INKPOT#86 CLASSICAL MUSIC REVIEWS: Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Saturday 13th November, 1999 Victoria Concert Hall	Subscription Series Greeting Cards
	John HOWARD Greeting Card: "There the Dance is" Béla BARTÓK Violin Concerto No.2 Richard STRAUSS Don Juan, op.20 Johannes BRAHMS Hungarian Dances Silvia MARCOVICI violin Okko KAMU conductor

OVERALL NOISE RATING: 2 (mostly quite quiet.)

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 the Derek Lim

Amongst the several "Greeting Cards" we have had for the SSO's 20th anniversary, this must be counted as one of the worse ones. It is hard to describe it, except to say that it seemed to me a pastiche of "modern" musical cliches - cluster chords, screeching strings and other things featured prominently in this piece. Having not heard much of Mr John Howard's output, I cannot say that there was anything distinctive about his musical language as a whole, but I can say objectively that nothing really caught my attention. If, according to the programme notes, the dance is at the special place described by the composer, I didn't notice it. A word to the SSO - don't shirk from 20th century repertoire, but really there are so many riches in the 20th century, including short pieces, which will suit the programme better. Despite that, I think the SSO put up a spirited-looking affair.

If the John Howard piece was less than satisfactory, the rest of the concert was otherwise. The Bartók violin concerto featured a Romanian lady violinist, Silvia Marcovici, an artist who has strangely inexplicably received less attention than she has of late.

Who is Silvia Marcovici? She has played with such greats as Leopold Stokowski, who invited her to play the Glazunov concerto, a concert recorded by Decca, but which I have never come across. The list of other conductors she has worked with sounds like a who's-who of conducting: Haitink, Previn, Abbado, Leinsdorf, Ormandy, Jarvi, Muti, Zinman, Mehta.

Ms Marcovici cuts a lean profile; she is sometimes self-effacing, but always in clear control of the music. Her technique is impeccable, her musicality obvious. Throughout the Bartók, she displayed a clear grasp of the idiom of the music, though her view of it may not be as pungent as that of Mutter's or Menuhin's, or indeed as exciting as Zoltan Szekely's marvelous, definitive account of the concerto at its premiere, with Mengelberg.

Most of the difficulties came in her projection. Her tone is not especially large; in this post-Romantic orchestra, where textures were not always as transparent as they could be (some parts are positively chamber-like in musical dialog, if not orchestration), she tended to be swamped. But no matter. This was a vital performance of the solo contribution of the concerto, and the cadenza was hair-raising.

Not so the orchestra, which instead of being lean and mean the way it can be, was positively lethargic and uninspired - a pity since the solo part was played so well.

In spite of rather tentative playing in the first movement, the second movement was all Bartókian magic and atmosphere. Needless to say, the soloist was up to the task, with nary an intonation error in sight, and complete grasp of the music, if perhaps a little extroverted. The third movement brought things back to square one, with ruffled accompaniment, uncertain entries, fubbed notes. Again, Marcovici was superb here, and as she played the final scale in the concerto, the audience, myself included, was ready to leap to applause.

If the first half of the concert saw the orchestra in less-than-best form, the second found it in rare, vital form, nearly a different orchestra. The whole of the second half was reason enough to go for the concert - the Hungarian Dances played with breakneck speeds but never forgetting their Brahmsian origins, or the smoky gypsy music that inspired them. The dances were a delight, in short. Why bother trying to analyse?

Strauss' Don Juan showed to me once again why I appreciate the SSO - they play with so much joy on the right days, and tonight was a right night. This Don was a swaggering cavalier, the solo contributions depicting the seduced were ravishing, with Sascha in fantastic form, and Alix Pengili as usual in glowing tone. But more than that was the SSO's verve and daringness of attack, their audacity in the obviously difficult passages, once in familiar territory. At once I realised what I missed from the MPO - they have the notes, but not the spirit: the impetuosity - whatever you might like to call it - of the SSO. Indeed for such a youthful orchestra they seem rather too mature. It would be great to be able to combine the note-perfection of the MPO with the spirit of the SSO, but for now, I'm glad we have this one orchestra.

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