pianomania

Here is a vocal recital you won't want to miss, by the rising Chinese baritone Zhou Zhengzhong. A prizewinner in multiple voice competitions, Zhou was last heard her singing the role of Marcello in Singapore Lyric Opera's production of La Boheme in 2018. Zhou is presented by Altenburg Arts, the brains behind Martha Argerich's Singapore debut last year.

Thursday, 11 July 2019

Victoria Concert Hall at 7.30 pm

Tickets available at SISTIC, please click on to:

https://www.sistic.com.sg/events/voyage0719

The programme includes:

ROSSINI - Largo al Factotum

(from "The Barber of Seville")

BIZET - Votre toast, je peux vous le rendre

(The Toreador Song, from "Carmen")

KORNGOLD - Mein Sehnen, mein Wähnen

(Pierrot's Tanzlied, from "Die tote Stadt")

DEBUSSY - Clair de lune (from Suite Bergamasque)

POULENC - 8 Chansons gaillardes, FP 42

DUPARC -
L'invitation au voyage
Le manoir de Rosemonde
Phidylé

RODGERS - Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'

(from "Oklahoma!")

KOSMA - Les Feuilles Mortes (Autumn Leaves)

LEHÁR - Da geh' ich zu Maxim

(from "The Merry Widow")

VERDI -La morte di Rodrigo (from "Don Carlo")

Three Chinese Songs

ZHOU ZHENGZHONG is accompanied by pianist WEN MING.

STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS

re:Sound with Pavlo Beznosiuk, Leader

Victoria Concert Hall

Friday (5 July 2019)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 8 July 2019

The history of classical music has been one of composers copying and emulating the styles of earlier composers, developing they own niches before being copied and emulated by younger colleagues. This is compositional evolution taking place, punctuated by the occasional revolution from composers like Beethoven or Stravinsky.

This concert by re:Sound, Singapore’s first professional chamber music, eloquently demonstrated the process of musical Darwinism spanning almost 200 years. The journey began with Antonio Vivaldi’s Overture to La Senna Festeggiante, described by re:Sound founder Mervin Beng as a proto-symphony.

Its three very short movements, in the fast-slow-fast form, served like a perfect appetiser before the main course. The performance by just 12 string players, two oboists and one bassoonist was crisp and finely-hewn, directed by British violinist-conductor Pavlo Beznosiuk from the leader’s chair.

What followed was unprecedented, two important symphonies from two different eras performed by alternating their movements in sequence. This allowed the listener to enjoy and ponder upon the influences Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), so-called “Father of the Symphony”, had on Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953), an enfant terrible of music during the early 20^th century.

This 8-movement upsized symphony in D major opened with the emphatic gestures of Haydn’s Symphony No.104 (composed in 1795), his last, also known as the “London Symphony”. The sonata form of its 1^st movement was well-illuminated, with a slow introduction giving way to a vigorous and spirited allegro. The infectiousness of his style was repeated in the corresponding movement of Prokofiev’s First Symphony (1917), appropriately called the “Classical Symphony”.

The Russian meant this as a homage rather than mere pastiche, and the slow second movements of both symphonies soon followed. Haydn’s was a short series of variations while Prokofiev’s a graceful serenade which could only be described as Haydnesque. The Minuet and Trio of Haydn’s 3^rdmovement was a lively way to close the concert’s first half.

The audience was given the chance to applaud whenever the spirit led them, which meant clapping between movements without attracting disapproving looks from know-it-alls. That was what 19^th century audiences did anyway, thus some authenticity was being observed.

Like entertainments of that period, concerts also showcased soloists in virtuoso concertos. That was where Australian-Chinese cellist Qin Li-Wei came in, performing Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme with the verve and flair expected of him. The Mozartean theme itself was simple and unadorned but the ensuing variations showed the breadth and depth of a cellist’s artistry. Qin’s tone was breathtaking, and credit also goes to re:Sound’s discreet accompaniment and excellent woodwind cameos.

Qin Li-Wei's encore was The Swan
from Saint-Saëns'Carnival of the Animals
in an all-string arrangement.

Then it was back to Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony with its brief 3^rdmovement Gavotte sounding a little over-emphatic and impatient, as if straining to rush into the mercurial finale. Even before the applause could end, a bucolic drone in D ushered in Haydn’s exuberant finale, showing that the old masters still had the final word.

DRUMATIC FUSION

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Friday (12 July 2019)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 15 July 2019 with the title "Drumming up high-octane excitement."

This was going to be a percussion extravaganza like no other, and only one work out of six involved absolutely no percussion, Wang Danhong’s The Green Fieldfrom Crimson Sorghum.

In this lovely adagio for strings, erhusfollowed by gaohus created an elegiac mood through the arc of a rising crescendo. For many parts, it sounded like film music, one evoking vast and open fields with plucked strings adding bits of frisson.

Orchestral percussion had a field day opening the concert with Tang Jianping’s Dragon Leaps To The East. Its eight members worked overtime to create the perfect overture, one of high-octane, high-volume and razor-sharp synchronisation, with conductor Yeh Tsung’s dance-like moves on the podium furthering the excitement.

The twin-brother act of Chinese percussionists Gao Chao and Gao Yue stole the show in the concert’s first half. Wang Danhong’s four-movement concerto Heavenly Ford has a more poetic title in Chinese: Jin Jin You Wei. While being a play on the name Jinmen, cultural district of the city Tianjin, it also literally translates to “full of flavour”.

This is a portrayal of raucous sounds and aromatic scents afforded by the ancient district. A veritable musical picture postcard, its scenes traversed vigorous ceremonial drumbeats of antiquity, the pulse of nature (rainsticks and birdcalls), rhythmic street songs of itinerant sellers (concertmaster Li Bao Shun’s jinghu as protagonist) to the modern metropolis of today.

The final movement, 18^th Street, was a heady confluence of old and new, with a modern drum set thrown into the mix. The sheer exuberance of the duelling sibs brought to mind the Mambo episode from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story, but one with a distinct Han accent.

Dame Evelyn Glennie, this planet’s pre-eminent percussionist, appeared for the whole second half. Nebojsa Jovan Zivkovic’s Born To Beat Wild, originally scored for solo trumpet and bass drum, saw Glennie facing off with SCO suonaplayer Chang Le. Described as a “musical dialogue” and “permanent crescendo”, it was more an improvisational shouting contest with both parties emerging primus inter pares.

Glennie took centrestage in Japanese marimba virtuoso Keiko Abe’s Prism Rhapsody, a true dialogue between orchestra and marimba. Melodic interest was strong, and Glennie’s marimba ranged from loud booms from low keys to ethereal heights of the treble registers. With many extended solo passages, this was a rare work combining quiet introspection and outright virtuosity. As many as six mallets were used in certain passages, and her uncanny ability to swiftly shift between diametric opposite dynamics and moods remain a marvel.

