Photos from NUS Chinese Orchestra's Concert REMINISCENCE

This was the first time I heard the National University of Singapore Chinese Orchestra (NUSCO) perform in concert, and am very impressed by what the students have achieved. This runs alongside the accomplishments of the other NUS ensembles that I am more familiar with (namely the Yong Siew Toh performing groups, the NUS Symphony Orchestra and NUS Guitar Ensemble). If anything, it makes me very proud to be an alumus of this august institution. 

Under conductor Lum Yan Sing, the orchestra produced a terrific sound, and even if it does not approximate the lofty reaches of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra, there is much to be proud of. This very well programmed concert was lit up by the presence of three excellent young soloists, whose virtuosity added to the lustre of the evening. I hope to hear more from this very promising young orchestra.

Chiam Shi Wee was the very accomplished yangqin soloist in Phoon Yew Tien's Rhapsody on Di Nü Hua. The yangqin is played like a dulcimer or Hungarian cimbalom, with its strings struck by wooden sticks. An exquisite skill is required for the instrument to sound effortless.

Not to be outdone was Roy Yuen Ze Ming in Chen Ning-chi's Xi Shi, a guzheng concerto. Although he snapped a string along the way, he managed his extremly difficult solo part by playing on the other strings. A new guzheng was later brought in for him to complete the performance.  

The orchestra conducted by Lum Yan Sing also performed Chen Ning-chi's The Fairy of the Ninth Heaven and Phoon Yew Tien's Spring of Taishan. In the latter, the score was projected on the screen behind and the vision of Taishan gradually emerged into view by the end of the piece.

Receiving the loudest and most prolonged applause was Yang Shuxiang, the violin soloist for the evergreen Butterfly Lovers Concerto by Chen Gang and He Zhan Hao. He truly has the full measure of the work's hyper-romantic narrative and the requisite technique to make his reading convincing.

Someone suggested this caption to me: Paganini in pyjamas!

LUTOSLAWSKI QUARTET / Review

LUTOSLAWSKI QUARTET

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall

Wednesday (27 March 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 29 March 2013 with the title "Pleasing symmetry by Polish quartet".

2013 has been exceptional year for chamber music, and it got even better at the 6^th Singapore Chamber Festival with a very challenging but rewarding recital by the Lutoslawski Quartet from Poland. Seldom has a programme of 20^th and 21^st century chamber music been performed with such vibrancy and dedication.

Its first half ran for close to an hour, beginning with the String Quartet (1964) by Witold Lutoslawski (1913-1994) whose birth centenary is celebrated this year and after whom the ensemble is named. Its atonal 25 minutes in two movements were a concentrated study in modernist gestures and techniques, with little concession made for both performer and listener.

The opening gambit was dispatched with utter clarity by first violinist Jakub Jakowicz; mere wisps and shards of muted tones, and answered with an equally trenchant response by his three partners. The mostly quiet first movement was contrasted by lacerating violence and rapidity of reflexes, a deliberately provocative riposte in the ensuing movement. The storm eventually settled with the sustained long lines of the final lament, closing with the apparent placidity of its beginning.

Even if one did not take to the uncompromising and rarefied musical language, it was hard to ignore the manner to which the players listened and responded to each other. Each had his own distinctive and very difficult part but together they resounded in one accord, which is the true mark of virtuosity

By comparison, Shostakovich’s Eighth String Quartet (1960) is an established classic. The composer’s own motto theme (D-E flat-C-B) hovered ominously through its proceedings, with quotations from earlier works thrown into the fray. Satirical and grotesque elements were keenly brought out in this rapt reading, leaving one without a doubt that while he had dedicated the work to “the victims of Fascism”, Shostakovich counted himself among them.

The second half opened with the Third String Quartet by Marcin Markowicz, the quartet’s second violinist. It was the shortest work and ironically the most approachable. It began with a familiar motif from the first violin, which comes from the opening of Szymanowski’s Roxana’s Song (from the opera King Roger).

