MY NIGHTS WITH DIDO AND MY DAYS WITH AENEAS / New Opera Singapore / Review

 

DIDO AND AENEAS

New Opera Singapore

SOTA Drama Theatre

Friday & Saturday (26 & 27 July 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 29 July 2013 with the title "Baroque breakthrough".

Given that Singapore has no tradition of performing Baroque opera, it was a massive leap of faith by New Opera Singapore to attempt English composer Henry Purcell’s classic Dido and Aeneas, rather than yet another version of La Traviata. It is this spirit of adventure and experimentation that makes the company founded by Korean soprano Jeong Ae Ree (right) relevant and vitally necessary.

The cumbersome title My Nights with Dido and My Days with Aeneas may have confused some. Virgil’s Dido and Aeneas was a classical tragedy where Love and Fate conspired to clash with disastrous results. Updating the setting to modern newly-weds settling in their HDB apartment  with Ikea bags and kaypoh neighbours might also have given the mistaken impression this was another of the company’s opera comique farces. Thus the realisation that this was opera seria (serious opera) came rather late in the evening.

Whoever thought that the Brit Purcell
could blend so well with the Yank Ives?

As the original opera lasts under one hour, this production was padded up to about 100 minutes with songs by the 20^th century American composer Charles Ives. This was an inspired stroke of juxtaposition and innovation by director Mathias Behrends, even if the words alternated between old and modern poetic English (and in one song, French). While the musical accompaniment segued from the orchestra conducted by Chan Wei Shing to a barely-in-tune piano valiantly mustered by Thomas Ang, the transitions were almost seamless.

As some singers were unused to the Baroque style of singing, there was going to be a struggle to adapt. It was not a surprise that some of the Ives songs and choruses came off better than the Purcell. There were parts when the production resembled a high school musical, something out of the School of the Arts perhaps. However New Opera Singapore is our nation’s de facto opera school, as none of the tertiary institutions of musical education have opera programmes in place. So if there are going to be trials and errors, this is probably the best place to begin.   

The pivotal aria, Dido's When I Am Laid In Earth.
Teng Xiang Ting's Dido is foiled in numerous suicide attempts.

New Opera’s A-list cast, past and present students of Jeong, stole the show. Soprano Teng Xiang Ting (left) as Dido, was the face of ultimate pathos, and a force to be reckoned with. Her final aria, When I Am Laid in Earth, evinced so much sympathy that it stood out as the evening’s finest and most gut-wrenching moment. Opposite her, the Sorceress sung by mezzo Rebecca Chellappah was a most natural and experienced hand, exuding a malevolent charm that was wholly apt.

The supernatural forces of Lim Yanting and Moira Loh
haunt Teng Xiang Ting's Dido.

This opera, first performed in 1688 at Josiah Priest’s Girl’s School in Chelsea, was to be a girl’s night out. Soprano Rebecca Li was supportive as Belinda, Dido’s BFF, while Thai Lehlin, Moira Loh and Lim Yanting hovered around adding mischievous spice (including what must be the first-ever getai and lesbian scenes portrayed on the local operatic stage). Even the women in the boisterous choir of busybodies were the driving force. The men, David Tay’s Aeneas, Jonathan Tay’s sailor and Shaun Lee’s spirit cum solicitor, shone in their numbers but seemed almost peripheral. Do not blame them; their unintentional “bad guy” parts never had much of a chance.

The tone of this review may read like something of a qualified success, but that should not impede New Opera Singapore from further exploring uncharted territories of opera, and pushing the envelope with its own brand of guts and gumption. Singapore’s meagre and all-too-predictable opera scene really needs that kind of spark.

Production photographs by Eugene Soh.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, July 2013)

GULDA / GOULD Piano Works

SASHA GRYNYUK, Piano

Piano Classics 0043 / ****1/2

Friedrich Gulda (1930-2000) and Glenn Gould (1932-1982) were two of the last century’s most distinctive, unique and eccentric pianists. They were, simply put, one of a kind. The Viennese Gulda was a classicist with a penchant for jazz and improvisation. The Canadian Gould abhorred jazz but openly embraced the Second Viennese School atonalists. Both however shared a common passion for the music of J.S.Bach. This most inventive recital by young Ukrainian pianist Sasha Grynyuk unites these two greats as rather unlikely pianist-composers.

