A PIANO RECITAL NOT TO MISS: AN EVENING WITH RAVEL on 26 April 2025

 

AN EVENING WITH RAVEL 

If you love piano music, here is a super piano recital not to miss, showcasing the complete piano works of French composer MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937). No less than 22 pianists in Singapore – young virtuosos as well as concert veterans – will take part in this 150th anniversary commemoration of Ravel’s birth. This marathon event takes place at Victoria Concert Hall on Saturday 26 April 2025, starting at 7 pm (Please note the earlier timing!) 

Although Ravel was no piano virtuoso,
he wrote some of the greatest piano music ever.

Ravel’s virtuosic showpieces, like Gaspard de la nuit and Valses nobles et sentimentales, sit alongside his Impressionist scores – Jeux d’eau and Miroirs – and neoclassical favourites, such as the Sonatine, Pavane for the Dead Infanta and La tombeau de Couperin. Here is also a rare chance to hear his miniatures and excerpts from the ballets Mother Goose and Daphnis and Chloe as well. Two of Singapore’s well-known piano pedagogues Rena Cheung and Nicholas Ong also unite for a grand performance of La Valse. 

All the pianists (in alphabetical order): Isabelle Agethen, Libby Chan, Rena Cheung, Max Choo, Elizabeth Michelle Heryawan, Nicholas Ho, Samuel King, Dorotheus Koh, Lukas Franklin Lai, Enzio Lim, Lim Wei Xuan, Liu Xiao Miao, Ng Xin Yee, Nguyen Phuc Bao Tien, Luther Ong, Nicholas Ong, Ong Weng Yee, Michelle Purnomo, Kevina Tenggara, Teo Wei Syuen, Rebekah Too & Kseniia Vokhmianina 

Saturday, 26 April 2025 

Victoria Concert Hall, 7 pm 

Tickets available at: 

https://www.eventbrite.sg/e/an-evening-with-ravel-tickets-1207461272169 

Now watch these great videos: 

Ivo Pogorelich 

playing Gaspard de la nuit: 

Martha Argerich and Nelson Freire 

playing La Valse:

INVICTUS / Art Song Recital by Shaun Lee & Nicholas Ho

INVICTUS Art Song Recital

SHAUN LEE, Tenor

NICHOLAS HO, Piano

Baroque House, 29 Rowell Road

Sunday (8 October 2023)

Baroque House is a pre-war shophouse located in the heart of Little India. Located on 29 Rowell Road, it has become a cosy and informal space for arts events and private dining. Its insalubrious location just a stone's throw away from Singapore's seediest red-light district seems just like the right place for serious and good art to flourish. Bohemian chic? Its entrance even has a neon sign (by Sonia B.Ong) that challenges one to ponder the idea that art and grim reality could sit comfortably side by side.

The performing space is on its second floor, overlooking residences which have yet to be gentrified. A bright red Baldwin baby grand piano, in good tune, rests invitingly in a space that sits about 25-30 people. There is no ceiling, and one gets to peer at the roof, one side decorated with an old stucco relief and the other bare brick. The sound can get quite resonant especially with the reverberation from Shaun Lee's stentorian tenor voice.

The 30-minute art song recital was a classic case of quality rather than quantity, as he and pianist Nicholas Ho made every minute count. The matinee opened with five songs by Ho, settings of words by James Joyce. His music is lyrical in the best tradition of Romantic songwriters, and have highly detailed piano parts which only a virtuoso pianist can conceive of. Shaun's voice thus had to transcend the pianist's multitudes of notes, and he did so admirably.

Ho's songs were a summation of the Romantic art song tradition, from Schubert and Schumann to present day composers like the late Ned Rorem. These were amply reflected by the choice of the other songs on the programme, including Samuel Barber's The Daisies, Richard Strauss' Zueignung, Wagner's Schmerzen (from Wesendonck Lieder) and Rachmaninov's Zdes Khorosho (How Fair This Spot).

