EVERYBODY LOVES A SOIREE: THE CELEBRITY EDITION!

EVERYBODY LOVES A SOIREE:

THE CELEBRITY EDITION!

If truth be told, a musical soiree is always better whenever I am an observer. No way should I be a part of it other than being a fly on a wall, or to use a more local example, a gecko on the ceiling. Dr Ling Ai Ee, Singapore's most celebrated non-professional pianist and accompanist, regularly holds soirees and matinees at her home off Dunearn Road. Some of these have been fundraisers in aid of various charities, but this latest one was all about friends coming together to make music.

... and here's the programme du jour.

She has assembled a formidable line-up (9 musicians in all) this time around, including celebrities and veterans of Singapore's musical scene. Even the audience was filled with luminaries (which does not include off-duty music reviewers). The performers needn't have worried, as the programme was excellent, the level of playing was mostly beyond reproach, a testament of how hard they have worked on the music. For this, they deserve our whole-hearted applause. Not to mention the lovely makan served up!

The concert opened with a whole piano trio!
Beethoven's Op.11, the Gassenhauer so named
because it used tunes from the street (gasse).
Clarinettist Li Lingzhi, cellist Timothy Chua
with host with the most Ling Ai Ee on piano.

Another whole piano trio, albeit in one movement.
Rachmaninov's G minor Trio-Elegiaque,
with violinist Serene Lim, cellist Chan Chin Hong
and pianist Jonathan Aow.

The youngest performer was prodigious
15-year-old Timothy Chua in
Schumann's Adagio & Allegro, Op.70

Violin celebrity Siow Lee-Chin made a cameo
with Amy Beach's Romance.

She dedicated the performance to her patron and 
mentor Lady Yuen-Peng McNeice, who would have
celebrated her 107th birthday today.

The famous Leow Siak Fah family portrait.
There were at least 4 people pictured within
who were present at the soiree.

After the grub break, Astor Piazzolla tangos resumed,
first with Tangata with Ai Ee & Toh Chee Hung
from the famous Dennis Lee-Toh Chee Hung duo.

Chee Hung and Dennis were regulars, 
and helmed the first fundraising soiree.

Piazzolla's Oblivion with Lingzhi, Jonathan and
YST Conservatory's Tang I-Shyan on cello.

Now the heavy-duty trios:
Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No.1 (1st movement)
with Serene, Chin Hong & Jonathan.

... and the 2nd movement from
Lingzhi, I-Shyan and Jonathan

The recital proper closed with the first two movements
from Mendelssohn's Second Piano Trio,
now with Lingzhi, Timothy & Ai Ee.

As an encore, Ai Ee played
Leopold Godowsky's Alt Wien
in the memory of Dennis Lee.

The glam set:
Lee-Chin, cellist Leslie Tan & Lingzhi.
Watch where your hands go, Leslie!

Toh Chee Hung with Juliana Lim
from the Richard Wagner Society (Singapore).

Lee-Chin is senior enough to be the mother of
both Timothy and pianist Asher Seow.
Maybe there are related, after all!

KIRILL GERSTEIN Piano Recital / Review

 

KIRILL GERSTEIN Piano Recital 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Thursday (27 June 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 29 June 2024 with the title "Pianist Kirill Gerstein performs with imagination and musicality".

Russian-American pianist Kirill Gerstein is well-known for crafting his recitals on interesting themes using a creative mix of standard and unusual repertoire. His recital at the 2019 Singapore International Piano Festival had the overarching subject of “heroes and mortality”, but the theme of his largely Romantic programme this time around was not so clear cut. 

Frederic Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantasie in A flat major (Op.61) opened the recital, one of the Pole’s more complex and discursive late works. Its elaborate introduction was well-delineated, the playing crisp and clear-headed, and soon the characteristic polonaise rhythm was first sensed. This was not always apparent amid the fussy filigree, but its heroic strains would eventually prevail, shining like a beacon at its end. 

American jazz pianist Brad Mehldau’s short and moody Apres Faure No.13 (Nocturne) seemed a strange choice until heard as a prelude to Gabriel Faure’s Nocturne No.13 in B minor (Op.119), a late and seemingly forbidding work. The chromatic language uniting both pieces became key, the music turning restless and turbulent before closing darkly and quietly as how the Mehldau began. 

In complete contrast were Francis Poulenc’s rarely-heard Three Intermezzi, melodies and dances coloured with the frivolity and insouciance of Gay Paree. The first half concluded with Franz Liszt’s Polonaise No.2 in E major where unlike the earlier Chopin, its martial rhythm was worn proudly like a battle standard. The unabashed outward virtuosity was a case of Liszt out-Chopining Chopin, with a neat symmetry of programming now becoming more apparent. 

The second half almost replicated the first by beginning with Chopin, this time his Fantasy in F minor (Op.49), another extended work but dominated by a syncopated march rhythm. Gerstein’s technique was unimpeachable, delivering its grand climaxes with the force of personality the music deserved. 

