MEGAN LOW Violin Recital / Review

 

MEGAN LOW Violin Recital 

with Cherie Khor (Piano) 

Esplanade Recital Studio 

Sunday (5 May 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 7 May 2024 with the title "Award-winning violinist shows eclectic artistry".

The Goh Soon Tioe Centenary Award is an annual monetary prize benefiting young string players at the dawn of their professional careers. Named after Singapore’s pioneering musician, pedagogue, conductor and entrepreneur Goh Soon Tioe (1911-1982), notable past recipients have included violinist Alan Choo and guitarist Kevin Loh, who have become musical pioneers in their own right. 

Violinist Megan Low, the 2023 awardee and final year student at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory, looks to join this illustrious roster. Her 90-minute solo recital partnered by pianist Cherie Khor was an impressive showcase of eclectic artistry and understated virtuosity. 

Opening with Johannes Brahms’ Violin Sonata No.1 in G major (Op.78), any hint of visible stage anxiety or nerves was dispelled by a quiet confidence that shone through. The highly-exposed melodic line came across with purity of tone and excellent intonation. 

Although much of the German composer’s chamber music is dominated by dense piano textures, Low was never cowed and the performance became a true partnership of equals. The sonata’s final movement, based on his darkly intense Regenlied (Rain Song), exuded a nervous tension that never flagged until its subdued end.

Photo: Gilbert Chan

Low’s solo segment dropped the usual suspects of J.S.Bach, Paganini and Ysaye, instead opting for Ukrainian composer Myroslav Skoryk’s Caprice (1964). This thorny 5-minute exercise encompassed all of the former composers’ tricks of the trade, including chromatic passages, multiple-stopping and piquant pizzicatos, before rounding off with a vigorous folk-dance. 

Photo: Gilbert Chan

Accomplished with heady aplomb, this led to another rarity in Fritz Kreisler’s Viennese Rhapsodic Fantasietta, possibly its first public performance in Singapore. Opening with a dizzying cadenza of almost indeterminate tonality, the music eventually settled in a comfortable E flat major. 

Here the romance began, its easy gemütlich (pleasant and cosy) air lovingly voiced by Low, later giving way to that echt-Viennese of movements, the irrepressible waltz. Composed in 1932, its harmonic opulence and carefree mood - brilliantly captured - belied the years of darkness and doom to come. 

The sense of foreboding eschewed in the Kreisler would appear in Henryk Wieniawski’s Faust Fantasy, based on popular themes from Charles Gounod’s eponymous opera. Some consider this work discursive and overlong, but the duo kept the narrative alive with playing that was always on the edge. 

An opening piano solo gave way to the violin’s cadenza that established its virtuoso credentials, before waxing lyrical in a series of arias. The demonic aspect reared its head in Mephistophele’s Song of the Golden Calf (Le veau d’or), where the temperature rose to such heights as to prompt a premature outburst of applause from the audience. 

The definitive close came with the familiar Waltz (Ainsi que la brise legere), where Low obliged with its outrageous sequence of harmonics and scales. It was not all immaculate but the audience got the idea, according the performers with the most vociferous approval possible.

Photo: Gilbert Chan

MADELINE GOH Violin Recital / STORIES FROM THE HEART by Voice of the Cello / Review

MADELINE GOH Violin Recital

Esplanade Recital Studio

Wednesday (4 January 2023)

 

STORIES FROM THE HEART

Voice of the Cello

School of the Arts Concert Hall

Sunday (8 January 2023)

 

This review was published in The Straits Times on 10 January 2022 with the title "Concerts showcase Singapore's wealth of string talent".

If one wondered how Singapore produces so many excellent young musicians in recent decades, the answer can be attributed to good teaching. Pioneering classical musician Goh Soon Tioe (1911-1982), violinist, conductor, pedagogue and impresario, saw to the beginning of this renaissance. His legacy lives on through his many students and awards bestowed in his memory.

Photo: Gilbert Chan

 

The tenth and latest recipient of the Goh Soon Tioe Centenary Award was 15-year-old violinist Madeline Goh Anyi, former student of violinist Min Lee, who is pursuing pre-college studies at the Salzburg Mozarteum. Her hour-long recital was a showcase of precocity balanced by maturity beyond tender years.

Photo: Gilbert Chan

 

In Mozart’s Violin Sonata in B flat major (K.378), the hallmarks of fine musicianship were displayed, including clarity of articulation, beautiful cantabile tone, excellent intonation and  attention to phrasing and nuances. There was never a moment of artifice as she and pianist Beatrice Lin sang their way through to its virtuosic close in double-quick time.  

