FOLKLORE & ROOTS / Roberto Alvarez & Hunter Mah / Review

 

FOLKLORE & ROOTS 

Roberto Alvarez, Flute 

Hunter Mah, Guitar 

Esplanade Recital Studio 

Saturday (18 January 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 22 January 2024 with the title "Roberto Alvarez & Hunter Mah's charming recital celebrates folk roots of classical music".

Much of the music we know and love come from age-old sources, passed down by oral tradition before being formally documented and scored on paper by scribes whom we now know as composers. Little has changed, as highlighted in this totally charming concert by Spanish flautist Roberto Alvarez (associate principal at the Singapore Symphony Orchestra) and Singaporean guitarist Hunter Mah. 

Not a single word was uttered by the performers in this 70-minute long audio-visual spectacle. The works were not announced, and known only to those who bothered to check the e-programme. They instead allowed the very accessible music and stunning visuals (selected by local film-maker Su-Yin Mah) projected on a giant screen behind to do the talking. 

Argentinian guitarist-composer Maximo Diego Pujol’s Two Candombe Airs opened the concert, both works associated with African-origin dances popular in Argentina and Uruguay. Alvarez’s sweet tone gilded the melodic lines, backed to the hilt by Mah’s infectiously rhythmic strumming, all this accompanied by a film which traversed the cosmos and centering on Planet Earth and its peoples. 

Undoubtedly the most familiar music on the programme was Bela Bartok’s Romanian Folk Dances, which were appropriately accompanied by a kaleidoscopic array of Eastern European folk tapestry designs. Serbian guitarist-composer Dusan Bogdanovic’s No Feathers on this Frog was another folk-song based work founded on old sayings and witticisms. 

“A bird with a broken wing can still sing, but you cannot get feathers from a frog,” was a little obscure but one will be more familiar with “All that glitters is not gold” and “Barking dogs do not bite”. The colourful cartoons on show were more closely related to naive art. 

The tree of life was a
recurrent theme in the concert.

In lieu of an intermission, a short animated film by Su-Yin Mah entitled Elan Vital (2009) was a Monty Pythonesque look at the violent history of mankind, from its descent from apes into an ongoing legacy of war and bloodshed. 

Of special significance was the Asian premiere of young Singaporean composer Goi Ywei Chern’s Qart Hadasht (New City), representing the most modern music in the concert. Its four varied movements, inspired by landmarks of historical Carthage, involved a compendium of virtuoso techniques on Alvarez’s alto flute. The overall effect was exotic, mystical and hauntingly beautiful. 

The concert closed with lighter music, with Brazilian guitarist-composer Celso Machado’s Musiques Populaires Brasiliennes, its five movements based on the choros (street songs) and native dance rhythms well-known to outsiders such as the samba and bossa nova. The accompanying visuals were of food, games and children. 

Speaking of children, both daughters of the Mahs were the stars in the film for two of Robert Beaser Mountain Songs, Barbara Allen and Cindy. These contrasting slow and fast numbers were based on popular American vernacular folk songs. The zippy and catchy rhythms of the last was so well-received that it had to be encored. Just delightful.

FRENCH CINEMATIC ICONS: BOLLING AND BEYOND / Roberto Alvarez & Friends / Review

 

FRENCH CINEMATIC ICONS: 

BOLLING AND BEYOND 

Roberto Alvarez & Friends 

Alliance Francaise 

Sunday (10 November 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 12 November 2024 with the title "Music from movies showcases magical power of sound".

Music in movies have the capacity to touch and move, and very often the melodies are better remembered than the films themselves. As a prelude to the French Film Festival, Singapore Symphony Orchestra flautist Roberto Alvarez and his friends crafted a very attractive programme as a reminder of the magical power of sound. 

Does anybody remember the star-studded California Suite, for which the late Maggie Smith won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress? Arguably more memorable was French jazz composer and pianist Claude Bolling’s score, with its highly syncopated and catchy Main Title, with pianist Kseniia Vokhmianina obliged to jump through many hoops accompanying Alvarez’s silvery lines. 

