VAN CLIBURN MEMORIAL CONCERT in Fort Worth, Texas

On 27 February 2013, the world lost one of its great statesmen of music with the death of American superstar pianist Van Cliburn (1934-2014). He was the first winner of the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in 1958, when the world was embroiled in an arms race between the Soviet Union and the Western world which we now know as the Cold War. He brought peoples and cultures together in peace and friendship through the common bond of music. 

In 1962, the First Van Cliburn International Piano Competition was organised in the Texas city of Fort Worth, where Cliburn and his family resided. Since then, it has become the world's most publicised international piano competition and the one with the highest profile. In memory of Van the Man, a free piano recital lasting almost 4 hours was held on Thursday evening 27 February 2014 in Sundance Square in Fort Worth, just a stone's throw from Bass Performance Hall, where the competition has its home. Eight pianists associated with the competition, all award winners, performed a selection of great piano works.  

The audience stood to attention when Jose Feghali
(1st prize, 1985) played The Star Spangled Banner,
the US national anthem,
which Van used to open all his recitals with.

Yakov Kasman (2nd Prize, 1997) performed
Rachmaninoff's Second Sonata, in the 1913 version
which Van Cliburn favoured.

Simone Pedroni (1st Prize, 1993) unusually programmed
John Williams' Suite from the movie Lincoln
(another great American),
and followed with Liszt's Funerailles.

The youngest pianist of all, Steven Lin (Jury Discretionary
Award, 2013), looking a bit like Lang Lang here,
offered the Minuet and Clair de lune (Suite Bergamasque)
by Debussy and Mendelssohn's Fantasy Op.28.

Maxim Philippov (2nd Prize, 2001) played
Schumann's First Sonata Op.11.

Alexey Koltakov (Finalist, 2001) in Liszt's Dante Sonata.

Jose Feghali appeared a second time, now with
Schumann's Kinderszenen  and the
Bach-Hess Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring.

Antonio Pompa-Baldi (2nd Prize, 2001) spoke about how he 
"lied" to Van Cliburn, and performed Liszt's Second Ballade,
Poulenc's Paths of Love and Liszt's Ernani Fantasy.

Alexander Kobrin (1st Prize, 2005) finished off with
selections from Tchaikovsky's The Seasons.

Kobrin was joined by Philippov
in a 4-hand version of Moscow Nights.

Moscow Nights was famously performed by
Van Cliburn in Moscow, thus sealing the friendship
between Americans and Russians.

All the pianists line up for a final bow.

The empty stage.
The world's a sadder place with the passing of Van Cliburn.
May he rest in peace.

All photos taken from the screen (www.cliburn.org)

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, February 2014)

LEGENDARY VAN CLIBURN

Complete Album Collection

Sony Classical 88765407232

(28 CDs + DVD) / *****

Exactly one year ago, the American pianist Van Cliburn (1934-2012) died from metastatic bone cancer. Although he shot to fame by winning 1^st prize at the inaugural Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in 1958, his meteoric concert career lasted all about twenty years before a self-imposed retirement. This handsome box-set encompasses his complete recordings on the RCA Victor label and a documentary DVD. He had a smallish repertoire of mostly Romantic works but nothing was less than whole-hearted and conceived on a grand scale.

The concertos by Tchaikovsky (No.1), Rachmaninov (Nos.2 and 3) and Prokofiev (No.3) give an insight to his lush, all-embracing sound, outsized technique, and are justly celebrated. Also not to be ignored was his magisterial sweep in Edward MacDowell’s underrated Second Piano Concerto. Of the larger solo works, sonatas by Liszt, Chopin, Rachmaninov (No.2), Prokofiev (No.6) and Barber exhibit that passion and largesse that made him a hero. Given his celeb status and popular appeal, the record label offered him the luxury of issuing albums titled My Favourite Encores, Chopin’s Greatest Hits, The World’s Favourite Piano Music and the like, where his mastery of smaller works is particularly delectable. Here was a pianist in a million, one who will be sorely missed.

LA CREATION DU MONDE

CLAUDE DELANGLE, Saxophone

Swedish Wind Ensemble / Christian Lindberg

BIS 1640 / ****1/2

The saxophone is a versatile instrument equally at home with the classics and jazz, a quality exploited by many 20^th century composers. From one of the world’s great classical saxophonists comes this marvellous album of saxophone concertante works. The main work is Frenchman Darius Milhaud’s La Creation Du Monde (The Creation Of The Earth), a short ballet which uses Afro-American themes and rhythms to depict the coming of an African Adam and Eve. Composed in 1923, it was one of the first works, like Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue, to successfully marry jazz and classical idioms.

