NIGHTS IN THE GARDENS OF SPAIN / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

NIGHTS IN THE GARDENS OF SPAIN

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Victoria Concert Hall

Thursday (5 December 2024)

This review was first published in Bachtrack.com on 9 December 2024 with the title "Vasily Petrenko with the Singapore Symphony: chalk, cheese and chocolate".

Once in a while, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra throws up a concert programme that makes simply no thematic sense. A popular Russian work for strings, the most famous Spanish piano concerto ever written and a staple Beethoven symphony, led by Russian guest conductor Vasily Petrenko, had absolutely no connection with each other. This serving of chalk, cheese and chocolate might as well have been three separate mini-concerts, and despite the disparity on show, the sum was strangely greater than its individual parts. 

Concert One. The orchestra’s vaunted string section got its own showcase in Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings (Op.48). Straight off, its rich tone and homogeneity of texture hit one face-on with the opening chorale, then impressed with lightness and lift in the swifter Allegro moderato. The popular Waltz was kept simple, the music being allowed to speak for itself. 

The Elegie, the music’s heart, had few moments more beautiful than the first violins’ melody accompanied by pizzicato strings. The Finale, based on two Russian folksongs, was a masterclass in virtuoso string-playing, closing with a reprise of the chorale and an emphatic flourish. 

Concert Two. Spanish pianist Javier Perianes was the soloist in Manuel de Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain, a programmatic piano concerto coloured in picture-postcard impressionism. The demanding yet elusive piano part is so well-integrated into the orchestral score as to be almost an obbligato role. Simulating the guitar and harp was his purview, as were roles as sultry chanteuse in song routines and instigator of dance rhythms. 

He got occasionally drowned in dense orchestral textures, but Perianes rose to meet the powerful climaxes of En al Generalife and En los Jardines de la Sierra de Cordoba. Admirers of famous recordings by Alicia de Larrocha and Arthur Rubinstein would have much to enjoy in this live performance. His stylish encore of Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance from El Amor Brujo, a no-brainer really, provided the final dollop of icing. 

And finally, Concert Three. Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony in A major (Op.92) is so often performed that it risks becoming a hackneyed sideshow. Under Petrenko’s direction, however, it sounded freshly minted. The opening movement’s slow introduction was a clear indication, deliberate but gradually generating enough tension before letting loose in the ensuing Vivace like an uncoiled spring. The boisterous pace never lost momentum till its closing bar. The noble second movement, an Allegretto (thus a slow movement by comparison), unfolded with a magisterial air. Its variations built up arch-like in a gentle crescendo to a mighty climax. This was famously encored at its 1813 Vienna premiere, and nobody would have objected had the SSO played it again. 

The last two movements were predicated on speed. The third movement’s Scherzo blazed away, held back somewhat by a more restrained Trio, but one sensed Petrenko who was animatedly skipping on the podium had something in reserve and more up his sleeve. That was the Finale, which built on the earlier kinetics and went for broke. Very accurate playing at terminal velocity made for a breathtaking experience. Richard Wagner had famously deemed the symphony an “Apotheosis of the dance”, but no one was going to dance to this. What he probably meant was dynamic and vibrant rhythms, and this memorable reading was full of this. 

Star Rating: *****

The review as seen on Bachtrack.com:

https://bachtrack.com/22/296/view/27884

YEOL EUM SON PLAYS MOZART / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

YEOL EUM SON PLAYS MOZART

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Victoria Concert Hall

Thursday (21 July 2022)

An edited version of this review was first published on Bachtrack on 25 July 2022 with the title "Vasily Petrenko and Yeol Eum Son make spectacular Singapore debuts".

 

At the beginning of its 2022-23 season, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra looked to relive works  presented during its early years. Besides Rossini, also regularly encountered was Carl Maria von Weber, whose operatic overtures made short but splendid curtain raisers. This evening’s performance of his Overture to Euryanthe showed how far the orchestra has progressed over the years.