The tonal work ambled into an impish scherzo, reminiscent of Shostakovich, and culminated with a furious fugue, the subject of which was instigated by Markowicz himself. Like a rainbow’s arc, the earlier song returned but now shared by the foursome.

The aural beauty continued with Karol Szymanowski’s Second String Quartet (1937), with Marciej Mlodawski’s cello singing high above a gently rocking accompaniment. The first movement was played on mutes throughout, while the vigorous scherzo relived the spirit of folk music and dance of  Poland’s Tatra Mountains, providing both rhythmic and thematic contrasts.

The finale comprised two fugal episodes, the second of which was an echo of Shostakovich’s motto theme. As the concert drew to an emphatic close and very enthusiastic applause, it did so with a pleasing symmetry.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, March 2013)

HARTY Piano Quintet

String Quartets Nos.1& 2

PIERS LANE, Piano & Goldner Quartet

Hyperion 67927 (2CDs) / ****1/2

Sir Hamilton Harty (1879-1941) was the Ulster-born conductor who was a champion of contemporary music of the early 20^th century, and remembered for having orchestrated the oft-performed Water Music Suite of music by Handel. This album unveils his virtually unknown chamber music, works of the highest craftsmanship. The Piano Quintet in F major (1904) is a neglected masterpiece that distils the fine qualities of the Romantic and nationalist schools. When listened to blind, one discerns the order and form of Schumann, Brahms and Dvorak, with a lightly-sprinkled folk influence. Its brief Scherzo could have been a country dance dished up by Percy Grainger, and the lovely slow movement is an Irish-flavoured air or lament that builds to a stirring climax.

From pianist Piers Lane and the Sydney-based Goldner Quartet, one finds the most ardent and spirited of advocates. Would Singapore’s Lim Yan and Take Five take on this most delightful of works sometime? The First and Second String Quartets (1900 and 1902) are equally congenial. Think of flowing melodies by Dvorak and Borodin, Mendelssohnian feathery-light scherzos, slow movements of Beethovenian intensity, and one gets the picture. Both play to about 25 minutes each. While this not the most earth-shaking, original or probing of utterances, there is lots to enjoy in the well-turned phrases and vibrant playing. The two discs retail for the price of one.

BEETHOVEN Complete Concertos

Deutsche Grammophon  (5CDs) / ****1/2

As complete collections go, this is as comprehensive as one can get to gather all of Beethoven’s concertos under one roof. And it is a mostly star-studded one, retailing at super-budget price, just under $8 a disc. The five piano concertos come from Maurizio Pollini and the Vienna Philharmonic (1970s and 1982) in authoritative readings conducted by Karl Bohm and Eugen Jochum. Hence it is a pity that there was not enough time to include the Choral Fantasy, to be truly complete. A confident 16-year-old Anne-Sophie Mutter stars in the Violin Concerto with her mentor Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic. She is joined by cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Mark Zeltser for the underrated Triple Concerto, both recorded in 1979.

The odds and ends add further interest to this box-set. Beethoven’s own piano transcription of the Violin Concerto (Op.61a) sees Daniel Barenboim leading the English Chamber Orchestra from the keyboard. It includes Beethoven’s own piano cadenza that employs the timpani to audacious effect. A single-movement fragment that survives from an early Violin Concerto in C major gets the attention of no less than Gidon Kremer and the London Symphony. There is also a Piano Concerto in E flat major from a 13-year-old Beethoven (edited by Willy Hess, performed by Lidia Grichtolowna) that gives a clue to how greatness could have blossomed from such generic origins. This is a fascinating set worth having.

INTROSPECTION . REFLECTION / Guitar Ensemble of NUS / Review

INTROSPECTION / REFLECTION

Guitar Ensemble of NUS

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall

Sunday (24 March 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 26 March 2013 with the title "Light thoughts".

The annual concert by the Guitar Ensemble of National University of Singapore (GENUS) is a popular and well-attended affair. This is after all Singapore’s premier Niibori guitar orchestra, founded by Singapore’s “Father of the Guitar” Alex Abisheganaden in 1981. The 87-year old master was himself present to witness the two-hour long concert that showcased Singaporean, Japanese and Brazilian music.