That this young Singaporean's early song cycle could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the greats of vocal writing is a testament to his artistic vision and assimilative abilities. The recital closed with Ho's Invictus (words by William Earnest Henley), a song influenced by Rachmaninov's big chords and heroic gestures, well realised in its final lines, "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul".  

American pianist Tedd Joselson and
celebrity surgeon Susan Lim also attended.

The small audience, including luminaries from Singapore's high society, clearly enjoyed this musical offering, and one looks forward to more such events in this exciting and edgy venue.

More about the Baroque House:

BAROQUE HOUSE - Home (baroquehaus.com)

 

CON FUOCO / NICHOLAS HO Piano Recital / Review

CON FUOCO

NICHOLAS HO Piano Recital

Victoria Concert Hall

Tuesday (31 January 2023)

 

There was a time when Singapore’s best young pianists chose to stay abroad, where educational and performance opportunities were plentiful. There was simply no market for professional musicians to thrive and survive in Singapore, then deemed a “cultural desert”. All that has changed, with the milieu favourable for pianists like Shane Thio, Lim Yan and Nicholas Loh to return and enrich our musical scene. Add the name of hotshot pianist Nicholas Ho to that list of returning talents.

   

Ho, whose teachers included Ong Lip Tat and Tedd Joselson in Singapore, Edward Auer and Ran Dank in USA, is completing his Doctorate in Cincinnati, Ohio. His latest recital displayed a rather different kind of pianist, one with unusually wide tastes, and also a composer of compelling gifts. The recital opened  conventionally with Joseph Haydn’s Sonata in E minor (Hob.XVI:34), imbued with a nervous energy in the opening Presto, contrasted by a thoughtful Adagio. Completing this short masterpiece was a Rondo which flitted from minor to major keys, with Nicholas fully bringing out its good (and innocentemente) humour.  

 

Transcriptions of Vladimir Horowitz have become wildly popular but Nicholas chose instead to perform four original pieces, all early works. The Waltz in F minor has an elegant and swarthy charm, contrasted with the more familiar Danse Excentrique (or Moment Exotique, which Horowitz recorded), almost a second cousin to Debussy’s Golliwogg Cakewalk and General Lavine – Excentrique (probably where its title came from). Some of the harmonies are ravishing. Much less well-known are his Etude-Fantaisie (the influence of Rachmaninov’s Moment Musicaux Op.16 No.2 is obvious) and Fragment Douloreux, which was certainly not a fragment. This was more a Scriabinesque poeme of the late years where dissonances and volatile outbreaks of violence abound. Nicholas performed all these in a manner born.

 

Closing the first half was likely the first public performance of Yehenara, a tone poem for piano by Singaporean musical-meister Dick Lee. The title is the Manchu name of the infamous Empress Dowager Cixi, whose tumultuous reign and court intrigues spelt the end of China’s Ching dynasty. Bell sounds and an idee fixe of seven notes dominated the music, which worked its way like a procession in passacaglia form. Harmonies were lush and darkly hued, atmospherically brought out by Nicholas, the essence of its 12-or-so minutes would find its way into Lee’s musical Forbidden City.

 

The piece de resistance of the concert was the world premiere of Nicholas Ho’s own 12 Etudes in its revised edition. These have been influenced by Liszt’s (or Alkan’s) transcendental technique but are closer in idiom to Debussy, Ligeti and Marc-Andre Hamelin’s famous dozens. Each etude was dedicated to Nicholas’ teachers and exploits different facets of a pianist’s technical armamentarium.

Can you spot a Star Trek motif
in the left hand?

