pianomania

GARY HOFFMAN Chamber Recital

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall

Sunday (17 January 2016)

This review was published by The Straits Times on 19 January 2016

A fairly sizeable audience turned up on a Sunday afternoon for a chamber concert by the Canadian cellist Gary Hoffman, who has developed a reputation as one of the world's leading chamber musicians. Performing with faculty and students of the Conservatory, the programme offered could scarcely have been more inviting as well.

Czech nationalist composer Leos Janacek's Pohadka is a musical fairy-tale in three short movements, scored in an unmistakeably haunting idiom with piquant harmonies and short repeated motifs which are largely derived from folk music. Hoffman's 1662 Amati cello opened with pizzicatos, sang and then wept, ably supported by Indonesian pianist Anthony Hartono's sensitive playing with well-nuanced pedalling.

That unusual palate-cleanser yielded the whiff of a breath mint before the more opulent offering of Anton Arensky's First Piano Trio in D minor. Colleague of Tchaikovsky and teacher of Rachmaninov, Arensky mined the same rich melodic vein which has come to characterise Russian romanticism.

Melancholic and sometimes sentimental, its thematic interest was shared by Hoffman's lush cello sound and Ukrainian Oleksandr Korniev's violin, which was every bit his match. Malaysian pianist Yap Sin Yee's busy part ranged from big-boned chords to an unexpected whimsicality in the scherzo 2^nd movement which exuded salon-like schmaltz that recalled Saint-Saëns' frivolities.

In the slow movement, Elegia (Elegy), the dyed-in-the-wool Russian brooding came to the fore, contrasted by a gossamer-light and dreamy central section. The passionate finale was conducted at high voltage but was not without moments of levity, and a reprise of the 1^st movement's opening theme. This seemed like a reminiscence of a past age, a yearning for the good old days.

The second half comprised just Rachmaninov's mighty Cello Sonata in G minor, which was a re-run of the heart-on-sleeve emotions displayed earlier in the Arensky trio. It seems one could not have enough of a good thing, because the performance with pianist and conservatory don Albert Tiu was a total treat.

Hoffman's entry, literally a heave and sigh, was good enough to keep one transfixed for the work's entire 35-minute duration. His shaping of melodic phrases was excellent, keeping the thematic thrust and narrative coherent. He was aided by Tiu's unerring pianism, maintaining a cool head despite the multitudes of notes. The piano's bluster could have easily overwhelmed the cello, but that was never the case in this true partnership of equals.

The Andante slow movement tugged at the heart-strings with its unabashed lyricism, one of many high points in the recital. The hell-for-leather finale swept everything before it and the sonata concluded with the vocal ovation the performance deserved. One suspects the name of Rachmaninov helped draw the audience, but it is the quality of the playing that keeps them coming again.

RACHMANINOV Variations

DANIIL TRIFONOV, Piano

The Philadelphia Orchestra

Yannick Nezet-Seguin

Deutsche Grammophon 479 4970 / *****

This 80-minute-long album brings together the three great sets of variations for piano by Russian composer-pianist Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943). The most popular is his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini ,one of his last works, based on Paganini's Caprice No.24 for unaccompanied violin, with a prominent role offered by the medieval chant Dies Irae. Its first ever recording was made in 1934 by Rachmaninov himself, partnered by The Philadelphia Orchestra, the same orchestra on this recording.

Young prize-winning Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov proves himself to be the composer's equal on the technical front, but goes one further with the Chopin Variations (1904) and Corelli Variations (1931) for solo piano, which Rachmaninov never recorded. The former, based on Chopin's Prélude in C minor (Op.28 No.20), is longer and more discursive, and Trifonov closes with a restatement of the original piece. In the latter, he adds his own individual touches by highlighting secondary voices.

His personal contribution is the 4-movement suite Rachmaniana, a tribute to Rachmaninov's skill in writing miniatures, crafted in the stylistic manner of the master himself. An impressive show of pianism all round.

RESPIGHI Complete Orchestral Works

Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma

Francesco la Vecchia

Brilliant Classics 94900 (8CDs) / ****

Despite its title, this slim-line budget box set does not contain the complete orchestral output of Italian composer Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936). For example, it does not include the ballet music of La Boutique Fantasque or Belkis, Queen Of Sheba, both excellent examples of his orchestration skills, nor his orchestrations of Rachmaninov Etudes-Tableaux.

His most important works are here. The Roman Trilogy– Festivals, Fountains and Pines– is a good place to start for the taste of his sumptuous and opulently canvases. The early hour-long Sinfonia Drammaticain three movements is overblown with Wagnerian gestures, but is made up by its mastery of form.

Respighi's forté was dressing up old music and antique forms in Romantic shades and colours, such as the three suites of Ancient Airs And Dances, The Birds (based on baroque keyboard pieces), Botticelli Triptych and Church Windows, which include elaborations on medieval chants. These are skilfully crafted as are the concertos built upon ancient modes.

The best of these is the Concerto Gregoriano for violin (with excellent soloist Vadim Brodsky) and the Concerto In Mixolydian Mode for piano which in parts sounds like Rachmaninov and even Gershwin. There may be better performances on record of the Roman Trilogy but the Roman forces here score on authenticity. With excellent programme notes, here is a handy start to exploring this fascinating composer.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO ATTEND THREE CONCERTS IN A DAY?

In a word, YES. Way back in October 1989, on a fine London Sunday, I first went to Steven Isserlis's late morning cello recital at Wigmore Hall, then made it to Barbican Hall for Pinchas Zukerman's violin recital in the afternoon, and finally to Royal Festival Hall to hear Esa-Pekka Salonen conduct The Philharmonia.

That was London, but what about Singapore today? Last Sunday (17 January 2016) provided the rare opportunity to do just that, and even cram all the concerts in an even shorter space of time! This was what transpired:

3 pm. Yong Siew Toh Conservatory, for a cello-cum-chamber recital by the Canadian cellist Gary Hoffman. A fairly large audience was in attendance for a treat of Slavic chamber music, which included Janacek's Pohadka, Arensky's Piano Trio No.1 and Rachmaninov's Cello Sonata. My review for The Straits Times may be found in a post below.

With the listening done and autographs collected, I zipped off to Esplanade Concert Hall to attend the OMM Prom entitled Phantasia. Having a car helps cut through the commuting, but if you choose to park at the Parliament House Car Park ($2 per entry) instead of the Esplanade Car Park (an usurious $9, if one includes the 60+ minutes before 6pm), there is a chance of turning up late.

5 pm. Esplanade Concert Hall, ...and that was what happened. So I missed the first piece performed by the Orchestra of the Music Makers directed by Chan Tze Law, which was an innocuous suite of melodies from Puccini's La Boheme. The main work was Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantasia, a 45 minute conflation of melodies from his musical The Phantom of the Opera.

