HEARTSONGS / More Than Music / Review

 

HEARTSONGS 

More Than Music 

Esplanade Recital Studio 

Monday (15 April 2024) 

This review was published in The Straits Times on 17 April 2024 with the title "Chamber group More Than Music hits you in the heart".

More Than Music, the chamber group founded by violinist Loh Jun Hong and pianist Abigail Sin, has now become more than a duo. Augmented by heavy-hitters of the local classical music scene, their partnership was joined at its latest concert by violinist Chan Yoong Han, cellist Ng Pei-Sian, both principals in the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, and violist Martin Peh of the Concordia Quartet. 

Opening the concert with movements from serenades by two 20th century Hungarian composers was a novel idea. The first movement from Zoltan Kodaly’s Serenade for two violins and viola (Op.12) was founded upon folk music, with vigorous rhythms and lilting melodies. It was fascinating to see the viola, for a change, having the big tune and accompanied by violins. 

The first three movements from Erno Dohnanyi’s Serenade for string trio (Op.10, for violin, viola and cello) – march, romance and scherzo – were more conventional, closer in idiom to that of older composers Brahms and Dvorak. From the threesome of Chan, Peh and Ng, one got absolute cohesion and pinpoint ensemble, which sizzled in the rapid-fire closing movement. 

Pianist Sin was heard for the first time, in partnership with Ng in Claude Debussy’s Cello Sonata. The three-movement late masterpiece was performed in its entirety, sounding worlds away from his trademark impressionist style. The Frenchman had opted here for leaner and clearer textures, where melodies came to the fore in preference to nebulous harmonies and thick counterpoint. 

Ng’s cello singing lyrical lines, with Sin’s transparent keyboard work in support, was the triumph of this often-elusive work. While the central movement’s Serenade delighted in comedic pizzicatos and quirky guitar-like effects, the earlier fluency was restored in the finale as the duo romped home to an emphatic close. 

Violinist Loh and pianist Sin were finally united in American pianist-composer John Novacek’s Intoxication from Four Rags, a sped-up and off-kilter ragtime variation of Turkey in the Straw, closing the first half on an animated high. 

The main work of a programme centering on music’s heart ware was Antonin Dvorak Piano Quintet No.2 in A major (Op.81), long regarded as one of the classical repertoire’s three greatest piano quintets (Schumann and Brahms being the other two). It takes a heart of stone not to respond to its wealth of melodic invention, folksy rhythms and all-round congeniality. 

That was exactly what all five musicians delivered on the evening, a reading of tautness and cohesion, yet one that radiated a shared warmth borne by near-telepathic communication. The first movement’s introduction from piano and cello feigned a bask in indolence, but that was ultimately dispelled with the entry of the other strings. 

Thus began an exhilarating ride into the heart of Bohemia’s fields and forests. Even if its second movement was a deeply felt Dumka, a Slavic lament that reached deep into one’s soul, it was the infectious high spirits exhibited in the Scherzo and Finale that won the day. Cue loud and long applause, and one knows exactly why chamber music is so loved and cherished.

THE BARDS OF NEVERLAND / Debut at Pasir Panjang Power Station

DIFFERENT

Bards of Neverland

Pasir Panjang Power Station

Friday (8 December 2023)

There is a new string quartet in town, and it's called Bards of Neverland. Formed by violinists David Loke and Yang Shuxiang, violist Martin Peh and cellist Cho Hang Oh, it gave its debut at the unexpected venue and post-industrial wasteland that is the disused and repurposed Pasir Panjang Power Station. There is a grunge factor associated with this deserted place, which suited the Bards' programme to a tee.

Rushing from Victoria Concert Hall after witnessing the echt-Viennese Rudolf Buchbinder performing Beethoven's piano concertos, this was somewhat a shock to the senses. I missed the opening work, Alfred Schnittke's Canon in Memory of Igor Stravinsky, and ran smack into the second movement of Mendelssohn's String Quartet No.6 in F minor (Op.80). 

Was this really Mendelssohn? It sounded like late Beethoven, so dark and intense, with none of that Victorian prissiness the German was so fond of. Composed in 1847 as a homage to his recently deceased sister Fanny, Mendelssohn was to pour his heart out into something that was not superficial or glitzy. That this work was to heard by an audience lounging with their glasses of wine and prosecco in an industrial setting bathed in changing colour illuminations was somewhat surreal, and why not?

The applause on the conclusion of that most serious work was seriously good. The ultimate irony was that Mendelssohn would also be dead a couple of months later, struck down by the very affliction that killed Fanny. 

What followed was a sequence of minimalist-New Age-pop inflected works for "easy listening", which for the record included Max Richter's On the Nature of Daylight, Freddy Pucha's Variacion Andina and David Loke's own The Edge & Lost Touch. Nothing atonal, nothing too serious and but seems like lots of fun to play and an equal quantum to enjoy.

