Goodbye Dr Marc... For Now

The classical music scene in Singapore will be poorer with the absence of a personality such as Dr Marc Rochester, esteemed Gramophone and International Record Review music critic and official annotator of Singapore Symphony Orchestra's programme notes, who leaves our shores for the deserts of the Middle East in May. Hopefully this would be a short hiatus when he takes a breather from the crazy musical world of Southeast Asia to the international music festival in oil-rich Abu Dhabi.

Marc and his lovely family arrived in Singapore four years ago, having left his post at the oil-rich Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra where he was its musical consultant, organist and annotator. My first impulse was to grab him to write concert reviews for The Straits Times, its readers having been inflicted with my point of view for long enough and deserved an alternative voice. We shared reviewing duties, especially increasingly on evenings when there were concerts at both Esplanade and Yong Siew Toh Conservatory. "No good concert should be left uncriticised," seemed to be our shared mission, and it was great see our reviews side-by-side (great for me, at least). There was one crazy weekend in last August which saw four of our concert reviews appear in the Monday morning post!

Marc's reviews are always insightful, entertaining and often hilarious. He will always get you to see his point of view, even if you do not necessarily agree with it. Never shying away from being totally frank and honest, controversy is always around the corner. You can catch his must-read, no-holds-barred blog at:

http://drmarcsblog.marcrochester.com

Perhaps it takes a non-Singaporean to burst the myth that Esplanade Concert Hall's acoustics are perfect and without blemish, or to state point blank that the SSO does not hold a candle to the MPO (for now, that is), or that the classical musical scene in Singapore is provincially amateurish. It has cost him some a fair bit, knowing that Esplanade (Singapore's biggest presenter of classical music) has dispensed of his writing services as a result of his opinions. It is wholly their loss, not his. 

He is almost always right, and as a mirror held against our pretensions, he tells it as he sees it, and we would be fools to ignore him (like our provincially amateurish classical radio station invariably will). For all this, we say "Thank You" and I hope the powers that be do listen, take notes and actually do something about it. Perhaps The Arts House would replace their Shigeru Kawai (Marc's bete noire) with a Steinway grand!  

Singapore's "Golden Age" of music criticism? Discuss.

SSO Concert: Pictures at an Exhibition / Review

PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Esplanade Concert Hall
Saturday (28 April 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 30 April 2012 with the title "Picture-perfect melodies".

It has been many years since the Singapore Symphony Orchestra last performed a Familiar Favourites Concert. This evening’s offering brought back a flavour of the late-lamented series that was much loved by relative newcomers to subscription concerts, not just because of the friendly repertoire, but also a sense of informality and congeniality.

Central to all this was the final appearance in a concerto by the orchestra’s very popular Concertmaster Alexander Souptel, Russian-born but naturalised Singaporean, whose infectious smile and habitual non-verbal gestures are now standard issues of SSO concerts. In short, he himself had become a “Familiar Favourite” over the past 19 years.

Although not possessing the biggest of tones, infallible technique or spotless intonation, his enduring strength is in coaxing the violin to sing in a most natural and seemingly effortless manner. His namesake and compatriot Alexander Glazunov’s Violin Concerto (left) provided ample opportunities, and how he seamlessly shaped the slow movement’s cloying melody like a crooner who gratefully clings on to every note. 

He makes the listener long that every lingering phrase might never end, not by force of will but by charm of persuasion. After the pyrotechnics of the finale had abated, his encore of Carlos Gardel’s tango Por una cabeza with the orchestra, oozing sentimentality from every pore, was icing on the cake.

More favourites filled the programme, beginning with Dvorak’s rousing Carnival Overture (left), driven at a furious pace by SSO Young Associate Conductor Darrell Ang, but without sacrificing attention to detail. In the same vein was Ravel’s Technicolor orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, also conducted from memory. 

Both instrumental and ensemble prowess shared equal billing, with the plum role falling to free-lance guest trumpeter John Terry Bingham whose stand-out solos in the opening Promenade and the whiny Goldenberg and Schmuyle were outstanding to say the least. Tang Xiao Ping, swapping the saxophone for his clarinet, sang like a forlorn troubadour in The Old Castle, and even the odd raspberry from the tuba helped the lumbering old oxcart of Bydlo sound suitably rickety.

With all the picturesque movements, inspired by sketches from Mussorgsky’s late friend Viktor Hartmann, impressively characterised and deliciously realised, this was a performance to win new friends for the orchestra. Is this a good time to ask for a return of the Familiar Favourites? 

