pianomania

INNER WORLDS:
IGOR & PEI-SIAN IN CONCERT
re: Sound
Victoria Concert Hall
Wednesday (15 January 2020)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 17 January 2020 with the title "Sumptuous serving of 20th-century music".

Twentieth-century music has a special place in the repertoire of re:Sound, Singapore’s first professional chamber ensemble, and its latest concert was proof of that. In a programme of string music led by former Singapore Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Igor Yuzefovich on violin, the group impressed with a show of refined playing and cohesiveness.

Although Leos Janacek is considered the great 20th century Czech composer, his youthful Idyll dates from 1878. In seven short movements, its folksong-based idiom resembled that of his friend and mentor Antonin Dvorak, notably the Serenade for Strings. A sumptuous and full-bodied sound was coaxed from the ensemble, which made for a pleasant and undemanding half-hour.

Jump a hundred-and-sixteen years to 1994, and we get the Australian Carl Vine’s Inner World. Scored for solo cello with amplified taped sounds, this was SSO Principal Cellist Ng Pei-Sian’s tour de force to luxuriate in ruminative plaints before launching into exuberant dance. The recorded sounds included electronic transformations of the solo part mixed with otherworldly streams and rhythmic beats, representing the instrument’s life and matter of string, hair and wood.

In this version, Ng had the backing of a larger string ensemble near its end, appearing surreptitiously as stage-lights were turned on. The exultant close was a plethora of sound, and here Ng risked being drowned out by the aural congestion.

No fears of that transpired in American Christopher Theofanidis’ The World is Aflame (2006) with just Ng and Yuzefovich on stage as a duo partnership. This was a compact seven minutes of total concentration, with both having disparate roles but closely mirroring each other. Call this a duel rather than a mere duet. With each upping the ante, only to be matched with equal vigour and vehemence, here was a titanic struggle between firsts among equals.

The closing work was Dmitri Shostakovich’s familiar Eighth String Quartet arranged by Rudolf Barshai and retitled as the Chamber Symphony (Op.110a) for string orchestra. Despite its popularity, this is a dark autobiographical reflection of life and death in the age of Stalinist totalitarianism. The work follows his own 4-note motto theme (D-E flat-C-B) through five movements of tumultuous upheaval and angst-laden emotions.

Along the way, quotes from his pivotal works are littered like bread crumbs, and the listener is compelled on a harrowing journey from solemn beginning to sorrowful end. The ensemble coped well with its roller-coaster ride of dynamic changes. The Jewish melody from his Second Piano Trio in the 2^nd movement was belted out with no little irony, that being the composer’s diatribe against anti-Semitism.

The manic waltz of the 3^rd movement gave way to the slow movement’s pathos, distinguished by Theophilus Tan’s soulful cello song, an aria from Shostakovich’s most controversial opera, Lady Macbeth Of Msentsk. The slow finale gradually wore down, and the stagelights being extinguished became a poignant moment. Even enthusiastic applause, which the performance surely merited, almost seemed out of place here.

YEVGENY SUDBIN Piano Recital
Victoria Concert Hall
Thursday (16 January 2020)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 January 2020

Russian pianist Yevgeny Sudbin has become a familiar figure with Singapore audiences over the years, with appearances at the Singapore International Piano Festival and Singapore Symphony Orchestra concerts. His latest recital was however part of a year-long series organised by Altenburg Arts, but had the heady feel of the celebrated Piano Festival.

Hailed as one of the planet’s foremost interpreters of Scarlatti, his recital opened with a selection of four Sonatas by the Italian baroque composer. Heard on the modern grand piano, these are a world apart from their origins as harpsichord pieces. Applying generous but judicious pedalling, svelte legatos and incisive accents, these shined like variegated gems.

Purists might object to the ornamentations applied to the familiar Pastorale in D minor (K.9) or octave augmentations in La Chasse in C major (K.159), but these stylings were spontaneous and well within the spirit of our times. Works of antiquity need not be preserved in moth balls as museum artifacts, but may be enjoyed for their ageless quality.

The same can be said of piano transcriptions of orchestral works. Even though 88 keys may not completely supplant the sonorities of massed string, wind and percussion instruments, well-crafted arrangements can simulate orchestral textures and even seduce the ear. Such was Sudbin’s transcription of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo And Juliet Fantasy Overture.

This not only conveyed the dramatic intensity and contrapuntal complexity of the original, but had the audacity of being ridiculously difficult to pull off. While basking in its big melody and brooding with darker pages, Sudbin joins the likes of Rachmaninov, Horowitz, Feinberg and Pletnev as master pianist-transcribers of the Russian school.

Still with Tchaikovsky, nothing could be more different than two Nocturnes (Op.10 No.1 and Op.19 No.4), charming salon works which revealed a more melancholic and sensitive side. Far more demanding technically was Scriabin’s Nocturne in D flat major (Op.9 No.2), with its dizzying central cadenza, accomplished by left hand alone. As if to prove the point, Sudbin kept his right hand firmly planted on his lap.

The recital’s final work was Ravel’s diabolical triptych Gaspard de la nuit, inspired by three poems of Gothic horror by Aloysius Bertrand. This is a virtuoso’s paradise, and how Sudbin mastered the liquid tremolos and splashy sweeps of Ondine, water piece par excellence. Stillness and bleakness enveloped Le Gibet, with its insistently tolling B flat octave accompanying the swaying motion of a hanging corpse on the gallows.

Little would prepare one for the sheer malevolence of Sudbin’s portrait of the bow-legged goblin Scarbo. This was the Devil in person himself, manifested in coruscating violence and a reading that would scarcely be bettered for sheer pianistic brilliance.

Loud and noisy applause greeted its mercurial and elusive close. Sudbin’s obligatory encore was Scarlatti’s lyrical Sonata in F minor (K.466), a declaration that the recital had completed a perfect circle.

LOVE & PASSION

Singapore Lyric Opera

Esplanade Recital Studio

Monday (20 January 2020)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 22 January 2020

Is there any opera that is not about love and passion? Thus the title of Singapore Lyric Opera’s (SLO) latest concert seemed as superfluous as it gets. Nevertheless, one got the idea with this lovely programme of arias, duets and trios from nine operas sung in Italian and French.

SLO has recently worked with young prize-winning singers and scholarship holders, but this evening was reserved for veterans and stalwarts of the company to strut their stuff. But where were the many singing students in various institutions, conspicuous for their absence in a sparsely filled hall? Surely they could learn something or two from the likes of soprano Nancy Yuen, tenor Israel Lozano, baritone Song Kee Chang and accompanying pianist Boris Kraljevic.

It was the Spaniard Lozano, former Placido Domingo protégé, who opened the show with Questa o quella from Verdi’s Rigoletto. In this lusty aria from opera’s most infamous womaniser, the Duke of Mantua, Lozano sounded and looked the part with impressive flourishes in high registers. His other arias were from Verdi’s La Traviata and Massenet’s Werther. The latter was the unforgettable Pourquoi me reveiller, where unrequited love in spring could only lead to suicide.

