CD Reviews (The Straits Times, April 2014)

LISZT AT THE OPERA

LOUIS LORTIE, Piano

Chandos 10793 / *****

Make no mistake, this is about the greatest disc of opera transcriptions by Franz Liszt since Jean-Yves Thibaudet’s mid-1990s anthology on Decca. There is some duplication of works but in the big showpieces, French-Canadian pianist Louis Lortie holds his own against the best in the catalogue. In the Wagner Tannhäuser Overture which opens the set, he commands an orchestral-like sonority, including the spectacular echoing effects of the Pilgrim’s Chorus. For his sheer sweep, no one need miss Moiseiwitsch, Cziffra or Bolet now.

The Reminiscences de Don Juan after Mozart’s opera builds upon the duet La ci darem la mano before riotously dispatching the Drinking Song with gay abandon. The ad-libbed bits to the Waltz from Gounod’s Faust are also deliciously crafted. For contrasts, there are also quieter pieces, including the Romance to the Evening Star (Tannhäuser), the Spinning Chorus from Wagner’s Flying Dutchman and the best bits from Tristan and Isolde. The latter take the form of a feverish Liebestod (Love-Death) and Lortie’s own transcription of the Prelude. In terms of stunning pianism, this one is hard to beat.

ISSERLIS Piano Music

SAM HAYWOOD, Piano

Hyperion 68025 / ****1/2

Julius Isserlis (1888-1968) was the grandfather of British cellist Steven Isserlis. Born in Chisinau (now present-day Moldova), he was schooled in Kiev, Moscow and in Western Europe. His teachers included Puchalski (who taught Horowitz), Taneyev (Tchaikovsky’s favourite student) and Widor (of organ Toccata fame). Emigrating from Austria to England before the Anschluss in 1938, he was spared from the Nazi holocaust. He wrote mostly short works for the piano, proudly bearing his Russian heritage. These are heard here in very attractive and idiomatic performances by young British pianist Sam Haywood.

Listen first to his Ballades Op.3, their Chopinesque titles belying a debt of influence to the young Scriabin and Rachmaninov. The E flat minor Ballade shares a theme rather similar to Rachmaninov’s Elegie (Op.3 No.1), also in the same key. His shorter Preludes, several of which have sequestered and “lost” in Russian archives, are equally enjoyable. Also distinctive are the orientalisms in the Prelude Exotique and virtuoso writing in Toccata in Fourths, Flight of the Swallow and The Bumble Bee, all of which make lovely encores. Steven Isserlis makes a cameo appearance in the Ballade in A minor for cello and piano, 9 minutes of Tchaikovskyan melancholy. Well worth exploring.

AN EVENING OF FLUTE MUSIC / Flute Association Singapore / Review

AN EVENING OF FLUTE MUSIC

Flute Association Singapore

The Living Room @ The Arts House

Sunday (20 April 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 22 April 2014 with the title "Sweet, chirpy music in the 'pipe' line".

The flute produces one of the sweetest timbres of all musical instruments. Little wonder it is the instrument of Pan. The ethereal resonating tone transcends its provenance, be it made of metal or carved from wood. It is the love and shared enthusiasm of the “pipe” that the Flute Association Singapore was formed in 2012, providing a platform for flautists to perform in small groups as well as in the setting of a flute orchestra.

This 80-minute concert could be said to be a success because of the potential shown by its young musicians as well as the promise of more events to come. The full ensemble comprised some 17 players, ranging from the diminutive piccolo to hefty bass flute, and augmented by bass clarinet.

It opened with an effective arrangement of the Miniature Overture from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, with many of the details of the original retained. Similarly, the inter-weaving lines of J.S.Bach’s “Little” Fugue in G minor (BWV.578), more often heard in the version for brass, came across well in the transcription of Clement Lim, who also conducted the ensemble.

The concert also showcased works for smaller groups. Quite excellent was the ensemble work in Frenchman Pierre Max Dubois’s Quartet, originally written for four saxophones. The four players, Alvin Chan, Minh Trang, Sun Yu and Lim, more than coped with the precise timing, tricky rhythms and close harmonies in its four dance movements.

The combo of flute duet accompanied by piano included works by C.P.E.Bach, Gaubert and Polish flute virtuoso Franz Doppler. The latter’s Duettino on American National Songs performed by Chan and Minh with pianist Lin Jiaxin, was a humourous melange that played on The Star Spangled Banner, Yankee Doodle and Hail, Columbia but in a manner less vulgar than Louis Gottschalk’s seriously bombastic The Union.  

