INKPOT#65 CLASSICAL MUSIC REVIEWS: Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Saturday 7 November 1998 Victoria Concert Hall	Singapore Symphony Orchestra
	FELIX MENDELSSOHN Overture to The Marriage of Camacho (1825) JOHANNES BRAHMS Violin Concerto in D, op.77 (1878) EDWARD ELGAR Falstaff: Symphonic Study in C minor, op.68 (1902-13) Michiko KAMIYA violin CHOO Hoey conductor

OVERALL NOISE RATING: 2 (Inter-movement applause. But isn't this a famous concerto?)

The Noise Rating Index is a partially-objective measurement of pager and handphone blasts, 9pm and 10pm watch beeps, coughing-during-the-pianissimo-bits, intra-audience conversation and other mind-bogglingly inept noises emitted in the concert hall during actual performance of music. It is measured on a scale of 0 to 5, in increasing annoyance.

This review has been kindly sponsored by the Singapore Symphonia Co. Ltd

by Derek Lim

Okay, hands up everybody who heard all the pieces at least once before going for the concert! Nope, two out of three doesn't count...you can put your hands down now. Hmm... as expected. Some haven't even heard one. I myself am only familiar with one. But why the lot of people clapping after the first and second movements of the Brahms?

The SSO was in good shape for the Mendelssohn, an overture to incidental music to a comic drama lasting about five minutes - a nice piece, as Mendelssohn goes. The performance involved pretty taut conducting, quite riveting I thought, with little lapse of attention, in all a great opening piece. (wonder when we'll hear Meistersinger Overture?). One thing I found perverse was that the SSO had the huge post-Romantic-size orchestra playing Mendelssohn, and then thinned it down a lot for Brahms. Of course they brought the whole gamut back again for Elgar.

Brahms, of course The Brahms Violin Concerto is my favourite, together with the Beethoven and the Tchaikovsky. The soloist, 25-year-old Michiko Kamiya, was technically quite sound, but there were some intonation errors here and there, and she can't quite get that tenth sometimes. But my chief problem with her wasn't the intonation; it was her bloodless way of performing. For this concerto I always think that the soloist should be the absolute master of the instrument.

She didn't give that sense of confidence to start with and doesn't have a big tone, which doesn't help. But then when she went on to play the piece she didn't give many ideas at all in the playing. She seemed even bored sometimes - maybe she was tired. Sometimes she didn't seem even to phrase very much, and I don't mean line-by-line phrasing - I mean passage phrasing, and structure-building. It was a little as if she didn't have the complete view of the picture.

This is one concerto where the conducting is so important - like Menuhin said, it's like soft clay to be moulded by the conductor and the soloist. Remember when you played with clay in school - they come in those rectangular chunks at first right? What I thought was, that if this performance were clay it would have been a bit like that rectangular chunk - no shape, no ideas worked into it.

The opening tutti was slow, and pretty dead, and some degree of tempo freedom would have helped. This is Romantic music after all. The only obvious change in tempo was the gradual slinking and slowing of pace once the soloist came into the lyrical theme. After that it was pretty metronomic. Choo Hoey was sometimes just beating time (and giving cues), I felt - no tempo changes, no dialogue with the soloist, nothing.

Michico Kamiya also didn't help, I feel. She never attempted to lead the orchestra, in that she never tried to push the tempo and it was allowed to slacken. The result was rather mushy. She's technically very sound, but a little deficient musically, if I am may be allowed to say. Even the Joachim cadenza was mostly unremarkable. The whole first movement was very earthbound, and never rose to the heights that are possible with this concerto. When I was listening to it I thought, "This performance is so polite - just like what people say about crossing every 't', dotting every 'i'. But Brahms should not just be polite, and great music is much more than the sum of its notes.

The second movement was slightly better. The principal oboe did a good job. Kamiya has a very sweet nice, tone, which suited the beginning of the movement. The rest of the movement was fine also, but I wished for more passion, better co-ordination with the orchestra - ensemble in the orchestra was rather bad, though not as bad as the last movement...

This had a section of obvious disparity between soloist and orchestra, and though it was jarring, it was a relief to find something finally happening. Kamiya seemed rather swept away with the music, rather than having absolute control, though, and too often she was preoccupied with getting those treacherous scales, tenths and arpeggios all right (and they are very difficult). In the high positions she sometimes slipped a bit, but it was in this movement where the most happened.

In case the SSO wonders: YES, we would like to hear much more in terms of dynamic markings, phrasing, line in the music. A little humour wouldn't hurt either. This is not Brahms the white alabaster statue - this is Brahms the long-time admirer of Clara Schumann, with flesh, and yes, blood. This is emotional music. I wonder if this was the way Ms Kamiya performed during the competition where she won the 1997 Joachim competition. I Hope not. If she did it speaks a lot about music competitions, but that's another story for another time.

The interval came and I was kicking myself for having taken up this assignment, since I had listened to the Falstaff: Symphonic Study in C minor (or Falstaff, for short) all of three times, and it had failed to capture my interest all three times.

Well, things change during 'live' performances. I found tonight's performance a very riveting one, with the orchestra playing their best. Tuning was immaculate, and individual solos were very good - the concertmaster Souptel was particularly convincing in his solo. The cello sectional leader was also in good form, and so was his cello.

Falstaff is a huge tone-poem, in a symphonic design, though there are very few actual obvious divisions. It can be tedious to listen to, as I have tried, but done well it can be really convincing. Elgar said that although the title is "Falstaff", the whole spirit of the work is that of Shakespeare himself. Although I'm not sure how the great playwright would respond to this music (delving into metaphysics here!), I now think that this is a great work that repays attention and concentration with much reward.

The bassoonists were in fine fettle, playing with beautiful tone. I only wished they had been seated more to the front so as to shift the balance to them. But no matter - they played very well. Ensemble was not perfect, nor anywhere near perfect, but this hardly mattered. The rest of the SSO played very well also, and if there were some instruments in the percussion section that didn't come out (for example the sword sounds) this was fine by me.

The main trouble for me with "Falstaff" is that it has no apparent structure - it seems to ramble on and on, and the human mind needs something to grasp, I guess. The thematic motifs in the tone poem undergo some kind of metermorphosis throughout the piece, which is very long, and one can get lost in the shimmery, flashy orchestration worthy of Richard Strauss (whose Sinfonia Domestica I haven't really "got" either). But Choo Hoey's admirable bringing-out of these motifs helped me along, and I really enjoyed it.

Sir Edward Elgar I found the performance quite colourful, and touching, especially in the final scene, which reminded me a little of the last part Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (R. Strauss), with Till's confrontation with the judge. Of course, in this case "Sir" Falstaff confronts Prince Hal, instead. What life Elgar breathes into his musical creation, and what a pity there's no opera by him. This may be very "English" music, but that doesn't mean that humour and wit are precluded, as Choo Hoey showed tonight. The scarecrow army episode was particularly funny, with the mock-military orchestration.

As a side note, and in case anyone is wondering, I have the recording of "Falstaff" with Elgar (left) conducting. The mono sound probably tired my ears and didn't allow me to enjoy the piece as much. I think a stereo recording, or a 'live' performance is unbeatable in this work, as lots of tone-colour is lost in the old recordings.

I must go and grab a copy of King Henry IV soon.