FANTASIA, FAREWELLS AND FAURE / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

FANTASIA, FAREWELLS & FAURE

Singapore Symphony Orchestra 

Victoria Concert Hall, Singapore

Friday (16 September 2022)

 

This review was first published in Bachtrack on 20 September 2022 with the title "A Requiem of repose: Stephen Layton conducts Fauré in Singapore"

 

British choral conductor Stephen Layton was to have led the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and its choruses in Fauré’s Requiem in March 2020. The Covid pandemic put an end to that. Two and a half years later, with the virus now endemic, Layton finally arrived and never has there been a more appropriate time for this masterpiece to be heard. The passing of HM Queen Elizabeth II on 8 September had cast a pall around the world, but this concert held in a historic hall memorialising Queen Victoria in the former Straits Settlements colony of Singapore seemed like the most timely response.

 

Thomas Tallis’s Why fumeth in fight sung by an offstage chorus opened the evening’s music, those being the very strains quoted by Ralph Vaughan Williams in his Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis which followed without a break. Despite having just 28 string players onstage (21 in the main body and 7 standing behind), Layton coaxed from the ensemble a cathedral of sonority. Having former SSO Concertmaster Igor Yuzefovich (now with the BBC Symphony) as leader certainly helped with crafting textures of evenness and homogeneity. His own quartet of soloists, including violinist Michael Loh, violist Zhang Manchin and cellist Yu Jing, also stood out above the harmonious throng. Seldom has three choirs of strings sung with such moving intensity.

 

Still with string music, two short pieces from William Walton’s film music for Henry V lent further relevance and significance with their inclusion. In Passacaglia – Death of Falstaff, a slow throbbing pulse held sway, later giving way to the more richly harmonised Touch her soft lips and part in gentle sicilienne rhythm. There was no pretence to lugubriousness, just the regret of parting and bidding farewell.    

 

The Singapore Symphony Youth Choir (Choirmaster: Wong Lai Foon) with woodwinds, French horn and harp joined the string orchestra for Gabriel Fauré’s lilting Pavane. Has anyone actually paid attention to Robert de Montesquiou’s words, which include Les reines de nos coeurs (Queens of our hearts) and Adieu donc et bons jours aux tyrans de nos coeurs (Farewell and good days to the tyrants of our hearts)? A soothing benediction followed in Cantique de Jean Racine, with the splendid choir’s reassuring mellowness approximating voices of angels.

Photograph: Jack Yam / Singapore Symphony Orchestra

 

The concert’s centrepiece was Fauré’s Requiem, in John Rutter and Stephen Layton’s edition for soprano and alto voices, performed by the boys, girls and ladies from both the Singapore Symphony Children’s and Youth Choirs (Choirmaster: Wong Lai Foon). Sung completely from memory, this was a show of perfect deportment and discipline. Yet there was a depth of feeling from the opening Requiem aeternam, allied by vocal clarity and excellent enunciation of consonants, all through to the close.

The soloists:
Baritone Martin Ng, soprano Victoria Songwei Li
and violinist Igor Yuzefovich (behind harp)

 

Organist Isaac Lee provided steadfast support on the hall’s Klais organ, and Yuzefovich’s delightful obbligato violin solos in Sanctus and In Paradisum were the gilded edge. Two of Singapore’s finest young opera singers also had spots to shine. Baritone Martin Ng lent gravitas in Hostias and the rapturous Libera me, while London-based soprano Victoria Songwei Li’s cameo in Pie Jesu revealed a voice of rare beauty. The closing In Paradisum floated on angels’ wings, its ethereal lightness finding a perfect match in the purity of the voices. It would have been hard to find dry eyes among the audience in this requiem of repose.

Photo: Jack Yam / Singapore Symphony Orchestra

 

Star Rating: *****

TWO EVENINGS WITH SIR STEPHEN HOUGH / Review

TWO EVENINGS WITH 

SIR STEPHEN HOUGH:

NIGHTSCAPES. 

A VERY SMALL CONCERTO

Sir Stephen Hough and re:Sound

Victoria Concert Hall

Wednesday & Sunday 

(31 August & 4 September 2022)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 7 September 2022 with the title "Display of technical brilliance from British pianist".

