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.       

    

SSO GALA CONCERT: CAPUÇON PLAYS BRAHMS / Review

CAPUÇON PLAYS BRAHMS

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Thursday (4 October 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 6 October 2012 with the title "Unfamiliar, engaging Americana piece".

As Singapore Symphony gala concerts go, this one was unusual because only one out of three works performed was familiar to the audience. And it certainly was not John Adams’s Lollapalooza, composed in 1995 for British conductor Simon Rattle’s 40^th birthday, five minutes of minimalist ostinatos and rhythmic chugging.

It made for an engaging opening act, because it was not one of those mind-numbing play-by-numbers stunts but a rather sophisticated piece of Americana that had all the sections of the orchestra responding to its clockwork cues with utmost precision. The brass, with its dominance in the key themes, was particularly good.

Lollapalooza is American slang for something big and important, which certainly applied to the supposed main event with French violinist Renaud Capuçon starring in Brahms’s Violin Concerto. His rather slight built belied a large, generous sound which he projected for this most extrovert of solos. Never overawed by the orchestra, he was always on top of things with flawless intonation and a searing command of its alternating tricky and lyrical passages.

He performed the more traditional Joachim cadenza rather than the unusual Kreisler version of his recently issued recording with the Vienna Philharmonic, with an enviable control that was matched only by Rachel Walker’s exquisitely beautiful oboe solo in the slow movement. A hair-raising Rondo finale, as if balanced on a tight rope, completed this most invigorating of performances. As if to play down his own achievement, and acknowledging that of his very worthy partners in the orchestra, he did not offer an encore.

For the second part, the Uruguay-born Viennese conductor Carlos Kalmar presided over a most unusual symphony choice, the rarely performed Fifth Symphony in F major of the Czech nationalist Antonin Dvorak. Having being accustomed to the frankly overplayed Eighth and Ninth (New World) Symphonies, this was a welcome change.

Dvorak was beginning to cut his teeth as a symphony composer, and this 35-minute long work combined dramatics to be found in the Seventh Symphony and rusticity of the Eighth Symphony to good effect. It was an easy listen, cheerful in most part but coloured with a Mendelssohnian sad tune (which means it isn’t particularly sad) for the slow movement.

The cheery Slavonic Dance of the third movement was a lift for the spirits, and the finale that swung between nervous tension to moments of sheer sentimentality was all part of the composer’s good humoured disposition. The performance brimmed with energy from start to finish but most of all, the orchestra played like it enjoyed itself and was willing the audience to do the same.     

 

BEETHOVEN VIOLIN SONATAS / Renaud Capuçon and Frank Braley / Review

BEETHOVEN Violin Sonatas

Renaud Capuçon, Violin

Frank Braley, Piano

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory

Monday (28 February 2011)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 3 March 2011 with the title "Sated by Beethoven".

The French violinist Renaud Capuçon’s lesson on Beethoven’s violin music continued with performances of the ten sonatas for piano and violin over three evenings at the Conservatory. To be able to attend all three recitals would have been musical paradise itself, but a single evening’s treats was enough manna from heaven to keep one sufficiently sated.

Beethoven conceived these works for his own role as pianist, and so the piano is more often the protagonist and has more the notes to overcome. For this, French pianist Frank Braley’s sensitive advocacy deserved every bit of credit in the vital partnership. The togetherness of both pianist and violinist made every note and phrase greater than the sum of individual parts.

Only four years (from 1799 to 1803) separated the three sonatas on show this evening, fruits of Beethoven’s impetuous youth. Sonata No.4 in A minor (Op.23) opened with fiery and passionate gestures, oft associated with the composer’s fist-shaking and table thumping exploits.

United and empowered by the force of will, the duo scaled its heights and plumbed the depths. The slow movement was an intimate conversation between the two, but inhabited with the lightness of friends sharing a quiet joke. The finale mixed wit with seriousness, as it is with much of Beethoven.

