PIANO++ / Robert Casteels et al / Review

PIANO++

Robert Casteels et al

Esplanade Concert Hall

Thursday (20 August 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 22 August 2015

Some thirty years ago, a duo called the Cambridge Buskers concocted a work for recorder and accordion which compressed all nine symphonies of Beethoven into a matter of a few minutes, and performed it at the 1988 Singapore Arts Festival to a bemused audience. Belgium-born Singaporean composer Robert Casteels has done something similar in his Grosse Sonate (Great Sonata) for piano solo, which incorporates themes from every movement of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas.

A work in four movements lasting some 55 minutes, its world premiere was given by three young Singaporean pianists at this recital, a supplement to the Piano Concerto Festival organised by The Performing Arts Company. Casteels did not add a single note of his own nor did he need to transpose any passages, instead skilfully stitching together “bleeding chunks” which cohered surprisingly well as it worked its way from Beethoven's Op.2 No.1 to Op.111, a musical journey spanning some 27 years.

Purists will balk at this “Frankenstein's monster”, but listening to it was an illuminating experience. Familiar measures sat comfortably with some which made one wonder, “Was this really Beethoven?” More importantly it displayed Beethoven's wealth of expression and inexhaustible creativity. Leslie Theseira (above) was tasked with the two most difficult movements, the 1^st and 4^th, which corresponded with the opening movements and finales. Although one would scarcely imagine him to have played all 32 before, his solid technique suggests that some day he will.

Muhammad Nazzerry (above) played the 2^nd movement, interpretively the most demanding because it coalesces all the slow movements. He got through the notes, but the draggy pacing suggests that some editing might have helped the course. Most witty was the Scherzo and Trio 3^rd movement, the shortest but one with the most surprises. Choon Hong Xiang (below) sounded under-rehearsed here and could have done with some coaching as to where to better place his accents.

The second half opened with a 2-piano arrangement of Saint-Saens' Danse Macabre, which saw Nazzerry and Choon giving an exciting, rough and ready account. Casteels' Tintinabulum for 2 pianos was premiered by Choon and Theseira. Its six short movements of bell-like variations were all based on a theme formed by the notes C-E-C-B, taken from the initials of the Crédit Industriel et Commerciel Bank, which commissioned the work.

Casteels himself joined in the games with Nazzerry and Ng Chian Tat in Rachmaninov's Waltz and Romance for six hands. Originally written for three young sisters on one keyboard, the three grown men were spared from falling off the piano stool by spreading themselves out on two pianos. They oozed salon charm and did anyone notice Casteels playing a theme in the Romance that would later become part of Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto?

The final work, Casteels' Rakhmania for 2 pianos was a tribute to the great Russian himself. It was an expansion and elaboration of Rachmaninov's Prélude in B flat major (Op.23 No.2), playing on the canon-like quality of its main theme. Ng and Nazzerry did the honours in this thundering number, which was both a deconstruction as well as a conflation. Bells sounds filled the air, again, bringing this most unusual piano recital to a satisfying close.       

Photographs by the kind permission of The Performing Arts Company and Robert Casteels.

PIANO CONCERTO FESTIVAL / ADDO Chamber Orchestra / Review

PIANO CONCERTO FESTIVAL

ADDO Chamber Orchestra

School of the Arts Concert Hall

Sunday (16 August 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 18 August 2015 with the title "Momentous, but not without hiccups".

The Piano Concerto Festival, a project of The Performing Arts Company, is now into its second year, supported by the newly-formed ADDO Chamber Orchestra conducted by Clarence Tan. This annual event provides a platform for young Singaporean pianists, a godsend as opportunities to perform with an orchestra are very rare. Its first concert showcased contrasting piano concertos by Mozart and Prokofiev.

But first, an unusual prelude took the form of Mozart's concert aria Ch'io Mi Scordi Di Te? (You Ask That I Forget You?) K.505, sung by coloratura soprano Wendy Woon. Her emotive account, filled with pathos, was well supported by the orchestra, then came the substantial obbligato piano part from Leslie Theseira.

It is said that Mozart's piano concertos were inextricably linked to his operas, and here was a curious hybrid as if to prove the point. Theseira's pretty contribution was both ornamental as well as a foil for the singer, and at certain passages he blended as one with the orchestra. It was an excellent palate-cleanser for the proper concertos to come.

Mozart's Piano Concerto No.24 in C minor (K.491) was performed by Choon Hong Xiang, an irregular reading because of rawness of ensemble coupled with the pianist's diffidence. The opening tutti was marred by poor intonation from the woodwinds but it got better. Choon seemed overawed by the occasion, and despite neat and accurate fingerwork, his playing seldom projected beyond the orchestra's domain.

He came into his own in the 1^st movement cadenza, which he had composed himself, a lost art revived with some ear-catching ideas. Only the second of two minor key piano concertos by Mozart, the work was to evoke high drama and tragedy. This almost came when Hong completely missed his entry cue in the finale, only joining in a few bars later. Fortunately, he and the ensemble kept their wits, and concluded the Theme and Variations movement together without further mishap.

Altogether more confident was Nicholas Ho who tackled Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto with fearless aplomb. Now studying in Indiana with American pianists Edward Auer and Andre Watts, he has matured far beyond the impetuous youth who was previously described in these pages as having an “obsession with speed and volume” and a “surfeit of feral instincts”.

All he did now was to play the notes Prokofiev had written, and the effect was electrifying. The free-wheeling 1^st movement breezed through fairly easily, but the 2^nd movement's Theme and Variations saw a brief desynchronisation between pianist and orchestra. A full second's rupture occurred in the rambunctious finale, but that was no fault of his. Shrugging off the blip, both parties grappled with the music's high octane content to finish on an intoxicating high. 

Always eventful and at times harrowing, the Piano Concerto Festival moves to Victoria Concert Hall on 3 September to survey the first two piano concertos of Tchaikovsky.

The Piano Concerto Festival was presented by The Performing Arts Company in celebration of Singapore's 50 years of independence.