The final work, Kuan Nai-chung’s The Sun from The New Millennium Of The Dragon Year united Glennie with the Gaos, manning pitched percussion (marimba and timpanis) and unpitched percussion (drums, cymbals and the rest) respectively. Placed on opposite sides of the stage with the orchestra in between, this was not a pitched battle but a glorious meeting of minds, concluding this invigorating concert on a voluminous high.

The concert was graced by
President Halimah Yacob and the First Gentleman.

Post concert, Dame Evelyn Glennie
took time to meet children with hearing impairment.

There is nothing like a dame.

THE CAMBRIDGE BUSKERS COLLECTION

The Cambridge Buskers

DG Eloquence 482 1785 (4 CDs) / ****1/2

Remember the Cambridge Buskers? Formed by Michael Copley and Dag Ingram, the duo met while they were students at Cambridge University, and became a worldwide performing sensation during the late 1970s and 80s, decades before the age of Youtube.

Their brand of “reduced classics” - abridged but not dumbed down arrangements of popular classical tunes – was accomplished on an assortment of blown instruments (recorders, flutes, crumhorns, whistles et cetera) by Copley (the dorky looking one), accompanied on accordion by Ingram (the good looking one).

This four disc collection crams in five albums worth of music, including favourites heard during their Victoria Concert Hall concert at the 1988 Singapore Arts Festival. Who could forget the ingenuity of fitting Beethoven’s nine symphonies within a three-minute romp, or J.S.Bach’s Six Brandenburg Concertos in three movements, including an in-joke involving the 2^nd movement of Brandenburg Concerto No.3.

The farce of Pachelbel’s Cannon(not a spelling mistake) wears thin after two listens, while the 32 seconds that make up the 4^th movement of the 4th Symphony of Mahler (known for his very long symphonies) is a parody on the gift of brevity or lack of. There are 131 tracks (some 4 hours 55 minutes) in total, spanning the baroque to the Beatles, which make for a fun “Guess that tune” game for children and adults alike.

ROMANCE

Piano Music of Clara Schumann

ISATA KANNEH-MASON, Piano

Decca 485 0020 / ****1/2

This year marks the 200^thbirth anniversary of Clara Schumann (1819-1896). Born Clara Wieck, she was the wife of the great German composer Robert Schumann, mother to eight children, and a former child prodigy who became one of the world’s greatest concert pianists. She was also a composer, however far overshadowed by her husband, whom she survived by some 40 years.

British pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason (born in Nottingham of parents from Antigua and Sierra Leone) makes the strongest case possible for Clara’s major compositions for piano. Her Piano Concerto in A minor, completed when she was just 16, is very accomplished even if somehow derivative for the early-Romantic age.

Technical virtuosity is given in the fast outer movements, but the slow movement is the most touching. Her use of a significant cello solo pre-dates that of both Liszt and Brahms in their second piano concertos. Here she is partnered by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Holly Mathieson.

The other major work is the 20 minute-long Piano Sonata in G minor, in four movements, published as recently as 1991. It is as serious as a sonata can get, but still an enjoyable listen. Also included are Three Romances Op.11, Three Violin RomancesOp.22 (with violinist Elena Urioste) and Scherzo No.2 in C minor Op.14, lyrical works that remind one of Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann himself.

Clara as a transcriber of her husband’s songs, like Widmung (Dedication) and Mondnacht (Moonlit Night), is ever sensitive and never vulgar. Essential listening for romantics.

THE FENG YA SONG SYMPHONY

Singapore

Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Saturday (3 August 2019)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 5 August 2019 with the title "Stirring earthly and patriotic passion".

Man and his relationship with Earth was the theme of this Singapore Chinese Orchestra concert conducted by Yeh Tsung. Three major works were performed, beginning with Tang Jianping’s Hou Tu (Empress Earth). In four connected movements, the 1997 work cannily employed pre-recorded songs from ethnic minority hill tribes of China, over which orchestral textures were thickly layered.

High flutes and percussion opened the work before the entrance of children’s voices. In the call and response form of aboriginal chants, with men’s and women’s voices later introduced, a vigorous and raucous dance ensued. Mostly propulsive and sometimes bordering on violence, this was a Chinese “song of the earth”, but one which bore down to a quiet trance-like close.

German composer Enjott Schneider’s Earth and Fire (2009) was a concerto for sheng in two movements, based on two of the Five Elements that defined nature. Stretching the virtuosity of sheng exponent Wu Wei to the max, his mouth organ’s piquant timbre pierced through the massed instrumental morass with a laser-like clarity.

Rhythmic and energetic, Wu’s ponytail flapped in the air for the Earth movement. The ante was upped in Fire, where lapping tongues of orchestral sound rose like some all-consuming force. This was a dance culminating in a fearsome solo cadenza for sheng, gloriously polyphonic and imbued with jazzy vibes. Here was a tour de force of solo playing.

Composer Zhao Jiping offers an
autograph for veteran concert-goer Mr Chua.

After the interval, Zhao Jiping’s Feng Ya Song Symphony (2019), in five linked movements, received its Singapore premiere. Veteran composer Zhao is China’s answer to John Williams, having written scores for epic films like Farewell, My Concubine, Red Sorghum and Raise The Red Lantern. However in this symphony, he was more Mahlerian in ambition, hoping to encompass everything within its 40-minute long span.

The subject had to do with the Chinese worldview as seen through Tang dynasty poetry and literature arts. A wordless choir provided by the Vocal Associates Festival Choruses (Khor Ai Ming, Artistic Director) set the atmospheric mood for an idiom that resembled the music from those biblical films of old.

Like Mahler’s symphony Song Of The Earth, there was also two solo vocalists. Tenor Kee Loi Seng’s stentorian voice resounded strongly in Guan Ju (Crying Ospreys), a scholar’s lament about forlorn love for a virtuous maiden. Soprano Zhang Ningjia, wife of composer Zhao, was the star in Melody of the Secluded Orchid, which slowly and gently built up to a stirring climax. Her heartfelt ode was in praise of a humble flower that withstands all trials and thrives.

In the purely orchestral scherzo-like 3^rd movement, The Mythical Bird, the orchestra spun a tarantella-like perpetual motion through the course of its wild ride. A nationalistic air occupied the finale Guo Feng, with a grand apotheosis espousing patriotism to the land of one’s being. Just the perfect start to the week leading to National Day.

How did you spend National Day? Mine was in the company of good friends and music lovers. Here was the opportune moment to unveil my new musical salon at Schloss Woollerton in the company of old fellow music critics (Phan Ming Yen and Kevin Tan) and some of Singapore's finest young musicians.

The party was not limited to just pianists, and we also included a cellist for good measure. What did we get to hear performed on my "new" Knight piano from Emmanuel & Sons? The evening was dedicated to rarities, much in the hallowed style of the Rarities of Piano Music at Schloss vor Husum festival held every August in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Here was our humble attempt, and hopefully a start of more efforts to come!

Cellist Loke Hoe Kit, fresh from his Singapore premiere
of Saint-Saëns's Second Cello Concerto
opened the evening with
Glazunov's Chant du Menestrel and Bloch's Prayer.

