MOZART & MAHLER / Yong Siew Toh Conservatory / Review

MOZART & MAHLER

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall

Saturday (17 September 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 19 September 2016 with the title "Angelic outing from virtuosos". 

There was another evening of chamber music at the Conservatory, but it was more of a local variety. The Conservatory's faculty comprises real virtuosos in their own right, and it was a pleasure to hear them perform in Mozart's Quintet in E flat major (K.452) for piano and winds.

The Conservatory's emerald green Bösendorfer grand piano was wheeled out. Pianist Bernard Lanskey (Conservatory Director) towered over the keyboard with his back against the audience and four wind players faced him. This unusual placement worked well because the sound was homogeneous, with the mellow-sounding piano not over-powering the others. 

The winds' opening chord set the tone, and the piano's crisply articulated introduction soon got the opening movement underway. Interplay between guest clarinettist Dimitri Ashkenazy and faculty members Rachel Walker (oboe), Zhang Jin Min (bassoon) and Han Chang Chou (French horn) was excellent, especially in the serenade-like Larghetto slow movement when each took turns in juicy solos to luxuriate.

The finale with its chirpy theme was another delight, as the sheer clarity of each part shone through. Tempos were kept brisk and perky, adding to the movement's rustic and bucolic quality as it danced its way to a cheerful close.

Here was an august collection of highly-skilled soloists, and the same should be said of the young players from the Conservatory Chamber Ensemble who performed in German conductor Klaus Simon's arrangement of Mahler's Fourth Symphony. The shortest and most lightly scored of the Austrian composer's ten symphonies was further reduced to one instrument per part, which made for some interestingly transparent sounds.

Just as unusual was the scoring for piano (played by Foo Yi Xuan), accordion (Syafiqah 'Adha Sallehin) and harp (Charmaine Teo) which helmed much of the accompaniment. Conductor Chan Tze Law, arguably Singapore's most important Mahler conductor, kept a tight rein on the proceedings and the end result was never hectic or hurried.

Once one got used to the Viennese palm court band sound, Mahler's music pretty much spoke for itself. The sleigh-ride jingles of the opening movement rang out purposefully, and it was soon apparent that every player was on the top of his or her game despite their highly-exposed parts.

Special mention goes to first violinist Liu Minglun who adroitly alternated between two violins in the scherzo-like 2nd movement. One violin was tuned to a higher pitch to produce a sinister and discomfiting effect depicting “Death playing the fiddle”. The spectre of mortality loomed high in this ironic movement, but was laid low for the lovely slow 3rd movement which breathed a leisurely and rarefied air.

This paved the entrance of German soprano Felicitas Fuchs, garbed in an emerald green  gown, to sing the verses of Das Himmlischer Leben (The Heavenly Life). This was a child's vision of celestial delights, and even if she did not try too hard to sound childlike, the sheer beauty of her voice backed by musicians in their angelic best was otherworldly bliss.   

RECITAL by QIN LI-WEI & BERNARD LANSKEY / Review

RECITAL by

QIN LI-WEI, Cello

BERNARD LANSKEY, Piano

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall

Friday (4 March 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 7 March 2016 with the title "Mesmerising mentors". 

If one wishes to know how conservatory students get to be so good in what they do, just attend a recital by their teachers and mentors. Without exception, faculty concerts at the Conservatory draw big audiences, especially when star quality is on display. Chinese-Australian cellist Qin Li-Wei, head of cello studies, is the closest thing this nation has to the likes of Yo-Yo Ma living and playing on campus.

His recital with pianist Bernard Lanskey, Conservatory Director, was the kind that would not look out of place in the world's eminent concert venues. The first half comprised two 20^th century cello sonatas, both in the key of D minor. Debussy's Sonata was a late work composed as part of a chamber cycle to consciously espouse French musical styles and values, as opposed to time-honoured Germanic ones.

In its three movements, the idiom was free and fantasy-like, one which gave Qin's voice on his 1780 Guadagnini cello the air of wonderment and mystique. His tone was lovingly burnished, flexible in nuances and ever sensitive to the music's constantly shifting dynamics. While the outer movements had brief lyrical moments, the central Serenade played with pizzicatos and comedic simulations of drums and percussion.

