CD Reviews (The Straits Times, September 2015)

FANTASY TRIOS

Dimension Piano Trio

Champs Hill 060 / *****

In 1907, a philanthropist and amateur musician named Walter Cobbett held a competition for new compositions in the piano trio genre based on the subject of a one-movement “phantasie”. The 1^st prize of 50 pounds was awarded to Frank Bridge (1879-1941), who had composed his Phantasie in C minor. The work encompassed high passion and languidity, with a central section of scherzo-like playfulness. His style was influenced by the likes of Brahms, Fauré and Richard Strauss. Coming in second was John Ireland (1879-1962) whose Phantasie in A minor, more sanguine work with a most serene conclusion, was rewarded just 10 pounds.

Performing these in this highly rewarding album are the trio of violinist Rafal Zambrzycki-Payne, cellist Thomas Carroll and pianist Anthony Hewitt. Their vivid advocacy is second to none. The longest work is however Eduard Steuermann's highly idiomatic piano trio arrangement of Schoenberg's famous String Sextet, entitled Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), portraying the anguished emotions of an estranged couple on a midnight walk. The work however ends peaceably and with a reaffirmation of love. The filler is brief but no less fine: Josef Suk's Elegie deserves more than an occasional airing. The recorded sound is excellent, hence essential listening for chamber music aficionados.      

THE CHOPIN PROJECT

OLAFUR ARNALDS & ALICE SARA OTT

Mercury Classics  0028948114863 / *

Purists, look away now as yet another crossover project attempts to breathe new life into the well-worn classics. Polish composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) is the victim here, as young Icelandic composer and multimedia artist Olafur Arnalds deconstructs his music with the help of a somewhat misguided German-Japanese pianist Alice Sara Ott and an Icelandic string quartet. Five of nine tracks in this short 46-minute long album are Arnalds' meditations on short motifs and harmonic sequences to be found in Chopin's pieces. All these are slow and dreamy, including Verses and Written In Stone, based on a recurrent accompanying pattern in the 3^rd movement of Chopin's Third Sonata.

Ott plays the original version of the Largo, the Raindrop Prelude, the posthumous C sharp minor Nocturne (with violinist Mari Samuelsen in Nathan Milstein's transcription), and exasperatingly truncated versions of the G minor and C minor Nocturnes. But what is gained for some of these to be accompanied by deliberately added background sounds? Arnald's Eyes Shut / Nocturne In C Minor and Letters Of A Traveller (based on the Nocturne Op.27 No.2) hint at Chopin's genius but fail to deliver on his end. All of this is atmospheric aural wallpaper which might please New Agers, but do nothing for our understanding or enjoyment of the real Chopin. A waste of time, money and shelf-space, really.   

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, May 2013)

LISZT Works for Piano & Orchestra

Fabula Classica 2222 / ****1/2

Given that Franz Liszt (1811-1886) was possibly the greatest pianist-composer ever lived, his works for piano and orchestra are surprisingly short-winded. Both piano concertos of his run under 20 minutes, as if his brand of virtuosity was best served in short but sustained bursts. This anthology of historical recordings has only space for his Second Piano Concerto in A major, but it gets a coruscating yet seamless performance from the Chilean Claudio Arrau (with the New York Philharmonic and Dimitri Mitropoulos in 1943), one of the great Lisztians of our time.

The devil-may-care stance adopted by the mercurial Italian Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli for Totentanz, variations on the medieval chant Dies Irae, was entirely appropriate in his 1961 outing in Turin. He plays an edition that differs from the version commonly heard nowadays. The only caveat: this recording has the worst sound of all. The Hungarian Fantasy, a scintillating arrangement of his Hungarian Rhapsody No.14, sees the Briton Solomon in imperious form in 1948, eight years before his debilitating stroke. The genuine rarity is Malediction for piano and strings, an early work of astonishing prescience for its time, here played by a young Alfred Brendel in a stereo recording from 1958. Lovers of Liszt should not pass up this album of vintage performances.

