Tag: cello

A lunchtime concert for the exploratory and spirited on violin and cello

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s lunchtime concerts

Rupa Maitra (violin) and Margaret Guldborg (cello)

Pieces by Halvorsen, Bréval and Ravel

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 24 October, 12:15 pm

Duos between the piano and many other instruments are numerous, but between pairs of other instruments, without a keyboard, rare; though string quartets and less often string trios and quintets seem to be popular and work well.

This was an opportunity to put it to the test.

Halvorsen’s Passacaglia based on a theme from Handel’s harpsichord suite in G minor is not completely obscure. The tune lends itself to variations and Halvorsen made it into something of a virtuoso showpiece, though it’s rather more than that; and though this performance didn’t exploit its bravura character, it was played with imagination. While Handel’s fingerprints were evident in the character of the melody, the late 19th century, a Paganini/Sarasate spirit guides these variations. In some ways it was not a propitious opening piece as it drew attention to a contrast in tone, even in control of articulation, between the two instruments; the cello tone was rather more polished and mellow than the violin’s where the high register tended to be thin.

The Duo by Jean-Baptiste Bréval, cellist, and a close contemporary of Mozart, was found in a collection of Airs varies for violin and cello and produced a curious sound that probably reflected the very different musical climates between Italy/German lands and France. The variation character was not as conspicuous, wide-ranging as might be found in German music of the period; the composer called for a lot of harmonics as well as very high normal fingering on the cello, and Guldborg handled them comfortably. As might be expected from a cellist-composer, that instrument tended to be more conspicuous.

The major work in the recital was Ravel’s Sonata for violin and cello of 1922. I think most listeners, blindfold, would find it hard to identify the composer, other than through a process of elimination, and even then ‘Ravel’ might be deleted. Nor is identification easier because of its connection with Debussy’s death four years before.

Each of the four movements is emotionally and stylistically distinct.  The first movement, Allegro, calls for curious kinds of duetting, counterpointing, handling the two instruments, sometimes in happy accord, sometimes as if in different universes; lots of demanding playing high on the fingerboards of both instruments.

The second movement, Très vif, rhythmically a different creature from the Allegro, insistent, short motifs, but then a long, almost elegiac, passage from the violin, its pedigree still very obscure. In many ways it struck me as singularly avant-garde, not inconceivable in the immediate post-war years, post dodecaphonic, Schoenbergian era, yet essentially tonal.

The only quasi peaceful episode is the ‘Lent’ third movement. It’s thoughtful but even here there is nothing of a more familiar character that might shackle it to Ravel. Margaret Guldborg had spoken briefly about it, hinting at its possible kinship with Shostakovich (and the 2nd movement with Stravinsky), but neither helped. There were tortured, abrasive elements; and there were moments that I thought listeners with more open-minded ears than mine might have rated as melodic; and there were passages of dialogue between the two instruments that were arresting, though not in a language in which I am fluent.

The cello opened the last movement, Vif, actually, ‘Vif avec entrain’, (lively with enthusiasm), gruffly, in the cello’s low register, as was Maitra’s violin, which also revealed an adventurous spirit. I also enjoyed what I felt as a characteristically Ravellian, comedic element, notably in the rhythmic games played: in the way the two challenged each other. It is some years since I heard it played live, and again I was persuaded by its considerable musical value, though its beauties are probably not to be enjoyed without effort.

In this, the contrast in timbres and colour between the two instruments, to a certain disadvantage in the other two pieces, became a positive element in a piece that demanded attention to every detail. So it proved a lunchtime concert that challenged a little, as well as opening one’s mind to unfamiliar but worthwhile repertoire.

 

Monumental NZSO concert of Russian masterpieces with cellist Johannes Moser

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Peter Oundjian with Johannes Moser – cello

Borodin: Overture: Prince Igor
Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No 1 in E flat
Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet, selections from the ballet

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 13 October, 7:30 pm

Plus a review of Johannes Moser’s solo cello recital
Bach: Cello Suites Nos 1 in G, 4 in E flat and 3 in C
St Andrew’s on The Terrace
Sunday 14 October, 3 pm 

The NZSO concert Saturday 13 October

This Russian programme might have been expected to be a winner, but it wasn’t, in terms of audience size.

However, in terms of musical quality and sheer excitement, it was a tremendous success. It’s a surprise to me that Shostakovich’s 1st cello concerto didn’t fill every seat; does that suggest that our musical horizons are getting narrower every year? For it’s a truly stupendous work, and we heard one of today’s most brilliant cellists sitting at the front of the stage.

Secondly, does a crowd smaller than is expected suggest that the general run of classical music lovers doesn’t hear properly some of the greatest ballet music ever written; that there’s a huge gulf in taste and intellectual curiosity between ballet groupies and Beethoven groupies?

Even the opening overture should be better known and more sought after than evidently it is.

Borodin’s Prince Igor Overture
My first encounter with it, on the radio many years ago, was associated with the then popular story that Borodin had not written the overture down, but that Glazunov had heard him play it on the piano, and with his phenomenal memory, went home and scored it completely. Roughly true but both Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov left written accounts. Rimsky wrote: “…Glazunov and I settled the matter as follows between us: he was to fill in all the gaps in Act III and write down from memory the Overture played so often by the composer…”

Glazunov’s own account is this:
“The overture was composed by me roughly according to Borodin’s plan. I took the themes from the corresponding numbers of the opera and was fortunate enough to find the canonic ending of the second subject among the composer’s sketches. I slightly altered the fanfares for the overture … The bass progression in the middle I found noted down on a scrap of paper, and the combination of the two themes (Igor’s aria and a phrase from the trio) was also discovered among the composer’s papers. A few bars at the very end were composed by me.”  

These quotes are from the splendid Wikipedia article on the opera which is fascinating, evidently authoritative and very much worth reading.

Productions are rare in the west, and I was lucky enough to catch it conducted by Mark Ermler in the Olympiahalle in Munich in 1989. A film from the Metropolitan Opera was screened here a couple of years ago.

Borodin’s great historical opera may be heavy-going for some, but it’s got a lot of hit tunes and the Overture contains some of them. It opens calmly, remotely, but in a couple of minutes conductor Peter Oundjian had successfully anticipated the opera’s epic grandeur with fierce brass heroics on top of general orchestral energy. What a splendid introduction to the later direction of Russian music, parallel with Tchaikovsky and Rimsky, but on through Rachmaninov, Glazunov, Medtner, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Kabalevsky, Schnittke, Weinberg (?)…

Shostakovich Cello Concerto – Johannes Moser
This was Johannes Moser’s second visit to New Zealand. In 2016 he played Lalo’s cello concerto, impressing, but it’s not a work on which super-star reputations are often built. However, he could not have made a more astonishing impact than in his performance of Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto. It was written in 1959 a few years after Stalin’s death, for Rostropovich who famously committed it to memory in four days, and played it with the Leningrad Philharmonic under Mravinsky the same year.

