Month: October 2010

English guitarist Cheryl Grice-Watterson at Lower Hutt

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Guitar solos: Malaguena (Jose de Azpiazu), Verde alma (Maximo Diego Pujol), Choros No 1 (Villa-Lobos), Sakura (Yukijiro Yocoh), Girl from Ipanema (Antonio Jobin), La catedral (Agustin Barrios), Tango en Skai (Roland Dyens)  

St Mark’s Church, Lower Hutt

Wednesday 13 October 12.15pm

The concert advertised for this Wednesday was to have been led by violinist Slava Fainitski, a first violinist in the Wellington Orchestra. He suffered a heart attack in the weekend and the place was filled by English guitarist Cheryl Grice-Watterson.

I knew nothing of her and so was extremely surprised as she launched into the Malaguena by José de Azpiazu, with such musicality, refinement and flexibility.

She was born in Yorkshire in 1953 and after study at the Royal Northern College of Music became a noted guitarist in Britain and the Continent, famously with Julian Bream on television. She emigrated with her family to New Zealand in 1997 and became head of guitar at the Nelson School of Music. She plays with Martin and Victoria Jaenecke in the Trio con Brio and I have succeeded in missing their performances in Wellington though my colleagues have reviewed both a performance by Cheryl and Martin Jaenecke and one by Trio con Brio for Middle C.

Verde Alma by Maximo Diego Pujol was a less danceable piece, atmospheric and quite entrancing. Villa-Lobos’s Choros No 1, the first really familiar piece, was played quite beautifully, with a touch that was soft and exquisitely sensitive, drawing attention to an instrument that spoke strongly and warmly in the church’s acoustic.

Sakura by Yakijiro Yocoh is a more extended work, an introduction, theme and variations: Ms Grice played the first two sections and three of the variations: there is spare writing, in a clearly Japanese character, using the pentatonic scale; it is refined in expression, much of it employing a single line of melody without very much harmony.

A somewhat jazz rendering of Antonio Jobim’s Girl from Ipanema followed, in a squarish 4/4 rhythm that seemed a little uncertain of itself.

Agustin Barrios was a Paraguayan guitarist and composer (1885-1944) who left one of the richest collections of guitar music. John Williams is recorded saying: “Barrios is the best of the lot, regardless of era. His music is better formed, it’s more poetic, it’s more everything!” La Catedral is a concert piece in three shortish movements, and is regarded as his masterpiece, and it was the centre-piece of the recital. My own notes, before reading this and other comments, remarked the Chopinesque artistry and subtlety of the first two movements. In the Andante, steady paced, mainly on the lower strings, Ms Grice created a sombre, dimly lit atmosphere while the final Allegro which she told us suggested emerging from within the cathedral into the busy street, actually continued to maintain a fairly serious spirit in spite of its virtuosic flights of scales and arpeggios. Her playing revealed very clearly the music’s unfailingly rich musical invention.

The recital ended with French composer born in 1955, Roland Dyens’s Tango en Skai, that combined great virtuosity with striking dynamic contrasts and subtle rhythms.

Heartfelt Russian Song from Joanna Heslop

Posted on by Peter Mechen

RUSSIAN SONG RECITAL

JOANNA HESLOP – soprano

RCHARD MAPP – piano

Songs Inspired by Nature

RIMSKY-KORSAKOV, TCHAIKOVSKY, RACHMANINOV

Settings of Poetry by Pushkin

CUI, RIMSKY-KORSAKOV, BALAKIREV

Satires

SHOSTAKOVICH

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

Wednesday 13th October 2010

I heard the lark’s song from afar as I dashed towards St.Andrew’s Church and eased myself through the doors, just as the singer was coming to the end of what sounded like a tiny Slavic frisson of avian abandonment – so, thanks to my lateness I had all but missed the first item, Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Sound of the Lark’s Singing. Which wouldn’t have been too much of a tragedy, were it not for the realisation which gradually overtook me that here at this somewhat humble lunchtime concert was something special and precious being enacted, a singer fully immersed in both sound and sense of what she was performing, and with sufficient vocal technique to bring out all the music’s beauty, emotion and excitement, working hand-in-glove with similarly-committed piano playing. Rather like with Margaret Medlyn’s and Bruce Greenfield’s July concert at Victoria University, soprano Joanna Heslop and pianist Richard Mapp triumphantly demonstrated the power of art-song to delight, to move and to thrill listeners who’ve been sadly unaccustomed of late to hearing such repertoire regularly performed by both local and visiting musicians.