Now the focus shifted to the Austro-Hungarian capital with Robert Schumann’s Faschingsschwank Aus Wien (Carnival Jest From Vienna), comprising five movements of irresistible song and dance. The chord-heavy opening movement was given buoyancy and lift, and humour in the form of cheeky quotes from La Marseillaise (the French national anthem, an echo of Paris again) and Beethoven was nicely rendered. 

This was by far the longest work, but Gerstein’s imagination and musicality made it a pleasure to behold. The Viennese waltz had to figure somewhere, and that was Sergei Rachmaninov’s delicious transcription of Fritz Kreisler’s violin classic Liebesleid (Love’s Sorrow), with freewheeling improvisatory flourishes sounding anything but mournful. 

Still in three-quarter time, Chopin’s ebullient Waltz in A flat major (Op.42) closed the recital proper on a spirited high. So what was the evening’s theme? Likely, an invitation to the dance. There was, however, nothing terpsichorean about Gerstein’s two equally impressive encores. 

A more moving performance of Rachmaninov’s Melodie (Op.3 No.3), in its original and unadorned edition, would be hard to find. And the swiftly running notes of the Bach-Busoni chorale prelude Nun freut euch, Lieben Christen g’mein (Rejoice, Beloved Christians) joyously swept the board.

Photos by Ung Ruey Loon

Kirill Gerstein was 

presented by Altenburg Arts.

FLYING HIGH - BEYOND OUR ISLANDS' SHORES / Philharmonic Wind Orchestra / Review

 

FLYING HIGH – 

BEYOND OUR ISLANDS’ SHORES 

Philharmonic Wind Orchestra 

Esplanade Concert Hall 

Sunday (23 June 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 25 June 2024 with the title "Philharmonic Wind Orchestra plays wide repertoire with aplomb".

The Philharmonic Wind Orchestra (PWO), formerly known as The Philharmonic Winds, will travel next month to South Korea for the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE) conference. Its pre-tour concert led by music director Leonard Tan was a showcase what an excellent local ensemble can achieve in a variety of repertoire. 

The concert opened with American composer John Mackey’s Asphalt Cocktail, an exhilarating showpiece that was literally a short ride in a fast machine. Its big brassy sonorities, accompanied by a relentless percussion beat and effects, suggested this was not a subway train but a runaway taxicab carrying the warning, “fasten your seatbelts!” 

More serious was American Kent Kennan’s Sonata for trumpet and wind ensemble in three movements with PWO alumnus Chong Loo Kit in the demanding solo role. Described as neoclassical, the music recalled ceremonial brass of olden times, but viewed through a tonal modern idiom of German modernist Paul Hindemith. Its acerbic quality however yielded unusual lyricism in the central movement’s aria-like melody, lovingly voiced, before closing with dance movements and busy counterpoint for its lively finale. 

The legendary 86-year-old British wind orchestra maestro Timothy Reynish, PWO’s principal guest conductor, made a cameo appearance directing Spanish composer Luis Serrano Alarcon’s attractive Spanish Dances. This local premiere delighted in complex rhythms which the orchestra mastered with aplomb, including a Moorish-flavoured central movement with offstage piccolo and drum-beat, and a finale lit up by solo trumpet and the ring of castanets and tambourine. 

Photo: Pianomaniac

Photo: Pianomaniac

The concert’s second half comprised wholly works by Singaporean composers, beginning with Leong Yoon Pin’s only wind band piece, Day-break And Sunrise (1992). Typical of the late doyen of local composers, his melodic intent is not revealed immediately. Instead, motivic shards and fragments emerge like nascent beams through the morning mist. Full illumination was achieved, albeit briefly as the music soon swiftly dissipated into fine ether. 

Conductor Leonard Tan holds aloft
Leong Yoon Pin's orchestral score.

Photo: Pianomaniac

Baltimore-based young composer Lee Jia Yi’s newly commissioned betwixt and between received its world premiere. Written in four short connected movements, the music shifted imperceptibly between Noise, seemingly random squeaks, slashes, swooshes and slides, and Harmony, represented by more stable long-held notes, which wavered into quarter-tones and overtones. Bewildering as this might sound, there was a strangely calming quality when the ears began to adapt to each of the different alternating sonic milieus. 

Photo: Pianomaniac

French horn player Alan Kartik
demonstrates playing the conch.
Photo: Pianomaniac

The 21st century Singaporean work that has received the most performances has to be Young Artist Award recipient Wang Chenwei’s symphonic poem The Sisters’ Islands (2006). Eighty as of this evening, to be exact. Originally scored for Chinese orchestra, the world premiere of its wind orchestra version was no less vivid. Using the Indo-Malay pelog scale, Wang crafted motifs representing the eponymous sisters, the sea and its legends in this programmatic work. 

The use of qudi and rebana lent
The Sisters' Islands an exotic Nanyang flavour.
Photo: Pianomaniac

Its lush scoring was well-realised on wind and brass, with the blare of the conch shell and ocarina’s diminutive voice being pivotal extras. Closing with a grand apotheosis of sisterly love, one can foresee the world band conference in Korea getting an unadulterated taste of true Singaporeana.

