Month: July 2010
“From Garden To Grave” – Margaret Medlyn and Bruce Greenfield
FROM GARDEN TO GRAVE – A Benefit Recital
Jack C. Richards Music Scholarship for Overseas PostGraduate Study
Margaret Medlyn (soprano)
Bruce Greenfield (piano)
STEPHAN PROCK – Song Cycle “Cages for the Wind” (poems by Alastair Campbell)
JENNY McLEOD – Song Cycle “From Garden To Grave” (poems by Janet Frame)
Songs by SERGEI RACHMANINOV and ERICH KORNGOLD
Hunter Council Chamber, Victoria University
Sunday 11th July 2010
It’s said that piano recitals and song recitals don’t draw the crowds sufficiently for them to be financially viable undertakings on a regular basis – just why this is, when some of the world’s greatest music has been written for each of these genres by nearly all of the great composers taxes my understanding somewhat. The perception seems to be that with chamber music there are a number of performers in view whose interaction provides plenty of interest and variety, whereas both piano- and song-recitals are too static, too insufficiently varied to sustain an audience’s attention. It’s an attitude that’s part of a general present-age malaise involving people’s priorities, an idea that the purely “listening” experience is no longer good enough for concert-goers. These days the eye must be entertained as well as the ear – the concept of having an “inner vision” generated by musical sounds and fed by one’s imagination has been devalued in favour of and overlaid by a pre-requisite surface gloss.
In a recent issue of the once-esteemed “Gramophone” magazine, I was disturbed to read a statement by a critic which asked (not altogether rhetorically) why anybody would bother with audio-only listening to opera when one had any number of DVDs available to view as well as hear the same repertoire. Well I have tried production after opera production on DVD, and can safely say that a good two-thirds of them that I’ve encountered irritate me so much with spurious, ill-conceived “visual conceptualisings”, that I often find myself reaching gratefully for my audio-only CDs and LPs, so I can listen to the music undistracted. But I digress somewhat from the real point of this review, which is to proclaim, to anybody who wants to listen, or read, or whatever, that song recitals (and piano recitals, for that matter) can work brilliantly and engage the listener’s sensibilities most satisfyingly when delivered with the energy, panache and heartfelt feeling that soprano Margaret Medlyn and pianist Bruce Greenfield gave to their recent “From Garden to Grave” presentation at Victoria University’s Hunter Concert Chamber.
Margaret Medlyn is, in fact, a concert-goer’s dream of a performer – her total identification with anything she chooses to perform makes the experience for the listener one of being taken profoundly by her into the world of whatever work she’s presenting. Unlike some charismatic performers, who invest whatever music they make with their own personalities to the extent that the composer’s vision is somewhat obscured or diverted, Medlyn gives herself entirely to whatever role she’s playing. The three operatic roles I’ve seen her undertake in recent times have all involved this process of abandonment of self and complete subsumption into these roles – Kundry in Parsifal, Judith in Bluebeard’s Castle and Kostelnicka in Janacek’s Jenufa. On the recital platform, she’s perhaps a bit alarming for people who might be expecting a degree or so more circumspection in non-operatic music. But one gets the feeling (as I did throughout this present recital) of having been transported as a listener to the pulsating heart of every piece of music she performs – and together with the excellent Bruce Greenfield on the piano, Medlyn engaged us totally throughout what was an emotionally heartfelt programme, from the overt romanticism of the Rachmaninov and Korngold songs to the full-blooded angularities of Jenny McLeod’s realisations of Janet Frame’s poems.
Right from the opening of the first Rachmaninov song O Stay My Love singer and pianist demonstrated their “engaged on all points” connection with the music, making surgings within the work’s greater crescendo, their control of ebb and flow very much an art that concealed art. In the Silent Night, though more lyrical, still featured an intense climax – the composer’s often-declared practice of constructing a “point” within a work very much in evidence here – and how persuasively the singer encompassed both forthright and hushed concluding intensities in what seemed like a single span! Lilacs was exquisitely done by both musicians, restrained, but suggesting whole worlds of loveliness, contrasting sharply with the intense drama of the following Loneliness, the music over the four settings giving ample and compelling notice of Rachmaninov’s range of variation and expression as a song-writer.
