Éblouissant! John Chen’s recital of French piano music

Posted on by Peter Mechen

John Chen –  French Piano Music Recital
(presented by Wellington Chamber Music)

FRANCIS POULENC – Three Novelettes (1928)
HENRI DUPARC (transcr. John Chen) – 4 Melodies (1869)
CÉSAR FRANCK – Prelude, Chorale et Fugue (1884)
GABRIEL FAURÉ – Theme and Variations in C-sharp Minor Op.73 (1895)
CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS – Six Etudes Op.111 (1899)

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington
Sunday, 15th June 2025

In his biographical note accompanying the programme John Chen was described as having “a passion for twentieth-century French music”, even though only one of the works in today’s recital – Francis Poulenc’s Three Novelettes of 1928 – would have qualified for inclusion in that category. On the basis of the overwhelming success of this concert one could justifiably conclude that the pianist’s sympathies had definite historical precedents in this repertoire, with playing whose style, brilliance and commitment extended backwards to works whose influence on twentieth-century French composition was undeniable.

It was, therefore, ironic in a sense that Chen’s recital today opened with music that was the programme’s sole direct twentieth century representative. Poulenc’s first of his Three Novelettes began with a beguiling sense of weightlesness, of “floating” with the music throughout the opening paragraph, in parallel with a wealth of counter-themes – a minor key episode brings a wistful touch that cheers up when firstly a toy-soldier marches by and then a clockwork dancing couple strut their stuff, before the music returns to the opening.

Chen played the next piece very much akin to the “frantic scherzo” description, with stinging attack suggesting reckless abandonment, a dimension of energy extra to how I’d previously heard the piece delivered (and blowing the cobwebs from the rafters of my idea regarding the music’s droll ambient humour in spectacular fashion!). Amends were made to my sensibilities with the last of the three pieces having a beautifully flowing, almost “grateful unfolding” kind of trajectory with its sights set upon a profound serenity.

Next came four of Henri Duparc’s 1869 Melodies, but with a difference – these were the pianist’s own transcriptions of the songs, realisations whose apparent sympathy with the ethos of the originals would surely place them in the category of a precious gift for any recitalist.  The first, L’Invitation au Voyage is a setting of Charles Baudelaire’s sensuous plea to a lover to accompany him on a journey of ”abundance, calm and sensuous delight”, the music around the melody all gratuitous suggestion and scintillation. The second with its title Elégie resembles Rachmaninov’s similarly “charged” depth of feeling for keyboard texture in its rendering of words by Irish poet Thomas Moore describing the pain of a bereaved lover.

Chen’s gift for story-telling irradiates the somewhat gothic “layers” of Duparc’s setting of Francois Coppée’s La vague et la cloche (“The wave and the bell”), a dream depicting a hapless adventurer’s storm-tossed sea-voyage and a somewhat macabre bell-tolling episode in a remote bell-tower. Finally, in a rather more conventionally romantic scenario, the final Extase is a sinuously-crafted setting of a poem by Jean Lahor expressing the feelings of a lover sleeping on his beloved’s breast.

César Franck was long considered a somewhat sanctimonious and sentimental figure who composed primarily for the organ, achieving fame with his setting of the sacred song “Panis Angelicus”, which for many years hampered even his D Minor Symphony and the popular Symphonic Variations for (piano and orchestra) from being taken seriously. But the re-emergence of works like the Violin Sonata , the Piano Quintet, the String Quartet, and solo piano works such as the present Prelude , Chorale and Fugue has allowed a far more important and significant creative figure to emerge and be given his proper dues. His piano works in part represent his early career as a keyboard virtuoso with their formidable technical demands, though this work (1884) dates from his maturity as a composer and the emergence of many of those works on which his reputation now stands.

As with the later solo piano Prelude, Aria et Final, this present work features the composer’s potent amalgam of mystical solemnity, robust structural strength and a fluent melodic gift – Chen enabled both its declamatory strength and fluid animation to coexist at the Prelude’s beginning, all the while keeping to the fore that enlivening spirit, a kind of ineffable energy bent on searching for a purpose.  The opening strands having explored the terrain, they then regrouped to acclaim the first strains of a chorale theme (one perhaps inspired by the bells in Wagner’s “Parsifal’) buoyed up by arpeggiated chords which moved from section to harmonic section with majestic assurance in Chen’s hands!

From this ever-increasing splendour grew a Lisztian passage that tipped the excitement over into the fugue, a descending opening figure whose explorations Chen took on a totally absorbing journey, involving different registers and inversions, building towards a sonorous climax, at which point a cadenza like passage called forth the wonderful “Bell” chorale theme and the fugue’s subject together in a stunning peroration-like coda, the notes flailing amid fanfare-like cascades before the crashing concluding chords – what more could we ask of a work and its performer but that?

There was plenty to talk about at the interval, so much so that when the pianist reappeared we all had to break up our discussions and scurry back to our seats so that the concert could “get on”! The second half began with a work that was actually new to me, and to which I had listened from a recording and failed to really enthuse about – I thought at the time the music, Gabriel Faure’s Op. 73 Theme and Variations, all a tad tired-sounding, and so was inclined to share the blame between composer and performer. To my surprise, right from John Chen’s playing of the first phrase I was made to prick up my ears as if I was hearing a different piece of music! Here the opening was strongly delivered and finely shaped, the theme not so much “solemn” in character as forthright and determined.

The variations also seemed to have acquired stronger, more characterful outlines, so that instead of waiting for each one of them to end I found myself here eager for a new one to begin! Variation One has Chen meticulously balancing the theme in the bass with gentle filigree patternings in the treble register. Next is a scherzo-like piece with contrasting energies, at first madly rushing about, then looking about to see who else might be listening, an activity which then morphed into earthier, more vigorous “jumping” figures with onlookers shaking heads in disbelief and despair! Even more exploratory were the next variation’s far-flung figurations, decorative and demonstrative, and attention-grabbing. Then came a great roulade of sounds turning like a ferris-wheel, as onlookers watched from below, craning necks as the wheel turned.

I found the sixth variation equally arresting, pinpointing both stratospheric and near-subterranean notes with great arches between them, and the seventh filling the spaces thus created with regular note suspensions run up and down like ladders. The eighth variation was a beautifully wistful and thoughtful version of the same, complete with onlookers’ “oo-er-ings”, while the ninth was even more rhapsodical and far-thinking via its creation of hitherto unglimpsed views. A restless spirit then overtook the music for the tenth variation, an insouciant up-and-down ride pushing back the boundaries of adventure to the point where the composer’s zeitgeist must have intervened at the point of such excess with the next and final variation, lifting the music suddenly beyond all striving and searching, and quietly exulting in a fulfilment of serenity.  Such a different experience to my first hearing of the work, and so very rewarding…….

Camille Saint-Saens was, of course in temperament something of the joker to Faure’s philosopher. Saint-Saens was ten years older, and the relationship began as master and pupil, but it lasted sixty years, and ended as one of compositional contemporaries. They had their differences, Saint-Saens’s tastes being the more conservative, but the latter was always solicitous towards the younger man’s music, though disapproving of some of his colleague’s enthusiasms.

Their musical differences were heavily underscored by John Chen’s staggeringly brilliant presentation of Saint-Saens’s Six Etudes Op. 111, music that revelled in a number of aspects of spectacular technical display. Beginning with Tierces Majeures et Mineures (Major and Minor Thirds), the right-hand figurations’ gossamer delicacy was then eschewed by those for the left-hand in favour of a more turbulent character, after which the Traits Chromatiques (chromatic figurations) seemed to let loose a whole swarm of Rimsky-Korsakov’s eponymous Bumble Bees! Prélude et Fugue grandly acknowledged JS Bach’s pre-eminence in this form, giving a forthright theme an insistently varied accompaniment between the hands, and a fugue which followed more conventional lines while tossing in toccata-like touches such as the irresistible flourish right at the end.

The Lisztian Les Cloches de Las Palmas (which, in places, recalled for me Jack Body’s Five Piano Pieces!) is simply replete with resonances as if Saint-Saens had unlocked some kind of deeply  archetypal stimulus to memory inside the listener which somehow transcends the title’s specific geographic reference. Different evocations rang out in No.5, Tierces majeures chromatiques (Chromatic major thirds) whose particular sonorities readily conjured up whole swathes of the macabre in feeling and sensation long before film composers turned such devices into cliches (Chen’s astonishing finger-dexterity here garnering jaw-dropping awe from his audience which, if anything, turned into childlike bemusement at the piece’s throwaway ending!

But all of this had to defer to the composer’s outrageously indulgent self-pillaging of a previously completed work in the concluding Toccata d’après le 5e Concerto (Toccata from the finale of the Fifth Piano Concerto)! Dedicated to one of the most eminent French pianists of the time, Raoul Pugno, the piece’s ebullient virtuosity draws from different sequences in the concerto’s finale, mingling near- exact passages with more extended and rhetorical ones while keeping the pulses and energies of the original at fever-pitch, the solo piano at the very least rivalling the soloist-and-orchestra combination in the concertante original.

Fired-up as our enthusiasms were at this point, our sensibilities were mercifully allowed to gradually reinhabit less rumbustious living-spaces by the concert’s end, with John Chen giving us the adorable slow movement of Mozart’s Piano Sonata in C Major K.330, which I knew, but couldn’t place, name-wise – the pianist came to my rescue! It closed, quite perfectly, an afternoon of uncommonly sublime music-making which will linger in my memory and in that of others – what a telling and resonant advertisement for the need many of us crave (and occasionally voice) for more piano recitals! Thank you, John Chen!

Revolution, Innovation and Fantasy from Russia new and old

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Dmitri Shostakovich

Orchestra Wellington with Marc Taddei rehearsing Shostakovich

FAVOURED SON – Orchestra Wellington 2025

SHOSTAKOVICH – Symphony No.2 in B Major, Op.14  “October”
TCHAIKOVSKY – Piano Concerto No. 3 in E-flat Major Op. 75
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV – Scheherazade Op.35

Jian Liu (piano)
Orpheus Choir of Wellington (Music Director: Brent Stewart)
Orchestra Wellington (Concertmaster: Amalia Hall)
Marc Taddei (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday, 7th June, 2025

It goes without saying these days, you might think – but there was very little that was usual or routine about this latest Orchestra Wellington concert. And even when everything might seem pre-announced and sewn up and ready to go, there’s always something that feels special in the air, a kind of anticipatory excitement involving what COULD happen, or emerge from up the collective sleeve of the orchestra and Marc Taddei. So, this was the case when we all trooped into the MFC for the year’s second Orchestra Wellington concert featuring a work by Dmitri Shostakovich in honour of the composer’s 50th anniversary year, and this time alongside two works by fellow-Russian composers of a previous era, Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov – on paper alone, a colourful combination indeed!

We knew a piano concerto was scheduled, a happening almost always figuring as part of a concert’s first half – but where was the instrument? – languishing, unattended, to one side, as if forgotten, or its accustomed role perhaps topsy-turveyed! Something was definitely afoot, as up above, a stream of choristers were filing into their choir positions – were they here as listeners? It didn’t seem so as the figures stood alert, and waiting – and on came conductor, Marc Taddei, acknowledging the applause, but without any further ado, turning to the orchestra, and almost imperceptibly, setting the music in motion (the choir would surely have sat down, though I can’t remember them actually doing so) – like everybody else in the hall I was mesmerised by, firstly, the silence, and then what seemed like a distant subterranean rumbling, the origin of which was the bass drum softly beginning the work  before being joined by the lower strings of the orchestra! Such rapt playing! – a charged quietitude with a quality not unlike that which I remember Russian conductor Vassily Petrencko getting from the NZSO players during the first movement of the same composer’s “Leningrad” Symphony, back in 2011! Incredible concentration on the part of all of these musicians, something one seemed to “feel” as well as actually hear……

By this time we had figured out the game-plan, this music by Shostakovich actually being a New Zealand premiere of the work, the playing as committed to the composer’s cause as it seemed possible to be! Those pianissimo sounds gradually coalesced into something which seemed as much “interior” as “other-worldly”, as if from either deeply within or a long distance away, the sounds gradually quickening their impulses as the strings make their entrances section by section, creating a “muted hive of activity” to which the brasses joined in what sounded like the same manner – most extraordinary! – only the trumpet plays something that could be called a “theme”, gradually joined by the flute and piccolo’s similarly protruberant lines, and with the tuba adding its sagacious voice to the commentary – gripping stuff!

Suddenly, the lower strings began a dancing rhythm which gradually built up as the trajectories spread throughout the orchestra, like a kind of “danse macabre”, capped off by a fusillade of percussion, the timpani goading firstly the lower strings and then the tuba into droll responses. After a great circular wave of scintillating impulse broke through and over the entire orchestra, the solo violin began what sounded to my ears the work’s most extraordinary sequence, an impudent dance-like, fugal-sounding elaboration into which the players joined one by one, the music again ‘”gathering in” the instrumental voices as the augmented body of sounds swept onwards and into a percussion-led precursor (?) of something like a “Movietone News” trailer – outrageous, but totally mesmerising!