Lanskey was a most accomodating partner, always attuned to the action, varying his responses exactingly to the note. His task was made more onerous in Shostakovich's Sonata, which had the surface appearance of a traditional sonata but one loaded with thorns and barbs. The lyrical opening was but a ploy, soon revealing a heart of darkness and turmoil within.

The searing 2^nd movement revolved like a spinning-wheel of death, leading to a long-breathed melody of desolation in the ensuing Largo. Both cellist and pianist made the most of its pathos and then gamely launched into a Rondo of schizophrenic mood swings, an impish and mock-playful dance alternating with violent interjections.

The second half began with Schubert's famous “Arpeggione” Sonata (so named after an obsolete bowed guitar-like instrument), three movements of his sunniest music, close to the Austrian composer's intimate world of lieder. Quite appropriately, the Conservatory's Bosendorfer grand was wheeled in to replace the Steinway. The result was a mellower tone, with less of a metallic sheen.       

Qin really knows the meaning of cantabile, and rarely has the work's unimpeded flow of melody been made to sound so natural, and never to the point of being cloying. To close with congenial Schubert would have been perfection by itself, but fireworks were thrown in for good measure with Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen (Gypsy Airs).

Unabashedly appropriated from the violinist's repertoire, he made the showpiece his own, with breath-taking cadenzas and a healthy helping of vibrato. The much-welcomed encore to an encore was Elgar's Salut D'Amour, with its honeyed sweetness milked to the very last drop. 

CANONIC OFFERINGS / Mathemusical Conversations / Review

CANONIC OFFERINGS

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall

Saturday (14 February 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 16 February 2015 with the title "Having fun with mathematics and music".

Canonic Offerings was a concert and part of Mathemusical Conversations, an international workshop on music and mathematics organised by the National University of Singapore's Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Yong Siew Toh Conservatory. For centuries, mankind has pondered on and celebrated the intimate relationship between the two subjects, and this concert provided a brief glimpse of what happens when both are united in harmony and time.

Music is essentially a sequence of notes, frequencies and silences conducted over the passage of time. It is the variables of these parameters which give music its meaning, making it interesting for listeners, the end-users of seemingly complex formulae. The canon, with notes played over a repeated rhythmic pattern of fixed durations, is one of the foundations of musical form. Anyone who has sung Three Blind Mice or Row Your Boat will understand how it works.

  

American composer Clifton Callender's Canonic Offerings presented a series of ten short canons each of different time signatures for string quartet, which was an ideal medium as the four voices could operate in unison or independently while staying perfectly in time.

Being fiendishly difficult to coordinate was part of the equation, and the members of T'ang Quartet were aided with ear pieces which provided the beats which sometimes accelerated wildly or slowed down to stasis as called for in the score. Although mathematical in conception, the tonal idiom and skilful employment of counterpoint made it a quite pleasant listen.  

The quartet was joined by Australian pianist Jacob Abela for the World Premiere of American Dmitri Tymoczko's S Sensation Something which took on a more visceral approach to the subject. The slow opening with two violins gradually joined by other voices was canonic, almost resembled Pachelbel's ubiquitous Canon but soon took on a life of its own by shifting and playing around with the rules.

Its fast central section ambled from lively to violent but the underlying pulse was never lost in the process, before winding down for a fairy-tale world of glimmering textures and a quiet close. Was there a programme or story to the music's fantastical imagery? This was where mathematics could be made to resound with palpably human emotions.   

Johann Sebastian Bach might be considered as the grandfather of mathematics in music. His Goldberg Variations, originally composed for one keyboard, comprised an Aria, 30 variations (on the left hand sequence of the theme rather than its melody) and bookended by a reprise of the Aria. Every third variation is a canon based on different intervals.

Australian don Stephen Emmerson's transcription of the variations spreads the work between two performers on two pianos in a neat division of labour. With each pianist having less to play, there is scope for enhancing the harmonies and discreetly adding counter-melodies. The basic architecture being kept intact, there was little fear of blowing the work out of proportion in this fun experiment.

Pianists Emmerson and Bernard Lanskey, Head of the Conservatory, clearly enjoyed their tasks at hand, and there was much humour in their interplay and exchanges in leading the melodies. Even if some of the variations did not go neatly as planned, it was the keen musicianship that won the day. By Variation No.30, a cheeky Quodlibet that mashes up trite Teutonic tunes of the day, and the Aria's return, a breezy voyage of harmonic exploration had transpired. Cerebral or otherwise, it was not a bad way to spend an evening with a loved one on  Valentine's Day.   

