NAFA ORCHESTRA / Review

NAFA ORCHESTRA

Lee Foundation Theatre

Thursday (29 October 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 31 October 2015 with the title "Two tales of Romeo And Juliet".

There is a Romeo and Juliet tragic love story in every culture, and this concert by the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Orchestra conducted by Lim Yau brought together the Chinese version with Shakespeare's in two hours of music. It was a good example of concert programming bridging the East and the West.

Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, better known as the “Butterfly Lovers”, is a well-loved and enduring Chinese tale. The concerto jointly composed by Chen Gang and He Zhanhao of 1959 was originally scored for violin and western symphony orchestra, but the Chinese have rightfully laid claim to their heritage by scoring it for huqin solo and Chinese instruments.

This evening's version was a composite featuring gaohu and western instruments. The soloist Sunny Wong, head of Chinese instrumental studies in NAFA, has a claim to fame. His father Wong On Yuen was the pioneer in playing the concerto on the gaohu during the 1970s. This “ownership” was immediately apparent by the way his instrument sang through the concerto.

The gaohu approximates the high human operatic voice in a way the violin cannot. The tonal inflexions, slurs and slides of Beijing opera is often elusive to non-native musicians, and here Wong made it sound totally natural. His playing alternated between moving plaintiveness, like a Chinese version of bel canto, and dazzling pyrotechnics. The use of dizi, played by Sun Rui, instead of the flute also added an element of authenticity. Wong's duet with cellist Li Jingli as the lovestruck couple met provided tender moments.   

The orchestra, whose part is unabashedly sentimental, backed this enterprise to the hilt, and there were plenty of cheers from the full-house audience after its conclusion. Very soon, the ensemble had to switch gears for 13 movements from Prokofiev's popular ballet Romeo and Juliet. These were extracted from three orchestral suites which the Russian composer had devised, and performed in the order of appearance in the ballet.

Thus the narrative of the story was not jumbled or lost, beginning with the dissonant cacophony and heavy plodding that is the feuding families Montagues And Capulets. The emotional roller-coaster provided by the sequence of scenarios and dances was well handled by the young orchestra, augmented by faculty members and guest players from Taiwan's National Dong Hwa University.

Strings were very disciplined, casting a fine sheen in sweeping lyrical moments, which were many. Brass and woodwind were somewhat exposed in the Minuet, but made up by fine showings elsewhere. As a group, the highly dramatic and violent Death Of Tybalt, contrasted with the rapturous Romeo And Juliet Before Parting became the score's emotional high points.

Even celesta and piano had their say in the gentle tinkling that was in the Aubade. With Romeo At Juliet's Grave, the final number, an hour of passion had passed by all too swiftly. The NAFA Orchestra has much to recommend, and its regular concerts – now requiring no tickets for admission – are to be keenly anticipated. 

CONSERVATORY STRINGS / Review

CONSERVATORY STRINGS

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory

Tuesday (27 October 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 29 October 2015 with the title "Enchanting lightness".

The greatest strengths of orchestras in Singapore have been in the strings. That is little surprise given the rigorous training of string players stretching way back by the likes of violinist-pedagogues Goh Soon Tioe, Vivien Goh, Pavel Prantl and Kam Kee Yong. This tradition continues in our music education institutions today under the watchful eyes and ears of Foo Say Ming (at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts), Qian Zhou and Igor Yuzefovich (both at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory). 

This concert by the Conservatory's string ensemble in three repertoire works gives a glimpse of what is to be expected in the orchestras of the future, and it is very encouraging. The 13-member outfit opened with Mozart's most famous serenade, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, a work which could easily be tainted with over-familiarity.

What one got instead was a freshness and litheness of sound, a homogeneity of texture because the players were keenly listening to each other and closely following the lead of first violinist Orest Smovzh. The Romanze had a lightness that was enchanting, but that memory was undone by the ensuing Minuet, which was taken too fast and with uncharacteristic brusqueness. It was in the mercurial finale where tautness of ensemble restored much of the music charm.