The concert’s title was somewhat misleading, because much of the music played was light-hearted, Latin-flavoured and both, not leading one to deeper thoughts or questioning the status quo. The sole exception was Singaporean Gopal Balraj’s Impatience, receiving its world premiere conducted by Robert Casteels.

Scored for massed guitars, string quartet, percussion and voice, it ran a schizophrenic 13-minute course as a sort of melodrama, with Life Sciences PhD student and soprano Lim Yan Ting supplying the voice-over and lapsing into mellifluous song, as if in a Broadway musical.

The guitars supplied a walking bass, one similar to J.S.Bach’s famous Air (from Orchestral Suite No.3), with a persistent tick-tock rhythm in the background as a reminder of the passage of time. The tempo quickened as agitation built up, with the work ending just as well before the audience and performers ran out of - as one guesses - patience.

Gopal was making a legitimate statement, as was Yuudai Hatanaka in his Michinoku Guitar Concerto (above), the other major work of the concert. Composed as a reflection on Japan’s recovery from the 2011 earthquake-tsunami-radioactive fallout disaster, its single movement was decidedly short-winded with minimal angst on display. Jonathan Chiang’s solo on prime-guitar was leisurely and casual, contrasted with Ow Leong San’s flute interjections and the occasional use of guitar as percussion.

As a salute to Abisheganaden, his brief and rhythmic Danza Flamenca was aired, which was a nice foil to the samba of Thomas Brown’s Brazilian Street Dance. Smaller groups from the ensemble also showcased their wares, in quartet  (Hirokazu Sato’s Song of Clouds), quintet (Joao Pernambuco’s Po de Mico), sextet (Paulo Bellinati’s Baio de Gude) and octet (Keigo Fujii’s Shabondama Variations), all of which impressed with their musicality.

Soprano Lim, always a sparkling presence (above), added several degrees of sultry allure in the beautiful wordless Aria from Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas Brasileiras No.5, and Abreu’s swinging Tico Tico no Fuba, sung in Portuguese. Not so much introspection or reflection in these numbers, but it mattered little as scholars and thinkers should be easily forgiven for being entertainers too.

Alex Abisheganaden exhorts the audience
to buy the latest GENUS recording.

TREASURES OF TAIWAN / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

 

TREASURES OF TAIWAN

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Saturday (23 March 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 25 March 2013 with the title "Cross-Straits Treasures".

Led by the young Taiwanese conductor Ku Pao-wen, the Singapore Chinese Orchestra performed a very well-conceived programme built around the theme of Taiwanese music and composers. It seems that the politics of separation has not adversely affected cross-Straits musical affairs. Chinese music has always endured, whether from the mainland or otherwise.

An case in point would be Sui Li Jun’s Guandong Overture, an effective showpiece by a mainland composer written for a Taiwanese youth orchestra. Concertmaster Li Bao Shun’s gaohu and Xu Zhong’s cello blended well for the work’s main theme, but it was the chorus of suonas, aided by dizis for an added nasal twang, that completely stole the show as the work drove to a frenzied and percussive close.

By contrast, Taiwanese composer-conductor Chung Yiu-kwong’s Erhu Concerto provided a mellowing salve. The first two movements were slow, almost elegiac, allowing soloist Tian Xiao to eloquently pour out his lament. Its long-breathed lines, sensitively supported by the orchestra, bore out the principal subject of Chung’s Beijing opera Sunlight After Snowfall. That poser was the imponderable question, “Where is one’s homeland?”

By means of contrast again, the finale was a Paganinian moto perpetuo, with Tian’s erhu the virtuoso vehicle for dazzling display. The hectic gallop rhythm, egged on by quasi-tribal drumming, brought to mind that famous showpiece Horse Racing, with soloist and orchestra rushing headlong to the finish line.

