LUCAS CHEONG Piano Recital / Review

VIVA LA MUSICA

LUCAS CHEONG Piano Recital

Steven Baxter Recital Studio

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music

Friday (27 May 2022)

 

Once in a while, I get invited to listen to a teenager perform. Some of them turn out to be duds, but when  true talent is unveiled, it is cause for celebration. Their names may be familiar now, but I count myself fortunate to have heard the likes of Abigail Sin, Azariah Tan, Jonathan Shin, Nicholas Loh and Nicholas Ho years before they came into the limelight. It is my hope that 13-year-old Lucas Cheong might do the same.

 

Lucas is a Sec.2 student at National Junior College’s International Baccalaureate programme, and private piano student of Russian pedagogue Kerim Vergazov. His hour-long debut piano recital revealed a serious young man, somewhat raw but possessing natural talent, one with much promise to offer and recommend.

 

The evening opened with J.S.Bach’s Prelude & Fugue No.1 in C major from Book One of The Well-Tempered Clavier, where familiarity could be tainted with contempt. Not so, as the well-known Prelude benefited from judicious pedaling, then giving way to an equally good handling of voices for the fugue. In Beethoven's "Pathetique" Sonata in C minor (Op.13), Lucas showed he knew the meaning of Grave. The opening chords were loud and plangent, perhaps too emphatically so, but the effect was arresting. The Allegro di molto e con brio that followed had the right sturm und drang to be just as captivating. There could have been more tenderness in the Adagio cantabile slow movement, but the dramatics returned for the Rondo albeit with a little more light-heartedness. I think he also knows the meaning of “Pathetique” too.

 

The first half closed with Chopin’s Etude in C sharp minor (Op.25 No.7), the slow number also nicknamed “Cello" because of its silken-smooth left hand melody This he delivered with utmost steadfastness, coloured with well-timed and accurate scalic runs, although the right hand accompaniment could have done with greater sensitivity. This is a piece he will grow with, and in time return to with even better understanding.   

 

Thus far, Lucas showed he could play a demanding programme totally from memory and without missing many notes. The ante would be upped in the all-Russian second half which began with five pieces from Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet (Op.75). These piano transcriptions by Prokofiev’s own hand would never reproduce the orchestral colours of the original, and that was the case for the first three pieces. Montagues and Capulets sounded cut and dried, dominated by far too many big chords, while Friar Laurence was more stodgy than sympathetic. The mercurial Mercutio came close to tripping over himself on occasion. And then something happened.

 

The Dance of the Girls with Lilies is one of the “easier” pieces in the set, but it was this simplicity that Lucas caught with most alacrity, the languid lilting rhythm adding to its allure. Leaving the best for the last, Romeo and Juliet before Parting or the Balcony Scene represented the high point of the recital. Its gradual build-up was gripping, then its rapturous climax the fruition of pent-up emotion released with one big gigantic outburst of passion.

 

That Lucas has greatest sympathy with Russian music is without doubt (and having a Leningrader as mentor certainly helps), and this continued in the Rachmaninov suite of three pieces. The Prelude in G sharp minor (Op.32 No.12) was atmospherically crafted, its melancholic left hand melody rising ever so enticing from a web of right hand arpeggios. Even better was the Elegie in E flat minor (Op.3 No.1) from the early set of Morceaux de Fantaisie (which includes that infamous Prelude), which had another brewing climax mirroring the earlier Prokofiev. This was a performance which even seasoned professionals would be proud of. Closing the recital was the familiar martial strains of the Prelude in G minor (Op.23 No.5), not the most confident of readings, but had a lovely central section where the music was allowed to sing amid the furious goose-stepping.

 

Lucas’ encore provided a pleasant surprise in Debussy’s La plus que lente, delivered with a good sense of rubato without being too slow (despite the title). Its salon charm and insouciance was well captured, capping an enjoyable recital all round. Lucas has many years of musical discovery and music-making ahead of him, and he is encouraged to indulge in his curiosity for all things musical and artistic. With enlightened guidance, inspired mentorship, with lots of patience and perseverance, a bright future beckons.