THIEF IN THE NIGHT AND OTHER BIZARRE TALES / THOMAS ANG Piano Recital / Review

THIEF IN THE NIGHT

AND OTHER BIZARRE TALES

THOMAS ANG Piano Recital

Singapore International Festival of Music

Gallery II, The Arts House

Tuesday (18 October 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 October 2016 with the title "Mix of obscure and familiar". 

One important aspect of this year's Singapore International Festival of Music is its focus on some of the nation's most talented young musicians. One who has been tipped to be a future super-virtuoso in the mould of the great French-Canadian pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin is Thomas Ang, presently studying in London's Royal Academy of Music.

His piano recital was an eclectic mix of familiar and obscure work, the sort that find their way to the Rarities of Piano Music Festival at Schloss vor Husum in Germany. To sell tickets, popular works had to be programmed, so Ang began with Chopin's Third Ballade and three Études from Op.10.

One is not immediately drawn to his prodigious technique, but rather a directness of expression. He does not gild the lily, allowing instead for music speak for itself. The Ballade was crafted with care and good taste, building up to a passionate climax. The studies were tossed off like putty in his fingers, their brilliance on the Bösendorfer grand coming off as over-glaring in the reverberant hall.

The last of these was the Black Key Etude (Op.10 No.5), which was the subject of two further studies by the afore-mentioned Hamelin and Leopold Godowsky. The psychedelic and acid-infused take of the former was tampered by the more traditional contrapuntal fairground that was the latter. Ang swallowed these challenges whole, and followed up with the staple of all virtuosos worth their salt, Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit.

This triptych of tone poems is considered one of the most fearsome in the entire piano literature. The watery realm of Ondine and the bow-legged scampering of Scarbo were brushed off with splashy colour and manic ferocity but it was the slow movement, Le Gibet (The Gallows) which held the most fascination. Ang's take was slower than usual, but the repetitive tolling B flat octave of a distant church bell was totally hypnotic.

The second half opened with Bach's Prelude & Fugue in F sharp minor (Well-Tempered Clavier Book 2), where Ang demonstrated he was equally adept in standard repertoire. His Bach was particularly clear-headed and transparently illuminated.

Rarities took over with two Singapore premieres, of Russian pianist-composer Samuil Feinberg's song The Dream (in Ang's own transcription) and the Second Sonata. Dissonant and piquant harmonies dominated both works, the latter being a thorny single movement of volatile and elusive emotions, heavily influenced by the mystically-inclined Scriabin.

As a palate cleanser, two short movements from Tchaikovsky's Children's Album revealed a more tender side. Rachmaninov's transcription of Tchaikovsky's Lullaby, filled with smouldering melancholy and surprising harmonic twists, and Ang's transcription of Tchaikovsky's song When The Day Dawns completed the highly satisfying two-hour recital.

That last piece and his encore, an original transcription of a Schubert Lied (Lachen und Weinen), showed Ang to be following the footsteps of another legendary Golden Age pianist, the late great Earl Wild.  

NIKOLAI KAPUSTIN Piano Works / Thomas Ang (Piano) / Review

NIKOLAI KAPUSTIN Piano Works

THOMAS ANG, Piano

The Living Room @ The Arts House

Wednesday (31 July 2013)

The music of Nikolai Kapustin has really caught on in the concert halls of the world. In Singapore, Albert Lin and Nicholas Loh did the pioneering proselytising of the Ukrainian jazzman’s solo piano music (in the Singapore International Piano Festival), and now young Thomas Ang, a freshman at London’s Royal Academy of Music, is his chief trumpet-blower. And how he blows!

Last year, Thomas helmed an all-Kapustin chamber concert at The Arts House, and he has returned with a solo recital with no less than six World Premiere performances and three Singapore Premieres. Honestly I had thought pianists around the world would be knocking down Kapustin’s door fighting to play his new works, but I am glad that our very own Singaporean had won the rights to do these world premieres. He had personally written to the composer, and was rewarded with a bunch of new unpublished scores (some just fresh from the oven) which were presented this evening.