Further steps more challenging was Bartok's Divertimento, with its driving rhythms, rapid tempo changes and thorny dissonances. Here the ensemble dug in, creating an earthy and rough-hewn sonority that was totally suited to the Hungarian folk idiom which the work basted in. The slow movement conjured an aura of mystery, with the buzzing “night music” so typical of Bartok's scores rising to a thrilling climax.

More folk dances leapt out from the finale's pages, and here the gypsy band was in full swing with excellent solos from first violinist Li Ruoyao. There was even time for a humourously banal serenade that got interrupted as niceties were swept away by the Balkan bluster. The Singapore Symphony Orchestra recently performed this work with concertmaster Yuzefovich as leader. His students' performance tonight came across as equally riveting. 

The concert concluded with Dvorak's ever-popular Serenade For Strings in five movements. Perhaps more time was devoted to the earlier works in expense of this “simpler” work that parts of it sounded exposed. Make no mistake, it was still a fine reading but one which could have done with further honing. 

The warmth of sound was retained, which speaks much for the string culture the young players inhabit. There was genuine lilt and a leisurely feel to the Minuet, in complete contrast with its counterpart in the Mozart, and the slow movement allowed the music to breathe. The fast Scherzo could have been taken with more flexibility while parts of the rapid-fire Finale sounded a tad tentative.

However the reprise of themes in earlier movements lent a nostalgic feel to the proceedings, before the work closed in high spirits. That and much of the concert could not have failed to bring a smile to listeners on this wet and hazy Tuesday evening.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, October 2015)

FROM THE HISTORY

OF THE TCHAIKOVSKY COMPETITION

Melodiya (10 CDs) / *****

Recent editions of the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow have somewhat restored this grand institution to its earlier heights, when its winners were truly special talents. This marvellous restrospective cherry-picks cherished moments, with performances on the piano, violin, cello and voice dating from 1958 to 1986. 

Pride to place goes to its first piano laureate, the American Van Cliburn in Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto, conducted by Kirill Kondrashin. It is a well-measured reading that gets blistering and catches fire towards the end. Preceded by Cliburn's own transcription of the popular Russian tune Moscow Nights, it marked a high point of Soviet-American detente in the height of the Cold War. A fascimile copy of Cliburn's mark-sheet in the first round, graded 24 out of 25 by Emil Gilels has been included.

Tchaikovsky's three great solo concertos get performances from Andrei Gavrilov (piano, 1974), Viktor Tretyakov (violin, 1966) and Karine Georgian (Rococo Variations for cello, 1966), great representatives of the Russian school. 

Other highlights include Paganini's First Violin Concerto (Viktoria Mullova, 1982), Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto (Vladimir Krainev, 1970), Rachmaninov's Paganini Rhapsody (Yuri Egorov, 1974), Ravel's Left Hand Piano Concerto (Roger Muraro, 1986), Bach's English Suite No.3 (Andras Schiff, 1974), solos from John Ogdon and Vladimir Ashkenazy (both 1962), John Lill, Cyprien Katsaris and Gidon Kremer (all 1970), Myung Whun Chung and Mikhail Pletnev (both 1978), and several Russian singers. 

Alas no playing time has been spared for Grigory Sokolov (1966) or Barry Douglas (1986), but could a second volume be coming out in due course?   

MUSIC FROM BEHIND THE LINES

Works by CECIL COLES

BBC Scottish Symphony / Martyn Brabbins

Helios 55464 / ****1/2

The Scottish composer Cecil Coles (1888-1918) belongs to the “lost generation” of British composers and poets whose lives were tragically cut short in the Western front of the First World War. He was a close friend of established composer Gustav Holst, who had guided and encouraged him in his youth. 

He studied in London and ironically in Stuttgart, Germany where his craft as a creator was moulded. While his orchestral suite From The Scottish Highlands (1907) displayed the pastoral folk-like style of many British composers, his later works drew inspiration from the Germans Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss.

