NAFA ORCHESTRA / Concert Series 24 February 2022 / Review

NAFA ORCHESTRA

Lee Foundation Theatre, NAFA

Thursday (24 February 2022)

 

It has been several years since I last witnessed the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) Orchestra in concert. Pre-pandemic, it was led by Lim Yau, then-Dean of the School of Music at NAFA, but these days, his son cellist-turned-conductor Lin Juan has taken over the baton. They have very different stage personas; Lim’s dominating presence and exuberance is contrasted with Lin’s more low key and retiring demeanour. Nevertheless, the younger Lin proved himself to be no less of a perceptive communicator.

 

This NAFA Orchestra concert opened with Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.20 in D minor (K.466) with Christopher Guzman, visiting professor of piano from Penn State University, as soloist. The first of two piano concertos (out of 27) in a minor key, its study of sturm und drang (storm and stress) was well demonstrated. The orchestral introduction, while not luxuriant in string sonority, bristled with quiet intent, leading to Guzman’s clear and plain-speaking entry.

 

It was Mozart’s way to begin in a subdued manner and then gradually crank up the tension to climactic highs, with Guzman responding in kind. There were some hair-raising moments but he kept his cool, unflinching in resolve and then surprising the listener by not playing the customary Beethoven first movement cadenza. Instead he chose the romanticised offering by German composer Carl Reinecke (student of Schumann, Mendelssohn and Liszt), an unusually interesting choice as it alternated between seriousness and levity while throwing in as many virtuosic devices possible.

 

The Romanze was taken at a slightly brisker than usual pace, the effect of which was to make the turbulent middle section less of a contrast, but here was the music revealed at its lyrical best. The storms and stresses returned for the finale, which had an electric air about it aided by the orchestra’s alert and sensitive partnership. Another surprise came in Guzman playing Ferruccio Busoni’s equally romanticised cadenza, always a refreshing change from the usual, as the concerto wound to a joyous conclusion in the major key.

 

The orchestra’s strings came into their own in Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. It would seem that the 27 musicians (two ensembles of 18 + 9) be overmatched by this “choral” classic beloved for its cathedral sonorities, but not so. Despite a tentative start, the players got more assured and steadily built upon its layers of sound. The intonation was generally good and the volume generated soon surpassed initial expectations to reach breathtaking highs. The quartet of soloists, drawn from the larger ensemble, acquitted themselves very well and it was clear that all involved have been well schooled and drilled. For the orchestra, this represented the high point of the evening.

 

Respighi’s neoclassical suite The Birds (Gli Uccelli) closed the concert. Strings were joined by winds, brass, harp and celesta, and here the full ensemble could have done with more rehearsals. Respighi’s music, even in works for chamber forces, calls for more fastidious attention to detail and texture, virtuoso playing and balance of ensemble. What was lacking in refinement was made up by passion and enthusiasm, which can never be faulted.

 

The opening Prelude sparked with life, essentially a precis summation of the bird-inspired movements to come. The solo oboist in La Columba (The Dove) did his job pretty well, while a pecking pulse was maintained in La Gallina (The Hen), a chirpy reworking of Rameau’s La Poule, perhaps its best known movement. Toughest to bring off was L’usignuolo (The Nightingale), with tricky parts for flute, piccolo and French horn, which came out more sturdy than alluring. Little subtlety would be expected in Il Cucu (The Cuckoo) and so it proved as the work reprised its opening bars for a cheery close.

 

For the record, the last time I heard Respighi’s The Birds was back in the mid-1990s by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in an avian-themed concert conducted by Lim Yau. Now that his son Lin Juan has followed in his footsteps by introducing good music to Singaporeans is another cause for celebration. 

5LEMENTS / Ding Yi Music Company / Review

5LEMENTS

Ding Yi Music Company

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (19 February 2022)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 23 February 2022 with the title "Elemental harmony a feast for the senses".