One would have thought Alastair Campbell’s poetry eminently suited to musical settings, the poet’s feeling for lyricism and powerful imagery tempered by an innate sense of structure and rhythmic symmetry, which has the effect of the words being as much sung as read whenever the poetry is encountered. American-born composer Stephan Prock, currently working at the New Zealand School of Music as a senior lecturer in composition, was commissioned by Professor Jack C. Richards to write a cycle of settings of Campbell’s poetry for Margaret Medlyn to perform; so this was the work’s premiere performance. Stephan Prock himself wrote about the poetry’s singability in his programme notes, telling us that, upon reading, the words “began to suggest musical atmospheres and vocal lines infolding…like buds of roses unfurling their petals…” And I liked his open-hearted remark that followed: “When poems begin to sing themselves to me, I know I have found the right material”.
Prock took the last five poems from a collection called Cages in the Wind and set them as a cycle. The first, Words and Roses brought out a full-textured response at the outset, the piano tumbling and the singer declaiming, the music’s soaring energies dissolving upwards to a point of quiet ecstasy, like an aftermath of lovemaking. By contrast, Warning to Children was theatrical and frightening, eminently suiting Medlyn’s voice and Greenfield’s virtuoso piano playing, the performers enjoying the piece’s off-beat rhythms and sudden changes of mood. The third setting Gift of Dreams presented a swirling, vertiginous fantasyscape, Medlyn passionate and abandoned as the sequence swirled onward towards what seemed like a distant realm of continuance. Then came another contrast, with Whitey, a piquant, atmospheric tribute to a blackbird who regularly visited the poet’s garden, the vocal line soaring and the piano beautifully emulating the ambient birdsong, the text becoming a meditation upon life’s passing as the singer voiced the line “And I murmur to his ghost”, before farewelling the visitor’s shade, to a concluding echo of the bird’s song. Finally, Roots plunged us back into monumentability, the piano’s agitations reminiscent of parts of Lilburn’s Elegy, before circumspection overtook the singer’s powerful utterances, and gradually brought about an elegiac mood, the piano deeply and quietly resounding at the close. A beautiful work, the performance realising all of the force, whimsy and tender sentiment of the settings.
I wasn’t familiar with the Korngold songs that made up the next bracket on the programme – but from what I did know of the composer I would have expected the music to be steeped in the lushest of romantic idioms and tones; and so it proved. The opening Sterbelied (a setting of Christina Rosetti’s well-known When I am dead, my dearest ) required and got the kind of full-blooded emotional commitment from the singer that Margaret Medlyn’s so richly able to supply, and with Bruce Greenfield’s piano playing its part in supporting the voice via generously-filled resonances. Two songs from Korngold’s Op.22 followed, the first, Mit Dir zu schweigen setting a text by Karl Kobald, one which evokes a kind of “love’s fulfilment” wrought by a silence shared with the beloved, the music enabling singer and pianist to “‘float” their tones throughout drifting, exploratory harmonies which express the endlessness of oblivion. The second, Was Du mir bist, was a setting of verses by Eleonore van der Straten, describing an almost fairy-tale evocation of a world wrought by the power of love, the music imbued with rapture and largesse of joyous feeling – the voice radiant throughout, the accompanying piano tones by turns grand and celestial.
The prospect of Margaret Medlyn and Bruce Greenfield performing a Jenny McLeod song-cycle immediately brought to mind a similar composer/performers collaboration splendidly recorded some years ago by Kiwi-Pacific on a disc called Burning Bright, and which featured McLeod’s settings of a group of William Blake’s poems entitled Through the World, a work I’d very much like to hear again “live”. But this was something different, a later work (again commissioned by Jack Richards, and actually dedicated by the composer to the pianist, Bruce Greenfield) whose title, From Garden to Grave, gave the recital its name. The work sets eight of Janet Frame’s poems, taken from two collections, The Pocket Mirror and The Goose Bath; and the cycle’s title comes from the sixth poem Freesias. The titles of the individual poems are themselves a delight, the first, When the Sun shines More Years than Fear, a declamatory plea for a better world featuring a strong vocal line and a detailed, volatile piano part. The composer’s “brief turn on an old song” drolly describes the descending/ascending musical topography of I Must Go Down to the Seas Again, while the third A Visit to the Retired English Professor incorporates a “parlando-like” introduction consisting of the title, followed by a delightfully discursive record of an unhurried encounter.
