Thursday 15 June 2000 Victoria Concert Hall	SINGAPORE ARTS FESTIVAL 2000 Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra
	Kelly TANG Apocalypso (world premiere) Frederic CHOPIN Piano Concerto No.1 in E minor, op.11 Pyotr Illyich TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No.5 in E minor, op.64 Kazimierz KORD conductor

OVERALL NOISE RATING: 1 (Clapping between the movements doesn't count. But the NAC photographer in the Circle ought to use a quieter camera.)

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.

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This is the type of concert which makes you think a bit, especially if you're a regular local concertgoer. There's the inevitable comparison of a "European" orchestra against the local one, the premiere of yet another locally commissioned work versus a couple of classical heavyweights, and whether the ticket prices at this level are really all that worth it...

One thing which has to be said, though - these Arts Festival events tend to have somewhat of an aristocratic flavour, what with the hyped-up advertising campaigns (and higher-than-usual ticket prices) with inexplicably sold-out houses of the culturally trendy. It's hard to tell what most of them thought about the opening night's programme of Kelly Tang's adventurous Apocalypso alongside Chopin's evergreen First Piano Concerto and Tchaikovsky's Fifth. Perhaps the helpless smattering of applause between the first and second movements of the Chopin might prove a hint. Hmmm.

Apocalypso came about as a response to an NAC commission, a tradition with precedent in previous Arts Festivals. (Leong Yoon Pin's Temasekian by the SSO in 1990, for example.) Kelly Tang (right), lecturer in music at the National Institute of Education, adopts a strong narrative approach to the music, with elements of dissonance juxtaposed with melody. This approach is already much in evidence just looking at the title Apocalypso - a conjunction of two words: "apocalypse" and "calypso", as Tang writes.

A Play on Words "The title Apocalypso couples two words of divergent meaning to highlight the dual nature of the composition: the frighteningly tragic ("Apocalypse") and the frivolously comic ("Calypso"). This duality is implicit in the three surrealistic scenarios described below, which inspire the music of Apocalypso." - from Kelly Tang's programme notes Those familiar with the Holy Scriptures will immediately associate "apocalypse" with, of course, the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament wherein the dramatic events of the end of the world is recorded in the form of a prophecy. In the original Greek, the word "apocalypse" comes from apo- from, off + kalyptein to cover, and literally means a prophecy or a revelation. On the other hand, "calypso" brings up impressions of a Caribbean love song, highly improvised and strongly rhythmic. Calypso was, of course, also a nymph in Homer's Iliad who imprisoned Odysseus for seven years on her island. (Interestingly, for those old enough to remember, it was also the title of a song by singer/songwriter John Denver, from his 1975 album Windsong, which was dedicated to oceanographer Jacques-Yves Costeau and his eponymous flagship Calypso.)

On the face of it, if you think this sounds eclectic, you'd be right - but that's not exactly the whole of it. The modern idiom of the music is surprisingly accessible and Tang has some good ideas, although the explicit musical settings of each of the scenarios (as described in the programme notes) totally eluded me on first hearing.

The front-of-house mysteriously ran out of programme books, so I ended up listening to the entire programme without the benefit of documentation. Not that the documentation was much of an improvement over the quality of the SSO's - on page 5, the Warsaw Philharmonic did not record Gorecki's Third Symphony for Deutsche Grammophone (it was Philips), nor on page 17, did Romeo stab himself at Juliet's tomb (he drank poison, actually). In fact, there's already a typo on page 1, and it makes you wonder if the same people who produce the SSO's programme booklets had a hand in this.

Back to the music. It doesn't plumb any great depths of emotion. First impressions upon hearing it brings to mind randomly snatched phrases of an action movie soundtrack hung upon an avant-garde framework, despite Tang's disavowal (in interviews elsewhere) of copying the cinematic idiom. The oversized orchestral palette could have had perhaps more clarity, too. Subsequent musical development only served to reinforce these impressions - there was no way to tell from the music that there was supposed to be an unfolding dramalogue, let alone three separate "movements" - and the ending, when it arrived, arrived somewhat abruptly (the only tangible clue being a steadily increasing fortissimo.)

Kazimierz Kord and the Warsaw Philharmonic certainly made a persuasive approach to this music with an unrelenting flow of tension, although, as with modern music, sometimes it is hard to tell where artistry ends and the wreckage (as it were) begins. That they injected their uniquely European ardour into this work is not in question, but somehow, a final degree of polish and greater empathy with the music - more rehearsal, for sure - would have helped. I sincerely hope Tang will outdo himself next time.

Chopin's First Piano Concerto is much more familiar territory on which to make comparisons, with veteran Dennis Lee (below right) at the keyboard. As early as an hour before performance time, Lee was already backstage warming up and running through his solo part. But this was also his first time doing Chopin 1 on short notice (two months), and unfortunately, it showed in performance.

The orchestral tutti started off unimpressively, although it was evident that the musicians responded very empathically to Kord's direction. Lee's approach, when he entered, ever so slightly hinted at a lack of familiarity - even confidence - with the reading of the music. His rubato was not entirely convincing and the passage-work plebian at times. Even the magical poetry of the slow movement was nullified by untidy phrasing. Overall, the most disappointing aspect of it, I think, was a musician of the stature of Lee reduced to struggling with something that would have benefitted from more preparation time.

In a way, you could say that the orchestra performed better than the soloist - and even then, not all that much better. Tempting as it is to fault the soloist (and we know that Dennis Lee can and has played much better than this), it's a more sobering thought that such poor programme management still happens even at the level of the Singapore Arts Festival. Could another work have been substituted, or perhaps another soloist engaged who could tackle the Chopin ? Perhaps not, but for the price of their tickets, the audience deserved better.

The Warsaw Philharmonic redeemed themselves, to a certain extent, with Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony after the break. The brasses, especially the trombones and the trumpets, came to the fore with their punctuative ear-splitting blasts. The woodwinds and strings were slightly less spirited, and there was a disastrous wobble in the opening horn solo of the second movement. The latter movements saw a good build-up of emotion and pathos, with the finale blazing with panache. Again, there was that imperceptible but nonetheless present sprinkling of Eastern European styling which added a strong idiomatic flavour - but nothing less impressive than, say, what the SSO is also capable of.

There have been, to be sure, more memorable orchestral performances from previous Arts Festivals. The Warsaw Philharmonic are unique in that they have offered a three-day programme with different works on each day - rehearsals with local soloists must surely be at a premium. One wonders if this is the reason for the uneveness of the performance on day one, and whether the same syndrome would extend to days two and three. It would have been preferrable to have had a narrower programme with better music than such a broad offering at poor to mediocre quality.

William Beh does not always like thought-provoking concerts, especially when they're not all nice thoughts.

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725: 20.6.2000 ©Benjamin Chee.

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