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

FANTASIA, FAREWELLS AND FAURE / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

FANTASIA, FAREWELLS & FAURE

Singapore Symphony Orchestra 

Victoria Concert Hall, Singapore

Friday (16 September 2022)

 

This review was first published in Bachtrack on 20 September 2022 with the title "A Requiem of repose: Stephen Layton conducts Fauré in Singapore"

 

British choral conductor Stephen Layton was to have led the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and its choruses in Fauré’s Requiem in March 2020. The Covid pandemic put an end to that. Two and a half years later, with the virus now endemic, Layton finally arrived and never has there been a more appropriate time for this masterpiece to be heard. The passing of HM Queen Elizabeth II on 8 September had cast a pall around the world, but this concert held in a historic hall memorialising Queen Victoria in the former Straits Settlements colony of Singapore seemed like the most timely response.

 

Thomas Tallis’s Why fumeth in fight sung by an offstage chorus opened the evening’s music, those being the very strains quoted by Ralph Vaughan Williams in his Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis which followed without a break. Despite having just 28 string players onstage (21 in the main body and 7 standing behind), Layton coaxed from the ensemble a cathedral of sonority. Having former SSO Concertmaster Igor Yuzefovich (now with the BBC Symphony) as leader certainly helped with crafting textures of evenness and homogeneity. His own quartet of soloists, including violinist Michael Loh, violist Zhang Manchin and cellist Yu Jing, also stood out above the harmonious throng. Seldom has three choirs of strings sung with such moving intensity.

 

Still with string music, two short pieces from William Walton’s film music for Henry V lent further relevance and significance with their inclusion. In Passacaglia – Death of Falstaff, a slow throbbing pulse held sway, later giving way to the more richly harmonised Touch her soft lips and part in gentle sicilienne rhythm. There was no pretence to lugubriousness, just the regret of parting and bidding farewell.    

 

The Singapore Symphony Youth Choir (Choirmaster: Wong Lai Foon) with woodwinds, French horn and harp joined the string orchestra for Gabriel Fauré’s lilting Pavane. Has anyone actually paid attention to Robert de Montesquiou’s words, which include Les reines de nos coeurs (Queens of our hearts) and Adieu donc et bons jours aux tyrans de nos coeurs (Farewell and good days to the tyrants of our hearts)? A soothing benediction followed in Cantique de Jean Racine, with the splendid choir’s reassuring mellowness approximating voices of angels.

Photograph: Jack Yam / Singapore Symphony Orchestra

 

The concert’s centrepiece was Fauré’s Requiem, in John Rutter and Stephen Layton’s edition for soprano and alto voices, performed by the boys, girls and ladies from both the Singapore Symphony Children’s and Youth Choirs (Choirmaster: Wong Lai Foon). Sung completely from memory, this was a show of perfect deportment and discipline. Yet there was a depth of feeling from the opening Requiem aeternam, allied by vocal clarity and excellent enunciation of consonants, all through to the close.

The soloists:
Baritone Martin Ng, soprano Victoria Songwei Li
and violinist Igor Yuzefovich (behind harp)

 

Organist Isaac Lee provided steadfast support on the hall’s Klais organ, and Yuzefovich’s delightful obbligato violin solos in Sanctus and In Paradisum were the gilded edge. Two of Singapore’s finest young opera singers also had spots to shine. Baritone Martin Ng lent gravitas in Hostias and the rapturous Libera me, while London-based soprano Victoria Songwei Li’s cameo in Pie Jesu revealed a voice of rare beauty. The closing In Paradisum floated on angels’ wings, its ethereal lightness finding a perfect match in the purity of the voices. It would have been hard to find dry eyes among the audience in this requiem of repose.

Photo: Jack Yam / Singapore Symphony Orchestra

 

Star Rating: *****