Consternation! – had these trajectorial efforts sapped the music’s strength? Were the pulses fading? What were these desolate tones and hollowed- out brass notes? Had all hope faded? The clarinet elaborated further, joined by the solo violin, the music then climbing into the ether as if in farewell – it was the kind of moment which could have either completely broken, or reached out and salvaged human resolve! Into the void came a crashing blast of percussion and a factory siren! – sensation aplenty, as the choir leapt to its collective feet and began to intone the (dreadfully banal) words of the poem extolling Lenin and Socialism! But to my non-understanding sensibilities those massed vocal tones sounded splendidly forthright, optimistic and noble, the orchestral instruments boldly and grandly colouring the utterances, leaving one’s imagination to freely invent felicitations of meaning and import in accord with one’s own inclinations – not unlike a Catholic worshipper who would admire the beauties of the old Latin Mass though unable to understand a word of it!

I loved the instrumental passages where the horns’ heroic calls were augmented by the trumpets and lower brasses, all decorated by the winds – all very uplifting! A cymbal crash and the choir ecstatically re-entered, the full orchestra panoply helping the voices to celebrate! The music flirted briefly with the return of the opening “hive of activity” music before being redirected by the factory siren to the business in hand! More exultation, culminating in a “Listen to this announcement” percussion roll, the voices forcefully shouting rather than singing the words of praise for “October, the Commune and Lenin”. Massive Mahler-like crashes, wailings from the siren, and a final brass-led peroration brought the work to a tumultuous close! In every which way this seemed to me a fantastic performance, taking the music where its composer intended, far and beyond the platitudinous dogmas of the words and into the Beethoven-like realms of the human spirit. It was a moment to remember and treasure.

How was the remained of the evening’s programme going to fare after such a singular and distinctive outpouring? Part of the answer was to “ease” into more “established” kinds of expression (e.g. the aforementioned piano concerto!) – but not just ANY concerto, any “random rabbit pulled out of the hat” affair! This was a different-again kind of novelty, one continuing the enterprise of Orchestra Wellington in a tangential direction, though maintaining a “Russian” profile. Tchaikovsky’s Third Piano Concerto has always had “Cinderella” status compared with its two far more worldly sisters through being styled as something of an “unfinished failure” right at the outset of its career, even by the composer, who wrote on the score of the completed first movement “The end – God be thanked!”. All of this has prompted less-than-enthusiastic attitudes towards the work, despite it receiving some superlative recordings (which I’ve spent a bit of time this morning checking out!). Before the concert I had even been wondering whether something else could have been found, another, perhaps more rewarding concertante work with a Russian flavour (a list including works by Arensky, Lyapunov, Rubinstein, or even Stravinsky’s “Capriccio”.). As it turned out, I simply needn’t have worried!

Marc Taddei introduced our soloist to the platform, one who had recently received a good deal of independent acclaim after being proclaimed as Te Manu Taki Tuauki o te Tau – Best Classical Artist in the Aotearoa Music Awards 2025. This was Jian Liu, already a favourite with audiences through numerous previous appearances, though his award made this occasion all the more special and eagerly awaited. Thanks to his brilliant pianism and the sterling support of conductor and players, I was able to “rediscover” this somewhat maligned Tchaikovsky work fragment and regard it afresh as a jewel worth preserving.

All through the lyrical passages of the opening, shared by both soloist and orchestra, it made just the right kind of “sit-up-and-take-notice” impression, which continued into the dance episodes instigated by Liu’s dancing fingers the excitement reinforced by Taddei’s and his players’ support. The orchestral tutti that followed made the most of the melodic fragments created by these interactions, after which the piano gave us an elaborate cadenza, jaw-dropping in some of its demands, even if, towards the end one sensed the repetitions began to take something of a desperate “where’s the way out?’ kind of aspect for the composer! It was a case of the cavalry to the rescue, as the pianist’s scintillations descended from the keyboard’s precipitous heights to be gathered in by the orchestra and danced all about in triumph! A heartfelt “sighing” theme was shared by Liu with the players until the timpani called everybody to order for a final dance, one we’d previously heard and welcomed like an old friend, one in which piano and orchestra seemed to link as partners for a last hurrah before the culminating unison chords brought down the music’s curtain.

The pianist was justly recalled to the platform after the concerto, electing then to delight us even further by playing an encore – one which both bewitched and frustrated me because of the piece being something I “knew” but simply couldn’t name – was it Schumann, or Grieg, or, perhaps, Dvorak? I had to be “helped” in this instance (thanks are due to Marc Taddei!), because it was actually more Tchaikovsky , and from a work I had heard but obviously didn’t know well enough – “Autumn” from “The Seasons” (some editions call it “The Months”, as there are twelve individual pieces) – this one was enchanting in every way!

By that stage, it was obviously OK for the concert to revert to “standard repertoire, more of which in a moment –  firstly, yet another “surprise” was in store for us, with Marc Taddei paying both a spoken and musical birthday tribute to one of Orchestra Wellington’s staunchest supporters, John Comerford, by directing a rendition of Igor Stravinsky’s “Greeting Prelude”, which uses the well-known “Happy Birthday” tune in what it’s composer described as a kind of “singing telegram” (Stravinsky had originally written it for the conductor Pierre Monteux, who had conducted the premieres of both Petrouchka and The Rite of Spring!). Elsewhere he had referred to the music’s use of serial techniques in a diatonic kind of context as “a very learned prelude, all fugue and canon”! For most of us it was enough that the famous natal day tune was even recognisable!

From these cerebral hi-jinks we then switched to one of the most popular of all classical repertoire pieces – but what repertoire! Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade” has been a “go-to” piece for me over the years, never losing its charm or magic! – and in a good performance it can define a “gold standard” of romantic orchestral achievement. It got away to an excellent start this evening with the appearance of the orchestra’s concertmaster Amalia Hall clad in a stunning red dress as befitted her “storyteller with violin” status – in terms of apparel that was as far as she needed to be different in her role, especially as the history of “Scheherazade” on record over the years is bedecked with a series of LP covers that feature very much “of-their-time” culturally cringe-like images of definitely non-Arabic-looking women, each of whom was masquerading as a bona fide Scheherazade!

To the music! – and Marc Taddei conducted what I thought was a richly-detailed performance, bringing out many a salient detail to enhance the piece’s general atmosphere and story-telling ambience – the Sultan’s fearful motto theme right at the work, for instance, had plenty of menace warning Scheherazade to be on her guard and keep her husband-slash-executioner entertained, interested and eager for more – Amalia Hall’s violin entry as Scheherazade was the most silvery and enchanting one could imagine, enhanced by the harp’s equally magical accompaniment. Detailed though it all was I thought the music’s trajectories in the first movement depicting Sinbad’s ship a little sluggish at first, wanting some “setting out on the voyage” kind of excitement and urgency in places – though the strings “dug into” their phrases, I wanted a bit more forward-surging rise and fall from the ship going through those waves as palpably as could be made. But the various instrumental solos – solo ‘cello, horn, flute, oboe, clarinet – were superbly taken, and the solo violin never missed a storyteller’s nuance as it all unfolded – and the second big “tutti” had more oceanic urgency to match the girth, with the trumpets capping off the tumultuous figurations most excitingly.

The second movement was notable for the many instrumental characterisations – the silvery Scheherazade-violin at the beginning, this time with a touch of excitement denoting a different episode of the story, begun by a great bassoon solo, furthered by the oboe and harp, and then by the strings, delivering the melody with ever-increasing urgency! Great work from the trombone and the trumpet, exchanging calls with the strings and building up terrific excitement! And what a plethora of magical detailings followed! – a clarinet over pizzicato strings, an piccolo piping its presence in  “wait for me” way (and, though I was sure somebody missed an entry here, the music kept up its momentum!), brass and woodwind exchanging signals, strings climbing skywards as if sailors were ascending masts to their lookouts, with calls resounding between brass, winds and strings as the excitement grew – it all drove the story onwards, leaving all of us hanging on for dear life, right up to that forlorn flute solo, echoed by the horn (lovely “stopped” tones!)  violin, and cello, all of which then made way for the whirlwind ending!

I thought the slow movement here (“The Young Prince and the Young Princess”) one of the loveliest I’d ever heard, the melody shaped to perfection, with the prince’s voice neither too ardent nor too languid at the beginning. A pity I found the side-drum accompanying the princess’s reply just too soft to really “tell” –  hard to play and not sound too “percussive” I would imagine! – of course, with the clarinet having the melody, the accompanying “whisperings” were ultra-poetic! And all was extra-gorgeous at the reprise of the Prince’s melody with the “cascading violins” borrowed from Scheherazade’s melody (is THAT where Mantovani got the idea from for his strings?) beautifully “echoed” by the oboe solo, and with the climax given plenty of romantic warmth but not too much! The horn gratefully introduced the “epilogue” (on my very first recording of Scheherazade I remember in retrospect this whole section being cut most cruelly right up to the last descending woodwind phrases), here unedited and complete!

A fast and furious introduction to the finale caused our Scheherazade some consternation, with the Sultan’s theme now sounding impatient and foreboding, and the solo violin suitably agitated in response, and quickly leafing through her diminishing repertoire to come up with something! Then, with a flourish we were off on a wild ride, like a “cops and robbers” chase through a crowded exotic market-place – such infectious excitement! When this ran its course, Scheherazade plunged into her “piece de resistance”, the wrecking of Sinbad’s ship in a furious storm – “the ship is dashed to pieces by the waves on a rock surmounted by a bronze warrior!” Nobody could question the percussionists regarding the vigour of their onslaught, here, but I wondered whether the mighty bass drum hammer-blows could have best been gradually “built up” towards the climactic moment in tandem with the final gong-stroke – here, the energy seemed to have already been spent when the tam-tam was sounded – just a thought!

The epilogue was as satisfying as I’ve ever heard, with the sultan’s voice no longer threatening, but  contentedly rumbling in accord with his storyteller, whose own violin-voice ascended repeatedly and beatifically (more securely with each ascent) into the skies and enshrining her place for all time as a true model of constancy and devotion. We were left ecstatic and transfigured after this, with plenty of agreement afterwards that it had been an evening of remarkable range and scope of repertoire and expression!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The First Smile – 50 years of Gamelan in Aotearoa New Zealand – a celebration!

Posted on by Dan Poynton

The First Smile | Gamelan Ensemble – Rattle Records (2024)
Players: Gerard Crewdson, Chris Francis, Rosalind Jiko, Helen Lowe, Hui Luo, Barbara Lyon, Keith McEwing, Jennifer Shennan

The First Smile is not really a CD, it’s a celebration!
Actually where to start with the celebrations? Nothing less than a list is in order:
*50th anniversary of the heroic role this rustic little orchestra – The First Smile – has played in New Zealand gamelan
*Feast of sensuous and intimate sounds from the rich heritage of Indonesian gamelan
*Carnival of the probing expansion of this tradition by a panoply of Kiwi composers
*Hats-off party to New Zealand’s original gamelan pioneer, patron saint of The First Smile, and all-round lovely man, Allan Thomas
*A marvelling at yet another exquisite artefact from Rattle Records, in an age where such relics have largely been devoured by the rapacious ether.

Allan Thomas – photo by John Casey

Allan Thomas was offered this neglected little village gamelan orchestra (whose origins were at the Sultan’s Palace of Kacirebonan) in exchange for “many bags of rice”, while he was studying traditional music in Cirebon, northwest Java, in 1974. The only condition was that the gamelan would be played, not just displayed. Allan was to treat this promise as a solemn oath and over the last 50 years the ancient engineering of this Cirebon gamelan has been tested way beyond the call of duty – not bad for a taonga thought to be over 300 years old.

As The First Smile was the very first gamelan to ever arrive on these shores, 2024 was the 50th anniversary of gamelan in New Zealand. Jennifer Shennan, the well-known and loved proponent of Baroque dance and all-round powerhouse of the arts in Wellington, is now the adoring and jealous custodian of the gamelan, as Allan passed away in 2010 (Jennifer also happens to be Allan’s wife, and mother of their two daughters). Jennifer decided something special needed to be done for the gamelan’s 50th, and the result is The First Smile – the CD!

Thanks to Allan’s trailblazing, there are a dozen or so other gamelan in New Zealand these days, not the least of which is Gamelan Padhang Moncar (GPM), a grander courtly gamelan from the Central Javanese tradition, which is housed at the School of Music, Victoria University. When Allan established Ethnomusicology at Victoria, the Cirebon gamelan was the star attraction and the gateway for many students to experience a new musical universe away from the Western tradition for the first time. Later, as demand grew, the larger GPM would become the main gamelan, and when I first joined the gamelan in 1984, under Allan’s inimitably understated and just-let-it-happen guru-ship, the Cirebon gamelan was looking a little battered and not being played so much. Over the summer holidays Allan sometimes organised a leaner “commando unit” to play the Cirebon gamelan at Summer City and other events and festivals in and out of Wellington. The mysteriously smiling Jack Body was never far away either – and many other great Wellington characters. They were fun days.

Nowadays, if you snake down a little path next to Roseneath School, past “Allan’s seat”(complete with a plaque to the man himself), you’ll finally arrive at The Long Hall on a windswept promontory overlooking Wellington Harbour. In this old army barracks you will find The First Smile in pride of place. Jennifer transferred it here in 2011, and was also the mover and shaker behind the renovation of The Long Hall, which is now an active community hub. Events such as Helene Pohl and Rolf Gjelsten’s ongoing concert series now take place there, and Helene and Rolf are so delighted with  The First Smile that they have programmed in a live performance of Ostinato and Cantor’s Infinity from the CD, as curtain raiser for one of the upcoming concerts (see Helene Pohl and Rolf Gjelsten ‘s “The Long Hall” Concert Series – https://middle-c.org/?s=The+Long+Hall)

Gambang ( xylophone-type instrument, struck with soft beaters, and with wooden keys unlike other bronze-keyed instruments of The First Smile gamelan )

Based in this little (and long) fortress, The First Smile has had a true renaissance, and the little group practises and performs here dedicatedly. It is not easy to take the old and precious instruments out, but a generous exception was made in October 2024 for Jack!@80, a celebration of the late Jack Body’s 80th birthday at St Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington. Featured as entrance music were Lagu Allan by Jennifer and Lagu Jack by Gerard Crewdson, especially written for the occasion (see Jack!@80 at https://middle-c.org/?s=Jack+Body).

