A TRIBUTE TO ONG LIP TAT (1955-2013), Great Singaporean Pianist and Teacher

A TRIBUTE TO ONG LIP TAT (1955-2013)

It is with much sadness that we report the passing of ONG LIP TAT, one of Singapore’s finest pianists and renowned piano pedagogue, on 27 February 2013 at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital after a prolonged illness. He was a child prodigy and former student of Lucien Wang, who herself was a student of the great Alfred Cortot. He furthered his musical studies at London’s Royal Academy of Music and in Germany, before returning to Singapore where he became one of the nation’s most respected and well-loved piano teachers.

The list of his students reads like a Who’s Who of the Singaporean classical music scene (below), including conductor Wang Ya-Hui, composer Zechariah Goh Toh Chai, pianists Paul Liang, Timothy Ku, Soon Liok Kee, Elaine Chew, Albert Lin, Lee Pei Ming, Emily Wu Chia Ying, Xu Wei Chao and violinist Lee Shi Mei. He was also on the piano faculty of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.

In January 1979, he was bestowed the honour of being the first soloist to appear with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, giving three performances of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.5 at its inaugural concerts conducted by Choo Hoey. More recently, he has also performed the Yellow River Concerto with the Singapore Chinese Orchestra led by Tsung Yeh.

Although he had a reputation of being a “formidable virtuoso” (The Singapore Encyclopaedia), his solo recitals were a relative rarity. He more often performed with other pianists in 4-hand piano concerts, accompanying violinists and singers, and making cameo appearances at the end of his students’ recitals where he would perform short but extremely virtuosic showpieces and then close the keyboard lid, much to the amusement of the audience.

Over the years: Ong Lip Tat with his teacher Lucien Wang,
who was taught by Cortot himself.
It was in her memory that he founded the
Lucien Wang Piano Competition at NAFA
(Photos: NUS Wiki)

He was known to be a very demanding but caring teacher, who was loved by his students. He was also extremely generous in praise and kind words. I remembered accompanying a singer and violinist in a Singapore Lyric Opera fundraising concert at Victoria Concert Hall, in which he also appeared as an accompanist for several sopranos. To appear on the same programme as Ong Lip Tat was an unnerving experience, but he was very encouraging and offered me reassuring words which calmed my jitters and enabled me not to make a complete fool of myself on stage.

It has been well-documented that he suffered from depression, which led to concert appearances and students’ lessons being cancelled at very short notice. In a rare interview with The Straits Times several years ago, he admitted to his ongoing struggles against depression and an attempt on his own life. It was also known that he was deeply affected by the recent death of his close friend and NAFA colleague, the Singaporean tenor Lim Shieh Yih.

What is less well known was his original piano compositions, which he would perform in recitals using plausible titles by established and obscure composers. It was perhaps his modest and retiring personality conflicting with his exuberant stage persona which led him to play these pieces without revealing their true origins. These were very well received judging by the audience applause, but was he afraid of rejection?

Back in the 1980s, I remembered hearing a radio broadcast of an Ong Lip Tat recital which concluded with an extremely virtuosic work – full of Lisztian fire and Busoni-like sonorities – revealed by the announcer to be a Sonata by Bouliaze. Over the years, I tried to find a recording and score of it but in vain. It certainly was too tonal and Romantic to be by Boulez. In the 1990s, he launched a CD of piano solos on the Pavane label, an eclectic programme with works by J.S.Bach, Liszt, Schubert, Zemlinsky and A.Dupré among the composers. Checking against compositional lists and catalogues of those composers on the Internet also failed to match those works with confirmed titles. In addition, a piece that came up in his recitals was Funeral Introduction by Max Reger.

The Ong Lip Tat Piano Solos recording
on the Pavane label (1993),
courtesy of record producer Gao Yang,
another of Lip Tat's former students

The last time I heard him perform was several years ago at The Arts House, when he unveiled a Suite by Hans Poser, a Schubert Klavierstück Op. Posth and a A.Dupré Caprice Espagnol. An Internet search carried out the evening before revealed neither recordings nor documentation of these works in existence. It turns out that Hans Poser was no poseur, but a real composer who had been a WWII prisoner-of-war, but no suite for solo piano of his existed.

