HANS GRAF & SNYO / Singapore National Youth Orchestra / Review

 

HANS GRAF & SNYO 

Singapore National Youth Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall 

Saturday (8 March 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 10 March 2025 with the title "SNYO pulls off ambitious programme under Hans Graf's baton".

Fact: a music director of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra has never conducted the Singapore National Youth Orchestra (SNYO) until this evening. This happening was mostly facilitated by the SNYO, formed in 1980 under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, becoming part of the Singapore Symphony Group in 2016. In a very ambitious and demanding concert programme, the young players distinguished themselves under the direction of Hans Graf. 

The concert opened with three short pieces by Russian composer Anatoly Lyadov (1855-1914), notorious for his fastidious but indolent personality, the result of which meant he composed only miniatures. All based on Russian folklore and mythology, the works were presented like a suite, beginning with Baba Yaga (Op.56), where Graf’s downbeat produced an immediate response of outright alertness and cohesion. 

This and Kikimora (Op.63), inspired by a flighty witch and impish spirit respectively, brought out the orchestra’s mastery of scherzando elements, namely razor-sharp reflexes and mercurial playing. Even more breathtaking were the fantastical spells conjured in the Impressionist scoring of The Enchanted Lake (Op.62) where an evenness of pianissimo and restraint were vital. 

As if to display its versatility, George Gershwin’s Porgy And Bess: A Symphonic Picture arranged by Robert Russell Bennett provided the greatest possible contrast. This big and brassy score, epitome of Hollywood glitz and glamour, saw a performance that displayed boldness and swagger. 

The extravagant scoring included three saxophones and banjo, the latter starring in I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin’ played by Daniel Chai. Although the songs were not performed in the actual sequence as heard in the opera, it did close with Oh Lawd, I’m On My Way, the striding optimism of which was clearly appreciated by the audience. 

The true potential and metier of the orchestra were definitively felt in Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No.2 in D major (Op.43), also marking conductor Graf’s first performance of the Finnish composer’s symphonies here. The warmth of sonority from the string section was palpable right off the bat and would be a continuous pleasure throughout. 

The woodwinds distinguished with crispness and clarity of articulation, while the brass – with arguably the most exposed parts – could do with several boosts of confidence. Nevertheless, the symphony’s arduous journey from murky darkness in the second movement to affirmative light in the conjoint third and fourth movements was unfurled with no little majesty. 

The prestidigitation required of the strings was magnificently handled and one wondered how well schooled or drilled the players were. Much credit goes to their tutors and newly-appointed music director Joshua Tan for preparing them for this big and rare occasion. 

Inspiration on the day came from Graf, who clearly relished the opportunity and coaxed his charges to a rousing but not over-the-top conclusion for this patriotic symphony. To have witnessed two superlative performances of the Sibelius Second by youngsters in as many months (the Yong Siew Toh Orchestral Institute did it in January), was cause for pride and celebration.

A TRIBUTE TO WALTER HAASS. MASTER PIANO TECHNICIAN

 

A TRIBUTE TO WALTER HAASS 

MASTER PIANO TECHNICIAN 

It is with shock and sadness that we learn of the sudden passing of WALTER HAASS on Sunday (15 December 2024), the Australian-German piano technician whose long and treasured association with the Singapore International Piano Festival (SIPF) and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) can never be over-estimated. 

In 30 years of the hallowed piano festival (1994-2024), there have been four artistic directors, three concert venues, multiple Steinway concert grands, over a hundred pianists, but only one dedicated piano technician. That was Walter Haass, the maestro behind the keys, who made all the pianos sound the way the pianists intended them to, and to our ears what perfect pianos ought to sound like. 

Walter Haass with the four SIPF directors:
Lim Yan (2019-present), Pianomaniac (2004-2008),
Goh Yew Lin (1994-2003, 2009)
& Lionel Choi (2010-2018)

Walter was born in post-War Stuttgart (then West Germany) in 1952, was himself a pianist who received training in Germany and France in the crafting of pianos and the secrets of making the instruments sing. He and his family emigrated to Western Australia in the 1980s, becoming an important personality and permanent fixture in the Australian and Asian piano music scene. 

