Dianne Halliday at Cambridge Terrace Congregational Church organ

‘Manual Labour’ – pieces without pedals by Sweelinck, Frescobaldi, Eberlin, C P E Bach and John Stanley

Dianne Halliday – organ

Congregational Church, Cambridge Terrace, Wellingtom

Thursday 16 September , 12 45pm

Though I have lived almost all my life in Wellington, I confess that I confirm a comment made at this recital, that this organ is Wellington’s best kept musical secret. I only discovered it at lunchtime recitals three or four years ago. In fact, Michael Fulcher, who came to listen, said it was one of his favourite Wellington instruments.

It was Dianne Halliday who prompted work on the Cambridge Terrace organ and its regular Thursday lunchtime recitals; she is also director of music at St Peter’s Willis Street and has been leading the work of restoring its organ (both are by English builder William Hill) after the 2008 fire.

It is indeed a lovely instrument, three manuals and pedal board, happily placed at the east end of the church, in what would be the chancel of an Anglican or Catholic church. Its size and voicing seems a perfect match with the size and shape of the church; the only disadvantage is traffic noise which indeed made its point.

The decision to play pieces that did not use pedals was in part driven by practical considerations, but it leaves most pre-19th century music available. In any case there was plenty of rich bass sound in the swell division.

Dianne Halliday’s second recital during National Organ Month included music from an entirely different era from that in her earlier recital at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, reviewed by my colleague Rosemary Collier. This time, it was music from between early 17th and late 18th centuries.

The main characteristic of the recital was the organist’s colourful use of contrasting registrations. The two pieces by Sweelinck – Fantasia in the Manner of an Echo and the Variations on ‘Unter der Linde grüne’ were charming pieces, the latter particularly playful in the sharp contrasts between successive variations; the flute stops against the sturdy diapason ones.

Frescobaldi’s Toccata a l’elevazione, one from his ‘Secondo libro di toccate’ of 1627 that consisted of toccatas, ricercars, canzonas; ‘elevazione’ presumably refers to the fact that they are for manuals, and not pedals. It proved light in spirit but not trivial and Halliday realized it in a lively and unpretentious manner.

An unknown composer followed: Johann Ernst Eberlin who lived more than a century after Sweelinck and Frescobaldi. He worked as court organist to the Archbishop of Salzburg, was a friend of Leopold Mozart, and Wolfgang is likely to have heard his music there. He died when Mozart was 6. Dianne Halliday played his Suite on the Fifth Tone consisting of a Praeludium and six short variations (variants might be a better word), including pairs in which the tune was inverted. They were hardly weighty works, but enchanting, and especially rewarding on this organ, in this bright space (the church has no stained glass). A Finale summed it up, with references to the preceding pieces.

C P E Bach’s Sonata in A minor (perhaps H 85 – Wq 70:4), displayed the typical fingerprints of J S Bach’s second son – elaborate rhythmic figures, tuneful though not of the rich and memorable kind; it was probably Halliday’s keen stylistic sensibility that lent it colour. For me, the middle movement, Adagio, was very much the chief pleasure; not complex in a contrapuntal sense, but in its pure lines that were evidence of a considerable musical talent.

Finally, the only English piece in the programme, a Voluntary by John Stanley, which consisted of a series of short, varied sections from a prelude – whose full, rich palette was striking proof that pedals are hardly necessary, to a spirited dance, a meditation and a brisk courrante-style episode: a quite admirable piece that showed how English composers in the late 18th century were hardly inferior, once J S Bach was dead, to their Continental contemporaries at the organ. Perhaps, like several French composers of the past century, it helped that he was blind.

 

Douglas Mews organ recital before a Bach Cantata at Lutheran vespers

Organ recital of pieces by Bach, Pachelbel, CPE Bach and Byrd and Bach Cantata BWV 161, ‘Komm du süsse Todesstunde’

 

Douglas Mews (organ) and Musica Lyrica – baroque voices and instruments  

 

St Paul’s Lutheran Church, King Street, Mount Cook, Wellington 

 

Sunday 12 September, 4pm

 

We are in the middle of National Organ Month. There have been a number of very fine recitals on many of the more important organs in the city, but one has been conspicuously silent.

The Wellington Town Hall organ.

 

It’s specially surprising when a CD of Douglas Mews, City Organist, playing that great organ has just been released by a British recording company, part of a series devoted to the great organs of Australasia.

 

So where has City Organist Douglas Mews been?

On Sunday he played the (rather fine) organ of the little Lutheran Church of St Paul in Mount Cook, off Adelaide Road. Not where you might expect to find the City Organist during the main organ festival of the year. But what do you do if they take away the key to your instrument?

 

I am told the reason is that the Wellington City Council had declined to support the event, and that furthermore, the council had postponed all routine maintenance on the organ this year. We haven’t spoken to Douglas Mews on the subject, but wonder whether his honorarium has likewise been suspended….

 

What’s the Council doing????

Might be worth asking Mayor Prendergast for her comment at an appropriate electoral meeting.

Wellington – Cultural Capital? Yeah, Right!

 

As well as his role as City Organist, Douglas Mews is keyboard specialist (particularly harpsichord, fortepiano and organ) at the New Zealand School of Music. He played an hour-long recital on the St Paul’s two-manual Dutch organ, before the church’s Vespers service; a service which customarily includes a performance of a Bach cantata within the liturgy. The organ recital consisted almost entirely of German music of around the Bach era.  

