Month: May 2011

Brilliant Shostakovich from violinist Riseley and NZSM Orchestra

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand School of Music Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Young with Martin Riseley (violin)

Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture (Tchaikovsky); From Peter Grimes – Passacaglia and Four Sea Interludes (Britten); Violin Concerto No 1, Op 99 (Shostakovich)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Saturday 14 May 2011, 7.30pm

In the past year the School of Music seems to have made a distinct move towards offering the city a lot more music in the public sphere. Once upon a time, performances by students and staff were held mainly in the Adam Concert Room in the furthest reaches of Victoria University’s Kelburn campus; and those by the Conservatorium of Music of Massey University were at one stage in the former Fever Hospital at the back of Newtown and later at the main campus at the top of Taranaki Street. Neither was within easy reach.

One of the benefits of the merger of the two schools (and the benefits are not very conspicuous) is a wider range of performance opportunities mow happening downtown. For the full range see the school’s website called Dawn Chorus (http://www.nzsm.ac.nz/events/).

Occasionally, as on Saturday evening, we get a full-scale orchestral concert of the sort offered by one of our professional orchestras. Later in the year there will probably be another major orchestral concert in the Wellington Town Hall, with a performance by the winner of the school’s concerto competition, which takes place in the Adam Concert Room next Wednesday, 25 May.

This began with the Romeo and Juliet overture. Under the energetic baton of Kenneth Young it was a highly energetic performance, often given to extreme dynamic experiences that in the limited space and hard acoustic of the church was a bit too audible. The opening phase was not remarkable but the arrival of the dramatic Allegro Giusto phase marking the feud between the two families, allowed the orchestra to display its emotional energy and the following exciting, syncopated passage from around bar 140 created a special frisson as if brass and the racing quavers in the strings were not quite together.

Though it is fair to record that some of the brilliance of the brass – specifically horns and trumpets – may have been enhanced by guest players from the NZSO and the Wellington Orchestra, the overall impact flowed from student players who comprised all the players in most sections. The quite thrilling climax in the scene that perhaps depicts Tybalt’s death, was the real thing, with Fraser Bremner impressive on timpani. No less moving were the long passages of affecting lyrical melody representing the lovers.

Excerpts from Peter Grimes followed: the Four Sea Interludes, but also, to begin, the Passacaglia from Act 2. Most striking early on was the fine viola solo – I presume, John Roxburgh – over timpani, pizzicato cellos and basses. It captured, as intended, the uneasy and menacing mood of the opera, and even though not as immediately arresting as the other four pieces, deserves to be treated in this way. Throughout the other pieces violas and cellos often had further strong contributions; the whole ‘suite’ was most impressive, even though in the final section, Storm, the confusion of sound may have been carried a little further than the score provided.

The most awaited event was the performance of Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto, which seems not to have reached the ranks of much performed masterpieces of the 20th century: it’s not as familiar as the Sibelius, Elgar, the two Prokofievs, Berg, Bartok, Barber, Khachaturian, Korngold… (But perhaps that’s personal experience). If you’re into this sort of thing, Google the 50 best known violin concertos from 20th century: interesting, as it usually stimulates exploration.

The performance was a privilege. For such a big work, the orchestral forces are quite modest. Horns the only brass, apart from a brief tuba entry later. Written after the Zhdanov denunciation in 1947 of ‘formalism’ and other evils, it was not performed till 1955, after Stalin’s death in 1953. So the concerto has all the signs of Shostakovich’s fears of reprisals or worse, even though Shostakovich, with Oistrakh, had made modifications to it in the interim.

The opening movement departs strongly from the normal sanguinity of a first movement: Nocturne, which makes no mark in terms of melody, but tells the audience straight away that the composer is serious, that what he’s saying is important and he wants to make an impact emotionally through its sombre, painful beauty. The orchestra had the necessary weight and Riseley’s playing was a balance between tonal beauty and tough-minded rigour.

The Shostakovich of the sardonic Fifth Symphony emerged in the Scherzo, with dark brilliance. An even bleaker movement follows with the Pasacaglia, opening in chilling spirit with elephantine timpani, cellos and basses, soon joined by horns. The violin’s entry here brings a sudden lightening of mood though bass instruments don’t allow you to ignore the realities out there. It dies away, slowly leading a tortured path to the remarkable cadenza which demands all the virtuosity available to Oistrakh, for whom it was written, but also handles the variety of emotions that the earlier movements have explored. It leads straight into the Burlesca in which Shostakovich seems to be exploiting his familiar vein of false jollity with its brash orchestral colouring and wind interjections. The entire work was splendidly guided by Kenneth Young, maintaining a steady pulse, hitting the exciting tempo increase in the Coda, and keeping orchestral balance successfully in this sometimes difficult acoustic.

