EIGHT / The Teng Ensemble / Review

EIGHT

The Teng Ensemble

Esplanade Recital Studio

Saturday (28 September 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 30 September 2013 with the title "Catchy pop from Chinese instruments".

A pair of sold-out concerts marked the eighth anniversary of The Teng Ensemble, an eight member group playing predominantly traditional Chinese instruments. It all began with its musicians winning top prizes at the 2004 National Chinese Music Competition and a first gig at the 2009 Night Festival. 

Its philosophy was simple: to redefine Chinese instrumental music by updating it with modern technology, assimilating contemporary popular styles and the added gloss of an ultra-slick presentation.

Thousands of white chrysanthemums strewn on the floor greeted the audience, as eight young and well-groomed men trooped into position under the flicker of strobe lights. It was almost Saturday Night Fever when the octet belted out its titular number Eight, a vigorous dance dominated by electronic backing (helmed by the unseen Lim Wei) but with each instrument given moments in the spotlight.    

Founder and pipa virtuoso Samuel Wong (left) had significant solos but kept a low profile, deferring to composer-in-residence Benjamin Lim Yi (below) who doubled as guitarist and personable emcee. All his compositions and arrangements were short and catchy, with strong melodic content and the appeal of a pop song.

The simplest was the treatment of antique Chinese tune Guan Shan Yue, with just Yang Ji Wei’s sheng, Johnny Chia’s guzheng and Wong’s pipa, sounding pure and unadorned. More elaborate was the reworking of folk tune Xiao Bai Cai, with Darrel Xin’s touching erhu plaint of the little orphan girl tugging on the heartstrings amid lush accompaniment of electronica.

Both erhu and Gerald Teo’s cello starred in Contemplate, its simple variations on a ground bass resembling an Oriental version of Pachelbel’s Canon. A folksy three-note motif became the centre of Forest Trails, a bucolic and carefree jaunt in the countryside.

The music of Korean drama serials was the inspiration of Vals, a sentimental lilting dance in three-quarter time, joined by counter-tenor Phua Ee Kia’s (left) wordless vocals and Patrick Ngo’s yangqin. The unusual combo of Japanese anime music and Cuban guitarist Leo Brouwer contributed to Un Dia de Septiembre (A Day In September), a serenade with a succession of plucked strings which included Lim’s classical guitar for good measure.

A dizzying setting of Tang dynasty poem Zi Ye Ge, with the full complement of eight, closed the 80-minute concert on a boisterous dizzy high. There were two very well-received encores, Go On and He (Coming Together), pieces from past gigs which sparked a wild rush to purchase The Teng Ensemble’s debut CD recording (below) – a fitting souvenir of an entertaining evening of music-making.  

The Teng Ensemble's Eight
to be reviewed in these pages soon.

  

MORE RIDICULOUS LOOKALIKES (The Pianists and Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Edition)

The Formula One season, thankfully just concluded, spells a hiatus of classical concert activity in Singapore. With time on my hands two years ago, I came up with a list of crazy classical musician lookalikes. Here's more, updated to present headline news, starting with a couple of familiar faces. 

This one is an old chestnut. Who thought that one of the world's
greatest pianist Radu Lupu could look like the world's
greatest terrorist Osama bin Laden?

When French pianist Frank Braley goes to church,
people think it's the second coming of Jesus Christ.

 

Benjamin Grosvenor is now the hottest pianist in UK,
just like the Hobbits (Pippin) in Middle Earth.

Italian pianist Alessandro Taverna has an eye for notes like
recent Arsenal signing Mesut Özil has an eye for the ball.

Another one for the pianist-terrorist connection:
Did anyone think that Yevgeny Sudbin (left) and
Amir Tebinikhin (right) resembled convicted
Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev?

In classical music, it does pay for Russian pianist-pedagogue
Mikhail Voskresensky to look like Beethoven.

Prize-winning American pianist Lindsay Garritson
looks like the young and prettier sister of MILF
Jennifer Coolidge (of American Pie and Legally Blonde) 

Russian pianist Vadim Sakharov (who killed Beethoven's
Emperor Concerto here years ago) and
Liam Neeson of Taken who kills terrorists.

What is it with pianists and actors?
Korean-American pianist Tong-Il Han and
Hawaiian actor Clyde Kusatsu.

Young American pianist Steven Lin 
and Singaporean conductor Joshua Tan.

