Vasily Petrenko and 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, yet 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. 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 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. Perianes was occasionally drowned in the dense orchestral textures, but he 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 Symphony no. 7 in A major 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 until 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. 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 them.