Month: August 2009

NZSM Orchestra and Kenneth Young – no holds barred

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Simon Dickson – Partial Aspects (World Premiere performance)
Tchaikovsky – Violin Concerto in D
Vaughan Williams – Symphony No.6 in E Minor

New Zealand School of Music Orchestra
Ben Morrison (violin)
Kenneth Young (conductor)

St.Andrew’s on-the-Terrace, Wellington,  Tuesday 18th August

Enterprising programming here by Kenneth Young and the NZSM Orchestra, bringing together a new work, an established warhorse and a feisty twentieth century classic, a “something for everybody” offering which, as it turned out, criss-crossed more sensibilities than was expected, and made for a great listening experience.

The Orchestra makes a point of including whenever possible contemporary and New Zealand music in its programmes, and Simon Dickson’s piece “Partial Aspects” came with a merit sticker slapped on it, the 2009 Jenny McLeod Composition Award. Described by its composer as an amalgamation of textural atonality and quasi-tonality, the work grew from its deep, primordial beginnings into a kind of evolving “cluster-chord” whose different timbres and dynamics created an ear-catching “layered” effect, all the while changing colours and hues like a moving mirror-ball. I liked the music’s patient, osmotic growth through still more colourations and more dynamic interjections, which climaxed with some hugely monumental chords whose span gradually dissolved in various non-tonal refractions. After this was left a single ‘cello and glockenspiel oscillating on a two-note motif, the strings then descending to a single note an octave below, and gently exhaling a sombre conclusion. In all, I thought conductor and players did this (incredibly boyish-looking) young composer and his music proud.

Impressive youthful endeavour was again to the fore in the concert’s next item, this time from the soloist, violinist Ben Morrison, in Tchaikovsky’s oft-played Violin Concerto. Right from his very first entry, following an ardently lyrical orchestral introduction, Morrison commanded the music, playing with real feeling, and negotiating the passagework with the kind of detailing that gave one the impression that every note had been thought about, as if the instrument was an extension of his own self. Not every note was bang in tune, but the player’s characterisation of each episode in the first movement was “dug into” in a way I found entirely compelling. Kenneth Young and the orchestra were with their soloist all the way – not being a professional orchestra, the group’s sound wasn’t particularly “moulded”, which I liked, enjoying the flavoursome timbral strands in both sectional and tutti passages. In the slow movement Morrison was at his best with the rich, full-throated writing – the other side of the interpretative coin, the music’s inward, almost “hurt” quality, he will increasingly find in this work as he matures as an artist. The finale had its moments of imprecision between soloist and orchestra – the first “Russian Sailors’ Dance” episode came adrift momentarily, as did some of the skittery exchanges in the work’s coda – and I thought the orchestra initially lacked a bit of “oomph” in their interjections mid-movement, which they did, however, make up for towards the end. Again, as Ben Morrison gains experience, he’ll be able to more readily capture that “brandy-on-the-breath” abandonment in the music that the famous nineteenth-century Viennese critic Hanslick cited to roundly damn the work at its Viennese premiere.

There was no lack of “oomph” with the opening of the Vaughan Williams Sixth Symphony, Young and the orchestra conjuring up searing, intensely confrontational bursts of sound at the outset, flooding the St.Andrew’s ambiences to bursting-point in a way that the composer would probably have enjoyed. The jog-trot rhythms of the first movement were fiercely driven – perhaps too fiercely for detail such as the saxophone’s counterpoint phrasings to have the proper grotesque effect – but the overall effect was that after the turmoil the great “tune” worked its magic and lifted us aloft splendidly. I thought Young’s tempo for the second movement was a bit quick, though what it lost the music in menace it gained in forcefulness and angularity. I wanted everything to be a bit more daring, with more extremes of dark foreboding and cataclysmic force than were the case, but the players made it work with their on-the-line commitment to phrasing and filled-out tones. Individual contributions such as made by the cor anglais at the end of the movement, and the saxophone in the throes of the anarchic scherzo told magnificently, providing the perfect foil for the hollow, apocalyptic voice of the finale. Young and his musicians realised all of the music’s bleak chill with marvellous soft playing from all concerned, the harp a ghostly angel surveying the desolation with pity and sorrow, leaving it all to stricken winds and string quartet with unspoken words at the end.

Also reviewed by Alan Wells

The NZSM concerts towards the end of the year usually show the School of Music Orchestra at its tightly-rehearsed best. A highlight of this event was the premiere of the winner of the Jenny McLeod Composition Award to an NZSM student composer. Previous holders of the fortunate position of having their work performed by a full orchestra have included Alison Grant, Alexandra Hay, Hermione Johnson, Simon Eastwood and Pieta Hextall.

This year it was Simon Dickson. “Partial Aspects” may have been so titled because, as the composer himself writes, it is “an amalgam of my recent compositional styles; a combination of textural atonality and quasi-tonality”. The first section – the aptly characterised “textural atonality” – evoked a sound-world similar to that of the shimmering “White Dwarf” for string quartet that Dickson brought to the 2008 Nelson Composers’ Workshop. With “Partial Aspects”, other – orchestral -colours were added to the string clusters and tremolandi. Dickson gradually increased tension, introducing motifs (the “quasi-tonality” style) in the woodwind, reminding one of his sensitivity to the subtleties of the solo clarinet in “On the Wind” (at Nelson in 2006). A two-note wind ostinato led into a powerful climax, after which the ostinato returned on the vibraphone to usher in the timeless feel of the beginning and the sense of a satisfying, completed compositional arc..

Ben Morrison, who was so impressive in the Mahler Seventh with the NYO in July, was soloist in the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. Not afraid to use expressive nineteenth-century gliding portamenti as well as judiciously placed vibrato, Morrison soared to almost untrasonic heights in the rhapsodic first movement cadenza, and elicited a chocolate-dark, melancholy tone near the end. Nevertheless, I felt this first movement was something of a struggle for Morrison, as much a reading as a performance. It was in the captivating slow movement that he reached the emotional heart of the concerto, especially in his dialogue with the flawlessly creamy woodwinds. He seemed to gain in confidence as the work progressed, the worried concentration evident in the Allegro being replaced by an outgoing assurance in the Finale.

