AN EVENING WITH RAVEL / Quatre Music Organization / Review

 

AN EVENING WITH RAVEL

Quatre Music Organization

Victoria Concert Hall

Saturday (26 April 2025)

Apologies for the lateness of this review of this all-Ravel piano concert, which was viewed on YouTube months after the event.

Just a few weeks ago, the piano department of Yong Siew Toh Conservatory mounted an ambitious four-hour plus concert to cover the complete piano works of French composer Maurice Ravel (1875-1937). They were actually pre-empted earlier in April by the teachers, students and guest performers of the Quatre Music Organization in a concert at Victoria Concert Hall. I had missed that concert, albeit a shorter one, having agreed to attend the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s annual fundraising gala dinner held in the same evening.

Thanks to the miracle online platform that is YouTube, I got to enjoy the performances remotely and even months after the occasion. Presented by 22 pianists, of whom many were children or students, there was much to enjoy even if the offerings were not truly complete. As only one piano was used, all the works for two pianos had been omitted. Even the Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite for four hands went missing, as did Menuet Antique for two hands for some unknown reason. At least, one got to hear Miroirs complete, which was not reflected in the YST programme.

The first half was devoted to the many dances Ravel wrote. The evening opened with young Lim Wei Xuan playing Laideronette, Imperatrice des Pagodes, the third movement from Mother Goose Suite. As Ravel’s original was for four hands, this was a transcription by Jacques Charlot, who was killed by the Germans in 1915 and later commemorated in Le tombeau de Couperin. His was a confident showing which highlighted the pentatonics and gamelan textures which made this an oriental fantasy.

Samuel King Chew Leong, organiser of this concert, brought out the notes and various permutations made up by letters of Haydn’s name in Menuet sur le nom d’Haydn. It may be a “simple” piece, but making it sound graceful was a task which he accomplished with ease.

Danse legere et gracieuse de Daphnis, one of the fragments symphoniques from his ballet Daphnis et Chloe, is a true rarity which found a sympathetic interpreter in Enzio Lim Yue Tong. One hopes he will find time to learn the other dances, and to perform these as a suite.

The very well-know Valses nobles et sentimentales, eight waltzes in all, was shared by Kseniia Vokhmianina and Dorotheus Koh Chian Yee. Both had the idiomatic right, Schubertian geniality alternating with Gallic urbanity. Kseniia performed the outer four (and interpretatively more complex ones) while Dorotheus played the central four (also technically tricky as well), and we could have done without the intrusive applause in between their movements.

Two more dances followed with A la maniere de Borodine (a waltz) and A la maniere de Chabrier (based on a Gounod aria from Faust) by Samuel King. These pastiches were rightly performed as a pair, with a typically French insouciance shining through. Very charming indeed.

The Prelude in A minor, composed as a conservatory sight-reading test, was the shortest piece on show. Elizabeth Michelle Heryaman had just more than a minute to put on the polish, and then it was over.

Le tombeau de Couperin, the six-movement neoclassical suite on ancient French dances, was shared by four pianists. Kevina Tenggara gave fluent performances of the Prelude (dedicated to the afore-mentioned Charlot) and Fugue, a rare exercise of Ravel doing formal counterpoint. Rebekah Too Jing Yuan followed with the Forlane, a quirky angular dance met with a pretty and graceful response. Ong Weng Yee provided just the right contrasts to differentiate the vigorous Rigaudon from the genteel Menuet than came after. It was perhaps unfair to assign Libby Chan Rui Qi with technically the most treacherous piece of all – the Toccata. She tried her level best but it was one almighty struggle to a valiant end.

Closing the concert’s first half was La Valse, in a four-hands arrangement by Lucien Garban, performed by invited guests Rena Cheung and Nicholas Ong. Former and present Head of Piano Studies at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts showed what playing on the edge was about. Although lacking the freedom and sweep of Ravel’s original version on two pianos, the duo rhapsodised and teetered on the brink of breakdown. That and the illusion of imminent collapse was what this tumultuous work meant.

Pavane pour une infante defunte opened the concert’s second half with Isabelle Agethen giving a deliberate but sensitive reading. Ravel often reminded pianists that “the princess was dead but not the pavane”, and that was what he got here.

Lucas Franklin Lai put on a superb water show for Jeux d’eau, which saw Ravel in his impressionist best, a performance of Debussyan fluidity and pure Lisztian brilliance. Let us see what he can do with Ondine sometime in the near future. Another minute-long miniature was the Menuet in C sharp minor, and little Max Choo Chong Kai mastered it with aplomb.

The Sonatine is a major masterpiece in three movements. Nguyen Phuc Bao Tien performed the first movement and the central Mouvement de Menuet with taste and sensitivity. Teo Wei Syuen weathered the whirlwind of the finale well, bringing the work to a resounding close.