Even more memorably (for us), Rostropovich played it with the NZSO under Maxim Shostakovich in one of the orchestra’s most famous events, in the 1988 International Arts Festival in Wellington (an era when we had truly great international festivals). I will never forget sitting side-on in the MFC gallery, hearing and watching that monumental performance.

Now this weekend’s performance was on a par, from a cellist who had likewise utterly absorbed the work. He played with a ferocity that was chilling, often producing a sort of vibration (different from vibrato) that created all the emotional power that a full orchestra might have supplied; for the work is scored only for strings orchestra and modest pairs of woodwinds (though they are not merely decorative in their contributions), timpani, celeste… and one horn (Samuel Jacobs) whose role was pivotal, somehow providing all the chilling, suspenseful, intense atmosphere that made more elaborate orchestration superfluous.

The cello dominates the first movement, but there are fleeting, less troubled, almost lyrical and rhapsodic passages in the second movement, plenty of scope to hear the orchestra’s dramatic strength under Oundjian’s highly expressive leadership. The four movements are played without break, so the extended and often magically beautiful cadenza which slowly takes shape at the end of the second actually comprises the third movement.

The last movement returns to the troubled spirit of the first, involves the cello in impressive passages combining bowing while plucking strings with the left hand. The work ends with repeated assertions of both the composer’s self-awareness and the emotional value of the signature DSCH (his name abbreviated in German musical notation) as an enigmatic motif. Just in case we were to forget who the composer was: but neither this performance, nor the work itself will ever make that likely.

A charming encore by John Williams was something of an antidote, perhaps a bit long considering the environment.

Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet 
The second half was taken with a memorable performance of about half of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet ballet music – about an hour. The programme book did not attempt to list the numbers included: most were familiar from the three orchestral suites that Prokofiev himself put together, but there were certain episodes not so familiar. Again, perhaps there was a bit much; without the important accompaniment of the staged ballet, the music itself, even in all its variety, dramatic strength, visual evocativeness and its ability to conjure one’s recollections of the ballet itself, doesn’t quite hold a concert audience as does a Mahler or Bruckner symphony of similar length.

Nevertheless, this was a performance that should have reinforced the belief that we have here an orchestra of real international distinction, able to capture a huge range of musical colours and narrative characteristics. A score like Prokofiev’s, though not demanding all the peripheral instrumental forces that some Strauss or Mahler scores do, make prolonged demands on everything from heroic virtuosity to chamber music subtlety and refinement with equal conviction.

So at its end, apart from delight at having lived through the previous two and a quarter hours, I remained all the more disturbed that an obviously remarkable concert had not pulled a full house.

 

Solo recital by Johannes Moser
St Andrew’s on The Terrace
Sunday 15 October, 3 pm

The added attraction of a solo recital by the soloist was advertised for the following afternoon. It’s a practice that the orchestra should adopt routinely with its soloists who could often serve to attract people to kinds of music – chamber music or song – that might normally be outside their main interests.

At St Andrew’s on Sunday, 3 pm, Moser played three Bach solo cello suites: No 1 in G, No 4 in E flat and No 3 in C. The church was near full. And the three performances were of spell-binding, compelling strength. We have come a great distance from the days when it was proper to play these and other baroque music as if in a straight-jacket, as if baroque instruments and their players didn’t allow rhythmic, dynamic expressive variety. These performances were hugely fluent and expressive with episodes in the preludes and the sarabandes, for example, that were emotional, pensive and full of humanity, and where clusters of notes and double-stopping turned them into impressive ensemble works rather than just one person on one cello.

And on the other hand we heard lively dances in which Moser’s suggestion that the suites could be heard as if describing the phases of a social gathering, from introductory, exploratory preludes through somewhat formal, conversational allemandes to more relaxed, letting-hair-down courantes, gigues or bourrées (in nos 3 and 4), was an interesting way of envisaging developments.

It was indeed a most rewarding hour-an-a-half, both for the audience, and I hope for the orchestra management which should be inspired to expand on this example.

In earlier years, such concerts were organised routinely – just one example, I recall recitals by Julius Katchen in the St James Theatre; but they were frequent.

But I see nothing to indicate such recitals in the 2019 programmes. Surely some of the soloists featured would be delighted to offer small-scale recitals – mezzos Susan Graham and Anna Larsson; soprano Lauren Snouffer; pianists Joyce Yang, Denis Kozhukhin, Steven Osborne, Louis Lortie; violinists Carolin Widmann, Jennifer Koh; trumpeter Håken Hardenberger, the orchestra’s own horn-player Samuel Jacobs … or the quartets of singers in the Choral Symphony and Messiah???

 

NZSM cellists under Inbal Megiddo play cello favourites, some rare, some in disguise, all skilled and entertaining

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand School of Music Cellos, led by Inbal Megiddo

Music by Mozart, Grűzmacher, Bach, Vivaldi, Brubeck, Gershwin, Joplin

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 3 October 2018, 12:15 pm

lnbal Megiddo is the head of Cello Studies at the New Zealand School of Music.  Along with her today were seven cello students, all highly competent on the instrument.  Their varied programme was heard by a sizeable audience.

The programme commenced with a very fine arrangement of Mozart’s Overture to his opera The Magic Flute, by Douglas Moore, an American composer who died in 1969. The tone of the four cellists who played this was not always well-blended.   The names of the players (five females including Megiddo, and three males) were given in the printed programme, but they were not identified individually for each piece played.

Verbal explanations were given rather too fast for everything to be clearly heard.  Megiddo explained the origins of two of the cellos – the first was given by the family of the late Wellington luthier and cellist, Ian Lyons.  The origin of the other I could not hear.  Two of the group played these instruments in Friedrich Grutzmacher’s Duo for two cellos, Op.22 no.2. Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Grützmacher was a noted German cellist in the second half of the 19th century.  This was most attractive music, very well played. The upper part was quite lovely, with an interesting lower part accompanying.  The two players swapped places from time to time, i.e alternating between upper and lower part throughout the performance so that both got a chance to be the soloist.  There were gymnastics for both parts.

Next we turned to J S  Bach; Prelude and Fugue from Suite no.5 in C minor.  It was arranged by Laszlo Varga, (1924-2014), a Hungarian-born American cellist.  The effect of the Prelude arrangement was quite romantic.  In the Fugue, the separate entries of the instruments revealed the differing timbres of each individual instrument.

A fast version of the three movements of  ‘Winter’ from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (RV 297, Op.4 no.8) followed, in an arrangement by James Barralet, a British cellist.  Inbal Megiddo played the solo parts in the first two movements; the largo was beautifully rendered.  A student performed the solo in the third movement (allegro) in fine style.  It was exquisitely played, and the performers’ ensemble was splendid.

Elegy was quite different from David Brubeck’s other compositions (assuming this is the famed jazz composer Dave Brubeck) such as the well-known Take Five.  It lived up to its title superbly. Again, Megiddo played the solo rather mournful but beautiful melody.  The music fell away to pianissimo at the end. The players had a lovely blend here.The Gershwin standard ‘Summertime’ from Porgy and Bess kept us in the United States; it was short and sweet, but effective, with Megiddo again playing solo.

