MIKKEL STARS CHOPIN / Mikkel Myer Lee & Asian Symphony Orchestra / Review

MIKKEL STARS CHOPIN

Mikkel Myer Lee, Piano

Asian Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Tuesday (6 June 2023)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 8 June 2023 with the title "Pianist Mikkel Myer Lee displays prodigious talent with Chopin's concertos".

 

Back in 1984, a 12-year-old Russian pianist with black tousled hair rocked the musical world by performing both piano concertos of Frederic Chopin in the Great Hall of Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Conservatory. His name was Evgeny Kissin. Singapore has found its own Kissin in Mikkel Myer Lee, who repeated the same Chopin feat at Esplanade Concert Hall on Tuesday evening. He was just three days short of his eleventh birthday.

 

Studying piano with American-Singaporean pianist Tedd Joselson and composition with Belgian-Singaporean composer-conductor Robert Casteels, the angelic pre-teen with a pageboy cut was so diminutive that his feet just reached the pedals of the piano. Displaying an innocence and guileless stage demeanour, he even had to be guided as to whom to greet and when to bow.  

 

However, once ensconced on the piano stool, the mini-maestro of the keyboard took over. The Second Piano Concerto in F minor (Op.21), chronologically the earlier of two concertos, was performed first. This was absolutely the right choice, given its more intimate scale and feel. Straight off, one was struck by his sensitive and soulful approach to the music. Besides being impeccable in the most technically challenging passages, his musical phrasing was as natural as breathing itself.

 

While waxing lyrical on the perfectly-tuned C.Bechstein concert grand, what he lacked was power and projection. Listeners seated at the rear stalls and upper galleries would be hard-pressed to hear the fine details, despite the accompanying Asian Symphony Orchestra being exhorted by conductor Casteels to exercise maximum restraint.

 

This became more apparent in the First Piano Concerto in E minor (Op.11), a longer, grander and more imposing work calling for more orchestral winds and brass. Despite the odds, Lee held his own, exerting whatever heft available in big chords and octaves. Poetry was never in short supply, and he came into his own in the Larghetto slow movements, where transparent, lyrical nocturne-like qualities suited him to a tee.

 

With the orchestra silenced, the short solo cadenza in the Romanze of the First Concerto was taken at a broad and measured tempo. It was his way of saying, “now listen to me when I am not in a hurry”, its clear and crystalline ringing sonority being a clear sign he had ideas of his own. The Polish dance rhythm in the finale was a life-affirming romp. This made for a grandstanding close with a spontaneous standing ovation to match.

 

In a nation that has produced wunderkinds over the decades, with pianists Abigail Sin, Mervyn Lee and Toby Tan, violinists Lee Huei Min, Tang Tee Khoon and Chloe Chua coming to mind, Mikkel Myer Lee is the youngest. He might just be the most prodigious one of them all. 

WHICH IS THE GREATEST PIANO CONCERTO OF THEM ALL?

Thank you for taking part in the PianoMania Poll on "Which is the greatest piano concerto of them all?

We had a record 548 voters over four months, and some rather surprising results. One suspects some pranksters at work, when over 250 entries were registered in early December 2010, which skewed the poll in favour of Messiaen's Turangalila (269 votes), Mozart's Piano Concerto No.24 (258 votes) and Busoni's Piano Concerto (248 votes). There were also several freaky results for Chopin's Piano Concerto No.2 (127 votes), Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No.2 (125 votes) and Mozart's Piano Concerto No.20 (113 votes).

One suspects these to be the work of the Futurerama Fan Club, Yvonne Loriod Admiration Society, Action for Amadeus and Dante Michelangelo Benvenuto Front.

By factoring out the lunatic fringe of pollsters, we arrive at a true reflection of the serious votes. The greatest piano concertos were as follows:

1. RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No.3 (78 votes)

2. BRAHMS Piano Concerto No.1 (69 votes)

3. RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No.2 (56 votes)

4. TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No.1 (47 votes)

5. BRAHMS Piano Concerto No.2 (45 votes)

Bringing up the rear, but not too far behind were Beethoven's Fifth and Fourth Piano Concertos (43 and 38 votes respectively) , Chopin's First Piano Concerto (33 votes) and Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto (32 votes).