The concert was a success, and the virtuosic and modern-sounding Poser Suite in three movements, which resembled something by Hindemith, took many by surprise. The Schubert Klavierstück had several un-Schubert-like harmonic turns, while the A.Dupré Caprice was a different piece from the one on his CD recording. Post concert, I congratulated him on being a fine composer, while Peabody professor Marian Hahn added that there were very few pieces in the recital she was familiar with. Lip Tat looked surprised at my compliment, and when asked about the Dupré, he said that what he performed was Caprice Espagnol No.2, while the CD was a recording of Caprice Espagnol No.1. Needless to say, both pieces do not exist, and neither does A.Dupré. The better known Marcel Dupré was mostly a composer for the organ.               

I will conclude this tribute by declaring that Ong Lip Tat was not only a great Singaporean pianist, and also our most important pianist-composer, a figure akin to Rachmaninov, Busoni and Godowsky. One wonders whether he notated these extremely personable works. And if the scores do indeed exist, they represent a treasure trove in which Singaporean pianists, present and future, can certainly learn and revel in. His music and spirit lives on in our memories.   

      

PIANIST ALBERT LIN'S TRIBUTE TO HIS TEACHER ONG LIP TAT

HERE IS PIANIST ALBERT LIN’S TRIBUTE 

TO HIS TEACHER ONG LIP TAT

I first met Mr Ong at age 15 at his apartment in Telok Kurau when I went to audition for him. Although I was full of nerves while waiting due to the many horror stories I had heard, I found him to be extremely warm and personable.

My lessons with him were always filled with tremendous insight into the music I played, and watching him demonstrate on the piano was really inspiring. He never failed to bring the best out of me, even qualities I never knew I had. I always looked forward to my weekly lessons, and would be upset whenever lessons had to be cancelled. I also remember the freezing conditions under which he made us play in his weekly studio classes, which was great training for me as I later studied in sub-zero temperatures at Michigan! After only a year of lessons, I successfully auditioned for a place at Peabody.

Despite his many critics and detractors, I've always found him to be full of joy and warmth and love for his friends and family. Even after I graduated, I would meet up with him regularly for meals with other ex-students of his. He was always supportive and took a great interest in our lives and careers, and always made himself available to us.

His passing is a great loss to the music circle in Singapore, and he will be missed by all.

Rest In Peace, my dear teacher and friend.

CONDUCTOR WANG YA-HUI'S TRIBUTE TO HER TEACHER ONG LIP TAT

The maestra with her maestro: Conductor Wang Ya-Hui
with former piano teacher Ong Lip Tat.
Photo taken in 2007 at Jan Vogler's cello recital,
Mercedes Benz showroom @ Alexandra Road. 

HERE IS CONDUCTOR WANG YA-HUI’S

TRIBUTE TO HER TEACHER ONG LIP TAT

Mr Ong Lip Tat was indeed a great teacher. He transformed me from a student/kid into a performer. We always marvelled at his performances, full of passion and huge musicianship. The incredible thing was that he could articulate and describe how to achieve showmanship through technique and music. This was something that would become very helpful later for me in crafting conducting gestures.

I still have the copy of Haydn’s Piano Sonatas which he pulled out from his library just for me. He probably got fed up of waiting for my folks to purchase it (scores were very expensive then!) and signed "TO WANG YA HUI" in Chinese and his autograph on the cover. I still have it and will (more than ever) treasure it for life.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, February 2013)

ASIAN MUSIC FOR STRING QUARTET

New Zealand String Quartet

Naxos 8.572488 / *****

Twenty-five years ago, a disc of Asian string quartet music played by a Western ensemble would have been a pipe-dream. The reality is how Asian composers have risen in the consciousness of global listeners within the last two decades, and this anthology is evidence of that. Three of the works are Chinese, the earliest being Zhou Long’s Song Of The Ch’in (1982), which relives the music of antiquity by introducing Western ears to the concept of qin, representing bowed and plucked instruments. More modern-sounding are Tan Dun’s Eight Colors (1986), short vignettes inspired by idioms and vocal inflexions of Beijing Opera, and the pointillist impressions of Bright Light And Cloud Shadows (2007) by Gao Ping (born 1970), the youngest composer.

