VERONA QUARTET IN RECITAL / THE VIOLA, CENTRESTAGE / Review

 

VERONA QUARTET IN RECITAL 

Conservatory Concert Hall 

Thursday (6 March 2025)

THE VIOLA, CENTRESTAGE 

DIYANG MEI, Viola 

with SSO musicians 

SSO Chamber Series 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Friday (7 March 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 10 March 2025 with the title "Sparkling chamber music treats from Verona Quartet and Diyang Mei".

Lovers of chamber music in Singapore have never had it this good. Two concerts in the past week showcased a variety of repertoire and distinguished by the quality of performances, all this being a prelude to the annual chamber music festival at the conservatory in the week to come. 

Photo: Jellal Koay

The Verona Quartet, based in Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio (United States), made a welcome return. Comprising Singapore violinist Jonathan Ong, violinist Dorothy Ro (Canada), violist Abigail Rojansky (USA) and cellist Jonathan Dormand (United Kingdom), the quartet celebrated French composer Maurice Ravel’s 150th birth anniversary with what came closest to the perfect reading of his String Quartet (1903) thought possible. 

Photo: Jellal Koay

They made the 20th century’s most-performed string quartet sound fresh and unhackneyed, distinguished by playing of finesse, precise intonation and tautness of ensemble. Its many lyrical lines had sweetness of tone, balanced by the vigorous execution of busy pizzicatos heard in the second movement. Its cyclical form saw the opening movement’s theme reappear in the third and fourth movements, heightening a sense of unity and nostalgia. 

Photo: Jellal Koay

Praised as a champion of contemporary music, the quartet gave the Singapore premiere of American composer of Jewish-Chinese-Peruvian heritage Gabriela Lena Frank’s Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout (2001). Its six short movements were inspired by native folk cultures of the Andes range, with simulation of local instruments such as panpipes and percussion, and the songs of funeral mourners and serenaders. The use of modern techniques was no impediment, the music being very accessible and even enjoyable, thus leaving an indelible impression. 

Dmitri Shostakovich’s String Quartet No.9 in E flat major (1964) deserves to be better known as it relived all the tropes that made the Soviet-era Russian composer famous. Dark and bitter melodies, dances of biting irony, and the spewing of vitriol came to the fore in its five connected movements. A more gripping or committed performance from the foursome would be hard to find. 

Responding to long and prolonged applause, encores of Mendelssohn (Canzonetta, from Op.12) and Duke Ellington (Cotton Club Stomp) were a further display of the quartet’s immense range. 

Viola virtuosos have long been overshadowed by their counterparts on violin and cello, however China-born Diyang Mei, principal violist of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra since 2022, might alter that perspective. He is a natural who breathes music and style with every move, and his 75-minute-long chamber concert, partnered by string players from the Singapore Symphony, attested to that. 

Posterity has Georg Philipp Telemann’s only Viola Concerto in G major (c.1720) as the first viola concerto ever composed. In four movements alternating between slow and fast, he coaxed a gorgeous svelte tone with none of the gutteral raspiness that often give violas a bad name.

The longest work on show was Franz Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata in A minor, originally written for the arpeggione, an obsolete fretted instrument from the viol family. Now often heard on the cello, Mei staked his claim for the viola, whose ravishing sound was ideal for its many song-like passages. Carl Maria von Weber’s Andante e Rondo Ongarese (Op.35) opened with the beauty of bel canto singing, then erupting into a rapturous Hungarian gypsy dance which brought down the house. 

Mei’s generous encores of Astor Piazzolla’s Le Grand Tango followed by the traditional Mongolian melody Mu Ge (牧歌, Shepherd’s Song), joined by SSO violist Guan Qi in a sumptuously voiced arrangement, were a blast. This was a concert which would get youngsters clamouring to learn the viola.

ONES TO WATCH: VERONA QUARTET / Review

ONES TO WATCH:

VERONA QUARTET

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall

Thursday (8 September 2022)

This review was published by The Straits Times on 14 September 2022 with the title "Verona Quartet played with pinpoint accuracy".

 

Lovers of chamber music are blessed by the wealth of international string quartets that have performed and conducted residencies at the Conservatory. One can rattle off their names: Takacs, Hagen, Juilliard, Endellion, Shanghai and Jerusalem Quartets. Add the Ohio-based Verona Quartet, quartet-in-residence of Oberlin Conservatory, to that illustrious list.

 

Formed in 2013, the foursome praised for interpretation of contemporary music has a Singaporean, Jonathan Ong, as its first violinist. The other members, second violinist Dorothy Ro (Korean-Canadian), violist Abigail Rojansky (American) and cellist Jonathan Dormand (British), make it one of the most cosmopolitan chamber groups of today.

 

Verona Quartet’s recital, presented by the Conservatory and Shaw Foundation’s Ones To Watch Series, was a showcase of versatility and virtuosity. The most familiar work on the programme, Beethoven’s String Quartet in F major (Op.18 No.1), began the concert. Its unison opening served as a barometer of the foursome’s togetherness, and they did not disappoint. Tautness of ensemble, pin-point accuracy, and a warm sonority all served to make the performance a pleasure.

