SINGAPORE CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL 2024: AOI TRIO. NING AN & FRIENDS / Review

SINGAPORE CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL 2024: 

AOI TRIO 

NING AN & FRIENDS 

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall 

Saturday & Tuesday (27 & 30 January 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 1 February 2024 with the title "Chamber Music Festival's successful return with Aoi Trio, Ning An"  

 

After a hiatus of about twenty years, the Singapore Chamber Music Festival has returned with a flourish. The week-long event, organised by re:Sound Collective, included music workshops and coaching sessions involving 28 local and overseas chamber groups and four evening concerts. The first evening showcased the youthful Aoi Trio from Japan, winner of the 2018 ARD International Music Competition in Munich, Germany. 

 

Its varied programme traversed the history of the piano trio genre, with pianist Kosuke Akimoto, violinist Kyoko Ogawa and cellist Yu Ito putting the shine on Mozart’s Piano Trio No.1 in B flat major (K.254). The piano’s dominance is evident in such an early example of the form, with violin providing decorative touches and cello merely simple accompaniment. Despite this imbalance, the performance was one of aural beauty and aesthetic balance.       

 

Trio (2013) by Japanese contemporary composer Toshio Hosokawa (born 1955) could not have been more different, with its espousal of Zen minimalism. Quiet long-held notes, static near-silences, prolonged trills and eerily-sliding glissandi all contributed to the music’s elusive mystique. There was a gradual stirring to breach the void but its twelve minutes closed on an uneasy calm.   

 

The evening’s highlight was Dvorak’s Piano Trio No.3 in F minor (Op.65) where the trio’s strengths – perfect intonation, ensemble cohesion, concentration and passion – came to the fore in  four movements playing for almost forty minutes. By now, all three instruments were equal partners, the music’s Brahmsian gravity balanced by a folksy Slavonic rusticity. The trio’s Mendelssohn encore delighted like a song without words.  

 

The second concert formally introduced American-Chinese pianist Ning an as Yong Siew Toh Conservatory’s latest faculty member. The new associate professor opened his showcase with three late works by Chopin.  The Berceuse (Op.57) highlighted right hand filigree over the left hand’s unchanging bass, while the Barcarolle (Op.60) delighted in a seamless cantabile, this being a Venetian gondolier’s love song. The melancholic Mazurka in F minor (Op.68 No.4) was Chopin’s last composition, performed as a tribute to his teacher, the late American pianist-pedagogue Russell Sherman.   

 

An was joined by the conservatory’s head of piano Albert Tiu in Rachmaninov’s Suite No.2 (Op.17), arguably the most popular work in the two-piano repertory. Both pianists were well matched in virtuosity and temperament, launching fearlessly into the imperious chord-laden opening Alla Marcia, then taking flight in the vertiginous Waltz. The slow Romance oozed sensuality as it built to a steamy climax, while gloves came off thrillingly for the final Tarantella. 

 

While the duo featured closely knitted ensemble, rightly considered chamber music, chamber music of the more conventional kind returned with An helming the piano part of Schumann’s Piano Quartet in E flat major (Op.47). Partnered by fellow teaching colleagues Qian Zhou (violin), Zhang Manchin (viola) and Qin Li-Wei (cello), the foursome gave a tautly cohesive performance that did not stint on poetry and lyricism.  

 

 

While the opening movement made big Beethovenian statements, the fast and impish second movement was a study in fast yet accurate playing. One will be hard put to find a more ravishing melody than in the slow movement, first heard on Qin’s cello before being shared by the rest. This was a true musical love-in, a loving respite before the finale’s busy contrapuntal lines closed on an energised high.      

 

Cheered on by an enthused audience, the quartet was joined by Tiu in his quintet arrangement of Astor Piazzolla’s tango La Muerte Del Angel (The Death of Angel). The surprisingly upbeat encore, despite its sombre title, was clearly enjoyed by all in attendance.