HENRI SIGFRIDSSON Piano Recital / Review

HENRI SIGFRIDSSON Piano Recital

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory 

Orchestral Hall

Monday (27 February 2023)

 

The problem with lunchtime recitals is that one never makes it on time, especially when its begins at 12.15 pm, instead of the usual 12.30 pm (cutting it real fine) or 1 pm (much more realistic). This was why I missed the first two works of Finnish pianist Henri Sigfridsson’s recital, which included an arrangement of Mozart’s Magic Flute Overture (from its publisher, not Busoni) followed by the Sonata in B flat major (K.570). I got to hear the sonata’s final movement from the corridor and noted its lightness, good grace and humour, which I later learnt was thematically linked with the Overture’s overall light-hearted disposition.

 

Just consider oneself fortunate to have witnessed what must be the Singapore premiere of Finn Leevi Madetoja’s  suite Kuoleman Puutahar (Garden of Death, Op.41 from 1918). Madetoja (1887-1947) was a student of Sibelius’ and an important figure in the next generation of Finnish nationalist composers. He was celebrated for his three symphonies, two operas, and much vocal and choral music. However there was nothing particularly nationalistic about the work, written in the late Romantic idiom and filled with pleasant melodies and luscious harmonies.

 

Despite the title, there was no eerieness or macabre elements about the music either. Its three slow movements regard death as retiring and ultimately serene, with neither fear nor trepidation to be coutenanced. The Andante first movement opened with light chords, followed by right hand repeated figurations accompanying a wistful melody on the left hand. The middle movement Poco Lento had harmonies reminiscent of Grieg or Mompou leading into an elegant but melancholic waltz where Sibelius’ Valse Triste have been might be an influence. More chords heralded the final Sostenuto ma non troppo which turned out to be a calming berceuse or cradle song. Its gentle rocking rhythm and bell-like resonances, were just the perfect prelude to a gentle and eternal slumber. Oh Death, where is thy sting? Performed so sensitively and beautifully by Sigfridsson, this might just be the new discovery of the year so far, something completely befitting those rarities heard at Schloss vor Husum.  

 

The rest of the hour-long recital was devoted to Chopin. The Four Mazurkas Op.24 were as idiomatic as they come, the three-quarter time and rhythmic lilt judged to best effect. “Cannons in flowers” proclaimed the enthusiastic Robert Schumann, and major artillery was wheeled out for three of Leopold Godowsky’s fearsome polyphonic studies on Chopin’s Etudes. All three were written for left hand alone, opening with No.22, based on the Revolutionary Etude (Op.10 No.12, C minor), now cast in C sharp minor. How Sigfridsson managed with no diminution of velocity, volume and  power is a feat only he and the likes of M-A Hamelin can explain. No.5, a reworking of the tender Tristesse Etude (Op.10 No.3, E major) gained a new kind of depth when heard in D flat major. One supposed the left hand coped better with all those black keys.  

 

To close, No.43, based on the ferocious final etude (Op.25 No.12, C minor), sometimes known as Ocean because of its waves of arpeggios on both hands, now in C sharp minor, brought the unusual recital to a thunderous close. Breathtaking seems to be too mundane a word to describe what I had just witnessed. For the record, YST’s head of piano Albert Tiu played two of these some years ago, but with the right hand. As an encore, Sigfridsson went back to basis with Chopin’s Nocturne in E flat major (Op.9 No.2), with neither embellishments nor elaborations. Some things are best left alone, and this was how it should be.

Henri Sigfridsson with Albert Tiu,
Head of Piano Studies at YST,
both masters of the Chopin-Godowsky Etudes.

LEGENDS / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

LEGENDS

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Saturday (25 February 2023)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 27 February 2023 with the title "Quek Ling Kiong leads SCO into bright new era".

 

Last month, homegrown conductor Quek Ling Kiong was appointed Principal Conductor of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra, succeeding Yeh Tsung (now Conductor Emeritus) who was for twenty years its Music Director. This first subscription concert for Quek at its helm, a taut 80-minute programme without intermission, showed exactly what he was about.