 

It began with one of Bach’s arrangements of other composers’ concertos – there are a lot, numbered from BWV 972 to 987. This one was from an oboe concerto by Alessandro Marcello, BWV 974 (there’s possibly another one, BWV 977, by Alessandro’s brother, the better known Benedetto). Its lack of any specially memorable tunes explains its neglect, but it offered an excellent vehicle for Mews’s decorative facility, his taste and his flair for investing this lovely little instrument, ideally suited to the size of the church, with tonal variety and musical humanity.

 

A piece by Pachelbel followed – an Aria Sebaldina from a collection called Hexachordum Apollinis, six arias published in 1699. According to Wikipedia it ‘is generally regarded as one of the pinnacles of Pachelbel’s oeuvre’. Not a complex contrapuntal piece, rather a set of colourful, mainly transparent variations that exercised the organ’s flute stops attractively.

 

The odd-piece-out was a Sonata by C P E Bach, conspicuously of a later era, filled with his irregular phrases, seeming pointedly to avoid the composing styles of his predecessors, chiefly of his father; rather intriguing.

 

An exhibition of the organ’s excellent flute and piccolo stops came with Byrd’s account of the medieval song, Carmen’s Whistle; before a return to Bach proper – the Fugue in G minor, BWV 578, known as the ‘Little Fugue’ – ‘Little’ to distinguish it from the ‘Great Fantasia and Fugue in G minor’, BWV 542, which is longer. Leopold Stokowski arranged BWV 578 for orchestra and it’s recently been recorded by the Bournmouth Symphony Orchestra. It gave us the chance to hear more of the reed stops of the organ. 

 

During the Vespers service which followed Mews’s recital, there is always the singular spectacle of the pastor, Mark Whitfield, who moves between priestly activities, vocal offerings as cantor, and occasionally organist.

 

The principal music attraction however, was Bach’s Cantata BWV 161, performed with the baroque ensemble Musica Lyrica and four voices – Rowena Simpson, Katherine Hodge, John Beaglehole and David Morriss.

 

The ensemble was the same as had played a fortnight earlier and reviewed on this website – 29 August. Plus Cellist Emma Goodbehere who, it will be recalled, had departed on that occasion after a minor accident with her cello, now returned with her cello repaired to provide a most welcome string texture to the bass lines.

 

Not a well-known cantata, the performance was charming, with fine solos from soprano Rowena Simpson, alto Katherine Hodge and tenor John Beaglehole. The voices together with recorders and baroque violins, viola and cello turned a morbid text – ‘Komm du süsse Todesstunde’ – into a good time, which was the way the church, naturally, would have it.

 

In all, an excellent place to bear in mind for an empty end of a Sunday afternoon.

 

Wellington Orchestra play Elgar with violinist Feng Ning under Taddei

  ‘1910’ – Firebird

 

Barber: Adagio for Strings

Stravinsky: Firebird Suite (1919 version)

Elgar: Violin Concerto, Op.61

 

The Vector Wellington Orchestra conducted by Marc Taddei with violinist Feng Ning

 

Wellington Town Hall

 

Saturday, 11 September, 7.30pm 

 

The concert ended, somewhat unusually, with the violin concerto – but as the longest work, it was sensibly placed after the interval.  The concert began unusually, too, with the orchestra playing itself ‘Happy Birthday’ in a short and amusing orchestration by Stravinsky, created for the conductor Pierre Monteux’s 80th birthday.  This was for the orchestra’s 60th birthday since its founding as the Alex Lindsay String Orchestra.  It has had several name changes since then, and become a full symphony orchestra.

 

In his pre-concert talk, Marc Taddei said that Barber’s famous elegy-like piece (originally written for string quartet) had at first been criticised as not very American.   While it has become widely used for public occasions of grief and mourning, it is surely always now thought of as American.  The work was first played in the orchestral version by the NBC Orchestra with Toscanini conducting, in 1938.

On Saturday it was particularly significant, being the ninth anniversary of 9/11. Marc Taddei dedicated the performance to the memory of Dr Allan Thomas, Wellington musician, musicologist, university lecturer, and broadcaster, who died a few days earlier.

 

The ‘1910’ theme was borne out by that being the birth-date of the composer; while the other two works were composed in that year, although in the case of the Stravinsky, it was the 1919 version that was being performed.

 

There is something about the cadences and falling lines of melody in this work which give a feeling of sadness and melancholy.  There is sustained tension through its long phrases  – one feels one can hardly breathe.  It was given a particularly slow performance, with wonderful controlled dynamics, especially the pianississimos, and splendid tone.

 

The Firebird was also the subject of a dedication – to Elsa Jensen, violinist, who was present and who had been a member of the Alex Lindsay String Orchestra.   This exciting and delightful work is always a joy to hear.   The vast amount of percussion used, and the use of particular techniques, such as the strings playing subtle and ethereal harmonics, make for constant interest.

 

The Introduction movement of this performance was rather slower than I’ve heard it before, but this enabled much detail to be heard, especially from the wind sections of the orchestra.

 

Among the many joys was the harp and piano playing (Jenny Newth and Donald Nicolson), and Moira Hurst’s clarinet.  The hall was nearly full to hear this enchanting and exhilarating music, which Taddei conducted without the music score, as he did for the Barber also.  The performance was not quite perfect, but for me it was very nearly so.

 

Elgar’s violin concerto is a demanding work, and thus not heard as often as his cello concerto.  It was therefore not surprising that a soloist as young as Feng Ning (winner of the 2005 Michael Hill violin competition in Queenstown and Auckland) used the score.  Taddei had told us that he considered the concerto the greatest of Elgar’s compositions, but that it was Germanic rather than English, with influences from Richard Strauss, and that it was possibly the hardest concerto in the repertoire, with double and triple stopping for the soloist to negotiate.   Despite all these factors, he thought Elgar the most nostalgic of all composers.

