A SPECIAL PRE-COMPETITION PIANO RECITAL BY TOBY TAN

 

TOBY TAN Piano Recital

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory 

Ensemble Room 2

Wednesday (29 July 2026)

The Ettlingen International Piano Competition in Baden-Wurttemburg, Germany is one of the most prestigious concours for young pianists, many of whom go on to win major honours in senior competitions and have important concert careers. Lang Lang, Li Yundi and Yuja Wang have all won prizes here in the very beginning of their journeys as piano superstars.

Seventeen-year-old Singaporean pianist Toby Tan will take part in Category B during the first week of August, and I had the rare opportunity to preview his two concert programmes for the competition. The first recital of under 20 minutes opened with J.S.Bach’s Prelude & Fugue in F major from Well-Tempered Clavier Book 2. Evenness and legato lines defined the Prelude, contrasted by the skittish little dance of the Fugue, both brought out with much clarity. In a similar vein, there was humour in the first movement from Haydn’s Sonata in C major Hob.XVI:50 (the so-called “English” sonata), again contrasted with passages of smoothness which made this a fascinating listen all round.

Then the gloves came off for Liszt’s Transcendental Etude No.2 in A minor, which sometimes carries the nickname of Fusées or rockets. Whatever its moniker, Toby unleashed its torrents of shock waves and chordal outbursts, reminding one why Liszt was called the “Paganini of the piano”, a pianist’s vision of violin pyrotechnics. Closing the first recital were two contrasting movements from 20th century Armenian composer Arno Babadjanian’s Six Pictures, displaying a flexibility of form and tempo in the near-atonal opening Improvisation, and the biting ostinatos and Bartokian violence in the Toccatina.

The second recital requires playing of 30 minutes, including a full sonata from the classical era. For this, Toby picked Beethoven’s Sonata in E flat major (Op.27 No.1), the first of the two Sonata quasi una fantasia (the second being the Moonlight Sonata). This was a very astute choice juxtaposing contrasting moods and textures, combining lyricism and requisite razor-fast reflexes for rapid playing. He handled these transitions very well, upholding Beethoven’s idea of “fantasy” (its four movements are unconventional and unusually sequenced) and wry humour. A return of the third movement’s chorale theme – well-realised in Toby’s reading - represented a déjà vu which Beethoven would observe in his late sonatas.

There were two Chopin works, the Mazurka in G sharp minor (Op.33 No.1), which revealed an instinctive feel of the Polish folk rhythm and that paradigm of Romantic lyricism that is the Barcarolle (Op.60), building up to a heady climax before unwinding with a series of elaborated filigreed passages to close. The full recital closed with Prokofiev’s Four Etudes (Op.2), early works which revelled in relentless mechanistic rhythms and technical facility. 

Toby was able to tease out hidden melodies amid the pummelling, and find poetry in the gossamer lightness of the second study. A “no prisoners” approach was applied to the motoric running thirds of the third number (finding notoriety by Kissin in his Carnegie Hall recital), and riding high on the boogie woogie rhythm of the finale, which closed the recital on an exalted and musical high. To all this, one could only exclaim "bravissimo"!

I can only wish Toby Tan all the best success in this competition before he returns to serve his national service. Another Singaporean pianist, Casey Li, is also competing in this age category. I am certain both Toby and Casey will do Singapore proud.