Together with bassist Julian Li and percussionist Ramu Thiruyanam, this cosmopolitan quartet followed up with movements from Bolling’s Suite for Flute and Jazz Trio, his most often-heard work. The formally-trained Bolling was so adept in merging jazz and classical idioms that his fusion pieces are equally beloved by artists across the stylistic divide. 

Sentimentale is already an established classic, the flute’s legato passages well contrasted with the movement’s groovily rhythmic central section. The jig-like bantering of Fugace was in the form of a fugue, the tricky counterpoint of which J.S.Bach would have been proud. The easy swing of Irlandaise (Irish) would soon give way to frenetic pulse of Veloce, which closed the concert’s first half with stunning aplomb. 

While this music sounds easy to the ear, it is very difficult to pull off convincingly. The quartet was not just on top of their game, but also having great fun. 

The oldest piece on show was Camille Saint-Saens’s shimmering Aquarium from Carnival of the Animals, which made an appearance in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. 

Far more recent was the music of Yann Tiersen, whose La valse d’Amelie and Comptine dun autre ete, l’apres-midi in The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain had little to do with Ravel or Debussy, but more the drolleries of Erik Satie married with minimalism. 

Roberto played the piccolo in this piece.

From Ludovic Bource, George Valentin and Waltz for Peppy from The Artist had ragtime and dancehall influences, sounding as elegant and insouciant as French music could possibly be. Ramu tapping on wood blocks was a sight to behold. The ubiquitous Michel Legrand had to feature sometime, his bittersweet minor key melodies of Windmills of Your Mind (The Thomas Crown Affair) and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg being greeted with knowing approval. 

Photo: Chris P. Lim

A suite of movie melodies were thus paraded, from Alexandre Desplat’s Elisa’s Theme from The Shape of Water (a waltz of touching simplicity), Francis Lai’s A Man and A Woman (a swinger known only to people of a certain vintage) to Carlos D’Alessio’s End Credits to Delicatessen (appropriately cheerful for a black humour horror pic about cannibalism). 

Photo: Chris P. Lim

It was, however, back to Bolling that the fab four returned for an encore, the Love Theme from California Suite. That was simply charming.

Kseniia's daughter Aurelia joins
the quartet on stage for the final bows.

THE WHIRLWIND WITHIN / Roberto Alvarez & Kseniia Vokhmianina / Review

THE WHIRLWIND WITHIN

Roberto Alvarez, Flute

Kseniia Vokhmianina, Piano

Odradek Records ODRCD247 / TT: 66’13”

 

What does contemporary flute music sound like? According to the Singapore-based duo of Spanish flautist Roberto Alvarez and Ukrainian pianist Kseniia Vokhmianina, it is very approachable, a heady mix of 20^th and 21^st styles eclectically influenced by pop, folk, jazz and dance elements. Their Odradek debut album was a Covid pandemic project, when both musicians were stranded in the tiny island-state with limited performance opportunities and no overseas tours. The unexpected happy outcome was the world premiere recordings of flute and piano works by seven composers from Europe (pre-Brexit UK included), Central and South America, composed between 1991 and 2020.

 

The delightful programme is bookended by works by two Britons. James Rae’s three-movement Sonatina (2007) and Mike Mower’s four-movement Flute Sonata No.3 (2003) share the common quality of being totally accessible. The spirit of Claude Bolling channeled by James Galway resides in Rae’s little gem, with movements titled Aquarelle, Nocturne and Fire Dance, the last cast in exuberant tarantella rhythm. Mower, himself a flautist, gives the initial impression of emotion distance, but his music soon breaks into different popular styles. Cuban and Afro-Caribbean pop, boogie woogie, jazz and blues vibes later dominate the movements and never dissipate.

