Bart Folse must be gratified that he has commanded full-house ticket sales for both nights of the programme, a feat as yet unmatched by all the other conductors preceding him this season. (Not to mention the thousand-odd who will turn up for free at Palm Valley for the Open-Air Concert on Sunday.) Of course, whether he will do enough to justify the confidence of the money-paying public is another matter.

Following the success of last season's similarly-titled programme, this is another lineup of popular classical music as featured in the movies. Although, it must be said, some of the films named in the playbill come from an entirely different generation of moviegoers - Apocalypse Now (1979) Ordinary People (1980) and Prizzi's Honor (1985), and not forgetting the evergreen animated mise-en-scéne ,Fantasia (1940).

One wonders how much of the audience have actually seen (or remember the use of these "classical bits" in) these movies; Safe Passage (1994) is downright obscure (starring Susan Sarandon and Sam Sheperd - does that ring a bell yet ?) while the other four abovementioned movies have achieved near-voyeuristic reputations of epic proportions which people now only talk and read about but increasingly few have actually watched.

Middlebrow Music for the Masses? By no means were the movies named in the playbill the only ones in which the performed classics have appeared. Maybe this will jog your memory a little: The Barber of Seville Overture (Rossini) - Breaking Away, A Clockwork Orange, Space Jam Canon (Pachelbel) - The Father of the Bride Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (Mozart) - Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (no, really), Alien, Amadeus, The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Cowboy Way, Fame, G.I. Jane, There's Something About Mary, Up Close and Personal, The Witches of Eastwick, etcetera etcetera etcetera. Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 (Liszt) - Shine Night on a Bald Mountain (Mussorgsky) - Natural Born Killers Ride of the Valkyries (Wagner) - The Blues Brothers, Small Soldiers What would really be an eye-opener would be a programme with classics from more current shows, say, Shostakovich's Second Jazz Suite (in "Eyes Wide Shut") or Respighi's The Pines of Rome (in "Fantasia 2000"). Or (dare we hope) a concert programme comprising excerpts from movie soundtracks, in the vein of the once-popular Ron Goodwin-SSO concerts. Or perhaps even "Classics from the Commercials" - you can imagine the sponsors going nuts over this one: Rach's Vocalise, Mendelssohn's Scottish Symphony, Bach's Second Violin Concerto, a couple of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and the opening bars of Mahler's Second Symphony, fourth movement, with jumping conductor and all. Just kidding. (But only just.) Incidentally, check out Classics from the Silver Screen", run by one of our Inkpotters no less, which contains one of the most updated lists of classical music which have appeared in the movies.

Not that this has kept the people away - quite rather the opposite, in fact. This is the best attendance of the season so far (albeit one that clapped between movements - but I'm getting ahead of myself here) and this is already a good thing: having the masses coming, for their first time, to catch some classics "live" and experience a concert firsthand. Who needs pop artistes to reach the hoi polloi?

But onto the actual thing. The programme began with Rossini's Overture to The Barber of Seville. Folse held it together splendidly, even if it was not exactly a performance of the highest stature: the brasses were occasionally slack and there was again the hint of the "need to warm up" syndrome in the orchestra. But the woodwinds were fine and the coda was taken with great panache; too great, maybe, with a sudden "turn on" of electricity after an indifferent build-up.

Scaling down to six strings for each of the three violin parts, with three cellos and two double basses playing the ground base, the Pachelbel Canon was delivered with a rich, warm timbre. More zest in the first violins, though, would have been welcome. Dynamics were flat, a defect that would also plague most of the performance. The programme notes about the Canon could also have been clearer and some of the mistakes downright sloppy, e.g. "In its complete form it is followed by a gigue but the canon is often plagued(sic) alone."

The Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, performed here in its entirety, was rendered with the full orchestral strings. I'm not sure this was a good idea, as the second violins and violas tended to disappear into an untidy muddle amidst the overripe sonorities. Again, the music was not helped by the unimaginative dynamics, nor, in the second movement, a remarkably fast tempo that was closer to Andante (It., "moving along") than Romanza.

The Menuetto was even faster. I have never heard it taken at the speed which Folse adopted, but the phrasing of the melody line was imaginative and lyrical. I have to confess it was quite interesting to hear it played like this, although listening to this repeatedly as a recording is another matter entirely. For the last movement, there was a pleasing rhythmic lilt which was tossed off adequately; conversely, there was perhaps more that could have been done to inject the missing bounce and sparkle into this otherwise-bubbly music.

The audience applauded between the movements: enthusiastically between the first and second movements, somewhat hesitantly between the second and third, and only a sheepish handful who were slow to catch on about concert-going habits between the third and fourth. A foreign visitor sitting next to me, I should add, did not look impressed.

Also, it was unusual to find (with all due respect) Folse standing in front of the strings, directing what were essentially chamber works that could have been as easily pulled off sans conductor. I'm not saying that a conductor is dispensible, only that perhaps he should finish all his "homework" in rehearsal and leave the performance to the capable direction of the leader. Surely the strings of the SSO are more than able to play in directorless ensemble for familiar items of the repertoire like the Canon and Eine Kleine Nachtmusik ?