The pleasure was in witnessing SSO Concertmaster Igor Yuzefovich and SSO Principal Cellist Ng Pei-Sian as guest soloists tackle the virtuosic solo parts as if it were Brahms's Double Concerto. They sportingly blended into the ranks of the orchestra to play the final work, the Rosenkavalier Suite from Richard Strauss's opera. SSO had recently performed this, and it could be said that the young musicians of OMM matched their seniors every bit in terms of passion if not technique.

Equally heartwarming was its encore, Sunsetfrom Ferde Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite, which was followed by a reprise of the final waltz from the Strauss suite. Several members of the full-house audience were placed within the ranks of the orchestra to experience what it was like to be inside an orchestra. It must have been overwhelming, at least none of them were caught falling asleep!

7.30 pm. Victoria Concert Hall. A quick dinner at an Esplanade eatery before rushing off to attend a Chinese New Year Concert by the Kids Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the dynamic young maestro Tan Kah Chun. The Kids Philharmonic is where people from six to eighteen get a chance to play, and its string section is filled with children, but the winds, brass and percussion were all adults, which sort of diminishes the overall youthful look of the group.

It is about three weeks to go to the Lunar New Year, so it was not too early to wallow in melodies like Zhu Xin Nian, Gongxi Gongxi Ni, Da Di Hui Chun and the one that goes Yahohei (not Yohotoho!), which were performed in a rightfully celebratory spirit.

The choral contribution was provided by the SYC Ensemble Singers and SMU Choir, but the ones who stole the show was the excellent Chinese-speaking emcee Li Rong De and the 84-year-old singer Chong Sit Fong (Take that! Bergit Nilsson!), who crooned the way to the hearts of the audience in Tian Mi Mi.

If the procession of Chinese songs did not sound lacklustre, it had to be because all the arrangements were written by no less than Cultural Medallion recipient Phoon Yew Tien. The audience down in the stalls was, however, appalling. There are people (whom I'll disrespectfully refer to as lao tou er, or old farts) who think nothing of talking and commenting on the proceedings while the music is being played. Little wonder the wonderful emcee pleaded with the audience to be considerate (“qian wan bu yao shuo hua”) after the interval.

So that was three concerts in a day in Singapore. Can there be such a thing as too much music for one's good? In a word, NO.

SETTS #2

South-Eastern Ensemble for

Today's & Tomorrow's Sounds

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday (24 January 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 26 January 2016 with the title "Madhatter's party with serving of afternoon tea".

The second concert by the South-Eastern Ensemble for Today's & Tomorrow's Sounds (SETTS), a new music ensemble formed wholly by professional musicians, was by far a less anarchic affair than its debut last year. It nevertheless occupies an important position for the performance of new local works once undertaken by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra's New Music Forum.

The 70-minute concert presented works by seven composers, including two world premieres and two Singapore premieres. Emily Koh's Implodex! (Singapore Premiere) for six musicians opened the proceedings. Conducted by SETTS co-founder Christoph Wichert, its configuration had strings (violin, viola and cello) placed onstage, complemented by offstage woodwinds (flute, oboe and clarinet).

Its title delves upon the origin of matter and anti-matter, with fragments of sound passed around the hall, the concordant alternating with the discordant. Its climax was a solo cadenza from oboist Joost Flach who went on to tear up pieces of paper, symbolic of a point of no return, before all the musical parts coalescing in a serene C major chord.

Receiving a World Premiere was full-time National Serviceman Tan Tiag Yi's The Quiet scored for string quartet (Christina Zhou & Nanako Takata on violins, Janice Tsai on viola and Lin Juan on cello) and marimba. Iskandar Rashid's mellow marimba strikes provided a gentle counterpoint to pizzicatos and bowing from the strings in this short movement, which revealed in its subdued mood the influence of Shostakovich.

Chen Zhangyi's Lost In Order was composed ten years ago, with the vastly contrasting timbres of Roberto Alvarez's flute pitted against Iskandar's assembly of four timpanis. The work began with the ennui of routine and repetition, escalated by an increasing urgency for the instrumentalists to break out from habit. They do so with an abrupt end to the piece.

Indonesian composer Ivan Tangkalung's Morning Call for solo bassoon was virtuosically tossed off by Wichert, with his instrument the channelling a cockerel's chanticleer and the urban sounds of a city readying for a day's busyness and business.

Zechariah Goh Toh Chai's Four Taiwanese Aboriginal Songs for wind quintet will be the most often performed work of all these. The reason is simple. Like a modern-day Bartok or Kodaly, its treatment of two songs and dances from the Pai-wan and Bei-nan tribes is both idiomatic and engaging. The performance by Alvarez, Flach, Colin Tan (clarinet), Wichert and Alan Kartik (French horn) will be hard to better.

Works by two Malaysian composers completed the show. Yii Kah Hoe's Cheers(Singapore premiere) was literally a madhatter's party, with Alvarez and pianist Shane Thio punctuating their solo parts with a serving of afternoon tea, complete with the clinking of teapots and teacups, noisy stirring of spoons, obligatory slurping and a toast of “cheers!”

The World Premiere of Wong Chee Yean's Six Sketches was a complete success. The full ensemble of strings, winds and percussion engaged in its short scenes from Greek mythology, drawn from Ovid's Metamorphosis. Among its movements involved the sinuous flute as Narcissus gazing at his own shadow, a beautiful duet for oboe and clarinet representing Orpheus and Euridice, a lively Dionysian scherzo, and a string fugue as Arethusa flees before transforming into a fountain to a wind serenade.

Inventive and surprising as before, SETTS #3 on 1 May at The Arts House is keenly awaited.

ZHOU LONG & CHEN YI

Symphony “Humen 1839”

New Zealand Symphony / DARRELL ANG

Naxos 8.570611 / *****

The Chinese husband-and-wife composing pair of Zhou Long and Chen Yi have highly successful individual careers, and Symphony“Humen 1839” (2009) represents their own only major joint collaboration to date. It was inspired by the 1839 burning of a thousand tons of opium in Humen, Guangdong, a Chinese version of the Boston Tea Party, but the event that sparked off the disastrous Opium Wars.

Its four movements play for a half-hour, programmatic and almost Copland-like in its narrative. The music begins in Cantonese pomp, honouring the defiantly heroic figure of Lin Zexu, and depicts its humiliating capitulation under British aggression in the slow movement. This precedes China's inexorable ascent as a world power on its own right, represented by the finale’s triumphal music of the “Star Wars” kind. This is both a patriotic as well as cathartic work.

Two shorter pieces by Zhou complete the album. The Rhyme Of Taigu (2003) is a vigorously rhythmic work that celebrates the pomp and ceremonial role of the ancient dagu, the drum also known by the Japanese as the taiko. The Enlightened (2005) reflects on the contribution of ancient Chinese philosophies to a troubled world.

This is a first-ever classical Grammy nomination by a Singaporean, the conductor Darrell Ang, and his spirited leadership of the splendid New Zealand Symphony is never in question. This is a disc befitting our SG50 celebrations.

