BACH CANTATA SERIES: THE "OTHER" BACH / Yong Siew Toh Conservatory / Review

 

BACH CANTATA SERIES:

THE “OTHER” BACH 

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory 

Conservatory Concert Hall 

Friday (15 November 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 19 November 2024 with the title "Dog has its day in P.D.Q.Bach's series of spoofs".

For the unlucky 13th edition of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory’s Bach Cantata Series, the focus was on P.D.Q.Bach, the youngest, least and oddest of Johann Sebastian Bach’s twenty-odd children. That was the nom de plume of American composer and parodist Peter Schickele (1935-2024), the fictional Professor of Musical Pathology at the University of Southern North Dakota. 

Photo: Neo Jie Ning

The persona of the errant Bach offspring was played by a bewigged Alan Bennett (not that Alan Bennett), Head of Voice Studies, who in German-accented English introduced nine works of chamber and vocal music, a primer of his irreverent and anarchic sense of musical humour. 

Unlike other great musical humorists, Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Mozart or Dmitri Shostakovich, a little P.D.Q. goes a long, long way. 160 minutes of slapstick schtick could drag and grate on the senses, but the full-house audience with many children in attendance lapped it all up.

Jiang Qifan and Xie Lingfei

Even the titles carried an naughty glint in the eye, such as Sonata Innamorata for piano four hands, with three movements spoofing Beethoven and updated to embrace the LGBTQ+ movement. Imagine, also, the fun bringing together four members of the orchestra’s most comical instrument - the bassoon - for a Prelude and Fugue punningly titled Lip My Reeds.

There was a Hindemithian logic to The Only Piece Ever Written for Violin and Tuba, with four movements pranking old Johann Sebastian’s Air on G String and the modern phenomenon of social media influencers. As hoary viola jokes go, “How many violists does it take to play the viola?”. The answer in Sonata for Viola Four Hands and Harpsichord was two, occasionally three.

It takes three violists to play a viola,
Huang Yi, Li Weifan and friend,
accompanied by Beatrice Lin on harpsichord. 

Karst de Jong looking short-tempered.

The Short-Tempered Clavier (in all major and minor keys except the really hard ones) had preludes and fugues based on popular tunes like Chopsticks, Mary Had A Little Lamb, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star alongside more serious ones by Beethoven, George Handel and Johannes Brahms.

Samiksha Argal plays the schlagenfrappe,
Julien Quek plays the tuba mirum
while P.D.Q. is handy with the pastaphone.
Edenia Maureen on piano.

Then came the vocal stuff. Four Folksong Upsettings (for mezzanine-soprano, devious instruments and piano) had in its third and fourth songs, He Came From Over Yonder Ridge and The Farmer On The Dole, an uncanny prescience about the looming 47th Presidency of the Disunited States of America.

Photo: Neo Jie Ning

Park Minjun and Jason Suryaatmaja
on Brokeback Mountain?

Few items could, however, trump the actual cantatas in the concert’s second half, accompanied by the YST Orchestral Institute led by Lien Boon Hua, with stage direction by Edith Podesta. Featuring students of The Opera Workshop, they sang in German for the Cantata Blaues Gras (Bluegrass Cantata) accompanied by a blue grass band of electones simulating banjoes and bass.

Photo: Neo Jie Ning

Kira Lim, Park Minjun, Kim Oh-Yeon
& Stephanie Joshvin with Cobi the Great.

The Stoned Guest, a half-act opera sung in English, included all the operatic tropes played to death in Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Georges Bizet’s Carmen. Everyone on stage got to sing themselves to death, but returned to a happily-ever-after ending, deus ex machina, of course.

Photo: Neo Jie Ning

Hands up all those who came just to watch the Canine Cantata: Wachet, Arf! (Sleeping Dogs Awake!). That a golden retriever named Cobi the Amazing (trained by Albertius Tiudentius, normally better-known for Bach pedagogy), who got a few lines voiced by countertenor Park Minjun, completely stole the show said it all. In these troubled times, humour is the best medicine.

Everybody wanted to meet Cobi the Amazing!

THE KOZLOVSKY REQUIEM / A GALA FOR CREATION / Reviews

 

THE KOZLOVSKY REQUIEM

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Friday (7 April 2023)

 

A GALA FOR CREATION

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory

Conservatory Concert Hall

Saturday (8 April 2023)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 10 April 2023 with the title "Choral music programmes offer a joyful noise for Easter weekend".