AND NOW FOR THE YONG SIEW TOH 

CONSERVATORY EDITION:

Did you know why they named the Alpine
rescue-dog a St Bernard? Now you know.
Bernard Lanskey is also a great Beethoven interpreter.

After that Brahms Second Piano Concerto, one could be forgiven
for thinking that WWE's Kane (with his patented chokeslam)
stood in for piano supremo Thomas Hecht.

The pianist and terrorist connection continues.
Which are the Bali bombers and which is Albert Tiu?

Both come from Russia. Pianist Kerim Vergazov
and General Orlov (Steven Berkoff) from Octopussy.
One dominates the keyboard and the other hoped
to dominate Western Europe

 NO PIANISTS FROM NOW ON:

Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos (centre) did look
a lot like Groucho Marx several  years ago.

Which is cellist Matthew Barley and
which is porn producer Seymore Butts?
The guy married to Viktoria Mullova is one the right.

The ever-young Finnish conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen
does look a bit like US actor Mark Harmon (NCIS) 

If you don't believe it, here are their younger photos.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, September 2013)

THE SODRE COLLECTION

LEONID KOGAN, Violin

ANDREI MYTNIK, Piano

The Alpha Omega Sound / ****1/2

When Leonid Kogan (1924-1982) was still alive, he was widely considered the greatest violinist of the Russian school post-David Oistrakh. Remembered as the principal teacher of Viktoria Mullova, he did not live long enough to enjoy sustained worldwide fame or commercial success, dying on a train in between concerts. This rare recording is of a 20 May 1958 concert in Montevideo, Uruguay recorded by SODRE (the Official Service of Radio and Television Broadcasting), shortly after his début in the West. The programme is typically eclectic, spanning the baroque to contemporary, and full of showpieces.

The main piece was Prokofiev’s First Violin Sonata in F minor, a greater and more serious work than its popular successor. Listen how skilfully he negotiates between icy brusqueness and warm lyricism without diminishing the impact of both. Also impressive is his sense of architecture and control in the Bach Chaconne in D minor. The balance of the programme is aural candy, including a Locatelli Sonata and Schubert’s Ave Maria. Not to disappoint lovers of fireworks, Saint-Saëns’s Havanaise and Sarasate’s Basque Caprice pull out the stops, and the audience erupts before the last note is sounded. His premature demise was indeed a most grievous loss.   

BRAHMS Violin Concerto

C.SCHUMANN Romances

LISA BATIASHVILI, Violin

Staatskapelle Dresden / Christian Thielemann

Deutsche Grammophon 479 0086 / ****

The Hungarian-born violinist Joseph Joachim is the common link between the works on this disc. The well-heeled Violin Concerto in D major by Johannes Brahms was written for and in consultation with Joachim, and most violinists play the virtuoso cadenza which he supplied as if it were biblical truth. Georgian violinist Lisa Batiashvili instead opts for the rarely-performed cadenza by Max Reger, which unusually incorporates a prominent part for timpani and is accompanied by orchestra towards its end. Like her playing which is refined and musical in the utmost, it makes an elegant and almost anti-virtuoso contrast from the norm.

After the rambunctious Hungarian-flavoured Rondo that closes the concerto, the Three Romances Op.22 by Clara Schumann (widow of Robert Schumann, and close confidante of Brahms) with piano accompaniment by Alice Sara Ott, are light and fluffy fillers, like a tagged-on encore. Very pleasant but not memorable, they bring the playing time to just over a parsimonious 47 minutes. The recorded sound is soft-focus but pleasant. The final uniting thread of this release: Batiashvili plays on a 1715 Stradivarius that was once owned by Joachim himself. Its tone is sweet and light, which adds to the album’s attraction.

Photographs from TAKACS QUARTET MASTERCLASS at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory

 

One of the world's finest string quartets, the Takács Quartet, was in town last week and gave a concert at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory. Having missed that, I made up by attending the masterclass its four members gave to students at the Conservatory. The Takács Quartet was formed in Budapest by four students from its Conservatory during the 1970s. Only two of its original members, violinist Karoly Schranz and cellist Andras Fejer, remain today in the ensemble. 

