SUKA MAKAN: MALU BIAN BIAN @ EXCELSIOR SHOPPING CENTRE

The concert has finished late, and most of the eating places have closed. Where do you go? If you are near the Victoria Concert Hall / Theatre or The Arts House vicinity, Malu Bian Bian Hotpot at Excelsior Shopping Centre, just behind Funan Mall, is a good choice. It closes at 5 am in the morning.

Part of a Chinese chain of hotpot restaurants, this Singapore outlet is decorated to look like some busy hangout somewhere in China. Street signs, colourful old-style advertisements, neon fixtures and murals of Chinese city life vie your attention, as does the menu. Hotpot meals with hundreds of choices of skewers are its speciality, but that's for another time. At 11 pm, we opted for something simpler, and its side dishes are very savoury and tasty.

This is a place you can linger, and chit chat. Nobody is going to rush you home, and there is a free flow of cold tea. Prices are reasonable, unless you opt for the more expensive hotpot alternative, which can be savoured on another evening without a concert to catch.

Fried lean pork strips

Mala beef dish

Tofu with chili flakes

Now this looks really appetising

Good old fried rice with Chinese sausage

Glutinous rice ice dessert

One of the most picturesque eating places, I just could not help taking more photos and bask in some sort of nostalgia. Never lived in China, but one can imagine this place to be somewhere in Chengdu or Chongqing. By the way, Malu Bian Bian roughly translates to "by the roadside", emphasising this is a place for locals.

The designer has something for mixed tapes

Scenes of daily life in China's hutongs

MALU BIAN BIAN HOTPOT

5 Coleman Street #01-01

Excelsior Shopping Centre

Singapore 179805

SIMON TRPCESKI & ELIAHU INBAL / RACHMANINOFF & SHOSTAKOVICH / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

SIMON TRPCESKI

& ELIAHU INBAL:

RACHMANINOFF & SHOSTAKOVICH

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (28 March 2026)

This review was first published in Bachtrack.com on 31 March 2026 with the title "Eliahu Inbal enlivens the Singapore Symphony in Shostakovich and Rachmaninov".

British-Israeli conductor Eliahu Inbal, who turned 90 last month, neither looks nor feels his age, evident by his latest concert leading the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. He is remembered here for conducting the SSO in Mahler’s Ninth Symphony on the eve of Singapore’s founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew’s funeral in March 2015, dedicating the performance to his memory. On this evening, he helmed two full-length works, and even appeared fresh and revitalised at its end.

Photo: Clive Choo

Opening with Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto No.2 in C minor (Op.18), he kept the orchestra in sync with Macedonian pianist Simon Trpceski. Loose and easy was Trpceski’s approach, happy to do the accompanying as orchestral strings sang the big tune, and coming in from the cold for solo flourishes. There was neither coming on strong nor gilding the lily, and there were moments in the first movement when the orchestra almost drowned out the piano. 

Trpceski even resembles Rach in profile.

No such worries in the Adagio sostenuto central slow movement, when the piano’s solo line sang out unabated, in a gradual unwinding that climaxed in a brilliant solo cadenza. The strings accompanying piano chords at its denouement provided the concerto’s most sublime moment. The finale was a thrilling white knuckle ride. Trpceski’s treatment of the big melody was initially subdued, and the intention was to work its way to a glorious apotheosis, and before that a central fugato section negotiated with the skill of a high-wire act.

Trpceski leaps off the stool after the last chord.

The close was predictably splashy, drawing a chorus of cheers, followed by two vastly varied encores. The Precipitato finale from Prokofiev’s Seventh Sonata was devastating in its drive, contrasted with Rachmaninov’s serene Vocalise (Op.34 No.14) with guest concertmaster David Coucheron on violin. The latter was dedicated to the memory of Hans Sørensen, former SSO Director of Artistic Planning who passed away unexpectedly in January, and a plea for world peace.

Inbal cut a sprightly figure as he mounted the podium for a rare performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony No.11 in G minor (Op.103) or The Year 1905, first and last heard in Singapore in 1998. Composed in 1957 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the 1917 October Revolution, it commemorated the slaughter of peaceful protesters on “Bloody Sunday” outside St Petersburg’s Winter Palace by Tsarist forces. 

Questions on whether this was programme music with a Socialist Realist agenda were moot once the portrayal of icy wintry scenes of the Palace Square first movement got underway. Perhaps the most protracted and portentous slow boil in all of classical music, the music was a supreme test of patience with the tension built-up by desolate flutes, muted trumpets and ominous taps on Christian Schiøler’s timpani. The unbearable tension was unloosed by 9 January, a crescendo that would put Shostakovich’s earlier Leningrad Symphony and Ravel’s Bolero in the shade. The furious fugue of death led by the strings provided the coup de grace.

Performed without breaks between movements, the cinematic score unfolded magisterially under Inbal’s direction. The variations that came in the In Memoriam third movement were not in passacaglia form but what stuck firmly in the mind were the excellent violas’ consolatory tone, and one was well within the midst of a requiem. The finale’s Tocsin flew with all cannons blazing, but with the reprise of the Palace Square and Elaine Yeo’s poignant cor anglais solo, memory rather than vengeance was the goal. Closing in tragic G minor rather than triumphant G major, and clocking in at 60 minutes, Inbal’s epic view could survive several lifetimes.