Next was Sonata No.3 in E flat major (Op.12 No.3), distinguished by a most daunting piano part, yet one closely intertwined with the violin. The hymn-like central movement, shaded with much care, looked forward to more mature vistas. A chirpy Mozartean Rondo that closed flew on feathered wings, but coloured with Beethoven’s more earthy and raucous humour.

The longest and most famous was Sonata No.9 in A major (Op.47), better known as the Kreutzer Sonata. Capuçon’s finely-shaded solo set the tone for dramatics that was to influence Tolstoy’s violent novella of the same title. The second movement’s variations were perfectly judged, where its longeurs caressed, passing like mere seconds. This was the calm before the storm, with a furious swirling tarantella in the Presto finale sweeping the audience into raptures.

The frisson of live performances - amply supplied this evening - remind us why, despite the many wonderful recordings available, the joy of concert going will never go out of fashion.

SSO Concert / Renaud Capuçon Gala / Review

RENAUD CAPUÇON GALA
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Esplanade Concert Hall
Saturday (26 February 2011)

This review was published in The Straits Times

on 28 February 2011 with the title

"Capuçon and a lesson in music".

Naming this gala concert after the renowned young French violinist was a shrewd marketing ploy, when it was a lesson about music from the classical era, a period lasting from the 1760s to early 1820s. Only 34 years separated the three works, beginning with Haydn’s Symphony No.44 (1772), nicknamed Trauer (or Mourning), his first in a sombre minor key.

SSO does not perform enough Haydn, but it accepted the challenge gratefully by not treating it like a makeweight. Supple unison strings created an uneasy tension from its outset, one that permeated its 20 minutes. Dark clouds gathered for the first two movements, fully conveying the essence of sturm und drang (storm and stress). The slow movement, although in a major key, was no less serious. Little wonder Haydn requested it be played at his funeral.

Mozart’s Symphony No.38 in D major (1887), named the Prague Symphony (his favourite city), was a far more jolly affair. The orchestra shifted gears accordingly for the mellifluous melodies that filled its congenial three movements. Snippets from operas (Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute) were quoted, and did one notice the second subject of the second movement?

Someone suggested it could have been the source of Elgar’s Enigma theme of his famous orchestra variations. At any rate, Shui Lan who conducted both symphonies from memory, commanded the first hour with great charm and aplomb, setting the stage for Renaud Capuçon’s appearance.

For these ears, their collaboration in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D major (1806) came close to the perfect version. No apologies were made for performing in the “traditional” manner, far removed from the astringent sound preached by the period performance movement. Orchestral tuttis were full and heroically conceived, and Capuçon’s “Panette” Guarnerius violin (once belonging to Isaac Stern) breathed a fulsome and awe-inspiring vibrato.

A dynamo packed into a compact frame, his sound was huge, and the choice of Fritz Kreisler’s dazzling and Romantic cadenzas fit like hand to glove. The slow movement was particularly eloquent and beautiful, before happily leaping into the hay of the finale’s jocular Rondo. While no encore could come after such sublime music, Capucon obliged with one – the lovely Melody from Gluck’s Orpheus.

Renaud Capuçon will perform more Beethoven – his Violin Sonatas – with pianist Frank Braley today and tomorrow (Monday and Tuesday) at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory. Don’t miss that!

CHAN YOONG HAN on Beethoven's Violin Music / A Short Interview

Here's one concert you don't want to miss:

RENAUD CAPUÇON GALA
BEETHOVEN Violin Concerto
with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra
conducted by Lan Shui
26 February 2011, 7.30 pm
Esplanade Concert Hall
Tickets available at SISTIC

The renowned French violinist RENAUD CAPUÇON performs Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D major (Op.61) with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and follows with three evenings of Beethoven’s ten violin sonatas (27 February – 1 March, 8 pm) with pianist Frank Braley at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory (Tickets available at SISTIC). Although Beethoven was mostly a keyboardist, what was it that distinguished his music for the violin? SSO first violinist CHAN YOONG HAN (left) muses on the great German’s legacy for the strings.

Beethoven was neither a violinist, nor is his only violin concerto the most outwardly virtuosic work in the repertoire, yet many regard it as the pinnacle of the genre. Why do you think that is so?