 

Spaniard Daniel Sanchez Velasco’s Dance Preludes (2020) uses folk melodies and dance rhythms in a very engaging manner. A rhythm to be found in Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony opens the first of these. Another almost breaks out into Faure’s Sicilienne (from Pelleas et Melisande) but resists the temptation, and elsewhere the Romanticism of Granados and Rachmaninov may be sensed. Gonzalo Casielles Camblor (1931-2020) was Alvarez’s longtime teacher in Asturias, Spain. His El Vals de la Fortuna (2014, Fortune Waltz) is based on the notes D#-E-B-C-A, devised from the numbers of a winning lottery ticket. Just under two minutes, it is an earworm of a melody not unlike that of Tarrega’s Gran Vals (that Nokia ringtone!).

 

The Mexican Jose Elizondo’s Limoncello (2018) expresses Mediterranean warmth and openness, akin to the lime liqueur of of its title. With the Argentine Pablo Aguirre, references to Ginastera and Piazzolla are almost unavoidable. Many of their enduring traits are to be found in three pieces; fast bounding rhythms in La Fuga (1997, The Escape), the nostalgic and slow milonga of Distancias (2002, Distant) and sheer exuberance of Pasion Ensordecedero (1991, Deafening Passion).

 

The Catalan composer Elisenda Fabregas’s Sonata No.1 (1995) is perhaps the most dissonant and modernistic work in the disc. Displaying the greatest range of moods and emotions, from sadness and grief to anger and fury, the music ran a gamut of unease and agitation, borne of a sublimated inner strife and rage. None of it is atonal or serialist, hence eminently listenable. Its four movements could easily be summated by the album’s title Within The Whirlwind. This amiable anthology, distinguished by an understated and free-wheeling virtuosity from both performers, is already on my shortlist of the year’s best albums.  

You may buy the physical CD / download tracks here:

The Whirlwind Within - Odradek Records: ODRCD427 - CD or download | Presto Music

THE WHIRLWIND WITHIN / Roberto Alvarez & Kseniia Vokhmianina / Review

THE WHIRLWIND WITHIN

Roberto Alvarez, Flute

Kseniia Vokhmianina, Piano

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday (15 May 2022)

 

The Whirlwind Within was a recording project by Spanish flautist Roberto Alvarez and Ukrainian pianist Kseniia Vokhmianina, both resident in Singapore, during the fallow months of the Covid pandemic. Both musicians coincidentally arrived in Singapore about 14 years ago, and are presently colleagues at the School of The Arts. Roberto had taken up the assistant principal piccolo desk at the Singapore Symphony while Kseniia came as a teenaged piano student to the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. That both have established themselves as vital figures in Singapore musical life speaks volumes of their good work and the welcoming milieu which accepted them as our very own.   

 

This 70-minute-long concert was the launch of their debut CD recording on the artist-led Odradek label and a prelude to their concert tour to Europe in June. Those wary of 20^th and 21^st century music had absolutely nothing to fear as the programme was 100% tonal, much of it as approachable as late Romantic repertoire, but infused with popular, folk, jazz and dance elements.

 

The Sonatina (2007) by Englishman James Rae opened the concert with a bang. The sheer exuberance and syncopations of its rhythmic outer movements (Aquarelle and Fire Dance) contrasted well with the lyrical legato lines of the central Nocturne. This vein of easy accessibility continued into Spaniard Daniel Sanchez Velasco’s Dance Preludes (2020), which claimed multiple references including Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony in the opening bars of the Allegro. Elsewhere, one might also sense the spirits of Faure, Granados and Rachmaninov looming nearby.

 

There was initially a fear that the mostly Romantic piano writing might overwhelm the flute but both instrumentalists soon found a common ground which continued through the whole concert. Roberto’s rich and mellifluous tone, allied with perfect intonation were a constant, matched by Kseniia’s always alert responses and sensitive piano accompaniment.  

 

Gonzalo Casielles Camblor (1931-2020) was Roberto’s longtime music teacher in Asturias, and his El Vals De La Fortuna (2014) or Fortune Waltz was based on the simple five notes (D#-E-B-C-A) from the numbers of a winning lottery ticket. This was a charming little piece with an earworm of a melody not too distant from the once ubiquitous Tarrega Gran Vals (that darned Nokia ringtone!).