Finally, in jazz-land again, we heard The Entertainer, a 1902 classic piano rag written by Scott Joplin (1868-1917).  Again the players revealed their expertise.  Although intonation was no always perfect, the playing was full of contrast, including in an excellent pizzicato passage. A cellist in the audience told me that most of this programme had been performed at this year’s Cellophonia, for cellists; ‘a week of music making and expert coaching from international musicians’ held in late August, at the New Zealand School of Music, Victoria University of Wellington.

 

 

 

Some great hits from NZSO’s popular classics concert; a win by a big margin

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hamish McKeich with Andrew Joyce (cello)

Schubert: Symphony No 8 in B minor ‘Unfinished’ 
Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme
Gillian whitehead: Turanga-nui (premiere)
Debussy: Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune
Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 15 September, 7:30 pm

I don’t know what sort of audiences have been showing up at the other ten performances of this concert between Invercargill and Kerikeri, but the thin population in the MFC was a bit of a surprise. There was certainly competition from the rugby on Saturday evening; but there was probably also a more insidious factor: no glamorous overseas soloist; no internationally recognised conductor.

Other inhibitors: a deterrent for the serious musical aficionado was the presence of music likely to be enjoyed by the masses; and at the other extreme, for those with only superficial interest there wasn’t much they might have encountered in film or TV.

The Unfinished
But it was a good try. Schubert symphonies are not much played, compared with Beethoven, Brahms or Mahler; and they should be (a Schubert series from Orchestra Wellington is worth thinking about). McKeich moved elegantly and sensitively through the Eighth, the pianissimi rather exquisite, the interrupting fortissimo interjections a bit too emphatic, but with absorbing attention to its unique spirit. But the end of the first movement arrived too soon; I’m sure Schubert called for a repeat of the exposition.

The second movement hung together very well, with a chance to admire the composer’s orchestral subtleties, especially the winds that now included trombones, with Beethoven’s innovation in his Fifth Symphony 15 years earlier. In all, this was a beautifully evoked account.

The Rococo Variations had a troubled birth, having been subjected to arrogant revision by Tchaikovsky’s professorial colleague at the Moscow Conservatorium, cellist Fitzenhagen.  I didn’t see the relevance of the programme note’s remarks about an arrangement for piano and cello for that was not publicly performed. Furthermore, the notes left it to be assumed that the orchestra used Fitzenhagen’s controversial revised version which has been more played, since its seven sections were named. Andrew Joyce confirmed to me that it was Tchaikovsky’s original, eight-variation version. Among many minor changes, including the deletion of one variation, the main alteration was the Andante sostenuto which Fitzenhagen had moved from its affecting penultimate place to become the third variation in his version.

In fact, reading accounts of its composition and Tchaikovsky’s strenuous objection to the quite major alterations in Fitzenhagen’s unauthorised interference, it is surprising that it took so long for Tchaikovsky’s own version to be first performed, in Moscow in 1941.

The Rococo Variations were inspired by Tchaikovsky’s love of Mozart, and scoring is more limited than the normal scale in the 1870s: just pairs of winds; no trumpets or trombones, no timpani. While the orchestra played with discretion, even distinction, the aural focus was predominantly on cellist Andrew Joyce, who has to be recognised as a cellist of international standing, such was his splendid bravura as well as the extraordinary beauty of tone that he produced. There were moments of dazzling virtuosity, often climbing to the top of the fingerboard, using thumb position and perfect, false harmonics.

The beauty of the orchestral parts were a fine match with the cellist’s playing, and there were no balance problems. It’s fashionable to denigrate the piece as a concerto-manqué, but Tchaikovsky composed exactly what wanted, a homage to Mozart (who never wrote either concerto or sonata for cello), and you can think of it as a half-breed if you like, but it stands convincingly just as Tchaikovsky composed it and I was utterly delighted by the performance.

Joyce’s encore was a tune from the British Sea Songs of the Last night of the Proms. Wasn’t sure I heard correctly: Tom Bowling?

Gillian Whitehead Turanga-nui 
After the interval came Gillian Whitehead’s Turanga-nui which, though the fact was ignored in the programme note, is the third of a ‘Landfall’ commissions by the NZSO that marks Cook’s 1769 arrival (we’re a little previous, obviously, for the 250th anniversary) at Poverty Bay (Turanga-nui-a-kiwa), though oddly, the programme note didn’t mention that. This piece dwelt initially on the arrival half a millennium earlier of another group of strangers.

Much contemporary orchestral music employs a good deal of percussion and this certainly used percussion, but it was never gratuitous, integrated sensitively with conventional stringed and wind instruments. To some extent it was a depiction of landfall, of encounter that turned ugly between human beings with almost no common context, and conflict. Timpani and ethereal strings set the scene but were followed by shrill wind-led agitation; bird-song, flutterings, the dance of the wind. It often astonishes me that the sounds arising in the composer’s head can be translated into actual orchestral sounds, at all. But the feeling created here was of that magic occurring, and that the offerings from marimba and xylophone, trombones and tuba, discreet Maori instruments, flutes and strings, and a particularly evocative bassoon solo, existed just as precisely on paper as in they had in Whitehead’s mind.

The music and its instrumentation quite enchanted me, and I think it enchanted the audience generally. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if many a sceptic in the audience didn’t came away with a much greater respect for and pleasure in contemporary New Zealand music than they might have had earlier.

Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune 
The Debussy; it’s the centenary of his death this year, so he’s being played plenty around the world. In fact, a couple of weeks ago a surprisingly effective version of the Le Faune for flute and piano was played by Diedre Irons and Rebecca Steele at a lunchtime concert, and the day after the present concert, NZSO principal flutist, Bridget Douglas, played his famous little solo flute piece, Syrinx at a Wellington Chamber Music concert. This was a good performance, with much careful and evocative playing by woodwinds and harps. It doesn’t play itself by any means, and there were moments when some of Debussy’s still elusive, mythologizing creation slightly missed its potential.

But the last work, Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet symphonic poem, to use the appropriate descriptive term, was a splendid, emotion-laden, orchestrally exciting performance. Curiously, even though there was a full complement of winds, the strings were fewer than is typical in late 19th century orchestral music; it made no perceptible difference. There are things about its orchestration, its near-dissonant harmonies, its structure, not to mention its powerfully emotional, musical inspiration that anticipates the future directions of music as did Debussy’s Faun (only 15 years later). And the tragic passion of its last pages, declining to the subtlest gestures from oboes, clarinets and bassoons, proved a wonderful climax and catharsis.

The programme’s construction might have been a bit unusual, but it worked very well in the end and certainly deserved a much bigger crowd.

Interesting and rewarding St Andrew’s recital from students of stringed instruments

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s Lunchtime concert
String students of the New Zealand School of Music

Music by Beethoven, Shostakovich, Gareth Farr and Wang Xhihao

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 22 August, 12:15 pm

This was one of the usual series of concerts at this time of the year by students of Victoria University’s School of Music (I counted eleven players).

