Spirit of the Proms gloriously alive in Singapore

The BBC Proms are nearing their end in London now, and although Singapore does not have promenade concerts or its equivalent, this offering by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra led by Swiss conductor Mario Venzago felt very much like one. A packed Esplanade Concert Hall was abuzz with a star violinist on show and the chorus waiting in the wings. Throw in an applause-happy audience and what more could one ask for? 

In football parlance, this concert was a game of two halves. The first was early Romantic, with a strong bel canto feel. Rossini’s supposed overture to Il viaggio a Reims, a factitious appendage to his last opera in Italian, opened proceedings. Its semi-serious introduction heralded lovely solos from oboe, flute and fine woodwind playing. Then came the comedic theme that must have given inspiration to the Fawlty Towers theme music, and the inevitable Rossini crescendo. About farcical happenings at a village inn, this surely cannot be mere coincidence. 

Also in D major, Paganini’s First Violin Concerto was the showcase for 16-year-old Chloe Chua, the orchestra’s Artist-in-Residence for the 2023–24 season. Previously paraded in concertos by Vivaldi, Locatelli, Bach and Mozart, this was her first test of prowess in Romantic repertoire. That she passed with flying colours was little surprise, but she had some help, with all percussion eschewed, as in Paganini’s original scoring. This made for a much less militarist and bombastic accompaniment, allowing her solos to shine through. 

Paganini was no innovator in musical harmony, but a pioneer of stupendous stunts including, infamously, double-stopping in harmonics. Chua’s technical mastery of notes and spotless intonation seemed effortless, and Émile Sauret’s inordinately long cadenza (lasting almost a quarter of the first movement) added further hoops in her high-wire act. The Adagio was a brief oasis of bel canto lyricism, before the Rondo’s resumption of the virtuoso circus. Paganini’s daredevilry can be as exhausting for the audience as it is for the soloist. Chua and the SSO ultimately prevailed but, taxed to the limits of endurance, there was to be no solo encore. 

The concert’s second half shifted to late 19th and early 20th centuries with Debussy’s Trois Nocturnes. While adapting well to a complete change in tonal colours, Nuages (Clouds) could have done with a little more mystery about it. The cor anglais stole the show in a languid solo wallow that had an oriental feel with its play of pentatonics. By contrast, the lively play of triplets in Fêtes (Festivals) was incisive and lean, with no ounce of fat. The ensuing march with pair of muted trumpets was pulsating, later giving way to the closing Sirènes, graced by wordless women’s voices from the Singapore Symphony Chorus and Youth Choir. Homogeneous and haunting, this made for a quiet and peaceable end. 

The enthusiastic audience reserved their longest applause for Vaughan Williams’s 1906 “song for chorus and orchestra” Toward the Unknown Region, with words by Walt Whitman. RVW’s impressionist idiom followed Debussy almost seamlessly. With men’s voices joining to make 67 strong, the chorus flexed its cords, rising to a climactic high in “Then we burst forth, we float”, augmented by the company of a pipe organ. This satisfying close could well have taken place in Royal Albert Hall, but pinch oneself and be gratified that such vibes could also be shared in Singapore.