Concert Review: OMM Play SG Premiere of Walton’s First Symphony | The Flying Inkpot

by Derek Lim · January 12, 2026

Haochen Zhang with Chan Tze Law and the Orchestra of the Music Makers – photo credit: Yong Junyi

WILLIAM WALTON Symphony No. 1
SERGEI RACHMANINOFF Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30

Haochen Zhang piano

Orchestra of the Music Makers
Chan Tze Law, conductor

Esplanade Concert Hall
10 Jan 2026

Review by Derek Lim

This concert was an ambitious start to the year for the Orchestra of the Music Makers (OMM). Distinct in both their musical language and emotional scope, the two works programmed, Walton Symphony No.1 and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No.3, offered the audience an appreciation of two facets of the orchestra’s musicality.

Programming a symphony before a concerto is an unusual choice, typically made when it is anticipated that most of the audience will leave after the concerto and not stay for the symphony. While often attractive, the English composer William Walton’s music isn’t particularly often played outside of the UK, so it’s worth noting that this is the second of his works that the OMM has programmed, following a superb Belshazzar’s Feast in 2019. Incredibly, it was also the work’s local premiere.

The story behind the symphony’s conception is well-known – Walton had promised the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Hamilton Harty its premiere. Having written the first three movements rather quickly, he met with writer’s block, frequently attributed to his romantic breakup. The premiere was played in 1934 without its Finale, which had to wait another year for its completion. Its musical language is, to my ears, strongly influenced by Sibelius, though harmonically through the lens of other British composers, including Holst, and with a twist of spiky Prokofievian acid.

Chan Tze Law’s interpretation emphasised brilliance and fury over introspection. Taking the first movement at a moderate tempo, the nervous repeated string figurations at the start took a while to stabilise, blunting the tension generated by Walton’s ruthless harmonic instability, which depends on the relentless steadiness of those pulsating repeated figures to make its full impact.

Later in the movement, more confidence in the strings’ sniping figures would have strengthened the poisonous atmosphere. In its latter third, the music builds up after a prolonged cosmic struggle to a massive, powerful climax that sounds like a collective scream. Here, Chan played it rather straight, where leaning into the drama would have strengthened the narrative. The music needs, for me, to feel utterly spent, before the horns, which were relatively low-key here, grimly lead the charge toward the coda which was delivered with intensity by the OMM’s massed forces but didn’t feel hard-won.

More settled was the mercurial and brilliantly-played ‘Presto con malizia’, signifying perhaps more empty sound and fury than malice, while the third movement ‘Andante con malincola’ was beautifully played but stopped short of evoking a wounded soul.

Best-played of all was the Finale, ‘Maestoso – Allegro brioso ed ardentemente’, which Chan began after a long pause, as if to allow the orchestra to muster its forces. Sparkling and sizzling with energy, the OMM played with renewed vigour and energy, like ships in full sail. A couple of untidy passages in the fugue aside, their confidence, especially in the brass, was infectious and the collective optimism bristled and carried the work to its final moments. The last chords, clearly a nod to Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony’s own spaced out chords, had the audience roaring in approval at their conclusion. All in all, this was a commendable account of a demanding symphony, worthy of its local premiere.

The evening’s main draw was Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No.3, played by 2009 Van Cliburn winner Zhang Haochen, whose account, though in full command of Rachmaninoff’s technical challenges, proved both loud and idiosyncratic. He began with an unusual statement of the first movement theme that shifted the emphasis mid-way from the right hand to the left.

This initially felt fresh, but quickly wore out its welcome with fastidious alternative voicings that drew attention to themselves rather than in any way serving the music, with detriment to the music’s architecture and emotional impact. His slightly brittle tone further undermined Rachmaninoff’s lyricism, turning harsh in the massive chords as the music reached its climax before the cadenza. The ossia cadenza itself was unfortunately heavily pedalled and muddy.

In all, the concerto felt episodic, as the pianist seemed more concerned with extracting maximum effect from each passage, frequently vying with the orchestra for limelight even in passages where he was supposed to be playing an accompanying line. This approach carried forward into the second and third movements, with his contributions in the Intermezzo feeling more aggressive than melancholic, with little sense of chamber-like dialogue with the OMM, while in the Finale his flashy showiness meant that he would sometimes come in at a considerably faster tempo than the orchestra had in a preceding passage, rarely playing as a partner, and more concerned with bravura and technical sheen – qualities he undoubtedly possesses.

At the concerto’s conclusion, Zhang was met with cheers and ovations, his approach having clearly connected with most of the audience, even if it did not resonate with me. As encores, he played Debussy’s “Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut” from Images Book 2 No. 2 and Schumann’s Träumerei.

In all, this pairing was an ambitious and thought-provoking start to the year, and I look forward to the OMM’s upcoming concerts this year, with Brahms’ Symphony No.4, Mahler’s Symphony No. 7 and Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto building up to Wagner’s Siegfried in September.