The truth was this: its first performance did not receive favourable reviews. It was not until years later, after a performance by Joseph Joachim, that it became popular. This was perhaps due to the fact that this concerto was the first to be regarded as a symphonic work in which the solo violin was merely a line in the overall orchestral texture. One could forget its monumental length (about 45 minutes) while sitting through a performance of it due to its sheer beauty and perfect structure. As a violinist, performing this work is likened to recreating a perfect image and voice of an angel. You are always trying very hard not to spoil it!

Beethoven’s music is known for its masculine attributes, its vitality and muscularity, yet he can also sound retiring, lyrical and sublime. The slow movement, in particular, has these qualities. What do you think he was trying to convey?

Many of us choose to associate Beethoven for his heroic and victorious music. However, one of his most important musical contributions, which gave many musicologists the reason to regard him as a Romantic composer, was his unyielding search for a reason to live through his art. I relate to Beethoven more as an introspective musician in search of universal truth, beauty, love, hope and joy, within a life that was frustrated by deafness and social awkwardness. I think this movement was a reflection of his yearning for love and contentment.

The finales of Beethoven’s concertos were invariably Rondos, or round dances, often far more light-hearted than what comes before. Was he quite a jolly personality under an austere and irascible cloak?

Absolutely! And not to forget, very often mischievous! He was also merely adhering to a style that was common practice in the Classical concerto form by using a country dance, or folk dance from an "exotic" region, to make the finale more accessible to the general audience.


Beethoven’s violin sonatas were published as “sonatas for piano with violin accompaniment”. Does this necessarily diminish the role of the violin?

If you observe the score, the sharing of thematic, accompaniment and important motivic ideas is ubiquitous between both violin and piano parts. Very often, Beethoven would even repeat a theme twice in order to allow for each instrument to play it. However, due to the nature of the keyboard instrument, the piano part contains much of the harmonic foundation which holds the key to the soul of the music.

Of the 10 sonatas, which do you feel closest to and why?

It is very hard to choose a favourite because every sonata has a unique story. The Spring (Op.24) and Kreutzer (Op.47) Sonatas used to be favourites during my teens; Kreutzer for its virtuosic "concerto" writing and Spring for its beautiful melodies. In the past decade, I started to discover the dramatic and autobiographical content of his other sonatas such as the A minor (Op. 23) and C minor (Op. 30 No.2). I feel one could learn so much about Beethoven's psyché from these sonatas. His manipulation of forms, structures and expectations was a reflection of his social and psychological existence. Having said that, the G major (Op.96, left) will always feel closest to me. Like the violin concerto, it is just so sublime and beautiful throughout.

Chan Yoong Han was interviewed by PianoManiac.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, April 2009)

A MOZART ALBUM
STEPHEN HOUGH, Piano
Hyperion 67598

*****

British pianist Stephen Hough’s concept albums over the years have been a total pleasure because they unite magnificent pianism with the joy of discovering new and unexpected repertoire. 40 minutes of this anthology is devoted to original unhyphenated Mozart, including two Fantasies (K.475 and 396, both in sombre C minor) with the contrastingly cheerful choice of Sonata in B flat major (K.333). These are tasteful and non-idiosyncratic readings. 

The inveterate pianophile will seek the Mozart-inspired pieces and transcriptions. These bring to light Ignaz Friedman’s elaborate dressing-up of a Minuet), a homage by J.B.Cramer and three of Hough’s own “transformations” in the piquant style of French composer Francis Poulenc. Fireworks come in the form of the Liszt-Busoni Fantasy on The Marriage of Figaro – a veritable showstopper. Simply irresistible.

MENDELSSOHN

Violin Concerto in E minor
Piano Trio No.1 / Violin Sonata in F
ANNE SOPHIE MUTTER, Violin et al

Deutsche Grammophon 477 8001 (CD & DVD)
*****

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847), the German composer celebrated for his prodigious facility and memorable melodies rather than originality. Who needs to be an avant-garde when one can write tunes as beautiful as those in his E minor Violin Concerto (Op.64)? This is Anne-Sophie Mutter’s second recording, one that builds upon her teenage effort (with Herbert von Karajan) by having acquired a fuller tone with maturity. Her musical sensibilities remained undimmed and her present partners - Mendelssohn’s own Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra with Kurt Masur – are excellent.