               

The other major work is American Paul Creston’s Alto Saxophone Concerto (1944), whose eclecticism and tonal allure follows in the manner of Copland, Barber and Bernstein. The saxophone “crosses over” on numerous instances in Roger Boutry’s Divertimento (1963), Anders Emilsson’s Salute The Band (2006, composed for the 100^th anniversary of the Swedish Wind Ensemble), and arrangements of John William’s Catch Me If You Can and Astor Piazzolla’s tango Escualo (Shark). French virtuoso Claude Delangle gets de luxe accompaniment by conducted by no less than the great trombonist Christian Lindberg. A must-listen for wind enthusiasts.

JOSEPH ALESSI AND THE SINGAPORE WIND SYMPHONY / Review

JOSEPH ALESSI &

THE SINGAPORE WIND SYMPHONY

Sunday (23 February 2014)

Esplanade Concert Hall

This review was published in The Straits Times on 25 February 2014 with the title "Blast of a concert".

After the New York Philharmonic Orchestra completed its Asian tour in Taiwan last week, a few of its principals made the short trip to Singapore to give masterclasses at the Conservatory. In the case of its Principal Trombonist Joseph Alessi, he also headlined a concert with the Singapore Wind Symphony (SWS) conducted by Adrian Tan, providing a massive boon to brass enthusiasts here.

Central to this assignment was the World Premiere of young local composer Terrence Wong Fei Yang’s Trombone Concerto, also entitled Empire. With its inspiration being the 18^th and 19^th century Javanese kingdom of Mangkunegara, the solo trombone had a virtuosic narrative which served like a witness against a vast orchestral canvas that is turbulent history.

Its three contrasting sections began with the percussive and martial air of Menacing, with the trombone obliged to boldly emblazon its credentials in the thorny and dissonant solo part. The slower central section was more reflective, which gradually built up to a Benjamin Britten-like climactic catharsis.

Following a typically showy cadenza, the finale marked Furioso erupted with a volcanic violence dictated by drumrolls and an ominously persistent beat. The ends of empires are typically cataclysmic, echoed by Alessi’s trombone and its final brief oration which seemed to ask the rhetorical question: what is the point of it all?

The concerto was sandwiched by two showy pieces also starring Alessi, the more formal lines of Alexandre Guilmant’s Morceux Symphonique contrasted with the brilliant Brazilian samba vibe of Philip Sparke’s Sambezi. The inordinate range and versatility of the sliding brass instrument were all evident in this masterclass.

Alessi himself took on the baton for Paul Creston’s Celebration Overture, an upbeat work which gave clarinets, muted trumpet and the tuba grateful solos under the spotlight. SWS Music Director Tan opened the concert with Bernstein’s popular Candide Overture and closed with the Irish dance rhythms of The Seville Suite by Bill Whelan, better known for his Riverdance music.

There were three encore-like showpieces to end, all starring Alessi. Arthur Pryor’s Air Varie and Fantastic Polka were Paganini-like with their breathtaking feats of instrumental acrobatics, with the ensemble scrambling to keep up. The grand finale saw 18 young trombonists, including a number in street clothes, join Alessi in Meredith Willson’s 76 Trombones from The Music Man, one of the most famous marching band numbers of all. In short, the concert was a blast.

SCANDINAVIAN SOIRÉE / Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Orchestra / Review

SCANDINAVIAN SOIRÉE

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Orchestra

Conservatory Concert Hall

Friday (21 February 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 24 February 2014 with the title "Sublime pleasure with fireworks".

It is always a pleasure to see young orchestras tackle blockbusters of the repertoire, like the Conservatory Orchestra in Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben in recent years. However young musicians also need to learn doing the less glamourous work, such as accompanying soloists and playing short pieces. All this is part and parcel of a holistic education for an orchestral and ensemble player.

This concert with a Scandinavian slant began with two concertante works featuring two winners of the conservatory’s concerto competitions. First was bassoonist Liang Geng in Swedish composer Franz Berwald’s Concert Piece, a virtuoso work in the early Romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber’s showpieces.