What fun Margaret Medlyn had with At the Opera – lots of “tessitura” and a moment of gleeful audience confrontation, likening we hapless spectators to “tier on tier” of grim-looking listeners! A few strained cruelly high notes took nothing away from the performance’s panache and enjoyment. The title of the next piece was sung – My Mother Remembers Her Fellow-Pupils at School – and the names of various contemporaries were poignantly resurrected, with each utterance given a different weight or colour, the exchange nicely delivered by singer and pianist, including the whimsical forgetfulness at the end. Probably the most “weighted” was Freesias, partly sung, partly spoken, dramatic utterances that were heartfelt and wry by turns, the writer trying, it seemed, to keep the pain out of the poetry, at times capitulating with utterances like “but I cannot keep my promise”, and bowing the head to the music’s tolling bells and funereal aspect. After these emotional stretches and strainings, Medlyn and Greenfield gave both Too Cold and The Chickadee a droll cheerfulness that seemed eminently suited to the composer’s “life goes on” impulses by way of both renewal and resignation. In all, I thought the cycle a work to be savoured and, hopefully, revisited.
Music that has triumphantly stood the test of time is Rachmaninov’s, despite certain dire predictions of eventual extinction in some quarters half-a-century ago; and thanks to advocacy such as that of the late Elisabeth Söderström’s on record, the songs are coming into their own as magnificent late-romantic outpourings of intense feeling and sensibility, works wonderfully and exquisitely crafted. Often they require interpretative responses of an order that threaten to break the confines of their physical performance parameters, as Medlyn and Greenfield demonstrated with the unashamed operatic presentation given the magnificent Spring Waters, the singer’s highest notes not ideally pure and easeful, but somehow conveying in the throes of effortful expression an extra dimension to the music’s essence. As for the piano writing, Medlyn’s unashamed acknowledgement of her pianist’s positively orchestral playing even before the song’s end brought the house down on behalf of both musicians!
Not as paganistic, but just as heartfelt in a more devotional sense, was the pair’s performance of Prayer, a breath-catching evocation of a penitent’s torment through guilt, the major/minor oscillations at the song’s end symbolising the conflicting states of emotion. A happier mood was suggested with Before My Window, the music’s unashamed lyricism almost pure “Dr Zhivago” in form and feeling, voice and piano weaving beautiful double-stranded arabesques in rapture at the beauty and intoxicating scent of the cherry blossom. Finally, the heady emotion of Midsummer Nights brought forth tones of the most passionate order from both musicians, feelings burgeoning at “graceful realms of happiness”, and rising like a sea-swell yet again in a paean of praise for the moonlight of midsummer and its resplendent beauties.
This recital was held as a benefit for the Jack C Richards Music Scholarship Award for postgraduate students enrolled full-time at the NZSM, who wish to undertake overseas study. Besides supporting an extremely worthy cause, the concert served to underline what we concertgoers miss by having so few opportunities to enjoy song recitals given by our top singers. Margaret Medlyn and Bruce Greenfield certainly gave us such a one, a musical experience well worth savouring.
Eyal Kless in Wellington – have violin….
Eyal Kless (violin)
with Catherine McKay (piano)
and Vesa-Matti Leppanen (violin)
Mozart Sonata in B flat for piano & violin KV 378
Prokofiev – Sonata for 2 Violins in C Major Op.56
Grieg Sonata No. 3 in C minor for piano & violin Op. 45
Aleksey Igudesman – The Crazy Bride
St Andrew’s on the Terrace
Friday 9th July 2010
Wellington’s lunchtime concert enthusiasts were given a real treat by visiting Israeli violinist Eyal Kless, who combined forces with both pianist Catherine McKay and fellow-violinist Vesa-Matti Leppanen for what seemed almost like an impromptu and all but unheralded concert, one which certainly deserved more advocacy that it actually received. With sterling support from both his partners throughout the concert, Eyal Kless readily demonstrated the qualities suggested by the snippets of publicity which came my way – “a dynamic and versatile musician” for example – and gave his audience a real sense of his “rich recital and chamber music career”, which involves performing in many places around the world. Eyal currently teaches in Manchester and in Tel Aviv, and besides concerts he gives lectures and masterclasses involving such diverse topics as stage-fright, as well as violin technique. He’s also a sought-after jurist for various international competitions.
The varied programme began with a Mozart Sonata for Violin and Piano KV 378, a work of richly-wrought textures and and wonderfully interactive detailings. Pianist Catherine McKay’s expressively nuanced playing of the very opening of the work drew a like response from the violinist, and cast an aura of contentment over the listening spaces, both musicians relishing their opportunities to fully explore the music’s strength and subtle elasticity. For our pleasure (and presumably for their own) the musicians observed the first-movement repeat, after which there was tension and excitement aplenty generated by the development’s minor-key mood, with the pianist’s forthright attack during the great outbursts matched by the violinist’s equally-focused playing. After this, the recapitulation of the sonata’s opening measures brought from both instruments rich and glowing B-flat colourings to the final bars.
