National Taiwan Symphony returns with pleasing programme including S’pore composers and musicians

Listening To Taiwan

National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra
Esplanade Concert Hall
Oct 14, 7.30pm

The National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, the oldest professional orchestra of the territory – conducted by Chuang Tung-chieh – returned to perform here after a hiatus of 10 years. As in its previous concert, the music of Taiwanese composers was proudly showcased.

The evening opened with Chang Ching-shan’s Echoes Of Eight Decades, a sumptuously scored work that quoted Taiwanese folk melodies. Beginning slowly but gaining in pace to a joyous conclusion, its Impressionist colours were redolent of Frenchman Claude Debussy’s palette and Englishman Frederick Delius’ pastoral style.

Just as sensitive to ears that abhor dissonances of any kind was Tyzen Hsiao’s The Angel From Formosa, playing on the G major triad with cor anglais getting the plum solo. Its very easy four-minute listen may be summed up in the composer’s notes, to “clear away the filthy souls in today’s society, which is filled with a lot of music that makes our mind confused and decadent”.

Upholding a similar credo was Zechariah Goh’s Singaporean Folk Medley, lining up four songs – Ondeh Ondeh, Suriram, Kopi Susu and Jinkly Nona – sung in Malay and Kristang (the Eurasian creole) by 130 singers from the Singapore Symphony Chorus and Youth Choir, with Eudenice Palaruan and Wong Lai Foon as choral directors.

The choirs remained in the gallery for Ludwig van Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy (Op. 80). This unusual work opened with an extended and improvisatory piano solo, impeccably helmed by Albert Tiu, before revelling in a set of variations with orchestral backing. The subject was an earlier song, Gegen Liebe (Requited Love), which would, years later, be transformed into the Ode To Joy.

The sung segment extolling the power of art, music and the human spirit opened with six soloists – sopranos Joyce Tung Lee and Teng Xiang Ting, mezzo-soprano Maggie Lu Pei Yun (a Taiwanese resident in Singapore); tenors Jonathan Charles Tay and Leslie Tay; and baritone William Lim, before the main chorus’ exultant entry to close. Piano, voices and orchestra in perfect harmony was its rallying cry.

The main work was Sergei Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances (Op. 45), which ironically presented the concert’s most dissonant music. This was his final masterpiece, a symphony in all but name, one where strife and struggle gave way to mellowness. It received a taut and cogent reading, one that also knew when to relax and luxuriate.

Chuang expertly marshalled his forces, with the first movement’s tension ratcheted up before the alto saxophone solo altered its complexion.

Even Rachmaninov’s failed First Symphony’s defiant theme was dredged up, now sounding retiring and resigned. The second movement’s waltz, with a cor anglais solo, was taken very deliberately and the build-up to a final scramble was perfectly judged.

The finale, playing on the Dies Irae chant and Alliluya from his Vespers, provided a thrilling close, with the applause ringing in before the tam-tam’s final note had dissipated.

More cheers erupted after the orchestra’s encore, Lee Che-yi’s luscious arrangement of Teng Yu-hsien’s Ban Chun Hong (Pining For The Spring Breeze).