CD Reviews (The Straits Times, March 2017)

STRAVINSKY The Soldier's Tale

SCHOENBERG Chamber Symphony

Boston Symphony Chamber Players

Eloquence 480 3300 (2 CDs) / *****

Here are some classic 1970s recordings of chamber works by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), centred on his neoclassical phase of composition. During the years between the World Wars, he presided over a paradigm shift from the orchestral opulence of his earlier ballets to sparer textures involving small groups of instruments. 

The quintessential work is The Soldier's Tale (1918), a chamber melodrama with narration featuring a series of marches and dances with a touch of jazz idioms. This is often regarded as the best recording of this work, with a starry cast of violinist Joseph Silverstein, narrator Sir John Gielgud, Tom Courtenay as The Soldier and a  beguiling but positively malevolent Devil in Ron Moody.

The Septet, Octet For Winds, Concertino, Pastorale and Ragtime represent the most attractive of Stravinsky's shorter pieces, made better by the excellent Chamber Players of the Boston Symphony Orchestra who combine finesse with virtuosity. 

Stravinsky's greatest composing rival was Arnold Schoenberg, ironically a fellow emigré living in Los Angeles. The Chamber Symphony No.1 is one of the Austrian's most popular and approachable works, and the chamber transcription for five players by Anton Webern is as transparent as it is effective. This and Alban Berg's piano trio transcription of the Adagio from the Chamber Concerto get excellent readings, a good introduction to the Second Viennese School as any. Highly recommended.

SSO Chamber Concert: SCHOENBERG PIERROT LUNAIRE / Review

SCHOENBERG Pierrot Lunaire

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

VCH Chamber Series

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (8 March 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 10 March 2015 with the title "Taut performance of technically difficult Schoenberg work".

Concerts in the Victoria Concert Hall Chamber Series have seldom come as adventurous as this, a concert devoted wholly to the music of Viennese iconoclast Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951), credited as the father of musical atonality. His compositions carried on from the harmonic advances of Wagner and Mahler, propelling music into hostile unknown territory, with earthshaking innovations still being felt in the 21st century.

Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No.1, composed in 1906, marked the beginning of the end of tonality. Scored for just 15 instruments (one to a part) and playing for about 20 minutes, its astringency and conciseness were almost the antithesis of Mahler's sprawling symphonies. Yet they were kindred spirits, but working from opposite directions.

Stretching the limits of tonality to near breaking point, there are discernible themes which recur and are developed, culminating with a complex signature chord formed by quartals (intervals of fourths). There were even concessional gestures of romanticism, suggesting that Schoenberg could be a fine melodist when he chose to be.

The SSO musicians led by Music Director Shui Lan gave a taut and cogent account of this technically very difficult work. Individual virtuosity was only surpassed by cohesiveness of ensemble work, and with each reprise of the motto themes, the work became progressively less forbidding. Schoenberg's tonal colours were well served, and the overall spirit indicative of the times - anxious and increasingly neurotic - was trenchantly captured.

All this effort would have been much harder for the audience had it not been for the excellent pre-performance preambles by American musicologist Angela Hodgins, who provided the historical background to Schoenberg's life and art. These were illustrated by the use of photographic slides and musical examples played by the musicians on stage. Kudos to SSO for paying attention to the educational aspects of the music it programmes and performs.

The main work was Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, a semi-theatrical 21-piece song cycle (setting of words by Albert Giraud) for soprano and six players. Premiered in Berlin in 1913, this expressionist and wholly atonal work was to change the face of music forever, much like the contemporaneous ballet The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky. It was Stravinsky (who had considered Schoenberg a mortal rival) who proclaimed that Pierrot Lunaire was "the solar plexus and mind of 20th century music".

This was not the Singapore premiere of Pierrot Lunaire, which received two previous performances by Malaysia-born soprano Khor Ai Ming. This evening's soloist, the Korean soprano Jeong Ae Ree, had the advantage of being schooled in the German language while studying in Schoenberg's Austria. Hers came off as the more natural interpretation although less theatrical. The sprechgesang technique used both speech and singing with frequent sliding in between pitches, from quiet whispers to hysterical full-throated yelps, and a full gamut of emotions besides. Translations in English were provided, projected onto a screen behind.