DON'T MISS:
DARRELL ANG conducts
Singapore Symphony Orchestra's
37th Anniversary Concert
Esplanade Concert Hall
Friday, 29 January 2016
7.30 pm, Tickets available at SISTIC

SOUL MUSIC

KAM NING, Violin

NICHOLAS ONG, Piano

Lee Foundation Theatre

Thursday (28 January 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 30 January 2016 with the title "Violinist Kam Ning wins audience over in her solo recital".

It has been opined that classical music is beneficial for infants and babies in utero. Singaporean violinist Kam Ning obviously advocates the idea, as she emerged for her solo recital in an advanced stage of gravidity. She amiably chatted with the audience before each work and that immediately made everyone feel at home.

The title “Soul Music” of her 75-minute recital performed without intermission pointed to the fact that every work was a feel good piece, hence good for the soul. J.S.Bach's music definitely fit that description, and his Chaconne in D minor (from Unaccompanied Violin Partita No.2) was as big as they come. Although she was performing on a modern instrument, she employed the period technique of minimising vibrato and carved out a lean and lithe sound for this classic.

Her intonation was impeccable throughout, and there was no stinting of dramatic impact in its build-up to a series of impressive climaxes. While Bach was serious, the next work, Sonata Representativa by baroque Bohemian violinist-composer Heinrich Ignaz Biber, made light of the violin's mimicry of nature and farmyard animals.

In 8 continuous movements, a panoply of violinist tricks delighted its listeners, including imitations of a nightingale's call, frogs croaking, henhouse noises and feline caterwauling. A military march where guest cellist Leslie Tan's instrument was turned into a cannon with the nifty use of paper, accompanied by Nicholas Ong on harpsichord, completed the special effects.

Completely different was Estonian composer Arvo Part's Spiegel Im Spiegel(Mirror In A Mirror), a meditative minimalist work built upon a series of arpeggiated triads on the piano and long-breathed sighs from the violin. Time stood still in this heartrending performance which was dedicated by Kam in memory of Mr Lee Kuan Yew. A case of better late than never.

Her idea of spirituality also took the form of her own improvisation of the Christian hymn Amazing Grace. In its variations, she employed the technique and idiom of bluegrass music and country fiddlers in a stupendous show of virtuosity that suggests Paganini making a trip to the Appalachians.

The concert closed with two gypsy-influenced pieces. Hungarian Jeno Hubay's Hejre Kati (Hello Katie) was slightly more traditional in the manner of gypsy rhapsodies, and if it sounded familiar, that was because its highkicking final pages was also used by Brahms in one of his Hungarian Dances.

The outright showpiece was Ravel's Tzigane with its extended solo introduction and dizzying fast dance. Ong's sweeping piano part simulated the repeated notes of the cimbalom (Hungarian dulcimer) over which Kam's prestidigitation flew like the wind to a breathless close.

For her encore, cellist Tan returned to duet and duel in Mark O'Connor and Edgar Meyer's Limerock, another work-out of vertiginous country dancing which received prolonged applause. One surmises that what is good for the heart is also good for the soul.

RHAPSODIES OF SPRING 2016

Singapore

Chinese Orchestra

The Star Theatre

Saturday (30 January 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 1 February 2016

Rhapsodies Of Springis the Singapore Chinese Orchestra's way of celebrating the Lunar New Year in concert, and for the first time it performed in the massive arena that is The Star Theatre. As with previous editions, the concert took on the form of a variety show, and who better to host it than well-known local television personality Marcus Chin (Chen Jian Bin), emcee of the popular Golden Age Talentime?

He and conductor Yeh Tsung displayed good chemistry in their playful banter in Mandarin, peppered with a few English phrases, which most centred around how busy they were and how young each other looked. There were no skits from radio personalities this year but more music, which began with Li Huan Zhi's Spring Festival Overture.

This familiar work was accompanied by visuals of the orchestra projected on a giant screen behind the stage, which focused on groups of soloists. This was soon overtaken by the entrance of the 9-member ZingO Festival Drum Group which raised a racket that was wholly appropriate for the occasion. Its synchronised drumming in Soar and Xu Chang Jun's Dragon Dance was an impressive show of precision and togetherness.

The first half was otherwise the Marcus Chin show, who had no less than four costume changes and enthralled the aunties with his crooning in the Nostalgic Song Medley (arranged by Tan Kah Yong) and Mix Match Song Medley (Phang Kok Jun). He does not have an operatic voice for songs like Man Chang Fei, Azaleas Bloom, Yue Qin and The Traveller With A Bamboo Pole, but his tenor comfortably scaled the heights with oodles of personality and some epileptic dancing.

The Chinese Folksong Medley curiously included a Russian song, Under The Shimmering Moonlight (but sung in Mandarin) and concluded with Radiant With Joy, rendered in an authentic Sichuan accent. Then the concert took on the feel of a typical episode from Saturday Night Live. With the lights dimmed, the main orchestra dispersed leaving behind the 16-strong SCO Pop Ensemble, which resembled and played like a jazz combo.

TV Golden Medley(arranged by Law Wai Lun) revived melodies like Striving (from the early local serial The Awakening), Good Morning, Sir! and Kopi O. Suona Principal Jin Shi Yi had a field day with his assorted reeds in the Taiwanese song Tian Hei Hei, alternating between jazzy riffs and Donald Duck imitations. Not to be outdone was Han Lei on guanzi in Beijing jazz pianist Kong Hong Wei's Summer Palace, with a stirring display that brought on loud cheers.

The 2-hour concert concluded with bidding farewell to the Year of the Goat and ushering the Year of the Monkey. Wang Li Ping's Shepherd Song gave way to Xu Jing Qing's Gan Wen Lu Zai He Fang from Journey To The West, which saw Chin imitating the moves of Sun Wu Kong (Monkey God). Joined by four ladies in gaudy red, a motley Chinese version of Solid Gold Dancers, the glittery ensemble got the audience singing and clapping along to Sim Boon Yew's Spring Suite VI.

Has there been that many Chinese New Year songs in circulation? The Singapore Chinese Orchestra under Yeh Tsung has played them all.

MUSICIENS SANS FRONTIERES

Louis Page (Piano) et al

School of the Arts Concert Hall

Sunday (31 January 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 2 February 2016

Four concerts took place last Sunday afternoon, but only one featured the piano concerto - not one but three concertos to be precise. The soloist was the young Sri Lankan-born American pianist Louis Page who presently resides in Singapore. Such an undertaking was a highly ambitious one, one fraught with innumerable pitfalls that would even daunt the most wily of veterans.

Page took the task at hand by the scruff of the neck, tackling two early Mozart piano concertos in the first half. Piano Concertos Nos.11 (F major, K.413) and 12 (A major, K.414) were a handful of such works which Mozart wrote “a quattro”, which meant the pianist could be partnered by just four string players instead of an orchestra.

