Saturday 20th November, 1999 Victoria Concert Hall	Subscription Series Great Classics
	Ludwig van BEETHOVEN Egmont Overture Ludwig van BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No.5 in E-flat major, op.73 "Emperor" Zoltan KODÁLY Variations on a Hungarian Folksong "Peacock" Manuel de FALLA The Three-Cornered Hat - Suite No.2 Vadim SAKHAROV piano Bart FOLSE conductor, in lieu of Jerzy Maksymiuk

OVERALL NOISE RATING: 2 (Rather 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

Strange how different an orchestra can sound under a different conductor, and in different repertoire.

Tonight's concert, at least in the first half, was a far cry from the SSO of last week. Despite the beautiful solos from the various parts of the orchestra, Egmont came across as rather staid and uninteresting, gaining momentum only in the final pages. If we expected to be thrilled in the "Emperor Concerto" by the pianist Sakharov, we were sadly mistaken. Some soloists bring their solo parts along to improvise more and follow more strictly to the score, for example Sviatoslav Richter in his later years.

Thus the greatest of concertos by Beethoven (though some prefer the Fourth; I don't), was done an injustice tonight. It needs a lion of the keyboard, that Beethoven and Edwin Fischer certainly were. Perhaps Sakharov has the technique (Gilels praised his Liszt Sonata), but how does one lionize when one is not familiar with the score?

The first movement was painful to sit through because of the sheer lack of power and imagination that Beethoven certainly intended. The moderate tempi taken by the soloist and conductor hardly changed throughout the movement; the cadenza was more like an exercise; in fact the whole affair reeked of the soloist being too bored with the music. The second movement was comparatively rather inspired, if ordinary; by the end of the finale things started to pick up. But by then the damage had been done. Accompaniment after a while became rather soggy, though to his credit Folse did not let tempi slip too much. However he seemed rather in awe of his soloist, and this concerto can't survive such awe. When Edwin Fischer recorded his performances, he conducted as he played for the first four concerti. For the Fifth he invited Furtwängler.

The second half of the concert might be considered exotica to the SSO. I must say I rather enjoyed the performance of the Kodály, with its oriental-sounding melodies. His mystical orchestration brings to mind the "Impressionists" sometimes. The SSO performed rather well, and seemed at home with the opulent music. Here is Kodály showing off, and I was impressed, though as is usually the case for me, I started thinking about how the music might have sounded with the Concertgebouw of Mengelberg's days, whose 50th anniversary it was commissioned for. It would have had great tempo swings, and lush poramenti, which weren't on the cards for this performance.

Derek Lim is working double-time for the Inkpot reviews. Three cheers.

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