Not overshadowed was the Korean Song, whose rich and mellow tone was well suited for a bel canto aria from Bellini’s I Puritani. His portrayal of the older Germont in Di Provenza il mar (from La Traviata) also tugged on the heartstrings, as did Nimico della patria from Umberto Giordano’s Andrea Chénier. While not exactly love songs, these were however tinged with longing and regret.

Yuen, also SLO’s Artistic Director, regrettably sang only one aria. However nobody can scale the heights of Vissi d’arte from Puccini’s Tosca as effortlessly as she does in her signature role. With the absence of programme notes or printed libretti, she and Lozano introduced their numbers with brief but helpful explanations.

Good as the solos were, the duets and ensemble pieces stole the show as all three singers exhibited excellent chemistry with their blended voices. Yuen and Lozano emoted in Signor ne principe (Rigoletto) and the poignant Parigi o cara (La Traviata), which was a tearjerker. Lozano and Song relived two of opera’s greatest bromances in In un coupe (Puccini’s La Boheme) and the familiar Au fond du temple saint from Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers. And how the room shook.

Yuen and Song accounted for a duet in La Boheme and the most unexpected treat in Te souvient-il du lumineux voyage from Massenet’s Thaïs. This is none other than a glorious reprise of the famous Meditation, with the violin’s unforgettable melody replaced with soaring voices.

The highly enjoyable concert closed with a Three Tenors-styled medley of four Neapolitan songs: O Sole Mio, Non Ti Scordar di me, Torna a Surriento and Funiculi Funicula. Two encores in Santa Lucia and Leoncavallo’s La Mattinata brought down the house and raised a standing ovation.

Haven't decided what to do on Valentine's Day? Here's a great idea: spend a Romantic evening with a loved one in the company of world-renowned Korean pianist Kun Woo Paik as he performs the music of Robert Schumann.

ROMANTIC SCHUMANN

KUN WOO PAIK Piano Recital

Victoria Concert Hall

Friday 14 February 2020, at 7.30 pm

Tickets available at SISTIC:

https://www.sistic.com.sg/events/romantic0120

(click on the link above)

His programme:

ABEGG Variations, Op.1

Bunte Blätter, Op.99

Toccata in C major, Op.7

Waldszenen, Op.82

This promises to be an evening of fantasy and rapture, brought to you by Altenburg Arts, the brains behind Martha Argerich and Yuja Wang's debut recitals in Singapore.

FIREBIRD - PIANO SENSATION
Tony Yike Yang Piano Recital
Esplanade Recital Studio
Sunday (2 February 2020)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 4 February 2020 with the title "Firebird takes flight on 88 keys".

Esplanade’s Huayi Chinese Festival of Arts has presented Chinese pianists in solo recitals over the years, including Chen Sa, Chen Jie (both China) and Tiffany Poon (Hong Kong), the last of whom garnered a sellout last year. This year’s offering was prize-winning Canadian-Chinese pianist Tong Yike Yang, a Toronto resident who is now pursuing dual-degrees in economics and music in Harvard University and New England Conservatory respectively.

Quite unusually, his recital began with the Eighth Novelette (Op.21 No.8) of Schumann, a short piece with a profusion of ideas that became almost difficult to follow. Yang exuded much passion and lyricism while making sense of its narrative flow.

More familiar was Chopin’s Third Sonata in B minor (Op.58), a warhorse in four movements. Again, solid technique was allied to good musical taste as he negotiated digital complexities of the first two movements well. Ironically it was in the technically less demanding slow movement when things became unstuck.

For all of Esplanade’s strenuous warnings against unauthorised photography, the arts centre had to employ an official photographer who failed to silence his digital camera. Thus the quietest bits of the Largo was subjected to incessant pings and clicks as he snapped away with gusto. Whether these distracted Yang and caused him to falter was moot, but after that, the hitherto immaculate playing was no more.

Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata (Op.27 No.2) was not supposed to be the German’s most difficult work, but Yang’s effort made heavy weather of it. Whatever mystery that the opening movement (reminding some poet of moonlight over Lake Lucerne) evoked evaporated like the mist, the dance-like middle movement sounded prosaic, while there was a near collapse in the tempestuous finale.

The only concession to Chinese music came in five selections from Tan Dun’s Eight Memories in Watercolour. These short movements included dances and folk music much in the matter of Bartok’s idiomatic piano music. These were performed, wisely, with a score at hand and the vigorous celebratory chords in the final piece, Sunrain, set the stage well for Yang’s final showdown.

In Italian pianist Guido Agosti’s fearsome transcription of three movements from Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite, Yang was able to flex all kinds of musculature to make the orchestral piece come alive on 88 keys. This he succeeded with stunning aplomb, with the Infernal Dance of King Kastchei sweeping the keyboard and taking no prisoners. The bell-like sonorities of the Finale also came off with clangorous clarity.

Yang greeted the applause with short, quick bows and polished off the encore of Chopin’s Fantaisie-Impromptu like a young man in a hurry. He even had the chutzpah of improvising a glissando when a descending scale almost came off the rails. A hot-shot talent for sure, and he even has economics to fall back upon should he ever tire of the stage.

Photographs by the kind courtesy of Esplanade Theatres On The Bay.

UNSPOKEN MELODIES:
SILENT FILM CLASSICS IN CONCERT
Singapore Chinese Orchestra
Esplanade Concert Hall
Saturday (8 February 2020)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 10 February 2020 with the title "Chinese instruments meet old black and white Western films".

Following the success of Singapore Chinese Orchestra’s concert accompanying The Goddess (starring Ruan Lingyu) at the 2014 Huayi – Chinese Festival of Arts, the same formula was applied to four Hollywood silent classics from 1910 to 1923. The team of SCO Composer-in-Residence Law Wai Lun and his Hong Kong-based nephew Lincoln Lo returned to craft original scores, which were performed under the baton of Yeh Tsung.

The idea of Chinese instrumentation accompanying a Western film fortunately produced no jarring discrepancies between visual and aural experiences. Although the music could have easily been performed by a western symphony orchestra, the overall effect was one of seamlessness through its almost 90-minute duration.

The concert opened with a short and lively Overture encapsulating the legacy of silent movies. Footage from period cinema (both Western and Asian) were included, as well as scenes from 1920-30s Singapore obtained from British Pathe and Penn Museum archives.

There is a period charm to the four black and white moving pictures, even if plotlines were simplistic, hopelessly naive and devoid of nuances between black and white (representing vice and virtue respectively). The only objection would be the odious racial stereotypes commonplace a century ago, such as portraying orientals and blacks as lackeys, or gypsies as plain evil. Of course there would be a certain tramp to save the day.

Charlie Chaplin starred in two of the movies, The Adventurer (1917) and The Vagabond (1916), which opened and closed the show. But how differently these were treated. The former revelled in slapstick and farcical Keystone Cops-like chases, with a jazzy, dancehall-music filled score which induced the most titters and laughs from the audience.

The latter was a romance, where boy saves girl from slavery, with tender moments involving piano and low strings, and a big melody to cap a climax. Did one detect a faint whiff of Nino Rota’s Romeo and Juliet theme, even when Tchaikovsky’s would have been the more appropriate?