A small audience was treated to a mini-concert by the students, who performed one movement each from chamber works by Haydn, Beethoven and Dvorak. All of the Takács Quartet members were very impressed by high technical standards achieved and had high praise for the student groups. They took turns to advise the players, not so much on the technical aspects of their playing, but on issues of balance, phrasing and projection. Occasionally, some of the memebrs also picked up an instrument and demonstrated to the students. Two hours passed rather quickly and the young musicians had much to treasure from this experience. 

Cellist Andras Fejer moves to the music of Haydn,
as played by the first quartet.

Violinist Edward Dusinberre demonstrates on
first violinist Liu Minglun's instrument.

Violinist Karoly Schranz has some words
for the quartet which played Beethoven's Quartet Op.59 No.3.

Violist Geraldine Walther tries out Guo Xiaoti's viola.

Some of the players sat within the audience
to experience the balance achieved on stage.

Edward Dusinberre observes the quintet group that
performed Dvorak's Piano Quintet Op.81.

The Takács Quartet with violinuists Li Jing Jing and
Hsieh Li-Chung, violist Guo Xiaoti and cellist Theophilus Tan,
the group that performed Beethoven.

The quintet group of pianist Abigail Sin, violinists Christina Zhou
and Gabriel Lee, violist Wong Kin-Chung and
cellist Cho Hang-Oh have their moment with the Takács Quartet,

ASIAN COMPOSERS LEAGUE FESTIVAL OPENING CONCERT / Review

31^ST ASIAN COMPOSERS LEAGUE

FESTIVAL OPENING CONCERT

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Friday (20 September 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 23 September 2013 with the title "Composers league comes alive".

The Asian Composers League has been in existence for 40 years, and this is the second time that Singapore has hosted its international festival and conference. Held over four days, eight concerts by various local ensembles showcased works of 65 Asian composers (including nine Singaporeans) from East Asia and nations as far afield as Israel, Tajikistan, Australia, New Zealand and USA.

The Singapore Chinese Orchestra (SCO) conducted by Yeh Tsung was given the honour of opening the festival, amply demonstrating the sheer diversity of musical expression of composers whose common but tenuous link is that of geography. What constitutes Asian music? Given the mobility of peoples across lands and global cultures, that answer must be far different from what it was some fifty years ago.

In Singapore, the Singapore Chinese Orchestra, performing
Tsai Ling-Huei's Chia Found, has become the de facto
champion of Asian new music.

The concept of the Chinese orchestra has also outgrown its infancy. It is no longer just a band of traditional folk instruments but a creative body that challenges the primacy of the western symphony orchestra. Here, the SCO has far outstripped its western counterpart in performing Asian and Singaporean new music, and become the genre’s de facto leader.

How else would two Caucasian composers write for such forces? The World Premiere of Belgian-born Singaporean resident Robert Casteels’s Third Symphony showed that no Asian-sounding themes were required to make a work for Chinese instruments sound convincing. Its form involved a common opening theme on low bass tremolos, over which running scales and nascent chords emerged. This was played thrice, each run being a different variation, like a door opening to three varied vistas. The second variation was a passacaglia, micro-variations on a five-note bass; truly neat.

Robert Casteels acknowledging the World Premiere
of his Third Symphony Op.55.

American Michael Sidney Timpson’s Sinaethesia combined things Chinese with the neurological propensity to experience sound as colours. The movement Blossom used the folksong Jasmine but dressed it with such euphonious textures as to be almost unrecognisable. The plush use of strings, dizi and suona solos added to its myriad palette of shades.

Taiwanese Tsai Ling-Huei’s Chia Found, which translates as “plucking airs” or collecting folklores, opened the concert. Its four short connected movements depicted dawn, coming of life and stasis with deft use of untuned percussion, a ritualistic suona solo from Jin Shi Yi and bows to strike the wood of string instruments.

Guzheng soloist Xu Hui in
Pan Hwang-Long's Concerto for Chinese Orchestra.

The first movement of veteran Taiwanese composer Pan Hwang-Long’s Concerto for Chinese Orchestra was a happy confluence of the old and new. The ancient melodies Guan Shan Yue (Moon Over Frontier Mountains) and Parting at Yangguan were both discernible over a counterpoint of percussion and Xu Hui’s virtuoso showing on the guzheng.

Taiwanese composer Pan Hwang-Long receives the applause.

A view of Raymond Mok's Cycles of Destiny.
Note the two groups of winds in opposite balconies.