Walter flanked by Thomas Hecht
and Noriko Ogawa (SIPF 2005)

He was first invited to work on the Steinways at the Singapore International Piano Festival in 1995, the festival’s second edition, after which he never left his station. There was simply no reason to. Other than the pandemic year of 2020 when the festival was suspended, he was the omnipresent uniting figure at every festival. 

Outside of the festival, Walter was invited back to Singapore to work for pianists with special and specific requests in their recitals. I was proud to highlight his sterling work in my Straits Times and Bachtrack reviews of recitals by Arcadi Volodos (2005) and most recently Helene Grimaud in October this year, when he had to condition two Steinways for the same recital. At both these concerts, the pianos had a wonderful resonant sonority which led me to think, “Walter must be back in town!” And that was the last time I saw him, thanking him in person, and taking for granted he would be back here again in 2025. Alas... 

Walter with Koh Jia Hwei,
Lim Yan & Dennis Lee (SIPF 2005).
Who knew Lim Yan would become
festival director some 14 years later? 

Walter was quiet and humble in personality, but fiercely proud of his work. After each recital, he would gently ask me in his deep baritone voice, “Did you like the sound?” How does one answer that question except in the affirmative? The truth was that he varied the voicing of each piano based on each pianist’s preferences, and so every evening, the piano sounded a little different, as different as the pianists themselves. Whether he worked for a big name (Argerich, Demidenko, Anderszewski et al) or a debuting young pianist (in the Young Virtuoso Recital Series), he accorded them the same care and professionalism. Very often, he would offer praise and encouragement to a young talent and share with me his approval. 

Walter meets his "twin",
Hungarian pianist Jeno Jando (SIPF 2008)
Both were born in 1952.

I was introduced to Walter by festival founders Goh Yew Lin and Tisa Ng (then SSO General Manager) in the early years of his tenure, and then it all clicked from there. By the time I was named festival director (for the years 2004-2008), we had become friends. He was a regular at post-recital makan sessions, where he let his hair down and shared all sorts of interesting stories about his profession and life in general. 

Dinner at No Signboard (SIPF 2008),
with Jennifer Micallaf, Glen Inanga, Jeno Jando,
young virtuosos Lee Pei Ming & Albert Lin.

One particular memorable anecdote involved a very famous late Czech pianist who also fancied himself as a piano technician. He would carry his own toolbox and tinker around with the piano pre-concert, much to Walter’s private consternation. One day his toolbox was reported missing, but the concert went on anyway. By all accounts, it was a successful concert, after which Walter emerged from the wings with the very toolbox. Returning it to the owner with a look of relief, he exclaimed “Oh, I’ve found it!” Needless to say, there was a knowing wink when he recounted that story. 

Walter was also a good listener,
as Dennis Lee spins a story
of his own (SIPF 2005)

I also remember Walter for his generosity. Knowing that I was a fellow pianophile, he made copies of Steinway Piano’s annual commemorative CD which he happily presented to me. To a down-and-out piano teacher and former Steinway employee, he readily gave a substantial loan taken from his salaried work in Singapore. True to form, he never asked for the money back (while the teacher made himself scarce). Even after my tenure as festival director, I was a guest of his in Perth, where he and his wife Marie treated my family to a hearty steak dinner. 

Guests of the Haasses,
at Inglewood Hotel, Mount Lawley (2015).

All of us piano-lovers will sorely miss Walter - his professionalism, his friendship, his kindness, and his generosity – and not necessarily in that order. His kind will never come again.

HELENE GRIMAUD IN RECITAL / Review

 

HELENE GRIMAUD IN RECITAL

Victoria Concert Hall 

Thursday (17 October 2024) 

This review was published in Bachtrack on 21 October 2024 with the title "Hélène Grimaud splendidly unites the Three Bs in Singapore". 

