MOVING HANDS,
OVERFLOWING
HEARTS
The Inspiring Trio
Esplanade Recital Studio
Friday (5 January 2018 )
If you wish to get a glimpse of
the future of piano playing in Singapore ,
you could do worse than to attend a concert by students of Singapore ’s
most effective and inspiring piano teachers. The School
of Young Talents Singapore ’s
east coast district founded by Winnie Tay and Angelyn Aw) has much to offer as
well. If one considers that the likes of
Azariah Tan and Clarence Lee (Winnie’s former prodigies) and Serene Koh
(Angelyn’s star pupil) arose from their respective studios, performance of
their current students will need to be taken seriously.
This concert by The Inspiring
Trio – Chen Jing, Toby Tan and Jessie Meng - three students of Winnie Tay, in
support of The Business Times Budding Artist Fund may have important
implications for the future. Dr Andrew Freris, President of the Chopin Society
of Hong Kong, once referred to child prodigies as “real artists who happen to
be really young”. Hence there is evidence that something serious and exciting
is going on in those studios.
Chen Jing (8 years old)
was the first to perform. Close your eyes, and you would not imagine Brahms’
Intermezzo in A major (Op.118 No.2), late Brahms to be certain, being
played by someone this young. Her warm, cushioned sound was a balm to the ears,
and she was also able to bring out the inner voice of the swifter central
section. In two of Chopin’s waltzes (Op.64 No.2 and Op.18), an innate feel of rubato
was evident, allied by a silken touch and limpid fingerwork. This was an
excellent opener to the recital.
Toby Tan (9 years old, but
almost a head shorter) put his prodigious fingers to work in Debussy’s Arabesque
No.1, Chopin’s posthumous Nocturne in C sharp minor and Schubert’s
vertiginous Impromptu in E flat major (Op.90 No.2). The repetitive
nature of the last seemed a tad unrelenting, and the reading could do with more
charm. However there were no reservations in Toby’s original composition Sorrow
of Love, a pop and New Age influenced piece which showed development of
ideas, culminating with a stormy central interlude with a short cadenza to
boot.
Jessie Meng (10 years old)
was recently awarded 1st prize at the Singapore National Piano &
Violin Competition (Intermediate category), and her performances showed exactly
why. I cannot imagine Balakirev’s transcription of Glinka’s The Lark
being played any better. Her shaping of its melancholic melody, colouring of
the accompaniment, capped by virtuosic ornamentations made this a dream
performance. Her view of Chopin’s Scherzo No.2, a new work for her, was
less formed. There were wrong and missed notes for sure, but there was no
denying her passion.
And that was only the first half
(entitled The Affectionate). The second half programme, The
Exhilaration, saw changes in outfits for all three pianists. Chen Jing
emerged to have a heartfelt account of the 1st movement Mozart’s
Sonata in F major (K.332). At once, the realisation that she does not play to
the metronome but breathes the music with all its myriad dynamic changes showed
she is a thinking artist. What was there not to like in a selection from
Shostakovich Dances of the Dolls (innocence, irony and droll humour are
not alien to her) and the note-spinning of Wang Yu Shi’s Sunflower?
Toby Tan, now attired in a
three-piece suit and spiffy hat, looks the born entertainer in his playing of
Astor Piazzolla’s Street Tango, Gershwin’s Prelude No.1 and I
Got Rhythm. In all of these, he displays an assurance, swing and pizzazz
which adults would be envious of. This was topped by Fazil Say’s Alla Turca
Jazz, a ragtime version of Mozart’s popular rondo, which was a charmer
through and through.
Jessie Meng returned with
the meat of her programme, which began with the 1st movement of
Mozart’s Sonata in C major (K.330). This was a very assured reading, and it got
even better with the 1st movement of Dmitri Kabalevsky’s Sonata
No.3, a work once championed by Vladimir Horowitz. She took its alternating
dissonances and lyricism in her stride, which all but suggests that she is
ready to tackle the early Prokofiev sonatas. The barnstorming ended with the
tempestuous final movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.
The Inspiring Trio, as the
threesome is called, gave an encore composed by Toby Tan called Magical
Music Box. It was not so much a tinkling musical box miniature but more of
a rumbling and punchy barn dance with musical boxing along the way – very
entertaining and a surefire way to close the concert proper.
This concert was in aid of The
Business Times Budding Arts Fund, and one of its previous beneficiaries, a
vocal group called Harmonix formed by four rather self-conscious teenagers,
performed two pop songs Don’t Stop Believing and You Raise Me Up.
They were more of an incidental side show in an evening dominated by three
quite incredible children.
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