Saturday 26th November, 1999 Victoria Concert Hall |
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Last Thoughts... |
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Richard STRAUSS Metamorphosen
Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART Piano Concerto No.21 in C major, K467 Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART Symphony No.39 in E-flat major, K543
Hae-Jung KIM piano |
OVERALL NOISE RATING: 2 (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
What an exhausting, exhausting concert! I have never heard Nicholas Cleobury before, and knowing his Strauss credentials I expected a concert to savour.
I suppose it would seem strange to savour a threnody, but tonight's performance was just such a performance - angst-filled, surely, but also very lush and beautiful. The piece is as an ocean, the waves lapping at first, but slowly and surely overwhelming the listener, and so was this performance, well-paced, mostly hovering around one tempo without varying too much.
This was a more "sculpted" performance, perhaps, rather than the turbulent ones I've been used to listening to (Furtw鋘gler of course), but Strauss' love for his opera houses, and the operas which they had played, and the singers was communicated directly to this listener. Perhaps you'll call me fanciful, but in the sheen of the music one could hear voices of choruses and solo sopranos in the air. Ultimately it was heart-wrenching, and heart-breaking, as it should be, a chilling remembrance of a war now long past.
The remaining movements were appropriately sublime and if there were any tears at the end of the Strauss, Mozart dried them away with his sunny music, sunnily played and perfect.
By comparison, the Symphony seemed straightforward and unimaginative, though quite competently played. By this time though, I was very tired as the first half had been totally draining. So perhaps my senses had been dulled; nevertheless I found this Symphony was rather too much. After the perfection of the first half, though, perhaps I could be forgiven for thinking so. Mea culpa.
Derek Lim is working double-time for the Inkpot reviews.
612: 15.12.1999 〥erek Lim Explore
the Flying Inkpot
The performance of Mozart's 21st Piano Concerto which followed was nothing short of the lofty heights set by the Strauss. It was a performance of great virtuosity, reminding us that Mozart really was one of the greatest pianists of his time. Here was a performance of much grace, heavy at times, but never hectoring or lumbering, and always nimble. Kim played a clever Romantic piece, which nevertheless incorporated all the themes of the first movement very skillfully. A section of the cadenza incorporated a key-change into a remote key, a very clever touch indeed. Cleobury offered appropriately light, cheerful accompaniment.
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