TWO PIANO RECITAL / Brian Hsu & Nellie Seng / Review

TWO PIANO RECITAL

Brian Hsu & Nellie Seng, 2 Pianos

Lee Foundation Theatre, NAFA

Thursday (3 November 2022)

 

You know that the pandemic is over when there are concerts to catch every day of the week. This is just the beginning of a most hectic schedule of concerts of the post-Covid season. Many events involve international soloists, the definite sign that international travel has resumed with a vengeance. This evening saw a very enjoyable two-piano recital of Russian music at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, given by Taiwanese-American pianist Brian Hsu (presently based in New Orleans) and Nellie Seng, head of piano studies at the NAFA School of Music.

Nellie related how foreign students in USA
spent their Thanksgiving weekend holidays,
by keeping each other company,
almost breaking into tears in the process!

 

Opening with Rachmaninov’s Fantasy for two pianos Op.5 (also known as Suite No.1), one could feel the chemistry between the duo who were once classmates at the Juilliard School, specifically in the studio of Jerome Lowenthal. The Barcarolle was taken at moderate pace, with time enough for the filigreed ornaments to be properly savoured. Slow movements such as this and The Night... The Love that followed could fatally drag, but this was not allowed to happen. Instead the nightingales came to roost, building up to a rapturous climax.  

 

Tears, the third movement, was also slow, built upon an ostinato of four descending notes. This too was well-paced and did not linger without bringing out hand-wringing pathos. The brief Russian Easter, arguably Rachmaninov’s most representative bell piece, pealed rowdily and joyously to close the work. His Suite No.2, more varied in colour and mood, has greater appeal but that does not diminish this fine earlier effort.  

 

The recital’s highlight was a rare performance of Nikolai Medtner’s Two Pieces Op.58, last heard in Singapore at the 2003 Singapore International Piano Festival played by Dmitri Alexeev and Nikolai Demidenko. Its rarity is well-founded, as Medtner does not readily wear his heart on his sleeve, unlike his good friend Rachmaninov. Medtner’s subtlety and penchant for counterpoint may prove a hindrance to popularity, and it is also fiendishly tricky for performers. However, if one persevered, the rewards are immense as Nellie and Brian’s performance proved.

 

The shorter Russian Round Dance skipped lightly and effortlessly. Sometimes referred to as a skazka (fairy tale), it had a rustic folk-like quality that was endearing, completed with upward glissandi on both keyboards at its end. More complex is Knight Errant, first cousin to Medtner’s March of the Paladin (Op.14 No.2), which is rhythmically sophisticated, and made more arduous with a fast-running fugue at its centre. Despite its thorns and brambles, the duo had a field day, lapping up its challenges with splendid aplomb. It is hoped that 19 years would not have to pass before these are heard again.

 

Completing the evening was the very familiar Stravinsky Three Pieces from Petrushka, staple of piano competitions, but in its more filled-in version for four hands. With the division of labour between two pianists, it is less daunting than the solo version. However, both pianists have to work very hard as two halves of one brain. Brian played the primo part, which was flashier, ably supported by Nellie’s secondo,  providing the rich harmonies and rhythmic impetus.

 

The Russian Dance romped home in break-neck speed - which is always thrilling - while Petrushka’s Room showcased the juiciest harmonies (including that grating Petrushka chord) that sealed Stravinsky’s notoriety. The Shrovetide Fair had the right hustle and bustle, building up a good head of steam with its procession of folk dances. There was a brief moment of desynchronisation and an odd bum chord but that did nothing to derail an imperious reading that took no prisoners.

 

One would have loved an encore or two, given loud cheers from an enthused audience, but spare a thought for both pianists. It was darned hard work performed without a break, but a solid 70 minutes well spent.

Photographs from NANYANG INTERNATIONAL PIANO ACADEMY 2022: OPENING GALA

 

NANYANG INTERNATIONAL

PIANO ACADEMY 2022: OPENING GALA

Lee Foundation Theatre

Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts

Thursday (4 August 2022)

Ever wondered what all these piano prodigies get up to during their school vacations? Attend summer piano academies or festivals, where they get more piano lessons, attend lectures and workshops guided by a host of international teachers, and also play for a live audience. This is how performing artists of the future get a start and taste of concert life, while preparing themselves for the rigours of academic and conservatory studies. Piano academies take place all over the world, and the Nanyang International Piano Academy (NIPA), organised by the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, is one of these.

