As a twelve-year-old boy, Melvyn Tan travelled to England where he studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School with Marcel Ciampi, Vlado Perlemuter and Nadia Boulanger. At the age of twenty-two Tan went to the Royal College of Music in London where he studied piano with Angus Morrison and harpsichord with Millicent Silver and Ruth Dyson. It was at this time that Tan began to study performance practice, and from 1980 devoted himself to the fortepiano and harpsichord. In the early 1980s Tan performed regularly in the United Kingdom with the Academy of Ancient Music, the London Classical Players and the English Chamber Orchestra. In 1985 Tan toured the United States for the first time and two years later won critical acclaim in Europe, America, Canada, Australia and Japan for his performances of Beethoven’s piano concertos with the London Classical Players and Roger Norrington.

During the early 1990s Tan founded the New Mozart Ensemble in London and he appears with them regularly. He has performed at many festivals including those of Bath, Holland and San Francisco, as well as at the Beethoven Experience with the London Classical Players in Purchase, New York. During the 1990 season Tan appeared in France, Germany, Japan, Australia, San Francisco, Vancouver and at Carnegie Hall in New York, and in 1991 made his debut at the Paris Opera. After 1996 he reverted more often to the modern piano in recital.

Tan’s most important recordings were made for EMI in the late 1980s. With the London Classical Players and Roger Norrington he recorded the complete piano concertos and Choral Fantasia Op. 80 by Beethoven, and with the same forces some of the later of Mozart’s piano concertos; all of these recordings were made on copies of fortepianos. There are also five compact discs of Beethoven piano sonatas as well as Schubert’s last two piano sonatas and complete impromptus. In the case of the Schubert recordings there seems to be little beyond the notes, but this lack of depth of sound and interpretation may be the result of the instruments used. Some of Tan’s recordings in collaboration with other artists are enjoyable. On a disc from EMI entitled Salonkonzert he plays six of Mendelssohn’s Lieder ohne Worte and Rondo capriccioso Op. 14, and accompanies soloists in works by Weber, Beethoven and Schubert. Equally delightful is a recent disc from Archiv where Tan accompanies Anne Sofie von Otter in songs by Meyerbeer, Beethoven and Spohr. For Hyperion Tan has recorded Beethoven’s works for cello and piano with Anthony Pleeth. In the spring of 2005 Tan’s new recording of Debussy’s complete préludes was issued on the Deux-Elles label.

Tan is certainly a sensitive artist, and this is borne out by a recording made in October 1998 of nocturnes by Chopin and Field, plus some works by Debussy. Recorded on a modern grand piano, Tan shows that he has excellent range and a control of tone and sound quality that was not always apparent on the fortepiano recordings. The disc is a BBC recording that was issued with the BBC Music Magazine.

© Naxos Rights International Ltd. — Jonathan Summers (A–Z of Pianists, Naxos 8.558107–10).