CLASSICS AT THE MOVIES / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

CLASSICS AT THE MOVIES

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Victoria Concert Hall

Friday (27 September 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 30 September 2024 with the title "SSO goes to the movies with feel-good concert with familiar soundtracks".

What would movies be without music? Silent. Even silent movies of the 1920s were accompanied by musicians performing live. In this Singapore Symphony Orchestra concert led by the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra’s resident conductor Gerard Salonga, the full range of moods and emotions provided by movie music was revealed to superb effect. 

Some of the music had been written many years before the advent of film, such as Franz von Suppe’s light-hearted Poet and Peasant Overture which opened the show. Salonga, who was also the concert’s affable host, recounted this to be madcap music heard in Looney Tunes cartoons, but this reviewer remembers washing detergent advertisements on television. 

Original music written for films would however predominate, including Maurice Jarre’s Building The Barn from Witness. This was the Harrison Ford-starred feature with the Amish, which thrived on fulsome string tones representing Americana at its most homespun. Similarly, Christopher Young’s Murder In The First, with echoes of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, sounded just as congenial and sumptuous despite its title. 

A completely different string sonority permeated Bernard Herrmann’s Suite from Psycho. Astringent ostinatos reminiscent of Shostakovich and a stress-laden quasi-Prokofiev melody ratcheted up the tension. Then the infamous shrieking strings arrived, a stabbing jump scare with the suddenness of Janet Leigh being offed behind the shower curtain. Movie music is deemed most effective when there is a collective gasp from the audience. 

There were solos too, with concertmaster Chan Yoong Han kept busy on the violin in Argentinian composer Carlos Gardel’s tango Por Una Cabeza with a rose stalk clasped between his lips. Far more serious were Three Pieces from John Williams’ score for Schindler’s List, channeling Jewish melancholy and Klezmer dances, in remembrance of the Nazi genocide in a Krakow ghetto. 

The other soloist was Filipino soprano Lara Maigue in two popular operatic arias by George Frideric Handel. Lascia Ch’io Pianga from Rinaldo was a display of pristine lines and feeling, while Ombra Mai Fu from Xerxes (better known as Handel’s Largo) was the epitome of baroque beauty. Both songs figured in the movie celebrating the legendary castrato Farinelli. Her encore was the wordless Winter Shades by Danish composer Soren Hyldgaard, a vocalise of seamless melismata. 

Howard Shore’s Suite from Silence of the Lambs, including the somber Main Title and Hannibal’s Escape, plunged the concert back into the realm of horror movies, but that was short lived. Nothing brings a smile more than the intergalactic jazz of Cantina Band from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope by Williams, where woodwinds, brass and percussion had their field day. 

The official programme had ended but Salonga and the orchestra had two more numbers up their sleeves in Alan Silvestri’s ruminative Main Theme from Cast Away and one of pop music’s greatest ever hits. Procol Harum’s A Whiter Shade Of Pale, inspired by J.S.Bach’s Air on the G String, had been featured in movies and covered more than one could possibly remember. With Joanna Paul’s pipe organ solo entering the fray, that provided a feel-good end to two hours of good music.

FINALS OF THE LEEDS INTERNATIONAL PIANO COMPETITION 2024: SOME THOUGHTS

 

The finalists (from L):
Julian Trevelyan, Khanh Nhi Luong,
Jaeden Izik-Dzurko,
Junyan Chen & Kai-Min Chang
Photo: Fmarshallphoto

FINALS IMPRESSIONS 

OF THE LEEDS INTERNATIONAL 

PIANO COMPETITION 2024 

Friday & Saturday 

(20 & 21 September 2024) 

St George’s Hall, Bradford 

as viewed on YouTube 

No, I’m not in Bradford, nor in Leeds, but in the comfy armchair of my piano den, watching the finals of the Leeds International Piano Competition. Reliving my 2006 experience (where I was actually in Leeds), there is a kind of deja vu, except that this year, the finals with orchestra is held in Bradford’s St George’s Hall as Leeds Town Hall is undergoing major renovations. 

There have been major changes since then. Dame Fanny Waterman, founder of The Leeds, has passed on. Only the second stage onwards are held in UK. The semi-finals has a chamber music segment, and there will be just five finalists (instead of six). The partnering orchestra this year is the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic conducted by Domingo Hindoyan. 

More controversially, this year’s jury’s instructions have now included affirmative action for women, including a consideration of favouring a woman pianist if there is a tie (supposedly to nullify the natural advantages men have), and a recount if the women to men ratio is unfavourable. That might explain why there are two women among five finalists this year, as opposed to 0 in 2021 and 1 in 2018 (making just 1 woman out of 10 finalists in the last two editions). 

First Evening (Saturday) 

JULIAN TREVELYAN (UK) was this competition’s wild card, having been the first reserve pianist, admitted into the Second Round when one of the 24 dropped out. He full justified the jury’s faith by giving an idiomatic and totally musical account of Bartok’s Third Piano Concerto. This is the mellowest (and supposedly “easiest”) of the Hungarian’s three piano concertos, but has never won a single competition. 

