FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE / Yuri Bashmet & Youth Symphony Orchestra of Russia / Review

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE

Yuri Bashmet &

Youth Symphony Orchestra of Russia

University Cultural Centre Concert Hall

Wednesday (12 September 2018)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 17 September 2018 with the title "Singapore violinist a bright spark".

It is always interesting to hear a youth orchestra from the land that gave the world talents like Kissin, Vengerov and Volodos. Their last names alone will register a stir of recognition, as would Bashmet, founder-director and chief conductor of the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Russia, who also happens to be the world’s most famous violist.

Singapore was the first stop in the 100-strong orchestra’s Asian tour, where it gave a two-and-a-half hour concert. The exhausting programme opened with the Asian premiere of Kyrgyzstan-born Kuzma Bodrov’s Journey Through The Orchestra, a fancy set of variations on Paganini’s popular Caprice No.24. The music traversed through baroque, classical, romantic and contemporary styles with pastiches on Bach, Mozart, Grieg and Prokofiev trotted out like a primer of music history.

The young players were over-stretched by its elaborations, sounding raw and exposed at times, not helped by the venue’s dry and unflattering acoustics. Inexperience also hampered the ensemble while accompanying violinist Tatiana Samouil in Tchaikovsky’s indestructible Violin Concerto, where they were not always in sync.

A former prizewinner at the Tchaikovsky’s International Violin Competition, Samouil exuded a warm and sumptuous tone in a reading that was conducted at a broad and almost leisurely tempo. Only in the vivacious finale did sparks fly, but sounded like a mad scramble towards the end.

The brightest spark of the first half came in 11-year-old Singaporean violinist Chloe Chua’s partnership with Samouil in Vivaldi’s Concerto in A minor for two violins (RV.522). That the Menuhin Competition winner was able to hold her own, matching every move of a professional four times her age and two heads taller was just stunning. And she looked like enjoying every bit of the outing too.

  

All doubts about the orchestra’s prowess were dispelled in a stirring and heartfelt performance of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. This was the composer’s attempt at atonement after being criticised by Stalin for an earlier opera deemed decadent and anti-Soviet. Another failure would have meant the gulag, or worse.

The slashing discords that opened the four-movement work were played with conviction and unanimity of purpose. Soon decibels piled on with a juggernaut of a march, whose sheer volume and stridency was potentiated by the hall. With eardrums pricked and pinned to the wall, one’s full attention was gotten but the pain was certainly worth the effort. The 2^nd movement’s irony was less than subtle, deliberately so, but what truly tugged at the heart was the Largo slow movement.

Bashmet yielded a feast of catharsis from the strings, and when one thought the level of pathos could not be bested, a new high was attained. Even the banality of the finale, described in the programme notes as a “triumphal march”, could not disguise the passion displayed all around. True depth of emotion and artistry shines through, especially at knife-point and the threat of death.  

           

CD Review (The Straits Times, March 2018)

SHOSTAKOVICH

Violin Sonata Op.134 / 24 Preludes Op.34

SERGEI DOGADIN, Violin

NIKOLAI TOKAREV, Piano

Naxos 8.573753 / ****1/2

The young Russian violinist Sergei Dogadin, 1^st prize winner of the recently-concluded Singapore International Violin Competition 2018, had already made several recordings before his Singapore triumph. Just issued is this 2016 recording of violin music from the great Soviet era Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975).

Shostakovich wrote only one violin sonata, a late work from 1968 when he was in ill health. Opening with the darkest of moods that was typical in his old age, it closes with a passacaglia of unremitting bleakness. In between is a savage scherzo of lacerating abrasiveness that does little to lighten the ambience. 

Dogadin and compatriot pianist Nikolai Tokarev are faithful advocates and are excellent in execution. They, however, but do not quite match the intensity in the definitive Melodiya recording by its dedicatee David Oistrakh with Sviatoslav Richter on piano. 

On the other extreme of the spectrum are violin transcriptions of Shostakovich’s youthful 24 Preludes Op.34 (1932-33) for piano which are short, varied, and often laced with sardonic humour. 

Violinist Dmitri Tsyganov, a member of the Beethoven Quartet, had transcribed 19 of these, leaving the set tantalisingly incomplete. It was left for contemporary Russian composer Lera Auerbach to fill in the blanks. Dogadin and Tokarev capture well the music's schizophrenic shifts and multifarious nuances in rather enjoyable performances. 