Thank you for voting in the PianoMania Poll.

Watch out for the next poll:

What do you regard as Franz Liszt's greatest work for the piano?

CD reviews (The Straits Times, January 2009)

ROBERT CASTEELS Symphony No.2
Taman Suara / Sound Journey
Casteels 2008

Rating ****1/2

The Belgian-Singaporean Robert Casteels (born 1958) has carved himself a niche by combining trans-cultural and inter-disciplinary elements in music, eloquently displayed in his latest disc. Taman Suara (2007) has two separate parts: Buluh (bamboo) and Pontianak (the Malay female apparition). Both employ Western instruments and amplified taped sounds of bamboo and banana trees. The Malay titles suggest an assimilation of certain aspects of culture rather than quoting ethnic tunes. Jazz ironically features prominently in the second piece. Both also involve installation art (photos in the CD leaflet), so mere listening isn’t enough.

Sound Journey for three percussionists celebrates tribal drumming, taking a leaf from György Ligeti’s creations. In the 23-minute Symphony No.2 (commissioned for the 2006 Singapore Arts Festival and performed by The Philharmonic Winds conducted by the composer), Casteels holds the Mahlerian worldview of embracing everything, including mathematics, numerology, choral contributions with children’s ditties and closing with a big bang. Just the right tonic for the curious and adventurous.

This CD is available on sale at Earshot, 

The Arts House @ Old Parliament House.

For more about Robert Casteels, please visit:

http://robertcasteels.com

JOHN TAVENER Piano Works
RALPH VAN RAAT, Piano
Naxos 8.570442

Rating ****1/2

Sir John Tavener (born 1944) is often synonymous with choral music of a hyper-religious bent, easy listening steeped in Russian Orthodoxy with its sine qua non icons. His small volume of piano music shares a similar aesthete but is far less well known. This album is especially welcome because the piano writing is highly idiomatic, filled with celestial choruses, exotic birdsong, resonant tintinnabulation (bell sounds) alternating with pregnant silences, and ecstatic climaxes.

The sprawling 30-minute long Pratirupa (Sanskrit for “reflection”) has all of these. The shorter pieces: Zodiacs, Palin (short for “palindrome”) and Ypakoë (Greek for “to be responsive”) involve modern techniques but are eminently listenable. Possible influences? Arvo Pärt, Olivier Messiaen and less so, Alexander Scriabin, but Tavener is very much his own man. Much sympathy will also be had for two short feline-inspired works – Mandoodles and In Memory Of Two Cats. Dutch contemporary music specialist Ralph van Raat, a sensitive pianist with a steel-clad technique, makes the best possible case for these interesting rarities.

CHOPIN Piano Concertos
LANG LANG, Piano
Vienna Philharmonic / ZUBIN MEHTA
Deutsche Grammophon 477 7749
Rating ****

It is gratifying to note that Lang Lang, long known for his self-indulgence, attempts to go to the heart of both Chopin piano concertos. The tendency to distort the music to his own wilful ends, most excruciating in the same composer’s Third Sonata, is thankfully absent.

He astutely presents the Second Concerto, chronologically the earlier work, first. Eschewing sentimentality for its own sake and the need to shock and awe, he actually sounds persuasive and idiomatic. The finale is taken at a lithe, light pace and in one passage, he creates a luminous crystalline sound - an unexpected but pleasant surprise. The more grandiose First Concerto is equally convincing, and even if he does not relive the white-hot intensity and vehemence of Martha Argerich, there is still much to enjoy.

Gramophone Full Page Ad: Sa Chen playing Chopin Piano Concertos

First, the good news: Something I wrote has finally appeared on the pages of Gramophone magazine (on page 38 of the November 2008 edition). Click on the above picture to read my quote about the wonderful Chinese pianist Sa Chen.

The less good news: Its not on the same page as Bryce Morrison's piano reviews.

The even less good news: Singapore's national newspaper had been named Strait Times (sic).

I do hope she gets a favourable review from the folks at Gramophone. Pending a review of this CD, my review of Sa Chen's 2007 Singapore recital at Esplanade (part of the Huayi Chinese Festival), from which the quote was extracted, is reproduced below.