The 10 pieces of Gulda’s Play Piano Play are a distillation of jazz and Bachian counterpoint, entertaining in the same way that the more frequently performed Nikolai Kapustin. The opening number Moderato is itself a slinky fugue. Another popular piece is No.6 is a breathless toccata with the Schumannesque title Presto Possibile. Gould’s Piano Sonata and seven Short Pieces, early works dating from 1948 to 1952, bear the astringent influences of Hindemith and Schoenberg. Ironically, some of his dissonances are regularly experimented by jazz pianists today.

The disc closes with Grynyuk’s transcription of Gould’s So You Want To Write A Fugue?, originally for voices and string quartet, a hilarious take on complex fugal composition. It somehow loses its original zest without the quirky words, but this should not deter anyone from exploring these curious and amusing byways of 20^th century pianism. 

WALTZ 101

Decca 4785067 (6 CDs) / ****1/2

Compilations are only worthwhile when the musical contents are logically programmed rather than left to random and haphazard chance. In this respect Waltz 101 succeeds because the dances in three-quarter time (there are more than just 101 of them) are thematically arranged such that one begins to listen intelligently. The first two discs are devoted to the music of Johann Strauss Junior and his younger brother Josef. 

All the usual suspects – Blue Danube, Emperor, Tales from the Vienna Woods, Wine, Woman & Song – performed with the stylish flair expected from the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Willi Boskovsky. Disc 3 provides many “So that’s what it’s called” moments with popular melodies by Lehar, Waldteufel and one-hit wonders Juventino Rosas (Over The Waves) and Ivan Ivanovici (Danube Waves). One also learns that the sickly sweet waltz from the movie Eyes Wide Shut comes from Shostakovich’s Jazz Suite No.2. 

Waltzes from the great Tchaikovsky, Delibes and Adam ballets occupy disc 4. Special pleasure may be afforded from the piano in the last two discs. Every waltz of Chopin and Brahms has been included, performed by Nikita Magaloff and Julius Katchen. The rarities are the Godowsky harmonised versions of six Chopin waltzes played with incomparable insouciance by Jorge Bolet. Even Schubert’s humble set of 12 Waltzes, derived from the rustic Ländler country dances, get special attention from no less than Vladimir Ashkenazy. This lovely anthology concludes with French fare, Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales, Fauré, Satie and Poulenc from the excellent Pascal Rogé. Need one receive an Invitation To The Dance to enjoy this? 

WE REMEMBER PAUL POLLEI

WE REMEMBER PAUL POLLEI

We are sad to read of the passing of American pianist and pedagogue Paul C. Pollei (1936-2013) who departed on 19 July 2013 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Dr Pollei was the founder of the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition in Utah, a dedicated piano teacher, who sat on the juries of many international piano competitions, including the Singapore National Piano Competition in 2007.

I first met Paul in September 2005 in Hong Kong, during the 1^st Hong Kong International Piano Competition where we were both observers. What struck me most was how open, warm and friendly he was, speaking with me (a total stranger hitherto) like someone he had known for a long time. He was full of hearty humour, and had more than a few interesting stories to recall. We, of course, shared the joy of the piano, pianists and piano repertoire, as well as the phenomenon of piano competitions, and had lots of things to talk about at Hong Kong City Hall’s Maxim’s Café. I remembered a pithy piece of advice he gave, “Never play Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy in a piano competition”. We were later joined by a mutual friend, the Chinese pianist Kong Xiang Dong (former Bachauer winner, or Bachauer-laureate), a former student of his, who also happened to be in Hong Kong at the time.

From the outset, Paul had urged me to visit Utah and attend the Gina Bachauer competition (named after the Greek piano virtuosa), and that was a mantra that was repeated whenever we met. He had founded the competition in the 1970s and developed it to become one of the “big” piano competitions in USA today. The Bachauer is particularly distinctive in that all its participants get to play the full complement of their repertoire before the final six pianists are picked for the concerto finals. Thus there is no actual elimination; pianists get to play three recitals and audiences get to enjoy more music-making. This “pro piano” innovation is also carried out in the Gina Bachauer Junior and Young Artists Competitions, which are now the most prestigious and acknowledged leader in the world of age-group competitions.