As with piano recitals and their repertoire, neglect of song-recitals by promotors and organisations because of what might be thought of as a falling-away of interest is little short of tragic – it means that concertgoers will be deprived of hearing “live” some of the Western world’s greatest and most significant music. To take Rachmaninov as an example, people who know the often-played concertos but don’t get the chance to hear the songs, two of which were performed in this concert, can’t really claim to “know” the composer’s music in any great depth. Joanna Heslop’s performance of Lilacs, one of Rachmaninov’s most beautiful songs, gave her audience such rapt, breath-catching moments of heartfelt loveliness as to dispel for the moment all thoughts of glittering, gallery-pleasing piano concertos, and ask for more of what we had just heard. The following Daisies took us elsewhere, at a different, more profusely energetic and exuberant time of the day, the song’s melody able to soar, melt, burn and exult. Lilacs, by contrast, had inhabited more delicate, deeper-toned realms, the music’s emotion beautifully gradated towards the composer’s point of release, and with the same surety of touch dissolved into the silences at the end.

One had only to listen to the final song in the “Inspired by Nature” bracket, Tchaikovsky’s Why Do I Love You, Bright Night?, to make connections with Rachmaninov’s music, the two composers sharing a like melodic gift and “charged” emotional capacity, Joanna Heslop proving herself as a marvellous storyteller, with Richard Mapp strumming and arpeggiating his accompaniment in truly bardic fashion. Such lovely shaping of phrases! – with both musicians seeming instinctively to know how and when to build intensities and when to let them go. And though we were probably not an audience filled with fluent Russian speakers, the singer’s heartfelt articulations nevertheless allowed us to experience a powerful sense of the emotion conveyed by the texts throughout.

The settings of verses by Aleksandr Pushkin which followed had a similar communicative focus – simplest and most direct were the two songs by Cesar Cui, the second, I loved you and perhaps still do beginning almost disarmingly before briefly “opening up” to great effect in the second verse, then returning to a quieter manner most effectively at the end. Rimsky-Korsakov figured again with On the Hills of Georgia, a fervent recollection of delight and nostalgia, the ambience wonderfully evoked by singer and pianist; while Balakirev’s rather more self-consciously operatic setting of the variously titled Do Not Sing Your Sad Georgian Songs (Rachmaninov’s setting of the same text is usually translated as O Never Sing to Me Again) continued the Georgian theme, Joanna Heslop fearlessly tackling the opening high notes, and skilfully encompassing the song’s contrasts between lyrical and powerful, impassioned episodes.

The third and final section of this all-too-brief recital presented Dmitri Shostakovich’s Satires, a setting of five poems by Alekzandr Glikberg (1880-1932) who wrote satirical verses under the name of Sasha Chorny, and whose writings Shostakovich greatly admired. Satirically subtitled “Five Romances”, the cycle was premiered by Galina Vishnevskaya in 1961. Poet and composer set about savaging both literary and musical pretensions, the first one appositely titled To the critic, the mocking reference to beards causing this writer to quizzically scratch his chin! Spring Awakens presents a determinedly unromantic and non-sentimental catalogue of seasonal activity, while Descendants makes light of the demands of posterity. The two final songs were mirror-images, the first, Misunderstanding, an ill-advised attempt at seduction involving the gulf between fantasy and reality, and the last, Kreutzer Sonata, turns the Tolstoyan short-story drama on its ear via an unlikely and delightful liason between opposites! All of this was meat and drink to a singing actress of Joanna Heslop’s talents, both musicians able to vividly convey both writer’s and composer’s delight in lampooning the self-appointed, the pre-conceived and the sentimental, currents of impulse which, of course, continue to bedevil our lives to this day.

Bravo Joanna Heslop! – we hope to hear more of you!

Auckland’s entertaining V8 Ensemble at Waikanae

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Programme of arrangements of folk songs, Beatles’ songs, sacred choral pieces and popular songs (Waikanae Music Society)

V8 Vocal Ensemble (Judy Dale, Albert Mataafa, Virginia Le Cren, Stephen Rowe, Carolyn Medland, Brendon Shanks, Celia Aspey-Gordon, Rowan Johnston)

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday 10 October, 2.30pm

These Auckland musicians who form V8 are all former members of the New Zealand National Youth Choir and members or former members of Voices New Zealand chamber choir. Their years of working together show: their presentation is slick, blended and highly musical.  Half of the members have sung with the group since its formation; the other four are more recently acquired.  Their origins are in various parts of the country, and their individual choral experience is extensive.

The group sings without a conductor, Rowan Johnston simply starting the singers by eye contact, and cutting them off with the slightest movement of his music folder.  The selection of items showed skill in all fields of choral singing, but the most effective were perhaps the popular items.  The items were introduced by mezzo-soprano Carolyn Medland in a manner both informative and, at times, amusing. All the singing took place in front of the platform rather than on it.

A stunning start was made with ‘The Star of the County Down’ arranged by Goodall (presumably Reginald), in which the tenors sang the theme with enviable tone and character.

The spiritual ‘Deep River’ (arranged by the group’s undeclared leader, Rowan Johnston) displayed beautiful ensemble, and the outstanding men’s voices.  The women’s voice were very good, but the lack of real contraltos was a disadvantage in this piece.

The traditional Irish song ‘She Moved through the Fair’ (arranged by Daryl Runswick) proved to be an interesting version of the song, with unexpected harmonies.  The tenors performed the solo sections superbly, with lovely pianissimo accompanying parts.  Words were very clear.