The soloist’s range was immediately put to the test in the opening bars, having to make leaps to both extremes of the instrument’s reach. Stunts of adroitness aside, Liang’s brought out a warm and full sound from the gentle giant of woodwinds, in a physically taxing piece which also had passages of true lyricism. A pleasant surprise was in the centre, where a series of variations on the popular song Home, Sweet Home held sway. 

Loud cheers also greeted second soloist Shi Xiaoxuan who made Saint-Saens’s popular Third Violin Concerto very much her own. Having won 1^st Prize in the Artist Category of the 2013 National Violin Competition, here was a joyous rerun. Her lush and often gorgeous tone on the 1729 Montagnana was a joy to behold, especially in the lilting Andantino slow movement, where interplay with the orchestra was both intimate and subtle.   

When it came to unleashing the fireworks, there was no let-up in her delivery. This was tempered by an acute awareness of an inner pulse, adjusting ever so sensitively to the ebb and flow of the music’s dynamics. Such an instinctual approach is what makes a true musician.

The concert’s second half was devoted to all 8 short movements from both Peer Gynt Suites by Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg. Guest conductor Joshua Kangming Tan, Associate Conductor of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, had the orchestra perform the incidental music in the running sequence of Henrik Ibsen’s melodrama.

Chronologically this made a whole lot of sense, and the players were more than up to the task. There was plenty of drama in The Hall of the Mountain King, where the split-second timing was close to perfect. The muted string sonority in The Death of Aase was homogeneous and evoked much poignancy. The familiar Morning Mood, depicting sunrise over the Sahara Desert, could have been a shade more ethereal.

The Arabian Dance, more like a Nordic wedding dance with piccolos, and Anitra’s Dance leapt to life, and the best was reserved for the final number, Solvieg’s Song. The strings again were a singular pleasure in the main melody, and how that gently glided into a lilting lullaby. It is a rare concert that ends on a quiet note, but only one word can describe the feeling: sublime.

DOCTORS IN RECITAL @ Steinway Gallery Singapore / Just Photographs, No Review

So it finally happened, when the doctors descended upon Steinway Gallery Singapore on a Saturday afternoon and early evening, turning the area around Orchard Towers into a cultural zone, as opposed to a vice zone. 

To our shock, the event was oversubscribed, and bus-loads of people (OK I jest, BMW-loads of people) had to be turned away for fear of overcrowding and turning Steinway's pristine showroom into the black hole of Calcutta. It was standing room only, and the pressure was on. There were several music critics (from The Flying Inkpot) in the audience, so the pressure was really on.

The chief pleasure was to get to play on a Steinway B model, which plays like a dream. Whoever can afford a BMW (current COE prices and all) should be able to take one of these babies home.

The lovely programme booklet produced by Steinway,
which helpfully included the Russian composers'
patryonomic names when most people don't bother.

Dr Lin Xiumin opened the programme with
George Winston's transcription of Pachelbel's Canon.

Dr Ronald Ling, a health-industry advisor and investor, who
regularly plays chamber music in France and Switzerland,
contributed Brahms's Scherzo in C minor,
accompanied by Dr Lin on the piano.

Yours truly rehashed some oldies, including the
Bach-Siloti Air on D string (the decent version of the G string),
Gershwin's Promenade and Mayerl's Shallow Waters.

Arguably the highlight, a professional cellist joined in.
Brandon Voo Esq., former student of the great Nella Hunkins,
performed the Andante from Rachmaninov's Cello Sonata,
and One Thousand Years, made famous by The Piano Guys.
From now, Voo and Lin will be known as The Cello Guys.

The evening concluded with the inimitable Dr Au Kah Kay
(aka I Could Have Played All Night) in Chopin's Barcarolle and
Granados's Allegro di Concierto. As the audience demanded
an encore, he obliged with the Schumann-Liszt Widmung.

All the Piano, Violin and Cello Guys,
from the shortest to the tallest.

Posing with Ms Celine Goh, manager of Steinway Gallery
Singapore, herself a pianist who could outplay the best of us.

The official Steinway poster with our autographs.
Does that make us Steinway artists?

With our guests the Cheong Family.
Little Benjamin already plays on a Steinway piano.

All photographs strictly by the permission of Steinway Gallery Singapore, the Piano, Violin and Cello Guys, and the management of Palais Renaissance, Orchard Towers and the Royal Thai Embassy. Violators of copyright will be subject to worse than legal action, that is being forced to sit through multiple sessions of Pianomaniac practising.

