VCHpresents Organ: With Strings Attached

WITH STRINGS ATTACHED

9 DEC 2020 Premieres at 12.30pm on the VCHpresents Facebook page SPONSORED BY

PROGRAMME MENDELSSOHN Andante with Variations in D major

5 mins

Koh Jia Hwei, organ RHEINBERGER Suite for Organ, Violin and Cello, Op. 149 I. Con moto II. Theme mit Veränderungen III. Sarabande IV. Finale Koh Jia Hwei, organ Lee Shi Mei, violin Lin Juan, cello

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35 mins

KOH JIA HWEI ORGAN Jia Hwei started learning the organ in 2013 with Dr. Evelyn Lim. She continued her studies with Susan Landale and Gerard Brooks at the Royal Academy of Music in London (UK), where she was the recipient of the Joyce Rhoda Danzelman Award, Eric Windo Organ Award, and Stephen Bicknell Organology Prize. During her graduate studies in London, she was organ and choral scholar at St. Michael’s and All Angels in Croydon, and organist at St. Mary’s in Acton. She was awarded her Masters in performance in 2019.

Originally, Jia Hwei majored in piano at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester (UK), where her tutors were Jeremy Young and Carole Presland.

She graduated with her Bachelors, and subsequently Masters of Music in 2003.

She won a number of awards during her studies at the RNCM, including the Rawsthorne Prize, the Bach Recital Prize, and the Prix Scarbo.

Jia Hwei is now based in Singapore, and performs regularly for the VCHpresents Organ Series.

In October 2019, she was featured as piano soloist with re:Sound. In December 2020, she will be performing at the Esplanade Concert Hall, on organ, with Teng Xiang Ting (soprano), as part of the Munch! Lunchtime Concert Series. A review in the Straits Times lauded her “beautifully poised organ playing” and “compelling artistry”.

LEE SHI MEI VIOLIN

LIN JUAN CELLO

Second Prize winner of the National Piano and Violin Competition 2007 (Violin Artist Category), Lee Shi Mei performs regularly with pianist Lim Yan. She has appeared as soloist with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, and as guest concertmaster of Metropolitan Festival Orchestra and ReSound Collective. Shi Mei holds a Master of Music with Distinction (Longy School of Music, USA) and Bachelor of Music in Violin and Piano Performance (Oberlin Conservatory of Music, USA).

She is recipient of the National Arts Council Arts Bursary (2007, 20092011). Shi Mei teaches violin at School of the Arts Singapore and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.

A graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music, UK (Bachelor and Master degrees in cello performance) and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (Specialist Diploma in Orchestral Conducting), Juan is a regular freelance cellist with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, and Principal Cellist with the Singapore Lyric Opera Orchestra and The Philharmonic Orchestra. Relishing chamber music, he appears regularly with established Singaporean and international musicians. An adjunct faculty member at NAFA, Juan is also active as a conductor with the Singapore National Youth Orchestra (Associate Conductor), The Philharmonic Orchestra (Resident Conductor) and Raffles Institution String Ensemble (Music Director).

PROGRAMME NOTES FELIX MENDELSSOHN Andante and Variations in D major The period between 1844-1845 was an intensely prolific one for Mendelssohn – producing major works such as his second Violin Concerto (Op. 64 in E minor) and his Six Organ Sonatas (Op. 65). Amongst the organ music written during this time is this standalone piece without an opus number, his Andante and Variations in D, which was composed on 23rd July 1844. However, it was only published posthumously in 1898.

One finds similarities between this piece and the first movement of his Organ Sonata No. 6 (which is in a similar key, too – in D minor): both are a set of four linked variations, flanked by a chorale. In the case of the latter, it begins and ends with the Lutheran hymn Vater unser im Himmelreich (a strophic, chorale version of the Lord’s Prayer). In the Andante and Variations in D, the theme is a placid, meditative hymn, which similarly returns as a coda.

Mendelssohn attempted to re-work this piece, going so far as the first variation, but ultimately left it as an unfinished fragment.

JOSEF GABRIEL RHEINBERGER Suite for Organ, Violin and Cello, Op. 149 I. Con moto II. Thema mit Veränderungen III. Sarabande IV. Finale Rheinberger is widely-regarded as “musical son” of German-speaking microstate Lichtenstein. He was born in its capital, Vaduz, and was a composer and virtuoso organist by the time he was seven years old.

He studied at Munich Conservatory, where he took up a teaching post aged merely nineteen, and later became a respected professor of piano, organ and composition there, for the rest of his life.

As a composer, Rheinberger’s stylistic roots were traditional - firmly planted in the classical tradition, whilst also showing rich Romantic influences from his contemporaries, such as Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schubert and Schumann.

Rheinberger wrote for most of the main genres of the day - including two operas, fourteen masses, two symphonies, and a piano concerto.

However, he is better-known today amongst organists for his organ compositions, which include an almost well-tempered cycle of twenty organ sonatas, in as many different keys.

The Suite Op. 149 was written for violin, cello and organ, in the key of C minor. Here, Rheinberger takes the conventional piano trio, and replaces the piano with organ.

It was written between 1887-1889 at the request of the French organist Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911), to whom Rheinberger dedicated his 9th Organ Sonata (Op. 142).

A version exists with an optional string orchestra – placing it closer in dimension to Rheinberger’s two organ concertos (Op. 137 and 177).

The third is a minuet and trio – except that a Sarabande takes the place of the minuet.

In the last movement, the interplay between the instruments is reminiscent of a concerto grosso: the organ takes on an almost orchestral role, playing a toccata-like ritornello.

This is interspersed with a hymnlike chorale, and concludes with a cadenza.

Notes by Koh Jia Hwei

However, an early edition indicates a pedal harmonium as an option, in place of the organ, which suggests a smaller-scale chamber style. Similar chamber works were written during this same period, such as his Six Pieces (for violin and organ) Op. 150; and the Suite in C minor Op. 166, which was written slightly later between 1889-1890, and scored for violin, and either piano or organ.

This Suite is in four movements, and combines elements of neo-Baroque and neo-Classical styles, although its harmonies and melodies are richly Romantic. The first movement is in traditional sonata form. The second is a set of seven linked variations with a lyrical Schubertian theme.

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