One of two arrangements in the programme by Ward Swingle (though in this case he had reverted to Single status) was entitled ‘Country Dances’, and proved to be an amalgam of a number of American folksongs, very much in the Swingle Singers’ style.  It was good fun, and the enjoyment was assisted by precise words, with authentic accents being thrown in for the cowboy sections.

Two items from the classic repertoire followed: a very complex ‘Cantate Domino’ of Monteverdi, which featured a little too much vibrato for this music, and ‘Plorate Fili’ from Jephte, an oratorio by Carissimi. This was quite ravishing, the singers giving great attention to detail.  The use of the soft Italian ‘t’ rather than the hard English ‘t’ was most commendable.   The mood of the story was rendered most tellingly.  Here, and throughout the programme, endings were absolutely together.

The next items introduced a lighter tone, firstly with three arrangements of Beatles songs: ‘Blackbird’, complete with expert whistling, ‘Penny Lane’, and ‘Ob-la-di’, in which Albert Mataafa sang the solo, the others using various mouth techniques (not all were vocal) to accompany.  All very expertly done. Hearing these reminded me of the curious fact that all popular music appears to be in 4-4 time.

The other Swingle arrangement followed – a Chilean folksong ‘De Punta Y Taco’, meaning ‘Heel and Toe’.  Various vocal sounds were employed to accompany three male singers, who obtained an authentic Spanish folk sound to their singing.  The soloists changed to three women singing the tune, with the others accompanying.  It was very professional, sophisticated and skilful.

After the interval came the other two ‘classical’ items: an Ave Maria from recent composer Franz Biebl, and a Pater Noster of Jacob Händl, who lived in the 16th century.  The group divided to sing polyphonically in the Biebl item, with three singers to the left (mezzos, one tenor) and five to the right (soprano, one tenor, two basses).  There was a solo introduction from Johnston (bass) and a tenor solo in the second verse.  The balance was excellent, and the singers proved what agile voices (and lips) they have.

A different polyphonic arrangement was observed for the Händl work: women to the left and men to the right, but positioned closer to each other than in the previous item.  This produced attractive antiphonal singing, although with too much vibrato for my taste.  Balance was gain superb: in an ensemble of only eight singers each individual is very exposed.

Reverting to popular repertoire, V8 displayed their versatility in a perfect harmony arrangement of ‘Goodnight, My Angel’ by Billy Joel, followed by ‘Fever’ (John Davenport & Eddie Cooley) in which Medland sang the solo and the men provided good vocal percussion, and ‘Africa’ (Paich & Porcaro) where vocal doo-be-doos accompanied Johnston singing solo into a microphone, the while drumming on what appeared to be the amplifier.

New Zealand composition featured in the programme in the form of ‘Plumsong’ by Philip Norman (performed on record by the NZ Secondary Schools Choir).  In the V8 version the reading of the poems by A.K. Grant preceded the singing of the verses of the song.  The recitations were great fun: the poems had been written in the styles of various New Zealand poets, telling the story of Little Jack Horner in their very different ways.  The music then followed the styles of the words.

The first was in the style of Jenny Bornholdt, and was a very intricate piece.  A touching piece in Sam Hunt’s style followed – with tenor Brendon Shanks’s rendition of the poem being a hilarious imitation of the poet’s hoarse voice and reciting style.  Bill Manhire’s was a lament in formal style, as was the music, reminiscent of William Byrd.  Michelle Legat was represented by a kind of singing through the words.  The whole work was both clever and funny, and very well performed.

The concert ended with ‘Humpty Dumpty Medley’, a medley of English nursery rhymes arranged by Hart, as sung by the King’s Singers, in which the rhymes were all related back to poor old Humpty. This was most entertaining.

As an encore, the group sang Kern & Fields’ ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ in a gorgeous arrangement, very expressively performed.  This made an appropriate conclusion to the Waikanae Music Society’s enterprising, artistically superb, interesting and thoroughly enjoyable 2010 concert series.

Macbeth triumphant in Wellington

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Verdi’s Macbeth: NBR New Zealand Opera, conducted by Guido Ajmone-Marsan, directed by Tim Albery. Vector Wellington Orchestra and the Wellington Opera Chorus (original production by Opera North in 2008)

St James Theatre, Wellington

Saturday 9 October, 7.30pm

There is an unwritten convention that critics don’t expose themselves to the professional comments of other critics till they have nailed their own thoughts to the hard-drive. I try to adhere to this but pollution of the pristine impressions are sometimes unavoidable.  I heard the remark that Antonia Cifrone’s voice was not beautiful, and another that it had been described as ‘serviceable’.  These kinds of remarks are usually the refuge of the over-confident or the critic with a limited view of acceptable musical styles.

From her opening lines I was struck by Cifrone’s vigour, and by the very qualities that Verdi had prescribed for the role. He’s on record saying he did NOT want a beautiful voice; he wanted a ‘harsh, strangled, grim’ voice that depicted a domineering and ruthless woman. No one could so describe Ms Cifrone, who had sung the role in Opera North’s original production in 2008, but her vocal attributes allowed gave her performance all the dramatic and musical power called for.

