TENGKU IRFAN IN RECITAL / Singapore International Piano Festival / Review

TENGKU IRFAN IN RECITAL

Singapore International Piano Festival 2023

Victoria Concert Hall

Friday (9 June 2023)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 12 June 2023 with the title "A genius recital by Malaysian pianist Tengku Irfan".

 

The cancellation of Argentine pianist Nelson Goerner’s recital on Thursday due to illness meant that young Malaysian pianist Tengku Irfan opened this year’s Singapore International Piano Festival. Hailed as Malaysia’s Mozart, the former prodigy who also composes and conducts is the latest Malaysia-born pianist to perform in the festival since the late-lamented Dennis Lee in 2005.

 

His recital opened with Beethoven’s Sonata No.22 in F major (Op.54), a short-winded work in two movements. His crispness of articulation and mastery of pedalling ensured that the minuet-like first movement possessed sonority without sounding cut and dried. The ensuing finale’s perpetual motion was a tour de force of propulsive momentum which did not let off till the final bar.  

 

Gabriel Faure’s Theme and Variations (Op.73), a rarity, had a welcome airing. Its apparent austerity belied sheer craftsmanship and inventiveness involved, unfolding convincingly in Irfan’s faultless fingers before closing serenely in the major key. This underrated masterpiece might someday become as popular as Schumann’s Etudes Symphoniques or Mendelssohn’s Variations Serieuses.

 

Closing the first half was the Asian premiere of Tota Pulchra Es (Latin for You Are Completely Beautiful) by New York-based Singaporean composer Koh Cheng Jin who is also Irfan’s wife. It began with an eruption of violence, the atonal music later transcending to a realm of inner peace, with lyrical centres which channelled spirituality through Messiaen-like chords.  

 

The recital’s most substantial and familiar work was Schumann’s Fantasy in C major (Op.17), three movements reliving the restless and sublime inspiration of Beethoven. Its Romantic sweep was well captured in splashy chords and swirling arpeggios, with tumultuous swells quelled by the quotation from Beethoven’s song cycle An die Ferne Geliebte (To The Distant Beloved) at the close of the first movement.

 

In Irfan’s sharply contoured reading, the striding second movement was not so much an all-conquering heroic march but troubled journey beset with the trials and tribulations of love. As if to reinforce that notion, he even had a minor lapse but closed triumphantly with its fearsome octave leaps well vanquished.   

 

The valedictory closing movement brought on expected emotional highs and the added surprise of Schumann’s original ending, reprising the earlier Beethoven quotation albeit with altered harmonies. A genuine case of deja vu, the past being revisited but with not quite the same outcome.

 

Closing the unusually eclectic recital was Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Rudepoema (Savage Poems), 18 minutes of musical intoxication once described as “The Rite Of Spring Meets Brazilian Jungle”. Irfan was at his imperious best, imbuing the brashly dissonant essay with brawn and brain, where the lacerating and the lyrical sit cheek-by-jowl at the same table.

 

A pleasing symmetry was provided in the encore, his own transcription of Ausklang, the final segment from Richard Strauss’ Alpine Symphony. Its reprise of earlier themes echoed Schumann’s own nod to Beethoven, and the final outcome being solace, also reflected in Koh’s music. This programme may be summed up in one word, genius.

Tengku Irfan with the missus,
Singapore composer Koh Cheng Jin.