CD Review (The Straits Times, November 2017)

SHOSTAKOVICH Violin Concerto No.1

  NICOLA BENEDETTI, Violin

  Bournemouth Symphony / Kirill Karabits

  Decca 478 8758 / ****1/2

SHOSTAKOVICH Cello Concertos

  ALISA WEILERSTEIN, Cello

  Bavarian Radio Symphony /

  Pablo Heras-Casado

  Decca 483 0835 / *****

The string concertos of Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) used to be the sacred preserve of venerable Russian soloists with a direct line to the composer himself, men like David Oistrakh and Mstislav Rostropovich who are sadly no longer with us. 

A new generation of young and glamourous artists have filled the void, including women like Viktoria Mullova, Midori, Sarah Chang and Hanna Chang. Now add British violinist Nicola Benedetti and American cellist Alisa Weilerstein to the list.  

Benedetti gives a deeply-felt reading of the First Violin Concerto (1947), without smoothing over the opening Nocturne's dark matter, and letting rip in the manic 2nd and 4^th movements. The finale's Burlesque with its wild Klezmer raves also scores with a direct and relentless attack. Her trademark sweetness of tone is reserved mostly for its coupling, Glazunov's Violin Concerto (1904), which comes from an earlier and more effable era of Russian music.

Weilerstein's performances of both cello concertos are high on dry wit and ironic humour. The more familiar First Cello Concerto (1959) also benefits from the excellent orchestral French horn soloist's outlandish interjections and whoops. 

The longer, darker and grimmer Second Cello Concerto (1966) deserves to be better known, and she pulls all the stops for an ultra-coherent performance. Insanity, levity and vulgarity have seldom found a more united front in these superb recordings.     

CD Review (The Straits Times, January 2017)

SHOSTAKOVICH 

Symphonies Nos. 5, 8 & 9

Boston Symphony Orchestra

ANDRIS NELSONS

Deutsche Grammophon 479 5201 (2 CDs) 

*****

Titled Shostakovich Under Stalin's Shadow, the Boston Symphony Orchestra's new cycle of symphonies by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) got off to a great start with the Tenth Symphony receiving the 2016 Gramophone Award in the Orchestral category. 

The second release featuring live performances of three symphonies is no less fine, however it necessitates three changes of discs to listen to the works in a chronological order. This makes the best sense if one wishes to follow the trajectory of the Soviet composer's changes in fortunes with regards to the totalitarian regime's policy upheavals and quixotic tastes.

Begin with the Incidental Music to Hamlet (1932) on Disc 2, with Shostakovich's alternating witty with sombre music, and then flip to Track 6 of Disc 1 for the outwardly triumphant Fifth Symphony (1937). This had been warmly received by the authorities and public alike as “a Soviet artist's reply to just criticism”, despite its hidden barbs. 

Then go back to Disc 2 for the grim wartime Eighth Symphony (1943) with its “toccata of death” movements and a strangely laid-back finale, before returning to Disc 1 for his biggest joke of all. The slapstick Ninth Symphony (1945) is a mocking sneer at final victory in the Great Patriotic War. Listen for the terrific brass of the Boston Symphony, their pride and joy in this memorable album.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, April 2016)

PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto No.2

TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No.1

BEATRICE RANA, Piano

Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

ANTONIO PAPPANO, Conductor

Warner Classics 0825646009091 / *****

The 22-year-old Italian pianist Beatrice Rana shot into the limelight after winning the Silver Medal at the 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Her highly impressive debut concerto recording features the same concerto she played in Fort Worth, Texas: Sergei Prokofiev's Second Piano Concerto.

In four movements, it is gradually eclipsing the popularity of his Third Piano Concerto, simply because more young pianists are now able to cope with its immense technical demands. Take for example the 1^st movement's massive cadenza which also doubles up as its development. Or the 2^nd movement's motor-like scurry of semi-quavers which never lets up for a second.

Rana takes these in her stride, wallows in the grotesqueries of the balletic 3^rd movement and finishes off the tempestuous finale with breathtaking aplomb. She is less excitable or volatile than her closest rival, the flashier Yuja Wang (on Deutsche Grammophone) who was recorded live, but this reading stands multiple listens. 

Just as brilliant is her reading of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto, which in terms of visceral thrills, equals that of Martha Argerich's famous recordings. If Rana is the future of the piano, listeners have a lot to look forward to.

SHOSTAKOVICH PLAYS SHOSTAKOVICH

Warner Classics 0825646155019 (2CDs) / ****1/2 

It may not be common knowledge that the great Soviet era Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) once harboured thoughts of being a virtuoso pianist. He even won a diploma at the 1927 Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw, which came as a bitter disappointment for him. 

