HANS GRAF FAREWELL SERIES: MYSTERE DE L'INSTANT / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

HANS GRAF FAREWELL SERIES:

MYSTERE DE L’INSTANT

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Victoria Concert Hall

Friday (15 May 2026)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 18 May 2026 with the title "Conductor Hans Graf tests virtuosity of musicians with French programme of avant-garde and fun fare".

The second concert programme of Singapore Symphony Orchestra music director Hans Graf’s Farewell Series was an all-French affair. Although well-known for his interpretation of Austro-German and Central European repertoire, his sympathy for modern French music extended to two albums of orchestral music by 20th century master Henri Dutilleux (1916-2013).

Dutilleux’s Mystere de l’instant (Mystery of the Moment), composed as recently as 1989, received its first Singapore performance. Scored for strings, cimbalom (dulcimer) and percussion, its rarefied palette of shades and dissonances was a revelation all through ten short but volatile movements.

All form of string techniques encapsulated in 24 independent parts were experimented, while Patrick Ngo’s yangqin (doubling as cimbalom), Mario Choo’s percussion and Christian Schioler’s timpani were used sparingly but strategically. Graf was putting to the test the virtuosity of his players, succeeding admirably while also opening the ears of listeners unaccustomed to the avant-garde.

The rest of the concert offered much easier listening in the form of lollipops. Two showpieces for violin highlighted the uncommon prowess of young Salzburg-based Chinese violinist He Ziyu. Opening with Camille Saint-Saens’s popular Introduction & Rondo Capriccioso, he exhibited a singing tone and spot-on intonation.

Arguably more challenging was Maurice Ravel’s Tzigane, a gypsy rhapsody that opens with an extended solo of immense difficulty, leading to an unbuttoned dance which gave a new meaning to gay abandon. The natural ease at which he negotiated the music’s myriad twists and turns was further highlighted in his encore, Ukraine-born violin virtuoso Nathan Milstein’s Paganiniana, a fiendish mash-up of Nicolo Paganini’s Caprices with the infamous No.24 as a starting point.

The celebration of miraculous youth continued into the concert’s second half with Singapore’s most prominent classical saxophonist Samuel Phua in Darius Milhaud’s Scaramouche. Originally conceived for two pianos, this orchestral version delighted in its sheer busyness, with the opening movement pitting sax against the forces of some implacable big band.

His voice finally came to the fore in the slow movement, a creamily-tone romance turned bluesy by discreet pairs of trumpets and trombones, which sounded even better than the original. The finale was a Brazilian samba with the irrepressible spirit of a Mardi Gras in Rio. Speaking of festivals, his encore of local composer Wang Chenwei’s Thaipusam, originally for violin solo, swung like cool Carnatic jazz.

Despite its diminutive title, Francis Poulenc’s four-movement Sinfonietta (1948) is a major 30-minute work in four movements which exceeded the lengths of most Mozart symphonies. Conceived in neoclassical style with influences by Igor Stravinsky and the cabaret, the line between popular and serious music became blurred beyond recognition.

Wit and humour abounded in its pages, captured with requisite verve by Graf and his charges. The scherzo-like second movement relived the jive of the earlier Milhaud (both composers were part of a Parisian clique called Les Six), while the slow movement lilted with the gentle grace of a baroque-era dance. It was left in the Mozartian finale to pull out all stops for a delightful conclusion of an intriguing but enjoyable programme.

All photos by Yoricko Liu, 

courtesy of Singapore Symphony Orchestra

CHLOE CHUA & HE ZIYU / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

CHLOE CHUA & HE ZIYU

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Thursday (27 July 2023) 

   

This review was published in Bachtrack on 30 July 2023 with the title "Sterling showcase of Mozart and Richard Strauss by the Singapore Symphony".

 

It is no secret that Hans Graf, Music Director of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, has been honing talents for the future of classical music. The appointment of 16-year-old violinist Chloe Chua as the orchestra’s Artist-in-Residence for 2023/2004 was a case in point, as was his championship of 24-year-old Chinese violinist Ziyu He, now a regular in Singapore. Both were first prizewinners at the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists (2018 and 2016 respectively) and have also recorded Mozart with the orchestra.

