Melvin Tan

Pianist Melvyn Tan is one of the few artists who has succeeded in 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 returned to modern pianos as his repertory broadened to include Romantic music, but he continued to perform on historical instruments. In 2024, he released the album Beethoven: The Final Sonatas.

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 <a href="spotify:artist:1vfC2bld90kx966JTCSwf7">Nadia Boulanger</a> 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. In 1985, he made his recording debut, backing singer <a href="spotify:artist:7KRp4uySSbnML3PBKpcZp2">Catherine Bott</a> on fortepiano on an album of Haydn songs. In the late '80s, the historical performance movement began to move into Classical-period territory, and Tan was ready. For <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22EMI%22">EMI</a>, he made a series of recordings with conductor <a href="spotify:artist:2nXNvTKpp7LSEXNUMFOd1t">Roger Norrington</a>, 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 <a href="spotify:artist:2UqjDAXnDxejEyE0CzfUrZ">Schumann</a>'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 <a href="spotify:artist:1Uff91EOsvd99rtAupatMP">Debussy</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:7y97mc3bZRFXzT2szRM4L4">Chopin</a> preludes in New York, London, and Tokyo, and he has been active in chamber ensembles and has accompanied <a href="spotify:artist:4pFlv4QVInj7bAo0MqHpwW">Anne-Sofie von Otter</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:3yxeKJjrlR5ZFzLFx5cql4">Angelika Kirchschlager</a> 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 <a href="spotify:artist:0sdCVT40NVs1qzsPTUbtjK">Jonathan Dove</a>.

Tan has recorded prolifically for top labels <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22EMI%22">EMI</a> and <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Virgin%22">Virgin</a>. In 2008, his set of the Beethoven piano concertos with <a href="spotify:artist:2nXNvTKpp7LSEXNUMFOd1t">Norrington</a> was reissued by <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Virgin%22">Virgin</a>. Tan has made several albums in the 2010s for <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Onyx%22">Onyx</a> and <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Signum+Classics%22">Signum Classics</a>; his 2019 <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Onyx%22">Onyx</a> album, Miroirs, featured virtuoso works by <a href="spotify:artist:17hR0sYHpx7VYTMRfFUOmY">Ravel</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:1385hLNbrnbCJGokfH2ac2">Liszt</a>, and <a href="spotify:artist:1p6wR69pnH9LBWZvwliuz2">Carl Maria von Weber</a>. Tan returned in 2022 with fortepiano recordings of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37, and Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 73 ("Emperor"), backed by the <a href="spotify:artist:5j1y9VGOCjyufKkXJYZLrY">London Classical Players</a>. The following year, on a modern piano, he issued the album Beethoven: The Final Sonatas on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Signum+Classics%22">Signum Classics</a>. By that time, his recording catalog comprised some 30 items. ~ James Manheim, Rovi