DANIIL TRIFONOV AND HANS GRAF -
RACHMANINOFF AND DEBUSSY
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Esplanade Concert Hall
Friday (11 April 2025)
This review was published in The Straits Times on 21 April 2025 with the title "A balance of lyricism and bravura by pianist Daniil Trifonov".
Preceding every concerto performance at a symphonic concert is usually an overture, but this gala concert by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra led by Hans Graf opened with ballet music instead. Igor Stravinsky’s Divertimento was four-movement suite drawn from Le baiser de la fee (The Fairy’s Kiss), his ballet based on songs and piano music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky.
This was one Russian composer paying tribute to another, its neoclassical style making for a very engaging listen. Trying to spot the sources was part of the fun, like the song Lullaby in the Storm in its opening pages and piano piece Humoresque for the droll second movement. The Pas de deux saw principal cellist Ng Pei-Sian and guest principal clarinettist Dai Le in a lovely duet.
Next came multiple award-winning Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov making his Singapore debut in Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Fourth Piano Concerto in G minor (Op.40). Long considered his “Cinderella” concerto, this was the Russian composer experimenting with an idiom which departed from that of its popular predecessors.
Offering grittier harmonies and heavy-hitting dissonances, there were fewer memorable melodies. Trifonov gave a nuanced reading balancing delicate lyricism with barnstorming bravura. The most memorable moment came in the Largo slow movement where its main theme, often derided as resembling Three Blind Mice, gave way to an outpouring of nostalgia where an earlier piano piece (Etude-tableau in C minor, Op.33 No.3) was quoted.
A brilliant close drew prolonged applause and Trifonov’s two encores were fully cognizant of the music that had come before. More ballet music, in the form of Silver Fairy and Adagio from Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty, whimsically and virtuosically transcribed by Russian pianist-conductor Mikhail Pletnev, was warmly welcomed.
Claude Debussy’s Images for Orchestra closed the concert. SSO under its previous music director Shui Lan had made an excellent recording of this Impressionist masterpiece on the BIS label but experiencing it live was even better.
Graf had the sequence of its composite movements altered, such that its final fast-slow-fast schema resembled a three-movement symphony which worked very well in concert. The ballet-like Rondes de printemps (Round Dances of Spring), usually heard last, opened with a sequence of songs and dances. The children’s song Nous n’irons plus au bois (We No Longer Go To The Woods), regularly quoted by Debussy, dominated.
Gigues, which followed, was underscored by Pan Yun’s sumptuous oboe d’amore solo, imbuing the work with an indelible melancholy despite its rhythmic vitality. Closing with Iberia, Debussy’s most evocative portrait of Spain, the scene was one of extreme colour and flavour.
Percussion – augmented with castanets, tambourine and tubular bells – textured its festive first and third sections, while the central Les parfums de la nuit (The Scents of the Night) was a most sultry portrayal of an evening of romance. Little wonder the long-held mischievous quip that Frenchmen wrote the best Spanish music still holds much resonance.
This concert was also reviewed in Bachtrack.com:
https://bachtrack.com/22/296/view/28626
