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An Evening with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra



The Social, Arts and Culture Committee (“SAC”) organised a trip to watch the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra performance on 31 May 2008 at the Dewan Philharmonic. The SAC were allocated 35 tickets which were all snapped up within 3 days.

At around 8.15pm, the audience trickled in and the conductor, Hannu Lintu took the stage and opened the performance with Joseph Hadyn’s Symphony No. 103 in E flat major.

Hannu Lintu’s dynamic conducting is indeed entertaining and it is interesting to know that he is actually a rising star who was appointed as the Chief Conductor of the Tampere Philharmonic.

This symphony is nicknamed “The Drumroll” because it begins with a long roll on the timpani. It took around 29 minutes to perform “Drumroll” which was then followed by a 20 minute interval.

The second piece was rather long and took up 77 minutes despite its short, little movement subtitled Purgatorio. The symphony No. 10 was written in 1910, which was Mahler’s final composition and was only completed as a draft, and was never in a performable state by then.

The circumstances surrounding the composition of the Symphony No. 10 were also highly unusual. Although it was at Mahler’s height of his compositional powers, his life was in complete disarray when he realized that his wife was having an affair with an architect.

The long finale of the symphony incorporates music from the earlier movements and the music of the flute solo closed the symphony peacefully.

We adjourned to Chinoz at the Park for drinks after that and all of us went back dazzled by the beauty of the 2 pieces.

Lai Chee Hoe
Chair
Social, Arts and Culture Committee