MORE THAN MUSIC, MORE THAN LOVE / VCH Presents: More Than Music / Review

MORE THAN MUSIC, MORE THAN LOVE

Loh Jun Hong (Violin), 

Abigail Sin (Piano)

Dandan Wang (Viola) & 

Ng Pei-Sian (Cello)

Victoria Concert Hall

Wednesday (21 July 2021)

An edited version of this review was published in The Straits Times on 28 July 2021 with the title "Murakami tale retold in perfect union of words and music".

 

The Singapore Symphony Orchestra 2021-22 season has opened amidst a return to heightened measures of the pandemic circuit breaker. Audiences were limited to a hundred, with non-vaccinated persons requiring a negative pre-event testing result. The hunger for live music was acute, but gloriously sated by this chamber concert featuring the duo of More Than Music, violinist Loh Jun Hong with pianist Abigail Sin, and friends.

 

The Aria from J.S.Bach’s Goldberg Variations, arranged for string trio by Dmitry Sitkovetsky, opened the evening. Sustained lines from violin, viola and cello provided a deeper resonance quite unlike its original keyboard conception. Loh helmed the singing melodic line, while violist Dandan Wang and cellist Ng Pei-Sian’s accompaniment could not have been more sensitive in what was four minutes of sublime string heaven.

 

Gentle in a different way was young Singaporean composer Jonathan Shin’s After Haruki Murakami’s On Seeing The 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning, receiving its concert premiere. Scored for violin and piano accompanying an abridged script read by actor Timothy Wan, here was a case of words and music in perfect union.

I fancied that the meeting took place at 
the quiet Brahms Path in Harajuku
rather than busy Takeshita Dori.

 

Its setting was the chance meeting of boy and girl in a Tokyo street, possibilities that could have been, and opportunities lost in a fleeting moment of indecision or self-doubt. With romantic strains playing to a love story that never was, both violin and piano began as disparate entities, but coalescing in a climax like some rapturous Ravel sonata before going their separate ways again.

 

This sounds a sad tale, but one of serendipity that is illusory or imaginary at best. The lingering notion of regret and nostalgia of things past is however real. As is the quiet alley-way in Harajuku lined with quaint cafes and boutiques, where both could have met, called Brahms Path.

 

It was Johannes Brahms’ Piano Quartet No.3 in C minor (Op.60), inspired by Goethe’s The Sorrows Of Young Werther, that closed the concert. While not an overtly programmatic work, elements of sturm und drang (storm and stress) filled its four movements to overflowing. Abigail Sin’s piano opened sternly in bare octaves, followed by strings with brooding intensity, and the die cast for tragedy to unfold.

 

Playing this passionate and gripping is hard to come by, and sitting by the edge of one’s seat was the result. Even before catching a breath, the second movement upped the ante, its unrelenting pace pounding like furious palpitations of the heart. The slow movement’s famous cello solo, beautifully voiced by Ng, went to the work’s emotional core. Even this seemed transitory as the finale raced headlong into cruel fate, with Werther’s unrequited love ending with a gunshot to the head.

 

Fortunately the audience had something happier to take home, as Alexander Oon’s witty arrangement of Astor Piazzolla’s Libertango was the rocking encore to close what passed like a 100% perfect concert.

Photos by the kind courtesy of VCH Presents.