      

RENAUD CAPUÇON IN RECITAL / Review

RENAUD CAPUÇON IN RECITAL

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory

Tuesday (1 October 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 3 October 2013 with the title "When students play with masters".

The strong relationship that exists between the national conservatory and symphony orchestra has meant that world class soloists who guest with the SSO also get a chance to perform chamber music with faculty members and students in a spirit of collegial camaraderie. This was never so apparent than in the case of French violinist Renaud Capuçon, who last performed at this venue the ten violin sonatas of Beethoven in 2011.

On this evening, the focus was on Johannes Brahms, whose chamber music is among the most sublime known to mankind. The recital opened with the First Violin Sonata in G major (Op.78), with pianist Bernard Lanskey (also the Conservatory Head) as equal partner. One was immediately struck by the close cooperation between the two. Capuçon’s sweet and even tome projected well across the hall but never overwhelmed, while Lanskey’s accompanying figurations blended well like hand and glove.

This is not overtly showy music, but the virtuosity was in maintaining close to perfect balance. While an air of quiet nostalgia hung over the entire work, the degree displayed in each of the three movements was well differentiated and vividly brought out. There was sobriety in the slow movement, but the emotional release in the finale, inspired by Brahms’s song Regenlied (Song of Tears), was not one of outward joyousness, but subdued exultation.    

After the interval, Capuçon was joined by faculty Zhang Manchin (viola), Ng Pei Sian (cello) and three students for the First String Sextet in B flat major (Op.18). The performance of chamber music is the perfect embodiment of democratic ideals, of people overcoming differences and working together towards a common goal.

What a pleasure and privilege it must have been for young violinist Shi Xiaoxuan, violist Wang Yangzi and cellist Lee Min Jin, selected to play alongside their teachers and one of the world’s great string players. Any hint of nerves or being overawed was immediately dispelled as all six players resounded in one accord from first to last.

The beginning of the opening two movements saw violist Zhang as de facto leader, cueing the low strings in the mellow but powerful musical statements that defined this sprawling 40-minute work. The intensity achieved in the second movement’s well-known Theme & Variations was admirable, balanced by the staccato lightness and humour of the short Scherzo.

The final Rondo was not of the rollicking kind usually associated with Brahms, but one of fleet and flowing lyricism, with sunshine inexorably emerging through thickets of clouds. Passion and high spirits rode the crest to its conclusion, and the vociferous applause by the sizeable audience was rewarded by a welcome reprise of the delightful Scherzo.       

    

THE MAGNIFICENT CELLO / Qin Li-Wei and Bernard Lanskey / Review

THE MAGNIFICENT CELLO

QIN LI-WEI, Cello

BERNARD LANSKEY, Piano

National Museum of Singapore

Tuesday (17 September 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 19 September 2013 with the title "History of cello through music".

For the penultimate concert in the Music at an Exhibition series at the National Museum, the  cello took centrestage in a delightful hour of music that traced the instrument’s development during the 18^th century. Some eighty years spanned the works performed by Chinese-Australian cellist Qin Li-Wei on his trusty 1780 Joseph Guadagnini cello. 

Some purists prefer J.S.Bach’s Cello Suites to be heard on a baroque cello or the viola da gamba, but this music transcends eras and time. The opening Prelude of Suite No.1 in G major is possibly the most familiar of Bach’s music for the instrument, but here it sounded as if freshly minted. The full throated baritone voice coaxed by Qin was both soothing and arresting, and like a master story-teller spinning a yarn. He made you want to care.

The following movements were varied period dances, taken at a faster clip in the Courante and Minuets. The Sarabande, with its widely-spread chords and deeply-breathed air, gently held one captive. It was the bounding rhythm of the Gigue that allowed some relaxation in attention.

Qin was joined by Australian pianist Bernard Lanskey, also Head of the Conservatory, in Luigi Boccherini’s Cello Sonata No.6 in A major. By now, baroque convention had given way to the sleeker and less contrapuntal lines of the classical tradition. The prayer-like slow opening movement offered the display of an exquisite singing tone, while the ensuing Allegro was martial in character but one which smiled from ear to ear.

Beethoven was made of sterner stuff, and in his Cello Sonata No.2 in G minor (Op.5 No.2), the piano had graduated to become an equal partner with the cello. Lanskey spoke about the metamorphosis of the genre, with reference to the paintings on the Metamorphoses of Ovid from the Liechtenstein royal collection. The epic canvasses he alluded to also applied to the sonata.

