Melvyn Tan
Singaporean-born pianist Melvyn Tan is one of the few artists who has succeeded performing on both the modern piano and the 18th century fortepiano. When he began to play the fortepiano in the 1980s, he was one of just a few Asian artists in the field.
Tan was born on October 13, 1956, in Singapore, then part of British Malaya. His parents noticed his ability to play back by ear the piano music his sister was practicing, and a family friend who worked for Australia's Qantas airline began to brag about his abilities to passengers in the first-class section. One of them agreed to finance the youngster's musical education at the Yehudi Menuhin School in Cobham, Surrey, England. Tan studied piano there, with the famed Nadia Boulanger as one of his teachers, and then moved on to the Royal College of Music in London. Required to undertake a minor course of study in addition to his piano major, Tan tried to get into a conducting class but found it closed. He signed up for harpsichord studies instead and became interested in early keyboard instruments. A friend introduced him to the fortepiano, which at the time was the province of just a few academic specialists. The college did not even own one of the instruments, but he searched around London and found places to practice.
For a time pickings were slim, and Tan made a bare living playing harpsichord continuo parts in Baroque music ensembles. However, in the late 1980s, the historical performance movement began to move into Classical-period territory, and Tan was ready. For EMI, he made a series of recordings with conductor Roger Norrington, including a complete set of Beethoven's piano concertos, and he performed widely with both historically oriented and mainstream orchestral ensembles.
In 1996, Tan returned to the modern piano almost in the way that Romantic-era musicians had come to it when it was new: as he moved forward into later repertoire (such as Schumann's piano music), he became frustrated with the technical possibilities of older instruments. Since then, Tan has been equally prominent in both mainstream and historical-practice spheres. He has recorded complete cycles of Beethoven sonatas and Debussy and Chopin preludes in New York, London, and Tokyo, he has been active in chamber ensembles and has accompanied Anne-Sofie von Otter and Angelika Kirchschlager in lieder repertory. In 2005, when Tan ventured back to Singapore authorities there attempted to fine him for not fulfilling the city-state's mandatory military service, but by then he was a British citizen. He has ventured into contemporary music and sometimes performs a new fortepiano concerto, written for him by composer Jonathan Dove.
Tan has recorded prolifically for top labels EMI and Virgin. In 2008, his set of the Beethoven piano concertos with Norrington was reissued by Virgin. Tan has made several albums in the 2010s for Onyx and Signum Classics; his 2019 Onyx album, Miroirs, featured virtuoso works by Ravel, Liszt, and Carl Maria von Weber.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Discography
11 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller
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Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 18 & 19
Melvyn Tan, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Nicholas McGegan
Concertos - Released by harmonia mundi on Jan. 10, 1996
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Choral Fantasy, Piano Concertos Nos. 3 & 5 "Emperor"
Melvyn Tan, London Classical Players, Roger Norrington
Classical - Released by Warner Classics on Sep. 16, 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Haydn / Mozart: Songs and Canzonettas
Anne Sofie von Otter, Melvyn Tan
Classical - Released by Archiv Produktion on Jan. 1, 1995
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Piano Concertos, Nos. 20, 23, 24, & 25
Melvyn Tan, London Classical Players, Roger Norrington
Classical - Released by Warner Classics on May 11, 2004
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven / Meyerbeer / Spohr: Lieder
Anne Sofie von Otter, Melvyn Tan
Classical - Released by Archiv Produktion on Jan. 1, 2001
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Jonathan Dove: For an Unknown Soldier
London Mozart Players, Melvyn Tan, Nicky Spence
Classical - Released by Signum Records on Nov. 4, 2016
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Les cinq concertos pour piano
Melvyn Tan, London Classical Players, Roger Norrington
Classical - Released by Warner Classics on Apr. 7, 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Bagatelles, Variations and Fantasia at the Broadwood Fortepiano
Classical - Released by Warner Classics on Oct. 16, 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Miroirs
Classical - Released by PM Classics Ltd. on Apr. 26, 2019
24-Bit 88.2 kHz - Stereo -
Variations for Judith
Classical - Released by NMC Recordings on Jun. 18, 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Donizetti: Songs Written in the Bass Clef
Classical - Released by Meridian Records on Nov. 18, 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo