NOW PLAYING / Trio Simeatri / Review

NOW PLAYING

Trio Simeatri

Sinfonietta Hall, Forte Academy

Saturday (9 September 2017)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 11 September 2017 with the title "Spellbound by promising trio".

Say hello to Singapore's newest chamber group, Trio Simeatri, a pun on the word “symmetry” derived from its members’ surnames. Comprising pianist Sim Yi Kai, cellist Eddie Sim and violinist Meah Tze Chuan, the trio's debut concert brought together two great piano trios in the united keys of D major and D minor.

Beethoven's Trio in D major (Op.70 No.1) began arrestingly with all three musicians in unison for its invigorating first movement theme. Immediately the sense of each player listening intently to his or her partners was established, this being the essence of chamber music that was to distinguish the evening's fine fare.

Both violist Meah and cellist Sim's intonation were spot-on and their tone refined, balanced by pianist Sim's sensitivity on a mellow and not over-reverberant Yamaha grand which made for mostly pleasurable listening. Occasionally some of the brilliant articulation on the piano got obscured but that did not occur in the eerily sombre slow movement.

The string lines were minimally accompanied, with the piano's frequent quiet tremolos providing an otherworldly atmosphere. The spectral comings and goings, as if taking place in a graveyard, were drolly captured, thus fully living up to the trio's nickname of “Ghost”. This spell was soon broken in the busy finale, with a return to buzzing normality.

A good start, and there was barely a break for a breather before the threesome launched into Mendelssohn's Trio No.1 in D minor (Op.49). Any reticence in the opening work was soon dispelled in the work's full flush of fiery Romanticism. This is Singapore's most often programmed of piano trios in recent years, but there was no hint of routine in this performance.

Pianist Sim was in the thick of things, his florid and scintillating piano part being the trio's most demanding share. Not only did he overcome its taxing passages, he also had to do his own frantic page-turning as the appointed page-turner had more or less given up with the lightning pace of the proceedings.

All this did not faze the trio which made light of the technical difficulties. There was however a respite in the slow movement where the strings' singing lines made this one of Mendelssohn's most memorable of his patented “songs without words”. Then they shifted gear for the feathery lightness of the Scherzo, which took flight on fairy's wings.

The finale was a joyous affair, with the plum melody going to cellist Sim (above), who was certainly not going to spurn the big moments it offered. The hour-long concert was attended by a full-house in this small and intimate venue. That the many children sat quietly transfixed through its entire duration demonstrated the absorbing power of music and the musicians. More is hoped from this very promising new piano trio. 

AN EVENING OF SONGS AND ARIAS FROM AROUND THE WORLD / YEE EE-PING Vocal Recital / Review

AN EVENING OF SONGS AND ARIAS

FROM AROUND THE WORLD

YEE EE-PING, Soprano

with SIM YI KAI,  Piano

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday (3 August 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 5 August 2014 with the title "Soulful and exquisite singing".

For all the major roles soprano Yee Ee-Ping has sung with the Singapore Lyric Opera, including Manon Lescaut, Donna Elvira, Despina, Pamina and Micaela, the 2001 Young Artist Award recipient has never performed a solo recital here. That is until this evening. Her exquisite selection of art songs was long overdue, and showed why she remains one of Singapore’s finest ever sopranos.

Yee, who goes by her stage name Ee-Ping, is now a fully mature artist, for whom all the excuses and excesses of youth no longer apply. Over the years, she has kept her vocal apparatus well oiled, commanding an astonishing range of nuances and possessing a voluminous heft fully capable of singing a house down. Her acting and communicative skills remain strong points, and she connects immediately with her audience.

The moment she strode in with an Amazing Grace one will not hear in any local church, it was a breathtaking foretaste of things to come. Her diction and phrasing was close to perfection in three songs by Roger Quilter, the dreamy and wistful emotions enclosed within coming to the fore.

Even more demanding were four Lieder by Richard Strauss, which expressed the full gamut of love in all its guises. The Wiegenlied (Cradle Song) was caressed with a mother and lover’s tenderness, and O Süsser Mai! (Oh Sweet May!) burst forth with unbridled joy.

Nostalgia and longing were the colours of the first two French songs, Duparc’s Chanson triste (Sad Song) and Chausson’s Les temps des lilacs (The Time of Lilacs), while Delibes’s Les filles des Cadix (The Girls of Cadiz) was infused with an infectious theatricality that would not have looked out of place in Bizet’s Carmen.

Ee-Ping emerged in a glittering gown for the second half, beginning with Gershwin’s Summertime (from Porgy and Bess) and the old American hymn Shenandoah, the purity of her delivery was simply touching.  Three Chinese songs, My Homeland, Merry Lady and Mountain Song (Yan Kou Di Shui)  reacquainted her with her Mandarin-speaking roots, and these were much enjoyed by the older members in the audience.

Pianist Sim Yi Kai was more than mere accompanist, meticulously partnering singer through ever breath and step. Other than a hatful of missed notes in the Chinese songs, he was alert and sensitive throughout the 90-minute programme.

