OF FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS / T'ang Quartet / Review

OF FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS
T’ang Quartet
National Museum Exhibition Galleries
Thursday (26 January 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 28 January 2012 with the title "Four play to impress".

The only pair of concerts held in conjunction with the Dreams & Reality exhibition of artworks from the Musee d’Orsay not devoted to piano literature was given by the T’ang Quartet. True to form, not everything Singapore’s premier chamber group performed was impressionist either. “Think out of the box” seemed to be their credo.

The startlingly modern strains of Stravinsky’s Three Pieces opened the concert. The angular nature of the Dance, with insistent drumming beats from Leslie Tan’s cello, Ng Yu Ying’s stabbing violin syncopations, violinist Ang Chek Meng’s rhythmic thrusts and Lionel Tan’s single-note scrapes on the viola, were calculated to shock. Cubism, primitivism, avant-garde, or call it what you will, these aphoristic miniatures were over in a manner of minutes.

“What is impressionism anyway?” queried the quartet’s usual spokesman Leslie (above), adding that “music and art were all about making impressions”, and that the term concocted by art critics sometimes served to limit the imagination. “Debussy hated being labelled an impressionist,” and “not everything had to sound thin and blurry,” said he too, and so there.

Their next set of pieces, the Three Novelettes by Englishman Frank Bridge, was anything but impressionist. The highly tonal and very personable essays were more like mood pictures, capable of conjuring up ideas, visions and scenarios in the mind. Atmospheric at parts, chatty when the comedic timing of the playing clicked, and mostly a fount of lyricism, these little gems sounded delectable in these hands.

The main course, Debussy’s ground-breaking String Quartet of 1893, was rightly served last. How radical it must have sounded then, when sweet and pleasing platitudes of the Belle Époque were shattered with such uncompromising boldness. Notable was the scherzo, which rebounded with striking and percussive pizzicatos, the spirit of jangling Javanese gamelans being gloriously revived.

The pianissimos of the slow movement were beautifully crafted, and as the audience held its collective breath, one could hear a pin drop. All this served to make the busy finale, with its panoply of counterpoint and reprised themes, all the more rousing and impressive.

With four men bowing their hearts out, was this the climax of the masterfully curated series of concerts? It was difficult to say, as each evening this reviewer attended had its own share of pleasures and little surprises on offer. All these were aided by highly attentive (and impeccably behaved) audiences and a handsomely illustrated 56-page programme book with excellent, lively and appropriately pitched programme notes by Marc Rochester and Francophile Roger Nichols. Great art and great artistry deserved nothing less.

The reviews of the other performances may be found on these links:

Melvyn Tan's Piano Recital (5 January 2012):

http://pianofortephilia.blogspot.com/2012/01/dreaming-debussy-melvyn-tan-piano.html

Dennis Lee & Toh Chee Hung's Piano Recital (12 January 2012):

http://pianofortephilia.blogspot.com/2012/01/flights-of-fancy-dennis-lee-and-toh.html

Albert Tiu's Piano Recitals (19 & 20 January 2012):

http://pianofortephilia.blogspot.com/2012/01/enchanting-expedition-albert-tiu-piano.html

ENCHANTING EXPEDITION / Albert Tiu Piano Recital / Review

ENCHANTING EXPEDITION 

ALBERT TIU, Piano 

National Museum Exhibition Galleries 

Thursday & Friday (19 & 20 January 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 23 January 2012 with the title "Tiu enchants with nature". 

The third pair of recitals held at The National Museum alongside the Musee d’Orsay art exhibits was given by Filipino pianist Albert Tiu, lecturer at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music. In two hour-long concerts over consecutive evenings, he performed 25 short works by 13 composers, organised in seven broad groups. 

Each group was united by a common theme, and the pieces went beyond the impressionism of Debussy and Ravel. To limit oneself to these two Frenchmen would have been too constraining, so for the subject of Air, Tiu offered a radical departure – little-heard works inspired by the wind by the American Charles Griffes, and two other Frenchmen Charles Ibert and Olivier Messiaen.

Although Debussy was the obvious inspiration, these had the effect of cleansing one’s palate for a new raft of tastes. The theme of Water saw the introduction of Liszt, already an impressionist long before the term came into being. His Les jeux d’eau de la Villa d’Este, which begins with a trickle but broadens into awesome spouts, was the prelude to Ravel’s Jeux d’eau, with its exotic pentatonic melodies. Next to these, Luciano Berio’s little encore Wasserklavier made a gentle little splash. 

