Sunday, August 15, 2004

AYO Second Night

AYO was great.

The downside was that they had to resort to selling the tickets at dirt cheap prices to fill up the hall as President Nathan was there tonight. This was a real pity. The playing standard was what I expect of a concert and definitely not like a certain foreign university band concert that I attended recently.

Pontzious wasn't as bad as I heard after all. There were indeed some funny things which he did in Mahler 1 that I don't understand. He seems to enjoy lengthening anacruses to an incredible length that makes the players and audiences wonder when the on-beat will be coming in. Eg. the oboe soli in 3rd movement. There was this moment in the 4th movement where the modulation actually skipped a semi-beat like a hiccup just before changing into the new key.

His Festive Overture was rather good but some parts could have been livelier. The Strauss was something new to me, so I can't really say much about it. It was quite entertaining though.

Guess what, the Ignorant-Singaporean-Concert-Go-er showed up and triggered off a diminished round of applause from fellow ISCGs after the 1st movement of Mahler. Thankfully, the ISCG was smart enough to keep his hand to himself for the rest of the symphony.

The brasses were good. They somehow seem a bit restrained in the 4th movement of Mahler where I thought they could have been stronger. In fact, everything was good. The orchestra has quite a good understanding of each other in spite of the short time they have spent together. Their playing was very musical, which was great! For once I wasn't bothered by the occasional mis-pitch or bad note. It's after all still understandably mentally draining to play an entire Mahler symphony.

The entire tour schedule is really very tiring. 3 weeks of rehearsal camp in Hong Kong followed by 3 weeks of touring around Asia with a concert almost every night. If there wasn't a concert, it would mean that they are probably spending the night travelling. Even so, the rehearsal camp schedule was scary, playing all the way with only breaks for meals between 9.30am to 7.30pm. Are their lips made of gold or something?

Overall, I think the last 2 evening of concerts have been extremely inspiring. It was really worth the time, effort and money. It's off to my etudes again next week!

fjozn at 1:52 AM