THE SINGAPORE COLLECTION: ALEXANDER TCHEREPNIN THE SYMPHONIES & PIANO CONCERTOS / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

ALEXANDER TCHEREPNIN

The Symphonies & Piano Concertos

Noriko Ogawa, Piano

Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Lan Shui

BIS 1717/18 (4 CDs)

TT: 4 hrs 34’09”

Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977) may be said to have been the first truly cosmopolitan composer. Born to a musical and artistic family in Tsarist Saint Petersberg, his father was the composer, pianist and conductor Nikolai Tcherepnin (1873-1945), whose claim to fame was having taught composition to the young Sergei Prokofiev (who in turn dedicated his First Piano Concerto to him).

He lived for varying periods in Paris, the Caucasus, China and Japan before settling in America. He was married to the Chinese pianist Lee Hsien Ming (no relation to the Singapore Lees), and his music suitably reflected an eclecticism which encompassed late Romanticism, Stravinsky’s iconoclasm and neoclassicism, popular idioms such as jazz, tinged with a 1920s modernist outlook and generous helpings of Orientalism. He was a modernist in all senses but yet never embraced atonalism or the vagaries of the avant-garde.

The recordings were originally issued singly,
and this was the first instalment.

The ten major works in this box-set (4 discs at the cost of 2) are four symphonies and six piano concertos. The symphonies date from 1927 to 1959 while the piano concertos from 1918 to 1965, suggesting a wide range of styles gestated over extended periods of time and covering multiple geographical localities. The shorter pieces include Magna Mater, Symphonic March, Symphonic Prayer, and Festmusik (a 4-movement suite from opera The Wedding of Sobeide).

The second disc to be released.

The four symphonies are heard in the first two discs, sandwiching the Fifth and Sixth Piano Concertos. For a taste of his iconoclasm, sample the riotous second movement (Vivace) of the First Symphony (1927), entirely scored for percussion. Its influence by Le Sacre du Printemps also effected the same response – a demonstration for which the police were called. For today’s ears, the idiom is rather palatable, no more modern than the likes of Milhaud, Prokofiev or John Williams.

Arguably the best-known among these are the Chinese influenced works – the Third Symphony (1952) and Fourth Piano Concerto (1947), subtitled Fantaisie. Chinoiserie is rife in the Chinese Symphony, as much as in Stravinsky’s Le Chant du Rossignol, but there is much lyricism in its Adagio slow movement. The concerto, which appears as the last item of the fourth disc, is more programmatic with movements having descriptive titles. The first is Eastern Chamber Dream, portraying Wu Song’s legendary vanquishing of the killer tiger. Tang dynasty royal concubine Yan Kuei Fei’s Sacrifice is the subject of the central slow movement, while the pentatonic rondo-like Road To Yunnan closes the work on a high. These are so accessible as to make one wonder why this concerto isn’t more regularly heard or performed.

Japanese pianist Noriko Ogawa
is highly attuned to Tcherepnin's musical idiom.

The first two piano concertos are in a single movement (bringing to mind Rimsky-Korsakov and Prokofiev’s First) while the third is in two movements. The last three concertos are in the traditional three movements where the idiom is closer to Prokofiev. Pianist Noriko Ogawa is the fearless and swashbuckling soloist in these technically highly demanding works. The six concertos may be heard in chronological sequence on two discs issued on the Brilliant Classics label (9232), something which pianophiles may opt for. There was an earlier cycle by British pianist Murray McLachlan with the orchestra of Chetham’s School, issued on two Olympia discs in the mid-1990s, which is good but SSO provides superior orchestral support.

If you want just the piano concertos,
here's the budget double-CD set to get.

This project was the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s first collaboration with the Swedish BIS label, with recordings dating from 1999 to 2002. The first of its recorded symphonic cycles, the orchestra performs with finesse and total conviction. Now in the Twenty-twenties, Lan Shui and our national orchestra still has the field to themselves, and are unlikely to be challenged in this repertoire for decades to come. Classics Today.com’s Dave Hurwitz also agrees on this count too!

Some Photographs from NORIKO OGAWA'S Piano Masterclass

The official Leeds competition media person
Tristan catches choice shots from the masterclass.

