PULSE / Shane Thio, Nicholas Loh, Yiang Shan & Eugene Toh / Review

PULSE

Shane Thio & Nicholas Loh, Pianos

Yiang Shan & Eugene Toh, Percussion

Esplanade Recital Studio

Tuesday (14 February 2023)

 

I cannot write with authority about contemporary music, so I will not try to, except to share what I got from this interesting programme of new music for two pianos and percussion. The performers this evening may be considered veterans in the field, having surveyed established classics of the repertoire, including Bela Bartok’s very well-known Sonata for two pianos and percussion and a work for this combo by George Crumb.

 

Every work on this Valentine’s Day evening (which I came sans wife, she will be compensated later, with another concert), especially the ensemble works, might have been Singaporean premieres. I am not certain but I cannot imagine anyone else with the abilities to master these works and present them publicly in a convincing way.  

 

Percussionists are vital in any orchestra, the reason being they provide the pulse for music to move along (think Ravel’s Bolero!), and without them, things can grind into a sludge. There were two works for percussion alone, opening with Jaouen Rudolf’s Elescarf (2014) for snare drum and three crotales, performed by (Sng) Yiang Shan.

 

If one thought a percussive beat to be monotonous, think again, as hers was a multi-layered and involving performance, and when the crotales (or zimbeln, those tiny cymbals heard to magnificent effect near the end of Debussy’s Prelude l’apres midi dun faune), were struck, there was even semblance of pitch.

 

Just as absorbing was Yousif Sheronick’s Manhattan Avenue, a primer for frame drum solo performed by Eugene Toh. This work was performed standing, sitting, the drum struck by hand and brush, and also involved konnakol, a form of scat vocalisation in Carnatic rhythm, albeit conducted at a measured tempo.  

 

The works involving two pianos opened with John Adams’s Hallelujah Junction (1996), arguably the most familiar work on show, performed by Shane Thio and Nicholas Loh. In three movements, this was not an overlong minimalist work, but the sheer amount of notes to be performed in perfect synchronisation and without skipping a beat or loss of pace must be hell to accomplish. And yet they did, their sheer doggedness and resilience conquering the odds, seemingly with lots to spare.

 

In Steve Reich’s Quartet (2013) for two vibraphones and  two pianos, the tasks were now doubled. Reich’s earlier works have been maddeningly repetitive, but not so this work as its colours and textures were allowed a shorter duration of time to change and metamorphose, thus transforming the complexion the work.

 

The harmonies were strangely soothing and warm, and there seemed lot to enjoy through its three movements (fast - slow - fast) and 18-minute or so run. The slow central movement had a New Age feel to it but was all too brief, before the tempo picked up again for a vibrant close. The quartet of Sng, Toh, Thio and Low gave an enthralling performance, which I cannot imagine to be bettered in within this island state. This evening was more than just an hour well spent.

MUSIC FOR A SUMMER DAY / Nicholas Loh, Shane Thio, Sng Yiang Shan & Eugene Toh / Review

MUSIC FOR A SUMMER EVENING

Nicholas Loh & Shane Thio, Pianos

Sng Yiang Shan & Eugene Toh, Percussion

Lee Foundation Theatre

Thursday (5 January 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 7 January 2017 with the title "Beauty amid chaos".

The piano is a percussion instrument because it makes music when metal wires are struck by hammers. It is in fact the most highly-evolved of all percussion as it can be made to sing or sound like an orchestra. This innovative and very engaging concert of 20^th century music for piano and percussion proved that, and some more.

Its first half presented American avant-garde composer George Crumb's Music For A Summer Evening (1974), also known as Makrokosmos III, a reference to Hungarian composer Bela Bartok's Mikrokosmos for piano. Its five movements showcased the pianos – amplified and with their lids removed – played in every conceivable manner possible alongside a battery of percussion.

Crumb's enduring trademark was getting the pianists to play directly on the piano's strings, either by plucking, scraping, striking or “preparing” with foreign objects, thus not limiting its scope to 88 depressed keys. The effect was at once mystical and ethereal with an array of tinkling, metallic bell sounds, alternating with loud and violent crashes when the score demands for it.

At certain points, pianist Nicholas Loh had to drop a crotale (a small metal cymbal) heavily onto the strings, or slide a stick over the gourd-like guiro while letting its sound reflect against the strings. Percussionists Sng Yiang Shan and Eugene Toh were themselves busy with their “kitchen” department, which included shaking a large metal sheet, rattling a flexatone, sliding bows on cymbals and non-percussive activity like vocalising, playing a recorder and blowing on slide whistles. Everything save the kitchen sink.