One of his greatest regrets was not having met Gina Bachauer (1910-1976) in person. Bachauer and her husband, the British conductor Alec Sherman, were regular visitors to Salt Lake City where the Music Director of the Utah Symphony was Maurice Abravanel, himself a Greek. The piano competition, which began in 1976 as the Brigham Young University Piano Competition and Festival under Paul’s founding, became known as the Bachauer in 1978, named in her memory. This competition and its related events were to be his pride and joy. 

Pianomaniacs meet in Hong Kong:
Paul Pollei with PianoManaic (Photo by Gabriel Kwok) 

We met again in Singapore in December 2007 when Paul was invited by the National Arts Council to be a jury member of the National Piano Competition. This time, he arrived with a pile of commemorative books from the Bachauer competitions specially for yours truly, and also a CD recording of Bachauer’s performances which he had produced. He autographed it for me, with yet another exhortation to come to Salt Lake City. In those days, the solo sessions of the piano competition took place at the Alliance Francaise on Sarkies Road (off Bukit Timah Road). He was thrilled to find out that the venue (despite lousy piano and all) was just a few doors away from Singapore’s only Mormon church. During one of the lunch breaks, he visited the temple of worship and made his acquaintance with the officers there.

Paul Pollei with Mary Wu and Roberto Plano
at the finals of the National Piano Competition 2007, Victoria Concert Hall.

The two other jury members were Mary Wu (Hong Kong) and Roberto Plano (Italy), and the threesome got along very well, with Paul being the most senior of all and the voice of experience. He had interesting things to say about the voting system for competitions in general. He felt that Yes or No votes to advance participants to the next round to be simple and effective. He always wrote humourous comments in judgement of each performer and was not afraid to show all of these to me. He always preferred wayward but interesting performances to overly staid and correct ones, and even voted for one young man who had a technical nightmare with Liszt’s La Campanella but had some thought-provoking ideas. Of course he admitted that “the boy definitely needed proper lessons”. He and his team also awarded second prize to another boy who played Godowsky’s Bromo Volcano and Sand Sea at Daybreak while wearing a batik shirt for his ingenuity in programming (and probably dressing as well). The three judges and I shared a number of dinners together, at Island Club, La Fiandra (SAM) and the al fresco food centre on Victoria Street (now sadly no longer in existence), and we all had chill crab and a good time.

I also remember vividly the masterclass Paul gave at the Young Musicians Society on Waterloo Street. He is one of very few teachers who also addresses the audience directly, sharing with them pearls of pianistic wisdom as if on a television talk show. If ever piano masterclasses were televised, his would be the first ones I will attend. He does not only address technical issues of playing, but also on the processes of proper practising. Proper practice meant earnestly working on phrases repeatedly, and warned that this should not be mistaken for rehearsals of concerts which many a pianist wannabe are tempted to do. He also addressed the issue of judiciously using all the pedals on a grand piano. Most people rely only on the sustaining pedal but not including the sotto voce pedal, and that is not optimising the potential of the piano. He advised pianists to have both feet on two pedals, and not leaving the left foot idling and lagging behind, a stance which reminds him of a tripod.

He kept a list of Ten Commandments for piano teachers and students, which I hope somebody somewhere in the world has taken the time to commit to memory, copy and share with the rest of us all. Unfortunately in my excitement I had forgotten them all, and in my tardiness neglected to write to him for them. In my lazy mind, I would still get to see them again “when I visited Salt Lake City next”, knowing that he will be there with wide open arms. For the next trip to USA, I went to Fort Worth, Texas instead. That was the last time we spoke, and my regret is that there will be no next time.

Dr Paul C. Pollei, we will always remember you.   

CHAMBER.SOUNDS IN MOTION / Review

 

CHAMBER.SOUNDS IN MOTION

The Living Room @ The Arts House

Sunday (21 July 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 23 July 2013 with the title "Varied voices of Singapore".