Although the piano seemed at first to take the melodic lead in the slow movement, the violin judiciously added a countervoice, sometimes a simple sustained note colouring the phrase. Then it was the violin’s turn with the second subject, very operatic in effect, with a beautifully flowing accompaniment from the piano, both of the instrumentalists through all of this registering and delivering the music’s ebb and flow. The finale wasn’t at all rushed, the players pointing the rhythms nicely to keep the momentum going, but generating a lot of “schwung” in the minor-key episode. Some fairy-light triplet-playing scampered deftly to the treble-tops before returning the music to the rondo-theme with a nice “rounded-off” sense of homecoming.
Vesa-Matti Leppanen then joined Eyal Kless for a performance of Prokofiev’s Sonata for 2 Violins, written by the composer in 1932, and described by Prokofiev’s son Sviatoslav as “lyrical, playful, fantastic and violent, in turn”. The players brought out the music’s exploratory, improvisatory character at the beginning, the harmonies very bittersweet, and the lines in places ethereal and stratospheric, happily with Eyal Kless’s playing in particular fully up to the challenge. Both musicians dug into the pungent rgencies of the second movement, dovetailing their lines skilfully, and enjoying the canonic interplay throughout a trio-like section of the music. The third movement’s graceful, “other-worldly’ melancholy provided a telling contrast with the dance-like opening of the finale, with its rapid-fire exchanges between the players – if intonation occasionally slipped under pressure, such as during parts of the “whirling dervish” conclusion, it mattered not a whit to the spirit of the dance.
Violinist and pianist rejoined forces for a performance of Grieg’s C Minor Sonata which certainly flung down the gauntlet at the opening with passionate, full-blooded utterances, even if I imagined those melismatic phrases at the beginning sounding somewhat earthier, with stronger, more “dug-in” articulation. Throughout, the music’s episodes of great agitation were contrasted well with moments of wonderful stasis, the performers having the ability to “fuse” both the lyrical and dramatic moments into a coherent shape. The composer’s characteristically piquant harmonic shifts were again evident at the slow movement’s piano-opening, here beautifully played by Catherine McKay and richly rejoined by her violinist-partner. They captured the gypsy-volatility of the music’s middle section, before delivering the big tune’s reprise with melting sweetness, and a burst of great emotion throughout the double-stopped octave violin passage almost at the end, the violinist unfortunately besmirching his final note in some way and looking annoyed with himself as a result!
The concert concluded with another violin duo work, Kless joining forces once again with Vesa-Matti Leppanen to bring an entertaining piece of almost music-theatre to life, a work by Aleksey Igudesman called The Crazy Bride. The music worked in tandem with a number of racy spoken descriptions by Kless of a Jewish wedding at which the people and events are somewhat larger-than-life! Consequently, there was never a dull or drab moment, the music seeming to delineate a run of events where crisis followed crisis (I’m told, however, that weddings tend to bring out extremes of whatever in people), the whole akin to having a dramatised wall-to-wall sequence of Monteverdi’s most emotionally candid madrigals. Kless and Leppanen enjoyed themselves hugely and conveyed such a strongly-flavoured sense of occasion that the archetypal characters in the scenario came to life before our eyes. Even though most of the audience was probably outside the tradition looking in, what seemed like the “Jewishness” of it all, music, movement, gesture and feeling was conveyed with strength, vigour, humour and ultimately, affection. Best of all I liked the Wedding Dance, with its gradual accelerando style set against an emotion-laden middle section whose poise and depth of feeling spoke volumes amid all the hilarity and showmanship.
Geoffrey de Lautour Remembered at St Andrew’s
Karen Saunders in association with The New Zealand Opera Society Inc. (Wellington Branch) and the Wellington members of NEWZATS (New Zealand Association of Teachers of Singing)
St. Andrew’s on The Terrace
Wednesday 7 July 2010, 12.15pm
Geoffrey de Lautour: opera singer, teacher of music in schools, private singing teacher, raconteur, was remembered, ten years after his death. Fellow Dunedin-born singer Roger Wilson introduced the concert with a brief biography of de Lautour. The latter’s involvement in opera in New Zealand, following a career in Britain, has been outlined in his autobiography. Wilson emphasised the hands-on work of the old New Zealand Opera Company, where everyone multi-tasked: driving, loading and unloading sets, singing, overcoming emergencies etc.
