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

BEETHOVEN'S NINTH: YOUR ORCHESTRAL EXPERIENCE / Musicians' Initiative / Review

 

BEETHOVEN’S NINTH: 

YOUR CONCERT EXPERIENCE 

Musicians’ Initiative 

SOTA Concert Hall 

Saturday (7 December 2024) 

Some cultures celebrate the Christmas season with Beethoven’s Choral Symphony. Singapore is not one of these, but it is still a welcome prospect to be greeted with the Ode To Joy. Many Beethoven 9 concerts have it as the sole item on the programme, but Musicians’ Initiative led by Alvin Arumugam preceded its concert with an unusual hour-long first half with what is likely to have been three Singapore premieres. 

The ostensible theme of the concert was a journey from darkness to light, and the world desperately needs that kind of inspiration now. The music of pioneering Japanese composer, the Berlin-schooled Kosaku Yamada (1886-1965), opened the concert. His Madara No Hana (The Spotted Flower, 1913) is a short tone poem which assimilated the influences must have had during his years of study – post-Wagnerian Tristanesque harmonies, impressionist hues and spurts of Richard Straussian lyricism. With neither whiffs of sakura nor sake, it made for a pleasant atmospheric overture. 

Alvin introduces the works
in his own passionate way.

What came next was unprecedented, two double bass concertos with the excellent Atlanta-based Korean bassist Mikyung Sung. The Asian premiere of Dark with Excessive Bright (2018) by American composer Missy Mazzoli (born 1980), inspired by John Milton’s Paradise Lost, was revelatory. 

Written in a single movement, its all-string accompaniment resembled that in a baroque concerto grosso supporting Sung’s tour de force, which spanned the full gamut of bass technique. This encompassed subterranean growls, gentle caresses to wild lashings, within an idiom that was tonal and at many parts lyrical. The tintinnabuli of Arvo Pärt’s spiritual minimalism was also in evidence. Towards the end, Sung’s touching duo with the orchestra’s bass Sanche Jagatheesan made for a sublime minute or so before a quiet and gentle close. 

Far more traditional was Italian bass-virtuoso Giovanni Bottessini’s Double Bass Concerto No.2 in B minor, which had all the early Romantic virtuoso tropes – bel canto lyricism, transcendental technique and showboating for its own sake. Sung is an understated virtuoso, whose technique is wholly in service to the music. Adapting very well to both vastly diverse idioms, her intonation was always impeccable and made the unwieldy instrument sing. When a bass in its highest registers begins to resemble a cello, one is in the presence of a true master. 

The main event was Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in D minor (Op.125), popularly known as the Choral Symphony. The smallish orchestral forces employed by conductor Arumugam meant it was going to be lithe and light, much in the spirit of the period instrument movement. Heard on modern instruments, it was still a valid approach. Its opening, almost featherlight in its lift and very little vibrato used, would inform the tenor of the performance. The brisk speeds obligated very accurate playing and the orchestra obliged, the pinpoint pacing dictated by timpanist Christian Borres being a very dominant figure. 

The Scherzo was just as swift and emphatic, with woodwinds in tiptop and unimpeachable form. This conception, which worked very well in the first two movements, was becoming reminiscent of a famous recording in the catalogue, the London Classical Soloists under Roger Norrington. 

The Adagio was less immaculate, but unfolded in an unfussy and non-sentimental manner reaching a passionate climax before clocking in at just eleven minutes (Bernstein in Berlin ‘89 took over 20 minutes). With more rehearsal time, this would have been much better. 

And so to the much-awaited finale. Erupting with appropriate tumult, themes from earlier movements were relived before the An der Freude theme began to take shape. Just seven cellos and four basses meant the required heft was missing, a price to pay for the earlier litheness. Baritone John Lee was the perfect choice to voice the opening O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!, his stentorian presence a reassurance. Less impressive was tenor Raymond Lee who was virtually drowned out by the janissary band in the Turkish march episode. The quartet was soloists was completed by soprano Teng Xiang Ting and mezzo-soprano Cindy Honanta who were excellent. 