Thankfully he turned to composition thereafter and never looked back. These recordings of Shostakovich playing his own music date mostly from 1958 when he was already a famous and established composer.

His playing is best exemplified in the two Piano Concertos (with Andre Cluytens conducting) and the Three Fantastic Dances, which shows him to be skittish, mercurial and almost improvisational, very unlike the more studied and disciplined accounts of modern-day pianists. More sober but equally persuasive is a selection of the Preludes and Fugues (Op.87), where his clarity in voicing of individual contrapuntal threads becomes paramount. 

Also priceless is hearing him accompany the great Mstislav Rostropovich in the lyrical Cello Sonata in D major. The date and venue of this rarity remains unknown, but the performance is a diamond among assorted gems.  

DOHNANYI & SHOSTAKOVICH / VCH Chamber Series / Review

DOHNANYI & SHOSTAKOVICH

VCH Chamber Series

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (28 February 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 1 March 2016 with the title "Light-hearted ambiguous finale a teaser".

The Victoria Concert Hall Chamber Series organised by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra often brings out and dusts off interesting corners of chamber repertoire not regularly heard in concert or on disc. This offering of Hungarian and Russian music was no exception.

The Hungarian composers Zoltan Kodaly and Erno Dohnanyi were contemporaries and colleagues. While the former espoused nationalism and revolutionised music education, the latter made his name as a piano virtuoso. As creators, both were conservatives beside their compatriot Bela Bartok.

The trio of violinist Lillian Wang, violist Tan Wee-Hsin and cellist Chan Wei Shing made no secret that their selection of music by both Hungarians was little more than delightful lollipops. Kodaly's Intermezzo (1905) was infused with rustic charm, led by a folksy violin melody gliding over rocking rhythmic accompaniment, with contrasts provided by a bucolic drone in its central section.

More substantial was Dohnanyi's 5-movement Serenade in C major. Ever the academic, he included a lyrical Romanza, a furious fugal Scherzo and Variations on a chorale theme, bookended by two march-like outer movements. There was much to enjoy in the fine interplay and balance achieved by the threesome, with all voices sharing equal honours.  

These were pleasant diversions, distressingly slight next to the imposing Piano Quintet in G minor by Dmitri Shostakovich. The original pianist, the Russian Viktoria Postnikova, was indisposed for undisclosed reasons, and her place filled by Filipino pianist and conservatory don Albert Tiu.

Any hint of disappointment was immediately dispelled as Tiu was as rock-solid as they come, registering an earth-shaking G minor chord and opening flourish that was to set the tone of the work. The first two movements comprised a Prelude and Fugue, looking forward to his  monumental set of 24 Preludes and Fugues for piano in homage to Bach. 

Alongside Tiu was the excellent string quartet of violinists Ye Lin and Cao Can, violist Zhang Manchin and cellist Wang Zihao, all of whom have or had conservatory ties. One would be hard put to find the elegiac Fugue played with such utmost clarity, building from the first violin's simple line and rising to an impassioned climax before gently receding.

The jesting Scherzo had a bounding and bumptious quality that was to catch listeners by surprise. After so much seriousness, was this brief punch-drunk detour meant to be a tongue-in-cheek riposte? The music sobered up again in the Intermezzo and here was an outpouring of grief that only strings know how. Its sobbing quality was perfectly captured by the players, which led directly to a most puzzling of finales.

Was its apparent light-heartedness a sly dig against Stalinist authoritarianism? The wry humour and quiet ending was played straight and without irony by the quintet, which left its ambiguous conclusion all the more teasing. The hearty applause garnered suggested that nobody in the audience was going to ask for their money back.  

SSO CONCERT: LENINGRAD SYMPHONY / Review

LENINGRAD SYMPHONY

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Friday (26 February 2016)

An edited version of this review was published in The Straits Times on 29 February 2016 with the title "Madcap finale pulls out all stops".

If one thought Shostakovich to be a box-office risk for a concert, that opinion might have to be revised following this all-Shostakovich programme by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra conducted by renowned Russian conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky. This, if anything, was the best possible advertisement for the Soviet era Russian composer on the 110^th anniversary year of his birth.

The concert began with his First Piano Concerto, a youthful work scored for piano, obbligato trumpet and strings. Its appeal lies in an anarchic spirit, one born of the circus, vaudeville and popular sources, while cocking a snook at the musical conventions of Beethoven and Haydn. Equal to the task was pianist Viktoria Postnikova, wife of the conductor, who seemed to play it cool at the outset but soon unleashed its barrel-load of vitriol.