Its first movement was in effect a slow and serious introduction, opening with a grim G minor chord and one filled with pathos. The early Romantic movement, which Beethoven was part of, meant that passion was often worn heart-on-sleeve. True feelings lurked below its calm exterior, and this erupted in the fast second movement, when pent-up emotion found a joyous release. The contrasts and transition provided by the duo was startling in its immediacy.

The finale’s Rondo was even more cheerful, with the piano taking the fore. Its passages of running notes could have been more cleanly dealt with but the comedic timing with the cello was always first priority. With the ice thawed and melted, Beethoven could always be relied upon to turn up the heat of excitement, and this spiritedly closed the concert proper. The encore was also much loved by the appreciative audience, an effective transcription of Bach’s sublime Air in G major.    

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, September 2013)

CATOIRE / SHERWOOD Piano Concertos

HIROAKI TAKENOUCHI, Piano

Royal Scottish National Orchestra

Dutton 7287 / ****1/2

This is a World Premiere recording of two Romantic piano concertos one is unlikely to hear in a live performance anywhere or anytime soon. It is a pity since both works have much overflowing lyricism, sparkling pianism and musical substance to offer. Although Russian composer of French descent Georgy Catoire (1861-1926) was a closer contemporary of Arensky and Glazunov, his Piano Concerto in A flat major (1909) is more aligned to the aesthetics of Rachmaninov and the early Scriabin. Parts even sound like the dramatic overwrought  scores of those 1930s and 40s British movies, which allow for much wallowing in lush harmonies.

German-born composer Percy Sherwood (1866-1939) of English ancestry is even more obscure. His Second Piano Concerto in E flat major (1932-33) is anachronistic for its date of composition, Schumannesque gestures and Lisztian opulence in the age of aggressive modernism and atonalism. Both concertos play over the half-hour mark, typical for works of this genre to fit standard concert programmes. Performed with ardent advocacy and rare relish by the London-based Japanese pianist Hiroaki Takenouchi and Scotland’s best orchestra conducted by Martin Yates, they sound like enjoying themselves. If you long for tuneful concertos with that Rachmaninov-like feel, do not hesitate to explore these rarities. 

BRITISH CLARINET CONCERTOS

MICHAEL COLLINS, Clarinet

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Chandos 10739 / *****

This new release by British clarinettist Michael Collins introduces three clarinet concertos that deserve to be in the standard concert repertoire, alongside Mozart’s indestructible classic. Charles Villiers Stanford’s Concerto Op.80 (1902) was originally conceived for the German Richard Mühfield, who had earlier premiered Brahms’s late Clarinet Sonatas and Quintet. The style is unequivocally Romantic, with long-breathed melodies that linger on ever so inviting and a vigorous finale reminiscent of Brahms and Bruch. Ironically, there is even a theme introduced by the brass that sounds positively Wagnerian.

Gerald Finzi’s Concerto (1948-49), the most substantial work, has claims to be one of the great 20^th century clarinet concertos, even if its influences are also strongly Romantic. The three movements are the summation of the art itself; passion and drama in the first, romance for the central Adagio, with humour and wit lighting up the Rondo finale.  

Malcolm Arnold’s Concerto No.2 (1974) is an unusually eclectic one, written for jazz great Benny Goodman and playing for only 16 minutes. Its first movement cadenza supplied by Richard Rodney Bennett includes quotes from Beethoven’s Fur Elise and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, while the 2-minute-long finale is a Joplinesque dance entitled The Pre-Goodman Rag. Collins’s committed advocacy and virtuosity make these works mandatory listening for all wind enthusiasts.

DVORAK Cello Concerto

BRAHMS Academic Festival Overture

LI-WEI QIN, Cello

Singapore Symphony Orchestra / LAN SHUI

Decca 889 8529 / *****

Perhaps the greatest performance in Singapore of Antonin Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in B minor took place on 10 February 2012 at the Esplanade Concert Hall. This is the live recording from that concert, one that highlights not just the virtuosity of Chinese-Australian cellist Li-Wei Qin but also how well the Singapore Symphony Orchestra led by Lan Shui responds as a sympathetic and sensitive accompanist. Very often one is drawn to the quality of the orchestral playing, especially the marvellous woodwind and brass contributions. These rapt moments complement Qin’s gorgeous tone and long-breathed passages on his 1780 J.B.Guadagnini cello. 

