REVIEWS
DUO ENHARMONICS Piano Duo – a Blockbuster of a Concert!
By Peter Mechen
A quick look at Middle C on my part brought forth some previous “other” enthusiastic opinions regarding the music-making of Duo Enharmonics, made up of the piano duo of Nicole Chao and Beth Chen (formed in 2017, and whose names are here alphabetically ordered) – to my surprise, I hadn’t actually heard them play before, perhaps confusing my somewhat over-vicarious enjoyment of the reviews of their performances by my colleague Steven Sedley with the “real thing”, and especially in the case of a concert featuring a presentation for four hands of Ravel’s “La Valse”, along with the Mozart Sonata we heard today. The memory is obviously not what it was…..
Matters of familiarity with the pair’s playing were put right for me with a vengeance today – I confess the concert’s main drawcard was hearing the Stravinsky work performed on a single piano four-hands! – how, I had asked myself when looking at the concert programme a few days before, could that be of anything but academic interest? Of course I should have consulted the Middle C record earlier and been reminded of the duo’s performance of “La Valse” (another piece I would have thought well-nigh impossible to bring off satisfactorily, before reading my colleague’s enthusiastic review….)
By way of preparing for the music’s onslaught in this particular form (I’ve known – and gradually gotten to love – the original orchestral score of “Le Sacre du Printemps” (The Rite of Spring) ever since my first open-mouthed teenaged encounter with the work on record in the 1960s), I thought I’d find an existing performance for piano duo on You Tube beforehand, to simply get an idea of how it would all translate in pianistic terms. What surprised me on doing so was the extent to which the music suddenly sounded more “harmonic” than I’d ever previously heard, the music’s harmonic tones and colours for once vying with the piece’s rhythms for my ear’s attentions! It made me look forward all the more to what Chao and Chen would do with this iconic score.
However, there was a concert’s-worth of other music to be got through beforehand (I use the expression merely cosmetically), with each scheduled item having its own intrinsic interest either by association or repute – the blank I drew was with the name Hanna Kulenty, and upon investigation was suitably mortified to find a catalogue of completed works any composer would be proud to own, furthering my education in yet another direction, that of contemporary Polish composition!
Partly because the piano was still in its infancy, there are surprisingly few works for keyboard four- hands from the time before Mozart, the most prominent being a handful of sonatas by Johann Christian Bach, who, of course was the former’s only acknowledged composition teacher. This work, in D Major K.381, dates from the time when Mozart’s regular performing partner was his sister, Nannerl, a child prodigy like her brother, their father touring them around Europe as wunderkind – at that time their chosen instrument was probably still the harpsichord, rather than the newfangled fortepiano (the forerunner of the modern pianoforte).
The duo‘s spirited opening attack soon gives way to beautifully nuanced dynamic contrast as the music announces its “orchestral” quality of loud/soft and staccato/legato passages. The music has all the character one might expect from such a living, breathing organism, including a telling minor-key shift at one point before the jovial mood reasserts itself, though the movement’s end is gracefully, almost enigmatically voiced, rather than merely hammered for brilliances’s sake.
Richly-wrought, beautifully-rounded tones characterise the slow movement’s opening, the gentle dying fall at the exposition’s end “leans” us eagerly into the following sections, markedly highlighting the work of each player, primo and secondo (Chao the former, and Chen the latter, incidentally)…… the finale’s fanfare-like opening and contrasting exchanges of leading voices making for an almost operatic scenario of “give-and-take” throughout, complete with contrasting trajectories alternated between tumbling triplets and snappy dotted rhythms – such a joy!
From here we leapfrogged into a new century of sentiment and sensibility with the music of another youthful prodigy, Felix Mendelssohn, in the form of his Andante & Allegro Brilliante Op. 92, a piece he wrote to perform with the young Clara Schumann. The piece’s layout, both physically and musically strongly reflects the idea of partnership and harmonious balance, qualities emphasised by both players in their spoken introduction to the work. Strange as it might seem to anybody upon hearing the work’s exquisitely contrasting parts, it was first published with the opening Andante omitted – but fortunately a new age has restored the composer’s original concept of a coming-together of contrasting impulse in friendship.