His Scherzo In A minor (1910) and The Comedy Of Errors Overture (1911) are very well crafted stand-alone pieces, full of Romantic gestures, while Fra Giacomo (1914) is a dramatic monologue in English for baritone (sung here by Paul Whelan) and orchestra which could have come from a Wagnerian operatic scene. 

His last work was the suite Behind The Lines (1918), parts of which were destroyed in the frontline where it was composed. Only two movements survived, Estaminet De Carrefour, a waltz-like dance of gaiety, contrasted by the solemnity of Cortege, a funeral procession for souls lost in battle. His music had eerily foretold his unkind fate. The Scottish orchestra conducted by Martyn Brabbins do full justice to these poignant scores, bringing to fruition a voice untimely silenced before his time.

ELEGANT MUSIC SOCIETY OF SHANGHAI CHINESE ORCHESTRA / Ding Yi Chinese Chamber Music Festival / Review

ELEGANT MUSIC SOCIETY OF 

SHANGHAI CHINESE ORCHESTRA

Ding Yi Chinese Chamber Music Festival

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday (25 October 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 27 October 2015 with the title "Fine Chinese chamber music".

The Ding Yi Chinese Chamber Music Festival has become a regular annual fixture of the cultural calendar, attracting enthusiastic audiences to its concerts by international chamber groups from China and Taiwan. This year's offerings was wrapped up by the aptly named Elegant Music Society of Shanghai Chinese Orchestra, an elite chamber ensemble of the famed Chinese institution.

The five-person group specialises in the genre known as Jiangnan Shizhu, literally silk and bamboo music, which involves string and blown instruments. Typically these are the bowed erhu, plucked pipa and ruan, dizi or xiao (bamboo flutes), accompanied by the struck yangqin (Chinese dulcimer). Many consider this chamber music the true essence of Chinese music, far removed from massive Chinese symphonic orchestral forces.

Ancient tunes handed through the centuries by oral tradition featured in this concert including Blossoms On Spring Moonlit Night and Song Of The Bamboo Robes, where the melodic line is shared by Duan Ai-ai's erhu, Jin Kai's xiao (transverse flute) and Yu Bing's pipa, and mostly unadorned, with Xia Qing's ruan and Yu Xiaona's yangqin providing added textures. Heterophony (different instruments playing the same melody) rules in place of the polyphony that is sine qua non in Western chamber music.

There is much beauty in the music's simplicity and clarity of lines, which never sounds cluttered or overly busy. One of Jiangnan music's greatest hits was included in the concert: Xing Jie (Walking The Streets), which opened in an ambling pace, before taking off in quick steps for a fluid finish.

As musical traditions evolved and Chinese composers became exposed to the West, certain techniques were imbibed and assimilated. Some of these could be found in living composer Gu Guanren's rhapsodic Flavours Of Jiangnan, which sounded more contemporary in character and feel.

There was a solo segment that showcased the individual player's virtuosity. Zhao Songting's arrangement of Flying Partridges found dizi player Jin in fine fettle, luxuriating in long-held trills and fast passages of Paganinian fiendishness. Duan's solidly-honed huqin tone in blind composer Hua Yanjun's contemplative The Moon Reflected in Erquan was rare thing of beauty.

The festival's host ensemble Ding Yi Music Company added Gu Guanren's The Beautiful Jiangnan as if to highlight the differences between small and larger groups, but that was merely the prelude to the World Premiere of Lu Pei's Divertimento. Specially commissioned for this festival, the 12-part work saw players of Ding Yi joined by the Shanghai Elegants conducted by Quek Ling Kiong.

In this witty old-meets-new composition, pentatonic melodies were subjected to rapid tempo changes, the polyphony of the Javanese gamelan and the intriguing patchwork that is 20^th century minimalism. Despite its tricky idiom and technical challenges, the merry band of virtuosos pulled off its intricacies with much polish and aplomb. Whoever said that Chinese instrumental music had to be lao gudong, or antiquated? 

      

Photographs by the kind permission of Ding Yi Music Company.

SINGAPORE COMPOSE! SG50 / The Philharmonic Winds / Review

SINGAPORE COMPOSE! SG50

The Philharmonic Winds

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (24 October 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 26 October 2015 with the title "Remembering legacy of LKY".

