CD Reviews (The Straits Times, May 2013)

 

MUSICAL TOYS

MEI YI FOO, Piano

Odracek Records 1799302 / ****1/2

 

This is an excellent introduction to the genre of piano miniatures in the 20^th and 21^st centuries. The earliest music is the Hungarian Gyorgy Ligeti’s Musica Ricercata (1951-53), short disparate numbers that progress according to the number of tones used, from just two notes in the first piece to all 12 tones in a chromatic scale for the eleventh. From the old Soviet Union comes Musical Toys (1969) by Sofia Gubaidulina, 14 quite charming visions related to memories of childhood and playtime. Various styles are evoked, including boogie woogie in A Bear Playing The Double Bass and a droll Shostakovich-like march in The Drummer.

 

Anything but child’s play are the Six Piano Etudes (1995-2003) of Korean composer Unsuk Chin, here receiving their world premiere recording. These carry on the hallowed tradition of the 20^th century study, exploring a variety of tonal textures and rhythms in the manner of Ligeti. Modern sounding these are, but rather accessible to a first-time listener. The London-based pianist Mei Yi Foo (left), originally from Seremban, exhibits intelligence in programming, sensitivity of touch, digital brilliance and tonal allure. She provides her preferred order of the 31 pieces to be heard in sequence but one can also listen straight through. Either would still provide an illuminating experience. This CD may be purchased through online retailers.

This CD won the BBC Music Magazine's Best Newcomer Award in 2013.

GREAT PIANO CONCERTOS

Naxos 8.501056 (10 CDs) / ***1/2

In the Naxos 25^th anniversary survey of the piano concerto, two pianists stand out: the Hungarian Jeno Jando and Turk Idil Biret. Both are the Hong Kong-based label’s house pianists, assigned to record large swathes of piano literature for its repertoire-based catalogue. Jando is tasteful and stylish in Mozart’s piano concertos, five of which (Nos.20, 21, 23, 25 and 27) are included here. He is also impressive in Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto, and the regularly coupled A minor concertos of Schumann and Grieg, although the latter could have done with a lighter touch.

 

The former child prodigy Biret (left), who studied with Boulanger, Cortot and Kempff, is excellent in both concertos by Brahms, which are full of passion and fervour. Her idiomatic accounts of the two Chopin concertos are however let down by the hyper-reverberant acoustics, which sabotage the listening experience. Naxos recordings by Russian Eldar Nebolsin should have taken their place, and his inclusion for both Liszt concertos is a right one.

 

The Austrian Stefan Vladar shines in Beethoven’s Third to Fifth Concertos, fine and youthful recordings before he was poached by a “larger” label. The 20^th century piano concerto is represented by just one disc. Frenchman Francois-Joel Thiollier and Korean Kun Woo Paik get it right for Ravel’s G major Concerto and Prokofiev’s Third Concerto respectively, but Australian Kathryn Selby’s view of Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue is unremarkable. There are more hits than misses in this budget-priced collection.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, April 2013)

GREAT VIOLIN CONCERTOS

Naxos 8.501058 (10 CDs) / ****

This slim-line budget-priced box-set not just showcases the violin concerto as one of classical music’s most popular genres, but also celebrates the art of Takako Nishizaki, the primary Naxos house violinist for the past 25 years. The wife of Naxos founder and owner Klaus Heymann, she is soloist in 14 out of the 26 violin concertos highlighted.

Pride of place is her recording of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons with the Cappella Istrapolitana of Bratislava, Slovakia. This 1987 album was the Hong Kong-based label’s first big hit, going on to become the 8^th bestselling classical record of all time. Her playing is tasteful, refined, unmannered, and above all, honest. She also tackles the three great violin concertos in D major, by Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Brahms, with much fervour. The latter two incorporate rarely played first movement cadenzas by Fritz Kreisler which are well worth hearing.

Also in the mix is the Russian Ilya Kaler, joint-winner of the 1986 Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition, who makes light of virtuosic demands in concertos by Paganini, Dvorak, Glazunov and Shostakovich. The Kazakh Marat Bisengaliev (Lalo and Wieniawski) and Korean Dong-Suk Kang (Elgar and Saint-Saens) also register equally strong performances that challenge better-known soloists in the major labels. Younger names featured, such as Simone Lamsma (Spohr’s Concerto No.8), Mischa Keylin (Vieuxtemps No.5) and Henning Kraggerud (Sibelius), represent a bright future for the instrument. Programme notes are included, which is most helpful for the beginner, to whom this series is targeted. 

