PABLO FERRANDEZ & ZEE ZEE:
THE FUTURE OF CLASSICAL MUSIC
Victoria Concert Hall
Tuesday (18 March 2025)
This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 March 2025 with the title "Young musicians Pablo Ferrandez and Zee Zee make worthy debut as duo".
When young musicians with loads of competition prizes behind them are described as “the future of classical music”, a healthy dose of scepticism is to be expected. After all, what is new in classical music that has not already been said? What novel insights can be offered in standard repertoire works?
With that in mind, Spanish cellist Pablo Ferrandez and Chinese pianist Zee Zee (a name she presumes to be easier to remember than Zhang Zuo) made their Singapore debut as a duo in a programme of Romantic music.
German composer Max Bruch’s Kol Nidrei was an unusual but good choice to begin. This was the musical representation of the All Vows prayer recited in the Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) synagogue service. Although Bruch was not Jewish himself, he was able to create a spell of contrition and reflection that a cantor might have, which Ferrandez milked to the max.
He has an outsized tone and a wide vibrato that could be described as breathtaking, which made this plaint all the more believable as it transcended from the darkness of minor key to a radiant major key as the music progressed.
His sole voice also memorably opened Ludwig van Beethoven’s Cello Sonata No.3 in A major (Op.69) before Zuo’s entry. Here, cello and piano are treated as equal partners, both instruments being key in exposition while trading blows in the music’s perpetual cut and thrust.
The ensemble established between cellist and pianist was tautly knit, nowhere more in the Scherzo’s tricky syncopations where jostling to getting their voice in was part of the gruff German composer’s inimitable kind of humour.
Passion was on full flow for the finale which exhibited the joy that comes with the overcoming of adversity. One’s memory goes back to 1992, where in the same hall the teacher of Ferrandez’s teachers, one Mstislav Rostropovich (the great Russian cellist, with pianist Lambert Orkis) ruled with this sonata. With the commanding performance this evening, the torch had been successfully passed to Ferrandez and Zuo.
The second half opened with Sergei Rachmaninov’s Vocalise (Op.34 No.14), where the wordless song was gorgeously shaped by Ferrandez, aided by Zuo’s sensitive pianism. It made the perfect prelude to Johannes Brahms’s Cello Sonata No.1 (Op.38) in the same key of E minor.
Brahms was the spiritual successor of Beethoven, so this tandem of major sonatas made logical sense. Brahms’ Romanticism was, however, a more sublimated kind, less heart-on-sleeve but no less impactful. One could just feel in the bones. The more subtle humour of the central movement with its dreamy interlude gave way to the finale’s fugal onslaught, where outright virtuosity from both musicians drove to a compelling conclusion.
The duo’s encores were two lovely songs without words, Robert Schumann’s Du bist wie ein Blume (You are like a Flower) and Gabriel Faure’s Apres un reve (After a Dream), more music that could melt the stoniest of hearts.
All photography by Yong Junyi.
