dry grass singing

a very unfortunate event

SSC 25th Anniversary:
Beethoven's Choral Symphony

Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by: Lim Yau
Soprano: Tamara Matthews
Mezzo-soprano: Graciela Araya
Tenor: Paul Austin Kelly
Bass: Johannes Mannov
Singapore Symphony Chorus, Singapore Bible College Chorale, Hallelujah Chorus, & The Philharmonic Chamber Choir


Claude Debussy said once that 'music is the space between the notes'. By that definition, then, what happened at the Esplanade Concert Hall on Friday 6 May was anything but music. Under the baton of conductor Lim Yau, the SSO forced the audience to witness the frenzied massacre of Beethoven's sublime 9th Symphony in which there was no space, between the notes or anywhere else, for the music to even take just one tiny life-saving breath. It was an experience that i honestly could have done without.

As a die-hard Beethoven fan, i'd been looking forward to this concert ever since i bought the tickets in February. Beethoven's 9th is one of those masterpieces of the classical repertoire that i cannot imagine the world being without. It is a work of great generosity, an extraordinary experiment in musical form and technique that somehow came out, not just right, but just right - despite its composer having been almost totally deaf at the time when he wrote it. i love the way the first movement emerges out of mist and fog, in an other-worldly half-light unlike any dawn that has ever greeted human eyes; the jocular energy of the second movement, with its musical 'Gotcha!' right at the end (i imagine Herr Ludwig, guffawing out loud, slapping his thigh in amusement at his own little joke); the absolute hymn-like calm of the slow movement; and of course, the pure joy of the last movement - it boggles the mind that a near-deaf musician could have written something called 'Ode to Joy' as convincingly as Beethoven did.

It's hard to imagine how any experienced conductor could possibly have messed up the 9th. Not because it's an easy work to perform - it's too massive, too complex, to be easy. But i had thought before this that its very fame would protect it from bumbling conductors or other performers who didn't know better. After all, anyone with access to the many recordings of the 9th could not possibly get it wrong, could he? And anyone who was less competent would surely steer clear of this old classical workhorse in favour of other, lighter pieces.

So what went wrong with this concert?

Lest i give in to the temptation to say, 'Everything', let me state for the record that i think the orchestra and soloists did a wonderful job, given the circumstances. It was not their fault that the conductor was pushing the music far beyond its limits. In fact, the soloists were brilliant, and one can only imagine the possibilities that went to waste as a result of Lim Yau's haphazard conducting. The orchestra, too, did the best it could with the conducting it got. The blame, as far as this listener is concerned, lies squarely on the shoulders of the conductor.

The performance was the most insensitive handling of a piece of music that i've ever heard in a public concert (barring that awful version of the Rach 2 i heard a couple of years back, played by the NUS Symphony Orchestra). All semblance of musicality was lost in the breakneck pace at which Lim Yau drove the orchestra in his apparent eagerness to get to the end of the piece in time to rush home for the Friday evening episode of his favourite primetime TV show. Or, as a friend put it, 'One would think that LY was paid according to how many notes he could squeeze out of the orchestra in a set time.' He rushed through all 4 movements at virtually the same headlong speed, ignoring totally what any good musician should know: that music needs space to breathe, that time has to be given to allow musical meanings to gather and grow. Not only did the pace result in the total absence of feeling in the playing, it also led to very messy ensemble work, sometimes in simple passages that really should have been a breeze to play. It's been a long time since i've heard the SSO play so badly - in fact, in recent years i've grown to expect high standards from our national orchestra - but i cannot see how they could have done otherwise with such poor direction from the conductor.

At its best, the 9th is a complete musical universe that encompasses in its 4 movements a whole history of creation, from its embryonic beginnings to the exultant triumph of its finale - a hymn to the joy that pervades all of creation. And within this musical universe are passages that, well-executed, could make a grown man weep. Yet, what happened during the concert was more like the aural equivalent of a soggy pudding splatted across a greasy linoleum floor. Passages that ought to have shimmered with light (the mysterious opening, for example, or the transcendant soprano chorus lines towards the end of the 4th movement) sank darkly into oblivion, while more complex contrapuntal passages sputtered hopelessly into unintelligible gibberish as the players tried desperately to keep pace with the conductor, and with each other. The whole of the slow movement was hacked through mercilessly, and the resulting lack of soul (especially obvious in slow movements in general) was, depressingly, representative of the whole rendition of the work in general.

Halfway into the 1st movement i realised that if i was to get anything more than utter frustration from the whole concert experience, i was going to have to look elsewhere than in the music. i started, firstly, with the performers. It seemed to me a wonderful opportunity to see for myself how artists behave when they feel that their art does not meet the standards of excellence they set for themselves. So i couldn't help but notice that the soloists (all highly-acclaimed international singers) were looking bored throughout the performance, and that the boredom morphed during the curtain calls into sheer disgruntledness. You could actually see it, quite clearly, from their body language. The orchestra members, too, looked none too pleased – instead of the usual foot-stomping and bow-tapping that breaks out at the end of a good performance, the orchestra simply sat rather stiffly in their places during the curtain call, with only the principal violinist diplomatically tapping his bow on his music-stand while the rest of the musicians looked on with plastic smiles on their faces.

One truly positive thing that did come out of the whole sordid affair was that i got the chance to check out the interior of the Esplanade concert hall. It is truly a work of art - the most beautiful concert hall i have ever come across. With its pinewood finishing, olive green wall coverings, and the black microphone cables hanging down from the acoustic canopy like the aerial roots of a banyan tree, the concert hall encloses the audience in a warm orange glow that effectively shuts out the distracting noises of the outside world – even mobile phone signals are cut off when one is in the hall.

It is in every way a state-of-the-art concert venue, and the majority of the performances that it has hosted since its opening have surely proved its detractors wrong – quality hardware does help facilitate quality performances, no matter what sceptics may say. More than that, though, the venue justifies, endorses and vindicates the art, if the art is good. Much as it appears politically-incorrect or even anti-artistic to say so, it does seem that an expensive, world-class performance venue somehow endows the performances that take place under its auspices with a certain aura of class and social acceptability. Would the Vienna Philharmonic perform in a school hall? i rest my case.

But i digress. In this particular case, the art was manifestly not good, and no amount of architectural or technological wizardry could conceal the fact. Even if the rest of the audience seemed fairly satisfied with the performance, there was at least one member of the audience on Friday who did not applaud at the end of the concert. And that, coming from someone who’s always felt that good artists deserve all the support they can get, is saying a lot.

posted by eothen @ 10:08 PM