Photo: Gilbert Chan

 

In unaccompanied music, Goh was nigh unimpeachable in two movements from J.S.Bach’s Sonata No.2 in A major, with the fugue’s complex counterpoint mastered with aplomb. Scaling fiendish heights in Paganini’s mercurial Caprice No.10 and contemporary Austrian composer Gerhard Wimberger’s Toi, Toi, Toi (2016), tricks and cliches of the trade were laid out and skilfully dissected with a surgeon’s precision.

 

There were moments to relax in Eugene Ysaye’s salon-like Mazurka (In A Distance) in gentle triple-time but all stops were pulled for Wieniawski’s showpiece Polonaise in D major,  bringing down the house. As an encore, Madeline was joined by elder sister Mathea (award recipient in 2016) in the Allegro movement from Prokofiev’s Sonata for two violins (Op.56), a show of perfect synchrony demonstrating that musical talent does run in families.

Madeline Goh receives her big cheque
from Vivien Goh,Goh Soon Tioe's daughter.

 

If one thought pianists and violinists were main foci of attention, young cellists have begun to have their say. Stories From The Heart was a fundraiser for The Business Times Budding Artist Fund presented by Voice of the Cello, a collective mentored by veteran cellist Natasha Liu. No less than 40 cellists performed in this impressive showcase.

Amelie See with Michelle Seah

 

Its first half highlighted solo works, with 10-year-old Amelie See opening in Bohemian composer David Popper’s Polonaise de Concert with a display of confidence and poise. Even younger was 8-year-old Grace Joy Chee who blew away Saint-Saëns’ showpiece Allegro Appasionato with relative ease, followed by Ji Yuanjun (10) in the finale from Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major, possessing both lightness and fleet-fingeredness.

Grace Joy Chee

Natalie Yong

 

By way of contrast, Lucas Liow (11) bared his heart and soul in the contemplative Andante movement of Rachmaninov’s ever-popular Cello Sonata, while Natalie Yong (13) luxuriated in the cantabile opening of Paganini’s Variations on Rossini’s Moses in Egypt, and never faltered as the work got increasingly thorny by the minute. All the works were partnered by pianist Michelle Seah.

 

The concert’s second half featured cello ensemble works ranging from three to twelve cellists. Six six-year-olds delighted in Tchaikovsky’s Sugar Plum Fairy while twelve seven-to-nines had their work cut out in William Squire’s very animated Tarantella. Stealing the show were four immaculately dressed lasses in all-white outfits for Saint-Saëns’ The Swan, and a choreographed  Elgar’s Salut d’amour for three cellists accompanying three dancers befitting the gracefulness of the music. Just too cute for words.

 

Six twelve-year-olds tackled Gabriel Fauré’s Elegie, calling for sobriety and depth of expression without piano accompaniment, while Shostakovich’s Waltz No.2 closed the variety programme on a lighter note. The grand finale saw the entire ensemble of 40 cellists converge in Harold Arlen’s Over The Rainbow, with a melody that would melt even the stoutest of hearts. Singapore’s got talent, and there are no two ways about it.  

Photo: Voice of the Cello

GOH SOON TIOE @ 110 / AWARD WINNERS IN CONCERT / Review

GOH SOON TIOE @ 110

AWARD WINNERS IN CONCERT

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday (18 April 2021)

 

Goh Soon Tioe is 110 years old this year! For those not old enough to remember the name, Goh Soon Tioe (1911-1982) was Singapore’s Western classical music pioneer, one who combined illustrious careers in violin performance, conducting, musical education and impresario work like nobody else had and nobody ever will. In our age of specialisation, his kind will never come again. His legacy lives on in his students, who have included the likes of Choo Hoey, Seow Yit Kin, Lynnette Seah, Lim Soon Lee, Kam Kee Yong and his three daughters (Vivien, Sylvia and Patricia), and the annual Centenary Award bestowed to deserving young string players that bears his name.

 

Since 2012, nine deserving young musicians have been awarded monetary grants (administered by the Community Foundation of Singapore) to further their musical studies and careers. Their names read like a young Who’s Who of music in Singapore today. This concert brought together six award winners in an enjoyable chamber concert,  reassuring one and all that the future of classical music in Singapore is in good hands.  