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, April 2012)

PETITS-FOURS: FAVOURITE ENCORES

Brodsky Quartet

Chandos 10708 / ****1/2

The Britain-based Brodsky Quartet, renowned for its versatility and collaborations with non-classical artists, celebrates its 40^th anniversary this year with an album comprising solely encores, short pieces performed at the end of a concert. All of these are in the form of transcriptions, mostly by its violist Paul Cassidy. The programme begins in the sunny climes of Spain with dances by de Falla and Sarasate, culminating with the latter’s rip-roaring Zapateado, punctuated by foot stamping from the players. The Home Countries are represented by Elgar, of course, but there is to be no Salut d’Amour. Instead Chanson de matin and Chanson de nuit, separated by the whimsical La Capricieuse, provide soulful reminiscence without the cloying sentimentality. Oh how the English loved French titles!

Some of the best music here is French, epitomised by the Blues from Ravel’s Violin Sonata, in former first violinist Andrew Haveron’s arrangement, where the jazzy effects of the original are passed around all four instruments. The Central European contribution includes Mendelssohn, Kreisler and Godowsky, although one might consider the piano quintet arrangements of movements from Schumann’s Scenes from Childhood to be somewhat superfluous. Most of all, it is the infectious spirit of music-making (with two members from the original 1972 quartet, violinist Ian Belton and cellist Jacqueline Thomas still playing) that makes this disc a very enjoyable one.

BRITISH COMPOSERS:

ELGAR / STANFORD / PARRY

EMI Classics 95422 2 (5 CDs) / ****1/2

This budget-priced box-set brings together the music of three British composers whose lives were inevitably intertwined. Irishman Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) and Hubert Parry (1848-1928) were important musical and academic establishment figures, whose standings in posterity were gradually and eventually eclipsed by the emergence of Edward Elgar (1857-1934). While Salut D’Amour and Serenade for Strings (included here) are hardly obscure, much of “The Lighter Elgar” is. You will not find profundity in his six partsongs From the Bavarian Highlands, based on German dances, but miniatures like Elegy and Sospiro can be very moving. 

Stanford’s fame now lies in his choral music for the Anglican church, and an entire disc by the Choir of King’s College Cambridge conducted by Stephen Cleobury confirms its quality. His Third Symphony, also called the Irish Symphony, uses Irish melodies, quotes from Brahms’s Fourth Symphony and sounds like Dvorak. The most underrated of the three is Parry, composer of the ode Blest Pair of Sirens (sung at the Royal Wedding of 2011), who may be referred to as the “English Brahms”. Sir Adrian Boult conducts his stirring Fifth Symphony, the splendid Symphonic Variations (an equal to the German’s Haydn Variations) and quite appropriately, Elegy to Brahms of 1897. Lovers of the traditional in symphonic music need not hesitate.

Singaporean reader posts Gramophone Magazine's Letter of the Month

The Letter of the Month in the May 2012 issue of Gramophone magazine was posted by a Singaporean  reader and musicophile. No prizes for guessing who it was - Phan Ming Yen - retired Straits Times music critic, music historian author and manager of The Arts House. 

A regular writer to the Forum pages of Gramophone and International Piano, this is an umpteenth time his letters has been published, but the first to be awarded Letter of the Month. So he gets to enjoy all those CD vouchers and prizes from Presto Classical. Do you detect a sense of envy here? You bet!

(Click on image to enlarge)

Gunther's magic Wand enchants Phan Ming Yen.

SSO Concert: The Bartok Second / Review

THE BARTOK SECOND

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (21 April 2012)

Singapore  Orchestra Symphony

This review was published in The Straits Times on 23 April 2012 with the title "Fireworks end with Bartok's bang and smash".

The mere mention of the 20th century Hungarian composer Bela Bartok still strikes fear in the hearts of potential concert-goers today. Just witness the rows of empty seats at this evening’s concert, which began with four dances from the ballet Estancia (The Ranch) by Argentine Alberto Ginastera, sometimes described as the “Bartok of the Pampas”.

Conducted by the young Venezuelan maestro Christian Vasquez, this was a case of excellent programming as both composers made use of the folk idioms and dances of their native countries, crafted in an invigorating and often violent way.

The insistent and relentless rhythm of percussion fuelled three of the dances, with the furious and frenetic Malambo making for a most exuberant close. In between, the reflective Danza del Trigo (Wheat Dance)offered flautist Jin Ta and concertmaster Alexander Souptel the most elegant of solos, which they accepted with utmost grace.

Excellent wind and brass dominated the first movement of Bartok’s thorny Second Piano Concerto, a work of nightmarish difficulty to accompany, as they more than kept up with French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s steely fingers. This was an astonishing performance in many ways, most of all because all on deck were functioning beyond the mastery of correct notes. Each rapid cut and thrust by the soloist was matched by equally trenchant responses from the orchestra, all accomplished at a spellbinding speed.

The few moments of repose were afforded in the Adagio, where the hitherto silent strings produced the most evenly burnished sound to evoke the mysteries of the night. This made the hell-for-leather interlude – with piano and orchestra scurrying in all directions - even more exciting.