As part of the 2018 Leeds International Piano Competition, a piano masterclass was organised at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory on Sunday (8 April 2017), where three students performed for the Japanese concert pianist Noriko Ogawa who was a member of the competition's travelling jury.

I will always have fond memories playing for Noriko at the Chetham's Piano Summer School in Manchester in 2007, where we worked on piano pieces by Debussy, Brahms and Rachmaninov. There, the hour-long private lessons were open to the public, and were essentially masterclasses in all but name. Noriko is a wonderful teacher, always patient and encouraging, and she knows exactly how to bring out the best in a piano player. I am sure the students would have benefited from her no-nonsense advice and keen insights to making music.

Adriana Chiew performs the first movement
from Beethoven's Tempest Sonata (Op.31 No.2).

Beethoven's music is full of surprises and shocks,
and so the pianist has to find extremes in dynamics.

Koh Kai Jie performed two Debussy Préludes.

Noriko demonstrates how Debussy sounds
with judicious use of the pedals.

Finally it was April Foo's turn to perform,
playing Schumann's Kinderszenen.

The music was about an adult looking back
on childhood years and experiences.

A child goes to sleep rather quickly and comfortably,
not like an adult or old person. Noriko's useful
advice was well-received by both pianist and audience.

AN EVENING OF FIREWORKS / NORIKO OGAWA Piano Recital / Review

AN EVENING OF FIREWORKS

NORIKO OGAWA Piano Recital

Victoria Concert Hall

Saturday (26 March 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 28 March 2016 with the title "Piano playing that sparkles".

It has been 7 years since Japanese pianist Noriko Ogawa last performed in Singapore, and 11 years since her solo recital in the 2005 Singapore International Piano Festival. She marked a welcome return to Victoria Concert Hall with a recital of familiar favourites.

Fireworks are not usually associated with Mozart's keyboard music, which were written for dainty and fragile instruments like the fortepiano. His audiences were more of the 18^th century drawing room variety rather those in vast concert halls, who would have been startled by sounds of a modern Steinway grand. Ogawa made no concessions for supposed authenticity by projecting a robust but crystal-clear sonority in Mozart's Sonata in A major K.331.

The opening Theme and Variations movement was crisply and lusciously articulated. While the central movement came across less like a courtly Minuet than an elaborately decorative study, it was the popular Rondo Alla Turca that romped home with a irrepressible gusto. Many students race through it with dizzying fingers but few understand its martial strides as Ogawa did.

More acute in colouring and tonal shadings was Ogawa's interpretations of Debussy, for which she is rightly renowned. In Images (Book I), the shimmering ripples of Reflets Dans L'Eau (Reflections In The Water) were down to her velvety touch and excellent control of pedalling. How the stately Hommage A Rameau (Homage To Rameau) rose to an impassioned climax and well-placed accents in the vertiginous Mouvement (Movement) all made for an indelibly memorable outing.

The Debussy set closed with a true showpiece in L'Isle Joyeuse (The Happy Island), bacchanalian evocation of a famous Watteau painting of unbridled hedonism. Her prodigious fingerwork and enraptured senses became one in a multiply-hued brush-stroked canvas which brought the first half to a scintillating close.

Taking the fireworks theme to heart in the all-Chopin second half, it was a parade of popular hits beginning with the Minute Waltz Op.64 No.1. How often does one hear this trifle in concert, or played with such precision yet carefree abandon? This was followed by the Grande Valse Brillante in B flat major (Op.18), more super-charged glitter in three-quarter time.

A rare moment for quiet reflection took place in the nocturne-like Andante Spianato, with smooth legato singing lines. This was before trumpeting fanfares which led to the swashbuckling Grande Polonaise Brillante, where all stops were pulled to live up to its title. Ogawa's faultless pianism meant that nary a note was dropped and this imperious show continued into the final two warhorses.

The First Ballade Op.23 and Second Scherzo Op.31 are such regularly-heard pieces that they risk becoming hackneyed, but surely there were first-time listeners among the many young people who attended. They would have been treated to how these works ought to sound, for Ogawa's blend of passion and poetry with no punches pulled made them ring out eternally fresh.    

Prolonged applause yielded two encores. The Paganini-Liszt La Campanella brought out yet another facet of fireworks, and the sublime Schumann Traumerei to conclude was a signal it was close to bedtime.