In the D minor Trio (Op.49), Mutter is partnered by cellist Lynn Harrell and hubby André Previn, whom at 80 remains amazingly dextrous as he steals the show with its scintillating and virtuosic piano part. Mendelssohn’s Violin Sonata in F major (1838) is a rarely heard but enjoyable makeweight. This premium-priced issue also includes a DVD of all three “live” performances and a 18-minute documentary on Mutter’s musings on Mendelssohn.

CAPRICCIO
Renaud Capuçon, Violin
Jerome Ducros, Piano
Virgin Classics 3740872

****1/2

Despite the album’s Italianate title, there are no Paganinian showstoppers. Instead it is an oblique reference to Elgar’s charming little trifle La Capriceuse, a lilting salon piece. This is a winning collection of encore pieces, mostly transcriptions of songs, including German Lieder (Schubert, Schumann and Mendelssohn all feature here) and dances. The best items are also the least heard pieces: Karol Szymanowski’s haunting Roxana’s Song from the opera King Roger, Erich Korngold’s Garden Scene from the movie score Much Ado About Nothing, Josef Suk’s Un poco triste, and the rapturous Waltz from Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier. French violinist Renaud Capuçon has a seamless and lovely tone that serves the music well. An enjoyable romp.

Singapore Symphony Orchestra: Mahler's Tenth / Review

MAHLER’S TENTH

Singapore 

Symphony Orchestra

LAN SHUI, Conductor
Friday (3 April 2009)
Esplanade Concert Hall

This review was published in The Straits Times on 6 April 2009.

Just when one thought that the Singapore Symphony Orchestra had wrapped up Gustav Mahler’s symphony cycle with the 90-minute Third Symphony in 2008, yet another unperformed symphony rears its convoluted head.

All that was left of the Austrian composer’s Tenth Symphony (1910) were a fully scored Adagio and sketches of four other movements. Various musicologists undertook the task of crafting a concert-worthy performing version of complete work, with Deryck Cooke’s being the familiar and most often recorded. SSO’s take on the evening was the American Clinton Carpenter’s less celebrated edition, which is the most densely orchestrated of the lot and arguably the most difficult to pull off.

Not one to shirk a challenge, Maestro Lan Shui (left) and the orchestra plunged headlong into its thickets of thorns, and emerged with more hits than misses. First the misses: with limited rehearsal time, there was bound to be balance issues and moments of rawness in ensemble. The orchestration could sometimes leave well alone, notably in the finale. Its poignant flute solo – a quintessential Mahlerian gem – was obscured with excessive counterpoint, while the violent funereal thuds on the bass-drum – a dramatic gesture in other versions - were reduced to a distant whimper.

Ultimately this 80-minute final love letter to an estranged wife was overflowing with the same ardour and angst that SSO has so memorably delivered in previous Mahler outings. The scherzos pulsed with whimsy and wit while the climaxes suffused with intoxicating passion, were milked for all their worth. And nobody knows how to draw out a slow movement, especially one brimming with luscious string textures, with such purpose and persuasion as Shui. Come May, when the SSO takes this Mahler Tenth on tour to Beijing, it should be close to perfection.

The ostensible reason why most people came was to hear the young French virtuoso Renaud Capuçon (left) in Mendelssohn’s evergreen Violin Concerto in E minor (Op.64). Here was a seemingly effortless performance, one pulled off with such great polish and aplomb as to be straight out of the recording studio.

Playing in the “Panette” Guarneri del Gesu that once belonged to Isaac Stern, the flawless intonation and sugary sweetness that flowed in the concerto and subsequent encore – Gluck’s Melody from Orpheus – was string lovers’ paradise. Somewhere, the Saint of Carnegie Hall must be smiling.

Watch this video of the 

Mahler Scherzo from the Tenth: