If you love the symphonies of Gustav Mahler, and do not care so much about piano music, here is a concert not to miss! Singapore's Mahler symphony specialist, the Orchestra of the Music Makers (OMM) will present its first performance of Mahler's epic and tragic Sixth Symphony led by renowned Taiwanese conductor Lu Shao-Chia. The concert also features Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms with the Voices of Singapore (Chong Wai Lun, Chorus Master).
This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 April 2018 with the title "Thrilling ride from start to finish".
Here
was another single-symphony concert, and no surprise about the composer: Gustav
Mahler (1860-1911). The Singapore Symphony Orchestra had opened the year with
Mahler's Seventh Symphony led by Shui Lan, and this evening saw Mahler's
Sixth Symphony directed by eminent Israeli conductor Eliahu Inbal.
If
his name sounded familiar, that was because at his last SSO concert in March
2015, the performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony was dedicated to the
memory of Lee Kuan Yew. Poignancy, loss and regret were expressed in the music,
and tonight’s symphony, sometimes known as “The Tragic”, was to ratchet
up emotions many more notches.
Despite
being 82 this year, Inbal has the sprightly steps of one half his age. This was
evident in the 1st movement's funeral match, not a slow trudge like in
earlier symphonies but one taken at a vehement and relentless beat. Percussion
including two timpanists and snare drum led the urgently martial way,
contrasted by a pristine woodwind chorale and sweeping “love theme” sung by
strings.
This
made for a volatile clash, of impending tragedy tempered by love, all through
the opening movement's invigorating half-hour. Finer details were also
savoured, including a quiet section with splendid solos from Han Chang Chou's
French horn and Concertmaster Igor Yuzefovich's violin. They were exemplary,
and how they also marshalled their respective sections (the eight French horns
were simply magnificent) at many key points in the symphony.
The
obsessive, menacing pulse continued into the Scherzo, with short
departures into a waltz-like rhythm, as if reliving some demented dancing. Here
the raucousness and rawness were deliberate, a backward glance at the Austrian
composer's more rustic and earthy Bohemian roots.
This “ugliness” was balanced
by some of the most refined playing in the tender and lyrical slow movement,
building to a passionate climax, with four pairs of cowbells joining the fray.
Its brevity, although regrettable, was in preparation for the lengthy and
tumultuous finale, forming almost a mirror image of the symphony's opening.
Mahler and his daughters in 1905.
Inbal's
seemingly endless energy and resources ensured a thrilling ride from uplifting
opening to desperate end. The listener being led through an emotional wringer, would
have expected final victory and redemption as denouement. In this symphony,
however, exhilaration was short-lived, felled by strategically placed sledgehammer
blows.
Associate
principal percussionist Mark Suter was given the honour of delivering the coup
de grace, and his execution was perfect – how the sonorous wooden crate
literally bounced! Mahler superstitiously removed the third hammer blow, but
the end result would not alter Destiny. He and a daughter would be dead within
a few years.
The
sheer visceral response afforded by orchestra and conductor was reflected by
the audience. There was silence followed by vociferous applause. This was music
to induce heart attacks, perhaps the very reason why people still sit through
85-minute “live” symphonies in preference to the comfort of playing records at
home.
The magnificent French horn section.
Eliahu Inbal thanks Igor Yuzefovich and Zhang Manchin.
This review was published in The Straits Times on 8 January 2017 with the title "Myriad emotions felt in one symphony".
Concerts
featuring a single symphony as the only work are now becoming more common with
the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. This is especially so when programming
symphonies by Gustav Mahler as more than half of his ten symphonies run in
excess of 75 minutes. The Austrian composer once proclaimed, “A symphony is
like a world, it must embrace everything,” and so it was with SSO's fourth performance
of his Seventh Symphony.
Considered
the most enigmatic and least accessible symphony of the canon, the Seventh
is also the most problematic in terms of interpretation. Its sheer profusion of
themes, ideas, emotions, moods, philosophies and instrumental quirks often
leave listener confused as to the composer's thoughts and intentions. Unlike
his symphonies which end with tragedy (No.6), resignation (No.9),
bliss (No.4), or triumph (most of the others), the messages sent in the
five movements of the Seventh can be seen as mixed or equivocal.