Outside of the Singapore International Piano Festival, the Singapore Symphony group does not often present piano recitals, but this one was an exception. French pianist Hélène Grimaud, who joined the orchestra on tour to Japan, followed up her performance of Ravel’s G major piano concerto with a solo recital of repertoire which Artur Schnabel described as “better than could be performed”. 

Quite unusually, she performed the two halves of her recital on two different Steinway Ds. The first was a fire engine red beast, famously played by Lang Lang in Singapore’s 60th anniversary mega-concert to a crowd of thousands at the National Stadium in 2015. 

The recital began with Beethoven’s late Sonata No.30 in E major (Op.109), a reading liberal with pedalling, coaxing a luscious sonority with much reverberance. There was no disguising that Beethoven had ushered in the Romantic era, a paradigm progression from his early sonatas influenced by Haydn and Mozart. The Prestissimo central movement was delivered with vehemence, and the finale’s Theme and Variations was distinguished by a beautifully voiced chorale theme. This was followed by some of Beethoven’s most inventive writing, looking ahead to the corresponding movement of his final sonata (Op.111), with resonating trills and the freewheeling approach of a jazzman. 

Some seventy years separated autumnal Beethoven (1822) from late Brahms (1892) but no one would have guessed. Grimaud’s inclusion of two sets of the latter’s piano pieces contrasted Apollo with Dionysus. The Three Intermezzi Op.117 were his “lullabies of grief”, the hymn-like simplicity of the E flat major first then turning into the darker shades of the B flat minor second. The smouldering disquiet generated by Grimaud was gripping, with no relief provided in the even more solemn C sharp minor third. The opening bare octaves were reminiscent of Gregorian chant, then into evolving into rich harmonies which were quintessential Brahms. 

The Seven Fantasies Op.116 which opened the second half were performed on a matte black Steinway D, which had a slightly mellower tone but was no less reverberant. Clearly both pianos had been tuned and voiced by a master, later revealed to be Steinway technician Walter Haass, specially flown in from Western Australia for these two concerts. Impetuosity ruled the opening Capriccio in D minor, the violence of which was a shock to the senses. The aging Brahms still had much fire in his belly, a defiance continuing in other three Capriccios, balanced by calming influences of the Intermezzos. 

The big beefy tone of the final Capriccio in D minor went attacca (without break) into the Bach-Busoni Chaconne, written in the same key. There was simply no time for applause, instead Grimaud steadily built up a Gothic cathedral of sonority, its chordal excesses being a far cry from the original unaccompanied violin Partita No.2 of old Johann Sebastian. This was literally “Bach to the future”, with the 170 intervening years between both composers seemingly erased. Hans von Bülow’s “three Bs of music” – Bach, Beethoven and Brahms – had been seamlessly united in this splendid recital. 

Grimaud returned to the “fire engine” for her three encores, which came from a different world altogether. Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov’s soothingly sentimental Bagatelle No.2 hovered comfortably between E minor and E major, while Rachmaninov’s Etudes-tableaux in C major and C minor (Op.33 Nos.2 & 3) did the same. Truly a balm for the ears. 

Star Rating: *****

The original Bachtrack review may be found here:

Hélène Grimaud splendidly unites “The Three Bs” in Singapore | Bachtrack

POULENC'S LA VOIX HUMAINE / Review

POULENC’S LA VOIX HUMAINE

Jennifer Lien, Soprano 

Shane Thio, Piano

Ivan Heng, Director

Streamed on the Internet @ SISTIC Live

Saturday (18 July 2020)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 July 2020 with the title "Home-grown rendition of The Human Voice a rare gem".

Until the embargo of live concerts is lifted post-circuit breaker, music lovers will have to be content with pre-recorded digital concerts. Presented by the Singapore Symphony Group in its Victoria Concert Hall Presents series, this 2018 production of Francis Poulenc’s single-act, single-singer chamber opera La Voix Humaine (The Human Voice), first streamed last weekend, was a rare gem.