The hour passed all too quickly, and the immediate impulse was to declare that another Bards concert is imperative and hopefully sometime soon! Many of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory faithful were present, as were others escaping Beethoven, and I chanced to meet Leslie and Lionel Tan, founding members of the T'ang Quartet. 

Remarking to them that the Bards were like a new T'ang Quartet, with the anarchic spirit of the "bad boys of classical music" from the 1990s reborn. Their response was, "They are already better than us when we started.", and that spoke volumes. The late Bohemian violist Jiri Heger, whose spirit remains with all who care deeply for music in Singapore, would have heartily approved. 

One downside about Pasir Panjang Power Station as a concert venue: the parking is an extortionate $8 per entry. My response was: You must be f***ing kidding me. I drove the car out and parked on the roadside and then walked into the abyss. At 9.45 pm, I did not get a parking ticket. Those buzzards need their sleep too.

WOODS, STREAMS & SUN-KISSED HILLS / Concordia Quartet / Review

WOODS, STREAMS & SUN-KISSED HILLS

Concordia Quartet

Ngee Ann Kongsi Theatre @ Funan

Saturday (30 July 2022)

 

It may be said that Concordia Quartet, only Singapore’s second full-time professional string quartet, has had a rough time. Formed by hand-picked members from its mother ensemble, re:Sound Collective, it gave its inaugural concert at Funan Centre’s Ngee Ann Kongsi Theatre in February 2020. The Covid pandemic arrived in Singapore one month later, thus totally disrupting its concert schedule and nascent ambitions. The quartet however persevered by producing a digital concert – a first of its kind - with all four socially distanced members playing from own living rooms, viewed via the Internet. Even before the group could establish itself, two of its original members had retired from quartet playing.

 

It however got a break, being selected as a quartet-in-residence at the PRISMA (Pacific Region International Summer Music Association) Festival at Powell River, British Columbia in July. Upon their return, violinists Edward Tan and Kim Kyu Ri, violist Martin Peh and cellist Lin Juan were greeted by a small but enthusiastic audience in this concert, performing works the foursome had studied and played in Canada.

 

Haydn’s String Quartet in C major (Op.33 No.3) opened the evening, with first violinist Edward Tan mimicking the repetitious bird call in the opening movement which gave the quartet its nickname “The Bird”. Such published nicknames, which helped listeners differentiate between Haydn’s 68 quartets, do not add much to the understanding of the music. It was thus down to the ensemble’s narrative ability to guide the listener, and here Concordia succeeded by being clear-headed and tautly exacting in its delivery.

 

Cohesiveness was most apparent in the faster sections of the first movement, and communications between both violinists in the minuet-like subject of the second movement was spot on. Kyu Ri’s regular and frequent glances at Edward provided a key, which continued through the rest of the quartet and the concert itself. The slow movement provided contrasts by shifting between major and minor keys, before the repeated C major triads of the finale brought the work on a playful and humorous close.        

 

The Ngee Ann Kongsi Theatre is modelled along the lines of Shakepeare’s Globe Theatre (on the south bank of the Thames) with the stage surrounded on three sides by three tiers of seating. There appears no listener seated further than ten to fifteen metres from centrestage, which lends the venue an intimacy almost ideal for chamber performances. Dryish acoustics notwithstanding, the quartet coped very well, bringing its performances a resonance usually associated with more reverberant venues.

 

Anton Webern’s Langsamer Satz (Slow Movement), possibly Romanticism’s anguished final cry, came across very well here. Again, the playing was tightly knit, the aching Mahlerian melody finding full bloom through denser harmonies, and even Martin Peh’s viola was afforded full voice, followed by Lin Juan’s cello. The warm and fuzzy gemutlich atmosphere got the audience buzzing for the duration of the intermission.    

 

Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet No.1 in D major (Op.11), a relatively youthful work closed the concert on a high. Loosely founded on Russian folk elements, an opening drone established the mood of genteel rusticity, from which further themes were organically developed. This apparent simplicity was not lost to the quartet, which gradually built upon its foundation to reach loftier heights. The well-loved slow movement Andante Cantabile needs little introduction, and the quartet did well to avoid the mushy sentimentality frequently associated with popular tunes.

 

Warmth of tone was again key in the playing, which continued into the syncopated chords of a slightly tense Scherzo and the more light-hearted finale. When outright virtuosity was called for, the quartet delivered in spades. Where razor-sharp reflexes and split-second synchronisation determines whether a work stands or falls, good training and experience of ensemble becomes paramount, and Concordia Quartet did not fall short. With no concessions given to its youth, this quartet will go far and become like the well-established T’ang Quartet, a beloved permanent fixture of the Singapore musical scene.