Each song had 13 verses, of which the first is repeated in the seventh and final verses. All had a surreal quality, with the commedia dell'arte character Pierrot as the subject who ponders on life, intoxication and lunacy (hence the title of being "moonstruck"), mortality and finally restoration. Given its esotericism and almost impenetrable idiom, the concert was well attended and even the children present were attentively engaged.

Bravos go to the very credible and likeable Jeong, who could have been placed more forward to better catch her words, and conductor Shui for smartly marshalling his forces, which included violinist Igor Yuzefovich, flautist Jin Ta, clarinettist Ma Yue, violist Zhang Manchin, cellist Ng Pei-Sian and pianist Shane Thio. The cause of contemporary music (which still sounds modern a century later) had been more than well served.

CANVAS OF NATURE / Asian Contemporary Ensemble / Review

CANVAS OF NATURE

Asian Contemporary Ensemble

Esplanade Recital Studio

Wednesday (27 February 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 1 March 2013 with the title "Riotous soprano a force of Nature".

The New Music Ensemble of our local conservatory has spawned a child of its own: the Asian Contemporary Ensemble (ACE), led by young conductor and Yong Siew Toh graduate Wong Kah Chun. Taking a leaf from its parent ensemble, it gave a most invigorating and uncompromisingly dissonant concert under the banner of Esplanade’s adventurous Spectrum contemporary music series.

A large body of students and fair number of cognoscenti first heard Chong Kee Yong’s Mourning the Murder of an Old Banyan Tree (2002), conducted by the Malaysian composer himself (above). Inspired by a poem of the same title by Usman Awang, and scored for piano, violin, cello, clarinet, flute and percussion, it pursued an angry and grimly aggressive course.

The tolling of a temple gong marked the death knell of a centuries-old and beloved institution, an indictment of relentless urban progress. The procession of the flautist and clarinettist offstage at the end was also symbolic of the spirits of nature leaving and silenced, never to return.

Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu’s rather well-known A Way A Lone (1981) was serene by comparison. Its palpable melancholy was keenly brought out by the string quartet led by violinist Shaun Ho (above). Although atonal in most part, the spare post-impressionist scoring with tiny wisps of melody had a quality of being unusually luxuriant and sonorous.

All the above would still not have prepared the audience for the shuddering impact of Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire (Moonstruck Pierrot), the seminal 20^th century masterpiece composed 101 years ago. Originally conceived for the cabaret, it makes use of the vocal technique known as Sprechstimme or Sprechgesang, where the performer hovers in limbo between singing and speaking.

Stealing the show was soprano Khor Ai Ming, sporting facial paint, a wild hairdo and attired in commedia dell’arte finery. In the 21 short movements sung in German, she lived and acted out its riotous range of emotions and moods. Whether punch-drunk or suspended in a semi-trance, it was difficult to tell, mostly because of the absence of texts or translations which would have greatly helped the listener traverse its numerous thorny brambles.

So one would have to rely on her vocal cues and facial improvisations to imagine what was going on. Listening to a recording will easily test one’s patience, and several members of the audience did walk out mid-way, but it was Khor’s stunning one-woman wrecking crew which kept everyone else transfixed.

Khor Ai Ming appearing truly moonstruck at the end of the work.

The six instrumentalists led by conductor Wong were close to excellent, transparent and incisive in their razor-keen responses. Not to mention pianist Bertrand Tan, flautist Cheryl Lim, clarinettist Tan Boon Ping, violinist Clarissa Ng, violist He Ziping or cellist James Ng’s contributions would be remiss. All of them, and Khor singing only her second Pierrot, deserve to be part of local musical history.  

       
Note: Khor Ai Ming and The Magnetic Band gave the Singapore premiere of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire several years ago in the same venue.