Singapore's jubilee year has been open season for a raft of new works inspired by nationhood, nostalgia and the demise of the State's founding father Lee Kuan Yew. This concert by The Philharmonic Winds conducted by Leonard Tan featured no less than five world premieres by established and rising local composers.

Terrence Wong Fei Yang's Foundation began with a timpani roll and brass chorale, from which a passacaglia unfolded with a steady march-like rhythm. This is an antique compositional form with short variations built over a foundation of repeated rhythmic measures. With flourishes from woodwinds and brass, the work gained momentum and speed before closing abruptly.

While the opener pondered about the fate of civilisations, the next two works, selected from an open call for compositions, delved on the wonders of nature. Gregory Gu Wei's Meditation Under The Midnight Sun, composed following a trip to the Norwegian Arctic, had a pastoral feel with prominent piccolo, clarinet and oboe solos. There was a progression to a warmth of real splendour and a serene ending.   

Oh Jin Yong's A Glance Upon The Silver River was a contemplation of the celestial. The contrabassoon's drone, tinkling percussion and piano created an aural haze for this piece of dynamic extremes and abrupt shifts. There was a glorious melody for the solo euphonium, leading to an outbreak of sound before dissipating to the murky and mysterious void as it had began with.

As promising as the three young composers were, it was the veterans who dominated the show. Belgium-born Robert Casteels's symphonic poem Hanging Gardens was the most abstract work, but had the advantage of sound engineering by Dirk Stromberg and a projected film of natural images manned by Andrew Thomas.

Its Wagnerian scope was a breathtaking one, one massive canvas of sound which referenced the loss of the fabled Babylonian ancient wonder with the world today which risks being destroyed by mankind's greed and indifference to nature. Its gravitation to the key of G major provided the work's pivot, which suggests that there is hope for humanity after all.

Zechariah Goh Toh Chai's three-movement L.K.Y.-Legacy was probably the Lee Kuan Yew symphony everybody was waiting for. Thankfully, it was not an ultra-nationalistic paean but a sympathetic view tempered by the loss of the composer's own father in January. The first two movements were prefaced by quotes from the late leader.

The first, Herald, dealt with Singapore's separation from Malaysia, a movement of dissonance and chromaticism reflecting Lee's anguish on 9 August 1965 with a trumpet solo resounding from the hall's Circle. The second, Romanza, was lighter and a tender tribute to the pre-deceased Mrs Lee, his pillar of strength for many decades. Its key of G minor however projected a pervading sense of loss.

The finale, Monumentum, quoted Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the State Funeral and the epitaph of Sir Christopher Wren in St Paul's Cathedral, Si monumentum requiris, circumspice (If you seek his monument, look around you). The melody, resembling that of Faure's Pavane, was sung by members of the orchestra and the work closed with a conspicuous lack of pomp or bombast. That would have been exactly how Mr Lee would have liked it.

ILYA RASHKOVSKIY Piano Recital / The Joy of Music Festival 2015 / Review

ILYA RASHKOVSKIY Piano Recital

The Joy of Music Festival

Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall

Wednesday (14 October 2015)

It is hard to believe that ten years ago, in 2005, 20-year-old Russian pianist Ilya Rashkovskiy was awarded First Prize at the First Hong Kong International Piano Competition. Then I predicted he would go on on win further prizes in further major competitions. This he duly obliged, garnering First Prize at the 2012 Hamamatsu International Piano Competition, and coming close at the Queen Elisabeth (Brussels), Vianna da Motta (Lisbon), Enesco (Bucharest) and Arthur Rubinstein (Tel Aviv) competitions. At 30, he's all done with concours, but what a journey! Listening to his latest recital, he has also matured. Mere technical proficiency has  given way to a certain fearlessness and the ability to “mix it in” with the music, without fearing what the jury might think.

Just to put things in perspective: in Hamatmatsu where he so convincingly triumphed, 4^th placing went to the fellow Russian Anna Tcybuleva. Today, Tcybeuleva is the latest winner of the Leeds International Piano Competition, which just concluded last month.