 

Rapid rhythms possess most of the pieces but feathery lightness and playing of utter sensuousness were also in evidence. One etude (for composition teacher Tan Chan Boon, the only Singaporean) was conceived for left hand alone, and another for both hands an octave apart (a salute to Chopin’s Sonata No.2 and Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No.2). There was a set of variations on the B-A-C-H motif, and two with fugal conclusions. There was never a dull moment in these 50 minutes, which Nicholas ripped through completely from memory, before closing with an imposing Prelude and Fugue a la Hamelin. And did one notice a Star Trek motif inserted within the Prelude, before the piece launched itself into the stratosphere, infinity and beyond?

 

Returning to Earth, Nicholas performed two encores, the Sarabande from J.S.Bach’s Partita No.1 and his own transcription for left hand of Queen’s Love Of My Life. Leopold Godowsky would have been mightily proud.

Nicholas Ho joins Tan Chan Boon
and Robert Casteels as composers
who have written the most imposing
works of Singapore piano literature.

ANOTHER PIANO RECITAL NOT TO MISS: CON FUOCO by NICHOLAS HO on 31 January 2023

Here is another piano recital not to be missed, by homegrown Singaporean pianist NICHOLAS HO, known for his transcendental keyboard virtuosity. He was a student of Ong Lip Tat, Tedd Joselson, Edward Auer and Rank Dank, and has specialised in performing works of technical demands, including his original piano music.

The programme:

HAYDN Sonata in E minor

VLADIMIR HOROWITZ Four Pieces:

Waltz in F minor

Danse Excentrique 

Etude-fantaisie in E flat major

Fragment Douloureux

DICK LEE Yehenara

NICHOLAS HO 12 Etudes (World Premiere)

Tuesday, 31 January 2023

Victoria Concert Hall, 8 pm

You can purchase tickets here:

Nicholas Ho presents CON FUOCO [G] | SISTIC

ILLUMINE: PIANO MUSIC OF CARTER, HO & RACHMANINOFF / Review

   

ILLUMINE

Music of CARTER, HO & RACHMANINOFF

NICHOLAS HO, Piano

Arabesque Z6940 / TT: 59’22”

 

Some years ago, I wrote about a teenage pianist in Singapore whose “obsession with speed and volume clouded any semblance of nuance or clarity”, and who brought to Rachmaninov’s music a “surfeit of feral instincts and emotional excess”. I however sensed a musical soul beneath all the raw edges and youthful exuberance and hoped that, “May he, with patience and introspection, rediscover that muse”.

 

That pianist was Nicholas Ho, who presently pursues doctoral studies at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. His teachers have included Ong Lip Tat, Tan Chan Boon, Tedd Joselson, Edward Auer and Ran Dank. Having made his New York City and Chicago solo debuts, this recording on the American Arabesque label (which released Garrick Ohlsson’s complete Chopin cycle more than two decades ago) marks a coming of age. His unusual programming of sonatas by Elliott Carter and Sergei Rachmaninoff with his original music make for compelling listening.

 

The recital which plays for exactly an hour opens with late American avant-gardist Elliott Carter’s Piano Sonata (1945/6). An early work in two movements, its harmonic language is gratifyingly tonal, and is distinguished by complex and infectious rhythms which allude to modern dance movements. Ho handles these with clarity and suitable aplomb. Australian composer Carl Vine’s very popular First Sonata (1990), also cast in two movements and similar in idiom, is supposedly inspired by Carter’s Sonata. There is thus no reason why the Carter should not achieve similar success, and rank along Barber, Copland and Griffes among the great 20^th century American sonatas.  

 

Ho’s own Inner States of Mind (Op.3), a suite in five movements, dovetails neatly between the two sonatas. Tonal and neo-Romantic in spirit, the movements are eclectic by assimilating diverse 20^th century styles, such as impressionism in What If?, a simulation of the Chinese guzheng (plucked zither) in Rainbows, Bartokian dissonances in Étude: Mirror Image and gospel pop in Vantage Point. The  fourth movement, Benediction, is a modern look at the ancient hymn Veni, Veni, Emanuel.  

