EARTH AND THE PLANETS + ELGAR'S CELLO CONCERTO / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

EARTH AND THE PLANETS

+ ELGAR’S CELLO CONCERTO

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Friday (23 January 2026)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 27 January 2026 with the title "Earth gets its due amid Holst's Planets in Joyce Koh's work".

When English composer Gustav Holst composed his seven-movement symphonic suite The Planets in 1917, he did not include Pluto (yet to be discovered) or Earth among them. In this Singapore Symphony Orchestra concert led by music director Hans Graf, our home planet finally got its own movement in a newly commission work by Singaporean composer Joyce Koh.

Performed as an overture, Koh’s 12-minute Earth opened with chimes of tubular bells amid a primordial soup of sound which coalesced into an aurally rich canvas of lush sonorities. Eschewing her trademark atonalism, the musical idiom and evocative French titles was closer in spirit to French composer Olivier Messiaen’s spiritually and cosmologically-inclined scores.

Incorporating three treble voices from the Singapore Symphony Children’s Choir, representing youth and innocence, she also included fleeting quotes of Mars and Jupiter from Holst’s original work as points of reference. Hers was a journey of mankind to the edge of the solar system and beyond, in a contemplation of the unknown and unknowable. In a word, breathtaking.

Joyce Koh gets the applause.

Separating Gaia and the other celestial orbs was Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor (Op.85) with young Austrian cellist Julia Hagen as soloist. From the outset, she distinguished with an outsized personality and singing tone, aided by the orchestra’s discreet and unobtrusive accompaniment.

Holding the audience in a thrall, she navigated the elegiac score with focus and purpose, overcoming the scherzo’s prestidigitation with ease and bringing catharsis in a deeply-felt Adagio. Elgar was not just commemorating loss of life and innocence in the recently concluded Great War but also paying tribute to his devoted but ailing wife Alice.

The tempestuous finale was not so much a triumph of the spirit but a struggle to battle the tears, a journey of passion which Hagen got spot on before finishing with a flourish. Her encore of the Sarabande from J.S.Bach’s Suite No.1 in G major was just as gripping.

SSO has come a long way since its premiere of Holst’s The Planets in 1997 under Choo Hoey’s baton, which was an unmitigated disaster because the female chorus from some unnamed girls’ school failed to enter when cued. No worries on this occasion, as the 78 ladies from the Singapore Symphony Chorus and Youth Choir (Eudenice Palaruan, Director) provided the perfect close to Neptune, The Mystic, its final movement.

Wordless and unseen, their hauntingly beautiful voices seemed to emerge from the ether with an unmistakable sense of awe and mystery. One could hear a pin drop as these held sway before fading into the distant abyss. Before that, the orchestra gave the most imperious of performances, with Mars, The Bringer of War setting a tone of violence and vehemence.

It was not just the popular movements like Mercury and Jupiter which impressed, but also the less obvious ones like Venus, Saturn and Uranus, where care and attention to detail and instrumental prowess came to the fore. This most memorable of outings to outer space was deservedly greeted with the most thunderous of applause and cheers.

Choral director Eudenice Palaruan,
representing the singers, gets the accolades.

HANNU LINTU CONDUCTS NELSON MASS + MAHLER 4 / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

HANNU LINTU CONDUCTS

NELSON MASS + MAHLER 4

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Friday (14 November 2025)

This review was first published in Bachtrack.com on 17 November 2025 with the title "Hannu Lintu shows Singapore great things to come with Mahler and Haydn".

In March this year, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) named Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu as its fourth music director, succeeding Hans Graf in the 2026/2027 season. This was Lintu’s first concert as music director designate, confirming all the good notices garnered as a guest conductor in 2017 and 2018, besides providing an indication of the things to come.

Opening the evening was Joseph Haydn’s Missa in angustiis (Hob.XXII/11, or Mass for Troubled Times) in D minor, better known as his Nelson Mass. Its relationship with Britain’s greatest naval commander is tenuous other than it was composed in 1798 when Europe was in Napoleonic turmoil. The gloom had however lifted somewhat at its Eisenstadt premiere, with the news of Admiral Horatio Nelson vanquishing the French in the Battle of the Nile. Two years later, Nelson and Lady Hamilton personally met with Haydn at Esterhazy, and might have heard the mass performed then.