The two non-Chinese composers represented are Toru Takemitsu (Japan) and Chinary Ung (Cambodia), who both use strings to sumptuous effect. Takemitsu’s single movement quartet A Way A Lone (1981) is already well known, an essay based on a James Joyce quotation in which he creates an inimitable sound world that is uniquely and unmistakeably his. Nostalgia and a sense of regret are palpable throughout. The most beautiful music comes in Ung’s Spiral III (1900), which the composer likens to the variegated facets of a native handcrafted necklace. The Wellington-based New Zealand String Quartet portrays the ruminative Asian spirit in the music with much trenchancy and sympathy, and has this field all to its own, for now.

TWILIGHT OF THE GODS

The Ultimate Wagner Ring Collection

The Metropolitan Opera

Deutsche Grammophon 479 0638 (2 CDs) / ****1/2

For those who cannot, or will not, sit through the 14 hours or so of Richard Wagner’s epic opera cycle The Ring Of The Nibelung, here is the sure-fire solution. All the important and memorable chunks from the New York Metropolitan Opera’s 2010 live productions conducted by James Levine and Fabio Luisi are condensed into a digestible 159 minutes, with the boring bits left out. The music begins with the dark swirling depths of the River Rhine in Das Rheingold, exults in the incest of Siegmund and Sieglinde in Der Walküre, charts the rise of the quintessential Wagnerian hero in Siegfried, before closing with Brünnhilde’s immolation and the destruction of Valhalla in Gotterdammerung.

There is no synopsis provided, instead an essay linking the cycle with the legacy it probably inspired, Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings and the Star Wars movies. No matter, the glory of this set is the star-studded casting, boasting Bryn Terfel (Wotan), Jonas Kaufmann (Siegmund), Deborah Voigt (Brünnhilde) and the marvellous Jay Hunter Morris (Siegfried). The 20 minutes of love music from Siegfried and Brünnhilde in the third opera are an unforgettable treat. Despite Wagner’s particular odious character flaws, the sheer beauty and magnetism of his music almost exonerate him. Here is Wagner without tears indeed.

MARI FUJUWARA Cello Recital / Review

MARI FUJIWARA Cello Recital

Japanese Association of Singapore Auditorium

Sunday (24 February 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 26 February 2013 with the title "Sweet finish for Japanese cello recital".

The Japanese community in Singapore, much like their compatriots back home, have a strong tradition of supporting Western classical music. The small auditorium of the Japanese Association of Singapore at Adam Road was filled close to capacity for the recital by Mari Fujiwara, one of Japan’s most respected cellists.

A top prize-winner of the Tchaikovsky International Cello Competition, and student of Hideo Saito, Mstislav Rostropovich and Pierre Fournier, Fujiwara’s playing reflected her illustrious pedigree. The recital began with not one but two performances of the Prelude from J.S.Bach’s Cello Suite No.1 in G major.

The difference was that the second time was accomplished without the cello resting on its end-pin or spike. Held nearer the body and played in a slightly crouched position, she was demonstrating a style closer to the baroque tradition. With this, she produced a more intimate sound from her prized Guarnerius del Gesu, which sung with a distinctly mellow timbre.

Presumably because this was a more difficult stance to maintain, she performed Bach’s Suite No.2 in D minor in the usual posture. No matter, it was equally beautiful in that she let the music in its six movements speak for itself. Hers was an unforced virtuosity, never mannered nor striving for effect, with the seeming effortlessness of breathing. Minimal vibrato was employed, which was in the spirit of the times.

The element of dance was keenly felt, the tempo quickening for the Allemande and Courante, while broadening for the slow long-breathed Sarabande. The Minuets could have been more playful, but the rhythmic pulse of the final Gigue closed the sublime work on a spiritual high.

The disproportionately shorter second half comprised four considerably lighter works. In Saint-Saëns’s The Swan and Fauré’s Sicilienne (from Pelleas et Melisande), sensitively accompanied by Malaysian pianist Loo Bang Hean, a gorgeous vibrato came to the fore.

Her view of Kreisler’s Liebesleid, taken rather briskly, with several more shades of gaiety than sorrow, and the concert proper closed with Simon Nicholls’s Cakewalk, polished off in an insouciant ragtime rhythm. The duo offered two encores, a Japanese song transcription and Elgar’s evergreen Salut d’amour. 