 

The evening’s soloistic showpiece was Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E flat major (K.364), without doubt his greatest concerto for violin. An intimate sense of chamber music was established from the outset, with the orchestra kept on a firm leash such that the opening E flat major chords in the Allegro maestoso sounded politely voiced rather than hammered out. This paved the way for the soloists’ silky smooth unison entry. Chua’s violin and He’s viola are a well-matched pair, and despite their distant placements on either side of conductor Graf, they blended well together.

 

Sweetness of tone compensated for a deliberate repudiation of forceful projection, most evident in the first movement cadenza and the sublime Andante that followed. After luxuriating in the aria-like cantabile of the slow movement, stops were pulled for the Presto finale but decorum was maintained all through to the closing bars. Restraint and maturity would prevail over youthful impetuosity. As an encore, J.S.Bach’s Two Part Invention No.8 in F major, in an arrangement for two violins with a repeat performed in double quick time, was totally delectable.

 

Watch this video of the finale from Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante:

The concerto proper was preceded by Mozart’s Overture to The Magic Flute, which also opened with E flat major chords. Far more portentous this time around, it was later relieved by a delightful play of counterpoint, underlining the opera’s overt comedy and covert Masonic messages.  

 

The concert’s true highlight was Richard Strauss’ tone poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life), composed in 1898 and his most self-indulgent work. The German was just 34 and had a half-century more to live, yet this six-part monolith resounded with a definitive finality as to be hubristic. 

Opening in a plethora of sound with pedal-points pegged firmly in E flat major (that key again), the Hero’s grandiose visions were well characterised. Leaving little to the imagination, Strauss had cast himself as the striding autobiographical Hero. His Adversaries were, by contrast, snivelling and rodent-like, represented by squeaks and squeals from woodwinds and brassy grunts. 

His Companion was lovingly personified in guest concertmaster David Coucheron’s excellent violin solo, almost a concerto movement of its own. This was his portrait of Frau Strauss, formidable soprano Pauline de Ahna, who was both tender yet complex, but ultimately inscrutable.  

The Hero, his Companion
and their son.

 

A trio of offstage trumpets signalled the call to Battle, an almighty struggle led by the snaredrum’s martial beat. Here, as in the work’s opening, the volume generated at its shattering climax all but raised the roof. In The Hero’s Works of Peace, quotes from earlier tone poems appear fleetingly, notably Don Juan and Till Eulenspiegel, Straussian heroes and anti-heroes both. 

For this hagiography to wind down, what better than a mellow cor anglais and solo violin to seek a peaceable resolution? Finally returning to the warm embrace of E flat major, this outing worked because of Graf’s close to perfectly paced direction, without letting the fine details get in the way of the flowing narrative. For this, he and his orchestra were roundly applauded.    

 

Star Rating: ****

Watch this video of SSO's performance of Ein Heldenleben:

WINDS ABOVE THE SEA - HANS GRAF & HE ZIYU / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

WINDS ABOVE THE SEA

- HANS GRAF AND HE ZIYU

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Friday (14 April 2023), 7.30 pm

This review was published in The Straits Times on 17 April 2023 with the title "Pin-point clarity from violinist He Ziyu".

 

Despite its rather daft title, this concert uniting the music of Frenchman Claude Debussy (1862-1918) and Russian Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) generated an unusual synergy. The older composer had much praise for his younger colleague, and after the death of Debussy, Stravinsky composed his Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1920) in memory of him.

Debussy & Stravinsky
Photo by Erik Satie

 

This 10-minute-long single movement work was not an actual symphony, but used the Latin root words “sym” and “phonos” to mean “sounding together”. Its crunching dissonances and acerbic idiom were influenced by Russian folk music where simple melody and rustic rhythm were united, with the spirit of Stravinsky’s earlier epoch-making ballet The Rite Of Spring looming in the background. The 23 woodwind and brass players formed a taut and cohesive unit under music director Hans Graf, the end result being much less forbidding than one expected. Debussy would have approved.