All this seems to suggest a work of anarchic disorder and total chaos, but reality was something else. Well-structured and economically choreographed, there were many instances of transcending beauty eloquently expressed, including Messiaen-like birdcalls, and in the final movement Music Of The Starry Night, a Bachian chorale that echoed through to the work's serene and quiet end.

The second half was devoted to Bartok's masterpiece Sonata For Two Pianos & Percussion (1937), considered the “grandfather” of all piano-percussion works. Its three movements seemed comparatively straight forward and even conservative, but more than made up with its sheer density of themes and textures.      

    

It mysterious opening was very well-judged with Toh's timpani slide and low piano octaves from Shane Thio, one of two pianists in its Singapore premiere over 20 years ago. The pace gathered and sonorities piled up in counterpoint for the 1^st movement's virile main theme. Despite the music's percussiveness which led up to the climactic syncopated fugue, there was no shaking off the notion of Bachian influence.

What about the middle movement's “night music”, comprising ostinato figures and incisive interjections? Resembling the scurrying nocturnal world of birds and insects, were these also not heard in earlier music?  Loud applause and cheers greeted the conclusion of the Hungarian folk dance-influenced finale for the performers' fastidious efforts, but credit also goes to the symmetry of excellent programming by bringing Bartok and Crumb together.     

CONUN:DRUM / Eugene Toh & Friends / Review

CONUN:DRUM

Eugene Toh & Friends

Esplanade Recital Studio 

Sunday (8 March 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 10 March 2015 with the title "Frenetic rhythms and beats delight audience".

Percussion is the oldest group of musical instruments known to mankind, and has existed in every civilisation and culture through the ages. As its punned title suggests, this concert of percussion music, part of Esplanade's Spectrum series, posed a conundrum to listeners at its outset: can a programme featuring only untuned percussion hold the interest of an audience over 90 minutes?

A overwhelming yes was provided by professional percussionist Eugene Toh, an alumnus of Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and London's Royal College of Music, and four of his colleagues. As long as one suspended pre-conceived ideas about the absence of melody or harmony, and delve into a different dimension defined by timbre and rhythm, anything is possible. 

Eight very diverse works were presented in this literally striking concert, beginning with Thierry de Mey's Musique de Table (Table Music). Toh together with Bernard Yong and Tan Lee Ying were seated at a table with wooden boards where plates would normally be. Their spiel involved applying a variety of touches to the boards, including slapping, stroking, clapping and rubbing in a delightfully synchronised choreography of six bare hands and the sounds they produced.

American percussionist-composer Casey Cangelosi was represented by two pieces, both with solos by Toh. Glamour involved the strict beat of a metronome, accompanied by the varied rhythms and timbres by striking surfaces of glass, bamboo and metal. It made for a quite exquisite symphony of repeated rhythmic patterns. More contrived was his Bad Touch, which used taped sounds backing Toh's soliloquy with drumstick while seated in complete darkness. The verbatim quote of Bach's First Prelude from The Well-Tempered Clavier while Toh operated two hand-held LED lights in the segment called The Constellations seemed gratituous.

Emcee Chin Ailin gave very clear descriptions
of each work as well as providing artists bios.

No such worries for Yousif Sheronick's Duo 77, which had Toh and Rei Lim on frame drums beating out cyclical rhythms based on South Indian patterns. Both were on different meters and tracks yet were able to coordinate their parts with uncommon precision and grossly understated virtuosity.

They were joined by Tan in two movements from Guo Wenjing' s Xi (Drama), which involved three pairs of Chinese cymbals struck in a multitude of manners. How different these small but clangorous objects sounded when brought together vigourously, or gently cupped such that echoes are brought to bear between two surfaces, or struck with mallets. The processes mirrored those of Beijing opera, far more dramatic and theatrical than initially suggested.

An element of fusion distinguished Carnatic musician Trivandrum D. Rajagopal's Nada Laya, which saw the composer playing the mridangam opposite Toh's frame drum. How a relatively straight forward beat of eight counts (with Lim serving as a time-keeper) could be made to sound this complex was the true wonder and mystery of Carnatic music and percussion technique itself.

The first movement from Nebojsa Zivkovic's Trio per Uno for bass drum, tom toms and Chinese gongs provided yet another tour de force for Toh with Yong and Tan, huddled in a corner of the stage in an almost intimate face-off. The rhythms got increasingly frenetic with the introduction of additional textures and beats.

Quite reluctantly, the concert had to end with Shane Shanahan's Saidi Swing, featuring four different instruments in a syncopated North Egyptian rhythm. Variations of that rhythm soon took over in a riot of exuberant sound, which drew the evening's drumming to a heady close. The five performers were then treated to that most welcome of percussive sounds: the adulated applause of an appreciative audience.