Quite different was Frankenstein (1910) starring Augustus Phillips, supposedly a thriller inspired by the Gothic horror novella. The music became more dramatic, with pitched percussion and piano reliving haunted house scary effects while weepy erhus added a further layer of suspense. Quite hilariously, the monster came across as almost loveable, like some overgrown house pet.

Buster Keaton was the hero in Rome from The Three Ages (1923), its centrepiece being a “race-to-the death” within a Coliseum-like arena. For the momentous occasion, loud martial music with vocalisations from the musicians filled the air, in the showdown between the villain’s horse-drawn chariot and Keaton’s dog-sled. Guess which one won.

Even if the movies’ content had little to do with Chinese culture, SCO’s contribution to Esplanade’s Chinese-themed festival was still a significant one. To showcase Chinese instruments as a versatile force, capable of transcending cultural barriers, was the name of the game.

ROMANTIC SCHUMANN
KUN-WOO PAIK Piano Recital
Victoria Concert Hall
Friday (14 February 2020)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 17 February 2020 with the title "Schumann afresh".

There has been no composer with a more tumultuous life than Robert Schumann (1810-1856). The epithet Romantic wholly applies to the German, whose love life, trials and tribulations was often stranger than fiction. That was the basis for celebrated Korean pianist Kun-Woo Paik’s all-Schumann recital, fortuitously held on what today’s romantics know as Valentine’s Day.

Even the fear of Covid-19 virus transmission did not deter a sizeable audience (including many Koreans) from witnessing Paik’s marvellous two-hour long show which was substantially expanded from its original programme. The selection encompassed very early to very late works, familiar pieces and rarities, from the technically simple to ferociously virtuosic, with a multitude of nuances captured within.

Schumann’s very first opus was Abegg Variations (Op.1), based on the five notes in the name of an early romantic interest. Encumbered with the fussy filigree which obsessed early Romantic composers, Paik easily overcame relentless note-churning without losing the thrust of its melodic interest. Equally note-laden was his Toccata (Op.7), a notorious finger-twister which could have easily descended into vacuous machine-gun rapid fire. Again, his prodigious fingers were fully in service of the music.

Between the barnstorming were five Album Leaves from Bunte Blätter (Colourful Leaves, Op.99), character pieces traversing varied moods and shades of disposition. The first, which famously became the theme for Brahms’ Schumann Variations, was a study of calm and melancholy. Turbulence, geniality and pensivity followed before the set closed with hymn-like lyricism.

By now, one would have discerned that Schumann was a miniaturist non pareil, and the entire recital consisted of suites with multiple short movements. Waldeszenen (Forest Scenes, Op.82) comprised nine such pieces, exploring a world of woodland rusticity and mysticism. It was the latter that found most traction in Verrufene Stelle (Haunted Place) and Vogel Als Prophet (The Prophet Bird), slow numbers which were quietly haunting.

The two most frequently-heard works were Arabeske (Op.18) and Papillons (Op.2), which can often be tainted with over-familiarity. Not so, in Paik’s case. With multiple and quixotic shifts in dynamics and mood in both, surprises may be expected in each and every turn. These he negotiated with a sense of wonder and fantasy, such that the music always sounded fresh and newly minted.

This sense of discovery applied to the least familiar works, Fantasiestücke (Fantasy Pieces, Op.111) and Gesänge der Frühe (Songs of Dawn, Op.133), conceived near the close of Schumann’s tragic life which ended in an insane asylum. The former were championed in concert by the great Vladimir Horowitz during his late years, and Paik’s view was every bit as vivid.

The latter are elusive and cryptic, but he unlocked their secrets through a near-seamless emotional arc spanning all possible cerebral and visceral experiences. His encore was a continuation of this poetic and lyrical bent: the Aria slow movement from Schumann’s First Sonata (Op.11), dedicated to his beloved Clara, whom he later married. Such is the measure of a true artist.

PHILIPPE QUINT: THE RED VIOLIN

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Thursday (5 March 2020)

This review was published in Bachtrack on 9 March 2020 with the title "Litton, Quint and the Singapore Symphony provide light at the end of the tunnel".

The Covid-19 virus crisis has hit the world hard, and Singapore is short of going into complete shutdown. The Singapore Symphony Orchestra has, however, bravely continued its subscription concerts, bringing semblance of normality and much-needed cheer to the beleaguered city-state. Healthcare and public transport workers were granted free admission to this concert of 20^th century music.

Led by SSO Principal Guest Conductor Andrew Litton, the evening opened with the high energy of Leonard Bernstein’s Overture to Candide, the 1956 operetta based on Voltaire’s satirical novella. Filled with Rossinian wit, champagne bubbles fizzed and sparks flew in its brief duration, bringing a smile to even the most jaded soul. It was simply the best start in the best of all possible worlds.

Smile turned into frown for John Corigliano’s The Red Violin, the four-movement violin concerto crafted from music for the 1997 movie directed by Francois Girard. Tragedy and tribulation follows the three-hundred-year journey of the violin varnished with blood from the luthier’s late wife Anna. Anna’s theme, wistful and melancholic, appears in the opening Chaconne and returns like an apparition in the ensuing three movements.

The grim introduction, carried by growling brass and bassoon, was gripping in intensity, heralding Russia-born American violinist Philippe Quint’s entry. The virtuosic solo part, highly characterised and fantasy-driven, found a perfect soulmate in Quint’s artistry. The 17-minute-long Chaconne (often performed as a stand-alone concert piece), while not strictly a baroque chaconne, was just the vehicle of moving pathos. The music was dirge-like in parts and escalated exorably to an explosive finish, representing the cruel hand of Fate and ultimately Death.

Quint revelled in ethereal and otherworldly pianissimo effects of the mercurial Scherzo, while some lyrical respite was provided by warm ensemble strings in the slow third movement. Through all of this, the spectre of Anna’s theme hovered ominously, continuing into the breakneck Accelerando finale. This was a hell-for-leather chase between violin and orchestra to its violently percussive close. Quint’s 1708 “Ruby” Stradivarius had become the living embodiment of the titular red violin in this ultimately depressing work. His encore was something else, a perfectly voiced take on Charlie Chaplin’s most popular melody, Smile from the movie Modern Times.

It was back to darkness with a commanding performance of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony by the SSO. It was after the death of Stalin when this darkest of Shostakovich’s fifteen symphonies saw light of day. From subterranean rumbles by low strings in the first movement, Litton coaxed from the orchestra one great arch of sound. The mysterious opening was broken by the lone voice of Ma Yue’s clarinet solo. Further solos from flautist Jin Ta, bassoonist Christoph Wichert and oboist Rachel Walker helped define its progression to a mighty climax, culminating with deafening brass and percussion.

Soon after the movement closed with just two piccolos, the second movement’s juggernaut was unleashed. This was a four-minute-long portrait of Stalinist malevolance and pure evil, its savagery heightened by Jonathan Fox’s snare drum. The third movement’s autobiographical agenda was underlined by the DSCH motif (D, E flat, C, B natural, spelling the composer’s initials in German), later insistently bandied about in a demented waltz. This was countered by another repeated motif (representing a sometime love interest) from Han Chang Chou’s French horn.