Music
Director Shui Lan's vision seemed to to follow Mahler's famous dictum, that is
to be all-encompassing. The lugubrious 1st movement opened unusually with the
call of the tenor horn, here heard on Marques Young's euphonium, with the pace
being a funereal trudge. That was contrasted with a lyrical and yearning second
theme first heard on the strings, with the transitions in between being most
subtly handled.
Even
the first big orchestral climax was patiently built up, and it crept up almost
surreptitiously. This made the next climax seem all the more mighty, and more
vehement. That surely is the art of interpreting, following close scrutiny and
study of the score's architecture, not merely notes and notations.
Percussion principal Jonathan Fox tending to the slung cow-bells.
The
three central movements were also unusual as it included two designated as Nachtmusik
(Night Music) with a Scherzo filled with dark, hissing
grotesquerie in between. Here Mahler's peculiar scoring included slung
cowbells, mandolin and guitar, besides a battery of assorted percussion, almost
the proverbial kitchen sink.
More
importantly, the performance brought out the vulgar, homespun country
inspiration of the 2nd movement and the sickly sweet sentimentality
of the 4th movement. The intervening Scherzo abounded with
spectral sound effects, nocturnal noises, which just about disguised a
parodistic waltz, arguably Mahler's weirdest symphonic movement.
All
these earthy qualities, typical of and true to the composer's checkered life
experiences, were thrown into this mix.
Outstanding were the solo contributions of French horn principals Jakob Keiding
(guesting for the indisposed Han Chang Chou) and Jamie Hersch, trumpet
principal Jon Dante, and the brass and woodwind sections as a whole.
The
finale, combining Rondo and sonata form in a single movement, provided
the symphony the levity it cried out for. To this end, Shui and his charges
delivered with briskness and much
aplomb. Its secondary themes were tossed around with playful and almost
whimsical abandon before a drive to the symphony's thrilling close. It was a
way of saying, “Life's a pain, but have fun anyway”.
With a wave of the hand, Music Director Shui Lan bids farewell.
This review was published in The Straits Times on 5 October 2015 with the title "Getting the most from Mahler".
One of the great “What ifs?” in musical
history is “What if Gustav Mahler did not die prematurely at the age of 51 in
1911?” His nine completed symphonies represented the last ebbing breath of
Romanticism as music headed into an uncertain future in Second Viennese School
atonalism and Stravinsky's The Rite Of Spring of 1913. His Tenth
Symphony was left unfinished with only the opening Adagio movement
fully scored.
Yet in that Adagio Mahler was
already moving in new and different directions. Many have attempted to complete
the work based on Mahler's short score, sketches and inscribed notes, but it is
British musicologist Deryck Cooke's performing version that is the most often
performed. This evening, Danish conductor Thomas Dausgaard helmed the Singapore
Symphony Orchestra in its local premiere.
Local Mahlerites will remember Shui Lan
leading the Clinton Carpenter version of the Tenth in 2009, a far denser
and more opulent work than Cooke's. Other than the Adagio, neither is
true Mahler but the world is poorer for not having a glimpse of what the
Bohemian composer had envisaged before his untimely demise. Under Dausgaard,
whose animated movements on the podium resembled a ballet, the Adagio
was given broad and expansive vistas to unfold. One could hear a pin drop when
violas opened accounts with an evenness of sonority that was hard to match.
It was a little discomfiting for the
brass in the initial entries but it got better very quickly, settling down to a
superb performance that highlighted Mahler's obsession with sound. How more
adventurous and dissonant he had become was epitomised by that screaming
nine-note chord with Jon Paul Dante's trumpet hitting the high A and holding on
with fully bared talons. That moment was reached with a gradual build-up that
was just breathtaking.
The three fast middle movements took the
form of two Scherzos sandwiching the brief and grotesque Purgatorio.
Cooke's lighter orchestration meant that it was more easy-going on the ears
than the Carpenter version. The Scherzos were contrasting, a bucolic and
somewhat ungainly country dance facing off with a more urbane and sinister
Viennese waltz. These mirrored Mahler's past lives and in between, harbingers
of death where the chirping woodwinds and murmuring brass shone.