The four-day NIPA 2022 opened with a gala recital, featuring two of its faculty and some very promising young piano talents. The hour-long recital was attended by a sizeable and lively audience with many young people (median age guesstimated to be about 12 years old!) who were as attentive as they were well-behaved. Here are some photos of the performers and what they performed.

NIPA Chairperson Nellie Seng,
also Head of Piano Studies of NAFA greeted
all the attendees, only after she had performed.

The opening work was the first movement of
Carl Vine's Piano Sonata No.1, given a stunningly
kinetic and sonorous reading by Nellie Seng.

Alexander Tienroth fully understands the
gentle rocking rhythm of Fauré's Barcarolle No.1
and its ornamental figurations.

Using a pedal extension, Joston Liew
puts the shine on Haydn's Sonata in D major
Hob.XVI:37 with no little wit and humour. 

Serial competition winner Casey Li
gave a sparkling performance of
Debussy's Les Collines d'Anacapri,
filled with Mediterranean sunshine and colour.

Even if Joshua Loh's reading of 
Haydn's Sonata in F major Hob.XVI:23
was a tad metronomic, it was totally
apt for Kabalevsky's Sonatina Op.13 No.1.

Ben Choong Startup received the loudest cheers
from the audience, and he rewarded them with a 
lyrical performance of Liszt's Petrarch Sonnet No.104.

The recital closed with Melody Quah,
piano professor at Penn State University, performing
Zhou Long's vibrant and dance-like Wu Kui,
with shades of Bartok and Ginastera
dressed up in Chinese characteristics.

Concert pianists of the future,
take a bow!

Watch the full concert here:

NIPA 2022 - Opening Gala Concert - YouTube

TWO PIANO RECITAL / Christopher Guzman & Nellie Seng / Review

TWO PIANO RECITAL

CHRISTOPHER GUZMAN

& NELLIE SENG, 2 Pianos

Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts

Thursday (17 February 2022)

 

One gets the feeling that the Covid pandemic has reached a steady state when vaccinated travel lanes opened (and stayed opened), and more foreign artists have arrived to perform. From the beginning of the year, Singaporeans have welcomed international concert pianists like Eric Lu, Luca Buratto, Herbert Schuch and Zee Zee. The latest to come is American pianist Christopher Guzman, professor at Penn State University, presently on a three-week residency with the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. His concerts include a solo recital (last week), a two-piano recital and a concerto performance with the NAFA Orchestra (next week).

 

Its been ages since the last two-piano recital, so it was a pleasure to have Guzman teaming up with Nellie Seng, NAFA’s Head of Piano Studies, in an enjoyable programme for four hands. Both pianists were students of Jerome Lowenthal at the Juilliard School where they first got together.

 

Opening the recital was Mozart’s Fantasy in F minor (K.608), originally conceived for mechanical organ (orgelwalze). Taking the form of a French overture, with an arresting opening in dotted rhythm followed by fugal sections, it is perhaps Mozart’s best tribute to J.S.Bach. The duo went fearlessly for the jugular, then carrying on with a skillful play of counterpoint in the ensuing fugues. The voices were clearly enunciated and as the fugues got increasingly more florid, so was the attention paid to detail by both pianists, who eyed each other most alertly.

 

Guzman played the primo part for the first work, but roles were switched in Mozart’s popular Sonata in D major (K.448), which received a breathlessly exciting performance. Caution was thrown to the winds at the speed taken for the first movement’s Allegro con spirito. The spirito part was taken most literally, and the work was all the better for it. Ensemble work was precise and clean for most part. In short, verve was never sacrificed for safety first. The slow movement provided flowing lyrical respite and it was a return to high jinks for the ebullient finale. There was no room for error here, and the duo again delivered with plentiful dividends.  