The brutal Allegro Barbaro–like romp of the finale completed a work that could be classical music’s equivalent of heavy metal. As a touch of supreme irony, the brilliant Bavouzet played as his encore Debussy’s genteel prelude, The Girl With Flaxen Hair. What extraordinary contrasts!

After the bang and smash of the first half, Dvorak’s affable Eighth Symphony seemed almost an anti-climax. It was a good performance overall, with no new insights to be proffered. Vasquez, like many of his prodigious generation, conducted totally from memory. A goodly and non-idiosyncratic pace started the first movement, and it continued merrily and untroubled from there.

Here is a leader who does not try and impose his own will on the score, but let the music speak for itself. Flautist Jin was called upon again for more intricate solos. As the pastorale of the slow movement gave way to a more boisterous Slavonic dance and the final procession, so did the ensemble step up to the plate to close on a high. For many, including this listener, the fireworks had ended with the Bartok.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, April 2012)

BARTOK Piano Concertos
JEAN-EFFLAM BAVOUZET, Piano
BBC Philharmonic / Gianandrea Noseda
Chandos 10610 / *****

The three vastly contrasting piano concertos of the Hungarian nationalist composer Bela Bartok (1881-1945) are landmarks of 20th century pianism. The extremely strident First Concerto (1926) emerged from the same cataclysmic epoch of Stravinsky’s The Rite Of Spring and Bartok’s own urban ballet of sex and violence, The Miraculous Mandarin. The Second Concerto (1933), despite its percussiveness, is modelled like a baroque concerto grosso. Here the old and new meet with sparks flying. The Third Concerto (1945), which was incomplete at the composer’s death, returned to an agreeable mellowness tinged with a certain nostalgia. All three are virtuoso vehicles, demanding the utmost from pianists and the orchestral support.

French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, celebrated for performances of the French musical impressionists, downplays on the angularity and hard-edged steel of the first two concertos. He finds a mercurial streak in pages of flying velocity and rare serenity in the slow movements. Bartok was after all influenced by Debussy in matters of orchestral harmonies, textures and colour. This is a totally valid and persuasive view, moving away from the brutal vehemence of Maurizo Pollini’s famous 1970s recordings. With an equally musical view of the final concerto, this set is urgently recommended.

BOOK IT:
BARTOK Piano Concerto No.2
Performed by Jean-Efflam Bavouzet with
Singapore Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christian Vasquez
Esplanade Concert Hall
Saturday, 21 April 2012 at 7.30 pm

DEBUSSY Complete Piano Solos
NORIKO OGAWA, Piano
BIS CD-1955/56 (6 CDs) / *****

This slimline box-set probably has the most complete edition of solo piano music by French composer Claude-Achille Debussy (1862-1918) in the market. Performed with great sensitivity, finesse and an acute ear for intricate multi-layered sonorities, Japanese pianist Noriko Ogawa’s account is one for the ages. From the early salon-like miniatures (including the popular Arabesques, Reverie and lesser-known Ballade, Nocturne) to the great impressionist masterpieces (complete sets of Préludes, Images, Estampes and Études), she mines a wealth of nuances, and is recorded in sumptuous sound. Also included are the ballet La boite a joujoux (The Toybox) and several rarities, like the Scherzo from his early Piano Trio and Debussy’s final work of 1917, Les soirs illumines par l’ardeur du charbon (Evenings Lit By Glowing Coals), only discovered in 2001.

The final disc unearths the World Premiere recordings of five Preludes And Fugues composed in 1881-83, when he was a student at the Paris Conservatory. Lest one gets overly excited, these are merely well-schooled exercises from an apprentice on his chequered path towards greatness. Closing the set is Debussy’s only piano concerto, his affable melody-filled Fantaisie (1889-90), which gets a spirited contribution from the Singapore Symphony Orchestra conducted by Shui Lan. A further inducement: this set retails at super-budget price in HMV.

MADAM BUTTERFLY 3D / Royal Opera House Cinema / Review

MADAM BUTTERFLY 3D
Royal Opera House Cinema
Cathay Cineplexes
Wednesday (18 April 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 April 2012 with the title "Great close-ups but Butterfly's 3-D superfluous".

Synopsis: In 19th century Nagasaki, young Japanese geisha Cio-Cio-San (Liping Zhang) forsakes family and religion to marry the American naval officer B.F.Pinkerton (James Valenti) for love. However his true intentions, and how the term “Pinkerton Syndrome” comes about, are the recipe for a poignant cross-cultural tragedy.

The reproduction of opera performances has been making quantum leaps over the past century, from scratchy shellac 78s, through long playing records, VHS videotapes, high definition DVD to the present state of the art - three-dimensional movies in Dolby sound. Each step along the way, one gets every bit closer to the experience of actually being in the opera house for a “live” performance.

