CLAUDE DEBUSSY: MUSICIEN FRANÇAIS / Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music / Review

CLAUDE DEBUSSY: MUSICIEN FRANÇAIS

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory

Victoria Concert Hall

Saturday (24 March 2018)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 26 March 2018 with the title "Fitting tribute to Debussy".

Who were the great composers to transform music in the 20^th century? Claude Debussy (1862-1918) would surely head the list. This concert by the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory, joined by seven members of Japan's Suntory Hall Chamber Music Academy, commemorated the 100^th anniversary of the French composer's death.

In a well-curated two-hour programme, a cross-section of Debussy's instrumental and chamber music was explored chronologically. These spanned his creative output, from early derivative pieces, his trademark “impressionism” (a term he despised) to simpler textures of later works. His was a unique harmonic language playing on colour and timbre, one that was highly personal yet evolved over the years.

Pretty as his Piano Trio in G major sounded, from violinist Rodion Synchyshyn, cellist Wang Yu Qi and pianist Natsumi Kuboyama, it merely echoed the Belle Epoque's salon charm. It would take some years before arriving at the sinuous flute solo of Syrinx, hauntingly performed by Lu Yin, with a musky scent wafting from the circle-seats above.

Edouard Manet's Fawn

Its tonal ambiguity scandalised listeners, as did the opening of Prélude a l'aprés-midi d'un faune (Afternoon of the Fawn), now heard on two pianos by Pualina Lim and Koh Kai Jie. The sheer sumptuousness was matched by Danse sacrée et danse profane, with excellent harpist Charmaine Teo partnered by 12 string players conducted by Chong Wai Lun.

These dances displayed a yin and yang that informed Debussy's music, sometimes sounding almost oriental, such as in Fêtes Galantes (Book 1) with soprano Li Wei-Wei and pianist Foo Yi Xuan in three songs. Similarly, the wistful slow movement from the String Quartet received a sensitive reading from violinists Yoko Ishikura and Zhang Zhou Yaodong, violist Ho Qian Hui and cellist Aya Kitagaki.

Antoine Watteau's
La Embarquement pour Cythere

The  piano featured prominently. Chang Yun-Hua polished off L'isle joyeuse (The Happy Island), inspired by revelry in a Watteau painting, while Steven Tanus delighted in the graceful rhythms of Serenade for the Doll and The Snow Is Dancing from Children's Corner Suite. Piece de resistance was the central movement of En blanc et noir from Adriana Chew and Gabriel Hoe (2 pianos), where peaceful chords were intruded upon by the Lutherian hymn A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, depicting German belligerance in this wartime work.     

Debussy with his daughter Chouchou.

By Debussy's final years, he had gone back to his Gallic roots, espousing its musical virtues in the Violin Sonata (violinist Zhang and pianist Choi Woo Joo) and Sonata for flute, viola and harp (Lu, violist Yugo Inoue and Teo). The latter's spare and transparent sonorities were to influence Toru Takemitsu, Japan's greatest composer, many years later.

Debussy with Stravinsky
(Photo taken by Erik Satie)

A tribute from rival composer Igor Stravinsky, some 20 years Debussy's junior, was in order. The two had played Stravinsky's ballet The Rite Of Spring on piano, and its opening dances were brilliantly re-enacted by the crimson-gowned duo of Luong Khanh Nhi and Muse Ye on a single keyboard. To close, 23 musicians led by conductor Wilson Ong mastered Stravinsky's Symphonies For Winds, a memorial to Debussy, which made for a fittingly sonorous requiem.  

RESONATES / Photographs of Suntory Hall Chamber Music Academy & Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Chamber Concert at THE NATIONAL GALLERY

Now we know that the Singapore Courtyard at The National Gallery is a good place to hold concerts. On Saturday (14 May 2016), the Suntory Hall Chamber Music Academy and Yong Siew Toh Conservatory held a joint chamber concert featuring the complete works that were performed the night before. There were three parts to the concert, commencing at 2.30pm, 3.30pm and 4.30pm in the afternoon.

