MOZART AND FINZI - RODOLFO BARRAEZ AND MA YUE / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

MOZART AND FINZI - 

RODOLFO BARRAEZ AND MA YUE 

Singapore Symphony Orchestra 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Friday (2 May 2025) 

This review was published in The Straits Times on 3 March 2025 with the title "SSO's principal clarinettist Ma Yue delivers beautiful performance of Finzi". 

After battling a career-threatening illness, Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s long-serving principal clarinettist of over 32 years Ma Yue made a stunning recovery to give a rare performance of English composer Gerald Finzi’s Clarinet Concerto in C minor (1949). Scored with just accompanying strings, this work eschewed all pretense to 20th century modernity, instead aligning itself with the hallowed English pastoral tradition of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Edward Elgar. 

Mellowness dominated, with Ma coaxing a smooth and velvety singing tone from its opening movement. Unspoken melancholy reflected a toll of tragedy, with the loss of three brothers and his first music teacher, all slain in the Great War. The elegiac air continued into the slow movement with muted strings and his long-breathed solo line, beautifully articulated. Despite a stirring outburst from the strings, the clarinet’s mourning would be resolute. 

The finale’s high spirits in the major key could have been a game-changer if not for a quote from the first movement, returning like a memento mori (reminder of mortality). Moved to tears by the vociferous audience response, Ma’s lovely encore of Italian composer Michele Mangani’s Pagina d’album (Album Page) with string support was no less poignant. 

The concerto, not played by the orchestra since 1983, was flanked by two mature symphonies by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. These were conducted from memory and without baton by SSO’s young and dynamic Venezuelan associate conductor Rodolfo Barraez. 

Symphony No.35 in D major (K.385), nicknamed the Haffner Symphony, opened the evening with invigorating martial strains. This was clearly a reading making no concession to the lithe-sounding period instrument movement, with its full and unabashedly whole-hearted sonority. Yet the ensemble was capable of delivering fine nuances, not least in the contrasting second subject and the genteel slow movement. 

While the Menuetto possessed heft, balanced by a gentle lilt in its Trio section, the Presto finale was taken at its word. Its passion and tempestuousness would have counted for nothing if not for accomplished playing at such high speeds. 

Closing the concert was Symphony No.39 in E flat major (K.543), the most genial third of Mozart’s final symphonic trilogy. Imposing E flat major chords, looking ahead to Ludwig van Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, opened the work. The ensuing Allegro could not have been more engaging. In the same vein, the slow movement’s conversations between the instruments, first between the violins, and later the woodwinds and strings would be a defining feature. 

As with the earlier symphony, the third movement’s Menuetto was full of bluster, contrasted by the Trio’s lovely clarinet duet, helmed by Ma’s colleagues Li Xin and Tang Xiaoping. The finale was mercurial, with exhilarating strings leading, answered by chirpy woodwinds, and backed by a very busy pair of French horns. 

Mozart’s symphonies used to be on the undercards of SSO concerts, but thanks to inspired programming and oversight, this slight has now become something of the past.

This concert was also reviewed in Bachtrack.com:

Mostly Mozart and Finzi make a euphonious coupling in Singapore

SINGAPORE CLARINET FESTIVAL GALA CONCERT / Review

SINGAPORE CLARINET FESTIVAL 

GALA CONCERT

The Chamber, The Arts House

Monday (30 November 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 2 December 2015 with the title "Delightful sounds from young and old".

The Singapore Clarinet Festival took place over two days at The Arts House, bringing together the nation's small but dedicated community of clarinet players in instrumental workshops, competition and concert. It culminated with a concert demonstrating that musical talent abounds, especially when it involves youthful and enthusiastic souls.

Both adjectives might not be used to describe the clarinet quartet from Singapore Symphony Orchestra. The foursome of Ma Yue, Tang Xiao Ping, Yoko Liu and Li Xin represent the cream of the profession, all of whom are highly-respected teachers in local music institutions. Their intonation, balance and ensemble were immaculate in the delivery of Harry Staplers' Clownery and Patrick Hiketick's Three Latin Dances.

The former was a delightful scherzo of in-jokes and cliches to be found in fairground and popular music, while the latter played on familiar idioms and melodies of Spanish and South American dances. Their first encore continued irresistibly on this thread in Zequinha de Abreu's Tico Tico No Fuba, but the atmosphere turned sombre for the second, Miao Kaiwen's arrangement of Brahms' Lullaby. Its simple melody was transformed into a solemn hymn, performed in solidarity with the bereaved people of France.

