BACH CONCERTOS EXTRAVAGANZA / Red Dot Baroque / Review

 

BACH CONCERTOS EXTRAVAGANZA!

Red Dot Baroque

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (7 September 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 10 September 2025 with the title "Celebrating 60 years of Singapore-Germany diplomacy with Bach extravaganza".

Red Dot Baroque (RDB), led by violinist and Young Artist Award recipient Alan Choo, is Singapore’s only professional group playing period instruments. In 2023, it performed all six of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos in a single sitting. Its latest concert, celebrating SG60 and marking sixty years of Singapore-Germany diplomacy, saw four favourite concertos of the German baroque master aired.

Photo: Yong Junyi

Opening the show was the Concerto for violin and oboe in C minor (BWV.1060) with soloists Placido Ho (violin) and Veda Lin (oboe). Both played as members of the general ensemble before assuming their solo parts and standing out with piquant tones. There were few moments as beautiful as the slow central movement’s duet, before a flurry of counterpoint completed the fast finale.

The title of Orchestral Suite No.2 in B minor (BWV.1067) may seem a misnomer as there were just six players partnering Rachel Ho on traverso (baroque flute) for the set in seven movements. Partita or Overture might have been more apt titles for this, but Ho’s lovely tone presided over dances including a Rondeau, Sarabande, Bourree, Polonaise and Menuet.

Photo: Yong Junyi

The audience’s erratic response of applauding between some movements may have distracted the ensemble, leading to a false start for the Badinerie. However, playful bantering between players was the idea of this mercurial finale, closing the work on an irrepressible high.

Photo: Yong Junyi

After the interval, a rare performance of the Harpsichord Concerto in A major (BWV.1055) featured Mervyn Lee as soloist. His understated but crystal-clear articulation was the highlight in this forerunner of the piano concerto, with brooding and emoting in the Larghetto slow movement, before breaking free of fetters in the fast outer movements.

Photo: Yong Junyi

Closing the matinee was the popular Concerto for two violins in D minor (BWV.1043) with leader Choo and Gabriel Lee in the spotlight. The unspoken chemistry between two founding members shone through despite having quite different stage demeanours, Choo’s animated movements versus Lee’s steadfast stance. The performance, true to form, exuded joy from every pore.

Inserted between the concertos in each half was the Asian premiere of Rainforest Refrains (2025), composed for RDB’s Italian tour earlier this year by Young Artist Award recipient Chen Zhangyi. This is a modern update of the multi-movement baroque suite or partita. With narration and delightful singing by soprano Teng Xiang Ting, this could also pass off as a neo-baroque cantata.

Photo: Yong Junyi

Tropical flora and fauna were the subjects in its nine movements. Burung Hamba Kera (The Monkey’s Servant Bird), a reimagination of the Malay song Burung Kakak Tua contrasted with Pangolin Passacaglia, a doleful lament. The lively finale became a play on the Chinese words “liu lian”, which was to linger besides being the name of a thorny but aromatic fruit.

Composer Chen Zhangyi
acknowledges the applause.

The encore of Phang Kok Jun’s A Barojak Suite (2020) comprised four dance movements which were settings of local songs in the form of antique dances: the allemande, corrente, sarabande and gigue. Commissioned out of pure fun, one has not lived without having heard Munnaeru Vaalibaa or Jinkli Nona played on baroque instruments.

A FOLKLORIC JOURNEY: MELODIES OF THE HOMELAND / Donald Law, Gabriel Lee & Zoi Yeh / Review

 

A FOLKLORIC JOURNEY: 

MELODIES OF THE HOMELAND 

Gabriel Lee (Violin) 

Zoi Yeh (Cello) & 

Donald Law (Piano) 

Esplanade Recital Studio 

Thursday (31 October 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 4 November 2024 with the title "Chamber concert an enjoyable study of musical nationalism".

The idea of home and homesickness in music mostly came about during the Romantic era, largely due to composers traveling away from their lands of birth and the rise of nationalism. This chamber concert was an enjoyable study of musical nationalism and how composers poured their hearts out when reminded of their origins. 