SSO Concert: GALA: SUMI JO / Review

GALA: SUMI JO

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Thursday (20 February 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 22 February 2014 with the title "Sumi Jo's vocals defy gravity". 

This listener has just about lost count the number of times Korean soprano Sumi Jo has performed in Singapore. The reason for her repeated returns is obvious: she never offers less than the sum total of her gifts, and audiences just love her. Although this latest gala concert with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra had the lightest fare of all, there was still a lot of hard work to do.

With four stunning changes of costumes, she sang eight showpieces in the main programme, and threw in another four encores for good measure. The secrets of her success appeared to be physical endurance, an irrepressible personality, and the simple refusal to act her age. The moment she strode on stage, like a valkyrie into battle, the audience just erupted.

And what a voice she still possesses; the sheer agility to sail through the coloratura twists and turns of Johann Strauss’s Voices of Spring was the first hurdle. While the orchestra was over-exuberant at times, it hushed up for the Vilja Lied from Lehar’s The Merry Widow. Through fine string textures, one marvelled at her unwavering breath control in those pianissimo, high and long-held notes. There was nary a hint of strain, and her intonation was spot-on.

The Viennese-themed first half, as effervescent as the city’s New Year’s Day Concerts, also included Adele’s flirtatious aria Spiel Ich die Unschuld vom lande (Die Fledermaus), and Lippen Schweigen (The Merry Widow). One wondered when Count Danilo would appear in the latter, which is the operetta’s most famous duet, Jo instead sang an adaptation in English and then engaged conductor Jason Lai in a somewhat ungainly waltz.

It was all in good fun, as were the orchestral pieces inserted before each pair of songs, including Strauss’s Die Fledermaus Overture and New Pizzicato Polka, Lehar’s Gold and Silver Waltzes and Offenbach’s Orpheus in The Underworld Overture. Before one could break out into a cancan, Jo was back for more with the renewed energy of an ardent teenager.

Juliette’s vertiginous waltz-song Je veux vivre (Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet) was a Jo staple, dispatched with a disarming ebullience. This was contrasted with Rachmaninov’s wordless Vocalise, where the seamless melismata soared into the stratosphere. A further Lehar aria Meine Lippen (from Giuditta) set the stage for her favourite party piece, Olympia’s Doll Aria from Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann.

Armed with a fan and thespian skills, her portrayal of the mechanical automaton was pure comedy, from the dizzying vocal pyrotechnics to a hilarious winding-down, with conductor Lai as her willing accessory. In this her eighth song, the high and long notes seemed to get higher and longer, the gravity-defying feats becoming more incredulous with each breath.

The encores formed almost another half-concert, beginning with Puccini (O Mio Babbino Caro), Strauss (Annen Polka), a Korean song (Blue Mountain) dedicated to her compatriots, and closing with Victor Herbert’s Italian Street Song. Sumi Jo’s return could not come any sooner.  

DOCTORS IN RECITAL: Come and get your MC!

And here's an awful bit of shameless self-promotion.

If you happen to have nothing better to do on Saturday afternoon, and also happen to be in the vicinity of Orchard Towers or the Royal Thai Embassy, you might like to make a visit to Steinway Gallery Singapore @ Palais Renaissance for some music.

Three doctors (the kind you get MCs from) will be performing a short recital on a Steinway grand. They will be joined by a doctor of radiology on violin, and a doctor of cello in a couple of chamber works.

Place: Steinway Gallery, 

  Palais Renaissance, 

  Orchard Road (next to Breitling)

Date: Saturday 

   22 February 2014 (Tomorrow!) 

Time: 4-6 pm 

(I've been told the playing starts at 4.00 pm)

The programme goes something like this:

PACHELBEL-WINSTON Canon in D

BRAHMS Scherzo in C minor (FAE Sonata)

BACH-SILOTI Aria in D

GERSHWIN Promenade

MAYERL Shallow Waters

RACHMANINOV Andante from Cello Sonata
Theme from Twilight (Piano Guys cover)

CHOPIN Barcarolle

GRANADOS Allegro de Concierto

Dr Lin Xiumin will be doing the chamber pieces (with Dr Ronald Ling, violinist and Brandon Voo Esq.), Dr Au Kah Kay will take on the virtuoso works, while yours truly the slower and simpler pieces. 

To register, please call or e-mail as in the notice below. I heard that places have been filling up faster than the Accident and Emergency Department of Tan Tock Seng Hospital.