There were four pianists who performed the five pieces that constitute Miroirs. Nicholas Ho, seasoned concert pianist and easily the evening’s busiest, opened with Noctuelles (Night Moths) and Oiseaux tristes (Sad Birds). Straight off, one senses his professionalism, his mastery of colour and myriad shades putting a mark of greatness in these two movements. Liu Xiao Miao was no slouch either in Une barque sur l’ocean, where a boat is being assailed by billowing waves.

The rhythms of Spain came alive from Ng Xin Yee in Alborada del gracioso (Morning Song of the Jester), impressing with lively staccatos, sparkling repeated note technique and sweeping glissandi. To close the set was Michelle Purnomo in La Vallee des cloches (The Valley of Bells), where a distinctly oriental soundscape permeated by the sound of bells – near and distant – was conjured, This was musical impressionism at its finest, thus quintessentially Ravel.

His most fearsome solo work was left for last, with Gaspard de la nuit opened by Nicholas Ho. His fine control of Ondine, complete with splashes and spills, was awe-inspiring, and the hypnotic spell conjured in Le gibet was just as gripping. It was left to multiple prize-winning Luther Ong Boon Kheng to apply the coup de grace with the terrifying Scarbo. His was a stunning reading, ready to face the challenges of any international piano competition. With this, the nation’s first Ravel marathon came to a resounding close.

May we expect a Vingt Regards sur l’enfant Jesus marathon with 20 pianists in 2028, the 120th anniversary of Olivier Messiaen?

A RAVEL PIANO MARATHON / Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Piano Department

 

A RAVEL PIANO MARATHON

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory 

Piano Department

YST Recording Studio

Friday (7 November 2025)

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of French composer Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), and no celebration is complete without a survey of his piano music. Although he was no piano virtuoso, he was responsible for some of the classical repertoire’s most technically demanding solo works. 

For one whose quality trumps quantity, the entire corpus for solo piano fits snugly onto two discs. However, the existence of non-canonical works such as his transcriptions of orchestral music and works for four hands (including two pianos) distend this output drastically, which is the rationale of this marathon concert by the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory piano department headed by Albert Tiu.

It lasted the best part of four hours included two short toilet breaks. It could have been even longer had Stefan Xie Lingfei, who was to play Miroirs, not headed to Shanghai for a competition. Furthermore, the two piano versions of Introduction & Allegro (originally for harp and chamber musicians) and La Valse had been omitted. Somehow Entre Cloches from Sites Auriculaires had also gone missing. Nonetheless, it was still an enthralling evening of great music, totally satisfying for the small audience in attendance.

Albert Tiu gave a short preamble
on Maurice Ravel's piano styles and
themes to be found in this event. 

This is not an actual review (The Straits Times had rejected a proposal because of budget cuts) but a recounting of the sequence of performances (who played what and when) with a few personal remarks and observations, and photos of all players have been included.

1710 hours: The Ravel Marathon commenced, opening on two pianos with the Fanfare from L’éventail de Jeanne (Jean’s Fan, 1927), a ballet with ten composers contributing to the cause. Ravel’s short number was the first, a polytonal march with mock military pretenses performed by Ng Kye Lie and Tara Ng. The duo continued with Ravel’s “work without music”, Boléro (1929) which built up to a stirring crescendo. This transcription felt a little dry despite the clever use of harmonics in one variation, but there’s no faulting the rhythmic precision from the duo.

1729 hours: Fong Jean Ying was next with three short and quiet simple pieces. Prélude in A minor (1913) was written as a sight-reading test, while the Menuet in C# minor (1904) was so short – blink and it's over. Menuet sur le nom Haydn (1909), built around the five notes that spelt Haydn’s name (B natural-A-D-D-G) with inversion and spelt backwards, was innocuous good fun, and realised well in her performance.

1733 hours: The six dance pieces of Le tombeau de Couperin (1914–7), composed in memory of friends who died in the Great War, was shared by three pianists. Xian Ruofei accounted for the flowing Prélude in a fluidly virtuosic account, while the academic Fugue that followed was played with total clarity with all voices well accounted for.

1742 hours: Berry Wong was responsible for the two central dances, Forlane and Rigaudon, which were quirkily rhythmic in character. The former could have been dressed in more humour while the latter was overly percussive, thus rendering it mostly charmless.

1753 hours: No worries after that with Toby Tan Kai Rong to the rescue. The Menuet was kept simple as the charm returned while the coruscating Toccata, the recital first out-and-out technical challenge, made for a brilliant close to the neo-baroque suite. His exemplary pedaling kept up the showpiece’s melodic interest without making its barnstorming sound too dry.

1802 hours: Despite a couple of memory lapses, Mi Maw Li Awng gave a musical and sensitive account of the Pavane pour une infante défunte (1899). In this case, the princess was dead, but not the pavane. Thank goodness.