Her acting conveyed the essential features of Lady Macbeth; it was both commanding in gesture and movement, and surprisingly balletic (the ballet, as usual, was dropped) in scenes such as the Banquet, where she produced an impressive coloratura display in the brindisi; in the sleep-walking scene her voice was stretched like a taut wire by the power of her conscience and her subconscious, yet singularly beautiful.

As usual, the stage director employs the prelude to entertain us with the witches, perched on little ledges on a sloping back-drop, suggesting the opening scene of Rheingold; they are soon seen as midwives to Lady Macbeth in labour, delivering a still-born baby, that they neatly drop in the bin. Psychologist Tim Albery lighted on this embellishment, derived from a cryptic line in the play, though not in the libretto, to explain the childless lady’s nasty obsessions. I thought it contributed less than nothing.

The related, near omnipresence, of a bed in almost every scene was a close relative of the obstetric adornment. It came in handy as the bed on which Duncan was murdered, for the royal couple’s copulation scene, for a later multiple birth scene (six this time, tossed about by the attendant witches/nurses), and for Lady Macbeth’s eventual expiry.

I do not mean to suggest that these efflorescences got in the way of the story; they were just a slightly wearying example of the director’s (all directors’) compulsive intrusiveness.

Finally, I have to say how silly, even distasteful, I found the publicity images. It seems to be accepted, in spite of years of criticism, that you can present images purporting to be of opera principals that are actually of models. If they reflect the characters with a little integrity, it’s not quite so bad, but the couple used on posters and on the programme cover are simply ridiculous: nothing could be more at odds with anyone’s notion of what Macbeth and the Lady are like.

Otherwise, the dramatic glosses were unobtrusive, entertaining and usually acceptable.

The second immediate impact was of the splendidly prepared chorus, particularly the women – usually as witches. Their singing was swift, tautly rhythmic, excellently balanced and punchy; and their disposition and movement, as that of the cast as a whole, was conspicuously natural, meaningful with dramatic force, lively or static as appropriate; they sit in rows on either side, knitting – like the Norns in the Prologue of Götterdämmerung? Though Albery was in Auckland for four weeks and staged the performance in Auckland, the programme credits assistant director Maxine Braham as ‘movement director’, and I’m told that Steven Whiting directed the Wellington chorus*.

The first appearance of principals is of Macbeth and Banquo – baritone Michele Kalmandi and bass Jud Arthur – two excellent low voices, of well contrasted timbres, the former exhibiting a little more polish, but the latter with striking vocal colour and personality.

The arrival of Duncan, the king, is always dramatically odd for his role is negligible (acted by Barry Mawer); the ubiquitous bed is already there on stage, beset with screens as the King retires, soon to be killed by Macbeth whose subsequent anguish was well depicted. It all takes place as courtiers lie asleep on the floor in the same hall: no one wakes during the commotion. A propos of which Julian Budden’s great study of the operas quotes a letter from Verdi to the first Macbeth (Varesi) stressing the need to sing sotto voce, and pointing to the careful orchestration that would be very quiet beneath his voice.

Dinner jackets are de rigueur most of the time: everyone rises the morning after, black ties and dinner jackets intact; the assassins hired to kill Banquo, too, are properly dressed. And after that contract has been fulfilled, Banquo returns during the banquet scene, in the proper tenue de ville of any self-respecting ghost.

Macduff gets little exposure till the fourth act when he follows the Scottish exiles’ restrained but moving ‘Patria oppressa’ with his own lamenting, ‘O figli, o figli miei … Ah, la paterna mano’. Russian tenor Roman Shulackoff’s performance attracted the biggest ovation of the evening. But it’s a long way to travel for one aria….

Other comprimario roles were excellently filled. Morag Atchison used her large, attractive voice to excellent effect as Lady-in-waiting; Derek Hill sang Malcolm, whose presence is important in the last act, most convincingly and the Doctor’s part was strongly taken by Matthew Landreth.

Then came the oddest interpolation: we saw another unidentified woman on the bed, giving birth to a succession of six babies which the encircling witches joyfully tossed about like footballs. Who was she? Who was the father? Were they live or still-born? And what was that all about? One speculation was that they were Banquo’s children whom the witches prophesied as kings, as little crowns were held over them.  It’s not really satisfactory for a director to introduce people or events not in the libretto, without explaining himself in the programme book. That it misfired was shown by audience laughter.

Macbeth’s killing by Macduff takes place on stage, as in the 1847 version, and the two bodies laid side by side are conflagrated with petrol in best terrorist style.

The production as a whole however was continuously absorbing. The stage designs by Johan Engels were obviously far from medieval Scotland, vaguely of an east European dictatorship, but consistent and helpful to the singers. The music director, Guido Ajmone-Marsan, managed soloists, chorus (rehearsed by Michael Vinten) and orchestra with great energy, getting precision, dramatic colour and variety from the playing of the Wellington Orchestra.

