s Violin Concerto, often twinned with Sibelius’ violin concerto in recordings despite being very different. Besides their birth-year, another thing in common was a homage to J.S.Bach. While Sibelius heavily revised his to make it less Bachian, Nielsen stuck to his guns. 

Photo: Chris P. Lim

A punched-out C minor chord, followed by an opening violin cadenza in G minor with the orchestra holding a pedal-point in G provided an early shock. Kim’s adroit handling of the Praeludium, reminiscent of the Bachian beginning of Saint-Saens’ Second Piano Concerto, was admirable, with the thread of lyricism maintained throughout. Even in the boisterous Allegro cavalleresco, orchestral textures were kept light and transparent to let her musical lines shine through. The thorny cadenza at its end was superbly handled. 

The second movement’s spelling of Bach’s name – B flat, A, C and B natural – was sensitively voiced by oboist Pan Yun, later echoed by violin in a ruminative but short-winded wallow. In the light-hearted Rondo, one of Nielsen’s cheeriest melodies with whimsicality and rusticity standing out, Kim’s nimbleness and dance-like take were totally enjoyable. Culminating in another elaborate cadenza, the concerto wound down to a retiring close and another shock - a loud orchestral chord in D major to end. Kim’s encore of Grazyna Bacewicz’s Polish Caprice, also folk-inspired, was an inspired choice. 

It was pure happenstance that Singapore audiences got to witness Mahler’s First Symphony twice within eleven days, by the Hong Kong Philharmonic (Jaap van Zweden) and now the Singapore Symphony. Comparisons were inevitable, making for a fascinating study in critical listening. 

The rapt stillness in the opening’s evocation of dawn was assiduously observed. Trumpets were kept onstage yet these sounded as if in der Ferne (in a distance), no mean feat. Principal clarinettist Ma Yue’s cuckoo calls were more sharply-delineated, leading into the movement proper which felt more organic in its build-up. The music’s natural flow, pregnant with tension-filled quiets, ensued before a fulsome climax was reached, also prompting premature applause at movement’s end. 

Lan Shui was the Singapore Symphony's
Music Director from 1997 to 2019.
Photo: Chris P. Lim

The Scherzo was not as vigorously driven as Hong Kong’s, instead taking a gentler and more nuanced look at the Austrian Ländler, including a Trio section that wallowed in schmaltz. Yang Zheng Yi’s excellent double-bass led the way in the funeral march, droll minor key iteration of the Frère Jacques theme. The klezmer interludes were a little more subdued, thus lending the quote from Wayfarer song Zwei Blauen Augen an added poignancy. 

The titanic struggles of the finale, emanating from that “cry from the wounded heart”, were not so much blazing triumph but a subconscious tide that constantly tugged and pulled at the heart-strings. The grandstanding close with eight French horns, trumpet and trombone up on their feet was an impressive look, but much more were concealed from plain sight. One just had to listen. 

While Hong Kong Philharmonic awed and thrilled with virtuosity, Singapore Symphony touched and moved with its humanity. Fortunate and privileged were those to have savoured both performances – and orchestras - in their prime and glory.  

Star rating: *****

The original review on Bachtrack.com may be found here: Conductor Laureate Lan Shui’s poignant return to the Singapore Symphony | Bachtrack 

Read Mervin Beng's review in The Straits Times here: 

Concert review: Lan Shui enraptures with Bomsori Kim pairing and SSO conducting comeback | The Straits Times

BOMSORI KIM IN RECITAL / Review

BOMSORI KIM IN RECITAL

with LIM YAN, Piano

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (18 April 2021)

This review was first published on Bachtrack on 19 April 2021 with the title "A fine Sunday afternoon’s fare from Korean violinist Bomsori Kim and pianist Lim Yan".

 

It has been over one year since a foreign soloist last performed in Singapore. Travel restrictions imposed by the Covid pandemic have wreaked havoc on concert schedules involving visiting artists, but this impasse has finally been relaxed with Korean violinist Bomsori Kim appearing with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and giving a solo recital. For the record, the last visiting soloist to perform in Singapore was violinist Philippe Quint way back in 5 March of 2020.

 

In an hour-long programme, Kim showed what the fuss was all about, having signed a recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon and being in great demand as a soloist. J.S.Bach’s Chaconne in D minor was an ideal opener, with her exercising a healthily robust tone, unafraid of exhibiting a broad vibrato all through the unaccompanied work. More importantly, she fully understood the overall architecture of its series of short variations, building arch-like to an impressive climax and completing the edifice. There was a momentary lapse in concentration towards the end, but there was no denying her artistry and instinctual grasp of the masterpiece.

 

Kim was joined by Singaporean pianist Lim Yan for Beethoven’s popular Spring Sonata. Lim is presently the Artistic Director of the Singapore International Piano Festival, and was the first local pianist to perform all five of Beethoven’s piano concertos in a cycle here in 2012. Both violinist and pianist elicited very good chemistry in a genre that specified the keyboard as the main protagonist.