 

There is not a better time for Christian religious music than this Easter weekend, evident by performances of two choral masterpieces, one neglected and the other celebrated.

 

Polish composer Joseph Kozlowski’s Requiem in E flat minor was written in 1798 for his nation’s last monarch, King Stanislaw II, who had died in Russian exile. This performance, the Asian premiere, is a revival of the original edition which had been sequestered in Saint Petersburg archives for over two centuries.

 

A labour of love of Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s head of artistic planning Hans Sorensen, the performing edition by music director Hans Graf may be judged a stunning success by all fronts. The Latin setting of the mass of the dead will be familiar to lovers of choral music, with Kozlovsky’s being reminiscent of the classical style in Mozart’s famous Requiem of 1791, but with several notable differences.

 

Particularly striking were the solo arias, which took on operatic dimensions, such as Confutatis, with bass Christoph Seidl sounding imposing and imperious, or the unusually dramatic and theatrical Benedictus, beautifully delivered by soprano Olga Peretyatko. There was also a ringing bel canto quality in tenor Boris Stepanov’s solos, with mezzo-soprano Olesya Petrova completing a well-balanced quartet.

 

Credit also go to the 80 voices from the Singapore Symphony Chorus and Youth Choir, who contributed volume and weight in the doom-laden Dies Irae, and offered excellent diction, consonance and an enviable cohesion throughout. Their almost unaccompanied Sanctus, was a breath of fresh air in its lightness.

 

The 53-minute Requiem was preceded by Mozart’s Symphony No.25 in G minor, which shared a common sturm and drang (storm and stress) quality of being both gripping and moving. It is hoped that SSO and Graf’s exploration of this “lost” masterpiece will win it many new friends.

 

Also receiving its first performance in 1798 was Joseph Haydn’s famous oratorio Die Schopfung, better known by Anglophones as The Creation. Marking Yong Siew Toh Conservatory’s 20^th anniversary, the performance by vocal students and members of its orchestral institute conducted by Jason Lai could not have been more appropriate.

 

The symbolism was there for all to see. Before the Conservatory, higher music education in Singapore might be alluded to in its overture, the harmonically unstable Representation Of Chaos. This was Haydn’s most radical piece of orchestration, six minutes of music trying to find its own key, later arriving in the glorious “licht!” (light!) in the bright key of C major. Even the lighting in the auditorium responded accordingly in a creative attempt at a son et lumiere show.

 

More importantly, it was the singing that impressed most. The trio of soloists representing angels Raphael, Uriel and Gabriel, baritone Daegyun Jeong, tenor Zachary Singson Dominguez and soprano Tan See Huey, were uniformly excellent. The duets of Adam and Eve in Part 3, sung by chorus members tenor Jason Suryaatmaja and soprano Kira Lim, were just as sympathetic.

 

From their names alone, one will be struck by the diversity of nationalities within the Conservatory’s student population and alumni. Their sung German was also idiomatic, the audience’s understanding further aided by projected English transliterations.

 

This celebration would not be complete without crediting the 35-strong choir which including within its ranks the Conservatory’s Head of Vocal Studies Alan Bennett. And what a joyous noise they made in choruses like Der Himmel Erzahlen (The Heavens Are Telling) and Singt Dem Herren, Alle Stimmen! (Sing The Lord, All Voices!). A Lenten weekend could not have been better spent than this. 

J.S.BACH ST.JOHN PASSION / Yong Siew Toh Conservatory & Red Dot Baroque / Review

BACH’S ST JOHN PASSION

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory

& Red Dot Baroque

Victoria Concert Hall

Saturday (9 April 2022)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 13 April 2022 with the title "Chamber performance in the spirit of Bach's time".

 

The Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music began its Bach Cantata Series ten years ago under its head of vocal studies Alan Bennett, later becoming an institution with regular appearances by world-renowned Baroque music specialist Masaaki Suzuki. Suzuki led its vocal and orchestral students in historically-informed performances of Johann Sebastian Bach’s music which may be described as unforgettable.

 

The Conservatory was also responsible for the education and nurturing of young violinist Alan Choo, founder of Singapore’s first professional period instrument band Red Dot Baroque (RDB). This Lenten season would have seen Suzuki conducting conservatory musicians and RDB in a performance of Bach’s St. John Passion, a musical narrative of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ according to the Gospel of John. However, due to Japan’s stringent Covid-19 restrictions, he was replaced by Choo, who led from the violin.