 

It is no secret that most Chinese orchestral music is programmatic in nature, about historical figures, ancient myths and exotic locales, or legends in general. The busy evening opened with Xu Changjun’s Sword Dance III, a rhapsodic work based on an earlier work for liuqin solo. Beginning with stillness, a melody on gaohus soon goes about on a stately procession, first gracefully then ratcheting up both mood and spirit into a vigorous and highly rhythmic dance. Closing with a big bang, this set the stage for something even more spectacular.  

 

Kong Zixuan’s Ode To Qilin, receiving its Singapore premiere, was a virtuoso suona concerto all but in name. SCO zhongyin suona player Meng Jie performed on three instruments of differing registers, exploiting an incredible range of sonorities. Usually heard in ceremonial or ritualistic music, the suona was now the embodiment of the mercurial and mischievous unicorn-like mythological creature in full flight. Sometimes waltzing and wallowing in song-like pastoral moments, it was its gravity-defying leaps and spectacular prestidigitations that were truly breathtaking.     

 

Adapted from the pipa favourite Shi Mian Mai Fu or Ambush From All Sides, the symphonic poem orchestrated version by Liu Wenjin and Zhao Yongshan was a classic battle piece. From its martial opening fanfare through a lyrical first subject and graceful dance, one instinctively knew what was coming. This calm before the storm would still scarcely prepare one for the cavalry onslaught, portrayed by stunning percussion playing and swirling strings. The victorious Han dynasty march at its end made this the Chinese equivalent of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.

 

The concert’s final work, Zhang Zhao’s Gan Jiang Mo Ye Fantasia, another local premiere, may be considered a programme symphony in four movements. Its story centres on a renowned Suzhou sword-maker Gan Jiang whose murder in the hands of a tyrant is avenged by his family. The spirit of Mahler and Shostakovich loomed over the modern-sounding work, which portrayed defiance and struggle, also including another astounding battle scene.

SCO's percussion was
worked overtime.

 

There were lovely moments from Zeng Zhi’s vertically-played dizi and Xu Zhong’s cello but it was the third movement, titled Inferno, which stole the show. The mimicry of furiously neighing horses and raw unaccompanied percussion reenacted revenge at its most brutal before the attainment of Nirvana, the harmonically-pleasing final movement representing redemption and salvation. But how does violence beget enlightenment?

 

Standing up to totalitarianism, blatantly trumpeted in this patriotic work, seems to be its ill-disguised coded message. Garnering a standing ovation, loud and prolonged applause was the best augery that a bright new era for the Singapore Chinese Orchestra under Quek Ling Kiong has just begun.

MOZART'S STARLING / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

MOZART’S STARLING

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Victoria Concert Hall

Friday (24 February 2023)

 

The Singapore Symphony Orchestra continues on its Mozart crusade, with another programme built around Salzburg’s greatest son. Conducted by Chinese maestra Xian Zhang, Music Director of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and making her first appearance in Singapore, the concert opened with Chinese composer Chen Qigang’s L’Eloignement (2004) for string orchestra.

Chen Qigang (born 1952),
Olivier Messiaen's last student.

 

The French term translates from the Chinese phrase zou xi kou, or “going west”, synonymous with parting or departure. Based on a brief nostalgic theme, resembling those heard on erhu or huqins, a quick succession of variations unfolded, lush with rich harmonies, long-held resonances, and mild dissonances not unlike those in Britten or Messiaen (Chen was the Frenchman’s last pupil). There were lovely short solos from the principals, leading to stretches of serene beauty, before culminating with an Elgarian climax albeit with a Chinese accent. A Bartok-like earthiness also coloured its final pages, with serene glissandi and harmonics before closing in utmost serenity.

 

Next came Mozart’s popular Piano Concerto No.17 in G major (K.453) with young Hong Kong-born pianist Wong Chiyan as soloist. Wong is known for very personal interpretations, often with revisionist ideas. Even seemingly sacrosanct Mozart was fair game in a performance which raised more questions than provided answers.

 

Appearing extremely restless during the orchestral ritornello, he would softly and randomly depress the piano keys, and also gaze at the audience. When the solos came, Wong evinced a crisp, crystalline and somewhat brittle sound, as if treading on eggshells. There was none of the “flow like oil” quality which Mozart would have liked. Liberally added notes and ear-catching ornamental passages sprung from his ever-active imagination, but there were also some wrong and missed notes. A very interesting and provocative personality nonetheless, he contributed his own cadenza which was creative, mostly idiomatic and none too obstrusive.