 

The four short movements of Elisenda Fabregas Flute Sonata No.1 (1995) formed the most substantial work on the programme. Relative to the others, it had the most dissonance while also displaying the greatest range of moods and emotions, from sadness and grief to anger and fury. Was it just me, or did anyone else think that the long opening flute trill reminded one of the beginning of Lalo Schifrin’s Mission Impossible Theme? Through its 15-minute course, the music ran a gamut of unease and agitation, as if borne of a sublimated inner rage and strife.  If there were a work that is accurately summed up by the album’s title The Whirlwind Within, this would pretty much be it.

 

The concert proper closed as passionately as it began with three pieces by the Argentine Pablo Aguirre. La Fuga (The Escape, 1997) had that heady Astor Piazzolla feel with fast tango rhythms, contrasted with the nostalgic milonga-like melody of Distancias (Distant, 2002), a classic and beautiful slow movement. In Pasion Ensordecedora (Deafening Passion, 1991), the extroverted music veered into exultant Gershwin and Bolling territory before closing on a spirited high.

 

The sole encore was dedicated to the courageous people of Ukraine, a heartfelt rendering of Melody by Myroslav Skoryk (1938-2020). It had a plaintive quality with a motif resembling the one from Charlie Chaplin’s Limelight. With the recent liberation of Kseniia’s hometown of Kharkiv from the Russians, there was a sense of satisfaction and relief to be had all around. The audience was just as enthused, resulting in a long queue to purchase the CD and get the virtuosos’ autographs.  

This concert may be revisited in this performance at Odradek's studios (Italy) by Roberto and Kseniia during their recent tour of Europe in June 2022:

Odradek Records - The Whirlwind Within - YouTube

I MOLINISTI by ROBERTO ALVAREZ & KEVIN LOH / Review

I MOLINISTI

FRANCESCO MOLINO

Complete Works for Flute & Guitar

ROBERTO ALVAREZ, Flute

KEVIN LOH, Guitar

Centaur CRC 3850

 

It will come as no surprise that Italian composer and conductor Francesco Molino (1768-1847), born near Turin, is all but unknown outside of guitar-fancying circles. He was a virtuoso guitarist who made his name and settled in Paris from the 1820s to his death. His dates have him as a contemporary of Beethoven, but his musical style, embracing the lyricism of bel canto traditions, aligns him more closely to the likes of Paganini and Rossini.

 

This album, produced in Singapore, conveniently houses Molino’s complete works specifically conceived for flute and guitar. He also composed works for violin (interchangeable with the flute) and guitar, but are not included here. There are nine such works, six Duos (Op.16 and 61) and three Nocturnes (Op.37, 38 and 39). All comprise two movements, a slow movement followed by a faster dance-like conclusion. That latter movements usually take the form of a rondo, and in the Op.61 duos, include a Polonaise and Eccosais (Scottish dance).

 

Each work lasts between three to eight minutes, and not given to longeurs or florid elaborations, the full excesses of Romanticism having yet gained a foothold. If not for their titles, works seem indistinguishable from each other. So why listen to them at all? The secrets lie in a penchant for songfulness and mellifluousness. To this end, flautist Roberto Alvarez (Assistant Principal Piccolo of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra) delights with his silky tone and seamless phrasing, aided by guitarist Kevin Loh’s excellent accompaniment. While these works are unlikely to appear as main events in chamber concerts, they make high class background entertainment.     

   

Fernandino Carulli (1770-1841) may be a name known to non-guitarists, as one might regard Mauro Giuliani or Fernando Sor. The Neapolitan Carulli also settled in Paris, where he developed a rivalry with his close contemporary Molino, their respective students clashing over differences in guitar technique! The album’s “bonus” is Carulli’s Concerto in G major for flute and guitar, a full-length three-movement work no less than 23 minutes.

 

The “orchestra” is a string quintet formed by members from the Singapore Symphony, who are fully in the spirit of the music. The first movement culminates with a properly discursive cadenza for both solo instruments, making it a second cousin to Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp. Make no mistake, this is the outrightly virtuosic work of the album and its crowning achievement. Molino versus Carulli? Carulli wins but the music of both Italians deserve to be heard.   