This is one of the most arresting and brilliantly performed opera productions seen in Wellington; I had not a moment’s inattention and must recommend it unreservedly.

*The details in this sentence contain clarifications provided by the company on Monday 1 October.

Aroha Quartet at St.Andrew’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

MOZART – String Quartet in D Major K.499 “Hoffmeister”

ZHU JIAN-ER & SHI YONGKANG – Bai-Mao-Nu (White haired Girl)

TCHAIKOVSKY  – String Quartet No.3 in E-flat Minor Op.30

Aroha String Quartet: Haihong Liu, Anne Loeser, violins / Zhongxian Jin, viola / Robert Ibell, ‘cello

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

Saturday 9th October 2010

Like New Yorkers have done with their numbered streets and avenues, one does get used to numberings in classical music, however bewildering and daunting it may seem for a beginner listener to register titles like Symphony No.97, String Quartet No.79, Piano Concerto No.27, or Piano Sonata No. 32. It’s probably one of the reasons that descriptive names, often nothing to do with the composer, have been so freely appended to pieces of music. These nicknames work invariably to the music’s advantage, however much the purist may scoff at the superficiality of the exercise. And especially if a composer has a reasonably sizeable body of work, such names can help people readily identify specific pieces otherwise buried anonymously in catalogues of numbers – for example, many of Haydn’s 100-plus symphonies owe their popularity to either individual titles or to names given to sets of works, such as the “Paris” or “London” Symphonies. One wonders at times whether these numbers really do register in peoples’ minds – as with the lovely story of the music student who was asked how many Beethoven symphonies there were, and who replied, “Three – the “Eroica”, the “Pastoral” – and the Ninth!”

Lest readers begin thinking that this reviewer has REALLY lost the plot on this occasion, I hasten to point out that the above remarks were prompted by my profound enjoyment of the Aroha Quartet’s playing of Mozart’s “Hoffmeister” String Quartet at St.Andrew’s Church on Saturday evening. I hadn’t heard this work for some time, but after experiencing this group’s warm, mellow playing and beautifully natural sense of ensembled give-and-take throughout, I’m certain that I’ll associate this “named” quartet for a long time to come with what was here an extremely pleasurable listening experience. It’s true that Haydn is regarded as the “father” of the string quartet, but on the evidence of works such as this one Mozart brought to the genre his own sublimity and distinction. From the outset, the Aroha Quartet brought a mellow warmth to the music, with a beautiful blend of distinctive tones, at once characterful and responsive in the interests of a larger expression, the players readily able to vary their dynamics as one with with plenty of energy and volatility, throughout the first movement.  A full-bodied, colourful and exuberant minuet followed, the players digging into the music and in places almost bursting the dance at its seams – the minor-key triplet variants of the theme, tossed around among the instruments, provided a more circumspect contrast.

I liked also the tender, eloquent opening of the adagio, the playing very “giving” and interactive, almost theatrical in its thematic and instrumental exchanges. And the finale also engaged for different reasons, the players generating a lot of excitement with spectacular runs from violin and ‘cello over stuttering accompanying figures, with energy levels dancing near the tops of their gauges, and elements of surprise and contrast very much to the fore. One imagines Herr Hoffmeister listening to the work’s first performance and beaming with delight at the thought of his name being carried forward in musical history by this marvellous piece.

The leader of the quartet, Haihong Liu, welcomed the modestly-sized audience to the concert before introducing the next piece, from China, an arrangement for string quartet of a ballet Baimao Nu (in English, White-Haired Girl) by the composers Zhu Jian-er and Shi Yongkang. The story is based on the documented life-histories of half-a-dozen women from different periods of Chinese history, from the late Qing Dynasty to the 1930s, and existed and was performed as an opera before the Communist takeover in China in 1949, which resulted in later adaptations for ballet and film having some political propaganda input, changing some aspects of the story, and becoming a “modern Chinese classic”. A strong unison statement, like the opening of a curtain, began the work, whose lyrical, flowing manner, flecked with little folk-touches of portamento, created an attractive, if somewhat filmic impression. The narrative style was emphasised by frequent changes of metre and contrasting episodes, alternating wistful single-instrument lines with concerted, orchestral-like crescendi culminating in dramatic minor-key plunges – attractive, colourful music, obviously intended to entertain and uplift rather than ponder any fundamental tenet of existence that could be called to question. The Aroha Quartet players delivered it all with the sort of commitment and level of skill one would expect the players to bring to much greater music, but without ever over-inflating the range and scope of the piece.

