MADELINE GOH Violin Recital
Esplanade Recital Studio
Wednesday (4 January 2023)
STORIES FROM THE HEART
Voice of the Cello
School of the Arts Concert Hall
Sunday (8 January 2023)
This review was published in The Straits Times on 10 January 2022 with the title "Concerts showcase Singapore's wealth of string talent".
If one wondered how Singapore produces so many excellent young musicians in recent decades, the answer can be attributed to good teaching. Pioneering classical musician Goh Soon Tioe (1911-1982), violinist, conductor, pedagogue and impresario, saw to the beginning of this renaissance. His legacy lives on through his many students and awards bestowed in his memory.
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| Photo: Gilbert Chan |
The tenth and latest recipient of the Goh Soon Tioe Centenary Award was 15-year-old violinist Madeline Goh Anyi, former student of violinist Min Lee, who is pursuing pre-college studies at the Salzburg Mozarteum. Her hour-long recital was a showcase of precocity balanced by maturity beyond tender years.
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| Photo: Gilbert Chan |
In Mozart’s Violin Sonata in B flat major (K.378), the hallmarks of fine musicianship were displayed, including clarity of articulation, beautiful cantabile tone, excellent intonation and attention to phrasing and nuances. There was never a moment of artifice as she and pianist Beatrice Lin sang their way through to its virtuosic close in double-quick time.
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| Photo: Gilbert Chan |
In unaccompanied music, Goh was nigh unimpeachable in two movements from J.S.Bach’s Sonata No.2 in A major, with the fugue’s complex counterpoint mastered with aplomb. Scaling fiendish heights in Paganini’s mercurial Caprice No.10 and contemporary Austrian composer Gerhard Wimberger’s Toi, Toi, Toi (2016), tricks and cliches of the trade were laid out and skilfully dissected with a surgeon’s precision.
There were moments to relax in Eugene Ysaye’s salon-like Mazurka (In A Distance) in gentle triple-time but all stops were pulled for Wieniawski’s showpiece Polonaise in D major, bringing down the house. As an encore, Madeline was joined by elder sister Mathea (award recipient in 2016) in the Allegro movement from Prokofiev’s Sonata for two violins (Op.56), a show of perfect synchrony demonstrating that musical talent does run in families.
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| Madeline Goh receives her big cheque from Vivien Goh,Goh Soon Tioe's daughter. |
If one thought pianists and violinists were main foci of attention, young cellists have begun to have their say. Stories From The Heart was a fundraiser for The Business Times Budding Artist Fund presented by Voice of the Cello, a collective mentored by veteran cellist Natasha Liu. No less than 40 cellists performed in this impressive showcase.
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| Amelie See with Michelle Seah |
Its first half highlighted solo works, with 10-year-old Amelie See opening in Bohemian composer David Popper’s Polonaise de Concert with a display of confidence and poise. Even younger was 8-year-old Grace Joy Chee who blew away Saint-Saëns’ showpiece Allegro Appasionato with relative ease, followed by Ji Yuanjun (10) in the finale from Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major, possessing both lightness and fleet-fingeredness.
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| Grace Joy Chee |
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| Natalie Yong |
By way of contrast, Lucas Liow (11) bared his heart and soul in the contemplative Andante movement of Rachmaninov’s ever-popular Cello Sonata, while Natalie Yong (13) luxuriated in the cantabile opening of Paganini’s Variations on Rossini’s Moses in Egypt, and never faltered as the work got increasingly thorny by the minute. All the works were partnered by pianist Michelle Seah.
The concert’s second half featured cello ensemble works ranging from three to twelve cellists. Six six-year-olds delighted in Tchaikovsky’s Sugar Plum Fairy while twelve seven-to-nines had their work cut out in William Squire’s very animated Tarantella. Stealing the show were four immaculately dressed lasses in all-white outfits for Saint-Saëns’ The Swan, and a choreographed Elgar’s Salut d’amour for three cellists accompanying three dancers befitting the gracefulness of the music. Just too cute for words.
Six twelve-year-olds tackled Gabriel Fauré’s Elegie, calling for sobriety and depth of expression without piano accompaniment, while Shostakovich’s Waltz No.2 closed the variety programme on a lighter note. The grand finale saw the entire ensemble of 40 cellists converge in Harold Arlen’s Over The Rainbow, with a melody that would melt even the stoutest of hearts. Singapore’s got talent, and there are no two ways about it.
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| Photo: Voice of the Cello |
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