SSO Chamber Series: Four Seasons

23 APr 2017 | sUN

SSO Chamber Series: FOUR SEASONS Masato Suzuki, piano Musicians of the SSO Yang Zheng Yi, artistic administrator

PIAZZOLLA Oblivion for Piano Trio 4’00 Four Seasons for Piano Trio 25’00 Zhang Si Jing, violin Wang Zihao, cello

Intermission 20’00

BRAHMS Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, Op. 60 35’00 Zhang Si Jing, violin Gu Bing Jie, viola Peter Wilson, cello

MASATO SUZUKI piano A multifaceted musician, Masato Suzuki appears on the concert platform in the capacity of conductor, organist, harpsichordist and composer.

As a conductor, Masato Suzuki works with many orchestras in Japan and has held the position of Principal Conductor with the Yokohama Sinfonietta from 2013 to 2015. With his wide-ranging repertoire, Suzuki debuts this season with Ensemble Kanazawa, the Sendai Philharmonic and Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestras and will also make return visits to the Hiroshima Symphony and Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestras. In his role as Music Director of Ensemble Genesis, he presents programmes of Baroque and contemporary music in imaginative combinations.

As organist and harpsichordist, Suzuki’s relationship with Bach Collegium Japan has taken him to major concert venues and festivals across Europe and the USA, and next season he makes his official subscription series debut as conductor with the ensemble. His other festival appearances include the Chofu Music Festival, Musikfest Bremen and the Musica Antiqua Festival in Bruges.

Suzuki is represented on the BIS label by his numerous recordings with Bach Collegium Japan. He participated as organist in the recording of Schütz’s Musicalische Exequien with Vox Luminis for the Ricercar label which was awarded the Gramophone Magazine Recording of the Year in 2012. Suzuki’s composition portfolio includes works for both instrumental ensembles and choir; his work is published by Schott Japan. His reconstruction of lost movements of J.S. Bach’s Cantata BWV190 (Carus) and his completion and revision of Mozart’s Requiem have been highly praised.

Now based in the Netherlands, Masato Suzuki studied Composition and Early Music at the Tokyo University for Fine Arts and Music before studying Organ and Improvisation at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague.

ZHANG SI JING violin Zhang Si Jing started her violin studies in Shanghai at the age of 5 before she moved to Japan. After graduating from the Tokyo National University of Music and Arts, she furthered her violin studies at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) in the UK, where she excelled in her studies and won several prizes, including the prestigious Paganini Prize and the Dianne Bolton Prize.

She was also a recipient of the Norman George Violin Scholarship and Haden Freeman Bursary. Zhang has performed with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, Manchester Camerata, Opera North Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra and Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2007 Zhang joined the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. She is grateful to her violin mentors Shouyi Yuan, Noriko Kitagaki, Yoko Seto, Takaya Urakawa, Teiko Maehashi and Yuri Torchinsky. She has found joy not just through her numerous collaborations with renowned conductors and musicians but also in her passion educating young musicians. She strongly believes that passing her skills and knowledge to younger generations is one of the most important missions as an accomplished violinist. Zhang plays on the Santo Seraphin 1745 from the Rin Collection.

GU BING JIE viola Gu Bing Jie is currently the Fixed Chair Violist with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. She has toured all over the world performing in the most prestigious concert halls including Berlin’s Philharmonie Hall, London’s Royal Festival Hall, Munich’s Herkulessaal, Beijing’s National Centre for Performing Arts, Shanghai Oriental Concert Hall, and the Esplanade Concert Hall and Victoria Concert Hall in Singapore where the SSO is based. A graduate of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music under Zhang Manchin, Gu Bing Jie was awarded Second Prize at the YST Concerto Competition. In June 2015, she was invited to join London’s Philharmonia Orchestra for an Asian tour under Russian conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy. Gu plays on a viola by Luigi Santamaria, Rome 1948, generously on loan from the Rin Collection.

WANG ZIHAO cello Born in Jilin, China, Wang Zihao started to play the cello at the age of four. At 13 he was admitted to the middle school of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, China, where he studied with Na Mula. With his outstanding accomplishments, he won the outstanding professional award at the conservatory.

Wang was Principal Cellist of the China Youth Symphony Orchestra. For three consecutive years, he was admitted to the Morningside Music Bridge International Academy in Canada, where he won the First Prize in the Concerto Competition and Etude Competition with a published CD recording. As a result he was invited to perform with the Symphony Orchestra of Gdańsk in Poland.

Wang recently graduated from Singapore’s Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music where he studied under Qin Li-Wei and won the First Prize of the Concerto Competition. He plays on an 1896 Muller Joseph on generous loan from the Rin Collection.

PETER WILSON cello English cellist Peter Wilson is a graduate of the Royal College of Music (RCM) in London, where he received lessons from Alexander Baillie, Leonid Gorokhov and Anna Shuttleworth.

During his time at the RCM, Peter won the Anna Shuttleworth Competition for unaccompanied cello and was presented with the Leo Stern Award. He has played in masterclasses with William Pleeth and Steven Isserlis.

Prior to joining the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Peter has worked with many orchestras in Britain and overseas. Most recently, he has worked with the RTÉ (Raidió Teilifís Éireann) National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and the Longborough Festival Opera Orchestra. Peter has a diverse range of performing experience, performing regularly with the Royal Shakespeare Company on productions in Stratford-Upon-Avon, and also recording solo cello for radio, film and television. Peter’s solo cello can be heard on Academy award-winning film score composer Steven Price’s BBC documentary ‘The Hunt’.

ASTOR PIAZZOLLA (1921–1992)

Oblivion for Piano Trio 4’00 Before the recent renaissance of South American music championed by the charismatic graduates of Venezuela’s El Sistema, Piazzolla was but one of a handful of South American composers who achieved international fame and recognition.

Astor Piazzolla made his name as a bandleader, playing the bandoneon (an Argentinian instrument similar to an accordion and primarily used in dance bands) while studying composition with Ginastera. In 1954, he went to Paris to study composition with Nadia Boulanger, who also taught a remarkably diverse set of leading 20th-century musicians, from Aaron Copland and Elliot Carter to Daniel Barenboim, Philip Glass and even Quincy Jones. She diverted Piazzolla’s attention away from composing symphonies and towards the music of his homeland, the Tango.

Within three years, Piazzolla had conceptualised and started the development of his Tango Nuevo (New Tango) – edgy dissonances and European-influenced counterpoint mixed with expansive melodies and salon-jazz harmonies, all layered over variations on the traditional tango dance rhythm.

Piazzolla wrote the music for Mario Bellochio’s film, Enrico IV. Based on 20thcentury Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello’s play of the same name, it centres on a man who believes himself to be Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor. Recalling the Argentine milonga – a fast habanera which later developed into the Tango – Oblivion is a wistful and melancholy dance, and has taken on a life outside of the film to become one of Piazzolla’s most popular works.

ASTOR PIAZZOLLA

Four Seasons for Piano Trio 25’00 After touring Brazil and the United States, Piazzolla and his quintet (made up of piano, bandoneon, violin, electric guitar, and bass) were to record original music for an upcoming production of the play, Melenita de oro (”Hair of Gold“).

Having forgotten about the project entirely, Piazzolla wrote the music overnight.

One of the movements, Verano porteño (“Buenos Aires Summer” – in Argentine usage, the adjective porteño refers to Buenos Aires), became very popular as a standalone piece. Over the next five years, Piazzolla wrote three more “Seasons”, and his quintet performed the complete Cuatro estaciones porteñas (The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires) at a sold-out concert in May 1970.

While it is most commonly performed as Leonid Desyatnikov’s virtuosic version for solo violin and string orchestra today, the chameleon-like qualities of Piazzolla’s composition allow the Four Seasons to be performed in a wide variety of different instrumental combinations, such as today’s piano trio.

The Argentinean Primavera Porteña (Spring) is certainly a spiky affair, with the string instruments sweeping and seemingly improvising over a strong tango rhythmic ostinato. A more subdued section anticipates the coda of Winter, before the music is rejuvenated, exulting in the return of Spring.

Verano Porteño (Summer) growls in the bass, hinting at the beginnings of a dance, before moving into expansive sentimentality. The momentum then really gathers and the tango kicks into full gear. After a brief siesta, a more maudlin reading of the tango brings us to the end of Summer.