A work that certainly required full-blooded treatment was Tchaikovsky’s Third String Quartet from 1876, a work for too long overshadowed (like the Second Quartet) by the first of the composer’s essays in this medium five years previously, with its celebrated Andante Cantabile movement. I thought this deeply-felt performance took us right to the heart of the music, the first movement, after a beautifully-breathed opening and a deep, rocking melancholy underpinned by pizzicati, fixing on a working-out of the themes with energetic and persistent drive and focus – tense, tortured stuff. It was possible to think that, in places, the mood of the playing might perhaps have been even a little too dogged and unyielding, with no hint of pathos or rhetoric at cadence-points – but it was indeniably involving and exciting. The second movement’s elfin and energetic brilliance had a surety of touch that encompassed both the music’s playful aspect and the more explosive accents and emphases, also making the most of the trio section’s droll, droning bass, with snatches of the allegro re-energising the music – lovely playing!

Tchaikovsky wrote the quartet as a tribute to a violinist friend who had died the previous year, and the grief of his loss was made manifest with the slow movement’s andante funebre marking. Here, the Aroha’s compelling focus brought us right to the edge of the music’s well of deep emotion, giving those opening discords and dolorous chanting figurations plenty of weight and emphasis, before allowing the more rhapsodic second subject group some remembrance of happier times. However, darkness soon overtook the music once again, a sombre processional becoming trenchant and threatening, before the chanting sequences beautifully and hauntingly returned at the end. After this, the finale plunged into an energetic “life goes on” dance, the spirit of it all reminiscent of the composer’s Fourth Symphony, the quartet enjoying the music’s physicality as well as registering the more delicate, elfin-like aspects of the discourse. A brief reminiscence of the previous movement’s solemnities became the prelude to a dancing coda, thrown off here with plenty of excitement.

Our enthusiasm for and appreciation of the music-making was rewarded by the Quartet’s playing of an encore – a piece that, for all the world sounded Central European, with soulful folk-themes, czardas-like dance-rituals at the beginning and brilliant accelerandi to finish. But it was, according to Quartet leader Haihong Liu, a Saliha, from the Silk Road region of China, which might well account for what sounded like gypsy-like tunes, rhythms and structures. It made a rousing conclusion to a most enjoyable concert.

A musical machine plus Bartók and Sibelius from NZSM Orchestra

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand School of Music Orchestra, conducted by Kenneth Young with Vivian Stephens (violin)

Johannes Contag: Starting the Robot; Sibelius: Violin Concerto, Op 47; Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra

Cathedral of the Sacred Heart

Friday 8 October, 7.30pm

From now and into the fourth term, concerts by performance students at the New Zealand School of Music crop up in a variety of venues across the city. They are in part to fulfil the course requirements and in part to make the city aware of gifted young musicians being schooled there.

The orchestra itself consists of most of the students of orchestral instruments; they numbered about 55 of the members of the orchestra, though it is appropriate to note that there are several sections with few or no students and that have to be filled by guests, mainly from the NZSO. Lacking are any oboes – a surprise, and there are insufficient violists, cellists and double bassists, and horn players.

But accepting that those sections were equipped with professionals, the splendid playing by the great majority of sections was the work of students, driven in the most colourful and lively way by Kenneth Young.

The concert opened with a new piece by a student composer, Johannes Contag, that took its character from the sounds and the metaphysical nature of the machine – the thing created by man and whose operation is controlled less and less by man. I found it entertaining, as it was very effectively driven by rhythmic pulses suggesting an accelerating and then slowing of a piston-driven machine.  Melodic ideas were less significant but the structure, imposed from the outside, created a satisfying entity. The performance gave it an excellent presentation.

Sibelius’s Violin Concerto has such attractive qualities, and offers such rewarding work for the soloist that it’s hard not to delight in it. The soloist, Vivian Stephens, had played it to win the School of Music’s concerto competition a few months ago. His performance on a fine, warm instrument, was most impressive, exhibiting a mature command, at least in the first two movements, of both technicalities and musical texture and phrasing that created beautiful and varied sounds that were very satisfying: he negotiated the first movement cadenza with great skill.

In the third movement there were early signs of slightly less confidence, and a memory lapse later on, But he recovered admirably and conductor and violinist brought it, overbearing acoustic and all, to an splendid finish.

Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra is a big challenge for a non-professional orchestra, exposing all instruments very deliberately. The first movement is the most substantial, a complex pattern that makes ever-changing demands on many sections, slowly building from tentative flute passages through beguiling bluesy brass chords to a state of exhilaration.

The ‘game of pairs’ that is the second movement, predominantly light of texture, offered evidence of the orchestra’s quality without too much overweight bass: muted trumpets, clarinets… The quality of string playing was clear in the Elegia, from the notable double basses, through piccolo and timpani. 

In the Intermezzo I am usually puzzled by Bartók’s mocking of the tune in Shostakovich’s 7th symphony, failing to recognise the Russian’s purpose in that work. Far from belittling Shostakovich, I feel it diminishes Bartók’s own work, once one is aware of the connection. However, the orchestra followed the movement’s curious pathway unerringly. The last movement is an extended dance-driven Presto, though not really so fast till the accelerating, attacking tutti passages towards the end.  

It was a brilliant performance that deserved to be in a more accommodating acoustic space.

