VERONA QUARTET IN RECITAL / THE VIOLA, CENTRESTAGE / Review

 

VERONA QUARTET IN RECITAL 

Conservatory Concert Hall 

Thursday (6 March 2025)

THE VIOLA, CENTRESTAGE 

DIYANG MEI, Viola 

with SSO musicians 

SSO Chamber Series 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Friday (7 March 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 10 March 2025 with the title "Sparkling chamber music treats from Verona Quartet and Diyang Mei".

Lovers of chamber music in Singapore have never had it this good. Two concerts in the past week showcased a variety of repertoire and distinguished by the quality of performances, all this being a prelude to the annual chamber music festival at the conservatory in the week to come. 

Photo: Jellal Koay

The Verona Quartet, based in Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio (United States), made a welcome return. Comprising Singapore violinist Jonathan Ong, violinist Dorothy Ro (Canada), violist Abigail Rojansky (USA) and cellist Jonathan Dormand (United Kingdom), the quartet celebrated French composer Maurice Ravel’s 150th birth anniversary with what came closest to the perfect reading of his String Quartet (1903) thought possible. 

Photo: Jellal Koay

They made the 20th century’s most-performed string quartet sound fresh and unhackneyed, distinguished by playing of finesse, precise intonation and tautness of ensemble. Its many lyrical lines had sweetness of tone, balanced by the vigorous execution of busy pizzicatos heard in the second movement. Its cyclical form saw the opening movement’s theme reappear in the third and fourth movements, heightening a sense of unity and nostalgia. 

Photo: Jellal Koay

Praised as a champion of contemporary music, the quartet gave the Singapore premiere of American composer of Jewish-Chinese-Peruvian heritage Gabriela Lena Frank’s Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout (2001). Its six short movements were inspired by native folk cultures of the Andes range, with simulation of local instruments such as panpipes and percussion, and the songs of funeral mourners and serenaders. The use of modern techniques was no impediment, the music being very accessible and even enjoyable, thus leaving an indelible impression. 

Dmitri Shostakovich’s String Quartet No.9 in E flat major (1964) deserves to be better known as it relived all the tropes that made the Soviet-era Russian composer famous. Dark and bitter melodies, dances of biting irony, and the spewing of vitriol came to the fore in its five connected movements. A more gripping or committed performance from the foursome would be hard to find. 

Responding to long and prolonged applause, encores of Mendelssohn (Canzonetta, from Op.12) and Duke Ellington (Cotton Club Stomp) were a further display of the quartet’s immense range. 

Viola virtuosos have long been overshadowed by their counterparts on violin and cello, however China-born Diyang Mei, principal violist of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra since 2022, might alter that perspective. He is a natural who breathes music and style with every move, and his 75-minute-long chamber concert, partnered by string players from the Singapore Symphony, attested to that. 

Posterity has Georg Philipp Telemann’s only Viola Concerto in G major (c.1720) as the first viola concerto ever composed. In four movements alternating between slow and fast, he coaxed a gorgeous svelte tone with none of the gutteral raspiness that often give violas a bad name.

The longest work on show was Franz Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata in A minor, originally written for the arpeggione, an obsolete fretted instrument from the viol family. Now often heard on the cello, Mei staked his claim for the viola, whose ravishing sound was ideal for its many song-like passages. Carl Maria von Weber’s Andante e Rondo Ongarese (Op.35) opened with the beauty of bel canto singing, then erupting into a rapturous Hungarian gypsy dance which brought down the house. 

Mei’s generous encores of Astor Piazzolla’s Le Grand Tango followed by the traditional Mongolian melody Mu Ge (牧歌, Shepherd’s Song), joined by SSO violist Guan Qi in a sumptuously voiced arrangement, were a blast. This was a concert which would get youngsters clamouring to learn the viola.