pianomania: 31ST SINGAPORE INTERNATIONAL PIANO FESTIVAL: PAUL LEWIS IN RECITAL / Review

31ST SINGAPORE

INTERNATIONAL PIANO FESTIVAL

PAUL LEWIS IN RECITAL

Victoria Concert Hall

Saturday (28 June 2025)

British pianist Paul Lewis has performed in Singapore on multiple occasions since his PianoFest debut in 2012 (the edition held at the School of The Arts). His latest recital was conceived with two C minor Sonatas by Beethoven – one early and one late – as bookends.

Young Beethoven

He opened his recital not with the Pathetique (Op.13) but Op.10 No.1, which deserves to be better known. Also premised on the classic C minor triad, it shares the same Sturm und Drang tropes as its famous successor, into which Lewis poured his heart. With its big chords applied without apology, this was a no-holds-barred reading, tempered with moments of questioning and levity. Like the Pathetique, the central slow movement was also in A flat major, providing much lyrical respite before the Presto finale, with a resumption of storming and stressing.

Photo: Nathaniel Lim

Lewis then gave the Singapore (possibly Asian) premiere of Austrian composer-pianist Thomas Larcher’s Sonata for Piano (2024). It is so new that no performances have even appeared on YouTube. The accompanying programme notes by the composer just state:

What is a thought, an idea, an invention?

Where does the stream of developments come from, and what feeds it?

What is it, an idea? Where does it come from?

Whose ideas have triggered mine? And whose triggered theirs?

When composing, one is an interface in an infinite and never-ending circuit of connections.

Thomas Larcher (b.1963)

While listed in the programme booklet as a Bergian 11 minutes, it was more a Lisztian 31 minutes, with a Mahlerian scope to encompass everything and the kitchen sink. While contemporary in ideas, it was gratifyingly tonal, so no Singaporean audience had to endure some Boulezian monstrosity.

In its pages, one (meaning this pair of ears) could hear Minimalism, Oriental (Japanese) influences, Cowell and Cage (with the innards of the Steinway struck and stroked), more Cage as National Day Parade rehearsal fireworks were heard as counterpoint in the quieter sections (Victoria Concert Hall is not sound-proofed), jazz and tone clusters (fisting and forearm smashing galore).

Given its multifarious ideas and influences, this may be included with Charles Ives’ Concord Sonata (yet to be performed here), Frederic Rzewski’s The People United (premiered in this festival in 2008!) and anything by K.K.Sorabji in the pianistic house of oddities. Lewis gave a performance which can scarcely be bettered. Would I hear it again? Yes, but with score in hand the next time around.

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897):
Pre-mortem und post-mortem

The second half began with Brahms’ Three Intermezzi (Op.117), a wonderful follow-through of Kate Liu’s traversal of the Four Ballades (Op.10) from two nights before. Brahms the old man was pretty much the thoughtful thinker as Brahms the young man. The A-B-A schema was relived in these three pieces with the return being transformed again. A beautiful hymn of No.1 gave way to the smouldering disquiet of No.2, before the dirge-like plainchant that opened No.3 becoming more elaborate with every turn. This was Brahms’ “lullaby of sorrow” laid bare in a most eloquent way possible.

Old Beethoven

Concluding with Beethoven’s Op.111, Lewis’ reading was borne of anger, grief, reckoning and finally transcendence. All one needed was to allow the natural born storyteller to do his thing, and be part of a receptive audience. There was close to a half minute of reflection after Lewis sounded the last chord, and a rapture of applause only after he stood up. What could possibly follow a performance of this concentration and intensity? Nothing, only silence.