Droll understatement and surprises when one least expects were part of the game, and SSO Principal trumpeter Jon Paul Dante's entry was a surreptitious one. He was complicit in this musical joke too, interjecting at crucial points and having his own wallow in the slow movement, accompanied by languid waltzing strings. 

A madcap finale pulled out all stops, with cheeky quotes and comedic repartee between piano and trumpet. This laugh-a-minute routine culminated in a cadenza that seemed to skirt off  the edge of a precipice before closing in a perfectly punched-out series of C major chords.

C major was also the key of the Seventh Symphony, or the Leningrad Symphony as it was composed in the Russian city that was under siege by the Nazis in 1941. In the 900-day battle, over a million Russians perished, and this symphony was to be a universal symbol of Soviet resistance and courage. Shostakovich later revealed a different angle; it was “the Leningrad Stalin destroyed, and Hitler merely finished off”.

Interpretations of the work have been subject to controversy. Is this absolute music, programme music or hubristic propaganda? The programme booklet listed its playing time at an optimistic 69 minutes, but the actual performance was a distended 83 minutes. Despite that disparity, there was not a slow coach to be found in Rozhdestvensky's reading.

He conducted from the floor, but his economical beats conveyed volumes. The opening had suitable pomp and heft, with empty bombast left at the door.  The infamous Fascist march sequence began as a wheeze from Roberto Alvarez's crystal-clear piccolo, interrupted by Mark Suter's obstinate snare-drum beat. The cycle of repetition, a bolero of death and destruction through a spiralling crescendo, built up inexorably to one which seemed nigh insupportable. At one point, the deafening drone of air-raid sirens could be imagined.

Survive and thrive it did, with the orchestra fully responsive to the conductor's seemingly minimal cues. In this 4-movement work of vasts contrasts, it was not just the blustery bits that impressed. Both central movements mirrored each other with gentle beginnings and violent upheavals in the middle, and much care was taken to colour and differentiate these shifts.

A chamber-like quality to the playing revealed an unexpected intimacy. Take the 3^rd movement for instance, with solos from Jin Ta's flute, Concertmaster Igor Yuzefovich's violin and a smiling melody from the violas. However it was the valedictory finale, rising heroically and majestically from the ashes, which cued the shouts of bravo and a standing ovation. For this was a great performance of a great symphony led by a great conductor. 

Conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky
shows his Shostakovich score to the audience
and then goes home with it!

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, October 2015)

NORDIC TRUMPET CONCERTS

OLE EDVARD ANTONSEN, Trumpet

Nordic Chamber Orchestra 

Christian Lindberg (Conductor)

BIS 1548 / ****1/2

Do not let the title of Nordic Trumpet Concertos deter you the listener, as Norwegian virtuoso trumpeter Ole Edvard Antonsen's anthology does not contain a single atonal work, but rather an eclectic mix of different modern styles which are both accessible and engaging. The Finn Harri Wessman's Trumpet Concerto (1987) is both congenial and melancolic, with a main theme that recurs in the finale, heightening the trumpet's ability to sing the moody blues. This is contrasted with Swede Britta Bystrom’s Forvillelser (Delusions, 2005), a more dissonant work that is an unsettling portrait of social isolation and psychosis set in the urban landscape of Stockholm.

The cornet features in Alfred Janson's Norwegian Dance (1996), which has elements of minimalism, with a single theme repeated through cycles of varying tempos, from slow to fast and back to slow again. A manic kind of waltz results, dedicated to the memory of Rikard Nordraak, the short-lived nationalist composer and close friend of Edvard Grieg. Celebrated Swedish trombonist and conductor Christian Lindberg's jazzy Akbank Bunka (2004) is the most extroverted work in the collection, derived from Turkish and Japanese inspirations. Antonsen's exuberant yet sensitive playing is recommended listening for all brass enthusiasts.