CD Review (The Straits Times, March 2019)

SALVADOR BROTONS

Complete Works for Flute Vols.2 & 3

ROBERTO ALVAREZ, Flute et al

Vol.2  Centaur 3555 / ****1/2

Vol.3  Centaur 3556 / *****

The concluding two volumes of flute music by Catalan composer-conductor Salvador Brotons (born 1959) feature all his wind music which include the flute. His music is tonal but dissonant in parts, technically challenging and creatively varied in style and feel. 

These performances by local professional musicians led by Singapore Symphony Orchestra flautist Roberto Alvarez are very accomplished and well recorded in the studio of Yong Siew Toh Conservatory.

Volume 2 delights in the ensemble work of mostly woodwind quintets (Emphasis Op.9, Sax-Wind Quintet Op.15, Theme, Variations & Coda Op.29 and Essentiae Vitae Op.80), which reveal a vibrant and gritty tonal palette. Unusually scored is Virtus Op.53, for flute, string trio and piano which delights in piquant timbres and harmonies. And there is a debt to late Debussy in Ad Infinitum Op.13 for flute, viola and harp, although the wistful and haunting music has a totally different feel.

The flute comes to its own in Volume 3, opening with Giravolts (or Swirling Op.123, for solo flute), with its sinuous opening partly influenced by Debussy’s iconic solo Syrinx. More flautists join Alvarez, for Daulos (Op.11, for duet), Miniatures (Op.16, for flute trio), until one finally reaches the Flute Suite Op.41 for a grand choir of 10 flutes. This progression in ensemble is both fascinating and exhilarating. 

The major work is Prada 1950 for flute, clarinet and string quintet, a tribute to Catalan cello legend Pablo Casals who had exiled himself to Prades (France) during years of fascist rule in Spain by General Franco. The music is fraught with angst and nostalgia, but ultimately resolves in an air of triumph and hope.   

A TALE OF TWO CITIES / By Candlelight Series / Review

A TALE OF TWO CITIES

Roberto Alvarez (Flute) with

Kseniia Vokhmianina (Piano) 

& Katryna Tan (Harp)

Living Room @ The Arts House

Friday (25 May 2018)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 28 May 2018 with the title "A musical tale of two countries".

Despite its catchy Dickensian title, this concert, part of The Arts House's By Candlelight chamber music series, was more a “tale of two countries”, namely Singapore and Spain. Commemorating 50 years of diplomatic relations between the nations, the music of three Singaporean composers and five Spanish composers were celebrated by three musicians who could justly be described as our brightest foreign talents.

The first half featured works for flute and piano, opening with Low Shao Suan's By the Fireplace (left). A warm glow emanated from Spanish flautist Alvarez's instrument in this totally melodious work which included such influences as Debussy and the Disney musical Beauty and the Beast. Her twin sister Shao Ying's Dance of Spring (right) was a jolly and easy-going waltz with a Parisian air about it. Both would pass as classy mood music for a romantic movie.

These served as bookends for two Spanish works. Federico Moreno Torroba is better known for his guitar works, and his Dedicatoria similarly inhabited the world of dance and song, alternating between rhythmic and lyrical before closing with a brilliant flourish.

The big work was Salvador Brotons' Flute Sonata (1979) in two continuous movements where the use of tone rows and dissonance, de rigeuer in atonal music, was merely a means to an end. These devices and a phenomenal flute technique contrived to make this a demanding but most attractive work. It began quietly, and following a virtuosic cadenza, blazed into a mercurial and playful finale that had both Alvarez and Ukrainian pianist Kseniia Vokhmianina stretched to their limits.

Malaysia-born harpist Katryna Tan joined Alvarez for the second half, which saw Chen Zhangyi's aurally luscious Five Constellations (left) as the first piece. More astrologically than astronomically inclined, these were short fantasies which conjure phantasmagorical imagery through a skilful play of colour and timbre. Premiered and recorded on compact disc by the duo in 2011, they practically own the work. 