Following the success of Carmen in 3D, Julian Napier’s Royal Opera House Covent Garden production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, recorded before a “live” audience, is founded on the same values of combining dramatic realism with musical integrity. There is however one big difference, the rowdy crowd scenes which made Carmen so vivid and lively while rendered in 3D, are absent in Butterfly.

Butterfly has a far more intimate setting, with all the scenes in Cio-Cio-San’s hangar-like chamber occupied mostly by two or three singers in largely static scenarios. The 3D technology becomes almost superfluous, as the very fine production staged by Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier would have stood well on its own without the gimmickry.

More successful were the close-ups, often missed in live performances, where each facial expression and nuance is indelibly captured. Besides her sensitive yet powerful vocals, Chinese soprano Liping Zhang in the title role is a terrific and totally believable actress. Who can forget the look of horror and disbelief at the moment she finally realises Pinkerton’s duplicity?

Her agonised death throes, theatrical but bloodless, were equally grabbing, all of which made James Valenti’s dapper looks appear wooden and unsympathetic. Perhaps he was most convincing at playing a real jerk. Anthony Michaels-Moore’s Consul Sharpless and Helene Schneiderman’s Suzuki, caught in the middle and embarrassed by the East-West divide, were also a perceptive presence.

The tragedy in the making was already apparent by the first Pinkerton aria, but it is the genius of Puccini’s sensuous music and his librettists Giacosa and Illica that kept this unfolding saga eminently watchable. A real tear-jerker this truly is, and the price of entry, a fraction of real opera tickets (which can be astronomical these days), is a modest outlay.

Madam Butterfly 3D (Sung in Italian with English subtitles) runs every night at 7.30pm (9.30pm on Fridays and Saturdays) at Cathay Cineplexes until 28 April.

SSO Chamber Concert: Grand Sextet / Review

GRAND SEXTET
SSO Chamber Series
Conservatory Concert Hall
Sunday (15 April 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 18 April 2012 with the title "Sextet's glorious Glinka".

One of the best things about chamber concerts is the unusual repertoire that invariably crops up. The juxtaposition of works by contemporary German Tim Jansa, Romantic German Max Bruch and Russian nationalist Mikhail Glinka might seem like the oddest combination possible but the hour-long concert by members of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra came off with the flavours of a well-planned haute cuisine meal.

First, high and low woodwinds blended pleasingly in Jansa’s Three Miniatures (left) with Roberto Alvarez’s flute and Zhao Ying Xue’s bassoon solos, supposedly polar opposites, providing melodic interest while backed by Aya Sakou’s piano. In this short tonal appetiser, a pastoral Zen-like atmosphere gave way to a hive of busy activity before closing in relative tranquillity.

Next, the two instruments that occupied the alto register sang unabated in five of Bruch’s Eight Pieces for viola and clarinet (below). The selections played with a luscious fluidity by violist Jiang Han Song and clarinettist Li Xin (with Fu Xin on piano) alternated Brahmsian solemnity with Mendelssohnian light-heartedness so well that there was never a dull moment. The succession of minor key pieces but ending in sunny D major made the change in colour all the more welcome.

The programme’s main course was the titular Grand Sextet for piano and strings in E flat major by Glinka. The glorious fruition of his classical studies in Western Europe, this rarely-heard masterpiece had more in common with the congeniality of Schubert and Weber, the bel canto seamlessness of Donizetti and Bellini, than the home-spun Slavic earthiness of Kamarinskaya or Ruslan and Ludmilla.

And how the six players relished in its penchant for froth and filigree, not least pianist Albert Tiu whose ebullient part exhibited the kind of virtuosity required for the most taxing bits of both Chopin piano concertos. The strings themselves were in imperious form led by violinist Chan Yoong Han, with the melodies soaring from Ng Pei-Sian’s cello and then passed on to Guan Qi’s viola and the rest.

The nocturne-like slow movement provided several moments of calm before the ensemble raced off in the Mendelssohnian presto of the finale, which bubbled unabated like sparkling champagne. The players looked like they enjoyed that delicious bit of soufflé dessert and so did the audience, and that is how chamber concerts ought to be.

The Joy of Sextets (from L to R): Albert Tiu (Piano), Cindy Lee (Violin II), Ng Pei-Sian (Cello), Chan Yoong Han (Violin I), Guan Qi (Viola) & Yang Zheng Yi (Bass & SSO Chamber Series director).

SSO Concert: Concierto Pastoral / Review

CONCIERTO PASTORAL
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Esplanade Concert Hall
Friday (13 April 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 16 April 2012 with the title "Evoking pangs of nostalgia".