This was in essence chamber music at its purest, with the pianist being soloist as well as chamber musician. Page performed these with the lightest of touches, always aware of its varied nuances but often mincing his many notes into a fine puree. His string partners were ever-sensitive, supporting him to the hilt as would be expected from musicians far more experienced than him.

On first violin was none other than Russian-American Igor Yuzefovich (Concertmaster of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra), allied with violinist Boris Livschitz (Lithuania), violist Viacheslav Dinerchtein (Belarus-Switzerland) and cellist Aram Talalyan (Armenia), which certainly made for a cosmopolitan group.

Page got to the heart of the slow movements, and together they produced some truly exquisite moments. His chorale-like entry in K.414 was breathtaking, while Yuzefovich's solo accompanied by pizzicato strings in K.413 epitomised the grace of a Habsburg court.

In the busy outer movements, there appeared a spiritual disconnect between piano and strings. Both were conscientiously fulfilling their roles but where was that unspoken chemistry? In Mozart's own performances, he took the lead but Page exerted no such authority. Even his self-conscious bows at the end excluded acknowledging his partners. Were they merely accompanying ciphers?

This separation was more apparent in Chopin's First Piano Concerto, in a masterly arrangement by Robert Casteels which included a double-bass part played by Singaporean Brian Sim. Page played from a score and turned his own pages, which meant missing a chunk of notes whenever there was an awkward page-turn. In the febrile heat of the 1^st movement's development, he missed several pages, and the band played on sans pianist.

Thankfully a page-turner was summoned for the 2^nd and 3^rd movements which helped somewhat. Like in the Mozart, the Romanze had sublime bits but the tempo soon flagged at its denouement. This erratic and unpredictable pacing proved disastrous in the fast Polish dance of the finale which soon fell apart at the seams in a litany of lapses.

By dint of quick wits and hard work, the ensemble recovered in time to finish more or less together. For their adventurous outing and strenuous display of bravado, the performers were greeted with nothing less than a standing ovation.

THE TIME TRAVELLER AND HIS MUSE

JAMES BRAWN, Piano

MSR Classics 1502 (2 CDs) / ****1/2

The British pianist James Brawn takes a break from his Beethoven sonata odyssey to bring this recital, a chronological survey of piano music from the Baroque era to the 20^th century. It is filled with short pieces which students typically play in graded examinations and piano competitions.

For concert pianists, these form the bulk of post-recital encores (and there are some Horowitz favourites among them), after-dinner mints which satisfy and delight. He starts with a pair of Scarlatti Sonatas and a handful of Bach Preludes without the fugues, before proceeding to popular classical era fare, including Mozart's Turkish Rondo and Beethoven's Für Elise.

The Romantic era figures prominently, and the best tracks are the selections from Chopin Études and Rachmaninov Préludes, which are very polished and capture the spirit of the times. The modern age is represented by only two tracks, Prokofiev's coruscating Toccata, and I Got Rhythm from The Gershwin Songbook.

Brawn plays sensitively and with exemplary taste, and there is nothing dislike in any of the performances. He is beautifully recorded, and one wishes all young would-be-pianists could follow his example and play like this.

JOHN WILLIAMS CONDUCTS

MUSIC FROM STAR WARS

Boston Pops Orchestra

Decca 478 9244 (2CDs) / ****1/2

This reissue of 1980s recordings by the Boston Pops Orchestra under iconic film composer-conductor John Williams was prompted by the release of Disney's Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens. It amply displays the debt that sci-fi movie music owed to classical music, particular works from the early 20^th century.

The first disc is devoted wholly to music by Williams, including favourite tracks from Episodes 4 to 6: Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and The Return Of The Jedi, and further music from Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and E.T. Where would such music be without Wagner, Richard Strauss, Mahler, Holst, Prokofiev and Korngold, whose compositional styles were appropriated and re-imagined by Williams?

The second disc begins with the opening of Strauss'Also Sprach Zarathustra, which will always be associated with Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The familiar strains from Alien, Battlestar Galactica, The Twilight Zone and Star Trek, both the television (Alexander Courage) and film (Jerry Goldsmith) themes have also been included.

The main events are the seven movements of The Planetsby Englishman Gustav Holst, surely the grandfather of all sci-fi and astrological music. The performances by the summertime occupation of the Boston Symphony are excellent, which might hopefully spur celluloid fans to pay closer attention to what riches the classics can offer.

NOCTURNES & DANCES

Alexander Trostiansky (Violin)

with Ge Xiaozhe (Piano)

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall

Tuesday (2 February 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 4 February 2016

Every concert-goer knows that some of the best moments of a recital take place at the very end – when encores are performed. So there was much to savour in the recital by Russian violinist Alexander Trostiansky which comprised wholly of encore-like short pieces. His alternating between quiet and slow pieces (the nocturnes) and fast and exciting showpieces (the dances), typically by the same composer, ensured there was much variety on show.

The music of Russian Nikolai Medtner hardly gets performed here, so his tandem of Nocturne (Op.16 No.1) and Dance (from Violin Sonata No.1) was most welcome. The former was no imitation of Chopin, but included fantasy elements which also inhabit his miniatures, the Skazki (Fairy Tales), while the latter was a sentimental sojourn with a scintillating central episode.

Trostiansky possesses an impressive technical facility, with the flexibility to shape the mood and feel of each piece. His string tone is robust and incisive, but never hard, which made listening very much a pleasure.

Three Polish pieces followed, beginning with Chopin's Nocturne (Op.27 No.2) in August Wilhelmj's arrangement. Keeping its long-breathed cantabile melody in perfect intonation was a tall order, thus this was the least satisfying performance of all. Much better was the reading of Wieniawski's Polonaise in D (Op.4) with its blazing fireworks and striding martial rhythm.

The longest work was Szymanowski's Notturno & Tarantella, a built-in microcosm of the concert itself, a sultry and haunting opening leading into a furious and violent dance to the death. Its harrowing pages were negotiated with aplomb, with pianist Ge Xiaozhe's rock-steady accompaniment crucial to its success.

The next three pairs were nationalist in character, the idioms distinguished by ethnomusicology and geography. The Finn Sibelius' lyrically beautiful Nocturne(Op.51 No.3) and folksy Danse Caracteristique (Op.79 No.3) had the feel of the salon, with none of the granite-like resolve of his symphonies.

Copland's Americana was unmistakable, with Trostiansky applying generous portamenti to the blues of the Nocturne, and irrepressible country fiddling for the Hoe Down from the ballet Rodeo. Equally distinctive were the Khachaturian's offerings, a sinuous Armenian melody in the Nocturne (from Masquerade Suite) and a most unbuttoned Sabre Dance (from the ballet Gayaneh), which received the loudest applause.

Tchaikovsky closed the evening, with his melancholic Nocturne (Op.19 No.4, originally a piano piece) contrasted with the joie de vivre of the Waltz-Scherzo. Has the depression-ridden Russian composed a more carefree and happy piece? The performance radiated that glow of warmth and sunshine. Persuaded by the ovation, the duo offered an encore to top all the other encores, Wieniawski's Oberek (Op.19 No.1), another vigorous Polish dance for good measure.