 

Feng Ning has a wonderfully warm and sweet tone.  This was a worthy performance of a massive work.   A brilliant first movement began with a very crisp opening, followed by a broad sweep approach, yet with great rhythmic precision.  Delicious woodwind was a feature.  The soloist had a luscious sound, full yet delicate.  Nevertheless, this reading of the work was not as romantic as that on the Elgar/ Menuhin recording I have.

 

There is a nice connection between that well-known 1932 recording of the concerto by the London Symphony Orchestra with Elgar himself conducting, and the 16 year-old Yehudi Menuhin as soloist, since Feng Ning attended a master-class with Menuhin.  After the great man had heard Ning play he offered no comment, but gave the young violinist a hug.

 

The adagio movement was quite magical, the soloist thoroughly in command of this taxing and difficult music; all nuances were in place.

 

The last movement had a wonderful sense of stillness and of the slow passage of time, in the quiet parts.  The concerto uses no percussion, only timpani, so there was little of the bombast one can associate with Elgar.  The orchestra was somewhat overshadowed by the soloist in this movement, but nevertheless, played splendidly. 

 

The orchestra joined the large audience in giving much applause to the soloist.  Applause between movements may irritate some of us, but it is good news.  It means that there are people present who do not normally attend symphony concerts.

 

The concert ended with the release of yellow and black balloons from a net suspended from the ceiling of the hall.   We need not only to congratulate the oldest of the regional orchestras, but to hope and to lobby to ensure that this fine orchestra, with its community functions throughout the southern North Island and the northern South Island can continue its role, and withstand government pressures on Creative New Zealand to cut its funding.

 

A Radio New Zealand Concert interview with the orchestra’s manager, Diana Marsh, the day before the concert revealed that changes to the funding were to be made by Creative New Zealand without consultation with this orchestra or the other regional orchestras.   She explained that the orchestra arranges its yearly timetable around the ballet company’s and the opera company’s scheduled performances as well as those of the Orpheus Choir which require an orchestra.  Around that it arranges its own orchestral concerts, featuring top line soloists and concerts particularly for children.  These are held not only in Wellington, but in cities and towns where the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra seldom or never goes, e.g. Masterton (where this same programme was played the night before this concert), Nelson, Palmerston North.  Its role is therefore to take music to ‘the provinces’ and to provide live music for opera,  ballet, and choral concerts, as much as it is to give symphony concerts in Wellington city.

 

If all the coughers at Saturday’s concerts were to join (as I have) the Friends of the Vector Wellington Orchestra organisation, then the coffers of the orchestra would not only be well filled, but it would demonstrate that people care about this orchestra’s continued existence.

 

Piers Lane and the Doric String Quartet in rapturous accord

Haydn: Quartet in D, Op 64 No 5 ‘The Lark’; Bartók: String Quartet No 3; Chopin: Nocturne in E flat, Op 55 No 2; Ballade No 3 in A flat, Op 47; Brahms: Piano Quintet in F minor, Op 34

Wellington Town Hall

Friday 10 September, 7.30pm

To the simple music-lover, this looked like the most attractive of the year’s chamber music concerts from Chamber Music New Zealand. Though the audience was quite large, I’d expected to see a bigger house than this. My guess was about 750 customers.

Perhaps the Doric Quartet is not as well known as I thought; it’s getting harder and harder for the casual music lover to distinguish the excellent from the superb from the amazing as more and more groups pour out of music academies all over the world.

It certainly is a pity that human beings are so attached to reputations that are very substantially manufactured by publicity hype or luck, and are ready to allow their ears to be misled accordingly.

But on top of the superb quartet there was Piers Lane, one of the most engaging and musical of international pianists, though not a star in the class of Kissin and Grimaud, Aimard and Uchida, let alone the dozens of brilliant and good-looking youngsters that flash across the night sky, many not to reappear. .

Lane was certainly the biggest draw-card at the 2009 Adam Chamber Music Festival in Nelson, and here he offered us a reminder of how to play Chopin in a whole-hearted way, with all the virtuosity needed yet with immaculate taste and refinement.

He opened the second half alone, with two pieces of Chopin – the concert’s only nod to the two bicentenarians (they played Schumann’s piano quintet in the other series). His Nocturne was broad, confident, in a quintessentially romantic vein; the third Ballade was inspired by similar approach, its several phases colourfully distinguished, giving particular attention to accents within phrases; it was a performance that was of the very essence of the period in which in was written.

Well-known as these pieces are, through recordings or our own struggles at the piano, live piano performances have become rare , not just of Chopin, but rare as a genre: even from the great pianists brought here by the NZSO or the APO.

The concert had begun with Haydn’s ‘Lark’ quartet, one of the most spirited and engaging. Though the first two movements demonstrated the quartet’s extraordinary awareness of the subtleties and the secrets that Haydn planted in each separate part, there were discoveries and revelations, and the surpise of speed in the last two movements. Quartets of this period were show-pieces for the first violin and without undue display, Alex Redington allowed his easy mastery, clear and penetrating, to perform that role, though at the start he created the sweetest, smallest sound. The quartet relished an exquisite languor in the second movement, beautifully decorated little violin cadenzas and long pauses as it changed direction. The last two movements were uncommonly but convincingly fast, creating will-o’-the-wisp effects that light up and then died away. The speed of both movements seemed to raise them into a transcendental state which never settled for a moment.

