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Pianist Simon Trpceski has been billed as \u201cthe best thing to come out of Macedonia since Alexander the Great\u201d. <\/p>\n
While Trpceski has never successfully invaded Persia, he shares with his fellow Macedonian a certain uncomplicated boldness and a flair for the conquest of difficult obstacles, as evidenced by his fresh, athletic performance of Rachmaninoff\u2019s second piano concerto with a well-oiled Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) under the inspired nonagenarian conductor Eliahu Inbal. <\/p>\n
This was a performance of dynamism, dexterity and Mediterranean directness, not the hypnotic concentration of a Sviatoslav Richter or the patrician eloquence of a Garrick Ohlsson (who played the work with the SSO in a very different interpretation two years ago). <\/p>\n
Trpceski is a natural showman who revelled in tricky passages with the elan of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. The outer movements were taken at a thrilling pace, to great effect in some of the more frenetic moments such as the piano\u2019s keyboard-spanning entrance in the last movement<\/p>\n
However, the same movement\u2019s coda felt less like an exhilarating summit push and more like a breathless scramble towards the finish line. <\/p>\n
There were a few uneasy moments in the first movement, with Trpceski\u2019s lithe, clean sound sometimes failing to project adequately over the orchestra. One also missed the neurotic heartsickness at the core of the work, particularly in the second movement, whose long-spun melodies often felt declamatory rather than confessional. <\/p>\n
This was not helped by Inbal and the SSO\u2019s tendency to insert pauses that felt just a shade too precious between each bar of the main theme. <\/p>\n
Nonetheless, it was a brilliant, energetic performance that earned a well-deserved standing ovation. <\/p>\n
Trpceski\u2019s two encores were exceptional. The last movement of Prokofiev\u2019s 7th sonata was delivered with jawdropping technique and all the deranged automatism of the assembly line in Chaplin\u2019s Modern Times. <\/p>\n
The second was a performance of Rachmaninoff\u2019s Vocalise in which Trpceski accompanied guest concertmaster David Coucheron. It was prefaced by some engaging remarks about Trpceski\u2019s love of Singapore and music\u2019s peace-making powers amid world disorder, and was as unexpected as it was touching. <\/p>\n
The programme\u2019s second half provided more wintry Russian despair, albeit of the political rather than personal kind. Inbal, one of the grand old men of conducting, inspired the SSO to a fabulous performance of Shostakovich\u2019s 11th symphony with a magnetism and command that would have shamed conductors decades younger. <\/p>\n
The Shostakovich was written to commemorate the 1905 Bloody Sunday massacre in St Petersburg and is a curious, demanding work: over an hour long, played without a break between movements, juxtaposing passages of grey desolation with lurid episodes of revolutionary bombast.<\/p>\n
Inbal and the SSO made it sound like a masterpiece. For all its massed power in passages such as the second movement\u2019s demented triplet climax (which were preceded by brass snarls of terrifying unanimity), the SSO played with tremendous cohesion and finesse. <\/p>\n
The third movement\u2019s viola theme was shaped with marvellous subtlety and Inbal\u2019s command of the orchestra was absolute, down to the fine gradations of the pianissimo pizzicato passages in the lower strings. <\/p>\n
This was a compelling and charismatic performance of a difficult work, and proof that, in the right hands, the SSO can hold its own against any orchestra in the world. Rarely has musical misery sounded so rewarding. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n