A threesome of ladies, Yeo Cheng Yong, Erica Song and Minh, also blended well in the chirpy finale from Haydn’s Sonata No.33 in D major, originally for piano. There were further unaccompanied duos by Hugues, Kuhlau and Telemann, assorted shorts displaying different degrees of difficulty.

The concert closed with popular film music from Pirates of the Caribbean by Klaus Badelt, again transcribed by conductor Lim. The swashbuckling swagger and salty sea shanties could have taken on a more tipsy edge, but since this concert was attended by not a few children and their parents, it was a suitably upbeat way to sign off.     

VIRTUOSOS OF CHINESE MUSIC / Ding Yi Music Company / Review

VIRTUOSOS OF CHINESE MUSIC

Ding Yi Music Company

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (19 April 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 21 April 2014 with the title "Humble virtuosos, great music".

The Ding Yi Music Company’s opening concert of its annual season is an inspirational and aspirational affair. As with previous seasons, the concert brings together some of China’s top instrumentalists, whether seasoned veterans or rising young names, in a showcase event that presents them as paradigms of virtuosity, hence models to emulate.

Conducted by its Music Director Tay Teow Kiat, the young chamber group accompanied and supported the visiting soloists in a variety of concertante works.

Performing first was huqin exponent Jiang Ke Mei who played on five bowed instruments of different registers. Two versions of the banhu, covering the high treble tessitura, featured in Zhou Qi Chang and Ding Yong Sheng’s Festivities of Kunming and Zhao Guo Liang’s Henan Bang-Zi Folk Song. Their operatic voice, with a nasal and almost falsetto quality, distinguished both rousing works while easily rising above the percussive beat.

An other-worldly sonority from the diminutive jinghu was the highlight in the well-known Ye Shen Chen (The Deep Night) from Farewell My Concubine. In the patriotic martial music of Zhang Chang Cheng and Yuan Ye’s Return of the Red Army, Jiang’s erhu danced and lamented, well accompanied by Yick Jue Ru’s yangqin.  

Wang Wei on the guzheng provided some of the most evocative moments in the concert. Cheng Gong Liang’s By the Yili River was a Xinjiang serenade, a slow melody from the Silk Road with an unmistakeable Middle Eastern flavour. Zhao Deng Shan’s Jingling Eaves Of The Temple was a meditative work of exquisite beauty, where a strong vibrato applied on resonant chords simulated the distant echoes of Buddhist wind chimes and bells.

Pipa virtuoso Yang Wei may be familiar to listeners of Western classical music as he has appeared as a member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble. With Ding Yi, he gave the World Premiere of Lin Hsin-Pin’s Formosa Rhapsody, a pleasant medley of Taiwanese folksongs incorporating some aboriginal and contemporary touches.

The out-and-out tour de force came in the ancient classic Shi Mian Mai Fu (Ambush From Ten Sides), possibly the world’s oldest piece of instrumental programme music. Re-enacting the famous battle of 202 B.C. which established the Han dynasty, he demonstrated a panoply of techniques on solo pipa depicting men, horses and wheels in conflict, with clashing metal and cannons for good measure.

The three soloists were interviewed in Chinese on their art and prowess, and invariably all demurred on being referred to as da shi or great masters. Typically self-deprecatory was the reply of Yang who conceded, “I do not know anything about being a master, I am just a musician.”

All three were united in the final work, the newly-commissioned triple concerto Cantabile by Liu Chang. The title is probably a misnomer, as the work was more like a symphonic rhapsody based on Henan Bangzi opera themes. With opportunities galore for solo display from the soloists, this brought the almost 3-hour-long concert to an impressively rowdy close.  

SSO CONCERT SPRING SYMPHONY / Review

SPRING SYMPHONY

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Friday (18 April 2014) 

This review was published in The Straits Times on 21 April 2014 with the title "Fresh breath of Spring after doom and gloom".

For this concert conducted by its Music Director Shui Lan, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra dispensed with the usual overture or suite as curtain-raiser and went straight to the concertante works. The soloist was SSO principal cellist Ng Pei Sian, who got straight down to performing Sang Tong’s Fantasy For Cello & Orchestra.

