BEHZOD ABDURAIMOV AND HANS GRAF - RACHMANINOFF AND RAVEL / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

BEHZOD ABDURAIMOV & HANS GRAF -

RACHMANINOFF AND RAVEL 

Singapore Symphony Orchestra 

Esplanade Concert Hall 

Friday (11 April 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 14 April 2025 with the title "Hans Graf and SSO deliver commanding performance of Ravel".

In a Singapore Symphony Orchestra concert that heavily touted the names of Sergei Rachmaninoff and Maurice Ravel, Dame Ethel Smyth had the first say. She was the first woman composer to receive a damehood (in 1922) and a known feminist whose staunch support of the suffragette movement in the United Kingdom even led to a jail sentence for her violent activism. 

On the Cliffs of Cornwall, the atmospheric Prelude to Act 2 of her 1904 opera The Wreckers, saw the orchestra led by music director Hans Graf conjure a lush post-Wagnerian soundscape. Its chromatic musical language and indeterminate tonality generated suspense, but polished playing – with solos from oboe, clarinet, violin and trumpet - made this Singapore premiere a memorable one. 

This set the stage for excellent young Uzbek pianist Behzod Abduraimov in Rachmaninoff’s popular Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. This 1st prizewinner of the London International Piano Competition in 2009 not only possessed the virtuosity to surmount its myriad challenges, but also crisp and crystal-clear articulation to make it sound easy. 

Its 24 continuous variations on Italian violin virtuoso Niccolo Paganini’s Caprice No.24 range from the simple and flippant to fearsome knuckle-busting octaves and chords, and Abduraimov took it all in his stride. His arch-like vision of its entirety was replicated in the famous 18th Variation, with a steady build up from pure lyricism to a breathtaking chordal climax. 

Encouraged by loud and prolonged applause, his two impressive encores were founded on the composers that came before. Franz Liszt’s scintillating La Campanella (after the finale of Paganini’s Second Violin Concerto) and Rachmaninoff’s song-like Prelude in G major (Op.32 No.5) were very apt choices. 

Despite the earlier heroics, the evening’s true highlight was the Singapore premiere of the complete ballet music from Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé. Designated a symphonie choreographique, its 55-minute run is more than three times the length of the often-performed Suite No.2 which concludes with the masterpiece’s most familiar music. 

By hearing the full score, one better grasped how the French composer had derived and developed the themes that found glorious fruition in its final 15 minutes. Aiding and abetting the sensuously sensitive playing of the orchestra was the haunting wordless chorus provided by 95 singers from the Singapore Symphony Chorus and Youth Choir (Eudenice Palaruan, Choral Director). 

Without a doubt, this was Ravel’s sexiest music ever conceived, especially trumping his over-hyped Bolero. Graf’s magisterial command of his forces was admirable, the sultry and idyllic existence of nymphs and shepherds on the mythical isle of Lesbos being close to perfectly captured. The graceful dance of hero Daphnis contrasted with the gaucheness of his rival Dorcon also made for striking contrasts. 

And who was not waiting for that most evocative depiction of Dawn? Principal flautist Jin Ta’s shone brightly, as did guest concertmaster Sulki Yu’s silky violin, before swooping choral glissandi and the full orchestra’s might in the bacchanalian Danse Generale brought the evening to a rousing and raucous conclusion.

This concert was also reviewed on Bachtrack.com:

https://bachtrack.com/review-graf-abdurainov-smyth-ravel-rachmaninov-singapore-symphony-april-2025

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, July 2012)

BEHZOS ABDURAIMOV Piano Recital

Decca 478 3301 / *****

After the success of Benjamin Grosvenor’s début recording, Decca has found another gem in the 21-year-old Uzbek pianist Behzod Abduraimov, 1^st prizewinner of the 2009 London International Piano Competition. His maiden recording brings out the devilish and divine from the keyboard, with considerably more of the former. Horowitz’s high octane elaborations of the Saint-Saëns-Liszt Danse Macabre transcription open the album, establishing his credentials from the outset. This thread continues with Prokofiev’s coruscating encore-like Diabolical Suggestion (Op.4 No.4) and Sixth Sonata.  Equally at home in its pulverising percussiveness as with its ironic lyricism, the four movements bristle with a disquieting intensity.

The recital closes with Liszt’s First Mephisto Waltz, with its procession of discordant tritones to mirror the disc’s first piece. Lest one imagines Abduraimov to be all fingers and not enough heart and soul, his performance of Liszt’s Benediction de Dieu dans la solitude (God’s Blessing In Solitude) from the cycle Harmonies poetiques et religieuses (Poetic and Religious Harmonies) proves otherwise. Its seamless melody accompanied by right hand filigree highlights a delicate sense of control, building up to its succession of spiritual peaks. This is a successful debut that deserves no less than highest praise.  

DON’T MISS:

Behzod Abduraimov performing 

Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1

with the SSO conducted by Lan Shui

on Friday 6 July 2012, 

Esplanade Concert Hall, 7.30 pm

Tickets available at SISTIC

ALEXANDER TCHEREPNIN

Chamber Music

EMI Classics 907256 2 (2CDs) / ****

The music of Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977) owes a debt to many influences, including his Russian musical training, the post-First World War spirit of experimentation and Asian culture. These factors come across vividly in this eclectic selection of small scaled chamber works. There is dissonance aplenty in the Piano Quintet, Piano Trio and Second String Quartet from his 1920s Paris years, pithy and astringent works all lasting under 15 minutes each. Tcherepnin is the authoritative pianist himself in these 1969 recordings with French musicians, as in the solo piano works.

The First Piano Sonata of 1918 is reminiscent of the iconoclastic Prokofiev, filled with repeated chords and motoric rhythms. Bartokian elements are to be found in the childlike Ten Bagatelles Op.5, his best-known work, which falls easily within the hands of skilled young pianists. Paul Tortelier is the cellist in the Cello Suite Op.76, also recorded by Yo-Yo Ma decades later, an evocation of Japanese music and souvenir of his sojourn in the Far East. To conclude, Tcherepnin partners Swedish tenor Nicolai Gedda in six of his father Nikolai Tcherepnin’s songs, much in the Romantic manner of his exact contemporary Rachmaninov’s romances. This is niche but fascinating music.