PIPE DREAMS

SHARON BEZALY, Flute

Australian Chamber Orchestra

BIS 1789 / ****1/2

This is a collection of concertante works for flute from nations of the southern hemisphere. Only one carries the formal designation of concerto but all have a palpable feel of the song and dance genre. The Flute Concerto with Tango (2008) by Uruguayan composer-conductor Jose Serebrier is a virtuoso showpiece dedicated to the Israel-born Sharon Bezaly, its continuous movements leading up to a short tango that is deliberately left incomplete and hanging in the air. This element of suspense and surprise keeps this music interesting and moving along. The highly athletic Pitangus Sulphuratus (1987, revised 2007) by the Venezuelan Adina Izarra is inspired by the flight and birdcall of the Great Kiskadee, a species commonly found in Central and South America.

The eponymous Pipe Dreams (2003) by the Australian Carl Vine, well known for his dance works, draws its title from the opium pipe, Aboriginal dreamtime and the flute itself. Its sheer exuberance makes it the most accessible of the 21^st century scores, and it includes a tender pas de deux by flute and solo violin, played by orchestra leader Richard Tognetti. The earliest work is the short Impresiones de la Puna (1934) by the Argentine Alberto Ginastera, which celebrates Andean folk music and the quecha, a traditional vertical flute. Bezaly’s agility and enormous range on the flute is nothing less than phenomenal, and these new works are well worth exploring.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, March 2013)

Singaporean Classics

GENUS

Singapore Original Compositions

For Niibori Guitar Orchestra

NUS Centre For The Arts / ****

A Niibori guitar orchestra is an ensemble formed by nine different groups of guitars, each with specific registers of pitches, functioning like a choir of strummed sonorities. GENUS (Guitar Ensemble of the National University of Singapore) was founded in 1981 by Singapore’s “Father of the Guitar” Alex Abisheganaden and remains the nation’s premier Niibori ensemble. This disc comprises eight works representing three generations of composers associated with the group. Abisheganaden’s own Huan Yin - Vanakam and Gala Nexus (both 1995) are the most traditional and least complex. The former espouses the “Nanyang style” of composition, combining Chinese and Indian influences with its use of the erhu and sitar.

Current GENUS conductor Robert Casteels contributes the most ambitious work, the 20-minute long El Jardin de la Vita y la Muerte (The Garden of Life and Death, 2010) which combines voices, percussion, flamenco dance with the blood ritual of bullfights. Its visual spectacle is unfortunately lost in this audio recording. Taped sounds are heard in City Scape (2012, the chaos of urban construction) by Gao Yang and Casteels, and Kansalesa’s Bones (2011, a dog’s excited whimpers) by Balraj Gopal. Traditional Asian instruments also appear in Gopal’s Satyagraha (2011) and Chua Jon Lin’s Autumn Blues (2011). Finally, The Phunk Experiment (2011) by NUS students Alvin Ng and Calista Lee, a very listenable pop-inspired number with synthesisers and the disco beat, represents the future of the ensemble. Listen, and be surprised.

This recording retails at $10 and is available at the GENUS Concert on 24 March 2013. 

BOOK IT: INTROSPECTION / REFLECTION

Guitar Ensemble of NUS

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory 
24 March 2013, 7.30 pm  

Tickets at $16 

E-mail: nusguitarensemble@gmail.com 
Tel: Stephen at 9891 3312  

GREAT RUSSIAN SYMPHONIES

Naxos 8.501059 (10 CDs) / ***1/2

It looks like the major record labels have come up with the strategy of marketing multiple-disc sets, which retail at below super-budget price (at $6 per disc)  to entice the potential buyer as CD sales fall worldwide. With Naxos’s vast catalogue accrued over 25 years, it is possible to do just that. However, does one really want to hear the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra from Katowice conducted by Adrian Leaper and Antoni Wit play Tchaikovsky’s last three symphonies? The performances and recordings are more than competent but hardly world-beating. The same would apply to Prokofiev’s First and Fifth Symphonies or Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony from the national orchestras of Ukraine and Ireland respectively.

There are however exceptions, like an excellent Shostakovich Fifth Symphony, with its agonised final pages (very Russian indeed!) milked to the max from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic conducted by the dynamic young Russian Vasily Petrenko, or Borodin’s Second Symphony from the Seattle Symphony with Gerard Schwarz. The Shostakovich Seventh Symphony “Leningrad” from the Russian Philharmonic and Dmitry Yablonsky is also highly competitive. The rarities here are little-known symphonies by Glazunov, Kalinnikov and Myaskovsky, included for good measure. Naxos provides full programme notes, which are a definite plus for the first time listener. A gauntlet has been thrown for the Universal group of labels and their big-name orchestras to beat, which should not be too difficult.

This box-set retails at $59.90 at HMV