This was a remarkably feat, great credit to soloist, conductor and orchestra.

Risurrezione from a new arts trust at St Mary of the Angels

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

La Musica – Sacra I
Böhm: Præludium, Fugue and Postlude J.S. Bach: ‘Komm süsses kreuz’ Biber: Crucifixion, Resurrection and Assumption sonatas Bruhns: ‘Mein herz ist bereit’ Buxtehude: ‘Singet dem herrn’
Krieger: ‘Ihr Christen, freuet euch’

The Historical Arts Trust: Gregory Squire (baroque violin), Pepe Becker (soprano), David Morriss (bass), Robert Oliver (viola da gamba), Douglas Mews (harpsichord and chamber organ)

St. Mary of the Angels Church

Saturday, 14 May 2011, 7pm

The Historical Arts Trust (THAT) is a new organisation, launched at the end of llast month, presenting four concerts this year under the title ‘La Musica’ (though despite that, and this concert’s title ‘Risurrezione’, the music was all German and Austrian, not Italian), in succession to the Musica Sacra concert series organised by Robert Oliver over the last ten years. Only two of the items, both vocal, could be considered well-known. As the name implies, the Trust intends to promote historical dance and other art forms, not only music.

The performers were all well-seasoned at their crafts – experts, in fact – and all have been busy lately in other performances. The novel feature of this concert was the fact that Gregory Squire had no fewer than four fiddles with him, given four different tunings. Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber von Bibern (ennobled for his services to music) was a 17th century composer who delighted in employing scordatura; i.e. the re-tuning of the violin. This was not in order to give the violinist a headache, in having to play the notes on the page in different places on the fingerboard from usual. The technique of tuning the strings differently, and in different arrangements, alters the sound markedly.

The three of Biber’s sonatas played in this performance each employed a different tuning. The remaining works Squire played in, in a very busy evening for him, used the standard tuning, hence the fourth violin. Biber is not often heard – although I have an LP from the early 1980s with Peter Walls’s Baroque Players playing a piece of his, and as I write this review, RNZ Concert is broadcasting ‘Chamber Music from Lincoln Center’, in which a Biber violin sonata is being performed, one in which the violin imitates animals and birds. Biber was considered a violin virtuoso in his day; Gregory Squire can’t be far behind.

Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians says of Biber’s use of this technique: “Bringing some of the strings closer together in pitch makes possible or simplifies the production of the most resonant intervals and chords… The result is a smoother, more easily flowing, richer-sounding polyphony than is possible with conventional tuning. … Mystery Sonata no.11… was planned for a highly resonant performance in octaves, each octave stopped across two strings by one finger.” The audience experienced these effects.

The programme opened with Douglas Mews playing the harpsichord in the Böhm work. This, one of two items on the programme once attributed to J.S. Bach, was no rote reproduction of the notes on the page, nor ‘fork on a bird-cage’ sound. It was an attractive work, sensitively performed.

Bach genuinely composed the next item, ‘Komm, süsses kreuz’, a bass aria from St. Matthew Passion. David Morriss sang, with continuo of viola da gamba and organ. While the recitative lacked a little in ensemble and tone, the aria developed well. It was sung with feeling and evenness of tone throughout its quite wide range. I found the organ, using flutes only, a little light behind the voice and viola da gamba.

Next came the first of the Biber sonatas – ‘The Crucifixion’ Sonata X. The harpsichord accompaniment was not very audible, but perhaps it was sufficient for a continuo part. This was very skilled violin playing. The sonata became fast, and was rhythmically exciting. The difficulties of playing while reading notes different from the usual for the various strings were certainly not obvious. The sonata featured double-stopping, and its ending was fast and furious, featuring the earthquake that followed Christ’s crucifixion in a most evocative manner.

Gottfried Henrich Stötzel is now credited with the composition of the well-known aria long attributed to Bach: ‘Bist du bei mir’. (All the composers in the concert except Stötzel and Krieger were B’s.) Soprano Pepe Becker sang it, with organ and viola da gamba continuo. It was sung simply, in a straightforward manner, quite beautifully. Here again, I found the organ a little quiet in the continuo, compared with the sound of the viola da gamba.