Given the major symphony orchestra’s abject failure to commission and support local compositions, more Singaporean composers are relying on chamber groups to champion and perform their works in concert. Chamber.Sounds is a collective of young professional musicians and composers, mostly alumni of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, which has found an annual platform for its members.

Its yearly concert, usually held in the summer to coincide with its players’ vacations from overseas studies, is an ample showcase of the Singapore voice. This concert had a common theme of dance and childhood, which partly explained why there was sizeable number of children in the audience. They were mostly well-behaved, and more importantly, quiet throughout the event’s 70 minutes duration.

Driving ostinatos opened and closed the concert, beginning with Derek Lim’s Dance On! for piano trio (above). Wong Yun Qi’s piano provided an insistent jig-like beat, which was joined by Ng Wei Ping’s violin and Chan Si Han’s cello. There were multiple changes in meter, and the paced upped to resemble Shostakovich’s more manic moments.

Jeremiah Li’s Seasons: A Petite Suite, inspired by English poetry, portrayed the change of moods through indolent summer, lively autumn (with beat provided by Li’s baritone saxophone), desolate winter (starring Daniel Yiau’s clarinet solo) to the rejuvenating bagpipe drones of spring. Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony was cheekily quoted at its close.

Alicia De Silva’s Silhouette for Two was a cleverly disguised tango for violin, flute and clarinet, with Klezmer elements (Yiau again) thrown in, its title suggesting the ever-changing flickering of a flame and the shadow it casts.

Audience participation was called for in the first movement of Liong Kit Yeng’s Childhood Fantasy Suite, entitled The Clown (above). Clarence Tan’s jocular euphonium solo was punctuated by squawking and hooting on children’s party toys, which the kids in the audience duly obliged on cue. The balance of the suite consisted of more “naïve music”, totally tonal and eminently listenable.

Yiau’s IV Movements Four V ironically has three movements, every one being rhythmic, from the minimalistic Moving, the more fluid Flow and the funereal march of Rhythm which closed with one loud dissonant chord. The concert ended with John Mackey’s Breakdown Tango, its centre adopting a slow habanera rhythm, percussive Bartokian pizzicatos, and its bristling end being a summation of all that had come before. 

A certain pride of place has to be reserved for the Sonatina Op.2 No.3 for solo violin (above) by Cheng Wei Le. It began simply enough, a top-line melody in D major, which later shifted tonally and dynamically at an alarming pace, such that it ended like something by Prokofiev, stretching the resources of violinist Ng to the full. The astonishing thing is this: Cheng is only 11 years old. Are we witnessing the bright beginning of a startling new trend?

My apologies for not being to name every single performer who played in this concert. chamber.sounds In Motion also featured violist Jeremy Chiew and flautist Kevin Seah. 

MOSTLY GERSHWIN / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

MOSTLY GERSHWIN

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (20 July 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 22 July 2013 with the title "Fun crossover to Gershwin".

If there was any prior trepidation about the prospect of an orchestra of traditional Chinese instruments playing the music of 20^th century American icon George Gershwin, it mostly evaporated when Music Director Yeh Tsung leapt onto the podium to lead Strike Up The Band. Despite some reservations about the timbre of certain instruments transcending the cross-cultural divide, this experiment was mostly a success. Or at least the sizeable audience, judging by the loudness of its applause, thought so.

By performing Afro-American spirituals and songs from Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess, the ensemble was tapping into the universal medium of folk music, the melodies and sentiments within being easily identified by performers across different cultures and creeds. Listen to how comfortably the erhus and huqins as a group slide into the blues, the flexible portamenti being part of its make-up, much like the human voice. W.C.Handy’s Saint Louis Blues was such a beneficiary in Law Wai Lun’s spirited adaptation.

For the popular Rhapsody in Blue, the clarinet’s opening wail was taken over by the guan in Phoon Yew Tien’s orchestration, which just about worked. Even if one missed the particular quality of wa-wa muted trumpets, that was soon forgotten because the music itself was strong enough withstand any treatment.