Every member of the enthusiastic audience was given an autographed programme and a stalk of orchids. That was a nice touch for sure, but the friendly, well planned programme and lovingly played music was reward enough.   

RAINBOW VERSES / Huayi Festival 2013 / Review

RAINBOW VERSES

HUAYI FESTIVAL 2013

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (23 February 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 25 February 2013 with the title "Rainbow of poetry in motion".

The Singapore Chinese Orchestra’s contribution to this year’s Huayi Chinese Festival of Arts was a unique concert uniting poetry and music. Whether ancient verse, dating over a millennium to the Tang and Song dynasties, sat easily with the far more contemporary art form of symphonic music was not even a doubt once the performances got underway.

The juxtaposition worked so well one wondered why this had not been attempted more often. This was a first-time collaboration with the National Theatre of China (NTC, above), whose thespians recited the verses with an air of authority and authenticity that could hardly be bettered.

The selection of poetry and music, overseen by conductor Yeh Tsung and NTC Director Tian Qinxin, was both eclectic and wide-ranging. First to be heard were Su Dongbo’s Nian Nu Jiao (Reminiscing at Red Cliff) and Li Bai’s Invitation to Wine, both well-known classics, accompanied by Liu Wen Jin’s Great Wall Capriccio and Zhao Ji Ping’s dedicated musical setting respectively.

Zhao Jian Hua’s evocative erhu solo was the perfect foil for stage veteran Han Tongshen’s highly dramatic recitation of Red Cliff, complete with the “evil” laughter often caricatured in movies. Wang Nan’s take on the pleasures of alcohol (below) was to be no less gripping.

The romantic notion of poetry reading by moonlight and soft atmospheric music was exemplified in Tang dynasty poet Zhang Ruo Xu’s Spring Blossoms on a Moonlit Night. Actress Fan Zhibo appeared like some celestial being dressed in pale blue, her soothing mezzo tones accompanied by just two instruments, Yu Jia’s pipa and Xu Hui’s guzheng. The sheer intimacy of the moment was a highlight for this moonstruck listener.

The concert’s nod to Singapore took the form of Wu Yin’s Legend of the Merlion, aptly helmed by two younger actors Dong Chang and Jin Ge, who were sassy and upbeat to the Nanyang-flavoured music of Rambutan from Simon Kong’s suite Izpirazione II. 

The connection between Chinese and English music came in Xu Zhi Mo’s 1928 poem Farewell Cambridge (above), read by Tao Hong and accompanied by Eric Watson’s Midsummer Common, its melody Lady Joan is familiar for those who know Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on Greensleeves. Interestingly, Watson’s Tapestries I – Time Dances also provided uncannily excellent counterpoint to Gu Cheng’s I’m A Wilful Child, a confessional read with great conviction by Zhao Xiaosu.

The masterpiece of the concert was Bai Ju Yi’s famous Chang Hen Ge (Song of Everlasting Sorrow), an epic inspired by the suicide of Tang imperial concubine Yang Guifei. The tandem of Wang Weiguo and Li Yunjie (below) was poignantly mirrored by two huqins of Zhou Ruo Yu and Wu Ke Fei in Yang Chun Lin’s music.

Barely had this sober music ended when the incongruous sight of the heavily-tattooed Chinese rapper MC J-Fever leapt centre-stage to lead the entire cast for Spring.Summer.Autumn.Winter, a medley of poems set to symphonic rap music by SCO Composer-In-Residence Law Wai Lun. Purists might baulk at its inclusion, but it was very well-received by the audience. Here is evidence that Chinese poetry and music need not be moth-balled like museum pieces and consigned to antiquity. 

 
Concert photographs are courtesy of Esplanade Theatres by the Bay

PIANISTS BEWARE!

Spotted in this morning's edition of The Sunday Times.

LAST NIGHT OF THE BUKIT DAMAI PROMS: The End of an Era

All good things have to come to an end sometime. The musical community of Singapore bade a touching farewell to an institution that has come to represent a happy confluence of the professional and amateur piano communities in Singapore. After spending 30 extremely fruitful years in Singapore, Neil Franks and his wife Debbie are returning to England. For the record, Neil has been very active in the amateur music making scene in Singapore, having been a tenor in the International Festival Chorus and Singapore Symphony Chorus (besides being its coach in the Hebrew language for Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw), and a Director of the Singapore Lyric Opera. The Franks have also held fund-raising musical events in aid of the Singapore Lyric Opera in their home. 

