ELISO VIRSALADZE & FRIENDS CHAMBER RECITAL / Review

 

ELISO VIRSALADZE & 

FRIENDS CHAMBER RECITAL 

Conservatory Concert Hall 

Thursday (13 March 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 15 March 2025 with the title "Grand dame of Russian piano school Eliso Virsaladze leads cohesive chamber recital".

If one were a conservatory student, imagine what a honour it is to perform at a masterclass by some of classical music’s most venerated artists. An even greater privilege is to actually to perform in concert with someone like Georgian pianist Eliso Virsaladze, whom at 82 is the Grand Dame of the Russian piano school. 

That was the fortunate lot of four string students selected to play in two piano quintets alongside Virsaladze and members of faculty. The concert began with Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E flat major (Op.44), when violinist Zou Meng and his twin brother violist Zou Zhang were joined by violinist Qian Zhou (Yong Siew Toh Conservatory’s head of strings) and cellist Jamshid Saidikarimov (Singapore Symphony Orchestra musician). 

Photo: Ong Shu Chen

Straight off in the opening bars, the five players established a cohesiveness that would endure through the work’s half hour. Virsaladze took the lead, her clarity of articulation projected well from the Fazioli grand piano with its lid on half-stick. This was never a case of overwhelming the strings but working closely in tandem as equals. 

The passion of Romanticism shone through in the first movement’s development as well as the slow movement’s stormy central section where the tempo and temperature were upped. Even the Scherzo’s play of ascending and descending scales were made to sound fun rather than the tedium of exercises. 

It was the finale’s busy counterpoint, reliving the grand fugue a la Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony, which sealed this impressive performance. A wrong step would have spelt disaster but the performers had a gripping chokehold on the proceedings which drove to a glorious close. 

The second half had a more expansive work in Johannes Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F minor (Op.34), where Virsaladze was partnered with violinists Ng Yu Ying and Ang Chek Meng (founding members of T’ang Quartet), and students - violist Huang Yi and cellist Cao Huiying. 

Conceived like a four-movement symphony, the transparent unison opening belied an inner tension that gradually built up as the first movement progressed. As with the previous quintet, this group also harnessed an energy that sustained itself through the music’s plentiful upheavals. 

Respite came in the slow second movement, where a congenial conversational tone between piano and strings provided an oasis of calm. Cao’s cello pizzicatos then picked up the pulse for the Scherzo’s inexorable march, where an obstinately repetitive (hence the term ostinato) rhythm predominated, with an excitement level ratcheted to the edge of one’s seat. 

The work’s most dissonant moments were in the finale’s opening, almost painful in intensity, but as the smoke cleared, an obvious pattern was emerging. This gradual revelation of its memorable main theme would later be repeated in Brahms’ First Symphony in years to come, but the five players were now clearly living the moment. 

Virsaladze’s frequent glances to her younger colleagues ensured everyone was on the same bar together, and together they completed this masterpiece with stunning unity. Such concerts are what excellent chamber music-making - creativity in a single mind - is all about.

BRUCH VIOLIN CONCERTO AND MAHLER SYMPHONY 5 / GIVE AND TAKE (BACK AND FORTH) / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / T'ang Quartet / Review

BRUCH VIOLIN CONCERTO

AND MAHLER 5

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Thursday (2 March 2023)

 

GIVE AND TAKE (BACK AND FORTH)

T’ang Quartet

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall

Friday (3 March 2023)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 6 March 2023 with the title "Chloe Chua emotes like an old soul, T'ang Quartet's partnerships bear fruit".

 

It is hard to believe that violinist Chloe Chua is still only sixteen. She seems to have been around a long time, chalking up impressive concerto performances since winning first prize at the Yehudi Menuhin Competition for Young Violinists in 2018. The Singapore Symphony Orchestra has also  promoted her, inviting her to be Artist-in-Residence for 2022/23 and embarking on a series of recorded albums.

 

Her performances so far have involved concertos from the baroque and classical periods, so Max Bruch’s First Violin Concerto in G minor, an acme of German Romanticism, was a first. From her opening entry, very exposed and the work’s barometer, she came across as an old soul. Purity and richness of tone, immaculate intonation and utter confidence stood her out as someone no longer to be labelled a child prodigy.

