Carion Wind Quintet

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall
March 9, 7.30pm

After an overload of orchestral and piano concerts, it was refreshing to encounter wind music for a change.

The Copenhagen-based Carion Wind Quintet presented a programme striking a fine balance between serious virtuosity and unalloyed entertainment.

This ensemble, whose players come from Denmark, Latvia and Sweden, was undoubtedly the finest wind group to have played here in recent memory. The quintet helms the Ong Teng Cheong professorship at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory.

The entire concert was performed standing, with most of its first half without scores. With freedom of mobility and placements, that translated into neatly choreographed movements in the opening works.

Twentieth-century Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti’s Six Bagatelles was the perfect showcase of slick delivery, from pin-point articulation to resounding clarity.  

These movements, from the composer’s transcription of Musica Ricercata originally for piano, play on a fixed number of tones in the most creative manner possible.

Far from being forbidding, the music was quirkily approachable, also boosted by the players’ motions and mutual interactions. 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Divertimento No. 1 (K.113), transcribed from strings and winds, displayed a more classical side to the ensemble’s configuration. High winds – Dora Seres’ flute, Egils Upatnieks’ oboe and Egils Sefers’ clarinet – carried most of the melodic lines, and were steadfastly backed by the low winds of Niels Larsen’s bassoon and David Palmquist’s French horn. 

Brazilian composer Julio Medaglia’s Belle Epoque En Sud-America presented three delightful dances: a swinging Tango, a Waltz with a lovely oboe tune, later capped off by Requinta Maluca (translated as Crazy Refinement), in which the clarinet went to town on unbuttoned samba riffs.

Spoken introductions mostly by Palmquist, regaling with droll and sometimes irreverent humour, also enhanced the appreciation of the music. 

For the second half, the quintet was joined by the five young members of Amity Quintet from the conservatory.

Together, the decet – the musical term for 10 players – launched into Franz von Suppe’s Overture to Banditenstreiche (The Jolly Robbers) in Palmquist’s arrangement. It opened slow, then gained speed, coloured by comedic turns, before a headlong final rush of excitement. 

The longest work at 27 minutes was Joachim Raff’s Sinfonietta for double quintet. Virtually unknown outside wind circles and Germany, its four movements rewarded listeners with sheer craftsmanship and all-round pleasure.

The sonata form of the first movement had a little fugue to relish while the scherzo-like second movement’s quick gallop was the test of agility and nimbleness which passed with flying colours.

The slow third movement revelled in the oboe’s plaintive quality, cushioned with gorgeous sonorities, while the animated finale brought to a brilliant close a performance with virtually no rough edges.

Closing the evening were two more witty Palmquist arrangements, of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Tahiti Trot – listeners will know this as Tea For Two – and the carnival-like Waltz No. 2 from Suite For Variety Orchestra, familiar from the Stanley Kubrick-directed movie Eyes Wide Shut (1999).

Back to the quintet, Carion’s fun encore was Eduardo di Capua’s O Sole Mio, with each player vying to see who played the longest held note.