Star Rating: ****

The review as published on Bachtrack.com:

Eliahu Inbal enlivens the Singapore Symphony | Bachtrack

PIANO LESSONS on DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON / CHRISTOPH ESCHENBACH / Review

 

PIANO LESSONS

CHRISTOPH ESCHENBACH, Piano

Deutsche Grammophon 483 9846 (16 CDs)

Did you once dread going for piano lessons, without having practised your set pieces over the past week? Did you remember lugging along that thickest of piano books, the Schirmer Sonatina Album and having to remember what you last played? Oh, those were the days, but little did you know all that slogging would eventually lead to that moment at a children’s concert, hogging the spotlight playing on the school piano, getting eliminated at some piano competition, or charming and amusing your friends at some soiree much later in life.

That ubiquitous yellow album
every piano student of a certain age lugs around.

This box-set assembled by Deutsche Grammophon brings back all those memories, and the names of composers you once thought were gods but have more or less been forgotten. And there is no better guide that the former child prodigy and now highly-respected conductor the German Christoph Eschenbach, in recordings he made in the 1960s and 70s.

Christoph Eschenbach as a very young pianist.

Ferdinand Beyer, not Porsche!

The first disc is devoted to the German Ferdinand Beyer (1803-1863), whose Vorschule im Klavierspiel (Pre-School in Piano Playing, Op.101) is a primer of basic keyboard technique. Most of the 63 very short and simple pieces are in C major (no sharps or flats) and G major (only F sharp), and built upon the interval of the third and triads. Master these, remove Beyer and slap on some 20th century minimalist name (Glass or Einaudi will do), and you are ready to make millions.

Czerny was Beethoven's student,
and Liszt's teacher. Great pedigree.

There is some perverse pleasure to be had listening to two discs of Carl Czerny (1791-1857) in 30 Etudes de mechanisme (Op.849) and The School of Velocity (Op.299), where mind-numbing note-spinning has been raised to a fine art. Note also those insanely high opus numbers (does the man even sleep?) More significantly, he had been the teacher of the child Franz Liszt, whose Study in Twelve Exercises (S.136) from 1826 strongly bore Czerny’s imprints. These would eventually become transformed into his 12 Transcendental Etudes (S.139).

The German Friedrich Burgmuller (1806-1874) was a contemporary of Robert Schumann, and his 25 Etudes faciles et progressives (Easy and Progressive Studies, Op.100) are far more charming than their titles suggest. These are more than a challenge for Schumann’s Album for the Young, which have unfortunately not been included in this collection, with the sole exception of The Merry Peasant (Op.68 No.10).

Whoever knew Friedrich Kuhlau
was blind in one eye?

Then we come to the Danish composer Friedrich Kuhlau (1786-1832), whose sonatinas for children have been lumped together with those of Italian composer Muzio Clementi (1752-1832). These are highly effective primers for beginners of the piano, and can sound impressive in the right hands. I have personally heard these in the Thailand Steinway Youth Competition and can attest for their didactic quality.

Muzio Clementi, after whom
Clementi new town was named.
Nah, that was his grandson!

The immortal J.S.Bach

Now we get to the composers whom posterity had deemed their greatness, and deservedly so. Johann Sebastian Bach’s Two Part Inventions (BWV.772-786) and Three Part Inventions or Sinfonias (BWV.787-801) are perfect for those learning polyphonic playing for the first time. These can still be challenging for adult performers. Six Little Preludes (BWV.933-938) and selected dances from the French and English Suites have also been included. Three selections from the Anna Magdalena Notebook have now been identified to be by Christian Petzold (1677-1733) – that ubiquitous Minuet in G – and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788). Odds and ends from Jan Ladislav Dussek (1760-1812) and Anton Diabelli (1781-1858) have also been included.

C.P.E.Bach, like father like son.

So that's what Christian Petzold looked like!

Haydn wrote some 62 piano sonatas, at last count.

From Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), there are eight sonatas, increasing in degrees of complexity. The C major (Hob.XVI:35) built on the C major triad falls within the hands of a talented ten-year-old, while the D major (Hob.XVI:37) was well-known enough to be spoofed by Shostakovich in his First Piano Concerto. The E minor, G major and E flat major sonatas (Hob.XVI:34, 40 and 49) are in the remit of adults, and do get heard occasionally in international piano competitions.

It is said that the sonatas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) are “too easy for amateurs but too difficult for professionals”. How true that is. Nine sonatas are represented including the C major Sonata Facile (K.545), obviously, but from there the learning curve becomes far steeper. The A major (K.331), famous for its opening Theme and Variations and Rondo alla Turca (Turkish March) is by no means simple. The sonatas in A minor, B flat major and F major (K.310, 333 and 533) were famously in the recorded repertory of Dinu Lipatti, Vladimir Horowitz and Emil Gilels respectively.

There is a single sonata disc of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) that is rightly the territory for proficient young people. This contains the Op.49 pair (my first introduction to Beethoven sonatas), Op.14 pair (not so easy) and the delightful Op.79. The two short Sonatinas in G and F major belong to children. Besides being popular and famous, the Pathetique (Op.13) and Moonlight (Op.27 No.2) are actually advanced works. The same would apply to the F minor (Op.2 No.1) and A flat major (Op.26 “Funeral March”) sonatas.

The set is completed by eight books of Felix Mendelssohn’s (1809-1847) Songs Without Words, each comprising six pieces of varying degrees of difficulty. The Venetian Boat Songs and several of the slower numbers are simple enough, but Mendelssohn was a keyboard virtuoso himself and his Hunting Song (Op.19 No.3) and Spinning Song (Op.67 No.4, also known as The Bee’s Wedding) are concert hall material – just ask Jorge Bolet and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Christoph Eschenbach plays for
Herbert von Karajan.

A slightly older Christoph Eschenbach.

This is a splendid set of piano pieces, lovingly performed by Christoph Eschenbach, which should engage for many hours the budding piano player, young and not so young.