LAND
WITH NO SUN: PROMEMOR1A
Tze
Toh, Piano et al
Esplanade
Recital Studio
Monday
(25 May 2015 )
This review was published in The Straits Times (online edition) on 26 May 2015
Land With
No Sun
is a continuing series of concerts by local composer-pianist Tze Toh and his
Looking Glass Orchestra, inspired by his environmental concerns about the world
we live in and its bleak future. He envisages a post-apocalyptic dystopia where
the earth becomes unliveable and floating cities are built in the sky, which
eventually block out the sun's rays. Mankind fights against time to chart
memories which are sent back in time as warnings to past generations.
Promemoria was the sequel to Tze's
first concert and took the form of a solo piano recital aided by pre-recorded
tracks (referred to as sound design) and two violinists, Christina Zhou and
Gabriel Lee. For those unfamiliar with his work, Tze is a largely self-taught
and extraordinary musician whose idiom straddles comfortable between genres of
classical, jazz, world and film music. His eclecticism is not applied in a
haphazard or cut-and-paste manner, but through well thought-out and seamless
musical scenarios.
 |
| Photo by Jeff Wong |
Yet the 13 movements or sequences which
make up Prememoria were largely
improvised, based on themes and motifs which have been pre-determined. The
opening Flight of the Homo Sapiens
owed its schema to Chopin's Étude in
C major (Op.10 No.1), with rippling right hand arpeggios accompanied by left
hand octaves as pedal bass. He modulated through different keys and into the
minor mode before settling in a C major home.
The Pulse was a slow meditation
which began simply on the notes A, G sharp, E and C sharp, a portrait of the
void, to which Zhou's violin emerged from the right rear of the hall in
counterpoint. The two instruments were beautifully harmonised, with the blues
being a recurring feature. Voice-overs by Nadia Wheaton provided the narrative
in some of the movements in the absence of visuals, and these were unobstrusive
and often atmospheric.
 |
| Photo by Teh Ting Ting |
In Dance Of The Earth / A Distant Memory, the raucous sound world of O Fortuna from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana was referenced. The beat was vigourous, earthy and ominous, with bass ostinatos raining over embellish riffs from the piano's treble. Fragments / The Message was far more soothing, as Lee's violin from the left rear sounded J.S.Bach-like figurations to which the piano joined in an euphony which the old master would have thought provocative, and possibly approved.
The sequence of left hand notes that
distinguished the Aria from Bach's Goldberg Variations appeared in Sunset / Memories but was so
well-disguised by Tze's clever use of tritones that one marvels at how music is
able to refresh itself so spontaneously through the centuries. The Clock of Heaven and Earth provided
moments of tintinnabuli, or bell-like sounds, but instead of channeling the
spirituality of Arvo Pärt or Olivier Messiaen, one thought of the scores of
Ryuichi Sakamoto.
 |
| Photo by Teh Ting Ting |
Both violinists joined Tze on centrestage
in Hyper Loop, a fast number which
relived the soloistic prowess of Vivaldi and the baroque concerti grosso. The
final movement, The Whale In The Sky,
returned to the piano solo, now a minimalist pattern played in a repetitious
cycle. That seemed to indicate that as time passed, we should continue to hope
and dream, even against seemingly futile odds. By this time, Tze had played
continuously for over an hour. Land With
No Sun continues to eke out a future in 27 February next year. Make that a
date to remember.
 |
| Tze Toh with Christina Zhou and Gabriel Lee at the post-performance talk. |
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