4 March, Saturday. Review by Isaak Koh The strings of the orchestra were in fine fettle in the Barber of Seville overture, sounding bright and smooth without being over-aggressive. Folse began calmly and moved assertively to speed, conveying gaiety with the happy skipping winds and strings. There were slight slips in the hectic passages, but they were negligible given the energy maintained by the orchestra. A reduced orchestra took Pachelbel's Canon in a measured pace. The serene character of the piece was marvellously brought out, and textures were impressively transparent. Folse quickened the pace in the central part of the work before slowing down to a sweet close. In contrast, the massed forces of the SSO were too rich for Mozart's Nachtmusik. The Allegro was lumberous and the execution was slightly messy. The absence of fleetness continued in the Romanze, the notes not given enough space to breathe. Similarly, the Menuetto sounded impatient and functional. The concluding Rondo also came across as heavy-handed and untidy, spinning into an unsatisfactory finish. The fullness of the orchestra reverted to full advantage in Mascagni's Intermezzo. The sound was appropriately grand, the sweeping notes transformed into cries of despair. Wagner's Act III Prelude to Lohengrin was effectively played, the cutting strings and the awe-inspiring brass creating a thundering impact on the audience. Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 did not work very well in the orchestral form. After the promising ominous opening, the piece become plodding, the cloudy textures contributing to its bloatedness. Folse apparently enjoyed this piece, dancing vigorously on the podium at the end, reminiscent of some American Bandstand act. At certain parts of the orchestrated version, the squawking of the horns and the winds resembled Dance of the Chicks from Mussorgsky's Pictures. This is a work that is still better heard in its original piano form. The Night on Bare Mountain is the version orchestrated by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The execution was certainly powerful. Folse clearly revels in the full palette of the work. The result was not grotesque at all, as the conductor emphasised the colour over the horror. A similar approach was used for the final work, Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries, the blazing brass and splashing cymbals rousing the crowd to a enthusiastic ovation. As a introductory concert accessible to the novice listener, the Familiar Favourites series of concerts will continue to be a popular and successful one. The SSO is savvy to promote itself this way (as it is doing with its open air concerts at the Botanic Gardens). It is, of course, hoped that listeners would then proceed on to more substantial fare and become regular vistors of the Victoria Concert Hall. Koh Boon Heng is secretly enjoying Backstreet Boys, N'Sync and Boyzone.

The Intermezzo from Cavelleria Rusticana came almost like an afterthought after the two string works. There was plenty of lustrous playing, but again, the relatively unimaginative dynamics left the apotheosis of the langurous main theme somewhat deflated. Still, the applause was rapturous, even if it stopped abruptly as Folse was in midstride, returning for his second curtain call. The applause resumed with nary a hint of the faux pas.

The second half kicked off with the brash Prelude to Act III of Wagner's Teutonic opera Lohengrin, a work which would be unfamiliar to non-classical fans. Curiously, Folse decided not to play the continuation of this prelude, which segues into the world-famous Bridal Chorus. Perhaps this was just as well. The strings were a total mess (all together now: "Need To Warm Up Syndrome") but the brass made a better contribution this time, injecting much-needed adrenaline into the music.

Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 was the highlight of the evening. With much improved strings and brasses, along with debonair wind solos and climatic percussion, Folse created an irresistible rendition of the quixotic gypsy music. He alternated tellingly between measured beats and boisterous exuberance, coupled with intelligent rubato. But the fortissimos could have been more sharply etched to bring out the contrasts between the melodic sections.

After a refreshingly atheletic account of the Rhapsody came the Moussorgsky Night on a Bald Mountain. The whirling introduction was built-up with some intensity. The anti-liturigal musical content aside, this was also an atmospheric, evocative performance; in a sound-bite, "powerful". There were isolated slips here and there (intonation errors, missed notes), and apart from the proverbial volume dial seemingly being jammed on ff, there was a sonic imbalance between the four sections of the orchestra (strings, winds, brasses and percussion) coming across like a shouting match where each section tried to outdo the other three.

An aside: I wonder what the audience would have thought of a work which is described in the programme notes with sentences such as "Appearance of the spirits of darkness, followed by Satan himself - Glorification of Satan and celebration of the Black Mass." Definitely not for the scrupulously religious.

The programme concluded with The Ride of the Valkyries, Wagner's showstopping hit from Das Walküre. Folse directed it with characteristic flair, although parts of it were overblown (and consequently, some fortissimi didn't come off as well as they should have). The contrived ending also came somewhat abruptly, sounding like a speeding truck hitting a wall. Nonetheless, the strings captured the wing-beating flight of the Valkyries aptly and the brasses were full of bravura. All that was missing were eight fat ladies with spears...

No less than five separate names were credited in the programme notes for this series of varied items - but by far the notes for the Ride (by a local academic) were the most baffling, comprising a physical description of the music. I have to say, jargon like mobile compound time and dominated by octave gestures would be meaningless to anyone who didn't know the music and superfluous to those who did. Something less technical and more informative (especially for new concert-goers) would have been more useful.

Generally the orchestra made up in the second half what they slacked in the first. No quarrels with the meticulous direction of Folse; but every quarrel with the exasperatingly poor dynamics, reminiscent of the former associate conductor who also used to direct Familiar Favourites concerts. Nonetheless, this collection of "pops" successfully managed to draw a wide audience of newcomers that seemed to enjoy the evening, and for better or for worse, we can expect to see more of the same next season.

WILLIAM BEH actually watches more movies than he attends concerts (and that's really saying something)..

If you wish to Add a Comment to this review, please post your comments to classical@inkpot.com.

Return to the Classical Index!... or Visit the Inkvault archives!

664: 6.3.2000 ©William Beh, Isaak Koh

All original texts are copyrighted. Please seek permission from the Classical Editor
if you wish to reproduce/quote Inkpot material.