 

Artists blossom and mature, bringing new and personal ideas, not just those taught in the studio. Technique has never been an issue, and it was her ability to emote openly and without fear which brought a new dimension to this performance. The lyrical slow movement rose to passionate heights of ecstasy.

 

This was achieved with neither histrionics nor superficial effects, but sheer innate musicality. Her fiery passion in the finale merely confirmed earlier thoughts, with loud audience acclamation and adulation being just desserts.

     

Watch Chloe Chua's performance of the Bruch concerto with SSO here:

The last time SSO performed a Mahler symphony was during pre-pandemic 2019, almost an age ago, so Covid-era cobwebs had to be dusted off for the Austrian’s Fifth Symphony. Led by Dutch-Maltese guest conductor Lawrence Renes, the orchestra honed an exciting reading, full of fervour despite a few rough edges. Guest French horn principal Esa Tapani was excellent in the central Scherzo, which delighted in lilting waltz rhythms. The famous Adagietto, scored for just strings and harp, was crafted with rare beauty. Completing the romp was the finale’s playful counterpoint, capped by the brass in its full glory.  

 

Another Singapore musical icon, T’ang Quartet, has had a turbulent 30^th anniversary season. It underwent yet another change in personnel, with SSO musicians violist Wang Dandan and cellist Jamshid Saydikarimov replacing Han Oh and Wang Zihao for its latest concert. While this configuration is unlikely permanent, founding violinists Ng Yu Ying and Ang Chek Meng can still be relied upon to make a good fist of whatever the quartet performs.  

Composer Chen Zhangyi takes a bow.

 

Two works by Young Artist Award recipient Chen Zhangyi were on show including the world premiere of Give And Take (Back And Forth), which comprised six short varied vignettes. Chen’s music blends aural lushness with gentle dissonances in a memorable way, apparent in the opening Towers and Fountains, a depiction of Singapore cityscapes, and Drunken Poets, where plucked pizzicatos and bowed strings merged seamlessly within a colourful canvas. Ear-catching also were  more rhythmic movements, such as the minimalist swagger of Gears And Cycles – Interlocked or  Night Grooves, where jazz, pop and rock rhythms provided an dynamic close.  

 

The quartet’s sensitive and perceptive insights made music come alive, replicated in Chen’s Twin Cinema for string nonet (two string quartets and double bass), which saw a fruitful partnership with younger musicians. Here both quartets had separate narrative threads, representing different cultures (Venice and Singapore) with their respective interactions and reactions being the work’s essence.

 

The concert closed with that favourite staple of the quartet repertoire, Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet in F major. In a performance that luxuriated in lyricism and thematic cohesion, it was the pizzicato paradise of its Scherzo that piqued the ears, and the finale’s irrepressible perpetual motion which brought on the loudest cheers. 

THE CZECH AFFAIR / T'ang Quartet / Review

THE CZECH AFFAIR

T’ang Quartet

Victoria Concert Hall

Tuesday (4 October 2022)

 

For the final concert of its 30^th anniversary season, T’ang Quartet went back to its Bohemian roots. Formed in 1992, the quartet was mentored by Jiri Heger, the Czech (and original Bohemian) who was Principal Violist of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. The first two commercial recordings which T’ang Quartet produced were of Czech music, creating a stir of interest when first released. This concert was a return to those early hits from almost twenty years ago.

Ng Yu Ying and Ang Chek Meng
with their mentor
Bohemian violist Jiri Heger

 

The quartet opened with Josef Suk’s Meditation on the Old Czech Chorale Saint Wenceslas, which has nothing to do with the Christmas hymn Old King Wenceslas. It is instead a sober work, with Han Oh’s viola having the first voice. With the others joining in, the theme and its development began to emerge. Most apparent is the close cohesion and consistently robust sonority the foursome achieved in this slow moving work which gradually built to a climax. One might consider this a Czech counterpart to Barber’s Adagio for Strings, for engendering the same kind of deep-seated feelings and emotions.   