Sang (1923-2011) was the nom de plume of Zhu Jingqing, a former president of the Shanghai Conservatory and pioneering modernist composer in the manner of the Second Viennese School. His atonal works were destroyed by the Red Guards, and what remained included this rather unthreatening Fantasy of 1950, which evokes the same feelings of passion and oriental nostalgia as in the much better known Butterfly Lovers.

Ng gave as much he could in its ten minutes of elegiac thoughts alternating with lively folk dance material, which in no way outstayed its welcome. Sufficiently warmed up, this served as a prelude to Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor (1919), which was the English composer’s last great work. Scarred and tormented by the wholesale slaughter of the First World War, this was his idea of a requiem without voices.

Despite his relative youth, Ng has the full measure of its catharsis, translating into playing of depth and true soul-searching. His opening solo was an impassionate and prolonged sigh, echoed by the darkly-shaded violas and soon the pall of grief descended. Despite that, nowhere was the playing made to sound lugubrious. And when feathery lightness was called, albeit briefly in the Scherzo, the emotions were muted but the pain still keenly felt.

This built up to an emotional high in the Adagio, where the full-throated oration of Ng’s 1764 Giovanni Marchi cello reached its zenith. The final march was all the more poignant when the first movement’s lament returned, now with a devastating finality as Ng slid to the recesses of the cello’s bottom register. The encore featured a third consecutive elegy, Gabriel Faure’s famous Elegie with Ng accompanied by seven cellists from the section he leads. It was a moving moment of cello camaraderie and intense music-making.

Now, what the concert needed was a lift from the doom and gloom, and a spring in its step. That duly arrived in Schumann’s First Symphony, nicknamed the Spring Symphony, directed from memory by conducted Shui. Those who decried Schumann’s orchestration as poor may have to revise their opinion as this was an exhilarating a performance as one could get.

Tempos were brisk, as expected from Shui, but without sacrificing orchestral details. The opening fanfare sounded definitive, and the slow introduction melted away into an energetic Allegro. Never sounding harried or hectic, the fresh sprouts had sprung into life and carried on vitally through the rest of the work.

The slow movement unfolded majestically like some Beethovenian Adagio, but that did not tarry for long as the ensuing Scherzo and joyous finale erupted with an irresistible energy. Even amid the good-natured rowdiness, one would not have missed the French horn chorale answered by Jin Ta’s solo flute cadenza near the end that was lovingly shaped. It is these nuances that separate a great performance from a merely good one.

BEETHOVEN'S TRIPLE & MAHLER'S FIFTH / Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Orchestra / Review

BEETHOVEN’S TRIPLE 

& MAHLER’S FIFTH

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Thursday (17 April 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 19 April 2014 with the title "Young orchestra sets stage ablaze".

Two popular works, a million-dollar-trio and low-priced tickets were what completely sold out a concert by the Conservatory Orchestra on the eve of a public holiday. The sense of occasion was also heightened when the music began some forty minutes late, due to the stringent security checks leading to the appearance by no less than the Prime Minister himself.

Beethoven wrote no cello concerto, and so his Triple Concerto in C major (Op.56), for violin, cello and piano (the quintessential piano trio), is the closest thing to comes to one. So it was no accident that cellist Qin Li-Wei was positioned right smack in the centre on the forestage, with both the piano and conductor displaced right of centre.

The first solo entry naturally fell to Qin, whose statement was clear in voice and intent. He would be the leader, while violinist Qian Zhou his consort, offering countermelodies and an intricate veil of harmony. Their chemistry, as previously demonstrated in Brahms’s Double Concerto, was immediate and palpable, with the duo casting frequent glances at each other as the music rolled on.

The orchestra led by Jason Lai and Albert Tiu’s piano provided more than textural and rhythmic support in the engaging 35-minute-long work. True to form in this taut and highly-strung performance, there were several heart-stopping moments involving the pianist.

There was a flub early in the first movement, quickly corrected, and deep into the Polonaise-influenced finale, one of Tiu’s high G strings snapped on sudden impact. All this made for an eventful outing, which also witnessed arch-lyricism in the all-too-short slow movement and a going-for-broke with all guns blazing in the coda. 

Mahler’s Fifth Symphony provided an outright demo for the young orchestra’s breadth and depth of ensemble playing and solo prowess. Wang Jingyuan’s opening trumpet solo was more confident than pristine but rightly set the mood for the first movement’s funeral march. The pacing was well-judged by conductor Lai, stately but not too ponderous, which made the second movement’s violent upheavals all the more acutely felt.

