Day: 17 April 2011

Rewarding concert of choral works by two French organ composers

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Bach Choir of Wellington conducted by Stephen Rowley

The Seven Last Words of Christ and Toccata No 3 in G by Théodore Dubois; Messe Solennelle in C sharp minor, Op 16 , Naïades from Pièces de fantaisie, Op 55 No 4 and Berceuse from 24 Pièces en style libre, Op 31 by Louis Vierne

Organists: Douglas Mews, Christopher Hainsworth and Emmanuel Godinez
Bryony Williams (soprano), Thomas Atkins (tenor), Kieran Rayner (baritone)

Church of St Mary of the Angels

Sunday 17 April, 7pm

Two days after Richard Apperley had played Haydn’s account of the Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross on St Paul’s Cathedral organ, an choral version of the story by Théodore Dubois was sung in St Mary of the Angels. If Haydn’s version saw the New Testament story as offering hope and spiritual renewal for mankind, Dubois’s account of Les sept paroles du Christ, only 70 years later, seemed to remove it from the divine world to a bourgeois world where spiritual ideas and emotions are filtered through a style of music more reminiscent of the theatre and drawing room.

That is not to say that in the eight movements (an Introduction and the seven verses that were compiled in early Christian times from various Gospel sources), there were not episodes in which the composer captured the sense and the emotions of the words and the meaning behind them. ‘Mulier (woman or mother), ecce filius tuus’, is the equivalent of the medieval poem Stabat Mater, set by many composers, and part of which used as the following gloss, there was, through baritone, tenor and soprano soloists, an affecting representation of grief in descending phrases. It was perhaps a pity that the two male singers had voices that were rather similar in timbre so that it was often only when singing at the extremes of their registers that I was absolutely certain who was singing.

All three voices, of current students or recent graduates of the New Zealand School of Music, were bright, splendidly produced and fitted the roles they depicted admirably.

And in the fourth Word, ‘My God, why have you forsaken me?’, perhaps the most challenging theologically, the feeling may not have been utterly despairing and uncomprehending, but its intensity created a small tour de force. It so happened I heard Stainer’s setting of these words in his Crucifixion on RNZ Concert on Wednesday morning (as I was finishing this review). And though I find the work pretty glutinous and religiose, Stainer captured the words with simple honesty.

The entire concert was performed from the choir gallery which proved most congenial in terms of sound projection, detail and balance. Solo voices seemed less subject to any undue reverberation, and the choir’s first entry after short verses from tenor and baritone, was surprisingly powerful; I suspect that both the supportive acoustic and the entire ambience stimulated the Bach Choir to perform at a level of distinction that it has been regaining steadily under the leadership of Stephen Rowley in the past couple of years.

Dubois’s work consists of the ‘Words’, sung generally by one of the soloists, followed by an enlargement of the verse with appropriate liturgical texts, all in Latin and sung by the chorus and/or the soloists. The organ, in Christopher Hainsworth’s hands, added very importantly to the interest and liveliness of the whole work.

The first half of the concert was in Hainsworth’s hands for, as President of the Dubois Society, he had grasped an appropriate opportunity to advocate for him. The society is dedicated to the revival of attention to this neglected composer, as much in France as other countries. He had chosen his exhibit for the court very well. It is interesting to recall that Dubois had been director of the Paris Conservatoire during the time that Ravel was being repeatedly failed for the Prix de Rome, though he actually resigned just before Ravel’s last (unsuccessful) attempt.

He played Dubois’s most familiar organ piece, his Toccata in G, having warned us not to imagine that Dubois had merely imitated Widor: Dubois’s toccata came first. It was a splendid display, employing the organ’s brilliant capacities with a sure instinct for effective registrations.

After the interval there were another two organ solos – by the concert’s ‘other’ composer, Louis Vierne. Thirty years younger than Dubois, Vierne’s music is far removed from the theatre-dominated music of his predecessor: impressionism and fastidiousness are the hallmarks. Douglas Mews played the much anthologized Naïades, aqueous and luminous; and then the Berceuse from Op 31 was played by Emmanuel Godinez, still at secondary school – St Patrick’s College, who was last year’s Maxwell Fernie Trust scholar. His performance of this quiet piece was of course no spectacle, but sensitive and poetic.