The evening opened with pianist Donald Law performing Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Dumka (Op.59) for solo piano. While he was considered too Western in style and taste by the “Mighty Handful” of Russian nationalist composers, Tchaikovsky nevertheless carved out a virtuoso showpiece from its brooding subject (Dumka comes from the Ukrainian word duma, which is a “lament”). 

Law coped well with its series of short variations and mastered its dizzying cadenza with aplomb, with its brusque concluding C minor chords echoed in the next work, Taiwanese composer Tyzen Hsiao’s Capriccio In Hakka Melody. Taiwanese cellist Zoi Tzu-Jou Yeh, who is Hakka herself, recalled hearing this tune being sung in market places during her youth. Like the earlier Tchaikovsky, its heart-rending melody, performed with much warmth and feeling, evoked genuine nostalgia. 

For solo cello was young London-based Singaporean composer Toh Yen Ee’s Ode To The Sun (2022), inspired by a painting (of the same title) and violin work (Kuang Xiang Qu) by Cultural Medallion recipient Kam Kee Yong. Its all-too-short depiction of sunrise, midday and sunset received a luminous reading from Yeh. 

Violinist Gabriel Lee accounted for two popular violin works, opening with the second piece from Bohemian composer Bedrich Smetana’s From The Homeland. Alternating between G minor and major keys, its Slavonic dance rhythms found sympathetic advocates in Lee and Law, who completed the concert’s first half with Hungarian composer Bela Bartok’s Romanian Folkdances. In the third dance (Pe Loc or On The Spot), Lee eschewed its stratospheric harmonics for an earthier sound more closely resembling Romanian gypsy fiddling. 

The concert’s major work was Smetana’s Piano Trio in G minor (Op.15), which occupied the whole second half. If one found the first half a tad polite and restrained, all three musicians went for broke in this passionate work which hit the evening’s highest points. Huge fortissimo chords on the piano were balanced by the cello’s rich expressiveness and violin’s virtuosic turns of phrase. 

The central movement delighted in syncopations and the quaint folksiness found in ethnic dances, while the finale’s rapid fire was guaranteed to send pulses racing. Smetana still had one big tune up his sleeve, which was first lovingly heard on cello, and finally milked for all its worth for a spectacular close. 

As an encore, the trio performed what could now be considered a Singaporean folksong - Dick Lee’s Home. Arranged in G major by Sulwyn Lok, any fuzzy and warm feelings engendered should not be considered embarrassing. It just means one is a dyed-in-the-wool local!

VIVALDI'S FOUR SEASONS / Red Dot Baroque / Review

VIVALDI’S FOUR SEASONS

Red Dot Baroque

Esplanade Recital Studio

Thursday (9 September 2021)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 15 September 2021 with the title "Red Dot Baroque evokes the seasons' wonders with Vivaldi concertos".

 

One question is asked about attending live concerts during a Covid pandemic: Why bother, since there are many commercial recordings are available, not to mention ubiquitous YouTube videos? Red Dot Baroque, Singapore’s first professional period instrument ensemble, provided the best possible riposte in four concerts devoted to the Italian baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi.

 

The nine-member ensemble attempted to relive actual sounds heard in an intimate chamber setting some three hundred years ago. This was neither a big band with modern steel-stringed instruments found on many recordings, nor a common-garden string quartet surrounded by hundreds of candles, which at best simulate a musical experience.

 

Red Dot Baroque looks, feels and sounds like the real thing. Four violins, viola, cello, bass supported by theorbo (a long-necked lute) and harpsichord created a sound unlike any other, once heard and not easily forgotten.

 

The concert opened vibrantly with the short Concerto Alla Rustica. Cellist Leslie Tan established a sturdy rhythm to which violins entered in unison, a show of solidarity after which they would go on their own separate paths. There was a clue in the brief slow movement when disparate instruments were highlighted in short individual phrases.

