SAINT-SAENS: MASTER OF THE MINIATURE / KIT ARMSTRONG Piano Recital / Review

 

SAINT-SAENS: 

MASTER OF THE MINIATURE

KIT ARMSTRONG Piano Recital

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (6 July 2025), 5 pm

This review was published in The Straits Times on 8 July 2025 with the title "Kit Armstrong champions Saint-Saen's neglected piano works".

Concertgoers will know the French composer Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921) for his Carnival of the Animals and “Organ” Symphony, and may even have heard of his five piano concertos and virtuoso works for violin. Lesser known is the fact that he was once a child prodigy pianist, who wrote a large body of piano music all his life, much of which is obscure and seldom heard.

It was thus a labour of love by American pianist of British-Taiwanese parentage Kit Armstrong to present a two-hour long recital wholly devoted to Saint-Saens’ piano music. This could have been too much of a good thing but proved otherwise in reality.

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

It began with his most familiar music, the famous tone poem Danse Macabre (Op.40) as transcribed by Franz Liszt. Opening with a bell tolling midnight and ringing tritones, calling for the Devil to play his violin with skeletons leaping out of graves in an infernal dance. Armstrong brought out its orchestral textures and vibrant rhythms with stunning aplomb.

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

Surely Saint-Saens’ own piano writing could not top that of his Hungarian colleague’s. That was where Armstrong the evangelist came in. Saint-Saens was an exquisite craftsman such that something seemingly as mundane as Menuet et Valse (Op.56) could be turned into a gem of Belle Epoque charm. The Frenchman is often accused of salon superficiality and overblown kitsch, but when presented with such loving care, his music simply sparkled and stereotypes fail.

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

His Mazurka in B minor (Op.66) looked forward to Finnish composer’s Jean Sibelius’ Valse Triste and free-wheeling jazz, while his Gavotte in C major (Op.90 No.3) was representative of a Parisian bon vivant. Who could resist the delights of his Valse Langoureuse (Op.120), where languor does not equate with laziness, or the simply-titled Valse Gaie (Op.139), where gay just meant being carefree without other connotations?

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

Nobody has accused Frederic Chopin or Liszt of being trite, and so the same respect should be accorded Saint-Saens. His far-flung travels were celebrated with Africa (Op.89), a work originally for piano and orchestra, and where Armstrong skilfully combined both busy parts with North African themes to maximal effect.

The tintinnabuli (bell sounds) of Les cloches de Las Palmas (Op.111 No.4), a souvenir of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic, were so modern as to bring to mind the Impressionist scores of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel as well as 20th century Minimalists.

The last part of Armstrong’s recital included elegies and fugues, and there was time enough to slip in two studies (a Bouree and an Elegie) written for the left hand alone from Op.135, which displayed a love of counterpoint. Saint-Saens’ last piano piece, Feuillet d’album (Op.169), was disarming, closing with a series of notes gently rising up the keyboard, as if saying “The End”.

Armstrong’s proselytising of Saint-Saens as a polymath genius did not extend to his encores, which included Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Gavotte and Six Variations and Liszt’s Transcendental Etude No.10 in F minor. This young man’s thoughtful programming and dedicated advocacy was simply thrilling.

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

Kit Armstrong 

was presented by Altenburg Arts.