Vierne’s Messe Solennelle, written around 1900, was accompanied at the organ by Douglas Mews; it does not include the ‘Credo’. Again, the organ’s part was distinctive and refined, but not without dramatic moments, in which some of the more colourful, occasionally ‘peasant’ registrations, lent interest to a work whose refinement and subtlety might otherwise have deprived it of variety and drama. The choir’s performance was again remarkably confident and robust, though when necessary, as in the ‘Benedictus’ and in the undemonstrative ‘Agnus Dei’, the singing was of a delicacy and calm that brought the concert to a moving conclusion.

If Dubois’s life was fairly untroubled, Vierne’s was a tale of loss and misfortune. He was born near blind; he was deeply distressed by a divorce from his wife; his brother and son were killed in the First World War; he injured a leg in a street accident which took a long time to mend, and he had to relearn his pedal technique at the organ. And though he held the presitigous post of organist at Notre Dame Cathedral, the organ was in a state of serious disrepair through most of his time. And the story of his death during his 1750th recital in the cathedral rests among the strange semi-myths of music.

His recital was to end with two improvisations on submitted themes; he read the first theme in Braille, then selected the stops he would use; he suddenly pitched forward, and fell off the bench as his foot hit the low E pedal of the organ. He lost consciousness as the single note echoed throughout the church, and the story goes that the congregation only realised something was wrong as the note continued to sound. The latter is apocryphal however as his friend Maurice Duruflé was beside him at the time. But he had thus fulfilled his oft-stated lifelong dream – to die at the console of the great organ of Notre-Dame.

Wellington Chamber Orchestra interprets Michael Vinten’s orchestral disinterments

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wellington Chamber Orchestra conducted by Michael Vinten with Linden Loader (mezzo soprano) and Roger Wilson (baritone)

Sibelius: Scaramouche Suite, Op 71 (re-arranged by Michael Vinten); Mahler: Nine early songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn (orchestrated by Michael Vinten); Schubert: Symphony No 10, (completed and orchestrated by Michael Vinten from D 936a and 708a)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 17 April, 2.30pm

This will go down as one of the most unusual concerts of the year. An orchestral concert entirely of works completed and/or orchestrated by the conductor. Few would claim all three exercises to have been an unmitigated success, but all three had singular virtues and elements of great interest.

In terms of musical content I suppose that the Mahler songs should rank high – they should recommend themselves to singers everywhere. There are not so many Mahler songs that the addition of another group, juvenilia to be sure, would not be welcomed. In any case, most were very attractive compositions.

Then the Schubert Symphony: I was curious to discover, first of all, whether the material Vinten drew on had not already been edited, completed, orchestrated. And of course it has been, as I discovered courtesy of Wikipedia when I started to write this review. It has been orchestrated by one Brian Newbould, performed and recorded; but as a three movement work, not in the four movements that Vinten created using a Scherzo movement from another incomplete symphonic piece (D 708a). Newbould had concluded that the finale, Rondo, was marked ‘Scherzo’ because it combined the functions of a scherzo and a finale.

Vinten, on the other hand, was presumably not convinced that the word ‘Scherzo’ at the top of the first page of the Rondo pertained to that movement, and surmised perhaps that it indicated where a Scherzo would go.

The Scherzo movement from D 708a did, however, fit admirably in the sequence following the Andante movement, both in D major. On the other hand, you don’t have to look for a suitable movement in the same key. In Schubert’s time it was not the rule that each movement in a multi-movement work should be in the same key: look at any number of symphonies and concertos from the classical period on.

However, the exercise was very convincing. One could be picky about the instrumentation chosen by Vinten; sometimes textures sounded a bit too fussy, sometimes a woodwind combination sounded unSchubertian; there is any number of permutations possible. But the general result sounded like a symphony, and there was possibly some virtue in Vinten’s inclination to vary his instrumentation more than Schubert typically did, for it overcame Schubert’s tendency to repeats themes in virtually unchanged dress many times during a long movement.

The second theme of the first movement sounded like the real thing, as did the somber theme of the second movement, imaginatively developed and engagingly orchestrated.

Vinten scored for double winds (including trumpets and horns) and three trombones; one must add that some of the woodwind playing was less than lovely and the strings had moments of uncertainty, but generally the orchestra handled the work well; timpanist Alec Carlisle was well-placed (forward of the chamber organ) and his playing was admirable.