The most moving pages came in the finale,
a funeral procession turned into a sublime declaration of love from the composer
to his estranged wife. Mark Suter's earthshaking bass drum thuds and Hidehiro
Fujita's tuba grabbed the listener by the lapels, but it was Jin Ta's silvery
flute solo that soothed the nerves. In the development, concertmaster Igor
Yuzefovich and viola principal Zhang Manchin's fine solos paved the way to the
inevitable reprise of the Adagio's primal scream.
This time around, the earlier agonising
had dissipated, replaced by a fuzzy warmth from the lovely strings that
permeated all through to the final note. The half-minute's silence that lapsed
before the storm of applause that erupted was just as satisfying. With this
show of appreciation and maturity, the audience that braved the haze to attend
this one-work-only concert had clearly caught the message.
Maestros meet: Thomas Dausgaard with old friend Lim Yau. Both conductors had attended the same conducting course at Siena under the famous pedagogue Franco Ferrara.
MAHLER 5 Orchestra of the Music Makers Esplanade Concert Hall Friday (6 January 2012)
An edited version of this review was published in The Straits Times on 9 January 2011 with the title "Marvellous Mahler".
The first orchestral concert of the year was given not by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra but its young amateur counterpart, the Orchestra of the Music Makers (OMM). To be even more specific, the first notes to be heard came from the Combined Schools String Camp Orchestra, an even younger group mentored by members of OMM.
As Mahler was the theme carried over from last year’s centenary festivities, Mahler’s own arrangements of Bach’s orchestral music opened the show. There was something familiar yet strangely unfamiliar about the music. It was Bach for sure, a suite of popular movements from the Second and Third Orchestral Suites. However the elephantine scoring for massed strings, encumbered with pompous organ chords and timpani, made the music overblown and bloated.
It was however the fine string sound and expert pacing coaxed by conductor Chan Tze Law that saved the work. Emphatic yet subtle, they allowed flautist Cheryl Lim’s virtuosity to shine through the thick molasses for the Rondeau and Badinerie. The famous Air on G String was given a suitably luxuriant feel, but authenticity was probably the last thing on their minds.
Mahler’s Fifth Symphony was however the real thing. Nuttapong Veerapun’s superb trumpet solo commanded the stage for the funeral march, and soon the procession went underway. As with OMM’s earlier performances of Mahler’s First and Second Symphonies performances in 2010, this reading was characterised by force of will and an overall sweep that was totally captivating. There were bum notes here and there, committed in the heat of the moment, but that mattered little in the grand scheme of things.
The tumultuous second movement came like the whirlwind, with a shuddering force which contrasted wildly with the intoxicating Ländler country dance of the central third movement. In the latter, Alan Kartik’s French horn was a pillar of strength, holding sway steadfastly as the world revolved around its axis.
The much-vaunted Adagietto provided an oasis of beauty from strings and harp, and resisted the temptation of becoming sappy and sentimental. The finale, thick with intricate counterpoint, flagged a little in tempo but that provided an opportunity for much of the details usually glanced over to be better savoured. The final rush of adrenaline to its breathtaking conclusion was however one to be remembered. Is Singapore becoming a city of Mahler orchestras? Better believe it!
The first orchestral concert of the new year is not given by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra but the young Orchestra of the Music Makers! Having conqured the twin peaks of Gustav Mahler's first two symphonies, it now embarks on his purely orchestral Fifth Symphony, the five movement masterpiece which includes the beautiful Adagietto orchestrated for strings and harp.
The orchestra's mission to involve the community will also be keenly felt when its string players join the Combined Schools String Ensemble to perform Mahler's orchestration of movements from Bach's Orchestral Suites. Conductor and master orchestra-builder Chan Tze Law leads and an enjoyable and stirring concert awaits!
MAHLER’S SEVENTH Singapore Symphony Orchestra Esplanade Concert Hall Friday (21 October 2011)
This review was published in The Straits Times with the title "Mahler served with joyful vehemence".
Every once in a while, a soloist cancels an appearance, but it is the rare occasion that a full work is dropped entirely from the concert. Such was the case when an indisposed Chinese mezzo-soprano Yang Jie meant that there was to be no performance of Gustav Mahler’s Songs of the Wayfarer this evening.