French horn principal Tan Chai Suang literally stood out in the Scherzo, where her whooping solo entries were delivered with an outsized bravura and imperious sweep. Alongside her, the entire horn section of seven shone in this paradox of a movement which also incorporated a gentle Austrian country-dance within its rollicking pages.

The famous Adagietto, scored for only strings and harp, was beautifully delivered. Played without sentimentality and pathos seemed the right path to take, and one does not need to be reminded of dead dignitaries or expiring in Venice. The music is too good for that kind of narrowness of interpretation.

The finale, based on a satirical Mahler song about a singing contest between a cuckoo and nightingale, saw all stops being pulled. The solo entries to begin were all excellent, and soon the competing counterpoint converged into a log jam of overflowing ideas. Trust Lai and his charges to unravel these with a coherence and clarity that was staggering.

At high speed, the hectic but triumphant finale no longer seemed implausible but a reality. The well-behaved (no misplaced clapping between movements) and appreciative audience seemed to whole-heartedly agree.     

OPERA COMIQUE AT THE HOTEL / New Opera Singapore / Review

OPERA COMIQUE AT THE HOTEL

New Opera Singapore

The Chamber @ The Arts House

Tuesday (15 April 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 17 April 2014 with the title "Suite voices and hilarious comedy from the young".

New Opera Singapore, the young opera company founded by Korean soprano Jeong Ae Ree, may be seen as Singapore’s foremost academy for budding opera singers. Its annual major productions have been critically received, while its lighter Opera Comique series continues to tickle and tease. Opera Comique At The Hotel, the fourth instalment to date, was yet another laugh-a-minute mix and match of operatic highlights and farcical comedy.

While previous runs were likened to the long-enduring British Carry On series, this one was more a cross between Fawlty Towers and Love Boat. Singapore’s Hotel Amour is a Jalan Besar-like family-run establishment where an irascible Mr Chow (played by tenor Shaun Lee) tries to keep his three love-sick daughters in check while aiming to accommodate his guests.

Goh Ming Siu’s scenario stringing 15 arias and duets together within a 90-minute frame worked because the audience is already used to the MediaCorp local brand of humour and Robert Jenkin’s direction which included the house lights going off whenever hanky panky is being suggested. It was left to the eight young singers to deliver the vocal goodies on a plate.

As with previous Opera Comiques, the girls mostly outsang the boys. When two of your daughters are named Lakme and Mallika (above), the result could only be Delibes’s Flower Duet, beautifully blended by Moira Loh and Rebecca Li respectively. The third daughter Natalia had a bit part, with Ashley Chua comfortably handling Donne veghe from Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona.

Diva of past productions Teng Xiang Ting (above) was underused as forlorn hotel guest Dora, and one should be content with enjoying just a few short minutes of her Puccini, Donde lieta usci (La Boheme) and Ch’il bel sogno di Doretta (La Rondine), however lovely. It was left for Li’s Mallika (below), a Cinderella character, to steal the show with arias from Donizetti’s Don Pasquale and Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, displaying an enviable prowess in both bel canto and coloratura singing.

Tenors Jonathan Khoo and Shaun Lee (above) sounded overstretched in Mozart and Donizetti arias respectively, although the latter should be commended for a credible La donna e mobile from Verdi’s Rigoletto. Baritone Lim Jingjie’s small frame seemed at odds with his Don Giovanni Serenade by Mozart, but beside Loh in the duet La ci darem la mano (below), a nice balance was struck.

This leaves angst-ridden tenor Joseph Yap How Joo (above), easily the best male voice on show. His two passionately lugubrious songs, Tosti’s L’Ultima Canzone and Cilea’s Il Lamento di Federico (L’Arlesiana), the latter accompanying laughable failed attempts at suicide, were heart-wrenching to say the least.

Pianist Pauline Lee proved a sensitive partner, and was even obliged to play Chinese hotel lounge music as a prelude to the serious stuff. All eight singers were united at the production’s close with a rousing Soave sia il vento from Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte. New Opera Singapore’s production of Die Fledermaus in late July should be worth waiting for.

 All photos by the kind permission of New Opera Singapore.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, April 2014)

GREAT AMERICAN SONGBOOK

The King’s Singers

Signum Classics 341 (2 CDs) / *****

Where would popular music of the 20^th century be without the contribution of Broadway and Hollywood? Nostalgia comes in big doses with this selection of 17 songs by Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin and others. The King’s Singers bring out their patented warm and fuzzy sound, where solos are shared by its six members and close harmonisations are de rigeuer. Porter’s Night And Day, Begin The Beguine and Let’s Misbehave all take on new vibes.  Even the wedding dinner favourite When I Fall In Love by Victor Young does not sound cheesy here.

