CD Review (The Straits Times, November 2017)

INSPIRATIONS & DREAMS

LUIZA BORAC, Piano

Profil PH17000 (2 CDs) / ****1/2

This double-disc album is Romanian pianist Luiza Borac's tribute to her compatriot, the violinist-composer and polymath George Enescu (1881-1955), or Georges Enesco in the Gallicised version of his name. Enescu, who is probably best known as Yehudi Menuhin's teacher and mentor, studied in Paris during the turn of the 19^th century and kept company with the likes of Debussy, Ravel and Nadia Boulanger. 

This heady era of musical experimentation and emerging modernism is celebrated by works like Debussy's 12 Études, Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit and La Valse, all repertoire staples, which Borac performs with virtuosic flair and stylistic sophistication.

Rarities include first recordings of two waltzes and a 4-voiced Fugue by Enescu, which although derivative, are charming and well-crafted. Whoever thought that Enescu's wrote piano transcriptions of Sarasate's Gypsy Airs (originally for violin) or his rip-roaring First Romanian Rhapsody? These are unusual  takes which do not sound completely idiomatic but make enjoyable listening. Equally pleasurable are the Five Bagatelles by fellow countryman Marcel Mihalovici. 

This curious collection is rounded up with a lively performance of Schumann's Piano Concerto with the Romanian National Radio Orchestra and a 2-minute encore of Ahnung, a fragment discarded from Kinderszenen (Scenes of Childhood) that was discovered in 2009 and premiered by Borac.    

Photographs from OPERA MIXER: THE ITALIAN EDITION

If you love music for the voice, but are not too familiar about opera and its finer points, then Opera Mixer is right for you. Presented by Opera Viva, Opera Mixer aims to demystify the mystique and intrigue about opera by presenting arias, duets and ensembles in a fun and unstuffy manner. Melissa Chan, the evening's mezzo-soprano (also a Board Member of Opera Viva) set the tone by inviting the audience to relax and imagine attending a party on Venice's Grand Canal. Over drinks, crackers and cheese, the evening of Italian operatic highlights unfolded with lots of melodrama and very good singing.

This evening's programme was drawn exclusively from Italian opera, with a healthy dose from the bel canto tradition - Bellini, Donizetti and Rossini. There was just one Puccini aria, some Verdi and the occasional rarity, mostly because one did not expect such demanding numbers to be performed in Singapore! 

All four singers, soprano Wendy Woon, mezzo Melissa Chan, tenor Leslie Tay and baritone Alvin Tan were not only excellent in their delivery but also very conversant in sharing their passion for singing with the audience. They mused about their roles, revealing details and finer points about being an opera singer - their ups and downs - and also provided helpful synopses about each opera. It all came across as informal, informative and mostly enjoyable fun. In these days when the arts play second fiddle to entertainment and sports, such an injection of life is not only necessary but vital.

The evening opened with soprano Wendy Woon
singing Un bel di from Puccini's Madama Butterfly.

Baritone Alvin Tan sang some Handel and
Verdi's Di Provenza il mare (La Traviata)

Tenor Leslie Tay spoke about castrati and
offered more Handel and the gem that is
Una furtiva lagrima from Donizetti's L'elisir d'Amore.

Mezzo Melissa Chan explained and demonstrated
the "trouser role" by portraying Romeo in
Bellini's I Montecchi e I Capuleti.

Parigi o cara from Verdi's La Traviata.

Many expressions of Melissa Chan
in Bellini and Rossini (Non piu mesta from La Cenerentola)

A duet from Bellini's I Montecchi e I Capuleti.

Bromance time in a duet from
Verdi's Don Carlo.

Wendy Woon sensitively plays the ill-fated
Anna Bolena from Donizetti's opera.

The grand finale was the famous Quartet
from Verdi's Rigoletto.

All four singers take their bow and stand with
their "orchestra" pianist Benjamin Lim (extreme left).