He saw the concert, involving nine young singers, as celebrating both de Lautour’s career, and his teaching at the former Hutt Valley Memorial Technical College. A charming photo of the man was printed on the front of the programme.
The singers varied in age from 14 to 20. This meant that some had almost mature voices, while others still had children’s voices.
Of the former, the outstanding singer was Tom Atkins, whose attractive and promising tenor voice we heard in a duet from Beethoven’s Fidelio with soprano Amelia Ryman, and again in the serenade from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. Atkins’s pitch was wayward a couple of times, but here is a dramatic tenor in the making.
Ryman’s voice had a surprising amount of vibrato for a young singer, but she had plenty of volume and confidence, and depicted her roles (she also sang a Handel aria) intelligently, using her voice well, especially in the drama of the Beethoven.
All items except the Beethoven were accompanied by Julie Coulson, always a tasteful and supportive pianist, never having to ask the question ‘Am I too loud?’ Mark Dorrell accompanied the Beethoven with flair.
Two younger singers sang arias from Edward German’s Merrie England. The second singer, Chloe Garrett, was older than Lauren Yeo, and this showed in her tone and her more musical performance. Both had good intonation and enunciation.
Matthew Ellison sang Handel’s ‘Where’er you walk’ accurately enough and with clear words, but it was a very dull performance, with no feeling. He tended to swallow the tone; his voice needed more projection.
A trio of Chloe Garrett, Nicole Petrove (there were variations in the spelling of her name in the printed programme) and Lauren Yeo sang an arrangement of the traditional Irish ‘Johnny has gone for a soldier’ in a rather restrained fashion, but they managed the rather complicated arrangement, including key changes, well.
Sophia Ritchie, singing ‘Vieni, Vieni o mio diletto’ by Vivaldi, revealed a good voice, especially in the lower register, although more projection is needed.
Mark Newbury, in Giovanni Legrenzi’s ‘Che fiero’ costume exhibited a mature voice of considerable promise; his intonation was unfortunately rather variable. However, a he made a good job of this aria.
Natasha Willoughby performed the traditional English folk song ‘Waly, Waly’ very attractively with clear words, but wayward pitch at times. At her age (15) lack of volume is not a concern, but the song was too low for her in places.
Tosti’s La Serenata is not much heard these days, but Nicole Petrove’s small but pleasant, attractive voice made good work of it. Her Italian pronunciation was commendable.
As a finale, all the singers sang an unaccompanied (and unconducted) arrangement of the Welsh air ‘All through the night’. This was very fine, showing excellent tone, balance and blend.
It was good to hear so many young people learning singing, and confident enough to perform in public. They all showed the results of good teaching, and it is to be hoped they will all carry on, building on their present skills.
Taiwanese-American pianist marks the two pianist bi-centenaries at Old Saint Paul’s
Ya-Ting Liou (piano)
The Chopin and Schumann bicentenaries: ‘Sheep May Safely Graze’ (Bach, arr Egon Petri), Ballade No 2 in F, Op 38 (Chopin), Kreisleriana, Op 16 (Schumann); Danza del gaucho matrero, from Danzas Argentinas, Op 2 (Ginastera)
Old St Paul’s, Mulgrave Street
Tuesday 6 July, 12.15pm
Schumann’s Kreisleriana was the centrepiece of this interesting concert by a pianist unknown to everyone there, I imagine. Of Taiwanese origin, Ya-Ting Liou’s abbreviated CV discloses connections with Canada, the United States, and Argentina; she currently teaches at the University of Missouri in Kansas City.
She opened with an arrangement of Bach’s ‘Sheep May Safely Graze’, sounding slightly ill-at-ease, and Chopin’s second Ballade was given to transitions in mood and tempo that did not convince me. Her intention may have been to illustrate her reading of whatever narrative is thought to have lain beneath the surface of the piece; marked by changes in spirit and tempo that did not altogether create an integrated work; I would have to be exposed to such an interpretation again for it to have a chance of persuading me that it was what Chopin had intended.
The concert ended with another non-anniversary piece: an aggressive, ferocious dance by Ginastera, a composer she has obviously made a particular study of in her relationship with Argentina. It was a spectacular, pretty flawless performance to send the audience away with.
So I was expecting to find a player who took naturally to the impulsiveness and extreme mood changes that Schumann is given to, and nowhere more than in the wild spontaneity of Kreisleriana (The name comes from an E T A Hoffmann story of a Kapellmeister named Kreisler). Its does not have quite the immediate ecstatic delight of Carnaval or the deeply emotional power of the Fantaisie in C, but it grows on one, to become one Schumann’s most beloved works.