Biber returned in the form of ‘The Resurrection’ Sonata XI. The effect of the re-tuning was more obvious here than in the first sonata performed. There was a marked contrast between the mellow lower strings and the more strident upper strings. The slow, discreet organ accompaniment consisted of seldom-changing chords, i.e. long pedal points (not literally; the small chamber organ is played with the performer standing.)

The viola da gamba begins the second movement with a chorale melody, on which the violin then plays variations, interspersed with repetitions of the chorale (Easter hymn ‘Surrexit Christus hodie’) itself, in octaves, possible because of the re-tuning (see note from Grove, above). Again there was very intricate work for the violin, which was expertly executed. A surprise towards the end was all the performers (except the very occupied violinist) singing the chorale. In the final iteration of the chorale there were delightful key modulations.

Bruhns’s cantata Mein herz ist bereit for bass, violin and continuo was very varied in the treatment of the words, though I thought David Morriss’s pronunciation of ‘bereit’ a little strange. However, this was a piece making great demands on the singer, to which he rose admirably. The words in the first verse which translate as “I will sing and give praise” were very ornate; the composer certainly had a very competent singer in mind. The next verse began “Awake, my glory:. Indeed, anyone would have to wake with the amount of sound declaimed rapidly in one’s ear! The bass’s sound filled the church (which is more than the audience did).

The third verse, “I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people”, featured a lovely violin part (presumably with standard tuning). The final voice, “Be thou exalted, O God”, was followed by very decorated “Amen’; the whole well sung by Morriss. In this work, I felt the balance was better between the instruments. The work was notable for great sound, rhythm and accuracy. The organ came into its own, but was never too much for the other performers.

After the interval came a work by Buxtehude, that Danish-German composer beloved of organists: Singet dem Herrn. Pepe Becker sang, with violin and continuo. The joyous first verse was preceded by a lovely violin introduction. The voice part began low in the register, which we don’t associate with Pepe Becker; she revealed a fine, rich tone. From there, soon there were florid phrases in the upper register, skilfully managed, as always, while the violin part was very exciting.

Then there was a slower calmer pace with lilting passages in the second verse to the words “The Lord declared his salvation”. More vocal gymnastics followed, leading to a lively final verse.

The third Biber piece was ‘The Assumption of Mary into Heaven’ Sonata XIV. Gregory Squire used yet another of his four violins. A wonderful, full-toned opening with the continuo revealed a very rhythmic dance-like piece in ¾ time, lots of finger-work for the violinist, incorporating left-hand and right-hand pizzicato and a ground bass from the viola da gamba, also incorporating a pizzicato section, and variations for violin and organ over the ground. After a slow beginning, more and more rapid ornamentation gave this item the ‘wow’ factor.

Finally, a cantata from little-known Johann Philipp Krieger (1649-1725), only a few of whose many works survive: ‘Ihr Christen, freuet euch’. This time, both singers were involved, with violin and continuo. Some verses were solo, while others were duets.

In the fourth verse, David Morriss’s excellent low notes were rich. Violin obbligato passages were ecstatic, especially in the instrumental interlude between verses 4 and 5, the former being a delightful duet. The fifth and final verse featured great purity of the harmonies and melodic lines, and decoration of the latter on the violin and viola da gamba during the pause after the vocal lines, and before and during the Amen, which brought this charming work to a conclusion.

Concert-goers were presented with an attractively produced printed programme. I’m not sure why this concert was timed to start so early; perhaps there were logistical reasons. As someone who lives some way out of town, I find it a challenge to the stomach to have to rush to a concert in the city that commences before 8pm.

It was a great evening of highly professional performances of difficult and mostly rare baroque music, with a couple of more familiar arias thrown in.

Michael Fulcher’s farewell with organ recital at St Paul’s Cathedral

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Great Music 2011: Organ of St Paul’s Cathedral

Franck: Chorale No 1; Jongen: Chant de mai; Henri Mulet: Carillon-Sortie; Vivaldi (arr. Bach): Concerto in A minor, BWV593; Vierne: Carillon de Westminster

Michael Fulcher (organ)

Cathedral of Saint Paul, Wellington

Friday 13 May 12.45pm

Michael Fulcher is moving on after seven years as Organist and Director of Music at the Anglican Cathedral. He is returning to Brisbane to take up the position of Organist at St John’s Cathedral, where he started as a choir boy.

Such an occasion might have called up a few war-horses like the Widor Toccata, Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor or one of the Sorties by Lefébure-Wely. But the audience’s taste was flattered by less familiar, yet just as interesting music,

It opened with the first of Franck’s Chorales, one of the three that were his last compositions in the year of his death. Fulcher drew attention to the use of a new rank of stops in the Swell organ, the Vox humana, which he used for the second theme of the Choral, varied by opening and closing the Swell box. It was a gift of the National Carillonist, Timothy Hurd.

