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Alix Goolden Performance Hall
August 18, 2007
"I inherited a painting and a violin which turned out to be a Rembrandt and a Stradivarius. Unfortunately, Rembrandt made lousy violins and Stradivarius was a terrible painter."
While the English comedian Tommy Cooper's assessment of Rembrandt's skills as luthier was doubtless correct, I would be prepared to bet money that Nikki Chooi could make even a Rembrandt violin sound like the voice of an angel.
Saturday evening's concert at the Alix Goolden was a benefit for Chooi, who is shortly to begin his studies at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia.
The evening opened with music guaranteed to give early music purists conniption fits, Johan Halvorsen's 1894 arrangement - for violin and viola - of the sixth movement of Handel's Harpsichord Suite No.7, known as the Handel-Halvorsen Passacaglia.
Both Nikki Chooi and Kenji Fusé threw themselves wholeheartedly into this decidedly inauthentic work, whose frequent double stops often give the music something approaching the sonority of a string quartet. Their playing was very intense and thoroughly satisfying. If you are going to perform this music, then this is the way to do it.
Timmy Chooi, Nikki's younger brother, is no mean fiddler either, as he demonstrated with the first movement of Beethoven's Op.30 sonata, accompanied by Michael Drislane.
The music was played with a fresh and at times graceful approach. Occasionally Chooi's tone - particularly in the high double stopped passages - tended to harshen, perhaps as a result of overenthusiastic bowing. Nonetheless, to say that this was an impressive performance by a thirteen-year-old is, if anything, to understate the case.
The major work in the first half of the evening was Brahms' Violin Sonata No.3, Op.108. This is late Brahms and late Brahms can pose problems even for the experienced musician.
Nikki Chooi and Audrey Bild gave an excellent reading of the sonata, from the sombre serenity of the opening to the drama and energy of the finale.
The second movement featured some quite gorgeous cantabile playing and immaculately handled rubato; the third movement was fleeting, like the smoke of autumn bonfires and led directly into the drama of the finale.
It is true that the performance lacked that air of world-weariness that so often characterises late Brahms, but that is hardly surprising with two musicians of such tender years. Indeed, I'd have been distinctly concerned if they had conveyed such a late Brahmsian feeling of weltschmerz.
What must be said - as it was to me during the interval - is that their performance did indeed "sound like Brahms".
Mozart's Violin Sonata K.304 is unusual in both its key - e minor - and the fact that it consists of just two movements. Nikki Chooi and Michael Drislane gave the work a performance of considerable poise and no little insight.
I was particularly taken by the second movement, whose innocuous marking ("tempo di menuetto") conceals an almost unbearably poignant minuet (Mozart's mother died around the time of the composition of this sonata) with a more consoling major key trio, marked dolce and played exquisitely.
Chooi and Drislane were joined by cellist Laura Backstrom for the first two movements of Mendelssohn's c minor piano trio. This misterioso opening was very well done, with the strings tones gradually emerging from beneath the sound of the piano. Balances were not perfect and the cello did tend to get buried at levels above mezzo-forte, but I am prepared to accept that the hall acoustic - and my seating position - were at least partly to blame. The second movement brought, as my notebook records, "more lovely cantabile playing".
A thoroughly idiomatic performance which trod the fine line between classicism and romanticism fearlessly and accurately.
Of course the evening had to end with a showpiece - in this case Franz Waxman's Carmen Fantasy, performed by Chooi and Drislane.
Dispensing both with the printed music and his spectacles, Chooi turned it the requisite jaw-dropping performance. He has both the "chops" and the charisma for music like this.
For encores the pair gave us a beautifully-played version of "Danny Boy" - its official title is The Londonderry Air, although the Catholic name for the city is still simply Derry; perhaps they refer to the tune as the Derry Air. Or perhaps not. By eschewing the sort of glutinous tempo one hears all too often, Chooi and Drislane succeeded in being moving without sentimentalizing the music.
The second encore was Pablo de Sarasate's Introduction and Tarantella (for which information I am indebted to Trudi Conrad) which was a sort of synopsis of the evening: a lyrical introduction and a dazzling tarantella.
It is difficult to say what impresses me most about Nikki Chooi's playing; he clearly has technique to spare and a lovely tone which shows no trace of hardness even when playing on the top string - something a number of "name" violinists seem incapable of.
But there is more to it that simply technique and tone. Or that throbbing vibrato of which he is capable. No, it is an overriding quality of musicianship which informs Chooi's playing, so that every single note he plays engages the attention - and the emotions. He does not seem to be forcing his will upon the violin, but rather coaxing the performance from the instrument.
To misquote Leschetizky's remark to his pupil Schnabel: Nikki Chooi is not a violinist, he is a musician.
Chooi leaves Victoria with a growing reputation and a lot of fans. If there is any justice one day he will be one of this city's best-known exports.
In the meantime, one can only say (and rapidly duck) that with Chooi's departure from his home town, A Star is Gorn.
And for those foolish enough or simply too busy to have attended, the Conservatory is preparing DVDs of Saturday's concert; contact them for more information.
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