ARNOLD SCHOENBERG'S PIERROT LUNAIRE / THE VIOLIN SONATA REBORN / The Sing Song Club / Paul Huang & Helen Huang / Review

ARNOLD SCHOENBERG’S

PIERROT LUNAIRE

The Sing Song Club

Esplanade Recital Studio

Tuesday (20 June 2023)

 

THE VIOLIN SONATA REBORN

Paul Huang (Violin)

Helen Huang (Piano)

Victoria Concert Hall

Friday (23 June 2023)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 26 June 2023 with the title "Enthralling diversity of chamber music".

 

The scope of chamber music has never been wider, and it was fascinating to witness two chamber concerts that featured vastly diverse repertoire in a matter of days. The 20^th century, with its myriad influences and inspirations, made all this possible.

 

The 11^th edition of the Singapore Lieder Festival, an annual fixture of The Sing Song Club, featured just one work, Arnold Schoenberg’s melodrama / song-cycle Pierrot Lunaire. Composed in 1912-13, it had the same impact as Stravinsky’s contemporaneous ballet The Rite Of Spring, by initially raising an almighty stink. Today, its 21 short songs in German (translated from Albert Giraud’s French texts) are considered seminal in the history of modernism.

 

Freely atonal in idiom, the vocalist practises sprechgesang (German for speech-song), a technique which hovers and glides between pitches, with notes often sounding indeterminate. This performance was unusual by having tenor Adrian Poon instead of a soprano doing the honours. Cladded in a white kaftan, his dramatic but non-histrionic interpretation stole the show, the clarity of diction aided by helpful English transliterations projected on a screen behind.

 

No one could be accused of missing the commedia dell’arte plot of “Moonstruck Peter” with themes of life, love, death, disillusionment and finally homecoming. The essence of chamber music was also highlighted by individual virtuosity from instrumentalists Christoven Tan (violin/viola), Chee Jun Sian (cello), Alvin Chan (flute), Sean Lim (clarinets) and Shane Thio (piano), led by conductor Zechariah Goh Toh Chai. The 40-minute act was surprisingly well-attended and enthusiastically received.

 

Diametrically different and more traditional was the violin sonata programme by violinist Paul Huang and pianist Helen Huang, both American-Chinese of Taiwanese descent who are not related to each other. Kudos to them for omitting the usual suspects of Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms, instead offering unexpected Romantic era choices that had links with the past.

 

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

Coming from opposite ends of the Romantic period were Mendelssohn’s Sonata in F major (1838) and Respighi’s Sonata in B minor (1917), the contrasts of which were stark. The former sounded like an extension of Mozart’s idiom, formal in approach with a flowing lyricism, while the latter came close to brushing the impressionist palette.

 

Both works showcased Paul’s beautifully burnished violin tone, blest with clear and immaculate articulation. This was also a partnership of equals, where Helen’s pianism was complementary in every step, perfectly projected rather than just providing mere accompaniment. The finale of the Respighi, in the form of a passacaglia, a tightly-wound set of short variations, was a prime case of achieving an ideal union.

 

For the second half, Paul opened with Ysaye’s unaccompanied Third Sonata or "Ballade" from Op.27 (1923), a work in a single movement. Its thorny and highly chromatic opening page posed no obstacles to his finely-honed technique, later letting rip on its fast and virtuosic conclusion.     

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

 

Saint-Saens’s Sonata No.1 in D minor (1885) is underrated as a showpiece, but the duo showed what mileage could be gotten from its superficially charming yet hazard-laden pages. What could have sounded tiresome in lesser hands instead came alive with an outlandish display of string and keyboard calisthenics, before closing in a most thrilling tarantella thought possible. One goes back to 1994 for Itzhak Perlman’s performance of this same work at this same venue for similar superlatives.

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

 

Cheered on by a smallish but vociferous audience, the Huangs’ delightful encores of Londonderry Air (arranged by Fritz Kreisler) and Arthur Benjamin’s Jamaican Rumba (arranged by William Primrose) made for a perfect send-off. This dynamic duo had deserved nothing less than a full-house.

Paul Huang & Helen Huang were presented by Altenburg Arts.

THE ALPHABET SERIES: C IS FOR CHILDREN CANTILLATING / The Sing Song Club / Review

THE ALPHABET SERIES:

C IS FOR CHILDREN CANTILLATING

The Sing Song Club

The Living Room @ The Arts House

Saturday 19 January 2013

This review was published in The Straits Times on 21 January 2013 with the title "C is for charming chants".