Beethoven came first. Cellist Rebecca Warnes, with the school’s piano tutor Catherine Norton. played the first movement of Beethoven’s third cello sonata, in A major, Op 69. It was a model performance, beginning somewhat quietly, intonation was accurate, with carefully etched tone. It demonstrated Rebecca’s understanding of its emotional character and a style that showed appreciation of the taste of its period.

Violinist Leo Liu, again with Norton at the piano, played Beethoven’s Spring Sonata (Op 24). It’s not an easy piece with which to deal in expressive terms; even though suggestive of Spring (not Beethoven’s name for it) it doesn’t flow easily and Liu’s bowing technique needs perhaps a bit more finesse and emotional colouring, though his intonation was very good.

It’s always interesting to meet players prepared to tackle Shostakovich’s quartets, other than the ubiquitous No 8. The third movement of No 9 in E flat lasts only about four minutes (the first four of the five movements are all of about the same length) but it was enough to hear the way the players (Hayden Nickey, Ellen Murfitt. Zephyr Wills and Emily Paterson) engaged with its enigmatic, somewhat disturbed mood. It gave the composer much trouble: he burned his first attempt and started afresh a couple of years later, in 1964. It was an interesting challenge, intellectually, which the four players met very well.

Then came Gareth Farr’s Te Tai-o-Rehua (The Tasman Sea, a co-commission by Chamber Music New Zealand and the Goldner Quartet), again for string quartet (Claudia Tarrant Matthews, Grace Stainthorpe, Grant Baker and Olivia Wilding). It began low with the violin on the G string, inviting the others to join in turn, very soon becoming markedly compulsive (and, I think, compelling, with its irregular, throbbing note on the viola), dwelling on an insistent Maori-flavoured motif, though that is a risky assertion. It is a demanding work, a task that was undertaken conspicuously by perhaps the most experienced players. It took only a short time for the music to take on a vivid and meaningful character: it certainly had something to say, and the players found ways to express it with considerable confidence. It’s about five years old; Farr’s music just gets ever more interesting and impressive. At about 10 minutes, it was the centre-piece of the concert.

However, it was followed by a ‘Fantasy’ by Wang Xhihao, played by Nick Majic (vioin) and Liam Furey (piano). Though he used the microphone to introduce the piece, Majic’s voice didn’t carry. (I have discovered nothing about Xhihao). The opening did not suggest a particularly radical character, though a genuine musical imagination was evident, with distinct melodic integrity that didn’t strive for any special originality. My scribbled notes suggested a feeling of rather relief that the composer was not subjecting me to the task of unravelling unduly complex and difficult music, such as composition students produced 20 or 30 years ago. A second section was a little brisker, perhaps a bit agitated, but still essentially tonal in character.

So this was an agreeable concert that allowed a number of students to demonstrate talents at various levels of maturity, through music of genuine interest.

 

Interesting recital of Romantic French music for cello and piano

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Miranda Wilson (cello) and Rachel Thomson (piano)
Wellington Chamber Music Trust

Louise Farrenc: Sonata in B flat for piano and cello, Op.46
Lalo: Sonata in A minor for cello and piano
Chopin: Sonata in G minor for cello and piano, Op.65

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday, 15 July 2018, 3 pm

The first thing that struck me at this concert was not musical – it was pleasure at having a large-print programme!  Others, please copy, for those of us who find it hard to read the normal-sized print, especially in a darkened auditorium – which this wasn’t.  A further improvement in readability would be to use a different type-face; the fashionable sans-serif fonts do not pass readability tests s well as the ‘old-fashioned’ Times New Roman etc. fonts.

The first work played by the duo was by an unfamiliar name: Louise Farrenc (1804-1875).  The excellent programme notes by Miranda Wilson told us of this French woman, who was  a professor at the Paris Conservatoire as well as a composer, pianist, and music printer.  The numbering of the sonata, her opus 46 from 1859, reveals that she wrote a considerable quantity of music.

Strong playing opened the first movement (allegro moderato).  The music was melodious and, as the programme note said, it was largely rooted in classicism, despite its date.  It was in that tradition with the piano being to the fore, as reflected in the title, putting the cello after the piano.  However, this didn’t mean that the cello does not have plenty of lovely tunes to play.

Miranda Wilson threw herself at the music with energy and enthusiasm; her rapport and accord with pianist Rachel Thomson was exemplary.  (Apparently they played together as students at Victoria University, years ago.)  It was good to see Miranda back in her home city; she currently lives and teaches cello in the United States.

This was a worthwhile work to have unearthed for an all-French programme.  There were plenty of changes in mood through the movement, and lots of fast finger-work, especially for the pianist.

The andante sostenuto second movement was sober but straight-forward at the beginning.  A gorgeous singing tone was created by the cellist, who had more of the melody line here.  The mood was slightly melancholic – or maybe just nostalgic, before becoming briefly more joyful.

The finale of the three-movement sonata was marked allegro, and used some of the thematic material from the previous movement, decorated this time.  It became quite rollicking in places, with both players rushing all over the place, but the musical shape was always apparent.

Édouard Lalo’s music is largely known through his Symphonie Espagnol, but he wrote a considerable quantity of other music, including numbers of concertos.  This sonata was written three years before Farrenc’s sonata, but bears a much more noticeable Romantic character.  It features a very dramatic opening; the work brought the cello to the fore compared with the Farrenc.  There was more contrast and greater drama, plus a wider dynamic range.  Many bold statements were advanced, and the music was harmonically more adventurous.  (It’s inevitable to make comparisons with the dates of composition were so close.)  It was also a longer work.

The second movement (andante) gave opportunity for some sonorous playing from Miranda, in a long-drawn-out melody of a highly romantic nature, which was followed by very robust passages, then rippling piano figures over a pedal point on the cello.  In this it was similar to a passage in the Farrenc work.

Such was the apparent ease of execution by these two musicians, one could think they had been playing this music together for a long time, which is obviously not possible with one in New Zealand and the other in the USA.

The allegro finale had plenty of variety.  There were delightful pizzicato motifs on the cello, matching staccato on the piano, and the work ended with a grand statement.  I did miss beauty of tone through some of this piece.  Factors that may have had a bearing on this were firstly, the very bright acoustic in St. Andrew’s church and the fact that the piano lid was on the long stick, and also the circumstance that Miranda Wilson was playing a borrowed cello.

We turned to the pure Romantic now, with Chopin’s sonata, a more familiar work.  The allegro moderato first movement was decidedly romantic in idiom.  Here I found the tone a little too abrasive for the idiom.  The sound was usually quite loud, even in a venue full of people’s sound-absorbing bodies.  However, the accuracy of the notes was impeccable.  The pianist’s part was notable for many cascades up and down the keyboard.

The scherzo second movement was jaunty, lively, and varied.  It was followed by a peaceful largo movement.  Here we had euphonious cello and delicate, melodic piano.  The music’s tranquil mood grew slowly.  Here was some of the most mellow cello sound of the concert, in long, elegant, well-rounded phrases.

It was a short movement, so we were soon into the allegro finale.  It developed themes from the slow movement, but the pace was faster, of course; it was very busy.  This work was written in 1846, so prior to the two works in the first half of the programme, but it was very much more the Romantic piece.  Lilting moments there were, in between the rushing gaiety around them.  Chords from the cello were somewhat brutal, but made an emphatic end to an interesting concert of fine music played by accomplished performers.