Kapustin’s pieces are often performed as encores to round up a recital of Bach, Beethoven, Rachmaninov or whatever, often to show that the pianist was not a square but one who could truly swing. However an entire evening of Kapustin is a tall order for even seasoned audiences. It is paradoxically and emphatically not easy listening, instead one requiring a lot of concentration. A jazz club, with vodka martini in hand, might be a place to sample Kapustin, but 90 minutes of hard-core playing in a concert hall?

Thomas opened with the only piece on the programme I had heard previously, the diminutive Sonatina Op.100 (composed 2000). It is supposed to be one of Kapustin’s easiest pieces (ABRSM Grade Eight no less), but it still needs a loose, free-wheeling demeanour to pull it off. No sweat for the young man, and nine more far more treacherous scores to go!

Some of Kapustin's kontrapuntal forebears:
J.S.Bach, Shostakovich, Hindemith & Bartok.

The Seven Polyphonic Pieces for left hand Op.87 (1998) were tough listening, especially when the intention was the Godowskyan effect of making them sound as if being played by two hands. There were four fugues, two canons and one fughetta, and one is returned to the earlier sound world of Shostakovich, Hindemith and Bartok, with grand-daddy Bach being the original inspiration. All through the knotty counterpoint, Kapustin’s jazzy rhythmic touches were never lost in Thomas’s capable hand and even more complex mind. This was the first of the six World Premieres.

There were two Sonatas performed this evening, No.11 Op.101 (2000) and No.20 Op.144 (2011). The former, nicknamed Twickenham, had nothing to do with rugby but instead named after the neighbourhood where the president of The Kapustin Society resides. In three movements, it bears all the signatures of the Kapustin style: the insouciant blues, dissonances and consonances juggled, shaken and stirred within a decanter, an alarmingly increasing sense of disorientation (except that we know that both composer and pianist are fully in control) and the big gestures. By this time, many in the audience will know when they hear Kapustin next; his style is simply unmistakable.

Another fun aspect is to try and guess which composer’s styles he incorporates by the clues to be heard underneath the surface of florid jazz. In the two Etude-like Trinkets Op.122 (2004), which someone quoted by Thomas described as “cheesy”, I discern the harmonic subtleties and mystery of Scriabin. The tempo markings of Vivace and Con allegrezza may have been give-aways. 

In the Six Little Pieces Op.133 (2007), the Schoenbergian title was a red herring. These sound like shavings from a master craftsman’s work table, with Kapustin’s fingerprints all over the sound-bites. This music also suggests to me that the seemingly disparate worlds of jazz and atonalism occupy neighbouring bands within the broad spectrum of musical tonality.  

Scriabin, Schoenberg & Kapustin.
Are there common threads among them?

One thing is certain, Kapustin is far more loquacious than either Scriabin or Schoenberg. The latter two just say all that is enough. According to Thomas, the World Premiere of these pieces took place earlier at the Royal Academy this year. He wondered aloud if he could play them better. This kind of impertinence is almost forgivable for someone this young.

The next 5 pieces were World Premieres. Kapustin’s Op.139 and 140 were composed in 2009, and had the pop-like titles Holy Cow and Freeway. No explanations were offered by the composer. The first was meditative, contrasted by the rhythmic energy of the second. Then came Sonata No.20 Op.144 (2011), which is Kapustin’s latest (and hopefully not last) sonata. Like the Twickenham, it is in three movements, and when its 17 minutes were up, that sense of having heard it all before began to creep in. My one criticism is that there are not enough strong themes to sustain all the energy and angst required in learning such a work. 

Thomas did a fantastic job, simply because he never allowed the formula concocted by the composer to go flat. The fizz was always there because he made sure there was no opportunity for the playing to become blasé or banal. Honestly, if the sonatas from Nos.11 through 20 were played consecutively, I would be hard put to tell them apart. That however never happens with Scriabin, who wrote just 10 sonatas.

