GIFTED YOUNG MUSICIANS CONCERT / Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra / Review

GIFTED YOUNG MUSICIANS CONCERT

Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Sunday (20 May 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 22 May 2012 with the title "Bright stars".

Fact: most of Singapore’s top young musical talents get their first break by playing a concerto with the Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra. This evening’s concert was a veritable showcase of our brightest new names, a legacy stemming from the vision and largesse of the orchestra’s out-going Music Director Yan Yin Wing in his final concert after 23 years at its helm. 

First up was 11-year-old violinist Wu Shuang who played three movements from Edouard Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole. One is immediately struck by her confidence and poise, almost nonchalant to the work’s myriad technical difficulties. She brought out a big robust tone, undaunted by and even transcending the often uneven orchestral accompaniment.

A good start became better with 18-year-old Chua Shan Jee in Saint-Saens’s Second Piano Concerto, opening with a Bachian cadenza which was delivered with both power and purpose. The frothy frivolities of the second and third movements found her in scintillating form, trading humour and high jinks amid the rapid cut and thrust exchanges with the orchestra all through to its gushy conclusion.

Everybody is all ears as Elvina performs Bach's Sarabande  from the Second Violin Partita in D minor.

All this served as a prelude to the miracle of Elvina Sung-Eun Auh (above), the 12-year-old presently studying at the Yehudi Menuhin School. Winner of the Goh Soon Tioe Outstanding Performer Award at last year’s National Violin Competition, the unassuming and serious-looking girl looked and sounded like having lived several musical incarnations. Hers was not the playing of someone merely well taught or blessed with a prodigious technique, but that of an “old soul” bestowed with depth, maturity and wisdom of the ages.   

Had she communed with the spirits of Menuhin, Enesco or Ysaye, to have been able to shape the second subject in Vieuxtemps’s Fifth Violin Concerto with such natural authority and matchless beauty?  It seemed like sacrilege to breathe as she whole-heartedly launched into the cadenza, as if time stool still for her benediction of the piece. Her encore, a Bach Sarabande, was the perfect send-off. 

A celebration of sorts, the concert began brassily with Sibelius’s Finlandia and closed in the jingoistic fervour of Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No.1. There was a glowing spoken tribute by conductor designate Adrian Tan to the soft-spoken Yan’s dedication and achievements over the years. The latter was speechless, but let his music do the talking. The Elgar was encored, and needless to say, it sounded much better the second time around.

The Three Yans: Maestro Yan Yin Wing (centre) with Lim Yan (right) and Mrs Lim Yan (Koh Jia Hwei, left)

Elvina Auh with her teachers Alexander Souptel and Masako Suzuki, with Vivien Goh (extreme right), daughter of Singapore's violin pioneer Goh Soon Tioe. 

FAVOURITE CLASSICS / Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra / Review

FAVOURITE CLASSICS

Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra
Singapore Conference Hall 

Sunday (29 May 2011)

I am no masochist but I do enjoy concerts by the Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra (BHSO), Singapore’s only community orchestra. Being an amateur musician myself, I will never turn a nose at fellow amateurs pursuing what they enjoy, the passion of music making. Even if it is not at the same hallowed levels as groups like the Orchestra of the Music Makers or The Philharmonic Orchestra (the best “amateur” orchestras in Singapore), effort and enthusiasm is what counts, and the BHSO has it in good measure.

Its latest concert had the usual share of highs and lows. A smaller orchestra than usual turned up for heavyweights like the Prelude to Act I of Wagner’s Mastersingers of Nuremberg and Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique Symphony. No matter, it generated a big sound, largely due to an overachieving, blustery and sometimes wild brass section and rather decent woodwinds. The string sound was very thin at parts but carried the melodies efficiently. The ensemble struggled in the busy counterpoint in the Wagner but it all came together for the final apotheosis.

The Tchaikovsky was a very ambitious effort, which paid off to a fair degree. Bassoonist Peter Lendermann provided a very steady opening solo, thus setting the tone for the rest of the first movement. The big “Pathetique” melody came across rather ragged when heard for the first time, owing to the strings and brass not being on the same frame of mind, so to speak. It was clarinettist Chen Weiling’s confident solos that eased the nerves somewhat. For the explosive development, the brass brayed and snarled, providing the dramatic episode its full quotient of bite and angst.

The second movement’s waltz was neither the most effortless nor graceful, but it had a good sense of rhythm, well marshalled by conductor Yan Yin Wing. There was something ungainly about the Scherzo’s march to the abyss, but it gathered paced inexorably, its irresistible momentum being the true driving force. Through all this, one could hear the individual quotations of Beethoven’s Fate motif by the wind and brass instruments, as well as sense the underlying tension as the screw is being turned. 

There was the customary misplaced applause which led into the depressing finale. The vale of tears brought on by the themes of descending notes revealed the music’s heart-wrenching quality. The climax of this deeply felt performance was well deserving of the applause it was accorded.

In between the two imposing works was Mozart’s slender Piano Concerto No.27 in B flat major (K.595), his last. The opening tutti was taken at too leisurely a pace. Sounding very raw and sluggish, this provided the guest soloist Albert Lin little to work upon. Unable to exert himself and force the pace against the will of the ensemble, the first movement was mired down in treacle. However, the crystalline quality of his playing, always alert to the music’s finer points, was the saving grace of the performance.

Thankfully, both the slow movement and Rondo finale saw the piano deliver the opening gambits. Only then did the music take shape and given the necessary lift. The graceful Andante was lightly and tastefully ornamented, while good humour and high spirits dominated the Rondo. The cadenzas were well-turned and the performance closed on a high.

Those who know Albert to be a barnstorming virtuoso also got to see this side in his encore, the outrageous Arcadi Volodos version of Mozart’s Rondo alla Turca. Delivered with absolute bravura and panache, the concert had finally come to life.