 

Inbal Megiddo (‘cello) and Te Kōkī Trio record music for the ages

Posted on by Peter Mechen

DEBUSSY – Two Instrumental Sonatas and a Piano Trio
Violin Sonata in G Minor (1917)
‘Cello Sonata in D Minor (1915)
Piano Trio in G Major (1879)

Te Kōkī Trio: Martin Riseley (violin)
Inbal Megiddo (‘cello), Jian Liu (piano)
Rattle Records 0069 2017

JS BACH – Six Suites for solo ‘Cello BWV 1007-12
Volume One ( Suites 1-3)

Inbal Megiddo (‘cello)

Atoll Records ACD 228

Inbal Megiddo is presently the head of ‘Cello Studies at the New Zealand School of Music, Victoria University of Wellington, and has appeared in numerous concerts in Wellington both as a soloist and as a member of Te Kōkī Trio, an ensemble in which she is joined by two other faculty members, Martin Riseley, and Jian Liu, the respective heads of violin and piano studies at the school. Her career as a performer and teacher had previously taken her to various places throughout Europe, Asia and America before she came to New Zealand to take up a position at Victoria University’s Music School.

She’s now made recordings for Rattle, the first half of a set of Beethoven’s ‘Cello Sonatas with Jian Liu (the second disc is currently in preparation), and here with Te Kōkī Trio as listed above, in a recording of two of Debussy’s instrumental sonatas and his Piano Trio. She’s also recording for Atoll Records what’s intended to be a complete set of JS Bach’s Suites for Solo ‘Cello, the first disc of which is reviewed here. Prospective buyers may prefer to wait for her integral 2-disc set of these works, though people wanting a sample of her playing of this repertoire will be more than happy with this single CD, as the performances, to my ears, are strongly recommendable.

Recorded a year before the Bach/Atoll CD, the Rattle recording features Te Koki Trio, whose members variously bring together three chamber works by Claude Debussy. There are two instrumental sonatas from the composer’s last years, one for ‘Cello and Piano (1915) and the other for Violin and Piano (1917), the latter being the composer’s last completed work. The trio then comes together for the disc’s final work, an early Piano Trio (1879).

The Violin Sonata begins the concert, here given a strong and atmospheric performance by Martin Riseley (violin) and Jian Liu (piano), the opening, perfectly-poised piano chords straightaway taking us into the composer’s characteristic sound-world of wonderment, joined after a few seconds by the violin’s more questioning voice. As the first movement moves, kaleidoscope-like, through its different realms, the instrumental interactions change from assertion to surrender with easy mastery, all brought off beautifully by the players. The violin’s exotic-sounding inclination to slide between notes in two or three places add to the mystery of the discourse, as do the beautiful balances achieved between the two players in the softest moments, realising the composer’s flights of fancy with intense concentration and focus.

There are a couple of strangely protracted between-movements pauses on this recording, as here, sharpening the listener’s eagerness to engage with the rest of the work! The quixotic second movement then delivers us playing of such impish drollery at the beginning, I found myself smiling (sometimes out loud!) at the po-faced audacity of it all! But what melancholy both Riseley and Liu brought to the music’s lovely middle section! And how easefully they then charted the course as the music moved disconcertingly between humour and wistfulness over the final pages. The final movement opened in a dreamlike manner, before the instruments roused themselves with alacrity, the violin in particular rushing about, rather like a caged bird wanting to break free, and compelling its partner to dance. As everywhere, I liked the performance’s risk-taking with these volatilities, the various figurations delivered by the players with engaging spontaneity rather than mere crystalline perfection. Again, Debussy’s fertile imagination takes the music unexpectedly into sultry, suggestive climes, violinist and pianist relishing the volatility of it all, Liu’s piano suddenly scampering away, with Riseley’s violin in hot pursuit. The music returned to the movement’s opening “caged bird” energies, but then surprised the listener once again, as the violin slowed the note sequences down to become almost childlike in expression. After a final accelerando from the depths and back into the light, the players suddenly and exuberantly threw their notes skyward in a gesture of wry finality.

Where the Violin Sonata began pensively and poetically, the ‘Cello Sonata opened with solemn grandeur and ceremony, the piano preparing the way for the ‘cello to adopt a similar mode, though both players soon relinquished the grandeur for more poetic exchanges, Inbal Megiddo’s instrument singing in beautiful accord with Jian Liu’s well-rounded tones. How excitingly the two instruments then raced together, as if for possession of a hilltop or a favourite hiding-place, before stopping to fully relish the surrounding silent spaces, the soft playing of both cellist and pianist a breath-holding sequence of pleasure at the end!

Something of a “how-de-do” marked the exchanges at the second movement’s opening! –  in pizzicato mode the ‘cello became a kind of conspirator with the piano’s terse utterances. Again in an exotic-sounding setting, the instruments whimsically switched from staccato/pizzicato to legato/arco, while exploring as many timbres in between as fell in with fancy, making for a somewhat hallucinatory ride through a dreamscape! Impulsively, the finale breaks the mood with lively figurations from both instruments, the energies then giving way to introspection throughout a central section, until Megiddo and Liu revitalised the music’s tumbling aspects with almost manic focus, to the point where the music suddenly cried “enough”, and curtly silenced their efforts.

Playing the disc to anybody unfamiliar with the music would probably invite shock and disbelief on the listener’s part upon being told that all three works presented here were by the same composer! As a demonstration of how much distance someone’s creativity can travel in a lifetime, Debussy’s Piano Trio of 1879 makes for a profound listening experience in retrospect, while remaining totally enjoyable on a visceral level. Its first movement is the longest of the four, a graceful Andantino with songful lines for each instrument, the material conventional, but with everything confidently and meticulously wrought. A whimsical Scherzo has an attractively exotic feel to its opening gait, its central Trio section given the right amount of contrasting sentiment and circumspection by the players – while the slow movement’s Andante Espressivo, again beautifully set out for the instruments, charms with its slightly perfumed lyricism, Te Kōkī Trio allowing the music to speak for itself within a salon-like context.

Marked “Appassionato”, the last movement works up an acceptably “charged” level of feeling within the music’s own range and scope, again impressing with its workmanlike construction and level of expression, and indicating something of the boy Debussy’s obvious potential as a creator in years to come. Full credit to Te Kōkī Trio for taking so much trouble with the work, here in Rattle’s crystalline recording, sounding gloriously prodigious, if a tad disconcerting regarding content, in the company of its two more sophisticated “latter-day” siblings!

Turning to the Atoll disc of Inbal Megiddo’s performances of the first three of JS Bach’s ‘Cello Suites, one encounters something of the rarefied world of Debussy’s late Sonatas in terms of the relationship between economy of means and richness of expression. Inbal Megiddo’s playing, recorded by Wayne Laird in the precincts of Stella Maris Chapel, at Seatoun, in Wellington, sounds equally as glorious, her characterful playing captured in all its variety of utterance as a truly lifelike
representation, which I can’t wait to hear again on completing my task of committing these thoughts regarding the disc to the record.