 

The slow movement had a stark and lean quality, as if describing a desolate landscape. The finale with its melody mimicked by Mozart’s pet starling (hence the concert’s title) became more fodder for Wong’s tinkerings. One cannot imagine a more freely re-written Mozart than this, like an act of a Hong Kong rebel sticking the middle finger at orthodoxy. Any other Chinese pianist (Yuja or Haochen) would have been sent for “re-education” in some Xinjiang gulag. While senses get piqued in concert, one cannot imagine living with a recording of this.     

 

Wong is a “marmite pianist”, you either love him or loathe him. In this case, the audience leaned firmly on his side, their applause rewarded with a very brief encore, the first airing of his seconds-long musical doodling entitled Bone Dusting. The jazz harmony-inflected miniature referred to the Chinese practice of dusting one’s ancestors’ remains after exhumation. One also supposes the long dead could not be left well alone too.

 

The orchestra had been a respectful accompanist in the concerto, and its own showcase was Mozart’s Symphony No.39 in E flat major (K.543), part of his famous “final trilogy” composed in the space of six weeks. Conductor Zhang conducted from memory a performance of raw blood and guts, with none of the authentic period instrument prissiness. The opening E flat major chords (looking forward to Beethoven’s Eroica) packed a terrific punch, paving the way for a reading of unapologetic boisterousness.

 

The audience, filled with many newcomers (mostly Rotarian in a fundraiser marking World Understanding and Peace Day), applauded heartily between the movements, which Zhang even encouraged with her approving gestures. Smiling from ear to ear, the music traversed from a nicely phrased Andante to a rollicking Menuetto and trio (with clarinets in peak form) before closing with a mercurial but no-holds-barred finale. A performance of such unrelieved fun and good humour should not be easily forgotten. 

Photos by Jack Yam, 

courtesy of Singapore Symphony Orchestra.

VIOLA DEPARTMENT RECITAL WITH NOBUKO IMAI / THE DEVIL'S VIOLINIST: PAGANINI'S CAPRICES / Review

VIOLA DEPARTMENT

RECITAL WITH NOBUKO IMAI

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall

Friday (17 February 2023)

 

THE DEVIL’S VIOLINIST:

PAGANINI’S CAPRICES

KEVIN ZHU, Violin

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (19 February 2023)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 24 February 2023 with the title "Dazzling performances by violist Nobuko Imai, violinist Kevin Zhu".

 

 

The humble viola has long been deemed the ugly step-sister of the glamourous violin, but this view looks ripe for revision. As a solo instrument, the viola is capable of great beauty and depth, as demonstrated by veteran Japanese violist Nobuko Imai, one of the world’s great exponents of the instrument.

 

Despite turning 80 years young next month, her energy and spirit would make even an 18-year-old blush. Her recital included the rare gem that is British-American composer Rebecca Clarke’s Viola Sonata (1919), a work so masterly that its earliest listeners could not imagine it was written by a woman. Imai projected the widest of sonorities possible on its Impetuoso opening movement, with pastoral charm and earthy textures made to sound absolutely ravishing.

 

Pianist Albert Tiu was an equal partner, not least in the scherzo-like central movement, possessed with elfin lightness and razor-keen reflexes. Its lengthy finale, a brooding essay in alternating fast and slow sections, laid bare the music’s emotional heart before closing in a passionate flourish.   

  

Toru Takemitsu’s A Bird Came Down The Walk (1995) was dedicated to Imai, a work that exploited the viola’s full palette of colours, from murky darkness to ethereal light and every shade in between. Its other-worldly stillness and rarefied harmonies also had an unsettling but strangely hypnotic effect. Schumann’s Märchenbilder (Fairy Tale Pictures) was the evening’s most familiar music, the duo basking in four movements constrasting singing lyricism with tempestuous asides.

It must have been a real honour for
young violist Joelle Hsu to perform
a Bartok duo with Nobulo Imai.

 

The recital also featured the conservatory’s strings in Dobrinka Tabakova’s neo-baroque Suite in Old Style, with Imai as soloist in varied dance movements, some involving jazzy rhythms. Closing the evening was a selection from Bartok’s 44 Duos for two violins, arranged for combinations of up to six violas, partnering Zhang Manchin (Head of viola) and four students. Seldom has massed violas sounded this delicious.