The Sing Song Club’s ambitious 26-part Alphabet Series of art song recitals has reached the letter C. Its 90-minute recital of 20^th century song cycles inspired by the subject of childhood and extreme youth was attended by just 21 people, but that did not dampen the spirits of the performers on a dank, rainy evening. 

The group’s leader, the youthful tenor Adrian Poon, had the honour of singing two song cycles. The first was Francis Poulenc’s Quatre Chansons pour Enfants, where he negotiated its tricky and rapidly articulated French with relative ease. The playful, ironic spirit of the personalities who inhabited these songs were well characterised, lyricism and wit being the hallmark of the French composer whose 50^th death anniversary was being commemorated this year. 

The extremely versatile Richard Rodney Bennett, who died just a few weeks ago, was also remembered with his Songs Before Sleep. These six very diverse shorts, contemporary and occasionally jazz-inflected, also found a sympathetic interpreter in Poon. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, began with the same words as the familiar version, but took on the style of a Broadway musical number.

Benjamin Britten, born exactly one century ago, had a lifelong affinity for children. His five songs in A Charm of Lullabies gave mezzo-soprano Anna Koor and pianist Shane Thio a share of dissonant moments, the melodic line often at odds with the thorny piano writing. No fault of the performers, such was Britten’s sense of aesthetics which juxtaposed A Charm with its strident declamations “Quiet! Sleep!” that would wake the dead, with the truly soothing The Nurse’s Song, which Koor delivered as well as a mother could.  

The only familiar song cycle was Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the Death of Children), sung by the veteran baritone William Lim. Here is a voice that has matured over the years, such that the reflections on mortality rang out with a world-weary yet burnished poignancy that sounded heartfelt and sincere. Through the tempest of In diesem Wetter (In This Weather), Lim easily overcame the onslaught from the keyboard accompaniment.

Lim closed the evening with Singaporean Zechariah Goh Toh Chai’s Where Are You, My Little Ones?, a lament composed on the aftermath of the 2004 Asian tsunami tragedy. The words “Did you call my name? Did you say goodbye?”, spoken rather than sung, hung on like a pall through the song’s clear and unequivocal message. It was a sober and contemplative end to a concert that should have been attended by far more music-lovers.

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2ND SINGAPORE LIEDER FESTIVAL / Review

2^ND SINGAPORE LIEDER FESTIVAL

The Sing Song Club

The Living Room @ The Arts House

Friday (7 September 2012)

A slightly edited version of this review was published in The Straits Times on 10 September 2012 with the title "Splendid singers for festival".

Those who have been closely following these pages would have noticed a resurgence of vocal events in recent years, in the form of operas and performance of art songs. The latter, in particular, has been in large part through the efforts of the Sing Song Club, a collective of singers and pianist Shane Thio, responsible for founding the annual Singapore Lieder Festival and Alphabet Series of recitals.

This year’s Lieder Festival ran for just two evenings, a reduction from last year’s ambitious six nights of Schubert and Schumann song cycles. The German art song was again the focus, now broadened to include Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Wolf, Strauss and the Second Viennese School. Disappointingly not more than 30 people turned up to witness the first evening’s hour-long concert by four very different but splendid singers.

A pleasing symmetry was offered by the sets of Hugo Wolf songs that opened and closed the recital, a case of thoughtful programming. Soprano Rebecca Li ran the full gamut of emotions - of love gained and loved – in Die Spröde and Die Bekehrte, a pair of contrasting pastoral reflections. A more poignant rendition of Das Verlassene Magdlein (The Forsaken Maiden) would have been hard to find from this petite but deceptively powerful presence, who sang completely from memory.

The Verona-based bass-baritone Martin Ng lent an animated and highly dramatic edge to five Brahms songs, his big burnished voice filled the breadth and depth of the human experience within. In the hymn-like Erinnerung (Reminiscences), there was reassuring warmth which turned dark and smouldering for O wusst Ich doch den weg zuruck (O That I Knew The Way Back).    

There was some familiarity to the four Richard Strauss songs of Op.27, a wedding gift to his wife, sung by veteran baritone William Lim. His booming voice was one tempered with fine control; sombre in Ruhe, Mein Seele (Rest, My Soul), passionate in Cacilie, equally rapturous in Heimliche Aufforderung (Secret Invitation) and finally sensitive in Morgen! (Tomorrow). The exquisite piano parts found an equal in master collaborator Shane Thio.  

