First-class performance of a Brahms masterpiece by Vivanti String Sextet
Comments (0) Comments (0) 
World Premiere in Palmerston North of 216 year-old work by English composer Samuel Arnold
By Peter Mechen, 10/11/2018
Musical history was made on Saturday evening at Palmerston North’s Regent on Broadway, when local forces (the city’s Renaissance Singers and the Manawatu Sinfonia, plus a clutch of home-grown/nurtured vocal soloists) combined forces with Wellington soprano Pasquale Orchard and neighbouring Whanganui’s Schola Sacra Choir, under the inspired direction of conductor Guy Donaldson, to bring into being a world premiere with a difference.
New Zealand being geographically as far away as... read more
Edo de Waart reaffirms his comprehensive Mahlerian authority and insight with Number Seven
By Rosemary Collier, 09/11/2018
The concert was one of Edo de Waart’s ‘Masterworks’ series. A mammoth symphony of over 80 minutes in length was obviously not everyone’s cup of tea: the front block of seating downstairs was virtually empty. But it was a tour de force for conductor and orchestra. The huge variety of musical and instrumental content and the diversity of sounds, timbres and musical ideas bore out Mahler’s well-known saying that... read more
Eighteenth Century German music from two accomplished Wellington early music specialists
By Lindis Taylor, 07/11/2018
The musicians had asked that this recital be not reviewed.
We are happy to comply with this request but because Middle C sees itself as both a vehicle for reviewing music, and an archival record of public classical music performance in Greater Wellington, this is simply an opportunity to record what was played. As well as to comment on the good sized audience and the great pleasure this particular audience... read more
Recital from pianist and concertmaster at Orchestra Wellington’s Saturday concert
By Lindis Taylor, 30/10/2018
The audience at Orchestra Wellington’s Saturday concert in which Christopher Park played Bartok’s piano concerto No 1 was invited to this lunchtime concert, and came along in good numbers (though fewer than for Johannes Moser after the NZSO concert where he’d played Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto); he was joined by the orchestra’s concert master Amalia Hall, a friend, who was apparently instrumental in getting him to New Zealand to... read more
Great performances of unfamiliar Bartók and major Dvořák introduced by young geniuses
By Lindis Taylor, 27/10/2018
Each year, one of Orchestra Wellington’s concerts is embellished by a contribution from Arohnui Strings, the Sistema-inspired children’s orchestra based in the Hutt Valley. They took their places at the beginning of the concert in the place of most of the regular strings of Orchestra Wellington, interspersed by a few of the professionals to lend some body to the sound. The nerves and excitement of the young players infected... read more
Exuberance and poetry from pianist and conductor Lars Vogt with the NZSO
By Peter Mechen, 26/10/2018
Review for "Upbeat" RNZ Concert (with David Morriss)
Monday 29th October 2018
There's always great interest whenever somebody decides to take on the dual role of soloist and conductor in the performance of music - we had Freddy Kempf here with the NZSO a few years ago playing the entire cycle of Beethoven Piano Concertos, for example, which, from all accounts , was a great success. And now, with even more... read more
“Hammers and Horsehair” (joined with birdsong) enchant an Aro St audience in Wellington
By Peter Mechen, 25/10/2018
We sat amid soft lighting on comfortable, homely furniture, talking softly with our fellow audience-members while listening to pianist Douglas Mews “tuning up” his square piano and then “playing us in” with music that I for one didn’t know – it actually sounded, appropriately enough, like a kind of improvisation, perfect for warming up player, instrument and our increasingly attentive ears, until all was ready. ‘Cellist Robert Ibell having... read more
A lunchtime concert for the exploratory and spirited on violin and cello
By Lindis Taylor, 24/10/2018
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... read more
Polished viola student performances of Bach suites plus some unfamiliar music at St Andrew’s
By Lindis Taylor, 17/10/2018
One rarely goes to a recital by students from Victoria University’s school of music (also known as the New Zealand School of Music and Te Koki), without being surprised to be exposed to interesting, often unfamiliar music played admirably by gifted players.
Zephyr Wills began with the first two movements of Schubert’s sonata for Arpeggione, the odd and short-lived hybrid guitar-cello (D 821). No one today plays the weird instrument... read more
Themocracy