 

Following a short break, Robert Schumann’s Six Canonic Studies Op.56 were a far less frenetic affair. Originally conceived for pedal piano (a piano with attached foot pedals for playing bass notes, like an organ), it is now more often heard in Debussy’s arrangement for two pianos. This essentially divides the labour between two pianists, with their left hands sharing the pedalling work on bass notes. These miniatures were varied in character and not over-complicated in counterpoint.  Delightful and sensitively played by the duo, one wonders why these are not more often heard.  

 

Rachmaninov’s Six Morceaux Op.11, early salon-like pieces, are always played on a single keyboard but on this occasion, the duo stuck to separate pianos. The elegant little Waltz (Op.11 No.4) opened simply but got increasingly more animated, so it was probably wise they did not get in each other’s way. The 70-minute recital closed with Lutoslawski’s Paganini Variations, based on the ubiquitous Caprice No.24 for solo violin. Unlike those by Brahms or Rachmaninov, these variations are short-winded but make up with anarchic wit and surprising harmonic twists. The duo played up its shock value and campness, which was a total hit with the audience.

 

After loud and prolonged applause, the duo finally converged on one keyboard for an encore which Seng described as a lullaby. The audience was sent home happy with Brahms’ Waltz in A flat major (Op.39 No.15), while relishing in its simple lilt and charm.

Christopher Guzman
cannot believe his good fortune!

NANYANG PIANO ACADEMY Opening Gala Concert / Review

NANYANG PIANO ACADEMY

Opening Gala Concert

Lee Foundation Theatre,

Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts

Thursday (17 January 2019)

The first ever edition of the 3-day long Nanyang Piano Academy opened with a gala concert featuring members of its faculty, which included pedagogues from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) and visiting professors from several renowned music education institutions. It was a mini piano festival wrapped up within a two-hour long recital.

The recital opened with Singapore’s own Shaun Choo, now pursuing his Masters degree at the Salzburg Mozarteum, in Beethoven’s 32 Variations in C minor. A more confident and convincing performance would be hard to fine, with each of its very short variations carved out with lapidary care and finesse.

Next was a duo with NAFA Head of Piano Studies Lena Ching and her former student, the Juilliard-trained Nellie Seng in Schubert’s Fantasy in F minor. This has to be the greatest of hausmusik ever conceived, a work of utmost beauty yet imbued with a sense of dramatic seriousness. It was a good performance from the duo, however one wished for more a gemütlich feel in their reading, which pursued many notes with a grim determination albeit punctuated by moments of levity.

Nigel Clayton from London’s Royal College of Music closed the first half with Debussy’s Estampes and a selection from the George Gershwin Songbook. He was the only pianist to give a short preamble before the works, which was well-appreciated by the audience of young people and their parents. The contrasts in Pagodes, La Soiree dans Grenade and Jardins sous la pluie, representing the Far East, Spain and France were also well-brought out.

There was to be no improvisations in the Gershwin shorts, crafted like preludes, but Clayton took some liberties with repetitions, especially of melodies that were too nice to be heard just once. The clearly enthused audience was hit for six: I’ll Build A Stairway To Paradise, The Man I Love, Fascinatin’ Rhythm, Someone Loves Me, Do Do Do and I Got Rhythm.  

The longest work of the evening was Liszt’s Sonata in B minor, almost half-an-hour in duration, performed by Claudius Tanski, a German professor from the Salzburg Mozarteum. Clearly he has a firm grasp of its epic scope and architecture, knowing exactly where the music inexorably leads, and the wherewithal to conquer its multitudes of octaves and chords. Any performance of this behemoth runs the risk of being overwrought, and there were some brief lapses, from which he recovered well to complete the arduous journey.

The final solo came from Shaun Choo, where he let it rip in Chopin’s First Ballade. This was a most accomplished performance, and an individual one which benefited from his extrovert personality. Clearly a showman, he also did a bit of acting leading up to the evening’s communal encore, Albert Lavignac’s showboating Galop Marche for 8 hands, where he was joined by Lena Ching, Nellie Seng and Nicholas Ong making a brief cameo. It was a harmless bit of fluff, vulgar and filled with horseplay. Whoever said that serious classical pianists should not have a bit of fun?