ONE YEAR LATER: REMEMBERING DENNIS LEE THROUGH HIS CD RECORDINGS

 

ONE YEAR LATER: 

REMEMBERING DENNIS LEE 

THROUGH HIS CD RECORDINGS 

It has been one year since the passing of the pioneering Malaya-born concert pianist Dennis Lee. A native of Penang, he was the first Malaysian pianist to make an international career from concertising, teaching and judging piano competitions. He and his wife, fellow-pianist Toh Chee Hung, were based in London but made regular visits to Singapore and Malaysia for performances and teaching. 

While we all have fond personal memories of Dennis, it was his piano recordings that will withstand the posterity of time for the rest of the listening public. He made precious few recordings for an artist of his stature, but quality rather than quantity defined his output. There was nothing he recorded which was less than his personal high standards, and much can bear scrutiny alongside the best in the highly competitive recording industry. 

Released in 1991 was arguably Dennis’ greatest recording of all, a recital of Polish composer Karol Szymanowski’s piano music (Hyperion CDA 66409). His was one of the first Szymanowski piano recordings to have come out on CD (way before the likes of Anderszewski, Zimerman, Blechacz, Roscoe and Tiberghien) and was warmly received by critics and listeners alike. 

The varied programme included the Scriabinesque Four Etudes (Op.4), the rarely-heard Lisztian Fantasy (Op.14), and the great cycles inspired by mythology, Metopes (Op.29) and Masques (Op.34). The playing is sensitive yet febrile in intensity. Its success saw it being reissued on Hyperion’s budget label Helios (CDH 55081) during the noughties. 

The Helios reissue is still available.

Prior to this classic saw Dennis as a junior partner to great French pianist Philippe Entremont in a selection of Ravel’s piano works for four hands, including the Mother Goose Suite and Habanera on two pianos from Sites Auriculaires / Rapsodie Espagnole. These were recorded in London for Columbia Masterworks in 1974. Entremont needed a second pianist, and it so happened that he and Dennis shared the same concert agency. The recording I have was a budget reissue on Sony Classical (SB2K 53528), which was autographed by both pianists. These may now be found in Entremont’s big box of solo recordings, also issued by Sony. 

Piano duo music occupied much of Dennis’ concert life, and his most celebrated partnership was with Singapore-born pianist Toh Chee Hung. The husband-and-wife pairing became the most prominent piano duo in this part of the world, a Southeast Asian version of the famous Israeli Eden and Tamir duo. Piano Music for Four Hands (DL-001) from 2002 was a self-produced disc which relived a cross-section of the duo’s repertoire. 

Pride of place is Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite, and the programme includes sonatas by Mozart (D major, K.381), Hummel (E flat major, Op.51), and selections from Moritz Moszkowski’s From Foreign Parts (Op.23) and Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances, capped off with the encore Qui Vive (Grande Galop de Concert) by the little-known Wilhelm Ganz. This is piano duo playing at its finest. 

There is an early-1980s LP recording that features Dennis, Chee Hung and former Singapore Attorney-General Tan Boon Teik playing Mozart’s Concerto for Three Pianos (K.242) with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Choo Hoey, issued as a fundraiser for the orchestra. This is likely to be the only recording of the duo in a concertante work. Immaculate fingerwork and ensemble are to be discerned, notwithstanding a certain amateur pianist’s contribution. The final Rondo was later excerpted for a 2000 commemorative CD of the orchestra’s 21st anniversary. These are true rarities likely only to be found in private collections. 

It was a pity that the duo did not make any further recordings, but one is grateful that the Singapore Symphony Group captured a live performance at the 2005 edition of the Singapore International Piano Festival. Impressions and Encores, a limited-edition CD which showcased highlights from that festival, replicated some earlier repertoire (Dvorak and Ganz) but included Schubert’s Variations on an Original Theme (D.803) and the Ravel transcription of Debussy’s Fetes (from Three Nocturnes). These are masterly performances that bear repeated listening. 

Speaking of Debussy’s piano music, this was a project that occupied the last decade of Dennis’ musical and recording career. Issued by the UK-based Independent Creative Sound and Music (ICSM) Recordings label, we are fortunate to have two discs of this wonderful music. Debussy Piano Works Vol.1 (ICSM 007) released in 2015 contains the First Book of Images, posthumously-published Images oubliees (Forgotten Images), Estampes, Two Arabesques, La plus que lent and L’isle joyeuse. 

Piano Works Vol.2 (ICSM 015) from 2020, issued during the Covid-19 pandemic contains both books of Debussy’s Preludes. Only ill health prevented him from completing the set, which would have included the Second Book of Images, 12 Etudes and assorted short pieces. His illness was no impediment to his musical imagination and vision, not to mention technical virtuosity, judging how fine these final recordings are. These will certainly stand the test of time. 

Dennis did not live to autograph
my copy of his final CD recording...

... however, he did leave me a 
souvenir of our very first meeting
some 34 years ago. 

Dennis Lee was a friend and inspiration to us all who love music in Singapore and Malaysia, and those who knew him in the rest of the world. Even though he is no longer with us, his recordings serve as a constant reminder of his artistry and ultimately, his humanity.