BOUNDARIES / YAO XIAO YUN Piano Recital / Review

BOUNDARIES

YAO XIAO YUN Piano Recital

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (16 July 2017)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 18 July 2017 with the title "Sonorous expressions ruined by unruly audience".

“No Boundaries” or “Beyond Boundaries” was probably what Shanghai-born Singaporean pianist Yao Xiao Yun had in mind for the title of her piano recital, which covered the classical, Romantic and 20^th century eras of musical history as well as Chinese music.

Smart or fancy titles are just means for marketing, but what matters most is the playing. The 2005 1st prize-winner of the National Piano & Violin Competition (Artist Piano Category) still has what it takes, and if anything else, has also matured during the intervening years.

An iron-clad technique was called for in Scriabin's Sonata-Fantasie No.2 which opened the concert. Perhaps she began a tad too deliberately, which made the first couple of minutes drag a little. However that was to contrast with a more passionate later section, in which she brought out a wealth of sonority. Amid the fine filigree, the melodic interest was never lost. In the tempestuous 2^nd movement, she went for the jugular and the result was close to spectacular.

Similarly in Beethoven's “Les Adieux” Sonata (Op.81a), she made it a point to emphasise the first three sets of notes, which was a heartfelt farewell to his patron Archduke Rudolf who had fled Vienna from Napoleon's invading army. By omitting the repeats, the opportunity to hold steadfast to this statement had been lost. 

This was made up by a slow movement, representing the patron's absence, which could not have sounded more pained or forlorn. A joyous finale, expressing the ecstasy of a long-awaited return, capped another fine performance.

Yao's 13-year-old student Lin Chuanyin was offered a few minutes under the spotlight, and she acquitted herself well with a scintillating reading of Wang Jianzhong's famous transcription of Liu Yang River, which simulates the guzheng in the sound of cascading falls and rippling water. Yao returned with Wang's equally famous Bai Niao Chao Feng (Hundred Birds Paying Respect To The Pheonix), a brilliant mimicry of myriad birdsongs.

This evening was marred by the most unruly audience ever to step into a concert hall here. Excessive coughing, dropping of objects, children fidgeting, inappropriate applause, eating, drinking and a brazen videotaping via cellphone were among the repertoire of indignities witnessed. In short, this is the kind of audience regularly encountered in mainland China.

Undeterred, Yao made the best of her Chopin selection, bringing true cantabile to the D flat major Nocturne (Op.27 No.2) and the Andante Spianato before letting rip in the ensuing Grande Polonaise Brilliante (Op.22) and E flat major Waltz (Op.42). To close was Debussy's L'Isle Joyeuse (The Joyous Island), a collaboration with the pianist's father artist-calligrapher Yao Hai Cheng whose 11-metre long scroll painting on the same subject (displayed in the foyer) being the visual component.

A detail and several vignettes from
Yao Hai Cheng's 11-metre long scroll painting,
with a visual and literary dimension added
to Debussy's L'Isle Joyeuse.
That's what they mean by "Beyond Boundaries".

Yao's performance of the Debussy showpiece was both attentive to detail and colourful. The obligatory encore was shared with Lin, as both pianists polished off Brahms' Fifth Hungarian Dance with no little panache.

YAO XIAO YUN Piano Recital / Review

YAO XIAO YUN Piano Recital

Lee Foundation Theatre

Saturday (8 November 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 10 November 2014 with the title "When music meets fengshui".

Singapore’s strategic position as a hub for regional music education excellence has seen many overseas students of local musical institutions graduating and settling here to further enhance the music scene. China, in particular, has provided the largest body of fine foreign young musicians to grace our concert stages.

Shanghai-born pianist Yao Xiao Yun, an alumnus of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, was the 1^st Prize winner in the Artist Category of the National Piano Competition in 2005. She has gone on to distinguish herself as a teacher and performer. On the strength of this recital, she has lost none of her passion or fire that marked her out to be a special talent.

The evening began with two fast Scarlatti Sonatas, which allowed ample display of a crisply articulated technique that made light work of the rapid staccatos and running passages. The piano’s imitation of strummed guitars and clicking castanets could not have sounded more vivid.

Beethoven’s Sonata in D minor Op.31 No.2, nicknamed the Tempest, was taken at a very deliberate tempo in the first movement’s introduction. This aura of mystique served to heighten the main subject’s agitated outburst, however some accents were exaggerated to the point of sounding  mannered. The slow movement plodded but relief came in the finale’s perpetual motion which ended so subtly that the audience was totally caught by surprise.

Romantic music was more of her forte. In Spanish composer Granados’s Requiebros (Flatteries) from the suite Goyescas, she laid on the rubato with a shovel and that helped the cause of the ardent suitor in the music’s amorous narrative. It was not difficult to fall for this Spanish nobleman’s indulgent and swooning gestures.

Even better was her account of Chopin’s Third Sonata in B minor Op.58, which helped her win the grand prix all those years ago. Yao was born to play Chopin, as her grasp of the Pole’s idiom was totally natural and instinctual. She caught the ebb and flow of the music without resorting to her exact contemporary Lang Lang’s self-regarding distortions. The ruminative slow movement was ideally judged and the finale thrillingly rode on a crest of a tidal wave.