In the true spirit of Sturm und Drang, Lintu and his charges made no concessions for polite classical tradition and went for broke. Kyrie was an embattled cry for mercy, with the Singapore Symphony Chorus and Youth Choir (choral director: Eudenice Palaruan) in full voice and soprano Hera Hyesun Park leading the plaints. Of the soloists, she had the choicest parts, for which she never held back. Bass-baritone Edward Grint in Qui tollis peccata mundi of Gloria lent a lyrical contrast. 

The quartet of soloists was completed by mezzosoprano Virgine Verrez and tenor Elgan Llŷr Thomas, who had less significant roles but contributed well to the ensemble. The near 140-strong chorus sang in all movements, making big impacts in the fugal section of Gloria and later at the close of Credo. Entries were precise and consonants well enunciated, while the calmer Sanctus and Benedictus provided much needed contrast. Agnus Dei, led by mezzosoprano, transitioned to a joyous choral Dona nobis pacem in D major which closed the mass in a celebratory high. Desperate times called for an appropriate response, and Haydn duly delivered.

It was astute for Lintu to showcase Gustav Mahler’s most retiring symphony, the Fourth, as his calling card. Away from the earth-shaking exploits of the first three symphonies, the Fourth oozed congeniality, almost angst free in countenence. Its gentle, bucolic opening movement radiated sunshine, the sheer lack of ostentation gave cause for Lintu’s ability to craft much nuance from the playing. Strings were smooth as silk, and later as the music darkened in intensity, the woodwinds and brass crept into action, culminating in the solo trumpet’s forewarning of the Fifth Symphony’s funeral march to come.

The second movement was distinguished by concertmaster Kevin Lin playing a second violin tuned to a tone higher, representing Brother Death fiddling with another typical touch of Mahlerian macabre. The slow movement (Ruhevoll) was a portrait of respite and restraint, building to a climax before ushering the finale’s Wunderhorn song Das himmlische Leben (The Heavenly Life). 

Soprano soprano Park returned but now childlike and guileless, extolling an idyllic afterlife of scenic beauty, happy feelings and gustatory delights which stopped short of vegetarianism. There was to be no noisy or triumphant close, but music director designate Lintu had made his mark in the most musical way possible. There is a popular phrase in Malay, Singapore’s national language, “Akan datang” which means “more to come”, so watch this space.

Star Rating: *****

You can read the original version 

of this review at:

Hannu Lintu shows Singapore great things to come with Mahler and Haydn | Bachtrack

BEHZOD ABDURAIMOV AND HANS GRAF - RACHMANINOFF AND RAVEL / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

BEHZOD ABDURAIMOV & HANS GRAF -

RACHMANINOFF AND RAVEL 

Singapore Symphony Orchestra 

Esplanade Concert Hall 

Friday (11 April 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 14 April 2025 with the title "Hans Graf and SSO deliver commanding performance of Ravel".

In a Singapore Symphony Orchestra concert that heavily touted the names of Sergei Rachmaninoff and Maurice Ravel, Dame Ethel Smyth had the first say. She was the first woman composer to receive a damehood (in 1922) and a known feminist whose staunch support of the suffragette movement in the United Kingdom even led to a jail sentence for her violent activism. 

On the Cliffs of Cornwall, the atmospheric Prelude to Act 2 of her 1904 opera The Wreckers, saw the orchestra led by music director Hans Graf conjure a lush post-Wagnerian soundscape. Its chromatic musical language and indeterminate tonality generated suspense, but polished playing – with solos from oboe, clarinet, violin and trumpet - made this Singapore premiere a memorable one. 

This set the stage for excellent young Uzbek pianist Behzod Abduraimov in Rachmaninoff’s popular Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. This 1st prizewinner of the London International Piano Competition in 2009 not only possessed the virtuosity to surmount its myriad challenges, but also crisp and crystal-clear articulation to make it sound easy. 