Up to a point Ya-Ting Liou expressed the music’s romantic impetuousness and spontaneity, but what was somewhat lacking was finesse and an ability to express the fantastic in refined, colourful, entrancing terms.
There is a consensus however about the difficulty of interpreting Schumann, especially this piece. If the opening section – Agitatissimo (to use the Italian equivalent of Schumann’s German markings) – did not augur well, cluttered, rushes of arpeggios and scales not cleanly articulated, there was light and calm in the succeeding phase whose short rising and falling motif anchored the music.
Some of her most appealing playing was in the slow sections, starting with the second, ‘Sehr innig und nicht zu rasch’ (Con molto espressione, non troppo presto), and again in the fourth section, ‘Sehr langsam’. In the second, ‘Sehr innig’, hesitant chords became flowing melodies, and the two fast Intermezzi contained within that section where the impulsive Schumann is at his most typical, there was some entrancing playing. No section maintains a uniform mood or tempo, and it was one of the pianist’s virtues that she did more than simply lurch from one to the next without somehow finding a convincing connective spirit.
Clara did not find this work congenial in spite of Schumann’s embodying ‘Clara’ themes in it and it was for that reason, possibly, that he dedicated it to Chopin – an appropriate link for a recital in this year. Though this performance had its shortcomings, even for an all-forgiving Schumann groupie like me, it was a most welcome opportunity to hear one of his great piano works, played in one of Wellington’s most charming ambiences.
Špaček and Houstoun in delightful Wellington concert
Josef Špaček (violin) and Michael Houstoun (piano)
Violin Sonatas by Martinů (No 1), Janáček and Beethoven (Op 30 No 2) and solo Violin Sonata in E, Op 27 No 6 (Ysaÿe)
Wellington Town Hall
Monday 5 July
This concert in Chamber Music New Zealand’s evening series was co-promoted with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra: part of the first prize in last year’s Michael Hill International Violin Competition.
One has to confess that, far from offering a brilliant young violinist – still only 23 – a platform for performance that he might still be struggling to establish, the benefits are surely entirely in the other direction. For winning the contest obliged a player already with an international career, to play in Motueka and Whakatane, Waikanae and New Plymouth: hardly necessary for one who has already played in many of the world’s famous halls and with many of the great orchestras and conductors.
Špaček is a fully-rounded and superbly schooled musician, a case where a more ordinary mortal wonders, on reading that he studies at the Juilliard School with Itzhak Perlman, what on earth even a Perlman might have to teach him. When he can bring forth music from the fantastic galaxy of cascading notes that litter Ysaÿe’s solo sonatas. For this was the first time I have heard one of these post-Paganini extravagances brought to life as a complete and beautifully formed musical gem.
His encore, Henri Vieuxtemps’s riotous handling of Yankee Doodle (Souvenir d’Amérique, variations burlesques sur ….) was another example of fireworks in which he turned a perhaps vapid show-piece into an exhilarating, thrilling farewell offering. .
To follow the Isaÿe piece with Beethoven’s beautiful and somewhat melancholy Sonata in C minor was, first, the mark of a perceptive and original programme builder, but more significantly, a demonstration of an artistic maturity that the Isaÿe might not have proved. He moved through each of the four movements with such an unerring feeling for style and musical mood. In the Adagio cantabile, for example, there was his febrile, urgent thrust, with its dark Mephisto quality, against Michael Houstoun’s elegant piano which laid out restrained, sombre and immaculate textures that supported the violin’s subtle, long breaths. How nicely they handled the little fanfare-like cadences that punctuated the later phase, pretending to presage the close, with straight-faced, Haydnesque wit. But the real close, when it came, was disarming and gorgeous. Here in the finale was playing, again, of an essentially Beethoven melody that was quite without indulgence or pretention, the very essence of honest, insightful musical performance.
The first half was a celebration of his own country. Janáček’s sonata, on the strength of this performance, is an under-exposed masterpiece, not of modernist complexity, but of richness and singularity; Špaček, together with Houstoun’s highly idiomatic contribution, understood and enhanced its unique beauties while relishing the characteristic intervals that make Janáček’s music distinctive.
For me the Martinů was the greatest delight however: if not quite the equal of the Janáček, it is a delightful example of Martinů in his French/ragtime/neo-classical phase. And Špaček gave full colouring to the contrasts between the meandering, somewhat angular solo violin, and the ragtime rhythm and the solid swing that the piano’s entry suddenly brought about. It is an interesting case of the two instruments representing sharply contrasting styles, which yet creating an entrancing whole.
