FAMILIAR GROUND: Singapore International Piano Festival 2009 / Review

FAMILIAR GROUND
16th Singapore International Piano Festival
Victoria Concert Hall
Thursday to Sunday (25-28 June 2009)

An edited version of this review was published in The Straits Times on 30 June 2009.

As the former Artistic Director of the annual piano festival, this reviewer enjoyed the wry in-joke of this year’s theme, a welcome return from the “unfamiliar” piano repertoire and artists of the past five festivals. A parallel may be drawn with the fortunes of the Singapore Arts Festival, as this edition posted a return to higher attendances with its roster of mostly Russian pianists playing music of the most usual suspect – Frederic Chopin.

On the first evening, the Russian-American Vladimir Feltsman (left) probed the bittersweet vistas of two less-played Op.26 Polonaises. Between violent eruptions, Chopin’s vulnerability was poignantly bared, with self-conscious attempts at lightness and jollity in the latter dance an unexpected highlight. The popular Ballade No.3 built to its heady climax, with delicious inner voices brought out along the way.

Feltsman’s evening began with a romanticised view of Bach’s Partita No.1 in B flat major, its dances tastefully ornamented but not without indulging in tantalising rubatos. Liberty from the written score distinguished one of the most interesting readings of Mussorgsky’s Pictures At An Exhibition in memory.

Generous pedaling ensured that each run of the Promenade theme sounded like clangourous carillons, while the work’s weird and wonderful characters vividly leapt off the walls. Never a dull moment, the witch Baba Yaga’s bloodthirsty swoops, claw and fang-laden, led directly into The Great Gate of Kiev, which began subito piano rather than the anticipated fortissimo. With Feltsman, surprises never cease.

Equally personal and provocative was Nikolai Demidenko’s (left) account of Chopin’s 24 Préludes Op.28, painted with every possible shade of dark grey. His world-weary journey accentuated the somberness of minor keys while inflecting major keys with touches of melancholy. The mysterious A minor Prélude was unveiled as a funereal procession, while bells of doom replaced raindrops in the familiar D flat major number. When the music afforded sunshine and a smile, out came clouds and scowls.

The thaw came with Schumann. Faschingsschwank Aus Wien (Carnival Jest In Vienna) had jollity and ecstasy in equal measure while Demidenko’s variegated touch relived the humour and high spirits of Carnaval. Its 22 short character studies flitted quixotically between with bipolar extremes of Florestan (passionate) and Eusebius (withdrawn). Like Rachmaninov before him, Demidenko performed the movement nobody ever plays: the bare enigmatic notes of Sphinxes, Schumann’s only flirtation with atonality.

Surely the most refined pianist was Pascal Rogé, whose hour-long collage of Nocturnes, Préludes and Études by Fauré, Poulenc, Chopin and Debussy – played uninterrupted – stood firm in the memory. Every note and nuance was coloured with sensitivity and beauty. 

His Debussy was peerless, from the arch-simplicity of Girl With The Flaxen Hair to the torrential squall in What The West Wind Saw. Several Chopin Préludes were heard again, and the effect was like night and day. Where Demidenko had brooded, Rogé shone and illuminated. In Chopin’s Revolutionary Étude, he showed that Frenchmen could barnstorm with the best of Russians.

Rogé was joined by his Japanese-Indonesia wife Ami (above) in 4-hand works by Schubert and Ravel. The former’s Fantaisie in F minor was a study of balance and intimacy, most eloquently marrying Biedermeier prettiness with contrapuntal mastery. The sensuality exuded in the latter’s Rapsodie Espagnole was never in doubt, the rhythms alternating between hypnotic and exuberant. The Rogés, matched in complementary black Chinese outfits, sounded and looked a most handsome couple.

Young Sudbin is a new giant 

of the keyboard (Photos: Collin Tan)

Although still in his twenties, the Russian Yevgeny Sudbin (above) who closed the festival was a throw back to the great pianists of the Golden Age such as Horowitz and Friedman. His suite of four Chopin Mazurkas rejoiced in rhythmic vitality and rich bass-notes, evincing varying degrees of nostalgia and moodiness. Two Scarlatti Sonatas and Haydn’s E minor Sonata (Hob.XVI:34) also elegantly revealed tragicomedic elements that belied their staid titles.

Sudbin left his boldest stamp in music of his homeland; two Medtner Fairy Tales exuded the ironic mix of fantasy and pathos that only a Slav could express, and the relentless pulverising force of Prokofiev’s Seventh Sonata left one stunned, numbed and later enlightened. Its precipitous finale began on a frantic pace, and plunged headlong without let up till its fateful end. With artists like these, the future of the “live” piano recital is never in doubt.