Chen and Chao straightaway establish a mood of seamless flow of concerted lyricism, beginning with the secondo player alone, and then handing over to the primo as if it all came from a single pianist. The Allegro suddenly and impishly irrupts from the lower registers, spreading its joyful energies over the whole spectrum, the players here combining delicacy with sparkle and brilliance, all the while literally and delightfully playing into one another’s hands – towards the end comes a lonely luftpause, a couple of tentative impulses, and then an explosion of whirlwind elfin energies bringing to us the conclusion.
Came a further shift both forwards in time and here to these shores with John Psathas’s 1997 work Motet – and here we were given the treasurable bonus of not only having the composer present but (unexpectedly for him!) brought to the platform to introduce the work, which he did, presumably to honour the efforts of these, his former students at the School of Music! Psathas held us spellbound as he described both aspects of the work’s character and its actual premiere in this same venue, given by pianists Michael Houstoun and Diedre Irons. He also recounted to our merriment the incident of a hapless audience member attempting to noisily extricate a cough lozenge from its plastic wrapping during a quieter sequence in the music, and being silenced by a hissed admonition from Houstoun!
Beth Chen took the primo here, for this remarkable work, a kind of “ritual” in four parts, the music beginning with the duo opening up vast, nebulous vistas, a wandering treble picking its way over bardic-like spread bass chords, the effect almost aleatoric, as if enacting the discovery of a new land. A third voice intones a long-breathed melody, chant-like at first, but gradually becoming more rugged and jagged in effect, the sounds gathering weight and the harmonies clashing acrimoniously – such flavoursome volatility conjured up here! – with the ensuing chaos dissolving into silence.
Twice more the music rises from its own embers, firstly with a chordal theme hoisting a beacon which sparks off a toccata-like irruption from the textures, buoyed by rallying shouts and vigorous scintillations of dancing figures! When this also spectacularly implodes, the musicians again bring their energies to bear on the work’s repeatedly-checked trajectories, which once again revive and begin to pulsate with renewed life as they plunge towards the liberating resolution of a single chord, completing the ritual! – all that’s left at the end is an ambience of wonderment, and perhaps a reassurance that life and our world are worth preserving……
Virtuoso Turkish pianist Fazil Say appeared next on the programme as a composer, with his 2017 work Night (commissioned by the Dutch Piano Duo Lucas and Arthur Jusson). Say had previously (2013) gotten into trouble with Turkish authorities over remarks which he had “tweeted” being considered disrespectful to the Islam religion , to the point where he was convicted and given a suspended jail sentence, and his music banned from performance – as a gesture of support the dedicatees of Night actually played the work on tour in Ankera as an encore after it had been officially removed from the original programme. Ostensibly the piece is about contrasting qualities associated with the night and its mysteries, both sinister and enticing, though each of the contrasting moods might well readily lend themselves to subversive interpretation regarding repressions which could be exerted on individuals by an authoritative government.
Say’s piece opens with a shadowy, careering juggernaut-like propulsive character, somewhat reminiscent of the manner of Prokofiev in his earlier piano works, when at his most percussive and relentlessly rhythmic. Chen (primo) and Chao (secondo) build the excitement unerringly and remorselessly until the trajectories break off, and the players transform the ambiences with subtle manipulations of the piano strings inside the lid (evocations of the “alluring siren call” mentioned in the programme note). It’s as much music of “flight” and danger as of mystery and allurement, and its ending packs an almost self-destructing punch!