  

Jesus Guridi's Tirana was dance-inspired and a homage to the Spanish violin virtuoso Pablo Sarasate, hence its elegant and yet showy turns balanced by a graceful lilt. There was one further Singaporean connection, specifically in Fernando Agüeria's Moonlight, which attempted to depict our tropical night scene, buzzing frenetically with activity and an underlying unease.

The 90-minute concert closed with two varied but familiar Spanish works from Isaac Albeniz's Suite Española. Granada was gentle and melancholic, while Asturias was busy and vigorous, pulsing with an energised flamenco beat.

A Spanish encore united all the three performers. According to Alvarez, Suspiros de Espana (Sighs of Spain) by Antonio Alvarez Alonso (no relation) is a pasodoble or bull-fighting dance beloved of all Spaniards. His cheerful and upbeat arrangement for flute, harp and piano ensured that it was also enjoyed by Singaporeans as well.

Composers and performers (L to R):
Low Shao Suan, Low Shao Ying, Chen Zhangyi,
Roberto Alvarez, Katryna Tan
& Kseniia Vokhmianina.

CIRCULO / TO Ensemble / Review

CIRCULO

TO Ensemble

Play Den, The Arts House

Sunday (25 February 2018)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 27 February 2018 with the title "Musings of childhood days and memories".

One never knows what to expect in a TO Ensemble concert. In Circulo, the ensemble was pared down to just composer Tze Toh on piano and guest flautist Roberto Alvarez from the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, supported by Akileshvar VM (percussion) and Wendy Phua (electric bass), and a bawling infant.

How an infant-in-arms was even admitted into a formal ticketed concert remained a mystery. Providing an unscripted high-pitched counterpoint for the longest part of the music's duration, it raised concerns but nothing was done. It, however, did little to faze the performers who stuck to their jobs by being simply brilliant.

Unlike past concerts, there were no post-apocalyptic back-story or survival tales to be told but the three suites that formed the narrative roughly united Alvarez's hometown of Asturias on the northern Spanish coast and Tze's Singapore. Both included sea-faring cultures and there was a pervasive element of nostalgia, fondly looking back at childhood days and memories.

The Prologue opened atmospherically with the piano's gentle musings, then accompanied by intakes and outtakes of breath on the flute but no notes. This was the wind, from small blasts to swirling eddies before the emergence of a simple folk-like melody.

Chapter One was The Sea, with a rhythmic dance and percussively staccato beat from the flute in Asturias. City / Metropolis 2018 and The Adventure continued with a busier and more upbeat pace, when drums and bass joined in. The Spanish vibe turned more Middle Eastern in feel, with interesting harmonic progressions hammered out on piano.

The Myths And Legends of Chapter Two began with a playful etude-caprice on solo flute, almost a superhuman effort in breath control in The Boy, The Pirate And The Magician. Piano and percussion entered in Satyvaan Savithri which alternated hypnotically between G major and G minor. Despite its Indian title, was the influence Moorish? And how much further before reaching Singapore?

Deep piano rumblings provided a Lisztian mood to Nuberu / The Cloud Master, matched by equally dark colours from the flute, but this soon morphed from night to day with a jazzy romp to conclude the chapter.     

All through this, the baby did its best to colour the proceedings. But then for stretches, quiet prevailed. Had music the charms to soothe the savage beast? No, timely spots of spontaneous breastfeeding in full view of the audience did the trick.

Circulo, the third chapter, began with a nocturne or night piece. A balmy, echo-filled and somewhat oppressive solo flute introduction gave way to the piano's more active arpeggios. All fetters were then thrown off in Fiesta, where all four players broke out in an all-out Cuban dance. How much was scored, and how much was improvised was only best known to the performers themselves.

The final movement, Child's Play, was unabashedly Romantic in feel. By now, the baby and its family – the only local element discernible – had left the hall. Anyway, thanks for the mammaries.

Both Tze and Roberto shared freely
in the post-concert discussion.

A new take on the programme's cover!