The orchestra overcame initial nerves and soon began to swing as pianist Leon Bates took flight in the solo part. His was the fusion of unabashed bearing of soul and big-boned pianism, and like the jazzman he is, improvised on passages and threw in outlandish cadenzas of his own. The repeated note section following the blues came in for some of the most stunning playing. His deliciously elaborate encore summed up the entire exercise: Fascinatin’ Rhythm.   

And that was not all, as he returned for the I Got Rhythm Variations. So how did the central “Chinese variation” fare under a Chinese orchestra? Ironically part of the joke was lost, because the original intention was for the Western orchestra to sound like something from the Far East, the notion of chinoiserie itself.

The concert closed with a suite from Porgy and Bess, with soprano Kimberly Eileen Jones, baritone Lawrence Mitchell-Matthews and a 60-member choir from the National University of Singapore and Anderson Junior College. All the singers were amplified, which allowed their words to be clearly heard.

Jones impressed with Summertime and My Man’s Gone Now, the classic show of lung power, contrasted with Mitchell-Matthew’s more relaxed approach in A Woman is a Sometime Thing and I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’. Together, their duet Bess, You is My Woman Now was a show-stopper, and the entire ensemble joined in for Lawd I’m on My Way, which capped an evening of fine entertainment.

Should the Singapore Chinese Orchestra continue to pursue further cross-cultural collaborations? If these are mounted with such zest and spirit as this, the answer is: most certainly. 

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, July 2013)

RACHMANINOV Rarities

VLADIMIR ASHKENAZY, Piano

Decca 478 2939 / ****1/2

With this disc, Vladimir Ashkenazy completes his survey of the complete piano music of Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943) which began with his first album for the Decca label in 1963. Admittedly these are not among the best music of the great Russian pianist-composer, mostly short works, studies and salon pieces written as a student. However Rachmaninov thought enough of them to smuggle in a suitcase when he left Russia for the West, never to return.

The best known are the seven Morceaux de Salon (Op.10), including the melancholic Barcarolle and playful Humoresque, which Rachmaninov recorded himself.  Much less often heard are his recently discovered carillon-laden Piano Piece in A flat major, the vertiginous Fugue in D minor, Prelude in F major (better known in its cello version) and the Oriental Sketch, a “railway” piece inspired by the Orient Express. Also included are the four character pieces originally designated as his Op.1, before being displaced by the First Piano Concerto.

Ashkenazy plays his own transcription of the song Sad Is The Night (Noch Pechal’na) Op.26 No.2, an exquisite gem in its own right. The set concludes with Rachmaninov’s virtually unknown transcription of Nunc Dimittis from his choral masterpiece Vespers Op.37, a  reflection of his Russian Orthodox faith. Ashkenazy shows little sign of his age as he rewinds the clock in these revealing performances. The music of Rachmaninov has never had a truer or more complete champion.   

ESSENCE OF SCO

Singapore Chinese Orchestra / TSUNG YEH

SCO / ****1/2

The Singapore Chinese Orchestra (SCO) conducted by Tsung Yeh has produced several CDs over the years, and this double-disc set is a compilation of its most representative recordings. It reveals the ensemble to be a rather versatile outfit. SCO’s principal musicians are found at their expressive best in concertante works. Concertmaster Li Baoshun on the gaohu weaves a tale of fantasy in Liu Xi Jin’s Legend Of The Merlion, while erhu exponent Zhao Jianhua shines in the better-known Great Wall Capriccio by Liu Wen Jin. Both huqin concertos are very listenable alternatives to the over-performed Butterfly Lovers and Yellow River Concertos.

Espousing the idea of Nanyang music is Law Wai Lun’s Prince Sang Nila Utama And Singa, based on the Temasekian legend of how Singapore got its name, with its distinctly Indonesian-sounding themes. The Celestial Web, also by the current SCO composer-in-residence, has more universal aspirations with texts by local artist Tan Swie Hian. Tan Dun’s Fire Ritual, using music for the movie Nanjing 1937, exploits his idea of “orchestral theatre”, with instruments and voices simulating characters within a staged play. As encores, the Chris Brubeck Trio joins the orchestra to jam in Paul Desmond’s Take Five and Dave Brubeck’s Koto Song, in a live concert that elicits plenty of applause. All in all, this is two-and-a-half hours of enthralling listening.