 

Also written during Stravinsky’s neoclassical phase was his only Violin Concerto (1931), which unusually had four movements. Resembling a baroque concerto grosso and Bach cantata in parts, its spirit was well-captured by young Chinese violinist He Ziyu. He nailed its opening “motto” chord (one uniting all movements) with confidence and exhibited pin-point clarity in the fast and angular outer movements, a Toccata and Capriccio respectively.

 

Despite the work’s astringent idiom, his plain-speaking yet sweet violin tone held up well for the two central Arias. Without the rhythmic strait-jacket, his instrument was allowed to freely emote, which was voiced with neither affectation nor idiosyncracy. Cheered on by an audience marvelling at how he made such thorny music sound easy, his encore was a totally apt one. The slow movement from Bach’s unaccompanied Sonata No.2, showed that the two composers being perfect bed-fellows.

 

The concert’s second half belonged to Debussy’s La Mer (1903), three symphonic sketches of the sea. This was a specialty of the Singapore Symphony, having recorded it to much success under its previous music director Shui Lan on the Bis label. If anything, this live version under present director Graf sounded even more vivid.

 

An immediacy was established in From Dawn To Noon On The Sea, over a ceaseless throbbing rhythm where mellow strings and guest concertmaster Igor Yuzefovich’s violin provided a gilded lining. Gentle woodwinds, plangent brass and shimmering percussion all melded into this evocative sound canvas which culminated with a majestic tidal roar at the movement’s close.

 

Play Of Waves, the scherzo-like central movement, became a ballet coloured by the tinkling of pitched percussion. The full wrath of the ocean came to fruition in Dialogue Of The Wind And The Sea, with Jon Paul Dante’s trumpet leading the charge. Reliving the experience of storm clouds and billowing waves, it was the frisson of excitement and the sense of being on the edge which made this performance a truly memorable experience.

 

My review of the same concert on Backtrack may be found here:

Singapore Symphony proves that Debussy and Stravinsky make good partners | Bachtrack

BEETHOVEN, 1806 / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

BEETHOVEN, 1806

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Friday (21 January 2022)

This review was first published on Bachtrack on 24 January with the title "Major Beethoven makes a welcome return to Singapore". 

Concert life in Singapore has been inching its way to normality over the past few months. Audience and ensemble sizes are still restricted by social distancing rules, but concert programmes are reverting to their usual lengths. Just last week, the Singapore Symphony led by chief conductor Hans Graf performed a two-hour long concert without intermission, showcasing Schumann’s Piano Concerto (with Herbert Schuch) and two Mozart symphonies. This evening, two major Beethoven works were on the cards.

 

Robert Schumann’s description of Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony being the slender Grecian maiden between two Nordic giants was apt. Its quiet opening built upon a long-held pedal point on B flat, over which a motif (incidentally shared by the opening of the Fifth) is etched, was delivered with full restraint and total control. Despite being polar opposite of the Eroica and the Fifth, the approach Hans Graf took seemed to point to the future of the symphony form. In those early minutes, thoughts of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique and Mahler’s First came to mind albeit fleetingly,

 

The ensuing Allegro was no mere fast and loud outburst, but one of swift lightness, distinguished by lithe textures and clarity of playing. The slow movement continued along this vein, gradually building up in volume and intensity like a series of waves. Humour ruled in the Scherzo and Trio movement, where the deliberate impression of ungainliness was contrasted by courtliness. What impressed most was the finale, its perpetual motion of rapid tarantella rhythm delivered with a crispness and precision that seemed scarcely possible. This Grecian maiden can certainly fly.

Hans Graf demonstrates the four
timpani taps in Beethoven's Violin Concerto.

      

In lieu of an intermission, conductor Graf gave a short preamble on Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, demonstrating the four timpani taps that opened the work and describing that as its DNA. The monumental work, he assured, was to be pivotal in the history of violin concerto writing. It has been ages since this concerto was last heard in Singapore, and young Chinese violinist He Ziyu, student of the Mozarteum University Salzburg, rose to the occasion. 

 

Possessing the maturity and poise belying his twenty-two years, he carved out a rock solid reading characterised by clean and clear tone, allied with impeccable intonation. His entry was confident, and built on from there. The orchestra’s partnership was discreet, and even in the development section’s darker-hued pages, He weathered the storms with steadfastness and fortitude. Even the Romanticised and frankly outsized cadenza by Fritz Kreisler held no terrors for the young man.