Pride of place had to go to the 74-strong Symphonia Choralis (Chong Wai Lun, chorusmaster) which was very well-disciplined and delivered the choral climaxes and tricky fugues with suitable aplomb. The unison Seid umschlungem, Millionen was particularly arresting, hair-raising in intensity but with no hair out of place. As everybody knows, this was Friedrich Schiller’s paean to the “Brotherhood of Man”, the unfettered joy displayed by orchestra, chorus and soloists evident to all who were fortunate to have attended. 

This was clearly the most impressive showing to date by Musicians’ Initiative under music director Alvin Arumugam. Their future concerts will be keenly anticipated.

Enjoy the concert here:

LEONARD BERNSTEIN'S MASS / Orchestra of the Music Makers / Review

LEONARD BERNSTEIN'S MASS

Orchestra of the Music Makers

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (2 June 2018)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 4 June 2018 with the title "Mass in a new light".

If there were a more eclectic and conflicted work of religious music than the Mass by Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), it has yet to be written. Also trust the Orchestra of Music Makers (OMM) to mark its 10^th anniversary by giving its Singapore premiere, surely a sign of wildly imaginative programming and coming of age.

It should not have been a huge surprise, this year being the Bernstein centenary, but given the monumental Aida-sized undertakings, one would be grateful this momentous affair even happened at all. For this most moving of performances, a large orchestra with electric guitars and rock drum-sets, two choruses (Symphonia Choralis and Volare Treble Singers, with 130 voices), a semi-chorus of 16 street-singers (Himig Sanghaya from Philippines) and American tenor Kevin Vortmann as the Celebrant, were led by conductor Joshua Tan.

Composed for the opening of Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Centre in 1971, the Mass was dedicated to the memory of John F. Kennedy, USA's first Roman Catholic president. A two-hour long reflection of the liturgical mass like no other, Latin and English transliterations were interspersed with texts by Stephen Schwartz (composer of Godspell and numerous Disney musicals) and few lines from Paul Simon (of Simon and Garfunkel), much bordering on provocative and irreverent.   

Initial responses were mixed and bewilderment over its possibly blasphemous content divided listeners. However viewed over a span of 47 years, it may now be regarded a child of its time, from the era of Beatles, Woodstock, Jesus Christ Superstar and the Vietnam War. The composer of West Side Story and Chichester Psalms, himself of the Jewish faith, was to craft a classic that could not have come from any other age.

The cacophony of rock singer voices in the opening Kyrie Eleison blared out through speakers were meant to be disorientating. Stability was restored in A Simple Song, the most famous number, sung with disarming earnestness and clarity by Vortmann. Faith was meant to be simple right? His problems were just beginning with his devotion assailed by questions from sceptics and naysayers.

The street-singers, each a convincing soloist, sealed the street cred for this production. Highly idiomatic voices, with no hint of Asian accents, were the Greek chorus to Vortmann's ministrations. “I believe in God, but does God believe in me?” was among plaints leading to the Celebrant's crisis of faith and ultimate meltdown. Smashing the holy sacraments, this was the equivalent of an opera's mad scene.

Vortmann's tour de force in Things Get Broken was most memorable, and credit must also go to boy soprano Mikey Robinson, almost an apprentice Celebrant with his sanity-restoring aria Sing God A Secret Song that mirrored the opening Simple Song. The life-affirming end was also simple, with the exhortation: The Mass is ended, go in peace.

Central to the concert's roaring success were Edith Podesta's clear-headed direction which kept the audience entranced while enhancing the music-making, and Brian Gothong Tan's ecumenical multimedia visuals flashed on two large overhead screens. In what is likely to be this year's finest concert, every man finds his own faith, unfettered by rigid doctrines or dogmas that we call organised religion.