Yong Siew Toh Orchestral Institute Esplanade Concert Hall Apr 11, 7.30pm

The Yong Siew Toh Conservatory is one of the finest institutions of its kind in Asia and every year reliably graduates some of the most talented young musicians anywhere in the world. It really deserves to be better known amongst the Singaporean public, and concerts such as Saturday’s, with Jason Lai conducting the YST Orchestral Institute in an excellent programme of range and ambition, may go some way towards addressing this.

One could be forgiven for welcoming yet another Shostakovich symphony with less than unalloyed joy given their seeming ubiquity on concert programmes this year, but Lai and the YSTOI’s performance of the 5th had a vigour and freshness that entirely dispelled these reservations.

Tricky sections, such as the moment in the first movement’s development where the dotted note motif is tossed between the highest registers of the winds and strings in increasing frenzy before the largamente unison climax, were played with an impressive combination of dexterity and power; there was also a delightfully delirious violin solo from concertmaster Chen Shu-Yu in the second movement.

Perhaps Lai and the YSTOI could have done with a touch more bitterness in the sinister second movement landler, which while superbly executed sounded a little genial for this reviewer’s taste - like an Americano where Shostakovich wanted a Negroni. But the third movement was devastatingly shaped and chilling in its impact, with some magnificent playing from the strings and winds.

The triumphalist finale was taken at a less manic pace than usual and laced with just the right dose of bombast. Lai and the orchestra (backed by superb brass and electrifying percussion) skillfully captured the hoarse grandiosity of the D major peroration, those repeated high unison As perfectly recalling Galina Vishnevskaya’s memorable description of them as “nails pounded into one’s brain”.

What a contrast to the programme-opening Haydn, a dashingly inventive work as untroubled as the Shostakovich is neurotic. Although it was written during the war...