Polish Composer Hanna Kulenty’s work “VAN…” was next, after the interval. Originally written for a concert during the state visit to Poland by the King and Queen of the Netherlands in 2014, it wasn’t performed on that occasion for whatever reason, and was instead premiered later in the year by the aforementioned Dutch Piano Duo, Lucas and Arthur Jusson. The piece opens gently and spaciously with ascending/descending repeated chords in both the middle and higher registers of the piano, before the secondo player (Chao) abruptly beginning a toccata-like figure, soon taken up by the primo player, both of whom then enact an extended kaleidoscopic exchange of repeated impulses which constantly interact through exchange, reflection and alternation. The harmonies are tonal, and most wonderfully resonate both unto themselves and relative to their progressions, the effect being a kind of perception of a reality that’s constantly made to change, not unlike the effect in some minimalist works I’ve encountered. Suddenly the players stop the toccata figure abruptly upon a held chord, one whose resonant decay poignantly colours the return of the opening chordal figures into and continuing through an amazing silence…..beautifully done…..
I couldn’t help feeling that the concert had become one of two distinct halves at this point, though not weighted quite as I was expecting, even at this stage, thanks to the outstanding musicianship of Beth Chen and Nicole Chao in making the diverse characters of the different works we’d so far heard really come to life – as someone whose prime purpose in attending the concert was to experience the final scheduled item “live” I found myself already replete with musical stimulation, and wondered as well how Chen and Chao would physically and mentally shape up to the Stravinsky work “The RIte of Spring” that we were about to hear, after despatching the rest of the programme so whole-heartedly and convincingly.
As it turned out I had absolutely no cause to worry, though I confess the subsequent effect of both the work’s performance and its character as a piece of music surprised me, and particularly in the wake of my having heard another piano duo performance on You Tube. My first impression upon watching the latter was that the piano version for me had radically changed the whole character of the piece from one whose primarily nature was rhythmic to one which at the very least stressed the equal importance of harmony. Having grown up practically exclusively hearing orchestral versions of “The Rite”, I’ve found, particularly in the more heavily-scored passages, the rhythmic complexities of the music to my ears have dominated and indeed often submerged things like harmony, colour and (in places) actual pitch of notes! For this reason it was like listening to a new work for me, one far less insistent and subjected to a hegemony of percussion and heavy scoring, as in most recordings I’d listened to. I made no judgement of either in qualitative or quantitative terms, regarding both versions as equally valid, and especially after having read somewhere that the composer worked concurrently on both a piano and an orchestral score at the time of composition.
My second surprise, however, came at this concert with the playing in the same work of the fabulous Duo Enharmonics pair, which bore out the statements made by the programme’s note-writer relating to the piano as a “percussive instrument”, and the “heightened brutality” of the piano version – made, according to the writer, “on an instrument that is capable of becoming a machine”. And all because, unlike the piano version I’d encountered and listened to on-line, Beth Chen and Nicole Chao seemed to literally “take no prisoners” with the work, bringing to its presentation an attack, an edge, a richness of tone, a strength and an energy that for me rivalled many orchestral versions of the ballet I’d heard. I’d go so far as to say that, for me, it was at times even a bit too much of a good thing, pushing hard in places (such as in some of the detailings of the Introduction to Part One, where some light-and-shade might have afforded some welcome variety) – another section I found too unvaried was the Ritual of the Rival Tribes where I found the hammered tones a bit over-insistent.
It might seem as if I’m contradicting myself, here, by saying that I occasionally found the orchestra versions I knew a bit more varied dynamically in some places. I did wonder, actually, to what extent Chen and Chao might have made themselves familiar with such versions, so as to get the composer’s orchestral sound as a kind of “reference” in their heads – or whether they even thought such a course was necessary, given that they were playing the composer’s own piano version with its own tailor-made dynamics. Having said all of this, I must emphasise that I was truly stunned by the Duo’s playing of the work, lost in admiration of what they were actually achieving, however much in places I might have expected them to take more opportunities to be less insistent and more flexible, as well as more varied and transparent in tone. It’s important to pay proper attention to what is actually done in order to convey as fully as possible one’s appreciation of it all – and therefore to what Duo Enharmonics achieved overall with this concert I take my hat off in sheer admiration and wonderment - “Sacre bleu!”