 

Four decades ago, one might have expected anaemic playing dogged with intonation issues. However the SSO of today, under Russian guest conductor Vasily Petrenko’s taut direction, is altogether a different instrument. The work’s showcase was its many string passages, where the ensemble responded with fervour, fulsome in climaxes and yet capable of providing that hushed quality when called for. This suppleness was key, continuing into the orchestral part of Mozart’s last piano concerto, No.27 in B flat major (K.595).

 

Eschewing the high drama, pomp and pageantry of three preceding concertos, its opening tutti was so lightly scored as be almost transparent. This facilitated Korean pianist Yeol Eum Son’s entry, limpid in its clarity and faultless in articulation. One might have expected this multiple prize-winner (Van Cliburn, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, and Rubinstein competitions to name a few) to exert full authority, but this was more a partnership between first among equals. She established excellent repartee with the woodwinds, achieving a fine balance in what was essentially chamber music.

 

The lovely slow movement saw Son opening and leading, with simple and tasteful ornamentations colouring the narrative. The Rondo finale, based on the song Sehnsucht nach dem Fruhling (K.596, Yearning for Spring), skipped along with lightness and chirpy humour. Late Mozart could be all too retiring, so some concession for technical display was afforded by his own cadenzas. Adroitly negotiated by Son, these upped the ante without ruffling feathers. Responding to appreciative applause, Son’s two solo encores were vastly contrasting. The gentle tintinnabuli of Arvo Pärt’s Variations for the Healing of Arinushka was followed by Arcadi Volodos’ riotously Horowitzian transcription of Mozart’s Rondo alla Turca.

 

It seemed like a mistake to have programmed Sibelius’ Second Symphony within the smaller confines of Singapore’s historic Victoria Concert Hall. This work cries out for the more capacious spaces and acoustic possibilities of Esplanade Concert Hall, where the full bloom of the music’s climaxes is better experienced. However, the orchestra and Petrenko seemed to have found some kind of sonic chemistry in a venue more suited for chamber music. While the full complement of woodwinds and brass was employed, large empty spaces were left in front of grouped trumpets and trombones, and five French horns. This spatial distancing allowed plangent brass sonorities to rise upwards to the reflectors above, while sparing the hearing of the string players seated in front. It also helped that the Finnish composer’s scoring never got all groups blaring at full volume, except for its soaring conclusion.

Photo: Jack Yam / SSO

 

All this made for a very coherent and absorbing performance. A warm string tone was the highlight of the opening movement, but shades got darker in the slow movement. Here, two bassoons in unison accompanied by pizzicato strings heralded a descent into nether regions. The nationalist fervour of Sibelius’ music was not yet apparent at this point, but the sense of struggle portrayed by the music became real and palpable. Agitated strings in the short scherzo-like third movement further upped the ante before finally breaking through with the finale’s gloriously striding theme.

 

Stirring the blood of Finnish patriotism was Sibelius’ intention in 1902, a worthy follow-up to the blatant flag-waving of his tone poem Finlandia. Trust the Russian in Petrenko, who surely understood what it means to be oppressed and the true value of freedom and independence, to instill this spirit in his Singapore charges for the evening. The drive to the final apotheosis was thrilling, culminating in a sonic spectacle with all guns blazing. Raising the roof of the Vic, the ears were blitzed for a couple of minutes, but all that was well worth the effort.      

Star Rating: *****

 

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, July 2014)

 SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No.4

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

VASILY PETRENKO

Naxos 8.573188 / *****

Only one of Dmitri Shostakovich’s purely orchestral symphonies has not been performed in Singapore: the Fourth Symphony No.4 in C minor, arguably his greatest, and for good reason too. It plays for over an hour, calls for a massive orchestra with strings, winds, brass and percussion multiplied manifold, and is the epitome of shrillness and stridency. Completed in 1936, the symphony was immediately withdrawn following the scandal of his opera Lady Macbeth Of Mtsensk, which was roundly criticised by Stalin himself. The content of the 3-movement symphony may be called to question for its extreme dissonance, raucous violence and in-your-face ironies. Its litany of mocking marches and grotesque dances are a barely-concealed criticism of contemporary Soviet society.