The Friday evening of 22 February marked an end to an era of happy music making in 7 Royal Road, the historic black and white mansion on Alexandra Park known as Bukit Damai. There was music-making galore to be sure. The programme below gives an indication to the pain-staking efforts put in by the host Neil Franks in trying to get six pianists together for a musical bash.

The evening began with Neil Franks and his teacher 
Boris Kraljevic in two Slavonic Dances (Op.72)  by Dvorak.

Neil with Etienne Chenevier in Carl Bohm's Brise Printaniere. 
for 8 hands on 2 pianos.

Boris Kraljevic performed the only solo of the evening, 
Debussy's Bruyeres.

The audience's view of the Fantasy on Themes 
from Bizet's Carmen, arranged by Mack Wilberg.

TL and Boris played the second piano part of  
Rossini's William Tell Overture

Silly fun for 6 hands, Godard's Scaramouche 
arranged by John Rippin.

David Mayo and Ed Manser with  The Hippopotamus and 
I Went To a Marvellous  Party by Flanders and Swann, 
accompanied by Neil on the piano.

Truly the Last Night of the Bukit Damai Proms, 
with Elgar's Pomp and Circumcision March No.1 (Neil's title), 
the Land of Hope and Glory.

Pianophiles unite: Boris, Benjamin Loh, Neil and TL.

Till we meet again!

4 HAND PIANO CONCERT / Helen Lee & Tong-Il Han / Review

4 HAND PIANO CONCERT

Helen Lee & Tong-Il Han, Piano

Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Recital Hall

Tuesday (19 February 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 21 February 2013 with the title "Audience troop on stage with placards declaring love for piano duo".

It is a supreme irony that Franz Schubert (1797-1828), one of the greatest composers ever lived, never got to hear his greatest works performed in concert. In his lifetime, he was known primarily as a song-smith, and was of minor importance compared alongside the giant Beethoven. Much of his music was heard in home concerts, known as Schubertiades (below), and enjoyed by a small group of his friends and colleagues.

It was in this same informal spirit that the Korean husband-and-wife duo of Helen Lee and Tong-Il Han presented an all-Schubert recital for piano four hands. Lee had been a piano lecturer at the Institute of Education and Nanyang Technological University for 14 years, while Han is one of Korea’s most celebrated pianists with a five-decade long career in USA.

It mattered little that Lee took on the primo and Han the secondo parts of the duets. Schubert’s pieces are so intricately woven that both roles are equally important and vital for the success of a performance. In that respect, the duo lived and breathed as one throughout.

The gentle lilt in the popular Fantasy in F minor (Op.103) was delicately coaxed, and its incipient melancholy soon built up to stout defiance as the temperature gradually rose. Amid all this, it was a pleasure to hear its unbroken chain of melody passing back and forth, seamlessly between each pianist, while maintaining a steady pulse and underlying tension.

That was only the appetiser to the main course, a rare performance of the monumental Sonata in C major (Op.140), also known as the Grand Duo. Its symphonic scope, four movements running over 40 minutes, led Schumann into thinking it was an arrangement of a yet-to-be- written symphony. Joseph Joachim later orchestrated it, and listeners gained a tenth Schubert symphony.

Its longeurs passed ever so swiftly in the hands of Lee and Han. Tempos were well judged, and repeats were omitted for the expansive first movement. More importantly, the lyrical quality of the themes was well projected on the Fazioli grand piano and the tendency to percussiveness minimised. The throbbing beat in the Beethovenian second movement – not exactly a slow movement – was palpable, as was the injection of audible humming, clearly from a male voice.         

The Scherzo could have done with more lightness, and here fast equated with loud. The Hungarian-flavoured finale brought back the air of fantasy, closing with the typically witty gambit of searching for definite ending chords. This spirited show was followed by an encore, the familiar Military March No.1.

The audience clapped along, and several members trooped on stage, marching uncoordinatedly and bearing placards declaring their love for the duo. This was an unabashed and spontaneous show of support, echoing after last Saturday’s events at Hong Lim Green. Who said Singaporeans were apathetic and undemonstrative?  