 

The violinist as indefatigable virtuoso and latter-day superstar began with the Italian Niccolo Paganini. His 24 Caprices (Op.1) for unaccompanied violin became the bible of transcendental violin technique. The recital of the complete set by young American violinist Kevin Zhu was not a Herculean wall of sound and fury, instead a nuanced one where musical values came to the fore.

 

Playing came as naturally as breathing for the 2018 winner of the Paganini International Violin Competition in Genoa, Italy. Nothing sounded effortful or forced, and his purity and robustness of tone was allied with matchless intonation. There was also a nervous energy, as if walking a tightrope, that had his listeners transfixed.

 

Performing the Caprices as groups of pairs, he graceously allowed the audience to applaud between pieces, and addressed them with a casualness and affability that was hard to dislike. The fiendish and fearsome pieces no longer intimidated, instead becoming friends with each tale he told.

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon / Altenburg Arts

 

Fast and mercurial numbers were made to sound almost easy, while more solemn ones, such as Caprice No.4 in C minor, were possessed with a true sense of nobility. No.6 (G minor), a study in tremolo, sounded as if it came from a strummed lute. The silky smoothness achieved in No.7 (A minor) and No.12 (A flat major) had to be heard to be believed. No.21 (A major), which carried the title Amoroso (lovingly), was a romance but no respite from the earlier exertions.

 

Finally, the most famous No.24 (A minor), in the form of theme and variations, became a summation of all the wonders that had come before. After bringing down the house, the audience was polled on which Caprice they wanted to hear again. It had to be No.24, naturally. 

SCHUBERT'S PIANO SONATAS WITH PAUL LEWIS / Review

SCHUBERT'S PIANO SONATAS

WITH PAUL LEWIS

Victoria Concert Hall

Saturday (18 February 2023)

 

This review was first published in Bachtrack on 20 February 2023 with the title "Paul Lewis’ Schubert scores a big hit in Singapore".

 

Spare a thought for poor Franz Schubert (1797-1828), who died from syphilis at the age of 31 and never got to enjoy the fruits of his labour. Many of his late (and great) works were published and premiered posthumously. How flattered he would be to learn his piano sonatas were being appreciated almost two hundred years later in a concert hall halfway around the world, in Singapore. The performer was British pianist Paul Lewis, one of Schubert’s most compelling  modern interpreters.   

 

Like the “Unfinished” Eighth Symphony, Schubert’s Sonata in C major (D.840) exists as only two completed movements. Carrying the nickname Reliquie (or Relic), it opens with plain-speaking earnestness, surprisingly subdued given its “cheerful” key. Lewis laid into pages with serious intent, quickly building into a mini-climax, later contrasted by a second subject B minor which sounded unusually optimistic. It is this paradoxical mix of emotions, enhanced by well-placed dissonances, that makes Schubert endlessly fascinating.

 

The Andante second movement in C minor glimpsed into the world of Schubert’s lieder, particularly its darker and more melancholic pages. Lewis infused these substantial movements – vulnerability, tenderness and all - with an ardent advocacy that that was totally absorbing. For most listeners, these two movements would be enough exposition (as in the symphony), but one wonders what might have been.

 

By contrast, Schubert’s “little” Sonata A major (D.664 / Op.120), one of his most popular, gifted some twenty minutes of his sunniest music. Unremittingly tuneful, a song-like thread through its three movements was most gratefully delivered. Even the mere hint of dark clouds in the central movement was quickly dispelled with a broadening of its glorious melody. The finale – a rondo all but in name – continued the penchant with melody but the stakes were now upped on the technical front. With the quickening of pace and of expansion of volume, there was to be no hardening of tone or nuance, just a celebration of its jocular humour and country dance steps.      

 

Contemporaneous with the earlier D.840, the “big” Sonata in A minor (D.845, both were written in 1825) in four complete movements displayed what happens when Schubert really got stuck in with his jobs at hand. Lewis’ view was to regard it as one comparable in stature with the great final trilogy (D.958-960). No punches were pulled, and little to nothing was spared in displaying anger and angst within its fraught pages. Bringing into a boil early in the game, the music’s alternating between light and shade offered further insights into the composer’s state of mind. The plot thickened in the second movement’s elaborate theme and variations, with no resolution in sight.