No fault of Trevelyan’s as he has its poetry and Hungarian folk influences down pat. There were truly beautiful moments in the Adagio religioso slow movement, coloured by Bartok’s patented night music episode. The finale was sufficiently ebullient, the fugato very well handled and there was nothing to dislike about the performance. 

My thoughts: He’s already succeeded by making it this far, but Bartok (like Mozart) is unlikely to trump the likes of Brahms, Rachmaninov or Prokofiev. 

KAI-MIN CHANG (Taiwan) was a standout of the earlier rounds, but with Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto in G major (Op.58), it was going to be a tough sell. Another very idiomatic performance, and he acquitted himself very well musically and it was hard to believe he was playing this concerto for the very first time with orchestra. 

Again, there was nothing to dislike in his reading, which got steadier as the work progressed, capturing well the slow movement’s gravitas and the finale’s joie de vivre. 

My thoughts: He might have fared better with Beethoven’s Third or Fifth, for the Fourth is the most difficult to pull off convincingly, even for keyboard veterans. 

JUNYAN CHEN (China) gave the performance of the evening with Rachmaninov’s Fourth Piano Concerto in G minor (Op.40). With the Second and Third expunged from this year’s repertoire list, this “Cinderella” concerto, less melodically interesting and harmonically grittier than its predecessors, could go down like a lead stone. Except that it did not in Chen’s buoyant and even joyous reading, which makes one wonder why this is not more often heard (the obvious reason is the existence of Nos.2, 3 and Paganini Rhapsody). 

No matter, if there is a performance of this concerto to make new friends, this is it. Chen possessed the physical heft, lyrical sensibility and rhythmic drive to make this problematic vehicle work. The slow movement’s big melody and chordal climax (recycled from an earlier Etude-tableau in C minor, Op.33 No.3) was gloriously brought out, before the finale’s hell-for-leather romp. 

My thoughts: Possible winner of the competition, certainly to figure within the top three places. She looked like she enjoyed every moment of this concerto.

Second Evening (Sunday) 

KHANH NHI LUONG (Vietnam) has done Southeast Asia proud for being the first pianist from this region to make the finals of the Leeds. Nobody else has come close (Not even Dennis Lee, Melvyn Tan or Seow Yit Kin who all took part in the 1970s). Her vision of Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto in C major (Op.26) was exactly what one would have hoped for, a combination of steel fingers and a velvet touch. 

The secret was keeping a fleet-fingered technique throughout and applying percussion on demand, best demonstrated in the central movement’s Theme and Variations. There were some nervous moments of wrong notes in the finale, but she held her nerve to close with stunning aplomb. 

My thoughts: Well done, she has become the most famous Vietnamese pianist since Dang Thai Son. A new piano legend. Good for a top three ranking. 

JAEDEN IZIK-DZURKO (Canada) was the pre-competition favourite, and displayed rock-solid performances in the second round and semi-finals. In Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto in B flat major (Op.83), all he needed to do was to turn up and not falter, and then win. In the longest concerto by far, he was rock-steady from the very outset, his opening statement and cadenza was confidence itself. Never looking back, this was a performance of brain and brawn. 

With the heavy lifting of the first two movements done, it was poetry all the way to the end. The RLPO’s principal cellist was part of the slow movement’s chamber music which was reciprocated in kind by the piano. The lightness of the finale, with playfulness worn on the sleeve, completed a memorable performance. One just needs to forget this is a competition, and he did so without apology. 

My thoughts: Likely to be the first Canadian winner since Jon Kimura Parker in 1984. 

The jury was not far away from this assessment, awarding the prizes as follows: 

First: Jaeden Izik-Dzurko (Canada) 

Second: Junyan Chen (China) 

Third: Khanh Nhi Luong (Vietnam) 

Fourth: Kai-Min Chang (Taiwan) 

Fifth: Julian Trevelyan (UK) 

Audience Prize: Tomoharu Ushida (Japan) 

Contemporary Music Prize: 

Kai-Min Chang (Taiwan) 

Special Prize for best Semifinalist not advanced to the Finals: Ryan Zhu (Canada) 

Special Prize for performance of women’s compositions: Junyan Chen (China) 

Special Prize for best chamber music performance: 

Junyan Chen (China)

MORE MUSICAL LOOKALIKES RELIVED! THE LOCAL EDITION

No concerts in town today. So there's time for more musical lookalikes. This dozen covers the musical scene in Singapore, as the people featured will mostly be people known to local concert-goers. There might be some international names, and that's good too!

Former Singapore Symphony
Resident Conductor Lim Yau
keeps his hair buoyant, like Kent Nagano.

Hotshot violinist Chan Yoong Han
has a twin in Chinese pianist Yutong Sun.