  

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, February 2013)

SCHUMANN Piano Works

Fabula Classica 2221 / *****

It may be said that Robert Schumann (1810-1856) was the ultimate Romantic composer. A failed virtuoso pianist, he poured out his heart, inspired by the muse Clara whom he later married against all odds. After fathering 8 children and vainly fighting schizophrenia, he died painfully and alone in an insane asylum. His piano music encompasses all the passions, trials and tribulations, and ultimately undying loves. These historical recordings attest to his enduring spirit.

Despite numerous slips and inaccuracies, Alfred Cortot’s performance of the 22-movement Carnaval (1928) radiates an irrepressible warmth and unfettered ecstasy. Has there been a more plain-speaking Scenes From Childhood (1950) from that arch-virtuoso Vladimir Horowitz? His plaintive Träumerei (Dreaming) says it all. For scintillating dexterity, look no further than the ABEGG Variations from Clara Haskil (1953) or the Toccata in C major from Sviatoslav Richter (1959). There is not a note of machine-like playing here, instead undiminished poetry that distinguishes these pianists of yesteryear.

Wilhelm Backhaus contributes more lyricism in the underrated Forest Scenes (1955). The oldest recordings are also the shortest: Francis Planté in Romance in F sharp major (1928) and Liszt-student Carl Reinecke in Warum? from Fantasy Pieces Op.12 (1906). The playing and musicianship are transcendent enough to overlook the hiss, crackle and pop.  This is essential listening for serious students of musical history.

PAR.TI.TA

VADIM GLUZMAN, Violin

BIS SACD-1972 / ****1/2

Johann Sebastian Bach’s unaccompanied violin partitas are the inspiration for this recital, which develops upon the German master’s ever-creative play on counterpoint and the spirit of the dance. The start points are the multi-movement Second and Third Partitas, which Israeli violinist Vadim Gluzman performs with utmost accuracy, perfect intonation and much verve. Immediately following the imposing Chaconne in D minor, Par.ti.ta (2007) by the Russian-American Lera Auerbach (born 1973) begins. It is an engaging 10-movement suite that relives the antique style and spirit of the Baroque, unremittingly tonal but spiced with occasional Schnittke-like dissonances. Its dedicatee Gluzman laps up its every nuance and phrase.

There is a thematic link between Bach’s Third Partita and Eugene Ysaye’s Second Sonata (Op.27 No.2). The latter, in four movements, opens with exactly the same bars as the Preludio of the former. A tribute to both Bach and its dedicatee Jacques Thibaud, the fearsomely virtuosic works then takes off on a tangent into the realms of the diabolical and dare-devilry. Cast in A minor, it unsurprisingly ruminates on the Dies Irae theme which reveals yet another inspiration – the seemingly impossible technical feats of Paganini. Gluzman is the modern-day Paganini and brings to these scores an unwavering sense of adventure, risk and ultimately reward.

VOICES OF SPLENDOUR / Huayi Festival 2013 / Review

VOICES OF SPLENDOUR

Huayi Festival 2013

Esplanade Concert Hall

Friday (15 February 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 18 February 2013 with the title "Rousing toast to top Chinese voices".

Chinese voices making their names in the world’s major opera houses are no longer a rarity, and this concert was a proud realisation of that fact. No programme was listed prior to the concert, but it turned out to be not far different from the annual galas presented by the Singapore Lyric Opera, but with a generous dose of Chinese art songs in sumptuous orchestrations added into the mix.

The voices were from the top rank of mainland Chinese singers, now plying their trade in western opera houses. Baritone Yuan Chenye (above) is no stranger here, having sung in Beethoven’s Choral Symphony that opened Esplanade Concert Hall at its inauguration in October 2002. He possesses a most expansive and heroic of voices, matched with a theatricality that served Figaro’s aria Largo al factotum from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and the Toreador Aria from Bizet’s Carmen well.

The advertised mezzo-soprano Liang Ning was indisposed on account of a skiing accident, and was replaced at the eleventh hour by Zhu Huiling (above), who was every bit a showstopper. She produced a beautiful tone and oozed dusky sensuality, totally appropriate for the Seguidilla and Habañera from Carmen, no doubt aided by her revealing low-cut black gown. 