 

For Rachmaninoff’s Sonata No.2 in B flat minor (Op.36), Ho crafts his own version combining both the 1913 and 1931 editions quite similar to Vladimir Horowitz’s highly effective conflation. This is a mellow yet smouldering and passionate reading, a far cry from the untamed fire and brimstone of his teenage self. He has learnt that restraint and focus is key in many crucial moments, a requisite before leading to full-blown climaxes, where the pay-off becomes all the more satisfying. This is an hour well-spent with one of Singapore’s top young pianistic talents. 

You can hear Nicholas Ho on these digital platforms:

https://open.spotify.com/album/7ySSLasWe9VSLjzNYZw8b7?si=8uaJHvioRwal5TVD5m23Cw

https://music.apple.com/us/album/illumine/1531787629

FAR, FAR, AWAY / REVERIE / Reviews

FAR, FAR, AWAY

Jeremy Chiew, Viola

Adrian Poon, Tenor

& Shane Thio, Piano

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday 26 September 2021

 

REVERIE: NICHOLAS HO IN CONCERT

Nicholas Ho, Piano

Esplanade Recital Studio

Tuesday 28 September 2021

 

Concert life has begun to take shape again in Singapore, with multiple concerts in different venues springing up quite unexpectedly and often unannounced. Most are solo recitals or chamber concerts, which avoid over-crowding on stage, attended by size-restricted and socially distanced audiences.

 

Despite rising numbers of Covid cases and fatalities in Singapore, concert venues are still relatively safe havens, having recorded zero outbreaks from concerts all year round. Going to markets, food centres and shopping malls are far riskier propositions. Over the past week, I was treated to two excellent recitals, the variety of repertoire is staggering, representing the wealth of musical talent which exists within our modest island state.

 

First up was an hour-long vocal-cum-viola recital curated by the combined brains of Sing Song Club and Viva Viola. Both are among Singapore’s best kept secrets, thus the maximum capacity of 50 audience members was not close to being breached. This was also a concert of rarities, such that even Brahms’ two Op.91 songs with viola were not included. Instead, it opened with Benjamin Britten’s realisation of Bach’s Kommt, Seelen, dieser Tag (Come, Celebrate This Morn) with tenor Adrian Poon in his genteel best accompanied by pianist Shane Thio.

Photo: Yong Junyi

 

This freshness continued into Frank Bridge’s Far, Far From Each Other, with viola obbligato part provided by Jeremy Chiew, arguably Singapore’s most active proselytiser of viola repertoire. This was both hauntingly sad and beautiful, perfectly complementing Bridge’s Two Pieces for viola and piano, contrasts provided by the reflective Pensiero and self-explanatory Allegro Appassionato which closed the set on a rapturous high.

 

The programming with pairs of works for voice and viola was excellently thought out. Whoever dreamt of coupling Arthur Honegger’s rather substantial three-movement Viola Sonata and short Psalm No.138 deserves a prize. The Sonata traversed from a highly chromatic and dissonant opening to something far more agreeable before finishing with a Franckian flourish. Simply a journey from utter bleakness to life-affirming sunshine, with the brief sung psalm (I will praise you Lord, with all my heart) in French as the sweet icing on the cake.

Photo: Yong Junyi

 

Has anybody has heard of Benjamin Dale (1885-1943)? The English composer was a contemporary of York Bowen and composed in a similar tuneful neo-Romantic style. Come Away, Death is a soothing salve in the best English pastoral tradition, with the obbligato viola part adding to its poignancy. The Romance from Dale’s Viola Suite in D minor Op.2 (1906) is far more ambitious than its title suggests, sounding more like a rhapsodic tone poem. The tenderness of its first pages gave way to a more lively central episode before ending with the same deeply felt emotions as it began.   

 

To close the evening in a pleasingly symmetrical manner, Jeremy polished off the Courante from J.S.Bach’s Cello Suite No.4. Striking three lotteries with a single ticket, lovers of unjustly neglected rarities, fine singing and viola playing have been well-served.