Noriko Ogawa meets her former student,
the Kuala Lumpur-based pianist Tomonari Tsuchiya.

A meeting of old friends:
Noriko with violists Jiri Heger and Lionel Tan.

Boris Kraljevic, Jiri and the Pianomaniacs.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, May 2013)

MOZART Piano Sonatas, K.330-332

NORIKO OGAWA, Piano

BIS 1985 / *****

One really should not be too surprised by this, Noriko Ogawa’s first recording of Mozart’s piano music. After all, one of her earliest appearances in Singapore featured an ebullient performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.21 with the SSO during the late 1980s. Already celebrated for her interpretations of Debussy, Takemitsu and Romantic masters, her Mozart has much to recommend.

Unlike period-movement artists on fortépianos who make it a point to ornament and embellish ad libitum, she performs everything as it is written. She makes every second worth listening because of her crispness of articulation, bell-like resonance, singing tone and ultimately good taste. These are three of Mozart’s most popular sonatas, but none outstay their welcome through over-familiarity.

The slow movements linger with a graceful and lyrical beauty, while the busy finales sparkle with humour and lightness of touch, exemplified by the C major Sonata (K.330). The popular Theme And Variations and romping Turkish Rondo of the A major Sonata (K.331) sound fresh and unhackneyed. Even the prestidigitation in the finale of the F major Sonata (K.332) is never viewed as virtuosity for its own sake. Simply put, here is the purity of Mozart’s pianism heard at its finest.  

BENJAMIN BRITTEN

Song Cycles / Orchestra Works

EMI Classics 6955792 (2 CDs) / ****1/2

This is the centenary year of Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), widely regarded as the greatest British composer of the 20^th century. Extremely versatile, his output reflected the ease he mastered different genres. His music could be highly accessible (he delighted composing for children) or conversely a tough nut to crack. This double CD album highlights both aspects with his best known works. Listen to Disc 2 first. It begins with the London Chamber Orchestra playing Simple Symphony for strings, a beginner’s primer to the 4-movement symphony form using melodies he composed as a child. Its natural successor is surely The Young Person’s Guide To The Orchestra, a highly inventive set of variations on the Rondeau from Purcell’s Abdelazer. 

The classic Britten orchestral scores are the Four Sea Interludes from his opera Peter Grimes, and the highly dramatic Sinfonia Da Requiem, written for the 2600^th anniversary for the Japanese royal family but rejected because of its Christian title. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Libor Pesek gives excellent accounts equal to the best in the catalogue. Disc 1 devoted to song cycles is more of an acquired taste. These include Les Illuminations (after Rimbaud’s verses), Serenade For Tenor, Horn & Strings (with Barry Tuckwell as celebrity hornist) and Nocturne For Tenor and obbligato instruments, the latter two written for Britten’s partner Peter Pears. Soprano Jill Gomez and tenors Neil Mackie and Robert Tear provide the sensitive and nuanced solo voices. There are unfortunately no libretti but these discs still represent a good guide to the best of Britten.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, November 2012)

 

RACHMANINOV Piano Concertos Nos.1 & 4

Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini

NORIKO OGAWA, Piano

Malmo Symphony/ Orwain Arwel Hughes

BIS 975 / ****1/2

 

For some unfathomable reason, the completion of Japanese pianist Noriko Ogawa’s Rachmaninov piano concerto cycle has finally been issued despite having been recorded as far back as 1998 and 2001. It also retails at mid-price ($16.90 at HMV), probably in order to avoid directly competing with an ongoing new cycle from the young Russian ace Yevgeny Sudbin. Anyway, the performances are what one already comes to expect from Ogawa: generous, meticulous, scrupulously controlled and refined playing. However these are among the slowest readings in the catalogue. In the First and Fourth Concertos, Stephen Hough (on Hyperion) shaves off two and a half minutes each, while Rachmaninov himself (now on Naxos) is even speedier by a further two minutes!

 

This does not mean that the playing is sluggish, instead the broad tempos mean that much of the orchestral details are better savoured. In the slow movement of the First Concerto, one hears woodwind passages never previously noticed. Ogawa revels in the contrasts to be found, hot-blooded romanticism in the 1891 maiden effort (later revised in 1917) and a more aggressive and percussive approach to the Fourth Concerto of 1926. She is unfailingly musical in both, and the popular Paganini Rhapsody radiates a warmth that is hard to ignore. While Rachmaninov’s recording of all three works sweeps through in a breezy 71 minutes, this new BIS recording plays for almost 82 minutes. Enjoyable nonetheless.    

