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

MAHLER'S RESURRECTION / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

MAHLER'S RESURRECTION

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (24 May 2025) 

This review was first published in Bachtrack.com on 27 May 2025 with the title "A Mahler Resurrection in Singapore to remember".

Every performance of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony in Singapore is an occasion. This has never changed since its premiere here in June 1994, with Singapore Symphony Orchestra led by billionaire publishing magnate turned specialist Mahler conductor Gilbert Kaplan. Those were the claustrophobic days of packing over 250 performers onto the cramped stage of Victoria Concert Hall. Since 2003, Esplanade Concert Hall has played host to multiple Mahler Seconds, conducted by Lan Shui, Chan Tze Law and the late John Nelson. The last of these was in 2019, marking Shui’s farewell at the end of his 22-year tenure as SSO music director. 

The last Mahler Resurrection,
in January 2019, marking Lan Shui's farewell.

A pair of Resurrections closed 2024-25, penultimate season for present music director Hans Graf. Graf will be remembered for overseeing the difficult pandemic years and transforming the orchestra into a very convincing vehicle for the symphonies of Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn. In epic canvasses such as this Mahler behemoth, he is a master of breadth and scale. At 82 minutes, it was neither the swiftest of readings, nor the most protracted. It was just nice. 

Nice does not begin to describe the meticulous thought and care for detail and effect invested. There was no showboating, like conducting without a score, and there was no doubt who was fully in control. The declamatory opening over string tremolos for the first movement’s funeral rites (an earlier single-movement with the same music was titled Todtenfeier) was stirring, even arresting but not overdone. The sense of tragedy was not projected in-your-face but gradually built up over the movement’s course. The vista of pastoral bliss and alpine meadows in quieter bits would be subverted by the inexorable march to come, and the pay-off was well worth the wait. 

The five-minute pause between the first two movements was not observed, just barely a minute to allow latecomers to settle in their seats before the Andante moderato’s graceful Ländler lilt. Here was the only respite in the symphony’s troubled trudge from death to life, with a delightful interplay of strings in counter-melodies. The final run of the main theme with plucked strings (held like lutes or guitars) seemed like a nod to another Viennese master’s Pizzicato Polka. 

No Mahler symphony would be complete without a movement examining the morbid or macabre, and the Scherzo quoting his Wunderhorn lied Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredikt (Saint Anthony of Padua’s Sermon to the Fishes) served as that ponder on the futility of life. The rhythm established by the timpanis, punctuated by rustling ruthe (bundle of rods tapping a bass drum’s frame), over which a slithering melody on the strings held sway. The shriek of anguish at its end (echoing the First Symphony’s “cry from the wounded heart”) foretold the tumult to come. 

The fourth movement’s orchestration of another Wunderhorn song Urlicht (Primal Light) ushered in the beautifully mellow voice of mezzo-soprano Tanja Ariane Baumgartner. Her utterance of Ich bin von Gott und will wieder zu Gott (I am from God and would return to God) provided the reassurance before the final movement’s life and death struggles. 

Breathtaking might just summarise the symphony’s last half-hour, its magnificent brass chorales, pitched battles with offstage brass and percussion, and choral contributions. Friedrich Klopstock’s Die Auferstehung (The Resurrection) was intoned with all singers seated, and soprano Maria Bengtsson’s pristine voice wafting ethereally above a group of sixteen sopranos was a moment to remember. 

Then the 186 singers of the Singapore Symphony Chorus, Singapore Symphony Youth Choir and Symphonia Choralis (Eudenice Palaruan, Wong Lai Foon and Chong Wai Lun, choral directors) got on their feet, bringing the symphony – and occasion – to a triumphant close.

Star rating: *****

Here is the review on Bachtrack.com:

A Mahler Resurrection to remember 

in Singapore

To relive the last bits of the concert:

The final moments of Mahler's Resurrection Symphony

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

GLORIA! / Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Children and Youth Choirs / Review

  

GLORIA

Singapore Symphony Orchestra 

Singapore Symphony 

Children & Youth Choirs 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Friday (29 November 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 2 December 2024 with the title "Festive vibes with Vivaldi at SSO's choral concert".

Eminent British choral conductor Stephen Layton returned to lead the Singapore Symphony Children’s and Youth Choirs, which have been well-trained by chorusmaster Wong Lai Foon. The 50 children sang completely from memory, first in the processional Hodie In Natus Est from Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols (1942), smartly arriving on stage where accompanying harpist Gulnara Mashurova was waiting. 

Photo: Yoricko Liu

Thus began a most impressive performance where unison passages had a silky evenness and the tricky counterpoint of Wolcum Yole! were mastered with aplomb. Creating a magical feel were the echoing effects in This Little Babe and Deo Gracias while sopranos Ng Yi Poh, Isabelle Ho and Emily Tan, selected from the choir, shone in the movements with solos. 

The Recession saw all the singers, harpist and conductor troop off, leaving the strange sight of an audience enthusiastically applauding an empty stage. 

Just as enjoyable was the Singapore premiere of Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Lapsimessu (A Children’s Mass, 1973), where its a cappella Kyrie, Gloria and Agnus Dei movements were followed by chromatic string interludes. The soprano voice of Melina Leong lit up the busy Gloria while the starkly beautiful final Alleluja united both choir and strings for the first time. 

Between these accessible 20th century choral works was Tomaso Albinoni’s popular Adagio in G minor for organ and strings, now known to be a 1950s creation by Remo Giazotto using retrieved old manuscripts. Eudenice Palaruan on Victoria Concert Hall’s Klais organ and concertmaster Kevin Lin’s violin solos provided the fancy trimmings. 

While the 36-strong Singapore Symphony Youth Choir did not sing from memory, its appearance in the concert’s second half was no less vital. There cannot be movements more sublime than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Laudate Dominum from Vesperae Solennes de Confessore (K.339), where soprano Carine Tan’s lovely aria was backed by lilting strings, and the choir entering with Gloria Patri. Johann Sebastian Bach’s Jesu, Joy Of Man’s Desiring, his most famous cantata movement, was taken rather briskly, somewhat diminishing its fabled appeal. 

The main draw was Antonio Vivaldi’s Gloria in D major (RV.589), celebratory for its exultant joy, amply displayed by all on stage. Balanced by a sense of mystery, notably in the B minor key movements such as the fugal In Terra Pax, this work revealed the true meaning of the season. 

The opening Gloria In Excelsis Deo and later Quoniam Tu Solus Sanctus were radiant, and sopranos Giselle Lim and Janelle Tan displayed much clarity in the lively Laudamus Te. In Domine Deus, Rex Coelestis, soprano Jasmine Towndrow and Rachel Walker’s oboe made for some memorable moments. 

It was counter-tenor Zachary Lim who stole the show, a portrait of confidence in Domine Deus, Agnus Dei and Qui Sedes. While this very impressive choral showcase was not marketed as a Christmas concert, it certainly felt like one.

Chorusmaster extraordinaire Wong Lai Foon.

A review of this concert as published 

on Bachtrack.com:

Stephen Layton makes Christmas come early in Singapore