BOOK IT:

THE SOUND OF THE NORDIC WITH

OLE EDVARD ANTONSEN AND BAND

Tuesday 13 October 2015 

Victoria Concert Hall at 8 pm

Tickets available at SISTIC

SHOSTAKOVICH Cantatas

Soloists & Estonian Concert Choir

Estonian National Symphony

PAAVO JÄRVI

Erato 0825646166664 / ****1/2

This year marks the 40^th death anniversary of Soviet era Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), which will account for the rush of new recordings of his music. This disc of three rarely performed cantatas demonstrates how a composer's art may be compromised by the political and social milieu he occupies. While Stalin was alive, composers' works were to glorify the State and party policies, Hence the blissful optimism and lack of irony of The Sun Shines Over Our Motherland (1952), which sounds like an extended national anthem at 14 minutes. A longer pot-boiler, The Song Of The Forests (1949) praising USSR's reforestation programme, won Shostakovich the Stalin Prize First Class and 100 thousand roubles despite having been denounced as a formalist and enemy-of-the-people merely a year before.     

Contrast these with The Execution Of Stepan Razin (1964), with texts by Yevgeny Yetuvshenko, a mightily serious work which decries political persecution and totalitarianism. Stalin had died in 1953 and his legacy was thrashed by Krushchev shortly after that. Its dark and bitter subject makes this work the one of three most likely to be performed in concert outside of Russia. The performances by Paavo Jarvi's Estonian forces are examplary and are vividly recorded. The only drawback is the absence of texts and translations, which would have enhanced the appreciation of this period-specific music. Recommended listening, nonetheless.  

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, September 2015)

LISZT / SCRIABIN/ MEDTNER

POOM PROMMACHART, Piano

Champs Hill 104 / ****1/2

From the “Land of Smiles” comes this ultra-serious recital programme by young pianist Poom Prommachart. He studied in Singapore's Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and London's Royal College of Music, and has won 1^st prizes at international competitions in his native Thailand, Serbia and England. The meat comes in two major works celebrating the theme and variations form. Liszt's Variations on Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen is a formal edifice built upon an austere motif from the Bach cantata of the same title, and closes in a blaze of major key fireworks.

The other is Nikolai Medtner's Second Improvisation Op.47, a massive half-hour'a meditation on The Song Of The Water-Nymph with 15 variations which run the full gamut of a pianist's technical armamentarium. There are not many recordings of it, and Poom's very well thought out and paced account ranks high along with the best of them, including Earl Wild and Hamish Milne's famous readings. The fill-ups are Scriabin's Ninth Sonata (known as the Black Mass), with its murky necromancy balanced by the Rachmaninov's brilliant transcription of Fritz Kreisler's Liebesfreud. This is an impressive debut CD and excellent calling card for a rising musician with a lot to say.   

SHOSTAKOVICH Piano Concertos

ANDREI KOROBEINIKOV, Piano

Lahti Symphony / OKKO KAMU

Mirare 155 / ****1/2

The two piano concertos of Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) are without doubt the lightest of his six concertos, and are also among his most popular works.  The First Concerto in C minor (Op.35) is unusually scored with solo trumpet and strings, a double comedy act with both solo instruments cocking a snook at the classical conventions of Beethoven and Haydn while channelling popular cabaret and dancehall music. Its rip-roaring finale could easily be the soundtrack of a 1920s silent movie starring the Keystone Cops. It is best heard played with a poker-face and tongue firmly in cheek.

The Second Concerto in F major (Op.102) was composed for his teenaged son Maxim, and for once Shostakovich's stock-in-trade sarcasm and irony is held at bay until the finale's spoof on Hanon's laborious finger exercises. Both enjoyable concertos get sparkling performances by young Russian pianist Andrei Korobeinikov and SSO Principal Guest Conductor Okko Kamu's Finnish orchestra.  In between the concertos is a kaleidoscopic reading of Shostakovich's 24 Preludes (Op.34), which opens with a brief salute to Bach before going its own iconoclastic path, alternating droll and uproarious numbers, which only he knows how. Here Korobeinikov is his own master, and this wonderfully nuanced reading ranks among the best in the catalogue.      

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, July 2015)

BRAHMS Symphonies Nos.3 & 4

Transcribed by Idil Biret

IDIL BIRET, Piano

Idil Biret Archive 8.571303-04 (2 CDs) 

*****

It may seem a thankless task to transcribe symphonies for the piano, essentially reducing orchestral textures and sonorities to the constraints of the two hands and ten fingers of a single performer. This is essentially what the venerated Turkish pianist Idil Biret did with two of Johannes Brahms symphonies, working on a pre-existing score for piano four hands and performing them in concert. The recordings from two such events in Paris in 1995 and 1997 are revealing. The architecture of the music is retained, and while some colours are lost, how Biret voices the parts and brings out the music's grandeur with stunning panache are what make these documents relevant.    