 

Before long, the concert’s main work, the four violin concertos that make up Vivaldi’s Four Seasons took centrestage but with a difference. The oft-quoted sonnets by Vivaldi were replaced by newly commissioned poetry from locally-based philologist Sara Florian. Her clever verses, combining Venetian and Singaporean elements, preceded each of the seasons. It was interesting to hear words like Supertree, kopi-O, Pulau Tekong and kampong in the mix, but that did little to influence the music’s course.

 

The solos were shared by four violinists, beginning with Brenda Koh in Spring. It was clear from the outset that each soloist would not stick strictly to the written score, with free ornamentation and improvisation being encouraged. Hers was also a leisurely stroll in May, far cry from the frenetic versions most are accustomed to. While these liberties may not do in CD recordings, it however came across freshly-minted and with much immediacy when heard live.

 

Gabriel Lee had arguably the most virtuosic role in Summer, with mimicry of buzzing insects and a tempestuous rainstorm. In between these natural phenomena were also moments of bleakness and solitude which he captured most intuitively. Placida Ho’s account of Autumn saw a punch-drunk peasant slurring and stumbling, with hiccoughs simulated on her violin. This was musical imagery laid on thick with a shovel, as were the startling dissonances revealed in the slow movement.

 

Finally, Red Dot Baroque founder Alan Choo completed the journey with a happiest possible interpretation of Winter. Gone was the icy snowfall, replaced by the reassuring warmth of a fireplace. He is an artist who knows only joy whenever he performs, and this infectiousness rubbed  off on his entire ensemble. So why do we attend live concerts? In concerts, joy - an all-too-precious commodity - can be found in abundance.    

Photos by Moonrise, with courtesy of Red Dot Baroque. 

REDEFINING THE HARP / SASHA BOLDACHEV Harp Recital / Review

REDEFINING THE HARP

SASHA BOLDACHEV, Harp

with GABRIEL LEE, Violin

Blue Room, The Arts House
Friday (13 April 2018)

On an evening when majority of the Singapore concert-going public was attending Singapore Symphony Orchestra's West Side Story concert at Esplanade, a small but appreciative audience filled the Blue Room of The Arts House to witness the Singapore debut of young Russian harpist Sasha (Alexander) Boldachev. This concert was the final leg of his Asian concert tour, and was organised by the newly formed Cluny Creative Projects founded by local harpist Laura Peh.

The Zurich-based Boldachev performed a programme almost wholly of his own transcriptions, alternating between works of Russian and non-Russian composers. The concert began with J.S.Bach's well-known Toccata in D minor (BWV.565), which provided an arresting opening but without the fugue, the counterpoint of which would have made very interesting listening. This was followed by Mikhail Glinka's The Lark, a typically Russian romance tinged with longing and melancholy. Apparent from the first note, he is a virtuoso and arranger of the highest order, whose playing is totally musical and comes across as seemingly effortless.

The next set of pieces by Chopin and Prokofiev are better known in their piano versions, but the harp sounded totally idiomatic, especially in the former's Etude in A flat major (Op.25 No.1), also known as the “Aeolian Harp”. This reverse transcription (for harp of a piano piece trying its best to sound like a harp) was a marvellous example, as was the familiar posthumous Nocturne in C sharp minor, which was heard in its less-played alternative version.

Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu here sounded equally brilliant and scintillating as the original piano version, and when Boldachev added a few of his own virtuosic flourishes, it also lent a personal touch. The martial strides of Montagues & Capulets from Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet made for some startling contrasts. It was a surprise that he did not include the Russian's Prelude in C (Op.12 No.7), but that would have been an original harp piece, from Prokofiev's own hand.

Debussy's Clair de lune, with its gentle chords and runs of arpeggios, was also a natural, and here it was coupled with Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker. Its introduction includes a harp flourish, one which orchestral harpists the world over relish when their chance arises. The waltz was slightly abridged but its sweeping effect was no less effective.