But enough history! To the CD:

What an artefact! My CDs are now all sadly stored away due to the encroachment of newer, horribly efficient media, but this one has been placed glamorously on my bookshelf, for anything else would be a waste. Such a beautiful thing to hold: The evocative photos by John Casey and contributing artwork from Barbara Lyon…the moving stories about Allan, the composers and others…the ravishing production and design permeated with Indonesian ethos. It’s best described as a mini-coffee table book with a CD – the sort of thing we have come to expect from Steve Garden and Rattle Records, those dauntless promoters of NZ music. And credit must once again go to that most benevolent paternal spirit, The Lilburn Trust, for its grant towards the recording.

Saron — bronze keyed instrument struck with wooden beater ( drawing by Barbara Lyon, photo John Casey )

To play the exacting CD critic for a moment: the one worry is if you open the CD with gusto (probably the case), you are more than likely to witness a UFO as the disc itself catapults across the room. But what a gorgeous orange batik UFO! – so perhaps this was the desired effect from Rattle.

The recording by Warwick Donald is miraculous. The First Smile was transported into my living room, so intimate and whispering are the sounds. Everything speaks as it should, from the piquant and limpid ringing of the bonang and saron to the soul-penetrating gorgeousness of the gong. The sound of the gong obtained here is particularly poignant for, as Allan taught me all those years ago, the large gong is usually only played occasionally at the end of cycles, but contrary to a typical Western hierarchy, it is viewed as the most important instrument, and should only be played by those with the appropriate mana.

The traditional music is the backbone of any gamelan, and for me, this is also the case with this CD. There are only two classical Cirebon pieces on this CD, due to the wealth of NZ composers that had to be packed in, but I was definitely left wanting more.

Dr. Joko Susilo, patron of The First Smile, is a gamelan leader and wayang kulit dhalang (shadow puppet master) and renowned authority on the musics of Indonesia. Joko now lives in Dunedin but is often commissioned to give workshops and performances internationally. On a recent residency at La Musée de la Musique in Paris, working with musicians of the Paris Philharmonic, Joko discovered that the ensemble they play is also from Cirebon, gifted by the Dutch to the French to mark the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution, no less. The implication of this is that the gamelan Debussy, Ravel and Satie famously first heard at the 1899 Paris Exhibition was a Cirebon gamelan. They were all utterly enchanted, and the exotic sounds and ethos were to seep subtly into their own music.

“Javanese music obeys laws of counterpoint that make Palestrina seem like child’s play,” Debussy wrote. “One will find a percussive charm that forces one to admit that our own music is not much more than a barbarous kind of noise more fit for a travelling circus.”

A simpler counterpoint than Palestrina’s is felt in the CD’s first traditional piece Sinjang Kirut (‘crumpled sarong’), but its gentle tintinnabulation, so typical of gamelan, beguiles nonetheless. Also typical is the subtle pulsing accelerando (surely the racing heart of the Cirebonese lady as she discovers her prized sarong has been crumpled?), followed by the homecoming ritardando (the lady realising her sarong is salvageable, and forgiving the delinquent boys responsible?).

Kasturun, the disc’s other traditional number, is usually used as accompaniment for female court dancers and evokes an image of angels descending from heaven. The introduction is more upbeat as it reaches into a sky full of angels, and then drops back to the earth of the balungan (backbone melody). Hypnotic and catchy, the balungan is funkily punctuated by the ketuk, with the accelerando/ritardando patterns coming in waves. In the end things are settled by the traditional final gong stroke, which in this piece comes right on top of the second to last note of the balungan –sounding a little premature and eccentric to my ears. Although, as I was informed, this is actually the accurate way to close this piece, I can see Allan giving us one of his little smiles – and certainly not “the first smile” he gave as a gamelan leader. As he always emphasised, gamelan is community music and is famously flexible with such things.

Gong (l) Kempul (r) : ( photo John Casey)

The CD begins with the solemnly spacious and courtly Lagu Senyum Pertama (“Inner melody of The First Smile”) by Anton Killin, one of the NZ composers on the disc. Anton studied ethnomusicology with Allan at Victoria and has been prolifically involved with gamelan. Composed in 2017 for The First Smile, this lagu is based on codes using letters from each of its members. I admire the restraint of this piece, which doesn’t try to be anything other than what it is.

The world-famed US composer and gamelan expert, Lou Harrison (who in later years was also a park ranger in California) worked with Allan and Jack Body in 1983 when he came to NZ as a senior Fulbright Fellow. On the disc are two of the pieces he wrote for this very Cirebon gamelan, obviously from the hands of a master gamelan composer. Lou dedicated the pieces to Allan and Jennifer.

Lagu Lagu Thomasan sports a poised strolling balungan of decidedly strong backbone, with softly ironic and offbeat punctuation from the ketuk and kenong. A nice representation of Allan Thomas’ spirit, I’d say.

Lagu Victoria, with its understated funky riff on ketuk, and an utterly catchy balungan, takes the prize for sheer cuteness.

“The Prof”, as we used to secretly call the rather distant David Farquhar when he taught us  composition (extremely dryly!) as professor of music at Victoria University, was not exactly known for the seductive charm of his music, even if he did compose Ring Round The Moon, one of the few “classical” pop hits ever to come out of New Zealand. But with Ostinato, The Prof has produced a gorgeous charmer! It’s definitely one of my favourites on the CD, and shows what an adaptive master craftsman David was. The Prof was an early adopter of Cirebon gamelan, and encouraged his students to play and compose for it soon after Allan first brought it to Victoria. David thought, to be fair, he should have a go himself, and Ostinato is the result. There’s a Spaghetti Western music feel to it – although I’m not sure the movie has been made yet…

Nhemamusasa means “building a temporary shelter from musasa branches for hunters” and Chris Francis has adapted it from mbira (“thumb piano”) music of the Shona people of Zimbabwe. Chris, an old colleague from my GPM gamelan days, has truly had a vision in bringing the people of Cirebon and Zimbabwe together through gamelan. The music works so well, it’s as if the Cirebon gamelan did indeed emerge from the savanna of southern Africa, and the somnolent fade-out at the end seems to evoke the hunters dropping off to sleep, dreaming of friendly cheetahs…

Wetonan Cycle was written in 2017 by Alison Isadora, when she was back in NZ as the Lilburn composer-in-residence after decades of living in Holland. The piece involves a story from the childhood of Joko Susilo (see above). Joko’s father was a dhalang (puppet master) in Solo, and through a timetabling mix-up caused by confusion over the Javanese 5-day week and the 7-day Gregorian calendar, Joko’s father got double-booked. As it was considered bad luck to cancel a booking, the 7-year-old Joko was brought in to replace his father for an all-night show. His celebrated success launched Joko on his dhalang and gamelan career. The 35-day cycle of the two combined calendars is called Wetonan, and Alison has created an intricate tapestry of 5- and 7-note motifs. There are also dancers and the choreography of the players as they come and go to their instruments – surely a feast to behold. The piece is composed by someone who really understands gamelan, but one senses it would be a fuller experience if in the presence of the visuals.

This richest of CDs is given the perfect ending by a real gem: Cantor’s Infinity by Gerard Crewdson. Gerard is a long-time player with The First Smile and here he uses Georg Cantor’s Theorem of Infinity to generate a series of rhythmic cycles potentially expanding into infinity. God (or Cantor) knows how Gerard does this, but magic happens here. The cycles finally morph into an ominous tolling, and Gerard himself on a trumpet wails above, thin and sepulchral, as if the Ghost of Miles Davis has been summoned to accompany The First Smile.

The First Smile and Jennifer, we need more!
How about a follow-up Rattle CD of all-Cirebon traditional music?
Or the definitive performance of Lagu Allan and Lagu Jack coupled with music by Jack Body?

Whatever happens in the recording department, Jennifer and The First Smile are busy sowing fecund gamelan seeds among the young with The Young Smile gamelan, made up of Roseneath School pupils, and The Little Smile, featuring preschool gamelaners – including several of Allan and Jennifer’s grandchildren.

Here are just two reviews of The Young Smile by its primary school members:

I feel so privileged to be able to have such an opportunity and when I found out that I was going to be able to play Gamelan I was so happy. I had just seen it and thought it was amazing but playing it is a whole other story. I also love learning about the history and origins of it and I am just so happy that I was able to do it. I also really hope when all of you reach Year Seven and Eight you get to try this magical experience. (Evie)

My favourite thing about gamelan is that every second of it is something really special. Almost no kids my age get to play gamelan not to mention with an amazing teacher.  Also another really cool thing that happens is the geckos that live in the rafters, sometimes we find their shredded skins on the floor, the patterns are amazing and we’re going to make them into puppets for our gamelan story. The instruments make up a beautiful array of sound but also you can actually feel the music. (Sebi)  

The future of New Zealand gamelan appears to be in good hands.

Henry Purcell’s “Dioclesian” – an illustrious operatic “revival” for Wellington!

Posted on by Peter Mechen

HENRY PURCELL – Semi-Opera “Dioclesian (The Prophetess, or The History of Dioclesian)” 1690
Libretto by Thomas Betterton
The Queen’s Closet / The Tudor Consort
Music and Ensemble Director – Gordon Lehany
Tudor Consort Director – Michael Stewart
Stage Director – Jacqueline Coats
The Hunter Lounge, Victoria University of Wellington
Saturday. 31st May 2025

In 1985, forty years ago at Wellington’s Erskine College, Victoria University’s Early Music School organised, staged and performed (on period instruments) Henry Purcell’s 1690 “Dioclesian (The Prophetess, or the history of Dioclesian)”. It must have created a sensation at the time, though it took a while for memories of the earlier occasion to be sufficiently “jogged” so that this recent undertaking of the work by the capital’s “The Queen’s Closet” and “The Tudor Consort” ensembles could be properly regarded as a “revival” rather than a “first” for Wellington. In terms of impact and excitement it seemed to add even more lustre to the present occasion!

I well remember writing, in a February 2022 review, of a Queen’s Closet’s production which (to quote) “brought to life a world of musical and dramatic expression we don’t often get to experience in such a vivid and well-rounded way” – this was an enterprising representation of an historic “opera contest” in London in 1703 between four composers, each setting music to the same libretto and one emerging triumphant. The libretto was “The Judgement of Paris” the work of playwright William Congreve (he of “The Way of the World” fame), and of the four composers one John Weldon (1676-1736) emerged the victor by popular vote – though the Queen’s Closet cannily used excerpts from ALL FOUR composers’ efforts, thus giving us a richly-endowed “overview” of the original occasion’s range and scope – a splendid achievement!

As I’d expressed the hope that we would hear more along these lines from the Queen’s Closet, I was delighted to hear of the ensemble’s plans to present one of Henry Purcell’s earliest works for the theatre, his “semi-opera” (not through-sung) “Dioclesian” which bore the full title of “Dioclesian (The Prophetess, or The History of Dioclesian”. I did some “ferreting around” (mostly on-line, though the New Grove Dictionary of Opera was also of some help) and managed to glean some idea of what was in store for us. One of the pleasures I keenly anticipated was the involvement of Jacqueline Coats as the stage director, as I had previously enjoyed her work in other productions – though I was annoyed by not being able to find my copy of the programme for “The Judgement of Paris” to check whether she was involved, as my review didn’t mention her name! – details which come back to bite the reviewer!

I also couldn’t remember having previously been to the “Hunter Lounge” at Wellington’s Victoria University, but it turned out to be an excellent venue for the type of presentation accorded Purcell’s work. As with the “Foxglove Ballroom” location for “The Judgement”, this one seemed to fit the presentation like a glove, and with that all-important aspect of the music “being made in the same space as the audience”, ensuring our direct, cheek-by-jowl contact with both singers and musicians. A definite bonus in this case was the presence of a screen at the rear of the stage onto which was projected various images (all very seventeenth-century comic-book-like which raised numerous chuckles and titillations as the evening progressed)), and gave us some idea of the opera’s progression through the scenes and acts as they were played and done.

I remember feeling at first somewhat perturbed at what seemed to be a lack of a printed programme for audience perusal, something which I remember at “The Judgement” helped “take” me right into every aspect of the presentation, providing a wealth of background information regarding the actual contest, a synopsis of the opera’s plot, a cast list, and the titles of the individual numbers and their composers. Consequently, I knew exactly “where” I was at every step of the way through a work I simply knew very little about at that stage.

