Friday 16 June 2000 Victoria Concert Hall	SINGAPORE ARTS FESTIVAL 2000 Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra
	Henryk Mikolaj GÓRECKI (b.1933) Symphony No.3, op.36 "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs" Ludwig van BEETHOVEN Symphony No.3 in E-flat major, op.55 "Eroica" YEE Ee-Ping soprano Kazimierz KORD conductor

OVERALL NOISE RATING: 3 (Coughing and the plastic bag during the quiet moments of the symphony; and of course, that false ending would always see someone clap.)

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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Of interest in this concert is the simple fact that a Polish orchestra is playing an emotionally-intense and culturally important Polish work, not to mention one which has gained great popularity in the world.

The holocaust happened not very long ago, and surely, I believe, there are those in the orchestra today who may have some link to it, however tenuous. Górecki's Third Symphony (its name - "Symphony of Lamentations", "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs", etc. - is apparently not an easy translation from the Polish name) calls for great concentration in its long, sometimes almost monotonous stretches; while the vocal solo requires intense emotional delivery, with passages of much lyrical beauty which cannot be sung otherwise.

The first movement comprises a towering "arch" which descends into the abyss of human despair. I was not surprised by the amount of audience fidgeting through this long movement - well, one they will understand. Meanwhile, the lower strings created a gradual and discernible crescendo, with the violas in especially good tone. The opportunity to watch the canon travel from the basses to the celli and violas through the violins, from back to front, and then back again, is something listening to CDs cannot grant (the work was last performed in late 1994 by the SSO and Choo Hoey, and I had quite forgotten this experience).

As we reached the top of the arch, Singapore-born (alas, we reviewers always need to imply that they went elsewhere to study music) soprano Yee Ee-Ping (left) stood for her part. Her voice was powerful and bright; not surprisingly, her Polish was not really discernible, more vowels rather than consonants. As the music progressed, I felt that her tone was too rich, lacking the cutting edge that the powerful poetry needs. It would have benefitted from a more powerful "solid" chest voice, something the Eternal Feminine would be proud of, rather than the nose/head tone which Ms Yee sung in. Nevertheless, she sung with feeling, which is the most important, and I did not feel disappointed.

What did disappoint me was the occasionally lacklustre interpretation of the orchestra and conductor - the climax in which they take over the music when the soprano's song ends was rather undercooked. A waste, I felt. Perhaps this is an overplayed work with them.

The second movement, with the ringing soprano cry which has made the symphony famous, began as a breath of fresh air. Again, while the words were indiscernible, Ms Yee now sang with more cut now. Though a little rough, the performance was moving. The final prayer, based on an actual scribbling by an 18-year-old Polish girl imprisoned by the Nazi, was beautifully done. By and large, the performance of all involved would be better if the sense of slowness which pervades the work be made to feel "lingering" rather than sluggish.

The final movement, a long song of a mother looking for her dead son, continued the improvement. The reading was consistently well-rendered, with all in good and sincere voice. Like the climax of the first movement, however, the shift to the major was undercharacterised - it does not seized the heart as I know the music can. In addition, now that the music is openly "beautiful", the orchestra sounded coarse instead, lacking brightness and richness of colour. The false ending was done convincingly to elicit someone's clap. In the final analysis, this was a good performance, displaying the beauty of the music, but certainly not to its best.

Conductor Kazimierz Kord prefers his music "soft" rather than "cutting", long rather than short. The Eroica began with good momentum, the brand of symphonic energy which Beethoven revolutionized for the music world. However, there is less drive than I would expect from an experienced orchestra and conductor - certainly, for such a mature symphony as the Eroica, there could be more kick and punch. Even obvious accents became full notes, which made things sound distinctively more sluggish than I am used to.

The second movement, a "funeral march", was sluggish as well, and the full-note style does not help. Funereal or not, there should still be a sense of movement. Nevertheless, the interpretation as such guaranteed steadiness, and the Warsaw woodwinds were excellent. As the music wore on, I think it sounded rather more tender rather than "funebre". The pulse commanded by the conductor (which the orchestra faithfully obeys, kudos to that) is too regular, with too little contrast.

The Scherzo - and Allegro vivace mind you - described in the notes as "contagiously animated" - wasn't really so. Like the entire performance, it lacked that last ounce of fire which would have made it truly Beethovenian. It was exciting, but did not knock my socks off.

At best, I would say that Kord performed the architecture most satisfactorily - the finale portrayed the emotional aspect of the music well, but not so much the energy. If asked for an analogy to describe this performance, I would say that it was like watching a 6-gear car stuck at gear 4 - potential held back.

And guess what? Just like last year's St.Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic seemed to "awake" during the encore. The St. Petersburg, which seemed to play under potential during their main programme (of overplayed classics), produced some awesome earth-shaking during their encores. The Warsaw Philharmonic performed nothing more sinful than Mozart's overture to The Marriage of Figaro - but here we are, the whizzing stringworks, the skittering energy, and brilliant voice.

I say, let the orchestras play what they deem they play best.

Chia Han-Leon says more about the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs right over here.

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726: 25.6.2000 ©Chia Han-Leon .

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