This performance in a highly successful recorded symphony cycle led by young Russian conductor Vasily Petrenko does not stint on the music’s bleakness and bathos. The woodwinds, brass and percussion are particularly spectacular in spewing out the bile and vitriol that permeates the work from beginning to end. And when a seemingly triumphant C major apotheosis threatens to restore a semblance of sanity and faith, the symphony peters off to an enervating and whimpering close. This is perhaps music’s most eloquent portrayal of futility and despair, in a most vivid reading with no quarter given.    

  

PAGANINI VARIATIONS

TZIMON BARTO, Piano

Ondine 1230-2D (2 CDs) / ***1/2

This new recording by maverick American pianist Tzimon Barto brings together the great piano works inspired by Italian virtuoso violinist-composer Niccolo Paganini’s famous Caprice No.24 in A minor for unaccompanied violin. Itself a set of variations, the hair-raising caprice has sparked the imagination of composers over the year, who have added their own variations into the mix. Barto opens with Franz Liszt’s 6 Grand Etudes After Paganini, with Etude No.6 being a free transcription of the afore-mentioned caprice. Etude No.3 is, of course, the ubiquitous La Campanella. Barto’s seemingly effortless technique is beyond reproach but he takes plenty of liberties in tempos and dynamics. In Brahms’s fearsome set of Paganini Variations Op.35, that includes re-writing a variation or two.

For 20^th century Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski’s Paganini Variations for two pianos, he plays both parts which are overdubbed to spectacular effect. The major disappointment is in Rachmaninov’s Paganini Rhapsody, where Barto is partnered by the Schleswig Holstein Festival Orchestra conducted by his mentor Christoph Eschenbach. Here he cannot resist the temptation of pulling and stretching tempos out of shape. The famous 18^th Variation, emotional climax of the work, sounds wilful and almost interminable in these hands. The double-CD set is priced at the cost of a single disc. This is manna for the curious and seekers of the unusual (and perverse).

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, May 2012)

A MUSICAL ODYSSEY

LYNNETTE SEAH, Violin

****1/2

Violinist Lynnette Seah has been a permanent fixture in Singapore’s musical firmament as long as most can remember. From her 1960s Talentime television appearances, becoming the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s first leader in 1979, to winning the Cultural Medallion in 2006, she is the nation’s home-grown talent personified. 

Her debut CD, dedicated to her late mother the pianist Lau Biau Chin, is devoted mostly to short lyrical encore pieces. Playing on a 1750 G.B.Gabrielli violin, she produces a beautiful, singing tone that make works like Massenet’s Meditation from Thaïs, Elgar’s Salut d’Amour,  Rachmaninov’s Vocalise, Gluck’s Melody from Orpheus and the Bach-Gounod Ave Maria sound totally delectable.

There are some improvisatory touches to Anton Rubinstein’s Melody in F and a rare airing of Joachim Raff’s Cavatina, once a very popular tune but now almost forgotten. Her excellent accompanists are pianist Shane Thio and SSO Harp Principal Gulnara Mashurova. The lovely slow movement from Bruch’s First Violin Concerto, with the SSO directed by Shui Lan, comes as a bonus. A pity that the whole work was not included, for that would have amply displayed the other side of Lynnette, one as a fearless virtuoso.  

This CD is available at the SSO pushcart on evenings of SSO concerts. 

SHOSTAKOVICH 

Symphonies No.6 & 12

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic 

VASILY PETRENKO

Naxos 8.572658 / ****1/2

The symphonies of Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) have found a true champion in the recent Gramophone Award winning efforts of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra led by its young Russian music director Vasily Petrenko. This latest release simply confirms the rave notices. The Sixth Symphony is the most underrated of the 15 symphonies, possibly due to its unusual form. 