Malaysian tenor Peter Ong closed accounts with Wolf’s two Pelegrina lieder and the prayer-like Gebet, impressing with his enormous range and depth of feeling. The final number Abschied (Farewell) was no Mahlerian tear-jerker between departing lovers but a final riposte by adversaries, with an uproarious send-up to the Viennese waltz. Both singer and pianist hammed it up for an upbeat and spirited close.

Next year’s Lieder Festival goes French, with the complete chansons of Francis Poulenc. A curious and receptive audience is urgently invited!

THE ALPHABET SERIES: E FOR AN ENGLISH EXCURSION / The Sing Song Club / Review

THE ALPHABET SERIES:

E IS FOR AN ENGLISH EXCURSION

The Sing Song Club

The Arts House Living Room

Saturday (7 July 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 July 2012 with the title "Pleasures of pastoral songs".

Art song recitals are relatively rare events in the concert calendar here, but there has been a hint of renaissance in recent years. More young Singaporeans are pursuing voice studies here and abroad and this has translated into an increasing number of concerts of vocal concerts. If only the audience for such precious events were growing at this rate.

Only 25 people availed themselves to attend this very fine recital of English songs by the Sing Song Club, a loose but dynamic collective of voice enthusiasts and practitioners led by tenor Adrian Poon and pianist Shane Thio. The group has ambitiously planned a series of 26 recitals, each represented by a letter of the alphabet, over five years to cover a repertoire that is as vast as it is diverse.

This evening, the English art song got its due with 23 numbers, covering some 17 home counties. Dorset and Somerset were represented by Under the Greenwood Tree and O Waly Waly, sung with clear diction and ringing clarity by Poon and baritone Daniel Fong respectively. The pastoral tradition of these songs set the tone of the substantial programme to come.

The many facial expressions of tenor Adrian Poon.

Poon is possessed with a most ardent demeanour and his animated way with words made him just perfect for Noel Coward, whose In The Bar on the Piccola Marina had the audience in stitches. He however met his match in Walton’s Song for the Lord Mayor’s Table, a very demanding cycle of six songs written for the great German soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.

Its often tricky, rhythmically complex, shifting harmonics and dynamics posed problems for both singer and pianist. Some parts bristled with orchestral textures that it seemed almost ungrateful when heard in this pared down form. Poon manfully coped, and convinced for most part even if his voice was stretched and strained to its tether.

With baritone Daniel Fong, one feels the power in the words.

Fong had a cycle of his own, six songs from George Butterworth’s A Shropshire Lad, set to dark, pessimistic and sometimes death-obsessed words by A.E.Housman. Fong’s baritone is a heroic one, robust in quality and sonorous in projection. Yet he is capable of great sensitivity, lending weight and gravity where it matters, as in the final song’s quiet and reflective end. The composer, Fong explained, had been killed in the trenches several years after its composition.     

Composer Kelly Tang listens intently to a duet version of The Daffodils, which was originally written for a choir of high voices.

    

Both Poon and Fong joined voices for several duets, including Vaughan Williams’s It was a Lover and his Lass, the sentimental nostalgia of Haydn Wood’s Roses of Picardy, and Singaporean Kelly Tang’s The Daffodils. The last on Wordsworth words and originally for choir of high voices, was deserving of inclusion, and the singers truly made it so.

All three performers take a bow.

Composer and performers meet. Note the parade of Union Jacks adorning the entrance to The Living Room of The Arts House.

THE ALPHABET SERIES: B IS FOR GARDEN / The Sing Song Club / Review

Alphabet Series: B is for Garden

The Sing Song Club

The Arts House

Saturday (19 May 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 21 May 2012 with the title "Blooming thrills".

The Sing Song Club has firmly nailed its colours to the mast. Its raison d’etre is to further the appreciation for art songs by presenting as wide a variety of songs as possible in its well-planned recitals. B is for Garden is the second such programme in its ambitious 26-part Alphabet Series. Its small audience was treated to a delightful hour and a half of 28 songs in five different languages.

Rebecca Li and Adrian Poon sang all of the solo songs, ably accompanied by pianist Shane Thio.

Lest one accuses its leader tenor Adrian Poon of being unable to spell properly, this ingenious garden-theme programme was inspired by blossoms, blooms, birds and bees, just to name but one bug. The beloved British bard of lyrical beauty Roger Quilter was represented by no less than seven songs; his melodies breathed a freshness and vitality that was hard to dislike. There were four duets, opening with Blossom Time and The Starlings, where Poon and soprano Rebecca Li were respectively paired with alto Ng Sheh Feng to delicious effect.

