THE CLASS OF 1685 / Mervyn Lee, Yang Tien & Brenda Koh / Review

 

THE CLASS OF 1685 

Mervyn Lee, Yang Tien & Brenda Koh 

School of the Arts 

Orchestral Rehearsal Studio 

Wednesday (30 April 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 3 May 2025 with the title "Satisfying salute to Bach, Handel & Scarlatti".

Harpsichord recitals are a rarity in Singapore, such that a near full-house turned out in support of a concert by three faculty members of the School of the Arts (SOTA). Two of them, harpsichordist Mervyn Lee and violinist Brenda Koh are founding members of Red Dot Baroque, Singapore’s first professional period music ensemble, while harpsichordist Yang Tien is the Dean of Arts at SOTA. 

Love those wigs!
J.S.Bach, G.F.Handel & D.Scarlatti.

The concert was a salute to three towering figures of baroque music, the Germans Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Frideric Handel, and the Italian Domenico Scarlatti, all of whom were born in that miracle year of 1685. The music was performed on two instruments by British harpsichord maker Andrew Garlick modelled after a French Goujon instrument of 1749. 

Opening the 90-minute concert was Bach’s Preludium & Fughetta in G major (BWV.902) performed by Lee. The sonority he coaxed from the harpsichord was gentle and clear, played as if improvised on the spot. There was none of the clattery harshness that British conductor Sir Thomas Beecham infamously mocked as “two skeletons copulating on a tin-roof”. The short fughetta (little fugue) would later serve as a model to a more fleshed-out fugue from Book Two of The Well-Tempered Clavier. 

Lee was joined by Koh for Bach’s Sonata for Violin and Continuo in G major (BWV.1021), a four-movement work that followed the slow-fast-slow-fast Sonata di chiesa (church sonata) form. Koh’s intonation and articulation were spot on, her violin possessed with a sweetness of tone. The successive movements were sufficiently contrasted which made the matter of vibrato (or lack of) seemed almost irrelevant. 

Closing the first half were two very different Sonatas in A major by Scarlatti (K.208 and 113) played by Yang. The first, marked Adagio e Cantabile, had an aria-like singing line, as if accompanied by a guitar. The busy second, Allegro, simulated the massed winds and drums of a marching band, delighting with the frequent crossing of hands. 

In the second half, the interloper was contemporary Finnish composer Jukka Tiensuu’s Fantango (1984), providing the shock of the new. A playful cross between the Spanish fandango dance and the more modern tango, the piece utilised microtones which toyed with bending of pitches (hence the second harpsichord) and Yang’s forearm clusters (many contiguous keys played at once) giving a new definition of a smash hit. 

Playing Handel’s Suite No.7 in G major (HWV.432), Lee closed the concert on a satisfying high. This was a collection of dance movements preceded by a French Overture. This movement typically opens with a solemn statement in dotted rhythm, and closes with an elaborate fugue which Lee took care to make out its various voices. 

What follows is a series of contrasted dances – including a slow Sarabande and faster Gigue - before ending with a Passacaille. This series of short variations is already well-known through Norwegian composer Johan Halvorsen’s Passacaglia arranged for violin and cello. Hearing the original was revelatory, and the audience made that known with a warm reception.

All photographs by Huang Ying.

HAPPY 340TH BIRTHDAY, J.S.BACH! / Soiree at Ying's with Red Dot Baroque

Happy Birthday, Papa Johann Sebastian Bach! 340 years ago, he was born in Eisenach, Thuringia on 21 March 1685, long before anyone had heard of Deutschland. What better way to celebrate his birthday than to organise a party bash with Singapore's foremost baroque group, Red Dot Baroque?

That was the idea of Huang Ying, Head of Culture, Press and Public Diplomacy at the German Embassy in Singapore, when she invited her Singapore and German friends to her lovely home in Katong for a Bach und Freunde soiree. Here are the photos from a most gemutlich evening through possible.

Ying introduces Red Dot Baroque
and violinist Alan Choo to her guests.

The musical evening opened with
J.S.Bach's Sonata No.4 in C minor (BWV.1017)

The opening movement uses the
same melody as Erbarme dich
from the St Matthew Passion.

From the living room to the dining area,
Leslie Tan introduces the baroque cello.

Leslie performs a work by
Italian composer Joseph Dell'Abaco and
the Prelude from JSB's Cello Suite No.1.

Christopher Clarke on theorbo
offers a Toccata by Alessando Piccinini. 