Vaughan Williams’ Sixth is one of his most intensely wrought – and fraught – symphonies, with only rare moments of relaxation (such as the lyrical episode for harp and strings in the first movement, which is familiar as an excerpt illustrating pastoral moods). The often dense orchestration was intriguing: with my ears still attuned to Dieter Mack and his Selisih Ensemble, it suggested a prefiguring of the tone-colour building of Mack, and the French Spectralists. The occasional use of xylophone looked forward too, perhaps, to the exotic percussion of VW’s Seventh (“Sinfonia antartica”) and Eighth Symphonies.

Listening to this orchestra, finely honed by conductor Kenneth Young, it was hard to believe that (aside from a handful of guest players) these were student musicians.

Duettists’ mercy-dash: Old St.Paul’s Lunchtime Concert Series

Posted on by Peter Mechen

A Concert of Works for Piano Duet
Emma Sayers and Richard Mapp
MOZART – Sonata in F Major K.497
RAVEL – Mother Goose Suite
BRAHMS – Three Hungarian Dances

Old St.Paul’s, Wellington, Tuesday August 18th, 2009

The advertised concert – “From Russia With Love”: Russian Piano Duets,  played by Svetlana Kalinnikova and Irene Lau – had to be cancelled because of the illness of one of the duettists; so at short notice Emma Sayers and Richard Mapp stepped into the breach. The latter pair had played the programme’s items on a number of previous occasions in recital, so they felt able to get things up to speed within the short preparation time remaining. The result was a great success, making handsome amends for any disappointment people might have felt at being deprived of the original concert.

The recital began with the most substantial of Mozart’s several works for piano four hands, the F Major Sonata K.497, written in Vienna in 1786. Mozart had not written any such music for a dozen years as he no longer had his sister Nannerl at hand as a duet partner, but he may have been freshly inspired either by the brilliance of the young Johann Nepomuk Hummel, who had lessons with him at that time, or the charms of one Franziska von Jacquin, the sister of another of Mozart’s pupils and a fine pianist. This Sonata , described by one commentator as “an almost uncomfortably great piece of domestic music”, is symphonic in scale and operatic in manner, featuring an introductory Adagio richly laden with a sense of expectation, and an Allegro which colourfully and wittily advances the argument. Sayers and Mapp had the knack of patiently enabling the music to unfold and generate its own natural momentum, while making the most of the character of the different episodes, such as the Hungarian flavour found in the development section’s rich modulations, and the teasing interplay between the duettists at the end of the movement.

In the slow movement the Old St.Paul’s grand piano’s bass notes added a distinctive (almost authentic-sounding) twang to the musical argument’s colour and interest, especially in the florid passages at the end of the movement. Sayers and Mapp relished the contrapuntal exchanges and modulatory swerves in the finale, taking considerable pleasure in both melodies and accompaniments and conveying both the playful and mock-serious aspects of the adventure’s experience to their delighted listeners.

Ravel’s Ma Mere L’Oye (Mother Goose) is one of those magical manifestations of child-like innocence and awareness refracted through the acutest adult sensibility. Sayers and Mapp kept things on the move throughout the different scenes, almost always to the music’s advantage, except, I felt, for “Hop o’ my Thumb”, whose exquisitely crafted archways of wonderment weren’t allowed enough room at the climax of the melody for the music to glow and tug on our heart-strings. Nor did I think the birds were given sufficient ambient space for their song to register the forest’s loneliness, and the scene to work its full enchantment. This said, everything else was exquisitely realized, from the exotic ritual of the Chinese Empress Laideronnette’s bath, through the interaction of Beauty’s tenderness and her Beast’s growling tones (again, twangily caught by the piano’s bass strings), to the final scene’s magical dawn-lit Fairy Garden’s awakening, Emma Sayers’ brilliant glissandi at the conclusion capping the wonderment of it all, and catching the enchantment and rapture envisaged by the composer.

Three Hungarian Dances by Brahms rounded off the programme, the first of which here, and probably the most well-known, the Fifth in F-sharp Minor from Book One, received a terrific performance, involving split-second teamwork timing and intuition, obviously the result of Sayers and Mapp knowing each other’s playing really well. The other two dances I didn’t know, but each was dispatched with a good deal of style, the players finding the right balance between purposefulness and high spirits, and generating plenty of excitement with which to conclude a splendid presentation.

Amalia Hall and John-Paul Muir impress Ilott Theatre audience

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Beethoven: Violin Sonata No 1 in D, Op 12 No 1; Ravel: Tsigane, rapsodie de concert; Sarasate: Two Spanish Dances; Fauré: Violin Sonata No 1 in A, Op 13

Amalia Hall (violin) and John-Paul Muir (piano)

Ilott Theatre, Town Hall, Sunday 16 August 2009

It is a little disturbing that the sort of concerts that the Wellington Chamber Music Society particularly wanted to promote when their fine Sunday afternoon series began in 1983, concerts by young musicians, the likely stars of tomorrow who needed encouragement today, seem to attract smaller audiences.

Audience numbers were down on expectations and down on the crowd who came to hear John Chen and the T’ang Quartet a fortnight before.

No excuse could be found in fine weather, and there are always many other concerts competing for our time and money, though no direct clashes that day. Nor was there any reason to scorn the programme just because it included Sarasate, who is much more than a mere encore composer, and a famous piece of fireworks by Ravel: both are works of genius that proved excellent punctuation points in an attractive programme.

The hundred who weren’t there simply missed a recital of great delight, of music that is central to the violin repertoire and rewarding it its own right.