 

 

TURINA Chamber Music

The Nash Ensemble

Hyperion 67889 / *****

 

The music of Spanish composer Joaquin Turina (1882-1949) has only begun to gain recognition beyond his single hit La Oracion del Torero (The Bullfighter’s Prayer) of 1926 for string quartet, which closes this very fine anthology of chamber works. Born in Andalusia and schooled in Paris, his music combines the best of both worlds, a distinct Spanish nationalism coloured by the impressionist sensibilities of Debussy and company. Also accomplished as a conductor, he was in the vanguard of Spain’s Silver Age of cultural renaissance before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.

 

Varieties of Spanish songs and dances appear in his First Piano Trio, Piano Quartet and Sonata Espagnola for violin and piano. The music is alternatingly lyrical and rhythmically vibrant without being obviously folksy. Unusually scored is his Escena Andaluza (Andalusian Scenes) for viola and piano quintet which carry influences from his more senior compatriots Albeniz and de Falla. It comprises a serenade-like Crepuscule du soir (Twilight) and A la Fenetre (At the Window), a mellow dialogue between two lovers using themes from the earlier movement. Britain’s exceptional Nash Ensemble lovingly offers over 70 minutes of unmitigated pleasure.

 



CD Reviews (The Straits Times, April 2012)

BARTOK Piano Concertos
JEAN-EFFLAM BAVOUZET, Piano
BBC Philharmonic / Gianandrea Noseda
Chandos 10610 / *****

The three vastly contrasting piano concertos of the Hungarian nationalist composer Bela Bartok (1881-1945) are landmarks of 20th century pianism. The extremely strident First Concerto (1926) emerged from the same cataclysmic epoch of Stravinsky’s The Rite Of Spring and Bartok’s own urban ballet of sex and violence, The Miraculous Mandarin. The Second Concerto (1933), despite its percussiveness, is modelled like a baroque concerto grosso. Here the old and new meet with sparks flying. The Third Concerto (1945), which was incomplete at the composer’s death, returned to an agreeable mellowness tinged with a certain nostalgia. All three are virtuoso vehicles, demanding the utmost from pianists and the orchestral support.

French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, celebrated for performances of the French musical impressionists, downplays on the angularity and hard-edged steel of the first two concertos. He finds a mercurial streak in pages of flying velocity and rare serenity in the slow movements. Bartok was after all influenced by Debussy in matters of orchestral harmonies, textures and colour. This is a totally valid and persuasive view, moving away from the brutal vehemence of Maurizo Pollini’s famous 1970s recordings. With an equally musical view of the final concerto, this set is urgently recommended.

BOOK IT:
BARTOK Piano Concerto No.2
Performed by Jean-Efflam Bavouzet with
Singapore Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christian Vasquez
Esplanade Concert Hall
Saturday, 21 April 2012 at 7.30 pm

DEBUSSY Complete Piano Solos
NORIKO OGAWA, Piano
BIS CD-1955/56 (6 CDs) / *****

This slimline box-set probably has the most complete edition of solo piano music by French composer Claude-Achille Debussy (1862-1918) in the market. Performed with great sensitivity, finesse and an acute ear for intricate multi-layered sonorities, Japanese pianist Noriko Ogawa’s account is one for the ages. From the early salon-like miniatures (including the popular Arabesques, Reverie and lesser-known Ballade, Nocturne) to the great impressionist masterpieces (complete sets of Préludes, Images, Estampes and Études), she mines a wealth of nuances, and is recorded in sumptuous sound. Also included are the ballet La boite a joujoux (The Toybox) and several rarities, like the Scherzo from his early Piano Trio and Debussy’s final work of 1917, Les soirs illumines par l’ardeur du charbon (Evenings Lit By Glowing Coals), only discovered in 2001.

