ELISO VIRSALADZE & FRIENDS CHAMBER RECITAL / Review

 

ELISO VIRSALADZE & 

FRIENDS CHAMBER RECITAL 

Conservatory Concert Hall 

Thursday (13 March 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 15 March 2025 with the title "Grand dame of Russian piano school Eliso Virsaladze leads cohesive chamber recital".

If one were a conservatory student, imagine what a honour it is to perform at a masterclass by some of classical music’s most venerated artists. An even greater privilege is to actually to perform in concert with someone like Georgian pianist Eliso Virsaladze, whom at 82 is the Grand Dame of the Russian piano school. 

That was the fortunate lot of four string students selected to play in two piano quintets alongside Virsaladze and members of faculty. The concert began with Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E flat major (Op.44), when violinist Zou Meng and his twin brother violist Zou Zhang were joined by violinist Qian Zhou (Yong Siew Toh Conservatory’s head of strings) and cellist Jamshid Saidikarimov (Singapore Symphony Orchestra musician). 

Photo: Ong Shu Chen

Straight off in the opening bars, the five players established a cohesiveness that would endure through the work’s half hour. Virsaladze took the lead, her clarity of articulation projected well from the Fazioli grand piano with its lid on half-stick. This was never a case of overwhelming the strings but working closely in tandem as equals. 

The passion of Romanticism shone through in the first movement’s development as well as the slow movement’s stormy central section where the tempo and temperature were upped. Even the Scherzo’s play of ascending and descending scales were made to sound fun rather than the tedium of exercises. 

It was the finale’s busy counterpoint, reliving the grand fugue a la Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony, which sealed this impressive performance. A wrong step would have spelt disaster but the performers had a gripping chokehold on the proceedings which drove to a glorious close. 

The second half had a more expansive work in Johannes Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F minor (Op.34), where Virsaladze was partnered with violinists Ng Yu Ying and Ang Chek Meng (founding members of T’ang Quartet), and students - violist Huang Yi and cellist Cao Huiying. 

Conceived like a four-movement symphony, the transparent unison opening belied an inner tension that gradually built up as the first movement progressed. As with the previous quintet, this group also harnessed an energy that sustained itself through the music’s plentiful upheavals. 

Respite came in the slow second movement, where a congenial conversational tone between piano and strings provided an oasis of calm. Cao’s cello pizzicatos then picked up the pulse for the Scherzo’s inexorable march, where an obstinately repetitive (hence the term ostinato) rhythm predominated, with an excitement level ratcheted to the edge of one’s seat. 

The work’s most dissonant moments were in the finale’s opening, almost painful in intensity, but as the smoke cleared, an obvious pattern was emerging. This gradual revelation of its memorable main theme would later be repeated in Brahms’ First Symphony in years to come, but the five players were now clearly living the moment. 

Virsaladze’s frequent glances to her younger colleagues ensured everyone was on the same bar together, and together they completed this masterpiece with stunning unity. Such concerts are what excellent chamber music-making - creativity in a single mind - is all about.