AN EVENING WITH RAVEL
Quatre Music Organization
Victoria Concert Hall
Saturday (26 April 2025)
Apologies for the lateness of this review of this all-Ravel piano concert, which was viewed on YouTube months after the event.
Just a few weeks ago, the piano department of Yong Siew Toh Conservatory mounted an ambitious four-hour plus concert to cover the complete piano works of French composer Maurice Ravel (1875-1937). They were actually pre-empted earlier in April by the teachers, students and guest performers of the Quatre Music Organization in a concert at Victoria Concert Hall. I had missed that concert, albeit a shorter one, having agreed to attend the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s annual fundraising gala dinner held in the same evening.
Thanks to the miracle online platform that is YouTube, I got to enjoy the performances remotely and even months after the occasion. Presented by 22 pianists, of whom many were children or students, there was much to enjoy even if the offerings were not truly complete. As only one piano was used, all the works for two pianos had been omitted. Even the Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite for four hands went missing, as did Menuet Antique for two hands for some unknown reason. At least, one got to hear Miroirs complete, which was not reflected in the YST programme.
The first half was devoted to the many dances Ravel wrote. The evening opened with young Lim Wei Xuan playing Laideronette, Imperatrice des Pagodes, the third movement from Mother Goose Suite. As Ravel’s original was for four hands, this was a transcription by Jacques Charlot, who was killed by the Germans in 1915 and later commemorated in Le tombeau de Couperin. His was a confident showing which highlighted the pentatonics and gamelan textures which made this an oriental fantasy.
Samuel King Chew Leong, organiser of this concert, brought out the notes and various permutations made up by letters of Haydn’s name in Menuet sur le nom d’Haydn. It may be a “simple” piece, but making it sound graceful was a task which he accomplished with ease.
Danse legere et gracieuse de Daphnis, one of the fragments symphoniques from his ballet Daphnis et Chloe, is a true rarity which found a sympathetic interpreter in Enzio Lim Yue Tong. One hopes he will find time to learn the other dances, and to perform these as a suite.
The very well-know Valses nobles et sentimentales, eight waltzes in all, was shared by Kseniia Vokhmianina and Dorotheus Koh Chian Yee. Both had the idiomatic right, Schubertian geniality alternating with Gallic urbanity. Kseniia performed the outer four (and interpretatively more complex ones) while Dorotheus played the central four (also technically tricky as well), and we could have done without the intrusive applause in between their movements.
Two more dances followed with A la maniere de Borodine (a waltz) and A la maniere de Chabrier (based on a Gounod aria from Faust) by Samuel King. These pastiches were rightly performed as a pair, with a typically French insouciance shining through. Very charming indeed.
The Prelude in A minor, composed as a conservatory sight-reading test, was the shortest piece on show. Elizabeth Michelle Heryaman had just more than a minute to put on the polish, and then it was over.
Le tombeau de Couperin, the six-movement neoclassical suite on ancient French dances, was shared by four pianists. Kevina Tenggara gave fluent performances of the Prelude (dedicated to the afore-mentioned Charlot) and Fugue, a rare exercise of Ravel doing formal counterpoint. Rebekah Too Jing Yuan followed with the Forlane, a quirky angular dance met with a pretty and graceful response. Ong Weng Yee provided just the right contrasts to differentiate the vigorous Rigaudon from the genteel Menuet than came after. It was perhaps unfair to assign Libby Chan Rui Qi with technically the most treacherous piece of all – the Toccata. She tried her level best but it was one almighty struggle to a valiant end.
Closing the concert’s first half was La Valse, in a four-hands arrangement by Lucien Garban, performed by invited guests Rena Cheung and Nicholas Ong. Former and present Head of Piano Studies at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts showed what playing on the edge was about. Although lacking the freedom and sweep of Ravel’s original version on two pianos, the duo rhapsodised and teetered on the brink of breakdown. That and the illusion of imminent collapse was what this tumultuous work meant.
Pavane pour une infante defunte opened the concert’s second half with Isabelle Agethen giving a deliberate but sensitive reading. Ravel often reminded pianists that “the princess was dead but not the pavane”, and that was what he got here.
Lucas Franklin Lai put on a superb water show for Jeux d’eau, which saw Ravel in his impressionist best, a performance of Debussyan fluidity and pure Lisztian brilliance. Let us see what he can do with Ondine sometime in the near future. Another minute-long miniature was the Menuet in C sharp minor, and little Max Choo Chong Kai mastered it with aplomb.
The Sonatine is a major masterpiece in three movements. Nguyen Phuc Bao Tien performed the first movement and the central Mouvement de Menuet with taste and sensitivity. Teo Wei Syuen weathered the whirlwind of the finale well, bringing the work to a resounding close.
There were four pianists who performed the five pieces that constitute Miroirs. Nicholas Ho, seasoned concert pianist and easily the evening’s busiest, opened with Noctuelles (Night Moths) and Oiseaux tristes (Sad Birds). Straight off, one senses his professionalism, his mastery of colour and myriad shades putting a mark of greatness in these two movements. Liu Xiao Miao was no slouch either in Une barque sur l’ocean, where a boat is being assailed by billowing waves.
The rhythms of Spain came alive from Ng Xin Yee in Alborada del gracioso (Morning Song of the Jester), impressing with lively staccatos, sparkling repeated note technique and sweeping glissandi. To close the set was Michelle Purnomo in La Vallee des cloches (The Valley of Bells), where a distinctly oriental soundscape permeated by the sound of bells – near and distant – was conjured, This was musical impressionism at its finest, thus quintessentially Ravel.
His most fearsome solo work was left for last, with Gaspard de la nuit opened by Nicholas Ho. His fine control of Ondine, complete with splashes and spills, was awe-inspiring, and the hypnotic spell conjured in Le gibet was just as gripping. It was left to multiple prize-winning Luther Ong Boon Kheng to apply the coup de grace with the terrifying Scarbo. His was a stunning reading, ready to face the challenges of any international piano competition. With this, the nation’s first Ravel marathon came to a resounding close.
May we expect a Vingt Regards sur l’enfant Jesus marathon with 20 pianists in 2028, the 120th anniversary of Olivier Messiaen?