Bartók’s 3rd quartet is relatively short, but it is one of the more acerbic of the six, as he made his mark among the avant-garde of the time – the late 1920s; jagged rhythms and pithy motifs that suggest Magyar modes and melodic shapes, but avoiding any hint of the late romantic. Though in four sections, there are no breaks and the labels attached to each of the ‘nominal’ movements hardly matter, as Bartók allows each in turn to add bits of a whole to form a remarkably integrated composition. The players’ spiritual sympathy with the music was remarkable, as was their commitment to its time and place, all of which drew lyricism and musical vitality from what can be merely difficult music in lesser hands.

The audience responded to the grand opening of Brahms Piano Quintet with an almost audible sigh of luxury, and even more as the mood dropped to something that took us secretively into its confidence. The unease of one moment was turned magically to gaiety, but nothing lasted long. The quartet, and pianist, were throughout in the most perfect rapport, neither party dominating or out of character with the whole. The third movement, Scherzo and Trio, was splendid, ending almost too thunderously.

The labeling of Brahms as a classicist by scholars has always struck me as the view of those who study the score and its formal niceties, but who don’t bother to listen. Nothing could be more whole-heartedly romantic, expressive, occasionally quixotic in character, than this work and especially the opening of the Finale; reticent, almost wracked with self-doubt. And yet it evolves into the most magnificent, heroic pageant which is gloriously prolonged and entirely envelopes the members of the quintet. An utterly memorable performance.

 

Michael Stewart’s adventurous organ recital at Cathedral of Saint Paul

Presented by the Wellington Organists’ Association


Praeludium No 2 in E minor (Bruhns); Fugue in A flat minor, WoO 8 (Brahms); Trio on ‘Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr’, BWV 676 (Bach); ‘Wondrous Love’ – Variations on a shape note hymn (Barber); Master Tallis’s Testament and Paean from Six Pieces for Organ (Howells)


Cathedral of Saint Paul, Wellington


Friday 10 September, 12.45pm


This was one of the regular Friday recitals given on the cathedral organ, and it contributed importantly to the plethora of organ recitals all over the city during National Organ Month.


We heard the music director, Michael Stewart, from the rival cathedral up the road, the Sacred Heart, in the very model of a programme for a National Organ Month. It reached into lesser-known territory, but never into the quite large body of vapid music that finds its way too often into organ recitals. Absent was any music from the great 19th and 20th century French school, and for once I did not miss it, such was the pleasure and sense of discovery in the entire three-quarter hour recital.


I don’t recall hearing music by Bruhns before; he was, like Bach briefly, a pupil of Buxtehude who was based at Lübeck. Bruhns was born, a generation before Bach, in the province of Schleswig-Holstein that vaccilated between German states and Denmark, and he became organist to the Danish court at Copenhagen. This piece was the longer of two Praeludiums that he wrote in E minor; I was charmed by several passages, particularly rhythmic flute ostinati. The whole piece, which easily sustained interest through its ten minutes or so, struck me forcibly as more varied and characterful than what I know of Buxtehude; there were many phases that seemed to have been written a lot later than the late 17th century. Sadly, Bruhns died of plague in 1697, aged 31. Its brilliant playing on this fine, colourful organ made it an engrossing discovery.


Bach’s Trio in G on ‘Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr’ is one of three chorale preludes on this hymn that form part of he Clavier-Übung III (‘keyboard practice’: No III being the only one of the four volumes of Clavier-Übung designed for the organ). This too was clearly chosen as a diverting piece for midday with tripping rhythms in triple time, with colourful exercises that involved repeated shifts from manual to manual.


Brahms’s organ music is generally in the shadow of his orchestral, chamber and piano music and songs, but his organ music always impresses me too. This Fugue, without Opus number, written in 1856, began with a careful statement of the tune which slowly gathered strength through the increasing complexity of its fugal evolution. It impressed as an early work, not just for the singularly skilled and inventive writing which never seemed a mere academic fugal exercise or to fall into mere repetition; nevertheless its musical richness and command of fugal techniques had an engrossing, emotional impact.


Samuel Barber’s was another novelty for me, a piece based on a hymn that employed the ‘Shape note’ system, an American notation system that uses differently shaped notes to indicate pitch. A religious tune with a simple, primitive quality, it offered Barber a basis for sympathetic treatment, not through piling on complexity but by elaborating the tune, varying the harmonies and registrations, with imaginative passages in low registers over pedals to create a genuine religious feeling, that Stewart never allowed to be  overwhelmed by the forces at his disposal.


Two pieces from Herbert Howells’s Six Pieces for Organ ended the recital; the first somber and introspective, reflecting that slightly dull seriousness that characterizes some English music; that soon gave way however to robust and interesting reflective passages. The Paean began with the Swell closed, but the volume and richness of registrations steadily increased till the final phase, meandering and suspenseful, created a blaze of excitement towards the end.


It was a splendid programme designed to offer the curious plenty of rewarding discoveries, of the kind we hear too little of; but much more than that, these were all performances that were vivid in their range and imaginative in their combination of stops, rhythmically bracing, ornamented with taste and bravura, played by hands and feet with huge agility.


Dianne Halliday’s organ recital at Sacred Heart Cathedral

Wellington Organists’ Association  – National Organ Month

Simon Preston: Alleluyas
Arthur Wills: Lullaby for a Royal Prince
Flor Peeters: Aria
Jean Langlais: Organ Book
P.D.Q. Bach (alias Peter Schickele): Sonata da Circo S 3-ring (Circus Sonata)
Max Reger: Benedictus,
Healey Willan: Passacaglia and Fugue in E minor, no.2

Sacred Heart Cathedral

Tuesday, 7 September, 12.45pm

Another (poorly attended) recital in this series was quite a contrast to the previous one: this was entitled ‘Make a Joyful Noise’, and so it did on the whole, accompanied in the first half by the sounds of screams, shrieks and yells of the children from the adjacent Catholic primary school in the Cathedral’s forecourt.

