LOVE, POULENC / 9th Singapore Lieder Festival / Review

LOVE, POULENC
9^th Singapore Lieder Festival
Victoria Concert Hall Music Studio
Last Friday & Saturday (15 & 16 November 2019)
Chang Tou Liang

2019 marked the ninth edition of the Singapore Lieder Festival, organised by the Sing Song Club founded by tenor Adrian Poon and pianist Shane Thio. Over the years, the group performed over a thousand art songs, encompassing great German lieder cycles, English folksongs, French chansons and premieres of songs by Singaporean composers.

This year’s offering was a distillation of the 2013 festival, which showcased the complete melodies of French composer Francis Poulenc (1899 to 1963). In two short but intense recitals last weekend, three singers and the indefatigable accompanist Thio reprised some of the key song cycles. Given Poulenc’s penchant for melancholy, humour, irony and luscious tunes, that seemed irresistible.

The first evening opened with soprano Teng Xiang Ting in Poems of Louis Aragon, two widely contrasting songs dripping with socialist notions. Beautiful lyrical lines distinguished C (I Have Crossed The Bridges Of Cé) while her finely articulated French surmounted the tricky Fetes Galantes. While making her name as an operatic diva, Teng showed she was equally adroit as an art song interpreter.

Busier of two singers, she also sang Fiancailles pour rire (Light-hearted Betrothal) and La Courte Paille (The Short Straw), comprising some 12 songs. If there were a composer able to cram multiple layers of emotions and nuances into diminutive musical bon mots, that would be Poulenc. Make no mistake about the seemingly simple words and settings, as hidden meanings and entendres abound.

Tenor Adrian Poon sang in both evenings. The five songs in Banalites (Banalities), Poulenc’s most familiar cycle, received vivid characterisations. Smoky decadence in Hotel, the tipsy waltz-song in Voyage a Paris and moving plaints of Sanglots (Sobs), highlighting mercurial shifts of moods, were easily taken in his stride.

A minor controversy involved a male voice singing La Dame de Monte-Carlo - Poulenc’s longest song - about an ageing madame’s desperate plight, casting her last hopeless die in the gambling table of life. No worries. Considering Poon’s cross-dressing act in New Opera Singapore’s recent production of Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, this was par for the course.    

On the second evening, Poon tackled Tel Jours Telle Nuit (As The Day So The Night) and Calligrammes, 16 songs in all. These were darker and more aphoristic, with the piano part more pointillist and fraught. The former was a kaleidoscopic metaphorical journey from day to night, encompassing all shades in between, while the latter was inspired by war and personal loss.

The third singer, baritone Daniel Fong, covered the songs on animals and artists. Le bestiaire (The Book Of Beasts) included curiosities like a camel, Tibetan goat, grasshopper and crayfish, all under a minute long. More substantial was Le travail du peintre (The Work of the Painter) where Poulenc’s artist friends were portrayed in vignettes – Picasso, Chagall, Braque, Gris, Klee, Miro and the little-known Jacques Villon. The last provided a most noble of endings, a touch that was simply Poulenc.

MOST HEAVENLY MUSIC OF THE SPHERES / 6th Singapore Lieder Festival / Review

MOST HEAVENLY MUSIC OF THE SPHERES!

6^th Singapore Lieder Festival

The Sing Song Club

The Arts House

Friday (28 October 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 31 October 2016 with the title "Shakespeare in songs".

Perhaps no figure in literary history has had the same impact of William Shakespeare (1564-1616) on the English language, with his plays, sonnets and poems. On the 400^th anniversary of his death, the Sing Song Club has devoted the entire 6^th edition of the Singapore Lieder Festival to song settings of Shakespeare's verses.

The second of four evenings was a programme of 20 songs drawn from his comedies and problem plays. Thirteen plays were represented, sung with spirit and verve by five local singers accompanied by pianist Shane Thio.

Sing Song Club co-founder tenor Adrian Poon alone sang in ten songs. His mellow, natural and unforced voice was ideally suited for songs with flowing lyrical lines, such as Martin Shaw's I Know A Bank (from A Midsummer Night's Dream) and Patrick Doyle's Sigh No More, Ladies (Much Ado About Nothing).

Yet when it came to varying styles, such as two settings of Fancy (The Merchant Of Venice), he was fully attuned to each idiom and their nuances. Benjamin Britten's Fancie was more rhythmic, emphasising bell-like staccato phrases, while Francis Poulenc's Fancy was serene and less animated, yet delivered with equal vividness.