Violinist Lee Shi Mei
has the same sweet and winsome smile
as Japanese pianist Aimi Kobayashi.

Hotshot pianist Shaun Choo
looks like the young version of
Korean piano virtuoso Kun Woo Paik.

Local piano heartthrob Gabriel Hoe
and Taiwanese pianist Kai-Min Chang,
finalist in this year's
Leeds International Piano Competition.

Baritone William Lim should be careful
if he steps into Kuala Lumpur Int Airport,
where Kim Jong Nam was assassinated.

British-Indonesian pianist George Harliono,
whose Silver medal at the Tchaikovsky Competition
is just as rewarding as the Olympic Gold medal
of Joseph Schooling.

Chinese violinist He Ziyu
has the right moves as Hollywood actor
Dennis Dun of Big Trouble in Little China.

Hong Kong pianist Chiyan Wong
and Hong Kong icon Bruce Lee.

Japanese pianist Hayato Sumino (Cateen)
has the same consumptive look as Chopin.

Cateen's "daguerreotype".

Scottish pianist Dr Kenneth Hamilton
is an authority on Liszt as
Dr Anthony Fauci is on infectious diseases.

American pianist Steven Spooner
could pass off as German actor Christian Redl
who played General Jodl in Downfall.

Taiwanese violinist Benny Tseng Yu-Chien
and German football star Mesut Ozil.

The late lecturer-organist-
music critic-bus driver
Marc Rochester (Dr Marc) and
late German conductor Kurt Sanderling.

Some recent additions:

All the music teacher aunties in Singapore
want to look like Martha Argerich.

Both come from Malaysia:
Musical polymath Phan Ming Yen
& The Daily Show host Ronny Chieng.
Both are comedians too.

Shenzhen Symphony Music Director Lin Daye
& World Scientific Managing Director Max Phua.

Locally-based German violinist / violist
Matthias Oestringer &
Oscar-winning Austrian-German actor
Christopher Waltz (Django Unchained)

They even have the same surname.
Taiwanese pianist Chang Chiao-Ying (Fournier Trio)
and Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi (Rush Hour 2)

MUSICAL LOOKALIKES RELIVED! MOSTLY PIANISTS

It is Grand Prix weekend in Singapore, which means there are no concerts in the city. At least those concerts which we really care about. Which also means it's time to bring out the latest set of Musical Lookalikes, which I have collected since the last time.

There is an obvious bias to the Singapore music scene (see the next instalment) and its many interesting figures. There is also a bias towards pianists, and why not?

The great Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman
is beginning to look like the ageing
Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill)
of Star Wars Part 8.

Did anybody think that Alfred Brendel
looked like Mr Hooper (Will Lee) 
from Sesame Street?

Looking glamourous:
Argentine pianist Ingrid Fliter
and the young Helen Mirren.

GOAT pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin
and his Hollywood lookalike,
character actor Michael Rooker.

Even the backdrop is the same.
The late Hungarian pianist Zoltan Kocsis
is a dead-ringer for Scorpio (Andy Robinson)
from Dirty Harry. So make my day, punk!

Romanian pianist Alexandra Dariescu
does look like the great Dame Moura Lympany.

Lowell Liebermann, composer of Gargoyles,
and his doppelganger,
 football manager Iain Dowie.

Enough of pianists. 

It's time to troll the others.

This is my favourite.
Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich
and cellist Mstislav Rostropovich
were sighted at Schloss vor Husum
buying CDs at the Danacord booth.

All are Dutchmen.
Conductor Jaap van Zweden
and his footballing compatriots,
Erik Ten Hag and Mitchell van der Gaag
coaching staff of Manchester United.

Famous Uruguayan conductor Jose Serebrier
and Larry Fine of The Three Stooges.

Violist Volodia Mykytka
of the Szymanowski Quartet
and adult movie superstar Ron Jeremy.

The great jazz pianist-composer
Nikolai Kapustin and
just about any Grumpy Cat.

 And here's some late additions:

Russian pianist Boris Berezovsky
and British actor-writer Stephen Fry.
Have you seen the size of their bellies lately?

Great American film composer John Williams
and great American composer Charles Ives.

Husum piano rarities guru Peter Froundjian
and Dr Zhivago actor Omar Sharif.

Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili
may not be a redhead but from neck down,
she's virtually Jessica Rabbit.

Japanese-German pianist Alice Sara Ott
and Blackpink's Lisa (Lalisa Manobal).

And here's another look at
Alica Sara Ott and Lisa of Blackpink.

Two great Americans:
Detroit Symphony's Leonard Slatkin
Minnesota Governor &
Vice-Presidential candidate Tim Walz. 

Online music critic Dave Hurwitz
with Mildred (or is that Finster)
& Santa Claus with cats

Both live in Israel:
piano professor Arie Vardi
and Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu

Nothing to do with music:
French bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin
& Irish footballer Roy Keane