 

This was a chamber performance in the original spirit of Bach’s time, with a choir of just 16 members, from which all the soloists were selected. But what a sound they generated, from the opening chorus Herr, Unser Herrscher (Lord, Our Ruler), which bristled with tension and strife. Clearly this was to be a performance not lacking in conviction and passion.

 

Musical passions intend to instil in believers a sense of awe and hope, buoyed by the belief in a God who punishes evil and ultimately delivers salvation to the faithful and penitent. The German texts made no attempt to disguise the fact, helpfully aided by English transliterations projected on stage above the performers.

 

The role of the Evangelist, who narrated the events through sung recitatives, was shared by tenors Daniel Chong (in Part One) and Alan Bennett (the much longer Part Two). Their clear delivery paved the way for a series of arias from soloists, including the excellent bass-baritone Gerard Lim who portrayed Jesus with confidence and determined stoicism, and others in shorter cameos.

 

Ensemble work was incisive and tidy throughout, with players and singers responding readily to visual cues from leader Choo’s chair. He was an ever-animated presence, moving freely with each beat, as if instilling into every note an infectious vitality. The absence of a podium conductor was never missed for a moment.   

 

While dramatic fugal choruses stirred the hearts, the most intimate minutes were afforded in arias lightly accompanied by instruments from RDB, such as baroque oboes, flutes and violins in pairs. A particularly moving moment came towards the end, with alto Cindy Honanta’s sublime aria Es Ist Vollbracht! (It Is Accomplished!) with Leslie Tan’s pensive viola da gamba in perfect counterpoint.

 

The two final choruses Ruht Wohl (Be Fully At Peace) and Ich Will Dich Preisen Ewiglich (I Want To Praise You Eternally) may be on a subdued side, but its message was unmistakable. With the recession of the Covid-19 threat, this performance, greeted vociferously by a grateful full house and not socially-distanced audience, would make fervent believers out of just about anybody. 

You catch watch the concert here:

Bach Cantata Series: St. John Passion (9 Apr 2022) | YST Conservatory - YouTube

Professional photographs by Bernard Mui, 

courtesy of Yong Siew Toh Conservatory.

MASAAKI SUZUKI CONDUCTS BACH / Yong Siew Toh Conservatory / Review

MASAAKI SUZUKI CONDUCTS BACH

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory

Conservatory Concert Hall

Friday (15 January 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 18 January 2016 with the title "Suzuki ushers in new age of baroque music here".

It would not be inaccurate to say that the performance of baroque music in Singapore is still in its infancy. It is not just a matter of gathering a few musicians and singers to perform together, but rather the detailed study of historically informed performance practice has been long lacking here. This however has changed in recent years, with music institutions engaging experienced baroque practitioners to work with their students.

Last year, the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts got British baroque specialist Ashley Solomon to conduct its orchestra and chorus in J.S.Bach's Magnificat. The Yong Siew Toh Conservatory's invitation of Masaaki Suzuki, founder of the renowned Bach Collegium Japan, to work on Bach's sacred cantatas counts as another landmark. An infant's first big steps have finally been taken.

Gigantic choirs, those of Victorian choral societies, are foreign to authentic baroque music. Fourteen members from the Conservatory's voice department formed the choir, including nine members who sang solo parts. They were supported by 23 instrumentalists of the Conservatory Camerata, including guests from The Hague's Royal Conservatoire and concertmaster Ryo Terakado, one of the world's great baroque violinists.

Composed for church services, these cantatas served like sermons of biblical scripture, for worshippers to reflect and ultimately receive divine benediction through their repentance. The concert opened with Cantata No.17 “Wer Dank Opfert, Der Preiset Mich” (He Who Offers Thanks, Praises Me), a statement of thanks for God's providence.

The choir displayed initial nerves in the opening fugue, sounding thin at parts but soon adapted quickly with confident entries as the movement progressed. The soloists varied in vocal quality and level of projection, but mezzo-soprano Tan Shi Yun and tenor Fang Zhi stood out in their respective recitative and aria. The final chorale about a father's mercy provided a heartwarming glow.

Conductor Suzuki then took to the harpsichord, directing the Conservatory Strings with soloists Yotam Gaton and Orest Smovzh in Bach's Double Violin Concerto in D minor (BWV.1043). Much more familiar to listeners, the crisp performance in three movements exuded much joy as the two disparate voices blended prettily together.        

