FACULTY AND FRIENDS CONCERT II / School of the Arts / Review

FACULTY AND FRIENDS CONCERT II

School of the Arts

SOTA Concert Hall

Tuesday (14 May 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 16 May 2013 with the title "Yellow Pages with Caribbean beat".

The School of the Arts (SOTA) Concert Hall has truly become a boon for the performance of chamber music within the city. Time and again, its capacious yet intimate space allows for instrumental sounds to bloom, regardless of the size of the performing group, as it proved in this evening’s concert of 20^th century music.

The evening began with two works for harpsichord and small ensemble. Despite the title, Spanish composer Manuel de Falla’s 1926 Harpsichord Concerto is a virtuoso vehicle for all six instrumentalists, not just the keyboardist. Drawing inspiration from the baroque as well as Stravinsky’s spiky neoclassicism, violin (played by Chan Yoong Han), cello (Leslie Tan), flute (Roberto Alvarez), oboe (Audi Goh) and clarinet (Li Xin) all had vital parts to play in its piquant and kinetically charged short movements.

Project themselves they did, however it was in the expense of Yang Tien’s soft-focused and mellow-toned harpsichord, her complex figurations barely rising above the busy throng. The admixture of textures was somewhat better in Samuel Adler’s Acrostics, subtitled Four Games for Six Players (1985). The four movements played on varied timbres, colours and moods, afforded by the same combination of instruments and fuelled by an anarchic spirit of bantering fun. 

The second movement and its direction to play “with a great deal of charm” summed up the exercise. Pointillist and with short spurts of sound interjected at different intervals, its laugh-a-minute atmosphere then into dissipated into a droll, ghostly waltz. A second hearing of this unusual work could do wonders.

A grand piano was wheeled in place of the harpsichord for the second half, and close to perfect balance was restored. This is not a slur on the performers but rather because the piano’s plangent sound disperses into the air better than that of a dainty harpsichord’s.

Spaniard Salvador Brotons’s Mixed Sextet (1992) was as the title suggested. It pitted the sonorities of paired woodwinds with those of paired strings, against the percussed instruments – namely Lim Yan’s piano and Mark Suter’s marimba and three assorted drums. The music traversed a melange of styles, including a fugue and romantic gestures before its single movement escalated to a climatic close.

The final work was also the most entertaining. The American Michael Torke’s brand of minimalism in the three-movement Telephone Book (1995) incorporated popular styles and not a little humour. How else could his Yellow Pages be suffused with an infectious Caribbean or Latin American beat?

Blue Pages employed a syncopated bass clarinet as its beat, transporting listeners into a smoky Manhattan jazz club, while the perpetual motion of White Pages revelled in a succession of intoxicating riffs. Flashy and energetic, this clearly enthused reading from the five performers on stage - three of whom played the entire concert - was something to call (or text) home about.

SSO Chamber Concert: Party of Five / Review

PARTY OF FIVE

SSO Chamber Series

NAFA Lee Foundation Theatre 

Sunday (17 April 2011)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 19 April 2011 with the title "Rousing, gripping party of five".

Ever since the closing of Victoria Concert Hall for renovations, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s Sunday afternoon chamber series has been staged in different mid-sized performance venues. The latest concert was at the auditorium of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, a spacious 380-seater with a wide and deep stage. Given the intimacy of chamber music, the distance between players and audience seemed daunting but with the right performers, projection of sound was not an issue. The five musicians on stage for each of the two quintets were seasoned veterans not afraid of making a big sound.

Beethoven’s early Quintet in E flat major for piano and winds (Op.16) saw the performers bunched up together facing each other rather than the audience. The unusual seating arrangement was however no impediment, with the opening unison sounding beefy but well-defined. The combo of oboist Carolyn Sonderegger, clarinettist Li Xin, bassoonist Christoph Wichert and hornist Jamie Hersch were suitably-matched, complimenting Albert Tiu’s fussy piano part.

A virtuoso vehicle for Beethoven’s own keyboard skills, Tiu lapped up the filigree with confidence and immaculacy, shading the song-like second movement beautifully before providing the rhythmic impetus for the jaunty hunting-horn inspired finale. All five romped across the finish line with much aplomb.

For Brahms’ Quintet in F minor for piano and strings (Op.34), the scoring was more closely integrated, as if in a symphonic work. Here the darker musical material and urgency of pacing made for greater dynamic and dramatics. From the outset, the tension created never flagged, with violinists Kwok Hai-Won and Lillian Wang, violist Tan Wee Hsin and cellist Chan Wei Shing holding sway.

Again, pianist Tiu’s mastery in a completely contrasting idiom was the glue holding the 40-minute masterpiece together. Melancholy and reflection in the slow movement gave way to the vehement march of the Scherzo, generating an unstoppable momentum for what must be the German composer’s most single-mindedly violent music. There was some iffy intonation at the beginning of the finale, but there was little time for mulling as the emotional catharsis went underway. All through to the most gripping of endings, the party of five remained a cohesive whole, defining what the joy of chamber music is all about.

THE MAGIC OF BRAHMS / VCH Chamber Series / Review

THE MAGIC OF BRAHMS
Musicians from SSO
Victoria Concert Hall
Sunday (16 May 2010)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 18 May 2010.

What exactly is the magic of Brahms? Subtler than Beethoven, more sophisticated than Bruckner, less hysterical than Mahler, Johannes Brahms’s (1833-1897) music reaps further rewards on repeated listening than any other. Thematically coherent and structurally sturdy, his melodies are memorable and less subject to imitation and parody.

The two-hour long chamber concert, the last in a series before Victoria Concert Hall’s imminent overhaul, juxtaposed Brahms’s works of youth and late maturity. The autumnal Clarinet Quintet in B minor (Op.115) breathed a mellowness that was introspective and calming. Over a string exposition, Li Xin’s clarinet floated commandingly, with a lustrous glow that radiated warmth on the outset.

In a show of quiet authority, it was encouraging to note this young graduate from the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory’s first intake holding his own amongst the Singapore Symphony’s more experienced players. It was not a solo effort that counted, but the near-perfect balance achieved as a group of five musicians.

Long-breathed passages were a joy, keenly matched by the more mobile moments in the Scherzo and finale’s theme and variations. That the 35-minute work closed on a quiet and reposeful note was not a surprise; the older Brahms was not prone to severe dynamic upheavals.

Quite different was the early First Piano Quartet in G minor (Op.25), symphonic in scope and coloured with all sorts of possibilities. Darkness alternated with shafts of light, tension contrasted with release, and passion skirting on the impetuous. Lim Yan’s flashy piano part was virtuosic and soloistic, yet well integrated into the ensemble as a whole.

Despite coming close to 40 minutes, the music moved with urgency, supported by violinist Chan Yoong Han, cellist Yu Jing (both of whom featured in the two works) and violist Zhang Manchin. The ante was upped for the gypsy-flavoured Rondo, a rambunctious romp that nearly brought the house down.

There was a thoughtful encore, the Andante from the Third Piano Quartet (Op.60), dedicated in memory of Dr Goh Keng Swee (left), the orchestra’s forefather and patron of 31 years, who died earlier in the week. Beauty and poignancy could not have found a better medium in Brahms.