Having listened to the previous night's programme, the performance of Tcherepnin's Fifth Piano Concerto seemed to invoke less of a surprise as to what was to be expected.

Tcherepnin Piano Concerto No.5 - reviewed by Adrian Tan

Tcherepnin's Piano Concerto No.5 does not seem really like a piano concerto in the conventional sense (like we expect anything conventional by now), as the piano is relegated to creating special effects more than anything else. Noriko Ogawa is extremely technically secure and plays with cold precision. In the few phrases in the second movement which allowed some expressive playing, she did not take the opportunity. The second movement, with its question-and-answer dialogue between the piano and strings is reminiscent of Ives' The Unanswered Question, especially when the subject of the discussion seems to be the uncertain tonality. This movement straddles hymn-like consonance and contrasting modern dissonance. There is a bridge leading into the rondo of the final movement which seemingly stays in a tonal, dance-like 6/8 section but finally, the piano and orchestra combine in two clashing keys (Ives again? Putnam's camp from Three places in New England uses a similar idea). This seems to be Tcherepnin's decision and statement in his stand on atonalism. His, in fact, is a very unique type of atonality which is distinct from Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School that can perhaps be attributed to his 9-tone scale. Not a great concerto, I guess, but interesting nonetheless.

If you ask me, Tcherepnin's works have so far in these concerts evoked the sense of a troubled mind. Noriko Ogawa seemed better prepared this time in the Fifth Concerto, compared to the previous night, where she was in fact assisted with the score. While the piano passages seemed to display a little bit more emotion as compared to the Sixth Concerto, the leeway for the pianist to give in terms of emotional intensity seemed rather minimal, in my opinion.

Tcherepnin's orchestral parts provide much intensity with its use of percussion and dissonant string writing. For Ogawa (right), hearing her a second time only accentuated my feeling that her close association with her Japanese roots, including the music of Toru Takemitsu, helped her significantly. Her understanding of Tcherepnin has some of the atmospheric imagery of Japanese music. Her superb technique, which has brought her much success in her career, was clearly displayed as she ran through chromatics and staccato passages with superfluous ease, never seeming to be unnerved by the difficulty of the music.

The second movement begins in a rather minimalist stance, with notes repeated in and around a single theme. Tcherepnin’s tendency to switch through the oddest combinations of instruments created much dramatic effect as the SSO players took turns to display their varied technique - something which does occur in some piano concertos, but not this often. Noriko Ogawa was attentive to the textual colours of the piece; she managed to produce the heavy shifts in markings from pp to ff were the order of the day.

There was an odd passage that sounded much like an impressionistic Debussyian prelude and it was here that I felt that Noriko Ogawa’s performance was both expressive and articulated with a certain sense of warmth. Nothing seemed overdone or too calculated as she seemed more relaxed on this night as opposed to the previous.

I am now looking forward to purchasing her complete Debussy preludes on the Japanese label Live Notes. Tcherepnin is said to have composed over 200 pieces for solo piano - it would have been nice if Ogawa had played an encore from among them.

Tcherepnin's Symphony No.1 made an impression on me tonight and in my mind, it justifies Shui Lan and the SSO's effort to revive interest in this composer. The Symphony opens "Maestoso", with a fanfare theme from the horns and a second theme appearing quickly in the ostinato-like figure in the strings. I hasten to add that, on first hearing, I could make no head or tail of the symphonic development of the movement. What was obvious was the different tonality and the extremely complex rhythmic demands on the wind players.

The SSO sounded like they were struggling with this all through the movement. Ensemble was generally untidy. The bowing was untidy from the First Violins, as can be observed in some players who seemed to be still learning their parts. (Yes, I'm aware that some sections are played divisi). There were some intonation problems which I hesitated to point out because dissonance being dominant in this music, one can hardly tell whether the out-of-tune notes were intended or not. However, it is the opinion of this reviewer that they were not. All this brings to mind a comment from Pierre Boulez about musicians who perform modern works and try to pull a fast one on the audience since "they can't tell anyway". SSO's apparent bad form tonight worries more especially when we were later told from the podium that what we had just heard constituted the first commercial recording of this piece.

The novel second movement consisted only of non-pitched percussion instruments. The violins were also treated as percussion instruments, "beaten softly with the wood of the bow". The SSO rapped the back board (?) of their violins with their knuckles. A fairly interesting experience, which apparently caused a riot that had to be suppressed by the police when the work was premiered in 1927. Sounds like the reaction to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, though certainly less groundbreaking in retrospect.

The third movement was most interesting for me, as Tcherepnin (left) uses three duets (trumpet-horn, clarinet-timpani, solo violin-double bass) which are combined at the end of the piece in meditation. He seemed to have wanted to explore the sounds created using the extreme ranges of the instruments: an idea that he employed in his Piano Concerto No.5 as well. This is of course, not unique. This combined with many other factors puts Tcherepnin quite high on the list for orchestral writing amongst modern writers, especially in his use of "special effects". The interesting tonality and texture of this movement is perhaps the first stroke of genius I have heard tonight.

The final movement again boasts contrasting dynamics and moods, highlighting the kind of atmospheric writing that Tcherepnin excels in. The notes tell me that he recapitulated some themes in retrograde (backwards) as he did in the first movement. Wow, smart I guess but I didn't hear that from listening so, that gets downgraded to interesting trivia. Or maybe I should subscribe to Kevin Trudeau's Mega Memory system. I think Rachmaninov had more success with this technique in his "Paganini Variations". The SSO brass pulled off their parts well, while the strings continued to be a real letdown.

The symphony ends abruptly and violently, with the conductor and orchestra in a dramatic pose as usual, but I'm not sure if our audience was ready to applaud. They did anyway, and Shui Lan acknowledged this with a speech from the podium about the music and how glad he was that we had not thrown tomatoes, as the 1927 audience had, at the musicians for performing such daring music. I think if we had done that, it would have been for entirely different reasons.

Tcherepnin's "Chinese" symphony means as little to me as Mendelssohn's "Italian", or Grieg's "Japanese Spring"... or even Schweitzer's notorious "Singaporean" (slaughtered here). Nothing. Certainly, writing in certain scales, harmonies or melodic patterns do not constitute the music of a culture but is at best, an impression of the music of the people. Tcherepnin succeeds admirably in conjuring up certain oriental moods in the music but the shuffling in and out of modes seems to make the piece incoherent in many ways.

In all, this is not as great an achievement in symphonic writing as compared to his Symphony No.1 but more of a bid to explore the exotic with a musical language of his own. Then again, this piece is surprisingly tonal and has many hummable tunes - a stark contrast to all we had just heard. The second movement reminded me of Stravinsky's Petrushka because of the rhythms in the opening section as well as the burlesque nature of the music.

This movement ends climatically, literally with a bang that was extremely well done. The SSO played much better in this piece (probably because they've performed it before) and they were several notable sections that Shui Lan (right) built up to a wonderful intensity. Many soloists performed well and notably, for this piece and the First Symphony, the acting principal cellist (Wu He Kun, I believe) played with much gusto. The solo oboe in the third movement delivered a nice solo as well, even if there were a few slips. Shui Lan deserves mention as well for leading the Orchestra through many wonderful build-ups and many soaring melodies that showed sympathy with the music of Tcherepnin.