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The
night was my first visit to the University Cultural Centre, to the
concert venue and where my ticket led me, to a seat on the second
level circle. Apparently unlike the Victoria Concert Hall, tickets
down at the stall command a higher price, and the difference too
between the circle seats was that at UCC the ceiling on the second
and third level was less than a metre high if I stood up from my
seat. It was also the first time I attended a concert with the President
of Singapore/Chancellor of NUS as a member of the audience.
It
was also my first exposure to Takemitsu's music, and unfortunately,
my first taste of UCC Hall accoustics was very unflattering. The
music sounded detached as if one was overhearing a recording playing
in another room.
Anyway,
Takemitsu's Requiem works far more on its ideas than musical
texture in my personal opinion, and the dampening accoustics can
be ignored with some effort. The music itself was very intriguing,
employing a minimal of orchestral parts and uncomplicated use of
polyphony, almost as if a string quartet could well suffice to perform
it. Alfred Schnittke was recalled for some reasons to me, with the
disinterest in exploring defined themes, the unsupportive factions
between parts and the striving for evocative effects - think rasping
hollow harmonics motif from the 2nd violins and violas which started
off episodes, and dropped glissandos from the cellos and basses
throughout. A lonely first violin end the piece in stark manner,
ending the Requiem in enigmatic lingering notes (yet another
name appeared to me, Vainberg and the ending of his violin concerto).
 Lee
Huei Min then came onstage without much fuss, and proceeded to start
off Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No.2. The awful accoustics
really made her violin sounded almost like a Heifetz mono recording,
I joke not. The concerto set her up and she placed herself in an
assertive position from the start, the orchestra quite subservient
behind. And she was impressive - perfect runs of notes were done
almost in the style of mendelssohn's concerto, and her register
range was wide and expressive enough.
What
I did find lacking was the lack of 'pacing' in her playing, and
this not just a minor fault pointed out irrelevantly. Nothing to
do with her tempo which was perfectly acceptable, but with the expressing
of tension and climaxes; my companion noted that she sounded as
if she was a virtuoso who was sightreading the piece for performance.
The
lyrical solo part in the 2nd movement was much awaited for, and
it was a relief to find tempo and sound both broadening and more
sweetly taken. But to the long secondary theme with rapid semiquavers
for the soloist, Lee got carried away with sharp delivery of the
passages and rushed off ahead of the orchestra, and Mr Dutoit at
a point had to stop conducting for a moment in order to recover
the moment. The second time the same theme occured in the movement,
he learned better and turned completely to the first violins to
guide them while Lee went through the passages in obliviousness.
The
3rd movement was alike to the first in terms of the dull and flat
music produced, and even the runup to the conclusion fail to produce
any climax to the piece at all. Perhaps the audience thought alike
as the critic for once - applause scattered after her third appearance
back onstage and it left the orchestra stranded and also Lee's usual
virtuosic encore unperformed.
 Cursing
the accoustics through the interval, I returned for the latter half
of the concert without expectations for a better performance than
the first. And I have to say this, I probably will not hear a better
performance of Symphonie Fantastique, 'live' or recorded.
They were superb in interpretation, outrageous yet disciplined in
performance, and played flawlessly, as simple as that.
It
was amazing, the level of transparency and clarity each section
of the orchestra contributed their part to the whole, such that
never have I heard individual parts and simultaneously the whole
so vividly before. Also I had seldom heard a more power bass in
the orchestra, the eight double basses and ten cellos not giving
up any grounds to the higher strings at all. And the wind instruments
were really really good, the horns which played confidently despite
the frequent exposed and awkward parts, the offstage oboe and onstage
clarinet duet in the second movements, and the irrepressibly sprightly
take on the Idee Fixe by the combined winds in the last movement...
The
truly most remarkable thing about their music making (beside battling
the poor accoustics) was in how they manage to realise almost every
single bar of the symphony to perfection with obvious dedication
and effort. The musical phrases swell and ebb, now in the strings,
now in the woodwinds, delicate and slight rubatos applied, effective
dynamics changes employed, the quickest bursts of sforzandos - it
was really amazing how the entire orchestra could keep this sort
of effort up for the entire symphony. But this they did, making
the music so much more 'stylish', suave and swaggering. My mouth
was left open for much of the symphony, and the audience cannot
wait for the symphony to end to burst out into clamorous applause.
I, too, had to join in and shout out my admiration, and force the
orchestra to an encore and several more appearances of Mr Dutoit
before he had to waved literally goodbye to the audience to let
him off for his excellent performance.
ONG
YONG HUI thinks that applauding takes more than a bit
of strength, but suffers it willingly.
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William
Beh reviews the NHK
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