 

The young pianist Nicholas Ho has progressed from a self-conscious teenaged hotshot to a bona fide virtuoso with uncommon talents, as evident in his latest recital. Its title Reverie only applied to the first piece, Chopin’s Nocturne in C minor (Op.48 No.1), which was dark and smouldering, exploring the mysterious and tempestuous nature of night.

 

He amply brought out its brooding qualities, before launching headlong into Schumann’s Fantasie in C major (Op.17), with its full flush of hot-blooded romanticism worn heart-on-sleeve. He is unafraid to relive the early Romantic excesses to greatest advantage, yet also wallow in moments of tenderness and vulnerability, as in the quote of Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte near the end of the first movement. The second movement’s imperious march took no prisoners, and even if there were a couple of slips at its treacherous final two pages, these came at the extreme heat of the moment. One would not have it any other way. A pianist’s maturity is revealed in the slow Beethovenian final movement, and he did so by teasing out inner voices, plumbing the depths and building up to impressive climaxes. A more satisfying performance would be hard to find.

 

For the recital’s second half, one can only quote Monty Python, “And for something completely different”. Dutch minimalist Jacob ter Veldhuis’ Body of Your Dreams has cult status for its hilarious spoof on 20^th century American vanity and consumerism. Ho essentially accompanies a looped soundtrack (played on boombox) of the Abdominiser infomercial, with quotes like “that cellulite and flabbiness... how can you beat it?”, “oh wow, that’s incredible!”, “3000 muscle contractions” and “and its so easy!” peppering the score like obsessive earworms. Once heard, it cannot be unheard. This performance centred on the piano part in the expense of the soundtrack, a pity since the actual punchlines were in its words.

 

To close the recital was the World Premiere of the first six of Nicholas Ho’s Twelve Etudes Op.11, composed during the troubled months of the Covid pandemic. Each of these finger-twisters were dedicated to his mentors and teachers, including Tedd Joselson, Tan Chan Boon, Edward Auer and others. To say that a transcendental technique is required to perform these is itself an understatement. The first, written for Joselson, reminds one of the Chopin first etude (Op.10 No.1) with its firm tonal centres established by left hand pedal points. The second, for Tan, was written for left hand alone, but exceeds the difficulty of both Scriabin and Corigliano’s south paw wonders.

 

Nicholas’ playing is mercurial yet emphatic, exhibiting a light touch in running-flying passages, and applying necessary force in chordal segments when called far. The colours on his palette seem almost infinite. Having enjoyed these six etudes with score in hand, I can proudly proclaim that Singapore has found a set of piano etudes worthy to be mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Debussy, Ligeti and Marc-André Hamelin. Handphones off, a genius!

 

TEDD JOSELSON'S GOLDEN JUBILEE / Review

TEDD JOSELSON'S GOLDEN JUBILEE

with ROBERT CASTEELS, Conductor

Reuben Manasseh Meyer Concert Hall

Sunday (2 July 2017)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 4 July 2017 with the title "Outstanding piano concertos".

The occasion was sold as the 50^th anniversary of American pianist Tedd Joselson's concert debut, but this concert was more like an offshoot of the annual piano concerto festival organised by young Singaporean pianist Leslie Theseira. Three piano concertos were performed by Joselson and two of his former students, almost constituting a concise history of the form. They were accompanied by the ADDO Chamber Orchestra conducted by Robert Casteels.

The baroque era was represented by J.S.Bach's Keyboard Concerto in A major (BWV.1055), created at the infancy of the genre. Originally conceived for harpsichord, Theseira crafted a gentle, mincing timbre, which sounded initially like part of the orchestra (strings only) but soon developed a voice of its own. Not yet a vehicle of virtuosity, the concerto sounded pretty, with simple ornamentation and general understatement as its highlights.

The World Premiere of Robert Casteels' Piano Concerto came next, impressively articulated by Nicholas Ho. Casteels explained this was based on a much earlier solo piece, orchestrated and completed within just three days. Its gestation was more like three decades, with the free use of atonality and angry dissonances more commonly encountered in the 1980s.