Clarisse Teo, who will make her debut at the actual
Rarities of Piano Music at Schloss vor Husum festival
on 24 August, offered Vincent D'Indy's
Thème Varié, Fugue & Chanson.

A gecko's eye-view of the house concert.

Donald Law performed
Leos Janacek's Sonata I.X.1905
commemorating the death of a worker in Brno.

Clarence Lee forsook Liszt and Rachmaninov
to play Amy Beach's Dreaming, and had
everybody stumped as to who the composer was.

An enthusiastic audience.
Note the national flags flying outside.

Now it was Clarence's turn to accompany Hoe Kit,
in the slow movement of Grieg's Cello Sonata.

Encore time: Clarisse performs
Cantos Populares No.4 by Carlos Guastavino.

After an aborted attempt at Gershwin's An American in Paris,
Clarence and Donald completed Johann Strauss Jr's
On The Beautiful Blue Danube.

Phan Ming Yen and yours truly,
founders of the SSO Piano Marathon,
completed the evening with
Johnn Strauss Sr's Radetzky March.

Cat Fendi sends his National Day greetings to his former hosts,
Katie, Mr & Mrs Tan Kah Tee, Khor Ai Ming and Tamagoh.

Nothing is complete without dinner
at an nearby tzi char establishment!

SSO NATIONAL DAY CONCERT

Singapore

Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (10 August 2019)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 12 August 2019 with the title "Waving national flags with pride to national songs".

What is Singaporean music? Another facet of this conundrum was revealed in the second of National Day Concerts by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. Conducted by SSO Associate Conductor Joshua Tan, our music had to do with myriad cultural influences and the creation of “national songs”.

The concert’s first half dealt with Western influences, opening with the world premiere of A.Dietz’s Raffles March, as orchestrated by Bertram Wee. Composed in 1915 and first performed by the Raffles Hotel orchestra in 1922, it was named after the establishment rather than the man who appropriated Singapore for the British crown.

Pompous and blustery, this version with lots of winds and brass is perfectly suited for a grenadier guards band rather than palm court orchestra. Its local counterpart was Tsao Chieh’s March (Colonial Days), the 2^ndmovement from his Singapore Suite. The Elgarian intent to evoke once-glorious days of the British Raj was deliberate, but the themes Tsao used were wholly his own.

Kelly Tang’s Montage was a 2010 piano concerto dedicated to and premiered by Singapore’s “King of Swing”, jazz pianist Jeremy Monteiro. Originally for Chinese instruments, this edition for symphony orchestra is Singapore’s answer to Gershwin’s Concerto In F. With plenty of spots to extemporise, Monteiro commanded the keyboard with exuberant sweeps and dizzying fingerwork. Better with every listen, the work also afforded dazzling improvisations for Christy Smith (bass) and Tamagoh (drum), and a plum solo for young saxophonist Samuel Phua.

The second half paid tribute to Singapore’s ethnic diversity and the forging of a national identity. Tony Makarome’s Jewel Of Srivijaya, a double concerto for mridangam(with VM Sai Akileshwar) and tabla (Nawaz Mirajkar), received its world premiere.

The legacy of Temasek, part of the ancient Srivijayan empire through its “discovery” by Sang Nila Utama, was celebrated with a convincing fusion of Indian music (both Carnatic and Hindustani traditions) and Western orchestration. Without missing a beat, complex drumming rhythms were taken in their stride by both soloists, and the orchestra ably kept up through conductor Tan’s animated and tireless direction.

Master of Ceremonies Khairudin Saharom speaks
with Tony Makarome and his student Lee Jinjun.

Young composer Lee Jinjun was rewarded with two world premieres. The first was Kampong Overture, which cleverly incorporated three Malay songs – Geylang Sipaku Geylang, Lenggang Kangkung and Suriram– in a very effective concert piece written in the style of Dvorak’s symphonic movements and Slavonic Dances. Even a quote from the Largo of Dvorak’s New World Symphony made brief cameo.

His second coup was Our Singapore Dream, a mash-up of National Day Parade Songs – We Are Singapore, Count On Me Singapore, One People. One Nation. One Singapore. – featuring the Singapore Symphony Chorus (Eudenice Palaruan, Chorus Master) and crafted in the English choral tradition of Elgar and Vaughan Williams. Once suspects these two works will be heard rather often from now on.

Conductor Joshua Tan got his national pride from
his grandfather, now 102 years old, who once
volunteered to do National Service at the age of 60!

Nostalgia reigned in Lam Chao Phang’s The Awakening and Tan Kian Chin / Bok Sek Yieng’s Voices From The Heart, theme music both from very popular Chinese television series of the 1980s, and Phoon Yew Tien’s March On, which rehashed National Service songs. By the time the patriotic Believe In Me, Singapore (in Mandarin) was sung, national flags were emerging from the audience’s pockets and waved with unfettered fervour.

It was left to Dick Lee’s ubiquitous Home and Iskandar Ismail’s arrangement of Majulah Singapura, both with jazz singer Joanna Dong at the fore, to elicit an obligatory standing ovation and the communal shedding of tears.

MUSICAL FRONTIERS

Ding Yi Music Company

with Suc Song Moi Bamboo Ensemble

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday (11 August 2019)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 13 August 2019 with the title "An enchanting kaleidoscope of traditional sounds".

Ding Yi Music Company seeks to widen its musical horizons and could not have had a better partnership in concert than Vietnam’s Suc Song Moi (New Vitality) Bamboo Ensemble. Based in Hanoi, the six-member group performs entirely on bamboo instruments. Its protagonists are five dan t’rungs, xylophones crafted from bamboo tubes of varying lengths and struck by mallets.

Their sound is gentle and mellow, with timbres similar to marimbas. These formed the accompaniment to solo instruments related to Chinese instruments but unique to Vietnamese music. Most of the music was arranged by Dong Quang Vinh, the band’s leader and multi-instrumentalist, also a conductor trained in the Western classical tradition.

The 70-minute long concert opened with Cat Van and Bich Vuong’s Central Highlands Capriccio, a rhapsodic dance of the ethnic minorities showcasing the ensemble’s full capabilities. Harmonies were pleasing, and the rhythms invigorating. With their attention piqued, the audience was further treated to displays of individual virtuosity on solo instruments.

Dong’s brother Minh Anh performed on a dan bau or monochord, its single string controlled by varying tension on a flexible metal rod. Its high-pitched amplified sound (through a loud-hailer) had a quivering otherworldly quality, not dissimilar to electric guitar, theremin or Ondes Martenot. It made Nguyen Van Ty’s Mother’s Love, a cradle-song, sound all the more ethereal.

Equally curious was the k’ni, performed by Ta Xuan Quynh, a bowed instrument with its single string controlled by the mouth. The leaves sprouting from both ends of its bamboo body were purely ornamental, but its erhu-like lament in You My Deep Sorrow by Trinh Cong Son (hailed as Vietnam’s Schubert) left a deep impression.