The performance was distinguished by his careful increasing of the richness of registrations, through what are basically variations on two related themes. Much of Franck’s organ music doesn’t reveal all its secrets at once, yet this performance more than suggested the rewards that come with familiarity.

Belgian composer Joseph Jongen was born in Liège, like Franck, and organ pieces form an interesting part of his output. His little piece¸ Chant de mai, was subtle in expression, and its performance maintained a clarity that allowed the later emergence of a romantic melody on the pedals to be enjoyed.

There was just one departure from the Franco-Belgian organ school: Bach’s arrangement of one of Vivaldi’s concertos for two violins, which became BWV 593. It was handled with a discretion proper to music of the period, on predominantly diapason stops, not too highly coloured, and Bach’s adaptation plus Fulcher’s comprehensive mastery of this organ offered all the evidence needed for its value in the Baroque repertoire.

Two carillons completed the programme. The first, Carillon-Sortie, by the somewhat obscure composer Henri Mulet, proved energetic, with many voices tending to tumble over each other in canon. It was a striking vehicle through which Fulcher’s virtuosity at the instrument could be heard without empty display. The last piece was the familiar Carillon de Westminster by Louis Vierne – based of course on the famous chimes. Its rather unvarying attachment to that theme hardly enhances its enjoyment by other than listeners of rudimentary experience in this kind of music in spite of its sophisticated harmonies and careful counterpoint. Nevertheless, it made for an arresting conclusion to this farewell recital.

In response to quite heart-felt applause from a largish audience, we had an encore in the form of a, for me, unknown piece by Jean Langlais (another blind organist) called Pasticcio from Ten Organ Pieces: almost comical sounds in dancing, dotted rhythms, that created towards the end, real or illusory echo effects. From what I have heard of Langlais in the past, I had not expected that he might have been given to such an overtly entertaining showpiece.

Michael Fulcher has made a major contribution to music in Wellington, both through his Cathedral activities, and as musical director of the Orpheus Choir, and he will be greatly missed. There is general interest in the selection of his successor.

Made in New Zealand – Enchanted Islands

Posted on by Peter Mechen

MADE IN NEW ZEALAND – ENCHANTED ISLANDS

Music by Ross HARRIS, Anthony RITCHIE, Douglas LIBURN, Lyell CRESSWELL,
Gareth FARR, Chris GENDALL

Stephen de Pledge (piano)
Kirsten Morrell (soprano)
Tama Waipara (baritone)
Hamish McKeich (conductor)
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Wellington Town Hall

Friday 13th May 2011

In a real sense this concert epitomized what a “Made in New Zealand ” concert ought to be about – presenting its listeners with plenty of excitement, frustration, argument and satisfaction, putting life alongside art in fine style. Everybody will, of course, make up their own cocktail mix from the aforementioned ingredients when recalling the concert and its afterglow (some will add other things, while others will make do with less, or even with none of the above). But I thought there was a palpable buzz within the audience at the start (a peculiarly “Town Hall” phenomenon, it seems to me) followed by plenty of effervescent discussion at the interval in the wake of a first half of colourful composition and splendid music-making. Even at this stage of the proceedings there was excitement aplenty, all that one could wish of a contemporary music concert’s effect upon an audience.

As for the frustration, I’m sure there will be people, like myself, with their own list of favorite, neglected pieces of New Zealand music hoping for the same to be given an airing via these concerts – perhaps next year, or the year after? It could be that we listeners don’t drop enough hints to those who are the musicmongers that sort out the catch brought in by those trawling the creative currents in this particular ocean – maybe I need to tell twenty times the number of people I already do how much of a crime I think it is that some of our “founding symphonic documents” are unaccountably ignored by our orchestras year after year after year. If I mention David Farquhar’s First Symphony in particular (no public performance since its premiere in 1959!), I’m equally determined that I’ll be fair and report back to these pages any response, written or verbal, to my piece of opinionated partiality, so that others can have their say as well about what they might like to hear in subsequent “Made in New Zealand” concerts.