Rashkovskiy's present repertoire has begun to reflect the inner musician in him. The Russian warhorses still remain, but he has been able to include works that bring out qualities other than outright virtuosity. In a selection of five Rachmaninov Preludes from Op.23, it was the slower ones – Nos.1 (F sharp minor), E flat major (No.6) and G flat major (No.10) – that shone out with an innate lumincescence. Of course, he could still barnstorm in the popular G minor (No.5) and C minor (Op.7) Preludes like before.

Ravel's slender Sonatine was a curious choice, but that was prime opportunity to display restraint and plain good taste. This finely-honed musicality was balanced by the whirlwind of a finale, which showed he could summon the fireworks at will. Even better was Georges Enesco's First Sonata, a rarity if any, which deserves to be heard more often than his First Romanian Rhapsody. It is a three- movement masterpiece of colour and myriad shades, about 18 minutes long, once likened to Dante's Purgatorio, Inferno and Paradiso in miniature.

The nocturnal mood of the opening movement was captured most beautifully, with flickering half-lights amid long shadows, punctuated with violent asides, and the skittish scherzo-like middle movement, which flitted about like the mysterious wisp o' the wisp. The final slow movement, gripping in its intensity and alive with expectancy, capped the finest performance of the evening.

There were two obligatory showpieces in single movements, Scriabin's Fifth Sonata and Prokofiev's Third Sonata. No recording quite matches live performances of the Scriabin, and this listener would gladly experience Rashkovskiy's volatile and highly-charged reading in a concert hall than sit in front of the stereo for Horowitz or Richter. Never has the right hand's chords flown with such mercurial speed and lightness, but being there in person was the price of believing such sleights of hand were indeed possible. Similarly, the Prokofiev was given a thunderous outing, where the abrupt shifts between motoric drive and smooth lyricism where made possible by a superior technique.

Rashkovskiy was joined by fellow Hong Kong winner Jinsang Lee (the 2008 edition of the competition) in Arno Babadjanian's Armenian Rhapsody, which was an enjoyable romp from its melancholic opening to a riproaring dance-like finale. The applause had barely died down, when Rashkovskiy's encore silenced them completely. In the face of such overwhelming virtuosity, it was refreshing to hear some “simple” Chopin, the gentle lilt of his Waltz in C sharp minor (Op.64 No.2). Simply ravishing too.  

JINSANG LEE Piano Recital / The Joy of Music Festival / Review

JINSANG LEE Piano Recital

The Joy of Music Festival

Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall

Friday (16 October 2015)

Korean pianist Jinsang Lee, 1^st Prize Winner of the 2008 Hong Kong International Piano Competition, is one for unusual repertoire in his recitals. This year his programme connected pianist-composers spanning the East-West divide of the Atlantic during the so-called “Golden Age of the Piano”. The composers included Mischa Levitzki, George Gershwin and Sergei Rachmaninov, all of whom had a Russian or Ukrainian heritage but plied their glorious trade in the West.

Levitzki and Gershwin were exact contemporaries, and both died prematurely from natural causes during the height of their careers. The former wrote only a handful of pieces, mostly in the waltz rhythm, and recycling a little melody which he milked to its max in several pieces. Why not, since its the charming one to be found in his Waltz in A major Op.2. 

Lee played this with much love and tenderness, clearly bringing out the left hand melody amid the right hand filigree. The Arabesque-Valsante and Valse-Tzigane had their moments, but both will have to give way to The Enchanted Nymph, undoubtedly Levitzki's finest confection. Its shimmering opening gradually leads into a waltz (what else could it do?), luxuriating in the ballroom before closing in an enveloping sea of bliss. Charm was kept on high in Lee's delectable performances.

The George Gershwin Songbook contains 18 short prelude-like pieces based on his popular song hits. Lee played all of them, starting with The Man I Love and concluding with I Got Rhythm. Space forbids a detailed description of the performances, but suffice to say, Lee tried to inject some of his own inviduality and ideas into a number of them. Highlighting certain harmonies or melodic lines helped vary the overall tone colour of the sequence. It was difficult to find any routine or boring moment in his treatments of these little gems.