  

PICTURES

ALICE SARA OTT, Piano

Deutsche Grammophon 479 0088 / ***1/2

This album is a live recording from the 2012 White Nights music festival in Saint Petersburg, coupling two major repertoire works – Mussorgsky’s Pictures At An Exhibition and Schubert’s Sonata in D major (D.850) – not often heard in tandem. In fact there is nothing uniting these works thematically or stylistically. The young German-Japanese pianist Alice Sara Ott is technically secure in the Mussorgsky, but falls short on the element of fantasy that makes its disparate pieces so intriguing. She performs the original version, which means that Bydlo (The Ox Cart) begins loud before receding into the distance. She plays everything straight and there are no additions of her own to pique or surprise the listener.

In certain ways, the Schubert gives rein more to her imagination. The tensions of storm and stress are evident in the vigorous first movement, while the mastery of song comes to the fore for the slow movement. The Scherzo dances along its merry way before the good-natured humour of the finale, delicately crafted over a gentle tick-tock rhythm steals the show. The contrasting facets of Schubert’s troubled persona in his final years are keenly brought out, which more than makes up for the relative  disappointment of the Mussorgsky Pictures.      

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, February 2012)

BEETHOVEN Sonatas
ALICE SARA OTT, Piano
Deutsche Grammophone 477 9291 / ****1/2

After scaling the heights of Liszt, Chopin and Tchaikovsky in her earlier recordings, the young German-Japanese pianist settles down for some more serious Beethoven. Her choice of the two C major Sonatas is an astute one. These relatively youthful works are interpretively less taxing yet provide ample opportunity for virtuoso display. She opts for a lighter and more humourous touch, veering away from the barnstorming Beethoven who made his name as a smasher of keyboards.

The four movements of the earlier Op.2 No.3 Sonata come across as fresh as a spring breeze, while the later Op.53 “Waldstein” Sonata brims with vim and vigour. An ultra-smooth delivery of the finale culminates with octave glissandi that are deliberately misaligned so as to sound like a chiming carillon – a liberty taken with startling effect. Also included is the sublime Andante Favori, originally a rejected slow movement of the Waldstein, and the sparkling Rondo a Capriccio, popularly known as the Rage Over A Lost Penny. The prodigious Ott is clearly in cruise control for all these performances.

DALE Piano Sonata in D minor
BOWEN Miniature Suite
DANNY DRIVER, Piano
Hyperion 67827 / ****1/2

Quick, name an early 20th century piano sonata cast in D minor that is almost as long as Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata. Rachmaninov’s rarely performed First Sonata comes to mind, but in this case, the composer is Englishman Benjamin Dale (1885-1943). He was a classmate in London’s Royal Academy of Music of Arnold Bax and York Bowen, both of whom also wrote notable music for piano. Dale’s 42-minute long Sonata (1902), dedicated to Bowen, is not for the impatient at heart, as its profusion of ideas takes time to unravel, through an unusual combination of Lisztian technique and salon music ideas.

The heart of this rambling score lies in a central Theme and Variations, as masterly as any crafted by Tchaikovsky. Its Adagio maestoso variation reminds one of Rachmaninov, flanked by two scherzo-like fast numbers which underlie Dale’s facility and eclecticism. Two shorter works – Prunella and Night Fancies – lend an Elgarian feel to the creative output. Bowen’s Miniature Suite (1904), dedicated to Dale in return, is concise by contrast, its three varied movements filled with charm and wit. Young British pianist Danny Driver (left) is a most elegant and persuasive advocate, rendering this album a singular pleasure.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, March 2011)

TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No.1
LISZT Piano Concerto No.1
ALICE SARA OTT, Piano
Munich Philharmonic / Thomas Hengelbrock
Deutsche Grammophon 477 8779
****1/2

The first woman to record both Tchaikovsky and Liszt First Piano Concertos for Deutsche Grammophon since the great Martha Argerich, young Alice Sara Ott has almost impossibly big shoes to fill. Yet the German-Japanese former child prodigy, now 22, does a more than decent job. She has both physical power and emotional heft to carry both virtuoso warhorses, filled with heavy chords, stampeding octaves and demanding unusually nimble fingerwork. Familiarity does not breed contempt here, as she tries to vary her phrasing and touch for passages many often take for granted.