I mentioned argument as an ingredient of the occasion; and conversations at the concert’s end seemed to have a different tenor to those during the interval, largely thanks to Gareth Farr’s Sonnets, settings for two singers and orchestra of a number of Shakespeare’s eponymous poems. This work divided opinions I heard into not just two camps, but a number of sub-groups, with discussions freely flowing. For myself, I thought the piece didn’t work well within the normal concert-hall setting that was imposed upon it – as if the musicians were trying to perform something like Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Given that both singers (soprano Kirsten Morrell and baritone Tama Waipara) were “miked” because neither seemed to have the vocal “heft” to compete acoustically with the orchestra, I thought the concert’s organizers ought to have taken their cue accordingly and emphasized the piece’s rather more mainstream popular-music-genre. I would have liked the singers not only in their own performing-space away from the conductor and players (even perhaps individually separated for antiphonal/visual effect and spotlit with appropriate lighting), but also have them given properly-modulated microphones that would enable their voices to be actually HEARD. With the precedent in mind of last year’s “Made in New Zealand” concert with its spectacular, if somewhat ill-conceived, visual imagery accompanying most of the music, I would have imagined such a recreation to be perfectly possible this time round.

What’s ultimately most important, however, is the degree of satisfaction given by the music and the music-making – and despite these diverse ingredients, or perhaps because of them, the concert gave to us the feeling as though it had indeed satisfied by the end. It started with a wonderful wallop, courtesy of Ross Harris’s Fanfare for the Southern Cross, a work for brass ensemble whose sombre, almost Brucknerian opening blossomed spectacularly into a brilliant toccata-like display. The music seemed to scintillate like a comet crossing the night sky, before disappearing, much too quickly! – would that it were a prelude to a suite of movements, or something, so that our pleasure at the composer’s exuberant mastery of those radiant textures could be enjoyed for longer!

I took great pleasure also in Anthony Ritchie’s A Shakespeare Overture, a thirty year-old work from the composer’s student days receiving its first-ever performance (with revised touches). I found myself admiring the young Ritchie’s exuberant orchestral writing and sure sense of balance between passages of chamber-like delicacy and piquancy, often involving winds, which were set against more heavily-scored strings-and-brass episodes, occasionally rhythmically spiked with percussion. My notes contain phrases such as “colourful scoring”, “energizing percussion”, and “beautifully dovetailed motifs leading the ear onwards” – besides such detail, I had a sure sense of the piece being well-organized throughout, so that the orchestral forces at the end were able to unerringly build things towards a thrilling climax, a grand exposition of sounds. In all, I thought the piece a worthy addition to this country’s home-grown concert repertoire.

Has any performance of Lilburn’s Four Canzonas featured more beautiful string-playing than what we heard on this occasion? – I doubt it, even if I thought Hamish McKeich’s tempo for the Willow Song (Canzona No.2) a tad quick, Donald Armstrong’s lovely solo playing for me not quite “laden” enough with foreboding at this speed, as befits the work’s original inspiration.I was struck anew by how Sibelius-like the third Canzona sounded, like something out of the latter’s Rakastava, certainly Nordic, rather than Shakespearean in atmosphere. But these were certainly very beautiful performances.

With Lyell Cresswell’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (significantly, not entitled a “piano concerto”) the evening’s music-making lurched well-and-truly into relatively unknown territories, soundscapes of the heart and soul, it seemed, considering the circumstances under which the music was written. The work was commissioned by that generous patron of the local arts, Jack Richards, for pianist Stephen de Pledge to play at this concert, so that the performance was a world premiere. It seemed that Lyell Cresswell wanted more of a concertante than a concerto-like work, and this was shown in the extent to which the orchestra reflected and extended what the piano did, very much a concourse rather than a contest.

The work commemorates the memory of a friend of the composer, who actually died while the piece was being written, but whose terminal illness overshadowed the work’s entire conception. No wonder, then, at the extent to which both piano and orchestra gave voice during the work to harsh, jagged outpourings, in grief and anger at a friendship’s loss. Even so, Cresswell found plenty of scope for expression of episodes whose eerie beauty astonished the ear, by way of both recollection of times past and resigned reflection in the wake of death. The work’s seven movements had an intensely volatile quality, indicating parallel strands of feelings and instincts as likely to be in violent opposition as in an uneasy accord. I scribbled phrases like “jagged defiance” and “tolling pulses” while listening to the opening Funeral March, then “bird-song piano figurations” and “ethereal string ambiences” during Adagio 1. And I noted the savagery of the brass attack and the dominance of the heavy artillery throughout Scherzo 1, all the while marvelling at the compositional virtuosity of Cresswell’s writing for orchestra.

