Having dropped out of action as a fairly active contributor to this List
and have since been a silent lurker for some 2-3 years now (these days,
time, unfortunately, is a rare commodity in my line of work), I am
suddently jolted back into action by this thread.

When I chanced upon this discussion, I was like, Wow!  And for those who
read the review in the Flying Inkpot which Hong Yaw Chang pointed out to
this List, I am the culprit mentioned in there who wrote the newspaper
review that had less-than-good things to say about Kalnins' Rock Symphony.
Unfortunately, I see that the Flying Inkpot writer has misconceived what
I had meant to say.

Indeed, if I recall correctly, that particular review of mine provoked
rather violent objections from many quarters.  Among other things, some
people didn't understand why I suggested that the whole idea behind the
work sounded 'dated', with arguments like "isn't Mozart and Beethoven even
more dated??".  I'm glad at least someone else like Mr Breiling will be
able to see where I was coming from in my review.

Anyway, I append below extracts of my reviews in the Straits Times,
Singapore, of the Singapore Symphony concerts where both the Garbage
Concerto and the Kalnins Symphony were first played here, for your
information.

   CLASSICAL MAMBO ROCK!
   Singapore Symphony Orchestra
   Shui Lan, conductor
   Saturday 28 August 1999, Victoria Concert Hall

   by LIONEL CHOI

   With a title like Classical Mambo Rock!, one would turn up for last
   Saturday's SSO concert either expecting to have a toe-tapping good
   time or thinking that the fancy label was no more than a pejorative
   tag which evoked visions of purely classical musicians, driven by
   cupidity and venal instinct, venturing into alien territory and, more
   often than not, making a fool of themselves.

   Simply put, conductor Shui Lan offered a bit of both.

   ...

   It was a pity, then, that the programming choice of Latvian hippie
   Imants Kalnins' Fourth Symphony (Rock) after the interval was such
   a crushing embarrassment.

   As the sheer novelty of having a full-strength symphony orchestra
   ham it up like some terribly passe 70s European hard-rock band wore
   thin after no more than five minutes into the work, what one was left
   with were painfully amateurish and lame orchestration, naive, dated
   and pointlessly repetitive melodic ideas, and truckloads of cheap,
   pathetic effects.

   Having in the last movement a campy, schizophrenic, microphone-wielding
   rock diva who switched jerkily between poignant quasi-Puccinian
   heroine and football stadium anthem-singer was about as interesting
   and as pleasurable as a wisdom tooth extraction.

   It thus becomes meaningless to discuss the work of Canadian soprano
   Jackalyn Short, Shui or the orchestra, which would have been far
   better off playing symphonic arrangements of the Rolling Stones or
   Pink Floyd.

   As it was, Kalnins' awful piece made even Jesus Christ Superstar,
   the similarly-conceived pseudo-rock opera from the trite musical pen
   of Andrew Lloyd Webber, seem like a real work of genius.

   *****

   POTPOURRI & TRASH CANS!
   Singapore Symphony Orchestra
   Shui Lan, conductor
   Saturday 4 September 1999, Victoria Concert Hall

   by LIONEL CHOI

   After hearing Jan Jarvlepp's Garbage Concerto last Saturday, one will
   never look at pots and pans in the kitchen in the same way ever again.

   The use of household utensils as a means of making synchronised
   rhythmic noises is not exactly a new concept, but one must think that
   even the raucous, somewhat numbing routines of the volcanic British-bred
   percussion sensation, Stomp, do not make as ingeniously artful and
   astonishingly musical use of non-perishable domestic waste as does
   the 46-year-old Canadian composer's three-movement work.

   Jarvlepp trades in-your-face ritualistic pounding and banging for a
   no-less-enthusiastic pursuit for greater rhythmic sophistication and
   kaleidoscopic instrumental colour, revealing far more musical
   possibilities in, say, plastic ice-cream tubs than do Stomp out of
   a gritty garage full of oil-drums, broomsticks and lighters.

   Scored for five percussion soloists, it was amazing how well the
   whole range of makeshift instruments - from glass-bottle xylophones
   to an inflated paper bag to the ubiquitous garbage can - blended into
   the traditional orchestral make-up.

   Perhaps the most interesting was the slow second movement, which
   combined hushed, sustained strings and a haunting chorus of beer
   bottles filled with varying water levels to produce most mesmerising,
   surreal results.

   The skilful, split-second execution of the splendid Swedish percussion
   ensemble Kroumata, backed admirably by an alert SSO, brought the
   highly-complex yet thoroughly effective spit-fire rhythms and harmonic
   writing of the outer movements to bustling life without recourse to
   fearsomely jarring climaxes.

Regards,

Lionel Choi
Singapore