While the Tchaikovsky second movement could have done with more beguiling subtlety, the finale’s romp is taken at a steady pace, building to a climax and benefitting from a few added chords – à la Horowitz – of her own. The Liszt is a far more compact work, and is accorded the same high voltage treatment no less. Her feel of legato lines in the nocturne-like slow movement is matched by her stiletto sharp reflexes for the grandstanding conclusion, which is as exciting as can possibly be. With Ott, the German yellow label has the future of piano pyrotechnics firmly secured.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, April 2010)

LISZT Transcendental Études

ALICE SARA OTT, Piano

Deutsche Grammophon 477 8362

*****

Deutsche Grammophon may have lost Lang Lang and Li Yundi as exclusive artists, but the German recording label has unveiled Yuja Wang and now Alice Sara Ott, a 19-year-old keyboard sensation of German and Japanese parentage. For DG’s first complete recording of Liszt’s terrifying twelve Transcendental Etudes in many decades, she displays fire-breathing virtuosity and power to equal degree, with musical sensibilities to match.

These miniature tone poems tax the pianist to the utmost of range and endurance. The legend of Mazeppa - a wild horse-ride through the steppes – is driven with frightening intensity, while the delicate Feux Follets (Will-o’-the-wisp) display a gossamer lightness that dazzles and enchants. In the slower and more meditative pieces, Paysage (Landscape), La Ricordanza (Remembrances) and Harmonies Du Soir (Evening Harmonies), her sense of poetry and emotional depth are uncanny for someone this young. And rarely has the final study, Chasse-neige (Snow Drift), been dispatched with such spine-chilling control. If this review sounds O-T-T (over-the-top), do not just take my word for it. Listen to Ott for yourself, and be amazed.

SCHÖNBRUNN Summer Night Concert 2009

Vienna Philharmonic / DANIEL BARENBOIM

Deutsche Grammophon 476 347 5

***1/2

This is the summertime counterpart to Vienna’s annual New Year’s Day concert, held at the Habsburg royal palace grounds of Schönbrunn. There is nothing more familiar than Mozart’s G Major Serenade, better known as Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Without pretence to authenticity, this “big band” version sounds fresh and unmannered. Less satisfying is Spanish nationalist Manuel de Falla’s piano concerto Nights In The Gardens Of Spain, where Barenboim conducts from the keyboard. Despite his virtuosity, the orchestra sounds out of sympathy with the idiom; instead of full-blooded atmosphere one feels sluggishness.

Mussorgsky’s Night On Bald Mountain in its original version is diffuse in ideas, heavy in brass and percussion. However the sheer raucousness makes Rimsky-Korsakov’s slick orchestration sound tame in comparison. Light music closes the evening, with Argentine Mariano Mores’ tango The Arabesque and the obligatory Johann Strauss. Enjoyable nonetheless.

STRAVINSKY Violin Works
ANTHONY MARWOOD, Violin
THOMAS ADES, Piano
Hyperion 67723 (2CDs)
****

The complete music for violin and piano by the iconic Russian composer Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) is encapsulated within a slender 88 minutes. The only work that was originally written for this medium, the Duo Concertant, is a neoclassical suite of five dances including two Eclogues (a pastorale) and concluding with the Dithyrambe, an impassioned hymn sung in honour of Dionysus. The other major works are the transcriptions of music by Pergolesi (later to become his Suite Italienne) and Divertimento, more dance music adapted from ballets Pulcinella and The Fairy’s Kiss.

Filling up this enjoyable double-CD (priced as one disc) are various recycled odds and ends, including the droll Tango, an arrangement of the French national anthem La Marseillaise, and yet more ballet movements. The most familiar of these are the heel-kicking Russian Dance from Petrushka and the Lullaby from The Firebird. The duo of Anthony Marwood and Thomas Ades (the latter a renowned composer) give winning performances that are idiomatic and vibrant. Stravinsky does not usually come this light!