It was a refreshing change for once to hear a concerto by Joaquin Rodrigo which is not his overplayed Concierto de Aranjuez for guitar. That singular pleasure was afforded by Singapore Symphony’s flute principal Jin Ta who gave a scintillating performance of the rarely heard Concierto Pastoral.

Composed for James Galway in 1978, its credentials as a virtuoso showpiece was immediately apparent with the flautist engaged in perpetual motion from the outset. It is not a great piece or half as memorable as the said guitar concerto, but credit Jin’s nimbleness and seemingly inexhaustible lung power to make his effort sound convincing.

As the title implied, there was rustic moments aplenty, with flute solo in conversation with and echoed endlessly by fellow orchestral woodwinds and brass in what sounded like Spanish yodelling tunes. The slow movement attempted to follow in the popular trend set by the Aranjuez and at least succeeded by evoking some genuine pangs of nostalgia.

The Spanish themed concert was led by the young Hong Kong conductor Perry So, which appeared far more demanding a task in reality than on paper. Rapsodie Espagnole by Ravel that opened was taken at such a slow, deliberate speed that it sounded almost dispiriting. The paradoxical effect was that orchestral details became so exposed that the players had to step up their game as not to sound sluggish. They just managed that, and in the Malagueña and Feria did some of the inner Mediterranean fire come alive.

The performance of Debussy’s Images, not an easy work to pull off, also needed prodding to get off the ground. Even more subtle than Ravel, its three movements could easily be bogged down by fineries that the thrust of the music is lost. In Gigues, Rachel Walker’s oboe – always perky and a thing of beauty – kept it interesting. It was also an astute move on So’s part to place Rondes de Printemps (Dances of Spring) next, as the subdued and low voltage account would have made for a damp squib ending.

So it was the familiar Iberia, sequentially the second piece, that closed the concert. The orchestra, already old hands having recorded it, gave it a good lick but when the chimes of festival day rang out their last, most of the audience had not realised the work had ended. It was one of those rare evenings where the whole was less than the sum of its parts.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, April 2012)

HOMAGE TO PADEREWSKI 

JONATHAN PLOWRIGHT, Piano 

Hyperion 67903 / ****1/2 

Homage To Paderewski was a 1942 album of piano music published by Boosey & Hawkes commemorating the 40th anniversary of virtuoso Ignacy Paderewski’s American debut concert tour. The one-time Polish president however died in 1941, and this anthology by 16 composers became his requiem. 

Bartok, Martinu and Milhaud are the only familiar faces here, but some of the most memorable pieces come from virtually forgotten names. Most capitalised on Polish dance rhythms or the funeral march in tribute, sometimes both. The Elegiac Mazurka by Arthur Benjamin (composer of Jamaican Rumba) sounds much like late Scriabin, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Hommage a Paderewski is a whimsical mazurka, while Richard Hammond’s Dance distils the more violent pages from Stravinsky and Prokofiev. Others played on Paderewski’s love of Chopin, such as Theodore Chanler’s minute-long nocturne-like Aftermath and Ernst Schelling’s tender Con Tenerezza. 

British pianist Jonathan Plowright, whose variegated touch makes each work sound like gems, also includes six other pieces dedicated to Paderewski. The most memorable among these is Benjamin Britten’s Mazurka Elegiaca, mistakenly written for two pianos instead of one, which is a haunting slow procession in three quarter time. Also notable are the Romantic anachronisms: fellow Pole Aleksandr Zarzycki’s Chant Du Printemps and the French queen of salon Cecile Chaminade’s Etude Symphonique come from a bygone age of Chopinisms. All in all, this is an excellently presented selection that will please the terminally inquisitive.

BRUCH Violin Concerto No.1 

String Quintet / Romance 

VADIM GLUZMAN, Violin 

Bergen Philharmonic / Andrew Litton 

BIS SACD-1852 / ****1/2 

The evergreen First Violin Concerto in G minor by Max Bruch (1838-1920) has been so over-exposed and over-recorded that each new recording needs to be special in order to stand out. The programme notes relate the German composer wishing the work to be proscribed completely, as its over-popularity had obscured his other music. Ukrainian-Israeli violinist Vadim Gluzman and the Bergen Philharmonic give a solid account that lacks nothing in the departments of beautiful tone, heartrending dramatics and virtuoso fireworks. 

It is the couplings, however, that make this album special. Instead of the Mendelssohn or Brahms concertos, or Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy (his second most performed concertante work), the listener is offered genuine rarities. Bruch’s Romance in F major (originally written for viola) is mined from the same lyrical vein as the concertos, and is a totally delectable listen. 

