This was by far the best concert that i have ever been to since the Phantom of the Opera came to Singapore! And thats not even counted as a concert anyway... Goes to show how lousy our concerts are huh? Nah, not true. I always thought the SSO played very well... until this concert. Now i think all of their past concerts suck except this one!
The lucky ones who decided to attend this concert of masterpieces were Tarun, Yao Feng and Saravana.
Barber Violin Concerto
It took me awhile to actually realise that the guy who went onstage (Claus Peter Flor) was the conductor as he totally did not resemble his portrait in the concert booklet (the pic in the booklet looked like von Karajan though =)). YF acted really stupid and purposely clapped very loud when the soloist came onstage. God she really blew us away with her playing! She was extremely violent especially in the 3rd mvt, which demanded an exemplary sense of technical virtuosity and extremely emotional in the second (sweet-sorrow) mvt. There were sections of her solo when she close her eyes and scrunched up her face while playing, making her look like she was praying very hard she wouldnt screw up the piece, especially in the 3rd mvt. Her elegance toward such a mature piece almost drove me mad. Scary part was that when the piece ended i notice she had a very bad bruise/abrasion on the left side of her neck from the rough playing.... scary...................................... Managed to get an autograph!!!!!!!
Btw I saw Albert Tiu there during the interval...
Mahler 5th
I expected the conductor to rush through the piece just like every other disappointing SSO concert. But NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just the opening of the funeral march theme had me at the edge of my seat... literally! Tempo was slow for the 1st mvt and overall the brasses did a Godly job playing those insane passages! Where 5 trumpets sounded like 50 000... And trombones pushing running semiquavers at crotchet = 120(!!!) For non-musicians u just need to know that's damn fast. And the horns..!!! Though some mis-pitching they executed the retarded high notes almost with ease... even as a section together! I personally though that SSO played the 1st mvt better than all of the 3 different recordings i had...
The 2nd mvt was very fast but the orchestra managed to keep up with Flor. The percussion was really loud. And I was thoroughly disappointed when I couldnt hear the harp (played by Gulnara) towards the end of the mvt. WASTED.
3rd was fine. no comment cos i'm not really into it
4th was surprisingly nice cos i usually cant hear it when i play it on cd cos its so soft. Gulnara did a really impressive job. Her (featured) harp entrances were all very accurate, even more accurate than the strings. (Oh the lower harp notes sound exactly like a piano!!!!! coolll!!!!!!!!)
Finally the last mvt was outstanding. Though it was fast and the strings were somewhat struggling to keep up, they made up at the climax at the end. HOWEVER, the climax was such an anti-climax cos the Timpanist came in really sharp! more than a semitone sharp somemore! At least he stop playing and retuned... WASTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But I swear the ending was the greatest I've ever heard by SSO, which brought the crowd to a screaming applause.
A little about the conductor
Claus Peter Flor is damn pro, having conducted many european orchestras and even made his debut as a conductor with the Berlin Philharmonic!!!!!!!!
Apart from that he was damn cute waving ever-so-frantically at the screaming orchestra. He was rather scary at times as he was heard shouting at the the 1st violins a number of times... Emo section in the score required emo expression i guess... (we were seated at the 2nd thats why we could hear) He also stamped his foot on the podium a couple of times haha
I had a headache towards the end of Mahler's last mvt due to the sheer power of the brasses, which I have never imagined would come from SSO. I enjoyed it immensely though, and I would rate it 9/10 for a concert.
~pianist is wEird~ (wow heck of a long post huh)
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