Leader Dong himself gave a masterclass on the humble bamboo piccolo in Nhat Lai’s Pongk’le Birds, which was performed in a variety of ways. Alternating techniques used for dizi, recorder, panpipes and whistle, he simulated a veritable forest of birdsong, before closing with an incredulously long-held note.

Cellist Chee Jun Sian and two percussionists from Ding Yi joined the Viets in the Mongolian folksong Swan Geese, and the full complement of instrumentalists emerged for Phan Huynh Dieu’s The Shadow Of Ko Nia Tree, conducted by Quek Ling Kiong.

This patriotic Vietnam war song and Northern Vietnamese folksong Missing Youutilised scales similar to those found in Indonesian music, suggesting familial relationships and influences in supposedly disparate musical cultures. One supposes these belong to an all-inclusive umbrella-like entity which we know as Nanyang music, a subject that bears further ethnomusicological study.

To close, the Vietnamese instruments were embedded within the larger ensemble for the well-known Yunnan melody Xiao He Tang Shui (The Running Stream) and the world premiere of young Singaporean composer Alicia de Silva’s Among Black Bamboos, the concert’s most modern piece. This itself was transcribed from an earlier work for angklungs and kulintangs. Two words to describe this unusual concert: simply enchanting.

Post concert, leader Dong Quang Vinh
demonstrates to Culture Minister Grace Fu
how the dan bau is played.

Ta Xuan Quynh shows how a k'ni
is played, mouthpiece, leaves and all.

Dong Minh Ahn plays on a dan bau,
amplified by a megaphone.

Truong Thu Huong plays the Vietnamese zither.

A masterclass on the bamboo piccolo,
as composer Alicia de Silva looks on.

A family of dan t'rungs.

HANDEL GOES WILD

L’Arpeggieta / CHRISTINA PLUHAR

Erato 0190295811693 / *****

The music of Georg Frideric Handel (1685-1759), like his close contemporary J.S.Bach, is ripe for improvisation, as demonstrated by Austrian baroque music specialist Christina Pluhar and her period instrument group L’Arpeggiata. This group’s use of jazz and world music techniques in Pluhar’s arrangements makes it stand out.

Handel’s operatic arias, sung in both Italian and English, are known for their purity, beauty and often treacherously virtuosic runs. Countertenor Valer Sabadus and soprano Nuria Rial sing these straight and without further embellishment, such as in Venti, Turbiniand Cara Sposa (from Rinaldo) and Piangero La Sorte Mia (Giulio Cesare).

It is however in the instrumentation that the music takes on a different dimension. Listen to how Gianluigi Trovesi’s clarinet turns the Sinfonia from Alcina into a Klezmer dance. Or whoever thought that the familiar Where’er You Walk (Semele) could be made to sound like a close cousin of Gershwin’s I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin’ (Porgy And Bess)?

The Arrival Of The Queen Of Sheba(Solomon) gets all jazzed up with Francesco Turrisi on piano, and in Canario, an improvisation based on Girolamo Kapsberger, percussionist Sergey Saprichev takes on the idiom of konnakol (Carnatic rhythmic scat singing) convincingly.

To close, Ombra Mai Fu (Serse), better known as Handel’s Largo, Doron Sherwin’s cornet paves the way for Sabadus’ moving plaint. Old and new sit easily in the true spirit of the baroque within this fascinating album, all 75 minutes of it.

Saturday 25 August 2018

MICHAEL SPRING Matinee

The second of two Husum matinees, was a show-and-tell by record producer Mike Spring, a name familiar to those who own Hyperion and Appian (APR) recordings. He was responsible for Hyperion’s Romantic Piano Concerto series and a whole slew of newly “discovered” and re-mastered historical recordings on the APR label, which he had bought from founder Bryan Crimp.

His talk My Favourite Things was a loving recollection on historical piano playing and the revelation of many forgotten names of Romantic and “Golden Age” pianism. A true labour of love, one cannot imagine him ever recouping the costs of producing these discs (which are often bargains on the internet), but one must remain grateful. Now this was one lecture that I was happy more than happy to stay long overtime for!

Cattle grazing near Koldenbüttel,
just outside the Feldhusen farmhouse.

The old farmhouse of Rote Haubarg,
now a heritage museum and restaurant.

LUKAS GENIUSAS Piano Recital

The last recital in this year’s festival fell to the Lithuanian-Russian Lukas Geniusas, who so impressed with Hindemith’s Ludus Tonalis in last year’s festival. He too has graduated from “Young Explorer” status and his showing with an unlikely programme of 37 disparate short pieces in four suites was no less interesting.

The first half opened with Bizet’s Bilder vom Rhein (Pictures from the Rhine), last heard from Johann Blanchard among the 2016 Rarities. Neither Carmennor L’Arlesienne, these are however pretty enough to be worth listening to again. Also by another song composer, seven pieces from Reynaldo Hahn’s Le Rossignal Eperdu (The Bewildered Nightingale, a cycle of 51 shorts!) were very well-chosen and contrasted. The 19^th piece is entitled Berceuse Feroce (here’s an oxymoron if any) which is a quiet but tenacious ostinato. The short cycle closed with a lyrical Adieux (No.51) with a lovely left hand melody.

The second half’s selections from Valery Arzoumanov’s 27 Pieces Op.74 (1985) and Leonid Desyatnikov’s Preludes: Songs from the Bukovina sound like a mixed bag. Character pieces they certainly are: some are child-like, some with jazz inflexions, folk influences, snatches of film-like music, spiced up with mild dissonances. With atonality and serialism kept at bay, these sound pleasant, entertaining but ultimately inconsequential. Geniusas’ enthusiasm is infectious, and his four encores include two more Desyatnikov preludes, Prokofiev’s harp-like Prelude (Op.12 No.7) and a Bartok Hungarian peasant song. A light and nice way to end yet another memorable edition of the Rarities festival.

With Ludwig Madlener,
Bavarians and Singaporeans all love Husum!

Taking off from Hamburg airport,
a great view of the Elbphilharmonie,
St Michael's Church and a WWII flak-tower.

Sunday 26 August 2019

Its back to Singapore for me, back to work (bah!) via London Heathrow (double bah!), but in life, one has to take the good and the not so good in one’s stride. Husum and rarities will always be a good, and so here’s to 2019!

Postlude: 12 October 2018

I have just received an e-mail from none other than Peter Froundjian, Artistic Director and Founder of the Rarities of Piano Music at Schloss vor Husum. I had almost forgotten that I had handed him a copy of Clarisse Teo’s Esplanade recital on my first day in Husum, and now an invitation to Singapore’s newest concert pianist beckons. In particular, he was “very pleased about the programming and her convincing playing”. Clarisse will become a Husumite Young Explorer in 2019!

A bit of Husum in Singapore:
the Katzensaal at Schloss Woollerton,
see the resemblance?

I finally got to visit
the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.

The spire of Nikolaikirche, a remnant of
the fire-bombing of Hamburg in 1943.