His String Quintet in A minor from 1918 is an anachronism for its time. While Schoenberg, Bartok and Stravinsky were busily dismantling the foundations of tonal music, here was the 80-year-old Bruch still churning out lush Romantic melodies and gestures that were de rigeuer in the 1870s. In four movements and scored like Mozart’s quintets (with two violas), this is a pleasurable jaunt into nostalgia. Gluzman plays the soloistic first violin part (sounding like yet another violin concerto), ably supported by his string partners. The chemistry is palpable and the ensemble is beautifully recorded.

A Steinway-Warming at the Cheongs

There was a time when the pianoforté was a permanent fixture in every middle to upper class household. That was during the 19th and early 20th century in Europe and the New World when the pianoforté was de rigeuer, a mandatory part of the furniture in polite society. Even in the 1960s and 70s in Singapore, almost every middle class family had a piano, upon which younger members would be made to learn piano pieces to the immense joy and happiness of the adults. These days, the piano has been largely replaced by the "entertainment system" - high definition plasma television, DVD players and the high fidelity set.


It was thus a joy for me to learn that my friends from church, the Cheongs, had decided to buy a new piano for their new home. That was about two years ago. Irene wanted a piano that had nice legs and curves, and she spotted a Yamaha upright that fit that description on the Internet. Unfortunately that was on an American site and the model was not available in Singapore. A round of piano hunting in various piano galleries here came to nought, but a recent trip to New York unearthed the piano of her dreams, and it was eventually shipped over to Singapore. I had the honour of being asked to give its first household recital here last Sunday.

Make no mistake, the upright piano which looks like an organ is a genuine Steinway & Sons, thought to have been built in the 1970s, and probably modelled on an antique piano.

Young Benjamin makes an announcement, and the mini-recital is underway. The piano is wonderfully in tune, and has a nice soft touch that is suitable for young hands. The tone is mellow, never overbright and has a suitably wide dynamic range for its surroundings. Guess someone is going to have piano lessons soon...

What did I play? A Chopin Waltz (Op.34 No.2), Schumann-Liszt Widmung, Rachmaninov Vocalise, Albeniz Tango and some Gershwin and Billy Mayerl. The hosts asked for some Mozart and Liszt, but alas I didn't have the scores!

Here we all are, happy and relieved as the recital drew to a close. Till the next one...

BEYOND COLOURS / Yong Siew Toh Conservatory New Music Ensemble / Review

BEYOND COLOURS
Yong Siew Toh Conservatory New Music Ensemble
Esplanade Recital Studio
Saturday (7 April 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 April 2012 with the title "Sprouting varied but polished sounds".

There has never been a better time for the performance of new music in Singapore. That is because of Esplanade’s ongoing Spectrum series and Yong Siew Toh Conservatory’s commitment to two concerts a year from its New Music Ensemble.

Further stature is gained when these concerts are conducted by bona fide gurus of contemporary music. The French conductor Diego Masson (left), a student of the great Pierre Boulez, is one of them.Under his guidance, the young Conservatory musicians performed an 80 minute programme that showed that new music was a heterogeneous and varied entity.

Student composer Xu Wei Wei’s X Virus had the honour of opening the concert, beginning with long held single notes from the double bass, and then organically building up through a growth of ideas. The idea of a virus replicating its own genetic material within a host cell leading to an implosion, represented by a violent climax, before dissipating into its original single notes is a plausible description of the music.

Three more conventional works followed. Colin Matthews Two Tributes (1999) contrasted the dynamism and movement of Little Continuum (dedicated to Elliott Carter) with the slow, troubled cortege of Elegeia, written in memory of the late cellist Christopher van Kampen. In the latter, brass dominated while the sole cellist took his symbolic leave from the ensemble. Toshio Hosokawa’s Interim (1994) was a Zen-like study in static shifts. The instrumentation of strings, harp, flute, clarinet and percussion re-created the serene sound world favoured by Toru Takemitsu, Japan’s most famous composer.

It was a welcome re-encounter with Singaporean Ho Chee Kong’s Shades of Oil Lamps, commissioned by the Singapore Arts Festival in 2008 and premiered by London Sinfonietta and Masson. Over a spirited counterpoint of percussion (woodblock, gong and marimba), a Chinatown storyteller spins a tantalising yarn, regales and draws his audience in before abruptly leaving it hanging as he collects hand-outs. A marvellous piece of musical characterisation that will be often heard, one hopes.

The concert closed with Greek avant-gardist Iannis Xenakis’s Thalleïn (1984), a more than worthy bookend to mirror the opening work. Both worked on the premise of germination (Thalleïn means to “sprout” or “shoot forth”), but this one began with a loud crashing chord and expanded upon its waves of repercussions. Exuberant and wide-ranging in sound and dynamics, this was the most complex score, but one delivered with much brio and immediacy.

New music, performed with polish and professionalism, looks likely to stay.