The a cappella arrangements by Alexander L’Estrange are slick, highly enjoyable and in certain cases, outrageously witty. Whoever thought of treating Berlin’s Cheek To Cheek, its first lines being “Heaven, I’m in heaven”, to the accompaniment of In Paradisum from Faure’s Requiem? Oh so naughty and nice. The second and shorter disc of eight songs includes orchestral accompaniment from the South Jutland Symphony (Denmark) conducted by David Firman. Just to quote one of the songs, this album is “delightful, delicious, and its de-lovely”.

CONSTANTIN SILVESTRI

Complete EMI Recordings

EMI Classics 722347 2 (15 CDs) / ****1/2

The Romania-born conductor Constantin Silvestri (1913-1969) remains in the memories of record collectors, not least for raising the profile of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra from a regional outfit to one of world-class stature. He had the reputation of being a perfectionist, but was comfortable working in a provincial centre where he had more autonomy and rehearsal time.

His collected EMI recordings include also performances by The Philharmonia, Paris Conservatory, London and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras. A forte was in Russian and Eastern European repertoire, and here are riveting readings of the last three symphonies of Dvorak and Tchaikovsky, as well as showpieces by Enesco, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Bartok and Shostakovich.

Even in 1950s monaural sound, the feverish intensity in the performances is well captured. Special mention must be made of his 1967 stereo recording of English music, which has become a classic. Rarely has the massed string voices in Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia On Thomas Tallis been better or more atmospherically captured. The same composer’s The Wasps Overture and Elgar’s In The South (Alassio) are totally vivid and gripping. For these, his cult status has been well deserved.   

COMING HOME / Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra / Review

COMING HOME

Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra

SOTA Concert Hall

Sunday (13 April 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 15 April 2014 with the title "Impressive acrobatics performed on the cello".

Curious fact: The Singaporean who has had most concertos performed this millennium is Bernard Tan, a National University of Singapore physics professor who composes in his free time. Following the first performances of his Piano Concerto (2002), Violin Concerto (2006) and Guitar Concerto (2013) by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, his Cello Concerto received its world premiere by its dedicatee Noella Yan with the Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra conducted by Adrian Tan.

Yan is a Singaporean cellist residing in Australia, and daughter of the orchestra’s founding conductor Yan Yin Wing. This concerto marked her return to Singapore and to performing after a lay-off to mother two young boys. Any concessions to technical ability were dispensed with in this demanding work that called for utmost concentration and no little agility.

In a way, Tan resembles the Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian in that he uses a few simple themes of local and ethnological flavour and works these exhaustively in a show of soloistic exuberance. The opening movement balanced a repetitive scherzo-like first motif with a lyrical second subject of Asian origin, while the central slow movement was a seamless Chinese melody of Tan’s own device. Here Yan’s cantabile playing, full-voiced yet never cloying, invitingly came to the fore.

The finale took off in a head of steam, in a perpetual movement that obliged the soloist to jump through a seemingly unending series of hoops. The orchestra, hitherto mostly supportive in role, saw its flautist, oboist and clarinettist reciprocating in florid flourishes of their own. The ante had been upped, and following an acrobatic cadenza by Yan, the concerto closed on a dizzying aplomb.

The concert began with just the first movement of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony. While that might sound incomplete, it had the effect of an overture. The orchestra warmed up quickly to conductor Tan’s cues, and there was some very satisfying playing from the strings, especially the cello section in the movement’s most familiar melody.

Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony closed the concert. Conductor Tan spoke informally about the moods that coloured the work, and the transformations from darkness to light as the music progressed. While there were moments in its four movements which taxed the musicians and thus revealing their amateur endeavours, these were more than made up by the passion exhibited in the playing.

While clarinettist Ian Lam and French horn Darren Sim impressed with their solos, it was the general ensemble that rose to each climactic high with brass in imperious form. It was not difficult to follow the thread; pensiveness in the slow movement, a more relaxed waltz rhythm for the third movement, before the all-out triumph to end the symphony. This orchestra has made tremendous strides since the homecoming of its music director from his studies. Long may this continue.

Composer Bernard Tan with his wife Jennie.

