GEOFFREY SABA Piano Recital @ The Tanglin Club

GEOFFREY SABA Piano Recital

Churchill Room @ Tanglin Club

Saturday (1 September 2018)

The Tanglin Club off Scotts Road was an unusual place to hold a piano recital, but it was good to have some culture at a swanky venue where privileged people go to see and be seen. The hour-long recital was given by the London-based Australian pianist Geoffrey Saba, who is no stranger in these parts. Over the decades, he has performed piano recitals at the National University of Singapore Cultural Centre, besides giving the Singapore premieres of Bartok’s First Piano Concerto (with the SSO) and Peter Sculthorpe’s Piano Concerto (with NUSSO).  

A small of audience of mostly children, their parents and retirees were treated to the music of Claude Debussy (1862-1918), whose death centenary is being observed this year. Saba opened the recital with English pianist Leonard Borwick’s transcription of Prélude a l’après-midi dun faune. This was a mostly literal and bare-bones look at one of classical music’s most exotic and sensuous scores. Although Saba tried to add as much colour, shade and nuance to the music, he was hampered by a rather deadpan Steinway baby grand which was not responsive to his variegated touches. There were a few slips here and there but at least the instrument was in tune.

More satisfying was the First Book of Préludes, which was performed with a penchant for mood, variation and fantasy. From the opening Danseuses de Delphes (Dancers of Delphi) to the final Minstrels, there was an effort to impart a spirit of vivid imagery to the 12 vastly contrasted pieces. Debussy first wrote out the preludes, and then added their evocative titles, hence the notion of the music being impressionist. He actually hated the term, which he felt was derogatory, and preferred to called “symbolist”.

There was a remarkable sequence of music from numbers five to eight, from the lively tarantella rhythms of Les collines d’Anacapri (The Hills of Anacapri), bleakness and desolation in Des pas sur la neige (Footsteps in the Snow), pummelling violence of Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest (What the West Wind Saw) to the gentle ministrations of La fille aux cheveux de lin (Girl with the Flaxen Hair). The vast contrasts were brought out as best as possible from the limited piano, one where the full dynamic range could not be fully realised. Nonetheless, the playing was evocative (particularly La Cathedrale Engloutie or The Engulfed Cathedral), lively and animated in the final dance-like numbers La serenade interrompue (Interrupted Serenade), La Danse de Puck (Dance of Puck), and Minstrels.    

The theme of negroid dances continued into Saba’s sole encore, which was Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s Le Bananier (The Banana Tree), a short and delightful number. With the recital ended, the audience then dispersed for high tea, a Saturday afternoon ritual that is de rigeuer for The Tanglin Club.