Concert earlier this Sunday

Pain strikes and I am trying to learn to bear with it till it goes away. While coping with the pain, i shall try to keep myself occupied by writing about the concert, Intermezzo, that I have attended earlier this Sunday.

In terms of entertainment, I think the concert has certainly won high scores. Music from a variety of genres were played. In that concert, not only could one be enticed by Bach's music, one could have his ears treated to jazz music, pop music, Chinese music, Spanish music and more.

I managed to catch all the items except for the item by the Pennywhistle & Handchimes Ensemble, so I shall not comment about the item that I have missed.

In general, the quality of the ensemble could be better. Individually, most of the players are of acceptable and considerable standards, but many of the ensemble turned out to be merely entertaining but not pleasant for my ears.

However, there were a few ensembles that turned out very well. Each member of the ensemble listened out for each other, and they complement each other. These were the ensemble playing (not in order of preference):
- Gurlitt's Six Pieces for Six Hands
- Move (performed by the Percussion Ensemble)
- Gerald Schwertberger Cuatro Piezas Para Dos
- Charles Auguste de Beriot Scene De Ballet, Op. 100
- Consuelo Velazquez's Besame Mucho

Three cheers to all performers who have played in the above items. I particularly like Mr Mattias Oestringer's rendition Scene De Ballet. His music touches. He was playing music, not just simply notes. Mr Mattias and his piano accompanist also worked very well in bringing out the soul of the music.

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I must confess that I irked upon hearing the violin ensemble. I didn't mind that the violin-playing skills of many of the performers (who are obviously violin-beginners) were elementary. In fact, I applaud them for putting their best foot forward to make the item possible. What I hate about the violin ensemble was that it sound totally out of balance! One of the violinists who was obviously taking the leading role just stood out like a sore thumb. He would do great if he were playing in a solo, but in an ensemble, he will need to learn to blend and to shine, at the right time.

In addition, I dislike the idea of having all the competent violinists (who are not beginners) play all the main melody lines. In the end, I could hardly hear the inner parts. There was no competent violinist to lead the seemingly easy but essential inner parts. The bassline of the ensemble was weak. The violin ensemble just sound like kings and queens trying to show off their best, but the supporting roles were struggling madly, at no fault of theirs.

If I have any constructive criticism to offer (though I qualify that these are all my humble opinions), these would be as follow:

1) The leader of the violin ensemble could consider distributing the parts more effectively by ensuring that there is at least one competent player to lead each of the inner parts. Inner parts are important, especially the bass.

2) Remember that this is a violin ensemble. When it is time for one part to play solo, it is acceptable to show off. However, when it is time to play accompaniment, it would help if one could give way to whoever is playing the melody.

I look forward to a more well-balanced violin ensemble in future.

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I like Noor Sham's rendition of Besame Mucho. His vocals are made for singing this work.

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One thing I noticed during the concert was that many of the members of the audience were children. It was not hard to explain why this was the case. Afterall, Intermezzo is a teachers' annual concert of one of the music schools in Singapore.

However, I wasn't sure if the concert's programme would best help to give these children, who are mainly students of the music school, a quality experience of attending a music concert. I think the concert was too much of many things, and I had felt I had an overdose of everything. The concert was at least 2.5 hours in duration. Bearing in mind that children generally do not have large attention span, I might prefer to that the concert be kept short and essential.

Whatever it is, I think the concert was still a success. It may be better to take steps forward, make inevitable mistakes than not to move at all, in the hope to be perfect.