The apparent tug-of-war would resolve in the finale, which came like light at the end of a tunnel. This was a roller-coaster of mood and emotion, first reliving the opening movement’s doom and gloom, and later lapsing into actual satire and comedy. The tongue-in-cheek was resolutely defended, with pin-point and precise timing of punch lines, firmly driven by conductor Litton’s mini leaps into the air. The cheer that greeted its close was noisy and tumultuous. Trust Shostakovich (and music itself) to wangle out from a difficult situation some wry smiles.

Star Rating: *****

This review was reproduced here with the kind permission of Bachtrack. Photographs by the kind permission of Singapore Symphony Orchestra.

THE GENTEEL HORN OF MR HAN
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Victoria Concert Hall
Friday (13 March 2020)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 16 March 2020 with the title "Awe-inspiring romp as SSO French-hornist says goodbye".

The Singapore Symphony Orchestra has reached an age when long-serving musicians have begun to retire. Earlier this year, it bade farewell to veteran Leader, violinist Lynnette Seah. This evening, Principal French hornist Han Chang Chou, popularly known as Han Xiao Guang, said goodbye. Of his 41 years as a professional musician, 33 were spent with the SSO.

In August, he returns to his homeland China to teach at the Tianjin Juilliard School. His parting gift was a performance of Mozart’s Second Horn Concerto, ironically receiving its belated SSO premiere. Perhaps that speaks of the orchestra’s relative neglect of Classical era repertoire, but its redress was an invigorating outing with Han firmly in control.

Just last week, he confidently blew away the treacherously exposed repeated solo horn passages in Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony. This evening revealed a more sensitive side to his virtuosity, and that sonority that spelt mellow nobility. Eschewing outward display for its own sake, he was a figure of unwavering steadfastness and unflappable calm.

In the aria-like slow movement, his seamless singing tone reminded that much of Mozart’s lyricism was inspired by opera. In the Rondo finale, close sibling to that of the Fourth Horn Concerto, his agility to jump through assorted musical hoops proved to be a most enjoyable romp. An awe-inspiring one too, judging by the hearty applause that greeted its end.

Judging by the smiles, Mr Han

is well-loved by the orchestra.

The Mozart was sandwiched between two contrasted suites inspired by Moliere’s play Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (The Would-Be Gentleman), both local premieres by chamber-sized forces conducted by Darrell Ang. This was inspired programming for the 75-minute concert which had no intermission.

Opening was the Overture and Dances from Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Lully’s accompanying music of 1670. Here was actual baroque music but performed on modern instruments in Ang’s own edition. The Overture was a French overture, a form comprising a syncopated opening section leading into a fugue.

Note the presence of the harpsichord and theorbo.

The music was crisply articulated with three dances that followed courtly and charming. The Turkish influences (then trending in Western Europe) were graced by a small battery of percussion, and concessions to authenticity were provided by Shane Thio’s harpsichord and Christopher Clarke’s theorbo (an antique long-necked lute).

Richard Strauss’ Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme suite from 1920 concluded the concert. Here was an example of neoclassicism, where modern composers relived old forms and styles with contemporary means. Its nine short movements were tuneful and tasteful, mostly accomplished by small groups of instruments, and often festooned with solo flourishes.

Returning as guest concertmaster, Lynnette Seah and her violin worked tirelessly, while Jon Paul Dante’s trumpet added gloss to the showy movements. Shane Thio now commanded the piano as the music danced to a more modern beat. By the final movement, The Dinner, tutti forces resounded like one of Strauss’ classic scores, Don Juan or Don Quixote. Such is the magic of chamber-sized orchestras.

Judging by the smiles, Darrell Ang

and the orchestra had a good time!

CONCORDIA QUARTET @ HOME

Streamed Live on the Internet

Friday (12 June 2020)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 15 June 2020

The Concordia Quartet, Singapore’s latest professional chamber group, made its debut in February at the Ngee Ann Kongsi Theatre (Funan Centre) to critical acclaim. Its second public concert was another first, a live performance by four musicians on the Internet, separated physically by Covid-19 circuit breaker and social distancing rules.

Its players, violinists Edward Tan and Kim Kyu Ri, violist Matthias Oestringer and cellist Theophilus Tan, never had face-to-face rehearsals for this concert. Instead, they played from their own living rooms, united by nifty technology, employing the Jamulus audio software, high-tech headsets and microphones, and the ubiquitous Zoom app for visual cues.

Its audience was alerted via social media, and tuned into Youtube for the concert experience. While it seemed a surreal experience attending a concert remotely, one was spared of extraneous distractions like rustling programmes, fidgety children, and worst of all, coughs and sniffles.

Concordia’s programme was a compact one, just under half an hour of music, boosted by a question-and-answer session hosted by technical controller and Resound Collective’s founder Mervin Beng. These precious few minutes were however hard earned, given the logistical hurdles to overcome, but paid off handsomely.

There was a false start at the beginning with Mozart’s Divertimento in D major (K.136) which was quickly remedied. As there was a lag phase between visual and aural inputs for the musicians, it seemed a miracle they even came together at all. All that will be down to hard work getting used to the medium and how professional musicians adapt to each other’s music-making.

Like in a jazz combo, a three-count from first violinist Tan was needed to start the music flowing, when a nod of the head used to suffice. The issue of balance surfaced for a short while in the lively opening movement, when accompanying low strings sounded over-emphatic but that was also corrected. The slow movement was lovingly coaxed, while the fast finale which necessitated pin-point accuracy was driven to a breathless close.

This is what viewers
got to see at home.

Judging by positive live comments from its audience, this experiment was going to be a success. The heart of the concert belonged to Russian nationalist composer Alexander Borodin’s Second String Quartet. While some hoped to hear its popular and melancolic Notturno, the more meaty opening movement was performed instead.

By now, the quartet had more than warmed up and wearing heart on sleeve, this ultra-Romantic music’s passionate throes were milked for all its worth. For the online listener, this was as good as it gets. As a short encore, the world premiere of young local composer Jonathan Shin’s highly idiomatic arrangement of the Beatles hit-song Eleanor Rigby was the icing on the cake. Judging by positive live comments from its audience, this experiment was a success.

While live concerts witnessed by a live audience in a concert hall will not die an ignominous death, could online concerts such as this be a regular feature of the new normal?

ART + LIVE /
RESONATES WITH

ALBERT TIU Piano Recital

National Gallery Facebook Live

Saturday (27 June 2020)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 30 June 2020

Singapore is slowly but surely coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic circuit breaker period. Live concerts with live audiences have yet to commence, so online concerts have become a godsend. The concerts presented by the National Gallery bring to mind London’s National Gallery recitals organised by Dame Myra Hess during the Blitz years. Those were a morale-boosting salve for a populace under siege, albeit of a different kind.

Singapore-based Filipino pianist Albert Tiu’s recital, dedicated to Singapore’s healthcare workers, was conceived as a response to artworks by Liu Kang and Chia Yu Chian. Playing on a Shigeru Kawai grand piano from his living room, Tiu opened with a short prelude, the Happy Birthday song in the style of a Chopin waltz.

