CD Reviews (The Straits Times, February 2015)

SOLOS & DUOS

MARTHA ARGERICH, Piano et al

EMI Classics 94044 2 (6CDs) / *****     

In the early 1980s, the great Argentina-born pianist Martha Argerich stopped giving solo recitals and turned her back on solo recordings. This fateful decision and apparent setback was thankfully channelled into increased activity in chamber music and piano duo repertoire with multiple fruitful collaborations. 

This collection does not replicate her recordings on Deutsche Grammophon but complements it with live recordings from the Lugano Festival in a project named after her. The first disc however contains solo performances, an all-Chopin recital (Sonata No.3 and shorter works) recorded immediately after her triumph at the 1965 Chopin International Piano Competition and a Schumann's Scenes From Childhood of a more recent countenance.

Highlights of the 2-piano repertoire in this box-set include Liszt's Concerto Pathetique and Don Juan Fantasy, Rachmaninov's two Suites, Brahms Sonata in F minor and Haydn Variations, Prokofiev's Classical Symphony (transcribed by Rikuya Terashima), and two performances of Lutoslawski's Paganini Variations. 

More intriguing is the unusual coupling of Messiaen's austere but scintillating Visions De L'Amen with Gustavino's Argentinian Romances and three Piazzolla tangos, as if contrasting spirituality with comic relief.  Argerich's partners read like a Who's Who of great pianism, including Nelson Freire, Stephen Kovacevich, Yefim Bronfman, Piotr Anderszewski, Alexandre Rabinovitch and others. This is indispensable listening for pianophiles.  

1930s VIOLIN CONCERTOS Vol.1

GIL SHAHAM, Violin

Canary Classics CC12 (2 Cds) / *****

If one were to survey the 20^th century violin concertos most often programmed by the world's symphony orchestras, chances are many of these date from the 1930s. This era of eclecticism, experimentation and upheaval may explain the sheer diversity and heterogeneity, explored by American violinist Gil Shaham in this collection of live recordings.

No violin concerto is as melodious as Samuel Barber's (1939), unusual as it comprises two slow movements capped by a brief and frenetic finale, so difficult that it flummoxed its original dedicatee. By contrast, Alban Berg's (1935) written in memory of Manon Gropius (daughter of Walter Gropius and Alma Mahler), is atonal but orchestrated so lushly that it sounds late Romantic.  Karl Amadeus Hartmann's Concerto Funebre (1939) for strings quotes socialist and antifascist themes, a surprise that he even survived the Nazis.

The second disc couples Igor Stravinsky's neoclassical Violin Concerto (1931), a fond homage to J.S.Bach, with Benjamin Britten's early Violin Concerto (1939), which successfully combines gritty dissonance with long-breathed lyricism. Shaham performs all these with a natural flair and innate authority that is hard to ignore. His partners include the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, BBC Symphony, Dresden Staatskapelle and Sejong Soloists. Volume Two of this important retrospective is keenly awaited.

NU SHU, THE SECRET SONGS OF WOMEN / Huayi Chinese Festival of Arts 2015 / Review

NU SHU

Metropolitan Festival Orchestra

conducted by TAN DUN

Huayi Chinese Festival of Arts 2015

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (21 February 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 23 February 2015 with the title "Secret language of women".

The Chinese composer-conductor Tan Dun is arguably the most visible ambassador of Chinese music and arts to the Western-oriented world today. As a composer of Chinese music, he is what Bartok meant for Hungarian music, Ives for Americana and Villa-Lobos for Brasileira. As China opens itself to the world, the living cultures and histories of her people become better known to outsiders, and it is not just about martial arts, Marco Polo, Shih Huangti and tea.

Of course, all those have already been covered in various well-publicised works by Tan. Nü Shu is something far more private and intimate. Subtitled The Secret Songs of Women, Symphony for 13 Microfilms, Harp and Orchestra, the 40-minute-work is a documentary about the bonds that unite women in a male-dominated culture. Mothers, daughters and sisters are the living links in a secret language transmitted via oral tradition, songs and calligraphy.

Courtesy of Esplanade Theatres by the Bay

The setting is a village in Jiangyong county in Hunan province, where this arcane language still lives, albeit tenuously. Although Chen Yuying's harp is the virtuoso protagonist, both she and the Metropolitan Festival Orchestra play counterpoint to the real heroines, eight women caught in film for this synthesis of visual and musical journalism.

A mother sings life's wisdoms to her daughter. Another woman sings about sisterhood. Four women sing as a bride is readied for her wedding. Matrimonial ritual crying and tear-soaked scarves are as much part of this culture as a woman longing for her late grandmother in her spartan abode, caught in a 360 degree pan by the camera.

Their voices and songs are recorded verbatim and unrehearsed, and in one instance The Book of Tears, octagenarian Mo Cuifeng hesitates, coughs and cries with each recounting of her fading memories. Accompanying bass clarinet, cor anglais and trombones combine to make this a poignant and unforgettable moment.