Playing for some 15 minutes, both piano and orchestra (strings and winds) probed and ruminated over a plethora of thematic ideas, with the ostensible aim of finding its home key of E flat major. Eventful, inventive and quasi-improvisatory, there were alternating moments of serenity and violence, several false dawns and vocalisations of that elusive E flat by orchestral members.

The end finally came with an emphatic and abrupt succession of E flat major chords, closing with the pianist plucking an E flat string in the innards of the piano. Beethoven's Emperor this is not, but a worthy addition to the small canon of Singaporean piano concertos.

Tedd Joselson, now a Singapore permanent resident, closed the concerto segment with Mozart's Piano Concerto No.23 in A major (K.488), a work he first performed as a teenager with the English Chamber Orchestra. Concerto performances by Joselson are a rarity these days, but this outing was a treat because he still possesses that wherewithal and authority to pull it off.

Confidence, fine control and sensitivity marked the first movement, culminating with Mozart's own cadenza. Although the orchestra sounded thin in parts, it supported the endeavour well. Joselson's solo sicilienne which opened the slow movement was a thing of beauty, and this continued dream-like through its entire course.

The exultant finale literally caught fire in Joselson's mercurial fingers, and the outcome was a thrilling adrenaline-filled affair. His was an unfaltering, no-holds-barred view, leaving one with no doubt of an undimmed prowess and artistry.

After the concertos, there was solo recitals by four of Joselson's students which continued into the early evening. There was a lot of music, but as posterity goes, it was Casteels' premiere and Joselson's Mozart that stood out.  

Leslie Theseira and Nicholas Ho presented a
"birthday" ditty in honour of their teacher Tedd Joselson.

PIANO CONCERTO FESTIVAL / ADDO Chamber Orchestra / Review

PIANO CONCERTO FESTIVAL

ADDO Chamber Orchestra

School of the Arts Concert Hall

Sunday (16 August 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 18 August 2015 with the title "Momentous, but not without hiccups".

The Piano Concerto Festival, a project of The Performing Arts Company, is now into its second year, supported by the newly-formed ADDO Chamber Orchestra conducted by Clarence Tan. This annual event provides a platform for young Singaporean pianists, a godsend as opportunities to perform with an orchestra are very rare. Its first concert showcased contrasting piano concertos by Mozart and Prokofiev.

But first, an unusual prelude took the form of Mozart's concert aria Ch'io Mi Scordi Di Te? (You Ask That I Forget You?) K.505, sung by coloratura soprano Wendy Woon. Her emotive account, filled with pathos, was well supported by the orchestra, then came the substantial obbligato piano part from Leslie Theseira.

It is said that Mozart's piano concertos were inextricably linked to his operas, and here was a curious hybrid as if to prove the point. Theseira's pretty contribution was both ornamental as well as a foil for the singer, and at certain passages he blended as one with the orchestra. It was an excellent palate-cleanser for the proper concertos to come.

Mozart's Piano Concerto No.24 in C minor (K.491) was performed by Choon Hong Xiang, an irregular reading because of rawness of ensemble coupled with the pianist's diffidence. The opening tutti was marred by poor intonation from the woodwinds but it got better. Choon seemed overawed by the occasion, and despite neat and accurate fingerwork, his playing seldom projected beyond the orchestra's domain.

He came into his own in the 1^st movement cadenza, which he had composed himself, a lost art revived with some ear-catching ideas. Only the second of two minor key piano concertos by Mozart, the work was to evoke high drama and tragedy. This almost came when Hong completely missed his entry cue in the finale, only joining in a few bars later. Fortunately, he and the ensemble kept their wits, and concluded the Theme and Variations movement together without further mishap.

