BEST & WORST OF 2012: CLASSICAL CONCERTS

BEST CLASSICAL CONCERTS OF 2012

(as published in The Sunday Times on 24 December 2012)

 

 

BEETHOVEN PIANO CONCERTO CYCLE

Lim Yan, Piano with The Philharmonic Orchestra

School of the Arts Concert Hall, June 2012 

 

History was made when LIM YAN became the first Singaporean pianist to perform all five Beethoven piano concertos in a cycle here. This feat was accomplished over three evenings, playing completely from memory and crafting his own cadenzas. Partnered by The Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Lim Yau, he was also the pianist in Beethoven’s Triple Concerto. He later completed the grand slam with Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy at the Esplanade 10^th Anniversary Concert in October.

 

 

BEST DÉBUTS

 

Of the emerging young Singaporean musicians, honours were even for the best début performances by violinist SEE IAN IKE, in recital with pianist Miyuki Washimiya (Esplanade Recital Studio, 18 August 2012) playing a wonderful programme of Bach, Brahms and Ravel, and soprano TENG XIANG TING, a law graduate singing the lead role of Adina in New Opera Singapore’s production of Donizetti’s L’Elisir D’Amore. Their confident and highly accomplished performances can stand scrutiny in any corner of the musical world. 

 

 

 

ZEN RENAISSANCE

The Philharmonic Chamber Choir / Lim Yau

with Ueno Koshuzan, Shakuhachi

School of the Arts Concert Hall, 8 September 2012

 

Conductor Lim Yau has become even busier after leaving the post of SSO Resident Conductor to become Head of Music at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. His first love is still choral music, and The Philharmonic Chamber Choir continues to break new ground in programming, juxtaposing Renaissance music of Palestrina, Taverner and Gesualdo with the haunting strains of Zen master Ueno Koshuzan’s shakuhachi (bamboo flute). Seldom have two completely diverse art forms shared a spiritual kinship and shone with unusual synergy.

 

 

Most Disappointing Concert of 2012

 

THE FLIGHT OF THE JADE BIRD

Singapore Arts Festival

Esplanade Concert Hall, 20 May 2012 

 

For all its hype, the Pan-Asian quasi-opera by Mark Chan fell far short of the sum of its parts, its intermittently interesting music bogged down by an over-fussy English libretto and running for an unwieldy and convoluted 140 minutes. Big and long does not always mean better. Why hadn’t the Singapore Arts Festival taken on John Sharpley and Robert Yeo’s opera Fences instead?

BEST & WORST OF 2012: CLASSICAL CDS

 

BEST CLASSICAL CDS FOR 2012

(Published in The Sunday Times on 24 December 2012)

 

 

 

 

LA NOCHE Works for Flute & Harp

ROBERTO ALVAREZ, Flute

KATRYNA TAN, Harp

 

This is a unique, unlikely to be repeated, anthology of new works for flute and harp by Singaporean composers including Ho Chee Kong, Robert Casteels and Chen Zhangyi and their Spanish counterparts from Asturias. All are World Premiere recordings, covering a wide and diverse range of voices and idioms with the mystery and splendour of night as unifying theme. Here is strikingly beautiful music, lovingly performed.
 

 

 

 

RACHMANINOV Cello & Piano Works

QIN LI-WEI, Cello

ALBERT TIU, Piano

Decca 8898195

 

The most celebrated cello and piano duo resident in Singapore has returned to the recording studio for Rachmaninov’s complete cello music, including the 40-minute long Cello Sonata in G minor (Op.19), two early pieces and song transcriptions. Here are the true voices of yearning and nostalgia, in an album that is the worthy successor on Decca to the beloved 1980s recording by Lynn Harrell and Vladimir Ashkenazy.

 

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCING RE:MIX

Foo Say Ming, Violin & Leader

Local cross-over band re:mix believes that classical music has taken itself too seriously, and its début album breaks down the demarcation between classical music and pop culture. Violinist Foo Say Ming’s method is to apply “classical” methods to popular hits in a novel and highly intelligent manner. Allied to this cause are Cultural Medallion winner Kelly Tang’s witty arrangements of Latin and Chinese songs, and his Two Contrasts, a work as eclectic as the ensemble itself.

 

  

WORST CD of 2012

 

 

ADAGIOS 101

Decca CD-Rama 4783985

Compilations are a lazy way to listen to music, and it is worse when a lack of thought and incoherence influence the programming. There is much fine music, performed by big-name artists (Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Neville Marriner and Kiri Te Kanawa among them) in this selection of 101 slow movements, but the overall effect is as dreary as Symphony 92.4 FM’s all-night broadcasts.