Supported by generous help from the Adam Foundation
Comments (0) This was a concert that deserved to be better attended; an interesting and diverse, yet linked, programme was well thought-out and well performed. The music by Victoria music was sung unaccompanied; the Bach accompanied, and the Vaughan Williams had an ad lib organ accompaniment, contributing additonal variety.
It was a surprise to find young tenor Thomas Atkins singing solo, in the middle of a brilliant season... read more
Tallis imitates Striggio On Saturday’s Classical Chart, broadcast on Radio New Zealand Concert, presenter David Morriss took special pains to introduce the CD sitting at No 1; it was a 16th century motet by Italian composer Alessandro Striggio. The piece, sung on the top-ranked CD by I Fagiolini, was written to be sung by 40 distinct voices, each with his and her own part: ‘Ecce... read more
I’d only heard about this performance of the most famous of Gounod’s masses a few days earlier and was at once animated by the prospect. Though previous experiences of the choir hardly led me to expect them to tackle a reasonably large-scale liturgical work of this kind, I was excited in anticipation and my hopes were well met.
The concert was dedicated as a benefit for a Christchurch... read more
Christophorus Kantorei is a choir from a high school in Altensteig in the Black Forest in Germany. The choir has become renowned for its excellence, and the singers tour overseas every four years. Our good fortune was that at present two of the 60 singers are from Tawa, while their father, who organised this tour, works in Germany.
The conductor, Michael Nonnenmann, is a tall, genial gentleman, who... read more
It is great to be able to report that an increasing number of secondary school students are singing in school choirs: the numbers taking part in The Big Sing increases every year.
This year I attended the Thursday night Gala Concert, which was the culmination of a day in which 15 secondary school choirs from 9 schools sang three items each. The previous night’s concert had featured 18... read more
The Historical Arts Trust (THAT) is a new organisation, launched at the end of llast month, presenting four concerts this year under the title ‘La Musica’ (though despite that, and this concert’s title ‘Risurrezione’, the music was all German and Austrian, not Italian), in succession to the Musica Sacra concert series organised by Robert Oliver over the last ten years. Only two of the items, both vocal... read more
While Haydn is an extremely important composer (1732-1809) and wrote in a great variety of genres, an entire concert of his music, not being one of his oratorios or major masses, may appear a little too much of one man’s music in a single performance.
However, the insertion of the delightful Six little pieces for flute clock lessened the effect of sameness.
The Kapiti Chorale... read more
When I starting writing reviews for The Evening Post in 1987, I was not particularly au fait with very much liturgical music and even less with its technical vocabulary, having not been brought up in a religious family. Coming to grips with the significance of parts of the liturgy like the Tenebrae responories and their use in the church was interesting….
Let me assume that fewer today, even... read more
Two days after Richard Apperley had played Haydn’s account of the Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross on St Paul’s Cathedral organ, an choral version of the story by Théodore Dubois was sung in St Mary of the Angels. If Haydn’s version saw the New Testament story as offering hope and spiritual renewal for mankind, Dubois’s account of Les sept paroles du Christ, only 70 years... read more
From a mere listener's point of view I invariably approach the prospect of attending a performance of Bach's most monumental undertaking with keen anticipation tempered by feelings of mild anxiety. The work always astonishes with its capacity (as observed by the redoubtable Professor Frederick Page, quoted in the program notes) to furnish "a glimpse into eternity"; though performances can sometimes suggest eternity in more uncomfortably temporal ways, more especially... read more
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