By courtesy of Esplanade Theatres by the Bay

Not every chapter is gloomy; there is a recurring theme resembling one that appears in Bruch's First Violin Concerto and Richard Strauss' Alpine Symphony. There is also an ongoing thread that involves water, in this case tears, lakes and the river as a life-sustaining source. The final apotheosis is a dreamt one, of the eight women frolicking in the river, a symbolism of hope for the future. Women are the pillars of families; their tears of sorrow and happiness will never be in vain.

The first half of the evening was a standard concert, beginning with Li Huanzhi's Spring Festival Overture. Huqin virtuoso Zhao Lei starred in Zhao Jiping's Grand Mansion Gate while guzheng exponent Yuan Li did the honours for Guan Xia's Hua Mulan. Both were offered substantial encore time to further parade their skills. Liu Yuan's Train Toccata was another showpiece for the train music collection (joining the likes of Honegger, Villa-Lobos and Johann Strauss), performed with requisite aplomb.

By courtesy of Esplanade Theatres by the Bay

As if symbolic of the emancipation of women in music, the men of the orchestra were attired in all black while the women were allowed to wear whatever they fancied. 

GIOVANNI CULTRERA Piano Recital / Review

GIOVANNI CULTRERA Piano Recital

Lee Foundation Theatre

Tuesday (17 February 2015)

This review was published in  The Straits Times on 19 February 2015 with the title "Earthbound take on Chopin".

The eve of Chinese New Year's Eve is probably not the best day to hold a concert. About only 30 people were in the audience to witness this recital by Italian pianist Giovanni Cultrera at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. His hour-long programme of Romantic era works was a throw back to the repertoire favoured by legendary late Russian pianist Lazar Berman, who had spent his last years in Italy.

The third of Rachmaninov's Six Moments Musicaux (Op.16) opened the recital with big broad chords in the Russian's typically brooding and lugubrious  manner. Cultrera omitted the repeat and it ended almost abruptly when a reprise of the central march rhythm would have been welcome to flesh out the work.

Without waiting for applause, he then launched into the music of Liszt, which brought out his best qualities. The second of Two Legends, St Francis Of Paul Walking On The Waves brought out a torrent of sound, in broad striding octaves, chords and arpeggios. Equally thunderous was his account of Funerailles, with its central section of stampeding hoofbeats, often likened to the “Polish cavalry” episode of Chopin's Heroic Polonaise.

Clearly Cultrera has the requisite technique, physical heft and stamina to surmount these technical changes. However in the slender Consolation No.3 between the two behemoths, stolidity came in the place of warmth and tenderness. Likewise, his takes on two very familiar Chopin Nocturnes were surprisingly earthbound.

The posthumous C sharp minor Nocturne sounded cut and dried, while its counterpart in E flat major (Op.9 No.2) was plodding rather than dreamily conceived. The brief Prélude in E minor (Op.28 No.4) did however bring some semblance of pathos to his Chopin set.

A dramatic end to Mussorgsky's Pictures an an Exhibition.

Instead of performing the whole of Mussorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition, Cultrera chose to play only the last two movements, which was probably just as well. Baba Yaga's Hut On Fowl's Legs was a hit and miss affair conducted at high speed and top volume. This was saved by a truly clangourous Great Gate Of Kiev, with its series of tolling bells, bringing the recital to a rousing close. 

There was enough applause for him to offer three encores. A lapse in the middle of Tchaikovsky's Autumn Song (October from The Seasons) was unfortunate, but Chopin's Mazurka in A minor (Op.17 No.4) was the perfect salve. It was played with feeling and a true folk-like lilt, and there was a repeat of the Chopin Prélude heard earlier. At least it sounded better the second time around. 

Johnny Culture looks like a younger version
of American actor John Goodman!

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, February 2015)

CHARLES ROSEN

Complete Columbia 

and Epic Album Collection

Sony Classical 88843014762 (21 CDs) / *****

Charles Rosen (1927-2012) was an intellectual among pianists, and a pianist among intellectuals. Best known for his influential tomes The Classical Style (1971) and The Romantic Generation (1995), it is remarkable to note that his original PhD was in French literature rather than music, and he was a student of Moriz Rosenthal, a pupil of Franz Liszt. This collection of recordings from the Epic and Columbia Masterworks labels dates from 1959 to 1972. Like his contemporary the Canadian Glenn Gould, he specialised in music from extreme ends of the historical timeline. His versions of Bach’s Goldberg Variations and The Art of Fugue are justifiably celebrated for their clarity and laser-like projection, while his collaborations with Stravinsky, Boulez and Elliott Carter are close to definitive.

Totally convincing too are his view of Beethoven’s late Sonatas, in particular the Hammerklavier Sonata which he made two recordings in 1964 and 1970. The major surprise and almost forgotten are his forays into Jorge Bolet and Earl Wild territory. There is a disc of Chopin and Liszt piano concertos, and an anthology of Romantic virtuoso transcriptions, including his teacher Rosenthal’s Carnival de Vienne and Chopin’s Minute Waltz in Thirds. The Liszt and Bartok juxtapositions are a curious mismatch but certainly piques one’s musical taste-buds. His Schumann Carnival and Davidsbundlertänze are full of fantasy and how he colours Debussy’s Études and Images (both books) and Ravel’s eternally fascinating Gaspard de la nuit. Here is a thoroughly revealing and inspiring survey of music’s Renaissance man. 

