TO PARIS WITH CÉDRIC TIBERGHIEN
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Esplanade Concert Hall
Thursday (11 November 2021)
L’ISLE JOYEUSE
CÉDRIC TIBERGHIEN Piano Recital
School of The Arts Concert Hall
Friday (12 November 2021)
This review was published in The Straits Times on 17 November 2021
Vaccinated travel lanes have truly been a boon for classical music performances in Singapore. Following two excellent concerts by renowned baroque ensemble Les Arts Florissants (France) earlier in the week, renowned French pianist Cédric Tiberghien performed with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and gave a solo recital as part of the 2021 Voilah! France Singapore Festival.
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| Photo: Jack Yam |
Mozart’s music featured on both evenings, with Tiberghien helming the tricky solo in the rarely-performed Piano Concerto No.13 in C major (K.415). The only other time SSO played this was back in 2003 with 11-year-old Abigail Sin as soloist. Tiberghien offered a seasoned veteran’s view of the celebratory work, with clarity of fingerwork balanced with flowing lyricism. There were also ample opportunities for display in cadenzas in all three movements.
While the jaunty finale’s Rondo delighted with alternating between major and minor keys, Tiberghien’s sly quote of the main theme from Mozart’s very popular Piano Concerto No.21 piqued the ears. His encore of Ravel’s Oiseaux Tristes (Sad Birds) from Miroirs, replete with bird calls, echoes and pregnant silences, did not seem out of place given that the concert opened with the Frenchman’s Le Tombeau de Couperin. Its four neo-baroque dance movements highlighted excellent solos from principal oboist Rachel Walker, which made this almost sound like a concertante work.
Leading the orchestra was Uruguayan conductor Carlos Kalmar who coaxed a glittering reading of Mozart’s Symphony No.31 in D major, also called his Paris Symphony. Paired woodwinds, brass and timpani lent an air of pomp and ceremony to its rather short-winded three movements, but the impact of pleasing an audience – Mozart’s original intention - was certainly achieved.
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| Photo: Nathaniel Lim |
Tiberghien’s solo recital was centred on the idea of theme and variations. Mozart’s Sonata in A major (K.331) opened with a familiar lullaby-like melody, subjected to one of his best-known set of variations. Inventiveness and a sense of improvisation were given full rein in this tasteful reading that did not seek to provoke, but that would come later. The central movement’s Minuet and Trio delighted with regular crossing of hands, followed by the exuberant romp that is the ubiquitous Rondo alla Turca (Turkish Rondo).
The highlight of the evening was Beethoven’s Eroica Variations, using a theme from the ballet The Creatures Of Prometheus which later became the familiar subject of his “Eroica” Third Symphony. More a fantasy than strict set of variations, the rule book was thrown out with Beethoven’s multifarious interventions, humour and parodistic wit which made Mozart sound tame by comparison. Tiberghien lapped up all of this in a grandstanding reading, culminating in a busy fugue and emphatic close.
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| Photo: Nathaniel Lim |
Inserted between the two was Debussy’s L’Isle Joyeuse, an impressionistic voyage to an imaginary land of happiness. This ecstatic outpouring contrasted well with his serene encore, Dutch pianist Egon Petri’s transcription of J.S.Bach’s Sheep May Safely Graze, where two hands gave the impression of three hands at play.
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