Hongkonger Raymond Mok’s Cycles of Destiny employed three separate and widely spaced groups of winds to marvellous effect. From the balconies on either side of the hall, duelling suona solos sounded the refrain signalling the never-ending cycle of birth, life and death central to Buddhist, Taoist and Confucianist thought. The violent dance of life and use of a singing bowl seemed to reflect the impermanent events within each cycle.

The concert closed with Ho Chee Kong’s Passage, an epic single-movement fantasy, possibly the most important cello concertante work by a Singaporean to date. Commissioned for the 2012 Singapore Arts Festival and premiered by cellist Qin Li-Wei, its stark contrasts of meditative musings and tumultuous upheavals were conceived as a prequel to Stravinsky’s The Rite Of Spring.

Cellist Qin Li-Wei gave the World Premiere of
Ho Chee Kong's Passage at the Singapore Arts Festival in 2012.
Here he premieres the version for Chinese Orchestra

Despite stretches of apparent calm, it is an edgy work with anguish etched in every phrase and gesture. Qin’s identification with its idiom was absolute, his solo either battling orchestral forces or heaving long-breathed sighs. The thorny cadenza and extended solo after all ensemble activity had ceased may be viewed as a metaphor of absolute isolation. Every single life lost, whether in war, peace, or as a rite of passage in appeasement of the gods, is a major tragedy.  

  

   

(From L to R): Terence Ho, Raymond Mok, Pan Hwang-Long,
Qin Li-Wei, Yeh Tsung, Guest-of-honour Lawrence Wong
(Acting Culture Minister), Ho Chee Kong,
Michael Sidney Timpson, Tsai Ling-Huei and Robert Casteels.

THE MAGNIFICENT CELLO / Qin Li-Wei and Bernard Lanskey / Review

THE MAGNIFICENT CELLO

QIN LI-WEI, Cello

BERNARD LANSKEY, Piano

National Museum of Singapore

Tuesday (17 September 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 19 September 2013 with the title "History of cello through music".

For the penultimate concert in the Music at an Exhibition series at the National Museum, the  cello took centrestage in a delightful hour of music that traced the instrument’s development during the 18^th century. Some eighty years spanned the works performed by Chinese-Australian cellist Qin Li-Wei on his trusty 1780 Joseph Guadagnini cello. 

Some purists prefer J.S.Bach’s Cello Suites to be heard on a baroque cello or the viola da gamba, but this music transcends eras and time. The opening Prelude of Suite No.1 in G major is possibly the most familiar of Bach’s music for the instrument, but here it sounded as if freshly minted. The full throated baritone voice coaxed by Qin was both soothing and arresting, and like a master story-teller spinning a yarn. He made you want to care.

The following movements were varied period dances, taken at a faster clip in the Courante and Minuets. The Sarabande, with its widely-spread chords and deeply-breathed air, gently held one captive. It was the bounding rhythm of the Gigue that allowed some relaxation in attention.

Qin was joined by Australian pianist Bernard Lanskey, also Head of the Conservatory, in Luigi Boccherini’s Cello Sonata No.6 in A major. By now, baroque convention had given way to the sleeker and less contrapuntal lines of the classical tradition. The prayer-like slow opening movement offered the display of an exquisite singing tone, while the ensuing Allegro was martial in character but one which smiled from ear to ear.

Beethoven was made of sterner stuff, and in his Cello Sonata No.2 in G minor (Op.5 No.2), the piano had graduated to become an equal partner with the cello. Lanskey spoke about the metamorphosis of the genre, with reference to the paintings on the Metamorphoses of Ovid from the Liechtenstein royal collection. The epic canvasses he alluded to also applied to the sonata.

Its first movement was in effect a slow and serious introduction, opening with a grim G minor chord and one filled with pathos. The early Romantic movement, which Beethoven was part of, meant that passion was often worn heart-on-sleeve. True feelings lurked below its calm exterior, and this erupted in the fast second movement, when pent-up emotion found a joyous release. The contrasts and transition provided by the duo was startling in its immediacy.

The finale’s Rondo was even more cheerful, with the piano taking the fore. Its passages of running notes could have been more cleanly dealt with but the comedic timing with the cello was always first priority. With the ice thawed and melted, Beethoven could always be relied upon to turn up the heat of excitement, and this spiritedly closed the concert proper. The encore was also much loved by the appreciative audience, an effective transcription of Bach’s sublime Air in G major.