It was surprising to have a programme entirely of twentieth (or nineteenth to twentieth) century composers; only one work, Reger’s, was written in the nineteenth century.   Appropriate too, since this week’s Composers of the Week, marking National Organ Week, are twentieth and twenty-first century composers for the organ.

The programme began with a work by noted organist Simon Preston.  This was perhaps the most exciting item in the whole programme.  It included intriguing harmonies and pentatonic melodies.  There was lovely use of quiet stops,  after a dramatic opening; there was a grand ending.

Arthur Wills, another British organist, wrote his piece to celebrate the birth of Prince William.  It was suitably soft, with a gentle rocking rhythm.  A very attractive piece, it reminded me of  the Adagio from Suite Modale by Flor Peeters, whose Aria followed – a slow, reflective piece, using a narrow range of notes.

The Langlais piece was improvisatory in style, and consisted of five movements: a Prelude that was very quiet and subtle, though with contrasting sections; Pastoral Song, to which the same description could be applied, then Chorale in E minor.  This featured large chords, but was still relatively soft and simple.  A reed stop was introduced, but the music remained slow – and not very interesting.  A pleasant movement for flutes followed, and then Pasticcio, which contributed more robust sound, through medieval-sounding pentatonic music with the trumpet stop.

The indefatigable P.D.Q. Bach (whose dates were given as 1907-1742?) made a welcome humorous intrusion into the programme.  Dianne Halliday reproduced Schickele’s 1995 ‘Performance Note’ and ‘Program Notes’ in the printed programme, from which we learned that the work was written for ‘your standard calliope’; I learn from my dictionary that calliope is a US term for a steam organ!    Among other amusing (dis)information in the notes was the following: “Circus Berserkus, though small, was widely traveled”.  This is marked by the fact that the titles of the movements are in four different languages.

‘Spiel Vorspiel’ was a jolly little fast waltz, employing amusing chords and intervals.  ‘Entrada Grande’ did sound rather like mechanical circus music, followed by a tedious scale passage – was this for the animals processing into the arena?  ‘Smokski the Russian Bear’ featured variations on Bach’s ‘Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring’ – not on the chorale melody, but on the accompaniment  (the only bit of JSB heard in two days’ organ recitals).  It ended with a bear-like cluster of sounds.  ‘Toccata Ecdysiastica’ used chirpy flute stops, notably a 2-foot – perhaps this was dizzy ecstasy?*  A well-known tune was the bass melody.   P.D.Q. Bach’s work was quite demanding technically – and harmonically!

Max Reger’s Benedictus opened very quietly, and employed much chromatic writing, typical of the late nineteenth century, under the influence of Wagner and others.   A louder second section was followed by reversion to the very quiet mood of the opening.

Healey Willan (1873-1968) was an Englishman who spent most of his life in Canada.  I found his Passacaglia more interesting and varied harmonically than the Reger work.  It also was quite chromatic, and at times rather portentous.  The fugue was strong with a very full ending, giving rein to an extensive registration.

It was pleasing to have such a varied programme, impeccably played.

*I find that ecdysis is a real word, meaning the periodic shedding of the cuticle or exoskeleton of certain insects, and reptiles.  So perhaps the chirping was that of insects and reptiles, enthusiastically shedding their outer layers?

Duo Tapas – exotic lunchtime fare at Old St.Paul’s

Duo Tapas

Rupa Maitra (violin) / Owen Moriarty (guitar)

de FALLA –  Cinco Canciones Populares Espanolas / IMAMOVIC – Sarajevo Nights : Jamilla’s Dance   PIAZZOLLA – Histoire du Tango / KROUSE- Da Chara

Old St.Paul’s Lunchtime Concert Series

Tuesday, 7th September, 2010

Something about the splendid ornateness of the interior of Old St.Paul’s Church, if not especially Moorish or Iberian, suited the exoticism of parts of the programme presented by violinist Rupa Maitra and guitarist Owen Moriarty on Tuesday at lunchtime, part of an excellent series of concerts organised for performance at the church. Ever approximate, I arrived late for the concert’s beginning, picking up what I thought was the third piece, Cancion, of the Cinco Canciones populares Espanolas by Falla, an entry-point which immersed me into a world of dark, sultry atmospheres and insinuations, a mournful melody expressed in lovely, earthy accents and tones . A central section took a more cheerful major-key aspect, the transition further demonstrating the rapport of interplay and balance between violinist and guitarist. Both played with a nice touch of “pesante” impulsiveness, textures and rhythms brought to life.

They then played what I figured was Asturiana, a slow, langurous violin melody, soaring over an octave ostinato for guitar, beautifully sustained by both musicians. Finally came Polo, the violin giving voice to passionate declamations over driving guitar rhythms, quintessentially Spanish, and realised with lots of life and colour.

Owen Moriarty inroduced the next item, two pieces by the Los Angeles-based composer Almer Imamovic which, if not exactly Spanish, had an exoticism of their own. Originally written for flute and guitar, their character was appropriately realised by the violin’s range of colour and timbre – the first, Sarajevo Nights, danced a sinuous, melancholy melody with asymmetrical rhythms, both instruments creating tensions with tremolando passages, and the guitarist augmenting the music’s trajectories by knocking his instrument’s body with his hand. The second piece, Jamilla’s Dance, began with cimbalon-like tones from the guitarist and pesante-like slides and colours from the violin, all extremely evocative and colourful. Beginning like the traditional Jewish hora, the dance slowly and suggestively stepped out, increased gradually in vigour and excitement, but suddenly releasing surges of energy, rather like a Hungarian czardas. The musicians recreated the piece’s pent-up excitement with verve and enjoyment.

