A quick review of SSO on Campus Concert

“If music be the food of love, play on…”

                                                    —— Shakespeare

So at the dinner time I went to the Nanyang auditorium for this concert delivery.

After the tuning lead by concert master Kong Zhaohui, conductor maestro Lim Yau stepped on the podium in the audience’s applause.

Romeo & Juliet: Fantasy Overture Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

Based on Shakespeare’s famous play, this piece is a typical Tchaikovsky work with passion, sweet sorrow melody and fatalism.

The introduction opens with clarinets and bassons in a quiet and slow pace. Soon the strings join in this wish and pray session. After a few repeat and variations, the strings develop into a more dramatic and conflict scene, which embodies the fights between the Romeo and Juliet families. The orchestra suddenly quiet out to end the first theme.

Lead by viola, the famous love theme finally arrives in the auditorium. Woodwinds soar over this theme again accompanied by harp and strings. Development session closed in the peace and quiet harp.

The fights appear again and become more intensive. Attacks from the cymbals push the conflicts to the climax. The love theme comes back with determination and courage, however finally overwhelmed by the funeral like sound by the strings and timpani. The fatalism rules over love. For the last time, the love theme was delivered slow and quiet. It soars high above like in heaven before the tragic love story finally closed by the full orchestra.

For this piece, affected by the horrible acoustics of the auditorium, the silky strings of SSO disappeared, left with us a little dull timbre. The woodwinds have done a satisfying job. However, it’s almost impossible to capture a well balanced orchestra in such a hall. I would rate this performance 7 out of 10 despite the venue.

Fantasy on Bizet’s Carmen, Op. 25 Pablo de Sarasate (1804-1908)

As a familiar works to all, this serves as an ear attracting piece in the whole programme. However, this shortest piece in programme also serves the worst performance. The soloist was not in a communication with the orchestra and conductor. The harmony in between was more or less tore apart. If you closed your eyes and focused your ears to the stage during this performance, you would agree with me. The soloist may be technically good, but he still has room to improve to work with orchestras. There was an inappropriate applause after the second movement and only the one in today’s concert. You may notice the interesting smiles on the musicians’ faces as well. Another interesting thing happened after the performance. The applause was not long enough for an encore. But four bunches of flowers were brought for the soloist. They should know that the soloist has to at least hold his violin with one hand. Ironically, no flower was brought for the conductor after the entire concert. I give 6 out of 10 for this performance.

Symphonic Suite on a Set of Local Tunes Kelly Tang (b. 1961)

This was my most interested piece in the programme since I never heard it before. A few other works by Prof. Tang has attracted me very much. As stated by the composer, this piece uses vast and exquisite sonic palette of the orchestra. The music itself is joyful and light-hearted. However the lack in depth may be the point to attack. 7/10.

Swedish Rhapsody No. 1, Op. 19 Midsummer Vigil Hugo Alfven (1872-1960)

Finally in this piece, SSO was more or less back to its form. From the musicians’ faces, you can tell a little as well. Cheerful and well controlled. SSO demonstrated its quality on this technical demanding piece. 8 out 10 from me.

Fiddle Faddle Leory Anderson (1908-1975)

After two rounds of applause, came the encore piece Fiddle Faddle by Leory Anderson. As told by the conductor, this is a show piece for the orchestra. SSO kept the good sound on and closed the whole concert.

A few other thoughts:

The use of video projection was a two-edged approach. It did capture the orchestra and musicians with more detail. This may be a good attracting point for newcomers of classical music. However the more important part of a concert is always to focus on listening music.

The acoustic property of Nanyang Auditorium is really horrible. The excess of reverberation distort the whole hall. I would suggest audience to sit a little bit closer to the stage than usual to compromise this.

There was also a very annoying noise from the sound system on the ceiling. Can’t imagine how this could be. But it did deteriorate the performance all along.

Before Friday’s concert, as usual I met and dined with Samuel. He led me to the newly opened Food Republic in Suntec. It’s really a great place to dine. Very nicely decorated in an old fashioned library, clean and cool. Nonetheless the most important part, the fried fish soup I ordered was gorgeous and cheap.

Back to music. The first half of the concert was Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major. I like the second movement particularly. Sweet, slow and smooth, these are what I’d like to hear from piano rather than dramatic skills show off. Indeed, for piano, it’s even tougher to perform a slow piece like it’s not easy to link pearls into a necklace.

After the intermission was my long expected Tchaikovsky Symphony No.5. The sorrow theme was started by the clarinets with string accompaniment. This is the "complete resignation before Fate", which some reviewers believed to be a sign of the composer’s going towards homosexuality. Dialoges between the winds and strings enbodied the fate and attempts. The second movement was led by strings and soon a solo horn, which is rare in symphony. Sweet and sorrow, vivid and profound, this melody explained the composer’s sidenotes on the score "how I love you". It was such a touching one, the monster was feeling his eyes wet. Before the tear drops, the "fate" overwhelmed the hall from strings. "attemps" came back as well, however "fate" is fate. Waltz in the third movement let audience temporarily forget about all the unhappiness. However "fate" theme came back again and scattered all the dreams. The finale is the most interesting and controversial part. "fate" theme ironicly returned in variation, heroically and brilliantly. Sounds as if a victory march insteady of the tragic fate. Tchaikovsky himself ever doubted about this symphony. In his letter to von Meck:"There is something so repellent about such excess, insincerity and artificiality", "too colourful, massive, insincere, drawn out and on the whole very unsympathetic …" This doubt, which I believe, is the motivation behind Symphony No.6 "Pathetique". That’s the real "complete resignation before Fate" and after which "death".

SSO’s performence was satisfying. I would rate it 7.5 out of 10, considering still so eary in the season. An intimate evening with music before my paper weekend T_T.

前两天整理、同步笔记本和台式机的mp3库。又一次在UMO (Unknown Music Object)文件夹里见到了熟悉而又陌生的Organ_Solo.mp3。此琴曲在这文件夹里放了1年多了，我却一直想不起哪里下的，谁作曲谁演奏。还有次差点删掉。

再听一边，还是那种熟悉的感觉，一个很简单的主题，以慢板渐强开始，稍微有一点变奏，还有一点点赋格的味道。全曲不到两分钟，应该是某位音乐家即兴创作的小曲。奇怪的是曲风并不巴洛克，也非近代作品，实在听不出来是谁的作品。质量算不上上成，只是很合我胃口。猜想大概是以前浏览网页时随手下的试听，便存了下来。

再听一边，真是很对胃口。只是在听第三遍时注意到录音开始部分有噪音。仔细听一下感觉很像用MD录音时麦克离机身太近。显然不是录音室里出来的东西，虽然录音质量还勉强。啊，突然意识这个这个有可能就是我自己录的。。。。再听一遍，确认了。。确认是我自己以前录着玩的，用的是我那架万里之外背来的琴。。我说怎么听起来不像管风琴。。幸亏是我随便用MD录得，要是去试验室里Recording Room录，恐怕永远找不到答案了。

这真是太。。。了，立刻改文件名，填入ID Tag

Title: 即兴曲 VW001 Improvisation on Accordion Organ

Artist: 魍魉  Composer: Vincent WANG Liang  Year: 2005 Genre: Classical

各位看官是不是已经吐得不省人事了。。。考虑到大家可能正在吃饭，或者就快要吃饭，亦或是刚吃过饭，就不把这个曲子贴出来了。。恩，做人要厚道

p.s. quoted from Wikipedia: Improvisation is the practice of acting and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one’s immediate environment.