If there were one song that was alone worth the price of entry, that would be the newly-commissioned Come Away, Death (Twelfth Night) by Zechariah Goh Toh Chai which received its World Premiere. Also the longest song, its predominant mood was bleakly placid, but giving way to an atmosphere of soothing calm, with Poon's sympathetic entreaties finding an uncanny resonance with quiet drones on the piano. 

Soprano Cherylene Liew's exquisitely poised voice accounted for Hugo Wolf's Lied Des Transferierten Zettel (A Midsummer Night's Dream, sung in German), Ernest Chausson's Chanson D'Amour (Measure For Measure, French) and Haydn's She Never Told Her Love (Twelfth Night, English), which provided further contrasts.

Baritone Daniel Fong was given the honour of opening the recital, where a nice boomy glow to his voice graced Glen Roven's I To The World (Comedy Of Errors) and Schubert's Was Ist Sylvia? (Two Gentlemen Of Verona). The latter was another song with two different settings presented, and Eric Coates' more lyrical Who Is Sylvia? (sung by Poon) resembled a popular song.

In between the songs, there were a couple of amateur readings of Shakespeare, including favourite lines of Poon and Thio which lent a more personal touch to the proceedings. Thio's best loved quote from Henry V turned out to be one of the Bard's wittiest (and cruelest) insults.

The songs for multiple voices included Frederick Keel's You Spotted Snakes (A Midsummer Night's Dream) with soprano Yap Shin Min and mezzo-soprano Ng Sheh Feng, Liza Lehmann's How Sweet The Moonlight (The Merchant Of Venice) and George Shearing's Fie On Sinful Fantasy (Merry Wives Of Windsor). Bob Chilcott's Come Unto These Yellow Sands (The Tempest) closed the delightful evening with three women's voices in the brightest of spirits.    

THE ALPHABET SERIES: E FOR AN ENGLISH EXCURSION / The Sing Song Club / Review

THE ALPHABET SERIES:

E IS FOR AN ENGLISH EXCURSION

The Sing Song Club

The Arts House Living Room

Saturday (7 July 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 July 2012 with the title "Pleasures of pastoral songs".

Art song recitals are relatively rare events in the concert calendar here, but there has been a hint of renaissance in recent years. More young Singaporeans are pursuing voice studies here and abroad and this has translated into an increasing number of concerts of vocal concerts. If only the audience for such precious events were growing at this rate.

Only 25 people availed themselves to attend this very fine recital of English songs by the Sing Song Club, a loose but dynamic collective of voice enthusiasts and practitioners led by tenor Adrian Poon and pianist Shane Thio. The group has ambitiously planned a series of 26 recitals, each represented by a letter of the alphabet, over five years to cover a repertoire that is as vast as it is diverse.

This evening, the English art song got its due with 23 numbers, covering some 17 home counties. Dorset and Somerset were represented by Under the Greenwood Tree and O Waly Waly, sung with clear diction and ringing clarity by Poon and baritone Daniel Fong respectively. The pastoral tradition of these songs set the tone of the substantial programme to come.

The many facial expressions of tenor Adrian Poon.

Poon is possessed with a most ardent demeanour and his animated way with words made him just perfect for Noel Coward, whose In The Bar on the Piccola Marina had the audience in stitches. He however met his match in Walton’s Song for the Lord Mayor’s Table, a very demanding cycle of six songs written for the great German soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.

Its often tricky, rhythmically complex, shifting harmonics and dynamics posed problems for both singer and pianist. Some parts bristled with orchestral textures that it seemed almost ungrateful when heard in this pared down form. Poon manfully coped, and convinced for most part even if his voice was stretched and strained to its tether.

With baritone Daniel Fong, one feels the power in the words.

Fong had a cycle of his own, six songs from George Butterworth’s A Shropshire Lad, set to dark, pessimistic and sometimes death-obsessed words by A.E.Housman. Fong’s baritone is a heroic one, robust in quality and sonorous in projection. Yet he is capable of great sensitivity, lending weight and gravity where it matters, as in the final song’s quiet and reflective end. The composer, Fong explained, had been killed in the trenches several years after its composition.     

Composer Kelly Tang listens intently to a duet version of The Daffodils, which was originally written for a choir of high voices.

    

Both Poon and Fong joined voices for several duets, including Vaughan Williams’s It was a Lover and his Lass, the sentimental nostalgia of Haydn Wood’s Roses of Picardy, and Singaporean Kelly Tang’s The Daffodils. The last on Wordsworth words and originally for choir of high voices, was deserving of inclusion, and the singers truly made it so.

All three performers take a bow.

Composer and performers meet. Note the parade of Union Jacks adorning the entrance to The Living Room of The Arts House.