Beethoven’s first violin sonata is the work of a composer who was fully fledged, naturally drawing on the examples of Haydn and Mozart but already in a voice that was identifiably his own. Though there were occasional inconsequential smudges in the piano part, much more remarkable were the pianist’s vivacity and easy accommodation to the dynamic shading that the violin took such pains to achieve. The two demonstrated right from the start how well they had learned the lessons of chamber music playing, attention to the other player that calls for instantaneous sympathetic reaction.

So the two instruments seemed to be instinctively in balance, in full rapport.

Ravel’s Tsigane cannot be dismissed as no more than a flashy show-piece; it is a remarkable composition that could only have been penned by a great composer. And for sure, it is a pretty formidable challenge to (both) players. The piano part is a splendid homage to Liszt while the violin reflects the qualities of Wieniawski and Sarasate, and this was an exciting, totally commanding performance.

The two Spanish Dances, not identified in the programme, were the familiar ones, probably the Malagueña and Habanera of Op 21, which combine melodic and rhythmic charm and brilliance with musical value, products of a highly trained and talented composer of the era of Dvorak, Grieg and Fauré (to name three disparate contemporaries). Their playing was infectious, and one would rather liked to have heard a couple of the other Spanish dances that he wrote.

Fauré himself ended the concert: the first of his two violin sonatas written, like the Beethoven, before he was 30. The programme note quoted a perceptive and generous critique by Saint-Saëns, ten years his senior, from the first performance. It is hard to go past his description of it as combining “a profound musical knowledge and great melodic wealth, with a kind of naïveté that is irresistible;” describing its “delicacy and charm, novelty of form, resourceful modulations, unusual sonorities and unexpected rhythms. Over all,” it continued, “hovers an allure that envelopes the entire work and makes the most unanticipated touches of boldness seem natural.”

This performance delighted in all these qualities, revealing two players who, perhaps because they are young, could respond with spontaneity and gaiety, without affectation, to the originality and youthful confidence of the young Fauré.

Have ‘cello, will travel – Mok-hyun Gibson-Lane

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Works by George Crumb, Boccherini, Halvorsen, Beethoven and Chopin
Mok-hyun Gibson-Lane (‘cello)
Vesa-Matti Leppanen (violin) / Catherine McKay (piano)

Central Baptist Church, Boulcott St., Wellington

Sunday 16th August, 2009

Mok-hyun Gibson-Lane is currently based in Berlin, where she plays ‘cello as a contract musician with the Berlin Staatskapelle (whose musical director is Daniel Barenboim). She is also a member of the Stabrawa Ensemble Berlin, led by the Berlin Philharmonic concertmaster, Daniel Stabrawa. Recently she took time out from her European commitments to come back home to New Zealand for a visit, and give a recital in Wellington with pianist Catherine McKay and violinist Vesa-Matti Leppanen.

Moky, as she’s widely known, has studied with a number of eminent musicians, among them Lyn Harrell at Rice University in Texas, Alexander Ivaskin at Canterbury University and Rolf Gjelsten of the NZ String Quartet in Wellington. She has won numerous awards, among them the Alex Lindsay Memorial Award and the Barbara Finlayson Scholarship. A glance at her list of career achievements thus far would indicate that she’s certainly made the most of her opportunities; and her playing throughout this concert confirmed that she’s a highly gifted and totally committed musician.

Her recital programme, extending from Boccherini to George Crumb, and including a mixture of original ‘cello works and transcriptions for the instrument, indicated something of the range and scope of her interpretative sympathies. The opening work, a sonata for solo ’cello by Crumb widened my appreciation of a composer chiefly known for his iconic work “Ancient Voices of Children”. The sonata’s first movement, a Fantasia, used pizzicato and arco passages in the manner of a troubadour telling a story, the dialogue becoming more and more insistent and intense as the telling reached its climax. The second movement was a “theme and variations”, featuring episodes containing different moods and contrasts, most memorably some excitingly full-blooded pizzicati chords put next to delicately-spread figurations. Lastly, in the final Toccata Mok-hyun threw down the gauntlet at the beginning with strong and monumental double-stopping, which gave way to toccata-like figurations and a contrasting running triplet theme, played by the ‘cellist with terrific élan, before finishing the performance as it began, with a forthright,well-focused statement of serious intent.

For a long time the word I most readily associated with  Luigi Boccherini was “minuet” –  so the composer’s Sonata No.3 in G for ‘cello and continuo caused something of a surprise, albeit a pleasant one, and all the more so in Mok-Hyun’s and pianist Catherine McKay’s hands. The opening allegro militaire was a jolly jog-trot at the outset, with the minor key development section both sappy and mock-sombre, relieved by the players’ charming and stylish way with balancing both the music’s rhythmic and lyrical qualities. A limpid Largo followed, with Catherine McKay’s piano-playing artfully matching and mirroring the ‘cellist’s limpid textures; while the finale’s kind of “rocking-horse minuet” rhythms nicely enlivened things, the players both demonstrating that they knew the secret of generating momentum without resorting to excessive speed. Before the interval we were treated to something of a curiosity in both music and performance, Halvorsen’s impassioned meditation on Handel’s Harpsichord Suite No.7 in G minor – a Passacaglia Duo, no less, for violin and ‘cello, here brilliantly played by Mok-hyun and Vesa-Matti Leppanen (violin), bringing out both the piece’s fireworks and the more circumspect moods, the writing allowing the musicians to play satisfyingly into each others’ hands.

The second half featured music by Beethoven and Chopin, the first item being a particularly lovely and penetrative exploration by the former for ‘cello and piano of Mozart’s Bei Mannern, Welche Liebe Fuhlen duo from Die Zauberflöte. While Mok-hyun’s playing wasn’t entirely blemish-free in some of the more virtuosic moments, there was no doubting the stylish character and depth of feeling of her playing, both musicians  relishing the contrasts of the variations as well as the dance-like conclusion to the work. Cellist and pianist were again a combination to be reckoned with in Chopin’s Introduction and Polonaise Brilliante Op.3 (wrongly labelled Op.8 in the programme), the opening’s big, lyrical flourishes from the piano answered with eloquent simplicity by the ‘cello, while the Polonaise itself was danced with a winning amalgam of rhythmic girth and lyrical expression, Mok-hyun risking all by fearlessly attacking the melismatic figurations that punctuated the ‘cello line, and Catherine McKay in turn providing the required rhythmic drive and pointed phrasing that helped give the performance its ardent romantic flavour.