A most apt encore was Dvorak’s Silent Woods (known in Czech as Klid), a short but breathtakingly lyrical piece for cello and orchestra transcribed from the suite for piano duet From The Bohemian Forest. Also from the same concert was Brahms’s Academic Festival Overture, no mean makeweight that brings together a collection of student songs, closing with the rowdy paean to drink Gaudeamus Igitur. Applause from the concert has been edited out and the audience is remarkably silent, a considerable feat in itself. This disc represents excellence all around. 

                                                                            

BOOK IT:

LI-WEI QIN Cello Recital

with BERNARD LANSKEY, Piano

Music at an Exhibition Series

National Museum of Singapore

8 pm, Tuesday 17 September 2013

QIAN ZHOU & BERNARD LANSKEY Violin & Piano Recital / Review

VIOLIN & PIANO RECITAL

Qian Zhou, Violin

Bernard Lanskey, Piano

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall

Saturday (24 August 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 26 August 2013 with the title "Roaring approval for violin & piano"

If you are a student, it is vicarious thrill to see your professors and heads of departments attempting to practise what they preach. This recital by Qian Zhou and Bernard Lanskey, Head of Strings and Conservatory Director respectively, was postponed from its original Singapore Chamber Festival date in February because of an arm injury to the violinist. Better late than never, as they say.

As it turned out, the concert was a masterclass on the art of singing. The two major sonatas were incidentally in A major, dominating each half of the evening. Beethoven’s Sonata (Op.30 No.1) began not with a big statement that the composer was wont to do, but quietly with much of the focus on the flowing piano part. Similarly, pianist Lanskey was given first chance to present the main themes in the first movement of Brahms’s Second Sonata (Op.100).

With both, he brought out the music’s arch-lyricism, over which Qian’s violin also sang with a mellifluous quality. The balance was close to perfect, and that is the essence of chamber music, with give and take on either side. The virtuosity on show was not just externally displayed on the surface, but one that was deeper and more instinctually felt.

Wie Melodien Zieht Es (Like Melodies It Moves) was the Brahms song quoted in the sonata, and that seemed to epitomise the performances of both sublime sonatas. For contrasts, the Theme and Variations that was the finale in the Beethoven and the scherzo-like central section of the Brahms slow movement provided the more lively moments.

Debussy’s late and relatively brief Violin Sonata in G minor was another elusive masterpiece, but the duo got to its heart. Its introspective quality was captured not by showy gestures but nuances expressed under the voice. The sensuous string sound, sharp pizzicatos that piqued the ear and the piano’s shimmering textures brought a stirring allure to the music.

Two lesser known pieces closed each half. Eugene Ysaye’s Poeme Elegiaque deserves to be better known, because the gradual build-up to its rapturous, white-hot climax matches the best of Franck and Chausson’s more popular violin works. A brooding beginning later finding consummation in throes of ecstasy was also present in Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera’s Pampeana No.1, a rhapsody of the grasslands or pampas.

While singing occupied the initial section, all stops were pulled for the rip-roaring close in the gauchos’ wild dance, which Qian and Lanskey delivered with dizzying panache. The large and attentive audience roared its approval, and was rewarded with a most delightful encore, a Tango by the legendary Jewish-American violin virtuoso Mischa Elman. The many students present would have been proud to pronounce, “Those two were my teachers.”  

  

CELEBRATIONS! 4th Singapore Chamber Music Festival / Review

CELEBRATIONS!
4th Singapore Chamber Music Festival
Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall
Saturday (12 February 2011)

This review was published in The Straits Times

on 14 February 2011 with the title

"Classical camaraderie"

The 4th Singapore Chamber Music Festival has come on so surreptitiously that one easily confuses it with the event-packed Conservatory concert calendar. Its celebration concert featured Conservatory faculty, students and alumni performing alongside their counterparts from Baltimore’s Peabody Institute of Music.

A hugely enjoyable evening began with four lady students from the Conservatory String Quartet in Hugo Wolf’s Italian Serenade. There was nothing student-like about the performance, which besides being immaculate, radiated the warmth of its sunny string writing and spontaneous lilt. Their excellent deportment was also a source of pride.

