BIRDSONG / Musicians' Initiative / Review

 

BIRDSONG
Musicians’ Initiative
Victoria Concert Hall
Wednesday (25 October 2023)

Orchestral programming is an important part of musical presentation, and Musicians’ Initiative (formerly known as The Young Musicians Foundation Orchestra) got it spot on with this concert built around the avian theme of birds and flying critters. All credit goes to London-based Singaporean conductor Alvin Arumugam for creating this innovative, interesting yet approachable programme that truly opened ears.

 

The evening began with late Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara’s most popular orchestral work, Cantus Arcticus (1972). Also titled Concerto for birds and orchestra, it uses recorded sounds of arctic swamp birds from Northern Finland in its lush three-movement canvas. A pair of flutes, ably helmed by Carolin Ralser and Paul Huang in sinuous song, opened proceedings in The Bog, ushering in clearly audible birds on tape. A sense of awe and mystery pervaded the music, with birds being the stars while humans provided support.

 

A fine eco-acoustic balance was struck in the middle movement Melancholy with fine muted strings. It got even better in Swans Migrating where birds and instruments achieved parity. With a return of flutes and woodwinds, the music rose to a sonorous climax, with a suitably big melody to match. There has not been a performance of this glorious work since the 1990s (by Singapore Symphony Orchestra in a bird-themed concert under Lim Yau), and this served a timely reminder that good music should never be neglected.

 

The concert’s selling point had to be the ubiquitous Butterfly Lovers Concerto by Chan Gang and He Zhanhao, performed by young violinist Jocelyn Ng. Ng will be remembered as the confident soloist in Vivaldi’s Four Seasons at those gimmicky Candlelight Concerts She furthered her resume with an enthralling reading that lacked nothing of passion and poetry. Playing completely from memory, she exuded a bright, lustrous tone, and exercised good intonation throughout.

 

It is probably best to ignore the work’s melodramatic story and wallow in the music making, which had top notch support from Musicians’ Initiative principals, which reads like a young Who’s Who in Singapore classical music. Opposite Ng was cellist Tang Jia, their duets portraying the romance of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai being particularly intimate. Tang, percussionist Benjamin Boo (on drum and clappers) and harpist Fontane Liang, all of whom Singapore Chinese Orchestra musicians and principals, were joined by pianist Aya Sakou. The orchestra generated a big sound, and this performance received the loudest plaudits of the evening.

Watch the video of this performance here:

 

The second half saw the Singapore premiere of young London-based Chilean composer Anibal Vidal’s Gliding Murmuration, a 10-minute symphonic poem inspired by starlings sighted at the Channel resort of Brighton. Its still Takemitsu-like opening with brass, piano and vibraphone could easily be called murmurs, but the sound palette soon expanded with lapping waves, rumbles of thunder and a shift from grey clouds to blinding sunshine.

Its range of shades and colours, from murky to iridescent, was very well brought out by the orchestra, then closing with gentle woodwind squawks, a reminder of feathered friends within the landscape. This very interesting work was not just about birds, but rather a portrait of nature, the sea and elemental forces of geography. The best part: at no moment was one reminded of the now much-imitated and hackneyed music of Olivier Messiaen.

 

The evening closed with Stravinsky’s not often programmed Firebird Suite (1945), which at 30 minutes is lengthier than the better-known suite from 1919. Its orchestral forces are smaller but nowhere were familiar tropes from the well-loved classic compromised. The dark subterranean grind of its opening was brooding, leading to the Firebird’s magical dance, sounding more coquettish than one previously imagined. Then came a sequence of pantomimes not heard in the 1919 suite, which distended the narrative somewhat without adding so much except for the Dance of the Princesses (Scherzo) with its playful prancing about.   

 

The Khorovod (Round Dance) was sensitively handled and the Danse Infernale, always the suite’s rousing highlight, resounded with deserved trenchancy. It was not the most accurate reading, but a committed one with every player extended to the limits of their abilities. In short, it was exciting. The most beautiful moments came in the Lullaby with Kee Ruihan’s excellent bassoon solo, and the radiant beginning of the Final Hymn, lit by a gilded edge which the orchestra mustered with conductor Arumugam’s Midas touch. The crescendo generated in its final rally concluded a memorable concert on a high, likely the Musicians’ Initiative’s best in recent years. More of the same is hoped and eagerly anticipated.     

CANDLELIGHT CONCERTS: VIVALDI'S FOUR SEASONS / Review

CANDLELIGHT CONCERTS:

VIVALDI’S FOUR SEASONS

Victoria Concert Hall

Monday (22 March 2021)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 24 March 2021 with the title "Candlelit concert a gateway to classical music".

 

After months of unrelenting online advertising, the fever has arrived in Singapore. One is not referring to some variant Covid-19 strain but the much-publicised Candlelight Concerts presented by event organiser Fever that have captured the imagination of some seventy cities around the world. Are these events for real and do they live up to the media hype generated?

 

This Candlelight Concert featuring Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons began at a later-than-usual hour of 9 pm. That gave the many young people and courting couples attending more than enough time to finish their dinner. And to make their way to a Victoria Concert Hall auditorium illuminated by the fiery glow of hundreds of electronic smokeless candles placed onstage and along the aisles.

 

The obvious gimmick and selling point of the concert certainly made for an evocative and romantic setting, but what about the music? For starters, Four Seasons are the four most popular and often-performed violin concertos among the Italian composer’s five hundred or so concertos. Originally scored for a chamber-sized group of strings and harpsichord continuo, what was heard this evening was instead adapted for just four players of a string quartet.  

 

Doing the honours was Vocalise String Quartet, a free-lance quartet that has performed at weddings, corporate events and diplomatic functions. Thus, it was unsurprising that the sonority generated was not particularly voluminous, but adequate to reach the concert hall’s circle seats. A performance of the Seasons would stand or fall on the strength of the violin soloist, and on this evening, first violinist Jocelyn Ng more than delivered the goods.

 

She exhibited a solid and robust tone, good intonation and was unfazed by the pyrotechnics called for in the concertos’ fast outer movements. Vivaldi, nicknamed The Red Priest, was himself a violin virtuoso who brought a host of innovative mimicking effects into his score. The birdcalls of Spring, pelting rain in Summer, barking dogs on a hunt in Autumn, and the reassuring warmth of a fireplace in Winter, Ng did them all, and some.

 

She was well-supported by second violinist Lester Kong, violist Andrew Fung and cellist Peh Xiang Hong, and the enjoyable 45-minutes of Vivaldi passed like a flash. Fillers for the concert’s full hour included the first and most familiar movement of Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, a most apt serenade for the evening and to close, Gerardo Matos Rodriguez’s rocking tango La Cumparsita.          

 

As expected from an audience not regularly acquainted to classical concerts, there was the usual inappropriate applauding between movements and towards the end, a photo-taking spree  (encouraged by the performers) for that perfect Instagram and Facebook post. As an entry point to classical music, first-timers could have done worse, but one hopes they will take the next step by attending concerts by re:Mix, re:Sound and Red Dot Baroque, which do not need candlelight for their music to shine.