KEVIN ZHU PLAYS SHOSTAKOVICH. TCHAIKOVSKY'S PATHETIQUE / Orchestra of the Music Makers / Review

KEVIN ZHU PLAYS SHOSTAKOVICH 

TCHAIKOVSKY’S PATHETIQUE 

Orchestra of the Music Makers 

Esplanade Concert Hall 

Sunday (21 January 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 23 January 2024 with the title "Kevin Zhu a serious, thinking musician".

American Chinese violinist Kevin Zhu continued his fine streak of concerts in Singapore, following up his splendid solo recital on 12 January with a performance of Soviet-era Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto in A minor (Op.99) with the Orchestra of the Music Makers conducted by Chan Tze Law. 

Composed in 1948 but premiered by violin great David Oistrakh in 1955 after dictator Stalin’s death, it is considered the greatest of all 20th century violin concertos. Zhu and the orchestra played as if they meant every bit of that billing, with the dark and bitter Nocturne probing the innermost depths of the soul. 

The searing intensity of Zhu’s violin tone and pin-point intonation also made this an enthralling journey, one that also scaled the heights of parody, dripping with acid wit and sarcasm. His razor-edged reflexes served the quicksilver Scherzo and klezmer-influenced closing Burlesque to a tee, but it was the sheer gravitas displayed in the dead-serious Passacaglia and cadenza that stood out. 

As if to further emphasise, Zhu’s encore of the slow movement from J.S.Bach’s Sonata No.2 showed that he was no mere showy virtuoso, but a serious and thinking musician as well. 

The evening opened unusually with Ravel’s La Valse, a splashy showpiece which often closes concerts with a bang. It did not really matter if OMM chose fun and games first, because this was a portrayal of old Vienna and the beloved waltz at the end of an epoch. Conductor Chan’s mastery of rubato, slowing at parts and later cranking up the velocity gave this performance a sense of inevitability, like a dying empire swallowed up by an unwinnable war. 

Polished string playing, which lent an indelible sheen to the Ravel, was called again for Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.6 in B minor (Op.74), also known as the Pathetique Symphony, which closed the concert. Premiered just a week before his untimely passing, the eternal mystery revolved around on the cause of death: was it cholera or suicide? 

This performance left little doubt that the 48-minute-long work was a farewell to life without a final flourish. The oppressive mood of its opening, the droll bassoon solo and descending melodic line on poignant strings left clues, with a furious fugato providing some semblance of struggle against Fate. Even the bittersweet waltz of the second movement was coloured by the timpani’s ominous beat, like a clock running down its time. 

The faux ending.

The third movement’s march, inexorable in its progression, was distinguished by crisply spun wind and brass playing. Its loud and pompous ending was merely a ruse, prompting nervous but premature applause but the final tragedy had yet to unfold. 

That Adagio Lamentoso finale said it all, but OMM’s vision was not one borne of neuroses, but rather world-weariness and ultimate despair. The pacing was judged perfectly, with neither sentimentality nor histrionics as its guide, which made it all the more memorable.

FRENCH FLAIR & FIREWORKS / Kevin Zhu & Akira Eguchi / Review

FRENCH FLAIR & FIREWORKS 

KEVIN ZHU, Violin with 

AKIRA EGUCHI, Piano 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Friday (12 January 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 16 January 2024 with the title "Violinist Kevin Zhu shows off purity of tone and perfect intonation".

Following his stupendous performance of Paganini’s 24 Caprices in a single concert last February, American Chinese violinist Kevin Zhu returned with another enthralling recital presented by Altenburg Arts. Continuing on the thread of unaccompanied violin repertoire, it began with a rare performance of Bela Bartok’s Sonata for solo violin. 

Crafted in four movements, the 1944 work sounded uncompromisingly modern but was founded upon the familiar form of J.S.Bach’s unaccompanied Sonatas. The opening Tempo di Ciaccona showcased Zhu’s incisive playing, purity of tone and perfect intonation, being completely immersed in its rarefied idiom. 

Displaying an astonishing adroitness, the ensuing Fuga revelled in razor sharp reflexes and no little humour. The stark, haunting beauty of the third movement’s Melodia, played on muted strings, provided the work’s most ethereal and otherworldly moments. This soon gave way to the folk-inflected finale’s fierce prestidigitation, literally sweeping the board for an imperious close. 

What followed was the famous Bach Chaconne in D minor from Partita No.2, almost a mirror to the opening Bartok movement. Zhu opted for a sleek and slim-lined reading, lithe-sounding in textures and shorn of the wide vibratos favoured by more Romantically-inclined violinists. For listeners today, it is a matter of preference, but there was no denying his commitment or virtuosity. 

The recital’s second half was devoted to French repertoire, with Zhu partnered by veteran Japanese collaborative pianist Akira Eguchi. One will scarcely encounter a more pristine Massenet Meditation from Thais than this, with every hair in place yet sounding totally sumptuous. It continued uninterrupted into Debussy’s Violin Sonata in G minor, a late masterpiece from 1917 eschewing his trademark impressionism. It was just pure music, the first movement’s lyricism contrasted with Gallic wit and whimsy in the central movement, before the duo finished on an ecstatic high. 

Closer to impressionist visions was Olivier Messiaen’s Louange a l’immortalite de Jesus (Praise to the Immortality of Jesus) from Quartet for the End of Time, composed in 1940 while a German captive in a prisoner-of-war camp. Its celestially high melodic line accompanied by throbbing syncopated piano chords made for the evening’s most poignant pages. 

The recital closed with Hollywood film composer Franz Waxman’s Carmen Fantasy, a potpourri of popular melodies from Bizet’s evergreen opera. Compact in scope, darker in mood and more fiendish than the popular Sarasate work of the same title, it received a grandstanding performance that had the audience baying for more. 