An exhilarating piano duet concert from Duo Enharmonics at St Andrew’s
Duo Enharmonics, the Nicole Chao and Beth Chen piano duo team, have become regular performers at the St Andrew’s lunch time concerts. This year they offered a journey from a graceful Mozart Sonata of 1765 through Rachmaninov’s nostalgic Russian group of six pieces of 1894, to the grand spectacular duo piano arrangement of Ravel’s La Valse of 1920.
The Mozart Sonata in D Major, KV.381 is a very early work, written by Mozart to perform with his sister Nanerl on their tour in London. He was nine years old, and the piece is the earliest known piece for four hands. It was written to display the technical virtuosity of the children, with cascading fast passages. It is not a profound work, but it has its charm. Chao and Chen tackled it with great energy and brilliance, probably exactly what is required. They didn’t try to make the work sound deeper than it is. This is a charming, youthful composition, showy and easy on the ear.
Rachmaninov’s Six Morceaux Op 11 is also a youthful work. It is a collection of six pieces in different genre. The opening, Barcarolle is dark and mysterious with a dazzling climax and powerful chords. The Scherzo that follows is sprightly and brilliant with a relentless rhythmic drive. The Russian theme is a set of variations on a folk-song like theme, beautiful and haunting. The Waltz is very much in the Rachmaninov idiom, a waltz indeed, but very different from those of Chopin and the fashionable Viennese waltzes. The fifth piece, Romance, is a passionate work with a poignant principal theme. The final piece, Slava (Glory), is a dramatic set of variations on a Russian chant that Moussorgsky also used in Boris Godunov and in the Pictures at an Exhibition. We are here on true Russian soil. These were played with charm, sensitivity, and depth.
Ravel’s La Valse was originally conceived as a ballet, but it is better known as an orchestral concert work, which was transcribed for a piano duet and later for four hands. It is a powerful work. Capturing the rich sound of a symphony orchestra puts great demands on the pianists. Ravel wrote this music in the wake of the First World War. Although he denied that there was any deeper meaning in the work then what the music itself revealed, it is tempting to hear in the deconstructed waltz theme, in the occasional harsh chords, a tragic allusion to the destruction of the Second Empire, or the gemütlich charming era of pre-war Vienna, or indeed, of the lost pre-war world. There are also riotous cynical passages. Nicole Chao and Beth Chen played with great energy and force, without losing sight of the coherence of the work.
This was a long journey from the seemingly orderly world of the young Mozart that the concert started with to the ruins of a whole epoch at the end of the Great War. Not only was the concert thoroughly enjoyable, it was also a musical tour of the musical world of a century and a half. Nicole Chao and Beth Chen piano proved to be an outstanding team coping very ably with the difficult medium of four hands on one keyboard. They played with unanimity as well as virtuosity.“It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.”
Exhilarating piano duet delight at St Andrew’s lunchtime concert
Some years ago both Nicole Chao and Beth Chen studied with Thomas Hecht at the New Zealand School of Music. They formed a piano duo partnership and have been close friends ever since. They went overseas, studied further, came back, and carried on playing together.
Four hands playing on one keyboard is a very difficult form of chamber music. There is no contrast, no different tone colour or timbre to separate or contrast the voices. The two pianists have to think and play like one. Such unanimity was evident in this concert. It started with Debussy’s charming, well known Petite Suite, though better known in its orchestral version. It is a playful piece and was played with lovely sonority and clear phrasing.