The work’s centre, Addolorato (meaning upset or distressed), was the work’s emotional core, expressing both quiet and violent grief by turns, while throughout the following movements variants of the relationship between head and heart were further explored – a characteristic contouring might feature the piano playing the visionary, creating a rapt, magical atmosphere more of the mind than of the world, echoed by Ligeti-like string chords before being splintered by vitriolic brass with toccata-like textures that curdle without warning into amazing air-raid siren-like sonorities. Some of the orchestral figurations might well have owed something to Messiaen’s similarly visionary sound-worlds, but in this case one felt the tones and textures were exploring a very real emotional context of their own. Again my scribblings attempted to capture aspects of this incredible set of soundscapes – “maniacal instrumental energies in a ferment”, or “brass cackle like hooting harridans”, or even “strings become swirling stinging bees”…..all of which hopefully serves to give the reader an idea of the range and scope of sounds created by the piano/orchestra combination. The final presto, though flung at the listener almost peremptorily was able to link briefly with the opening in the midst of its toccata-like tagging, indicating (as the program notes suggested) that from questions can come still more questions rather than answers.

Wanting to earn my keep as a critic, naturally enough, but struggling to offer any comment of sufficient worth in a critical sense about the piece, all I could think of saying was that the music did seem to me to begin to overwork the material towards the end – but then the composer would confound my reaction by producing yet another magical sonority which opened up a fresh vista of wonderment – and despite my occasional instinctive feeling of there having been enough said, I couldn’t bear the thought of any of those sounds being excised! I hope someone moves to have Stephen de Pledge record this work before too long, so that we can get to know it by hearing it often and gradually unlocking at least some of its secrets. I thought it a very great work indeed.

As for Gareth Farr’s Sonnets, somebody I spoke with briefly at the end of the concert said that the performance of the Farr work seemed to them a pale shadow of the music’s previous incarnation as The Holy Fire of Love, which on that occasion featured the vocal talents of Rima Te Wiata and Kristian Lavercombe. It would seem from the reviews I’ve read that these singer/actors projected the songs rather more successfully and theatrically than happened with the fatally straight-laced quasi-classical treatment accorded the words and music on Friday evening in the Wellington Town Hall. To me it seemed all so wrong-headedly presented, to the extent that to comment any further would, I think, be to do the composer and his music an injustice.

Finally in the concert, one of the country’s most exciting younger composers, Chris Gendall, was represented with a work that in a sense was a foil for the Lyell Cresswell concerto in the first half – this later work Gravitas was tough, uncompromising and unyielding, abstracting orchestral sounds and their meaning where the older composer sought direct, straight-from-the-shoulder emotional engagement from his audience with his instrumental tones. I thought that Gendall had written some kind of Etude for Orchestra here, an idea emphasized by the composer’s own note about the music, describing the relationship between a piece’s construction and its most audible elements. Less cerebrally-minded listeners, such as myself, would probably register and enjoy more readily the sharply visceral aspects of the music, its cutting-edge accents set against both deep-throated sonorities and troughs of pregnant silence, its obsessiveness with repeated notes and an interval of a third, and the feeling of these and other notes eventually breaking free of such hegemony and enjoying episodes such as “chaos of delight” pizzicati passages and volatile hide-and-seek scamperings across the orchestral blocks.

As with many a “tough” piece I’ve come to enjoy, it’s necessary to live with the music for a while and get used to the sharp edges – I hope Chris Gendall’s piece gets its chance to be heard rather more often than has been the case with other works I’ve mentioned from time to time, one of them (David Farquhar’s First Symphony) earlier in this review. Gravitas certainly played its part in helping to make the occasion one of the best and most interesting “Made in New Zealand” Concerts of recent years. All credit to conductor Hamish McKeich, to pianist Stephen de Pledge, and to the orchestral musicians, for giving us such magnificent playing throughout the evening.

Kapiti Chorale’s Homage to Haydn

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Haydn: Little Organ Mass 
Excerpts from The Creation and The Seasons
Pieces for Clockwork Organ

The Kapiti Chorale, Marie Brown (conductor), Peter Averi (organ), Janey MacKenzie (soprano), John Beaglehole (tenor), Roger Wilson (bass)

St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Paraparaumu

Saturday, 7 May 2011, 2.30pm

While Haydn is an extremely important composer (1732-1809) and wrote in a great variety of genres, an entire concert of his music, not being one of his oratorios or major masses, may appear a little too much of one man’s music in a single performance.

However, the insertion of the delightful Six little pieces for flute clock lessened the effect of sameness.