The Singapore International Piano festival was presented by Singapore Symphonia Co. Ltd.

Singapore International Piano Festival 2009: What were those encores?

So what were those wonderful encores performed at the Singapore International Piano Festival 2009?

VLADIMIR FELTSMAN

(Thursday, 25 June)

BACH-SILOTI

Prélude in B minor

NIKOLAI DEMIDENKO

(Friday, 26 June)

CHOPIN Mazurka in A minor,

a Emile Gaillard

CHOPIN Nocturne

in C sharp minor, Op.27 No.1

CHOPIN Polonaise

in G sharp minor, Op. Posth.

PASCAL & AMI ROGÉ

(Saturday, 27 June)

FAURÉ

Dolly's Garden 

from Dolly Suite

POULENC

La Embarquement pour Cythere

NICHOLAS LOH

(Sunday, 28 June)

KAPUSTIN Étude, Op.40 No.7

"Intermezzo"

YAO XIAO YUN

(Sunday, 28 June)

CHOPIN Étude

in G sharp minor, Op.25 No.6

LU WEN-CHENG Ping Hu Qiu Yue

(Autumn Moon over a Calm Lake)

YEVGENY SUDBIN

(Sunday, 28 June)

SCRIABIN

Mazurka in G minor, Op.3 No.3

RACHMANINOV-SUDBIN

Floods of Spring

Young Virtuoso Recital: Nicholas Loh (Singapore)

YOUNG VIRTUOSO RECITAL
Sunday, 28 June 2009, 3 pm
Victoria Concert Hall

NICHOLAS LOH (Singapore)

JOHN SHARPLEY 

   The Lone Star (Selections) 

   PIANOFEST PREMIERE
RZEWSKI from North American Ballads 

   SINGAPORE PREMIERE
   Down By the Riverside – 

   Winnsboro Cotton Mills Blues

KAPUSTIN Sonata No.2 

   SINGAPORE PREMIERE

What I thought of Nicholas Loh and what led to his selection to perform in the Young Virtuoso Recital @ Singapore International Piano Festival 2009:

“When I was auditioning young musicians for the 1999 SSO Music Marathon, a self-confident Raffles Junior College student whipped off a Debussy Étude with the most nonchalant of ease. “That was quite difficult to play, wasn’t it?” I asked and all he did was to make light of it. Some 8 years later, the music graduate from Birmingham University and regular attendee at the Piano Festival remarked that it was his ambition to perform Ukrainian jazz pianist-composer Nikolai Kapustin’s fiendishly virtuosic Second Piano Sonata in concert. Now he has to make good that wish!”

Nicholas Loh practising on the

only Fazioli grand piano in Bukit Batok.

Young Virtuoso Nicholas Loh shares his personal thoughts on the works he performs:

JOHN SHARPLEY
Piano Suite No. 3 “The Lone Star” (Selections)

I first came in contact with the music of Dr John Sharpley when I stood in as an accompanist for a rehearsal of his work Songs of a Wild Child. Although it was just one rehearsal, the little that I did seemed to resonate with a lot of what I believe music should be like: it should be recognisable, as though it has been heard before, but it should also present something new and different, something which makes the listener want to hear more.

It was a bit of good fortune when Dr Chang caught wind of one of John’s works which had a bit of a Wild West theme to it. The Third Piano Suite, aptly named The Lone Star, made use of sufficient folk and jazz elements to gel with the rest of my programme, while providing an exciting western slant. The music conjures up vivid images of a Wild West scene. It starts with a rousing Square Dance replete with open-string calls, which leads into an almost ‘pas de deux’ blues, forming and disintegrating before the very eyes. 

A charming song is heard in La Pastora, and this leads into the Variations on The Old Chisolm Trail, the title referring to an old cowboy song and the variations crafting images of riding the mustang, strumming a guitar in the desert night, an old honky-tonk piano churning out music in a crowded Saturday night saloon, and of the cowboy riding into the sunset. A short cadenza-like interlude leads into the final Round Dance, which displays grandeur, spirituality and austerity, the very spirit of the west conjured up on the piano if you will.

I had the chance to sit down with Dr John Sharpley one afternoon to look through his music and have a chat. It turns out that we share quite a few beliefs in music. Needless to say, getting the chance to play this music is quite an honour and a delight. After all, how often do musicians play music by living composers who share such similar thoughts about music with them?