True to the pedestrian title of Scenic Taiwan, Kuan Nai-chung’s suite in three movements is a musical travelogue dressed up in the flashy orchestral colour of Respighi’s Roman Trilogy. The opening Tune of Taipei is a busy evocation of the city’s famous nightlife, with a brief gaohu and erhu duet by way of romantic interest.

The most memorable movement was the central Ku Diao (Crying Tone), with Jin Shi Yi’s suona a tour de force in expressing eternal sorrow and strife. The finale Tian Hei Hei (Darkening Sky) employed two folksongs as subjects, with effective scoring and instrumental flair being the saving graces of otherwise thin material.  

The concert concluded with Zhao Yong Shan’s orchestral adaptation of the pipa classic Ambush From All Sides, originally by Liu Wen Jin. A battle piece in the manner of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, but based on the war of 202 B.C., the programmatic music depicted the calm before the carnage, leading to a full scale assault with flying steeds and the clangourous clashing of metal.

It was all very rowdy stuff, enough to stun the living and wake the dead. More importantly, this concert showed that with well-chosen and contrasting works, the Chinese orchestra exists as a vital symphonic force, far more than just a glorified folk band. 

   

SSO Concert: ROZHDESTVENSKY + RACHMANINOV / Review

ROZHDESTVENSKY + RACHMANINOV

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Friday (22 March 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 25 March 2013 with the title "Coaxing Russian out of Singapore orchestra".

When the veteran Russian conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky and his pianist wife Viktoria Postnikova took on the music of Brahms with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra exactly one year ago, the stodgy concert left this reviewer with mixed feelings. In this all-Rachmaninov programme, all remnants of reservation had evaporated like the morning dew. By putting an authoritative stamp on the music, the octogenarian maestro got the orchestra to bring out its Russianness.

Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943) was the musical heir of Tchaikovsky. Despite their age difference, the two Russians were good friends and colleagues. Tchaikovsky mentored Rachmaninov, so it was not a great surprise that his overriding sense of lugubriousness rubbed on the younger man.

The concert opened with the early symphonic fantasy The Rock, inspired by a short Chekhov story, a work not unlike Tchaikovsky’s fantasy overtures. Flautist Evgueni Brokmiller whipped up its agile recurrent motif with the greatest of ease, leading to the work’s brooding main theme. The ensuing development, with musical narrative coaxed to its climax and near breaking point, showed how well the orchestra responded to Rozhdestvensky’s baton.

Next was the rarely performed Fourth Piano Concerto, a late work Rachmaninov composed while permanently exiled from his homeland. Its darker, dissonant shades and aggressive posture meant it was unlikely to relive the popularity of its predecessors. Despite that, Postnikova carved out a trenchant and inspired reading that was totally persuasive.

With opening striding chords slightly off kilter in its swagger, she proved no slave to the metronome. It was Rachmaninov’s nostalgia, evident from quotations of past works, that came to the fore. Witness the second movement, where rays of sunshine from the short but glorious melody from an earlier Etude-tableau penetrated the gloom that came before.

Her technique and quicksilver reflexes held up well for the helter-skelter finale, which closed this Cinderella of a concerto on a violent and tumultuous note. With prolonged applause, she obliged with a thunderous reading of Rachmaninov’s Prelude in C sharp minor (Op.3 No.2), the composer’s most dreaded encore because audiences refused to leave until after he had played it.

The theme of nostalgia continued into the Symphonic Dances, Rachmaninov’s last work and de facto fourth symphony. Taken with a broad and expansive pace, Rozhdestvensky demonstrated that the first movement was marked Non Allegro (Not fast) after all. Tang Xiao Ping’s saxophone sang with a heartrending beauty, while the First Symphony’s once menacing main theme was relived, but now tamed and mellowed.

The second movement’s ghostly waltz teased and insinuated, heralded by excellent muted brass. It was the finale’s chorus, quoting the Dies Irae chant and his own Story Of The Resurrection from the choral Vespers, that truly resonated on all fronts. In charting his swansong, Rachmaninov bared his longing for past with an unapologetic fervour. Rozhdestvensky and his charges for the evening emphatically reminded one and all of that fact.         