The sole encore was Fritz Kreisler’s arrangement of Cecile Chaminade’s Serenade Espagnole, a miniature of salon-like charm, after which Zhu turned off his tablet and emerged to more applause sans violin. There is another opportunity to witness Kevin Zhu’s artistry, in Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto with the Orchestra of the Music Makers at Esplanade Concert Hall on Sunday afternoon. Tickets are available at www.sistic.com.

Post concert photos:

The National Gallery,
formerly Supreme Court Building,
illuminated at night.

A CONCERT NOT TO MISS: KEVIN ZHU VIOLIN RECITAL 12 January 2024

Here's a concert NOT TO BE MISSED!

After his spell-binding recital of all Paganini's 24 Caprices for solo violin in February last year, American-Chinese violinist KEVIN ZHU returns for another two evenings of virtuoso dare-devilry on the violin. Friday week sees his solo recital partnered with Japanese pianist Akira Eguchi, showcasing more unaccompanied violin music as well as popular French favourites.

BARTOK Sonata for Solo Violin

BACH Chaconne from Partita No.2

MASSENET Meditation from Thais

DEBUSSY Violin Sonata

MESSIAEN Louange a l'Immortalite de Jesus from Quartet for the End of Time

WAXMAN Carmen Fantasy

Friday, 12 January 2023

Victoria Concert Hall, 8.15 pm

Tickets available at SISTIC

KEVIN ZHU X 2 (sistic.com.sg)

Kevin Zhu will also perform with the Orchestra of the Music Makers on Sunday 21 January, but watch this solo concert first! Better still, buy tickets for both concerts and enjoy savings!

KEVIN ZHU performing the

Presto from Bartok's Sonata for Solo Violin

KEVIN ZHU is presented by Altenburg Arts.

VIOLA DEPARTMENT RECITAL WITH NOBUKO IMAI / THE DEVIL'S VIOLINIST: PAGANINI'S CAPRICES / Review

VIOLA DEPARTMENT

RECITAL WITH NOBUKO IMAI

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall

Friday (17 February 2023)

 

THE DEVIL’S VIOLINIST:

PAGANINI’S CAPRICES

KEVIN ZHU, Violin

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (19 February 2023)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 24 February 2023 with the title "Dazzling performances by violist Nobuko Imai, violinist Kevin Zhu".

 

 

The humble viola has long been deemed the ugly step-sister of the glamourous violin, but this view looks ripe for revision. As a solo instrument, the viola is capable of great beauty and depth, as demonstrated by veteran Japanese violist Nobuko Imai, one of the world’s great exponents of the instrument.

 

Despite turning 80 years young next month, her energy and spirit would make even an 18-year-old blush. Her recital included the rare gem that is British-American composer Rebecca Clarke’s Viola Sonata (1919), a work so masterly that its earliest listeners could not imagine it was written by a woman. Imai projected the widest of sonorities possible on its Impetuoso opening movement, with pastoral charm and earthy textures made to sound absolutely ravishing.

 

Pianist Albert Tiu was an equal partner, not least in the scherzo-like central movement, possessed with elfin lightness and razor-keen reflexes. Its lengthy finale, a brooding essay in alternating fast and slow sections, laid bare the music’s emotional heart before closing in a passionate flourish.   

  

Toru Takemitsu’s A Bird Came Down The Walk (1995) was dedicated to Imai, a work that exploited the viola’s full palette of colours, from murky darkness to ethereal light and every shade in between. Its other-worldly stillness and rarefied harmonies also had an unsettling but strangely hypnotic effect. Schumann’s Märchenbilder (Fairy Tale Pictures) was the evening’s most familiar music, the duo basking in four movements constrasting singing lyricism with tempestuous asides.

It must have been a real honour for
young violist Joelle Hsu to perform
a Bartok duo with Nobulo Imai.

 

The recital also featured the conservatory’s strings in Dobrinka Tabakova’s neo-baroque Suite in Old Style, with Imai as soloist in varied dance movements, some involving jazzy rhythms. Closing the evening was a selection from Bartok’s 44 Duos for two violins, arranged for combinations of up to six violas, partnering Zhang Manchin (Head of viola) and four students. Seldom has massed violas sounded this delicious.

 

The violinist as indefatigable virtuoso and latter-day superstar began with the Italian Niccolo Paganini. His 24 Caprices (Op.1) for unaccompanied violin became the bible of transcendental violin technique. The recital of the complete set by young American violinist Kevin Zhu was not a Herculean wall of sound and fury, instead a nuanced one where musical values came to the fore.

 

Playing came as naturally as breathing for the 2018 winner of the Paganini International Violin Competition in Genoa, Italy. Nothing sounded effortful or forced, and his purity and robustness of tone was allied with matchless intonation. There was also a nervous energy, as if walking a tightrope, that had his listeners transfixed.

 

Performing the Caprices as groups of pairs, he graceously allowed the audience to applaud between pieces, and addressed them with a casualness and affability that was hard to dislike. The fiendish and fearsome pieces no longer intimidated, instead becoming friends with each tale he told.

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon / Altenburg Arts

 

Fast and mercurial numbers were made to sound almost easy, while more solemn ones, such as Caprice No.4 in C minor, were possessed with a true sense of nobility. No.6 (G minor), a study in tremolo, sounded as if it came from a strummed lute. The silky smoothness achieved in No.7 (A minor) and No.12 (A flat major) had to be heard to be believed. No.21 (A major), which carried the title Amoroso (lovingly), was a romance but no respite from the earlier exertions.

 

Finally, the most famous No.24 (A minor), in the form of theme and variations, became a summation of all the wonders that had come before. After bringing down the house, the audience was polled on which Caprice they wanted to hear again. It had to be No.24, naturally.