The Rachmaninov transcriptions of Fritz Kreisler's Liebesleid and Liebesfreud are relatively well-known, but how often does one hear them performed in recital? As much as both violin pieces are contrasting, the transcriptions are even more so. There is an improvisatory air to the melancholic Love's Sorrow, which Lee very much took in his stride. Love's Joy was an all-out showpiece, and here he dug in for a virtuosic showing, which despite the vulgarity of the transcription, did not fail to impress.

Giuseppe Andaloro (1^st Prize Winner of the 2011 Hong Kong International Piano Competition) and Ilya Rashkovskiy then joined Lee for the eight Slavonic Dances Op.46 by Antonin Dvorak. These are wonderful salon pieces which make effective Hausmusik for skilled amateurs. Even piano pros are not immune to its delightful charm. Here the concert took on a more informal air, as two pianist played on one keyboard while the third turned the pages. 

For the first five pieces, it was Lee and Andaloro doing the honours, and Rashkovskiy joined Lee for the 6^th and 7^th dances. The performances were unrehearsed, rough and ready but lots of fun and camaraderie between the pianists. Over the years, they have become good friends and this was reflected in the performances. Who cares about the odd stumble, re-start or wrong notes, it was the spirit that truly mattered.

As an encore, all six hands descended for an impromptu performance of Brahms' Hungarian Dance No.1. Its a squeeze when three grown men converge on a single keyboard, and it was a delight to see them cross hands, switch parts, and generally try not to get in each other's way. If this outing, which got the audience roaring in stitches, did not reflect “The Joy of Music”, the name of this festival, I do not known what does.

      

ANDREAS HENKEL Piano Recital / Review

ANDREAS HENKEL Piano Recital

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory

Wednesday (21 October 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 23 October 2015 with the title "Virtuoso who kept calm and carried on".

Every so often, the Conservatory holds recitals by visiting musicians who may not be household names but the attendances at these concerts are invariably encouraging, because the artistry on show is generally excellent. A nearly-full Orchestral Hall greeted German pianist Andreas Henkel, who teaches at the Dresden Hochschüle, for his mostly Teutonic programme of piano music.

J.S.Bach's music for the clavier is contentious business. Should it be only played on harpsichord, the instrument of the day, or is piano permissible? Henkel showed that one have could have it both ways on the latter in the Chromatic Fantasy & Fugue.

For the running notes, he used minimal pedal and the fingerwork was crisp and limpid. In the slower chordal sections, pedal was applied generously but judiciously, and a sustained organ-like sonority resulted. In the complex fugue, clarity of voices ruled supreme and it was in many ways a very convincing performance.

In Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata (Op.53), Henkel's view was a model of restraint. Belying the Allegro con brio directive of the opening movement, he kept emotions in check through the succession of C major chords and subsequent development. His trajectory was a slow-to-boil long arc that traversed all three movements, with the contemplative slow movement finally giving way to the flowing lyricism of the finale.

Here he was given free rein to pile on the passion and volume, culminating in a series of right hand glissandi. These sleights of hand were achieved with much fluidity, and without the cheating like some pianists are wont to do. The late Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau took great pride in achieving this sound, and would have been pleased with Henkel, who was a student of his student.

The three Mendelssohn pieces that came after the interval were sheer delight. The Capriccio in A minor contrasted between slow and fast, and Henkel's technique held up well in the note-spinning that was in vogue for the early-Romantics. The Venetian Boat Song showcased a seamless cantabile in this lilting barcarolle, which then morphed to the light-fingered staccatos for the Song Without Words in F sharp minor.

Salon music made way for the out-and-out barnstormer that is Liszt's Spanish Rhapsody. Here Henkel pulled all the stops for a virtuosic but characteristically unshowy reading. As if fearing lapses into vulgarity à la Cziffra (or Lang Lang for today's tastes), he kept an even keel throughout, unruffled by its multitudes of flying notes, octaves and chords.