The Kapiti Chorale must be the best choir around, certainly of its size, for watching their conductor. The opening of the Little Organ Mass was exemplary from this point of view. Most of the singers appeared to have memorised the opening. However, the singers started a little flat in intonation, and this unfortunate characteristic recurred rather too often through the performance. Not seriously flat, but flat nonetheless, especially the soprano section. The church has a lively acoustic, which makes it difficult to hide any inaccuracies.

The indomitable Peter Averi, this year celebrating 65 years since he first began playing the organ for church services, accompanied throughout, as well as playing a solo work. However, even he could not make a digital organ sound like a pipe organ plus string quartet, the combination for which this Mass was written, either in volume or tone. The bass of this instrument seemed particularly dull.

However, there was good sound from the choir, especially from the women. It must be said that a choir composed primarily of seniors does not achieve the brilliance or firmness of tone compared with one having a greater proportion of members of younger years. That said, the choir does very well. The problem for many choirs, of being weak in tenor numbers (and therefore sound) is not totally redeemed by using women. This does not dispose of the problem, since the register and tone are so different. Nevertheless, they were not totally overcome by the other parts by any means.

This being a short Mass, there was not a lot of repetition of the words; the lovely Benedictus solo for soprano was the only movement with an extended setting. This was beautifully sung by Janey MacKenzie, with warm, assured tone and great clarity, light and shade, and graceful legato. The movement featured an attractive organ solo.

The choir entry sounded rather feeble after such a superb solo. While the forte and mezzo-forte singing was fine, the piano singing was poor; final s’s were all over the place. The altos had the most consistent good tone, but often they could not be heard.

Peter Averi was able to come into his own in the next item: Six little pieces for flute clock, a mechanism made for large clocks by one Joseph Niemecz, an inventor who was librarian at the Esterházy court in 1780. Since the original musical device would have been small, it was well within the capabilities of the digital organ.

The opening allegretto was played with detached notes (as were other movements), appropriately for this music. The second, entitled ‘Gossiping over Coffee’ was very realistic. The fourth, ‘The Quail’ featured high 2-foot sounds replicating the squeaky call of these birds quite delightfully. The last of the six, the March, seemed as amusing a send-up or joke as the other movements. The whole work was utterly charming, and given as good a performance as was possible: this, the digital organ could do, especially in the hands of someone like Peter Averi.

Fittingly, the following item was about birds – the Air from The Creation with the words opening ‘On mighty pens uplifted soars the eagle aloft’ (remember, the first writing pens were quills from birds), and continuing on to characterise the lark, the dove, and the nightingale. Haydn did the most enchanting word-painting in sound of these birds, as of the quail. Janey MacKenzie’s solo here showed that she could make the most of this feature. This, and all the choral items, was sung in English.

The chorus and trio from The Seasons echoed the creation of the world in its words about the plenty of the earth. I felt that the choir knew this music better than they did some of the Little Organ Mass. The three soloists were well-balanced, and their words very clear. Clear too, was Marie Brown’s conducting, and this piece was successful. Throughout the concert, rhythm and tempi were fine.

Further excerpts from The Creation made up the second half. It was good to have the printed words and not have to rely on their being always audible, especially in contrapuntal passages.

Roger Wilson began proceedings solemnly and portentously in declaring the creation of the heaven and the earth. The dramatic chorus that followed contains unison passages which, unfortunately, were not always in unanimity. However, the feeling of drama came over well.

John Beaglehole was thrilling in his first recitative, about the division of light from darkness. His aria was well sung, but there was insufficient phrasing or expression. The choir sang the following chorus very well. The demanding aria ‘The marvellous work’ was exquisitely rendered by Janey MacKenzie.

Roger Wilson was very characterful in the bass recitative and aria that followed, concerning the land and sea. His singing was expressive, clarity of words and pianissimo and especially his lower notes, admirable. The organ part depicted the foaming billows, the mountains, plains and brooks with glorious, and amusing, detail.

The well-known soprano solo ‘With verdure clad’, preceded by its recitative, was most enjoyable. The high notes were refined; the repeat tastefully and appropriately ornamented.

After a jubilant chorus, in which the sopranos sang very well, two bass recitatives and aria aroused amusement with their depiction of the creation of the lion, the tiger, and especially the ‘nimble stag’ with ‘his branching head’, suitably given a fugal treatment in the accompaniment. When it came to the flocks, Wilson made sure they bleated. As for the worm, its ‘sinuous trace’ was slowly revealed on the organ and in the bass’s voice, including what must surely be Roger Wilson’s lowest note.

