MICHEL DALBERTO Piano Recital / Review

 

MICHEL DALBERTO Piano Recital

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory 

Recording Studio

Tuesday (28 October 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 30 October 2025 with the title "French pianist Michel Dalberto plays with passion and purpose in jam-packed 105-minute recital".

Some 47 years ago, French pianist Michel Dalberto was awarded First Prize at the 1978 Leeds International Piano Competition. Now at the age of 70, he rolled back the decades to perform a 105-minute piano recital without a break. Never has so many notes been packed within a showing that did not look out of place at the Singapore International Piano Festival.

Not to be typecast as a French music specialist, he opened with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata No.23 in F minor (Op.57), also known as the Appassionata. Although the venue had been switched from the conservatory’s spacious concert hall to its much smaller recording studio, no concession needed to be made for sound production.

Photo: Lucas Kwai Ming Yang

Dalberto played with fire, purpose and projection, yet was careful to differentiate between quieter sections and those with barnstorming. There was little to no banging, yet every note was made to count. The central movement’s variations unfolded majesterially before the finale’s unrelenting wave of perpetual motion threatened to boil over. He was in perfect control throughout and defined what passion was all about.

Then came the French segment, where three composers were united not so much by nationality and location, but by aspirations and aesthetics.

Photo: Lucas Kwai Ming Yang

In the First Book of Images of Claude Debussy, Reflets dans l’eau (Reflections in the Water) was distinguished by Dalberto’s deft pedal-work. While this spelt Impressionism on the surface, it also possessed an underlying spiritual thread that continued into the formal neoclassical lines of Hommage a Rameau (Homage To Rameau) and the chattering rumbles of the closing Mouvement.

The bygone Belle Epoque world of Gabriel Faure did not seem so far away. While the innate lyricism of his Impromptu No.3 in A flat major (Op.34) could have been more fluently voiced, the long-breathed beauty of Nocturne No.6 in D flat major (Op.63) was handled with such poise that one was sorry it had to end.

Faure was the teacher of Maurice Ravel, whose three-movement Sonatine seemed like an unbroken continuation of his sound world. The central Mouvement de Menuet, a courtly dance, was played with a detachment that seemed distant initially, but soon warmed up to become the work’s glowing and beating heart. The finale’s whirlwind seemed to echo the last movements of the Beethoven and Debussy works.

Dalberto, who was hitherto silent, finally waxed lyrical about his final piece, Franz Liszt’s Reminiscences de Norma. Also called the Norma Fantasy, this was far more than a medley of popular melodies from Vincenzo Bellini’s bel canto opera about a fallen Druid priestess, but full-blown conflation of virtuoso ideas wrapped up in a compact 17-minute musical present.

Photo: Lucas Kwai Ming Yang

All of Liszt’s finger-twisting complexities and Bellini’s gift of melody came to fruition through Dalberto’s unerring vision. This guided its gripping narrative from opening trumpet fanfares, the heroine’s angst and loves all through to her final and fatal conflagration. After this thrilling ride, there was no need for an encore, as everything had been said and done.

SINGAPORE-CHINA GALA SYMPHONY CONCERT / Shanghai Nine Trees Philharmonic Orchestra / Review

 

SINGAPORE-CHINA 

GALA SYMPHONY CONCERT

Shanghai Nine Trees 

Philharmonic Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Sunday (26 October 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 28 October 2025 with the title "Classical collaboration marking six decades of Singapore-China ties".

Sixty years of Singapore-China diplomacy was celebrated with a concert by the Shanghai Nine Trees Philharmonic Orchestra led by the world-renowned Chinese conductor Tang Muhai. The resident orchestra of the Shanghai Nine Trees Future Art Center in Fengxian District was augmented by many local players to perform a programme of works representing both nations.

The evening opened with Singaporean Felix Phang’s Pasat Merdu (Melodious Market) which featured six musicians from The Straits Ensemble. This very accessible work skillfully combining elements of Chinese, Malay and Indian music, premiered by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra at its 2023 National Day Concert, was a microcosm of the harmonious melting pot that is our nation.

