WUXIA / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

WUXIA

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Huayi Chinese Festival of Arts

Esplanade Concert Hall

Satuday (11 February 2017)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 13 February 2017 with the title "A trip down memory lane for wuxia fans".

Film music was on the table for the Singapore Chinese Orchestra's contribution to this year's Huayi Chinese Festival of Arts organised by Esplanade. Conducted by Music Director Yeh Tsung, the orchestra delivered a huge dose of nostalgia to the mostly middle-aged audience that filled the hall to its rafters.

For many, the genre of Chinese period dramas with sword-fighting, kungfu postures and gravity-defying leaps came from the 1960s through early 80s, typically churned out in Hong Kong film studios. The celebration of this legacy began with Medley Of Television Dramas by the then-ubiquitous Joseph Koo, with the view of Victoria Harbour by night serving as a backdrop.

The familiar melodies rolled off easily, graced by short but pretty solos by Zhao Jian Hua (erhu) and Li Bao Shun (gaohu), but does the well-known Shanghai Beach from The Bund (one of Koo's most memorable themes) belong to this group?

More contemporary was the erhu concerto drawn from Tan Dun's Academy Award winning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon score for the movie starring Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh. SCO member Tan Man Man was the elegant and sensitive soloist, but her reticence in exerting herself meant she was more often than not overwhelmed by the large looming orchestral forces.

Receiving a World Premiere was Hong Kong-based Lincoln Lo and former SCO Composer-in-Residence Law Wai Lun's score accompanying sword-fighting scenes from the 1967 classic wuxia movie One Armed Swordsman. The appearance of the iconic Shaw Brothers logo drew recognition and laughter from the audience, and the saga about chivalry, adversity, revenge and redemption got underway.

The music, with vigorous rhythms and lyricism backing sequences of action and romance, blended seamlessly with the happenings on screen, surprisingly violent (for the 1960s) for including severed arms and spilling of laughably fake blood. The audience was clearly enthused by their collective memories being jolted, and a final return of that Shaw Brothers icon.

Special guest of the evening was Hong Kong singer Johnny Yip, very popular in the 1970s, now in his seventies. He sang six songs including James Wong's Laughter From The Vast Sea, Michael Lai's Imperial Heroes and The Legendary Hero Fok, and three more by Joseph Koo. Clearly his amplified crooner's voice has seen better days, but his glittery silver-scaled and tinselled suits, and easy-going personality indicated he was still up for the job.

Besides singing in Cantonese, he also chatted effably in dialect with conductor Yeh and the audience, much to their approval. Proponents of the Speak Mandarin Campaign will voice their protest, but his authentic and sterling efforts were an exercise reclaiming a certain heritage, in turning back the clock and bringing back the old and beloved.   

As the audience clapped along to the encore, Yip singing Koo's Sweeping Through The Mountains And Rivers, there was a palpable feeling of belonging, and that all things were good again.

Photographs by Jack Yam, courtesy of Esplanade Theatres By The Bay.

UNFORGETTABLE TUNES II / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

UNFORGETTABLE TUNES II

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Saturday (22 August 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 24 August 2015  

There have been remarks that the Singapore Chinese Orchestra does not play enough traditional Chinese tunes or classics. The plain truth is: unlike the Western orchestra which has centuries of music to choose from, there is not enough traditional repertoire for Chinese orchestra to sustain an entire season. Hence the need for SCO to commission new works and fresh orchestrations of pre-existing melodies.

This concert conducted by Assistant Conductor Moses Gay looked back at some Chinese classics, through the prism of contemporary orchestrations. It did not take one long to recognise the melody of Tang Jian Ping's Overture for the New Century, a vigourous and festive arrangement of  Dance Of The Golden Snake by Nie Er, who also composed the Chinese National Anthem. Also familiar was Liu Wen Jin's Great Wall Capriccio, a condensed version of the erhu concerto with the same title, which rehashes its most memorable melody.

Peng Xiu Wen's 1961 composition Yue Er Gao (The Moon On High) is an acknowledged classic. He had orchestrated nine of twelve pieces from Hua Qiu Ping's Pipa Anthology dating from the Qing Dynasty. There was a stately air to this medley which relived the chamber music origins of Chinese music in its gentle treatment of dizi and guzheng textures, and graced by principal Yu Jia's lovely pipa solos.

Contrast this with the two concertante works, newer orchestrations much in line with the virtuoso Western concerto. Zhang Yin (above) was the spectacular pipa soloist in Wang Dan Hong's Yun Xiang Hua Xiang (Clouds And Flowers Fantasies). Her mastery of the instrument and its myriad nuances was exquisite, a portrayal of feminine grace and beauty personified in the tragic concubine Yang Guifei.

Erhu soloist Tan Man Man (above) coaxed a sonorous and earthy tone for Wang Jian Min's Erhu Rhapsody No.2, a work which transitioned from slow and meditative to a fast and brilliant conclusion. SCO can be proud of these rank-and-file members who are truly consummate virtuosos.

Xu Hui's guzheng solos highlighted Chen Ning-chi's Ancient City Xian, a picturesque travelogue of the city of terracotta warriors, from vivid night scenes to historical monuments. Gu Guan Ren's The General Command's used another Qing melody but dressed in martial garb, with grouped suonas providing the raucous edge that would vanquish any foe.

The excellent young conductor Gay conducted the two-hour-long completely from memory. His pluck, and chutzpah in requesting a standing ovation, did not fall on deaf ears. The audience duly obliged, and was rewarded with an encore, Bizet's Farandole from L'Arlesienne. As they say in the Bible, “Ask, and it shall be given.”