THE RETURN OF THE MAD CHINAMAN / Dick Lee and Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

THE RETURN OF THE MAD CHINAMAN
Dick Lee & Singapore Chinese Orchestra
Singapore Conference Hall
Thursday (5 April 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 7 April 2012 with the title "Musical Peter Pan returns".

If one wondered if there were such things as a Singaporean song, as opposed to a Chinese, Malay, or Tamil song, then look no further than the creations of Richard Lee Peng Boon. He is, of course, Cultural Medallion recipient Dick Lee, whose songs and musicals remain the most recognisable and regularly performed of local compositions.

The Return is the sequel to The Adventures Of The Mad Chinaman (2011), but now backed by the Singapore Chinese Orchestra conducted by Yeh Tsung. Fears of whether Asian contemporary pop and traditional Chinese instruments would go down smoothly were unfounded, as the orchestra served like an Oriental version of the Boston Pops Orchestra, complete with drum-set and electric guitar. Furthermore, timbres of the sheng, suona and erhu all lent a typically Chinese feel to the proceedings.

The sequence of songs followed Lee’s career in Japan and Hong Kong, where he made his name as pop icon and garnered a cult following. The titular bestselling cassette of 1989 had nothing to do with lunacy or psychosis, but rather the outpouring of grief and anger following the Tiananmen massacre, which sparked an earnest search of his Asian identity.

Popular Asian songs, such as Sukiyaki (Japan), Bengawan Solo (Indonesia) and Xiao Bai Chuan (Korea), were updated, given a rap beat, English lyrics and even counter-melodies. The result was a metamorphosis. The songs, while still recognisable, had become shared between different cultures.

Lee’s friendships with Hong Kong’s top pop-stars also spawned hits, such as Traces Of Love (the late Leslie Cheung), Lover’s Tears (Sandy Lam) as covers, and his original song Love Is Eternal from Snow.Wolf.Lake (Jacky Cheung). The latter and The Search Of My Life (Jui), showed he was convincing and idiomatic in Cantopop, a feat without being conversant with the Cantonese dialect.

His musicals have become a quintessential Singaporean phenomenon, despite borrowings from Broadway and the West End. Who could deny the Peranakan inspiration to the nostalgic Bunga Sayang (Kampong Amber), in collaboration with writer Catherine Lim, or not snigger at the local hawker references thrown up in his early 1974 song Fried Rice Paradise?

Lee’s two guest vocalists (above) complemented his crooning voice and piano-playing well. Tay Kewei’s winsome songstress in the Chinese numbers was a pleasing sight, while the massive lungs of Alemay Fernandez in Single In Singapore (Beauty World) and When All The Tears Have Dried (Sing To The Dawn) threatened to steal the show. On the instrumental front, Zhao Jian Hua’s erhu luxuriated in the sicilienne rhythm of China Rain.

The encores brought on a standing ovation from the sold-out house, a rare sight at the Conference Hall. Home, cheekily referred to as “the song the government forced everyone to sing” and Life Story seemed to sum up his enduring legacy. Dick Lee, who turns 56 later this year, will forever be Singapore’s musical Peter Pan.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, April 2012)

CHARMS OF NANYANG
Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Tsung Yeh
****1/2

What exactly is Nanyang music? That question was posed to composers around the world when the Singapore Chinese Orchestra organised its first International Composition Competition for Chinese orchestral music in 2006. This double-CD album highlighting six winning compositions goes some way in answering that. The Chinese diaspora to the “South Seas” (hence the description Nanyang) is an integral part of the cross-pollination between Chinese and indigenous musical cultures. The use of specific scales for typically Southeast Asian melodies and percussive rhythms, dressed in colours and textures of Chinese instruments define most of these compositions, whether they be in the form of a song and dance or the more ambitious symphonic poem.

The results are illuminating. Young local Wang Chenwei’s The Sisters’ Islands crafts a strong Indonesian feel based on ancient Temasekian legends, contrasted with a more international sound in Singapore’s resident Welshman Eric Watson’s Tapestries: Time Dances. Simon Kong from Sabah muses on three tropical fruits in Izpirazione II, using Borneo aboriginal rhythms to describe the tarap (related to the jackfruit) while his fellow Malaysian Yii Kah Hoe’s Buka Panggung is a rowdy evocation of wayang kulit. Veteran Chinese composer Law Wai Lun’s Admiral Of The Seven Seas is literally the musical Zhenghe (Cheng Ho), convincingly planting Chinese roots into Indo-Malayan soil. Young Hongkonger Tang Lok Yin’s Volcanicity, a restless portrayal of the Gunung Merapi eruption, completes the varied set. The SCO led by Tsung Yeh gives highly spirited and persuasive accounts, a massive boost in developing this niche but emerging genre.