Thursday 23 August 2018

INGRID MARSONER Piano Recital

Are there such things as “justly neglected” classics? Austrian pianist Ingrid Marsoner’s programme looked interesting on paper, but on reality came off like a damp squib. She is certainly not a bad pianist, but her selections paled alongside those that came before and after. Anselm Huttebrenner was a good friend of Schubert’s, and his Geisterszenen (Ghost Scenes) was intermittently interesting with its supposedly spectral sound effects, of things that go bump in the night, the sort of things which made Alkan’s music fascinating.

Hummel’s Rondo-Fantasy is not the same Rondo Favoritathat had become quite popular among pianists but something less captivating, while his Fantasy on Mozart’s Non Piu Andrai (from The Marriage of Figaro) was merely a note-spinner, obviously churned out for fiscal rather than artistic reasons.

Rachmaninov’s Etudes-tableaux are hardly rarities. Marsoner played the G minor and E flat minor numbers from Op.33 well but made a complete hash of the elusive D minor etude from Op.39. As for Robert Fuchs’ First Sonata, one listen in a lifetime would be enough. Its thin thematic material, which one is seriously challenged to remember, and an idiom no more advanced than Schubert (long dead by 1877 when it was conceived) made this a lead balloon. On wonders what an 80-year-old Schubert would have thought of that. Marsoner’s encore, thankfully by Schubert, his Klavierstuck in E flat minor (from the late D.946 trilogy), was the best music of the whole evening. And she played it like she knew that as a fact.

A day trip took me to the town of Tonder,
just across the border in Denmark.
The historic water tower is now part of the
Tonder-South Jutland Museum.

Friday 24 August 2018

SIMON CALLAGHAN Piano Recital

The Brit Simon Callaghan was one of three Young Explorers in the 2016 festival, and has now “graduated” to play in a main event recital. His programme truly qualifies to rarity status, so rare that a page-turner was required for all three works. Honestly, I have never heard of John Francis Barnett (1837-1916, a Briton) or Jean-Louis Nicode (1853-1919, a Prussian despite his French name) but on account of Callaghan’s excellent and passionate performances, the need to hear their works again borders on fairly urgent.

There was nothing English about Barnett’s Sonata in E minor (published in 1895), except that it may have been heard in some turn-of-the-century English drawing room. Mendelssohn and Schumann-like is closer to the mark, with lots of notes but very pleasant, and almost too gentrified. Its finale was a Saltarello ed Intermezzo, and that is as much a tribute to both Germans as one could get.

Nicode’s Six Fantasy Pieces Op.6 (1876) are subtitled Andenken an Robert Schumann (Memories of R.S.), and its first piece shouts Kreislerianaat the outset. Their lengths, running to over half an hour, suggests these could be Nouvelles Novelettes. Every Schumannism thought possible is recycled here. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Is this a tribute or mere pastiche? His four encores: three short movements from Nicode’s Ein Liebesleben (A Life of Love) and the first piece from Schumann’s Kinderszenen, naturally.

In between was K.S.Sorabji’s Le jardin parfume (The Perfumed Garden), almost 20 minutes of nocturnal bliss and stupor. It is one of those pieces played pianissimo throughout, meandering, without apparent development and seemingly without end. By not knowing what to expect, impatience will built up, and by the umpteenth time one thinks “Enough!”, it actually concludes. Maybe Sorabji needed to go to the men’s room. A point of note, Kun Woo Paik performed this at the 2005 Singapore International Piano Festival, some 13 years before Husum!

Sightseeing: The hall of classical casts
at the Kunsthalle in Kiel

Tuesday 21 August 2018

ETSUKO HIROSE Piano Recital

I have several of the Paris-based Japanese pianist Etsuko Hirose’s CD recordings, and if anything, she is even better in recital. Her slender figure belies a formidable capacity for pianistic punishment, not least in the Transcendental Etudes of Sergei Liapounov, essentially a Russian-flavoured tribute to Franz Liszt’s fearsome dozen. She played four of these: Dance of the Phantoms, Epic Song (with the Dies Irae cleverly submerged within its textures), Aeolian Harp and the now ubiquitous Lesghinka. The last is the intrepid pianist’s surrogate for Balakirev’s frankly overplayed Islamey, and Hirose’s thunderous performance simply nailed it.

The dance theme continues with Joaquin Turina’s Danzas Gitanas (Gypsy Dances), the description ritmicos appearing in at least two of the five pieces. It thus sounds very Spanish and very gypsy-like, but nothing prepared me for the most sultry and dark of harmonies in Invocacion, the longest and most beautiful piece of all. There were also other pieces by the Bulgarian Pantcho Vladigerov, and Russians Bortkiewicz and Balakirev.

Thanks to Husum, Alkan’s music are no longer rarities with Husumites, the path being well trodden by the likes of Hamelin. We still got to hear some of the eccentric Frenchman’s more popular works, which were well chosen and contrasted by Hirose, the weird and eerily effective Song of the Mad Woman by the Sea, the prestidigitation of Le Chemin de Fer (a truly evocative railway piece), the sicilienne-like nocturne of Le Grillen and the riotous set of variations that is Le Festin D’Esope (Aesop’s Feast).

Her encores were rather special too, Alexis Weissenberg’s transcription of a Kosaku Yamada song (with jazzy harmonies, just published last month!) and Liszt’s transcription of the 1^st movement from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. I don’t need further convincing: Etsuko Hirose is a gem made for Husum.

A sunny day in the North Sea island of Pellworm.

Wednesday 22 August 2018

SEVERIN VON ECKARDSTEIN Piano Recital

One thing is for certain: the German Severin von Eckardstein can play practically anything. After his sensation debut of two years ago (evident by five selections on the most recent annual Husum selections CD on Danacord), his return was not unexpected. This time around, he opened with young Russian pianist Vyacheslav Gryaznov’s transcription of Debussy’s Prelude a l’apres-midi dun faune, whose truly orchestral conception on the keyboard beats the heck of the plain skin-and-bones common-garden version by Leonard Borwick.

There was more cheerful Chabrier again, this time the skittish Impromptuand pastoral romp that is the Rondo Champetre. Five movements from La Maison dans les dunes (1910) by the tragically short-lived Gabriel Dupont (1878-1914) suddenly changed the mood from frivolously light-hearted to wistful and sombre. Unlike Emile Naoumoff who played an entire set of Dupont last year (and lasting the best part of a dolour-inducing hour), Eckardstein’s judicious selection prevented the listener from losing attention and interest. The music is gorgeous and his recording is worth an investment of time and lucre.

Slavic music comprised the second half, with Felix Blumenfeld’s Cloches (Bells) in three movements. Here the carillon and clangour of bells of all registers and sorts filled the air, and the best part is one never being reminded of La Campanella nor Rachmaninov’s choral symphony of the same ilk. Finally Balakirev’s Sonata in B flat minor completed the programme.

