Concert review: Eclectic programme highlights SSO’s sections at their virtuosic peak

Fanfare: Brass, Percussion and Carmen

Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Victoria Concert Hall
Feb 28, 7.30pm

Following the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s (SSO) great success in its three-city concert tour of Australia in February, music director Hans Graf led Fanfare: Brass, Percussion And Carmen, a very interesting programme of 20th-century music that highlighted the orchestra’s different sections at their virtuosic peak.

The brass had the entire first half to its own, opening with Frenchman Paul Dukas’ Fanfare from his 1912 ballet La Peri with stunning aplomb. Three minutes was all it took to display a warmth of tone within a wealth of harmony.

Just slightly longer was American Samuel Barber’s Mutations From Bach (1968), which subjected the Lutheran chorale Christe, Du Lamm Gottes (Christ, You Lamb Of God) to gradual transformations. Seamlessly merging the harmonisations by German composers Joachim Decker and Johann Sebastian Bach, the music was a short but spiritually moving tribute capped by a French horn recitative near the end.

Arguably the most unusual work on show was German Paul Hindemith’s Konzertmusik For Piano, Brass And Two Harps (1930), in which deeply sonorous brassy timbres were balanced by the scintillating sounds of Albert Tiu’s piano and the harps of Gulnara Mashurova and Charity Kiew.

The first two movements played like an extended Bachian prelude and fugue updated to modern times. The jaunty fugal subject established on piano would be shouted out by brass interjections, which soon took over to complete the outlandish display of counterpoint.

The slow third movement’s Variations was scored only for piano and harps, an oasis of nocturnal calm before the syncopated finale’s romp where brass returned with a vengeance and even hints of jazz. The obligatory encore came from the splendid brass, a lovely transcription by conductor Graf of the sublime final chorus from Frenchman Maurice Ravel’s opera L’enfant Et Les Sortileges (The Child And The Magic Spells).

Living Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin’s Carmen Suite (1967), a ballet of 13 short movements, was scored for strings and percussion using popular themes from French composer Georges Bizet’s evergreen opera Carmen. This was performed by the SSO in 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic before a very small audience, and it fully deserved the near full house this evening.

By jumbling up the original sequence of melodies, chopping and slicing popular numbers, this was like viewing an old friend through a series of distorting mirrors and prisms. Particularly intriguing was the Torero movement, in which its march-like melody abruptly disappeared, leaving just the accompaniment chugging along.

Much was left to the listeners’ imagination, with the skilfully rejigged Habanera, Flower Song and Fate theme indicating the music, despite its glitz and glamour, was focused wholly on the subject’s tragedy. This was headily accomplished by the strings and five very busy percussionists.

This very unusual concert was dedicated to the memory of SSO’s founding patron Goh Keng Swee. Given his visionary ability to look outside of the box, he would have greatly appreciated the sheer eclectism of its programming.