Photo: Pianomaniac

Photo: Pianomaniac

Photo: Pianomaniac

All photographs by Kwang 

unless otherwise stated.

THE MOST PERFORMED 21ST CENTURY SINGAPOREAN ORCHESTRAL WORK

We're giving away the answer,
but what the heck.

Do you know what is the most performed Singaporean orchestral work of the 21st century? This is not a trick question. 

The answer: The Sisters' Islands by Wang Chenwei

It just received its 80th performance by the Philharmonic Wind Orchestra led by Leonard Tan in its wind orchestra transcription, which was also a world premiere. This version will also be performed in South Korea for the World Association of Symphonic Bands & Ensembles (WASBE) conference in July.

Wang Chenwei is presently the
Composer-in-Residence of the 
Singapore Chinese Orchestra,
the youngest person to hold this accolade.

Wang Chenwei, who was conferred the Young Artist Award in 2023, was just 17 years old and student of Raffles Junior College when he composed The Sisters' Island. The original score was for Chinese traditional instruments, which won the Singapore Composers Award at the inaugural Singapore International Competition for Chinese Orchestral Competition in 2006.

There have since been arrangements for two zhongruans with piano, Western symphony orchestra, and now wind orchestra. 

Let's have a listen to the different versions of this symphonic poem, based on a Malay legend, and enjoy. A detailed description of the work and its movements may be found in the description of each video.

Original Chinese orchestra version, 

performed by Singapore Chinese Orchestra:

Version for two zhongruans and piano:

Version for Western symphony orchestra, 

performed by Singapore Symphony Orchestra:

Want to hear more? 

Here's a performance by the 

Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra:

Kaohsiung City Chinese Orchestra (Taiwan):

Now let us await 

the wind orchestra version!

MUSICAL MAGIC / ALIM BEISEMBAYEV Piano Recital / Review

 

MUSICAL MAGIC 

ALIM BEISEMBAYEV Piano Recital 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Friday (21 June 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 24 June 2024 with the title "Pianist Alim Beisembayev plays with sparkle and musicality".

International piano competitions churn out first prize-winners by the bucket-load every year, and it takes a rather special young musician to stand out from the crowd. The most recent first prize-winner of the Leeds International Piano Competition, 26-year-old Alim Beisembayev from Kazakhstan who won in 2021 has exactly that X-factor. 

The Impromptus of Franz Schubert are often played to death by bored students in exams, but in Beisembayev’s hands, they sparkled like gems. He chose the more demanding set of four from Op.142, and one was immediately struck by an innate sense of poetry and luscious layered sound. 

Exercises they are not, he reminded the listener time and again. The hymn-like Impromptu No.2 with its contrasted flowing central section, and the theme with tricky variations of Impromptu No.3 were all sensitively shaped. In the more technical Hungarian-flavoured Impromptu No.4, its vital element of rhythmic dance came to the fore. 

For Claude Debussy’s Second Book of Images, which is less often heard, Beisembayev’s deft use of pedalling ensured that the bell sonorities of Cloches a travers les feuilles (Bells Through The Leaves) rang with utmost clarity amid accompanying background rustles. 

In Et la lune descend sur temple le qui fut (And the Moon Sets Over the Temple That Was), the spectral mysteries of the Orient were vividly evoked. Poissons d’or (Gold Fish) may have been inspired by Japanese prints, but the shimmering hues were not seen through indoor fishbowls but the vastness of an ocean with high surging waves. 

The height of disrespect.
Some boomer uncle checking his social media.
The very definition of pearls before swine.

And who was not waiting for Frederic Chopin’s 12 Etudes from Op.25? Any disappointment caused by these delicious finger-twisters being expunged from Korean pianist Yunchan Lim’s recital on 28 June was more than made up by Beisembayev’s memorable account. 

For him, these studies were no longer technical exercises calculated to excite and thrill, but rather exquisite miniature tone poems. There is not a single unmusical bone in his body. When faced with his interpretations, one does not exclaim “how difficult this is” but rather “how beautiful it all sounds”. 

The wind-caressed arpeggios in A flat major (Etude No.1), rapid syncopations in A minor (No.3), treacherous thirds in G sharp minor (No.6) and stampeding octaves in B minor (No.10) all become mere means to a musical end. Through these, mellifluous voices emerge, not least in the lyrical central section of the “Wrong Note” Etude No.5 in E minor. 

The tempestuous “Winter Wind” (No.11) and storm-tossed “Ocean” (No.12) were impressive in generating volume, but most heartrending of all was the simple cello-like melody of the C sharp Etude (No.7) being transformed into a tragedy of epic proportions. 

Beisembayev’s superb encores of Serge Rachmaninov’s Prelude in G major (Op.32 No.5) and Franz Liszt’s Transcendental Etude No.10 in F minor were in the same spirit: an ultimate triumph of musicality over facility.