 

Wu Xing, or the Five Elements, are pillars which define Chinese phenomena. Earth, metal, wood, fire and water have pervaded aspects of Chinese culture and philosophy since time immemorial. Although rendered obsolete by modern science, these concepts nevertheless remain strong in symbolism and still hold sway in Chinese medicine.

 

Finding the right balance of forces and harmony in nature was the premise of the 70-minute long concert by Ding Yi Music Company conducted by Quek Ling Kiong, with music by well-known Chinese composer Tang Jianping, and stage direction by Goh Boon Teck. Commissioned by Esplanade’s Huayi - Chinese Festival of Arts, its world premiere was thought-provoking, aurally stimulating and visually satisfying.

 

Its nine linked movements opened with a Prologue, which saw conductor Quek amble on stage to box up his white physician’s coat, dusty tomes and a model of the human body, common fixtures at Chinese sinseh consulting rooms. It was time to store away items and ideas of a dated past, his body language suggested as barefooted musicians gathered to their stations. Then the music began.

 

Words in praise of the five elements were recited by Chinese actor-dancer Bai Ying Wen, who took up various poses and positions on stage. Projected texts and English transliterations were helpful in establishing the narrative, also constituting almost an ad hoc lesson on the subject itself.

 

Although the work was supposed to be Chinese-inspired, it was ironic that the Western cello stood out. Commanding soloist Leslie Tan (founding member of the T’ang Quartet) took on the Yo-Yo Ma role by exhibiting every nuance possible on the instrument. The cello’s embodiment of the five elements was also not lost. Strings of metal, body of wood, fluid lyricism, earthy tone and fiery passion were all part of one compact whole.

 

Also impressing were Ng Hsien Han on a panoply of dizis, occupying a world of different moods, and Yvonne Tay who dazzled on guzheng. Specific instruments like the xun (ocarina) made a cameo in the movement celebrating Earth, while percussion dominated the Metal movement, not a big surprise. Such was the instrumental variety afforded by a chamber force of merely 13 players.

Leslie Tan leaves his cello
to play with water.

 

Lighting took the form of suspended illuminated globes, with the hall bathed in red during the loud and flashily dissonant Fire movement. Blue was the habitat of the more serene Water movement, which also saw liquid in glass bowls being displaced and splashed around. With all the elements explored in detail, it was a matter of bringing them altogether in the exuberant 8^th movement entitled Complementarities.  

 

Conductor Quek’s acrobatic leap, about turn with theatrically raised arms elicited applause but the work had not yet ended. Its Epilogue, however, was a more muted affair, with cello and dizi having the last words. Meanwhile, narrator Bai had also restored the Chinese physician’s paraphernalia to their rightful place, indicating that yin and yang had been achieved, and all is right and healthy with the world.     

    

All photographs by courtesy of 

Ding Yi Music Company.

TWO PIANO RECITAL / Christopher Guzman & Nellie Seng / Review

TWO PIANO RECITAL

CHRISTOPHER GUZMAN

& NELLIE SENG, 2 Pianos

Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts

Thursday (17 February 2022)

 

One gets the feeling that the Covid pandemic has reached a steady state when vaccinated travel lanes opened (and stayed opened), and more foreign artists have arrived to perform. From the beginning of the year, Singaporeans have welcomed international concert pianists like Eric Lu, Luca Buratto, Herbert Schuch and Zee Zee. The latest to come is American pianist Christopher Guzman, professor at Penn State University, presently on a three-week residency with the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. His concerts include a solo recital (last week), a two-piano recital and a concerto performance with the NAFA Orchestra (next week).

 

Its been ages since the last two-piano recital, so it was a pleasure to have Guzman teaming up with Nellie Seng, NAFA’s Head of Piano Studies, in an enjoyable programme for four hands. Both pianists were students of Jerome Lowenthal at the Juilliard School where they first got together.