Performed before a live audience, its plot involved Elle (the generic “She” in French) in a final conversation with her former lover. Central to the 1958 opera, adapted from playwright Jean Cocteau’s 1928 script, was the telephone, a modern convenience and prop that was supposed to figure prominently throughout.

Wrong numbers, crossed connections and inept telephone operators were comedic elements in the serious melodrama. However, in director Ivan Heng’s conception, that physical means of communication was totally expunged. This allowed protagonist Elle the freedom of movement, to wander about onstage and sing without impediment.

The telephone’s only hint was a long red cord tightly wound around the grand piano on which pianist Shane Thio played. Also absent was Elle’s faithless lover, although his insidious presence might be inferred in furtive onscreen projections and Thio’s sockless red sneakers.   

Enlivening the anguished Elle was USA-based Singaporean soprano Jennifer Lien, whose monologue was a tour de force of lyrical and dramatic role-play. The former Business Times journalist turned operatic diva was fully immersed in the multi-faceted part and emoted brilliantly in idiomatic French (with the audience well served by English transliterations).

Through the opera’s compact 40 minutes, she brilliantly lived through Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief. Shifting effortlessly between denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, she often mixed these up in an intoxicating melange of fraught and barely-contained emotions. With hysterical outbursts alternating with episodes of lucidity, this was a multi-layered and grandstanding performance.

Poulenc’s music was unremittingly tonal, but liberally laced with dissonances and abrupt figurations. Lien flitted through recitative and outright song, where a penchant for sentimentality was revealed, albeit briefly. There was a short waltz-song sequence midway through, with a cascade of falling pills projected behind the performer. This was more than an allusion to a drug-induced fit of pique, also fortified by a well-placed bottle of liquor.

Whatever was Elle’s fate (suicide by overdose, gunshot or strangulation by telephone cord) became immaterial by the opera’s passionate but lyrical close. All that remained were the frenzied circumstances and states of mind that led to her fateful (and ultimately fatal) decisions. In short, The Human Voice was an in-depth treatise of the human condition, fragile psyche, warts and all. That it was captured with such trenchancy speaks volumes of all the artists involved.       

NATIONAL PIANO & VIOLIN COMPETITION 2017: ARTIST CATEGORY FINALS / An Observation And Some Thoughts

NATIONAL PIANO & 

VIOLIN COMPETITION 2017

ARTIST CATEGORY FINALS:

AN OBSERVATION & SOME THOUGHTS

Victoria Concert Hall

Saturday & Sunday 

(9 & 10 December 2017)

The biannual spectacular that is the National Piano Violin Competition (NPVC) is now managed by the Singapore Symphony Group, having taken over the reins from the National Arts Council after the 2015 edition. Much remained unchanged in the format, performance categories and repertoire requirements, and the grand finals for the Artist Category culminates with concerto performances with the NPVC Orchestra. This generically named orchestra is none other than the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, but shorn of principal players and augmented by free-lance professionals.  The conductor taking over Chan Tze Law's role (who had conducted the last six editions since 2005) was Joshua Kangming Tan.

There were only two finalists in this year's Violin Artist Category, chosen from a field of just four competitors.  It was notable that the two finalists were also the youngest, and neither of them were students of the local Conservatory.

It may be said that 12-year-old Yuri Tanaka from Japan (but resident in Singapore) has already won by making it to the finals after two gruelling earlier rounds. Her view of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor had much to recommend. She was quietly confident, extremely musical and produced a pleasing sound, topped with excellent intonation. She was on a reserved side in expression, and did not need to resort to extraneous gestures or movements to make her point. Her oh-so-correct demeanour is down to good teaching, as is her non-histrionic manner to rise to the music's challenges. There were rough edges in the heat of performance, such as in the mercurial finale, but she has many years ahead to polish and smoothen these out.