The descriptive music she performed was well-characterised, like the raucous birdsong and trills of Wang Jian Zhong’s A Hundred Birds Paying Respect To The Phoenix, before closing with an effervescent voyage in Debussy’s L’Isle Joyeuse. The latter was inspired by Watteau’s painting of bacchanalian revelry, and Yao’s performance was accompanied by a projection of an impressive 8-metre long scroll painting by her father Yao Hai Cheng.

The colour scheme of the ink brush images of sea and rural scenes was determined by principles of the I-Ching and Chinese geomancy, which took into account the birthdates of composer, composition and pianist. As it is, this year marks the 110^th anniversary of L’Isle Joyeuse, which is some cause for celebration, one supposes. When music meets feng shui, anything is possible.  

  

Details from selected segments of
Yao Hai Cheng's 8-metre long scroll painting.

A CHOPIN SOIRÉE by Yao Xiao Yun / Review

A CHOPIN SOIRÉE
Yao Xiao Yun, Piano
Singapore Conference Hall
Thursday (10 November 2011)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 12 November 2011 with the title "Sounds of youthful exuberance".

It is always interesting to chart the progress of a young artist through the course of time. In 2005, the Shanghai-born pianist Yao Xiao Yun won first prize in the Open Section of the National Piano Competition after several years of study at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. Her prodigiousness and facility, already evident in those early years, have blossomed into the more enduring values of mature musicianship.

Her all-Chopin recital was proof that institutional life as a teacher of young prodigies in her alma mater was no impediment to having a rewarding concert life as well. Beginning with the rarely performed Rondo à la Mazur (Op.5), written by a teenaged Chopin, it seemed that youthful over-exuberance manifested by fast flying fingers would prevail.

Sounding rushed and clipped in phrases, contours were blurred and the thrust of the music blunted. Perhaps it was a case of nerves from the pint-sized dynamo, so eager to please a well-filled hall, but it soon settled with two contrasting waltzes and the sublime Barcarolle (Op.60). In the latter, her singing line, gliding over a lilting accompaniment, was a pleasure, matched by the filigreed finery of its final pages.

In a well thought-out selection of 12 Préludes from the Op.28 set, she brought forth a wealth of colour and emotions. Deliberate omitting the more extended and familiar numbers (the “Raindrop”, for example), there was more scope for contrast, concluding imperiously with the fury and cascading thirds of the final D minor Prélude.

By now fully warmed up, the four Ballades in the second half were jewels in the crown. The epic voyage Yao took her listeners on was as eventful as it was technically assured. In these poetic essays, mere accuracy was just the starting point of true artistry. Her sound was well projected, emoting in the bittersweet lament of the First Ballade, while ably alternating violently contrasting emotions of the Second Ballade.

The emotional temperature of both Third and Fourth Ballades were gradually stoked and brought to feverish climaxes to close. The fearless headlong dive into the treacherous codas was a case of maximum risk-taking, but she came out with all guns blazing. Her encore of the serene Chinese nocturne, Autumn Moon On Calm Lake, concluded a thoroughly satisfying outing. Brava!

A touching moment: Yao Xiao Yun presents her principal teacher in Singapore, Prof. Yu Chun Yee, with a floral bouquet.

SSO Chamber Concert: Schubert's Trout Quintet / Review

VCH 

CHAMBER 

SERIES
SCHUBERT’S 

TROUT QUINTET
Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (12 July 2009)

The Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s chamber music series at Victoria Concert Hall began in 2003 as an exercise to sharpen the musical skills of individual players performing in small ensembles. By this year, celebrity musicians such as American-Chinese violinist Cho-Liang Lin and Russian conductor Lev Markiz have come as guests, bringing these concerts to an even higher level.

Local musicians have also found themselves a faithful following. It was refreshing to see Shanghai-born pianist Yao Xiao Yun (left), who two weeks ago brilliantly graced the Young Virtuoso Recital of the Singapore International Piano Festival, return to collaborate in chamber music. Her offering was the extremely demanding piano part in Anton Arensky’s First Piano Trio in D minor, one that dominated the proceedings, alternating between Russian melancholy and brooding with Mendelssohnian wit and charm.

Her string partners, violinist Chen Da Wei and cellist Chan Wei Shing, who carried much of the melodic lines - and hence the pathos – were in sync with her throughout. The balance was close to ideal, none better heard in the 3rd movement’s Elegia, a tear-jerker in the best Tchaikovskian tradition.

Northern doom and gloom gave way to the sunny climes and gaiety of Schubert’s Trout Quintet in A major. Here it should be noted that Arensky (above) died from the ravages of alcoholism while Schubert those of syphilis. Its unusual scoring gave double bassist Yang Zheng Yi the role as a resolute anchor and rhythm section while his colleagues had all the tunes.

Central to this was pianist Liu Jia’s (left) contribution, which was immaculate in that it never sought to shock and awe despite its starring role. Such is the essence of chamber music, where one-upmanship is shunned and consensus arrived before the first note. Violinist Chan Yoong Han is a natural leader, and when the loud opening chord resounded with gusto, one was reassured that the performance was going to be a strong one.

As it proved, the audience was silent and gripped for the longest part, alert enough to ignore the false endings and erupt with vociferous applause and one raving chant of “bravo” when it ended. More of the same again please.