Tempos are broader, and there are some missed notes in the heat of action, but these seem almost inconsequential. Imagine what Franz Liszt did for Beethoven's symphonies or Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique in private performances during his heyday. Biret has even recorded these, and Brahms' Third and Fourth Symphonies receive the same grandstanding treatment, which sound better with repeated listening. Biret also includes performances of Brahms’ Paganini Variations, and selections of Hungarian Dances and Capriccios, all virtuoso fare. Pianophiles need not hesitate.  

SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No.14

Soloists with Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

Vasily Petrenko, Conductor

Naxos 8.573132 / *****

The Fourteenth Symphony (1969) of Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) is more of a song cycle in 11 movements, scored for two solo voices, strings and percussion, rather than a conventional symphony. The work is a setting of poems (in Russian translations) by Federico Garcia Lorca, Guillaume Apollinaire, Rainer Maria Rilke, all of whom died prematurely. Composed in relatively ill health, the overriding theme is mortality and the anticipation of death. Every movement with the exception of the 8th (The Zaparozhe Cossacks Reply To The Sultan Of Constantinople, a rebuke against authoritarianism), is death-obsessed in some way or another.  

Its highly dramatic content is arguably far better experienced in a concert hall, especially movements like Malaguena (literally a dance of death), the mock-comical On Watch (foreshadowing death on the battlefield) and even the very brief Conclusion with a duet proclaiming “Death is great / We are his...,” which ends abruptly and without any fanfare. The soloists, Alexander Vinogradov (a true bass in the great Russian tradition) and Israeli soprano Gal James, give vividly chilling performances. There is no coupling to the final instalment of Vasily Petrenko's all-round excellent Shostakovich symphony cycle with his Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, but what could possibly follow this excellent and gripping recording of Shostakovich's darkest and most bitter symphony?  

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, July 2014)

 SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No.4

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

VASILY PETRENKO

Naxos 8.573188 / *****

Only one of Dmitri Shostakovich’s purely orchestral symphonies has not been performed in Singapore: the Fourth Symphony No.4 in C minor, arguably his greatest, and for good reason too. It plays for over an hour, calls for a massive orchestra with strings, winds, brass and percussion multiplied manifold, and is the epitome of shrillness and stridency. Completed in 1936, the symphony was immediately withdrawn following the scandal of his opera Lady Macbeth Of Mtsensk, which was roundly criticised by Stalin himself. The content of the 3-movement symphony may be called to question for its extreme dissonance, raucous violence and in-your-face ironies. Its litany of mocking marches and grotesque dances are a barely-concealed criticism of contemporary Soviet society.

This performance in a highly successful recorded symphony cycle led by young Russian conductor Vasily Petrenko does not stint on the music’s bleakness and bathos. The woodwinds, brass and percussion are particularly spectacular in spewing out the bile and vitriol that permeates the work from beginning to end. And when a seemingly triumphant C major apotheosis threatens to restore a semblance of sanity and faith, the symphony peters off to an enervating and whimpering close. This is perhaps music’s most eloquent portrayal of futility and despair, in a most vivid reading with no quarter given.    

  

PAGANINI VARIATIONS

TZIMON BARTO, Piano

Ondine 1230-2D (2 CDs) / ***1/2

This new recording by maverick American pianist Tzimon Barto brings together the great piano works inspired by Italian virtuoso violinist-composer Niccolo Paganini’s famous Caprice No.24 in A minor for unaccompanied violin. Itself a set of variations, the hair-raising caprice has sparked the imagination of composers over the year, who have added their own variations into the mix. Barto opens with Franz Liszt’s 6 Grand Etudes After Paganini, with Etude No.6 being a free transcription of the afore-mentioned caprice. Etude No.3 is, of course, the ubiquitous La Campanella. Barto’s seemingly effortless technique is beyond reproach but he takes plenty of liberties in tempos and dynamics. In Brahms’s fearsome set of Paganini Variations Op.35, that includes re-writing a variation or two.

For 20^th century Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski’s Paganini Variations for two pianos, he plays both parts which are overdubbed to spectacular effect. The major disappointment is in Rachmaninov’s Paganini Rhapsody, where Barto is partnered by the Schleswig Holstein Festival Orchestra conducted by his mentor Christoph Eschenbach. Here he cannot resist the temptation of pulling and stretching tempos out of shape. The famous 18^th Variation, emotional climax of the work, sounds wilful and almost interminable in these hands. The double-CD set is priced at the cost of a single disc. This is manna for the curious and seekers of the unusual (and perverse).

