Though it has become conventional not to perform individual movements of extended works of music, it often works quite well. This admirable recital did that very successfully, with the first movement – the Adagio – from Bach’s solo Violin Sonata No 1 in G minor, and again with the first two movements – Allegro and Adagio – from Brahms’s Third Violin Sonata. Only those quite familiar with the works... read more

The first thing that struck me about the otherwise excellent programme notes was the absence of any direct comment about the thrust of the 1927 German film as an anti-capitalist document. The notes suggest that the scenes of forced labour foreshadowed the concentration camps. That seems a misleading remark, considering NAZI taking power was still six years away, while exploitation of industrial workers had characterized most industrial enterprises since the... read more

I often feel, as I sit at the computer after getting home from a concert, that all I want to say is something like: ‘this evening several gifted musicians, after conscientious rehearsing, gave beautiful performances of marvellous music – perhaps an acknowledged masterpiece – that has been handed down to us by scores of music lovers, composed 100, 200, 300 ago by gifted composers who were intent above all... read more

This Brahms festival which started on Wednesday, has created a wonderful festive atmosphere in the Michael Fowler Centre each evening. Though on Friday, the audience was of reasonable size – I guess around 1200 – earlier it had been smaller, but the atmosphere was there from the first evening. It’s sad that so many things militate against several thousand people waking up to the marvels of good music and... read more

The monthly organ series at the Anglican Cathedral might not get the sort of crowds one might have seen on the next two days in a big arena in Auckland, but for the few they are a valuable alternative, or perhaps an addition to the entertainments that otherwise dominate our world. In all the quite frequent organ recitals that I get to around the city, I wonder at the profound... read more

The first of the four Brahms concerts entitled ‘Brahmissimo’ faced an audience that was a bit smaller that I’d hoped, at least in the stalls where I was sitting. I comforted myself thinking this was due to the fact that many might not be able to afford four concerts night after night, that 6.30pm has not yet been adopted as the public’s favourite concert hour and that there is... read more

Our last reference to the Aeolian Ensemble is in a review by my colleague Rosemary Collier of their concert in the Mulled Wine series at Paekakariki, where the same Telemann sonata was played but otherwise, a different Bach work, plus pieces by Buxtehude, Hotteterre and Forqueray. I was a couple of minutes late and missed the first and some of the second movement of the Marais Suite in G minor... read more

It is brave for a symphonic choir to tackle popular music of any vein, and though it could be argued that the music of Cole Porter has closer links with classical music than, say, The Spice Girls or Michael Jackson, the idiom in which composers of ‘popular’ music normally work is pretty remote from Mozart. This evening’s concert did not offer a very strong counter argument to that proposition. Yet it’s... read more

42nd Street is a relatively unusual case of a musical that saw the light of day as a musical film (in 1933) and was re-created for the Broadway stage in 1980. By that time the lyricist (Al Dubin) was dead, the choreographer (Gower Champion) died on opening night while composer Harry Warren died a year later. The Broadway reincarnation was produced by David Merrick. And it is probably true that... read more

Concerts by youth orchestras ought to be filled with young people who come both to support their friends and school and university mates, and to savour the sort of music that we all first came to love in our youth. For if all too many schools no longer feel the need to furnish the minds of their pupils with the furniture of civilization, the responsibility for doing so now... read more