Here, at the Hunter Lounge, we were “helped out” by the presence of a narrator, Adam Neilson, who readily engaged our attentions with his wry delineations of the various plot-and-character convolutions, even though the complications of what the Grove Dictionary called the story’s “dramatic absurdities” tended to result in more confusion than elucidation on my part regarding both just “who was who” and “what she/he/they were doing”. At the time I felt a NEED to know just WHAT was happening and WHO was singing – but now, in my present state of post-event contemplation what’s staying with me most strongly is the “esprit de corps” feeling generated by the interplay between singers and musicians under the direction of Gordon Lehany and further emphasised by Jacqueline Coats’s production.  Ostensibly a story about a power struggle in ancient Rome, the absurd story-line with its portrayal of the whims and passions, cupidities and cruelties of people vying for the power that leadership brings, and their infliction of the same upon steadfastedly struggling humanity in general seemed to ironically mirror similarly ego-driven, pathologically unempathetic tyrants self-fashioned as rulers all around today’s world, and with the “prophetess” as much a schemer and manipulator as those whose fate she attempts to sway.

Whatever Purcell himself thought of the story, his efforts on its behalf brought him success, and the approval of no less a figure than John Dryden (for whose libretto he was to write the music for another opera, “King Arthur”). So, without a programme to hand I simply “went with” the presentation as best I could, and though detail wasn’t always clear to me as to what was exactly happening, the verve and commitment of the singing and playing never let my interest go elsewhere. I would have liked to have known at the time who the singers were (some of the faces I knew, but certainly not all of the names) and precisely what their characters were for the sake of the story-line. (Being one of the world’s least computer-savvy individuals, I’ve completely failed to notice the Queen’s Closet’s “past performances” page when first writing this review, and am thus posting the link accordingly –  https://thequeenscloset.net/may-june-2025/! ) However, Purcell’s music ultimately triumphed “on the night”, and there were many delights along the music’s way – without going through the whole work, item by item, then, I have these highlights of mine to offer……

First, the players (whom I’m able to name, thanks to their instruments!) – with their bracing sounds the Queen’s Closet players always delight, and this evening’s performance was no exception. The ear picked up on and relished the tanginess of the different timbres, as well as the excitement of the sudden surges of momentum – such as the Gigue-like energies unleashed during the Overture proper’s solemnities (No. 3) before the voices come in, and then, the brass (Chris Woolley and Andrew Weir) and timpani (Ben Whitton) vigorously supporting the singer’s “Come, show your instruments of war”. There was gaiety and charm aplenty from the oboes (Sharon Lehany, Rebecca Grimwood and Luka Reardon) and bassoon (Craig Branfield) supporting the alto voice at “let the soldiers rejoice”, and more festivity at “To Mars let ’em raise” , making a beautiful contrast of feeling with the recorders (Gordon Lehany and Luka Reardon) and joining the cellos (Jane Young and Tomos Christie) in accompanying “Since the toils”. The “Dance of the Furies” was amusingly described in one review I read of a performance elsewhere as “Dance of the Mildly Irritated”, though the strings here (Gordon Lehany, Henry Nicholson, Antonia Grant and Sara Kádas, violins and Miru Shimaoka, viola,) managed with the cellos to generate a suitable amount of “furious buzz” with their figurations! More charm, this time of a melancholic sort, came from the oboes, bassoon, ‘cello, guitar (Peter Maunder) and harpsichord (Michael Stewart) in their instrumental reprises between the tenor’s wistful “What shall I do?” verses, a mood that was then “whisked away” by the nimbly animated “Butterfly Dance”, the dancers equipped with delightfully lepidopteral effigies on the ends of sticks, wings  flitting energetically to the strings-and-winds-led music.

Apart from a slight purple patch during the Act IV chorus “Let all rehearse” (ironically apt at that point!)  the brass let fly with spiritedly and well-rounded fanfares as required, both martial and celebratory (with Gordon Lehany picking up a trumpet at one point and sounding a fanfare solo) – while as the other end of the expressive spectrum was the grace and charm of the Act V country dance. More delightful contrast was generously provided by the lusty Bacchanals, strings and winds propelling the dance forwards with gusto. Towards the end, as the vocal trio sings “Triumph Victorious Love” in honour of amatory order being justly restored between the opera’s principals, the orchestral playing struts its stuff with the soloists, then with a reprise of “Let all rehearse in lofty verse” the full ensemble joins with the singers to reinforce the lovers’ happiness in the most resplendent and appropriately brilliant-sounding way!

And then, there were the voices! – buoyed along by the instrumentalists’ marvellous accompaniments, the Tudor Consort singers certainly gave their all in both a vocal and theatrical sense, whether solo, in duo or trio, or as an interactively-detailed chorus, and making the most of their opportunities as they arose. I found it difficult, in the heat of the dramatic action’s cut-and-thrust, to properly and fairly ascribe which character did or sang what, and so am reluctant to attempt to “match up” the names – as, in Sullivan’s “The Mikado”, the Lord High Executioner KoKo famously sings when listing his victims for execution – “The task of filling up the blanks I’d rather leave to YOU!” – but these were the singers: sopranos, Chelsea Whitfield, Genevieve Gates-Panneton, and Erin King; altos, Alexander Granville, Andrea Cochrane and Kassandra Wang; tenors, Herbert Zielinski, John Beaglehole and Philip Roderick; and basses Joshua Jamieson, Keith Small, Mark Bobb and Thomas Whaley.

I couldn’t fault the choruses or the ensemble numbers in terms of their vocal characterisations and general stage-presence concerted utterances such as in “Praise the Thund’ring Jove”, “Let all Mankind the pleasure share” and the bolstering of the solo “To Mars let ‘em raise”, which all fell upon our ears with appropriate alacrity!  Especially lovely was the 4-part “Let the Priests with Processions”, and later, in Act Five came the ear-catching, beautifully-pointed and somewhat canonic  chorus “Begone, importunate reason” (for me, a highlight!). The smaller ensembles, trios and duos, brought out the singers’ theatricality to entertainingly risible degrees, while the various solos were taken in ways that integrated their characters satisfyingly into the musical flow of the work, some in  a “larger-than-life” manner , which contrasted well with other, more thoughtful and circumspect portrayals.

All of this was refracted through the keenly-modulated stage direction of Jacqueline Coats, and the typically thorough and expertly crafted drilling of the voices by Michael Stewart, the Tudor Consort’s director. However, to the Queen’s Closet director Gordon Lehany goes the credit for instigating and overseeing the production’s excellent musical cohesiveness and period-style efficacy – everything suitably proportioned, flavoursome and communicative – an insightful and enjoyable amalgam of scholarship and insightful reinterpretation.

 

 

 

John Psathas’s “Leviathan” – genre-defying and irresistible

Posted on by Peter Mechen

JOHN PSATHAS – Leviathan
Four Percussion Concertos
The All-Seeing Sky (with Fabian Ziegler and Luca Staffelbach)
Call of the Wild (with Adam Page)
Leviathan (with Alexej Gerassimez)
Dijnn (with Yoshiko Tsuruta)

All with Orchestra Wellington and Musical Director Marc Taddei
Orchestra Wellington OW 23CD

Hailed as “genre-defying music”, four of New Zealand/Greek composer John Psathas’s percussion concertos have made a spectacular appearance on Orchestra Wellington’s own label, a release appropriately gathered together under the name of “Leviathan”, the title of one of these concertos. The “genre-defying” aspect reflects Psathas’s intense feelings concerning the role of a contemporary composer, which he feels is a matter of “connection” across all genres and boundaries, one which reaches out to all audiences. For him this “outward” energy conveys that connection, and it has come to inform works such as the four presented on this album. Significantly, Psathas regards Beethoven’s music as an exemplar of such “reaching out” to people, music that embodies, in his words, “that desire to reach another human being”.

All four of these concertos were recorded during Psathas’s “composer-in residency” tenure with Orchestra Wellington, a circumstance that has given him a good deal of joy – “we had these incredible soloists and we had fantastic performances, and we’ve captured them”. As well, the venture is obviously a tribute to the staunch support for Psathas’s music from the orchestra’s Music Director, Marc Taddei.  I’ve not been able to comment on the vinyl format of this release as I’ve only seen the CD format (which, in terms of my own reactionary sensibilities regarding recordings in general, has what I would call the “minimalist” approach to presentation, with no accompanying documentation regarding either the works or their performers, save a QR code which you scan for access to liner notes (“Not I, but some child, born in a marvellous year….” etc.! – however, my own “marvellous child” was able to guide me through these personal “portals of Dis” with nary as much as a backward glance!).

The first of the set’s four percussion concerti, “The All-Seeing Sky” is dedicated to the soloists in the recording, Fabian Ziegler and Luca Staffelbach. A “double concerto”, it has three movements – The Portals of Dis, The Upper World, and the titular The All-Seeing Sky  – and it entrances the listener at the outset with its almost subconsciously-heard impulses, a process characterised by the composer as “a very subdued oh wow, this is actually happening kind of feeling”. Of course, the opening movement’s title “The Portals of Dis” suggests something dismal and dark,  a kind of penetration of an Underworld (as suggested by Psathas’s reference to Dante Alighieri’s “The Divine Comedy” which he had read, and which characterised for him a sense of antiquity and ancient times, furthered for him by artist Gustav Dore’s nineteenth-century visualisations of the poet’s journeyings through the Inferno – and yet the opening paragraphs of the music evoke more mystery and eeriness than fear and dread as the travellers in the boat in Dante’s poem cross the River Styx, the sounds of the orchestra detailing the almost limitless wonderment of these adventurers amid their surroundings, as the two soloists – Fabian Ziegler and Luca Staffenbach – gradually but inexorably advance the sense of a “journey” with their increasingly compulsive and addictive patternings on, respectively, the marimba and xylophone. Whole sequences of minimalist patternings alternate with newly-wrought material from both the soloists and the orchestral musicians, gradually intensifying the ambiences with extra percussion – timpani and cymbals – and achieving what Psathas describes as a “welcoming fanfare” to the Gates of Dis. It’s one where the traditionally spectral “abandon hope all ye who enter here” mindset of antiquity is leavened by a more modernist view of one’s mind being “its own heaven and hell” (Psathas suggests in so many words a similarly updated view.).

The following movement, “The Upper World” delivers a new kind of eeriness, with the soloists floating and arpeggiating over a series of deeply-voiced slowly-undulating gestures from the orchestra’s lower instruments, striking an occasionally more forceful, and by turns an exquisitely-flowing air with winds and strings, the atmosphere more claustrophobic than free, as if further reminding us that our “Upper World” can take on similar threatening propensities to that of antiquity’s visionary horrors, with the dismissal of a traditional God plus the trappings creating a vacuum filled by any number of entities bent upon dominance of peoples’ minds. This is further explored by the freewheeling third movement “The All-Seeing Sky” – a kind of “juggernaut” through the void, for much of its length, with the kind of energy that freedom brings, along with a price that has to be paid for that “freedom” – it isn’t long before the exhilaration develops an obsessive, hectoring note, breaking off at the climax to sound a warning – the orchestra builds frightening vortices against whose sides the percussionists hammer until the reality of a new kind of imprisonment hits home. In a tremendous crescendo, begun quietly and almost innocently, both soloists define the formidable slopes that have to be climbed and the spaces that must be filled with new resolve, building the sonorities in a do-or-die effort which awakens the entire orchestral forces who play above their weight, reaching a hammering climax of renewed hope – Psathas elaborates here on his idea drawn from his Greek ancestry of a “gladdening sorrow” – in his own words “gratitude for being alive, and sorrow for understanding all that’s ill in the world!”

Following this on the set’s first disc is Psathas’s “Call of the Wild”, a concerto for tenor saxophone and orchestra commissioned jointly by Orchestral Wellington and the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, the recording here presenting the work’s actual 2021 premiere given on July 17th by saxophonist Adam Paige and Orchestra Wellington. My “Middle C” colleague, critic Lindis Taylor, reviewed this concert in glowing terms, struck as much by the work’s “vividly individual” nature as by the brilliance of the performance by soloist Adam Page, and of the orchestra under Marc Taddei’s direction. Taylor highlighted the soloist’s “flamboyant confidence” and noted the latter’s use of a “wide range of techniques” as the music unfolded. The instrument itself, while not a standard symphonic orchestral instrument, has long enjoyed imaginative instances of use by various composers – I would have added Vaughan Williams’s name to the list my colleague proffered (for the review see https://middle-c.org/2021/07/orchestra-wellington-under-taddei-with-adam-page-triumphant-in-psathass-saxophone-concerto/).

Solo saxophonist Adam Page describes in his accompanying notes how musical collaboration often has a kind of “jewel in the crown” quality for artists, even though these experiences are sometimes isolated and short-lived – but with the “Psathas/Page” partnership a true friendship (Page calls it “a lifelong connection”) evolved from the pair’s first collaboration in 2012 when co-writing “The Harvest Suite”– consequently Page “jumped/bomb-dived” at the chance of renewing his creative association with Psathas via a new tenor saxophone concerto the composer was formulating.

Psathas’s description of this work’s genesis encompasses a good deal of his family history, dealing with events that left an indelible and continuing mark on both the twentieth and the present century, but more immediately on his own family – his grandparents and great-grandparents were forced to relocate between Greece and Turkey in the early 1920s in what could only be described as devastating and denaturalising circumstances – in the wake of genocidal activities between various racial and religious groups exacerbated by the 1914-18 war in Europe, the governments of both Greece and Turkey deemed it necessary to forcibly relocate ethnic groups whose religious beliefs and cultural mores had become regarded as incompatible with the respective majorities of their citizens, despite the long-established (in many cases) native and indigenous ties these people had created over centuries within what they considered their homelands. There had already been genocidal massacres of non-Turkish Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians both before and after the war and by the time the Governments had signed the 1923 Convention Exchange (called The Asia Minor Catastrophe in Greece), resulting in about one-and-a-quarter million people arriving in Greece from Turkey and over 300,000 Muslims expelled to Turkey by 1923. A Muslim Professor, forced from his home in Crete, to Turkey, expressed in an interview every migrant’s tragedy – “Born in one place, growing old in another place – and feeling a stranger in both places”.

