...AND
DELIVER US FROM...
NICHOLAS
LOH Piano Recital
Esplanade
Recital Studio
Sunday (5 July 2015 )
This review was published in The Straits Times on 7 July 2015 with the title "Speaking pianist toots horn".
After returning from his post-graduate
musical studies at the New England Conservatory of Music, Singaporean pianist Nicholas
Loh has established himself as a fervent exponent of new music. His first solo
recital since 2009 (when he performed works by John Sharpley, Frederic Rzewski
and Nikolai Kapustin) was to be as cutting edge, and controversial to boot.
There was an underlying theme of protest
in his latest offering, which opened with Latvian composer Peteris Vasks' Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Its Mozartian
title belied the music's wide dynamic range, with spectral harmonies and
Debussyan chords, then progressing to rapid figurations, repeated notes and
sonorous bell sounds. Dispelling the idea of night as a haven of solace, this
was more of a nightmarish scenario which ended with Loh plucking the lowest
strings of the Yamaha grand piano.
The World Premiere of young Singaporean
composer Bertram Wee's a little book of lies
marked a new chapter in local piano writing. Although the idiom through its
five movements was atonal, the violence portrayed was easily recognisable. The
work was an indictment against organised religion, dogmatism and extremism, the
sort that resulted in the tragedies of 911, Bali bombings and Charlie
Hebdo shootings.
No specific faith was named, as Loh
emerged with sawn-off gloves and uncovered socks to perform. Listeners got the
message that intolerance comes via slurs, murmurs and innuendos rather than
fire and brimstone sermons. The exception was the central movement, the comedy of ignorance, with the
keyboard assaulted by forearm clusters, sweeping glissandi and a stamp from the
foot to complete the final insult. Wee, who studies at London
The final work was the American Rzewski's
De Profundis, a 35-minute long
melodrama that required a “speaking pianist” to recite, sing, pummel himself
and toot on a bicycle horn amongst other things. Its text, of which Loh gave a
most lucid and nuanced reading, was taken from letters by Oscar Wilde when he
was incarcerated in Reading Gaol for the crime of homosexuality. Here was not a
self-pitying or crusading rant, but a sobering statement of utter hopelessness,
despair and ultimately sorrow, a word that appears on multiple occasions.
Loh is a natural storyteller, both while
playing, acting and singing (which was very much in tune too), who left the
small but very engaged audience with little doubt about his abilities and
sympathies. Intolerance and hate crimes are surely suffocating the world, yet
it seems politically incorrect to voice out against them publicly. This recital
was one small but important step taken in the right direction.
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