175 East – Latitudes of recreation

Posted on by Peter Mechen

175 EAST AT ST.ANDREW’S
Works by Michael Norris, Richard Barrett. Rachael Morgan,
Christian Wolff and James Gardner

175 East : Richard Haynes (clarinet), Andrew Uren (bass clarinet)
Ingrid Culliford (flute), Tim Sutton (bass trombone), Carl Wells (horn)
Katherine Hebley (‘cello), Lachlan Radford (bass), James Gardner (laptop)
Conducted by Hamish McKeich

St Andrew’s on-the-Terrace, Wellington, Saturday 15th August

175 East, a contemporary music ensemble based in Auckland, prides itself on presenting new, cutting-edge music from both New Zealand and overseas via high-quality professional performances. The group’s recent Wellington concert at St.Andrew’s on the Terrace, which was a repeat of a presentation in Auckland a few days previously, bore ample witness to this stated philosophy – three of the six works played were by New Zealand composers, with the remainder coming from Welsh composer Richard Barrett and the French-born German-American Christian Wolff. The whole was delivered with the skill, panache and commitment to the cause that we’ve come to expect from these uniquely assorted musicians with their idiosyncratic instrumental combinations that composers seem to hugely enjoy writing for.

Two of the works played in the concert were “old friends” in that I’d seen and heard both performed before by the group – given that many pieces of contemporary music receive their premiere performances and nothing more, it was gratifying to have a second chance to hear both pieces, Michael Norris’s Vitus and James Gardner’s A study for voicing doubts. I’d previously encountered both of these works in a 2001 concert – again in Wellington –  which happened to be the first time I’d heard the ensemble play.

Michael Norris’s Vitus made as thoughtful and involved an impact upon me this time round as it did all those years ago. Its subject, the Christian saint Vitus who underwent torture and death for his religious beliefs at the hands of the Romans, is tied up with both the saint’s patronage of dance and dancers and his association with a medical condition known as Choreia, more commonly called St.Vitus’s Dance, one involving involuntary jerking bodily movements resulting from a temporary disorder of the brain. I remembered the music’s broad brush-strokes –  the pungent opening notes of the piece created a kind of “melting-time” impression, into which violent dissonances rushed now and then, gradually screwing up tensions and goading the music into a mock-heroic grand unison, whose riotous dissolution depicted a St.Vitus’ Dance episode. I also recalled the clarinets at the end quietly delineating what sounded like a mind’s inner workings, the instruments tremulously and haltingly answering one another across lonely, and somewhat fraught psychological soundscapes.

The other piece I’d heard previously was Jim Gardner’s A study for voicing doubts, a chamber concerto for clarinet whose title seems to encourage explorations of discords and disagreements between soloist and ensemble, exemplified by scalp-prickling counter-sonorities such as clarinet playing in its high register against bass trombone, and intriguing antiphonal rearrangements of soloist and ensemble mid-stream – political statements in music performance! I liked, then as now, the effects of the change on the music, the “distanced” soloist (or, alternatively “distanced” ensemble) embodying a number of relationship context possibilities, from impasse through compromise to acquiescence. Intriguing.

In Gardner’s work, as in Richard Barrett’s confrontational piece for solo clarinet knospend-gespaltene which featured earlier in the programme, the player was Richard Haynes, demonstrating what seemed like superhuman abilities (including the art of  seeming not to need to take breath for minutes on end) in realizing the composer’s idea of the instrument’s possibilities being able to realize a fixed “theatre” instead of a linear structure. This process of layered enactment took the listeners into a soundworld which seemed to transcend conventional considerations of pitch, timbre and rhythm, and , in the composer’s words, “lay bare” the piece’s and the instrument’s inner structure. Haynes’ virtuoso playing seemed to encapsulate these different states of being simultaneously, giving the effect of something with surprisingly layered and paralleled existences.

Barrett’s other work on the programme, Codex I, was for an ensemble of “improvising musicians”, a kind of re-enactment of the creative process by which the players take their cues from fragments of notation or musical memory which serves as a foundation for an entirely new work being created in performance. Sustained pitches run haphazardly through the piece, but their lines are punctuated by ”improvised divergences”, and numbers of instruments, but not precisely which ones, are specified by the piece, enabling the musicians to “re-enact” a tradition of musical inspiration, including, at the piece’s end, timbral gesturings of a kind which centred on no actual pitching of notes, merely breath- and movement-sounds, bringing to mind Keats’ words “Heard melodies are sweet, but unheard sweeter”…..

Rachael Morgan currently holds the Edwin Carr Foundation Scholarship, and received funding from Creative New Zealand for her most recent work from a fixed point (2009), which received what I assumed was its second performance after the Auckland concert.
The “fixed points” referred to by the composer are manifestations of the nature of sound, so that from within a single-pitch note can emerge all kinds of timbral and rhythmic variations, different instruments exploring the ramifications of the “fixed point”. The music was a journey undertaken into and through such possibilities, the ensemble gathering timbral weight, fortifying and energizing soundscapes, then underbellying the sounds, stretching away from and returning to the pitch-points like elastic, and adopting ethereal, disembodied tones, ‘cello and double bass having the last, skeletal-like say.

What was described as “added Wolff” to the concert in some of the publicity was Christian Wolff’s Two Players, a work that has surprisingly received only three performances in thirteen years – surprising because of the music’s accessibility, brought about by an attractive, almost ritualistic interplay between the two soloists playing horn and ‘cello, in this case Carl Wells and Katherine Hebley, respectively. The composer himself wrote about the importance for the work of the interplay and interdependence between the performers as an essential ingredient, and the two performers vividly realized the “character” of each of the three movements. The first was a night-piece, with long-held notes evoking a dark processional, the second a “dance macabre”, with ‘cello pizzicati leading the horn as a more circumspect partner, while the third used cryptic, almost elliptical gesturings in an almost speechless manner, a “Why don’t you listen to what I mean instead of what I say?” piece, one whose sense of underlying fun lightened the otherwise serious aspect of a marvellous concert.