KONSTANTIN SCHERBAKOV Piano Recital

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall

Wednesday (3 February 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 5 February 2016 with the title "Gripping display of pianism".

The last time Siberia-born and Switzerland-based pianist Konstantin Scherbakov gave a recital in Singapore, he performed Franz Liszt's transcription of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at the close of the 2008 Singapore International Piano Festival. His welcome return for an all-Beethoven recital showed no diminution of his impressive physical abilities, revealing instead a sharpening of his interpretative faculties.

The Six Bagatelles Op.126 are shavings from a master's work-table, and in these miniatures he amply displayed their variegated colours and contrasts. Alternating between wistful and vigorous, each piece was made to sound vital, distilling the same visionary thoughts to be found in his late sonatas and string quartets.

A much earlier work is Beethoven's Eroica Variations Op.35, so named because it uses as its theme the same dance from the ballet The Creatures of Prometheus which also appears in his Eroica Symphony. These variations border on over-elaboration while frequently skirting with the vulgar, but only a genius knows how to craft a relative masterpiece from the trite and banal.

It was Scherbakov's keen sense of proportion and acute understanding of its irony that made this sometimes unwieldy work come across as coherent and even humourous. His crisp articulation and immaculate fingerwork made light of its digital difficulties, and there was nary a dull moment.

Its concluding E flat major chord also formed the resonant opening chords of the second half's tour de force, which was the Third Symphony, better known as the “Eroica Symphony”. In Liszt's ridiculously demanding and almost unplayable transcription, Scherbakov's transcendental technique was to find a formidable equal.

His secret was to regard this as a piano work on its own right, and not attempt to simulate the orchestra's sound and textures. There was no compulsion to go headlong for volume, but instead to ride on its rhythmic pulse and drive. When the development and inevitable climaxes came, they did so with a palpably frightening intensity.

The second movement's Funeral March was no less gripping, its sombre subject finding a rare nobility in its procession from human tragedy to luminous beauty. The dynamics then shifted dramatically to the Scherzo's mercurial scintillations, where Scherbakov's lightness of touch and ultimate control of its projectile thrusts held sway.

The well-planned programme came full circle with the finale's joyous dance from Prometheus, this time with a separate set of variations and fugal discourse. Again its wit and humour winningly shone but through a different prism. For its 50-minute duration, Scherbakov did not once make one long for the orchestra.

There have been excellent recordings of this symphony by Cyprien Katsaris, Idil Biret and Scherbakov himself, but nothing quite tops this live perfomance, which was accorded a chorus of bravos. There was no encore, but after this superhuman display of pianism, none was needed.

Two Naumovists reunite:
Konstantin Scherbakov with Boris Kraljevic.
Both were students of Lev Naumov's famed piano
studio at the Moscow Conservatory during the 1980s,
and both served as his assistant at different times.

SPRING BLOSSOMS

NAFA Chinese Chamber Ensemble

Lee Foundation Theatre

Thursday (4 February 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 6 February 2016 with the title "Ushering in Chinese New Year with raucous music".

As the beginning of a new lunar year draws ever close, one is readily reminded that much Chinese music heralding the onset of spring exists beyond the usual suspects. This 80-minute concert by the excellent Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Chinese Chamber Ensemble was a showcase of the Chinese orchestra's celebratory colours.

The first three works were led by Singapore Chinese Orchestra Resident Conductor Quek Ling Kiong, beginning with the ubiquitous Spring Festival Overtureby Li Huan Zhi in Sim Boon Yew's arrangement. An elaborate display by the drumming section ushered in the furiously-paced opening that did not let up until its lyrical second subject heard on solo sheng.

Equally busy and raucous was Peng Xiu Wen's Lantern Festival, which depicts the feeling of anticipation on New Year's Eve. Xuonas, de facto brass of the ensemble, led the way through its gaudily lit procession to a rowdy conclusion.

The sole concertante work featured elegant young guzheng virtuoso Yvonne Tay, winner of numerous awards and prizes, in Zhou Yu Guo's Robe Of Clouds. This is a rhapsodic piece which begins with an evocative slow segment, almost impressionist in its narrative, before taking off in a fast leaping dance.

This culminated in a showy cadenza exhibiting the full gamut of the plucked instrument's sonorities, which Tay brilliantly explored to best possible effect. This undergraduate, Principal Guzheng in the Ding Yi Music Company, augurs a bright future for Chinese instrumental music in Singapore.

The same could be said about young conductor Moses Gay who helmed the balance of the concert. His casual stage demeanour belied a serious musician who had something vital to say. Lo Leung Fai's Spring was perhaps the most eclectic work on show, its pivot being a big tune that sounded like a variation of the familiar Molihua.

Accompanying figures that resembled those in the West Endmusical Les Miserables and a finale whose theme reminded one of Dvorak's American Quartet were probably coincidental, but the end result was the same – jolly good fun for all concerned. Wang Fu-Jian's arrangement of A Moonlit Night On The Spring River, sensitively played, provided genuine reflective moments before all of old Middle Road broke loose.

Ten singers in festive costumes fronted the Spring Festival Medley which erupted with popular seasonal favourites Da Di Hui Chun, Ying Chun Hua and the inevitable Gong Xi Gong Xi Ni. The hapless nightclub-like arrangement paid nil regard to harmonic subtleties, instead letting the lucky percussionist on the drum-set go to town on a rampage.

Conductor Gay cheekily quipped that an encore would be played “whether you like it or not” and that turned out to be the cheerful Hua Hao Yue Yuan (Beautiful Flowers, Full Moon), which saw synchronised clapping from the audience. In the tradition of the Vienna Philharmonic, the performers hollered a hearty “Gong Xi Fa Cai”, and there can be no more auspicious greeting than that.

RAVEL Piano Concertos

YUJA WANG, Piano

Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich

Lionel Bringuier

Deutsche Grammophon 479 4954 / ****1/2

Both of Maurice Ravel's piano concertos were composed around the same period, between 1929 and 1931. While these are vastly contrasted works, both are united by one common thread: the influence of new world jazz, particularly the use of syncopated rhythms and the blues idiom.

The G major concerto in three movements is characterised by unusual orchestration and the unlikely juxtaposition of Basque music and Mozartean simplicity. The D major concerto in one movement is the world's best known work for the left hand alone. Its central jazzy march episode has a similar insistent quality that can be found in Ravel’s infamous Bolero, and it culminates with a massive cadenza before the end.

Chinese phenomenon Yuja Wang performs with a lightness and mercurial quality that serves the music well, especially in the scintillating runs and volatile climaxes. The woodwind solos by members of the Swiss orchestra in both concertos are excellent which help put these performances in the top drawer of CD recordings.

As a filler, Wang includes the solo piano version of the Ballade by Ravel's teacher Gabriel Fauré, a highly lyrical work that belongs to an earlier era, that of the more innocent Belle Epoque. Wang cuts a glamourous figure, but what has baring her midriff for the album cover have to do with this music?