Three of Liu Kang’s Studies Of A Nurse, simple pencil sketches, prefaced slow movements from famous piano concertos. In these he skilfully wove solo piano parts with orchestral accompaniment so as to be seamless performances. First of these came from Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.23, a melancholic aria in F sharp minor in the gentle rhythmic lilt of a sicilienne. Deeply reflective and almost tragic in countenance, the music simply tugged at the heartstrings.

The spirit of Mozart lingered in the slow movement from Frenchman Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major. It is an elegant slow waltz which one wished could go on forever. Its textures and harmonies gradually get complex to a point Tiu begins simulating three hands at play.

The right hand’s piano filigree, the left thumb’s melodic line (singing a woodwind tune) in tandem with accompanying harmonies from the other fingers was an intricate and delicate juggling act. It was also fascinating to view these sleights of hand from a video camera’s overhead perspective. Through all this he maintained utmost composure and poise, with nary a note nor beat out of place.

Packing in even more notes was the slow movement of Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto, the only major work dedicated to a psychiatrist. The Russian composer had recovered from depression and writer’s block, having been rehabilitated by hypnotherapy and auto-suggestion, and this was his unforgettable gift in return.

Chia Yu Chian’s painting The Treatment was the inspiration for this selection, which found glorious fruition in Tiu’s hands. Its brooding and slow-building passion was to culminate in a rollicking cadenza and harmonious chords, signifying that even during the darkest hours, a cure was at hand and thus the impetus to carry on living.

The recital closed with a short encore, reveling in the ecstatic throes of the 18^th Variation from Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody On A Theme Of Paganini. Amid the ongoing debate of an artist’s value in society, one thing is certain. Artists provide beauty, nourishment and sustenance for the soul, constantly reminding us what being human is all about.

You can view the video here:

https://youtu.be/IMPet9Sq8rI

EVOLUTION

DONALD LAW, Piano

KNS Classical A/085

Its been several years since a Singaporean pianist produced a recital disc, and Donald Law’s debut album is much welcome amid this Covid-19 pandemic. The award winning pianist who pursued studies at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and London’s Royal College of Music provides an hour-long chronological history of the piano sonata form. Beginning with the late Classical (Beethoven in 1821), following through to the Romantic era (Chopin, 1844), before closing in the early 20^th century (Janacek, 1905), this an enthralling musical journey.

Law gives an idiomatic reading of Beethoven’s Sonata No.30 in A flat major (Op.110), the most formal member of his final sonata trilogy. Its lyricism is well-realised, as is the third movement’s sense of pathos. The contrapuntal lines of the fugal finale are delivered with utter clarity, and on this count, I am certain that he will be a convincing Bach player. Only in the folk-flavoured central fast movement does the fast Trio section comes across as being hemmed in by politeness and discipline.

Moving on to Chopin’s Third Sonata in B minor (Op.58), Law has a strong grip of the first movement’s narrative sweep, and omitting the exposition repeat helped. All through the work’s arch lyricism, there is an undercurrent of tragedy and vulnerability that pervades, and this is best heard in the Largo third movement. If there were any music to compliment the gaunt and haunted look of the consumptive Chopin’s famous daguerreotype of 1849, this would be it. Law shapes this with much sympathy and understated beauty. While the etude-like second movement could have been more mercurial, the finale’s Rondo romp is delivered with a sure-headed and often thrilling inexorability.

Arguably the best performance comes in Leos Janacek’s two-movement Sonata 1.X.1905 (“From The Street”), prompted by the murder of a worker in a street demonstration. Besides covering all the notes, Law gets to the dark heart and soul of this disturbing work. From its brooding opening movement (Presentiment) through an arch-like progression to its violent climax (Death), the canvas is filled with myriad shades and nuances of grey amid stark black and white musical imagery. A third movement had been discarded by the composer, but this “unfinished” torso stands, like a life cruelly interrupted, a masterpiece completed by its bleak finality.

With this excellent recital disc, Donald Law announces himself as a true artist and major new voice in Singapore’s classical music scene.

This recital may be enjoyed at:

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/album/0E3iLN6Ba3HlvnwhXogcnW?si=6PhKVDYyTCKNOHVnHXmkvQ

Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Donald-Law/dp/B083VV4T31

Apple Music:

https://music.apple.com/us/album/evolution/1494960094

SSO SEASON OPENING CONCERT

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Streamed on the Internet @ SISTIC Live

Saturday 11 July 2020

This review was published in The Straits Times on 14 July 2020 with the title "Moving orchestral performance an optimistic sign of SSO's future".

In a Covid-19-free alternative universe, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra would have given its first concert under newly introduced Chief Conductor Hans Graf this evening at Esplanade Concert Hall. In reality, the opening concert of the 2020-21 season was instead a stay-at-home event under current circut-breaker and social distancing rules.

Nonetheless, electronic tickets were issued on a pay-as-you-wish basis. There was even a glossily produced digital programme booklet complete with full programme notes and all the trimmings to accompany the viewing experience.

The concert’s main event was a reliving of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony in B minor, also known as the “Pathetique”, recorded on 17 January this year. That evening was incidentally the Austrian maestro Graf’s first concert after being named as Shui Lan’s successor at the orchestra’s helm.

Despite being the Russian’s bleakest and most depressing work (premiered in 1893 just a week before his untimely death), Graf’s vision was one of clear-headedness, steering clear of a surfeit of histrionics and hysteria.

By no means undemonstrative, the opening movement’s theme of pathos from the strings came across as sufficiently weepy, and the furious fugato that interrupted the catharsis was a jolt to the senses. The slow movement’s waltz was guileless and bittersweet, with Christian Schioler’s insistent timpani taps providing hints of underlying menace to come.

The unrelenting march of the Scherzo was a crescendo of true vehemence, with an inexorability that was gripping, almost to the point of suffocation. There was a smattering of uneasy applause at its conclusion. In between movements, there were also chorus of coughs from an audience not wearing facemasks, a scenario surely to be a thing of the past.

The finale’s descending chordal strings mirrored the opening movement, but now worn down with a genuine desolation. A glimmer of hope offered by the major key in its central section was short-lived, soon descending into despair, depression and doom. This was a truly moving performance, well-captured on video by multiple camera angles with high defination visuals and realistic sound. This might well be a glimpse into the future, a brave new world of SSO music-making under Graf’s inspired direction.

There was also a delicious encore, a performance of the Largo slow movement from J.S.Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins. The soloists were the prodigious 13-year-old Singaporean violinist Chloe Chua and Japan-born, Berlin-based violinist Karen Gomyo, who was originally scheduled to perform at this opening concert. They performed most sympathetically but remotely, partnered by 24 SSO musicians and guest harpsichordist Darrell Ang, all playing from their homes.

While one longed for the real-time live concert experience, modern technology has provided a well-meaning and worthwhile but hopefully temporary surrogate.

POULENC’S LA VOIX HUMAINE

Jennifer Lien, Soprano

Shane Thio, Piano

Ivan Heng, Director

Streamed on the Internet @ SISTIC Live

Saturday (18 July 2020)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 July 2020 with the title "Home-grown rendition of The Human Voice a rare gem".

