MARTHA ARGERICH
& FRIENDS
LIVE IN SINGAPORE
Esplanade Concert Hall
Monday to Wednesday
(7-9 November 2022)
This review was published in The Straits Times on 16 November 2022 with the title "Martha Argerich and family thrill in mini music festival".
Presented by Altenburg Arts with the Orchestra of the Music Makers, Argentina-born Martha Argerich, regarded by many to be the world’s greatest living pianist, made a welcome return to Singapore. This time she was joined by two members of her family, eldest daughter violist Lyda Chen Argerich and 14-year-old pianist grandson David Chen. Also in the entourage for the mini-festival were Argentine conductor-pianist Dario Ntaca and South Korean pianist Yunchan Lim, staying on after his splendid solo recital.
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| Photo: Yong Junyi |
The first evening was a peek at chamber music-making in the three-generation Argerich household. Some 67 years separate Martha and David, who opened with Maurice Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite for piano four hands. The teenager cut a confident figure, and egged on by encouraging and kindly looks from his grand-mere, they coaxed a disciplined yet loving reading together.
Both pianists also took turns to accompany Lyda in Clara Schumann’s Three Romances (Op.22). Her viola’s singing tone came through in these lyrical and warm-hearted pieces no matter who was manning the keyboard. It was left for the young man to complete the first half with Chopin’s Fantaisie-Impromptu, impressing with both musicality and restraint.
The second half saw Argerich and Ntaca tackling Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances for two pianos. This was a disappointment, sounding under-rehearsed and lacking in tension. There were, however, some pretty moments in the central movement’s waltz, and the Orthodox chant-inspired finale was fitfully exciting. It took the electrifying encore of Debussy’s Fetes (Festivals, as arranged by Ravel) to remind one what four-hands piano playing was about.
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| Photo: Yong Junyi |
The second evening, entitled Romantics, was more satisfying. Young David made his official concerto debut in Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto, once the longest piano concerto in existence. How he kept his composure and concentration over three long movements, making music while overcoming its trickiest bits was a marvel in itself. His playing displayed sincerity and the ability to communicate. He has been taught well, and a bright future beckons.
The main event had to be Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor from the Grand Dame herself. Here was vintage Martha, her full-blooded passion bringing the warhorse to life and then some. Cascades of chords opened the work, and lyricism was in full flow from there. Despite the virtuosic spiels from start to finish, this was still ultimately chamber music. Both soloist and orchestra negotiated its complex interplay and rhythmic intricacies with stunning aplomb for a grandstand close. Encores by Schumann and J.S.Bach, tossed off with an easy nonchalance, furthered her legend.
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| Photo: Yong Junyi |
This concert might not have been a great success if not for the excellent partnership provided by the Orchestra of the Music Makers conducted by Dario Ntaca. The ensemble also shined in Wagner’s blazing Prelude to Act 3 of Lohengrin and Brahms’ Tragic Overture which provided the dramatics before each concerto.
The final evening saw the Argerich pianists sit it out as Lyda opened with German composer Paul Hindemith’s Trauermusik (Music for Mourning), written in response to the death of King George V in 1936. Her dusky viola tone was perfectly complemented by just orchestral strings during for brief moments of reflection. The full orchestra then emerged to give a riveting account of Rimsky-Korsakov’s four-movement symphonic suite Scheherazade. Concertmaster Zhao Tian (violin) and Charity Kiew (harp) shone as obbligato soloists, and there were many standout moments for massed strings, winds and brass as well.
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| Mother and daughter having a heart-to-heart talk during the intermission. |
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| Photo: Yong Junyi |
The festival concluded with South Korean pianist Yunchan Lim, most recent Cliburn Competition winner, in Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto, or the Emperor Concerto. High expectations raised by his solo recital were fully realised in a clean-cut reading that did not stint on bluster or outright fireworks. Amid the incessant heroics called for in outer movements, that he found a wellspring of poetry for the slow movement remained this performance’s abiding memory.
One thing was certain over three evenings of passionate music-making: virtuosity means little if it does not have heart.
Encores performed:
7 November 2022
Debussy Fetes from Trois Nocturnes (arr.Ravel)
8 November 2022
Schumann Von fremden Landen und menschen
(Of foreigns lands and people) from Kinderszenen Op.15
J.S.Bach Gavotte I & II
from English Suite No.3 in G minor
9 November 2022
Bach-Kempff Siciliano
Watch Martha Argerich's performance of Schumann's Piano Concerto with OMM here:
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