 

Opening the recital was Mozart’s Fantasy in F minor (K.608), originally conceived for mechanical organ (orgelwalze). Taking the form of a French overture, with an arresting opening in dotted rhythm followed by fugal sections, it is perhaps Mozart’s best tribute to J.S.Bach. The duo went fearlessly for the jugular, then carrying on with a skillful play of counterpoint in the ensuing fugues. The voices were clearly enunciated and as the fugues got increasingly more florid, so was the attention paid to detail by both pianists, who eyed each other most alertly.

 

Guzman played the primo part for the first work, but roles were switched in Mozart’s popular Sonata in D major (K.448), which received a breathlessly exciting performance. Caution was thrown to the winds at the speed taken for the first movement’s Allegro con spirito. The spirito part was taken most literally, and the work was all the better for it. Ensemble work was precise and clean for most part. In short, verve was never sacrificed for safety first. The slow movement provided flowing lyrical respite and it was a return to high jinks for the ebullient finale. There was no room for error here, and the duo again delivered with plentiful dividends.  

 

Following a short break, Robert Schumann’s Six Canonic Studies Op.56 were a far less frenetic affair. Originally conceived for pedal piano (a piano with attached foot pedals for playing bass notes, like an organ), it is now more often heard in Debussy’s arrangement for two pianos. This essentially divides the labour between two pianists, with their left hands sharing the pedalling work on bass notes. These miniatures were varied in character and not over-complicated in counterpoint.  Delightful and sensitively played by the duo, one wonders why these are not more often heard.  

 

Rachmaninov’s Six Morceaux Op.11, early salon-like pieces, are always played on a single keyboard but on this occasion, the duo stuck to separate pianos. The elegant little Waltz (Op.11 No.4) opened simply but got increasingly more animated, so it was probably wise they did not get in each other’s way. The 70-minute recital closed with Lutoslawski’s Paganini Variations, based on the ubiquitous Caprice No.24 for solo violin. Unlike those by Brahms or Rachmaninov, these variations are short-winded but make up with anarchic wit and surprising harmonic twists. The duo played up its shock value and campness, which was a total hit with the audience.

 

After loud and prolonged applause, the duo finally converged on one keyboard for an encore which Seng described as a lullaby. The audience was sent home happy with Brahms’ Waltz in A flat major (Op.39 No.15), while relishing in its simple lilt and charm.

Christopher Guzman
cannot believe his good fortune!

CANDLELIGHT CONCERT: VALENTINE'S DAY SPECIAL / LI CHUREN, Piano / Review

CANDLELIGHT CONCERTS:

VALENTINE’S DAY SPECIAL

Li Churen, Piano

Chijmes Hall

Sunday (13 February 2022)

 

The chapel hall of CHIJMES (formerly the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus on Victoria Street) looks like an ideal venue for a Candlelight Concert. Its high ceiling, cloistered atmosphere and reverberant acoustics, and when filled with hundreds if not thousands of electronic candles, provide for a most evocative ambience for such a concert. One almost expects a procession of habit-wearing monks parading down the centre aisle and incanting Gregorian chants. But no, this was a piano recital by Li Churen, one of Singapore’s brightest young keyboard talents, in a programme of romantic music inspired by the story of Romeo and Juliet and the marketing hype that is Valentine’s Day.

 

A few caveats for starters, Chijmes Hall is not sound-proof and one gets to hear ambient traffic (including a police siren) and celebrating diners in the restaurants outside. The Yamaha 6-foot grand piano is clattery in timbre and not fully in tune, forcing the performer to make the best with other resources. Fortunately, Churen is an artist who would make a grocery list or tax report sound positively inviting.   

 

The recital opened with Debussy’s Clair de lune from Suite Bergamasque, which received a clear and luminous reading, the right recipe for a romantic evening. Following that were popular songs juxtaposed with classical works in short suites. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s All I Ask Of You from Phantom of the Opera opened dramatically with orchestral textures well-transcribed for piano before revealing the lyricism of the song proper. This in turn segued seamlessly into Chopin’s glittering Fantaisie-Impromptu (Op.66), with the memorable cantabile (one of his most memorable melodies) at its heart. In a way, the Phantom served as a prelude to the Fantaisie, reliving an old tradition of preluding that was popular a century ago and almost lost to posterity.