Until the embargo of live concerts is lifted post-circuit breaker, music lovers will have to be content with pre-recorded digital concerts. Presented by the Singapore Symphony Group in its Victoria Concert Hall Presents series, this 2018 production of Francis Poulenc’s single-act, single-singer chamber opera La Voix Humaine (The Human Voice), first streamed last weekend, was a rare gem.

Performed before a live audience, its plot involved Elle (the generic “She” in French) in a final conversation with her former lover. Central to the 1958 opera, adapted from playwright Jean Cocteau’s 1928 script, was the telephone, a modern convenience and prop that was supposed to figure prominently throughout.

Wrong numbers, crossed connections and inept telephone operators were comedic elements in the serious melodrama. However, in director Ivan Heng’s conception, that physical means of communication was totally expunged. This allowed protagonist Elle the freedom of movement, to wander about onstage and sing without impediment.

The telephone’s only hint was a long red cord tightly wound around the grand piano on which pianist Shane Thio played. Also absent was Elle’s faithless lover, although his insidious presence might be inferred in furtive onscreen projections and Thio’s sockless red sneakers.

Enlivening the anguished Elle was USA-based Singaporean soprano Jennifer Lien, whose monologue was a tour de force of lyrical and dramatic role-play. The former Business Times journalist turned operatic diva was fully immersed in the multi-faceted part and emoted brilliantly in idiomatic French (with the audience well served by English transliterations).

Through the opera’s compact 40 minutes, she brilliantly lived through Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief. Shifting effortlessly between denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, she often mixed these up in an intoxicating melange of fraught and barely-contained emotions. With hysterical outbursts alternating with episodes of lucidity, this was a multi-layered and grandstanding performance.

Poulenc’s music was unremittingly tonal, but liberally laced with dissonances and abrupt figurations. Lien flitted through recitative and outright song, where a penchant for sentimentality was revealed, albeit briefly. There was a short waltz-song sequence midway through, with a cascade of falling pills projected behind the performer. This was more than an allusion to a drug-induced fit of pique, also fortified by a well-placed bottle of liquor.

Whatever was Elle’s fate (suicide by overdose, gunshot or strangulation by telephone cord) became immaterial by the opera’s passionate but lyrical close. All that remained were the frenzied circumstances and states of mind that led to her fateful (and ultimately fatal) decisions. In short, The Human Voice was an in-depth treatise of the human condition, fragile psyche, warts and all. That it was captured with such trenchancy speaks volumes of all the artists involved.

BEETHOVEN 360°

WONG KAH CHUN, Conductor

Streamed on the Internet @ YouTube Live

Thursday (30 July 2020)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 3 August 2020 with the title "Uplifting performance delivers message of friendship and unity".

On Christmas Day 1989, a concert at Berlin’s Konzerthaus saw a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, known as his Choral Symphony, led by legendary American conductor Leonard Bernstein. The orchestra and singers comprised an international legion of musicians from Germany, United Kingdom, France, Soviet Union and United States of America. The celebratory occasion had marked the fall of the Berlin Wall just the month before.

A similar assemblage of performers, now over a thousand-strong from around the planet, reprised the symphony’s final movement Ode To Joy on International Friendship Day (30 July). Conducting the Internet-united ensemble was Singapore’s Wong Kah Chun (or Kahchun Wong as he is known internationally), winner of the Gustav Mahler International Conducting Competition and Chief Conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra.

In what is possibly mankind’s darkest hour of the new millennium, besieged by the Covid-19 global pandemic, Wong’s “universal musical kampong” delivered a heartwarming message. “Alle Menschen Werden Bruder”, or All People Become Brothers, was Friedrich Schiller’s clarion call of 1785, which became Beethoven’s personal credo in his final symphony of 1824.

All 25 minutes or so of the Ode was performed. Even for those with limited attention spans, it seemed a breeze. The virtual concert hall, with a 360° view of all the performers in socially distanced screens with Wong leading at its centre, was a marvel of modern innovation and technology.

The opening outburst and low string declamations suggested a world in primordial chaos, and the visual was that of Wong conducting within a fiery sea of lava and rising steam. With each measure of Beethoven’s iconic melody, each player was introduced in a puff of smoke, until a revolving wall of humanity surrounded the maestro. Disorder had given way to a semblance of form.

Then it was bass-baritone Nicholas Brownlee’s declaration of O Freunde (O Friends), a coming together of peoples, leading into the greenery of Beethoven Im Garten, Wong and Singapore German Embassy’s shared vision of bringing Beethoven to the masses. A celestial band of angel-winged players (providing unusually comic moments) accompanied tenor Gerard Schneider for the Turkish march episode before the tutti chorus’ glorious statement of the big tune.

With hundreds, possibly a thousand faces appearing onscreen for the first time, this was the proverbial “lump in the throat” moment, sending shocks of frisson coursing down the spine. The choral fugue was accompanied by four staves in German (with English transliterations), each corresponding to a SATB (soprano alto tenor bass) voice part, a nifty concept that hinted of karaoke inspirations at play.

The ensemble was then transported into a smart pencil-drawn 3-D representation of Esplanade Concert Hall before closing with a coda in the clouds, all players being united for the final time. With excellent recorded sound and crystal clear visuals, Beethoven 360° was a truly memorable and immersive experience to savoured over and over.

SSO NATIONAL DAY CONCERT:

A NATION IN HARMONY

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Streamed online via SISTIC Live

Saturday (15 August 2020)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 18 August 2020 with the title "Joyous showcase of local music canon".

Over the last three years, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s National Day Concerts have become proud showcases of works by Singaporean and locally-based composers. This year’s offerings, conducted by Darrell Ang, included four new works. Three were by young composers who by their ages would be known as millennials. Never in Singapore’s 55-year history has there been such a glut of composing talent.

The concert began with New Beginnings by Sandra Lim (born 1991), a slickly orchestrated fantasy on two popular songs, Di Tanjong Katong and Singapura. Resembling the scores of Hollywood epics à la John Williams, motifs of both songs were wittily bandied about but never heard in full. As per social distancing requirements, the orchestra was chamber-sized, with musicians widely separated on the Esplanade Concert Hall stage, and all masked-up (wind players excepted) which is for now standard concert attire.

More modern and ominous in feel was Metro by Tan Yuting (born 1993), a portrayal of urban hyperactivity, perhaps not of Singapore’s pristine streets, but somewhere far less secure or savoury. Over an ostinato beat established by Jonathan Fox on hi-hat cymbals, a quasi-minimalist scenario unfolded with Stravinskyan economy but always poised on a razor’s edge. As if violence might erupt at any moment, this seemed a portent of the uncertain times we live in.

Exuberant would aptly describe City Arising by Jonathan Shin (born 1992), a bustling morning scene as the nation awakes to another fraught and frenetic day. Even the ear-piercing call of the koel is quoted, heard on Ma Yue’s solo clarinet, and the ensuing hubbub is a good-natured and comically optimistic one, recalling socialist-realist overtures of Shostakovich and Kabalevsky.

