PIANO EXTRAVAGANZA 2023: Two Reviews from Singapore's Youngest Music Critics

PIANO EXTRAVAGANZA 2023:

Two reviews by 

Singapore’s youngest music critics

 

Amelie See with Donald Law.

AMELIE SEE

is 11 years old, plays the piano and cello.

 

Very few concerts in Singapore showcase a classical work composed by a Singaporean. For the first time in my life, I had a taste of what it was like when I attended Piano Extravaganza 2023.

 

The concert began with a piece not previously performed in Singapore, the Etude in B minor, "Gavotte" by Viktor Kosenko. Performed by Kseniia Vokhmianina, this was a work from her motherland, Ukraine. This graceful gavotte in neoclassical style made sharp contrasts with the other pieces she performed. A virtuosic etude by Chopin was followed by the melancholic Waltz in A minor and the well-known "Heroic" Polonaise. Rendered memorable by the sequence of left hand octaves, which described the charge of Polish cavalry, with their great white horses against an opposing army. Ms Vokhmianina also performed another first in Singapore, the elegant Waltz in A minor from Partita No. 5 by Ukrainian composer Myroslav Skoryk.

 

The B-L Piano Duo featuring Bertram Wee and Lynette Yeo played a show-stopping piece by the American Conlon Nancarrow, arranged for four hands on 2 pianos by British composer Thomas Ades. Syncopated rhythms made up the whole piece, played in an insanely fast tempo. It was truly a wonder how they managed to play so well.

 

The next piece by Roger Quilter, Now Sleeps The Crimson Petal, was beautifully transcribed by Sir Stephen Hough. It is a lovely and lyrical song. Completely different was Franz Liszt's Apres un Lecture du Dante (or Dante Sonata) from his Italian book of Years of Pilgrimage. Both pieces were played by Ms Cherie Khor, who amazed by being able to play both slow and virtuosic pieces equally well. Terrifying, it depicted a perilous descent into the inferno amid scorching tongues of flames leaping high, but ultimately it offered hope of redemption. Her playing of Liszt's Dante Sonata certainly caused me to have goosebumps.

 

Opening the second half of the concert was Mr. Donald Law, who first performed Czech composer Leos Janacek's Piano Sonata, which bore the title I.X. 1905. This was the date of a workers demonstration in Brno, when one carpenter called Frantisek Pavlik was stabbed to death. Mr. Law managed to convey feelings of fear and grief in the two movements, Predtucha (Presentiment) and Smrt (Death). Unlike other sonatas, this only had 2 movements, because the composer had discarded the 3rd movement, a funeral march, and did not write another. Mr. Law chose to end with the charming La plus que lente by Claude Debussy. This piece is known as Debussy's "slower than a slow waltz". An elegant piece, I can easily imagine this piece being played in a salon.

 

B-L Piano Duo graced the stage again, this time with Maurice Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe Suite No. 2, transcribed by Russian pianist Vyacheslav Gryaznov for four hands two pianos, no easy feat. The duo mimicked instruments in the orchestra, shown throughout in the work's three movements, Sunrise, Pantomime and Bacchanale.

 

The two pieces composed by Sergei Rachmaninov tonight were his Romance and Waltz. It was written in 1890-91 for his three cousins, the Skalon sisters. Mr. Donald Law, Ms. Cherie Khor and Ms. Vokhmianina emulated the threesome in this piece on a single piano. Just like Debussy's La plus que lente, the pieces also had a salon-like quality. I am sure that many sharp ears will notice that the beginning of the Romance is similar to Rachmaninov's ever-popular slow movement of his Second Piano Concerto.

 

The concert ended off on a high, and a proudly Singaporean note. Ms. Cherie Khor, Mr. Donald Law, Ms. Ksenia Vokhmianina and the B-L Piano Duo performed Kelly Tang's Symphonic Suite on a set of Local Tunes arranged for ten hands on two pianos by Mr. Bertram Wee. Popular local tunes like "Home" and "Chan-mali-chan" were relived in the piece, with occasional cheeky quotes from Beethoven and John Williams.

 

Estelle Goh with Pianomaniac.

ESTELLE GOH

is 16 years old, plays the piano and wants to be a musicologist and music critic.

For aficionados of the piano all over the land, the Young Virtuoso piano recital series is an éclat of the keyboard, and an opportunity to acquaint themselves with budding pianists making a name for themselves in Singapore. Ranging from familiar salon pieces to the avant-garde, the evening’s programme featured many works heard on Singapore’s shores for the first time.

 

Kseniia Vokhmianina opened the evening’s recital with a programme of miniatures, coalescing standard Chopin works with rarities by composers from her homeland Ukraine. Vokhmianina captivated right from the first falling figure in Kosenko’s Etude in B Minor, allowing the piano to continue to sing in Chopin’s Waltz Op. 34 No. 2, despite occasional smudges in the A-flat major Etude before. Another waltz in A minor followed, by Myroslav Skoryk, indubitably a personal highlight for this author. This was Vokhmianina in her element, most at home in its lilting luminosity, revelling in all its debonair. One would have expected more rhythmic drive and panache in the calvary charges of Chopin’s Heroic Polonaise, but Vokhmianina instead chose a different approach, uncovering hidden melodies in the middle section.

 

Next on the programme was Bertram Wee and Lynette Yeo, otherwise known as the B-L Piano Duo, who made easy work of the discordant intricacies of the Nancarrow-Ades Study No. 7. Through thorns of syncopation, the pair found blossoms of beauty. The twosome then returned after the intermission with a scintillating reading of the Ravel-Gryaznov Daphnis et Chloe Suite No. 2, unlocking a gamut of orchestral textures on the ivory keys.

 

Prefacing our descent into the infernal abyss was Sir Stephen Hough’s transcription of Roger Quilter’s Now Sleeps The Crimson Petal, in which Cherie Khor indulged in lush harmonies, tenderly but never sluggardly. For pianists valiant enough to take on the Mephistophelian challenge of Liszt’s Dante Sonata, Herculean tasks await in every corner of the score, but Khor held her own throughout all trials and tribulations.

 

The grim undertones of mortality resumed after the interval, with Donald Law opening the second half with Janacek’s Sonata I.X.1905. Amalgamating lamentation of bloodshed with prayers of peace, brooding pathos endured through Law’s persuasive interpretation. Sensitivity and languish laced Law’s take on Debussy’s La plus que lente, relieving the audience of the sombre meditation before.

 

Two Rachmaninoff six-hand works ensued, with Vokhmianina, Law and Khor returning to the stage. In the Romance, Khor’s nuanced terzo provided a prayerful backdrop, with Vokhmianina’s luminescent tone as wings, giving flight to the melody. Following was the carousel charm of the Waltz, a whirlwind of fun and sparkle. One pictures an adolescent Sergei and the Skalon sisters gathered at the piano, sharing one of many musical moments at their Ignatov estate.

 

The finale saw all five pianists gracing the stage for the Symphonic Suite on a Set of Local Tunes en by Kelly Tang and transcribed by Bertram Wee. This was a pianistic celebration of all melodies Singapore, comprising beloved tunes such as Home, dispatched by the band of pianists with a perfect blend of lyricism and bravura.

 

The evening’s indulgence of the ivory instrument would not have been possible without the unwavering support of the organising committee, and Dr Chang Tou Liang and the late Mr Vincent Chong’s vision to spotlight up-and-coming pianists in Singapore. I await the next Piano Extravaganza with bated breath!

Take a bow, young virtuosos!