Given the recent successful symphony-only concerts by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, this loss was much less acutely felt. The Mahlerians in the audience would also point out that those songs were thematically linked with the First Symphony. Anyway, all this made for a more focused concert with just one work – the 75-minute long Seventh Symphony.
It was last performed by the SSO just eleven months ago, conducted by the Finnish guest conductor Osmo Vänskä to much acclaim. Music Director Shui Lan’s view, while adopting more brisk tempos, was no less valid. Its five movements, so disparate their conception, could sound disjointed, which is why it is still regarded the least approachable of Mahler’s ten symphonies.
The syncopated march-like procession of the first movement was tautly held together, with Fredi Sonderegger’s expertly hewn tenor horn solo setting the pace and tone. Both opulent and richly detailed, this account of tragedy on a massive scale swung between extremes in dynamics. Encompassing rustic and lush dreamlike sequences to shuddering climaxes, quintessential Mahler was being served up without apology.
This vehemence however unravelled to certain degree in the two Nachtmusik (Night Music) movements, which sounded diffuse at times. The unusual scoring of slung cow bells in the second movement seemed to add to the confusion, despite some fine playing and echoing on the French horns. It was the manic pacing and delightful realisation of the grotesque in the mysterious Scherzo that held the central movements together.
The rambling finale, a funhouse rather than the usual death and redemption spiel, was taken at breakneck speed and it worked. This unbridled expression of joy was gloriously uplifted by some of the best brass playing to be heard this year. There was to be no let up, and even when the orchestra stretched and strained for several measures near the very end, it was done purely for effect. Mahler without recourse for some exaggeration or hyperbole would be boring Mahler indeed.
WHY MAHLER? By Norman Lebrecht Pantheon Books / Hardcover 326 pages / $44.99 / Books Kinokuniya ****
This review was published in The Sunday Times on 2 January 2011.
From the man who wrote Who Killed Classical Music? (also titled When The Music Stops), a diatribe about the worldwide decline of Western classical music, the mere fact that this volume was even published spells a reversal of fortunes.
It was almost a hundred years ago when Austrian composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911, left) died from a rheumatic heart condition. Then one of the world’s leading orchestral conductors, he had a penchant for composing complex and interminably long symphonies, which only he would conduct.
“My time will come,” he boldly prophesied. From a curious footnote in music history, Mahler has now become the most performed of symphonic composers since Beethoven. What led to this Mahleria, or Mahler fever?
Lebrecht’s (left) book traces Mahler’s life from his native Bohemia, through journeyman years as conductor in provincial centres to the great musical capitals cities and inexorably rising ambitions. It reads like part-biography and part personal quest to explain this phenomenon.
Mahler’s symphonies have a central place in the account, and the Freudian in Lebrecht attempts to explain his compositional decisions based on traumatic childhood experiences, love life, ambivalence to religion (Mahler converted from Judaism to Catholicism for purely social reasons) and the prevalent anti-Semitism he faced.
The basis behind his famous quote of being “Thrice homeless… a Bohemian among Austrians, an Austrian among Germans, and a Jew in the world,” is often brought up. Some of the views are totally plausible, while others, such as Mahler being an animal rights advocate on account of his Fourth Symphony, is tenuous at best.
The final third is devoted to an overview of Mahler recordings, revealing a particular sympathy to Klaus Tennstedt (left), the late Eastern German conductor whose frail physical and mental health and vulnerabilities seemed to mirror Mahler’s own. His thoroughness also has space for a mention of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s recording of The Song Of The Earth.
Recommended for Mahlerites and newcomers alike.
If you like this, read: MAHLER REMEBERED By Norman Lebrecht Faber & Faber Available at Amazon.com the composer as viewed in the eyes of his contemporaries.
Dr Chang Tou Liang is a Singaporean family physician in private practice. From 2004 to 2008 he was the Artistic Director of the Singapore International Piano Festival. He has also been the classical music reviewer of The Straits Times (Singapore's national daily) since 1997. He is married to Janet, has a son Shan Ming, and keeps a household of four rescued cats.