Psathas’s grandparents and great-grandparents experienced the forced marches sustained by people expelled from Turkey during this early 1920s period, resettling in Greece, only to experience a second World War and a subsequent civil war, from which their children (Psathas’s parents) left to emigrate to New Zealand to begin a new life in 1960.. Though he was born in Wellington, most of John’s childhood, along with a sister, was spent in Taumarunui, after which he attended college in Napier. His interest in music developed throughout this time, resulting in his entering University to study piano and composition at Victoria University of Wellington. John’s parents and sister Tania returned to Greece to live in 1988, but apart from trips back to Europe to reconnect, John has remained in Wellington, and he and Carla, his wife, have two children, Emmanuel and Zoe.

Unusual as it is to explore the biographical aspect of a composer to such an extent in a review as here, the works on this CD recording each relate singularly to Psathas’s life experience and familial ties, none more directly that this work “Call of the Wild”. In three movements, Psathas by turns characterises and meditates upon the salient features which define each of his parents, and their heritage and life-experience as embodied in Psathas’s own children and their attitudes and impulses.

Call of the Wild begins with a piece of music dedicated to John Psathas’s mother, Anastasia given the title by the composer “She stands at the edge of the incomprehensible” – a saxophone solo at the beginning, an opening up of a sonic world with which the soloist can play, dominate, integrate, lead or dissolve into. The orchestra becomes the world, giving the energetic impulses of the soloist a sense of direction and unlimited purpose, resonances that seem to have the capacity that resound for all time, in places demonstrating a determination above all else, unquenchable energy of the kind that seems to feed itself – though an almost heart-stopping moment is when the saxophone seems to challenge the limitations of existence itself, sending out a call whose reach is as high as its compass suggests it would allow before pushing even further. Even the surrounding resonances are amazed, perhaps agog at the temerity of this instrument, this single entity pitting its capabilities against the business of being. And then, as if some kind of reassuring synthesis is needed, the saxophone and orchestra come together, surging towards a corelated kind of ecstatic outpouring, then setting an inexorable course towards continuance.

How different is the following, opening with slow, dreamy oscillations of some kind of prenatal nature, Psathas’s father Emmanuel perhaps waiting in the womb to be born, or else meditating the nature of the circumstances of that event in later life. The music suggests a time for reflection upon things that are important to know, feel and conceptualise – in a way it could be characterised as the inner life of the first movement’s outer being, an idea of fusion having different though accessible natures, and each giving to and feeling from the other, Psathas stressing unity of different personalities, spirits, souls. Or it could claim its independence from the outset (Psathas’s title “He can worship it without believing it” suggests this), elaborating upon what the composer considered to be his father’s “staggering force of will” in being “inflexible in his principles of decency and fairness”. Throughout this piece the sounds are unwavering in their constancy and disarming in their quiet persistence and surety. Something of the depth of emotion this piece explores by association is the quoting by a solo violin of a vocal line from the composer’s 2016 work “No Man’s Land”,

From the outset of the third movement (“Tramontane”) there’s a restlessness, both in the setting of different (three-against four) time-signatures for the soloist and the orchestra, which, after a confrontational build-up fuses energies and begins a more concerted exploration – dramatically reducing the pace and the dynamics brings the piece’s elements together, agreeing on the agenda, and setting off again with near-irresistible resolve. This is Psathas’s and his children’s heritage (the name Tramontane literally means “From the other side of the mountains”, and refers to a particular Mediterranean wind which frequently blows up a storm), the composer characterising the energised impulse within his family “to fight for what we needed in life” after his relocation in small-town New Zealand and having to endure being “outsiders” in terms of heritage, custom and religion. What emerges is an incredibly wild ride on the part of the music’s various elements, the soloist’s giving vent to a contemporary “Call of the Wild” in his instrument’s at times frenzied tessitura against the orchestra’s similarly restless soundscapes. In conclusion Psathas comments on the near-inevitability of his children having inherited the same impulsive desire to express what he calls “that nomadic gypsy impulse” and take it to who knows where?

Turning to the set’s second disc, first up is the piece that gives the collection its overall name “Leviathan”. This work, completed by Psathas in 2020, was commissioned as part of an international project with the title “Beethoven Pastoral”, an initiative by the UN Climate Change and BTHVN2020  to promote action on climate change and the environment during the 250th anniversary year of the birth of Beethoven. The Project represented a “determination to be part of the solutions to current planetary challenges’ and the desire “to inspire and be part of that change”. Psathas wrote this work for and dedicated it to Alexej Gerassimez, the soloist in this recording.

“Leviathan” has three movements, summarised as follows – the opening Hightailin’ to Hell crystallises both the composer’s introductory remarks and the feelings generated by the music – “Our planet is in a very bad way, and it seems that we can’t wait to get to the “finish line”. To this end, the human race’s “out-of-control race to environmental disaster” is depicted by the use of “junk-percussion” – The trajectorial impulses are remorseless – the pulsatings never let up as the journey takes the listener through what seems like a thankless and unforgiving, almost lifeless kind of terrain, an experience that gives a feeling of being driven rather than driving – I was put in mind of connections with similarly “driven” music such as Hector Berlioz’s “Ride to the Abyss” from La Damnation de Faust, and (during  the most frantically virtuosic sequences)  parts of the first movement of Carl Nielsen’s Fifth Symphony during which a solo side-drummer is instructed to try and halt the orchestra’s progress at all costs with savage interjections and disruptive counter-rhythms!

The Final Brook , a homage to Beethoven, comes next – a complete contrast, limpid, shimmering, effusions of light and sensation with instruments that suggest the play of light on and through water, a sound-world I to which one can give one’s sensibilities over to entirely and feel refreshed and renewed, while at the back of these instruments the strings are beginning to playing the actual music of Beethoven’s “Pastoral Symphony” in a dream-like, trance-like way – a “fled is that music? – do I wake or sleep?’ kind of sensation, one which puts Beethoven’s hymn of praise to nature to the forefront of the madness of today’s polluted world.

A single plastic water-bottle used as an “instrument” by the soloist centres our attention throughout Soon We’ll All Walk On Water – a movement one cross-furrowed with dippings, splashings and “impingings” on our sensibilities, with an eerie cosmic circle of sound sensation revolving around the dancing plastic object – a symbol of the madness threatening our world with ruin.

Finally, there’s A falcon, a storm or a great song – (a quote from a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke) – a determined tattoo-like pulsating over luminous orchestra chordings which come and go like fog lights in the gloom, and a grand brass statement reinforced by percussion and driving  tones – a held chord, and jagged rhythmic slashings indicate that action is being called for and, indeed demonstrated by the vigorous rhythmic patternings and the long-breathed calls across the sound-spectrum. The sounds make a stirring impression, even though they can at times tremulously fall back as if lacking certainty,  but then gather and plunge onwards after a dramatic pause – obstacles appear out of nowhere and are subdued and conquered – it can be done, and human beings, whether falcons, storms or great songs, can be inspired to act with such purpose! – in the composer’s words, “of steel and drums and momentum and drive!” Percussionist Alexej Gerassimez and the orchestra players are heroes, every one, under Marc Taddei’s unswervingly focused direction!

Rather more elusive, mercurial and mysterious as a creation is Djinn, a 2009 work which Psathas first crafted as a marimba concerto for Pedro Carneiro, but which has since appeared in various other guises. The soloist here, Yoshiko Tsuruta, remembered the premiere of this concerto well, and was honoured to be invited to present this work in 2024 – in her words,  “an exciting and deeply-rewarding experience”.

Djinn is a marimba concerto in three movements – 1. Pandora – 2. Labyrinth – 3. Out-dreaming the Genie. The first movement is a meditative dialogue between soloist and orchestra depicting the legend of Pandora, who opened a box containing all the evils of the world, leaving only hope inside for humankind. – though distinctive, the movements are interconnected by a common mythological resonance where consciousness and mystery can interact and colour both our individual and collective imaginings. The second, Labyrinth, is perhaps the most profound as it symbolises a journey of self-discovery and has the capacity to surprise and astonish us, despite our expectations. The final movement, Out-dreaming the Genie offers a kind of interpretation of these previous experiences as
sources of hope, confidence and freedom as one might imagine it could be. The soloist, Yoshiko Tsuruta, gives an extraordinary performance,  never missing a beat or nuance, and Marc Taddei and Orchestra Wellington lead us through the proverbial maze of exploration, entanglement and eventual realisation with single-minded resolve and a degree of hope bolstered by determination – the music  in both its performance and symbolic power becominga synonym for human perseverance.

So, what feelings am I left with  about what I’ve been listening to? Mainly that, to go into and through these pieces, either separately or together, is to undertake a journey that puts one in touch with things that ebb and flow, and helps one crystallise one’s feelings about music in general and about humanity and ITS relationship with music. After listening to these works by John Psathas on this recording, the most resounding thing I’m feeling is to equate music all the more with being human, and reinforce that quality of sharing something that’s about continuance – as someone put it so succinctly, like ”a journey on an overgrown path”. To be thus presented with such a simple yet profound idea is a wondrous achievement – one that I urge people who haven’t yet done so to try through this splendid set of recordings of John Psathas’s music.

 

 

 

 

Home for the Winter with Hannah Darroch and Liam Wooding

Posted on by Peter Mechen

“Home for the Winter”
Liam Wooding (piano) and Hannah Darroch (flute)
Music by Jasmine Lovell-Smith, Henri Dutilleux, Lachlan Skipworth, Aaron Copland and Lili Boulanger
Bedlam and Squalor – Level 1, 18 Garret St,. Te Aro, Wellington
6:00 pm, Thursday,15th May, 2025

Things were “swinging away” in great end-of-the-day style at “The Rogue and Vagabond”, the watering-place right next to central Wellington’s Glover Park, as I made my way, a little tentatively, just around the corner and further along Garret St, to where there stood, self-assuredly in its own modest way, the entrance to “Bedlam and Squalor” (ah, thought I – a first cousin to “The Rogue and Vagabond!) – but I was straightaway taken by the contrast of the sombre doorway (of the “abandon hope” sort) with the profusion, above and besides this entrance, of coloured-pencil like horizontal stripes one might have correlated to a kind of urban kindergarten or some sort of art-gallery where the Hogarth-like images I’d entertained of “Bedlam and Squalor” were in reality reverse-euphemisms  for “fun and games”, and obviously nothing worse than “madness and merriment”.

Up the stairs I went, leaving those around-the-corner jollities earthbound as I ascended, finding myself in a quiet, comfortable and welcoming space not unlike a bar itself, but with tables and chairs set up in a rounded area at the room’s end, where there was a piano, beside which the two artists, Hannah Darroch and Liam Wooding, were discussing aspects of the music they were about to perform, and greeting us (myself included) as we came in. Pleasantries completed I had just settled down, finding a seat next to an acquaintance whom I’d made at previous concerts and always found most agreeable, when I discovered that, in my haste at leaving home I’d snatched up one of my notebooks, but had forgotten to bring a pen! Help was at hand in the shape and form of a bartender, who was greatly amused by the piquancy of the plight of a music critic who had come without a stylus, but who kindly brought my agony to an end by producing one – I was happy to have thus contributed a “storm-in-a-teacup” strand of incident to the proceedings now that things had been resolved!

So! – here were Hannah Darroch and Liam Wooding, formally welcoming us (we were a small but appreciative audience in that relatively intimate space) and telling us about what they were going to play for us, beginning with a piece which had give the whole recital its name, “Home for the Winter”, a piece written in 2020 for Hannah by Jasmine Lovell-Smith, and whose title was inspired by the “homeward” move made by many New Zealanders in response to the Covid 19 outbreak. The sounds seemed coaxed from out of the air, firstly for the piano, and then for the flute, the lines having a natural, organic kind of flow as if wrought by impulse, a feeling for the actions of wind and water all around – having been brought into being these elements seemed to take human form in song, which became a sort of minstrelsy, a chorus that rose up as the piano intensified the exchanges, before breaking off and leaving the opening resonances as a memory.

Having proclaimed a kind of “this is where we are” introduction, Hannah and Liam took us next to more peopled terrain, with a work by French composer Henri Dutilleux. Though it was one I’d not heard before, I knew and had already been enchanted with pieces by Poulenc, Francaix and Ropartz, and this proved, to my delight, similar kind of territory. I was almost straightaway disarmed by the opening piquancies (mysterious piano octaves echoed and gracefully “danced all about” by the flute) – and I loved the “Peter and the Wolf” opening dialogues of the second movement between the piano’s predatory wolf and the flute’s frightened but intrepid bird, and the following rhapsodic exchanges between the two, suggesting something of a singular “entente cordiale”.

A sudden escalation of energies (brilliant “molto perpetuo” playing from both musicians) seemed to clear the air of menace, entirely, and give the scenario over entirely to the pleasures of tit-for-tat exchange, our sensibilities being given plenty of air and space in places by some soaring lines before being returned to the dance! Towards the end, a cadenza-like episode from Hannah’s flute took us to a Ravel-like place not unlike Daphnis and Chloe’s enchanted grove, before the pair rejoined forces for an ever-accelerating coda, exhilarating for us all in its shared energies and pleasures.