 

Next came the opening strains of Antonin Dvorak’s String Quartet No.12 in F major (Op.96), better known as the American Quartet because the composer had written it during his sojourn in the US of A. This was the selling point of the quartet’s second CD recording, Made in America. Folk rhythms from its outset, thought to be influenced by African-American music, came vigorously to the fore. This was vibrant music which got the treatment it deserved, and the quartet later switched modes for the slow movement’s lament. Whether its inspiration was an Eastern European dumka or African-American spiritual is a moot point, as both possess the quality of a long breathed sigh, well-captured in this heart-felt reading.

Photo: Cara van Miriah

 

The quaint pentatonic melodies of the third movement’s dance were lively to say the least, and so was its execution with pin-point accuracy and attention to its drumming rhythms. Again it was difficult to differentiate Dvorak’s treatment of vernacular material (whether Bohemia or Spillville, Iowa, where he spent a summer in 1893), except to say it was quintessential Dvorak. The energetic and rhythmic finale, where the quartet went full-voiced and full throttle, which made for an exciting conclusion.  

 

Photo: Cara van Miriah

The major work of the programme was Pavel Haas’ String Quartet No.2 with the unusual subtitle From the Monkey Mountains. Haas (1899-1944) was a Czech Jew, composition student of Leos Janacek with a modernist streak, later murdered by the Nazis in Auschwitz concentration camp. For a work composed in 1925, almost a century ago, the quartet still sounds extraordinarily modern. It was the centrepiece of the T’ang Quartet’s first CD album The Art of War, in memory of Czech composers who died in the Nazi Holocaust.  

 

Its ghostly opening with seemingly random string figurations soon coalesced into a pastoral scene in the movement titled Landscape, depicting the open countryside of the Monkey Mountains. There is nothing racist about the nickname for the Czecho-Moravian highlands which Haas and his friends often retreated to. The influence of Haas’ teacher Janacek is unmistakable, with the repetitive use of simple rhythmic motifs, often derived from folk music. The next movement Coach, Coachman and Horse served as a scherzo, one filled with outrageous portamenti (string slides), creaking and groaning, stops and starts, suggesting the cart was drawn not by some thoroughbred, but a reluctant mule, affording a bumpy ride for all concerned.

 

The Moon and I, the obligatory slow movement, saw very fine muted unison playing, in a version of “night music” rather different from Bartok’s. It nevertheless still got under one’s skin by its evocation of mystery and sheer intensity. The final movement Wild Night was literally what is described, an intoxicating dance filled with jazz and dancehall vibes which were the craze of 1920s Europe. This got even more interesting with the inclusion of drums, handled confidently by young Thai percussionist K.Gun Mongkolprapa, a student of Yong Siew Toh Conservatory. There were even moments for reflection before all hell broke loose for a riotous heavy metal finish, cueing a chorus of cheers.        

  

          

Photo: Cara van Miriah

T'ANG QUARTET: GIFT OF MUSIC / T'ang Quartet / Review

 

GIFT OF MUSIC

T’ang Quartet

Esplanade Recital Studio

Wednesday (27 July 2022)

 

After Mark 2.0 of Singapore’s T’ang Quartet was unveiled in April this year, the foursome of violinists Ng Yu Ying and Ang Chek Meng, violist Han Oh and cellist Wang Zihao has gotten down to hard graft with a pair of concerts. This opening evening was a fund-raiser, coinciding with the launch of a coffee table book on the quartet’s 30 years written by Ivan Lim. Thirty years of an ensemble’s history is a significant milestone, and the event got exactly what it deserved – a programme of serious classics which makes no concessions for newbies or beginners, the sort one would find at home in Wigmore Hall and other august concert venues.

The founder-members of T'ang Quartet,
Ng Yu Ying and Ang Chek Meng
address the audience.

 

There was also a pleasing yin and yang to the works, major key Mozart paired with minor key Brahms. The evening opened with Mozart’s String Quartet in C major K.465 also nicknamed "Dissonance", one of six quartets dedicated to the "Father of string quartets" himself, Joseph Haydn. Its nickname was made apparent at its outset, a throbbing beat from the cello, followed by entries from viola and first violin who gave no clue as to what the key was. This must have bewildered its first listeners in extremis, the sort of joke Haydn would have heartily approved, before winding down to the “safe” home key of C major.