After a short intermission, Boldachev was joined by Singaporean violinist Gabriel Lee, thus playing sympathetic accompanist in two repertoire violin pieces. Everyone loves Massenet's Meditation from Thaïs, where the heart-strings are pulled to a soaring climax, and the lyrical Melodie from Tchaikovsky's Souvenir d'un lieu cher (Memory of a Beloved Place). Sounding just as musical, Lee was happy to lap up all the lovely melodies and bask under the spotlight.

Boldachev was again on his own in Czech composer Hans Trnecek's transcription of Bedrich Smetana's Die Moldau (Vltava) from Ma Vlast. The evocation of gentle trickling at the mighty river's source was very beautifully handled before arriving the work's big tune which was gratefully reciprocated. The central folkdance section was not included in this edited arrangement but the melody's grand and joyous reprise provided a suitably virtuosic finish.

Gabriel Lee returned to complete the concert with two well known Astor Piazzolla tangos, Café 1930 from L’histoire du Tango (The History of Tango), which had a more sultry and introspective mien, contrasted with the infectious rocking rhythm of Libertango. There was a collective letting down of hair and elements of improvisation in this life-affirming music, and the combined showmanship in these popular pieces drew a sustained and prolonged applause.

Boldachev obliged with a very substantial encore, his own Fantasy on Themes from Stravinsky's Petrushka. Piano fanciers familiar with Stravinsky's Three Movements from Petrushka will recognise all the tunes here, from The Shrovetide Fair, Russian Dance, Chez Petrushka to the final carnival of dances and a flashy finish.  A single word to sum up Boldachev's endeavours this evening: spectacular. 

 

EVOLUTION / GABRIEL LEE Violin Recital / Review

EVOLUTION

GABRIEL LEE Violin Recital

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory 

Orchestral Hall

Saturday (31 March 2018)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 2 April 2018 with the title "Enjoyable ride through violin's history".

In his 75-minute recital, Singaporean violinist Gabriel Lee gave a treatise on the history of the violin, performing on both baroque and modern violins. The first half belonged to the baroque. Both Arcangelo Corelli and Johann Paul von Westhoff pre-dated the giants J.S.Bach and Handel, and their sonatas he played did not conform to the usual four-movement form.

A sense of spontaneity pervaded Corelli's E major Sonata (Op.5 No.11), well expressed in the alternating slow and fast movements. As with period performance practice, very little vibrato was used by Lee and partner cellist Leslie Tan, with Mervyn Lee accompanying on harpsichord. Befitting one of the era's great violin virtuosos, a fast Gavotte completed the work, as if tacked on like an showy encore.

Westhoff's Sonata No.2 in A minor, also in 5 movements, sounded surprisingly modern for its time. The opening was marked by pointillist fragments from both violin and cello, before coalescing into busy counterpoint in the 2^nd movement. The 3^rd movement titled “Imitatione del liuto” saw Lee putting aside his bow and strumming the strings as if it were a lute. A similar timbre produced on the harpsichord (with mechanically plucked strings) gave the impression of a serenade for duet.

What are these people looking at?

Answer: the insides of a harpsichord

The classical era of Mozart and Beethoven was skipped, arriving instead at the late Romanticism of Ernest Chausson's Poéme. Here Lee played on a modern violin, luxuriating in the full flourish of vibrato which audiences are more accustomed to. After an extended piano introduction which Mervyn Lee delivered with requisite gravitas, Gabriel's solo entry was one of breathtaking intensity, grabbing listeners by the lapels without letting go.

This rhapsodic work dwelled in the deepest recesses of feeling and emotion, where Lee plumbed with a passion and concentration that was hard to surpass. Although tempered by a Franckian chorale that provided some respite, the music soared to a rapturous climax before receding gently.

The 20^th century was represented by Penang-born Singaporean composer Kam Kee Yong, now residing in Canada. His short showpiece Cicada was described by Lee as Singapore's answer to Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumble Bee. Delighting in its buzzing motifs and swooping slides, its eccentric bursts of energy provided a lively close to the recital proper.

