THE CLASS OF 1685 / Mervyn Lee, Yang Tien & Brenda Koh / Review

 

THE CLASS OF 1685 

Mervyn Lee, Yang Tien & Brenda Koh 

School of the Arts 

Orchestral Rehearsal Studio 

Wednesday (30 April 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 3 May 2025 with the title "Satisfying salute to Bach, Handel & Scarlatti".

Harpsichord recitals are a rarity in Singapore, such that a near full-house turned out in support of a concert by three faculty members of the School of the Arts (SOTA). Two of them, harpsichordist Mervyn Lee and violinist Brenda Koh are founding members of Red Dot Baroque, Singapore’s first professional period music ensemble, while harpsichordist Yang Tien is the Dean of Arts at SOTA. 

Love those wigs!
J.S.Bach, G.F.Handel & D.Scarlatti.

The concert was a salute to three towering figures of baroque music, the Germans Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Frideric Handel, and the Italian Domenico Scarlatti, all of whom were born in that miracle year of 1685. The music was performed on two instruments by British harpsichord maker Andrew Garlick modelled after a French Goujon instrument of 1749. 

Opening the 90-minute concert was Bach’s Preludium & Fughetta in G major (BWV.902) performed by Lee. The sonority he coaxed from the harpsichord was gentle and clear, played as if improvised on the spot. There was none of the clattery harshness that British conductor Sir Thomas Beecham infamously mocked as “two skeletons copulating on a tin-roof”. The short fughetta (little fugue) would later serve as a model to a more fleshed-out fugue from Book Two of The Well-Tempered Clavier. 

Lee was joined by Koh for Bach’s Sonata for Violin and Continuo in G major (BWV.1021), a four-movement work that followed the slow-fast-slow-fast Sonata di chiesa (church sonata) form. Koh’s intonation and articulation were spot on, her violin possessed with a sweetness of tone. The successive movements were sufficiently contrasted which made the matter of vibrato (or lack of) seemed almost irrelevant. 

Closing the first half were two very different Sonatas in A major by Scarlatti (K.208 and 113) played by Yang. The first, marked Adagio e Cantabile, had an aria-like singing line, as if accompanied by a guitar. The busy second, Allegro, simulated the massed winds and drums of a marching band, delighting with the frequent crossing of hands. 

In the second half, the interloper was contemporary Finnish composer Jukka Tiensuu’s Fantango (1984), providing the shock of the new. A playful cross between the Spanish fandango dance and the more modern tango, the piece utilised microtones which toyed with bending of pitches (hence the second harpsichord) and Yang’s forearm clusters (many contiguous keys played at once) giving a new definition of a smash hit. 

Playing Handel’s Suite No.7 in G major (HWV.432), Lee closed the concert on a satisfying high. This was a collection of dance movements preceded by a French Overture. This movement typically opens with a solemn statement in dotted rhythm, and closes with an elaborate fugue which Lee took care to make out its various voices. 

What follows is a series of contrasted dances – including a slow Sarabande and faster Gigue - before ending with a Passacaille. This series of short variations is already well-known through Norwegian composer Johan Halvorsen’s Passacaglia arranged for violin and cello. Hearing the original was revelatory, and the audience made that known with a warm reception.

All photographs by Huang Ying.