CANDLELIGHT CONCERT: VALENTINE'S DAY SPECIAL / LI CHUREN, Piano / Review

CANDLELIGHT CONCERTS:

VALENTINE’S DAY SPECIAL

Li Churen, Piano

Chijmes Hall

Sunday (13 February 2022)

 

The chapel hall of CHIJMES (formerly the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus on Victoria Street) looks like an ideal venue for a Candlelight Concert. Its high ceiling, cloistered atmosphere and reverberant acoustics, and when filled with hundreds if not thousands of electronic candles, provide for a most evocative ambience for such a concert. One almost expects a procession of habit-wearing monks parading down the centre aisle and incanting Gregorian chants. But no, this was a piano recital by Li Churen, one of Singapore’s brightest young keyboard talents, in a programme of romantic music inspired by the story of Romeo and Juliet and the marketing hype that is Valentine’s Day.

 

A few caveats for starters, Chijmes Hall is not sound-proof and one gets to hear ambient traffic (including a police siren) and celebrating diners in the restaurants outside. The Yamaha 6-foot grand piano is clattery in timbre and not fully in tune, forcing the performer to make the best with other resources. Fortunately, Churen is an artist who would make a grocery list or tax report sound positively inviting.   

 

The recital opened with Debussy’s Clair de lune from Suite Bergamasque, which received a clear and luminous reading, the right recipe for a romantic evening. Following that were popular songs juxtaposed with classical works in short suites. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s All I Ask Of You from Phantom of the Opera opened dramatically with orchestral textures well-transcribed for piano before revealing the lyricism of the song proper. This in turn segued seamlessly into Chopin’s glittering Fantaisie-Impromptu (Op.66), with the memorable cantabile (one of his most memorable melodies) at its heart. In a way, the Phantom served as a prelude to the Fantaisie, reliving an old tradition of preluding that was popular a century ago and almost lost to posterity.

 

Another suite included Hugo Peretti’s Can’t Help Falling In Love With You (popularised by Elvis Presley but originally based on Plaisir d’Amour by Jean-Paul Martini), two excerpts from Romeo and Juliet-inspired films (music by Nino Rota and Craig Armstrong) and Mandopop song Michael Wong’s Fairy Tale, which preluded Liszt’s evergreen nocturne Liebesträume No.3. It should be noted that all the pop songs were transcribed by Churen herself, and were different in styles and tastefully done. Her versatility was matched by the virtuosity displayed in the Liszt cadenzas, which were tossed off effortlessly. Many people can play this Liebesträume, but only the best can overcome those scintillating finger-twisters.

 

The final segment of the recital included two significant classical pieces, Tchaikovsky’s bittersweet Romance Op.5 and Chopin’s Ballade No.4 Op.52, incidentally both in F minor. Both works share a common spirit of introspection and underlying sadness. Tchaikovsky’s is more plain spoken, with a more animated dance-like central section, while Chopin’s is more complex and deeply felt, as its layers are successively peeled off. These two pieces were built up to terrific climaxes, notably in the Chopin and credit goes to the audience for holding its breath (and witholding applause) for the climactic pause leading to the tumultuous final coda. The ending was simply spectacular, as one would expect.

 

Alan Menken True Love’s Kiss from the animated movie Enchanted, arranged by a young Singaporean composer, was the gilded icing on the cake. Loud and prolonged applause ensured that the Chijming audience was gifted two encores, both written by Churen herself. Andante cantabile was a lovely improvisation on the slow movement from Schumann’s Piano Quartet (Op.47) while Llama’s Land a mini waltz-fantasy that closed the Valentine’s Day-inspired recital on a rapturous high. 

CANDLELIGHT CONCERTS: CHOPIN'S BEST WORKS / Li Churen, Piano / Review

CANDLELIGHT CONCERT:

CHOPIN’S BEST WORKS

Li Churen, Piano

Victoria Concert Hall

Friday (7 May 2021)

 

Whatever one might think of Fever’s Candlelight concerts, with its gimmicky placements of hundreds of smokeless electronic candles in concert venues, it has at least got the choice of performers right. The Vivaldi Four Seasons concerts engaged the more-than-acceptable Vocalise Quartet with a quite excellent Jocelyn Ng playing the violin solos. The bar was further raised with pianist Li Churen helming their Chopin recitals, unimaginatively called Chopin’s Best Works. Corny title aside, this Yong Siew Toh Conservatory alumnus with further degrees from Yale and Cambridge gave a best account possible for an hour of Chopin’s piano music.

 

Were these really Chopin’s best works? One might argue that moot point, but there was little denying the selections were fair representations of each genre of piano pieces which Chopin indulged in. There was one each of the nocturnes, waltzes, scherzos, impromptus, études, préludes and polonaises, but no mazurkas, ballades, rondos or sonata movements, but that is already a lot to pack in within 60 minutes.