NZSM showcase for viola and violin students

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Bartók: Viola Concerto – movements II and III; Rebecca Clarke: Viola
Sonata – movements I and II; Glinka: Viola Sonata – first movement; Reger: Solo
Viola Suite No 3 in E minor – fourth movement; Khachaturian: Violin Concerto –
first movement

Gillian Ansell and Douglas Mews and students from the New Zealand School
of Music

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 6 October 12.15pm

There was a relatively large audience at this concert that featured two
violists and a violinist and they were rewarded both with some out-of-the-way
music and by hearing some talented players.

Though it was advertised as a concert of violists, it was, rather, a
showcase for three students of Gillian Ansell, violist in the New Zealand
String Quartet, at the New Zealand School of Music, one of whom, Karla Norton,
was a violinist. She, with the buoyant support of Douglas Mews at the piano,
made Khachaturian’s splendid violin concerto sound almost as if he’d written it
as a sonata for violin and piano: she played the brilliantly tuneful first
movement with accurate intonation, its phrases confidently shaped and polished.
Though a violinist, she is a pupil of Gillian Ansell’s; as a third year
student, her performance stood out as a little more accomplished than her two
violist colleagues who were in their second year.

The pieces
played by Leoni Wittchou and Megan Ward were, like so much of the viola
repertoire, unfamiliar. Leoni played two movements from Rebecca Clarke’s Viola
Sonata, a most rewarding piece by this British violist and composer, written in
1919. Though not tainted by serialism, it sounded absolutely of its age,
speaking in a voice that sounded authentic and individual. Leoni had absorbed
its idiom and managed to unravel its dense harmonies and rather complex
rhythmic character, conveying a confidence and assurance that was rather
impressive. After playing the first movement, Impetuoso, (it alone was
scheduled) she played the short allegro second movement, which was playful and
demanding.

Megan Ward was the second violist: she chose the first movement of an
unfinished, early viola sonata by Glinka that bore hardly any of the Russian characteristics
for which he was later renowned. It had little to recommend it: sentimental in
tone, uncertain in the handling of its themes, like a struggling pupil of
someone like John Field. Megan made a sterling effort with it, but her playing
was marred by intonation flaws and the insecurities of a student at her stage
of development.

She followed the Glinka piece with the fourth movement of a solo viola
suite (No 3) by Max Reger, and she succeeded in creating from this Bach-like
piece, musical shapes that could easily have remained sterile strings of notes.

Behind all the performances, save the Reger, was the piano support from
Douglas Mews which provided interesting textures and sustained interest where
the viola might have sagged. Nowhere
was his part more arresting than in the first piece in the programme: the
second and third movements of Bartok’s Viola Concerto (in the completion by
Csaba Erdelyi). Here was the chance for the teacher, Gillian Ansell, to be
heard in a role not normally available to her. Viola and piano were in
wonderful accord: the piano providing almost all the harmonic interest that one
would expect of an orchestra, and the viola demonstrating a mastery of this
difficult work that one would expect only from a seasoned solo musician. It was
a simply splendid performance, making me wonder when an orchestra
might engage her to play the entire concerto.

 

Opera Scenes at New Zealand School of Music

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Opera Scenes: Passionate Choices: Love & Duty from Purcell to Britten via Mozart and Strauss (with a dash of Offenbach)

Fifteen Voice Students

Adam Concert Room, Victoria University

Saturday, 2 October, 7.30pm

While it is a pity that there was no university opera this year, after the brilliant Semele last year, the concert in which 10 opera scenes were performed was quite an ambitious undertaking.  There was considerable variety, but enough of each opera to give more than a taste, and to allow the singers to really get into the characters.  It is good news for music in this country that there are so many singers who are capable of performing these roles.

The audience were placed facing towards the southern end of the Adam Concert Room.  Behind the area used as a stage were two beautiful red and black shot- silk curtains of ample proportions; the performers entered through the space between them.

The evening began with the quintet from Act I of Così fan tutte, by Mozart.  This contains the famous and beautiful trio for Fiordiligi, Dorabella and Don Alfonso ‘Soave sia il vento’.  The singers were very assured and the men, particularly, were excellent – Norman Pati, who had a nice turn of comedy, and Joshua Kidd, who was not quite so confident.  Dorabella (Elitsa Kappatos) produced a more mellow tone than did Angelique MacDonald as Fiordiligi (perhaps to be expected since the former is a mezzo role), but both knew their parts and their movements well, and were able to enter into the story fully.  Indeed, this was true of all the performers throughout the concert.  The placing of Don Alfonso (Thomas Barker) behind the two women for most of the trio was a disadvantage for his projection, and the ensemble between the three singers.  Costumes of 1920s appearance were excellent, and fun.

The sextet from later in Act I followed.   Now Fiordiligi was sung by Bryony Williams, while the other parts were taken by the same singers as in the quintet.  All the singers were powerful, and the parts were well characterised. 