Next came the quintessential Chinese work, Chen Gang and He Zhanhao’s Butterfly Lovers Concerto, in an abridged version scored for strings and piano. Soloists representing the ill-fated pair of lovers were Singapore Symphony Orchestra associate concertmaster violinist Kong Zhaohui and Singapore Chinese Orchestra erhu prinicipal Zhu Lin. This 15-minute edition which incorporated all the work’s essential themes may be described as Butterfly Lovers for short attention spans.

The truncation was necessary to accommodate Chinese composer Danny Dong’s Dreaming of Fengpu, a half-hour four-movement programmatic symphony. Dreams and aspirations of Fengxian residents in constructing the Fengpu Bridge, which spanned the Huangpu River connecting Fengxian with central Shanghai city, were realised in this melodious work which ticked all the boxes of modern Socialist realism. This included Nie Er’s March of the Volunteers, the Chinese national anthem, quoted not once but twice.

The concert’s undoubted highlight was the performance of Frederic Chopin’s First Piano Concerto in E minor (Op.11) by Singaporean pianist William Wei, former child prodigy and recipient of the National Arts Council’s Gifted Young Musicians’ Bursary. A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music and Yale University, his very idiomatic reading seemed like a continuation of the recently-concluded Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw.

Those stricken with piano envy that a Malaysian pianist Vincent Ong could star in Poland’s premier event will find consolation in Wei’s artistic sensibilities which combined lyrical poetry with a strong technical arsenal. Performing on a C.Bechstein grand, he projected well in solo entries and kept the audience enraptured all through its 40-minute duration.

With the orchestra not letting up in tuttis, he surmounted the vigorous support with perfect restraint and without resorting to banging. Particularly beautiful was the opening movement’s second subject and the slow movement’s Romanze, where time stood still. This was followed by the Rondo finale’s infectious dance rhythms which literally leapt off the page. Singapore longs for a piano hero, and Wei might just be the answer.

The concert concluded with a hilarious encore for both pianist and orchestra, a medley of 17 of classical music’s most popular melodies which those with long memories will nostalgically remember as Hooked on Classics from the 1980s.

For the record, the melodies played in the slightly abridged version of Hooked on Classics were:

1. Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1

2. Rimsky-Korsakov Flight of the Bumble Bee

3. Mozart Symphony No.40

4. Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue

5. Sibelius Intermezzo from Karelia Suite

6. Mozart Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

7. Beethoven Ode to Joy from Symphony No.9

8. Rossini William Tell Overture

9. Grieg Piano Concerto

10. Bizet Carmen Overture

11. Jeremiah Clarke Trumpet Voluntary

12. Handel Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah

13. Beethoven Emperor Concerto

14. Brahms Hungarian Dance No.5

15. Vivaldi Spring from Four Seasons

16. Dvorak Largo from New World Symphony

17. Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture

EMPEROR CONCERTO / RUDOLF BUCHBINDER + SPRINGTIME IN FUNEN / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

EMPEROR CONCERTO / 

RUDOLF BUCHBINDER +

SPRINGTIME IN FUNEN

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Thursday (23 October 2025)

This review was first published in Bachtrack.com on 27 October 2025 with the title "Rudolf Buchbinder completes Singapore Beethoven concerto cycle in style".

Whoever devised this programme for the Singapore Symphony Orchestra deserves a prize for creativity, by coupling an “immortal beloved” piano concerto with three relative rarities in a concert which celebrated life and the joy of music itself.

Photo: Yoricko Liu

First, there was the unfinished business of Austrian pianist Rudolf Buchbinder completing his Beethoven piano concerto cycle, having performed the first four concertos over two concerts in December 2023. This time, he did not need to lead the orchestra from the keyboard, instead having Polish guest conductor Michał Nestorowicz doing the honours. For good reason, Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto in E flat major (Op.73), known in Anglophone nations as the Emperor, is never referred to as the Kaiser in Austria or Germany. It was just a popular nickname based on an apocryphal C’est l’empereur! quip from some Napoleonic officer who first heard its regal refrains.