BRAHMS. SCHUMANN. MAHLER

Piano Quartets

Daniel Hope, Violin et al

Deutsche Grammophon 479 4609 / ****1/2

The piano quartet, formed by piano, violin, viola and cello, runs the risk of becoming almost obsolete. That is because many composers opt for the smaller and more economical forces of a piano trio, or plump for the fuller sounds of a piano quintet. This well-filled disc from live concerts of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Centre gathers three of the best piano quartets in the medium’s relatively small repertoire.

Gustav Mahler's Piano Quartet in A minor (1876) is a student work in a compact single movement. A far cry from his monumental symphonies, it is a product of late Romanticism with full-blown passion and pathos on display. Robert Schumann's Piano Quartet in E flat major (1842) is shorter and less well-known than his Piano Quintet. There is a Beethovenian touch with its masterly development of simple themes, and is graced by an exquisitely beautiful slow movement.

Johannes Brahms's Piano Quartet No.1in G minor (1861) is an established classic, symphonic in scope and closes with a rowdy Hungarian-styled Rondo in the best gypsy tradition. British violinist Daniel Hope and his partners, violist Paul Neubauer, cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han, are vividly recorded, making this album one to remember and treasure.

RAVEL Piano Concertos

FAURÉ Ballade

YUJA WANG, Piano

Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich

Lionel Bringuier, Conductor

Deutsche Grammophon 479 4954 / ****1/2

SOUNDBITES: THE ART OF ENCORE

PHILIP FOWKE Piano Recital

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory

Orchestral Hall

Wednesday (17 February 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 19 February 2016 with the title "The encore makes or breaks the concert".

The most anticipated moment of a concert can sometimes take place after the event itself, when the performer chooses to perform encores. Selecting what to play can make or break a recital, as veteran British concert pianist Philip Fowke explained in his hour-long lecture-recital at the Conservatory.

This is a stratagem of performance psychology that may redeem a recital that has not gone as well as an artist had intended, and often turns an audience from an indifferent one into something far more positive. It is also the “art of the miniature”, as short and rarely heard morsels of music sometimes by little-known or forgotten pianist-composers are served like after-dinner mints.

When was the last time anyone heard in performance Ignace Paderewski’s Minuet in G major? This used to be an extremely popular and regularly-played piece, one which the pianist-turned-President of Poland resented for its sheer ubiquity. In Fowke’s hands, it was a charming and unpretentious little gem that has its obligatory flashy bits.

Next came two Lyric Pieces by Edvard Grieg, the gently rocking rhythm and ravishing harmonies of Melodie (Op.47 No.3) contrasted with the flitting skittish swirls of Butterfly(Op.43 No.1). Of a more barnstorming nature was Erno Dohnanyi’s Rhapsody in C major (Op.11 No.3), which delighted in big chords and that grandstanding melody at its centre.

Fowke also presented a couple of his own transcriptions. From Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker, the Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy highlighted the celesta’s tinkling sonority, one achieved with cunning pedal-work, and the athletic romp that is the Trepak (Russian Dance).

Fowke’s journey back in time also revealed his vintage, including mention of 78 rpm shellac discs, piano rolls, player-pianos and a salute to two late pianist friends of his, Eileen Joyce and Shura Cherkassky, themselves legendary practitioners of the encore.

Ever obscure was the Waltz in A major by the Ukrainian Mischa Levitzki, its salon appeal enhanced by highlighting hidden inner melodies magically voiced by the left thumb. This was balanced by Christian Sinding's solitary hit single, Rustle Of Spring, with gentle murmurs overshadowing its more virtuosic flourishes.

Pride of place went to two pieces by Billy Mayerl, sometimes known as the British Gershwin. Song Of The Fir Tree, based on a Swedish folksong, first heard straight and later in a bluesy swing, as if transformed by a swig of scotch. His signature tune Marigold exuded much lilting gaiety, with ragtime taking a teasing turn on The Strand.

Fowke's final two pieces are justly celebrated, Moskowski's scintillating Etincelles(Sparks), a Horowitz favourite which is a study in staccato, and Chopin's familiar Heroic Polonaise (Op.53). In the latter, how he managed to evince pathos and melancholy amid the thundering octaves made this reading a memorable one. The perfect encore is one which makes one crave for more, and Fowke had just seriously whetted everybody's appetite.

Philip Fowke with his former students
from London's Trinity College:
the Conservatory's Jenny Ang & Yun from Korea.

NAFA ORCHESTRA

Lee Foundation Theatre

Thursday (18 February 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 February 2016 with the title "Young violinist's sizzling show of prowess".

If a symphony precedes a concerto in an orchestral concert, there usually has to be some valid reason. In this latest concert by the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Orchestra conducted by Lim Yau, that reason was not fully apparent until near the very end.

The evening opened with Robert Schumann's Second Symphony in C major (Op.61), the longest and arguably grandest of his four symphonies. Without an overture as curtain-raiser, the nerves displayed within its very exposed first bars were palpable, with trumpets not fully in sync in the slow introduction. This soon settled as the swifter Allegro section got underway.

The strength of this young orchestra lies in the strings, which were fully on show in the mercurial Scherzo and Adagioslow movement. The former was taken at a very fast clip, clearly articulated and with no little vehemence, which led to premature applause at its conclusion. The latter was a show of prestidigitation that hinged on a foward momentum that was hard to repress.

Even rarer than an Elvis sighting:
Singaporean virtuoso Chua Lik Wuk
was spotted among the first violins.

From the throes of its pages, oboist Bima Wikan Tyoso's splendid solo stood out for its confidence and steadiness. The finale was brought out with Beethovenian vigour, one which tossed and turned, tempered by Schumann's quote from Beethoven's song cycle An Die Ferne Geliebte (To The Distand Beloved), revealing it to be a love message after all at its triumphant end.

Despite its rough edges, this performance captured the Romantic spirit of the music. Altogether very different was the concerto that followed, Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto in A minor (Op.99) which proved a far thornier challenge for orchestra and soloist.

Making a concerto debut with orchestra was young violinist Guo Xingchen, Winner of the NAFA Music Essentials Concerto Competition, which seemed like an act of madness itself. There was some suspicious intonation at the outset, but her dark, dusky tone seemed appropriate for its doleful and mysterious Nocturne.

The slashing Scherzo that followed was not so much a partnership as a pitched battle between violin, woodwind and ominously mounting orchestral forces. The ensemble almost came to grief at one point but cool heads prevailed to steady the ship through to its frazzled and frenzied end. The third movement's Passacaglia was an impassioned cry, a crescendo that built up inexorably to the massive cadenza, where Guo truly came into her own.

Any reservations about her temperament or technique evaporated in this show of individual prowess that continued into the finale's wild Burlesque. Here, the Russian composer's penchant with Jewish Klezmer music went into overdrive in this sizzling and unbuttoned dance, aided by a fully responsive wind section.

