This concert marked the return of Lan Shui, Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s second Music Director, after a hiatus of five years. His 1997–2019 tenure was pivotal, transforming a competent regional orchestra into one of international standing with highly-acclaimed recordings and international tours. He assumed the post of Conductor Laureate after a farewell concert with Mahler’s Second Symphony in February 2019.
The evening also saw Korean violinist Bomsori Kim return for a relative rarity, Carl Nielsen’s Violin Concerto, a work often twinned with Sibelius’ concerto on recordings despite being very different. Besides their birth-year, another thing in common was a homage to J.S.Bach. While Sibelius heavily revised his concerto to make it less Bachian, Nielsen stuck to his guns.
A punched-out C minor chord, followed by an opening violin cadenza in G minor with the orchestra holding a pedal-point in G provided an early shock. Kim’s adroit handling of the Praeludium, reminiscent of the Bachian beginning of Saint-Saëns’ Second Piano Concerto, was admirable, with her thread of lyricism maintained throughout. Even in the boisterous Allegro cavalleresco, orchestral textures were kept light and transparent to allow her musical lines shine through, the thorny cadenza superbly handled.
The second movement’s spelling of Bach’s name – B flat, A, C and B natural – was sensitively voiced by oboist Rachel Walker, later echoed by the violin in a ruminative but short-winded wallow. In the light-hearted Rondo, one of Nielsen’s cheeriest melodies with whimsicality and rusticity standing out, Kim’s nimbleness and dance-like take was totally enjoyable. Culminating in another elaborate cadenza, the concerto wound down to a retiring close and another shock – a loud orchestral chord in D major to end. Kim’s encore of Grazyna Bacewicz’s Polish Caprice, also folk-inspired work, was a suitable choice.
It was pure happenstance that Singapore audiences got to witness Mahler’s First Symphony twice within eleven days: the Hong Kong Philharmonic (Jaap van Zweden) and now the Singapore Symphony. Comparisons were inevitable, making for a fascinating study in critical listening.
The rapt stillness in the opening’s evocation of dawn was assiduously observed. Trumpets were kept onstage yet these sounded as if in der Ferne (in the distance), no mean feat. Principal clarinettist Ma Yue’s cuckoo calls were sharply-delineated, leading into the movement proper which felt organic in its build-up. The music’s natural flow, pregnant with tension-filled quiets, ensued before a fulsome climax was reached.
The Scherzo was not as vigorously driven as the Hong Kong Phil’s, instead taking a gentler and more nuanced look at the Austrian Ländler, including a Trio section that wallowed in schmaltz. Yang Zheng Yi’s excellent double bass solo led the way in the funeral march, a droll minor key iteration of the Frère Jacques theme. The klezmer interludes were a little subdued, thus lending the quotation from the Wayfarer song Die zwei blauen Augen additional poignancy.
The titanic struggles of the finale, emanating from that “cry from the wounded heart”, were not so much blazing triumph but a subconscious tide that constantly tugged and pulled at the heart-strings. The grandstanding close, with eight French horns, trumpet and trombone up on their feet, was an impressive look, but much more was concealed from plain sight. While the Hong Kong Philharmonic awed and thrilled with virtuosity, the Singapore Symphony touched and moved with its humanity. Fortunate and privileged were those to have savoured both performances – and orchestras – in their current prime.
