Saturday 21st August, 1999 Victoria Concert Hall |
Familiar Favourites
President's Charity Concert |
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Hector BERLIOZ Roman Carnival Overture, Op.9
Sergei PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto no.3 in C major, Op.26 Edvard GRIEG Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.16 Antonin DVORAK A Hero's Song, Op.111
Roanna TAY piano |
OVERALL NOISE RATING:
3 (I have concluded that Singaporean audiences are claustrophobic - they simply must make some noise during silences in between movements, or during pauses in the music. And after Cellulars and Beepers, we have The Invasion of The Crinkling Plastic Bag.)
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 Soo Kian Hing
Recently we have seen a spate of young Singapore-born musicians who have been invited to return to perform after or while studying overseas. A commendable gesture, I hope this would contribute to a more vibrant local arts and music scene, which is in need of further education, development and maturity.
Roanna Tay was born in Singapore in 1979. She emigrated to Canada at three, and was raised in Calgary where she studied piano professionally. She has completed two years of piano studies at the University of Victoria School of Music under Dr Robin Wood, and will be starting lessons with Lee Kum-Sing at the University of British Columbia School of Music in Vancouver in a month's time. Having been performing on stage with orchestras since twelve, Roanna has won many top awards in Canada and has been invited to perform at many prestigious events and music festivals.
Seow Aik Keong is residing in Singapore and has won various prizes at the National Music Competition in 1993, 1995 and 1997, and the Singapore Music Teachers' Assocation. Besides the piano, Aik Keong is also an oboe player, representing Singapore as an oboist at the 1995 Pan Pacific International Music Camp, as well as being the student conductor of the Raffles Symphonic Band. He is a Licentiate of the Royal School of Music and a Fellow of the Trinity College of Music, and will start music studies at London's Kings College in September this year under scholarship.
Roanna was confident in the Concerto, starting off the first movement with playfulness and had no problems with Prokofiev's quirky notes. However, the lower register, and especially the dissonant chords, were at best inaudible; at times the pianist was on the verge of disappearing into the orchestra altogether (is this why the Concert Hall's Steinway grand is so notorious with performers?). Only in the third movement did Roanna loosen up considerably and gave the work more punch, but the performance lacked Prokofiev's very individualistic physicality and bite. However, these are finer points of interpretation that should develop with a better understanding of the music, and certainly I am looking forward to hearing a more mature and stylistically stronger Roanna in a few years' time.
Aik Keong was dramatic and extremely intense right from the opening flourish, giving extra time for each chord to resonate, creating an inner focus from which sprung forth a well-controlled, but by no means stifled, Romantic expressiveness. The many virtuosic passages were carried off well, and carefully-shaped arpeggios and chromatic ornamentations do not detract from the main melodies. What was distressing, however, was his incessant physical movements, involving either his free hand or leg(!). Overall his tone came across as clear and bright but adequately warm, with a sonorous lower register and a steady technique; but then Grieg's concerto does not provide too deep a pool for budding pianists to swim in. Aik Keong's mettle will truly be tested when he starts to swim in the ocean after his overseas study.
Bart Folse dedicated tonight's performance of A Hero's Song, Dvorak's fifth and last symphonic poem, to Singapore's outgoing President, Mr Ong Teng Cheong, for his unabated long-term support of the arts and music scene in Singapore and of the Orchestra in particular. Written when the composer was fifty-six years old and having returned to Prague after three years in New York, this epic work has no detailed programme but seemingly describes the life of a hero, from early confidence through tribulation and trial, and finally consolation and triumphant success.
The Roman Carnival Overture is a fine example of Berlioz's intense
Romanticism, and his superb orchestration makes for symphonic fireworks
on stage. Bart Folse and the SSO gave an electric reading, bursting
with energy - providing a festive mood to tonight's gala concert. The
strings demonstrated good ensemble work, certainly more impressive here
than in the Grieg or Dvorak. Compliments to the soloist on the cor
anglais for the beautiful solo.
All in all, the programme of the concert was rather unusual: one overture, two full piano concertos and one symphonic poem, all in one night is a bit too much; perhaps the organisers were over-eager to showcase two local pianists before they left Singapore. However, I believe the Prokofiev concerto, and the Bartok concerto to be featured later this season, are part of efforts to get audiences exposed to a more mature and varied repertoire (not that Beethoven and Mozart make juvenile music; but the SSO has so rarely explored the concerto repertoire wedged between the Classical and living composers). And here I believe the effort is worth applauding.
Soo Kian Hing wishes he has a time machine so he could hear the actual Hexameron in concert.
Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto, written in 1921 while he was in Paris, is among the more Romantic of his five piano concertos, having broad sweeping themes and a more lyrical and expressive voice, while never losing that dry sarcastic wit so characteristic of the composer. To me, Prokofiev's music has always been associated with a certain measure of wryness, angularity and boldness, interspersed with dramatic intensity reminescent of the Late Romantics.
In contrast to the idiosyncratic contemporary style of Prokofiev, Grieg was a Romantic composer - just like Schumann, to whom he paid tribute by modelling his own piano concerto after the latter's Piano Concerto in A minor. The result? Another Piano Concerto in A minor that has constantly been considered the lesser sibling of Schumann's, lacking in depth and development. Nonetheless, this has not hampered the popularity of the concerto, largely thanks to its charming themes and the vast opportunities it offers for the performer to show off some Lisztian virtuosity.
The SSO tonight was warm enough for the Grieg and capricious enough for the Prokofiev; and Bart Folse (right) gave the soloists sufficient room to manipulate their parts. However the Dvorak was short of awe-inspiring, not to mention "epic". The narrative line was rather scattered and climaxes came wave after wave throughout the piece, without consideration for the "real" emotional climax of the whole symphonic poem (Rachmaninov would have balked at this).
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