The Mahler songs, as Roger Wilson explained, contained ideas that occurred in later symphonies and songs. Des Knaben Wunderhorn was an extraordinary treasure-trove for the German Romantic movement in both literature and music. As a student, I understood there were doubts about the ‘folk’ authenticity of these songs and ballads ‘collected’ by Arnim and Brentano, but they certainly had greater integrity than McPherson’s Ossian of forty years earlier. They were the usual mixture of quasi-tragic, touches of the risqué, the impact of military service and war, death… Few composers have actually captured the irony, drollerie, cruelty, mindless carelessness of some of the behaviour illustrated in these folk poems, as well as Mahler. Roger Wilson and Linden Loader sang them with a vigour, sensitivity, insouciance that exhibited their emotion and their character vividly and often with humour. The orchestrations were very much in Mahler’s style, with piquant use of instruments such as bassoon, horn, trumpet. Characteristic was Selbstgefühl, with its use of horn and woodwinds, a portrait of a selfish, self-pitying fool: hints of the music of Baron Ochs (though the influence would of course have been in the other direction), sung by Wilson.

Less persuasive was Vinten’s arrangement of music Sibelius had written for a Danish play about the comic/nasty commedia dell’ arte figure Scaramouche. (whom you’ll be familiar with from the Milhaud suite). Quite varied in mood, it was easy to hear it as effective incidental music in the theatre, and some of it was quirky and unusual. There was a nice waltz and a slightly dry love scene, all good for twenty minutes of diversion. Vinten had succeeded in distinguishing and giving some life to the characters on the play, and we could indeed sense and smell them. 

Waikanae hugely enjoys Amici Ensemble

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Mozart: String Quartet in C, K.157
Hugo Wolf: Italian Serenade in G
Anthony Ritchie: Clarinet Quintet, Op.124
Brahms: Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, Op.115

Amici Ensemble (Donald Armstrong and Cristina Vaszilcsin, violins; Julia Joyce, viola; Rowan Prior, cello, Philip Green, clarinet)

Memorial Hall, Waikanae

Sunday, 17 April 2011, 2.30 pm

As always at Waikanae, there was a well-filled hall, and as usual when Donald Armstrong is involved, items were given spoken introductions: by him, to the Mozart and Wolf works, and by clarinettist Philip Green to the two clarinet quintets. This was in addition to excellent programme notes.

Of the Mozart, Armstrong said it was ‘good-natured… [it] has the greatness without the complexity of his later works. This quartet was written when Mozart was aged only 16.

The players were not quite together at the beginning, but soon settled down. The tone was blended best in the slow movement, and the bright and lively presto finale. There was good playing from the cello throughout the attractive piece.

The version of Wolf’s Italian Serenade for string orchestra is perhaps more often played than the quartet original, but the latter is, I think, to be preferred for its clarity, which is particularly important for the unusual harmonies and modulations. At times, they sounded like those to be found in Noël Coward songs. As the programme note said, this is a delicious miniature.

Anthony Ritchie has written a most interesting clarinet quintet, commissioned by Christchurch’s musical philanthropist, Christopher Marshall, in 2006. The music begins very quietly, the bird-song-like clarinet along with the strings playing softly on the bridge (ponticello). There was some very striking writing here, especially for the clarinet.

After the slow opening, the allegro first movement, had some marvellous passages for the viola and the clarinet; it ended abruptly. The slow movement began in unison for second violin, viola and cello – a very telling device. Then it returned to ponticello. The fast finale was agitated, even unsettling. Philip Green’s clarinet playing was superb throughout the work. It was a most effective work, if somewhat dark and mournful in the main.

The major work on the programme was Brahms’s Quintet. Composed in 1891, a few years after the Wolf work but vastly different in character, it has ‘an atmosphere of serenity coloured by warm melodies, as well as a wonderful interplay amongst the five players’, as the programme note stated.

Again, Philip Green’s playing excelled, though sometimes the string sound overwhelmed him. Whether a different seating plan would have helped, I don’t know. Mostly, his playing sparkled with brilliance and sensitive interpretation.

The adagio featured the splendid muted first violin of Donald Armstrong, particularly. Ensemble was excellent otherwise, and pianissimo playing was exemplary from all the performers – helped by some alterations to the ceiling of the small platform.

In the Presto third movement, the viola produced some wonderful pizzicato. There was a magical range of dynamics and well-controlled crescendos and decrescendos. The quintet’s wonderfully mellifluous ending was beautifully handled, with perfect phrasing.

A stamping, applauding audience obviously enjoyed the concert hugely, especially the Brahms. It was a superb programme from a highly skilled group of players.