Megiddo’s performances are recorded in numbered order, so I began my listening with the Prelude of the very first Suite, a performance which combined heart and mind, reaching for its emotional points with such surety and purpose, while keeping the music’s structures intact – the figurations were at once surely negotiated and yet imbued with a sense of liberation which empowered the listener to surrender to the music and the playing with the utmost confidence. After a freely-flowing and fanciful Prelude, the Allemande continued the process of unlocking the music, drawing from the player such strength and confidence as to enchant the listener. The Courante combined forthright impulse and purpose with a sense of fun – an unbuttoning of joyful expression, music which here expressed the idea of life’s essential cheerfulness in the face of worldly troubles, rather as Schubert was wont to do in his music. The Sarabande, deeply-felt and long-breathed in its phrasing, was Romeo to the Courante’s Mercutio – the figurations here spoke of imaginings and projections of thoughts and feelings beyond earthly boundaries. The Menuets were properly contrasted, the first confident and eager in its deportment, and the second, contrasting dance its more circumspect side, the opening a descent rather than the upward-leaping figure of the first dance, the legato of the figurations adding to the solemnities. I liked the rustic twang of the repeated opening dance’s final phrase. Dance-like, too was the final gigue, the player vigorous but flexible in her trajectories, impulsiveness hand-in-glove with a teasing flexibility, the sounds of sympathetic strings activated adding to the warmth and bustle..

Suite No.2 begins with D Minor circumspection, the playing expressing a care for solemnity of mood which gave the music the feeling of a soliloquy, one rising to expressive heights with beautifully-phrased ascents towards long-held notes. The Allemande seemed no less serious at the outset, the figurations eloquently speaking with the tones of a philosopher, the repeats nicely hinting at variations in emphasis, setting nothing in stone, but seemingly open to conjecture. Impulsively interrupting the discourse, the Courante burst in, all elbows and knees, proclaiming action rather than thought, clearing the way for the somewhat ceremonial pronouncements of the Sarabande, grand and stately, though Megiddo’s repeat of the opening made one catch one’s breath at its extra “layered” quality, the second time round, the dynamics given more open spaces to explore. Megiddo warmed the music to its task in the second part, sharpening the intensities, while keeping the beautiful shape of the whole. She found positive minor-key purpose in the first Menuet, making the major-key relaxation in Menuet II a joy, and links these nicely to the Gigue in mood, the playing resonantly voiced, and almost peasant-ish, in some places, in its suggestion of a dance-like drone.

We got plenty of C Major splendour in Megiddo’s opening of the Third Suite, great, confidently-arched roulades of sound, and with the player not afraid to saturate the music’s tonal palate with richly-wrought repeated arpeggiations, fearlessly and generously generated for our pleasure. After this, the Allemande seemed more-than-usually light on its feet, putting the following Courante even more on its mettle, the energies playful and teasing, the tones adding different kinds of timbral emphases to the narrative, to “spice up” the story. Very free at the outset in the Sarabande, Megiddo gave the music a full-throated voice, before varying the intensity in the repeated passage, expressing the emotion, and then stepping back to re-experience its effect at a distance – in these measured, beautifully controlled sequences she seemed to play both player and listener roles, the music having transfixed both and bound them inextricably together. We then got two Bourees instead of Menuets (these always remind me of sailors’ dances!), the first of which Megiddo gleefully propelled through its figured routine, pausing for reflection throughout the second of the two episodes, and then returning to the more overtly physical of the dances with renewed vigour. But the most unbuttoned exuberance was left to the final Gigue, which here under Megiddo’s fingers swept everything before it in a torrent of unbridled joy and confidence, the music-making compelling in its detailings and infectious in the sheer elan of its execution. (Sustained applause!)

 

 

National Youth Orchestra’s summer concert a brilliant showcase for cellist Balzat in Elgar concerto

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

NZSO National Youth Orchestra conducted by Guy Noble with Matthias Balzat (cello)

Beethoven: Leonore Overture No 3, Op 72b
Elgar: Cello Concerto in E minor, Op 85
Dvořák: Symphony No 8 in G, Op 88

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 3 February, 7:30 pm

To start the year, neither Peter Mechen nor I was prepared to forego hearing the National Youth Orchestra and debated the question of authoring a review. We settled by both giving up something we each hated being deprived of – that is, the entire concert.

The compromise: I cover the first half and Peter, the second.

Much as one attempts to avoid repetitious expressions of amazement at the remarkable accomplishment and musicianship exhibited by the National Youth Orchestra, and talented young musicians generally, those qualities of talent and insight are drawn out by gifted mentors and conductors and cannot be ignored.

Though the MFC was at least half full, these concerts deserve full houses. Professed music lovers should never miss them; there, as well as hearing thoroughly rehearsed performances, they will often be exposed to great music that seems to get overlooked in regular concerts. Dvořák’s earlier symphonies are a case.

Leonore III
The first half of this concert was rather more familiar, for the Elgar cello concerto gets a fair amount of exposure, and Leonore 3 is probably the most played of Beethoven’s four overtures for his much revised opera Fidelio, and more than his several other great concert overtures.

Guy Noble is an Australian conductor who has a reputation for popularising and demystifying classical music, often working with young people, hosting educational programme and collaborating with musicians in the pop world. The effect of his easy manner on the players quickly became clear in the opening bars of the overture.

Leonore Overture No 3 was the overture for the first revision of Fidelio in 1806; it’s generally considered the most substantial of the four overtures, using material from the opera, including famously, the trumpet call announcing the arrival of the minister, Don Fernando in the nick of time, releasing the illegally imprisoned Florestan. It’s sometimes played in Act II of opera performances.

Just a musicological aside: there were other operatic interpretations of the actual event during the French Revolution. The programme note referred to two French settings: only one was French: Pierre Gaveaux (Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal, 1798). Two later settings by Italian and German composers in 1804 just preceded Beethoven’s: L’amor coniugale by Donizetti’s famous teacher Simon Mayr, and Ferdinando Paer’s Leonora, ossia l’amour coniugale.

The opening, after the big call to attention, proceeded with the exquisite hushed first phrases on strings bearing a secretive message that set the tone for the whole performance – in turn restrained, suspenseful, heroic, joyous…, moving with an unusual secretiveness till the lovely rising triadic theme from principal flute Matthew Lee (and he shone again with the main theme later) signalled the beginning of the drama. The music rose confidently, dwelling not on the events in the opera’s first act but inspired mainly by Leonore’s bravery and her ultimate triumphant rescue of her husband. Its performance, marked by careful balance between strings and brass whose playing was particularly dynamic, though timpani was occasionally too strong. It certainly left one aroused, rather hoping that the entire opera would follow.

Elgar’s Cello Concerto
A few years ago I suffered Elgar cello concerto over-exposure, and Dvořák’s too, through regular attendance at the Christchurch cello competition inspired by late, lamented Alexander Ivashkin. The Adam International Cello Competition ran from 1995 to 2009 and its end was a result of the Christchurch earthquakes, perhaps one of the most lamentable losses due to the earthquakes.