FREDERIC RZEWSKI
Down by the Riverside
Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues
from Four North American Ballads Singapore Premiere

The story begins with a box from Amazon.com lying on my doorstep containing a box set of Rzewski playing Rzewski, purchased explicitly for his 36 variations on The People United Will Never Be Defeated!. I noticed a recording of the four North American Ballads inside and the third one in particular stuck out. It was titled Down by the Riverside, and I remember playing that same tune when I was just starting to learn the piano.

I quickly slipped the CD into the player and flicked my way to the track, and for the first minute or so, I relived through those moments of my childhood with what I now recognize as a well-known Afro-American spiritual tune. Soon after, the music started to change. The music started to wander off on its own, as melodic fragments from the original song interspersed with each other. The chords started to clash, the rhythms started to get more chaotic, and even amidst moments of calm respite, the tune never settled into its original configuration. 

However, right at the end, the music returned to the calm of the opening with a passage of open sonority in the same key that the music started. This revealed itself to be a frame for the magnificent reprise of the original tune in the tenor line, now decorated with a polyphonic descant line with a grandeur akin to that of a cathedral filled with light. The ending was a bit of an enigma then (and even now), with the glorious build up of sound mysteriously disappearing, but for a brief spell, I revelled in its opalescent glory.

That reverie was soon disrupted by a soft pounding bassline. The music had moved on to the Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues. Unlike Down by the Riverside, I knew of no tune called Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues. The opening didn’t really help either with its mechanistic rumble. The theme from Jaws sprang to mind. The soft rumble soon grew louder and louder, the chord clusters crashing down onto the piano like the pounding of a mill. Soon after, the pounding subsided, and there was some semblance of melody (in chords) accompanied by a repeated figure in the bass. 

Even this melody was covered by the insistent bassline, and soon the crashing started again…all to suddenly cease, and give way to a luscious blues section which would link to the final climax of the piece, a veritable tour-de-force of polyphonic writing, before (finally) revealing the original tune of the Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues in what was possibly a set of reverse variations. A final set of pounding chord clusters served only as a reminder of the beginning as the music died away in a way similar to Down by the Riverside.

(At this point, and after a brief moment of silent reverence, I jumped back to the first two Ballads, and while an account of their listening would be out of place here, let me reassure you that they are as good as the last two in the set.)

Such an over-romanticised account would seem naïve at first, but an exercise in self-affirmation is surely not the point here, but rather, a celebration of good music enjoyed by the performer, and hopefully, the listener as well.

NIKOLAI KAPUSTIN
Piano Sonata No.2 

Singapore Premiere

A chance visit to the (sadly) now-defunct Sweet Classics music shop let me in on the music of Nikolai Kapustin. Steven Osborne had just released a new CD of music by this unknown Ukrainian composer including the first two Piano Sonatas and a selection of Preludes. The titles themselves were innocuous enough, but the music wasn’t. I was blown away by the intense jazziness of it all. Like the Rzewski, I had to lay my hands on some of Kapustin’s music. For a while this seemed nearly impossible until a friend of mine let me in on some scores he had gotten from Japan, including the Op.40 Études and the Second Sonata. I set about playing through everything (with little success…Kapustin’s music does not favour sightreading to a large extent) and over time I built up a scant repertoire of his music.

While it was all good, I knew I had to eventually tackle the mammoth which was the Second Sonata, which had everything going for it. The first movement was exuberant, almost gospel-like in its melodies and textures, and it had enough cool swing and introspectiveness to counter all the fire. The scherzo movement borrows a motif taken out of the first movement and transforms it into a syncopated barrage of notes. A short swing passage in the middle provides a much needed rest before the rhythmic rush resumes its course to a humorous but explosive finish. 

The third movement is a touch of cool jazz, conjuring up images of smoky jazz clubs, and icy-cold martinis. All seems calm except right at the end, where the peace is shattered by an almost serial rush of notes, leading into the blistering last movement, aptly named perpetuum mobile. Strains of Prokofiev’s toccata writing, Schoenberg’s serial technique, the stride bass much favoured by novelty pianists such as Zez Confrey, and even a 12-bar blues passage are all welded together with that strong jazz element. Liszt comes to mind right at the end of the movement with a flourish of octaves and the final cascade of notes brings this ebullient, extroverted work to a finish.

I met Dr Chang a few years ago at the (also sadly) now-defunct Sing Disc shop, and confessed that I would love to perform the work, despite knowing deep down that it was nowhere near complete. I put off learning it for a while when I had other less-musical commitments to fulfill, and wondered all too often when I would ever get to learn the music properly, much less perform it in front of a live audience.