 

The Allegro proper, in the proper key, was sunny and optimistic, allied with a show of cohesive playing. The slow movement radiated warmth and lyricism, before the Minuet and Trio's more animated pages. The trio section was in the minor key but not possessing the same startling quality as the quartet's opening. The same could be said of the finale's alternating between major and minor keys, which was not all lightness and fun. The quartet however did its utmost to bring out the music's humour. It is a "Haydn Quartet", after all. 

 

After a short interval was Brahms’s First String Quartet in C minor (Op.51 No.1), which was striking for its austerity. Its spirit of sturm und drang (storm and stress) may seem anachronistic, but the German composer was above all a classicist and “guardian of the old school”. Bristling with energy and vitality, the quartet revelled in its tautness and thematic economy. The three-note motif introduced soon after its fiery opening would appear in different guises throughout the work, which made is all the more interesting.

 

The introspective and hymn-like slow movement radiated an inner glow, and this is where the quartet really showed its togetherness. While not a true Scherzo, the third movement’s Intermezzo saw a return to some degree of tension seemed the natural thing, contrasted by a lighter and almost carefree Trio that resembled folk music. The finale opened at a furious pace, and the spirit was never allowed to flag as the quartet wound to a passionate close. This work is a tough nut to crack, for both performers and listeners. Especially for listeners, but kudos go to T’ang Quartet for shedding some daylight on its apparent mysteries and well-kept secrets.   

 

The sole encore was a surprise, a well-known tune dressed up in late Romantic Brahmsian garb. Local composer and arranger Bang Wenfu’s very idiomatic transcription of Dick Lee’s Home brought a hint of recognition and many smiles as the nation heads into its well-earned fifty-seventh birthday. Arising from the ashes of the Covid-19 pandemic, the second coming of T’ang Quartet is well, up and running. 

 

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY / T'ang Quartet / Review

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

T’ang Quartet

School of the Arts Concert Hall

Saturday (7 September 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 September 2013 with the title "Fresh sounds from veteran quartet".

It is hard to believe that the T’ang Quartet, Singapore’s first and only professional chamber group, is now 21 years old. In 1992, violinists Ng Yu Ying and Ang Chek Meng, violist Lionel Tan and cellist Leslie Tan, all in their 20s while members of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra gave their first concert at Victoria Concert Hall.

Besides their obvious musical passion, what also stood out were their attitude and sense of fashion. Clad in designer wear for gigs, posing topless in strange locations for photo shoots, the foursome actually made it cool to like chamber music. One musical colleague quipped that they had yet to grow up. That might sound like a barb, but this reviewer regards this as a virtue.

A refusal to equate maturity with ageing, and a continual pursuit to find eternal youth and joy in musical truths seems to be their credo. Except for the evolution of hairstyles and facial fur on the Tan brothers, the quartet pretty much appears the same as they were two decades ago.

Attired in loose fitting greyish coats by Depression, which made them look like Confederate extras in a Gettysburg movie set, they played sitting on non-matching chairs by Grafunkt. Typical of their attention-seeking style, but their vision in music-making remains undimmed. Their 21^st anniversary concert, as the title suggested, comprised wholly of Bohemian and Czech repertoire.

Dvorak's “American” Quartet in F major (Op.96) has been a loyal warhorse for the T’angs. Previously coached by teacher-mentor Jiri Heger, the Czech former SSO viola principal, their calling card work resounded with a freshness that belied its familiarity. The drumming rhythms of the outer movements were buoyant, over which the violins sang and soared. The slow movement, a cross between Slavic dumka and Afro-American spiritual, made time stand still.

Just as trenchant a performance was accorded the First String Quartet by Erwin Schulhoff, a Czech-Jew who died in the Nazi Holocaust. The unison sound achieved in the driving Presto opening was frightening in its intensity, as were the various sound effects yielded in its three other movements. Vigorous folk music coloured its course, but it was the poignantly quiet ending that was most haunting.