Photographs from 7TH SINGAPORE LIEDER FESTIVAL 2017

With a lack of publicity and promotion bordering on stealth and secrecy, the 7th Singapore Lieder Festival presented by the Sing Song Club took place last weekend in the Music Studio of Victoria Concert Hall. This year's offering, held over two evenings, was modest compared with previous outings, featuring the complete songs of Maurice Ravel.

I attended only the first evening, featuring pianist Shane Thio with four singers, countertenor Glenn Wong, soprano Felicia Teo, tenor Adrian Poon and baritone William Lim. (The second evening showcased Poon, soprano Rebecca Li and baritone Daniel Fong.) The sequence of songs were well chosen, offering a variety of themes and colours. The small audience comprising mostly members of Singapore's small singing community (including several famous sopranos) enjoyed the evening's fare, which was presented in the usual unpretentious manner and high standards of the Sing Song Club.

Countertenor Glenn Wong made his Lieder Festival
debut with Ravel's Trois Chansons,
adapted from three a capella choral works.

Tenor Adrian Poon was his usual lively self
in Chants Populaires (sung in English, Spanish, Italian and
Hebrew, in addition to French) and Melodies Hebraiques. 

The ever-indefatigable Shane Thio must have performed
over a thousand songs in these Lieder festivals.

Soprano Felicia Teo Kaixing raised the roof with
Un grand sommeil noir, Les grande vents Venus d'Outremer,
Sainte, Si morne! and Vocalise-Etude en forme de Habanera.

Veteran baritone William Lim accounted for
Histoires naturelles and Don Quichotte a Dulcinee.

Take a bow, Sing Song Club!

 

UNREQUITED LOVE / Singapore Lyric Opera Gala Concert 2017 / Review

GALA CONCERT 2017:

UNREQUITED LOVE

Singapore Lyric Opera

Esplanade Concert Hall

Thursday (23 November 2017)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 27 November 2017 with the title "Brave, bold, brilliant".

This year's annual gala concert by the Singapore Lyric Opera provided a glimpse of the future of opera in Singapore. None of the usual SLO suspects featured in this evening of operatic highlights, instead the company boldly rolled out a cast of mostly debutants. Winners of the SLO-Asean Vocal Competition 2016 and SLO-Leow Siak Fah Artists Training Programme Rising Stars accounted for seven new voices among nine singers.

The repertoire choice also had a fresh ring about it, with not a single note of Puccini to be heard. Two very demanding Handel arias opened the evening, with the Competition's 1st prize winner mezzo-soprano Samantha Chong Ying Zing (from Malaysia) doing the honours in Dopo notte from Ariodante.

She had certainly earned that accolade, with a performance of clarity and depth of feeling. In Parto, ma tu ben mio from Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito, she upped the ante, and was not upstaged by the SLO Orchestra's excellent clarinettist Vincent Goh whose obbligato part was just as delicious.

Arguably more spectacular was the 2^nd prize winner soprano Pham Khanh Ngoc (Vietnam) who made light work of Handel's Tornami a vagheggiar from Alcina, and displayed gravity-defying coloratura abilities in Rossini's Bel raggio lusinghier from Semiramide. That last aria was, to these ears and eyes, the loftiest of many high points in the evening.

Singaporean baritone Alvin Tan, who garnered 3^rd prize, was very impressive too, warming up Korngold's Mein sehnen mein Wahnen (Die Tote Stadt) with a rich and burnished tonal colour. This suggests he will have many roles to fulfill in the near future.

The company's artist training programme named in memory of founding chairman Leow Siak Fah which mentors locally-based singers has also borne fruit. Five singers, sopranos Zhang Jie (China) and Cherie Tse (Singapore), mezzo-sopranos Chieko Sato (Japan) and Zerlina Tan (Singapore) and tenor Leslie Tay (Singapore) were involved in ensemble roles from Bizet's Carmen (Act 3) and Mozart's Cosi fan tutte (Act 1).   

The SLO Chorus and Children's Choir livened up the proceedings with choruses from Carmen (Les voici), Cosi fan tutte (Bella vita militar) and Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel (Evening Prayer). It must be said the children did well in the last chorus, despite singing well past their bedtime. The orchestra conducted by Jason Lai (above) played an excellent supporting role throughout, and had the bubbly Overture to Mozart's The Marriage Of Figaro all to itself.  