Pia Palme – Austrian Connections from Caprice Arts

Posted on by Alan Wells

Pia Palme (contrabass recorder), Dylan Lardelli (guitar), Bridget Douglas (piccolo), Ben Hoadley (bassoon), Nicholas Hancox (viola), Donald Nicolson (piano), Philip Brownlee (synthesizer), Niky Clegg (vocalist).
SOREN EICHBERG: “4 Pieces for Bassoon and Piano”;
PIA PALME: “AXE.WHO.TREE”, “Noneuclidian Playgrounds”;
DANIEL DE LA CUESTA: “Fachwerk”;
PHILIP BROWNLEE: “The Length of a Breath”, “As if to Catch the Fleeting Tail of Time”;
MICHAEL NORRIS: “Amato”;
JACK BODY: “Aeolian Harp”;
THIERRY BLONDEAU: “Non-Lieu”.

Salvation Army Citadel, Friday 14 August 2009

This concert organized by the enterprising Caprice Arts Trust featured an adventurous array of contemporary music.

At the more conservative, conscientiously-constructed end of the spectrum, Denmark’s Soren Nils Eichberg’s “4 Pieces for Bassoon and Piano” effectively showcased the artistry of their commissioner, New Zealander Ben Hoadley. Much of the first piece involved the bassoon in a dialogue with itself across its different registers, from deep and mellow to high and plaintive. The second was a lively unison dance for both instruments. In the third, the piano set up a stalking funeral march beneath the bassoon’s lugubrious lament, while the fourth was rather like a busy “Bumblebee” for bassoon.

Towards the opposite extreme, Austrian Pia Palme’s “AXE.WHO.TREE” employed almost all the available resources to create a complex, changing sonic environment which included water-like electronic sounds, minimalistic piano chords, and the vocal agility of Niky Clegg. The result had something of the feel of free improvisation (a little too much so for my taste).

Palme is not only a composer: the Viennese virtuoso also plays the contrabass recorder. Her Swiss-made Kueng instrument, standing at over two metres tall, resembles nothing so much as an orphan organ pipe (and the organ is, after all, basically just a consort of recorders with delusions of grandeur). This modern adaptation of a medieval prototype is perhaps the most recent addition to the woodwind sub-bass range, joining some (less common) members of the saxophone family, the more established contrabassoon and contrabass clarinet, and (from the 1980s) the contrabass flute. The soft sound of the instrument benefits from discreet amplification, which makes it ideal for use with electronics. Palme’s other composition (a premiere), “Noneuclidian Playgrounds”, included guitar and electronic transformation of the giant recorder, and progressed to hatch a surprising drum-beat rhythm at the end.

The contrabass recorder was heard to good effect in the solo “Fachwerk”, from the Mexican-Austrian Daniel De la Cuesta. A strict palindrome, it began (and, of course, ended) with the “pizzicato” effects of tonguing, developing into a high-register melody with a low pitched accompaniment, and on to a pivotal core of multiphonics and organ-like depth.

Wellingtonian Philip Brownlee’s 2009 “The Length of a Breath” showed another side of the contrabass recorder, challenging Palme to produce exquisitely soft, mellow notes over the wide range of the instrument. Along with his other premiere in this concert, “The Length of a Breath” marked a welcome return to composition for Brownlee. Also written this year was the even more impressive “As if to Catch the Fleeting Tail of Time” for an ensemble of piccolo, bassoon, viola, guitar and piano. Here Brownlee’s timeless world of carefully placed gestures, unsuspected colour blends, and delicate Webernian klangfarbenmelodie distributed among the players, was enough (just) to sustain one’s interest, despite any perceivable thrust of forward momentum. (One intriguing technique was a microtonal scale achieved by successively plucking a guitar string while simultaneously pitch-bending it.)

Another premiere from another Wellingtonian was Michael Norris’s 2008 “Amato”. As sensitively rendered by pianist Donald Nicolson, this proved one of Norris’s most immediately attractive works to date, as it evolved from its rarefied opening to gradually fill the keyboard space out to its extremities, on towards a fortissimo explosion, and then to a mysterious close.

Jack Body’s “Aeolian Harp” from 1979 is almost a classic, in its versions for violin or cello. Somewhat rarer was the recension for solo viola performed by Nicholas Hancox. A study in harmonics, this piece evoked a wind-harp playing the most primordial of all scales.

“Non-Lieu” by French composer Thierry Blondeau also began as an essay in harmonics, expertly elicited (in rapid-fire staccato) from the guitar, by Dylan Lardelli. Further techniques introduced within this ingenious (if overlong) composition included live detuning with the tuning pegs, closely-beating intervals, and, during Lardelli’s theatrical exit (reflecting the interest in the use of space found also in Blondeau’s piece for a “moving chamber orchestra”), swinging the guitar to produce Doppler-effected pitch changes.

The Yeomen of the Guard at the Opera House

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Yeomen of the Guard by Gilbert and Sullivan

Wellington G & S Light Opera. Musical director: Hugh McMillan; stage director: Gillian Jerome

The Opera House, Friday 14 August 2009

The Yeomen of the Guard is often considered the one G & S comic opera that comes closest to being an ‘opera’; it is a case of a work in an essentially comic genre that ends sadly, with the jester losing his girl.

It becomes poignant because the jester, Jack Point, is sung with such feeling and conviction by Derek Miller; he has been the company’s stalwart character singer, pivotal in their productions, for many years. Again, all eyes were on him whenever he was on stage, with agile, expressive movement, characterful singing and great facility in delivering floods of witty words at high speed.