If one wondered what a recorder placed on a chair was doing, it was part of Lee's encore act. This saw him play few bars of the violin, toot on the recorder and do a spot of beat-boxing. All these were recorded and layered by electronic means, controlled by a foot pedal and within seconds, he operated a virtual one-man-band. Here was a re-creation of a baroque passacaglia, over which he further improvised on his violin with snatches of Grieg, Tartini and more.

  

This 21^st century “back to baroque” gesture drew the loudest cheers, and one suspects Bach and company would not have minded in the least.      

LAND WITH NO SUN: PROMEMOR1A / Tze Toh et al / Review

LAND WITH NO SUN: PROMEMOR1A

Tze Toh, Piano et al

Esplanade Recital Studio

Monday (25 May 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times (online edition) on 26 May 2015

Land With No Sun is a continuing series of concerts by local composer-pianist Tze Toh and his Looking Glass Orchestra, inspired by his environmental concerns about the world we live in and its bleak future. He envisages a post-apocalyptic dystopia where the earth becomes unliveable and floating cities are built in the sky, which eventually block out the sun's rays. Mankind fights against time to chart memories which are sent back in time as warnings to past generations.

Promemoria was the sequel to Tze's first concert and took the form of a solo piano recital aided by pre-recorded tracks (referred to as sound design) and two violinists, Christina Zhou and Gabriel Lee. For those unfamiliar with his work, Tze is a largely self-taught and extraordinary musician whose idiom straddles comfortable between genres of classical, jazz, world and film music. His eclecticism is not applied in a haphazard or cut-and-paste manner, but through well thought-out and seamless musical scenarios.

Photo by Jeff Wong

Yet the 13 movements or sequences which make up Prememoria were largely improvised, based on themes and motifs which have been pre-determined. The opening Flight of the Homo Sapiens owed its schema to Chopin's Étude in C major (Op.10 No.1), with rippling right hand arpeggios accompanied by left hand octaves as pedal bass. He modulated through different keys and into the minor mode before settling in a C major home.

The Pulse was a slow meditation which began simply on the notes A, G sharp, E and C sharp, a portrait of the void, to which Zhou's violin emerged from the right rear of the hall in counterpoint. The two instruments were beautifully harmonised, with the blues being a recurring feature. Voice-overs by Nadia Wheaton provided the narrative in some of the movements in the absence of visuals, and these were unobstrusive and often atmospheric.

Photo by Teh Ting Ting

In Dance Of The Earth / A Distant Memory, the raucous sound world of O Fortuna from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana was referenced. The beat was vigourous, earthy and ominous, with bass ostinatos raining over embellish riffs from the piano's treble. Fragments / The Message was far more soothing, as Lee's violin from the left rear sounded J.S.Bach-like figurations to which the piano joined in an euphony which the old master would have thought provocative, and possibly approved.

The sequence of left hand notes that distinguished the Aria from Bach's Goldberg Variations appeared in Sunset / Memories but was so well-disguised by Tze's clever use of tritones that one marvels at how music is able to refresh itself so spontaneously through the centuries. The Clock of Heaven and Earth provided moments of tintinnabuli, or bell-like sounds, but instead of channeling the spirituality of Arvo Pärt or Olivier Messiaen, one thought of the scores of Ryuichi Sakamoto.     

Photo by Teh Ting Ting

Both violinists joined Tze on centrestage in Hyper Loop, a fast number which relived the soloistic prowess of Vivaldi and the baroque concerti grosso. The final movement, The Whale In The Sky, returned to the piano solo, now a minimalist pattern played in a repetitious cycle. That seemed to indicate that as time passed, we should continue to hope and dream, even against seemingly futile odds. By this time, Tze had played continuously for over an hour. Land With No Sun continues to eke out a future in 27 February next year. Make that a date to remember. 

Tze Toh with Christina Zhou and Gabriel Lee
at the post-performance talk.