  

Panoramas from PULAU LANGKAWI, Malaysia

The lovely beach of Pantai Tengah 
with its powdery sand, taken at dusk.

Pulau Langkawi is an island off the north west coast of West Malaysia in the northern state of Kedah.. Known for its pristine, unspoilt beaches and wealth of natural sights, it is a perfect getaway from the hustle-bustle of the city. Quiet and sleepy for most part, it has become a world class tourist resort thanks to its promotion by former Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Mahathir, who was himself a native of Kedah state. There are the usual tourist strips of hotels, restaurants and spas, but the national beauty of the land has not been diminished. Here are some photos I took of my short three night sojourn. Viewing them again really makes me want to come back sometime soon.   

One could easily forgive the bit of artifice 
that is the Oriental Village, a tourist trap but gateway 
to the cable car trip up Gunung Machincang.

A view of the cable car ride to the 
Upper Station from the Middle Station.

The dramatic looking Sky Bridge that links to smaller hills. 
Like many things in Malaysia, it was closed. 
It has been "under service" for an indefinite period of time.

Here is the reason why people take the Cable Car, 
a majestic view of the Machincang Range. 
The island seen in the distant background is part of Thailand. 

A view of Langkawi island itself.

Many tourists go on island-hopping tours, 
which take one to the secluded island  of Pulau Dayang Bunting 
(Pregnant Maiden Island), known for its freshwater lake.

A panoramic view of Pulau Dayang Bunting. 
With some imagination, one visualises in the hills 
a pregnant woman  lying on her back.

The freshwater lake of Tasik Dayang Bunting. 
Its serenity is immediately felt when one 
gazes into its clear reflecting waters.

Another popular destination is Pulau Beras Basah 
for its white sand beach and crystal clear water.

An idyllic view of Pulau Singa Besar from Pulau Beras Basah.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, March 2013)

Singaporean Classics

GENUS

Singapore Original Compositions

For Niibori Guitar Orchestra

NUS Centre For The Arts / ****

A Niibori guitar orchestra is an ensemble formed by nine different groups of guitars, each with specific registers of pitches, functioning like a choir of strummed sonorities. GENUS (Guitar Ensemble of the National University of Singapore) was founded in 1981 by Singapore’s “Father of the Guitar” Alex Abisheganaden and remains the nation’s premier Niibori ensemble. This disc comprises eight works representing three generations of composers associated with the group. Abisheganaden’s own Huan Yin - Vanakam and Gala Nexus (both 1995) are the most traditional and least complex. The former espouses the “Nanyang style” of composition, combining Chinese and Indian influences with its use of the erhu and sitar.

Current GENUS conductor Robert Casteels contributes the most ambitious work, the 20-minute long El Jardin de la Vita y la Muerte (The Garden of Life and Death, 2010) which combines voices, percussion, flamenco dance with the blood ritual of bullfights. Its visual spectacle is unfortunately lost in this audio recording. Taped sounds are heard in City Scape (2012, the chaos of urban construction) by Gao Yang and Casteels, and Kansalesa’s Bones (2011, a dog’s excited whimpers) by Balraj Gopal. Traditional Asian instruments also appear in Gopal’s Satyagraha (2011) and Chua Jon Lin’s Autumn Blues (2011). Finally, The Phunk Experiment (2011) by NUS students Alvin Ng and Calista Lee, a very listenable pop-inspired number with synthesisers and the disco beat, represents the future of the ensemble. Listen, and be surprised.

This recording retails at $10 and is available at the GENUS Concert on 24 March 2013. 