But there were several other fine performances, starting with Chris Whelan as the Head Jailer, Wilfred, with whom Miller duets brilliantly in Act II. Tall, oafish and a bit thick, Whelan’s voice and comic movements were inimitable, though perhaps his portrayal overlooked the fact that a Head Jailer may well be a pompous ass, but need not be quite as stupid as Whelan had him. Lindsay Groves as Sergeant Meryll and Chris Berentson as the quasi-hero Fairfax (the object of female efforts to rescue from imminent beheading) took their fairly big roles well.

Among the female singers, the sad clown’s partner and love, Elsie, who eventually falls for Fairfax, was sung with real style by the vocally accomplished Celia Falchi. She and Miller sang the quite moving duet that is undoubtedly one of Sullivan’s finest, a real trouvaille, ‘I have a song to sing’.

Not far behind were the Phoebe of Malinda Di Leva and the Dame Carruthers of Sharon Yearsley.

It’s an operetta where the story does count for something: for one thing, perhaps arguing for the sanctity of marriage regardless of insincere or fraudulent original motives. So it was a pity that the words from one or two singers were hard to understand, but not so as to make it hard to follow.

The set is simple – in a courtyard of the Tower of London, costumes conventional, of Tudor times. Movement on stage was fluid though the yeomen themselves overdid the military stiffness. Normal first night shortcomings were evident: a tentative orchestra in the overture and for some distance into the first act; so were some of the early choruses. But the show, full of great music, gained confidence during the first act and there were, particularly in the women’s chorus, some very poised and attractive singing in the second act.

The test of good theatre is whether you start to care about what happens to the characters on stage; I did, and the pathetic denouement quite had its way with me at the end.

(the full and edited version of the review that was abbreviated in The Dominion Post)

Pinchas and Players – Wellington’s Zukerman Experience

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Pinchas Zukerman (violin) / Jessica Linnebach (violin)
Jethro Marks (viola) / Ashan Pillai (viola)
Amanda Forsythe (‘cello)

KODALY – Duo for violin and ‘cello Op.7
BEETHOVEN – String Quintet in C Op.29
DVORAK – String Quintet in E-flat Op.97

Wellington Town Hall, Wednesday 12th August 2009

Known primarily as one of the world’s top virtuoso violinists, Pinchas Zukerman has also developed a reputation as a chamber musician, firstly in association with Daniel Barenboim and Jacqueline du Pre on recordings of music by Beethoven; and more lately with a group formed by the violinist in 2002, the Zukerman Chamber Players. Here in New Zealand for the first time to take part in “The Zukerman Experience”, the NZSO’s latest concert series, Pinchas Zukerman is also on tour with his group for Chamber Music New Zealand, taking with them two programmes nationwide. Wellington concertgoers heard the first of these programmes at the Town Hall on Wednesday evening.

In the programme, a quote from English critic David Denton summed up fairly what we heard from the group, with their programme of Kodaly, Beethoven and Dvorak – Denton talked about the Players’ “self-effacing musicianship never standing between the listener and the composer”, a sentiment which seemed to be echoed in the comments of people I spoke with who had also attended the concert. I would agree entirely, while at the same time wondering why on some occasions this self-effacement on the part of performers, often set up as an ideal by connoisseurs and critics, can in fact short-change the musical experience. In relative terms, the performances throughout by the Group were extremely classy; and in at least one instance, that of the Kodaly Duo, I felt thoroughly caught up with the music-making, finding the performers’ engagement with the sounds an enthralling experience. Elsewhere, I felt one step removed, as it were, as if a gloss or a sheen had been applied to the beautifully-finished product, keeping me in the bystander realms, the “spectator-line” in front of the art-work placed a little too far back, as it were.

So, what was different about the performance of the Kodaly Duo that engaged me to an extent that made the experience a stand-out one? First of all, there was a sense, right from the first note, that both Zukerman and his ‘cellist partner, Amanda Forsythe, were living the music – the interplay between them was palpable, the authoritative, “digging-in” opening giving way to a wonderful sense of the players exploring the sound-spaces and stimulating each other’s sensibilities, both using pizzicato motifs to goad the other into responses both of the utmost delicacy and beguiling richness. Then there was the sheer variation of tone-colour, gossamer figurations set by turns alongside full-blooded outpourings, the sounds at times resembling that of a string orchestra, the cellist with simple arpeggiations ravishing our senses with the glorious tones of her instrument.

The slow movement featured song-like sweetness at the outset, but with a central section whose character was almost surreal, as if a gentle dream had suddenly been hijacked by phobia-ridden angst, the tensions gradually melting-down with lovely Aeolian-harp-like strummings from the ‘cellist, and rapt responses from her duo partner. The finale began gloriously, with Zukerman and Forsythe generating an exultant, rhapsodising mood, then plunging into the dance, alternating dark, earthy Hungarian rhythms with more stratospheric flights of fancy, the episodes growing out of one another. I got the feeling that both musicians were throwing themselves into the intricacies of interaction and contrast that the music affords, with a wonderfully adrenalin-led burst of energy at the coda, leaving behind the concert-hall ethos and revelling in a richly-detailed out-of-doors spirit that left us exhilarated.
After these intense out-of-door explorations, the Beethoven Quintet seemed to inhabit another world of sensibility altogether. At first I liked the contrast set up by the more “orchestral” feel of the ensemble, but as the work progressed I began to miss in the playing that sense of involvement with the music that Zukerman and Forsythe had exhibited so tellingly during the Kodaly. Throughout the first movement I kept wanting the ensemble to “dig in” a little more to the string textures, perhaps at a slower, more “pointed” tempo. Interesting that I found the work as a whole somewhat reined in considering that the same composer at this time (1801) was working on other,  more revolutionary pieces that were challenging classical norms and structures in different genres such as the piano sonata (the Op.27 Sonatas, and the “Pastoral”).