We don't know who Brandon Ang is, but there's only one Brandon Voo Esq.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, February 2014)

BRAHMS Complete Piano Music

Deutsche Grammophon 479 1965 (9CDs) 

****

Despite its title, this is not quite the whole hog. Only German composer Johannes Brahms’s major solo piano works have been included, as well as the better known pieces for piano four hands. Pride of place however go to the reissue of Wilhelm Kempff’s vintage 1950s to 70s recordings of the 20 late pieces (Op.116 to 119), the monumental Third Sonata in F minor (Op.5) and Four Ballades (Op.10). These masterly readings have worn well despite their age. A young and totally musical Daniel Barenboim offers three sets of variations (after Handel, Schumann and the Sextet Op.18), as does the more virtuoso-inclined Tamas Vasary, whose take on the Paganini Variations and the short Op.76 pieces are breathtaking.  

There is fair barnstorming in the First and Second Sonatas from Anatol Ugorsky, who also plays Brahms’s left hand transcription of Bach’s famous Chaconne, originally for violin. The four hands works, including the F minor Sonata (after the Piano Quintet), Haydn Variations and 21 Hungarian Dances, from Alfons and Aloys Kontarsky sound staid by comparison. As a bonus, the ninth disc houses Brahms’s Chorale Preludes and Preludes & Fugues for organ, performed by Peter Planyavsky. Here is an inexpensive way to discover the length and breadth of this very interesting repertoire.

MEDTNER Violin Sonatas Nos.1 & 3

CHLOE HANSLIP, Violin

IGOR TCHETUEV, Piano

Hyperion 67963 / *****

The violin sonatas of Russian composer Nikolai Medtner (1880-1951) are even more obscure than his piano sonatas, but this should not be so given their quality and accessibility. His style has been likened to that of Brahms and Beethoven, but an air of Slavic wistfulness and melancholy hangs about his musings. First listen to the delightful First Sonata in B minor (1910), a slender and graceful work capped by two dance movements, a lilting Danza followed by a more animated Ditirambo, an ode to Dionysius.

The Third Sonata in E minor (1938) is dubbed Sonata Epica for good reason. Its four movements play for 47 minutes, surpassing even Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata for breadth and scope. Medtner’s retiring nature prevents him from wearing heart-on-sleeve like his friend Rachmaninov, and the music ambles along with much purpose and meticulous craftsmanship without descending into heart-wrenching pathos. British violinist Chloe Hanslip and Ukrainian pianist Igor Tchetuev distinguish both works with beauty of tone and an understated virtuosity. Try it and fall in love.      

Photographs from SUMI JO's MASTERCLASS

It was rare fortune to be able to catch the brilliant Korean soprano Sumi Jo in a masterclass at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory on Wednesday 19 February 2013. Within two rather short hours, four students sang for her, and a large audience was present to lap up what the famous coloratura diva had to share.

Unlike a lot of masterclasses where the teacher mostly mumbles to himself or herself, Sumi Jo was larger-than-life, just like the roles she portrays on stage. She got herself involved for every minute and was all ears. She even sat in the audience to hear how one of the young singers projected herself. All of the students were technically proficient, so Jo spent time to show how they could further express themselves. She sang along at times (even those snatches of song sounded celestial), and also played on the piano, partly to demonstrate each singer's range.

The audience lapped up her jokes and witticisms, and there was never a dull moment as time passed ever so quickly. Her final exhortation was that everyone was talented, but one needed to work hard at it. The ultimate aim of it all was to "make the world a better place through music."  What a goddess indeed!
  

Mezzo-soprano Tan Shi Yu sang Svegliatevi nel core
from Handel's Giulio Cesare, and Sumi Jo was very impressed.

  

Shi Yu was able to reach the soprano register when prompted
Sumi Jo cannot believe she is only 18 years old.

Soprano Melodie Tan Shi Yi sang V'adoro pupille from
Handel's Giulio Cesare, and was given the advice
to use her diaphragm more for better control.

Melodie was excellent in two melodies by Francis Poulenc,
so much so that Sumi Jo had little more to add.

Mezzo-soprano Zhang Shang got some pointers
on how to make Carmen's Seguidilla more sensuous.

When Sumi Jo addresses the audience,
they are totally attentive.

Soprano Suyen Rae shows her mettle in
Handel's Tornami a vagheggiar from Alcina.

Suyen learns that she could become a coloratura
soprano, because Sumi Jo said so!

"Work hard to make the world a better through music."