Martin Riseley and Diedre Irons – a partnership of substance
Wellington Chamber Music Sunday Concerts Series
Martin Riseley (violin) / Diedre Irons (piano)
Music by SCHUBERT, STRAVINSKY, CORIGLIANO and KREISLER
Ilott Theatre, Town Hall, Wellington
Sunday 4th July 2010
I’d hoped initially that Martin Riseley and Diedre Irons would give us Schubert”s heartwarming C Major Fantasia for Violin and Piano – the one that liberally quotes from the composer’s song “Sei mir gegrüsst” – but instead we got something darker and leaner, the Rondo in B Minor, D.895, a work whose intensely-focused moods and organically-motivated transitions throughout present a highly-concentrated dialogue between equal partners, at once demanding and rewarding to play and to listen to. Right from the beginning the performers plunged into the fray – Martin Riseley and Diedre Irons are both “big” players, chamber musicians who can think orchestrally when the music requires a large-scale declamatory response, while keeping the overall picture in mind – so we enjoyed the opening’s stern, imposing piano chords, and the agitated string figurations, and how the tensions seemed to mould themselves most naturally (though not completely) into a more lyrical, somewhat introspective mood. Riseley and Irons kept an undertow of unease going, so that we sensed the inevitablilty of things returning to come to a head – strong exchanges, again, very “orchestral” and full-blooded, the moment of dancing liberation into the Allegro a treasurable frisson of hesitation overcome by impulsiveness (I would take issue with the writer of the otherwise excellent programme-notes using the expression “seamlessly” to characterise that gorgeously teasing transition!).
Throughout the Rondo section, Riseley and Irons never shirked the music’s dynamic contrasts, realising the work’s volatility, the violin writing in particular requiring repetitive figurations of almost obsessive intensity in places, and the piano part visited with its own demands involving rapid alternations of poise and vigour, lyricism and exhilaration. I loved the composer’s surprising “false ending” at one point, the music seeming to deliver penultimate cadences before dancing away on its voyage of recapitultion, with a few variables thrown in a second time round, pianist and violinist equally relishing the opportunities to revisit and revitalise the experience. The occasional strained intonation in Riseley’s playing served to define the interpretative limits to which he was prepared to push the music to get the message across, and certainly helped convey the work’s ever-burgeoning excitement and sense of ultimate arrival – thoroughly invigorating!
Stravinsky’s Divertimento for Violin and Piano comes largely from the music for his own ballet Le baiser de la fee (The Fairy’s Kiss), which is, in turn, a reworking of music by Tchaikovsky, mostly from his songs. Throughout, the music’s fragmentary, spiky character was given a no-holds barred response from both vioinist and pianist, the moments of lyricism and melancholy associated with some of the Tchaikovsky originals spiced with Stravinsky’s fondness for both pesante rhythms and accents and increasingly complex neo-classical metric changes and dynamic contrasts, the formula roughing up the music no end. What came across most strongly in this performance was a sense of story, of rich descriptive detail, of expression and narrative taking centre-stage, so that even if some of the music’s angularities produced a performance effect outside one’s listening-comfort zone, the end result was at the service of the composer and his music.
After the interval, the first movement of John Corigliano’s 1963 Violin Sonata seemed in fact to continue the ascerbities of the Stravinsky, though perhaps with a more tongue-in-cheek commedia dell’arte flavour – plenty of 5/4 rhythms, string harmonics and double-stopped octaves, and tricky syncopations between violinist and pianist, tough and angular, but approachable.
Relief came with the almost Cole-Porter-like Andantino, nostalgic and reflective, with both musicians controlling the tones and dynamics most expertly – passages of melting sweetness set off against more forthright episodes, a 7/4 rhythmic section suggesting nostalgic “road music”, the trajectories engendering a lovely, spacious ambience all around. Riseley and Irons then opened up the music operatically, everything romantic and big-boned, even becoming ritualistic in the manner of Mussorgsky’s “Great Gate at Kiev”, before the quieter 7/4 passages brought the music home once more, floating the violin cross-rhythmically against the piano, the string tone stratospheric and celestial. The Lento third movement brought big “grim reaper” chords from the piano, set against gypsy-style rhapsodisings from the violin – Martin Riseley at full stretch here, first with fiendish Paganini-like double-stoppings, then launching into a cadenza-like recitative that finished with ghostly high notes over a forlorn piano accompaniment, and some elfin pizzicati resolving into a somewhat bleak sostenuto for both instruments.
