Concert review: SSO's principal clarinettist Ma Yue delivers beautiful performance of Finzi

Straits Times

03-05-2025

Mozart And Finzi - Rodolfo Barraez And Ma Yue
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Victoria Concert Hall
May 2, 730pm
After battling a career-threatening illness, Singapore Symphony Orchestra's long-serving principal clarinettist of over 32 years Ma Yue made a stunning recovery to give a rare performance of English composer Gerald Finzi's Clarinet Concerto in C minor (1949).
Scored with just accompanying strings, this work eschewed all pretence to 20th century modernity, instead aligning itself with the hallowed English pastoral tradition of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Edward Elgar.
Mellowness dominated, with Ma coaxing a smooth and velvety singing tone from its opening movement. Unspoken melancholy reflected a toll of tragedy on Finzi, with the loss of three brothers and his first music teacher, all slain in the Great War. The elegiac air continued into the slow movement with muted strings and his long-breathed solo line, beautifully articulated. Despite a stirring outburst from the strings, the clarinet's mourning would be resolute.
The finale's high spirits in the major key could have been a game-changer if not for a quote from the first movement, returning like a memento mori (reminder of mortality). Moved to tears by the vociferous audience response, Ma's lovely encore of Italian composer Michele Mangani's Pagina D'Album (Album Page) with string support was no less poignant.
The concerto, not played by the orchestra since 1983, was flanked by two mature symphonies by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. These were conducted from memory and without baton by SSO's young and dynamic Venezuelan associate conductor Rodolfo Barraez.
Symphony No. 35 in D major (K. 385), nicknamed the Haffner Symphony, opened the evening with invigorating martial strains. This was clearly a reading making no concession to the lithe-sounding period instrument movement, with its full and unabashedly whole-hearted sonority. Yet the ensemble was capable of delivering fine nuances, not least in the contrasting second subject and the genteel slow movement.
While the Menuetto possessed heft, balanced by a gentle lilt in its Trio section, the Presto finale was taken at its word. Its passion and tempestuousness would have counted for nothing if not for accomplished playing at such high speeds.
Closing the concert was Symphony No. 39 in E flat major (K. 543), the most genial third of Mozart's final symphonic trilogy. Imposing E flat major chords, looking ahead to Ludwig van Beethoven's Eroica Symphony, opened the work. The ensuing Allegro could not have been more engaging. In the same vein, the slow movement's conversations between the instruments, first between the violins, and later the woodwinds and strings would be a defining feature.
As with the earlier symphony, the third movement's Menuetto was full of bluster, contrasted by the Trio's lovely clarinet duet, helmed by Ma's colleagues Li Xin and Tang Xiaoping. The finale was mercurial, with exhilarating strings leading, answered by chirpy woodwinds, and backed by a very busy pair of French horns.
Mozart's symphonies used to be on the undercards of SSO concerts, but thanks to inspired programming and oversight, this slight has now become something of the past.
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