POTPOURRI: VIOLA IN DIFFERENT LIGHTS / Jeremy Chiew et al / Review

POTPOURRI: VIOLA 
IN DIFFERENT LIGHTS

Jeremy Chiew (Viola) et al

Esplanade Recital Studio

Saturday (23 March 2019)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 25 March 2019 with the title "Viola takes centre stage with agility".

If there is one person in Singapore who has championed the cause of the viola more than any other, that would be Jeremy Chiew. His sheer single-mindedness has resulted in an unprecedented series of concerts edging the seemingly unglamourous instrument, often the butt of musicians’ jokes, firmly into the limelight.

His latest viola showcase, lasting an hour without intermission, was filled with rarities. Under dim lighting, he opened with an Etude by Italian composer Bartolomeo Campagnoli, cast in the form of theme and variations. Exhibiting a wide and sonorous tone with much agility to match, he later explained that this was his encore for the concert.

A soft-spoken person with an understated and droll sense of humour, it was not altogether clear whether he was playing a joke on the audience or not. Nonetheless the hall lighting came on for two sets of songs with obliggato viola parts. First was English composer Benjamin Dale’s lovely setting of Come Away, Death from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

Pondering on the melancolic course of true love was tenor Adrian Poon, of Sing Song Club fame, who emoted longingly above Muse Ye’s piano accompaniment. Poon and Chiew alternated their parts and never the twain did their plaints meet.

More integrated were voice and viola in Adolf Busch’s Three Songs Op.3a, about more love, sadness and solitude, sung in German. Viola filled in the parts where the voice fell silent besides providing counterpoint and counter-melodies in these retiring and probing numbers.

The Busch songs were sandwiched by two solo Fantasias by Georg Philipp Telemann, originally for violin, performed on baroque viola by Taiwanese violist Amy Hsu. She gave a short spiel on her period instrument, which was smaller than its modern counterpoint, had neither chin nor shoulder rests, and utilised gut instead of metallic strings. The latter, she explained, was the reason why such instruments were so difficult to tune.

The two contrasted Fantasias, in B flat minor and G major, provided ample display on the techniques used for these early pieces. The sound was mellower and more intimate, but equally expressive in slow dirge-like slow movements and faster dance pieces. And she was right, maintaining pitch and intonation was a challenge.

The longest work on the programme fell to Chiew, who returned in Johann Hummel’s Potpourri Op.94, which was a showy fantasia on popular operatic tunes by Mozart and Rossini. Predating similar potboilers by violin phenomenon Nicolo Paganini, Hummel’s was no less virtuosic but none of its hair-raising diablerie seemed to faze Chiew, who was commandingly secure throughout.

Having already expended his encore piece, Chiew departed the stage but lent his modern viola for Hsu’s own solo encore. That was a moving arrangement by Toshio Hosokawa of Handel’s popular aria Lascia Ch’io Pianga from Rinaldo, proving that whatever the human voice can do, the viola could do even better.   

VIVA VIOLA! / JEREMY CHIEW et al / Review

VIVA VIOLA!

Jeremy Chiew & Daniel Ong, Violas

with Lim Yan, Piano

Esplanade Recital Studio

Friday (6 May 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 May 2016 with the title "Vivid sounds from viola duo".

The cause of the viola has found a new champion in Jeremy Chiew, who has done more than anyone today to promote the instrument in his chamber recitals. Let it never be said that the viola is only performed by “failed violinists”, because it is fiendishly difficult to perform well, hence the relative paucity of repertoire and its apparent lack of glamour on the concert stage.

The 70-minute long recital, presented by the Kris Foundation, opened with eight Duos by Bela Bartok, original for two violins but arranged for violas by his son Peter. Chiew was joined by junior Daniel Ong, principal violist of the Singapore National Youth Orchestra, who more than showed that he has been well mentored. Both have been students of the viola pedagogue Yeo Jan Wea.

These short pieces were written with pedagogy in mind, and get progressively more complex and technically challenging as they go. Most were based on folk songs and dances, and the duo was very well matched, taking turns on playing melody and providing accompaniment and counterpoint. Their chemistry in these engaging pieces was palpable, climaxing in the trickily syncopated Hungarian Dance (2) and Pillow Dance that closed the suite.

Next was Henri Vieuxtemps substantial Viola Sonata in B flat major Op.36, which saw Ong play the 1^st movement and Chiew helming the 2^nd and 3^rd movements. Ong was a portrait of confidence in its slow but majestic opening, with a piano accompaniment that resembled that of Schubert's Ave Maria perfomed by Lim Yan.

Introspection soon grew into turbulence and agitation in its development, which also saw a commensurate expansion of the viola's vocal range. Chiew's part included a gentle Barcarolla (a gondolier's song) which also had a passionate side to it, before a playful dance-like finale upped the tempi and finished with a blaze of aplomb.

The final work was all of Chiew's to handle, Paul Hindemith's early Viola Sonata in F major (Op.11 No.4), which unlike his later and more astringent works was unusually lyrical. A Brahms-like autumnal feel inhabited its opening Fantasie, which was just the invitation to display a warm and ingratiating tone. The subsequent movements took the form of variations, providing more opportunities for an almost improvisational approach to its themes.

An obligatory fugato in the finale marked “mit bizarrer Plumpheit” or “with bizarre crudeness” was as droll and mock-serious as one could possibly get, and both Chiew and Lim played with straight faces and tongues firmly held in cheek. A splashy virtuosic close to the sonata was greeted with warm applause.

Chiew's encore was appropriated from the violinist's repertoire, Fritz Kreisler's short but demanding Praeludium & Allegro in the Style of Pugnani. With excellent intonation and articulation, Chiew made it sound as if it was originally meant for the viola. Violinists can have good reasons to be green with envy.