Tuesday 19 March 2024

TONY YIKE YANG Piano Recital / Review


TONY YIKE YANG Piano Recital

Voices of Singapore Capitol Studio

Sunday (17 March 2024)


Canadian pianist Tony Yike Yang came to prominence as a 16-year-old finalist at the 2015 Chopin International Piano Competition, when he also became the youngest-ever laureate in the competition's history. His last appearance in Singapore was a recital at Esplanade's Huayi Chinese Festival of Arts in February 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic struck.


Already a prodigious talent then, his most recent recital at VOS Capital Studio showed he has further matured as an artist. His demanding 80-minute-long recital, performed without a break, was a supreme test of endurance for the pianist, besides being an unmitigated pleasure for those who attended.



The recital opened with Mozart's early Sonata in E flat major (K.282), which was more Romantically than Classically-inclined. He coaxed a rich sonority from the Yamaha C5 grand, and eschewed the mincing prissiness usually associated with the period movement. The central Minuet was kept lively rather than coy, and fluent swiftness in the finale suggested we were not listening to 18th century drawing room music.


The good start continued into the Chopin set with the three Waltzes Op.34 performed as a suite. Sheer brilliance informed the opening A flat major dance, contrasted with wistful melancholy of the A minor, and completed with the F major waltz's prestidigitation, which even in its high speed did not neglect the vital element of rubato. By the end of the barnstorming Polonaise Op.53 in A flat major, the "Heroic", where Yang conquered the left-hand octave fusillades (that Polish cavalry episode) with stunning aplomb, he had more than fully warmed up.



What followed without a break was an astonishing sequence of three great Franz Liszt masterpieces. First was Ballade No.2 in B minor, with its opening subterranean rumblings, from the depths of which the main theme emerges. This was a breathtaking reading, where the full plethora of pianistic sonorities are exploited to the max. Its glorious climax of alternating big chords and earthshaking scales (which no doubt influenced the Lisztian cadenza of Grieg's Piano Concerto) was judged to perfection, and even if he took the chordal ossia instead of the ascending scales that followed, the effect was nonetheless still spectacular.


Vallee d'Obermann from the Swiss book of Annees de pelerinage (Years of Pilgrimage) was another epic tone poem from piano. The cello-like main theme and its subsequent transformation provided the drama of this work which Yang worked built up to a feverish frenzy. The pastoral and storm episodes were very well contrasted and the triumphant end no less impactful. 



Completing the Liszt trilogy was Rhapsodie Espagnole, a showpiece where the La Folia and Jota Aragonesa themes from the Iberian peninsula were whipped into an intoxicating brew. Again, Yang's mastery of the myriad technical difficulties made this fiendish number seem almost like light work. As a Lisztian, Yang combines the mercurial spirit of Horowitz with the pulverising power of Lazar Berman. It was very satisfying to have witnessed all of this live.



Yang's two encores included Gershwin's Prelude No.1 (with the ritmato and deciso aspects notched up to the nth level) and Chopin's Minute Waltz (Op.64 No.1), with brilliance prized over mere charm. One looks forward to Tong Yike Yang's next performance in Singapore.


Tony Yike Yang 
was presented by 

THE MUSICIANS' STAGE

Monday 18 March 2024

TRAVERSING / QU CHUNQUAN & SCO / Ding Yi Music Company / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review


TRAVERSING 
Ding Yi Music Company 
Victoria Concert Hall 
Friday (15 March 2024) 

QU CHUNQUAN & SCO 
Singapore Chinese Orchestra 
Singapore Conference Hall 
Saturday (16 March 2024) 

This review was published in The Straits Times on 18 March 2024 with the title "Retired SCO conductors Yeh Tsung and Qu Chunquan take centre stage". 

For senior conductors, there is life after the Singapore Chinese Orchestra. Yeh Tsung, who retired from the helm of SCO in end-2022 and became its Conductor Emeritus, was back on the podium to lead Ding Yi Music Company’s opening concert of its 2024-25 season. The very eclectic programme was an excellent showcase of contemporary music for Chinese instruments that fused Chinese and Western sensibilities. 

Photo: Andrew Bi Photography

Pride of place were two concertos for cello that featured Singapore Symphony Orchestra principal Ng Pei-Sian as soloist. Chen Yi’s very substantial Sound of the Five was a prime example of this perfect synthesis. Its four movements exploited myriad sonorities that result by pitting the cello’s lower-pitched and deeply-breathed voice with the higher-pitched and variable sliding tones of Chinese instruments. 