The Texan John Sharpley (born 1955), resident here since the mid-1980s, is the sole boomer among young upstarts. His chamber opera Kannagi (2009), based on the Tamil saga Silapathikaram (The Anklet) has now become part of the Singapore opera canon.

Brahman: Kannagi’s Realization, the penultimate section of the opera, is a sequence building up to a grand climax. Anticipation and expectancy is driven to seemingly insurmountable levels, heightened by Shane Thio’s runs on the celesta. This intoxicating music accompanied Bharatanayam dancer Kshirja Govind’s entrancing movements playing the eponymous heroine-turned-goddess.

After the serious stuff, Dick Lee’s Home (orchestrated by Kelly Tang) provided some levity in a video from the 2018 National Day Concert featuring the Singapore Symphony Choruses. National Day Parade favourite Count On Me, Singapore by the Canadian Hugh Harrison (whose other hit song was Stand Up For Singapore) was sung jazz-styled by Benjamin Kheng in a super slick commercially produced video that also recounted landmarks in SSO’s history.

Finally, it was left to Zubir Said’s national anthem Majulah Singapura (in Tang’s 2020 reorchestration for chamber forces) to do the honours. So what is Singapore music? A fuller picture emerges with each and every National Day concert, so long may this continue.

RE:SOUND IS LIVE

Streamed Live on the Internet

Friday (28 August 2020)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 1 September 2020 with the title "Music closes on a high, despite playing 'blind'".

There has not been a live orchestral concert in Singapore since mid-March, before circuit breaker and social distancing measures made grouped performances impossible. There were concerts on the Internet, but mostly of pre-recorded performances. In June, a breakthrough took the form of a live concert by the Concordia Quartet, whose four members performed from different locations for a live Internet audience.

Its parent organisation, re:Sound, has gone several steps further by presenting a live chamber orchestra concert with a full symphony to boot. Twenty-three musicians were gathered into spaces of an Orchard Road location where they performed, socially distanced, wearing headphones and masked (wind players excepted). As they played, the wonders of modern digital technology ensured that their efforts were being appreciated by online viewers.

One positive outcome of this pandemic has been to witness the sheer ingenuity of people who live for art, want to make good music, and share it with others.

The 50-minute concert opened with English composer Peter Warlock’s Capriol Suite (1926) for strings. Its six movements were based on French renaissance dances, brought up to date with modern harmonies and occasional dissonances. The 14 string musicians were separated into four rooms, where they essentially played “blind”, that is being unable to see the other groups, but able to hear them.

Despite the disadvantage, they produced a clear and homogeneous sound in the opening Basse-Danse soon after leader violinist Edward Tan gave the three-count to begin. Despite the absence of an on-site audience, the opportunity for premature and untimely applause still cropped up. That happened just after the presto 4^th movement (Bransles), leading to some confusion among the players and crew. Resuming from that, the tender Pieds-en-l’air and vigorous Mattachins (Sword Dance) provided enough contrasts for the suite to close with appropriate plaudits.

The main event was Mozart’s popular Symphony No.40 in G minor, with woodwinds and brass thrown into the fray. Division of labour saw these musicians playing in two further rooms, with the pair of bassoons (a husband-wife couple) sequestered into a studio just bigger than a broom closet.

There was no conductor, instead the musicians relied on low strings to begin and for the others to join in. Ensemble could be tighter but given the circumstances, the results were more than acceptable. Tempos were not overly brisk, with a comfortable pace adopted, surely predetermined in earlier rehearsals. Yet there was still a palpable sense of tension and urgency in the 1^st movement’s development.

The slow 2^nd movement did not drag but maintained an unerring course, a sign of an ensemble gaining in confidence. The Menuetto was suitably jaunty, but the French horns had hairy moments of intonation in the Trio section. The rollicking finale was taken at a fair lick, ensuring a heightened level of excitement, which turned into suspense when the violists disappeared from view. Technical glitch or no, the music surged on regardless to close on a exultant high.

You can attend this concert at:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIufldGH6OnCxwf83CJerTA

ART + LIVE / RESONATES WITH

LYNNETTE SEAH Violin Recital

National Gallery Facebook Live

Saturday (29 August 2020)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 1 September with the title "Moving music matched by music".

The National Gallery’s Art + Live series of monthly online concerts invites local performers to reflect and respond to selected art pieces with pieces of music which have resounded with and moved them. Its latest guest was Cultural Medallion recipient violinist Lynnette Seah, who retired as Co-Leader of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra earlier this year.

She had served the national orchestra for 41 years, from its inaugural concerts in 1979, and is a true pioneer of the Singapore professional music scene. These days, she has become renowned as a celebrity chef in fine dining circles. Like a well curated meal, her half-hour solo recital comprised varied repertoire works, served as tasty morsels on a silver platter.

Xu Beihong’s 1927 Portrait of Lim Loh (a pioneer architect and building contractor in colonial Singapore, also father of anti-Japanese patriot General Lim Bo Seng) was juxtaposed with the earliest music on the programme, two movements from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Unaccompanied Violin Partita No.3 in E major.

The swift and technically challenging Preludio revealed Seah’s technique to be still close to impeccable on many fronts. This was contrasted with the double-stopping (playing two notes at the same time) and singing tone in the more leisurely-paced Loure. It seemed a pity that the popular and jaunty Gavotte had not been included in this selection.

Chua Mia Tee’s Road Construction Worker (1955) was a sobering study of hard labour and resilience. Witness the emaciated figure, distended veins and withering gaze of its long-suffering subject. Seah likened this pathos-inducing visage with the outsized demands needed to master Fritz Kreisler’s Praeludium & Allegro in the Style of Pugnani. She calmly negotiated the requisite faultless intonation for the slow prelude and then steadfastly withstood the thorny prickles of the fast section, which got increasingly hair-raising as the work progressed.

With the most outwardly virtuosic part of the programme over, Seah brought out her lyrical best for two encore-like pieces, arguably the concert’s most touching moments. These were chosen as a reflection of the subject of love in Chua’s 1957 portrait of his late wife and fellow artist Lee Boon Ngan.

Although there was neither piano nor harp accompaniment to back her in Edward Elgar’s Salut d’Amor, but her gorgeous tone was more than enough to sustain the interest. Following that, Jules Massenet’s Meditation from Thaïs was delivered with a similar kind of frisson, demonstrating how a simple tune could carry such impact when played with love and dedication. Such is the measure of a true artist.

Lynnette Seah and Chua Mia Tee,

both Cultural Medallion recipients.

MOZART & STRAVINSKY:

MUSIC ON THE AIR

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

This review was first published in Bachtrack

on 1 September 2020

Concert life has yet to return to normality in Singapore. Due to pandemic social distancing measures, no live concerts with live audiences are possible, and musical groups rely on the Internet to present pre-recorded performances for an online audience. Since August, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) has presented three new concerts, performed in an empty 1600-seat Esplanade Concert Hall, two of which were directed by its Chief Conductor Hans Graf.