This performance by Matthias Balzat, last year’s winner of the National Concerto Competition and a number of other important competitions,  awakened me again to its very special character, its deeply pensive musical inspiration, far from the character of Elgar’s earlier, ‘imperial’ symphonic works.

The cello, together with an orchestra that proved comparably sensitive to the unique spirit of the music, produced a totally arresting performance right from the cello’s other-worldly opening with merely hesitant gestures from other strings. The cello part’s handling by the 18-year-old Waikato University graduate (a James Tennant pupil) of the gorgeous main theme of the first movement Adagio set the tone for the heartfelt, melancholy music, which permeates the piece, especially the third movement – also Adagio.

Those two movements are filled with a profound meditative spirit which can be ascribed to its composition after his wife’s death, the First World War and presentiments of the end of Empire; cello and orchestra captured its spirit, exquisitely, in perfect unity.

In the brief but arresting second movement – Molto allegro – Balzat exhibited a fully-formed, virtuosic confidence, sustaining a feeling of trembling expectancy. He coped with all that ferocious demi-semi-quaverish tremolo with energy that would have won the admiration of Jacqueline du Pre. And the last ten minutes or so – Allegro – Moderato – largely rids the scene of the lingering grief, at least in the orchestra. The cello’s sometimes wild ride was subdued with spacious, beautifully phrased passages where some of the Adagio’s depth of emotion resurfaced.

Perhaps it’s taken some time for my appreciation of the concerto to recover from the Christchurch competition’s over-exposure: this performance by a very gifted young cellist and an orchestra under a conductor who emerged as rather more than merely a good front man and colourful advocate for classical music, accompanying in the most apt, sensitive and unobtrusive way, restored this great concerto’s place in my musical pantheon.

(Peter Mechen’s continuation, covering the Dvořák symphony, follows below….)

Dvorak – Symphony No.8 in G Major
A truly Bohemian symphonic musical experience – one of Dvorak’s masterpieces
by Peter Mechen

After the interval, conductor and orchestra returned to the platform to tackle one of the most adorable of romantic symphonies, Dvorak’s G Major Eighth Symphony. For many years concert-goers and record collectors knew the work as No.4 (a number of the composer’s earlier symphonies having not been published and numbered, as it were). Dvorak had previously made a breakthrough as a symphonist with his Sixth Symphony (the first one to be published), a work whose outer movements were unashamedly (and fascinatingly) modelled on Brahms’ Second Symphony. He followed that with the stern, and in places tragic tones of his Seventh Symphony (originally labelled No.2), which, though obviously a greater, more original work, is in a sense, the least “Czech” of all his symphonies, owing little to ethnic dance elements or melodic expression.

With the Eighth, the composer declared that he wanted to write something completely different, “with individual ideas written out in a new manner”. The result was a work which, more successfully than any other the composer had produced, spoke with a truly distinctive voice, expressing easily and naturally within a symphonic framework those ambiences and rhythms we most readily associate with Bohemian music. Apparently Brahms, who was one of Dvorak’s most avid supporters, was not impressed with the work, considering its ideas “attractive but fragmentary”, and lacking the symphonic focus required to give an impression of strength and true seriousness.

But Dvorak was by this time more than ready to be his own man as a symphonist, and where one finds, in the previous symphony, plenty of “strength and true seriousness”, here in the eighth there’s a joyous exuberance added to the symphonic argument which brings it all to life in a far more characteristic central European way. Everything flows in a thoroughly uncontrived manner, though still beautifully crafted and characterfully detailed. Like Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, this is music which for me “age cannot wither….nor custom stale…..”

So it was with some initial concern that I listened to conductor Guy Noble’s direction of the work’s introductory bars with his young players, the melancholic opening phrases seeming to me pushed along and not allowed much chance to properly “voice” the turns of their phrases. Fortunately, things started to “flesh out” – the succeeding episodes were given more space for the players to build and shape their tones, the strings relishing their accompanying triplets beneath the winds’ soulful utterances, and gathering strength and momentum as they pushed upwards towards their climaxes, with everything excitingly capped by the brasses.

The detailings came thick and fast from this point onwards – a lovely flute phrase lead to a heart-warming partnership with the violas, one replicated by the violins and oboes, the horn barely able to contain its excitement as it summoned the rest of the orchestra to arms, leading to a thrilling and resplendent climax, in the wake of which sounded the dulcet tones of the cor anglais. The music’s volatility kept things moving, clarinets buoyed along by the lower strings’ rhythms, and thoroughly galvanized by the strings’ brilliant, gleaming ascent, answered by the brasses, and driven to an exciting ending, the timpanist splendidly on the ball with his rapid-fire detailings.

I thought the slow movement’s performance particularly successful, everything deeply considered and beautifully shaped, with the minor-key irruptions properly volatile and dramatic. And what a stunning contrast was afforded by the trio section’s dancing rhythms, the violin solo plaintively singing, and urging the rest of the strings on. Nothing was stinted, here, the strings fervent and fiery, the timpani strong and unremitting, and the solo trumpet gleaming at the snow-capped climax.
How confidently the players moved from episode to episode here, under their conductor’s beautifully-paced direction, with the horn and then the strings inviting groups of winds to forcefully having their say, and make something strong and virile of the exchanges.

But I particularly enjoyed the strings’ heart-on-sleeve manner with the dance-tune’s reintroduction, their tones saturated with warmth, and the horns chuckling with pleasure in their accompaniments. What a tremendous moment it therefore was when the music darkened unexpectedly once more, brass and timpani making their presence felt while the strings strove to keep the agitations within control, allowing the disturbances to pass and put themselves to rest.

The scherzo exuded grace and confidence, the instrumental detailings having enough thythmic elbow-room to sing and deliciously dance at the same time, not perhaps as indulgently as some performances I’ve heard, but still with beguiling effect. And in the trio, firstly the winds and then the strings flooded the textures with feeling and sentiment, the strings adding a touch of portamento, making for an ambience so very beautifully realized. The coda then properly galvanized our sensibilities, rousing us from our reveries in preparation for the work’s finale.

Trumpets splendidly called the opening, echoed by throbbing timpani and dark- browed winds, before the strings ambled in, the violins particularly bright and focused when counterpointing the lower strings, and then incisive and muscular when the allegro kicked-started – a lovely airy wind-and brass exchange contrasted nicely with the more “boots-and-all” sections – all very rustic and vigorous and exuberant.

I greatly enjoyed the “skin-and-hair” excitement of the middle-section, especially the shouting brass, with the trombones and tuba making telling contributions, and thought the quieter variation sequences worked the music’s contrasts to perfection – what lovely playing from the individual instruments here – flute, clarinet, oboe, horn, bassoon, all underpinned by strings so beguilingly. It made the final stamping, cheering payoff all the more effective, with the final brass clamourings tumultuous!

