The Tudor Consort in a brilliant Christmas Oratorio
The Tudor Consort’s courage in hiring the Town Hall for its Christmas Oratorio was rewarded by a good audience and by an absolutely wonderful performance. Anna Leese was no doubt an important draw-card, but in the event the success was achieved through the other three principals, by the choir itself, and... read more
Organist Richard Apperley celebrates Advent and Christmas
A fine organ recital from Richard Apperley consisted of mainly short seasonal pieces. All the composers were either born in the twentieth century, or did most of their composing in that century. Three New Zealand composers featured.
Andrew Baldwin was Composer in Residence at the Cathedral from 2006-2008, and wrote An Advent Prelude for Apperley in 2009; this was its first public performance. Charming chord... read more
NZSO – incidentally, on Naxos…..
There's much to enjoy in both of these NZSO/Naxos recordings, perhaps more consistently so with the Beethoven than with the Mendelssohn, though the latter, for all its idiosyncrasies, still contains many felicities, especially with regard to the orchestral playing. Under the direction of its former chief conductor James Judd, the orchestra delivers highly-polished, fleet-fingered accounts of all of the music on both discs. Some will love the Mendelssohn recording...Christmas presents from the NZSO….
Musically, this was a heart-warming "something for everybody" concert, presenting tried and true favorites from, for example, Messiah (fascinating to compare performances with what was heard less than a week previously from the Orpheus Choir and the Wellington Orchestra) along with relative concert-hall rarities like Benjamin Britten's Men of Goodwill and Otto Nicolai's Christmas Overture. Almost as rare was Respighi's beautiful L'adorazione dei Magi, the second of the composer's...Ruth Armishaw sings about songbirds and divas at St Andrew’s final concert
For the last concert of the St Andrew’s free lunchtime series, a departure from the strict canon of classical music might be permitted. This time it proved especially permissible because of the polish and style that singer and pianist brought to the job.
Bach Choir returns to homeland in visual and aural feast
A programme made up of three well-loved pieces by J.S. Bach was bound to please any lover of baroque music.
Jesu, meine Freude is unusually long, complex and varied for a motet. It is full of the most delicious settings of words, including extracts from Paul’s epistle to the Romans. The word-painting is just superb.
This performance did its beauties justice. After perusing the... read more
Wellington Chamber Orchestra, with pianist Claire Harris, plays Beethoven and Sibelius
The last of the Wellington Chamber Orchestra’s 2010 concerts followed the normal pattern: Concerto in the first half, symphony in the second and something smaller, perhaps new or unusual to fill out the first half. Often scorned, it’s a recipe that survives because it works pretty well; after all it does not proscribe playing an obscure concerto and an avant-garde symphonic piece of some substance in the second... read more