Echoes of the Set Bells had pitched percussion – xylophone and vibraphone – simulate the tintinnabulation over the cello’s song, which came to the fore with heartrending lyricism in Romance of Hsiao and Chin. The pinpoint precision struck between cello and orchestra in the final Flower Drums in Dance with an incessant beat brought the work to a breathtaking close. 

Photo: Andrew Bi Photography

The irrepressible Yeh also directed in Mo Fan’s Oasis, a fantasy for Ng Hsien Han’s virtuosic dizi draped in indelible Central Asian colours, and Koh Cheng Jin’s Nanyang-styled symphonic poem Legend of Badang, delighting in the rhythms of the Indo-Malayan archipelago. 


Photo: Andrew Bi Photography

Yeh shared the concert with Ding Yi Resident Conductor Dedric Wong De Li, a former protege of his. Wong led in Jonathan Shin’s excellent single-movement cello concerto Good Hunting (Ng Pei-Sian as soloist again) and Chen Xinruo’s Sejuteng, a speculative modern interpretation of Tang dynasty music. 



Qu Chunquan was a conductor associated with Singapore Chinese Orchestra’s early years during the 1980s to 90s, when it was the People’s Association Chinese Orchestra. His return to lead the orchestra was commendable but a programme entirely devoted to his compositions was questionable. 



His music has a populist feel but are blighted by banalities. Shanghai Capriccio so blatantly ripped off Gershwin’s An American in Paris that it might as well have been titled George Gershwin in Shanghai. Arguably worse was the supposedly patriotic work called Reverie at the Statue of Sir Stamford Raffles, which appropriated tropes from Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio Italien. The rousing apotheosis, which had NDP song Singapura, Sunny Island blaring out, might have also suggested he mistook the word reverie for revelry. 

From the SCO, one got nothing less than totally committed performances. As for Music and Dance of the Silk Road, a Central Asian-flavoured fantasy, and the martial arts-inspired Shaolin Wand, Qu showed he was capable of colourful and evocative orchestrations. 


The concert’s high points were provided by SCO’s own players as soloists in concertante works. Sheng player Yang Hsin-Yu gave a breathtaking account of The Myth of Paiwan, three movements which drew inspiration from Taiwan’s indigenous people. Even if the central movement resembled a Neapolitan dance and the finale an outtake from Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian’s copybook, the lively readings carried the work. 


SCO zhonghu principal Lin Gao was a dazzling presence in Variations on a Theme of Rely, showcasing a deep and throaty string sonority. The individual variations with Yu Jia’s pipa and Fontane Liang’s harp in accompaniment were very well crafted. 


Without any prompting, two light encores – a Socialist Realist-style march and a tango a la Gerardo Matos Rodriguez’s La Cumparsita – were offered by Qu and the band at the concert’s end, with the enthused audience lapping it all up.


Thursday 14 March 2024

INMO YANG & FESTIVAL STRINGS LUCERNE / Review


INMO YANG AND 

FESTIVAL STRINGS LUCERNE 

Esplanade Concert Hall 

Tuesday (12 March 24)


This review was published in The Straits Times on 14 March 2024 with the title "Inmo Yang, Festival Strings Lucerne join forces to make magical music."



Music-lovers of a certain age will remember Singapore’s old 92.4 FM stereo station which regularly broadcasted recordings by Festival Strings Lucerne led by its founder-director Rudolf Baumgartner. Those were the days before period instruments, when string music sounded full, lush and luxuriant, qualities for which the ensemble was renowned. This cherished group is still thriving, now led by Australia-born violinist Daniel Dodds, its music director since 2012. 



Its Esplanade debut was not just about strings, but a chamber orchestra with woodwinds, brass and a sole timpanist. The evening opened with Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No.1, called “Classical” because its four movements were a 20th century pastiche of Haydn and Mozart’s 18th century symphonies. 


Despite not being led by a conductor, immediately apparent was the ensemble’s cohesion, impressing in the fast and tricky outer movements. Its fabled string sound was highlighted in the slow movement, with a graceful melody sung by violins above a gently throbbing accompaniment. The third movement’s Gavotte was taken with much rubato, lending a comedic sense of ungainliness but togetherness was never in doubt. 