 

One will have lost count the number of times Sir Stephen Hough has performed in Singapore. Earlier in April, the British pianist, who was recently knighted in Queen Elizabeth’s Birthday Honours List for services to music, played with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. He has now returned for a solo recital and concerto performance with professional chamber group re:Sound Collective.

 

His recital on Wednesday evening was unusual for having featured two different grand pianos. The first half was performed on a Bechstein, which had a reverberant tone well suited for music of a romantic and dreamy kind. A programme entitled Nightscapes would certainly have to open with Chopin’s Nocturnes. These included the most familiar one, in E flat major (Op.9 No.2), and F sharp major (Op.15 No.2), with generous dollops of rubato and pedalling applied. There were stark contrasts continuing without break into Scriabin’s tumultuous Fifth Sonata, also known as the Poem of Ecstasy for reasons of a more carnal nature, and Debussy’s Estampes, three impressions of the Orient, Spain and a rainy day in Paris.

 

The Steinway was wheeled out for the evening’s highlight, Hough’s own Partita, a five-movement suite moulded upon antique musical forms including a ceremonial Overture, playful Capriccio and coruscating Toccata. Two movements were inspired by 20^th century Catalan composer Federico Mompou’s Cancions y Danzas (Songs and Dances), slow-fast tandems which juxtapose melancholy with quiet elation. The recital closed with Liszt, his three lyrical Petrarch Sonnets heralding the Dante Sonata, a harrowing descent into Hell as depicted in Dante Aligheri’s Divine Comedy. All through the trials and tribulations, Hough’s fearless and close-to-transcendental pianism prevailed.  

Photo: Joel Chew

 

On Sunday evening, Hough scaled the heights of Brahms’ monumental Second Piano Concerto, a work in four movements playing close to 50 minutes. Conceived like a symphony, it has been criticised as a “concerto against the piano”, pitting solo instrument (Bechstein on this evening) in pitched battle with orchestral forces. One need not have feared, as once Hough got to grips with the opening quasi-cadenza, a sense of reassurance prevailed. Whatever brambles Brahms laid in his path were conquered and swept aside with majesterial authority.

Photo: Estelle Goh

 

The massive and tricky Scherzo that followed, ironically described by Brahms as a “tiny wisp”, was similarly dispatched and with that, most of the heavy lifting was done. Poetry ensued for the sublime slow movement. Principal James Ng’s cello sang unabated, and Hough matched him with equally sublime touches. Levity and lightness of the finale brought yet a different tact from both pianist and orchestra, thus conjuring up a scintillating close.  

 

Photo: Joel Chew

Stephen Hough thanks Igor Yuzefovich
Photo: Estelle Goh

Photo: Estelle Goh

All through the concerto, the players of re:Sound supported Hough to the hilt, and the ensemble had an impressive showcase of its own in Bartok’s Divertimento for Strings. Led by violinist Igor Yuzefovich, former Concertmaster of the Singapore Symphony, the folk-like rusticism and rough-hewn earthy textures of its three movements could not have resounded with more freshness or immediacy.   

 

Photo: Estelle Goh

Stephen Hough's encores:

Solo Recital:

MOMPOU 

Jeunes filles aux jardin

(Young Girls in the Garden) from Scenes d'enfants

Concerto Evening:

SCHUMANN 

Traumerei from Kinderszenen

INNER WORLDS: IN CONCERT WITH IGOR & PEI-SIAN / re:Sound / Review

INNER WORLDS:
IGOR & PEI-SIAN IN CONCERT
re: Sound
Victoria Concert Hall
Wednesday (15 January 2020)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 17 January 2020 with the title "Sumptuous serving of 20th-century music".

Twentieth-century music has a special place in the repertoire of re:Sound, Singapore’s first professional chamber ensemble, and its latest concert was proof of that. In a programme of string music led by former Singapore Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Igor Yuzefovich on violin, the group impressed with a show of refined playing and cohesiveness.

Although Leos Janacek is considered the great 20th century Czech composer, his youthful Idyll dates from 1878. In seven short movements, its folksong-based idiom resembled that of his friend and mentor Antonin Dvorak, notably the Serenade for Strings. A sumptuous and full-bodied sound was coaxed from the ensemble, which made for a pleasant and undemanding half-hour.