Freed from stereotype, Buchbinder’s approach to the opening cadenza was taken very swiftly, almost perfunctory and certainly without imperial pretensions. That set the tone of the first movement despite the orchestra’s efforts to keep up the bombast. Playing down the emperor was a refreshing way to view this warhorse, but there was no denying the sense of nobility in the central slow movement, and the final Rondo romped home with pure unfettered joy. That is how most people will remember this Emperor, rather than its hurried beginning. The encore of the finale from Beethoven’s Tempest Sonata (Op.31 No.2), played fast and unsentimental, was a sneak preview of Buchbinder’s solo recital the following evening.

The concert opened with Polish-Lithuanian composer Grazyna Bacewicz’s Overture (1943), a very effective showpiece for rapid string figurations. Composed during the Nazi occupation, its heroically defiant tone of final victory wore well, and this listener would sooner hear this than the umpteenth performance of Glinka’s Ruslan and Ludmilla or Shostakovich’s Festive Overtures.

Not to be overshadowed were the Singapore premieres of two Carl Nielsen cantatas. A switch of performance sequence saw Springtime in Funen (Fynsk Förår, Op.42) heard first. Sung in Danish to texts by Aage Bernstsen, there was a provincial innocence to this music which painted rustic rural scenes, many miles away from his angsty symphonies. The trio of Danish soloists soprano Frederikke Kampmann, tenor Anders Kampmann and bass-baritone Steffen Bruun were excellent, but the scene was stolen by the Singapore Symphony Children’s Choir (Wong Lai Foon, Choirmaster) with 62 kids gamboling onstage for their minute-long cameo (Nu vi vil ud og lege, Now we go out and play) before dispersing into the wings.

The other cantata was Hymnus Amoris (Hymn of Love, Op.12), Nielsen’s first choral work sung in Latin, a cradle to grave primer on aspects of love through the ages. Local baritone Wong Yang Kai joined the male soloists as a group of Very Old People singing Amor est pax mea or Love is my peace, and there was a rare episode of dissonance with soprano Kampmann as An Unhappy Woman in Amor est dolor meus, simply Love is my pain. The Singapore Symphony Choruses of adults, youths and children (Choral director: Eudenice Palaruan) had a field day with climaxes (Amor mihi vidam dedit, Love gives me life) for once hitting the highs of Nielsen’s embattled symphonies. Love filled the air, but not in the Carmina Burana way, but something non-carnal and far more wholesome.

Star Rating: ****

The original version of this review here: 

Rudolf Buchbinder completes Singapore Beethoven concerto cycle | Bachtrack

EIN MUSIKALISCHE ABEND @ RESIDENTIAL COLLEGE 4 / October Edition

It has now been established that the Master's Lounge of Residential College 4 of National University of Singapore is a place for music, and not just for steak. All thanks to Professor Peter Pang of Mathematics who got the ball rolling after receiving a Yamaha grand piano from the Centre for the Arts, and add a Schimmel upright piano, this has become a venue for music making.

It was a pleasure and privilege to be asked to play something for the latest soiree, and I followed a line of esteemed professors whose love for music was expressed and shared with all who attended. There was a good house of students, staff and residents for an evening of mostly Austro-German music (this much suggested by the title of the event). None of us are professional musicians, but most are professors of non-musical subjects who care for music, while I can only profess to enjoy music and play a little.

Here is the damning evidence, all visual and no aural, although there might be a few videos captured by handphone circulating around and ready to use for blackmail.  

Peter gives a short address, and by the
looks of it, suggests something light-hearted.

Yap Von Bing, aka Yap Von Beethoven,
Professor of Statistics, plays the
Aria from J.S.Bach's Goldberg Variations.

Winston Seah Kar Heng, Emeritus Professor
of Mechanical Engineering, added
Variations 3, 18 & 30 (Quodlibet),
before Von Bing reprises the Aria da capo.