Young Korean violinist Inmo Yang, winner of multiple international violin competitions, was guest soloist in Henri Vieuxtemps’ Violin Concerto No.5 in A minor. Cast in one continuous movement lasting some 22 minutes, the work united the best qualities of virtuoso concerto and symphonic poem. Built upon two main themes, this was also a perfect vehicle for Yang’s immaculate technique and grasp of musical drama. 


Photo: AlvieAlive

Combining an innate feel for the lyrical and impeccable intonation, and backed by the orchestra poised on a razor’s age, the performance was a treat from start to finish. As if that were not enough pyrotechnics, Yang’s fearsomely showy solo encores of Nicolo Paganini’s last and first Caprices (Nos.24 and 1 in that order) did the trick. 




Photo: AlvieAlive

The orchestra performed the concert’s second half on its feet. First was the Singapore premiere of living Swiss composer Richard Dubugnon’s Caprice No.4 entitled “Es Muss Sein!” (It Must Be!). Based on Beethoven’s final string quartet (Op.135) which posed the rhetorical question “Muss es sein?” (Must it be?), the 14-minute-long work became a tug-of-war between the two Beethovenian three-note-motifs. It showcased slick string calisthenics and even moments of Mantovaniesque cascading strings, just to name another very famous string ensemble. 



The concert concluded with Mozart’s final symphony, No.41 in C major, nicknamed “Jupiter” after the Roman god because of its breadth and grandeur. The incisive clarity of the booming opening chords was telling, heralding a lithe but not lightweight account of this masterpiece. Tempos were generally swift but never in expense of savouring details, which were many. 



The slow movement’s sleekness mirrored the earlier Prokofiev, while the third movement’s Minuet now reflected refinement and courtliness. The glorious finale, rich with counterpoint, was simply the embodiment of joie de vivre, bringing the concert to an emphatically valedictory close. The encore of Schumann’s Abendlied (Evening Song), sumptuously arranged by Johan Svendsen, was ironically the only all-string work on show. That, too, was a pleasure to behold.  



Monday 11 March 2024

CARION WIND QUINTET / Review


CARION WIND QUINTET 

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall 

Saturday (9 March 2024) 


This review was published in The Straits Times on 11 March 2024 with the title "Carion Wind Quintet balances serious virtuosity and entertainment."


After an overload of orchestral and piano concerts, it was refreshing to encounter wind music for a change. Copenhagen-based Carion Wind Quintet, helming the Ong Teng Cheong professorship at the Conservatory, presented a programme striking a fine balance between serious virtuosity and unalloyed entertainment. This ensemble, whose players come from Denmark, Latvia and Sweden, was undoubtedly the finest wind group to have played here in recent memory. 



The entire concert was performed standing, and most of its first half without scores. With freedom of mobility and placements, that translated into neatly choreographed movements in the opening works. 20th century Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti’s Six Bagatelles was the perfect showcase of slickness of delivery, from pin-point articulation to resounding clarity. 



These movements, from the composer’s transcription of Musica Ricercata originally for piano, play on a fixed number of tones in a most creative manner possible. Far from being forbidding, the music was quirkily approachable, also boosted by the players’ motions and mutual interactions. 



Mozart’s Divertimento No.1 (K.113), transcribed from strings and winds, displayed a more classical side to the ensemble’s configuration. High winds, Dora Seres’ flute, Egils Upatnieks’ oboe and Egils Sefers’ clarinet, carried most of the melodic lines, and were steadfastly backed by the low winds of Niels Larsen’s bassoon and David Palmquist’s French horn. 


David Palmquist & Egils Sefers


Brazilian composer Julio Medaglia’s Belle Epoque en Sud-America presented three delightful dances: a swinging Tango, a Waltz with a lovely oboe tune, later capped off by Requinta Maluca (translated as Crazy Refinement) where the clarinet went to town on unbuttoned samba riffs. Spoken introductions mostly by Palmquist, regaling with droll and sometimes irreverent humour, also enhanced the appreciation of the music. 


Photo: Yong Junyi

For the second half, the quintet was joined by five young members of Amity Quintet from the Conservatory. Together the decet (the actual musical term for ten players) launched into Franz von Suppe’s Overture to Banditenstreiche (The Jolly Robbers) in Palmquist’s arrangement. It opened slow, then gained speed, coloured by comedic turns, before a headlong final rush of excitement. 