I liked the contrasts afforded by the slow movement, the development section “breaking out” from the constraints of the opening, and the players nicely catching the humour of the “false ending”, at what seems like a concluding cadence suddenly plunging back into the turmoil, before slowly restoring a sense of calm. But contrary to the programme note’s description of the Beethoven finale as “pure drama”, I thought the ensemble brought out the music’s urbanity and elegance more than any kind of elemental connections. Detail was beautifully filled in, from the elfin ambience of the tremolando accompaniment at the opening, to the deftest of violinistic touches from Zukerman himself in the more withdrawn Andante episodes; while the Players obviously revelled in the music’s pacy minor-key sections, delivering the notes with plenty of snap and polish, and nicely contrasting the polarities of activity and circumspection throughout. Still, for me, the impression remained of a performance that never really “let go”, so that the Beethoven we were presented with remained a drawing-room composer, albeit an interesting and occasionally surprising one.
The Dvorak Quintet is justly regarded as one of the great glories of the chamber-music repertoire for string instruments – and in a sense, Zukerman and his Players performed it like that, with beautifully-modulated tones and tight rhythmic control throughout, allowing the work’s greatness as an absolute piece of music to shine through, even if there were no folk-singers intoning the tunes and clogs stamping to the rhythms. If my bias extends towards a performance ethos of this kind of music that makes earthier connections than we heard from these musicians, I’m not denying the virtuosity and beauty of tone that emanated from the Wellington Town Hall stage throughout. The musicians gave full-throated voice to the work’s lyrical opening, and expertly spun the syncopated rhythms of the ensuing allegro. Brilliant though their playing of the scherzo was, I missed the chunky “folk-fiddle” ambiences of my mind’s ear, and thought some of the music’s character had been ever-so-slightly dulled with too generalised a response. The Players came into their own with the hymn-like measures of the slow movement, lines gorgeously intertwined, and contrasting sections beautifully characterised, the ‘cello-playing from Amanda Forsythe always ear-catching, especially in the major-minor contrasts of some of the movement’s variations.

The work’s finale bottoms out a bit compared with the other three movements, its contrasting rondo-like episodes needing strong characterisation to provide sufficient contrast with the all-pervasive jig-rhythms of the principal theme. I thought the ensemble gave the music plenty of energy, but didn’t sufficiently “colour” the contrasts enough for there to be a real sense of “homecoming” at the return of the jig-like rhythm each time. But the movement’s conclusion was exhilarating, with dotted rhythms giving way to triplets and building the excitement towards the last, grand lyrical statement – and even if this was delivered more with drive and rhythmic purpose than full-throated joy, the excitement kept us buoyed up right to the end.
Pinchas Zukerman and his Players responded to the warmth of the audience’s appreciation with a movement from a work in the group’s “other” programme, the Andante movement from the Mendelssohn B-flat String Quintet, a supremely elegant coda to an absorbing evening’s music-making.

Two Lunchtime concerts: Old St Paul’s and St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

1. Richard Apperley (organ)

The German Chorale: Pieces by Mendelssohn, Buxtuhude, Reger, Kuhnau, Hauff, Böhm and Karg-Elert

Old St Paul’s, Tuesday 11 August

The scheduled performer at this free lunchtime concert, Michael Fulcher, organist at the Cathedral of St Paul, had to make an urgent trip to Australia and assistant cathedral organist Richard Apperley stepped in.

He drew mainly on the repertoire that his CV describes as his particular interest: Buxtehude and contemporary organ music, and there were side trips from those centres. For example, as well as music by Buxtehude himself, he played attractive examples of three other of his near contemporaries; but nothing closer to our own age than Reger and Karg-Elert, both of whom died in the first half of the 20th century.

The two Little Chorale Preludes (‘Lobe den Herrn’ and ‘O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden’) of Reger, were indeed short yet they served to whet my curiosity to hear more of this somewhat neglected composer’s organ music. Today, Karg-Elert’s organ works are even less known, though I heard his music, and his name stuck I my memory, when I was a student; and this Chorale Improvisation, ‘Nun danket alle Gott’ renewed my interest, though perhaps it’s not typical of the composer whose music is usually more impressionistic (listen to his Kaleidoscope, Op 144).

The recital started with Mendelssohn’s third organ sonata, music that I hear as too serious, too venerating of Bach and of the spirit of 19th century Protestant religion. I’ve tried, having started with a secondary school friend whose own interest in the organ at least educated me a bit to the mysteries of the remarkable instrument. He was learning the Mendelssohn sonatas and I tried my hand too but was not hooked.

However, this performance, employing bright registrations, interestingly flavoured with flute stops made a very good case for it, but the feel of seriously pious music looking backward was undeniable.

Four of the other pieces were from the generation before JS Bach. Two were famous as his mentors: The two chorale preludes by Buxtehude and Böhm had some of the intellect and formal shape of Bach but not the imprint of genius that most of Bach’s music bears. Richard Apperley’s playing provided them with clarity and sufficient tonal variety and complexity to excite interest.

It’s a while since I’d heard the organ at Old St Paul’s played in a formal recital. Having heard it played without much apparent appreciation of its strengths and weaknesses, and sensitivity to the acoustic of the church, it was a pleasure to hear it played with such discrimination and attention to both its character and to the space it has to emerge in.

2. Baroque Workshop, New Zealand School of Music

Music by Telemann, Willem de Fesch and Sweelinck.

Olga Gryniewicz (soprano); instrumentalists: Brendan O’Donnell (flute), Judy Guan (violin), Emma Goodbehere (cello), Tom Gaynor (harpsichord and rogan), Douglas Mews (harpsichord)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace. Wednesday 12 August 2009

The lunchtime concert on the following day was another chance to hear several of the most talented musicians in advanced stages of their studies at the New Zealand School of Music. Intentionally or not, all the music was of the 18th century or earlier; it started and finished with pieces by Telemann.

The first was a Fantasia (No 7 in D minor) for flute and violin (Brendan O’Donnell and Judy Guan). While O’Donnell played it on the recorder, which I felt robbed it of the slightly more interesting texture produced by the flute, the two soprano instruments were played so scrupulously, with such calm, that the experience was rather enchanting both in the gentle Alla francese and the faster Presto, of the character of a courante.