Schubert’s popular “Trout” Quintet, named after his Lied Die Forelle (The Trout), was next. Here the playing was a little uneven, possibly from short of rehearsal time, but there was no denying the palpable camaraderie between musicians. The pianist was Bernard Lanskey, taking time off responsibilities as Conservatory Director, whose leadership also extended to turning pages for his string players.

Violinist Ye Lin and cellist Qin Li-Wei were all eyes, blending beautifully, while violist Jiang Hansong and bassist Yang Xun provided able support. Ye and Jiang, both alumni, are now Singapore Symphony Orchestra musicians. Initially tense, the playing soon settled to a comfortable congeniality, typical of “hausmusik” (literally “home music”) between friends, boosting the feel good factor by several pints.

Conservatory students yield nothing to their professional seniors. Evidence was the totally commanding performance of Debussy’s late Violin Sonata in G minor by Rose Hsien, with sensitive pianism from Akkra Yeunyonghattaporn. Besides a ravishing tone and spotless intonation, Hsien’s playing had depth, myriad shades and that elusive element of fantasy to fill volumes. She is clearly a star in the making.

The final work was the early Piano Quintet in C minor (Op.1) by Hungarian composer Ernö Dohnanyi, with an unmistakeable debt of influence to Brahms. That rich and dark texture, urgently voiced, was well brought out by the ensemble which featured three guests from Peabody, pianist Kuan Sheng-Yuan, violinist Luri Lee and cellist Michael Kannen.

Magyar spices indelibly flavoured the rhythmic Scherzo, while Fan Ran’s viola sang unabated in the opening for the nocturne-like slow movement, easily the work’s highlight. With violinist Zhao Yi completing the handful, the energetic finale pulsed ever so delightfully, despite the academician in Dohnanyi throwing in a fugue for good measure.

This festival continues for over a month, with more musical treasures lie awaiting.

The 4th Singapore Chamber Music Festival is organised by the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music.

Homecoming: Lee Chin & Friends / Review

HOMECOMING: LEE CHIN & FRIENDS

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall

Tuesday (18 November 2008 )

This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 November 2008.

It has been seven years since Singaporean violinist Siow Lee Chin last appeared in concert on our stages. (She was last heard performing Brahms' Violin Concerto with the Malaysian Philharmonic at the 2001 Singapore Arts Festival). In the interim, Singapore has gained a spanking new concert hall and a space-age conservatory, but it is gratifying to note that some things remain the same. Lee Chin, with her singing violin tone, disarming musicality and charm of the girl-next-door, is one of those things.

Her homecoming concert drew such a large throng at the Conservatory that hundreds without pre-assigned tickets had to be turned away. Was this a repeat of the Hello Kitty mania or Horowitz in Moscow? Thankfully it was mostly the latter, and Lee Chin's two-and-a-half hour concert had the audience lapping from her highly prized hands.

Yet it was not completely her show as the partners in concert were every bit deserving of the limelight. In Beethoven Piano Trio in B flat major (Op. 11, adapted from the Clarinet Trio), cellist Liwei Qin's sonorous utterances and Bernard Lanskey's big-hearted pianism (left) carried equal weight for a light-hearted opening act. Pianist Albert Tiu also covered multitudes of notes in Richard Strauss' Violin Sonata in E flat major with great aplomb, trading silky ornaments and resolute chords with Lee Chin's soaring melodic lines.

Even more sparks flew in the second half. Lee Chin's duo with Liwei Qin (left) in the Handel-Halvorsen Passacaglia ignited with absolute chemistry, and their take had the infectious spontaneity of a jam session. Albert Tiu returned as pianist-collaborator for the balance of the evening, beginning with the three-movement Suite for Violin and Piano by William Grant Still, the first important Afro-American classical composer.

The duo reveled in its Negro hymns, incessant syncopations, wicked blues notes and sexy slides, with Lee Chin's Guadagnini violin reaching heights of a full-throated soprano in the tender second piece, Mother and Child. There were also poignant moments aplenty in Amy Beach's Romance and the second of three encores, Estrellita by Manuel Ponce, especially after her announcement that she and her "little star", on loan from the National Arts Council, would soon be parted.

There was little time to be sentimental as out came the requisite fireworks in Wieniawski's Polonaise in D major (op.4) and the final encore Monti's Csardas, which sent the house into rapture. Welcome home, Lee Chin, and let us not wait another seven years for the next recital!