Brenda Koh performs Fantasia No.9
by Bach's best buddy Georg Philipp Telemann.

To close the concert was a dance work
by Giovanni Fontana.

Red Dot Baroque doing what they do best,
having musical fun.

Singapore Writers Festival director 
Yong Shu Hoong meets the Meyers.

Alan Choo chats with
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
CEO Kenneth Kwok

Germans and Singaporeans meet.

Lianhe Zaobao's Zhang Heyang with
Kenneth Kwok and soprano Alison Wong.

Red Dot Baroque's harpsichordist
Gerald Lim cuts the JSB birthday cake.

Informal music-making, with
Alan and Heyang playing J.S.Bach's
 Double Violin Concerto in D minor (BWV.1043)

Photo: Gerald Lim

They finally got a real keyboardist
to complete the concerto.

Alison served as the page-turner
for the 21st century tablet.
17th century tech at work.

The Air and Gavotte from
J.S.Bach's Suite No.3 in D major
as arranged by Max Reger.

That bag's not going anywhere near
Berlin Brandenberg Airport.

We had a great time, did you?

THE TASTES REUNITED / Red Dot Baroque / Review

 

THE TASTES REUNITED 

Red Dot Baroque 

Conservatory Concert Hall 

Wednesday (6 November 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 November 2024 with the title "Lively and sublime all-French concert by Red Dot Baroque".

The Tastes Reunited comes from the French phrase Les Gouts-reunis coined by Baroque composer Francois Couperin, referring to a glorious unification of Italian virtuosity and dramatics with French elegance and restraint in musical performance. That was the basis of an enlightening and entertaining all-French programme by period instrument group Red Dot Baroque (RDB), ensemble-in-residence of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory, led by its founder-leader Alan Choo. 

There is no story more melodramatic than the infamous demise of Jean-Baptiste Lully, who led his musicians by stomping a wooden staff on the ground. That was until his foot got in the way, with septic gangrene being his cause of death. Percussionist Derek Koh did the honours for Lully’s rousing March for a Turkish Ceremony, which opened the evening, but he was far more careful.

Photo: Ong Shu Chen

Michel Corrette’s Concerto Comique No. 25 in G minor, based on earlier music, was a happy marriage of tradition and innovation. Choo’s improvisatory flourishes on violin were let loose on in Les Sauvages (The Savages), originally a harpsichord piece by Jean-Philippe Rameau. In quand on sçait aimer et plaire (When You Know How To Love and Please), Rachel Ho’s graceful flute entreaties were gently accompanied by pizzicato strings and Gerald Lim’s harpsichord. Then it was a return to more lively fiddling in La Furstemberg, which closed this attractive work.

Vivaldian virtuosity came to the fore in Michel Blavet’s Flute Concerto in A minor with Cheryl Lim as impressive soloist backed by two violins and continuo. Both outer movements were distinguished by thrilling runs particularly taxing cadenzas where her breath control was exemplary. The French penchant for dances was typified by a slow movement comprising two leisurely Gavottes.

Few moments in music are more sublime than Entry of Polymnie from Rameau’s late opera Les Boreades. What magic can be conjured with merely a sequence of descending scales was realised in RDB’s sensitive and finely judged performance. Piano-fanciers will know this as The Arts and the Hours from Icelandic pianist Vikingur Olafsson’s transcription.

Contrasting simplicity with outright showiness was violinist Brenda Koh in Jean-Marie Leclair’s Violin Concerto in A minor (Op.7 No.5). Playing within the ensemble as well as the demanding solo, she displayed both agility and excellent intonation. Carving long lyrical lines in the slow movement’s aria, she followed with a dance-like interlude in the finale which looked forward to future composers like Mozart.

Photo: Ong Shu Chen

The 110-minute concert concluded with a suite of orchestral movements and arias from Rameau’s opera Hippolyte and Aricie. Its Overture was a typical French overture, opening with dotted-rhythms followed by a faster fugue. Sound effects were de rigeur in Bruit de tonnerre (Sound of Thunder) with thunder tube, metal plate and bass drum being shook and struck for all their worth.

Soprano Alison Wong’s three arias were variedly attractive. There was solemn beauty in Temple Sacre, the joy of birdsong (with pair of flutes in counterpoint) in Rossignols amoureux (Amorous Nightingales), and L’amour, comme Neptune (Love, Like Neptune) which closed in a vigorous Rigaudon with jingles of tambourines. This concert ended as clangourously as it began.