Photographs of HOME PIANO RECITAL by ZHAO YANG MING TIAN

Followers of this blog will probably remember Zhao Yang Ming Tian, the impressive young pianist from Hainan Island, China, who studied for two years at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts under the tutelage of Benjamin Loh. He has since moved on to the University of Kansas, where he has won a string of prizes in piano competitions. It was a pleasure to welcome him back to Singapore. albeit for a few days, where he performed a recital at the Cairnhill residence of Swiss pianophile Guy Hentsch and Geoffery Yu. 

His was a very interesting programme of Romantic works and rare transcriptions from piano's Golden Age, which has captivated him, and also his audience on the evening. He began with Doucet's Chopinata, a work that combines melodies from Chopin's Polonaise Op.53, Fantaisie-Impromptu Op.66 and Waltz Op.64 No.2, written in a manner a very good lounge pianist might. It was very vulgar but very entertaining, a sort of ice-breaker which led to some real Chopin, a glowing reading of the Nocturne in B major Op.62 No.1. 

The major work of the first half was Ravel's Valses nobles et sentimentales, and Ming Tian was able to bring out the colours and nuances from its varied dances. The final waltz was an exercise in nostalgia, as fragments from the earlier waltzes make short, fleeting appearances within the general haziness of its movement,  like memories of a dream landscape. He closed with that notorious finger-twister that is Paul de Schlözer's Étude in A flat major, which Rachmaninov used to warm up his fingers before playing.  

The second half was equally interesting, beginning with Mozart's Variations from Gluck's Unser dummer pöbel meint, a work which Tchaikovsky orchestrated as the final movement of his Mozartiana Suite. It is rather long and repetitious but Ming Tian kept it interesting with lots of witty and surprising touches, as if relating a joke with many parts. There were more transcriptions galore with Georges Cziffra's wicked treatment of Brahms's Hungarian Dance No.5, which begins with a nonchalant feint followed some serious barnstorming, the best which the Hungarian entertainer could muster.

The recital closed with Paul Pabst's Paraphrase on Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, a favourite party trick of Shura Cherkassky's. This is probably the first performance in Singapore of this potboiler, but what a winner it is. Ming Tian can certain overwhelm with its outsized pianism, but it is his sensitivity that impresses the most. Listening to the amazing counterpoint with Lensky's Aria played on the left hand, with vestiges of the waltz sounding like a dream on the right hand, was one of the finest moments of an enjoyable evening. Needless to say, the audience gave him a vociferous ovation which he truly deserved. 

Host of the evening Guy Hentsch has some words of thanks for Ming Tian.

Two wonderful young pianists: Zhao Yang Ming Tian and Azariah Tan.

Some of the best young piano talents on the island: (From L) Azariah Tan, Bina Jung, Zhao Yang Ming Tian, Lawrence Holmefjord-Sarabi and Clarence Lee.  

PROJECT LAKSA / Song Ziliang and Friends / Review

PROJECT LAKSA

Song Ziliang and Friends

The Living Room @ The Arts House

Friday (12 July 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 15 July 2013 with the title "More local flavour needed".

When it comes to food, Singaporeans need not be persuaded twice. This would explain how two evenings of the chamber concert Project Laksa at The Arts House were sold out and a matinee had to be added. Audiences had been promised a sumptuous musical programme, topped with a sampling of Prima Taste’s trademarked laksa, Singapore style.

The main dish was the World Premiere of Singaporean composer Chen Zhangyi’s Laksa Cantata, a local spin-off from J.S.Bach’s Coffee Cantata, with a witty and rather endearing libretto by Jack Lin. It is a 20-minute long mini-opera with two arias, two duets and spoken recitatives, accompanied by violin, clarinet and piano. The premise was about two soon-to-be-weds squabbling over whether laksa should be served at their wedding dinner.