Famed South American composer Astor Piazzolla was next, with his suite of pieces Histoire du Tango. Listed as a four-movement work, I could discern only three sections, though maybe Rupa Maitra did allude to this in her soft-spoken introduction to the performance, the words of which I had trouble catching. The first section, entitled Bordel – 1900, is a kind of picture of Buenos Aires at the turn of the century, a work expressing the composer’s playful, more sunnily-disposed side, indulging himself occasionally with a sultry swerve into a different episode, but generally keeping things light and evenly-poised, the violin catching the piece’s light and shade, and the guitarist keeping the rhythms going using both strings and percussion effects. The second piece, Cafe – 1930 gave us the true tango, Piazzolla-style, darker and more pensive, a guitar solo filled with dreamy melancholy, and the violin really digging into a melody laden with feeling, the tone tight and focused, carrying as much weight as it needs and no more. A major-key episode lightened both colour and rhythm, before the music again gathered and wrapped all around in more sultry atmospheres. The third piece, Nightclub – 1960, was mentioned, but not listed as played – instead we seemed to get Concert d’aujourd’hui (Contemporary concert), a piece featuring off-beat harmonies and angular melodies of the garrulous and gossipy type, a kind of “up-dating” by the composer regarding his more developed style of writing, and that of the tango itself, influenced greatly by jazz. A fascinating work, skilfully presented.

Finishing the programme with a piece by American composer Ian Krouse, Owen Moriarty assured us that this was one of the easier Krouse pieces to play – its title Da Chara, is Gaelic for “Two Friends”, and was, like the pieces by Almer Imamovic, written originally for flute and guitar. Its ostensible “Gaelic” character could be discerned in the free and airy opening melodic phrasings from the violin, with their occasional rhythmic snap, the guitar taking over with a solo, then joined by the violin to repeat the opening melody – very attractive ‘filmic” kind of music and skilfully realised. The guitar began a march-rhythm, joined by the violin, the players further energising the music with a wild, reel-like dance, the players letting their hair down in great style, Rupa Maitra catching the folk-fiddle aspect of the music nicely, and Owen Moriarty generating surges of energy from his instrument.

Richard Apperley contributes to National Organ Month

Wellington Organists’ Association

Kuhnau: Biblical Sonata – The combat between David and Goliath
Buxtehude: Fugue in C
C.P.E. Bach: Sonata in G minor
Kuhnau: Biblical Sonata – Hezekiah dying and restored to health
Buxtehude: Prelude, Fugue and Chaconne in C

St. Mary of the Angels

Monday, 6 September, 1pm

It is a pity that a mere 20 people came to hear Richard Apperley’s splendid recital on the superb, many-voiced organ at St Mary of the Angels.  Apperley is a fine performer with style and taste, and he chose an interesting programme.  There were no pot-boilers here, but seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’ music, well-suited to the instrument.

The first of two Biblical Sonatas by Johann Kuhnau (1660-1722) was ‘The combat between David and Goliath’.  This was delightful music, not too complex, employing interesting word-painting, or should we say ‘painting of ideas’.  It comprised eight movements, each depicting part of the story of David and Goliath.

First was The boasting of Goliath, suitably bombastic, followed by The trembling of the Israelites at the appearance of the giant, and their prayer to God.  This featured a quiet choral melody above a tentative accompaniment.  

The following movements were:
3. The courage of David, and his keen desire to repel the pride of his terrifying enemy, with the confidence that he puts in the help of God;
4. The combat between the two and their struggle; the stone is thrown from the slingshot into the brow of the giant; Goliath falls;
5. The flight of the Philistines, who are pursued and slain by the Israelites;
6. The joy of the Israelites over their victory;
7. The musical concert of the women in honour of David;
8. The general rejoicing, and the dance of joy of the people.

The playing featured attractive registrations; it was an excellent work to demonstrate a broad range of the sounds available on this fine organ, and also the excellent acoustics of the church.   No two movements employed exactly the same registration.  It was suitably pictorial, and very enjoyable.  (Richard Apperley is working on a recording of Kuhnau organ works, including this one.)

Still in the same era were Dietrich Buxtehude and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.  The former’s fugue was calm and gentle, but nonetheless quite intricate.  The latter was much more grand, and with more contrasts than the Buxtehude, being in three movements, and the organist used different manuals to express the contrasts.  It was melodically interesting, and while still basically baroque, there were elements which would not have been present in his illustrious father’s compositions.

After a quiet adagio middle movement, the allegro finale was dramatic, with many flashes of brilliance.  In the main, the articulation was precise.

The second of the Kuhnau works began with a sombre opening movement having a chorale in the upper part – a version of ‘O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden’ (known in English as the Passion Chorale because it was set by J.S. Bach in St Matthew Passion.  This illustrated the opening movement: Hezekiah’s lament for the death foretold to him, and his fervent prayers.  The chorale was followed by a fully worked-out set of variations.

The second movement was entitled ‘His confidence in God’, and the third and final ‘The joy of the convalescent King’; he remembers the ills that are past; he forgets them.  These moods were fully expressed in glorious music.

The second  Buxtehude work was quite well-known, and given quite a fast performance; the Prelude and Chaconne using dramatic reed registrations – including one stop a little out-of-tune in places.