Smetana’s autobiographical First String Quartet called “From My Life” closed this excellent concert. The declamatory viola solo at its outset set the tone for this mostly cheerful work, which recounts the eventful life of the “Musical father of Czech nationalism”. Beneath its joyous exterior, the quartet was able to find an underlying melancholy, later epitomised by the cello solo in the slow movement that truly tugged at the heartstrings.

Even more apparent was the finale, when Ng’s violin screeched the highest E (in harmonics), an allusion to the composer’s affliction of deafness, which put a damper on the celebrations before the work closed quietly. There is a real life parallel to that episode, as Ng had himself gone through a life-threatening illness for several months before recovering and making his welcome return.

Just before the quartet’s tongue-in-cheek encore of Shostakovich’s Polka from The Golden Age, Ng had these few words to the audience, “Bear with us… for another 21 years.” Those years will be precious ones indeed.          

  

T'ANG QUARTET'S UPSIZED CHRISTMAS / T'ang Quartet / Review

T'ANG QUARTET’S UPSIZED CHRISTMAS

T’ang Quartet

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (22 December 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 24 December 2012 with the title "The T'ang of Christmas".

It is good to see that the T’ang Quartet can still pack a concert hall after all these years. Two decades ago, they were the “Bad Boys” of classical music, striving to do something different and make an impact. Today, they are the stylish middle-aged men of the local scene, wiser and wizened, but no less irreverent.

 

One could already anticipate the tomfoolery when they strutted on stage in Calvin Klein jeans, and with cellist Leslie Tan balancing precariously on an outsized armchair designed by Francfranc as they performed the first work. Professor Teddy Bor’s Eine Kleine Bricht Moonlicht Nicht Musik was the perfect opener, throwing up Mozart’s favourite serenade with highland melodies like Scotland The Brave and Auld Lang Syne into the mix.

Only the T’angs could bring out a barrel of laughs from the usually austere figures of 20^th century composers Shostakovich and Hindemith. The former’s Polka from The Age of Golden was performed straight – itself two minutes of pure satire - and the latter’s Minimax benefited from scripted gags by Pamela Oei and Ivan Heng.

Minimax was Hindemith’s answer to Mozart’s A Musical Joke, a 25-minute spoof in six movements on musical clichés, poor technique and the chicanery musicians get up to. Prefaced by violist Lionel Tan’s remark, “Somebody did not practise again!” his brother Leslie was literally the butt of the jokes with off-pitched playing, mistimed cues and the breaking of wind.

There was the customary send-up to Wagner, the Johann Strauss waltz, the military march, and the rivalry between fiddlers as second violinist Ang Chek Meng attempted to upstage his leader Ng Yu Ying. Whether the reference to tonight’s AFF Suzuki Cup Final between Singapore and Thailand was intentional or not, both received red cards from referee Lionel, as Leslie blew a whistle for their efforts. Believe it or not, it is more difficult to deliberately play badly than one thinks.

Christmas music dominated the second half. Local jazz pianist and arranger Kerong Chok’s (above) medley was classy lounge music, opening with Mykola Leontovych’s Carol of the Bells and Howard Blake’s Walking in the Air from The Snowman, before incorporating The Christmas Song, Silent Night and Let It Snow. Chok’s cool and understated pianism was well supported by the quartet, who was already in cruise control.

Closing the show was Syafiqah Sallehin’s (left) medley Nutty But Nice which cleverly interpolated movements from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite with various seasonal favourites. A female Malay-Muslim composer arranging Christmas music for four Chinese guys is one for the books, the sure sign that our multi-cultural society has inexorably progressed.

Whoever thought of merging the Trepak with Feliz Navidad, using the ostinato bass of the Arabian Dance as rhythm for The Little Drummer Boy, or playing a neat game of counterpoint with Waltz of the Flowers and Silver Bells? Such surprises, coupled with the T’ang Quartet’s usual showmanship, gave the fuzzy, warm and happy feeling on seeing a well-filled stocking on Christmas morning. Have a Blessed and Merry Christmas, you all.