Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Vienna Boys Choir

The Vienna Boys Choir did a one-night-only concert today in Singapore today. Young boys with sweet and innocent voices. I just checked out some previews of the only CD they brought in today - Vienna Boys Go Pop. Thank God, that they didn't sing any of the pieces they sang in the most repulsive CD they ever made in history!

Let me do a review on the audience tonight for a change. It was full house tonight, not surprising for such a concert, given the amount of publicity they had weeks before. However, it seems to me that the audience in Singapore tonight just can't seem to appreciate the asthetic beauty of music. The repertoire tonight was filled with light-hearted and easy-to-appreciate pieces, with lots of Austrian folksongs and small lieders and hymns by prominent composers. Nothing too heavy. Claps coming in at the wrong time, the level of applause wasn't the least reflective of the level of music they sang etc. Tonight, we have the most unmusical audience who can't even hear the II-V-I perfect cadence ending and applauded without allowing the rest of the audience a chance to savour the precious last few seconds of the music. There's this group of audience who seem to indulge in the fact that an European choir is singing Eastern pieces. Of course, I do recognise the effort they put in but I seriously doubt that their rendition of eastern music in a strange accent with outlandish articulation was well, judging from the response of that group of audience, orgasmic.

But of course, I still enjoyed myself tonight with this simple performance by this lovely choir. =)

1 comment:

jfl said...

interesting you felt the same way about them as I did, simultaneously, in Washington D.C. where I reviewed the concert for www.ionarts.org. As per the Chopin competition: no 2nd price because neither of the 3rd price winners were considered distinctly better than the other -- but neither so close to the winner as to merit two second places. No fifth place because the 5th spot is occupied by the player that was pushed up to co-4th. good to hear you liked the mahler. believe me: it is a never-ending road of mahlerian obsession from hereon!