A close Dutch contemporary of Telemann, Willem de Fesch (even closer to Bach and Handel) wrote the next piece, a cello sonata that was played by Emma Goodbehere and Douglas Mews at the harpsichord. There was a slow prelude followed by a quick movement in common time and two minuets, a most accomplished performance adorned with tasteful ornaments that were kept grounded by a carefully balanced harpsichord.

An anonymous piece, rather slight, called the Duke of Norfolk or Paul’s Steeple was played by Judy Guan on the violin with cello and harpsichord continuo: a set of variations on a popular dance tune. Though the violin was a little too bright for its context, it was the violin’s piece and gave Guan another opportunity to display her instinct for and taste in early music.

Jan Pieter Sweelinck lived a full century before Telemann and Bach, one of the most important composers of his age, particularly in the development of the organ. Thomas Gaynor played his Variations on ‘Mein junges Leben hat ein End’ which had a lightness that rather belied its morbid subject. Considering the modest colour palette available on the church’s chamber organ, Gaynor invested it with great interest and variety.

A cantata by Telemann brought the concert to an end: ‘Lauter Wonne, lauter Freude’, accompanied by recorder which had well articulated, ear-catching figures at several points, cello and with Gaynor on the harpsichord. Olga Gryniewicz (whom we heard singing the role of Iris in Semele a few weeks before) was the soprano soloist. It was good to hear her in another setting, her voice comfortable if a little tight, evincing some production problems, in the high register, agile, with a quick vibrato under good control.

Her performance was vivacious, the arias expressive, as if she really meant what she was singing, her recitatives dramatic, committed. In the second aria she created striking contrasts between moments of laughter and lamenting. She conveys youthful delight in performance, which transmits immediately to her audience. However, for all Gryniewicz’s accomplished performance, the success of the cantata rested just as much with the instrumentalists accompanying her.

Ensemble Selisih – making the difference

Posted on by Alan Wells

ENSEMBLE SELISIH

Elizabeth Farrell (flute), Mathias Trapp (piano), Daniela Wahler and Markus Rombach (saxophones)
DIETER MACK: “Selisih”, “Trio III”;
CHANG-SOON RYU: “Quartett”;
DYLAN LARDELLI: “Two Bells”;
ROBIN TOAN: “Twitter”;
MICHAEL NORRIS: “BADB”;
GILLIAN WHITEHEAD: “Taurangi”.

NZ School of Music Adam Concert Room, 12 August 2009

“Selisih”, an Indonesian word meaning “argumentative discussion”, was the name given by German composer Dieter Mack to his duo for alto and baritone saxophones. Mack, now on his third visit to New Zealand in a professional capacity, has lived in Indonesia studying gamelan performance practice, and (partly inspired by this) has made the interactions between players, one of the fundamental principles of his music. The name was subsequently adopted by this ensemble of four individualists – two saxophonists, a flautist and a pianist.

Mack’s 2003 composition “Selisih” itself formed part of the programme. The duo began with Wahler’s querulous alto sax answered by Rombach’s staid baritone, which in turn was to respond with increased nervous energy. The conversation turned to treat a serious topic with mysterious multiphonics, before they joined together in rapid unisono figures and a perfectly united vibrato.

The 2005 “Trio III” reflected Mack’s more recent concern with creating new timbres using multiphonics, incidental microtones and, especially, by blending together instrumental sounds (analogous to an organ’s mixture stop, and sharing some similar concerns with the French Spectralists). Flute (and sometimes piccolo) melded with alto sax to produce unison lines in novel, Messiaen-like colours, while the discreetly prepared piano added a quietly dark commentary.

Korean-born Chang-soon Ryu has studied with Dieter Mack in Lubeck. His 2007 “Quartett” for the Ensemble Selisih showed some of Mack’s interest in timbre-building, and also a feeling of stasis that those of us who have grown up with the thematic development, metrical pulse and harmonic motion of the western tradition, tend to associate with East Asian music.

Wellingtonian Dylan Lardelli’s 2009 “Two Bells” displayed a similar sense of static time, and for good reason: it was inspired in part by the stately unfolding of classical Japanese Noh drama. As with his 2008 “four scenes” for Stroma, and more successfully than in his earlier “Sent into Silence” at the 2007 Asia Pacific Festival, Lardelli here suspended any need for forward direction or climax. The poised, spare texture incorporated judicious special effects: muffled prepared-piano notes illumined by a halo of resonance; throbbing close-interval sustains; slap-tonguing and key clicks on the baritone sax.

“Two Bells” was commissioned by Selisih (with Creative NZ) to increase the repertoire for this unconventional ensemble. So too was Aucklander Robin Toan’s 2009 “Twitter”, a set of three short character-pieces “about” birds (not micro-blogging). The first – perky, cheeky, syncopated – was reminiscent of the “Aquarium” and “Puppets” movements from her 2005 “Barcelona Postcards”. The second was pensive, with a plangent melody on the soprano sax, some contrapuntal complexity and cadenza passages. The third was motoric (rather than syncopated like the first), featuring rapid ostinati on the baritone sax and chirping runs and trills on the piccolo, building up to an sudden end.

Michael Norris’ “BADB” was named after a shape-shifting Celtic goddess. It opened with Farrell singing into her flute, with crystalline high piano runs from Trapp. However, the goddess’s fearsome side was soon made evident with fortissimo crow-calls.

Gillian Whitehead’s “Taurangi” was premiered by Bridget Douglas and Rachel Thomson during the 2000 International Festival of the Arts. It made my list of highlights in the retrospective of that year that I wrote for the “NZ Listener”. This was a most elegant rendition from New Zealand-born flautist Elizabeth Farrell and pianist Mathias Trapp: the flute’s subtle pitch-bends and the closing, barely audible inside-piano glissandi still had the magic to send tingles up the spine.