(12 Apr 2008) Violinist Kam Ning performs Barber with Singapore Symphony Orchestra; Lan Shui conducts Mahler Fifth @ Esplanade Concert Hall

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Barber, Violin Concerto

Mahler, Symphony No. 5

Donning a simple black dress accentuated with a turquoise sash, Kam Ning swept the audience away with her virtuosity and artistry. Every note in Barber’s Violin Concerto glistened like a dew drop, touched by the light of her sure handed interpretation. The familiar melody in the second movement was given new depth in her searching meditation, an extraordinarily intense brooding. At the end of the quick fire third movement, an enthusiastic audience member shouted ‘Bravo’; however, no encore was to be had. Indeed, what could possibly top the performance we had just witnessed? Here was no oriental exoticism dressed in bright primary colours, but a vigorous artistic force to be reckoned with. Claus Peter Flor led the orchestra in a thoroughly convincing rendition of the concerto. Even at the height of musical and emotional tumult, the soloist could be heard struggling valiantly against the inexorable orchestral onslaught in a finely wrought balance. The evening was graced by the presence of a 1793 Lorenzo Storioni, revealed in its full majesty. Kam Ning’s airing released the full power of the bouquet: a dark somber middle register balanced with the turbid mercury of the higher notes.

Mahler’s Fifth is mixed bag of tunes which cross paths throughout the symphony. Elements of apocalypse plague the movements throughout, and the schizophrenic alternation between jubilance and destruction was handled adeptly by the orchestra. The horn solo in the expansive Scherzo was adequate, stretched as the player was by the demands of the preceding movements. An especially harrowing moment was the desolate notes of the theme which was eked out by various soloists as the second movement came to a close, ending on an agonized pizzicato unison. The overplayed Adagietto (which appeared in the soundtrack to Visconti’s Death in Venice) was rendered with dignity.

One cannot realistically expect total precision in the tumultuous string writing throughout the Fifth; however, some of the climaxes were too diluted by scattered entries. At quite a few points in the music, the brasses obliterated the strings. Perhaps better programming choices could have been made. Especially coming after Barber’s concerto, the Fifth felt interminable; the Adagietto, in particular, felt like a reminiscence of the Andante of the concerto, and both movements felt like reminiscences of various soundtracks.