Why is this never as often performed as Rachmaninov’s almost banal sonata in the same key. Its just as virtuosic and more subtle in parts. Perhaps too subtle. The clue lies in its quiet conclusion, which dissolves to nothingness, where the audience follows up with merely appreciative and understated applause. Imagine it this had closed with Rach, or like Islamey– the ovation would have been totally wild!

Eckardstein’s three encores includes another Dupont movement, Blumenfeld’s most famous piece – the A flat major Etude for left hand alone (not a rarity for southpaws) - and a short by Sergei Slonimsky, which was Grieg-like but with Russian accents.

Van Cliburn with Nikita Krushchev.
"Is he the best? Then give him the 1st prize!"

Sunday 19 August 2018

MATINEE: STUART ISACOFF Lecture-Talk (11 am)

This year marks the 60^th anniversary of Van Cliburn’s triumph at the 1^stTchaikovsky International Piano Competition in 1958. In his book When The World Stopped To Listen, the American write Stuart Isacoff detailed the circumstances that led to Cliburn’s unexpected victory and the ramifications it had to the Cold War.

His 90-minute lecture-talk was illustrated by slides (and an exhibition of historical photographs) and video clips at the competition and in the company of Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev. It also relived the tensions between the superpowers and how Cliburn’s love for Russian music and the Russian people (and their whole-hearted reception and reciprocation), led to a temporary thaw in relations, and a new appreciation for classical music’s role in world peace.

Isacoff’s anecdotes were filled with humour, and the breezy account was much enjoyed by a very receptive audience who were full of questions. Will there be a future Van Cliburn to ease the Trump-Putin-Kim jam the world is in now? Probably not.

MUZA RUBACKYTE Piano Recital (7.30 pm)

The ethos of the Husum Rarities Festival is the quest of different harmonies. So it was totally appropriate to hear the 12 Preludes Op.36 (1914-15) of Louis Vierne, the French composer far better known for his organ music. He was a contemporary of Rachmaninov, so the rich textures and harmonies of the late Romantic period were not unexpected. The wonder was why we have not heard these works as often as those overplayed preludes by Chopin or Rachmaninov.

Rubackyte does a wonderful job, producing a robust and beefy sonority, especially in the numbers which are thick with chords and more complex harmonies. She also passionately presses the case for her compatriot Mikulajus Ciurlionis, a selection of Preludes and Nocturnes are beautifully rendered.

The highlight would have been the shockingly short-lived Reubke’s single-movement Sonata in B flat minor, dedicated to his teacher Franz Liszt. The poor man died at the age of 24 (probably from tuberculosis, the AIDS of the 19^thcentury), and should have accomplished very much had he lived another 24 years more.

Anyone who would respond to Liszt’s B minor Sonata would very much warm up to the thematic transformation and metamorphoses to be found in the Reubke. The main theme returns strategically and becomes like an old friend. Rubackyte was not totally secure with the work, had several short memory lapses, and over-compensated by banging. Not the most persuasive case to be made here, and the same overwrought manner also affected her two Liszt encores, Les Jeux d’eau a la Villa d’Este and the Third Liebestraume.

Rush hour at the Holm in Flensburg.

In a Flensburg record shop.

Monday 20 August 2018

ANTONIO POMPA-BALDI Piano Recital

The Italian Antonio Pompa-Baldi gave one of the best recitals in the 2017 Festival, and was a natural to be re-invited. His programme this year mirrored the successes of last year, which included an early Romantic sonata and a selection of popular songs in excellent arrangements.

Last year’s Czerny was replaced by Hummel, Mozart’s most successful pupil, and his E flat major Sonata was a pleasure to listen to – the lightness of Mozart unencumbered by Beethovenian angst, and a sweet Rondo to close. Completely different was Sergei Liapounov’s 12^thTranscendental Etude, in Memory of Franz Liszt, which sounds like an overblown version of Liszt’s own Heroic Elegy that is his Fifth Hungarian Rhapsody. It is heavy and portentous, full of sighs and grumbles with without a fast friss to provide that extra frisson to drive these showy rhapsodies.

The balance of his programme was much lighter, such as Chabrier’s Bouree Fantasque, which is jocular and frolicsome. With Pompa-Baldi’s variegated touches, one can literally hear the jokes. As with last year’s festival, Roberto Piana’s transcriptions return with a garland of Neapolitan songs, such as Santa Lucia, La Danza, Funiculi Funicula and Core N’grato among others, performed with much gusto. Would it be unkind to refer to these as high class lounge music? In the same vein, Poulenc’s Napoli, three movements which include a Barcarolle, Nocturne and Italian Caprice close the recital on a spirited high.

As before, Pompa-Baldi was generous with encores – five in total. He seems to think that the number five is obligatory. These include his own transcription of Rachmaninov’s Vocalise (which like the Sergio Fiorentino version, is straight-forward but beautiful), two Piazzolla tangos (Libertango and Oblivion), Grieg’s Notturno in C major and a true rarity, Serenade by Frenchman Gabriel Grovlez. AP-B’s pianism is a gift that continues giving.

YET ANOTHER HUSUM BLOG

It took me almost a year to write this blog diary, having wracked my thought processes, beginning in Germany, later in Hong Kong, and finally back home in Singapore, with just a week to spare before my inevitable return to Husum in 2019. Better late than never, so here it is, my brief diary of the 32^ndedition.

Its my fourth year in succession visiting Husum (Germany), home of the inimitable Rarities of Piano Music at Schloss vor Husum Festival, and there seems to be no tiring of this annual pilgrimage into the far-flung peripheries of the vast and seemingly endless piano repertory. “Husum is like a drug” reads an article in the Hamburger Abendblatt by Elisabeth Richter, and guess who the drug references relate to?

Yes, and there’s a photo of a certain Singapore blogger attired in a Nationalmannschaft outfit emblazoned just below the headline. Guess I’ve become a legitimate minor celebrity in certain parts of North Germany...

Sunday, 12 August 2018

In truth, my Husum journey started in Singapore when the young 24-year-old Clarisse Teo (above) performed a programme of Mompou, Medtner, D’Indy and Alexandrov in a piano recital at Esplanade Recital Studio. Her programme of all local premieres looked exactly like one of those impossible programmes that appear in Husum every summer in August. And her audience of about 180, very quiet, attentive and respectful, was little different from the cognoscenti who beat down the doors of the 16^th century Schloss before the seaside town on the North Sea coast of Schleswig-Holstein.

Her upright posture, utter confidence and control, no-nonsense demeanour and unexpected encore (Villa-Lobos) also reminded this listener of a certain M-A.Hamelin. Surely she should someday perform in Husum?

Saturday 18 August 2018

Thanks to British Airways and German Rail (which has of late descended to SMRT standards of normality), everything contrived to make me miss the opening recital at Husum by German pianist Sina Kloke (above). She sounded impressive enough on compact disc, and I was more than happy for her to autograph those albums of music by Enesco and Vaughan Williams.

FABIAN MULLER Piano Recital (7.30 pm)

So my first recital attended was by the young German Fabian Muller, part of the Festival’s Young Explorers programme. The question begged is this, “Does contemporary music that is not often heard qualify to be rarities?”