By comparison, 18-year-old Singaporean Ronan Lim Ziming almost seemed like an old master as he took on Sibelius' Violin Concerto in D minor. From the outset, one could feel his steely determination in this dark masterpiece. He produced a bigger and bolder sound, besides displaying a wider range of dynamics. His intonation was close to perfect and the first movement cadenzas, as with all the tricky articulation, were excellently dispatched. If there were a pinnacle to this reading, this took place in the slow movement which was scorched with a white hot intensity. By the finale, there were some frayed nerves but he overcame the quickfire dotted rhythms and relentless drive with astounding aplomb.

Having heard the Russian veteran Boris Belkin last week in Bangkok in the same concerto, I will not hesitate to add that young Ronan gave this listener a greater thrill and more spine-tingling moments. A shining future awaits. The jury of three adjudicators awarded 3^rd prize to Yuri Tanaka, and 2^nd prize to Ronan Lim, with the 1^st prize gone abegging.     

One disappointing aspect was the utter lack of public interest in this competition. The Straits Times declined my offer to cover the concerto final rounds (although the later Prize-giving Ceremony and Final Concert was reviewed). And there could not have been more than 100 souls who attended the violin concerto finals on Saturday evening. The piano finals on Sunday afternoon saw slightly more people turning up, but the stalls of Victoria Concert Hall was filled with many gaping seats. Should there have been more publicity for what is supposed to be a marquee event celebrating young local musical talent?

There were three finalists in the Piano Artist Category out of a field of nine. Their performances with the all-but-in-name SSO made for an absorbing afternoon of piano concertos. First up was Lily Phee who performed Mozart's Piano Concerto No.20 in D minor (K.466). She gave a totally musical account even if she did not project her limpid lines with the same power and force as the orchestra, which was for most part quite relentless in the driving opening movement. Her playing was however sensitive, with clarity and transparency being strong virtues. This was most apparent in the Romanze which was played most beautifully even if the central stormy G minor segment could have been better contrasted. The cadenzas were well-developed and the finale skipped with lightness and daintiness as it miraculous morphed from D minor to joyous D major. There was simply nothing to dislike in this performance.

Serene Koh, dressed in a glittery dark red sequinned gown, offered a strong Chopin First Piano Concerto in E minor, making a grand entry after the long orchestral tutti. Now we are now well and truly in the Romantic era, where passion and ardour rule over reserve and restraint. She delivered all this and more in a no-holds-barred reading that was also reliably accurate – with very few or no missed notes! The central Romance passed like a dream, taking its cantabile fully to heart.  The Rondo finale also came to life in a most ebullient manner, with her fingers flashing brilliantly its multitudes of notes. Have we found our 1^st prize winner?

Jeong Han Sol, who hails from South Korea but studies in a local institution, had no problems projecting in Beethoven's Emperor Concerto. His has a tendency to over-project, with loudness and brazenness, bordered on being pain-inducing. He is however capable of poetry and lyricism in the softer and slower parts, which provided relief from the aggressiveness that pervaded. That said, it were the many mistakes and slips that dogged this performance as a whole. On another day, he would have given a note-accurate account, so this rough and ready outing was most probably down to sheer nerves.       

It came as a surprise to me that no 1^st prize was awarded (again!). Serene Koh placed 2^nd (still the top placing) while Jeong Han Sol should be satisfied with coming in 3^rd. 

Lily Phee in the Quarter-final round
performing Chopin's Second Ballade.

That the totally musical Lily Phee was not placed, and not even given an Honorable Mention has to be the scandal of this year's competition. Had it not mattered that she had passed through two tough rounds and bested six other players to make it to the finals, and all her hard work in Mozart K.466 had counted for nothing? While I note that the jury’s decision is final, this non-acknowledgement was not only discouraging, but also downright cruel. I can only attribute this to the moral cowardice of the jury, comprising Choo Hoey, Dennis Lee and Artur Pizarro.

One only hopes that a true musician will through his or her experiences - both good and bad - learn to overlook such rejections and become a stronger and wiser person in the long road ahead which we call life.  

Yuri Tanaka with her teachers
Alexander Souptel and Masako Suzuki.

Serene Koh with her
childhood piano teacher Angelyn Aw.