As a sneak preview to next year's production of Verdi's Aida, two favourite arias were trotted out by two more experienced singers making cameo appearances. Tenor Kee Loi Seng portrayed the heroic Radames in Celeste Aida while soprano Jessica Chen was spine-tingling in Ritorna vincitor.

The evening closed memorably with Gloria al l'Egitto (the Triumphal March) with choir and orchestra. There was no Brindisi (Drinking Song from La Traviata) as encore this time around, but it was stirring all the same.  

CD Review (The Straits Times, November 2017)

SHOSTAKOVICH Violin Concerto No.1

  NICOLA BENEDETTI, Violin

  Bournemouth Symphony / Kirill Karabits

  Decca 478 8758 / ****1/2

SHOSTAKOVICH Cello Concertos

  ALISA WEILERSTEIN, Cello

  Bavarian Radio Symphony /

  Pablo Heras-Casado

  Decca 483 0835 / *****

The string concertos of Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) used to be the sacred preserve of venerable Russian soloists with a direct line to the composer himself, men like David Oistrakh and Mstislav Rostropovich who are sadly no longer with us. 

A new generation of young and glamourous artists have filled the void, including women like Viktoria Mullova, Midori, Sarah Chang and Hanna Chang. Now add British violinist Nicola Benedetti and American cellist Alisa Weilerstein to the list.  

Benedetti gives a deeply-felt reading of the First Violin Concerto (1947), without smoothing over the opening Nocturne's dark matter, and letting rip in the manic 2nd and 4^th movements. The finale's Burlesque with its wild Klezmer raves also scores with a direct and relentless attack. Her trademark sweetness of tone is reserved mostly for its coupling, Glazunov's Violin Concerto (1904), which comes from an earlier and more effable era of Russian music.

Weilerstein's performances of both cello concertos are high on dry wit and ironic humour. The more familiar First Cello Concerto (1959) also benefits from the excellent orchestral French horn soloist's outlandish interjections and whoops. 

The longer, darker and grimmer Second Cello Concerto (1966) deserves to be better known, and she pulls all the stops for an ultra-coherent performance. Insanity, levity and vulgarity have seldom found a more united front in these superb recordings.     

Photographs from the BLUE DANUBE WALTZ 150TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT

ON THE BEAUTIFUL DANUBE

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Orchestra et al

Conservatory Concert Hall

Saturday (18 November 2017)

A very special concert was held at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory to commemorate the 150^th anniversary of Johann Strauss the Younger’s most famous waltz On The Beautiful Blue Danube, which was composed in 1867. The concert conducted by eminent Hungarian maestro Gabor Takacs-Nagy (this year’s Ong Teng Cheong Visiting Professor of Music) featured the strings of the YST Conservatory augmented by 12 string players from four European musical academies (Hannover, Graz, Budapest and Bucharest) representing some nations through which the mighty Danube flows. The ambassadors of Germany, Austria, Hungary and Romania were all present at this concert, which had been fully subscribed just a few days after its announcement.

How does one build a programme around the Blue Danube Waltz? Takacs-Nagy wisely chose string works by composers from the represented nations, music by Dvorak (Bohemia), Enesco (Romania) and Bartok (Hungary) as starters and main course before the Viennese dessert. He spoke before each piece, providing lots of personal insight in a totally informal and avuncular manner, which the audience appreciated.

Two movements from Dvorak’s Serenade for Strings made for a delightful opening. As one might expect, the string sound was sumptuous, and one could really feel the musical sunshine described by the conductor radiating from the finale. If Dvorak sounded light, two movements from Georges Enesco’s Octet provided more texture and contrapuntal fibre to the entrée. In this version for string orchestra, a greater volume of sound was generated, beautifully contrasted by the fine solos played by concertmaster Oszkar Varga from the Liszt Academy.