 

The slow movement seemed like the model of chaste virtue, its prayer-like subject upheld by violin playing in the highest registers. He’s fine control held sway even when it seemed most uncomfortable to do so, and the Rondo finale’s romp provided just the release. Here, earlier trials and tribulations were cast away in a show of joy and jubilation. A dance-like buoyancy was maintained from start to end, with another implausibly anachronistic cadenza (Kreisler again) adding spice to the proceedings. It nevertheless made for a suitably spectacular end to the most sublime of works.

 

Despite a prolonged clamour for an encore, none was forthcoming from the young soloist. After that close to perfect show of Beethoven, anything more would have been superfluous.        

Rating: *****

He Ziyu photographs by Aloysius Lim, with the kind courtesy of Singapore Symphony Orchestra.

MAESTRO CHOO HOEY / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

MAESTRO CHOO HOEY

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Thursday (18 April 2019)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 April 2019 with the title "Maestro Choo Hoey charms at SSO's 40th anniversary bash".

The Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s 40^th anniversary celebrations continued with a concert led by founding Music Director Choo Hoey, also the orchestra’s Conductor Emeritus. 40 years ago, the Sumatra-born, Singapore-raised and London-trained conductor helmed the orchestra’s inaugural concerts in an air of anticipation but uncertainty with regards to its long term viability.

SSO’s existence is no now longer in doubt. This was largely due to Choo’s pioneering work and hard graft, and this concert was a microcosm of his musical convictions and philosophies. A specialist of 20^th century music, he fearlessly championed composers like Stravinsky, Bartok and Shostakovich, then considered esoteric to local ears. He also introduced to Singapore young talents including the likes of Lang Lang, Jin Li and Di Wu when they were mere teenagers.

Stravinsky’s symphonic poem Song Of The Nightingale from 1919, inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s tale, ushered the evening to strains of full-blown Chinoiserie. The unrelenting busyness and apparent chaos of its opening, full of biting dissonances and complicated by snarling cross-rhythms, were well handled.

The punchy incisiveness of each beat in this ballet-like score were matched by excellent solos from flute, oboe, violin and trumpet, each representing characters in the story, including live and mechanical songbirds. Choo’s sprightly leadership, a rebuke to his 85 years, was key to the music’s inexorable sense of direction.      

He was also more than quadruple the age of the soloist for Mozart’s Violin Concerto No.4, 19-year-old Chinese prodigy He Ziyu, a student at the Salzburg Mozarteum. That the pared-down orchestra was sympathetic partner to the youngster was a given. Without mollycoddling soloists, Choo and his charges provided light and transparent accompaniment for He’s confident and bright tone to shine through.

His playing was tasteful, notwithstanding the somewhat romanticised cadenzas, and the crystalline beauty came through best in the graceful slow movement. The finale was a portrait of restraint and good teaching, with further virtuosity unveiled in his encore, Ruggiero Ricci’s quiet but freakishly difficult transcription of Tarrega’s guitar classic Memories of the Alhambra.     

Bartok’s early Orchestral Suite No.1 of 1905 will not be classed as a quintessential work by the Hungarian modernist composer. Although derivative in content and inspiration, its five movements nevertheless require a firm hand in guiding and shaping its Wagner-Straussian agenda.

The 1^st movement’s opening march was rousing and rowdy, coloured by Hungarian folk influences. Darker in mood was the 2^nd movement, characterised by a fine cor anglais solo and impassioned string playing. Also making a mark were the clarinet in the 4^th movement and violin solos by Co-Concertmaster Lynnette Seah, the orchestra’s first-ever leader in those heady 1979 evenings at Singapore Conference Hall. Rolling back the years, nostalgia and the poignancy engendered were not hard to fathom.   

More importantly, Choo got the orchestra to do what he desired, projecting a clarity and vividness that made the trite music sound relevant, even vital. That is the true measure of a maestro. 

The maestro with leader Lynnette Seah,
just like in the old days.