The German lieder were reserved for Li, whose bright-eyed and youthful ardour in Mahler’s Fruhlingsmorgen (Spring Morning) and Ablösung in Sommer (Change in Summer), and Hugo Wolf’s Die Gärtner (The Gardener) and Schumann’s Die Lotosblume (Lotus Blooms) were matched by excellent and idiomatic pronunciation. Her sung French, for contributions by Emmanuel Chabrier and Reynaldo Hahn, was no less vivid.

Rebecca hams it up for Adrian in William Penn's The Honeysuckle and the Bee.

Poon, who weighed in with 16 songs, was the most versatile, equally at home with Canteloube, Rorem, Britten, Ireland. Guastavino and Marx. He was also entrusted with three of four songs by local composers, including two World Premieres. Benjamin Lim’s My Lady’s Finger, set to texts garnered from the leisure and gardening pages of The Sunday Times, insinuated with several Freudian double entendres which Poon delivered with zest.

Alto Ng Sheh Feng (right) lent a supporting role for a number of duets.

In Wong Chee Yean’s To Daffodils, a deliberately darker hued approach was taken, well supported by pianist Shane Thio’s rich chord-laden accompaniment. For Zechariah Goh Toh Chai’s Flower, the seamless melody in C minor was intoned in Hainanese! Kelly Tang’s The Daffodils, with Wordsworth’s words sung by both ladies, ambled from the English pastoral tradition into a flight of fancy with a quote from Ravel’s Bolero thrown into the mix.

When the audience and singers are enjoying themselves, the evening breezed through effortlessly. The missionary zeal of The Sing Song Club deserves a wider audience. Its next concert E for English Excursion takes place at the same venue on 7 July. Be sure to come.

All the performers take a bow.

Origami blossoms. birds and butterflies sprinkled all round The Living Room lent a nice touch.

LOST TO THE WORLD / The Sing Song Club / Review

LOST TO THE WORLD
The Sing Song Club
The Arts House
Tuesday (20 December 2011)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 22 December 2011 with the title "Sing Song Club in fine voice".

From the organisers of the First Singapore Lieder Festival in August and September came one final recital of art songs by Gustav Mahler and Franz Liszt, whose anniversaries are being observed this year. The Sing Song Club is Singapore’s version of Britain’s renowned The Songmaker’s Almanac, with pianist Shane Thio being the local Graham Johnson, that indefatigable instigator of the most ambitious singing projects.

Although the following for art song is small here, its practitioners are a young and determined lot who will become our top singers of tomorrow. Baritone Daniel Fong (above), a student at London’s Royal Academy, exuded a warm and expressive tone for the five Mahler songs on texts by Friedrich Rückert. Rich, sonorous and unafraid to project himself, his views on subjects like love, solitude and abandonment sung in clearly enounced German were palpable, even believable.

Ich bin der Welt abhanden (I Am Lost To The World), which lent the title to this concert, was treated with a world-wearied gravity that belied its apparent wistfulness. In Um Mitternacht (At Midnight), the shift from minor to major mode came like a shaft of life-affirming sunlight that washed away all gloom.

Tenor Brendan-Keefe Au (above) was less confident, and had a false start in Rheinlegendchen (Rhine Legend), but possessed a youthfulness that suited his set of Knaben Wunderhorn (Youth’s Magic Horn) songs well. These whimsical and often ironic songs of German folklore and country life found a sympathetic soul. Amid the militaristic undertones of Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen (Where the Beautiful Trumpets Blow), melancholy gave way to the expectancy of love.

For sheer tonal beauty, it was hard to beat soprano Rebecca Li (above), whose petite frame also packed a poignant punch. Such purity and innocence were distilled in two rarely heard Mahler songs and a further three by Liszt. Often overshadowed by his florid piano works, Liszt’s Freudvoll und leidvoll (Joyful and Sorrowful), Es muss ein wunderbares sein (It Must Be A Wonderful Thing) and S’il est un charmant gazon (If There is a Lovely Grassy Plot) basked in a radiant glow that can only be described as sublime.

This recital shows our young vocalists to be far more than enthusiastic bathroom singers. Further events by The Sing Song Club in March and May of next year are to be watched out for with keen anticipation.