The piano picks up where Summer left off, mulling over a dance rhythm before the string instruments join it in Otoño Porteño (Autumn). The cello soon takes centre stage with a cadenza leading into a smoky, sultry passage. The violin then takes its turn with an improvisatory passage which recalls the cello’s song, before Autumn picks up energy, carrying us to a somewhat abrupt end.

The string instruments sing a melancholic, longing song, and the tango kicks in with driving rhythms in Invierno Porteño (Winter), before the piano’s brief cadenza brings us to its sentimental reprise of the opening lament. It is all brushed away with a spiky and edgy rhythmic section which alternates with the song – this time, transformed into an anguished emotional outburst. A short homage to Vivaldi’s Winter wraps Piazzolla’s Winter up snugly by the fireplace.

JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833–1897)

Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, Op. 60 35’00 1. Allegro non troppo 2. Scherzo: Allegro 3. Andante 4. Finale: Allegro comodo Brahms wrote three Piano Quartets, with the first and most famous quartet (composed in 1861) subsequently orchestrated into a virtuoso orchestra showpiece by Arnold Schoenberg. Brahms started composing what became known as his third piano quartet in 1855, but did not complete it until twenty years later. Starting out as a three-movement piano quartet in C-sharp minor, the young Brahms sketched this during a difficult time. His mentor and friend, Robert Schumann, had been confined to a mental asylum, and Brahms tried his best to support Robert’s wife, Clara, and their children, while also harbouring unrequited feelings for her. He later described this unfinished C-sharp minor quartet to his first biographer, Hermann Dieters, saying, “Imagine a man who is just going to shoot himself, for there is nothing else to do” – an allusion to the suicidal tendencies of Goethe’s Werther. He did not forget this initial impulse, also writing many years later, “On the cover you must have a picture, namely a head with a pistol to it. Now you can form some conception of the music! I’ll send you my photograph for the purpose”.

Brahms revisited this score twenty years later. He transposed it down to C minor, condensed the original three movements into two, rewrote some sections extensively, and added the Andante and Finale.

The Allegro non troppo opens tumultuously, with strings seemingly evoking “Clara”, before quoting a transposed version of Robert Schumann’s personal “Clara” motif. The stormy mood transitions into a lyrical second subject which is immediately varied four times. The development furiously sweeps by before the group of variations (now extended) brings us into a harsh coda that finally sinks, exhausted.

Racing triplets underpin the Scherzo, and the piano takes the lead here, driving the movement to an abrupt yet forceful and defiant ending. This contrasts with the gentle Andante, an altogether friendlier movement, with warm and singing tones re-evoking the “Clara� motif of the first movement. One of Brahms’ most beautiful moments is in the recapitulation of this movement, where the opening cello melody re-emerges in the piano, accompanied by string pizzicatos.

A significant violin solo opens the Finale. A restless undercurrent in the piano underpins the uneasy atmosphere. A contrasting chorale for the strings is introduced, with piano interjecting cynically. An ethereal development sets up a more intense recapitulation, with spirited exchanges between the piano and strings. The momentum dissipates as the quartet exhausts itself, recalling the dark storm of the opening, before a final cadence brusquely brings the Finale to an end.

Programme notes by Christopher Cheong

VCH Presents Angela Hewitt 4 May 2017, Thu, 7.30pm VICTORIA CONCERT HALL

Acclaimed pianist Angela Hewitt, best known for her Bach interpretations, showcases her prowess in Bach’s Partita No. 1 and 4, among the last of his keyboard suites to be composed. The programme also includes Ravel’s Sonatine and Emmanuel Chabrier’s Bourrée fantasque, cited as “one of the most exciting and original works in the whole literature of French piano music”.

The VCH Presents series showcases some of the finest musicians through diverse programmes which transcend boundaries.

J.S. BACH

Partita No. 1 in B-flat major, BWV 825

J.S. BACH

Partita No. 4 in D major, BWV 828

SCARLATTI

Sonatas K.491, K.492, K.377, K.380 and K.24

RAVEL

Sonatine

CHABRIER

Bourrée fantasque