 

Kevin Loh (2018 winner) is the brightest guitarist to emerge from Singapore in many decades. Presently a Cambridge undergraduate, he helpfully reminded the audience that Goh Soon Tioe himself began his musical career as a guitarist. His studies had been sponsored by no less than Andres Segovia, who also served as mentor and guiding light. Kevin’s varied programme of transcriptions opened with J.S.Bach’s Prelude from Cello Suite No.6, characterised by rhythmic vigour and clarity of articulation. The Latino pieces were also well-contrasted, the vivacity of Albeniz’s popular Sevilla (originally a piano piece) alongside Astor Piazzolla’s slow tango Oblivion, a heart-felt portrayal of melancholy and untold tragedy.

 

Next came Italian opera composer Rossini’s Duet in D major for double bass and cello, composed for the great Domenico Dragonetti, who was hailed as “Paganini of the bass”. Bassist Julian Li (2013), who has served as principal in China’s Hangzhou Philharmonic and Guiyang Symphony, and Theophilus Tan (2015), cellist of the newly-formed Concordia Quartet, did the honours.

 

As with works by bass virtuosos, the orchestra’s largest instrument is no longer content with just providing mere accompaniment but having significant melodic lines of its own. Li showed himself to be very nimble in running passages, crowned by a melodic gift with bel canto qualities. The cello  also had melodic moments in the slow Andante molto movement, accompanied by bass pizzicatos, and the duet was completed with an enjoyable romp of the finale.

 

A much more familiar work was the Handel-Halvorsen Passacaglia, usually heard as a showpiece for violin and cello. In this instance, violinist Joey Lau (2017) and violist Joelle Hsu (2019) worked very well together, exhibiting good communication and the requisite “give and take” of chamber music performance while relishing in their virtuosic roles.  

 

Receiving a rare performance was Rachmaninov’s Trio Elegiaque No.1 in G minor, a teenaged work heavily influenced by Tchaikovsky, with violinist Helena Dawn Yah (2012, the inaugural awardee), cellist Theophilus Tan and guest pianist Jonathan Shin. In a short preamble, Shin explained that the trio’s main theme was in fact an inversion of the opening motif from Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto. The work’s typically Slavic melancholy and dolour was very well brought out, oozing pathos from every pore.

 

The final work was by Austrian bassist and composer Johannes Matthias Sperger (1750-1812), whose highly congenial Quartet in D major in three movements had one guessing its various influences. Did it sound like Haydn, Mozart, or even the young Schubert? Sperger’s milestone dates indicate that he would have been familiar with the first two composers, while the instrumentation (with the violin replacing the original flute) suggests this was an example of hausmusik (household music) to be played by a group of musical-loving friends over schnapps.

 

As expected, bassist Julian Li had a lion’s share of melodic interest besides also having the most difficult part of all. He was excellent throughout, and well-supported by violinist Joey Lau, violist Joelle Hsu and a most busy cellist Theophilus Tan. Why don’t we ever get to hear this music with any regularity (instead of countless performances of the Trout Quintet)? At least one can trust and hope that the Goh Soon Tioe laureates, who are now a family of a kind, to revive the hausmusik movement sometime. Such an initiative led by these extremely talented young professionals will be most appreciated.   

Vivien Goh, daughter of Goh Soon Tioe

addresses the audience and

thanks the award winners.

MATHEA GOH Violin Recital / Review

MATHEA GOH Violin Recital

with Beatrice Lin, Piano

Esplanade Recital Studio

Wednesday (26 October 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 29 October 2016

Fifty years ago, the classical music scene in Singapore was spear-headed by Goh Soon Tioe (1911-1982), violinist, pedagogue, conductor and all-round music entrepreneur. His name lives on in the award created in his memory, given to exceptional young Singaporean string players and administered by his daughters Vivien and Sylvia, and the Community Foundation of Singapore.

The recipient of this year's Goh Soon Tioe Centenary Award is teenager Mathea Goh Xinyi, a student of former child prodigy Lee Huei Min, whose 75-minute long solo recital distinguished her out as a major talent to watch in years to come. There was nothing student-like in her playing, only an astonishing maturity that has to be experienced to be believed.

She commenced her recital with Edvard Grieg's rarely heard Second Sonata, with an opening G minor chord that immediately showed she meant business. Its solidly-drawn quality and the strong, vibrant tone she exuded would be sustained unflaggingly for the rest of her very demanding programme. In the dance-like faster section, her nimbleness and flexibility meant she could truly bring out the robust spirit of the Norwegian composer.

The slow movement sang and flowed like one of Grieg's Lyric Pieces, with simplicity and not a little nostalgia, and the finale's folk-dance leapt up from its black and white pages with fulsome colour and rhythmic vitality. Pianist Beatrice Lin was sensitive throughout, but every bit an equal partner in chamber music.