BOOK IT: INTROSPECTION / REFLECTION

Guitar Ensemble of NUS

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory 
24 March 2013, 7.30 pm  

Tickets at $16 

E-mail: nusguitarensemble@gmail.com 
Tel: Stephen at 9891 3312  

GREAT RUSSIAN SYMPHONIES

Naxos 8.501059 (10 CDs) / ***1/2

It looks like the major record labels have come up with the strategy of marketing multiple-disc sets, which retail at below super-budget price (at $6 per disc)  to entice the potential buyer as CD sales fall worldwide. With Naxos’s vast catalogue accrued over 25 years, it is possible to do just that. However, does one really want to hear the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra from Katowice conducted by Adrian Leaper and Antoni Wit play Tchaikovsky’s last three symphonies? The performances and recordings are more than competent but hardly world-beating. The same would apply to Prokofiev’s First and Fifth Symphonies or Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony from the national orchestras of Ukraine and Ireland respectively.

There are however exceptions, like an excellent Shostakovich Fifth Symphony, with its agonised final pages (very Russian indeed!) milked to the max from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic conducted by the dynamic young Russian Vasily Petrenko, or Borodin’s Second Symphony from the Seattle Symphony with Gerard Schwarz. The Shostakovich Seventh Symphony “Leningrad” from the Russian Philharmonic and Dmitry Yablonsky is also highly competitive. The rarities here are little-known symphonies by Glazunov, Kalinnikov and Myaskovsky, included for good measure. Naxos provides full programme notes, which are a definite plus for the first time listener. A gauntlet has been thrown for the Universal group of labels and their big-name orchestras to beat, which should not be too difficult.

This box-set retails at $59.90 at HMV 

SSO Concert: FANTASY FOR A NOBLEMAN / Review

FANTASY FOR A NOBLEMAN

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

School of the Arts Concert Hall

Sunday (17 March 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 19 March 2013 with the title "Sunday fantasy with a Spanish theme".

Sunday afternoon is synonymous with chamber concerts by members of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. This concert had a difference: instead of the usual trios, quartets and quintets, it showcased orchestral works scaled down to chamber-sized forces, united by a Spanish theme.

Conducted by SSO Young Associate Conductor Darrell Ang, the concert began with three popular excerpts from Bizet’s opera Carmen orchestrated by Frenchman Marius Constant. Despite the small sized ensemble, the sound created by the few musicians sonorously filled the musician-friendly and reverberant hall.

Soloists entered and left centre-stage like characters of a drama, first violinists Jin Li, Karen Tan. Shao Tao Tao and Wu Man Yun for the lilting Habanera, then oboist Elaine Yeo (above) in the seductive Seguidilla, and finally clarinettist Tang Xiao Ping lighting up the swirling Bohemian Dance. Each fulfilled their parts with requisite aplomb, and the music came alive without singers.

The concert also featured a full length concerto, Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concierto para un Gentilhombre (Concerto for a Gentleman) in the version transcribed for flute by James Galway. Once one got used to not hearing a guitar, it was a pleasure to behold Italian flautist Andrea Griminelli in the solo role.

He brought out a very pleasing tone in this work that rehashes baroque dances by 17^th century Spanish guitarist Gaspar Sanz in its five movements. Sounding both pastoral and florid by contrasts, he luxuriated in the virtuosic opportunities offered especially in the final movement’s cadenza, which brought on the cheers. His encore was Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumble Bee, breathlessly completed in the space of a minute.

The dictum that Frenchmen wrote the best Spanish music was proved a fallacy in the last two works of the concert. Emmanuel Chabrier’s orchestrated Habanera was as sanitised as one could get, despite the lovely solo from oboist Rachel Walker. Compare this with the raw energy and verve that inhabited the suite from Manuel de Falla’s ballet El Amor Brujo (Love, The Magician), which probed the very heart of the Spanish psyche.

Supernatural goings-on in the love lives of villagers in this tableaux, culminating in such hot-blooded numbers as the Dance of Terror and the famously striding Ritual Fire Dance. This very colourful score quoted neither existing folk songs nor dances, instead featuring original melodies.

There were gratifying solo parts, with pianist Shane Thio’s sweeping glissandi up and down the keyboard, Guo Hao’s tender cello song, and leader Kong Zhao Hui’s love theme on the violin. The music ended all too soon, and after the concert’s very satisfying 75 minutes or so, the sun was still shining outside as a very early evening beckoned.