Soprano Rebecca Li was the feisty and sharp-tongued Leah, antagonist of dreamy and self-indulgent Stephen, sung by Symphony 92.4 deejay Kiat Goh, whose craving is a steaming bowl of laksa. Chen chose a completely Western idiom for this setting, such that Leah’s Scorned Woman Aria sounded like a Bernsteinesque showpiece, full of syncopations and twists which Li negotiated with much ease.

For Stephen’s Laksa Aria, the inspiration was Benjamin Britten in his more melodious moments, and Goh nailed the words with gusto. And there were titters when he sang, “The flawless complexion of the white bee hoon, wavering in a sea of coconut cream, the tau pok and hae only makes me swoon.”  Together, their duet Agree To Disagree, had another harmonious serving of colloquialisms.

“Some say no harm, like the laksa of Katong. Others have no qualm, but they serve no sotong,” goes another line. With the threat of ma-in-law coming over to stay, the couple settle their differences (no laksa for a day), closing peaceably with a blissful duet that opens, “A new bowl is a new day”.

This enjoyable exercise would have been a greater coup had Chen had mustered a Peranakan or local idiom to spice up the work. Perhaps a detailed study of dondang sayang and related musical traditions, and the liberal use of baba and nyonya patois might yield a more authentic second version of the cantata in the near future.

As mastermind of this project, pianist Song Ziliang also helmed the balance of the 80-minute concert which included cross-cultural and cross-generational explorations in music. The eclectic programme was a bit of a rojak, opening with two piano solos from China, the impressionistic Autumn Moon On Calm Lake and percussive drum-dominated dance Celebrating Our New Life.

Clarinettist Colin Tan and pianist Christine Octaviani then added a klezmer number Sholem-Alekhem, Rov Feidman! by Hungarian Jew Bela Kovacs, which sounded like a dance out of Fiddler On The Roof. Music from two modernist composers who chose to go retro, Russian Alfred Schnittke and Frenchman Darius Milhaud, completed the programme.

Schnittke, better known as a polystylist, took the path of Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne for his Suite In The Old Style for violin and piano, by rehashing baroque dance forms. Violinist Wu Bingling and Song were harmonious throughout, with the occasional dissonance to remind listeners of the century we are living in. They were joined by Tan in Milhaud’s Suite for clarinet trio which looked at old French folkdances and pastorals before closing with a Brazilian twist.

This is Song’s encouraging debut at curating a varied cross-genre programme, one that juxtaposed music and gastronomy. However it is not new, as composer Robert Casteels had done it before. What other mouth-watering prospects does Song and his team have in store, a char kway teow concerto perhaps?  

  

Enough of the music, its time to indulge in Prima Taste's laksa! 

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, July 2013)

MEDTNER Piano Sonatas Vol.1

PAUL STEWART, Piano

Grand Piano 617 / ****1/2

The music of Russian pianist composer Nikolai Medtner (1880-1951) is not so much obscure as it is neglected. His is as cerebral as his contemporary and close friend Rachmaninov is visceral, but repeated listening brings its rewards. This new piano sonata cycle by Canadian pianist Paul Stewart contrasts the “familiar” with the obscure. The single-movement Sonata Reminiscenza (Op.38 No.1, from his cycle of Forgotten Melodies) qualifies to be his most famous piece, even though it is much less often performed than Rachmaninov’s Second Sonata. The melancholic spirit so typical of the Slavs is worn heart-on-sleeve, and there is even a tumultuous outburst in its middle as a show of passion to unsettle the spirits.

Its quarter-hour of nostalgia is relatively brief heard alongside the 35 minutes and four movements of the Sonata in F minor (Op.5), his first essay in the genre. The moodiness and restlessness of Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata, also in the same key, is recalled, and Medtner’s thematic cohesion (he rarely allows one to forget his ideas) marks him as a master of the sonata form. The early Sonatina in G minor, composed as an 18-year-old, provides a clue to his quite unmistakeable style which he had honed from young. The playing is both spirited and stylish, suitably brooding but never histrionic or over-characterised, which makes the rest of the cycle worth waiting for. 

