PETWORTH FESTIVAL 2020 / Concert Reviews IV

Thursday 22 October 2020

MILOS KARADAGLIC, Guitar

 

It is amazing to ponder that the Balkan republic of Montenegro, with a population of just over 600 thousand, can boast the talents of pro footballers Mirko Vucinic and Stevan Jovetic, the dear mutual friend of Neil Franks and mine – pianist Boris Kraljevic - and possibly the world’s most popular classical guitarist Milos Karadaglic. He came to Britain as a teenager, studying in the Royal Academy of Music before becoming a recording star and global sensation. His hour-long recital was a world tour of popular guitar repertoire that spanned the entire spectrum of the instrument’s capabilities.

 

Spanish music came first with a set comprising Granados’ Andaluza (Spanish Dance No.5, also known as a piano piece), Tarrega’s Lagrima (Teardrop, a short piece of quiet reflection and melancholy), Falla’s Dance of the Miller’s Wife (from The Three-Cornered Hat), replete with its vigorous orchestral effects. From the greatest Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos came his five famous Preludes, written for Andres Segovia, displaying a kaleidoscopic range of colours and moods which Milos keenly lapped up.

 

Keen in exploring myriad aspects of guitarism, there were two transcriptions by Japanese contemporary great  Toru Takemitsu of popular songs: Harold Arlen’s  Over The Rainbow (from The Wizard of Oz) and Lennon-McCartney’s Yesterday. The melodies may be unforgettable to say the least but the harmonies employed were unusual, even exotic, resounding beautifully in Milos’ hands.

 

The most substantial work on the programme was perhaps the least familiar (except for guitar aficionados), the Italian guitarist-composer Carlo Domeniconi’s Coyunbaba Suite. The work is unusual as it requires special tuning to relive an Oriental mode in the key of C sharp minor, with its four linked movements influenced by Turkish music. Milos cast a hypnotic spell with this mesmerising music, which traversed from quiet contemplation to white-hot passion and ecstacy. The guitar is an instrument which shares the most private and intimate of thoughts, and rarely has it secrets been so trenchantly revealed.  

 

 

Friday 23 October 2020

 

PATTI BOULAYE – ARETHA AND ME

 

Popular music is so ubiquitous that you recognise the songs even if you did not know what they were called. Such were my impressions when tuning in to British-Nigerian singer Patti Boulaye’s personal tribute to legendary American singer-songwriter Aretha Franklin. Aretha’s songs are so well covered that the originals are sometimes forgotten. Patti’s natural ability and enthusiasm is infectious, which translated well for The Queen of Soul’s standards like Think, I Say A Little Prayer, Spanish Harlem, Son of A Preacher Man, I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You and Baby I Love You.

 

Not everything heard this evening was by Aretha. There was Etta James’ I’d Rather Go Blind and At Last, and Bessie Smith’s Kitchen Man, which are of the similar genre. The less said about the cover of Nessun Dorma (from Puccini’s Turandot), the better. Pavarotti she is not, but at least Patti did it her way. Far more convincing was Dat’s Love or the Habanera from Carmen Jones (Bizet’s opera from the hood), which was more her kind of thing. Best of all was Amina from Patti’s musical Sun Dance which simply oozed the African vibe. Patti was ably accompanied by music director Alan Rogers who manned all the keyboards and extra sound effects.

 

The bewitching hour closed with more Aretha: Chain of Fools, Save Me and You Make Feel Like A Natural Woman, familiar favourites sealing an incredibly lively show for someone who’s mighty proud of being a grandma. Did someone say she is 66 years old? That is simply astonishing.  

 

 

Saturday 24 October 2020

 

CHARLES OWEN &

KATYA APEKISHEVA, Piano Duo

 

The final concert is this wonderful week at the Petworth Festival was a piano four hands recital by the duo of Charles Owen and Katya Apekisheva. Both pianists are the co-directors of the London Piano Festival at King’s Place, an annual event which I must attend sometime during my lifetime, and I even own a couple of their CD recordings. Their Petworth offering was not Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring or Rachmaninov’s Suites but a Classical-Romantic affair which made more sense in the space of St Mary’s Church.

Charles Owen waxes lyrical about
Beethoven and Schubert.

 

Beethoven’s Sonata in D major (Op.6) is an early work in just two short movements. The vigour and brio stirred in his spirit came immediately to the fore, which made interesting contrasts with Schubert’s Rondo in A major (D.951). This was a late work composed in his final year, one blessed with an unremitting congeniality. As rondos go, this was not the usual jolly dance but a gentle portrait of polite Biedermeier sensibilities. The duo, technically adroit but totally sensitive at every turn, gave a most musical reading which can scarcely be bettered.