1810 hours: The concert’s first third closed with the Mother Goose Suite, or Ma mère l’oye (1908-10), performed by four hands on a single keyboard by Nie Likun and Lin Sin-Yue. A fairy-tale atmosphere was established in the Pavane of the Sleeping Beauty, while bird-calls distinguished the forest wander of Petit Poucet (Tom Thumb). The pentatonic wonderland of gamelans and bells was conjured with much vividness in Laideronette, Empress of the Pagodas. Conversations of Beauty and the Beast contrasted the graceful with the gauche, while the Fairy’s Garden completed this lovely retreat into childhood. The performance was excellent all round.

1837 hours: With Shéhérazade, Ouverture de féerie (1898), the fairy overture written for an opera that never came to fruition, we arrived at the first transcription that sounded truly orchestral (Bolero does not count, unfortunately). The duo of Goh Kai Cheng and Chen Xing-Chi truly did justice to this very colourful score that deserves to be better known.

1851 hours: Menuet antique (1895) needs more love, because Darrell Lim played as if he hated every moment of it. Ravel does not need such crudeness and dessiccated sound.

1858 hours: Much relief came with the three-movement Sonatine (1903–5) from Kuo Lyu-Cen, which flowed with fluidity and lyricism. The central Mouvement de Menuet glowed with warmth, while the animated finale could have been taken a little faster for greater effect.

1911 hours: The very obscure La Parade (1896) sounds like movements by Chabrier and Satie – marches, waltzes and a mazurka - cobbled together like some rondeau pompeux. At least Zhang Huaxuan took it seriously by giving it his best shot, making it sound engaging and interesting. Did anyone notice an allusion to Scarbo in one of the interludes?

1923 hours: A much more mature and familiar work is Valses nobles et sentimentales (1911), a suite of eight varied waltzes inspired by Schubert’s own set. Jiang Qifan played it with spirit and verve, with the romping seventh waltz being a premonition of La Valse to come.

1938 hours: These two little tributes in the style of other composers, A la manière de Borodine and A la manière de Chabrier (1912–3), are a waltz and aria improvisation after Gounod’s Faust respectively. Chiu Pin-Hsin gave them the love they deserved despite their diminutive nature.

1943 hours: In lieu of the two-piano version, La Valse (1920) for two hands received a suitably thunderous reading from Chakrit Khanonvej, who liberally added notes of his own. Ravel’s score had a third stave which was open season to do whatever one desired.

2006 hours: The marathon’s final third opened with the most obscure score of some familiar orchestral music: Daphnis et Chloé Fragments Symphoniques (1912), comprising three rather substantial movements, Danse de Daphnis, Nocturne – Interlude - Danse Guerrière and Scene de Daphnis et Chloé. Despite being non-canonical, Tang Ke gave a performance of much colour and texture, and her pacing of this music was impeccable, which suggests she could become a conductor in the future.

2028 hours: Sérénade grotesque (1893) by the teenaged Ravel was his earliest piano work. Its Spanish rhythms looked forward to Alborada del gracioso (sadly not to be heard this evening) while its percussive beat to Bartok’s Allegro Barbaro. Chen Bo-Yu looked like he enjoyed it, and so did the audience which was laughing by its end.

2032 hours: Now we’ve reached the impressionist spectrum of Ravel’s oeuvre, with Jeux d’eau (1901) given a shimmering performance by Lin Shih-En, which had colour and many nuances in between. Here, Ravel was influenced by Franz Liszt and his depiction of fountains at Rome’s Villa d’Este.

2038 hours: Every person who had stayed up this long was rewarded with a quite spectacular performance of Gaspard de la nuit (1908) by Chai Zi Qing. She held a Venus-like grip on her audience if one can hear past her audible Gouldian humming, beginning with Ondine’s watery spell with very fine and detailed tremolos. The glissandi and arpeggios were simply spellbinding. The tolling B flats were hypnotic in Le gibet while Scarbo scampered with a wild abandon that defined the Gothic horror of this masterpiece.

2103 hours: Finally it was the turn of the two piano professors, Albert Tiu and Ning An who closed the evening’s fantastic smorgasbord. Frontispice (1918) qualifies as Ravel’s weirdest work, just two minutes of polytonal musings and five bars of birdcalls played by a fifth hand (Toby Tan doing the honours), before a sequence of crescendo chords looking ahead to the sound world of Olivier Messiaen.

2106 hours: Rapsodie Espagnole (1907) was the final work on two pianos by Albert Tiu and Ning An, four movements of impressionist and Iberian beauty - Prélude à la nuit, Malagueña, Habanera (originally from Site Auriculaires) and the rousing Feria to close. Has there been a better way to celebrate the greatness of Maurice Ravel? This absorbing journey from the Belle Epoque, neoclassicism to Impressionism was one to remember.

The Ravel Marathon officially ended at 2121 hours, and to think it could have continued to 2230 hours had missing pieces of the jigsaw been found. But what a journey that was, and one could only be happy and grateful for having been there to witness it all. If one missed Sir Stephen Hough this evening, he will return to the SSO sometime soon, but when will there next be another Ravel rave? Sometime in 2037 or 2075, but don’t hold your breath!