YOU MEAN THE WORLD TO ME

JONAS KAUFMANN, Tenor

Berlin Radio Symphony / Jochen Rieder

Sony Classical 888430877122 / ****1/2

German tenor Jonas Kaufmann is presently one of the opera world’s hottest properties. An  album of light music has been inevitable, and thank goodness it is one celebrating the great operettas of Berlin during the “Golden Twenties”. The legacies of operetta-meister Franz Lehar and tenor Richard Tauber are represented by hit songs like You Are My Heart’s Delight (from The Land of Smiles) and Girls Were Made To Love And Kiss (from Paganini). For the benefit of Anglophones, he sings these and four other songs including Hans May’s My Song Goes Around The World and Robert Stolz’s Don’t Ask Me Why in accented English, which needs getting used to.

He is more at home in his native German and it one won’t hear better versions of Emmerich Kalman’s nostalgic Grüss Mir Mein Wien (Say Hello To My Vienna) or the Heldentenor strains of Eduard Kunneke’s Das Lied Vom Leben Des Schrenk (from The Sinner). For polar opposites in idiom and mood, he is joined by soprano Julia Kleiter in Paul Abraham’s Diwanpuppchen (Divan Dolly from The Flower of Hawaii), an infectiously playful Vaudeville-like number and the duet Gluck, Das Mir Verblieb from Erich Korngold’s serious opera Die Töte Stadt (The City of the Dead), where the voices blend like a dream out of Puccini and Richard Strauss. For good measure he sings Dein Ist Mein Ganzes Herz in French, which closes the album on a nostalgic high.

THE CHARM OF OLD GEORGETOWN

The newly refurbished Hai Kee Chan,
the ancestral home of the Chung family,
is now the Penang Peranakan Museum.

Oh how I love just love Penang! A recent trip in September 2014 to watch the Penang Philharmonic Orchestra brought back a lot of memories of old Penang, especially Georgetown, where I spend many a holiday during primary and secondary school vacations. 

My maternal grandparents were true blue Penangites, and although they stayed in Tanjong Bungah near the beaches, a day trip to busy Georgetown seemed to be a highlight, whether if they were doing their banking, shopping or just bringing their grandchildren for local hawker fare. 

Georgetown, now a UNESCO Heritage site, has received a complete revamp, making it a must for tourists seeking to experience what life was in old Penang. Much of the old buildings and localities remain the same but with some sprucing up, there is a great deal of charm to be had. So this is what Singapore was like during the 1960s and 70s! 

The ancestral temple of the Chung Family,
just adjacent to the Hai Kee Chan mansion.
Just admire the European-styled wrought iron fence.

Two shophouses on Armenian Street house
the Sun Yat Sen Museum and
a Museum of Chinese opera. 

The grand dames of Chulia Street,
where Penang does its shopping.

More Georgetown shop fronts on Chulia Street,
Kimberly Street, Penang Road and Victoria Street.

Near the Kuan Yin Temple on Stewart Street.

Signs of the times, when 007 and Kim Novak
were considered fashion icons of the age.

I bet these shops looked exactly
the same now as they did in 1965.

Penang Road at 9 am on a
Sunday morning: Deserted!

The pace of life in Georgetown
seems to stand still, and that's what
I love best about Penang!

PENANGUS DERELICTUS The Seamier Side of Georgetown

This nice building at the corner of Armenian and
Beach Streets is due for a clean-up.

Georgetown, the city centre of Penang, is full of charm and history, so little wonder it has gained the envied status of a UNESCO Heritage Site (something which has eluded Singapore thus far). However with that comes responsibility to preserve and conserve the old buildings and architecture within the inner city.  

The Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion and Chung Family Mansion are examples of "grand dames" which had fallen into decrepitude over the years but have gained a new lease of life under responsible new owners. 

Many old buildings are not to be demolished, but when developers are slow to buy over some of these buildings for a complete makeover, an inevitable decay takes place. This leaves many eyesores, some of which are just next door to properly refurbished properties. It is hoped that with time and gentrification, these old buildings will finally be restored to their proud original state.

This front entrance near Love Lane
must have seen better days.

A barber shop on Armenian Street,
hopefully not of the Sweeney Tood variety.

Dilapidation on Muntri and Beach Streets.

The joy of rust, and stencils put to good use.

 

A old bungalow fallen on bad times,
on Burmah Road near Nagore Place.

There is a certain character to walls with
blistering plaster and faded advertisements.

Even Armenian Street has some shockers.

The famous backpacker haunt off Penang Road,
Ai Goh Hotel with the other great eyesore,
KOMTAR Tower.

Places of entertainment.
What's left of an old wall in New World, and the
now closed Odeon Theatre, where I once watched
Rambo III with my grandmother.

What a glorious mess, near Beach Street.

You won't want to come here at night!

Grubby backdoors, but one with a sense of humour.

Decaying walls in need of whitewash.



Sunday flea market on Armenian Street.
Anyone wants to buy a toilet seat cover?

Georgetown's loveliest feline.