It begins with a Largo – surely the finest of his slow movements - that is longer than the two closing scherzo-like movements combined. A case of solemnity followed by madcap antics, tragedy juxtaposed with comedy, was how Shostakovich viewed Soviet society in the 1930s. The orchestra responds to these changes in mood and dynamics with great immediacy.

Critics have derided the Twelfth Symphony of 1961, subtitled “The Year 1917” as his worst, akin to spouting Communist propaganda. A programmatic symphony with narrative movements, it portrayed the historic events of the Bolshevik revolution that overthrew the Tsar (hence the rightful sequel to the Eleventh Symphony, “The Year 1905”) and establishing the Soviet republic. 

Overlooking the socialist agenda, this is still a masterfully crafted work with sobering calms and rousing heroic climaxes, the sort that would keep Comrade Krushchev and his politburo happy. Such was the fine line treaded by artists in a totalitarian state. The non-histrionic approach taken by Petrenko and unerring playing of his charges make it sound coherent, even as a piece of absolute music.   

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, January 2011)

KORNGOLD & 

DVARIONAS Violin Concertos 

VADIM GLUZMAN, Violin 

Residentia Orkest Den Haag / Neeme Järvi 

BIS 1822 / ****1/2 

This disc of 20th century violin concertos is ample proof that glorious tonality and Romanticism in composition was well and alive in the age of the avant-garde and experimentation. The Violin Concerto (1945) of Wolfgang Erich Korngold (1897-1957) is already an established classic, with its themes extracted from four 1930s Hollywood movie scores including Anthony Adverse and The Prince and The Pauper. This is silver screen music with tear-jerking tunes at its most opulent, no doubt aided by the championship of one Jascha Heifetz who recorded it on the RCA Red Seal label. 

The 1948 Violin Concerto of Balys Dvarionas (1904-72) is virtually unknown, totally eclipsed by the contemporaneous First Violin Concerto of Shostakovich. The first Lithuanian violin concerto to be composed, it shares with Glazunov and Miaskovsky an unusual gift of melody, besides being superbly crafted. The slow movement and rip-roaring finale also bring to mind the best of film music. Israeli violinist Vadim Gluzman gives both scores their due, rich in vibrato and unapologetic virtuosity. Highly recommended. 

DON’T MISS: 

Korngold’s Violin Concerto 

performed by Edward Tan 

and the Orchestra of the Music Makers

conducted by Chan Tze Law 

Esplanade Concert Hall 

8 January 2010, 7.30pm 

Tickets available at SISTIC

TCHAIKOVSKY Manfred Symphony 

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic 

VASILY PETRENKO 

Naxos 8.57068 / ****1/2 

Manfred, inspired by the Romantic character of Lord Byron’s, was Tchaikovsky’s unofficial “seventh” symphony. Spanning almost an hour, this programme symphony – one that relates a story in music – surpasses all of his numbered symphonies in length. Composed in 1885 between the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, it combines the tragic and lyrical elements of both, and is thought by some to be his finest symphonic work. 

The monumental 20-minute-long finale, which sees the guilt-ridden Manfred’s redemption through death, concludes with lush strains of a pipe organ, looking ahead to Mahler’s epic creations. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, directed by its young and dynamic Russian Music Director Vasily Petrenko, delivers the poignant music searing intensity and genuine Slavic pathos. The inclusion of Tchaikovsky’s rarely heard symphonic ballad The Voyevoda, about infidelity and murder, is a generous added bonus. 

DON’T MISS: 

TCHAIKOVSKY’S 

Manfred Symphony 

Singapore Symphony Orchestra 

Conducted by Gennady Rozhdestvensky 

Esplanade Concert Hall 

Friday 7 January 2011, 7.30pm 

Tickets available at SISTIC