Music lovers, not politicians:
Mr Goh Kien Chee (son of Dr Goh Keng Swee) with
Dr Lee Suan Yew (brother of MM Lee Kuan Yew).

QUAND JE DORS / JEONG AE REE Vocal Recital with MIYUKI WASHIMIYA, Piano / Review

QUAND JE DORS

JEONG AE REE, Soprano

MIYUKI WASHIMIYA, Piano

Esplanade Recital Studio

Friday (11 April 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 14 April 2014 with the title "Alluring Jeong captivates in six languages".

The Korean soprano Jeong Ae Ree is arguably the most in-demand voice teacher in Singapore today. Her students and opera company New Opera Singapore have increasingly been distinguishing themselves in competitions and productions in recent years. As a performer, she commands the stage with a physical presence and vocal allure that is hard to resist.

Despite possessing a petite built, she projects herself well and exudes an intimacy that is wholly appropriate, even desirable, in the field of art songs. This 80 minute recital saw her singing in six different languages. Opening with the well-known Irish song Tis The Last Rose of Summer, Jeong weaved a seamless web of beauty in its immortal melody. Even if one was not always able to follow the words, projected surtitles in English were a great help.

French was next in the titular Quand de dors (When You Sleep), one of Franz Liszt’s most famous chansons. Allied with his equally lyrical settings of Petrarch sonnets, this languorous nocturne on the poet’s love for Laura was to find a most sensual outlet in this performance.

German was represented by Franz Schubert’s extended lied Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (The Shepherd on the Rock). Guest Japanese clarinettist Aya Sugimoto made the most of its virtuoso obbligato part, her effusive outpourings – first ruminative and later joyous – was echoed by Jeong in this lovely interplay of three seemingly disparate voices.

Manuel de Falla’s Seven Popular Spanish Songs was a whistle-stop tour of songs and dances from different regions of Iberia, one which allowed Jeong the greatest freedom to express a full gamut of moods and emotions. From lullaby to lament, subdued to dramatic, the piquant and fiery colours of the land were fully explored.

Japanese pianist Miyuki Washimiya, concert presenter Kris Foundation’s resident pianist, provided sensitive accompaniment in a partnership of equals. She too garnered the spotlight in two solos by Debussy, the brief and sanguine Girl with the Flaxen Hair, and closing with a big splash of sonorous chords in L’Isle Joyeuse (The Happy Island).

Two Korean songs saw Jeong basking back in her homeland. Both Hyun Je Myung’s Lady in Spring and Na Un Young’s Moon Night were Western-influenced in idiom, the former resembling Schubert’s Heidenröslein while the latter had echoes in Stephen Foster’s Beautiful Dreamer. The two Chinese songs – the familiar Molihua (Jasmines) and the affirmative Na Jiu Shi Wo (That Is Me) - could claim more authenticity.

The second song was unaccompanied, and despite a microsecond lapse in concentration, greeted with the loudest applause. Her encore, a tipsy drinking song from Offenbach’s La Perichole, had the audience in stitches. The captivating reach of Jeong’s voice and personality was always going to be a winner.

The three performers receive their accolades
with concert presenter Kris Tan.

From L to R: Ng Pei Sian, Chan Wei Shing, Jeong Ae Ree,
Kris Tan, Miyuki Washimiya & Aya Sugimoto.

All photos by courtesy of Chrisppics+

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, April 2014)

PROKOFIEV The War Sonatas

BORIS GILTBURG, Piano

Orchid Classics 100023 / *****

The three greatest piano sonatas of Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) were composed during the years of the Second World War, when the Soviet Union waged a life-and-death struggle against Nazi Germany at a cost of over 20 million lives. The Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Sonatas or “War Sonatas” (Op.82 to 84) were written at the same time, and share the common qualities of being brutally dissonant and percussive but tempered with a paradoxical lyricism and sentimentality. These diametrically opposites become clear when one considers that even temporary relief from the ever-looming spectre of death becomes a valued luxury.

Mortality and beauty sit uneasily in these masterpieces. The Sixth Sonata has a pulverising belligerence but its third movement is a slow waltz. The compact Seventh Sonata juxtaposes tolling bells with precipitous machine-gun fire, the toccata-like finale being its most famous three minutes. The Eighth Sonata is the longest and most subtle, with languorous bittersweet emotions being swept away by ruthless and unyielding hard reality. Ironically, all three sonatas were written in the major keys. Russia-born Israeli pianist Boris Giltburg, 1^st prize-winner of the 2013 Queen Elizabeth International Piano Competition, possessing a steel-clad technique allied with razor-keen intellect (he also penned the very perceptive sleeve notes), is the ideal exponent of this trilogy of doom.