These concerts featuring chamber-sized forces, and there was a pleasing symmetry to the second concert led by Graf. Works by Mozart sandwiched those of Stravinsky, with strings performing in the first half, and winds and brass accounting for the second.

The concert began with Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue in C minor for strings, better known in its versions for string quartet and two pianos. Straight off, one was struck by the sonority brought out by the low strings, which was matched by the tautness of ensemble. In the dotted rhythm of the slow introduction, the gravity of the moment was brought to bear under Graf’s precise direction. The play of counterpoint was just as impressive in the Fugue, one of Mozart’s most masterly, closing the opener in one accord.

The strings next tackled Igor Stravinsky’s ballet Apollo (also known as Apollon Musagète), a sleeker and more elegant side of his neoclassicism phase. The antithesis of Pulcinella’s free-wheeling buffoonery, it is also as far as possible across the sound spectrum from the primeval violence of The Rite of Spring. Apollo, with ten movements and shorn of choreography, might be an acquired taste. However, with some of Stravinsky’s most ravishing string music, this was to be the showcase for SSO’s fabled strings.

Lushness and homogeneity were the hallmark in its two tableaux. The first (and shorter) Birth of Apollo would immediately set the tone. Concertmaster Kong Zhao Hui was also excellent in his solo in Variation of Apollo, where he was later joined by violinist Ye Lin. Each of the dance movements involving Apollo and three muses (Calliope, Polyhymnia and Terpsichore) could have easily dissolved into routine and blandness, but that never happened. The temperature was raised for the penultimate Coda, but it was blissful harmony and restrain that would characterise the final Apotheosis.

If strings were the orchestra’s pride, the winds proved to be every bit their equal. Arguably the best performance of the concert came in Stravinsky’s Octet (1922-23), scored for flute, clarinet, a pair each of bassoons and trumpets, trombone and bass trombone. Also neoclassical in intent if not in form, the heady spirit of the baroque concerto grosso was upheld. Each player a virtuoso in his own right, this was a reading of close to perfect precision and exactitude. Following the austere Sinfonia, the central Theme and Variations became an exciting showcase of free-wheeling virtuosity. The Finale’s fugal machinations also proved a sheer delight, with Liu Chang’s jaunty solo bassoon leading the way, all through to an immaculate and crisp conclusion.

The Mozart that closed the palindromic programme, his Serenade in E flat major (K.375), was also an octet, scored for pairs of oboes, clarinets, bassoons and horns. Back to a more familiar idiom, the sense of ensemble was no less cohesive as Graf coaxed from his charges a lively and cogent performance. The operatic qualities in each of the five movements were never underplayed, with the singing tone in solos coming to the fore. An enjoyable reading, for certain, and it appeared that the performers enjoyed it too.

Covid-19 is still with us, and it is not known when live concerts would commence, if ever. However it is with concerts like this show that true artists continue to strive, to provide solace and hope that better days will soon return.

Star Rating: 5/5

THE COMPLETE BEETHOVEN VIOLIN SONATAS:

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

More Than Music

Streamed on Facebook

Last Saturday & Sunday (29 & 30 August 2020)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 4 September 2020 with the title "An exuberant showcase of Beethoven's Violin Sonatas".

This year marks the 250 anniversary of the birth of great German composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827). No symphony or concertos cycles had been planned in Singapore but given the Covid-19 pandemic, one should be grateful for More Than Music’s online cycle of his ten violin sonatas.

Contrary to earlier publicity, this is not the first time such a cycle has been presented here. Back in 1999, veteran Penang-born pianist Dennis Lee performed with five young Singapore Symphony Orchestra violinists in three concerts at Victoria Concert Hall.

Nevertheless, this was still a showcase by a Who’s Who of Singapore’s classical scene: violinists Loh Jun Hong, Chan Yoong Han and Yang Shuxiang, partnered with Abigail Sin, Lim Yan and Albert Tiu, pianists who are also faculty members of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory. All the performances were recorded at Esplanade Recital Studio and released online in published order every Saturday and Sunday afternoon since 23 August.

The ten sonatas spanned from 1798 to 1812, encompassing the “Early” and “Middle” periods of Beethoven’s creative output. Like his better known piano sonatas, these display a wealth of expression, and feature very difficult piano parts which he played himself. Little wonder, these were often referred to as sonatas for piano with violin.

The early Op.12 trilogy is less often heard but are contrasted in emotions and feelings. No.1 in D major established his spirited and extroverted style, a conscious reaction to the gentility of Mozart’s sonatas for the same instruments. Loh’s incisive approach and excellent intonation, with Sin keenly responsive partnership, made it a pleasure to behold.

All the performers gave a short preamble, providing succinct insights to each work. Sonata No.2 in A major was more light-hearted, with even an air of mischief. Its humour in the outer movements was well captured by Chan and Lim (members of the well-established Take Five quintet), who also plumbed the depths in the slow movement’s more serious moments.

The most exuberant of the set, Sonata No.3 in E flat major suited the duo of Yang and Tiu just fine. The former’s unbridled demonstration of passion found a perfect foil in the latter’s sensitive yet scintillating fingerwork. The casting of the sonatas and allocation of the respective performers had been spot on through out.

Sonata No.4 in A major (Op.23) was the first of the stand-alone sonatas. From the outset, its dramatic intensity and bristling energy saw Chan and Sin flexing muscle and sinew. Its heightened tension was contrasted by the mincing steps and play of counterpoint in the second movement. This was before the finale’s unease, bringing back earlier trials and tribulations for a nervy finish.

This excellently curated cycle continues with Sonata No.5 and onwards from Saturday till 20 September at:

https://www.facebook.com/MoreThanMusicConcerts/

INNER WORLDS: IN CONCERT WITH IGOR & PEI-SIAN / re:Sound / Review

YEVGENY SUDBIN PIANO RECITAL / Review

LOVE AND PASSION / Singapore Lyric Opera / Review

ANOTHER PIANO RECITAL NOT TO BE MISSED: KUN WOO PAIK PLAYS SCHUMANN on 14 February 2020

FIREBIRD - PIANO SENSATION / TONY YIKE YANG Piano Recital / Review

UNSPOKEN MELODIES: SILENT FILM CLASSICS IN CONCERT / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

ROMANTIC SCHUMANN / KUN WOO PAIK Piano Recital / Review

PHILIPPE QUINT: THE RED VIOLIN / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

THE GENTEEL HORN OF MR HAN / Singapore Sy,phony Orchestra / Review

CONCORDIA QUARTET @ HOME / Review

ART + LIVE / RESONATES WITH ALBERT TIU / Review

CD Review: EVOLUTION by DONALD LAW

SSO 2020/21 SEASON OPENING CONCERT / Review

POULENC'S LA VOIX HUMAINE / Review

BEETHOVEN 360° / Wong Kah Chun et al / Reveiw

SINGAPORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA NATIONAL DAY CONCERT / Review

RE:SOUND IS LIVE! / Review

ART + LIVE / RESONATES WITH LYNNETTE SEAH / Review

MOZART & STRAVINSKY: MUSIC ON THE AIR / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

THE COMPLETE BEETHOVEN VIOLIN SONATAS: UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL / More Than Music / Review