Confluence Of Human & Nature

Yen Chun-chieh
Victoria Concert Hall
March 9, 7.30pm

Yen Chun-chieh, the Taiwanese pianist who performed at Victoria Concert Hall on March 9, is an impressive artist who is only now coming to the attention of Singaporean audiences.

Despite some minor smudges, he is clearly blessed with a major technique, as evidenced by his last encore, a barnstorming Volodos-Mozart Turkish March that made Volodos’ own recording sound sedate. He also produces a charismatic singing tone that was burnished by the excellent Bechstein piano on which he played.

As an interpreter, Yen wears his heart on his sleeve – a mixed blessing in some of the works on his programme, which may be subtler than he gives them credit for.

Yen’s Chopin came across as a slightly maudlin showman, the duetting thirds and sixths of the Barcarolle seeming to croon rather than to sing – like a canter through the Venetian rather than a gondola ride through Venice.

Similarly, Chopin’s Op. 25 Etudes were occasionally overwhelmed by an excess of expressive confidence, the interweaving vocal lines of the opening Aeolian harp too declamatory to be moving, the cantus firmus of the closing Ocean etude too laboured to be truly majestic.

Yen was at his considerable best in the two aquatic-themed Ravel works which opened the second half – Jeux d’Eau and Ondine (which describes the transfigurations of a sinister water nymph). He seemed more at home in the brilliant detachment of Ravel’s piano writing than in the ardent subtleties of Chopin, conjuring Technicolor arpeggios in Jeux d’Eau and dispatching Ondine’s tendonitis-inducing repeated chords with shimmering ease.

Yen’s lively concluding Carnaval was slightly slapdash but highly enjoyable, its rhapsodic interconnected vignettes playing to his flair for characterisation.

There were some erratic moments. Yen skipped some repeats but not others and, curiously, omitted a large chunk of the section in which the Davidsbundler (Schumann’s imaginary band of creative misfits) conjures a Beethoven theme to vanquish its Philistine antagonists.

Some sections – such as Promenade – suffered from the emotive excesses that marred his Chopin, while Chopin itself (Schumann’s passionate homage to his contemporary) felt rushed and unsettled.

But the bravura passages – the whirling Pause before the final Davidsbundler victory and the staccato figurations of Pantalon Et Colombine – were thrillingly played and Yen sweepingly conveyed the work’s mercurial brilliance.

He capped a rousing, if uneven, recital with four encores, including a beautifully shaped November from Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons – the highlight of the evening for this reviewer.

The audience responded with well-deserved enthusiasm. One hopes Singapore might tempt him back for a second recital in the future.