Two cantatas were offered after the interval. Tenor Alan Bennett, Head of the Conservatory's voice programme, mastered the uncomfortably high solo in Cantata No.55 “Ich Armer Mensch, Ich Sündenknecht” (I Pitiful Man, I Slave Of Sin) with such beseeching tones that it was to hard to ignore the pleas of a penitent soul. The aria Erbarme Dich (Have Mercy) was especially poignant with Rachel Ho's lovely flute solo gilding the melody as an added voice.

Cantata No.147 “Herz Und Mund Und Tat Und Leben” (Heart And Mouth And Deed And Life) is Bach's most popular cantata, and with good reason. Its celebratory tone led by trumpeter Teerapol Kiatthaveephong's splendid solo runs sparked a lively opening choral flourish. Among the singers, mezzo Tan (again) and baritone Daegyun Jeong provided the most convincing solo moments, but the chorus in Wohl Mir, Dass Ich Jesum Habe (Happy I, Who Has Jesus), closing the first part, brought out the most smiles.

That chorale is none other than Bach's most hummed tune, which even laypeople and non-believers know as Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring. A reprise, as Jesu Bleibet Meine Freude (Jesus Remains My Joy), also concluded the concert, one that will be remembered for its dedication to art and sheer enthusiasm. Suzuki and his colleagues may have just ushered in a new age of baroque music performance in Singapore. 

SCHUBERT'S DIE SCHÖNE MÜLLERIN / Alan Bennett and Choi Hye-Seon / Review

DIE SCHÖNE MÜLLERIN

ALAN BENNETT, Tenor

CHOI HYE-SEON, Piano

SOTA Concert Hall

Friday (14 February 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 17 February 2014 with the title "Conveying unrequited love exquisitely".

How did you spend your Valentine’s Day evening? Was it an expensive restaurant and overpriced roses with someone you were hoping to impress, or in the company of the music of Franz Schubert? The Austrian composer was one of the great Romantics, for whom Fate dealt a bad hand in a tragically short life. His Lieder and song cycles dwelled on love, but he was not to enjoy its fruits.

His 1823 cycle Die Schöne Müllerin (The Fair Maid Of The Mill) of 20 songs after poetry by Wilhelm Müller was about young love, unrequited and rebuffed, leading ultimately to despair and suicide. Not quite the stuff for courting couples, but given the chemistry between the husband and wife team of tenor Alan Bennett and pianist Choi Hye-Seon, one could be easily persuaded.

The concert began with two solo Impromptus (from Op.90) performed by Choi. The rippling right hand figurations over which lyricism ruled supreme provided a prelude to the exquisite hour and a bit to follow, besides allowing late-comers to settle in their seats.

Bennett possesses an unusually bright and youthful voice, one with a clear ring in the topmost registers, belying his hefty physical stature. Singing completely from memory and not fettered with a score, he was able to convey a myriad of moods and emotions by communicating directly at the audience.

From the unabashed optimism of Das Wandern (Wandering) and Wohin? (Whither) to hesitant uncertainty of Der Neugierige (Curiosity) and Ungeduld (Impatience), one could readily follow the young miller’s descent into emotional turmoil. This was aided by a booklet with the German texts and translations, but the downside was the rustling caused by hundreds of leaves being noisily turned. At least people were paying attention.

It was a testament to Bennett’s art and endurance that each song sounded freshly minted, and there was little or no evidence of strain as he progressed. The 14^th and 15^th songs Der Jäger (The Huntsman) and Eifersucht und Stolz (Jealousy and Pride), with indignant words spat out at a furious pace, were accomplished with relative ease and facility. His partner Choi was sensitive and supportive throughout.

The cycle’s last three songs, also its most famous, were wonderfully portrayed. The bleakness of Tröckne Blumen (Wilted Flowers), synonymous with love snuffed out, and the dirge-like rhythm of Der Müller und Der Bach (The Miller and The Brook) were allusions of death itself. The final Des Baches Wiegenlied (The Brook’s Lullaby) provided an uneasy balm of terminal repose, with its waters obliviously washing over hope and life itself.    

The encore demanded by the audience was a teaser for the next song cycle to come, Winterreise (Winter Journey). A warm reception for Bennett and Choi awaits.