ERIC LU & KAHCHUN WONG
CHOPIN PIANO CONCERTO NO.1
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Victoria Concert Hall
Friday (1 May 2026)
This review was first published in Bachtrack.com on 5 May 2026 with the title "Eric Lu brings scintillating Chopin to Singapore".
In two short weeks with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Kahchun Wong conducted more works by Asian composers than entire seasons in the past. Last week, his own orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition scored with traditional Asian and Chinese instruments and Cambodian composer Chinary Ung’s Water Rings: Overture were given local premieres. This concert saw the world premiere of young Singaporean composer Wang Chenwei’s Rwa Bhineda.
The title comes from Balinese philosophy where opposing forces – good and evil, joy and sorrow – exist to maintain balance in the cosmos. Within ten intense minutes, a soft-loud-sound / slow-fast-slow arch-like edifice was constructed to relive the perfect symmetry of a candi bentar gate found in Balinese architecture. String harmonics and low bass notes are heard in tandem, and both slendro and peleg scales of gamelan music were employed, anterograde and retrograde. All this led to central kinetic episode recalling the busyness of Colin McPhee’s Tabuh Tabuhan before gently receding into ultimate solace.
The sold-out concert’s main draw was American pianist Eric Lu, winner of the 2025 International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition, performing Chopin’s First Piano Concerto in E minor (Op.11). The opening Allegro maestoso was expansive, established by the orchestral ritornello and his entry stolid and imposing. Playing with the safety net of a tablet, any fears were dispelled as he fluently negotiated awkward turns and the scintillating development section.
Mastery of cantabile was never in doubt, and full fruition came in the Romance with the luminous seamless beauty of his phrasing and touch. The Rondo finale’s Krakowiak was breathlessly exciting, bringing the concerto to a triumphant close. This is one work where applause begins even before the last orchestral chord is sounded. Lu’s encores were contrasting, Schumann’s Träumerei from Kinderszenen and because the audience would not let him leave, Chopin’s vertiginous Waltz in A flat major (Op.42).
After a first half that lasted well over an hour, the audience had thinned out somewhat, a pity that some had missed a rare outing for Bartók’ Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta. Personally considered his best work, strings were symmetrically split into exact halves, placed on either side of Wong, each playing different parts and creating an antiphonal effect. Leading without a baton, he got as much as he could from players challenged by this kind of “chamber music”. Bare violas opened with a spare fugal subject, with Bartok’s patented night music atmosphere conjured in the opening and third movements later becoming synonymous with horror movie music.
All thanks to Stanley Kubrick’s canny use in his 1980 movie The Shining, this pop culture reference to the Adagio is unlikely to fade anytime soon. Jonathan Fox’s repeated xylophone ticks and glissandi on Christian Schiøler’s timpanis have that skin-crawling quality, and further slides on the strings, Beatrice Lin’s piano, Aya Sakou’s celesta and Gulnara Mashurova’s harp created a nightmare dreamscape now indelibly associated with deserted carpeted hallways, icy garden mazes and blood gushing from lifts.
The fast movements could have done with an extra helping of abandonment, particularly in the second movement’s treacherous runs of string pizzicatos with rapidly shifting metres, which was taken more gingerly than with swashbuckling verve. Nevertheless, the overall outcome was a still a positive one. Virtuoso orchestras and their audiences could always do with shocks to the system once in a while.
Star Rating: ****
The original review on Bachtrack.com can be read here:
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