Finales can defuse tensions, or else find ways to break an impasse; and so it was with this one, the music playful and teasing between the instruments at the beginning, the violin in molto perpetuo mode against the piano’s spiky angularities (the composer asking for slashing violin chords amid the restless figurations), and a couple of interludes bringing respite from the energies. Amazingly, both musicians were right on top of the music’s incredible exuberance over the last few pages, abandoning all caution, and leaving their audience tingling with excitement at the end. After these almost Dionysian excesses it was a good thing for all concerned that Martin Riseley and Diedre Irons took us to the Vienna of Fritz Kreisler to finish the concert – the great violinist’s pastiche-like compositions inhabiting an old-fashioned charm-suffused world of sentiment, with every brilliant violinistic touch matched by a melting moment of lyricism (and some of the brilliant bowings in the second piece La Clochette having certain Paganini-like whiffs of sulphur about them). Beginning with a set grandly titled Variations on a theme of Corelli after Tartini, and concluding with one of Kreisler’s favourite encore pieces, Schön Rosemarin, the musicians were able to bring to a conclusion an engaging and somewhat tumultuous afternoon’s music with more relaxed tones and accents, very much appreciated.
Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater
Pergolesi Stabat Mater, with sacred music from the baroque
Felicity Smith (mezzo soprano) with Richard Apperley (organ), Rowena Simpson (soprano), Claire Macfarlane (violin), Jenna Pascoe (violin), Michael Joel (viola) and Kat Thompson (cello)
St Peter’s Church, Willis Street
Friday, 2 July 2010
Over recent weeks Felicity Smith has demonstrated her expertise in several periods of music, in a lunch-hour concert in Lower Hutt and at the Concours de Chanson French-language song competition. Her clear, flexible voice suited the baroque repertoire particularly well.
Accompaniment for the items in the first half was provided by a chamber organ, which made scrumptious sounds under the expert hands of Richard Apperley. His playing was sublime, and musically supportive.
The opening hymn by Purcell, Lord, what is man? was quite lovely, and gave the audience a taste of what would be a treat throughout the concert: the splendid acoustics of the church. The voices and instruments equally were able to achieve wonderful tone and resonance.
Schütz‘s two Kleine geistliche Konzerte were delivered with clarity and musicality.
An Evening Hymn by Purcell was given a thoroughly convincing performance by both musicians. Words were clear and well articulated.
An instrumental interlude followed, with the four string players performing Corelli’s ‘Christmas Concerto’, his concerto grosso in G minor, Op.6 no.8. This is quite a familiar piece, but normally played by a chamber orchestra. Here, the use of only four instruments gave great clarity, and the acoustics enhanced the sound so that one did not miss the additional instruments.
Although the players were not using baroque instruments or bows, they played in a baroque style, with not too much vibrato, and bright, strong rhythms.
The work features movements of varying tempi and dynamics, concluding with a lovely, lilting pastorale. This was a very enjoyable performance.
The next work was Première leçon de Tenebres pour le Mercredi Saint by François Couperin. The singers alternated in singing the verses, the translations for which, as for the Schütz, were printed in the programme. Again, clarity and sonority were characteristics of the performance. Trills and runs were expertly executed by both singers, who brought out the word-painting of the composer, and sang appropriately in French Latin rather than the Italianate version to which we are more accustomed. The string players were always in touch with the nuances and timing of the singers.
The major work, the Pergolesi, occupied the second half of the concert. A most attractive work which is heard reasonably frequently, it is an astonishing composition for someone who died at 26 years of age. The organ and strings were superb, both on their own and as accompaniment to the singers, while the latter blended beautifully and took their cues carefully, as did the players. This was performance of a very high calibre.
The words and their translations were printed, and were marked as to which verses were for soprano, alto, or duo. Some of the duo movements were quite complex, but appeared to hold no fears for the performers. The last alto solo revealed good contralto tone from Felicity Smith. Rowena Simpson’s voice was glorious; she uses her facial resonators well, and one hopes to hear more of her singing.
Throughout, pronunciation and enunciation were excellent. It was a solemn yet appealing work, with a joyful Amen to finish with.
There was rather a small audience present, which was a great pity; this was concert of professional standard, in a church with a wonderfully alive sound – but cold!
Felicity should do well in her study at the Royal College of Music in London, for the associated costs this concert was a fund-raiser. All will wish her well for her future career.