Jump a hundred-and-sixteen years to 1994, and we get the Australian Carl Vine’s Inner World. Scored for solo cello with amplified taped sounds, this was SSO Principal Cellist Ng Pei-Sian’s tour de force to luxuriate in ruminative plaints before launching into exuberant dance. The recorded sounds included electronic transformations of the solo part mixed with otherworldly streams and rhythmic beats, representing the instrument’s life and matter of string, hair and wood.

In this version, Ng had the backing of a larger string ensemble near its end, appearing  surreptitiously as stage-lights were turned on. The exultant close was a plethora of sound, and here Ng  risked being drowned out by the aural congestion.

No fears of that transpired in American Christopher Theofanidis’ The World is Aflame (2006) with just Ng and Yuzefovich on stage as a duo partnership. This was a compact seven minutes of total concentration, with both having disparate roles but closely mirroring each other. Call this a duel rather than a mere duet. With each upping the ante, only to be matched with equal vigour and vehemence, here was a titanic struggle between firsts among equals.

The closing work was Dmitri Shostakovich’s familiar Eighth String Quartet arranged by Rudolf Barshai and retitled as the Chamber Symphony (Op.110a) for string orchestra. Despite its popularity, this is a dark autobiographical reflection of life and death in the age of Stalinist totalitarianism. The work follows his own 4-note motto theme (D-E flat-C-B) through five movements of tumultuous upheaval and angst-laden emotions.

Along the way, quotes from his pivotal works are littered like bread crumbs, and the listener is compelled on a harrowing journey from solemn beginning to sorrowful end. The ensemble coped well with its roller-coaster ride of dynamic changes. The Jewish melody from his Second Piano Trio in the 2^nd movement was belted out with no little irony, that being the composer’s diatribe against anti-Semitism.  

The manic waltz of the 3^rd movement gave way to the slow movement’s pathos, distinguished by Theophilus Tan’s soulful cello song, an aria from Shostakovich’s most controversial opera, Lady Macbeth Of Msentsk. The slow finale gradually wore down, and the stagelights being extinguished  became a poignant moment. Even enthusiastic applause, which the performance surely merited, almost seemed out of place here.  

MUSICIENS SANS FRONTIERES / LOUIS PAGE (Piano) & Friends / Review

MUSICIENS SANS FRONTIERES

Louis Page (Piano) et al

School of the Arts Concert Hall

Sunday (31 January 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 2 February 2016 with "A strenuous display of bravado". 

Four concerts took place last Sunday afternoon, but only one featured the piano concerto - not one but three concertos to be precise. The soloist was the young Sri Lankan-born American pianist Louis Page who presently resides in Singapore. Such an undertaking was a highly ambitious one, one fraught with innumerable pitfalls that would even daunt the most wily of veterans.

Page took the task at hand by the scruff of the neck, tackling two early Mozart piano concertos in the first half. Piano Concertos Nos.11 (F major, K.413) and 12 (A major, K.414) were a handful of  such works which Mozart wrote “a quattro”, which meant the pianist could be partnered by just four string players instead of an orchestra.

This was in essence chamber music at its purest, with the pianist being soloist as well as chamber musician. Page performed these with the lightest of touches, always aware of its varied nuances but often mincing his many notes into a fine puree. His string partners were ever-sensitive, supporting him to the hilt as would be expected from musicians far more experienced than him.

On first violin was none other than Russian-American Igor Yuzefovich (Concertmaster of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra), allied with violinist Boris Livschitz (Lithuania), violist Viacheslav Dinerchtein (Belarus-Switzerland) and cellist Aram Talalyan (Armenia), which certainly made for a cosmopolitan group.

Page got to the heart of the slow movements, and together they produced some truly exquisite moments. His chorale-like entry in K.414 was breathtaking, while Yuzefovich's solo accompanied by pizzicato strings in K.413 epitomised the grace of a Habsburg court.

In the busy outer movements, there appeared a spiritual disconnect between piano and strings. Both were conscientiously fulfilling their roles but where was that unspoken chemistry? In Mozart's own performances, he took the lead but Page exerted no such authority. Even his self-conscious bows at the end excluded acknowledging his partners. Were they merely accompanying ciphers?

