Sayaka Shoji and Maasaki Suzuki Victoria Concert HallApr 17, 7.30pm

To paraphrase a Monty Python sketch, why is it that the world never remembered the name of Johann Wenzel Kalliwoda? The answer, in this concert as in the sketch, became clear very quickly, and the juxtaposition of this Bohemian composer’s 5th and 7th symphonies against a Mozart violin concerto had uncomfortable echoes of the proximity of mediocrity to genius so devastatingly represented by Salieri in the film Amadeus (1984).

Kalliwoda has been described as “the missing symphonic link between Beethoven and Schumann”, but neither comparison is flattering to Kalliwoda. Based on these symphonies, played here with great energy and distinction by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) under eminent Japanese conductor Maasaki Suzuki, his most Schumannesque quality is a certain thickness of orchestration, while his most Beethovenian trait is an inability to end a symphony without belabouring the arrival on the tonic key to the point of exhaustion.

While no one doubts their competence, these symphonies are overwhelmed by what literary scholar Harold Bloom might have called the anxiety of influence, with well-meaning gestures adrift in a jumble of musical platitudes that evoke shades of Beethoven, Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Weber. There were moments of mild inspiration, such as the appealing melody above pizzicato strings that opens the 5th symphony’s third movement, or the canon between upper and lower strings that begins the scherzo of the 7th. But they mostly struck this reviewer as resembling a conference of corporate executives: full of sound and fury, seeming bustling and vigorous while going nowhere.

That said, the SSO under Suzuki played these works just about as well as they could possibly be played. Suzuki is best known for his glorious Bach recordings (including this reviewer’s favourite Bach cantata cycle), and he conducted these Kalliwoda works with a similarly exalted level of meticulousness and inspiration. The SSO sounded excellent under his leadership, as finely tuned as a Ferrari, with clean and agile strings and perfect calibration of balances in the winds and brass, and their superb engagement made the symphonies sound almost interesting....