 

In reality, they were equal partners in the sonata’s four movements, radiating genuine warmth and congeniality in the opening Allegro, while also benefiting from a driving impetus in its development.  The slow movement’s lyrical charms were not glossed over but lovingly voiced, before the brief Scherzo’s quickfire repartee had pulses racing again. For the finale, it was a return to the opening’s pastoral qualities, this time with an added urgency that made for a exciting finish.

 

The obligatory virtuoso showstopper was Franz Waxman’s Carmen Fantasy. The Germany-born Jewish composer was best known as an Oscar-winning film composer, having scored for movies like Sunset Boulevard, Humoresque and Bride of Frankenstein. Although his Carmen Fantasy is less well-known as Sarasate’s despite having essentially the same popular Bizet tunes, it is a darker work that dwelled more on tragedy than surface glitz. The violin part is arguably technically more difficult but Kim took these in her stride and the duo romped to a brilliant close.

 

The clearly-enthused audience was rewarded with two popular encores. The sentimentality of Massenet’s Meditation from Thaïs was milked for all its worth, while the gemütlich charms of Kreisler’s Schön Rosmarin raised more the smiles for a Sunday afternoon well spent.   

 Star Rating: ****

BOMSORI KIM PLAYS MOZART / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

BOMSORI KIM PLAYS MOZART

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (17 April 2021)

This review was first published on Bachtrack on 19 April 2021 with the title "Singapore Symphony aces World Premiere of Paul von Klenau’s Eighth Symphony".

 

The worldwide Covid-19 pandemic and safe distancing measures mandated on performing groups have had a major impact on musical life in Singapore. Limiting ensembles to a maximum of thirty onstage performers has however led to creative programming choices. This concert by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra led by chief conductor Hans Graf was an excellent example.

 

Danish composer Paul von Klenau (1883-1946) is unlikely to be known outside of his native country. He studied and worked in Germany and Austria where Max Bruch, Ludwig Thuille and Max von Schillings among his teachers. A contemporary of Alban Berg and Anton Webern, he was also influenced by Arnold Schoenberg and Second Viennese School atonalism. His works included six operas (with the artist Rembrandt and Queen Elizabeth I of England among his subjects) and nine symphonies.

 

While his Ninth Symphony (1945) was a 90-minute choral symphony in eight movements, the Eighth Symphony (1943), subtitled “In olden style” (im alten stil), runs its course of four movements within fifteen minutes. Cast in the key of D major, it is first cousin to Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony, a pastiche of the symphony form by Haydn and Mozart. Its musical idiom is however more Romantic, closer to the likes of Schubert, although one might also cite similarities to Max Reger (without the turgidity) or Richard Strauss (without the opulence).

 

Its attractiveness lay in brevity and directness of ideas, including a sunny but brief sonata-styled first movement followed by a slow movement opened by woodwinds accompanied by cello pizzicatos. There were solo passages for flute and oboe, lovingly voiced by principals Jin Ta and Rachel Walker. A mere hint of sobriety in the third movement’s Menuet was soon dispelled by the Rondo finale’s mercurial streak lit up by Jon Dante’s trumpet, where the convergence of Mozart and Prokofiev (without the irony) became most apparent. While this was neither a work of striking originality or genius, it was nevertheless well crafted and received the World Premiere - a performance of immediacy and sincerity - it deserved.   

 

Korean violinist Bomsori Kim became the first overseas soloist to perform with the SSO in over a year, and the high expectations engendered were not to be disappointed. Mozart’s underrated First Violin Concerto, the 1774 work of a 17-year-old piano and violin prodigy, proved to be an ideal vehicle for Kim’s musicality and sensitivity.

 

A sweet tone was coaxed from her 1774 J.B.Guadagnini, never over-bright in intensity but well-proportioned to the chamber-sized forces supporting her. Only in the first and third movement cadenzas did she take the liberty to let rip, and this was also tastefully done. As with all of Mozart’s slow movements, lyrical beauty in aria-like passages dominated, as the orchestra provided discreet and restrained accompaniment throughout. The virtuoso show in the sprightly finale was nicely balanced by Kim’s choice of encore: the Sarabande from J.S.Bach’s Partita No.2 (BWV.1004), where her unaccompanied violin’s voice was given full rein.          

 

The concert closed with Schubert’s youthful Fifth Symphony, where from its outset, the freshness of spring bubbled up like uncorked spirits. Under Graf’s direction, the first movement benefited from a clarity of thought and well-defined lines, allied by refined and cultivated playing. A good balance between strings and woodwinds was achieved in the slow movement, where no hair fell out of place. 

The spirit of Mozart hovered in the third movement’s bucolic Menuet (in G minor, thus bringing to mind Wolfgang Amadeus’ Symphony No.40) and the ebullient and fleet-footed finale. While the music’s merry-making delighted, it was the ensemble’s sense of nuances and subtleties which made the performance a memorable one.

Star Rating: ****