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, August 2013)

SHOSTAKOVICH Symphonies No.1 & 5

London Philharmonic / Royal Concertgebouw / Bernard Haitink

Decca 478 4214 / ****1/2

The Soviet-era Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) wrote 15 symphonies, essays which he referred to as “tombstones for the victims of Stalin”, that spanned his entire compositional career. Here are his two most accessible symphonies, ideal starting points for listeners wishing to explore his absorbing and intriguing legacy. The First Symphony (1925), composed when he was still a student of 19, reveals a striking originality, freshness of ideas and trademark dark humour that was to follow the rest of his life. Listen for the subtle quote from Wagner’s Tristan And Isolde in the finale, setting the precedent for further Wagner quotations in his Fifteenth Symphony.

The Fifth Symphony (1937) marked a landmark of his rehabilitation from “Western decadence” in the eyes of the Stalinist authorities. Its four movements, outwardly depicting struggle and ultimate triumph of the will, were deliberately ambiguous. Inwardly, they reflect a people oppressed under the yoke of authoritarianism. This is a super-budget-priced reissue of recordings by Dutch master Bernard Haitink from the early 1980s, when Shostakovich’s legacy was still being hotly debated. Was he a rebel or an apparatchik? The performances are technically impeccable, recorded in pristine sound, and tend to the more objective of views. Look to the late Russian conductors, notably Kirill Kondrashin (on Melodiya), for a more personally nuanced approach.

50 BEST ORGAN CLASSICS

EMI Classics 433316 2 (3 CDs) / ****

Must every collection of pipe organ music begin with J.S.Bach’s Toccata & Fugue in D minor? It is predictably the case with this budget box-set that crams 50 tracks within three discs. So it is better to start with CD 3, devoted to the great French organ tradition. It begins with Le Jardin Espendu and Litanies by Jehan Alain, killed in battle action at the age of 29 during the Second World War. Maurice Duruflé’s Prelude & Fugue On The Name Of Alain, which quotes the theme from Litanies, is also included here. Two movements from Leon Boellmann’s Suite Gothique are heard, and has anyone noticed that his imperious Toccata has the same melody as our Di Tanjung Katong? Virtuoso fare by Gigout, Mulet and Bonnet beckons, and the set closes with the finale from Saint-Saens’s Organ Symphony.

Baroque music occupies CD 1, and it is not just Bach, but Buxtehude, Clerambault, Couperin, Daquin and Handel’s most famous organ concerto, nicknamed The Cuckoo And The Nightingale. CD 2 has the wedding favourites; Mendelssohn’s Wedding March, Jeremiah Clarke’s Trumpet Voluntary, Purcell’s Trumpet Tune and Widor’s Toccata are all here. The roster of organists is distinguished, including Simon Preston, Nicholas Kynaston (who inaugurated Victoria Concert Hall’s Klais organ), Jane Parker-Smith and Wayne Marshall among them. To the record label’s credit, even the locations of the individual organs have been named. There are no accompanying notes, but this is a pretty good sampler for budding organ enthusiasts and beginners.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, December 2012)

 

 

LATINO

MILOS KARADAGLIC, Guitar

Deutsche Grammophon 479 0063 / *****

 

Montenegrin guitarist Milos Karadaglic’s second recording for the Yellow Label is possibly the best recent anthology of Latin American music for the guitar. Not only does he imbue the hot-blooded yet sentimental music with a wealth of feeling, his stupendous technique holds up to the most virtuosic pages. Just hear his takes on the Paraguayan Agustin Barrios Mangore’s breath-taking tremolo studies, Un Sueno En La Floresta and El Ultimo Tremolo, which come across with silky smoothness and the greatest of ease, almost as natural as breathing. The Brazilian pieces best reveal his amazing range, graceful and lilting in Villa-Lobos’s Etude No.1 and Mazurka-Choro, while rhythmically exuberant in Uruguayan Isaias Savio’s Batucada and Argentine Jorge Morel’s Dansa Brasileira.    

 

Milos is joined by the European FilmPhilharmonie’s Studio Orchestra conducted by Christopher Israel in four works. Tango-meister Astor Piazzolla gets pride of place with a suitably vibrant run in Libertango and the more pensive Oblivion. His mentor Carlos Gardel’s Por Una Cabeza, Cuban Osvaldo Ferres’s Quizas, Quizas, Quizas and Uruguayan Gerardo Matos Rodriguez’s La Cumparsita (in solo arrangement) are some of those pieces one hears over and over, and wonders what their titles are. It really does not matter, when the usually staid German recording company lets down its hair to have some serious fun. Highly recommended.    

