BRAHMS WITH HANS GRAF
AND SAYAKA SHOJI
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Victoria Concert Hall
Thursday (1 August 2024)
This review was published in The Straits Times on 3 August 2024 with the title "Violinist Sayaka Shoji's tone matches SSO in Brahms programme".
The music of Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) is central to the classical repertoire, but he remains an acquired taste for some. An all-Brahms concert is less likely to fill a house than an all-Beethoven, all-Tchaikovsky or all-Rachmaninov concert here. However, this Singapore Symphony concert led by music director Hans Graf juxtaposing familiar and rare Brahms, early and late Brahms, serious and lighter Brahms, was ample proof of the German Romantic’s all-encompassing mastery.
The evening began with Tragic Overture (Op.81), crafted as a counterbalance to his ebullient Academic Festival Overture (Op.80). Nobody died for this masterpiece to be written, its title being instead more synonymous with pathos and drama. Two stentorian chords opened the work, before unleashing a passionate outpouring of emotion.
Its plethoric textures came off as over-reverberant in the confines of Victoria Concert Hall, and are likely better appreciated in the more capacious Esplanade. Nonetheless, most of the orchestral details came out well in this full-blooded reading.
There were no such worries for the pared-down forces in Serenade No.2 in A major (Op.16), an early work far predating Brahms’ long-gestated First Symphony (Op.68). The absence of violins meant that winds (pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons and French horns) ruled the roost, supported by low strings (violas, cellos and basses). These were excellent in generating a congenial and pastoral feel all through its five movements.
A central slow movement cast some dark clouds for contrast, but the outer movements were mostly light-hearted, dance-like and jocular in feel. This was capped by a joyous Rondo finale, where the diminutive piccolo joined the fray for a festive finish. This lively and energised performance can only win friends for this delightfully unpretentious piece.
The concert’s main draw was the Violin Concerto in D major (Op.77) with youthful Japanese violinist Sayaka Shoji as soloist. The full orchestra returned, and judging by the first movement’s orchestral tutti, it was determined not to take prisoners. One need not have worried as the petite-framed Shoji was fully up to the challenge.
Her outsized violin tone was capable of cutting through thick orchestral textures, without recourse to a coarsening of sound. Her intonation was also mostly flawless, making it a pleasure to behold, especially in lightly accompanied passages and the virtuosic Joseph Joachim (the work’s dedicatee) first movement cadenza.
The best melody went to Rachel Walker’s solo oboe in the slow movement, where Shoji’s part was to elaborate on its felicities. It was back to virtuoso mode in the boisterous Hungarian folk-influenced Rondo finale, which was rollicking good fun.
Graf, in his preamble, had pointed to Shoji playing from a facsimile of Joachim’s personal manuscript which saw a reworking of two short bars in the finale. It was a small but audible detail. Blink and you will miss it.
Vigourous applause saw Shoji return with a thickly polyphonic encore of Max Reger’s Prelude in G minor (Op.117 No.2). That was mightily impressive as well.
Photographs by Jack Yam / Singapore Symphony Orchestra.
