SINGAPORE INTERNATIONAL PIANO FESTIVAL 2022 / Review

SINGAPORE INTERNATIONAL

PIANO FESTIVAL 2022

Victoria Concert Hall

Friday to Sunday (10-12 June 2022)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 15 June 2022 with the title "Piano festival makes grand return".

 

After the ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic, it was gratifying to see full audiences return to Victoria Concert Hall for the Singapore International Piano Festival. The 2020 edition had been cancelled, while last year’s festival featured only locally-based pianists, watched by only 50 people per recital. The virus has not been fully vanquished, as Japanese-Canadian pianist Kyoko Hashimoto had to cancel at the eleventh hour having contracted the infection.

 

The three-evening festival, with a common thread of “Vienna”, was opened by hometown favourite Shaun Choo. A student of universities in Salzburg and Berlin, his pianism is informed by the grand “Last Romantic” tradition espoused by the likes of the great Cuban-American Jorge Bolet and Ukraine-born Shura Cherkassky. His readings of Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata and Chopin’s Fourth Ballade (both in F minor), were free and unencumbered by the metronome, yet displaying an aristocratic mien.

 

Showcasing an outsized but never clangorous sonority, the mighty Bach-Busoni Chaconne resounded as if sculpted from a solid block of marble. In three Schubert-Liszt song transcriptions, he delighted in bringing out the music’s inner voices while keeping the singing line unbroken. In dance music, rhythm was never sacrificed for filigreed detail. This was evident in the insouciance of the Kreisler-Rachmaninoff Liebesleid (Love’s Sorrow), while Schulz-Evler’s fiendishly difficult Arabesques On Johann Strauss’ Beautiful Blue Danube dazzled as he cheekily slipped in bits of Chopin’s Minute Waltz and Paganini’s La Campanella.

Photo: Nathaniel Lim

 

Choo’s prowess as composer-improviser came to the fore in his own Tango, a teenaged indulgence, and two delicious encores celebrating the ragtime and sentimental ballad forms. Bringing down the house, all of these were heartily cheered.  

 

The Argentinian virtuoso Ingrid Fliter is sometimes remembered as the pianist who finished second to Li Yundi at the 2000 Chopin International Piano Competition. However, critical circles have long regarded her as the superior artist, and not merely a Chopin specialist. Her Singapore debut was a coup of creative programming and beautiful tone production.

 

Fliter’s juxtaposition of Haydn’s E minor Sonata (Hob.XVI:34) with Beethoven’s “Hunt” Sonata in E flat major (Op.31 No.3) was a metamorphosis from austerity to jollity. The transition from the unseemly light-heartedness of Haydn’s finale to Beethoven’s tonal ambiguities and implicit humour was seamless. Surprises abound (later spoofed in works by Schumann and Saint-Saens), culminating in a wild tarantella dance, the furious chase bestowing the sonata its nickname.  

Photo: Nathaniel Lim

 

The second half saw a meditative Scarlatti Sonata in C sharp minor prelude Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes, which opened in the exact same key. Mastery in extremes of tempos and dynamics distinguished her magisterial performance, made even more alluring with the inclusion of five “posthumous” variations, the two most sublime ones appearing after the work’s showstopping final etude. That the set closed in a beatific quiet instead of grandstanding bravura was the intention, and credit goes to the awestruck audience for heeding Fliter’s cues by not erupting prematurely.   

 

British pianist Leon McCawley’s recital returned to the classical world of Vienna, represented by Haydn’s masterly Variations in F minor and Mozart’s rarely heard Sonata in F major (K.533/494). There is a shared sobriety in the Haydn and Mozart’s slow central movement, brought out with a gravitas that was both touching and moving. In the Mozart fast movements, clarity and illumination were the rule, and the music could not have been more tastefully rendered.

 

Then there was Schubert’s final Sonata in B flat major (D.960), a work of heavenly length, where McCawley’s sense of proportion and architecture was peerless. Playing the exposition repeat of its first movement’s ensured that its warmth and lyricism was doubly enjoyed. An overwhelming sense of mortality possessed the haunting slow movement, as if the composer knew he would be dead within a matter of months. This, balanced by the apparent gaiety of the last two movements, gave this magnificently judged performance a human perspective that has become all too rare.

 

Three evenings of piano music, by three very different pianists, showed what interpretation was all about. And there was never a dull moment to be had.  

To show how popular the pianists were,
there was a long line for autographs
and photographs every evening.

 

For the record, the encores performed by the pianists were:

 

SHAUN CHOO (10 June 2022)

Shaun Choo Rondo Fashionisto

Shaun Choo Together Forever

Chaminade Automne (Op.35 No.2)

 

INGRID FLITER (11 June 2022)

Chopin Nocturne in D flat major (Op.27 No.2)

Chopin Waltz in C sharp minor (Op.64 No.2)

Chopin Waltz in D flat major (Op.64 No.1)

 

LEON MCCAWLEY (12 June 2022)

Mendelssohn Song Without Words Op.30 No.1

Grieg Little Bird from Lyric Pieces (Op.43 No.4)

Schumann-Liszt Widmung

A longer review of Ingrid Fliter's piano recital (11 June 2022) has been published in Bachtrack:

Ingrid Fliter's creative programming and beautiful tone inspires awe in Singapore debut | Bachtrack