 

Another suite included Hugo Peretti’s Can’t Help Falling In Love With You (popularised by Elvis Presley but originally based on Plaisir d’Amour by Jean-Paul Martini), two excerpts from Romeo and Juliet-inspired films (music by Nino Rota and Craig Armstrong) and Mandopop song Michael Wong’s Fairy Tale, which preluded Liszt’s evergreen nocturne Liebesträume No.3. It should be noted that all the pop songs were transcribed by Churen herself, and were different in styles and tastefully done. Her versatility was matched by the virtuosity displayed in the Liszt cadenzas, which were tossed off effortlessly. Many people can play this Liebesträume, but only the best can overcome those scintillating finger-twisters.

 

The final segment of the recital included two significant classical pieces, Tchaikovsky’s bittersweet Romance Op.5 and Chopin’s Ballade No.4 Op.52, incidentally both in F minor. Both works share a common spirit of introspection and underlying sadness. Tchaikovsky’s is more plain spoken, with a more animated dance-like central section, while Chopin’s is more complex and deeply felt, as its layers are successively peeled off. These two pieces were built up to terrific climaxes, notably in the Chopin and credit goes to the audience for holding its breath (and witholding applause) for the climactic pause leading to the tumultuous final coda. The ending was simply spectacular, as one would expect.

 

Alan Menken True Love’s Kiss from the animated movie Enchanted, arranged by a young Singaporean composer, was the gilded icing on the cake. Loud and prolonged applause ensured that the Chijming audience was gifted two encores, both written by Churen herself. Andante cantabile was a lovely improvisation on the slow movement from Schumann’s Piano Quartet (Op.47) while Llama’s Land a mini waltz-fantasy that closed the Valentine’s Day-inspired recital on a rapturous high. 

TURNING THE PAGE: FROM SCHINDLER TO FIDDLER / re:Mix / Review

TURNING THE PAGE:

FROM SCHINDLER TO FIDDLER

re:Mix & Foo Say Ming (Violin)

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday (6 February 2022)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 February 2022 with the title "Rich exploration of Jewish music".

 

The Covid-19 pandemic had wreaked havoc on the activities of many arts groups. One of the victims was string ensemble re:Mix, which had not performed live since February last year at the Huayi Chinese Festival of Arts. For self-presented events, one has to go back further to April 2018.

 

There was thus a sense of anticipation when its players took to the stage, followed by its director-leader violinist Foo Say Ming, to perform a programme wholly devoted to Jewish music. Foo led from the violin, with his seated charges surrounding him on three sides, straight into Simchas Torah (Rejoicing) from Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch’s Baal Shem Suite. It is also known by its sub-heading Three Pictures of Chassidic Life.  

 

Ironically, this was the most cheerful music to be heard tonight, a reflection of care-free and happy times. Even this was tinged with nostalgia, as if the celebration and gaiety displayed were in the past. It was also interesting to note that the movements of the suite had been reordered to fit a narrative arc within the three linked chapters of the concert.

 

Next was Vidui (Contrition), prayer-like in its beseeching quality, followed by its longest movement Nigun (Improvisation). This is repertoire that Foo positively revelled in, where long-breathed elegiac strains found the greatest resonance in his playing. His tone is full and rich, sometimes wandering into rougher edges which suited this earthy music best.

 

In this string arrangement by Dominic Sargent, the ensemble backed Foo’s solos with much sympathy and warmth. Just as good was Chen Zhangyi’s arrangement of John Williams’ familiar Suite from the multiple Oscar-winning feature film Schindler’s List. About the liquidation of the Jewish ghetto in Krakow, the music that accompanied the Steven Spielberg-directed Holocaust movie is tear-jerking yet life-affirming.