Arguably even more impressive was the segment for unaccompanied violin when Goh was completely on her own in Bach's First Sonata in G minor (BWV.1001) and Ysaye's Sonata No.3, also known as the Ballade. This resembled the opening rounds of any of the prestigious international violin competitions, which Goh will undoubtedly feature in years to come.

Her impeccable intonation in the Prelude (marked Grave) of the Bach would make players double her age green with envy. The clarity and dexterity displayed in the Fugue and final Presto were again the result of that familiar adage, “Practise, practise, practise,” if one were asked the way to Carnegie Hall.

The hair-raising technical difficulties in the Ysaye did little to faze Goh, as she launched herself fearlessly into its thorny thickets and brambly bushes. That she come out victorious and unbruised was credit itself, and this continued into Paganini's well-known Caprice No.24. In these fearsome variations, she wisely chose to include Schumann's piano accompaniment (again played by Lin) which prevented her from being too exposed.

Together the duo completed the recital with Ravel's swashbuckling Tzigane. The extended solo introduction gave Goh ample opportunity to rhapsodise in as free a manner as she chose, and when the piano joined in, the Magyar swagger was in full flow to its brilliant close.

A chorus of bravos ensued, and Jascha Heifetz's transcription of Gershwin's Summertime showed that in the midst of all that bravura, there is a sensitive and musical soul of a virtuoso also waiting to come out.    

ALAN CHOO Violin Recital / Review

ALAN CHOO Violin Recital

with LIM YAN, Piano

The Living Room @ The Art House

Sunday (10 August 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 12 August 2014 with the title "Skilful and delightful violin show".

Goh Soon Tioe (1911-1982) is remembered as one of the great Singaporean musical pioneers, a renaissance man among musicians. He was a violinist, conductor, pedagogue, luthier and impresario, the likes of whom will never be encountered again in our present age of specialisation. The annual award in memory of his name identifies outstanding young Singaporean string players who embody the aspirations in his life’s work.

The 2014 and third recipient of the Goh Soon Tioe Centenary Award is Alan Choo Su Ho, 1^st prizewinner in the 2011 National Violin Competition, and the first Singapore-born violinist to garner that accolade since 2003. Presently a student at Baltimore’s Peabody Institute, he is one of few local violinists to pursue baroque violin performance.

Appropriately his recital began with Telemann’s Fantasia in F major, performed on a baroque violin. Playing on gut strings and using the shorter baroque bow, he produced a deep and mellow sonority in its four short and varied parts. Coloured with a life of its own, the dance-like spirit of each part movement leapt tantalisingly to the fore.

With the appetite for this sound world whetted, the balance of the 75-minute programme was however played on a modern violin and partnered by Lim Yan on the piano. Choo’s versatility was immediately apparent as 20^th century German composer Paul Hindemith’s Sonata in E called for a different kind of approach.

Armed with near-perfect intonation, he brought an unusual lyricism to its astringent themes, with long-held phrases alternating with short bristling dissonances that characterised this spiky two-movement work. The neoclassicism of Hindemith’s “Back to Bach” movement was to find a totally satisfying modern resonance here.

Romantic in spirit was Spaniard Sarasate’s Caprice Basque, a virtuoso showpiece that highlighted awkward syncopations in its first half, and a hair-raising set of variations in the second. Choo’s ability to marry melody in the bowing right hand with plucked accompaniment in the left hand was one of the many tricks that delighted the audience.

Cesar Franck’s Sonata in A major was to complete the evening’s fare. Both violinist and pianist were to take an epic view of the classic. While big gestures and crashing climaxes distinguished its course, it was the softer and more tender moments that made the contrasts stand out. And when the coruscating second movement came to its brilliant conclusion, premature applause was smartly averted when pianist Lim launched immediately into the third movement.    

The familiar finale’s canon was a demonstration of fine balance, with the violin following the piano’s lead through the entire movement without getting into each other’s path. The tension was firmly maintained but with a song-like sensibility throughout. The resultant applause was rewarded with an encore, a fast movement from one of French baroque composer Francoeur’s sonatas. It is hoped that Alan Choo’s next recital would be an all-baroque affair, another first for the Singapore music scene.   

Alan gets a giant cheque of $6800
from the Goh Soon Tioe family.

With his conservatory violin teacher
former SSO Concertmaster Alexander Souptel. 

With former school orchestra conductor Chan Yoong Han.