SCHUBERT / TCHAIKOVSKY / BRUCH
MAXIM RYSANOV, Viola
Swedish Chamber Orchestra / Tang Muhai
BIS SACD-1843 / ****1/2

Music for the cello translates rather easily for the viola. Both stringed instruments produce that throaty, long-breathed quality that sounds perfect for those melodies that just linger on. Schubert’s Sonata in A minor (D.821) was originally written for the arpeggione, the instrument of antiquity that was once called a “bowed guitar”. However cellists have been happy to lay claim to the Arpeggione Sonata for ages, wallowing in its lyrical sunshine and Lieder-like qualities. Thanks to Dobrinka Tabakova’s arrangement for string orchestra, violists can now do the same.

Tchaikovsky’s only cello concerto, Variations On A Rococo Theme, is similarly amenable for this treatment. In his own adaptation, Russian violist Maxim Rysanov coaxes a luscious tone throughout, and has the agility to surmount the most athletic and tricky of the variations. The cello is all but forgotten here. The makeweight is 9 minutes of Max Bruch’s Romance in F major, the only original viola work of the album. From the German composer better known for his violin concertos, this is a very pleasant diversion. Despite the high quality of music-making, playing time of just 52 minutes these days seems unacceptably low.

200 YEARS OF THE PIANO / Kenneth Hamilton Piano Recitals / Review

200 YEARS OF THE PIANO
KENNETH HAMILTON, Piano
Esplanade Recital Studio
Saturday & Monday (31 March & 2 April 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 4 April 2012 with the title "Piano adventures".

The annual piano recitals in Singapore by Scottish virtuoso Kenneth Hamilton, professor at the University of Birmingham, have taken on an epic quality of late. This year’s offering, spanning over two centuries of piano literature, was shoe-horned into two evenings with a day of rest in between.

Other than a popular Chopin Ballade, there was little concession for familiar music by the “usual suspects”. His overview of this endlessly fascinating subject was instead a survey of evolving piano styles over the epochs. Even the Mozart presented were rarities, beginning with Suite in the Style of Handel, published posthumously with a French overture, fugue and Allemande which acknowledged the past, and a tagged-on Gigue whose unlikely dissonances looked toward the future.

Beethoven’s late A Major Sonata (Op.101) was also atypical in that it seemed to predict the lyricism of Mendelssohn and passion of Schumann. To this rollicking score, Hamilton wrought fistfuls of colours and an over-arching sense of cohesion. The highlight of the first evening was Charles-Valentin Alkan’s transcription of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.20 (left), where both piano and orchestra were fused into an outsized conflation.

This was no longer good old Amadeus but some gothic Frankenstein’s monster with gargantuan cadenzas (the first movement uproariously incorporated Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony) that best exemplified the excesses of the Romantic age. Hamilton’s heroic, no-holds barred account was not one for purists or faint-hearted but manna for the adventurous. One is unlikely to encounter it again for a long time.

The second evening showcased the art of variations and more transcriptions. Brahms used a simple air by the composer of Messiah as the subject for his Handel Variations (Op.24), a lengthy discourse which Hamilton handled with almost disarming facility. Its massive concluding fugue began alarmingly on a furious pace, which he built on with fearless panache and implausible reserves of adrenaline.

In between big works in both recitals were a series of well-chosen transcriptions, familiar and obscure. Brahms and Liszt, Busoni and Rachmaninov, all appeared but it was two gems by the Scotsman Ronald Stevenson, of songs by Ivor Novello and Richard Tauber, which caught the ear. The most modern work was Stevenson’s Heroic Song for Hugh MacDiarmid (1967, left), with its evocation of highland sagas, chants and bagpipes effects.

The final tour de force came in Liszt’s solo version of Totentanz (Dance of Death), essentially variations on the medieval chant Dies Irae. How Hamilton mustered its multitudes of flying notes, crunching chords, stampeding octaves and sweeping glissandi remains in the realm of physicists. The two encores, by Liszt and his son-in-law Hans von Bülow, brought the audience from Hades back to solid earth. From the diabolical to the divine, Hamilton’s piano history lesson and “one man band” has to be experienced to be believed.

What do you call a collection of piano virtuosos? Three of four pianists responsible for the most Singapore premieres of piano works. Kenneth Hamilton (Liszt, Alkan, Ireland, Stevenson) with Albert Tiu (Rachmaninov, Chopin-Godowsky, Barber) and Nicholas Loh (Kapustin, Rzewski). The 4th pianist is Shane Thio (Messiaen, Takemitsu, Ligeti, Schulhoff), who was not at the recital. (Photo courtesy of Prof Lim Mong King)

Note: Kenneth Hamilton's encores were Brahms Intermezzo in A major (Op.118 No.2) on Saturday evening, and Liszt Legend No.2: St Francis de Paul Walking on the Waves and Bülow-Liszt Dante Sonnet on Monday evening.