This separation was more apparent in Chopin's First Piano Concerto, in a masterly arrangement by Robert Casteels which included a double-bass part played by Singaporean Brian Sim. Page played from a score and turned his own pages, which meant missing a chunk of notes whenever there was an awkward page-turn. In the febrile heat of the 1^st movement's development, he missed several pages, and the band played on sans pianist.

Thankfully a page-turner was summoned for the 2^nd and 3^rd movements which helped somewhat. Like in the Mozart, the Romanze had sublime bits but the tempo soon flagged at its denouement. This erratic and unpredictable pacing proved disastrous in the fast Polish dance of the finale which soon fell apart at the seams in a litany of lapses.

By dint of quick wits and hard work, the ensemble recovered in time to finish more or less together. For their adventurous outing and strenuous display of bravado, the performers were greeted with nothing less than a standing ovation. 

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE / Kerim Vergazov et al / Review

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE

Kerim Vergazov (Piano) & Friends

Conservatory Concert Hall

Friday (21 November 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 24 November 2014 with the title "A romp with the Russians".

Every once in a while, the small but important community of Russian professional musicians in Singapore bands together to give a concert at the Conservatory. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, these musicians planted their roots here, playing in the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and teaching in the Conservatory, or both. Attended by a large and enthusiastic audience, it was a way of showing their appreciation to their adopted home. 

St Petersburg native Kerim Vergazov was the busy pianist, playing every minute of the concert with a stern demeanour belying much sensitivity and musicianship. Flautist Evgueni Brokmiller opened both halves of the concert with two showpieces, beginning with the Allegro Concertante No.2 by Vladimir Tsybin, hailed as the “father of the Russian flute school”.

This and Georges Enesco’s Cantabile et Presto, which graced the second half, were not particularly Slavic in character, instead more redolent of the French style. Nevertheless, it gave Brokmiller much scope to showcasing his silvery and mellifluous tone, and nimbleness in negotiating the music’s fast and virtuosic turns.

Soprano Natalia Kumkova had a lion’s share of the programme in a fine selection of art songs. In Liszt’s Pace non trovo (I Find No Peace), a setting of Petrarch’s Sonnet No.104, a rich and wide vocal range was immediately established, even if her sung Italian was not particularly discernible. She was far more at home in five of Rachmaninov’s romances, which were a joy from start to end.

In these, she poured out her heart with the typical wistfulness and melancholy found in songs like The Answer, Lilacs and A Dream. Has there been a more eloquent expression of contentment than Zdes Khorasho (How Beautiful it is Here or How Fair This Spot) from this usually dour composer? Kumkova and her husband Vergazov truly brought out the essence of being Russian.

The spot previously occupied by violinist Alexander Souptel was now filled by his successor as Concertmaster of the SSO, Igor Yuzefovich, who was just appointed to the post this year. While some might miss “old” Sasha’s winking and wily gypsy imitations, “young” Igor impressed with his lofty but understated authority in Tchaikovsky’s Melodie from Souvenir d’un lieu cher and the infectiously lilting Valse-Scherzo.

Gershwin figured in the second half, first with Kumkova in Summertime from Porgy and Bess and the tribute to the Viennese waltz called By Strauss. Yuzefovich also returned in Igor Frolov’s Concert Fantasy on Porgy and Bess, a medley of hit songs modelled on Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy. Having spent his formative years in America, he took to numbers like I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin’ and It Ain’t Necessarily So like a native and with the greatest ease.

Bassist Guennadi Mouzyka joined the flock of five for Astor Piazzolla’s Fugatta, with each instrument taking on a voice as contrapuntal exercise. The Argentine’s most famous tango, Libertango, in Mouzyka’s own arrangement, which included ad libbing from Kumkova, closed the formal programme on a high note.

And there was more, with some late night Russian romances with the dulcet-toned Kumkova as the house lights dimmed to darkness. Down The Long Road, better known in English as Those Were The Days, got the audience clapping along and Ochi Tchorniye (Dark Eyes) sent them home with a song in their hearts.