I suppose that time is now.

Notes by Nicholas Loh

Young Virtuoso Recital: Yao Xiao Yun (China / Singapore)

YOUNG VIRTUOSO RECITAL
Sunday, 28 June 2009, 3 pm
Victoria Concert Hall

YAO XIAO YUN (China/Singapore)

BACH-HESS Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring
LEONG YOON PIN 23 Settings of Yibazhima 

  PIANOFEST PREMIERE
SCRIABIN Sonata No.5, Op.53
CHOPIN Ballade No.1 in G minor, Op.23
CHOPIN Ballade No.4 in F minor, Op.54

My thoughts on selecting Yao Xiao Yun to perform at this year's Young Virtuoso Recital @ Singapore International Piano Festival 2009:

“The international jury at the 2005 National Piano Competition had been raving about the playing of a “little Chinese girl” and I had to hear her for myself. It was in Chopin’s Third Sonata and Scriabin’s Fifth Sonata where a combination of stunning digital dexterity and poetic prowess by the diminutive Yao Xiao Yun that left me breathless with excitement. Even Lang Lang’s pyrotechnics were to pale in comparison. She deservingly won the First Prize. Then a student of Professor Yu Chun Yee at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, she now teaches at that august institution and has become a Singapore citizen.”

Xiao Yun practising at the 

NAFA School of Young Talents

where she is a teacher nurturing 

Singapore's finest young musicians.

YAO XIAO YUN provides her personal thoughts on her programme:

BACH-HESS Jesu, Joy Of Man’s Desiring

This short masterpiece is one of my personal favourites. It is the title of the 10th movement from Bach’s cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147. Dame Myra Hess was deeply impressed by this music, and had it transcribed and published. Over the years, it has become one of the most familiar Bach transcriptions, winning the affection of pianists and listeners across the globe. I chose it as my opening piece, transporting one and all into a world of peace where there is no conflict or competition. Its every note conveys beautiful colours and the warmth of human emotions.

LEONG YOON PIN 23 Settings of Yibazhima

Every technique from the Baroque to Schoenberg’s duodecaphony may be found in the variations of this fairly brief work by Singapore’s most venerated composer (left). The music paints a lively scenario, with an unspoken emotional strength as a unique characteristic. The overall structure, melody and harmonies make this a representative work in the canon of Singaporean piano music.

SCRIABIN Sonata No.5, Op.53

This work was written in 1907, marking the end of the Russian composer’s middle compositional period and a transition into his later atonal style. The music is highly dissonant, despite nominally being written in the key of F sharp major. Sometimes known as The Poem of Ecstasy (not to be mistaken with Scriabin’s orchestral work Poeme de l’Extase), the great Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter described it as the most difficult work in the entire piano repertoire. 

This work is of a particular challenge to me because of the small size of my hands. The outrageous speeds and intense strength required were also my key adversaries in overcoming its challenges. I chose this work to display the mysterious trends and phenomenal advances that took place in the late stages of Romantic period.

CHOPIN Ballade No.1 in G minor, Op.23
Ballade No.4 in F Minor, Op.52

By playing two Ballades, his first and last, I wanted to reflect the distinctive styles of the young and mature Chopin. Ballade No.1 was written in the years 1831-35, and widely considered his first major creation. Chopin loved it above all, showcasing great emotions and unleashing a freedom of musical display that characterised his youth. The work begins on a sentimental note but gradually turns tragic, his feelings of sorrow reflecting the adversities of his native Poland. 

Ballade No.4 was composed in 1842, one of his most intense and technically demanding works, requiring virtuosity and exceptional pianistic skills. Audiences will warm up to Chopin’s maturity of style, which open a window into his innermost feelings. In this music, the listener can taste the angst and passion of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It this were to be Chopin’s only composition for piano, he would still be hailed a genius.

Notes by Yao Xiao Yun

Singapore International Piano Festival 2009: FAMILIAR GROUND

The Singapore International Piano Festival 2009

takes place from 25-28 June 2009, Victoria Concert Hall

For more information, please check out the website:

www.pianofestival.com.sg

The pianists performing this year are:

25 June: VLADIMIR FELTSMAN (Russia)
26 June: NIKOLAI DEMIDENKO (Russia)
27 June: PASCAL ROGÉ (France)
28 June: YEVGENY SUDBIN (Russia)

Young Virtuoso Recital
on Sunday 28 June, 3.00 pm:

YAO XIAO YUN (China / Singapore)
NICHOLAS LOH (Singapore)

Tickets available at SISTIC Outlets & Victoria Concert Hall box office