Obviously I find it difficult to contain my love and enthusiasm for this music when writing about its performance – but here, the players’ enthusiasm and the conductor’s steady and unflagging hand combined with the composer’s natural exuberance to give a truly joyous overall effect. I forgot to mention that I noticed ‘cellist Matthias Balzat (the soloist in the first-half concerto performance) sitting with the other cellos during the symphony’s performance, enjoying the music-making as much as any, and delighting those of us who noticed him there all the more.

I thought the music-making remarkable under the circumstances, continuing with the strong impression the first half of the concert made upon my reviewing colleague, Lindis Taylor. I hope people will find our sharing of this first Middle C orchestral review of the season to their taste, and look forward to it all coming together for you to read.

A somewhat impromptu lunchtime recital proves a delight at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Fleur Jackson (violin), Olivia Wilding (cello), Lucy Liu (viola), Ingrid Schoenfeld and Catherine Norton (piano)

Beethoven: Piano sonata in C minor, Op 30/2, movements I and 3
Schumann: Cello Concerto in A minor, Op 129 – arranged for cello and piano, movements 2 and 3
Bloch: Suite (1919) for viola and piano, movements 2, 3, 4

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 9 November, 12:15 pm

Having left the reviewing duty unplanned, both Lindis Taylor and I found ourselves at this recital, mutually unaware of each other at the time; we decided to combine our impressions. Prizes (a free annual pass for the St Andrew’s lunchtime concerts in 2018) for successful identification of the origin of the various remarks.

This programme was arranged at short notice after the originally scheduled players withdrew. Three separate duos, it proved very engaging, even though each pair played only some of the three or more movements. In principle, one should regret that such truncations are made, as they distort in some way the composer’s original intention. In the circumstances however, and given how well each piece was played, it was an interesting and musically satisfying recital.

The first performers began Beethoven’s none-too-easy Allegro con brio first movement with excellent attack, beautifully integrated. The lively staccato character of the music seemed to belie its minor key; Ingrid Schoenfeld’s lively, ear-catching piano and the bright, buoyant sound of Fleur Jackson’s violin, spiced with well-placed emphases not only characterised the first movement, but continued without the calming Adagio cantabile of the second, to the third movement, Scherzo, which persisted in the spirit of the first, in a dancing spirit, full of optimism.

Schumann’s Cello Concerto doesn’t quite rank alongside those of Dvořák, or Elgar, even of Saint-Saëns or Haydn; but it’s a charming work. Being less familiar, there was not the same feeling of something major left out, in spite of the fact that there is no break between the three movements and in the way they simply merge, one into the next, lends the whole work a particular integrity. To start with the Langsam, second movement, worked very well, and the elimination of the orchestra didn’t seem at all barbaric.

Olivia Wilding and Catherine Norton were finely paired in the expressive opening; the cello has much double stopping while Norton’s piano was a model of subtlety and sensitivity; resulting in a very convincing feeling that Schumann might actually have written it as a sort of cello sonata. One can miss the scale and colour of an orchestra in such a reduction, but the music spoke for itself, uninhibitedly.

The success of the seamless transition from the second to the last movement might profitably have been a model for later concertos, except that it removes some of the crowd-pleasing drama from the conventional concerto structure. The challenges of the Sehr lebhaft finale did not daunt Olivia Wilding, brilliantly executing the lightning shifts from deep bass to high notes. It was a scintillating performance.

Ernest Bloch can often seem a very serious composer, but in the three movements of his Suite (in four movements) for viola and piano, he imagined the islands of Indonesia, which he never visited. They were full of interest, of light and shade. Lucy Liu and Catherine Norton began with the second movement, Allegro ironico, subtitled ‘Grotesques’. The enchanting opening phrases from both viola and piano might have been animals padding through the jungle.

The Lento third movement (‘Nocturne’), a pensive piece, revealed gorgeously rich tone from the muted viola, while it was rewarding to pay attention to the piano part that Norton handled with great sensitivity. The last movement, Molto vivo (‘Land of the Sun’), included some sequences influenced by Chinese music. Strong, confident playing left a Debussyesque feeling and the sense that the suite probably deserved a more prominent place in the viola repertoire. Both players were absolutely on top of the music, technically and interpretively.

It might have been a somewhat impromptu concert but between them the five players delivered an interesting, thoroughly enjoyable concert of works that one might dare call great.

A fine solo cello recital at St Andrew’s lunchtime concert

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Inbal Megiddo, solo cello recital

Bach: Cello Suite no.2 in D minor, BWV 1008
Pigovat: Nigun
Hans Bottermund and Janos Starker: Paganini Variations

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 4 October 2017, 12.15 pm

A good-sized audience heard a memorable recital of advanced cello music in a varied repertoire.

Inbal Megiddo is an extremely accomplished cellist, who teaches the instrument at the New Zealand School of Music, and plays in the Te Koki Trio.

It was a pity that the programme notes gave no information about the works performed, because her spoken introductions were far too quiet to be heard in much of the church; even after Marjan van Waardenberg gave the musician a microphone, because it was held too far from her face.

The Bach was played absolutely splendidly, with lots of light and shade.  Strong fortissimos, pianissimos that were never weak but intense, subtlety of phrasing and very resonant playing throughout the dynamic range were all superb features.

However, it was a pity not to have the titles of the movements of the Suite printed in the programme; Google had to come to the rescue later; given their very different characters from one another, it was a shame the audience did not have the descriptions.

After the lively opening Prélude came the Allemande or German dance, and then Courante, or running dance, which in this performance was almost an Olympic sprint, but very exciting.  In contrast is the slow dance, the Sarabande, which originated in Spanish America.  Then came two Menuetts; parts of these and the Sarabande were very tender, with ornaments executed exquisitely.  The two differed from each other, and were followed by the Gigue final movement, which was very complex.

It all made up to an accomplished and satisfying whole.

Boris Pigovat is a Russian-born and educated Israeli composer.  Donald Maurice of NZSM has been a champion of his music, and has performed and recorded significant works by this composer.  On consulting Pigovat’s web-site, I found listed three versions of Nigun, for solo viola, solo violin and for string quartet – but not solo cello.  Wkipedia informs me that a “nigun or niggun (pl. niggunim) is a form of Jewish religious song or tune sung by groups. It is vocal music, often with repetitive sounds such as “bim-bim-bam.””

The piece (composed in 1996) opened with strong bass notes.  It incorporated some amazing techniques of fingering – playing the melody and the drone accompaniment at the same time; playing sul ponticello (on the bridge).  The work was demanding technically, with numerous different tonal effects.

The variations by Hans Bottermund and Janos Starker (both cellists) on Paganini’s theme was also an astonishingly complicated piece technically.  It was certainly brilliant, incorporating left-hand pizzicato in the first variation following the theme, then in the next, double-stopping.  The third was almost entirely made up of harmonics, i.e. the strings were not fully pressed down, but the natural harmonics to be found at various points on the strings are made to sound by lightly holding the fingers on them.  Another pizzicato movement followed, to be followed by a very fast variation.  Altogether, the work was a demonstration of a myriad of advanced cello techniques, and ended a recital that revealed what a fine cello and a thoroughly accomplished cellist could do, without any support from other instruments.