It would have been useful, as is often done for organ recitals, if the printed programme had incorporated a list of the organ specification, so that the audience, who were mainly organists or organ aficionados, could understand the instrument’s dimensions and colorations, and pick the registrations being used.  This comment applies to the following day’s programme, at Sacred Heart Cathedral, also.

Magnificent Tudor Consort in Schütz and Domenico Scarlatti

The Tudor Consort: A German Requiem

Schütz: Musikalische Exequien, Op. 7
Domenico Scarlatti: Stabat Mater

St. Mary of the Angels Church

Saturday, 4 September, 8 pm

Despite the programme stating that the concert was at Sacred Heart Cathedral, it did take place in the suitably more ornate and comfortable (though cold) St Mary of the Angels, with its excellent acoustics.  There was a large and appreciative audience.

A small instrumental ensemble (Emma Goodbehere, cello, Richard Hardie, bass, Steve Pickett, theorbo, Douglas Mews, organ, and Donald Nicolson, harpsichord) accompanied the choir; the conductor was Matthew Leese (brother of Anna), who is currently studying and working in Illinois.  He is in New Zealand to conduct what is probably the first production in this country of  Monterverdi’s  Orfeo, widely considered to be the first genuine opera.  It is to be performed in Dunedin, where Matthew studied for his undergraduate music degree, as part of the Otago Festival, next month.

Before the concert began, Michael Stewart (the regular conductor of the Consort) gave a short talk about the works to be performed.   He discussed Luther’s reforms, and the difference between the latter’s view of death and the Catholic view (this in a Catholic church!).  He referred to the possibility that Brahms had modelled his Ein Deutsches Requiem on this work of  Schütz, the score of which Brahms apparently had in his library.

The Musikalisches Exequien were composed for the funeral of Count Heinrich Posthumous Reuss in 1635. The work intersperses Biblical verses with poetic meditations, alternately utilising chorale settings and solo passages with continuo.  The work consists of Kyrie and Gloria, Motet (‘Herr, wenn ich nur Dich habe’) and the canticle Nunc Dimittis.  The work was entirely in German,  including the introductory plainsong.

The work opened with the instruments, whose sound was quite gorgeous.  However, in this movement it took a little time for the ten singers to penetrate through the instrumental sound.  When they did, they produced a lovely sound.  A few notes were not quite spot on, but as the concert progressed, intonation and timbre were mostly perfect.  An unusual feature was that the conductor also sang, as one of the basses.

A solo section in the Kyrie, ‘Siehe, das ist Gottes Lamm’, was beautifully sung by tenor Dan Carberg.

The Gloria did not sound particularly gloryifying, being made up mainly of texts contemplating the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  Variety in expression was achieved by solos interspersed with choral sections, and some solos having organ and cello accompaniment only.

Another fine tenor solo, ‘Ach, wie elend ist unser Zeit’, was from Dan Carberg  from the United States, although there were a few rum notes.  (He will sing the main role in Orfeo.)

The motet, ‘Herr wenn ich nur Dich habe’ had the choir reformed into two choirs.  This was a lively rhythmically and harmonically strong piece, quite in contrast to the previous more contrapuntal music, that wove its way beautifully around the space.

The last part of the canticle ‘Nunc Dimittis’, (which in English would be ‘Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord’) was set for a main five-part choir, while two sopranos, one bass and the theorbo removed to the side-chapel to create a antiphonal effect, though their music was no mere echo.  It was inevitable that one would think of Brahms’s beautiful setting of these same words.

The choir was accomplished as always, but there was not a lot of dynamic variation in the music, compared with the Scarlatti that followed.  Matthew Leese’s beat was clear, and the blend of the voices excellent.  I felt that some of the bass parts were a little low for his voice and also for that of the other bass, meaning that the sound was not the best quality that they were capable of.

The Stabat Mater was surprisingly cheerful, given its subject, compared with those of Pergolesi and others.   The second movement, ‘Cujus animam’, featured gorgeous harmonies and a lovely organ part played by Douglas Mews.  The balance of the instruments was somewhat of a difficulty throughout the work.  I could sometimes hear the cello when all instruments were playing, because often its part was doubled on the bass, but not always.  The harpsichord came through quite well (it was not used in every movement), but despite my sitting almost at the front of the church, I very seldom heard the theorbo.   Its quiet timbre simply did not penetrate through the sound of the other instruments and the singers – or through the music stand.

The choir produced superb tone in the third movement, ‘Quis non posset’, depicting the feeling of the words, describing Mary seeing her son scourged and dying.  This was especially true of the tenors.  Soaring contrapuntal lines seemed to weave in and out of the architecture of the church, with its arches and pillars, in the fifth movement ‘Sancta mater’; it ended with an exquisite cadence.

The ‘Inflammatus’ eighth movement excitedly demonstrated the theme.  Tenor Carberg and soprano Erin King were very accomplished, singing these fast passages.  The complex final movement was a tour de force of 10 solo singers rather than choir.

Balance was good through most of the concert, though in the last two movements, two sopranos were a little too strong for the rest of the choir, at least from my position.  Another disadvantage was that since Matthew Leese was both conducting and singing, his position meant he had his back to people on the right-hand side of the church a great deal of the time.

Heartfelt applause greeted the end of the concert; one could only say ‘Bravo!’ to another magnificent performance by the Tudor Consort.