The final disc unearths the World Premiere recordings of five Preludes And Fugues composed in 1881-83, when he was a student at the Paris Conservatory. Lest one gets overly excited, these are merely well-schooled exercises from an apprentice on his chequered path towards greatness. Closing the set is Debussy’s only piano concerto, his affable melody-filled Fantaisie (1889-90), which gets a spirited contribution from the Singapore Symphony Orchestra conducted by Shui Lan. A further inducement: this set retails at super-budget price in HMV.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, November 2011)

DEBUSSY Piano Music Vol.5
NORIKO OGAWA, Piano
BIS 1405 / Rating ****1/2

For the finale volume of Japanese pianist Noriko Ogawa’s traversal of Claude Debussy’s complete piano music, she covers the earliest works from his teenaged years to the threshold of greatness. His unofficial Opus One is Danse Bohemienne (1880), composed when Debussy was a tutor to children in the household of Madam von Meck, Tchaikovsky’s patron. It is an eclectic, not particularly distinguished salon piece with period charm. Also in the genteel spirit of the Belle Epoque are the popular Two Arabesques, Reverie, Danse (Tarantelle Styrienne) and lesser known Nocturne and Ballade, dating from the early 1890s.

Beginning to find a distinctive voice are Pour le piano (completed 1901) and Suite Bergamasque (1905). Both are sets of neoclassical dances and movements, but coloured with Debussy’s inimitable touch and penchant for light and shade. The familiar Clair de lune from the latter is one of his first so-called “impressionist” pieces, an evocative nocturne. As with her other recordings, Ogawa lovingly colours each of the short pieces, rendering this an excellent introduction and primer for the genius of Debussy.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, November 2010)

GRAHAM FITKIN Circuit
NORIKO OGAWA & KATHRYN STOTT, Pianos
Tokyo Symphony / Naoto Otomo
BIS SACD-1517

****1/2

The British composer Graham Fitkin (born 1963) is proof that the Minimalist movement in serious music is well and alive. Like the more older and venerated American John Adams, Fitkin takes his music beyond the processes of mere repetition, developing and morphing seemingly mundane material and patterns into something quite different from its original precepts. The largest work here is Circuit (2002), a 20-minute single-movement concerto for two pianos written for the duo of Noriko Ogawa and Kathryn Stott. It begins with the rhythmic chugging, resembling The Dance Of The Adolescents from Stravinsky’s primal The Rite Of Spring, before embarking on a journey of rapidly changing movement and variegated shades. Unlike others, Fitkin does not allow the boredom of familiarity to set in.

T1 and T2 (1999, the “T” standing for the Tate Gallery at St Ives, Cornwall) for two pianos, contrasts static silences with quick-fire machine-like thrusts. In White, originally for 4 pianos but reworked for two, Stravinsky’s (again) neoclassicism is relived. The solo works, with mostly economical single-word titles, pack in more notes thought possible for ten fingers. Those shocked by the new would have turned away by now, but the adventurous will be rewarded by Ogawa and Stott’s vigourous advocacy and virtuosity.

BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No.4
Piano Concerto in D major, Op.61
RONALD BRAUTIGAM, Piano
Norrköping Symphony / ANDRE PARROTT
BIS SACD-1693

****1/2

Thought you knew all of Beethoven’s piano concertos? Think again. The great composer was notorious for not notating the solo parts of his piano concertos, which he practically improvised at the first performances. The familiar Fourth Piano Concerto in G major (Op.58) is performed here in a revised version by scholar Barry Cooper, based on Beethoven’s own scribbles. The result is a very different and more difficult solo part in the first and final movements. Much of its sounds improvisatory, fancifully embellished, but does not interfere with the overall structure of the work.

The success of Beethoven’s only Violin Concerto in D major (Op.61) dictated that he also wrote a piano version of it. This is a bona fide and legitimate rewrite where the piano sounds very idiomatic in place of the beloved violin. His very own piano cadenza which ingeniously incorporates the timpani (which so importantly opens the work) also works brilliantly. These performances are faithful and non-gimmicky, revealing another vista of Beethoven’s multi-faceted genius.

Piano CD Reviews (The Straits Times, August 2009)

PIOTR ANDERSZEWSKI AT CARNEGIE HALL
Virgin Classics 2672912

Rating *****

A Carnegie Hall solo recital is probably the ultimate dream for any professional musician, usually the sure sign that he or she has “arrived”. French-Polish pianist Piotr Anderszewski avoids the virtuoso fodder of Chopin, Liszt and Rachmaninov, instead wisely opting for subtler alternatives. The result is spectacular.