The longest work at 27 minutes was Joachim Raff’s Sinfonietta for double quintet. Virtually unknown outside of wind circles and Germany, its four movements repaid listening by sheer craftsmanship and all-round pleasantries. The first movement’s sonata form had a little fugue to relish while the scherzo-like second movement’s quick gallop was the test of agility and nimbleness which passed with flying colours. 



The slow third movement reveled in the oboe’s plaintive quality, cushioned with gorgeous sonorities, while the animated finale brought to a brilliant close a performance with virtually – pun fully intended - no rough edges. 


Photo: Yong Junyi

Closing the evening were two more witty Palmquist arrangements, of Shostakovich’s Tahiti Trot (listeners will know this as Tea For Two), and the carnival-like Waltz No.2 (from Suite for Variety Orchestra), familiar from the Stanley Kubrick-directed movie Eyes Wide Shut. Back to the quintet, Carion’s fun encore was Eduardo di Capua’s O Sole Mio, with each player vying to see who played the longest held note. 


Saturday 9 March 2024

RACHMANINOV'S 24 PRELUDES / ANDREY GUGNIN Piano Recital / Review




RACHMANINOV’S 24 PRELUDES 

ANDREY GUGNIN Piano Recital 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Thursday (7 March 2024) 


This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 March 2023 with the title "Russian pianist Andrey Gugnin bring's Rachmaninov's lesser-known numbers to life".


There are artists who distinguish themselves as being special the moment they craft their first musical sounds. Russian pianist Andrey Gugnin, winner of international piano competitions in Sydney (2016) and Dubai (2024), is one of them. The first three notes of Sergei Rachmaninov’s infamous Prelude in C sharp minor (Op.3 No.2) were telling, and he delivered these to perfection. 



Why infamous? This was the Russian pianist-composer’s very early creation which made him world famous. He earned no royalties from the trifle, yet was obliged to perform at every recital ad nauseam simply because adoring audiences demanded to hear it. Gugnin took it with broad strokes, voicing each ensuing chord with sonorous heft, and completing the work with an idiomatic authority that felt completely natural and unforced. 



Thus began an arduous journey through 24 of Rachmaninov’s most personal and expressive miniatures. Rachmaninov never recorded the full set, and neither did Vladimir Horowitz nor Sviatoslav Richter, great pianists associated with his music. The kaleidoscopic range of the pieces, alternating major and minor keys, had Gugnin summoning the utmost of his interpretive and technical resources. 


He did so with stunning aplomb, breathing life into lesser-known numbers which do not often get heard. The D minor Prelude (Op.23 No.3), crafted like a minuet, delighted in the left hand’s sardonic laughter while maintaining an apparent poker face. The E minor Prelude (Op.32 No.4) was a foray into outright dissonance, its procession of alarum bells portending impending danger was ramped up to a crazed frenzy with frightening intensity. 



In the more familiar pieces, Gugnin was never intent of dispatching mere notes. In the nocturne-like D major Prelude (Op.23 No.4), a lily was being gilded, while the G minor Prelude (Op.23 No.5) had one guessing as to whether it was a march or a dance. There could not have been a more seamless singing line in the G major Prelude (Op.32 No.5) while the wellspring of melancholy that is the G sharp minor Prelude (Op.32 No.12) was poignantly realised. 


On the technical front, Gugnin was mostly unimpeachable. The roaring left hand arpeggios and cascading chords in B flat major (Op.23 No.2), and treacherous right hand flutterings in E flat minor (Op.23 No.9) were overcome with almost nonchalant ease. Only in the A flat major Prelude (Op.23 No.8) did he get lost in its thickets, but without flinching or stopping, he artfully improvised a way out to safety and the home key. 



Rachmaninov touches the heart by being a passion merchant, his stentorian chords often doing the trick, and Gugnin’s mastery of the B minor and final D flat major Preludes (Op.32 Nos.10 & 13) truly brought out the bittersweet side of his Slavic inscrutability and vulnerability. 



Gugnin’s three generous encores were further reasons to celebrate his pianism. Felix Blumenfeld’s Etude for the left hand and Mikhail Pletnev’s Andante Maestoso transcription from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker epitomised beauty on the keyboard while Prokofiev’s Precipitato (from Sonata No.7) romped home with thunderous panache.      


All photos by Ung Ruey Loon, 

by courtesy of Altenburg Arts.