Its 24 continuous variations on Italian violin virtuoso Niccolo Paganini’s Caprice No.24 range from the simple and flippant to fearsome knuckle-busting octaves and chords, and Abduraimov took it all in his stride. His arch-like vision of its entirety was replicated in the famous 18th Variation, with a steady build up from pure lyricism to a breathtaking chordal climax. 

Encouraged by loud and prolonged applause, his two impressive encores were founded on the composers that came before. Franz Liszt’s scintillating La Campanella (after the finale of Paganini’s Second Violin Concerto) and Rachmaninoff’s song-like Prelude in G major (Op.32 No.5) were very apt choices. 

Despite the earlier heroics, the evening’s true highlight was the Singapore premiere of the complete ballet music from Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé. Designated a symphonie choreographique, its 55-minute run is more than three times the length of the often-performed Suite No.2 which concludes with the masterpiece’s most familiar music. 

By hearing the full score, one better grasped how the French composer had derived and developed the themes that found glorious fruition in its final 15 minutes. Aiding and abetting the sensuously sensitive playing of the orchestra was the haunting wordless chorus provided by 95 singers from the Singapore Symphony Chorus and Youth Choir (Eudenice Palaruan, Choral Director). 

Without a doubt, this was Ravel’s sexiest music ever conceived, especially trumping his over-hyped Bolero. Graf’s magisterial command of his forces was admirable, the sultry and idyllic existence of nymphs and shepherds on the mythical isle of Lesbos being close to perfectly captured. The graceful dance of hero Daphnis contrasted with the gaucheness of his rival Dorcon also made for striking contrasts. 

And who was not waiting for that most evocative depiction of Dawn? Principal flautist Jin Ta’s shone brightly, as did guest concertmaster Sulki Yu’s silky violin, before swooping choral glissandi and the full orchestra’s might in the bacchanalian Danse Generale brought the evening to a rousing and raucous conclusion.

This concert was also reviewed on Bachtrack.com:

https://bachtrack.com/review-graf-abdurainov-smyth-ravel-rachmaninov-singapore-symphony-april-2025

A GOTHIC HALLOWEEN / Singapore Symphony Chorus & Eudenice Palaruan / Review

 

A GOTHIC HALLOWEEN 

Singapore Symphony Chorus 

Eudenice Palaruan 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Sunday (27 October 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 29 October 2024 with the title "Spine-tingling music at Halloween concert".

What makes certain works of classical music scary? The human imagination is so susceptible that powers of suggestion can often hold sway. The annual Halloween Concert, part of Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s organ series, had the ideal setting in Victoria Concert Hall. 

Victoria Concert Hall was
aptly decorated for Halloween.

Its Klais pipe organ was the star, with the Introduction from French composer Leon Boellmann’s Suite Gothique performed by the Singapore Symphony Chorus’ director Eudenice Palaruan opening accounts. Loud stentorian chords and long-held resonances conveyed vibes of haunted houses and things that go bump in the dark. 

Then enter the men from Singapore Symphony Chorus, all 17 with grim expressions as those awaiting execution. Singing a brief movement from Francis Poulenc’s Four Little Prayers of Saint Francis of Assisi, led by assistant conductor Ellissa Sayampanathan, did not assuage their collective guilt. 

Johann Sebastian Bach’s infamous Toccata and Fugue in D Minor did not make an appearance, but his “Little” Fugue in G minor (BWV.578) did. This was, however, almost cheerful by comparison. More serious was De Profundis Clamavi (Out of the Depths, I Cry to You) with 18 women’s voices joining in. Its alternation of chant-like unison lines and polyphony in Latin, a dead language, sent chills down the spine. 

Low Jinhong’s celesta with its tinkling timbre accounted for the chromatic Notturno (Nocturne) by the Hungarian Bela Bartok, renowned for his creepy skin-crawling music. Interestingly, this had the same opening notes and E minor key as Robert Schumann’s Im Rhein (In The Rhine) which followed. This was a salute to Cologne’s gothic cathedral, with mixed chorus accompanied by celesta, piano (Shane Thio) and organ (Boey Jir Shin). 