Bach’s Partita No.2 in C minor has seldom sounded this free-spirited, without indulging in Gouldian idiosyncrasy. This love for counterpoint and polyphony is further explored in Beethoven’s late Sonata No.31 in A flat major (Op.110), which receives a magisterial yet tender reading. Schumann’s Carnival Jest In Vienna (Faschingsschawank aus Wien) provides the only outright bluster, balanced with the sinuous melodies and piquant harmonies of Bohemian composer Leos Janacek’s suite In The Mists. Even his encore has a touch of the exotic and esoteric. Bartok’s Three Hungarian Folksongs From Csik District is a total charmer.

RAZOR BLADES, LITTLE PILLS & BIG PIANOS
JAMES RHODES, Piano
Signum Classics CD153

Rating *****

Judging by the cover, Briton James Rhodes is not your run-of-the-mill conservatory graduate. A survivor of the “school of hard knocks” (read drugs and dysfunctional relationships), he proves to be as creative a musician as a would-be Brit Awards icon.

Bach is the focus of this début album. His French Suite No.5 in G major is cool, stylish and tastefully ornamented, and the Bach-Busoni Chaconne strong in architecture and drama. In Beethoven’s short Sonata in E minor (Op.90), a wellspring of Schubertian lyricism is found, while Chopin’s Ballade No.4 builds inexorably to a rapturous climax, surely the mark of a serious artist with a wide-ranging palette. The encores bring more smiles: Moszkowski’s scintillating Etincelles (Sparks), embellished with his own exuberant additions, and the sublime Bach-Siloti Prelude in B minor. The classical music industry could do with more of his kind.

This CD may be ordered at: www.mdt.co.uk

DEBUSSY Études
NORIKO OGAWA, Piano
BIS CD-1655

Rating *****

The 12 Études of Claude Debussy (1862-1918) have suffered alongside his 24 Préludes because the former do not have the latter’s picturesque and oh-so-poetic titles. Mundane technical titles like For Five Fingers, For Octaves and For Compound Arpeggios, possessing subtler melodies and being formidably difficult to play also present great challenges to both performer and listener. These are also the French composer’s last and finest works, proof that his big pioneering steps had stridden well into the 20th century.

Japanese pianist Noriko Ogawa matches the laser-like brilliance of her compatriot Mitsuko Uchida’s famous recording (on Philips), yet possesses a velvet-edged touch that sounds warm and truly gorgeous. This being the fourth and final instalment of Debussy’s complete solo piano music, Ogawa also includes a further half-hour of odds and ends: the beguiling but rarely heard Six Antique Epigraphs, a 13th étude (Étude retrouvée) discovered in 1977, a movement from a teenage piano trio (Piano Trio in G minor), and Debussy’s last composition – the evocative 2-minute-long prelude Evenings Lit By Glowing Coals. Don’t miss this.

SSO Concert: Postcards from Spain / Review

POSTCARDS FROM SPAIN
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
LAN SHUI, Conductor
Esplanade Concert Hall
Friday (31 July 2009)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 3 August 2009.

The title of the concert read Postcards From Spain, but all the music played was French. Puzzled? That was because for time immemorial, French composers were thought to have written the best Spanish music. This perception still continues because the likes of Debussy, Ravel and Chabrier are arguably far more popular and exportable than Albeniz, Granados and de Falla.

The orchestra’s Iberian musical tour because on a wobbly note in Ravel’s Pavane For The Dead Infanta. The opening French horn solo almost cracked on its second note while the oboe solo failed to keep time. It was left for the strings to salvage pride with its warm and lovely sheen, one so steeped in quiet nobility that suggested that the princess, rather than the pavane, was dead.

The froth of Chabrier’s rhapsody Espana followed, a delightful if rather unauthentic evocation of Spanish revelry. The real test of prowess came in Debussy’s triptych Iberia, receiving its third SSO performance in four months. The rhythmic bluster in the festive outer movements was infectious, but the most sensitive playing distinguished the middle section Scents Of The Night, where Rachel Walker’s oboe sang like some forlorn lover. Maestro Lan Shui delights in revealing every detail, which come through most vividly in Esplanade’s generous acoustics.