It is wonderful what can be done with minimal sets, minimal props, beautiful costumes and beautiful, well-trained voices.  Bruce Greenfield accompanied.  I did not think he was up to his usual very high standard – perhaps it was the piano?   I found the Mozart over-pedalled, and much of the accompanying too loud.  This is probably largely due to the polished wooden floor and wooden ceiling.  I have seen, both here and at St. Andrew’s on The Terrace, heavy fabric placed under the piano to achieve a quieter tone.

Two scenes from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and two from The Turn of the Screw by Britten, were directed by one of the performers, post-graduate student Laura Dawson.  She appeared first as the Sorceress in ‘Wayward Sisters’, that wonderfully chilling witches’ incantation.  The ensemble singing with her fellow witches (Emily Simcox, Amelia Ryman, Joshua Kidd and Isaac Stone) was superb.  I would have found a deeper voice better for the Sorceress; Dawson sang much better where the music was in the higher register.  Imaginative stage business was a tribute to her invention.

The famous Dido’s Lament scene followed, after Bruce Greenfield had played (as happened elsewhere in the programme) some of the orchestral music between the scenes, which not only gave more of the feeling of the operas, but gave time for the crew (the singers themselves) to change the props, while two cloaked characters walked through with large placards stating the names of the operas and the locations of the scenes.

Laura Dawson sang Dido, Thomas Barker, Aeneas, and Belinda was very well acted and sung by Emily Simcox, who was in fine voice.  The whole scene was very effectively done, including the use of props.  The famous Lament was beautiful, except for the pronunciation of the word ‘earth’, which cut off the sound quite unnecessarily, and overdone ‘t’s – there is no need for this in a small auditorium.

That brings me to another point: it is a pity that the students do not have a ‘proper’ auditorium in which to put on opera, or scenes from opera.  They have all learned to project their voices and their words well (although some singers needed more vocal support), but projecting as if in an opera house in the Adam Concert Room leads to quite unnecessarily loud volume.  It is to be hoped that the planned new School of Music on the Ilott Green will go ahead, and include a theatre.  In the meantime, is the Theatrette at Massey University (the former National Museum Theatrette) not suitable?

The scenes from the Britten opera were, of course, something completely different; Britten was a great admirer of Purcell, and is regarded as the best English opera composer since Purcell.

The spooky mood of the opera came over well, partly due to excellent projection of the words.  The performers made the scenes thoroughly involving.  Bridget Costello as the governess and Laura Dawson as Mrs Grose, the housekeeper, were very believable characters in ‘The Window’ from Act I, and again in Act II’s scene about the ghost of the former governess.  It was very well directed, and Costello was outstanding both vocally and in her acting.

After the interval the mood changed completely, with three excerpts from Offenbach’s La Vie Parisienne.  What was innovative here was that the libretto had been devised and written by the cast and director.  Therefore they gained experience in developing characters.  There were two tables at a café in Paris (presumably out-of-doors, since one man was wearing a hat – I’m always puzzled by New Zealand operas having men wearing hats indoors, a no-no in polite society of former times).  At one table sat an English family on holiday; at the other, two extravert young French women.

These were stereotypical characters: the English in tweeds and cardigan, the French in mini-skirts, smoking and chatting volubly and expressively.  Three scenes, ‘Paris c’est l’amour’, ‘Poor Fellow’ and Septet (not Sextet as in the printed programme) ‘And there will be a Lighted Candle’, involved seven singers in funny lyrics to Offenbach’s music, and amusing stage business, to make a thoroughly enjoyable little story. 

Particularly outstanding was Emily Simcox as Gertrude, the mother in the English family.  Her husband George was sung by Simon Harnden.  He opened proceedings speaking – and what a resonant speaking voice he has!   This little piece of theatre was so involving and so well done that it would be hard to isolate any one or two singers as outstanding over the others.  The emphasis was very much on clarity of words and acting, and all passed with flying colours.

The other characters were performed by Angelique MacDonald, Isaac Stone (whose acting was very amusing), Thomas O’Brien, Bridget Costello and Amelia Ryman.  The names of the two French girls were the French forms of the singers’ names – the last two in this list.

The final scene was more problematic.  Surely the final trio and duet from Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier are too demanding on the voices of singers as young as these?  Not only is Strauss opera generally a hard sing, this must be one of the most difficult. 

Whether it was done to give the impression of an older woman I do not know, but I thought Bryony Williams as the Marschallin had too much vibrato for a young singer.  Bianca Andrew as Octavian was in great voice, and thoroughly convincing.  Imogen Thirwall was a very competent but somewhat anxious Sophie.  The duet was quite lovely.  Nevertheless, the volume was overpowering in the trio; singers should moderate their dynamics to suit the resonance and size of the venue.  The small role of Faninal was sung by Isaac Stone.

Set changes were very well done, and the whole production was achieved in a professional manner.  Everyone knew their parts thoroughly, and musically, the performances were enjoyable, aside from my reservation about the level of sound in some items.

How fortunate we are to have so many promising singers – and so many experienced, competent teachers at the School of Music!