The most ambitious and colourful work on show was Palaruan’s Cana, based on a Spanish term referring to a wide range of reed and pipe instruments. Here, staggered chants in unison (Veni Creator Spiritus and Santo Espiritu) were accompanied by handbells, glass harmonicas, bird whistles, khaen (bamboo pipes, played by the composer) and keyboards instruments to great effect. 

Eudenice plays the khaen (panpipes).

Back to the pipe organ, Palaruan completed Boellmann’s Suite Gothique with its soaringly sonorous Toccata. Does anybody else besides this reviewer think that the Malay words of Di Tanjung Katong could be sung to its main melody? Uncanny and bizarre. Edward Elgar’s well-known Nimrod from Enigma Variations, heard on piano and organ, was noble and imposing, but positively non-threatening. So why was it even included? 

On the other hand, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana can claim its fair share of casualties. The plain chant of Fortune Plango Vulnera (I Mourn the Wounds of Fortune) had a brutal edge to it. The exultant penultimate song Ave Formosissima (Hail, Most Beautiful One) led directly to the iconic O Fortuna, which was sung with the vehemence and bloodlust it deserved. 

Given the parlous state of world affairs today, security and good fortune are not a given. A Donald Trump re-election next week? That is the most frightening thought for this Halloween.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM 

Singapore Symphony Orchestra 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Friday (25 October 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 28 October 2024 with the title "SSO gives Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's music a full-bodied staging".

This title was just half the story, as the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s early Romantic programme led by music director Hans Graf might as well have been two separate concerts. The main event was the Singapore premiere of Felix Mendelssohn’s complete Incidental Music to William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

Those familiar with its four-movement suite would find pleasure in this fleshed out edition with spoken verses by veteran Canadian stage actress Maureen Thomas and sung vocal parts. Every word was by the Bard himself, including a totally engaging Thomas playing the impish character of Puck and breaking the fourth wall to address the audience. 

Photo: Jack Yam

Shakespeare’s English is like a foreign language here, and one wondered whether the use of projected surtitles could have enhanced its appreciation. That would, however, have detracted from the theatre-like ambience deliberately created by dimmed lighting. 

Its Overture was a miracle of teenage precociousness, its themes to be reused in the ensuing twelve movements. Mercurial and full of vivacity, this continued into the feather-light Scherzo. The voices entered with You Spotted Snakes sung ever so sweetly by sopranos Kaitlyn Kim and Giselle Lim, with women from the Singapore Symphony Chorus and Youth Choir (choral director: Eudenice Palaruan) in support. 

Subtle horns and woodwinds distinguished the Nocturne, and everybody recognised that Wedding March, so overplayed at matrimonial services. The hee-haw motif representing Bottom’s asinine transformation lit up Dance of the Clowns, and the voices returned for the final blessing Through The House Give Glimmering Light. Puck’s disclaimer of an epilogue was cheekily delivered by Thomas but no apologies were needed, as this hour and a bit was well worth enjoying again. 

The concert opened with Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto in C minor (Op.37), performed by Argentine pianist Ingrid Fliter, last seen here at the 2022 Singapore International Piano Festival. The orchestra’s opening tutti pulled no punches, and Fliter’s entry was every bit its equal. Sweeping scales were delivered with brusque immediacy and rude health, without mincing of notes or lines. 

Photo: Jack Yam

Beethoven had crossed the threshold from from Classical sensibilities to Romantic ardour without looking back. A singing tone and melting lyricism were never far away, humanising this account which matched elegance with bravura. 

The first movement’s cadenza had the intended bluster, balanced by the lovingly voiced chorale melody of the ensuing Largo slow movement. These tender feelings would soon give way to the rollicking Rondo finale that followed without break. 

Fliter’s sharp accents delineated a highly rhythmic dance, clearly relishing its boisterousness yet impossible to waltz to at this speed and intensity. Storm and stress would however turned to joie de vivre for the last pages, which romped home in cheerful C major. 

Her far quieter encore, the Andantino slow movement from Robert Schumann’s Second Sonata in G minor (Op.22), like the concerto that preceded it, was a perfect synthesis of poetry and passion.

You can read the original review of this concert that was published on Bachtrack.com: Mendelssohn and Beethoven share Singapore Symphony’s game of two halves | Bachtrack