BEETHOVEN String Trios Op.9

Trio Zimmerman

BIS SACD-1857 / *****

Before Beethoven composed his six string quartets Op.18 and went on to redefine the genre, he wrote string trios. Comprising just a violin, viola and cello, the medium has lighter and more transparent textures, but from the great German as a young man sprung forth the gravitas of his later works. The three Trios of Op.9, composed in 1796-98, are undoubted masterpieces, even if overshadowed by the quartets. The first movement of the First Trio in G major is a weighty 12 minutes of pure sonata form, almost like an opening movement of a symphony. Its furious finale has a theme which he re-uses in his First Symphony several years later.

The Second Trio in D major, the lightness and shortest of the three, has the feel of a serenade. The Third Trio in C minor begins with sonorous drama and tragedy, but transforms to litheness and humour, concluding with a jocular Presto that looks forward to its counterpart in the First Quartet of the Op.18 set. Trio Zimmerman, led by German violinist Frank Peter Zimmerman, with violist Antoine Tamestit and cellist Christian Poltera, play with precision and beauty, making the best case possible for these underrated classics. The famous 1990s recording by Anne-Sophie Mutter, Bruno Guiranna and Mstislav Rostropovich (Deutsche Grammophon) has not been reissued, so this BIS SACD is the one to have. One cannot imagine these being played better.



PASSPORT / Trio Concert by DAN GELOK, CHAN YOONG HAN & SHANE THIO / Review

PASSPORT

Dan Gelok, Chan Yoong Han & Shane Thio

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday (7 July 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 July 2013 with the title "Passport to new music".

The medium of saxophone, violin and piano as a trio is a relatively new one, but it is a combination that works well. As it does not radically depart from the more established clarinet-violin-piano trio format successfully experimented by Brahms and Bartok, the sounds that came out from this concert were more pleasing than one might have initially expected.

Dan Gelok, Chan Yoong Han & Shane Thio (from L)
Although Yoong Han is great with French fries, he's far better on the violin.

The Singaporean-American angle of the programme was also an interesting one. American saxophonist Dan Gelok and Singaporean violinist Chan Yoong Han are related by marriage (they are brothers-in-law), and all three Singaporean and locally-based composers represented had spent time in the States. However the musical idioms explored were almost wholly American.

Russell Peterson’s Trio (2007) that opened the concert was the most conventional work, its three tonal and accessible movements utilised elements of popular music, jazz, blues and even a hint of klezmer. The primal ostinato dance rhythms of the opening movement made fascinating contrasts with the hymn-like slow movement and minimalist perpetual motion of the finale. In short, this was a friendly primer to the all-embracing medium that is American music.

Two Singaporean works that received World Premieres were aggressively atonal. Kawai Shiu’stwenty six eighty seven (2010) for solo saxophone, was a tribute to the American modernist composer Morton Feldman (1926-1987) of the New York School, whose birth and death years are reflected in its title. Its virtuosic soliloquy, full of animated, abrupt and sometimes violent shifts in dynamics, was settled by a few long-held notes which typified the American’s philosophy of msical economy – the fewer notes the better.

Emily Koh’s bridging: isolation (2013) treated saxophone and violin like fraternal twins, each with its own voice that could be heard separately or together. In the latter, they bonded with synergy at times yet brought out moments of conflict, with Shane Thio’s piano being an impartial observer. 

Zechariah Goh Toh Chai’s Suite (2006/2010) for saxophone and piano was a return to the realm of tonality with three contrasted movements that seemed to echo the Peterson work. As a Singaporean who studied in Kansas, Alone And Distant, the second movement palpably reflected a melancholy of being away from home. The outer movements saw the insides of the piano being played while the keys of the saxophone treated like percussion. 

The final work, Evan Chambers’s Come Down Heavy! (1994) is typical Americana in the way how pioneer Charles Ives adapted old sung melodies, bringing them up to date in a coherent and distinctive manner. Gelok’s saxophone lustily sang out the work song John Henry in Steel Driving Man, while Chan used a second violin (tuned differently) to play I Gave My Love A Cherry in the inimitable manner of Celtic fiddling. The raucous finale Drill Ye Tarriers saw another song turned from a swinging reel into a vertiginous tarantella.

Sending off the 70-minute-long concert with hearty applause, the small audience showed that the message of new music had fallen on fertile ground.