...AND DELIVER US FROM... / NICHOLAS LOH Piano Recital / Review

...AND DELIVER US FROM...

NICHOLAS LOH Piano Recital

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday (5 July 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 7 July 2015 with the title "Speaking pianist toots horn".

After returning from his post-graduate musical studies at the New England Conservatory of Music, Singaporean pianist Nicholas Loh has established himself as a fervent exponent of new music. His first solo recital since 2009 (when he performed works by John Sharpley, Frederic Rzewski and Nikolai Kapustin) was to be as cutting edge, and controversial to boot.

There was an underlying theme of protest in his latest offering, which opened with Latvian composer Peteris Vasks' Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Its Mozartian title belied the music's wide dynamic range, with spectral harmonies and Debussyan chords, then progressing to rapid figurations, repeated notes and sonorous bell sounds. Dispelling the idea of night as a haven of solace, this was more of a nightmarish scenario which ended with Loh plucking the lowest strings of the Yamaha grand piano.

The World Premiere of young Singaporean composer Bertram Wee's a little book of lies marked a new chapter in local piano writing. Although the idiom through its five movements was atonal, the violence portrayed was easily recognisable. The work was an indictment against organised religion, dogmatism and extremism, the sort that resulted in the tragedies of 911, Bali bombings and Charlie Hebdo shootings. 

No specific faith was named, as Loh emerged with sawn-off gloves and uncovered socks to perform. Listeners got the message that intolerance comes via slurs, murmurs and innuendos rather than fire and brimstone sermons. The exception was the central movement, the comedy of ignorance, with the keyboard assaulted by forearm clusters, sweeping glissandi and a stamp from the foot to complete the final insult. Wee, who studies at London's Royal College of Music, is a name to watch.

The final work was the American Rzewski's De Profundis, a 35-minute long melodrama that required a “speaking pianist” to recite, sing, pummel himself and toot on a bicycle horn amongst other things. Its text, of which Loh gave a most lucid and nuanced reading, was taken from letters by Oscar Wilde when he was incarcerated in Reading Gaol for the crime of homosexuality. Here was not a self-pitying or crusading rant, but a sobering statement of utter hopelessness, despair and ultimately sorrow, a word that appears on multiple occasions.

Loh is a natural storyteller, both while playing, acting and singing (which was very much in tune too), who left the small but very engaged audience with little doubt about his abilities and sympathies. Intolerance and hate crimes are surely suffocating the world, yet it seems politically incorrect to voice out against them publicly. This recital was one small but important step taken in the right direction.      

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, September 2014)

RZEWSKI 

The People United Will Never Be Defeated!

COREY HAMM, Piano

DMA Discs TK431 / ****1/2

It was the summer of 2008 when Singapore audiences witnessed not one but two performances of The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (1975), the hour-long theme and variations masterpiece for piano by American composer Frederic Rzewski (born 1938). The second of these was given in a studio at the Conservatory by Canadian pianist Corey Hamm, a remarkable achievement as he had performed with virtually nine fingers, having injured his right little finger. This 20^th century equivalent of Bach’s Goldberg Variations or Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations takes no prisoners given its immense complexities and physical demands on the performer.

The subject is a Chilean workers’ revolutionary anthem, which gets treated to 36 variations in total (6 sets of 6, with every 6^th variation an amalgamation of the 5 preceding it).The set runs the full gamut of 20^th century styles and idioms including folk, jazz, minimalism and atonality, with the pianist also expected to vocalise and whistle at certain points. One of few pianists in the world to tour with this work, Hamm brings out its panoply of nuances with missionary zeal and vigour. Although the improvisatory section has been omitted, this 2012 recording compares well with those of the composer and its dedicatee Ursula Oppens. A must listen for anyone interested in 20^th century piano literature.    

BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No.5

SCHUMANN Fantasy Op.17

YUNDI, Piano

Berlin Philharmonic / Daniel Harding

Deutsche Grammophon 481 0710 / ****

After that unmitigated disaster in the Tchaikosky First Piano Concerto with the Singapore Symphony in 2009 and several humdrum years with EMI Classics, Yundi (who has since dropped his surname Li) has returned to the fold of Deutsche Grammophon. This is his first concerto recording with the German “Yellow label” since the highly successful Prokofiev and Ravel coupling of 2008. Also partnered here by the Berlin Philharmonic, it sounds like the Chinese pianist has made a note-worthy comeback.

His performance of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto is conceived on a grand scale and the big-boned playing reveals neither frailties nor idiosyncrasies. The sense of occasion, captured in live performances in January and February this year, is gratefully lapped up and the playing radiates warmth and joy. Included as a generous coupling is Schumann’s Fantasy in C major (Op.17), originally conceived as an ode to Beethoven in the manner of his late Sonatas. While the playing is somewhat less exulted as in the concerto, this is still a solid and moving account that redeems Yundi as China’s “Comeback Kid”.

