pianomania: SPADES OF FATE / Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Orchestral Institute / Review

SPADES OF FATE

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory

Orchestral Institute

Conservatory Concert Hall

Friday (18 October 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 21 October 2024 with the title "Young pianist Edenia Maureen delivers Rachmaninov's First Piano Concerto with bravura".

Russian music has such a following in Singapore that a large audience assembled to attend the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Orchestral Institute’s latest concert conducted by Jason Lai. The name of Sergei Rachmaninov is guaranteed to sell tickets, even if it was with one of the Russian Romantic composer’s less often performed piano concertos.

The First Piano Concerto in F sharp minor (Op.1) was composed when he was a conservatory student of eighteen, but underwent a major revision in 1917. It is this most commonly-heard later version that was performed by final-year student Indonesian pianist Edenia Maureen, a prizewinner of the conservatory’s concerto competition.

Photo: Neo Jie Ning

Her diminutive frame was no impediment to creating a big sonority, evident by the opening cascade of octaves and chords. The music was typically Slavic, lyrical and steeped in deep melancholy, but coloured by a scintillating piano part. Despite disadvantages posed by overwhelming orchestral forces, she more than held her own, also delivering the first movement cadenza that headily mixed bravura with poetry.

The slow movement could have wallowed in sentimentality but an even keel was maintained, its relative restraint giving way to the finale’s feast of fireworks. Here, Maureen overcame some of the work’s trickiest fingerwork to race the orchestra to a spectacular conclusion. Although trailing behind the Second and Third Concertos by a great distance, this underrated concerto got a performance it deserved.

There was to be no encore, but the concerto was preluded by Rachmaninov’s most famous song, the wordless Vocalise (Op.34 No.14) in a reduced chamber orchestration. For this reading, the seamlessly mellifluous vocal line was carried by Huang Yi’s excellent viola solo, its plaintive quality totally befitting the music’s trail of pathos.

Photo: Neo Jie Ning

Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony in F minor (Op.36) completed the programme. The concert’s title relates to the chorus of brass that announces the Fate motif at the work’s very outset. Interestingly, a much shorter but similar motif also opened the Rachmaninov concerto as well. This idee fixe (fixed idea) or recurrent theme would later intervene at various parts of the work.

Most of the heavy lifting took place in the massive first movement, which ran the risk of being top heavy. For moments, the pace dragged a little but conductor Lai ensured that a nervous tension was sustained for long enough stretches.

The oboe solo in the slow movement came across a little cut-and-dried but the solo bassoon, playing the same doleful melody, got it just right near its end. Thereafter, this symphony became a veritable showcase of the students’ virtuosity. The string pizzicato paradise of the Scherzo was simply delightful, followed by the woodwinds’ miniature military march (with the piccolo’s significant contribution) and splendid brass chorale.

The cymbal player
never gets to play this much!

The Russian folksong-influenced finale was a hell-for-leather ride and the Fate motif’s inevitable return was that moment when one gets a lump in the throat. Getting listeners to the edge of their seats is the very reason why so many people cannot get enough of Russian music.