It seems quite apropos that the Singapore Symphony would perform, in the second half of the evening's programme, Nielsen's monolithic commentary about conflict and struggle, his Fifth Symphony, just one day after war broke out in Iraq - notwithstanding this programme would've been planned well over a year ago. Nielsen's music, which - to use a cliché - deserves a wider audience, proved to be quite tricky for the intrepid musicians, inasmuch that it was also just as rewarding for the audience.

In the deeply dark psychological matrix of the first movement, for instance, Lan Shui delivered a reading full of a palpable sense of fervour and energy, negotiating Nielsen's singular idiom with an easy familiarity. In this purpose, he was abetted in no small part by some excellent technical side-drumming from section principal Jon Fox, a lone voice of anatognism which Nielsen famously instructed to "improvise as if he wished at all costs to stop the progress of the orchestra."

One could not fault Shui's ambition in the music, pivoting between, on the one hand, the orchestra's affirmative avowal of the force of hope and life, and on the other hand, the spirit of negation, as asserted by the side drum. Yet I couldn't help but feel that the result of Mr Fox's thumping rhythms, full and rotund in the expansive space of the Esplanade Concert Hall, lacked a certain daring, sounding less improvised and more lucubrated, well-rehearsed. It might have slowed down, but certainly would not have stopped, with any reasonable amount of hope, Shui's relentless musical juggernaut.

But for the disruptive applause by some members of the audience (but well-intentioned, I'm sure), the contrast between the closing of the first movement and the opening of the second would have been all the more provocative. We know of Shui's predilection for wringing music to within an inch of its life (especially the latter-day Romantics), and not surprisingly, he applied the same treatment here, hurling the violence of the music towards the listener. The second movement was thus dispatched with profuse levels of contrived melodrama and bottle, but despite the polished efforts of the orchestra, the result was more an emotionless expanse of granitic racket to me than Nielsen's great utterance of hope for humanity. It felt quite like someone shouting into my ear, with nothing of substance to tell me.

That's not to take anything away from their efforts, but perhaps also the Nielsen was already overshadowed by a stupendous rendition of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto by the Finnish wunderkind Pekka Kuusisto before the break. I've heard many good things about the lad, not the least of which was the review of his Sibelius last September with the Malaysian Philharmonic, and true to expectations, Kuusisto delivered a performance that beguiled both eye and ear.

If I may take the unprecedented liberty of quoting wholesale from that review, swapping only one composer's name for another, (h)is playing of the Tchaikovsky was unconventional, abandoning indicated tempi for the most part and applying his own measured sense of rubato, minimal vibrato and visually full of movement. In the throes of spontaniety if not eccentricity, Kuusisto variously stamped his foot, gestured to the audience and the orchestra with his bow, hunched himself over Quasimodo-like, and tucked one foot behind the calf of the other and fiddled away one-legged with much ostentatiousness.

If you were there, this description of his playing, I think you'll agree, would still be spot on. Given such a colourful account, I have to confess I was looking out especially for the foot-stamping - and Kuusisto duly obliged, not once but twice, both times at the start of the second theme of the last movement. Seriously, though, that's not to take anything away from his technical facility and musical insight. I'll say this - his sort of emancipatory talent is something you have to be born with, not taught, not copied, although undoubtedly he has also received some fine teaching and nurture.

It seemed to me that Shui and the orchestra were quite at a loss, at some points, as to the intentions of the ineffable young soloist. Granted, Kuusisto's peculiar sense of rhythm and tempi, while mesmerising to the listener, would prove a challenge to those who had to complement his playing - but surely not to the point where the accompaniment actually sounded disjoint ? (I resist using the word "clueless" because it sounds rude - well, not that I've refrained from not mentioning it here totally...) Soloist and conductor may have been travelling the same path, but they were in difference places, if you know what I mean.

Still, going by the audience turnout at the autograph table and countless repeated queries for Pekka Kuusisto's CDs - he records exclusively for the Ondine label - his rendition of the Tchaikovsky was undoubtedly the highlight of the evening for many. The concert was begun with a somewhat placid, if also pelucid, rendition of Liadov's The Enchanted Lake, played in beatific, pastel colours, a kind of genial "how's your day been ?" warm-upper for the violinistic fireworks to follow shortly.

Lan Shui capped off the evening with an equally anodyne Slavonic Dance Op.72 No.2 (Dvořák's, of course), although his strangely-accented introduction of the work escaped most of the audience, even those of us in the Stalls. I'm reliably told his diction and elocution was absolute gobbledigook by the time it reached Circle 3. We're all for musicians who are willing and happy to talk to the auditorium about the music-making - but the good conductor should perhaps invest in a decent voice-and-speech coach, if he is really serious about communicating with the audience.

William Beh also wishes to add his congratulations to Lan Shui on his recent appointment as Principal Guest Conductor of the Aalborg Symphony. (Bet you didn't notice that, huh...)

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