Peter Pang now proposes something serious.

Peter performs the Bach-Kempff
Siciliano in G minor

Young Emma Ng, cellist in the MacPherson
Philharmonic Orchestra, is a final year 
Mechanical Engineering student.

Here, she performs the Bach-Gounod Ave Maria
accompanied on the piano by her mother
Vivian Ng, Professor of Electronic Engineering.

The piece de resistance of the evening was
Peter playing Mozart's Fantasy in C minor (K.475).

Yours truly playing the much easier
Mozart Fantasy in D minor (K.397),
preceded by Scriabin's Etude (Op.2 No.1)

The encore came from Kar Heng,
and now for something very different,
a Cantopop song by Sam Hui.

It wasn't exactly the Singapore International
Piano Festival, but I think everyone had a good time.

The performers gather for one last applause.

SHADOWS, FANTASIES & FIREWORKS / BENJAMIN GROSVENOR Piano Recital / Review

 

SHADOWS, FANTASIES & FIREWORKS

BENJAMIN GROSVENOR Piano Recital

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (19 October 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 21 October 2025 with the title "Halloween came early with pianist Benjamin Grosvenor's recital".

It is twelve days before 31 October but Halloween came early with British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor’s solo recital, presented by Altenburg Arts, which had more than a touch of the morbid and macabre. The stage was drenched in blood red lighting as he opened with Frederic Chopin’s Second Sonata in B flat minor (Op.35), popularly known as his Funeral March Sonata.

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

German composer Robert Schumann called it “four of Chopin’s wildest children under the same roof”, and he was not far off the mark. The opening movement’s outpouring of raw emotion was given its full measure by Grosvenor and even if he did not include four bars of the Grave introduction in the exposition repeat, it mattered little.

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

And even before the dust could settle, the Scherzo blazed forth with such vehement intent, that the famous Funeral March could have been the only rightful outcome. In both movements, contrasts provided by the lyrical centres from the rumbling beginnings were starkly delineated. Then came the most ghostly of finales, two minutes of “wind blowing over the gravestones”, its breathless Presto hammering home the finality of death.

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

Now illuminated in pale blue, Frenchman Maurice Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit followed, a triptych of Gothic horror inspired by verses of symbolist poet Aloysius Bertrand. Grosvenor could not quite achieve the triple-pianissimo in the quivering tremulous opening of Ondine, but provided the lightest of touches to the glissandi and gravity-defying arpeggios in this Impressionist exploration of the fluid realm.

The repeated tolling of B flat octaves in Le Gibet cast a hypnotic spell, accompanying the visage of a corpse gently swaying from a gallows. The scampering of Scarbo, the finale’s devilish imp on crocked knees, has to be experienced in person as Grosvenor’s take no prisoners approach would easily best the finest versions on record. In short, it was breathtaking.

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition occupied the recital’s second half. Often criticised for threadbare piano writing, it takes a special artist to transform the monochrome score into brilliant Technicolor. Grosvenor achieved it without resorting to rewriting the music the way the great Ukrainian-American Vladimir Horowitz had done.

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

By sharply contrasting its many jagged contours, adding tremolos and doubling bass notes, all done discreetly, the music truly came alive. The Promenade movements which preceded each painting were given their own characterisations, equating to the viewer’s (or listener’s) changing moods.

Which were the most memorable pictures? The Old Castle possessed a melancholy of the ages. Goldenberg and Schmuyle, the two Polish Jews, were cast as an implacable duo. Catacombs and Cum Mortuis In Lingua Mortua (With the Dead in a Dead Language) provided an eerie chill, before the final inexorable romp that was Baba Yaga’s Hut and The Great Gate of Kiev.

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

Grosvenor’s encores were no less gripping. Ravel’s Jeux d’eau (Water Games or Fountains) was the perfect companion to the earlier Ondine while the inner voicings of the Bach-Siloti Prelude in B minor made for a sublime close.