Next was a recently-composed (2022) sonata by Australian Lachlan Skipworth, introduced by Liam, and described by him as “very refreshing” to play, though adding the proviso that the time signatures in the score with their frequent changes – 20/16, 10/16, 18/16 – certainly posed something a “challenge”. From the beginning I found the work a same-but-different experience to that of the Dutilleux, here an almost Gaelic world of exhilaration, with the opening “chaos of delight” morphing into a folk-dance blend of carefree abandon and strongly-pulsed movement.

The piano breaks off to play a solemn, repeated note-pattern to which the flute adds a lovely, rustic song-like sequence, borne along by its own airiness and spaciousness, hymn-like when the piano intensifies the mood, and seemingly tossed into the play of winds and waves when both instruments dance along the hilltops of the melody’s liberated lines – entrancing! Just as spell-binding is the dialogue of voices sequence which follows, like a pair of birds enacting a defining of territories, or a courtship ritual, one which leads back to the exuberance of the folkdance – if the conclusion isn’t quite of the grand finality one might expect, one might say it has an attractively insouciant “well, there it is!” manner at the end.

Our “food for thought” interval was sufficient to process what we’d heard (delightful!) and clear our decks for the next offering, a “different again” experience promised, which Hannah described for us  as “Americana in music” – this was Aaron Copland’s Duo for Flute and Piano, again something I hadn’t heard (oh, the ignorance of some music critics!), and naturally looked forward to an introduction to the piece. The opening movement, marked as “Freely” by the composer, takes us straight into the world of the latter’s ballet “Appalachian Spring” with the flute playing solo, a “voice in the wilderness”, spacious and nostalgic, with the piano’s entry contributing to the characteristic, almost unmistakably “open” sound. The flute begins the dance, strands of movement varying its trajectories, with the piano amusingly “oom-pah” at one point just before the big flute solo! Another pronounced “echo” for me is the similar ambience to the Third Symphony towards the end, a kind of salute to an idealised past…..but, then, what a quirky kind of conclusion! – those sharply-abrupt chordings are almost amusing in their air of dismissiveness!

“Poetic, somewhat mournful”, says the composer at the head of Mvt.II – piano and flute seem to be either looking for or avoiding one another at the start – most of those open harmonies have closed up, and whatever congress the instruments strike, each seems somewhat nonplussed by the other – there’s a moment of accord in a more animated and heartfelt middle section, but compared to the opening, it’s a bit like the difference between a dream and an awakening (whichever suits which!).The piano returns to its lonely furrow, and the flute raises its head for a heartfelt and sonorous single-note look-around!

Both espy a notice saying “Lively, with bounce!”  – so the piano “bounces” and the flute catches on! And what better than a square dance? – lovely, palms-skyward trajectories, with quirky harmonic comings and goings, with the flute occasionally intoning “Where are you?” as the piano rumbles up and down the stairs! – “Back to the dance!” they both chorus, nostalgically smoothing-over the rhythms here and there, but as quickly resuming their “hide-and-seek” – suddenly Hannah’s flute espies an open window and with Liam’s piano in hot pursuit catapaults right through it! – freedom!

Has this been music I’m writing about or some sort of “anything you can do I can do better” kind of game? It just seems that way, at times – but whatever the case, we in the audience were tickled to pieces by it all – and just to show that life bears SOME resemblance to art, we were invited by our stalwart artists to return to our lives with a kind of encore, a piece by Lili Boulanger appropriately entitled “Nocturne”, the flute singing a lullabic song over piano octaves, the tones soaring and settling over gorgeous keyboard undulations, while the harmonies coalesce slowly and beautifully.

Hannah and Liam, you and your instruments brought about such delight and contentment for all of us present this evening – any thoughts of bedlam and squalor were forgotten as I took my leave of my companion (deftly remembering on the way out to return the borrowed pen!) and descended those stairs and met with the open air once again, trying to recall what day it was, where I was, where I was going and what the music was that was playing in my head as I walked through streets that bore no relation, it seemed, to any of those sounds….and I thought it was definitely all part of something well worth remembering……

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cantoris – opera that’s tuneful, rhythmic, magical, exotic, funny, murderous, tragic, pompous, escapist, real – what more could you want?

Posted on by Peter Mechen

CANTORIS – A Night at the Opera

Cantoris Choir
Soloists: Barbara Paterson (soprano), William McElwee (baritone)
Music Director: Ingrid Schoenfeld
Piano: Heather Easting

Ruggero LEONCAVALLO – Bell Chorus from I Pagliacci
Giuseppe VERDI – Anvil Chorus from Il Trovatore
George Frideric HANDEL – Chorus of Enchanted Islanders from Alcina
Giacomo PUCCINI – Humming Chorus from Madama Butterfly
Georges BIZET – Habanera, with Chorus from Carmen
Toreador Song, with Chorus, from Carmen
Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART – “Heil sei euch Geweihten” from The
Magic Flute
Christoph Willibald GLUCK – “Quel est l’audacieux” from Orphée et
Eurydice
Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART – Voyagers’ Chorus from Idomeneo
George Frideric HANDEL – “How Strange their Ends” from Theodora
Henry PURCELL – Dido’s Lament and “With Drooping Wings”
from Dido and Aeneas
Giuseppe VERDI – Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Nabucco
Brindisi (Drinking Song and Chorus) from La
Traviata
Carl ORFF – Chorus “O Fortuna”  from Carmina Burana

St.Peter’s-on-Willis-Street, Te Aro, Wellington
Saturday, 10th May 2025

What a splendid blockbuster of a way for a choir to begin a season! – and with so many wonderful moments that have actually transcended their “high art” origins and are now “in the culture!” – and none the worse for it! So often certain pieces of music are deemed well-known to the point of cliché, and are therefore passed over, in favour of something more “interesting”. But! – as I fondly remember from my own formative years, it was often one of these very pieces, which would have been regarded by others as “hackneyed”, whose first hearing hit me like a ton of bricks, and to the extent that life was never the same again afterwards!

At school, in the Fourth Form, I had the good fortune to have a teacher who was himself an opera fan – so he would play to us pieces from a recording (of which I now have a prized copy!) of “Opera Choruses”, ALL of which I simply fell in love with on first hearing! – it was partly the way he introduced them to his class of rough-diamond, mostly rugby-playing and pop-music-loving boys who probably didn’t at that stage know Wagner from a Weet-Bix packet, but who listened, spell-bound as he described scenarios to go with the choruses, such as how a rich man, sitting miserably in his house surrounded by his wealth, suddenly heard a crowd of pilgrims passing in the street outside, singing “Alleluiah” at the tops of their voices as they went by the man’s window – and how the man was galvanised by what he heard, and, leaving his house and possessions behind, rushed down the road to join them! – and then, of course, our teacher played us the actual recording of the chorus, and we were “there”, listening to these voices, and imagining how we would have been filled with wonderment at the sounds and jumped up at the end to follow the voices ourselves. This particular chorus (the Pilgrims’ Chorus from Wagner’s “Tannhauser”) wasn’t among Cantoris’s presentations, but the others had an effect this same evening that vividly brought back that memory to me, of my sensibilities being unexpectedly “ignited” by something whose appeal was direct and enduring!

What was especially wonderful at the Cantoris concert was how the choir, with the barest minimum of forces (no orchestra, and no elaborate stage or theatrical trappings with which to fill out the scenarios), was able to generate from their music-making something of this excitement of both discovery and rediscovery amongst their audience. For this they could thank in addition an inspirational music director, Ingrid Schoenfeld, a brilliant pianist, Heather Easting, and two solo singers, soprano Barbara Paterson and baritone William McElwee who threw themselves wholeheartedly into their characterisations of various roles associated with certain of the choruses. Audience reaction to each and every one of the items (even those whose unexpectedly abrupt endings might have taken by surprise people who were just beginning to “groove along” with things – however, opera, as any enthusiast knows, thrives on the unexpected!) was enthusiastic and wholehearted, and the programming with its variety of settings, situations and characterisations meant that one’s interest never flagged.

Within this variety were placed a number of sure-fire favourites with tunes that everybody seems to have heard somewhere or other, those “part of the soundscape” melodies which seem to have always been there – such were two of the Verdi choruses (the “Anvil” Chorus from “Il Trovatore”, and the “Hebrew Slaves” Chorus from “Nabucco”), Bizet’s perennial favourite “Habanera” (solo-and-chorus) from “Carmen”, and the more recent “classic” from Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana”, that’s made up for lost time on various television advertisements, “O Fortuna!” Each one had plenty of impact of satisfyingly varying kinds, even if in the “Il Trovatore” excerpt the anvils sounded more “Janissary-like” than whole and ringing, and the gypsy men fudged their first “All’opra! all’opra!”, probably through thinking too much about the gypsy women! Such a distraction wasn’t a problem with Barbara Paterson’s alluringly three-dimensional  portrayal of Carmen in the “Habanera” (the singer using the church’s central aisle to palpable dramatic effect!) – and though baritone William McElwee couldn’t quite match her range of vocal colour and impulse, his confident “presence” as Escamillo in the Toreador’s Song, did ample justice to the bullfighter’s swaggering character, both singers backed to the hilt by the choir’s support and the unfailingly buoyant trajectories of Heather Easting’s accompaniments!

On a different emotional plane were two other solo-and-chorus presentations which resounded afterwards in the memory, firstly Gluck’s chilling “Quel est L’Audacieux” from Orphée et Eurydice, featuring the choir of Furies guarding the Underworld with tones fearsome and implaccable  – and the baritone a tremulous but staunch and persistent supplicant, driven desperately by his love for Eurydice to bring her back from the land of the Dead – the atmosphere generated by the confrontation was properly chilling, with the choir’s tones dark and malevolent before being moved to pity by McElwee’s plaintive pleas – a memorable evocation. Though not cheek-by jowl on the programme, fortunately, we still couldn’t help but register the contrasts in almost every way between the Gluck scenario and Henry Purcell’s famous “Dido’s Lament”, one of opera’s most heart-rending scenes, and given all the space needed for both impulse and stillness to work a powerful spell – Paterson’s singing was beautifully-poised, purer of tone on her second-time-round ascent at “reMEMBER ME” and thoroughly affecting altogether, as was the choir’s following “With Drooping Wings” chorus, its sombre tones and heartbeat-like phrasings seeming to put all of us closer to our tenuous grasp upon life than we might have otherwise wanted.

I don’t intend to scroll through the entire programme in this review, but would like to register some more specific enjoyments, such as the opening “Bell Chorus” from Leoncavallo’s “I Pagliacci”, which gave us plenty of bright, vibrant bell-sounds and ear-catching dynamic variation. Another was the chorus from Handel’s “Alcina”, well-remembered from an enterprising production I attended some years ago at Day’s’ Bay Opera, and bringing back some lovely evocations of that time. In fact the programme as such had a number of lesser-known choruses from works such as from another Handel work, an oratorio “Theodora” (again, adventurously performed, and heard by me, at Day’s Bay, incidentally, as an opera!). Any memory of the work had by this time gone, so it seemed like a new and wondrous experience for me, a solemn, processional-like journey sustained partly by long-held notes, and at other times closely-worked phrases that seemed to gestate from these same lines like a plant coming into flower, the whole suiting the passage of thought and expression of wonderment – for me, a delightful rediscovery!.

Another came from Mozart, this time his “Idomeneo” (one which gave Barbara Paterson another chance to shine as Elettra, one of the characters in the opera’s story, here expressing hopes with some trepidation for a calm voyage to her homeland with the person she loves) – a kind of Mozartean “Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage” work, here given with flowing, undulating tones from the choir, taking the treacherous upward leap towards the end in their stride!

Comments in general? These are mere opinions and can be regarded as such – but I have to confess to wishing that the trajectories of just a couple of the items had been allowed to flow more easily and dreamily – Puccini’s “Humming Chorus”, for instance, I prefer to hear sounded as if it’s almost “breathed” rather than sung and that we listeners are eavesdropping on something really private and close to the heart! To an extent I thought also that the “Va, pensiero” Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves could also have been taken as if in a dream at the start, making the “outburst” in the middle more of a kind of the captives’ “awakening” a demonstration of despair and grief at their predicament – “O harp, why do you hang so silently?…rekindle the memories in our hearts!”

Enough! – reviewers of concerts should talk about what and how things were done, played and sung, rather than compile wish-lists of such things as “could-have-beens!”! It will be obvious that I got such a lot of pleasure from out of the concert, a good deal of which was reinforced by the enjoyment of those sitting close to me and of other people I talked with afterwards. Congratulations and thanks are due to all concerned for their part in such a warm-hearted enterprise!

Wellington Youth Orchestra – revels ceremonial and fantastical

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Youth Orchestra –  Conductor Mark Carter  congratulates WYO leader Alan Kao at the conclusion of the “Fanfare and Fantasy” concert on Saturday May 3rd, 2025

FRANZ JOSEF HAYDN – Symphony No. 100 in G Major “Military”
MODEST MUSORGSKY (ed. Rimsky-Korsakov) – Night on a Bare Mountain
PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY – Capriccio Italien

Wellington Youth Orchestra
Mark Carter (conductor)

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington
Saturday, 3rd May 2025

Wellington Youth Orchestra’s engagingly-presented opening “salvo” of 2025 appropriately began with one of the most agreeably demonstrative pieces of ceremonial music from the classical era, Josef Haydn’s by turns genial and uproarious “Military” Symphony. This was no less than the composer’s hundredth work in a form he himself had practically reinvented and made his own, setting a remarkable benchmark for future attempts by his successors at reconciling the competing requirements of form and content in symphonic music.