Imaginative programming is Tiu’s strong suit, so one would hardly be surprised by his juxtaposing Satie, Scriabin and Manuel de Falla for the group on Fire, pun probably intended. Scriabin’s Vers la flamme (Towards The Flame) was lit with a long fuse before its eventual detonation, while Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance ignited with volcanic intensity from the word go. 

Earth gave Tiu even greater latitude. Rachmaninov’s song transcription Lilacs ended on the same key – A flat major – as Godowsky’s Gardens Of Buitenzorg began. This lush floral tribute was book-ended by rustling leaves and precipitation in Liszt’s Waldesrauschen (Forest Murmurs) and Debussy’s Gardens In The Rain respectively.

The second evening’s fare opened with the half-lights of Evening, rhythmic Debussy and dreamy Grieg gave way to the soaring climax of Liszt’s Harmonies du Soir, leaving no one in doubt that this was the time of day for love. The largest group of five pieces was dedicated to Birds of all shades and plumes; Liszt and Saint-Saens (The Swan, what else?) shared the same page as Ravel’s haunting Oiseaux tristes (Mournful Birds), Messiaen’s placid La Colombe (The Dove) and the most paradoxical creature of all, Griffes’s White Peacock, whose regal preening and strutting was indelibly captured. 

Nature, more specifically bodies of water closed this adventurous ramble in the musical gallery. More Liszt and Griffes prefaced Debussy’s L’isle joyeuse (The Joyous Isle), the one work that was directly inspired by a painting, in this case Antoine Watteau’s L’Embanquement pour Cythere. From the probing pianist and intrepid artist in Tiu, there could not have been a more spectacular conclusion.

All the photographs were taken 

from the piano recital on 19 January.

FLIGHTS OF FANCY / Dennis Lee and Toh Chee Hung Piano Recital / Review

FLIGHTS OF FANCY
Dennis Lee & Toh Chee Hung, Piano
National Museum Exhibition Galleries
Thursday (12 January 2011)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 14 January 2012 with the title "Double the fancy".

The series of concerts at The National Museum’s Dreams & Reality exhibition of Musee d’Orsay treasures has truly come alive. One way of getting most out of this worthy art meets music adventure is to arrive early, preferably when doors open at half-past-seven to secure your favourite seat. That done, head to a quiet corner to view just a small number of art pieces.

There should not be pressure to pack in as much as you can. Take your time, there is no hurry. Allow the details, colours and flavours of each painting to register its unique set of impressions, so that you can make a recollection that remains firmly lodged in the mind. Be it a Degas ballet scene, a Pissarro landscape or an Ingres nude, the same processes applies.

Such an approach would also be helpful in listening to music, especially in the hands of artists as perceptive and insightful as Dennis Lee and Toh Chee Hung. The veteran duo began with three varied movements from Gabriel Faure’s Dolly Suite. Simplicity and innocence were the key to the lovely Berceuse, its melodic line gliding gracefully over a gently rocking accompaniment.

The duo is incapable of making an ugly sound, their seamless teamwork born of decades of performing together and listening to each other. The feline elegance of Kitty-Valse gave way to rhythmic precision and clacking castanets in The Spanish Step, the set’s most tricky number.

In the solo segment, Toh applied the most variegated of touches to Debussy’s Estampes (Imprints), beginning with Pagodas, inspired by the exotic Orient. Dreamy and sunbathed, its pentatonic heaven melted into a shimmer of delicate bell sounds. Evenings In Granada wallowed in sultry relaxation, then interrupted by a guitar’s serenade. The concluding Gardens In The Rain was more like the Botanics pelted by a sumatra rather the Tuileries sprinkled with a light drizzle.

Lee’s view of Debussy’s First Book of Images was no less gripping. One could envision Monet’s Water Lilies in Reflections In The Water, his feather-light touch seemed to skim the surface as naturally like ripples around a falling drop. In Homage To Rameau, a cortege regally made its way, a stark contrast to the relentless perpetual motion of Movement, where the pianist may be excused for tiring a little.

Both pianists then joined four hands for their perennial favourite, Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite. Lee provided some prefatory quotes which touched on the music’s propensity to relive the joy and purity of childhood. And how they enchanted and delighted with their interplay and witty repartee. The gamelans headily ran out in Empress Of The Pagodas, a foil to the alternately lilting and gauche waltz of Conversations Of The Beauty And The Beast, before cascades of glissandi concluded The Fairy’s Garden. Music, too, can tell stories as vividly as pictures.