This festival has thrived on less-heard Romantic repertoire, but what about late 20^thcentury music? One hardly hears these in most recitals (other than a handful of Ligeti Etudes or Carl Vine’s Bagatelles or First Sonata), so Gyorgy Kurtag’s aphoristic Splitter (1978) comes as a surprise – comprising short shards of atonal sound with extremes of dynamic changes and occasional playful gestures. Russian Nikolai Obuchow’s Revelation from 1915 is more convincing, with Scriabinesque gestures, Schoenbergian or Bergian dissonances, typical of the Russian avant-garde and sounding something ahead of its time.

The rest of his programme hardly qualifies as rarities. Debussy’s early Ballade(heard in complete Debussy sets), a selection of Brahms Piano Pieces Op.76 (deceptively difficult pieces to play) and Liszt’s Variations on Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen are now more regularly heard these days. He plays these very well, and the violent but dry-like-dust Busoni single-movement Sonatina Seconda, a work with occult and sinister intensions which is as far away as one gets from Bach-Busonian congeniality. That too was enough to demonstrate the presence of a serious and considerable artist.

The Busoni was heard in last year’s Singapore International Piano Festival (from Chiyan Wong) and will be heard in The Joy of Music Festival in Hong Kong come October (from Ivan Krpan). So this work looks like losing rarity status pretty soon, and that is what happens when pieces begin to join the mainstream.

The well-tendered garden of the Schloss,
where a drink in the summer evening is always welcome.

PianoCrazy: my collage of images of
concert attendees from the the 2017 festival

BENJAMIN BRITTEN

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

New Opera Singapore

Victoria Theatre

Friday (16 August 2019)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 19 August 2019 with the title "Fantasy and hilarity rule the night".

It has been 22 years since Benjamin Britten’s operatic setting of Shakespeare’s comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream last played in Singapore. In 1997, Singapore Lyric Opera mounted a production, with a largely foreign cast of singers and conducted by Lim Yau, which remains one of the company’s most remarkable achievements.

Although trailing in authenticity and refinement, New Opera Singapore’s production with a largely local cast, directed by Jeong Ae Ree and conducted by Chan Wei Shing, was nonetheless impressive for its freshness of ideas and ebullience of delivery.

Britten’s adaptation of Shakespeare saw its original five acts reduced to three, with the First Act dispensed altogether. Much of the libretto remained unchanged, thus retaining much of the humour and farce. Its story of fairies, humans and actors (here called rustics), their falling in and out of love, and mistakenly applied “love” juice, made for much fantasy and enchantment.

Soprano Victoria Songwei Li, returning from last year’s triumph in Poulenc’s Dialogues Of The Carmelites, was just as stunning in the coloratura role of Tytania. The range and agility of her voice was matched by an alluring physical presence that was hard to ignore. Coming quite close was actor Dwayne Lau Wei An as the playful Puck, prancing opposite countertenor Glenn Wong as the tyrannical Oberon.

The mortals Helena (sang by Jennifer Lien), Hermia (Rebecca Chellappah), Lysander (Shaun Lee), Demetrius (Kang Mingseong) as subjects of love were also well cast, especially the women. The rustics, comprising Bottom (Sangchul Jae), Quince (Keane Ong), Flute (Adrian Poon), Snout (Samuel Ng), Starveling (Francis Wong) and Snug (David Lee), who were planning a play within a play, provided further comic elements to an already hilarious script.

Although singing and speaking in English, not all the words were clearly enunciated and heard. The Korean singers were at a disadvantage here, made more difficult when wearing the headpiece of an ass. As such, the smart use of surtitles proved all the more vital.

The all-boys choir from Anglo Chinese School (Junior & Barker Road) provided the atmosphere of innocence which Britten sought. Mingling among them were the fairies Jasmine Towndrow (Moth), Lara Tan (Peaseblossom), Melissa Hecker (Cobweb) and Yssela Erquiaga (Mustardseed), youngsters who aquitted themselves with purity and grace.

The set made up from detachable and mobile ramps of different heights, designed by RT+Q Architects, was simple and highly effective. This allowed for clarity of story-telling on different planes besides preventing a cramped stage. Consistent with the company’s penchant for the edgy and slightly risque, there were scenes of cross-dressing (Poon as the awkward bride Thisby) and the hinting of bestiality (woman and ass).

New Opera Singapore has overachieved again, given its small budget that allows for just one major production annually. Next year sees the Singapore premiere of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, and expectations already run high.

All photographs by the kind courtesy of New Opera Singapore.

ION VOICU The Decca Recordings

Decca Eloquence 480 7841 (2 CDs) / ****1/2

Those who tuned in to Singapore Broadcasting Corporation’s 92.4FM stereo classical station during the 1970-1980s might remember the name of Romanian violinist Ion Voicu (1923-1997), whose long-playing records were aired in those more interesting and eclectic days of radio. This album brings together the contents of three LPs dating from 1965 to 1973, never previously issued on CD.

Voicu was born into the Romani tradition of violin playing, and was a student of Georges Enesco and later David Oistrakh. This pedigree would account for his playing of refinement and understated virtuosity, which shuns faceless surface glitz and vulgarity.

The album’s first disc coupling the popular Mendelssohn (E minor) and Bruch (No.1) violin concertos is enjoyable for its directness and simplicity of approach. He is partnered with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos.

20^th century violin sonatas make up the balance of the 150 minutes, all of which are tuneful and accessible. With French pianist Monique Haas, Prokofiev’s Sonata No.2(originally for flute) and Debussy’s late Sonata make for fascinating contrasts. The Second Violin Sonata by Darius Milhaud is a delightful rarity, with folk music influences and pentatonic melodies that remind one of Chinese music.

The third album includes a thrilling reading of Ysaye’s unaccompanied Sonata No.5, and has Romanian pianist Victoria Stefanescu accompanying him in the Second Sonatas of Ravel and Enesco. The Ravel is famous for its Blues second movement (where violin mimics banjo), while the slightly more dissonant and darkly-hued Enesco is a real find. Here is a showcase of violin playing of true distinction.

SINGAPORE CHINESE ORCHESTRA ON TOUR
Berlin Konzerthaus Gendarmentmarkt
Saturday (31 August 2019)

This review was published by The Straits Times on 2 September 2019 with the title "Singapore Chinese Orchestra's European tour de force".

Almost 19 years ago, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra made its Berlin debut at the historic Konzerthaus Gendarmenmarkt. This year was the turn of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra (SCO) conducted by Yeh Tsung, in the first concert of its four-city European tour. On its programme included four works representing the unique sound world that is Chinese and Nanyang music.

Nanyang music was a genre promulgated by the SCO and Music Director Yeh, conceived to encompass specific subjects, flavours and idioms of Southeast Asia. Opening the concert was the symphonic poem Krakatoa by Wong Kahchun, presently the Chief Conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra.