The final two works in the programme were there because the composer had asked Thomas to play them! Dialogue Op.148 (2013) was like a Chopinesque nocturne complete with a stirring and stormy middle section, while Etude Courte mais Transcendante Op.149 (2013) was Lisztian because of the technical wizardry required. There was a strong rhythmic left hand propelling the whole work through to its brilliant conclusion.

I do very much look forward to Thomas Ang’s next adventurous excursion into the fascinating world of rare piano repertoire. His virtuosity (now that’s a banal word for you), the simple ability to get across whatever his musical intention by whatever means, is something to behold. Could he become Singapore’s answer to Marc-André Hamelin?  

Singapore's Kapustinauts: Thomas Ang with Nicholas Loh (who gave the Singapore premiere of Kapustin's Second Sonata in 2009). Only Albert Lin is missing in action.

 

NIKOLAI KAPUSTIN Chamber Works / Thomas Ang and Friends / Review

NIKOLAI KAPUSTIN Chamber Works

Thomas Ang and Friends

The Chamber @ The Arts House

Sunday (29 July 2012) 

This review as published in The Straits Times on 31 July 2012 with the title "Friends explore new chamber repertoire".

Ukrainian composer Nikolai Kapustin (born 1937) is no longer a stranger in concert programmes these days, following ardent championing over the years by pianists like Nikolai Petrov, Marc-André Hamelin and Steven Osborne. Even in Singapore, Albert Lin and Nicholas Loh have performed his jazz-infused virtuosic piano pieces to much acclaim.

His chamber music, however, still represents terra incognito. So credit is due to young pianist Thomas Ang, recipient of the Hamish Dyer Musical Scholarship, for unearthing more than two hours of positive rarities for concert performance. All five works on the programme received Singapore premieres, and despite the highly approachable idiom, it was not always easy listening.

Kapustin’s music is more sophisticated and complex than that of Gershwin or Friedrich Gulda, just to name two pianist-composers who successfully “crossed-over” the classical and jazz divide. His themes are substantial, often subject to dense polyphony and counterpoint. The works are always rigorously schooled and scored note-for-note.  

This invigorating concert opened with a four-hand-arrangement of the 4-movement Sinfonietta (1986) performed by Ang and Stephanie Lew. Like Prokofiev's Classical Symphony, it was Haydn updated but in its piano guise, sounded like a Rachmaninov suite jazzed up in big band colours. The duo clearly enjoyed their whole-hearted dig despite the avalanche of notes.       

Less successful was the balance in the Violin Sonata (1992), where Ang’s violin part struggled to be heard above Lew’s busy figurations. The pizzicatos in the slow movement however piqued memories of the Blues movement from Ravel’s Violin Sonata, except that this entire work was the blues itself. The Flute Sonata (2004) had a far better airing, in part because Ang is more confident as a pianist, his crisp playing and acute sense of rhythm scoring plusses on the keyboard.

Flautist Daniel Bonaventure Lim, equally nimble and agile, projected very well throughout. Joined by cellist Chan Si Han, the Trio for Flute, Cello and Piano (1998) received the evening’s best performance. Like a genuine combo, the music leapt out from its black and white pages, headily emanating from the most hardcore and smoky of jazz nightclubs. The leisurely slow movement just launched itself attaca (without pause) into the most unbuttoned of finales.

The final work was the First String Quartet (1998), where Ang returned to lead on first violin. Deprived of the piano, the music was less frenetic but no less vibrant. Here the folksy sound of Slavic quartets met headlong with bluegrass and country traditions. The quartet overcame intonation issues and rhythmic hazards in the central movements before erupting in a frantic fugal finale.  

Despite every note being unfamiliar, the attendance and applause for this concert was more than encouraging. Ang, who commences musical studies in London this year, and his partners are urged to carry on exploring new repertoire.

All the performers (from L): Stephanie Lew (piano), Lum Jian Yang (viola), Margaret Teng (violin), Chan Si Han (cello), Thomas Ang (piano and violin) and Daniel Bonaventure Lim (flute).