Percussionist Currie dazzles in brilliant NZSO concert

Appalachian Spring Suite (Copland), Percussion Concerto (Jennifer Higdon), I paesaggi dell’anima (Lyell Cresswell), Symphony No 6 ‘Pastoral’ (Beethoven)

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alexander Shelley with Colin Currie (percussion)

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 3 September, 6.30pm

Are Wellington audiences losing their taste for adventure? What was it that led to so many empty seats at Friday’s concert, which turned out to be one of the (if not THE) most exciting concerts of the year so far. I too had wondered about the programme, but that would certainly not have stopped me going. My main thoughts were, how would the Copland ballet score (well, most of it) stand up in the concert hall, and would I find that I had heard the Pastoral Symphony once too often?

I was at a slight disadvantage, not having heard the 2008 concert that Alexander Shelley had conducted in Wellington, and was thus not as certain about the sort of performance he would deliver.

In 2008 Shelley conducted one of the orchestra’s regional tours, and a special Wellington concert with cellist Maria Kliegel that included performances of Messiaen’s Les Offrandes Oubliées and both the suites from Daphnis et Chloé. He had made an impression then. Two years later his achievements are highly impressive, and his presence on the podium spoke of confidence but also of a concern to communicate, not to mention the energy, delicacy and vividness of the orchestra’s response to his leadership that made an immediate impact.

Appalachian Spring is enchanting ballet music, probably most people’s favourite Copland piece. But I was not expecting to be so enchanted by its exquisiteness as a concert piece (the Suite contains 80 percent of the music). That was brought about to a large extent by the performance, starting with by series of gorgeous, lyrical solos; first by clarinet, then flute, followed by shimmering cellos, evoking the day’s dawning. And a little later there were more beautiful solos from oboe, bassoon and horn, not to overlook the brilliant little xylophone episodes.

The entire orchestra was vitalized to play with a special sense of delight. It was at only classical strength for most of the programme, with double winds and string strength at 12, 10, 8, 6, 5; fewer than 60 players, but let’s confess: most orchestral music can be played wonderfully with that sized orchestra. Only the percussion concerto required a larger orchestra, with triple winds and tuba.

Copland’s music is not just endlessly varied; any competent composer can do that, but few can create the endless surprise and delight through beguiling melody, at every turn, even when one knows it all. The players found its magic with the help of a conductor whose movements, and physical grace inspired such vivid aural images, through its momentum and an awareness of its architecture.

I can’t remember my last live hearing of the Pastoral; but I should have been prepared to be surprised at the excitement and wonder that a really fine Beethoven performance can produce. The classical size of the orchestra was absolutely right; some might say it would have sounded even better in the Town Hall, but from my seat, this was pretty vivid, with particularly opulent cellos and basses, that have such an important role filling Beethoven’s aural spectrum.

Shelley is given to brisk tempos and there could be argument about the ‘ma non troppo’ of Beethoven’s first movement, but the momentum quickly came to feel perfectly right as a depiction of the ‘awakening of joyous feelings on arrival in the country’. The tempo was very consistent too: the human pulse was present more in the undulating dynamics and an imperceptible rubato.

Here again, solo woodwinds, particularly Philip Green’s clarinet, offered elegant yet earthy beauty in the Andante con moto, and the dance-like third movement was particularly enriched by cellos, bassoons and double basses giving it a roguish, peasant quality.

There is a repetitiousness in this music that exposes a lesser conductor. On Friday evening every one of the five or seven or nine repeats of a phrase sounded fresh; I never waited for a movement to finish, as I confess to feeling occasionally in the past.

The party piece was Jennifer Higdon’s percussion concerto.

I confess to not being especially attracted to percussion en masse, apart from the tuned instruments, and often feel that their over-use can too easily disguise the absence of real musical creativity. The same goes for any music that relies greatly on heavy, complex scoring and massive orchestral variety. The marimba, in fact, took a leading role in the huge battery of percussion spread from one side of the stage to the other, starting with four sticks in a scarcely audible tremolo.

Higdon, one of the United States leading young composers, knows how to woo her players; Colin Currie may have been the star, but unusually, the orchestral players of these instruments were accorded comparable tasks that taxed their skills to the extreme as well as permitting the real musical quality of many of the percussion instruments to emerge. There, at the back of the orchestra, unfortunately invisible to scores of people in the front rows of the stalls, were Leonard Sakofsky, Bruce McKinnon, Thomas Guldborg and timpanist Laurence Reese, echoing or playing along with Currie.  (The orchestral layout bosses need to pay more attention to this weakness of the MFC).

It was a worthy tribute to the strength of the orchestra’s percussion section. But in a piece of this kind, much of the entertainment value, and let’s not be pretentious about that, rests with the sight of the percussionists, both soloist and those at the back.

Though at first hearing I took some time to identify threads of music, the last ten minutes persuaded me that the music would survive and gain appeal with further hearings. Showpiece for sure, there was also a lot of real music in there, being magnificently played.

Lyell Cresswell’s 2008 piece for string orchestra, I paesaggi dell’anima (Landscapes of the Soul), after I had set aside thoughts about the pretentious title, proved a work of extreme fastidiousness as well as robust structure. I have not always warmed to Cresswell’s cerebral scores that can seem overburdened by intellectual concepts and elaborate musical textures, but Shelley’s success in drawing an extremely refined performance from the strings was the kind of advocacy that any composer would dream of.

It was indeed a complex piece, each string section often subdivided to obtain a richly luminous, if sometimes a rather too detailed and dense harmonic fabric, but the musical ideas were often lyrical, somewhat enigmatic, even droll, enlivened by Messiaen-like twitterings, tremolos, staccato passages, all of which coalesced to create an impression that was ultimately both satisfying and intriguing.

So four very different pieces, two of them very new and one 70 years old, all flourished in most persuasive and distinguished performances.  Those ill-advised enough to have stayed away missed a great concert.