Such was Haydn’s fecundity he had come up with all kinds of different ideas over the years to attract and maintain his audience’s interest. Prior to his final years, during which he had become largely a free-lance composer, he had been employed by the Hungarian Esterhazy family at their Eisenstadt residence on the Austro-Hungarian border, and  – as Haydn himself once famously remarked – had the freedom to be “original”. An example of this was a work called the “Farewell” Symphony, which has a final movement where all the players gradually leave the stage one by one, blowing out their candles as they go – Haydn wanted to give his Prince the message that he and his players badly needed a holiday!

By the time he came to write Symphony No 100 in G Major in 1793 (one of a number which became no less than twelve “London” Symphonies), his old employer had died, and Haydn was enjoying new-found freedom, making two trips to London at the invitation of impresario, Johann Peter Salomon (after whom the set of “London” Symphonies are often named), meeting King George III, and being feted by both the court and high society. Despite such blandishments he preferred Vienna, returning permanently at the end of his second trip in 1795, and becoming music director for his new, more austere Esterhazy Prince who preferred sacred to secular music.

The G Major Symphony we know as the “Military” gets its character partly for the instrumentation Haydn uses – the work makes use of Turkish features known to the Viennese through their various conflicts with the Turkish military over years of conflict – known as “Janissary”, these exotic percussive effects (cymbal, triangle, rute, bass drum) had achieved great popularity, which composers naturally wanted to emulate (both Mozart and Beethoven were to use similar effects in some of their own music.).

Here at St.Andrew’s the cheek-by-jowl relationship of orchestra and audience practically enveloped our sensibilities with the Symphony’s marvellous rhythmic and colouristic effects, though it wasn’t all bang, crash, rumble and tinkle, Haydn cannily reserving his “Janissary” forces for the second and fourth movements. The rest brought enchantment of another kind right from the work’s beginning, with the adagio opening ravishingly awakened by the string-tones, and the supporting winds giving great character to the contrasting minor-key colours. An ensuing allegro added to our delight with the winds cheekily taking up the dance and inviting the rest of the orchestra to join in. It was playing from all which brought out the sheer “joy” of exchange, and the “giving” nature of Haydn’s musical instincts in general, conductor Mark Carter underlining our pleasure with the first-movement repeat!

Deceptively charming and relaxed at its beginning, with lovely al fresco colourings from strings and winds, the Allegretto second movement lurched  suddenly into minor-key drama and conflict with its battery of “Janissary” instruments joining the fray, the bass drummer adroitly compounding the instrument’s window-rattling seismic quality with the use of the rute, a bunch of rods loosely bound, and when striking a surface giving a dry, macabre bone-rattling effect! – with triangle, and “Nefer” crash cymbals and the timpani and brass underlining the overall impact, the general impression was more-than-satisfyingly combatative! A brief return to the major-key opening gave us some brief respite, but the famous passage introduced by the bugle call signalled an ‘all-in” sequence whose  impact gave rise to the well-known story of the premiere causing listeners of the time some angst, described by one reviewer as “the clash of arms, the groans of the wounded, and what may be described as the hellish roar of war increase(d) to a climax of hellish sublimity” (perhaps, alas, not so far from contemporary realities in our planet’s war-torn spots!).

The Minuet took us to a different world, a return to order and semblance of the same after battle, the tempi giving a livelier-than-usual effect – I wanted the wind’s somewhat plaintive “turns” in places to be brought out a bit more! – but the musicians’ graceful curving trajectories of the Trio were a delight, effectively contrasted by the “kick” the players achieved in the minor-key bits!

And so to the finale, bubbling with anticipation at its beginning, Mark Carter’s direction bringing out the players enjoyment of  the dynamics’ interplay, in particular their wry, po-faced insouciance at the “crushed phrase” sequence – and having been brought up on Sir Thomas Beecham’s delightful (if in such places inauthentic) recorded version of the symphony I was also enjoyably startled by the timpanist’s full-on entry with his “let ’er rip” gesture, instead of the crescendo I’d long become accustomed to! Wonderful!

There’s a lot of inspired to-ing and fro-ing elsewhere in this finale (at one point one is even tempted into thinking a fugue might be on the cards!) but Haydn’s judgement at reserving his overtly “martial” forces for certain moments in the work pays off with a vengeance!  Apart from a couple of brief last-minute forays for separate strings and winds, it’s the war machine that returns at the end, this time in triumph! It seems ironic that it’s actually the Janissary which is here sounding the victory, but of course by that time the Turks had been defeated and driven out of Austria, so they were obviously no longer regarded as a threat!

From this point we were taken into a new century, as well as northwards to Russia (though, admittedly, then on holiday with a second Russian composer to Italy!) – life can never be said to be straightforward!  Of these two forays under inspection it might be said that the most startling quantum leap was into the creative world of one Modest Musorgsky (different spellings of the surname abound!). Russian-born, he was tragically short-lived, all the more so for being regarded in some circles as the most naturally gifted of a group of composers (known as “The Mighty Handful”) who had emerged from the land of the Tsars amid the tumult of national feeling that had spread all over Europe in the late nineteenth century.

Steeping himself in his country’s folklore Musorgsky made several attempts at setting to music an old Russian legend whose original title was St.John’s Eve on Bald Mountain which he completed in June 1867. Unfortunately his colleagues, especially his mentor and fellow-composer Mily Balakirev, regarded the work as crude, and lacking in proper technical “finish”. As well, neither of the reworked versions of the story which Musorgsky subsequently attempted, the operas Mlada and Sorochintsy Fair were properly completed. In 1886, five years after the composer’s death from the effects of alcoholism, another of his colleagues, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, decided to “rescue” what could be saved of Musorgsky’s original “Bald Mountain” idea and reworked the piece, using parts of the original material and an instrumental arrangement of an excerpt from the opera Sorochintsy Fair as a kind of “epilogue” to the original tone-poem. This became the version that was used in Walt Disney’s famous “Fantasia” film, and which continues to be played today. Musorgsky’s original 1867 tone-poem composition was forgotten until the 1920s when it was rediscovered (a convoluted story!),  finally published in 1968 and given its first public performance and subsently recorded Whether it will ever become as popular as Rimsky-Korsakov’s revision is a matter of conjecture, though it’s certainly worth a watching listen (see below)…..

First to consider, though, was the performance we heard at St.Andrew’s, taken at a less-than-usual headlong tempo by Mark Carter and his players, and giving the music a more earthy and elemental character, but with the playing’s precision still capturing that “hallucinatory” quality generated by the music. The steady tempo throughout kept the macabre elements bubbling to the fore, with the “mad dance” sequences creating their own excitement, as did the “chattering winds” of the witches’ cackling dialogues, The brass fanfares were spot-on at all times, and especially when returning us to the opening, played with more “bite” than ever as the revelry intensified.

The last onslaught began, slowly on the bassoon and building up to an unnerving pace, gathering up detail in its sweep such as stuttering brass, squealing winds and screeching strings as the brass intoned its final call – with the crash of the tam-tam everything fell silent  except for the tolling bell and the hubbub’s dying reverberation, “warmed” beautifully by the harp, and the lovely string playing (great clarinet and flute solos, as well!)

Here’s the original Musorgsky version –  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu1no7hOlSs

And so to the concluding item, ancient and nostalgic listening history for me, as Tchaikovsky’s  Capriccio Italien was on one of the first sets of 78 rpm discs I owned when a student (part of a whole bunch of 78 rpm discs I found in a charity shop! – things like Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique Symphony on six discs!). Anyway, I played and played the Capriccio until I accidentally and carelessly cracked one of the two discs! (I think I have the performance on CD, somewhere, now!) But I hadn’t played the work for a while, and the performance this afternoon made me fall in love with the music all over again!

What a sensationally-delivered trumpet solo at the beginning! – obviously inspiring the rest of the brass’s majestic and sonorous efforts! The strings, suitably awe-struck in reply, at first, gripped the attention just as steadily, as the exchanges continued. The oboe entered a shade jerkily but soon recovered, building the ambiences with the strings in support until the brass re-entered, the percussion a tad rushed at first but settling down again. We had a breath-catching transition to the waltz-theme –  the oboes and flutes so beautiful and Italianate-sounding with clarinets and bassoons having their turn as well, before the glorious brass-playing completed the sound-picture, with whirling strings adding to the excitement, and percussion snow-capping the climaxes!

Tchaikovsky doesn’t let up with the melodies (I remember already “knowing” both of the “famous” ones here before I ever encountering this work, as they’d obviously been “pinched” by popular music beforehand!) – the second one nicely introduced by the strings and the horn, and then later by the other brasses in turn (how was this Russian composer able to write such Mediterranean-sounding music?). Gorgeously done, with the horns adding an elegant postlude, before the strings reiterated their mock-serious “opening” with the stuttering brass not missing a beat. A well-managed accelerando later, the tarantella was dancing away from the gloom, and  playing “catch-me-if-you-can” with the instruments in its wake, including the tambourine (what a day for the percussion it had been!). But there was further excitement in store for us which came with the return of the Waltz-tune, with the strings and brass on fire and the tambourine-player in seventh heaven for a few scintillating measures – and if that wasn’t enough I had this feeling the conductor was suddenly daring his players  to imagine they were plunging into something elemental like the coda to the composer’s Fourth Symphony’s finale, a “now or never” moment to which everybody seemed to respond without hesitation and bring off with enormous elan! – a burst of youthful energies and dare-devil execution  which I thought appropriately summed up the  enthusiasm and at times brilliance of the afternoon’s music-making – but also, for this listener a great joy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Trio of International Consequence

Posted on by Anne French

NZ Trio – Magnifique

Schubert – Notturno in E flat major (D897)
Pēteris Vasks – Episodi e canto perpetuo (1985)
Linda Dallimore – Self-portrait (2024)
Saint-Saens – Piano trio No 2 in E minor (Op. 92)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace,
Friday 2 May, 7.30 pm

The night of the concert was cold and wet. The big southerly storm that hit on Wednesday was still in force, so the small audience in St Andrew’s was disappointing but not surprising. This review is dedicated to everyone who let the weather keep them away from a stunning concert. Let me tell you what you missed!

After several years of change, NZ Trio has now reached its new form. Ashley Brown retired from the Trio in February, the last of the founding members to leave. Matthias Balzat was billed as ‘guest cellist’, but the exciting news – announced during the concert – is that he will be taking the position permanently from 2026.

Matthias Balzat is a phenomenal cellist. I first heard him perform as a soloist with Wellington Youth Orchestra when he was 17, just about to head to Germany for advanced study in cello, already with a bachelor’s degree from Waikato and a swag of awards to his name. He was already a commanding musical presence with dazzling technique. Since graduating from the Robert Schumann Hochschule, where he was taught by Pieter Wispelwey, he has been freelancing in Germany. The NZ Trio gig, he told us, gives him an opportunity to return home.

How would he fit in to the Trio? Any fears I may have had were dispelled as soon as the Schubert began. The Nocturne is a familiar work, an exquisite piece that Schubert may have intended as the slow movement for his first piano trio.  The tempo was slow, but never too slow. The effect was of an unfurling of beauty, played with high seriousness. It was as though this was the most important music Schubert ever wrote, and the most poignant. He finished it only months before he died, and never heard it performed. I feel certain he would have loved this performance.

The next work on the programme was a piece by the Latvian composer, Pēteris Vasks, written in 1985. This was its New Zealand première. Vasks trained as a violinist at the Riga Conservatory and played double bass in various Latvian orchestras before moving to Lithuania to study composition with Valentin Utkin. As the son of a Baptist pastor, he wasn’t permitted to do this in Latvia, because Baptists were repressed by the Soviets.

He began to compose after hearing a piano arrangement of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, thanks to his piano teacher at the Vilnius Conservatory. His response was immediate: ‘It was like a lightning flash to me – that music can be like this!’ But his works were unknown outside the Baltics until after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when fellow Latvian Gidon Kremer started touring his violin concertos in the West.

The Episodi e canto perpetuo is dedicated to Olivier Messiaen. That provided some kind of emotional preparation. This is a powerful and inventive work. The programme notes suggested a battle between light and dark, but that doesn’t do it justice. It requires virtuosic playing from all three instruments, with two frenzied ‘burlesques’ separated by a ‘monologue’. The whole work is a kind of journey from a dark and scary opening movement, with a bleak wash of sound from the strings, moving higher and higher into a kind of frenzy. The Misterioso that followed uses prepared piano and light glissandi on the strings to suggest a ghostly calm. The Unisono began with strong piano chords and a cantabile theme from the strings, building to confidence, then aggression. The effect is loud and humourless, with frightening crescendi. Vasks described the first Burlesque as ‘ironic, almost grotesque’. I thought he must have been listening to Shostakovich, so sardonic was it – or perhaps that was life under the Soviets. The second burlesque, even more frenzied, Vasks called ‘the black culmination of the opus. Road to nowhere.’

After all the terror, in the seventh movement, the first violin sang like a nightingale in a ruin, trilling over blackened stones and empty spaces. Could there be a resolution, my notes asked? The cello, high and sustained, said yes, the plangent violin whispered that there was hope. A shift to the major, like a shaft of sunlight, high and sweet.