BOOK IT:

BORIS GILTBURG playing 

Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.1

with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra 

conducted by Neeme Järvi

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday, 12 April 2014 at 7.30 pm

Tickets available at SISTIC

DOHNANYI Piano Quintets

Schubert Ensemble of London

Helios 55412 / ****1/2

Ernö Dohnanyi (1877-1960) was the great Hungarian Romantic at an age when his contemporaries Bartok and Kodaly were experimenting with dissonance and use of folk music in works of a more contemporary vein. His idioms lay in the Austro-Germanic past, best illustrated in his two piano quintets.

The better-known First Quintet in C minor (1895), a teenage effort, could have come from the quill of Brahms himself, who delighted in infusing his music with a Magyar flavour and vibe. The slow movement’s languorous cello melody, reminiscent of Brahms’s Third Piano Quartet, provides the work’s most memorable minutes.

        

The Second Quintet in E flat minor (1914) is just as conservative and accessible, but with darker and more introspective shades. British pianist William Howard and his colleagues of the Schubert Ensemble give lively and beautifully detailed performances. A substantial filler is the five-movement Serenade for string trio, which makes for engaging listening. All this represents extremely good value at a budget price.

FUN WITH MUSIC! / The Philharmonic Winds / Review

FUN WITH MUSIC!

The Philharmonic Winds

Esplanade Concert Hall

Sunday (6 April 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 8 April 2014 with the title "Having great fun with music in party-like atmosphere".

It is in the interest of arts groups in Singapore today to do regular outreach programmes in order to build an audience for tomorrow. Fun With Music! was such a concert by The Philharmonic Winds, one which combined the attractions of a children’s party, television variety show, and the Hoffnung Festival of music. Although listed to be 70 minutes in length, this one overshot its mark by almost an hour.

It began with a classic: Malcolm Arnold’s A Grand Grand Overture, its four celebrity soloists being three vacuum cleaners and a floor polisher. Comedic timing was required of Angeline Wee, Lim Lip Hua and Yap Yoke Lim on the hoovers and Dennis Sim on the waxer, especially on when to press the on and off buttons, as directed by conductor Leonard Tan.

The ensuing racket was enough to send the ironic master of ceremonies William Ledbetter to pull out his hair, until the realisation that he was as bald as a cueball. On a more serious note, this concert served to introduce young audiences to the different instruments of a wind orchestra – namely the woodwinds, brass, percussion and one solitary double bass.

That was done eloquently in David Maslanka’s Alex and the Phantom Band, which was narrated by Kamini Ramachandran, about a boy who entered an imaginary world of band instruments during a time warp at thirteen o’clock. More relaxed and less stuffy that Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, the ensemble conjured up a fairy-tale atmosphere with sensitive and well-characterised playing.

Other guests in this concert included 11-year-old Corey Koh, who sang Rolf Lovland’s You Lift Me Up and a Chinese song in a pleasant and unbroken treble voice. More impactful was sand artist Lawrence Koh’s contribution in Eric Whitacre’s Cloudburst, whose creative visuals crafted by his hands on a projected plate of shifting sand was evocatively accompanied by the Ministry of Bellz’s handbell choir and voices of the wind players themselves.

Piccolo soloist Andy Koh and tuba player Wong Yin Xuan contrasted the highest and lowest pitched instruments of the band in Arthur Pryor’s popular march The Whistler And His Dog. Three further Americans showcased were Leroy Anderson (the entire clarinet section in full glory for Clarinet Candy), Charles Ives (a deliberately cacophonous London Bridge Is Fallen Down led by a 10-year-old from the audience) and P.D.Q.Bach’s (Simply Grand Minuet from Grand Serenade for an Awful Lot of Winds). All these were calculated to bring down the house.

Eric Coates’s The Three Bears narrated by Ledbetter about the Goldilocks escapade seemed almost too much of a good thing, and even when the concert ran way overtime, the audience demanded an encore. Ledbetter than picked up a trumpet and tooted away with the orchestra in the immortal DoReMi from Richard Rodgers’s The Sound Of Music. If The Philharmonic Winds’ next concert is another sell-out, its effort would have been well rewarded.