TWO GREAT RECITALS
PRESENTED BY ALTENBURG ARTS
What a relief it is to attend a concert and not have the pressure of submitting a review to the national daily within a deadline of 12 hours. Thanks to the increasing panel of music reviewers for The Straits Times, I am able to attend concerts (and pay for the tickets), sit back, relax and not have critical mode kick in while enjoying the music. Mind you, I still enjoy most concerts which I review, but with the weight lifted off my shoulders, there is a kind of guilty pleasure which feels oddly different.
Two recent concerts, both presented by Altenburg Arts and helmed by Lionel Choi, gave me much pleasure and enjoyment. I did not write the reviews, but the pleasure afforded the other reviewers was shared and possibly multiplicated. Altenburg Arts does not pander to popular tastes (for example, Lang Lang or Yundi Li would never be invited), and its concerts are not always well attended. However, the audiences it attracts are highly discerning ones, mostly cognoscenti and serious people in the know. There is never premature applause during breaks between movements, and even the children who attend are well-behaved (which speaks about the kind of parents they have - the good and proper kind). Now, that is a rare phenomenon in Singapore.
BEATRICE RANA'S Piano Recital
30 October 2024 at SOTA Concert Hall
She's a true piano star if there are still any, but one that does not get the limelight she deserves. I first heard her at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2013, and she was a revelation besides winner the Silver Medal and Audience Prize. I had all her CDs, and none have disappointed.
Her programme was an excellent one too, with true cantabile playing and playful skittishness in a selection of Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words and Scherzos. The F # minor Lieder ohne worte led into Brahms' Second Sonata (Op.2) in the same key (a smart bit of programming thought) and what power and sonority she unleashed in this unbridled beast from the German's early impetuous ears. It's not great music but a true test of a Steinway D's ability to withstand tons of massive octaves and chords.
The Ravel second half was predictably excellent, Rana's Gaspard de la nuit certainly flows and glows. All the horrendous and fiendish bits in Ondine and Scarbo do not faze her, and that Le Gibet truly hypnotised with its repeated tolls of B flat. La Valse provided a big splash, and her encores (a microcosm of her full programme) were just as good: Brahms' Waltz in A flat (Op.39 No.15), Mendelssohn's Spinning Song (Op.68 No.4) and Debussy's L'isle joyeuse. A rare pleasure and it was great to see her again in person.
CHRISTOPH PREGARDIEN'S
Schubert Die Schone Mullerin
12 November 2023 at Victoria Concert Hall
Lieder is an acquired taste in Singapore. Just ask those Sing Song Club folks who organise the Singapore Lieder Festival. Again, it was a smallish audience who attended German tenor Christoph Pregardien's recital of the Schubert song cycle with pianist Michael Gees. Pregardien, despite being in his late 60s, sang with the freshness of youth in these songs about disappointed love, disillusionment and death. The songs in German, which sound all-too-congenial without knowing the words, packed a punch in its message.
Some songs were transposed downwards by a semitone or a tone, but Pregardien was always on his game and never sounded strained. Time passed ever so swiftly through the 20 songs, and a loud and prolonged ovation from the lucky few who attended attested to the quality of the recital. His encores include Liebesbotshaft and Die Musensohn, which were eagerly lapped up.
The last time I felt so fulfilled after a Schubert evening, was after Hermann Prey sang Winterreise (with pianist Helmut Deutsch) at Victoria Concert Hall all the way back in 1988. Thanks for the great memories!
Altenburg Arts' next concert takes place on 15 December 2024 with Japanese pianist Mao Fujita plays Chopin and Scriabin Preludes. Get your tickets here:
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