Altogether more confident was Nicholas Ho who tackled Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto with fearless aplomb. Now studying in Indiana with American pianists Edward Auer and Andre Watts, he has matured far beyond the impetuous youth who was previously described in these pages as having an “obsession with speed and volume” and a “surfeit of feral instincts”.

All he did now was to play the notes Prokofiev had written, and the effect was electrifying. The free-wheeling 1^st movement breezed through fairly easily, but the 2^nd movement's Theme and Variations saw a brief desynchronisation between pianist and orchestra. A full second's rupture occurred in the rambunctious finale, but that was no fault of his. Shrugging off the blip, both parties grappled with the music's high octane content to finish on an intoxicating high. 

Always eventful and at times harrowing, the Piano Concerto Festival moves to Victoria Concert Hall on 3 September to survey the first two piano concertos of Tchaikovsky.

The Piano Concerto Festival was presented by The Performing Arts Company in celebration of Singapore's 50 years of independence.

TOROS CAN Piano Recital / Review

TOROS CAN Piano Recital

Alliance Francaise

Saturday (29 March 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 31 March 2014 with the title "Mouth-watering piano treat".

For an Islamic nation, Turkey has produced a surprising number of high level Western classical musicians. This may be attributed to its progressive, open-minded Euro-leaning culture over the decades and the pioneering work by German composer-pedagogue Paul Hindemith during the 1930s.

Just sticking to pianists, one might already know of Idil Biret, Fazil Say and Ozgur Aydin. Now meet Toros Can, a Yale graduate, who gave one of the most unusually eclectic piano recitals in memory here. Revealing very catholic tastes, his two-hour recital traversed from traditional classical repertoire to the musical equivalent of pop art.

Beginning with Schubert’s Sonata (D.485), the longer of two great sonatas in A minor, Can tapped into the Austrian’s world of the Lieder (art song). Within its four movements, he freed a wellspring of melancholy and wistfulness, translated as darkly shaded chords and no little lyricism. By not playing repeats, he kept the narrative short-winded, and in the excitable final Rondo, the dramatics lifted the mood even if unspoken tragedy was the underlying tenor.

Like many American-trained musicians, Can spoke engagingly to a small but receptive audience. The second half, in his own words, was “when the fun begins”. There were two fugal works, but neither by J.S.Bach. Karol Szymanowski’s Prelude and Fugue in C sharp minor was thick with lush dissonances, but the contrapuntal lines were handled with great clarity.

Can played Cesar Franck’s Prelude, Fugue and Variation using its original score for organ rather than the Harold Bauer transcription favoured by pianists. Perhaps trying to imitate the pipe organ’s sonority, the end result was somewhat effortful, but the embellished reprise of the main melody at the end was sublime.

The last three pieces, dovetailing 17^th century and late 20^th  to early 21^st century sensibilities, piqued the ear with sheer outrageousness. Late British composer Jonathan Harvey’s Tombeau De Messiaen (1994), a memorial for the great Frenchman, combined taped sounds (now reproduced on an Apple computer) with crashing chords, cascading carillons and birdsong. The effect was that of two pianos going head to head, but the tuning being a microtone apart and distortion from the speakers meant that the bold experiment was not fully realised.

Then came three dainty dances from a keyboard suite by Henry Purcell, with the piano now made to sound like a harpsichord with its plucked effects. What truly brought down the house was Dutchman Jacob ter Veldhuis’s The Body Of Your Dreams (2003).

Nominally a minimalist piece, the piano here flexed its rock-influenced muscles against an aural collage of taped television fitness and health product commercials. Try as hard as one might, it is difficult not to supress laughter on hearing repeated messages like, “That cellulite and flabbiness…How can you beat it?”

The now riotous evening concluded with an encore, Can’s own 4-hand version of Morton Gould’s Boogie Woogie Etude, with the help of his page-turner for the evening, the young Singaporean pianist Nicholas Ho. The rhythmic bonbon had the same effect as downing a Turkish delight after dinner: mouth-watering.