Arguably the best performances came in the 2^nd and 3^rd movements of Bartok’s Divertimento. The tremendous tension built up in the slow movement was palpable, with each jerky dotted rhythm phrase multiplied manifold to represent the tragedy and pain that was to befall Bartok’s homeland during Second World War. This world weariness gave out to a sense of joy in the rapturous finale, the vigorous rhythms of which were literally danced out by Takacs-Nagy on the podium. Seldom has one experienced such an unfettered show of exuberance among the players and conductor.   

Woodwinds, brass, percussion and harp joined in for the Blue Danube Waltz, for which Takacs-Nagy shared more of his childhood memories living in Budapest just a few minutes from the river. He could smell the river, and certainly he has the feel of music’s waves of waltz rhythm. It took some warming up from the brass in the introductory opening but before long, the lilting journey was underway. The secret of playing waltzes is not in keeping strict rhythm throughout but allowing the three-quarter time to heave and breathe through its course. And that was what the audience got, a reading of true vitality and rare feeling. The joy expressed by all the musicians on stage was clear to see, hear and feel.

As an encore, the orchestra offered Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No.5 (from the only German among the composers), and Takacs-Nagy humbly asked for permission to play the Blue Danube once more. Needless to say, that was most welcome, and it was double the pleasure this time around. 

SONG OF DESTINY. BRAHMS SYMPHONIES / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

SONG OF DESTINY. BRAHMS SYMPHONIES

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Friday (17 November 2017)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 November 2017 with the title "A night when darkness passed into light".

This was the programme that the Singapore Symphony Orchestra under Music Director Shui Lan was to play in its first concert in Kuala Lumpur's Dewan Filharmonik Petronas after a hiatus of 17 years. It appropriately began with the world premiere of Meditation, a very short work by the prodigious 19-year-old pianist-composer Tengku Irfan, once hailed in these pages as the Malaysian Mozart.

Originally a piano piece, its orchestration relived the lush atonality of Second Viennese School composer Alban Berg. Before any discernible development could even take place, it ended as quietly as it began. That served as a teaser for two choral works by Johannes Brahms, Gesang der Parzen (Song Of The Fates) and Schicksalslied (Song Of Destiny), performed by a combined choir comprising the Singapore Symphony Chorus, Singapore Symphony Youth Choir and Choir of the Transylvanian State Philharmonic, Cluj-Napoca.

Those familiar with A German Requiem will readily recognise Brahms' musical idiom, but the words here do not offer succour, instead cynicism and bitterness in the writings of Goethe and Holderlin respectively. Heavenly hosts conspire against mortals, and the gods are indifferent to earthly matters. Its anti-theist message was as clear as the diction and enunciation of the 110-strong mass of voices.

While Gesang der Parzen coloured its eternal struggle and despair in tragic and sombre tones, Schicksalslied did offer a mere measure of solace in its C major close. These contrasts were keenly brought out by the choir, now under the wing of new choral director Eudenice Palaruan, who succeeded Lim Yau's illustrious over 30-year-long tenure earlier this year. The accompanying orchestra played with discreetness and transparency throughout.

After the spare and grim choral works of the first half, Brahms' Second Symphony played after the interval shone like many rays of sunshine. This was the concluding chapter of the orchestra's Brahms symphony cycle under Shui, and in many ways its most optimistic.

Unlike his view of Beethoven symphonies which tended to be on the brisk side, Shui adopted more expansive tempos for this Brahms symphony. One might even use the description of leisurely, but it never felt draggy or bogged down unlike the portentous reading by veteran Russian conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky of several years ago.

Lilting strings were a pleasure in the 1^st movement's second theme, the one that recalled Brahms' universally sung Wiegenlied (Cradle Song). Textures were also kept on the light side, and even the serious slow movement could afford a smile in its longeurs. Principal French horn Han Chang Chou's solos were immaculately phrased, and woodwinds stood out in the chirpy narrative of the third movement.

If one longed for a more pressing approach, that eventually came in the finale, which was taken in one slick lick.  If pure joy could be expressed, it could not have been better captured, as the concert  passed from darkness to light.