There is a spirituality to keeping calm and carrying on in the face of adversity, and he embodied all that. The unusual choice of encore, Henkel's own transcription of the gospel hymn Morning Has Broken, which would not feel out of place in a Sunday worship service, perhaps said it all.  

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, October 2015)

OSWALD & NAPOLEAO 

Piano Concertos

ARTUR PIZARRO, Piano

BBC National Orchestra of Wales 

Martyn Brabbins

Hyperion 67984 / ****1/2

The Brazilian Henrique Oswald (1852-1931) and Portuguese Alfredo Napoleao (1852-1917) were close contemporaries who led parallel lives as piano virtuosos. Oswald travelled to Europe while Napoleao went to Brazil to seek their respective fortunes, and both returned to their homelands to spend their final years. 

Both Oswald's Piano Concerto and Napoleao's Second Piano Concerto were products of the 1880's, heavily influenced by Lisztian virtuosity, Continental grand theatre and healthy doses of over-the-top showmanship.

Oswald's G minor concerto recalls Schumann and Chopin in the first two movements, but is let down by an empty and frivolous finale that is up there with Saint-Saens and Gottschalk's fripperies. Napoleao's E flat minor concerto is more unusual by opening with a slow movement of operatic intensity, the bel canto variety which later gives way to a scintillating scherzo and a light-hearted finale. 

This is the slightly longer but better work, and the wait is well worth the time. Portuguese pianist Artur Pizarro lavishes his charm on these minor masterpieces, and it is interesting to note that his childhood piano teacher Evaristo de Campos Coelho had given the premiere of the Napoleao. Lovers of Romantic pianism for its whimsicality and excesses should not pass this by.

CHOPIN Préludes

YUNDI, Piano

Deutsche Grammophon 481 1910 / ****

This year marks the 15^th anniversary of Chinese pianist Li Yundi winning First Prize at the Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw. After making a handful of discs for Deutsche Grammophon, he left for EMI Classics, purportedly to record the complete piano works of Chopin. 

He never got beyond the Nocturnes and a recital programme, but a return to the German yellow label has rekindled his love for the Polish composer's music. This disc includes all of Chopin's Préludes, including the 24 pieces from Op.28, the stand-alone Prélude Op.45 and the under-a-minute-long posthumous number.

Yundi is back at his fluid best in an idiom he clearly identifies with, and it is an enjoyable listen from start to end. Lyricism rules in the popular slower Préludes in D flat major (No.15), A flat major (No.17) and C sharp minor (Op.45), and his technique holds up well in the most trying ones, namely the B flat minor (No.16) and D minor (No.24) pieces. His next project should be the 27 Études, if anything to trump his Chinese rival Lang Lang.

At just 39 minutes of playing time, this new release however represents very poor value for money. Excepting Yundi fanatics, other listeners are directed to excellent accounts by Martha Argerich and Maurizio Pollini (both also on Deutsche Grammophon), Nikolai Demidenko (Onyx Classics) and Vladimir Ashkenazy (Decca), who offer far more substantial couplings.    

THE ANSWER TO THE "DEAD WHITE MEN" QUESTION

Here was the original question we posed:

Q: RUBINSTEIN. ARRAU. HEIFETZ. SZIGETI. PIATIGORSKY. SERKIN. FRIEDMAN. ELMAN. THIBAUD. FEUERMANN. What did these men have in common?

A: They all performed in Singapore, at the Victoria Memorial Hall and Theatre.

Today, 18 October 2015, is the 110^th anniversary of the opening of Victoria Memorial Hall. 

Singaporean cellist LOKE HOE KIT will present a two-part write-up on the Hall’s history over the next few weeks. 

A HISTORY OF 

VICTORIA MEMORIAL HALL

By LOKE HOE KIT

Introduction

Since January, we have been inundated with SG50 events and commemorations, but here’s one more commemoration that may change your mind about classical music in Singapore.

Today, we commemorate the 110^th anniversary of the opening of Victoria Memorial Hall on 18 October 1905 by Governor Sir John Anderson. What dud this event mean for Singapore and Singaporeans?