I made it on time to catch the second and third parts, which featured Chausson's Concert for violin, piano and string quartet, Takemitsu's Le Son Calligraphie and Dvorak's Second String Quintet in complete performances. The acoustics were surprisingly good, and the sound projected could be clearly heard way up on the 5th storey of the Gallery. The views were quite spectacular too. The wonderful thing was in this "Promenade" concert, one could come and go as one wished, and everybody still had a good time.

Chausson's Concert.

Japanese pianist Kosuke Akimoto was all eyes on
violinist Oleksandr Korniev, who now looks like
the fiddler in Marc Chagall's paintings.

Those who forbid people from taking photos
at a concert, take that!!!

Can you spot musicians from the Tokyo Quartet
and T'ang Quartet seated in the audience?

A double quartet performed
Takemitsu's Le Son Calligraphie.

An aerial view of Dvorak's String Quintet No.2

That's amore for you!

All the 17 performers and their mentors.

CHAMBER CONCERT / Suntory Hall Chamber Music Academy & Yong Siew Toh Conservatory / Review

CHAMBER CONCERT by

Suntory Hall Chamber Music Academy

& Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music

Conservatory Concert Hall

Friday (13 May 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 16 May 2016 with the title "Japan-Singapore tie-up".  

In conjunction with celebrating 50 years of diplomatic ties between Japan and Singapore, a host of concerts this week has been curated under the banner of “Super Japan”. This chamber concert featured a collaboration between the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory and Tokyo's prestigious Suntory Hall Chamber Music Academy, which provides young professional musicians opportunities to work with established artists.

Eleven Japanese musicians performed with seven Conservatory students in a programme of movements from works to be showcased in their entirety at the National Gallery on the following day. The evening opened with the 1^st movement of Beethoven's Gassenhauer Trio (Op.11), which had Miao Kaiwen's clarinet blending resonantly with cellist Airi Niwa and pianist Asaki Ino. The balance was excellent, with crisply delivered phrasing allied by wholeness of tone.

Joined by violinist Oleksandr Korniev, the foursome floated dreamily through the ethereal sound world of Toru Takemitsu's Quatrain II. This is the same combination of instruments to be found in Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, with the clarinet providing the main thematic interest, complemented by lush harmonies on piano and string dissonances. This slow music of perpetual stasis left a deep impression, with its pauses, silences and echoes playing a major part in the discourse.   

The diametric opposite of Zen was Ernest Chausson's Concert, unusually scored for piano and violin, and string quartet. Given its demanding parts and ambitious symphonic pretentions, the six players could be excused for not totally gelling in its monumental opening movement.

Korniev's violin solo sounded more attuned to the string quartet (violinists Orest Smovzh and Martin Peh, violist Ho Qian Hui and cellist Christopher Mui), while leaving Kosuke Akimoto's florid piano almost a peripheral figure. With more rehearsal time in their hands, their close to flawless techniques will surely be matched by that more elusive quality called chemistry.

Takemitsu's Le Son Calligraphie for eight string players opened the second half. Seated in a semi-circle, each player in the conservatory's quartet was placed opposite a corresponding member of the L'espase String Quartet (violinists Gentaro Kagitomi and Kyo Ogata, violist Moe Fukui and cellist Takuya Yuhara) from Japan. This suggested a duel of sorts, but the musicians dovetailed seamlessly in its three short terse movements. While the major solos went to the Japanese players, they were well supported by the locals.

The final selections were two movements from Antonin Dvorak's String Quintet No.2 (Op.77), with Japan's Arpa Quartet (violinists Nao Tohara and Kyoko Ogawa, violist Ayane Koga and cellist Yu Ito) joined by the conservatory's Zhang Jianzhe on double-bass. By far the least forbidding music of the evening, the slow 3^rd movement radiated warmth in its stillness, almost approximating the spirituality to be found in Schubert's great String Quintet. The ebullience and cheer of its folk music-inspired finale closed the concert on an ecstatic high.

By the time these 18 players parade their wares in Suntory Hall on 10 June, a close to finished product beckons.