The recital closed with two contrasting operatic arias. There are few moments as spine-tingling as Dvorak’s Song To The Moon (Rusalka), which Ee-Ping commanded with disarming ease. And then she brought out the coloratura fireworks in Rossini’s Una voce poco fa (The Barber of Seville), an imperious show that was greeted with loud cheers. Her encore, O Mio Babbino Caro (Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi), was no less ecstatically received. It is hoped that her second vocal recital here will not be a long time in coming.

Photographs by the kind permission of Yee Ee-Ping and Sim Yi Kai.

THE GREAT DUO SERIES: RACHMANINOV, RAVEL & BRAHMS / Lim Yan and Sim Yi Kai / Review

THE GREAT DUO SERIES:

RACHMANINOV, RAVEL & BRAHMS

Lim Yan & Sim Yi Kai, 2 Pianos

Esplanade Recital Studio

Saturday (4 January 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 6 January 2014 with the title "Risk taking at two pianos". 

Established piano duos and 2-piano recitals are rare in Singapore. Even the celebrated local duo of Dennis Lee and Toh Chee Hung has not performed a 2-piano programme here for a fair number of years. Thus it was welcome to witness the debuts of Lim Yan and Sim Yi Kai in what appears to be the first of a projected series of 2-piano recitals.

Lim is already well known as a soloist and the pianist in the Take 5 piano quintet, while Sim has more quietly established himself as a sensitive collaborative pianist. A more strenuous or difficult programme could not have been chosen to kick-start their endeavours.

Rachmaninov’s very popular Second Suite (Op.17) more usually closes a concert rather than opens one. The duo could be forgiven for observing safety first, as its opening rush of loud chords often leads to calamitous asynchronies, largely avoided here while losing some of the music’s fluency.

The illusion of presto was skilfully conjured up in the Waltz, and that allowed its sentimental melody to shine without sounding hectic. The languorous Romance was lyrical enough but was at risk of unravelling, and the Tarantella finale was steady rather than scintillating.

It made for a tough beginning, but the duo got better in Ravel’s epoch-shattering La Valse. This fatal apotheosis of the Viennese waltz involved more risk taking, and that paid off handsomely when the effect of being dangerously off kilter was well simulated. Sweeping glissandi from both pianists completed the show. A safe and sanitised La Valse is not simply La Valse.

The best of the evening came in Brahms’s Sonata in F minor (Op.34b), which is familiar because it is better known in its later guise as his only Piano Quintet. Both pianists shared equal roles, and it was interesting to see how each reacted to this passionate music. Sim was the more physically expressive with his movements and gestures, while Lim was the more subdued, often sticking out his tongue à la Michael Jordan in full flight.

Together they brought out a muscular physicality and heft in the symphonically conceived work. Only in the slow movement was it contemplative and dreamy, with reserves to spare for the manic march of the scherzo, which saw volume and temperature rise to boiling point. The finale’s dissonant and hushed entrance provided a chill before all stops were pulled for the last assault. 

The explosive end was not one for faint hearts, with subtlety and gentility shown the door, but this seemed like the only way to go. More of the fascinating 2-piano repertoire is to be expected from this intrepid duo. 

Concert photographs by the kind permission of Lim Yan and Sim Yi Kai.

Violin and Piano Recital / Edward Tan and Sim Yi Kai / Review

Violin & Piano Recital
EDWARD TAN, Violin
SIM YI KAI, Piano
Esplanade Recital Studio
Sunday (1 August 2010)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 3 August 2010.

Very often one goes to a violin and piano recital expecting the violinist to be the protagonist, with the pianist as a mere accompanist. This recital had both violinist and pianist sharing roles as equals, with opportunities for both to shine under the spotlight on their own.

In Beethoven’s Sonata in C minor (Op.30 No.2), it was pianist Sim Yi Kai who drew first blood. His shaping of the opening movement’s first theme was excellent and resolute, setting the general tone for this gritty essay. His dominance was no surprise, Beethoven having cast his violin sonatas as works for piano, accompanied by violin.

Violinist Edward Tan, concertmaster of the Orchestra of the Music Makers, was no shrinking violet either, answering each piano entry with ripostes of its own. Alternating melody with counterpoint, this give and take of interchanging parts in its four movements made for a gripping whole. Beethoven, whose dramatics was fueled by coming to grips with deafness, would have approved.

Brahms’ stand-alone Scherzo in C minor was a logical follow-up, bursting with Beethovenian vigour and the inevitable big tune. Tan’s solo of Lithuanian composer Vytautas Barkauskas’ (left) short Partita was an encyclopaedic showcase of modernist techniques. Its alternation between serial and tonal moments was unsettling, but Tan’s razor-sharp reflexes and unnerving control made it a memorable outing.

Sim, more often seen on stage as page-turner for the uniquitous Lim Yan, held his own in Chopin’s Andante Spianato & Grande Polonaise Brillante (Op.22). His sense of smooth cantabile in the former was contrasted with an inexorable forward drive in the latter. There were some missed notes, but he captured the spirit well.

Bringing on the biggest cheers was Wieniawski’s Variations on an Original Theme (Op.15, composer pictured left), where over Sim’s orchestra-like partnership, Tan’s negotiating of its trickiest stunts – especially the fiendish variation with left hand pizzicati – was breathtaking to say the least. The first of their two encores was a total charmer; Edward Elgar’s La Capricieuse was delivered with a delectable charm and humour that was next to irresistible.