FAR, FAR, AWAY
Jeremy Chiew, Viola
Adrian Poon, Tenor
& Shane Thio, Piano
Esplanade Recital Studio
Sunday 26 September 2021
REVERIE: NICHOLAS HO IN CONCERT
Nicholas Ho, Piano
Esplanade Recital Studio
Tuesday 28 September 2021
Concert life has begun to take shape again in Singapore, with multiple concerts in different venues springing up quite unexpectedly and often unannounced. Most are solo recitals or chamber concerts, which avoid over-crowding on stage, attended by size-restricted and socially distanced audiences.
Despite rising numbers of Covid cases and fatalities in Singapore, concert venues are still relatively safe havens, having recorded zero outbreaks from concerts all year round. Going to markets, food centres and shopping malls are far riskier propositions. Over the past week, I was treated to two excellent recitals, the variety of repertoire is staggering, representing the wealth of musical talent which exists within our modest island state.
First up was an hour-long vocal-cum-viola recital curated by the combined brains of Sing Song Club and Viva Viola. Both are among Singapore’s best kept secrets, thus the maximum capacity of 50 audience members was not close to being breached. This was also a concert of rarities, such that even Brahms’ two Op.91 songs with viola were not included. Instead, it opened with Benjamin Britten’s realisation of Bach’s Kommt, Seelen, dieser Tag (Come, Celebrate This Morn) with tenor Adrian Poon in his genteel best accompanied by pianist Shane Thio.
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| Photo: Yong Junyi |
This freshness continued into Frank Bridge’s Far, Far From Each Other, with viola obbligato part provided by Jeremy Chiew, arguably Singapore’s most active proselytiser of viola repertoire. This was both hauntingly sad and beautiful, perfectly complementing Bridge’s Two Pieces for viola and piano, contrasts provided by the reflective Pensiero and self-explanatory Allegro Appassionato which closed the set on a rapturous high.
The programming with pairs of works for voice and viola was excellently thought out. Whoever dreamt of coupling Arthur Honegger’s rather substantial three-movement Viola Sonata and short Psalm No.138 deserves a prize. The Sonata traversed from a highly chromatic and dissonant opening to something far more agreeable before finishing with a Franckian flourish. Simply a journey from utter bleakness to life-affirming sunshine, with the brief sung psalm (I will praise you Lord, with all my heart) in French as the sweet icing on the cake.
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| Photo: Yong Junyi |
Has anybody has heard of Benjamin Dale (1885-1943)? The English composer was a contemporary of York Bowen and composed in a similar tuneful neo-Romantic style. Come Away, Death is a soothing salve in the best English pastoral tradition, with the obbligato viola part adding to its poignancy. The Romance from Dale’s Viola Suite in D minor Op.2 (1906) is far more ambitious than its title suggests, sounding more like a rhapsodic tone poem. The tenderness of its first pages gave way to a more lively central episode before ending with the same deeply felt emotions as it began.
To close the evening in a pleasingly symmetrical manner, Jeremy polished off the Courante from J.S.Bach’s Cello Suite No.4. Striking three lotteries with a single ticket, lovers of unjustly neglected rarities, fine singing and viola playing have been well-served.
The young pianist Nicholas Ho has progressed from a self-conscious teenaged hotshot to a bona fide virtuoso with uncommon talents, as evident in his latest recital. Its title Reverie only applied to the first piece, Chopin’s Nocturne in C minor (Op.48 No.1), which was dark and smouldering, exploring the mysterious and tempestuous nature of night.
He amply brought out its brooding qualities, before launching headlong into Schumann’s Fantasie in C major (Op.17), with its full flush of hot-blooded romanticism worn heart-on-sleeve. He is unafraid to relive the early Romantic excesses to greatest advantage, yet also wallow in moments of tenderness and vulnerability, as in the quote of Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte near the end of the first movement. The second movement’s imperious march took no prisoners, and even if there were a couple of slips at its treacherous final two pages, these came at the extreme heat of the moment. One would not have it any other way. A pianist’s maturity is revealed in the slow Beethovenian final movement, and he did so by teasing out inner voices, plumbing the depths and building up to impressive climaxes. A more satisfying performance would be hard to find.
For the recital’s second half, one can only quote Monty Python, “And for something completely different”. Dutch minimalist Jacob ter Veldhuis’ Body of Your Dreams has cult status for its hilarious spoof on 20th century American vanity and consumerism. Ho essentially accompanies a looped soundtrack (played on boombox) of the Abdominiser infomercial, with quotes like “that cellulite and flabbiness... how can you beat it?”, “oh wow, that’s incredible!”, “3000 muscle contractions” and “and its so easy!” peppering the score like obsessive earworms. Once heard, it cannot be unheard. This performance centred on the piano part in the expense of the soundtrack, a pity since the actual punchlines were in its words.
To close the recital was the World Premiere of the first six of Nicholas Ho’s Twelve Etudes Op.11, composed during the troubled months of the Covid pandemic. Each of these finger-twisters were dedicated to his mentors and teachers, including Tedd Joselson, Tan Chan Boon, Edward Auer and others. To say that a transcendental technique is required to perform these is itself an understatement. The first, written for Joselson, reminds one of the Chopin first etude (Op.10 No.1) with its firm tonal centres established by left hand pedal points. The second, for Tan, was written for left hand alone, but exceeds the difficulty of both Scriabin and Corigliano’s south paw wonders.
Nicholas’ playing is mercurial yet emphatic, exhibiting a light touch in running-flying passages, and applying necessary force in chordal segments when called far. The colours on his palette seem almost infinite. Having enjoyed these six etudes with score in hand, I can proudly proclaim that Singapore has found a set of piano etudes worthy to be mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Debussy, Ligeti and Marc-André Hamelin. Handphones off, a genius!