 

As first violinist, Ong had many of the plum lines and virtuoso turns, and was matched by the other Jonathan’s cello plaints. This was most apparent in the slow second movement in D minor, which sang with the intensity of a sad aria. The rest of the work had a lightness and buoyancy, delivered with the keenest of spirits.

 

In stark contrast, 20^th century Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti’s First String Quartet (1953-54), also entitled Metamorphoses Nocturnes, was an absolute riot of avant-garde sound and colour. Taking several pages from Hungary’s most venerated composer Bela Bartok, the Singapore premiere of this 20-minute continuous canvas of sound exhausted every modernistic device and technique of string playing thought possible.

 

A simple motif of four notes was put through the proverbial wringer, subject to short but wildly disparate variations for which the term metamorphoses was used. Its seventeen linked sections sprung many surprises, including a faux-sentimental waltz, schmaltzy interludes, surprise cadences, all conducted with tongue lodged firmly-in-cheek. Displaying a jaw-dropping degree of adroitness, there was not a dull moment to be had.

 

Not often heard is Dvorak’s sprawling String Quartet No.13 in G major (Op.106), with four movements which play for almost 40 minutes. Composed after his famous American sojourn (where he created his New World Symphony and American Quartet), the music returned to his Bohemian roots, with the creative use of folk melodies and rhythms.  

 

While the opening movement had lighter serenade-like moments, the slow movement breathed with the sighing quality of a lament or Slavic dumka. Memories of his famous Largo (from the New World Symphony) were relived in minutes which expressed longing and regret. The lively skipping Scherzo and the finale’s rustic energy, with a reprise of the first movement motifs, completed a masterly showing.  

 

With all that seriousness behind them, the Verona Quartet offered as an encore Duke Ellington’s Cotton Club Stomp, in all its toe-tapping and foot-stamping gaiety.

DIFFUSION by VERONA QUARTET / Review

DIFFUSION

String Quartets by

JANACEK, SZYMANOWSKI & RAVEL

Verona Quartet

Azica ACD-71339

 

Singaporean violinists have made an impact overseas, the evidence being key positions they hold in international performing groups. One will cite Lee Pan Hon (former leader of the Ulster and Halle Orchestras), Ike See (Adelaide Symphony and Australian Chamber Orchestra), Alan Choo (Apollo’s Fire and Red Dot Baroque) and now Jonathan Ong, who is first violinist of the Verona Quartet, Quartet-in-Residence in Oberlin Conservatory (Ohio).

 

Formed in 2013, the Verona is a truly cosmopolitan outfit, with its other members hailing from Canada (Second violinist Dorothy Ro), USA (Violist Abigail Rojansky) and Great Britain (Cellist Jonathan Dormand). Hailed as a quartet for the 21^st century, the Verona’s debut album Diffusion (recorded 2019) is an excellent showcase of repertoire from the past century. The glory of 20^th century music is its sheer diversity, with harmonic variety telling only part of the story.

 

The music of Czech composer Leos Janacek (1854-1928) is so distinctive that it could not be mistaken for anybody else’s. His Second String Quartet, also called “Intimate Letters” (1928), follows his First Quartet (Kreutzer Sonata) as being the music of anguish. An obsessive (but unrequited) love for a woman many years his junior saw him pour his heart with hundreds of letters in his final year. Filled with plangent harmonies, abruptly violent transitions and bracing climaxes, built over a foundation strongly inflected by Bohemian folk music, the music receives a reading of stunning vividness and refinement, one which poignantly lays bare an inner torment.

Janacek, Szymanowski & Ravel.

 

Just one year separates this from the Second String Quartet (1927) of Polish composer Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937), whose musical idiom is just as unique and personal. Loosely labelled an impressionist, this quartet is anything but, its surface astringency being coloured by folk music from the Tatra mountains of his homeland. Especially ear-catching is its central Scherzo with its mimicry of bellowing guffaws, balanced by the finale’s serious fugal episodes, which eventually gives way to an energetic and emphatic close. A more trenchant performance would be hard to find.

The earliest and most familiar work comes from Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), whose only String Quartet (1903) in F major has just about been played to death. But wait, for here is a sensitive performance that brings out its lyricism and poetry, contrasted by alternating movements of robustness and rude health. Well concealed within the score is its cyclical form; the theme from its opening movement is heard again in different guises in later movements. Considered a Germanic (read Wagnerian) device, it is a surprise coming from this Frenchman. The Verona Quartet never loses track of this and the listener is made well aware of the music’s unity. One might already have favourite recordings of the quartets (especially the Ravel), but this 20^th century combo from the Verona Quartet is rather special. Be sure to hear it.

Verona Quartet performs at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory on Thursday (8 September 2022) at 7.30 pm. Get your tickets here:

Ones to Watch: Verona Quartet Recital Tickets, Thu 8 Sep 2022 at 19:30 | Eventbrite