The names of Arthur Rubinstein, Claudio Arrau, Benjamin Britten, Joseph Szigeti, Jacques Thibaud, Emanuel Feuermann abd Gregor Piatigorsky will be familiar with music lovers strolling through the aisles of the historical recordings section of record shops. But did you know these very people, the greatest musical legends of all time, actually performed concerts in Singapore – at Victoria Memorial Hall? Unfortunately, most contemporary sources have routinely presented an incomplete version of the Vic’s illustrious history. Consequently, hardly anyone today, even within music circles, is aware of such a heritage.

Imagine, hearing Rubinstein playing Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata, not on the RCA CD box-set, but in the flesh on the stage of Victoria Memorial Hall in 1935!

What this certainly does is to quash the myth that the Singapore of old was a “cultural desert”. It was a bustling metropolis. Its arts calendar regularly featured concerts of stellar quality. Local audiences were constantly exposed to the finest music making one could possibly hear around the world.

Over the next few weeks, I will be presenting a 2-part write-up on the musical history of VMH – who went through its doors, and why the Vic is so special.

MUSICAL LANDSCAPES: THE SOUND OF THE NORDIC / Ole Edvard Antonsen & Band / Review

MUSICAL LANDSCAPES:
THE SOUND OF THE NORDIC
Ole Edvard Antonsen & Band
Victoria Concert Hall
Tuesday (13 October 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 15 October 2015 with the title "Trumpet virtuoso plays birdsong and lullaby".

While pianophiles converged upon the Conservatory to attend Jean-Yves Thibaudet's piano recital, a smaller band of brass and wind fanciers gathered at Victoria Concert Hall to hear one of the world's great trumpeters in concert: Ole Edvard Antonsen. The Norwegian virtuoso did not perform a fully-classical programme, which would have been too strait-jacketed, but mixed and crossover fare, including his original compositions.

The 75-minute concert opened with the solo fanfare composed for the 1994 Winter Olympics (in Lillehammer, Norway), which showcased a breathtaking array of trumpeter's tricks, including echo effects and alternating tones from mouthpiece and bell. He was shortly joined by keyboardist Eirik Berge in the song Sved Rondane by Norwegian nationalist Edvard Grieg, which poetically describes mountains, valleys and scenes from childhood.

Antonsen used a number of trumpets for his acts. The diminutive cornet, favourite of brass bands, was the star in a set of variations on the Neapolitan song Funiculi Funicula, which got faster and more virtuosic as the piece progressed. Barely catching a breath or missing a note, he fearlessly embodied the exuberant spirit of the “Golden Age of the Trumpet”. 

Bass guitarist Tom Erik Antonsen, drummer Per Hillestad and sound engineer Dag Stephen Solberg formed the rest of the band, which performed to the end of the evening. A low-pitched rumble vibrated through the hall for Svalbard, an atmospheric recollection of Norway's Arctic islands with shimmering aurora borealis and midnight sun. Here, long-breathed melodies were punctuated by birdsong and whistling wind, all amplified effects of Antonsen's playing.

A number of works were inspired by his life experiences and family members. A lullaby for his first son took the form of a lively rocking rhythm, while a more improvisatory piece was based on his second son's pointing actions and movements. Just as exhilarating was his ride on a F16 fighter jet, with thrills, spills and a splendiferous melody on the gift of flight.

All too soon, the band which completed its Asian tour in Singapore signed off with a medley of typically Scandinavian tunes, which conjured a nostalgic brew of simplicity and melancholy. Antonsen's Landscape, the Swedish melody Men Gar Jag Over Engarna (As I Walked Across The Field) and Vitae Lux, also included a guitar solo and vocalisations from the musicians, which provided for a haunting and mysterious touch.

The sole encore, Bospoorus, was an East meets West number that relived scenes from exotic Istanbul. The amplified trumpet and voices simulated the muezzin's call to prayer in a quite unforgettable melange of sound and musical incense. It was a short concert, but a class act of pure quality such as this is reward enough for one's precious time.