LOST TO THE WORLD / The Sing Song Club / Review

LOST TO THE WORLD
The Sing Song Club
The Arts House
Tuesday (20 December 2011)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 22 December 2011 with the title "Sing Song Club in fine voice".

From the organisers of the First Singapore Lieder Festival in August and September came one final recital of art songs by Gustav Mahler and Franz Liszt, whose anniversaries are being observed this year. The Sing Song Club is Singapore’s version of Britain’s renowned The Songmaker’s Almanac, with pianist Shane Thio being the local Graham Johnson, that indefatigable instigator of the most ambitious singing projects.

Although the following for art song is small here, its practitioners are a young and determined lot who will become our top singers of tomorrow. Baritone Daniel Fong (above), a student at London’s Royal Academy, exuded a warm and expressive tone for the five Mahler songs on texts by Friedrich Rückert. Rich, sonorous and unafraid to project himself, his views on subjects like love, solitude and abandonment sung in clearly enounced German were palpable, even believable.

Ich bin der Welt abhanden (I Am Lost To The World), which lent the title to this concert, was treated with a world-wearied gravity that belied its apparent wistfulness. In Um Mitternacht (At Midnight), the shift from minor to major mode came like a shaft of life-affirming sunlight that washed away all gloom.

Tenor Brendan-Keefe Au (above) was less confident, and had a false start in Rheinlegendchen (Rhine Legend), but possessed a youthfulness that suited his set of Knaben Wunderhorn (Youth’s Magic Horn) songs well. These whimsical and often ironic songs of German folklore and country life found a sympathetic soul. Amid the militaristic undertones of Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen (Where the Beautiful Trumpets Blow), melancholy gave way to the expectancy of love.

For sheer tonal beauty, it was hard to beat soprano Rebecca Li (above), whose petite frame also packed a poignant punch. Such purity and innocence were distilled in two rarely heard Mahler songs and a further three by Liszt. Often overshadowed by his florid piano works, Liszt’s Freudvoll und leidvoll (Joyful and Sorrowful), Es muss ein wunderbares sein (It Must Be A Wonderful Thing) and S’il est un charmant gazon (If There is a Lovely Grassy Plot) basked in a radiant glow that can only be described as sublime.

This recital shows our young vocalists to be far more than enthusiastic bathroom singers. Further events by The Sing Song Club in March and May of next year are to be watched out for with keen anticipation.

SONGS OF TRAVEL / Vocal Recital by Daniel Fong / Review

SONGS OF TRAVEL

Daniel Fong, Baritone

with Shane Thio, Piano

Young Musicians Society

Saturday (17 July 2010)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 19 July 2010.

The English art song has been inextricably linked with the land’s pastoral tradition, none better epitomised by the figure of Ralph Vaughan Williams. This was the focus of young Singaporean baritone Daniel Fong’s song recital, which provided an hour or so of simple pleasures.

A voice student at London’s Royal Academy of Music, Fong has a personable stage demeanor that readily draws the listener into his world. Once enraptured, he keeps one peeled by a pleasing tone that is robust, yet ringing brightly like a tenor in the higher registers.

For the nine Songs of Travel by Vaughan Williams (left), his musical journey portraying an itinerant who begins on a defiant high but ends in quiet resignation was a heart-rending one. While not quite reaching the same depths of desolation as Schubert’s Winterreise, this cycle nonetheless was a worthy showcase for Fong’s wide emotional range.

Youth and Love provided for a passionate outburst, contrasted with the dark introspection of In Dreams. A palpable world-weariness sets in Whither Must I Wander? before the “farewell to hope” (from words by Robert Louis Stevenson) in the final song that left little to the imagination. Fong and the ever-sensitive pianist Shane Thio (both artists below) held sway despite the numerous extra-musical distractions, including latecomers, din from the Waterloo Street cultural neighbourhood and distant pre-National Day Parade fireworks.

A short second half yielded five songs, including two Shakespearean settings by Gerald Finzi. From the cycle Let Us Garlands Bring, Come Away, Death (Twelfth Night) was delivered with a touching melancholy, while Who is Sylvia? (Two Gentlemen of Verona) relived the same ebullience and humour as Schubert’s popular version.

Songs of love gained and lost went to the heart of the evening’s inspiration. Michael Head’s Limehouse Reach was an uncomplicated sea song, naïve in its sentiments, before closing with the brief but beautiful Roger Quilter Music, When Soft Voices Die. The single encore, O Waly, Waly (The Water is Wide) from Benjamin Britten’s folksong arrangements was Fong’s icing on the cake. More will be heard from this fine baritone in the years to come.