 

Then came the substantial Brahms set, opening with his Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann (Op.23, and not Op.9 which is a totally different piece for two hands), based on a late piece written during Schumann’s final throes of insanity. This is the same theme of Schumann’s Geistervariationen (Ghost Variations), but Brahms’ is the far more interesting set, and the duo’s imaginative take sealed the deal. The 16 Waltzes (Op.39) may be considered amateur fodder, but it takes superior musicians to do the myriad subtleties full justice, which was what we got from Charles and Katya.

 

Charles and Katya could not have had a more
sympathetic page-turner than Neil Franks,
pianophile & Chairman of the Petworth Festival.

To close were four popular Hungarian Dances heard in their original form for piano four hands. Brahms was not a striver for authenticity (unlike Bartok and Kodaly) but he fully understood the Magyar gypsy spirit which comes alive in his 21 showpieces. For the record, the duo performed Nos.1, 7, 6 and 5, which are the best-known ones with all the beloved tunes. As they say, all good things must come to an end, but this had been a most enjoyable week of music, and the 2021 Petworth Festival cannot come any sooner!

 

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, April 2016)

SEONG-JIN CHO

Winner of the 17^th International

Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition

Deutsche Grammophon 479 5332 / *****

Almost immediately after his triumph at the 2015 Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw, young Korean pianist Cho Seong-Jin's debut recording was issued, comprising wholly of live performances from the concours. 

His mastery of broad sweeping canvasses is immediately felt in the 24 Preludes (Op.28), made up of variegated miniatures which exhibit every facet of Chopin's technical armamentarium, and emotional breadth and depth. His impeccably polished technique is matched by a whole-hearted involvement which made this music very much his own.

One would also be hard put to find a reading of the Second Sonata in B flat minor (Op.35, or Funeral March Sonata) with as much passionate ardour, and that ceaseless probing of the human psyche's darker side. Here the names of Pollini, Argerich or Ohlsson may be cited, all of whom are enshrined in a pantheon of great Chopinists which Cho now joins. 

The disc is completed by the Nocturne in C minor (Op.48 No.1) and that most overplayed of Polonaises, the “Heroic” in A flat major (Op.53), both sounding as fresh as newly minted. All this accomplished at the age of 21, a promising musical career awaits this phenomenal new talent.

BLACKBIRD / THE BEATLES ALBUM

MILOS KARADAGLIC, Guitar

Mercury Classics 481 2310 / *****

That the music of the Beatles, like the works of J.S.Bach, could be translated into genres far removed from the original form is a testament of its universality and immortality. This album of Beatles standards by Montenegrin guitarist Milos Karadaglic is a winner not just because of his irrepressible personality, but also the idiomatic and seamless arrangements by Brazilian guitarist Sergio Assad.

The insouciant spirit of Lennon and McCartney's Blackbird, Come Together, The Fool On The Hill, And I Love Her, Eleanor Rigby and All My Loving, or George Harrison's Something and Here Comes The Sun are not lost despite the absence of words.

There is also a solo arrangement of Yesterday, by no less than Japanese modernist icon Toru Takemitsu (who despite his Zen-like austerity was a massive fan of the Fab Four), one which resonates deeply in its simplicity. 

There are cameo appearances by Gregory Porter (in Let It Be), Tori Amos (She's Leaving Home), cellist Steven Isserlis (Michelle) and sitar virtuosa Anoushka Shankar (Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds) which add to the glitter factor of this already desirable disc.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, December 2012)

 

 

LATINO

MILOS KARADAGLIC, Guitar

Deutsche Grammophon 479 0063 / *****

 

Montenegrin guitarist Milos Karadaglic’s second recording for the Yellow Label is possibly the best recent anthology of Latin American music for the guitar. Not only does he imbue the hot-blooded yet sentimental music with a wealth of feeling, his stupendous technique holds up to the most virtuosic pages. Just hear his takes on the Paraguayan Agustin Barrios Mangore’s breath-taking tremolo studies, Un Sueno En La Floresta and El Ultimo Tremolo, which come across with silky smoothness and the greatest of ease, almost as natural as breathing. The Brazilian pieces best reveal his amazing range, graceful and lilting in Villa-Lobos’s Etude No.1 and Mazurka-Choro, while rhythmically exuberant in Uruguayan Isaias Savio’s Batucada and Argentine Jorge Morel’s Dansa Brasileira.    