 

Its main theme in the minor key provided the DNA of the music to come, its inherent sadness later ratcheted into profound depth of feeling in Remembrances. Here, Foo’s totally heartfelt reading channelled memories of Jewish-American violinist Itzhak Perlman, who performed in the original soundtrack. With another reordering of movements, Jewish Town – with its sinuously lilting Klezmer dance – was played last in order to better align with the concert’s final work.

 

That was a short medley from Jerry Bock’s broadway musical Fiddler On The Roof, about life in a Jewish shtetl (village) in turn of the century Russia, as arranged by Julian Wong. The eponymous fiddler, famously depicted in Marc Chagall’s painting Green Violinist, is the classic representation of the heady Klezmer tradition. Foo’s irrepressible free-wheeling now paid tribute to another Jewish-American violinist, one from an even older generation: Isaac Stern.

 

A pity it had to end so soon, but Foo had one last ace up his sleeve, an encore that came like a breath of fresh midnight air: Li Jinguang’s Ye Lai Xiang (Fragrance Of The Night), a promise of better times to come.        

Photo: Pianomaniac

Photographs by Regina Setiawan, courtesy of re:Mix.

BEETHOVEN'S EROICA: A SYMPHONIC REVOLUTION / Orchestra of the Music Makers / Review

BEETHOVEN’S EROICA:

A SYMPHONIC REVOLUTION

Orchestra of the Music Makers

Sunday (30 January 2022)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 February 2022 with the title "Enthralling take on Beethoven's Eroica".

 

Alert concert-goers will have noticed that concert durations have more or less reverted to their original lengths. Although restrictions to ensemble and audience sizes remain, longer works are being heard. For example, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra presented Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony and Violin Concerto, both substantial offerings, just last week.

 

The Orchestra of the Music Makers (OMM) led by Chan Tze Law went one step further by performing Beethoven’s Third Symphony, also known as the “Eroica”. The longest symphony in the classical repertoire until Beethoven later conceived his monumental Ninth Symphony, it takes the best part of 45 minutes.

 

Although requiring feats of endurance and plentiful reserve from the players, this is small beer for OMM, whose young players have overcome even more massive works such as Mahler’s symphonies. The first two E flat major chords at its outset were vital, as these determined the tenor and direction which the symphony takes. Direct and incisively punched out, these heralded what was to be a taut and urgent reading.

 

However, hurried and hectic it was not. Instead one got the feeling that something momentous had occurred, and the entire first movement’s dynamic drive kept one guessing. This mystery was solved in the slow movement in C minor, as the titular hero had died and this was his funeral march. The somberness was palpable, and even magnified in its passionate play of counterpoint.

 

This tension was also upheld in the third movement’s Scherzo, where the contrasting Trio section provided some release in the form of a jocular trio of French horns, who nailed their parts with stunning aplomb. The finale’s variations on a theme from Beethoven’s ballet The Creatures Of Prometheus exhibited pure joy, as a universal dance of levity and humour. This performance had taken just 42 minutes, which was on the swifter side.  

 

Preceding the Beethoven was Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E flat major (K.364), long considered to be his finest string concerto. Violinist Chikako Sasaki and violist Wang Dandan, both musicians from the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, were the soloists. For them this was ultimately a piece of chamber music, as they joined the ensemble to play the orchestral parts even before their actual solos began.

 

As soloists, they were evenly matched, each projecting clearly with singing tones and accurate intonation throughout. They also blended well, particularly in the technically tricky cadenzas. It was in the sublime slow movement where more of their individual voices were revealed, and one did not want these beautiful moments to end. The fast-paced finale was another show of joie de vivre, drawing loud and enthusiastic applause from the audience.

 

For an encore, Sasaki and Wang were joined by concertmaster violinist Zhao Tian to perform a trio arrangement of Mexican composer Manuel Ponce’s most popular song Estrellita (Little Star) by local composer Alexander Oon. Would Mozart or Beethoven have minded this syrupy-sweet diversion? Given their love of pretty melodies, probably not a single bit.   

     

All concert photos by Yong Junyi, by courtesy of OMM.