This is an important work. If it is his response to Quartet for the End of Time, the man is a genius, because he has transcended it. But there is more. Over the last 40 years Vasks has written three symphonies, other works for orchestra, concerti for violin, viola, cello, and flute, half a dozen string quartets, many choral and chamber works, and several works for violin, cello, and piano. I very much hope that NZ Trio programmes a couple of those. Soon, please.

After the interval, a small, introspective work by New Zealander Linda Dallimore (‘an award-winning composer, flutist, and teacher’) currently based in Los Angeles, where she is completing a DMA at the University of Southern California. It’s a pleasant enough work, ‘inspired by the composer’s first months in LA’, short and rather slight, but full of interesting effects. Unfortunately, coming after the emotional complexity of the Vasks piece, even separated by the interval, it sounded a bit self-absorbed, clever but trivial.

The last work in the programme showed off all three players to good effect, but especially the glorious Somi Kim. Saint-Saens was a remarkable pianist, a prodigy who performed the complete Beethoven sonatas from memory by the age of 10. He wrote this work as a holiday project, in the spring of 1892, 30 years after his first piano trio, to show what the piano is capable of. It is a masterpiece. Somi Kim was in her element, showing us delicacy and powerful pianism, as required. Saint-Saens’ piano writing is demanding and virtuosic, and Kim played like an angel.

The NZ Trio has been regarded as a national treasure for some time now. I have always enjoyed its programming. With Balzat joining the superb Kim and Hall, it has turned into a trio of international consequence. As well as being intellectually adventurous and musically fearless, the players together have the most glorious sound, warm and perfectly unified.  I am truly sorry that their first concert was heard by an audience of only a hundred or so. But take my word for it: you won’t want to miss the other concerts in their 2025 season.  Now would be a good time to book.

A tantalizing 2025 season’s beginning – from Wellington Chamber Music

Posted on by Peter Mechen

JOHN PSATHAS – Kartsigar
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH – String Quartet No. 1 in C Major Op.40
EDVARD GRIEG – String Quartet in G Minor Op.27

The New Zealand String Quartet
– Anna van der Zee and Peter Clark (violins), Gillian Ansell (viola), Callum Hall (‘cello)

St.Andrew’s on-The-Terrace, Wellington

Sunday, 27th April, 2025

Wellington Chamber Music opened its 2025 season with a characteristic blast of fresh musical air, the musicians obliging with an enticing amalgam of pieces whose composers had familiar names but whose music promised anything but familiar, well-worn sounds – though two of the pieces presented in this concert happened to have historic connections with the Society. In chronological order, Dmitri Shostakovich’s First String Quartet was one of the works featured during the Society’s inaugural year (1945); while John Psathas’ 2005 work Kartsigar was actually commissioned by Wellington Chamber Music for its 60th anniversary.

These associations duly noted and tucked under our belts for ready reference, we welcomed to the stage the current New Zealand String Quartet, an organisation that’s had its reorganisations and upheavals over the last little while, but has bounced its presently reconstituted self back ready for action. So, violist Gillian Ansell (a foundation member of the Quartet) and violinist Peter Clark (who had replaced Monique Lapins last year) were joined today by violinist Anna van der Zee and ‘cellist Callum Hall.

I looked up John Psathas’ Kartsigar on the Middle C website for interest’s sake, and discovered that my former colleague Lindis Taylor had reviewed the inaugural performance of the work at that 2005 Wellington Chamber Music concert by the NZSQ of that time, as well as a later 2011 performance by the same players at St.Mary of the Angels Church, a venue whose ample acoustic gave my colleague what he described as “a more enveloping experience” than he’d found on the players’ CD recording they’d made of the piece for Rattle Records. Such observations reflect on different performances to that of the present one, of course, but they’re interesting in further establishing the work’s history and accrued experience on the part of performers and listeners, all of which can help to enrich further encounters and performances.

Kartsigar is a work for string quartet drawn by its composer from traditional Greek music, primarily taximi or free, improvised instrumental solos used as a prelude or introduction associated with a dance or song. In the first movement what sounds like improvised melody from the instruments is the composer’s own transcription of an improvisation from one of Greece’s greatest musicians, the clarino player Manos Acahlinotopoulos, one which “breathes the Voice of Life into Kartsigar”. The cello begins a pizzicato ostinato pedal note, to which the second violin and viola respond with sombre tones of mourning, then expressively added to by the first violin, at once “folksy” and ritual-like, solo lines alternating with shared lines, and instruments going from arco to pizzicato and back to arco – the whole generates a tremendous sense of “occasion” , gradually becoming more and more elaborate, and even more vigorous, until a point is reached when the process seems to disestablish and recede, with tones and impulses growing fainter and fainter to the point of stillness

The second movement begins with an ethereal-sounding pizzicato/harmonic which forms the basis for the whole movement’s trajectory of a kind of mesmerising transferal of impulse – the material shifts from instrument to instrument, the lines and gestures keep us guessing as to where we are going, as if the piece’s “centre” is constantly relocating. I found myself part deliciously, part uneasily “stranded” in scenarios which brought single-note sequences (from the ‘cello, for example) and then sudden “whirling dervish” ecstasies from Peter Clark’s violin! – one’s sensibility became a “loose fragment” tossed all about an ambience, and then just as suddenly left to ponder eerily-held notes with which one “breathes” with the music’s own slow-rhythmed movements, until left only with silence.

In the wake of these colourful immersions in realms awash with improvisation, one couldn’t help feeling taken to a different, more enclosed world with Shostakovich’s First String Quartet, given that the music shows remarkably  little of the intense angst and disturbing dissonances which his later works in this genre would produce. This, after all, was the composer’s first foray into the medium, and about which he was disarmingly frank, as demonstrated by a brief comment he wrote, concerning the  opening as an “original exercise in the quartet form, not thinking about subsequently completing and releasing it”.  Gradually the idea took hold and he finished the work, though still disavowing any particular significance to the exercise, remarking further – “Don’t expect to find any special depth in this – my first quartet opus, In mood it is joyful, merry, lyrical. I would call it ‘spring-like’ ”. It seems that, after the tumultuous years of the composer’s persecution by Stalin and his lackeys over his opera “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District” with what was termed its “formalist” tendencies, Shostakovich was taking refuge in a private, relatively untroubled world, even though he was not to revisit the string quartet medium for a further six years.

The work was first performed in 1938, by the Glazunov Quartet – the composer hadn’t yet established the rapport he was to find with the renowned Beethoven Quartet, to whom he entrusted the premieres of all of his subsequent string quartets except the Fifteenth and last, due to the sudden death of the Quartet’s cellist while preparing the first performance. Commentators have repeatedly described the early work in emotionally-detached terms, such as “divertimento-like” or “Haydn-esque”, indicating the “neutral” content of the undertaking, and whose ostensible purpose was to, literally, keep its composer out of trouble!

The opening sounds more like Borodin at the outset, a distinctively “Russian” ambience betrayed only by the occasional note suggesting a more acerbic strain – there’s a lovely, singing second subject on the first violin sounded over ‘cello glissandi, one which the ‘cello itself “grabs” for a moment of glory! The interchanges wear an almost self-conscious “carefree” air, the development insouciantly augmenting the harmonies and the recapitulation allowing the second violin and viola a “second-subject” variant, before the music poignantly turns for home, having spied out the land and found it ostensibly non-threatening!

A theme-and-variations slow movement in A minor was next, begun by Gillian Ansell’s smokily-toned  viola with a simple folk-tune, ‘cello pizzicati joining in, and then the violins taking up the melody a daintily-astringent half-a-tone higher – the viola’s “Wot’s all this, then?” return sparked a moment of angst before peace was restored by the violin’s open-hearted switch to an E-major rendition of the theme – I liked the players’ handling of the “same again but different” theme variants, and especially warmed to the limpid pizzicato accompaniments to the viola’s return, rather like meek lambs gathered up by their shepherd! Perhaps they could sense the third-movement arrival of some kind of wolf, though it’s really more spectre than substance, here, a spooky ride in constant motion, in the midst of which comes a kind of “lullaby” trio, followed by a blending of the two trajectories – great fun!

Afterwards, the finale takes us to the fairground for some  hi-jinks, the excitement becoming heady and more trenchant, almost “boys’ own” (oo-er! – very “thirties!”) in the second subject, with the vigorous themes becoming more determinedly expressionist and claustrophobic until problems are sorted out and brouhaha is satisfyingly brought back over the final bars. It seems obvious that, In the treacherous slipstream of Shostakovich’s scarifying experience with Stalin over his opera Lady Macbeth, writing this work had obviously felt like some kind of redemptive balm for the composer’s senses.

The concert’s third and final work brought its own particular distinction of novelty and interest to the proceedings – this was Edvard Grieg’s 1878 String Quartet in G Minor, described variously elsewhere as No.1 and No.2 (in fact the composer’s first attempt at a string quartet was lost, appropriately leaving the G minor in its “pole” position). The popularity achieved by the work encouraged Grieg to attempt a further string quartet in 1891, though he finished only two movements, leaving sketches for the final two, making  a couple of subsequent efforts  to finish the work but seeming to lack the inspiration to complete what he called “that accursed string quartet which constantly lies there unfinished like an old Norwegian cheese.” (A couple of attempts have since been made by other composers to complete Grieg’s sketches.)

Grieg’s inspiration, however, proved constant throughout the composition of practically the whole of the G Minor quartet – commenting after finishing the work that it was “not meat for small minds” and adding that “it aims for breadth, vigour, flight of imagination and , above all, fullness of tone for the instruments for which it is written”. It uses a kind of motto theme taken from the composer’s own song “Spillemaend” (meaning Minstrels or Fiddlers) about a water-spirit, the Hulder, who promises musicians great inspiration in exchange for their happiness, one which recurs throughout the work. Violist Gillian Ansell commented in her introduction on the work’s inspiration for Claude Debussy who wrote his own String Quartet in the same key ten years later.

The work has a big-boned quasi-orchestral sound right from its outset, a grand and imperious opening and a fleet and impetuous allegro to follow, featuring incredibly volatile playing, music that breaks off suddenly from whatever mood it inhabits to effect a contrast with another – Anna van der Zee’s playing and leadership throughout I found astonishing, her sweet, silvery tones readily augmented with energetic trajectories and trenchant attacks excitingly replicated by the other players. The movement’s dramatic ups and downs come to a head with a beautiful ‘cello solo that grows out of a tremolando passage towards the end before leading to an explosively vigorous coda.

Added to this, I thought the musicians gave the second movement simply gorgeous treatment – the opening uses a typically redolent “Grieg” melody (one which couldn’t come from any other composer), sonorously projected by Callum Hall’s ‘cello, before “bouncing” into an extraordinarily playful passage involving both pizzicato and staccato phrasings. Then the opening melody returns, the accompaniment this time investing the hapless tune with full-on “salon” treatment, charming in its almost “tea-shop-like” way. It’s then given a kind of Tchaikovsky-like balletic set of guises, before evoking parts of the latter’s “Serenade for Strings” in its acerbic-sweet final harmonies!

The Intermezzo that followed was a vigorously-swinging waltz-like piece, the players digging into those playfully-eyeballing syncopated chordings before gracefully giving way to more demure legato-phrased interactions. Even more delicious was the Trio section, with Grieg revisiting his “Cowkeeper’s Tune and Country Dance” manner to foot-tapping effect, and further spicing the mood with brief bouts of contrasting mania and introspection! All of this was brought off with relish on the players’ part and proportionally huge enjoyment on ours, further underlined by the sheer fun generated from the scampering coda!

Finales often bring composers trouble and anxiety, and there were places in Grieg’s finale where I felt his inspiration was bolstered more by the trajectories of the saltarello form which he had chosen, than any spontaneous melodic invention. Of course, composers are perfectly entitled to “step outside” their own native trajectorial languages and explore something exotic – one thinks of so many who have done so (Mendelssohn, Rimsky-Korsakov, Debussy, Ravel and Sibelius, to name a few, the last-named indulging in a “Bolero” complete with castanets in his Op. 25 Scenes Historiques music!) – but I can’t help feeling that Grieg was at his most inspired in the other, more ostensibly Scandinavian-influenced movements of this work, even if he puts up a good show in places! Still, a no-holds-barred kind of performance can be relied upon to do any piece of music the greatest justice, and that was what we got here!

After the high seriousness of the Lento introduction, with its canonic recitatives and great crunching chords, a “ready, steady, go” sequence from the players kick-started the finale in fine style! By turns vigorous and lightfooted, and alternating the dotted rhythms of the vigorous saltarello with more straightforward “running” passages, the playing’s impetus kept our sensibilities agreeably focused, apart from a couple of sequences featuring repeated rhetorical chromatic scale passages which briefly felt to me like “filler” and an ending which seemed to be looking for a grand finishing statement but didn’t quite achieve the sheer magnificence of, for instance, the composer’s Piano Concerto! However, in terms of incredible skill and sheer commitment, the players took us to what seemed like the music’s overall limits of achievability in grand style – and Grieg had already given us more than enough in the work as a whole to satisfy our pleasure at encountering what was a significant and remarkable creative achievement! (From where do I buy the CD, again?)

Hats off (well, hearty thanks, at least!) to Wellington Chamber Music – an inspired beginning to a richly promising 2025 season of music-making!