    

To open with the Nocturne in E flat major (Op.9 No.2) was a no-brainer. Is there a more evocative work than this to convey the romance and mystique of night? Surrounded by candles, Li’s reading was one of tonal lustre and warmth, aided by judicious rubato and mastery of ornamentations. After a short address, the salon charms of Waltz in C sharp minor (Op.64 No.2, companion to the notorious “Minute” Waltz) was followed by a sequence in E major.  

Scherzo No.4 (Op.54) was an unexpected choice, the trickiest and most elusive of the four Scherzi, but Li nailed it with a combination of nimble fingers and mercurial wit. The popular “Tristesse” Étude in E major (Op.10 No.3) evinced tenderness before the little caprice of its central section gave way to a thunderous cascade in the thorniest and technically most difficult passage of all (completely avoided by the likes of Richard Clayderman). I am sorry even to bring up Clayderman, but Li totally showed that charlatan up, and everyone should know who is the real pianist.  

 

The next two works were enharmonically related: Fantasie-Impromptu in C sharp minor (Op.66) and Prélude in D flat major (Op.28 No.15). Digital brilliance alternating with pure lyricism reigned in the former while the latter reminded this listener less of falling raindrops but rather the gentle and constant flickering of candlelight. Little had I expected this outcome, but the visual element provided by the evening’s setting cannot be underestimated. The formal Chopin programme closed with Andante Spianato & Grande Polonaise Brillante (Op.22), the longest work on show. The nocturne-like introduction was beautifully voiced, later giving way to the vigorous dance of Polish nobility, coruscating from start to finish.

 

It was a great way to end, and Churen’s encore, an original work called Llama’s Land – beginning with a gentle waltz but gradually building up into a lively fantasy – showed her to be an excellent composer as well. Some years ago, I referred to her in a review as the “epitome of poise and polish”. Now let me now add “passion” to that list of superlatives.

 

Li Churen will perform at the Singapore International Piano Festival on Friday 4 June at Victoria Concert Hall, playing the music of Schumann, Ravel, George Crumb and an original composition inspired by J.S.Bach. Be sure not to miss it.    

http://www.sso.org.sg/sipf 

The National Gallery (Old Supreme Court)
looks great by "candlelight" too.

CANDLELIGHT CONCERTS: VIVALDI'S FOUR SEASONS / Review

CANDLELIGHT CONCERTS:

VIVALDI’S FOUR SEASONS

Victoria Concert Hall

Monday (22 March 2021)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 24 March 2021 with the title "Candlelit concert a gateway to classical music".

 

After months of unrelenting online advertising, the fever has arrived in Singapore. One is not referring to some variant Covid-19 strain but the much-publicised Candlelight Concerts presented by event organiser Fever that have captured the imagination of some seventy cities around the world. Are these events for real and do they live up to the media hype generated?

 

This Candlelight Concert featuring Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons began at a later-than-usual hour of 9 pm. That gave the many young people and courting couples attending more than enough time to finish their dinner. And to make their way to a Victoria Concert Hall auditorium illuminated by the fiery glow of hundreds of electronic smokeless candles placed onstage and along the aisles.

 

The obvious gimmick and selling point of the concert certainly made for an evocative and romantic setting, but what about the music? For starters, Four Seasons are the four most popular and often-performed violin concertos among the Italian composer’s five hundred or so concertos. Originally scored for a chamber-sized group of strings and harpsichord continuo, what was heard this evening was instead adapted for just four players of a string quartet.  

 

Doing the honours was Vocalise String Quartet, a free-lance quartet that has performed at weddings, corporate events and diplomatic functions. Thus, it was unsurprising that the sonority generated was not particularly voluminous, but adequate to reach the concert hall’s circle seats. A performance of the Seasons would stand or fall on the strength of the violin soloist, and on this evening, first violinist Jocelyn Ng more than delivered the goods.

 

She exhibited a solid and robust tone, good intonation and was unfazed by the pyrotechnics called for in the concertos’ fast outer movements. Vivaldi, nicknamed The Red Priest, was himself a violin virtuoso who brought a host of innovative mimicking effects into his score. The birdcalls of Spring, pelting rain in Summer, barking dogs on a hunt in Autumn, and the reassuring warmth of a fireplace in Winter, Ng did them all, and some.

 

She was well-supported by second violinist Lester Kong, violist Andrew Fung and cellist Peh Xiang Hong, and the enjoyable 45-minutes of Vivaldi passed like a flash. Fillers for the concert’s full hour included the first and most familiar movement of Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, a most apt serenade for the evening and to close, Gerardo Matos Rodriguez’s rocking tango La Cumparsita.          

 

As expected from an audience not regularly acquainted to classical concerts, there was the usual inappropriate applauding between movements and towards the end, a photo-taking spree  (encouraged by the performers) for that perfect Instagram and Facebook post. As an entry point to classical music, first-timers could have done worse, but one hopes they will take the next step by attending concerts by re:Mix, re:Sound and Red Dot Baroque, which do not need candlelight for their music to shine.