Then came the huge, taxing, four-hand version of the first movement of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. I imagined the two friends, very accomplished pianists, getting together and saying ‘Let’s have some fun’. ‘What can we play to test the limits of the piano?’ and they opted for The Rite of Spring. The one piano, four hands, has to capture the vast kaleidoscopic range of a large orchestra, with its full tonal and colour range. The music moves from powerful, loud, fast passages to contrasting gentle, lyric melodies. Nicole Chao and Beth Chen played with forceful energy, and captured the magic of the ballet.
This challenging work left the audience with a sense of exhilaration. But that was not all. The concert was capped with Greg Anderson’s arrangement of the Blue Danube Waltz. Forget a gentle cruise down the Danube, or twirling to the tune of a gentle waltz in some crystal illuminated ballroom. Greg Anderson completely deconstructed the well known work of Johann Strauss. He embraced Heavy Metal, popular American music, and a whole range of contemporary sounds with rhythmic echos of old Vienna.
It was great fun. Let’s have more of this, let’s hear this talented pair again.
Talented piano duettists combine wit and virtuosity for St Andrew’s audience
These two pianists, born in Taiwan, gained their master’s degrees at Victoria University, and have studied elsewhere. They have returned to Wellington with a host of awards and prizes in their brief-cases. They have both become highly polished players who have recently joined forces to play piano duets, and duos, no doubt, which they do with a unanimity of feeling and technical mastery that is not usually acquired in so short a time.
Their programme combined a couple of satirical duets with solo pieces from the normal, yet highly demanding, repertoire.
Messager and Fauré put together as set of five pieces drawn from Wagner: ‘Fantasy in the form of a quadrille on themes from Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen’. Unlike certain French (and other) composers, the two friends – teacher and pupil – were enraptured by Wagner’s operas and had seen them in Munich, Cologne, Bayreuth and London. We were offered no hint as to the respective contributions by the two composers (Messager wrote many operas and operettas, the still popular ballet Les deux pigeons, and conducted the first performance of Pelléas et Mélisande). The first piece opened with loud chords and continued its brief course in dramatic fashion. The character of the quadrille varied from piece to piece, all danceable no doubt, but more likely to raise smiles; but more likely to raise smiles for the intention was to send up a few of the Leitmotive in a genial, light-hearted way.
Beth Chen played three of the preludes from Rachmaninov’s Op 23 set; hints of sentimentality were to be heard in No 4, but what kept the piece alive especially was the way the sounds produced by the two hands were kept so distinct in their colour and mood, yet created such a perfect vocal blend. No 5, in G minor, is the second best-known of the preludes; she played its slightly non-bellicose march carefully, which lent a greater force to the climactic phases. No 6 is rhapsodic in character and Chen gave it a relaxed though scrupulous performance, with sensitively placed rubato; again the two hands took up sharply contrasting roles – bright chords in the right hard, the left playing legato arpeggios. These were highly accomplished and authoritative performances.
Then it was Nicole Chao’s turn, with the first Mephisto Waltz, and it was brilliant: the sinister excitement of the first heavy chords, the dangerous, galloping rhythms; the scarlet and black colours of a medieval Satan in the hair-raising rushes of chromatic scales, and then the sudden beguiling calm. Her playing was a dazzling display of speed, agility and clarity, getting to the heart of Liszt.
The pair returned then to offer another facet of late 19th century French wit, whose musical model was Satie. La belle excentrique [oui, il s’écrite comme ça] describes four characteristics or behaviours of a type of woman only to be found among the French. The Moon March, for example, suggested someone coping with the low gravity that exists on the moon or possibly with three too many drinks. The High Society Cancan with its scraps of tunes that interrupt each other, toy playfully with the spirit of Offenbach. The performances were a splendid substitute for a liquid lunch.
These two pianists await, though I doubt whether they do consciously, an invitation to join Chamber Music New Zealand’s nationwide concert series or even as duet or duo pianists, in the tradition of the Labèque sisters, in Bach, Mozart, Dussek or Poulenc, with the Wellington Orchestra or the NZSO.