 

 

 

 

SHOSTAKOVICH Chamber Symphonies

Chamber Orchestra of Europe

Deutsche Grammophon  477 5442 (2CDs) / ****1/2

 

The four Chamber Symphonies by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) are arrangements for chamber orchestra of his string quartets by the late Russian violist and conductor Rudolf Barshai. The string quartets are already regular repertoire works, and the chamber symphonies are beginning to gain popularity with audiences. The Symphonies Op.110a and 118a, scored wholly for strings, follow the same opus numbers as the Quartets Nos.8 and 10 respectively. The former was dedicated to “victims of fascism and war” and semi-autobiographical in content, containing quotations from a number of earlier works as well as the D-S-C-H motif, based on the German spelling of his name. This is an obvious start point in the discovery of his most personal music, as is the moving Passacaglia from the latter symphony.

 

The Symphonies Op.73a and 83a are similarly amplifications of Quartets Nos.3 and 4, now with the addition of woodwinds and percussion. The mock gaiety and dripping irony of the original music is well captured, and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe conducted by Bashai himself performs with great incisiveness and trenchancy. The very substantial bonus is the arrangement for piano trio, celesta and percussion of Shostakovich’s Fifteenth Symphony by Viktor Derevianko. His enigmatic final symphony from 1972 is already lightly scored and this transcription further reduces it to bare bones. More importantly, its anarchic spirit with liberal quotes from Rossini and Wagner is not lost in this droll account from Kremerata Musica led by violinist Gidon Kremer. While some will prefer the original Shostakovich, these beefed up and pared down versions of his music have much to offer. 

 



CD Reviews (The Straits Times, May 2012)

A MUSICAL ODYSSEY

LYNNETTE SEAH, Violin

****1/2

Violinist Lynnette Seah has been a permanent fixture in Singapore’s musical firmament as long as most can remember. From her 1960s Talentime television appearances, becoming the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s first leader in 1979, to winning the Cultural Medallion in 2006, she is the nation’s home-grown talent personified. 

Her debut CD, dedicated to her late mother the pianist Lau Biau Chin, is devoted mostly to short lyrical encore pieces. Playing on a 1750 G.B.Gabrielli violin, she produces a beautiful, singing tone that make works like Massenet’s Meditation from Thaïs, Elgar’s Salut d’Amour,  Rachmaninov’s Vocalise, Gluck’s Melody from Orpheus and the Bach-Gounod Ave Maria sound totally delectable.

There are some improvisatory touches to Anton Rubinstein’s Melody in F and a rare airing of Joachim Raff’s Cavatina, once a very popular tune but now almost forgotten. Her excellent accompanists are pianist Shane Thio and SSO Harp Principal Gulnara Mashurova. The lovely slow movement from Bruch’s First Violin Concerto, with the SSO directed by Shui Lan, comes as a bonus. A pity that the whole work was not included, for that would have amply displayed the other side of Lynnette, one as a fearless virtuoso.  

This CD is available at the SSO pushcart on evenings of SSO concerts. 

SHOSTAKOVICH 

Symphonies No.6 & 12

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic 

VASILY PETRENKO

Naxos 8.572658 / ****1/2

The symphonies of Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) have found a true champion in the recent Gramophone Award winning efforts of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra led by its young Russian music director Vasily Petrenko. This latest release simply confirms the rave notices. The Sixth Symphony is the most underrated of the 15 symphonies, possibly due to its unusual form. 

It begins with a Largo – surely the finest of his slow movements - that is longer than the two closing scherzo-like movements combined. A case of solemnity followed by madcap antics, tragedy juxtaposed with comedy, was how Shostakovich viewed Soviet society in the 1930s. The orchestra responds to these changes in mood and dynamics with great immediacy.

Critics have derided the Twelfth Symphony of 1961, subtitled “The Year 1917” as his worst, akin to spouting Communist propaganda. A programmatic symphony with narrative movements, it portrayed the historic events of the Bolshevik revolution that overthrew the Tsar (hence the rightful sequel to the Eleventh Symphony, “The Year 1905”) and establishing the Soviet republic. 

Overlooking the socialist agenda, this is still a masterfully crafted work with sobering calms and rousing heroic climaxes, the sort that would keep Comrade Krushchev and his politburo happy. Such was the fine line treaded by artists in a totalitarian state. The non-histrionic approach taken by Petrenko and unerring playing of his charges make it sound coherent, even as a piece of absolute music.