More CD reviews (The Straits Times, November 2009)

PIANO SONATAS
RAFAL BLECHACZ, Piano
Deutsche Grammophon 477 7453
*****

This is the second CD recording on the “Yellow Label” by young Polish pianist Rafal Blechacz, winner of the 2005 Chopin International Piano Competition. Its three classical sonatas prove that he is more than just a Chopin-player, but a musician of interpretive insight and finesse.

Rarely has Haydn’s Sonata No.52 in E flat major sounded so ahead of its time; its grand majestic opening chords, air of contemplation in the slow movement and hectic finale all look ahead to Beethoven. Conversely, Beethoven’s youthful Sonata in A major (Op.2 No.2) is possessed with a spirit and vivacity that recalls Haydn. There is little to separate late Haydn and early Beethoven, it seems. This superb recital concludes with Mozart’s Sonata in D major (K.311) of 1777, ironically the earliest work of the three, where its symphonic pretensions and digital virtuosity predate both the Haydn and Beethoven. Blechacz is one name truly worth following.

FREDERIC RZEWSKI

The People United Will Never Be Defeated!
RALPH VAN RAAT, Piano
Naxos 8.559360

****1/2

If there were a 20th century reply to Bach’s Goldberg Variations and Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, that would be this hour-long behemoth; 36 variations by the Polish-American pianist-composer Frederic Rzewski (born 1938) on the Chilean socialist anthem El Pueblo Unido Jamas Sera Vencido! The melody is slightly banal but has a catchy swagger that makes it memorable. Rzewski’s treatment traverses the full range of modern techniques and devices, including the pianist whistling and slamming the lid of the keyboard. Much of this music is very accessible, and does not stray too far away from folk and jazz influences.

There have been several recordings of this 1975 work, including by the composer himself, but Dutch pianist van Raat matches the best of them. His ad-libbed improvisation towards the end combines minimalism with the pounding brute force of the track that follows. That, Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues, is the ultimate musical portrait of relentless industrialisation and depersonalisation in our age of machines. Ardently recommended.

Corey Hamm plays Rzewski's The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Review

COREY HAMM plays

RZEWSKI The People United Will Never Be Defeated!

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Recital Studio

Thursday (18 September 2008)

An edited version of this review appeared in The Straits Times on 20 September 2008

It is a serendipitous quirk of fortune that one of the iconic piano works of our time, The People United Will Never Be Defeated!, by contemporary American composer Frederic Rzewski (born 1938) gets heard in Singapore twice in the space of two months. American Christopher Taylor gave its local premiere at the Singapore International Piano Festival in July, and Canadian Corey Hamm's no less enthralling reading was a welcome second hearing.

The hour-long piece from 1975, an extraordinary set of 36 variations on a Chilean revolutionary socialist anthem by Sergio Ortega, is the 20th century counterpart of what Beethoven's Diabelli Variations and Bach's Goldberg Variations were to the preceding two centuries.

A short talk by Hamm and recording of the original chorus by pop group Quilapayun prefaced the performance. Very succinctly, he elucidated the structure and numerology of the work – the theme, six sets of six variations each (the sixth variation of each set being a summary of the earlier five), with the sixth set being a summary of the preceding five sets, and the final statement of the theme. While Bach was obsessed with the number “three”, in his Goldbergs, Rzewski’s was equally fixated on the number “six”.

Endurance, stamina and living the moment on the edge rather than absolute digital accuracy characterised Hamm's take, all the more daunting when playing despite nursing an injured finger.

Rzewski's fiendish and phantasmagorical score takes no prisoners, but the small audience at the Conservatory's Recital Studio was held captive by the sheer range of sound and effects achieved. The folk-like melody, first heard in bare and martial octaves, boomed loudly across the small confines of the Recital Studio. Although it was not note-perfect, the gauntlet had been laid.

Through the next fifty-five minutes or so, this theme was transformed through a kaleidoscopic range of styles —jazz, country and western, gospel, atonal and avant-garde musings. I wish I could say that Hamm’s technique was Hamelinesque; there were missed and fluffed notes at the heat of the moment, but he was mostly accurate, leaping over each thorny thicket with great courage and conviction. He really believes in this music.

Not pouting but whistling out part of the score.

The ebbs and flows of the music were very well judged, with each repetition of the said tune arriving with the warmth and fuzziness of a long lost relation. Through all of this, Hamm captured its improvisatory and free-ranging spirit with aplomb, even if the whistling (indicated and demanded by the score in two of the variations) was a tad off-pitch. At least it was audible, and that added to the character of the performance.

The afore-mentioned Taylor had used a synthesiser but that was because he was less confident with whistling skills and needed to project through the larger space of Victoria Concert Hall.

All that was missing was Hamm's slamming the piano lid (also in the score) and the optional improvisation before the final reprise of the theme. Taylor did not play the improvisation either. Both pianists played with the use of a score; I cannot imagine it otherwise.

No matter, any performance of the Rzewski is destined to be an epic. The more one gets to witness it, the more one is convinced by its greatness.