Making the biggest impression and vocally most interesting was soprano He Hui (above), who opened with a radiant and nuanced account of Puccini’s Un bel di (Madama Butterfly). Her sense of drama was gripping, exerting a steely control for Verdi’s Ritorna vincitor! (Aida) and tugging the heart-strings in Puccini’s poignant Sola, perduta, abbondonata, from the final act of Manon Lescaut, set in the Louisiana wilderness. Unsurprisingly, she received the most vociferous of applause.

There were two duets with Yuan and the ladies. Mozart’s La ci darem la mano (Don Giovanni) and Verdi’s Ciel, mio padre (Aida) with Zhu and He respectively demonstrated the palpable vocal and physical chemistry between the singers.

The Chinese songs, such as Forever Flows the River, Under The Silver Moonlight, Pamir My Beautiful Homeland and Song of Fishermen, were mostly golden oldies, exercises in nostalgia which provided further opportunities for display of vocal prowess.

The Singapore Lyric Opera Orchestra conducted by Joshua Kangming Tan provided excellent accompaniment, and had several pieces on its own. Li Huanzhi’s Spring Festival Overture has become a ubiquitous fixture, and Chen Peixun’s Ode to Snow, exuded a pastoral demeanour that might have been mistaken for Vaughan Williams or Delius.

The concert closed with all three singers united in Gu Jianfen’s life-affirming ode That Is I, which got the audience so excited that an encore was demanded. The bubbly was brought out, with the rousing Brindisi (Drinking Song) from Verdi’s La Traviata – exuberant but sounding somewhat unrehearsed - being their just desserts. 

Photographs courtesy of Esplanade Theatres by the Bay.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, February 2013)

MOZART Piano Concertos Nos.20 & 27

MARIA JOAO PIRES, Piano

Orchestra Mozart / Claudio Abbado

Deutsche Grammophon 479 0075 / *****

The coupling of Mozart’s D minor (K.466) and B flat major (K.595) piano concertos is a very popular tandem, contrasting the composer at his most dramatic and congenial. Piano Concerto No.27 was his final work in this genre, but does not betray any hint of world-weariness or resignation. Its gentle fluid lines and apparent happiness suggest he had much more to say but for his untimely demise at the age of 35. Piano Concerto No.20, contemporaneous with his opera Don Giovanni, displays angst and resolve in the driving, unwavering and syncopated rhythm of its first movement.

Veteran Portuguese pianist Maria Joao Pires and conductor Claudio Abbado are quintessential Mozarteans who are fully attuned to the composer’s idiom of flowing lyricism, subtle gestures and implicit humour. They let the music speak for itself, without resorting to attention-drawing posturing or interpretive gimmickry. Their Mozart cycle does not appear to be anywhere near completion, but taking one’s time to reflect and allowing the collaborations to mature to perfection are part of the game. This is a lovely disc, and one much looks forward to future instalments.

FAURÉ Cello Sonatas

ALBAN GERHARDT, Cello

CECILE LICAD, Piano

Hyperion 67872 / ****1/2

The Frenchman Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) ranks as one of the most underrated composers of the Romantic era. Although his Requiem and Pavane are familiar and well-loved, much of his instrumental and chamber music is less often heard. His two Cello Sonatas are late works, dating from 1917 and 1921. By this time, the sheer melodiousness of the Belle Epoque early years is replaced by a certain terseness and economy of themes employed. One is hard pressed to recall some of the tunes, even if their conception is noble and loftily inspired. Both sonatas stand out by having beautiful and long-breathed slow movements, the majestic Andante from the Second Sonata was inspired by the centenary of the death of Napoleon Bonaparte.

This recording includes two alternative version of the Allegro comodo third movement of the First Sonata, one played at a faster speed than the original. Too slow a finale (at Fauré’s own metronomic marking) will certainly not do! German cellist Alban Gerhardt and Filipina pianist Cecile Licad invest a wealth of feeling and instrumental virtuosity in these sonatas. Five short and more familiar stand-alone works have been thrown in, including the magnificent Elegie Op.24, one of Fauré’s most moving works, the short and flighty showpiece Papillon Op.77, and the lilting Sicilienne from incidental music to Pelleas and Melisande. There is much to enjoy in these performances.