Not too long ago, we were bemoaning a conspicuous lack of classical chamber performances in Singapore. The Singapore Symphony Orchestra's efforts in this respect - interspersing three chamber concerts over a full season - is a laudatory step, albeit their focus still remains with orchestral repertoire.

But things are looking up, all of a sudden, as we find - in as many days - three chamber concerts on successive nights. Beginning with this NAFA Commuter Concert on Monday, followed by the NAFA Arts Festival's Songs Without Words on Tuesday , and then the T'ang Quartet on Wednesday. A sharp-minded person might also notice the world premiere of two works within four days: Wang Cheng Quan's The Peony on Tuesday and Leong Yoon Pin's Gegentala on Friday.

All in all, it should have been quite an exciting week (musically speaking) if the general concert-going community - not a big number, to begin with - could have shown more interest. Take this concert, for instance: a fairly enterprising programme, but somehow it failed to receive the quantity of audience it should have, the diminuitive performance space of the NAFA Recital Room notwithstanding.

It appears, from its very name, that the objective of the Commuter Concert is to attract a rush-hour crowd; in essence, to persuade busy working people to delay their homeward journey to catch fifty minutes of great music while missing the rush-hour jam, and still get home reasonably in time for dinner. The big task of connecting to a largely apathetic audience remains to be seen, but at least the idea, in theory, is the right one.

Those who did turn up were not disappointed. Mr Lefohn is the William Evans Executant Lecturer (whatever that is) in Violin and Viola at Otago, more recently also touring as a juror and examiner for the Australian Music Examinations Board. In this recital, he was accompanied by Ms Sutini Goh on piano, a diploma student of the Academy.

Beginning with Kreisler's Variations on a Theme by Corelli, the dryness of the Recital Room's heavily-padded acoustic was unmissably distinct. All the more, the tightly-focussed sound accentuated what we have previously described as the "need to warm up" syndrome. Starting "cold", both the violin and piano made unforced errors, especially intonation on the violin and slips on the piano.

Lefohn also appeared to rush the tempo a bit in the spiccato of the first variation, which the piano duly followed. Nonetheless, the violinist's double-stops in the second variation were very nicely drawn, and most of the careless slips were all but gone by the end of the first ten minutes.

 

Joseph Achron "Never a Child" Joseph Achron received his violin at the age of five, and made his first public appearance in Warsaw two years later. This was the start of a virtuoso career which would take him to all the cities of the Russian Empire: at eleven, he was invited to play at the birthday of Grand Duke Michael (the brother of the Tsar). So taken with the young man was the Tsar's mother that she presented the wunderkind with a gold watch. The newspaper commented, on the same concert, that "...it would be degrading to call him a chlid prodigy - a prodigy of virtuosity he certainly is, but never a child." In 1899, he entered the St Petersburg Conservatory, learning from the founder and teacher of the Russian School of violin, Leopold Auer. By all accounts, Auer was more than impressed with the prodigy. The scholar Michail Bichter reports that, "Once, when Achron was playing, (Auer) cried out: Oh, the devil take you ! How well do you play !" Joseph Achron wrote the Hebrew Melody in 1911, the same year he joined the St Petersburg Society of Jewish Folk Music. The work was premiered at a celebration held by an aide to the Tsar - for the encore, Achron decided to give his new music a try after the regular programme had been played. This piece, of course, has gone on into immortality after Heifetz's performances popularized the work, and Achron, along with his peers Saminsky, Weprik and Engel, later became known as one of the founders of the New Jewish School of composition.

Like Kreisler, Heifetz was another violin virtuoso who indulged in flamboyant and showy arrangements of popular themes for his instrument. For Joseph Achron's well-known Hebrew Melody, based on a Hasidic melody and popularized by Heifetz in his own arrangement, Lefohn conjured a doleful lamentation on the low string. Ms Goh accompanied with characterful pianistic colourations. A heartfelt and deeply-rendition ensued; however, a pity that, in the close acoustics of the room, the piano had a tendency to be a bit too forte against the violin.

After a brief interval - about the time it took for the performers to walk to the back of the room, kill two seconds, and walk back to the stage - the programme resumed with the Grieg Violin Sonata. By now all the nervy opening was gone. Lefohn playing with much aplomb and Ms Goh in close support.

Even if the piano-violin ensemble was a bit wayward in some of the more technical passages with syncopation, technically the goods were all there: Lefohn found the right blend of legato and inflection, and phrasing was exquisite. One just gets a feeling that perhaps any sense of disjointedness merely came from a lack of the "working together" rapport that, of course, seasoned chamber players build up together over time.

The Allegretto Espressivo alla Romanca movement itself was emotionally voluble; alas, but for the plucked chords which were totally obliterated by the dampening acoustic. The closing movement saw the best ensemble of the evening, although the piano, in driving the pulse forward, bordered on rhythmic distortion at times. However, the lyrical quality of the music-making was not missing, and one senses that Lefohn has more than just a passing familiarity with this work.

Rounding off the programme were another two arrangements by Heifetz, this time two songs, My Man's Gone Now and It Ain't Necessarily So, from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. As one might expect, it was full of bravura effects and techniques to show off the skill of the player. Lefohn's abilities as a barnstorming violin exponent were never in doubt, not with Heifetz's show-offy figurations which he negotiated with some intensity and spirit.

Still, Lefohn and Ms Goh demonstrated some nice turns of tempo, alternately taking the lead as the music dictated, and Lefohn again took the opportunity to show his stuff. For the encore - yes, there was one - they performed a Heifetz transcription of the Debussy song Beau soir. A curious choice, to be sure, and again the piano was guilty of rushing the tempo, but otherwise, a most interesting and thoughtful way to round off the evening.

BENJAMIN CHEE had to commute across half the island to attend this concert.

If you wish to Add a Comment to this review, please post your comments to classical@inkpot.com.

Last Concert Reviewed | Next Concert Reviewed

Return to the Classical Index!... or Visit the Inkvault archives!

All original texts are copyrighted. Please seek permission from the Classical Editor
if you wish to reproduce/quote Inkpot material.