The festival's competitive segment saw the participation of 17 ensembles. The top prizewinners included Katong Convent (B Division) which performed a jazzed-up version of Scarborough Fair and CQN (A Division) which had fun in a medley of tunes from Lehar's The Merry Widow. The schoolgirls in their sky-blue uniforms showed much promise, while their more mature counterparts sounded like they could turn professional soon.

The concert's second half was performed by the Singapore Clarinet Festival Combined Choir, uniting clarinettists from top three wind orchestras: The Philharmonic Winds, Singapore Wind Symphony and West Winds. Conducted by Alan Mills, the 14-member group generated a big and warm tone, swelling to a fulsome bloom, with deep bass notes from Sean Tan's contrabass clarinet.

Vaclav Nelhybel's Chorale & Danza contrasted ceremonial pomp with more angular lines, while Jan van der Roost's Hikudim was a suite of four Israeli songs, where soulfulness alternated with cheerful vibes. The final dance relived the joy of klezmer players and the celebratory whoops of their instruments.  

The final acts belonged to French virtuoso Florent Héau, who was starry soloist in Ralph Emmanuel Lim's arrangement of Rossini's Introduction, Theme & Variations, where he was accompanied by the clarinet choir. This was the wind version of the bel canto opera tradition that flourished in the early 19^th century. Beauty of line and extraordinary agility was central to his imperious showing, where the human voice was not just simulated but also surpassed.

Loud cheers yielded two encores, a virtuosic solo klezmer number and the popular song Dream A Little Dream Of Me, where Héau upped the ante by accompanying his playing with an impromptu tap dance of his own. One can already see the headline: where hot lips met twinkle-toes.

All photographs by the kind permission of Singapore Clarinet Festival.

SSO 35TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT / Review

35^TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (18 January 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 January 2014 with the title "SSO built by Choo Hoey sizzles".

In the summer of 1996, Choo Hoey gave his final concert as Music Director of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra conducting Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life). Elevated to Conductor Emeritus, he was given the honour of helming the orchestra’s 35^th Anniversary Concert, with Strauss’s music again on the menu.

The much shorter tone poem Don Juan provided a sizzling opener. One could be forgiven for not expecting the 80-year-old maestro to maintain such a sprightly gait, mount the podium with a spring that suggests someone a quarter of his age. He directed with broad strokes from a slight torso, animated as before but gone were the fidgety, spasmodic and sometimes violent gestures from his earlier years. As always, Choo is a veritable dynamo, one who does not rest until he gets he wants.

What we the audience got was a youthful account of a warhorse, with brass and strings in superb form, the eponymous rake of legend striding high with his string of conquests and amours. The quartet of French horns in the big melody was a pride to behold, but it was the more tender moments that held sway: Lynnette Seah’s short violin solo, and the delightful duet between oboist Pan Yun and clarinettist Li Xin.

Another woodwind pairing starred in the Duet Concertino from Strauss’s last years. It was Choo who brought clarinettist Ma Yue and bassoonist Zhang Jin Min, both principals (above), to Singapore. In gratitude, they reciprocated in this concerto with playing of cohesiveness and delicacy, each soloist complimenting the other with alternating lyricism and jocularity. A chamber-sized ensemble supported with light textures that took care not to overwhelm.

Choo conducted Dvorak’s Eighth Symphony in his last concert here in 2009, and this time the Bohemian composer’s Ninth Symphony received an airing. If anything, this performance was even better. Clearly his charges were all out to make his day as the playing resonated with vim and vigour. 

Decades ago, this orchestra would shine mostly in the faster and louder movements, with slow movements being exposed for its weaknesses. Not so the SSO of today, as the famous Largo produced some of the most refined playing. Elaine Yeo’s cor anglais was a leading light, but it was also difficult to ignore the beautiful hushed quality of muted violins, and passages gently accompanied by bass pizzicatos.

The Scherzo’s rambunctious Slavonic dance and rousing finale rousing impressively closed the concert, which was greeted by a spontaneous and prolonged standing ovation. Once he stepped off the podium, Choo never went back up, instead acknowledging his every charge from the floor. 

Whenever you hear the SSO outdo itself again, remember well that this was the house that Choo Hoey built.

Once he got off the podium, Maestro Choo Hoey
did not get back on it to take his bows.

The maestro with long-time friends,
Principal Second Violins Zhang Zhen Shan,
duo pianists Low Shao Suan and Shao Ying,
and SSO Board member Prof Lim Seh Chun.

All photographs by the kind permission of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.