 

Milos is joined by the European FilmPhilharmonie’s Studio Orchestra conducted by Christopher Israel in four works. Tango-meister Astor Piazzolla gets pride of place with a suitably vibrant run in Libertango and the more pensive Oblivion. His mentor Carlos Gardel’s Por Una Cabeza, Cuban Osvaldo Ferres’s Quizas, Quizas, Quizas and Uruguayan Gerardo Matos Rodriguez’s La Cumparsita (in solo arrangement) are some of those pieces one hears over and over, and wonders what their titles are. It really does not matter, when the usually staid German recording company lets down its hair to have some serious fun. Highly recommended.    

 

 

 

 

SHOSTAKOVICH Chamber Symphonies

Chamber Orchestra of Europe

Deutsche Grammophon  477 5442 (2CDs) / ****1/2

 

The four Chamber Symphonies by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) are arrangements for chamber orchestra of his string quartets by the late Russian violist and conductor Rudolf Barshai. The string quartets are already regular repertoire works, and the chamber symphonies are beginning to gain popularity with audiences. The Symphonies Op.110a and 118a, scored wholly for strings, follow the same opus numbers as the Quartets Nos.8 and 10 respectively. The former was dedicated to “victims of fascism and war” and semi-autobiographical in content, containing quotations from a number of earlier works as well as the D-S-C-H motif, based on the German spelling of his name. This is an obvious start point in the discovery of his most personal music, as is the moving Passacaglia from the latter symphony.

 

The Symphonies Op.73a and 83a are similarly amplifications of Quartets Nos.3 and 4, now with the addition of woodwinds and percussion. The mock gaiety and dripping irony of the original music is well captured, and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe conducted by Bashai himself performs with great incisiveness and trenchancy. The very substantial bonus is the arrangement for piano trio, celesta and percussion of Shostakovich’s Fifteenth Symphony by Viktor Derevianko. His enigmatic final symphony from 1972 is already lightly scored and this transcription further reduces it to bare bones. More importantly, its anarchic spirit with liberal quotes from Rossini and Wagner is not lost in this droll account from Kremerata Musica led by violinist Gidon Kremer. While some will prefer the original Shostakovich, these beefed up and pared down versions of his music have much to offer. 

 



SINGAPORE SUN FESTIVAL 2010: SILK ROAD ODYSSEY / Review

SINGAPORE SUN FESTIVAL 2010

Silk Road Odyssey
Singapore Chinese Orchestra
Esplanade Concert Hall
Saturday (6 November 2010)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 8 November 2010.

At the closing gala of the Singapore Sun Festival, the Singapore Chinese Orchestra led by Yeh Tsung performed a typically East Meets West programme. Bartok’s Romanian Dances opened on a spirited high. Folk music translates well for Chinese instrumentation, with the ruan, dizi and erhu sounding totally idiomatic in their solo passages.

Moving eastward, Zhao Jiping’s Silk Road Fantasia Suite featured an unusual collaboration with Chinese sand artist Ruan Yun Ting, whose work was projected on screen in real-time. From a blizzard of sand, images of a distant fort, gnarled trees, wind-beaten paths and a camel caravan soon came into view.

With gently sprinkles, broad finger strokes and sweep of the hand, visions came and went. A peacock’s plumage was transformed into dancing dervishes, accompanied by music of Central Asian flavour and Han Lei’s superb guanzi, alternating between sounding like a saxophone and Klezmer clarinet.

Less successful was the partnership with young Korean-American violinist Rachel Lee. Despite perfect intonation, her violin projected a small sound, barely registering above the orchestra for Vivaldi’s Spring from The Four Seasons and Saint-Saens’ Introduction & Rondo Capriccioso. The arrangements did not add anything new, although an erhu soloist would have been far more interesting.

A masterstroke of programming paired a Chinese pipa concerto with a Spanish guitar concerto. Tang Jian Ping’s Spring and Autumn was arguably the more interesting work. Percussion outbursts and the pipa’s stormy entry indicated that this was not about the seasons but a turbulent period of Chinese history (Chun Qiu Shi Dai).

Both violent and meditative in turn, SCO Principal Yu Jia’s pipa played both agent provocateur and peaceable mediator, baiting and calming the orchestra at every turn of this colourfully scored masterpiece. It was a pity that the audience was so parsimonious with its applause that it abruptly ended before soloist and conductor left the stage.

More fortunate was Montenegrin guitarist Milos Karadaglic who starred in Joaquin Rodrigo’s popular Concierto de Aranjuez. Sympathetically accompanied, one did not miss the western orchestra and the famous slow movement’s cor anglais solo, now played by the organ-like blown sheng. His complete mastery of the instrument was rewarded with one curtain call and one encore in Tarrega’s Lagrima.

Audiences for Chinese orchestral music could learn to applaud more unreservedly. The artists on stage deserve to know that they are being appreciated.