The Fantaisie for piano and orchestra was the work of a young and wet-behind-the-ears Debussy, and the closest he came to writing a virtuoso piano concerto. The piano solo part is over-busy, but unlike the two Ravel piano concertos, without much to show for.

So it took a supreme Debussy interpreter like the elegant Japanese pianist Noriko Ogawa (left) to make sense of its Massenet-like lyricism and quasi-Saint-Saëns razzle-dazzle without descending to bathos. Her combination of fastidiousness in never missing a note, alternating naivete, sensuality with boldness was awe-inspiring, almost persuading one that this was a true masterpiece.

Finally, the evening closed with the insistent beat of Ravel’s Bolero. Abetted by a rock-steady drummer in Jonathan Fox, this painstakingly gradual crescendo worked its way to a massive terminal apoplexy. Spanish or French, musical tedium such as this has never sounded so good.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, January 2009)

TCHEREPNIN
Symphonies / Piano Concertos
NORIKO OGAWA, Piano
Singapore Symphony / LAN SHUI
BIS 1717/18 (4 CDs) / Rating *****

Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977) may be said to be the first truly cosmopolitan composer. Born in Tsarist Russia, he lived for varying periods in Paris, the Caucasus, China and Japan before settling in America. He was married to a Chinese pianist, and his music suitably reflects his eclecticism, encompassing late Romanticism, Stravinsky’s iconoclasm and neoclassicism, popular idioms, tinged with a modernist outlook and generous helpings of Orientalism. The ten major works in this budget boxset (retailing at under $30) include four symphonies and six piano concertos. The shorter pieces include Magna Mater, Symphonic March, Symphonic Prayer, and Festmusik (a 4-movement suite from opera The Wedding of Sobeide).

Arguably the best among these are the Chinese influenced works – the Third Symphony and Fourth Piano Concerto, subtitled “Fantaisie”. The latter’s movements have descriptive titles – Eastern Chamber Dream portraying Wu Song’s vanquishing of the killer tiger, royal concubine Yan Kuei Fei’s Sacrifice, and the rondo-like Road To Yunnan – and are so accessible as to make one wonder why it isn’t more regularly heard or performed. Pianist Noriko Ogawa is the fearless and swashbuckling soloist in these highly demanding concertos, while SSO in its first project with BIS (dating from 1999) performs with total conviction. Lan Shui and our national orchestra have the field to themselves, and are unlikely to be challenged in this repertoire for decades to come.

STRAVINSKY Symphonies
Berlin Philharmonic / SIR SIMON RATTLE
EMI Classics 2076300
Rating ****1/2

The three symphonies by Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) on this disc date from the 1930s and 40s, and are in his neo-classical style of composition. Gone are the lush sounds of his early ballets, in its place one finds sparer and astringent textures, and complex contrapuntal set pieces. The music nevertheless retains Stravinsky’s love of syncopation and the idea of multiple rhythms going on simultaneously. 

The best known is the choral Symphony of Psalms (1930), which finds the Berlin Broadcasting Chorus hale and hearty of voice, alternating reverence with exuberance. The orchestra is the undoubted star throughout, driving the kinetically charged music, especially the outer thirds of the Symphony in Three Movements (1942-45), and making the underrated Symphony in C (1940) sound like a true masterpiece. These “live” performances are well worth catching.

NEW YEAR’S CONCERT 2008
Vienna Philharmonic
GEORGES PRETRE
Deutsche Grammophon 478 0034
Rating ****1/2

There is a French angle to this quintessential Viennese event helmed by veteran conductor Georges Pretre, the first-ever Frenchmen to direct its proceedings. No French composers here but the Strauss waltz family’s French-themed works. Johann the Younger’s Napoleon March opens the festivities with pomp; his father’s Paris Waltz and Versailles Gallop adding to the merriment, with the former slyly quoting La Marseillaise, then outlawed in Austria. The Orpheus-Quadrille is a potpourri of melodies from Jacques Offenbach’s hit operetta Orpheus in the Underworld, which begins and ends inevitably with the ubiquitous cancan. 

Not everything is French, as the son and father try their hands in a Russian March and Chinese Gallop, although one will be hard pressed to tell one from the other! The usual favourites Emperor Waltz, Tritsch Tratsch Polka, Blue Danube Waltz and Radetzky March give a familiar ring and rousing close. Happy New Year!