As if swept by a tsunami of adrenaline, the concerto concluded excitingly and excitably, with prolonged applause and choruses of loud cheers. One wonders what could have possibly followed that adventure of a performance. Certainly not a symphony.

Violinist Guo Xingchen with Maestro Lim Yau
and her teacher Foo Say Ming.

THE BUTTERFLY LOVERS

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Victoria Concert Hall

Friday (19 February 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 22 February 2016 with the title "Butterfly Lovers takes flight with 87-year-old conductor".

The Chinese New Year season was good enough reason as any for the Singapore Symphony Orchestra to perform an entire programme of Chinese music. The Butterfly Lovers was an obvious selling point, but the real privilege was witnessing guest conductor Zheng Xiao Ying in action. She is the doyenne of China's woman conductors, and at 87 this year, also the oldest maestro to lead the SSO.

Unique is her ability to engage an audience by addressing before the performance of each piece. She spoke in Mandarin with clear, radiant tones, enthusing and waxing lyrical about the music. This was probably a relief for Chinese-speaking audience members who specially came, as Marc Rochester's very comprehensive programme notes had not been translated into Chinese.

The show began with Li Huan Zhi's Spring Festival Overture, where raucous percussion ruled the roost. Lyrical moments came in Pan Yun's plaintive oboe solo, providing dynamic and narrative balance to this festive piece. The orchestra responded with much alertness and rhythmic savvy to Zheng's directions, but timbral colours were the forte in the next work, Xu Zhen Min's A Tone Picture Of Border Village.

Imagine a scene in China's Far West clothed in luscious Technicolor, a score combining Debussy's impressionist hues, Bartok and Rosza's sensuous renderings of folk music, and infectious frontier-town rhythms of Copland and Ginastera. Big solos for Jamie Hersch's French horn, Evgueni Brokmiller's flute and Igor Yuzefovich's violin all distinguished themselves in this delightfully indulgent wallow.

The orchestration prowess of Respighi were relived in the Asian premiere of Huang Ruo's Three Folk Songs. One will not hear more opulent readings of Feng Yang Hua Gu (Flower Drum Song), Kang Ding Love Song and The Girl From Da Ban, all familiar tunes, than this. It would seem that these composers could not wait to break out from traditional heterophony to engage in unashamedly decadent polyphony.

Conductor Zheng quipped that nobody in China knows The Butterfly Lovers as Hu Die Ai Ren, but rather the immortal legend of Liang Zhu (short for Liang Shanbo & Zhu Yingtai). Composed by Chen Gang and He Zhanhao in 1958, it was a bold experiment to translate the characteristic expressions of Chinese opera into a totally foreign idiom of Western musical composition. The result was a virtuoso violin concerto in single-movement sonata-fantasy form.

The soloist was SSO Associate Concertmaster Kong Zhao Hui, who has performed this work over a hundred times, including in SSO's concert tour to Switzerland in 2000. Garbed in resplendent hong bao red, his reading came as naturally as breathing and vocalising for an opera singer. His expressive use of portamentos (slides) were well judged, blending perfectly in duet with Ng Pei Sian's cello, and even furthering the music's fraught emotions with violent stamps on the floor. The orchestra provided perfect partnership, including highlighting several portamentosof their own to good effect.

Huang Yi Jun's lovely orchestration of Liu Tien Hua's Liang Xiao (Beautiful Evening) saw the first violins' melody gently accompanied by pizzicato strings. The concert concluded with Chen Le-Gang's Sainaim Rhapsody, based on Xinjiang and Central Asian melodies, a showpiece which could have been first cousin to Ippolitov-Ivanov's Caucasian Sketches.

After standing for two hours, still sprightly and energised by a standing ovation, Zheng offered as encore another seasonal favourite: Huang Yi Jun's popular Hua Hao Yue Yuan (Beautiful Flowers, Round Moon). An audience clap-along was the inevitable result for this feel-good concert.

Photo: Teo Li-Chin

THE FOUR GREAT CLASSICAL NOVELS IN CONCERT

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (20 February 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 22 February 2016 with the title "Literary classics on a high note".

Imagine trying to encompass all of William Shakespeare's plays – tragedies, comedies and histories – within a two-hour long show. That notion was akin to the Singapore Chinese Orchestra's contribution to this year's Huayi Chinese Festival of Arts, a presentation in concert of the four giant classics of Chinese literature.

A comprehensive survey would have lasted over 100 hours, but the concert comprised four highly palatable musical chapters, neatly encapsulating the essence and spirit of each masterpiece. Well-known television personality Guo Liang was a convivial host who providing short introductions to each part, with helpful English translations projected on a giant screen behind the orchestra.

First was Dream Of The Red Chamberin a choral suite by Wang Li Ping. This saga about the decline of families mirrored in Qing dynasty society had the feel of film music. Soprano Wang Qing Shuang's opera-like arias were delivered with intricacy and the requisite dramatics, with the Tanjong Katong Secondary School Choir and Alumni (Nelson Kwei, Chorus Master) providing strong vocal backing. The closing Elegy On Flowersyielded a truly poignant denouement.

More complex was Chen Ning Chi's The Battle Of Chibi, the pivotal event in the Romance Of The Three Kingdoms. Not exactly a straight-forward battle showpiece, it was preceded by a lengthy introduction with a portrayal of the Yangtze River and quotes from warring generals Cao Cao, Zhou Yu and Zhu Geliang sung by tenor Li Lie Guang, casted for his sagely gravitas rather than intonational accuracy.

The battle music proper was a tour de force of orchestral writing, with lots of sound, fury and smoke effects signifying plenty, while Li Bao Shun's jinghu, Zhou Ruo Yu's jing-erhu, Huang Gui Fang's sanxian and Zhong Zhi Yue's guqin had major solos. The familiar quote of “ren sheng lu meng” (“life is like a dream, let us drink to the moon”) that closed the work was now heard in its true context.

Havoc In Heaven, the celebrated escapades of Sun Wukong the Monkey God, was performed to excerpts from a 1960s animated movie by the Shanghai Animation Film Studio. Like a Chinese version of Disney's Fantasia, Sun's mighty cudgel replaced Mickey Mouse's equally indestructible broomstick to appropriately playful music by Law Wai Lun and Lincoln Lo. For children of all ages, this episode from Journey To The West proved to be a winner.

Finally, Zhao Ji Ping's Water Margin Suite from music written for the 1996 television series provided the musical backdrop to the swashbuckling adventures of the epic novel's 108 heroic outlaws. Its six movements unusually employed Western harmonies to depict China's wild frontier-lands, with Zhang Bin's solo erhu and Jin Shi Yi's suona and assorted reeds doing the honours.

Returning was the radiant soprano Wang and choir for the peaen to Heaven, Earth And Man, a glorification of humanity and the eternal elements. The final Heroes' Song which followed closed with a free-for-all of communal laughter for both orchestra and audience, no doubt egged on by the irrepressible conductor Yeh Tsung. Here old wisdoms prevailed. It was a way of saying: If we cannot laugh at ourselves, then what is life worth living for?