Originally written for wind band, its sound textures translated very well on Chinese instruments. Dizis and percussion playing a modal tune conjured the tranquil mood of Javanese slumber before the violence of volcanic eruption, generating abrupt and startling contrasts. Suonas strategically placed high up at the back of the circle also created the effect of stereophony, contributing to the work’s raw and tumultuous impact.

Winner of the 2015 Singapore International Competition for Chinese Orchestral Composition, Hong Kong composer Gordon Fung Dic-Lun’s Arise, You Lion Of Glory provided another vista to Nanyang music. Its subject was the life cycle of the lion dance of local Chinese celebrations. Splendidly coiffed SCO pipa principal Yu Jia was at her extroverted best, portraying the lion’s stirring, passionate moves aided and abetted by rhythmic percussion, all the way to its eventual demise. The quiet and spiritual close of the work was accompanied by tinkling sounds of Tibetan prayer bowls.

More familiar was Chen Gang and He Zhanhao’s Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto, undoubtedly China’s greatest compositional export. London-based Singaporean violinist Kam Ning wrung out all the pathos possible from the rhapsodic tale of Liang Zhu, the Chinese version of Romeo and Juliet. Her duet with cellist Xu Zhong provided tender moments which tugged on the heart strings. The encore was Fritz Kreisler’s Tambourin Chinois, typical Viennese chinoiserie but made to sound totally charming.

The fourth major work was Yellow Earth, an early work by Tan Dun, arguably the most famous living Chinese composer today. Its four movements depicted the parched, rugged landscapes and raucous celebrations of the Chinese outback. Exploiting the full range of instrumental capabilities, the orchestra provided a tour de force of virtuosic and cohesive playing.

As if to further showcase the orchestra’s wide-ranging versatility, it also took on the music of J.S.Bach. The famous Air On G String sounded quaintly idiomatic with yangqin replacing the harpsichord, and the melody tenderly carried on sheng, gaohu and dizi.

Chatty and engaging, Yeh clearly had the audience eating from his hands. Two encores of Dvorak’s Slavonic Dance in G minor (Op.46 No.8) and the Gavotte from Bach’s Suite No.3 had listeners in raptures and on their feet. Judging from the response, this concert was both a musical and cross-cultural triumph. SCO continues on its tour with further concerts in Prague, Imola (Italy) and Athens.

A Berlin standing ovation for the

Singapore Symphony Orchestra.

A proud moment for Singapore.

SCO musicians with Chairman Mr Ng

& Deputy Chairman Mr Wu post concert.

SCO musicians Foong Chui San (zhongruan),

Tang Jia (cello), Huang Ting-Yu (cello)

& Cheng Tzu Ting (zhongruan).

RARITIES OF PIANO MUSIC
AT SCHLOSS VOR HUSUM 2018
Danacord 839 / *****

There is a distinct focus on French music in last year’s selections from the world-renowned festival held in North Germany, highlights works from the far-reaching peripheries of the piano repertoire. Like the gusty North Sea air that envelopes the festival town of Husum, freshness distinguishes performances of pieces by Gabriel Dupont, Louis Vierne, Reynaldo Hahn, Alkan and Debussy.

Faintly familiar strains come in the opening track from Debussy’s early and little-known Ballade, played by young German pianist Fabian Müller. Despite being supposedly Slavic in influence, this piece however inhabits the aesthete of the French belle epoque.

The real discovery are two pieces from Dupont’s cycle La maison dans les dunes (The House on the Dunes). Entitled On the Dunes One Clear Morning and Swells, these are impressionist and hauntingly beautiful from the German Severin von Eckardstein’s fingers. Despite his French-sounding name, Jean Louis Nicodé was actually Prussian. Two of his miniatures, Repentence and Remembrance from A Life Of Love bear the influences of Schumann, lovingly realised by British pianist Simon Callaghan.

Also to be heard are shorter pieces by Pancho Vladigerov, Valery Arzumanov, Leonid Desyatnikov, Robert Fuchs, Anton Arensky, Gabriel Grovlez and transcriptions of Rachmaninov and Piazzolla. The pianists represented are as diverse as Muza Rubackyte (Lithuania), Etsuko Hirose (Japan), Lukas Geniusas (Russia), Ingrid Marsoner (Austria), Sina Kloke (Germany) and Antonio Pompa-Baldi (Italy). How’s that for sheer variety? As they say, vivé la difference!

PIANO BOOK
LANG LANG, Piano
Deutsche Grammophon 479 8109 1 / ***

In his latest album, Chinese piano phenom Lang Lang has gone back to basics, playing pieces he learnt as a child. There are some no-brainers which open this 72 minute anthology, such as J.S.Bach’s Prelude in C major from Book One of The Well-Tempered Clavier and Beethoven’s immortal Für Elise. He plays these easy pieces with simplicity and finesse.

However in the very familiar 1^st movement of Mozart’s Sonata Facile in C major (K.545), he attempts some ornamentations which get annoying on repeated listening. Debussy’s Clair de lune comes across as being just too slow, while Tekla Bardazewska-Baranowska’s The Maiden’s Prayer sounds banal whoever is playing. Surely, Mozart’s Variations on Ah, vous dirai-je Maman (Twinkle Twinkle Little Star) is beyond the technique of piano beginners, as is Mendelssohn’s Spinning Song and Debussy’s Gradus Ad Parnassum (Children’s Corner Suite).

Surely he would not have known of pieces by Max Richter, Yann Tiersen or Ryuichi Sakamoto growing up in Shenyang, but the Japanese film composer’s Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence receives a grandstanding rendition.

The Super Deluxe edition of this album runs onto two discs and includes a handsome hardcover book of scores and personal insights, with some 29 pieces in all. This is not a terrible album, but one cannot help feel it could have been much better.

A Vocal Recital Not To Be Missed: ZHOU ZHENGZHONG

STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS / re:Sound with Pavlo Beznosiuk / Review

DRUMATIC FUSION / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

CD Review (The Straits Times, July 2019)

CD Review (The Straits Times, August 2019)

THE FENG YA SONG SYMPHONY / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

RARITIES OF PIANO MUSIC AT SCHLOSS WOOLLERTON ON NATIONAL DAY 2019

SSO NATIONAL DAY CONCERT / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

MUSICAL FRONTIERS / Ding Yi Music Company and Suc Song Moi Bamboo Ensemble / Review

CD Review (The Straits Times, August 2019)

YET ANOTHER HUSUM BLOG / Part 5

YET ANOTHER HUSUM BLOG 2018 / Part 4

YET ANOTHER HUSUM BLOG 2018 / Part 3

YET ANOTHER HUSUM BLOG 2018 / Part 2

YET ANOTHER HUSUM BLOG 2018 / Part 1

BENJAMIN BRITTEN A Midsummer Night's Dream / New Opera Singapore / Review

CD Review (The Straits Times, August 2019)

SINGAPORE CHINESE ORCHESTRA ON TOUR Berlin Concert / Review

CD Review (The Straits Times, September 2019)

CD Review (The Straits Times, September 2019)