ENCHANTED... / School of the Arts / Review

ENCHANTED…

School of the Arts

SOTA Concert Hall

Friday (8 March 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 11 March 2013 with the title "Spanning generations".

It is a rare event when two of Singapore’s outstanding pianists appear in the same concert but not playing together. Almost two decades separate Christina Tan and Lim Yan, but both bear testament to the burgeoning musical culture in Singapore over the years that made their achievements possible.

Tan belongs to the same generation as pianists like Shane Thio, Koh Joo Ann, Lena Ching and Victor Khor. She came to prominence after winning the 1986 Diners Club Pianist of the Year Competition, after a hair-raising performance of the finale from Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. Lim, then 5 years old, would later in 2012 become the first Singapore to perform a Beethoven piano concerto cycle here.

Tan’s credentials as a chamber musician came to the fore in the first half of this concert. In Philippe Gaubert’s Three Watercolours, she lent a sensitive touch in accompanying flautist Jill Chen and cellist So Youn Park. The gentle music was closer to the Belle Époque spirit of Faure, although the piano’s shimmering textures regularly strayed into the realm of impressionism. The idyllic calm of the slow movement Autumn Evening soon livened into animated Spanish rhythms of the final Serenade. 

Prokofiev’s Flute Sonata in D major proved a thornier proposition. Chen brought out a soothing lyrical tone in this most congenial and non-percussive work. The perpetual motion of the tricky Presto however came close to collapse at one point, but the duo steadied itself immediately. If the rapturous finale sounded cautious rather than free-wheeling, it was because safety first was the prevailing concern.

After the intermission, Tan gave a rare solo performance of Canadian-Chinese composer Alexina Louie’s Music for Piano. Its four movements are a study of bell sounds and plangent tintinnabulation. An exquisite touch and deft pedalling brought out the contrasts, with Ravel-like sonorities in The Enchanted Bells, minimalist loops for Changes, fairy-tale echoes evoking nostalgia in Distant Memories, and true fortissimo in Once Upon A Time, when the Great Gate of Kiev of Mussorgsky’s Pictures At An Exhibition was recalled.

Tan dedicated her magnificent reading to the memory of the recently departed actress-director and theatre mentor Christina Sergeant.

  

Not to be forgotten, Lim Yan performed the demanding piano part of Brahms’s Viola Sonata in E flat major (Op.120 No.2) alongside guest violist Lim Chun. An autumnal work, the viola’s mellow utterances struck a beautiful compromise with the piano’s figurations, stoking the smouldering embers of Romanticism. This duo, first cousins by relation, was nigh inseparable as they expertly coaxed the passionate masterpiece to a glorious final fruition.

That the sizeable audience, filled by mostly students and young people, was ecstatic than merely enthusiastic, bodes well for the future of chamber music. Good music and performers deserve nothing less.

A MUSICAL REUNION / Lim Family Musicians / Review

A MUSICAL REUNION
Lim Family Musicians
Esplanade Recital Studio
Saturday (20 August 2011)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 22 August 2011 with the title "It runs in the Lim family".

It is well known that music runs in the genes. The Bachs, Mozarts, Tcherepnins and von Trapps have their Singaporean equivalents over the years – the daughters of Goh Soon Tioe, the string-playing Chan brothers, and now the Lim cousins. In their mid-20s to early 30s, the seven Lims include the children, nephews and nieces of conductor Lim Yau.

With a harpsichordist, violinist, violist, cellist, oboist and two pianists, an intriguing number of combinations threw up a well-programmed and pleasing two-hour long concert exploring the byways and rarities of chamber repertoire.

For example, how often does one hear Beethoven’s “Eyeglass” Duet for viola and cello (below left)? The unusual title came about because its first performers wore glasses, except that the sight of bespectacled violist Lim Chun and cellist Lin Juan did not quite raise eyebrows in myopia-prevalent Singapore. Its implicit humour gave way to more serious vibes for Mahler’s early Piano Quartet in A minor (below right), when both were joined by Chun’s sister, violinist Lim Hui and pianist Lim Yan.

Thick Brahmsian chords and Wagnerian chromaticisms made for a heavy meal, considerably lightened by Jeffrey Agrell’s Blues for D.D. that followed, where Veda Lim Wei’s oboe morphed from a hazy Debussyan opening to flighty jazzy riffs, accompanied by Lim Jia’s harpsichord and Juan’s cello. The diminutive oboist was arguably the star of the evening, her bright and sonorous tone, gorgeously contoured, was hard to forget.

The sibs: Veda Lin Wei (oboe) 

and Lin Juan (cello)

The other sibs: Lim Hui (violin) 

and Lim Chun (viola)

She and brother Juan combined splendidly for Lennox Berkeley’s Petite Suite, a neo-Baroque set of dances with both lift and life. The other siblings (above) also shined, Hui in Bach’s Violin Sonata in E major, and Chun in Alan Shulman’s virtuosic Theme and Variations.

The husband and wife pairing of Yan and Koh Jia Hwei were a delight in Poulenc’s Sonata for piano four hands (above). Choreographing a scene comique of marital rivalry and bliss amidst busy crossing of hands, they drew ripples of mirth from the audience.

All seven musicians were united for the 6-Part Ricercar from J.S.Bach’s A Musical Offering(above). There was no place for period-performance authenticity or political correctness here, with both piano (both pianists contributing a hand each) and harpsichord included in the mix for an enjoyable close. As they say, a family that plays together stays together.

This concert will be repeated on Sunday 28 August at the same venue. Be sure to come.

All photos by Lim Khan, 

yet another cousin in the 

prodigious Lim family.