MAHLER Symphony No.2 “Resurrection”

Arrangement for 4 hands

by Bruno Walter

Nakazawa & Athavale (Piano)

Naxos 8.573350 / ****

Arrangement for 8 hands

by Heinrich von Bocklet

Cutting, Turner, Emmerson & Kelly

(2 Pianos)

Melba 301144 / ****1/2

A symphony by Gustav Mahler hardly qualifies to be an obscure classic these days, but arrangements of his symphonies for piano are still rarities. These were transcribed mostly for the purpose of study as well as home entertainment by skilled amateurs.

Here are two world premiere recordings for piano of Mahler's Second Symphony, called the Resurrection Symphony because its choral finale makes use of Klopstock's poem Die Auferstehung (The Resurrection) as the culmination of a journey from death to redemption. This is a 5-movement work, opening with a funeral march, ponders with life's vagaries before an apocalyptic but ultimately victorious ending.

Voices are dispensed with but the musical architecture and narrative still captivates. Mahler disciple and conductor Bruno Walter's version of piano duet offers the bare bones but does not skimp on the harmonic subtleties or dynamic pacing of the original. Heinrich von Bocklet's edition for 2 pianos provides a fuller sound and more details beyond the skeletal framework. It is a wonder how four different performers in this Australian recording could coordinate their resources as skilfully as they do.

The Walter recording is the slightly swifter of the two, clocking in at just over 76 minutes. Both are worth experiencing, if only to take a break from the orchestra's glorious excesses.

MUSIC OF SPRING

Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Yeh Tsung

SCO Recordings / ****

Chinese New Year music, you either love it or loathe it, especially when it comes blaring out through supermarket loudspeakers. This 51-minute long anthology from the Singapore Chinese Orchestra conducted by its Music Director Yeh Tsung is rather special because it includes perennial favourites and provides a Singaporean twist.

Popular hits like Li Huan Zhi's Spring Festival Overture and Peng Xiu Wen's Zhen Yue Yuan Xiao (Lantern Festival) are the ubiquitous rousers that set the mood. Tan Dun's Shi Ban Yao Gao is percussive, martial, ceremonial and employs the voices of the orchestra's men.

Two movements from Gu Guan Ren's Singapore Glimpses, Niu Che Shui (Kreta Ayer) and Jie Ri (Festival) sound unexpectedly exotic. The latter employs Chinese, Malay and Indian themes, and might even be mistaken for something out of Central Asia. Lin Wei Hua's Gong Xi Fa Cai delights in reedy bird calls from the suona but the campest number is Law Wai Lun's He Xin Nian medley.

His transcription unabashedly relives the outlandish sounds of a 1960s Geylang cabaret in songs like Chai Shen Dao and Ying Chun Hua, and has the inevitable Gong Xi Gong Xi dressed up as a sultry tango. Have fun.

THE MOZARTIAN EXPERIENCE

ADDO Chamber Orchestra

Esplanade Recital Studio

Thursday (25 February 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 27 February 2016

If one wondered why this concert was not titled The Mozart Experience, that was because it included music that was known during Mozart's era rather than exclusively by the Austrian composer himself. It began with the Sinfonia to Italian Domenico Cimarosa's popular comic opera Il Matrimonio Secreto (The Secret Marriage).

The overture opened with a fanfare very similar to that in Mozart's The Magic Flute, and the busy string flourishes that follow took after the master's wit himself. Conductor Clarence Tan kept the pacing water-tight, best exhibited by the strings and a pair of flutes. Even if some winds had wayward moments, the buffo aspects were never lost as the music raced to a breathless end.

Young Filipino soprano Angela Cortez then joined to sing Mozart's well-known motet Exsultate Jubilate, a virtuosic showpiece she did not seem totally comfortable with. She has a pleasing voice and good diction which worked well for the slower languorous bits, but had some difficulty with the runs. Nevertheless, she made a good impression of Handel's slow Lascia Chio Pianga from the opera Rinaldo that followed.

Would it be better for her to have started with the Handel aria, essentially a lament, before moving to the flashier Mozart? Chronologically it would have made more sense, and the fact that Handel's operatic music was well-known to Mozart and not the other way round. In both works, the orchestra displayed sensitivity with the most discreet of accompaniments.

French horn soloist Alan Kartik Jairamin, from the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, is one performer who has no confidence issues. He brought out a big, warm burnished tone in two Mozart horn concertos, shining brightest in the slow movement of the Second Concerto in E flat major (K.417). Its hunting horn Rondo finale was simply a joy, having to nimbly jump through a series of musical hoops.

The First Concerto in D major (K.412) brought out more of the same, except this work was in just two movements including another animated Rondo. This was followed by a show-and-tell session that truly engaged the audience. Kartik's humour in demonstrating playing notes on a natural horn (without valves) and a garden hose fitted with funnel and mouthpiece was greeted with much mirth and hilarity. His performance of the Rondo in D for hosepipe and orchestra is destined for Youtube notoriety.

The concert closed with Mozart's Symphony No.35 in D major, also known as the Haffner Symphony. The earlier discipline wielded by Tan's baton was immediately apparent in the vigorous opening, which was tautly knitted and driven with a firm rhythmic thrust. The slow movement weathered rough spots from the horns and was saved by the finesse of the string playing.

The Minuetexuded courtly grace, and one will note the subtle phrasing at the beginning of the finale, which opened quietly under the voice and then went for the jugular. The febrile feeling of storm and stress, expressive devices popularised during the classical age, was well brought out as the work closed on a head of steam. ADDO Chamber Orchestra's take on Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony on 5 May should be worth catching.

GARY HOFFMAN Chamber Recital / Review

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, January 2016)

IS IT POSSIBLE TO ATTEND THREE CONCERTS IN A DAY?

SETTS #2 / South-Eastern Ensemble for Today's and Tomorrow's Sounds / Review

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, January 2016)

SOUL MUSIC / KAM NING Violin Recital / Review

RHAPSODIES OF SPRING 2016 / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

MUSICIENS SANS FRONTIERES / LOUIS PAGE (Piano) & Friends / Review

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, February 2016)

NOCTURNES & DANCES / ALEXANDER TROSTIANSKY Violin Recital / Review

KONSTANTIN SCHERBAKOV Piano Recital / Review

SPRING BLOSSOMS / NAFA Chinese Chamber Ensemble / Review

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, February 2016)

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, February 2016)

SOUNDBITES: THE ART OF ENCORE / PHILIP FOWKE Piano Recital / Review

NAFA ORCHESTRA / Review

SSO CONCERT: THE BUTTERFLY LOVERS / Review

THE FOUR GREAT CLASSICAL NOVELS IN CONCERT / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, February 2016)

THE MOZARTIAN EXPERIENCE / ADDO Chamber Orchestra / Review