 

The short scherzo contrasted skittish dance rhythms with the calm and placidity of its trio, and Lewis went headlong attacca into the finale with its unease and agitation turning into full-blown strife and  turmoil. Here was Schubert at his most uncompromising and direct, and Lewis’ gloves-off and furiously punched-out chords revealed an unvarnished passion and Beethovenian defiance. Garnering a spontaneous standing ovation, his sole encore displayed a more congenial side to the great Austrian - the sixth of his Moments Musicaux (D.780) in A flat major. Needless to say, it was totally sublime. 

Star Rating: *****

Photographs by Yong Junyi / Singapore Symphony Orchestra

RELATIVELY MOZART / PAUL LEWIS PLAYS MOZART PIANO CONCERTO 25 / Review

RELATIVELY MOZART

Donald Law, Piano

NAFA Wind Ensemble

Esplanade Recital Studio

Monday (13 February 2023)

 

PAUL LEWIS PLAYS

MOZART PIANO CONCERTO 25

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Victoria Concert Hall

Thursday (16 February 2023)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 February 2023 with the title "Three servings of Mozart's Piano Concerto No.25".

 

Mozart wrote some 27 piano concertos, but what were the odds of encountering the same concerto performed three times within the same week? The concerto in question was Piano Concerto No.25 in C major (K.503), which garnered the attention of Singaporean Donald Law and Briton Paul Lewis (twice) in two different but equally engaging programmes.

 

The first performance was in an idiomatic arrangement for winds by Malaysian pianist-composer Wong Chee Yean, with Law accompanied by the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Wind Ensemble conducted by Dutch wind specialist Joost Flach. The plangent sonorities of woodwinds and brass could easily overwhelm any solo instrument but this combo of eleven players - pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, French horns and bassoons, and double bass - were kept well in check.

 

This allowed the highly musical personality of Law to shine, impressing with crisply articulated  fingerwork and a singing tone. The effect was that of fine chamber music, with the martial strains of outer movements tempered by his lyrical restraint. When virtuosity was demanded, he also duly delivered. The choice of Hungarian pianist Lili Kraus’ cadenza for the first movement, which had the cheek of incorporating the La Marseillaise (French national anthem) near its end, was inspired.

The concert also saw Law playing Mozart’s Sonata in A major (K.331) which delighted with a familiar set of variations and the famous Rondo Alla Turca (Turkish Rondo). As a bonus, the ensemble was joined by four members of the special-needs Purple Symphony – a flautist and three percussionists – for a rousing version of that romping rondo.

 

Then there was the pair of performances with Lewis partnered by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra led by American conductor Robert Spano. Little was spared in Mozart’s original orchestration which had in addition to strings and winds, a pair of trumpets and timpani, providing the music with a festive and celebratory feel.

Photo: Chrispics + / Singapore Symphony Orchestra

 

Like Law, Lewis revelled in the solo part’s technically demanding passages which can easily get embedded within the busy orchestral partnership. Lewis played his teacher-mentor Alfred Brendel’s first movement cadenza, which also quoted La Marsaillaise, albeit a secondary motif (which Debussy used in his piano prelude Feux d’artifice), but at its beginning. What is the big deal about La Marsaillaise? That was because many listeners thought Mozart’s repetitive second subject to resemble that patriotic French tune by Rouget de Lisle.

 

Ultimately it was Lewis’ more free-wheeling interpretation, which included skillful ornamentations and added piano chords in loud tutti sections, which tipped the balance in his favour. Law was, however, in no way a lesser musician. As an encore, Lewis’ choice of Schubert’s brooding Allegretto in C minor, lovingly voiced, was icing on the cake.

Photo: Chrispics+ / Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Robert Schumann’s grand Third Symphony in E flat major, also known as the Rhenish, closed the concert with a bang. The German’s orchestration has long been criticised to be dense and overblown, resulting in musicologists calling for the score to be pared down and slim-lined. There was to be none of that this evening, with a plethora of sound filling the limited confines to near breaking point.

 

Near being the operative word, as conductor Spano coaxed from the ensemble playing of the most lively kind, possessed with a nervous cutting edge throughout, but never going over the top. Standing out was the chorale of brass which distinguished the solemn fourth movement, a glorious portrait of Cologne’s gothic cathedral. By the symphony’s rapturous end, loud cheers indicated that some things should be best left well alone.