He revealed also some lovely higher notes in the aria, which was sung with clarity and eloquence. Here, the music caused a smile as the phrase ‘By heavy beasts the ground is trod’ was portrayed.

Tenor recitative and aria followed, telling of the creation of humankind. The captivating ‘In native worth and honour clad’ was sung very competently, but there was a lack character to it, despite some graceful expression and attractive tone.

A final recitative from the bass led to the triumphant chorus ‘Achieved is the glorious work’, sung splendidly by the choir, with the organ at full blast.

The audience greeted this with enthusiasm; the choir should be pleased with its efforts, despite my reservations.

Royal New Zealand Ballet puts Stravinsky in the limelight

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Of the various anniversaries this year (Liszt’s and Ambroise Thomas’s 200th birthdays, Menotti’s centenary, Mahler’s death in 1911, premiere of Der Rosenkavalier, the King James Bible, poet and music critic Théophile Gautier’s bicentenary, and much else*) the premiere of Stravinsky’s Petrushka deserves note. (see performance details in ‘Coming Events’).

It was his second ballet for Diaghilev – the first was The Firebird in 1910 – and the first in which, it is generally accepted, Stravinsky evidenced a real individuality. It was premiered on 13 June 1911 at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. The Rite of Spring followed in May 1913, at the newly built Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (not on the Champs-Élysées); and it was that of course, via the riot and accompanying scandal, that made Stravinsky the most famous living composer (well, almost).

The Royal New Zealand Ballet is presenting a triple bill of Stravinsky ballets in their May/June season which opens in Wellington on the week-end 20-22 May. It then progresses through Auckland, Napier, finishing in Invercargill on 9 June. The damage to Christchurch’s Theatre Royal means the loss of those earlier-planned performances.

The three ballets:

Satisfied with Great Success – Scènes de ballet

The three ballets include two of the great three. Missing is The Firebird; in its place, as it were, is a little rarity which is disguised behind the title ‘Satisfied with Great Success’. The ballet in question is an abstract work simply entitled Scènes de ballet. It was commissioned by Billy Rose for a Broadway revue called The Seven Lively Arts, premiered at the Ziegfeld Theatre on 7 December 1944. It was choreographed by Anton Dolin who, with Alicia Markova, danced the leading roles. .

Rose used only parts of the score that Stravinsky composed. After the preview in Philadelphia, Rose famously telegraphed Stravinsky as follows:

“YOUR MUSIC GREAT SUCCESS STOP COULD BE SENSATIONAL SUCCESS IF YOU WOULD AUTHORISE ROBERT RUSSELL BENNETT RETOUCH ORCHESTRATION STOP BENNETT ORCHESTRATES EVEN THE WORKS OF COLE PORTER.” To which Stravinsky replied: “SATISFIED WITH GREAT SUCCESS.”

Of a trumpet tune in the Pas de deux, Lawrence Morton writes: “Remove from it the marks of genius, make it four-square, give it a Cole Porter lyric, and you have a genuine pop-tune.”

Three later choreographers have been involved with the music: Frederick Ashton choreographed it afresh for Sadler’s Wells Ballet, premiered on 11 February 1948 at Covent Garden. It was the first performance of all the music Stravinsky has written. There, it was very much a showcase for Margot Fonteyn and Michael Somes.

The next production was to choreography by John Taras, who was ballet master at New York City Ballet, in the context of a now famous Stravinsky Festival following the composer’s death in 1971, premiered on 22 June 1972 in the New York State Theatre in the Lincoln Centre. , and Christopher Wheeldon provided new choreography for the School of American Ballet by New York City Ballet, premiered on 19 May 1999..

The music is open to limitless interpretations as it was conceived by Stravinsky without plot or any concept apart from ideas about certain dancers representing certain instruments. He wrote: The parts [eleven of them] follow each other as in a sonata or a symphony in contrasts or similarities”. It was conceived for two principals and a corps de ballet of four boys and two girls.

Here we have a (at least) fourth version, by expatriate New Zealander Cameron McMillan (no relation of course to the great choreographer Kenneth MacMillan).

According to the promotion, “the ballet unfolds in a series of electrically-charged scenes played out before 50-year-old film footage of Stravinsky in New Zealand”. But the sound will not be there as the accompanying soundtrack is apparently not good. The Wellington Orchestra will perform.

Stravinsky’s famous tour to New Zealand in 1961, at which he conducted just one concert, in Wellington, is one of the high points in the orchestra’s and New Zealand’s cultural history. With him was his associate/amanuensis/conductor/musicologist, Robert Craft. Craft conducted the first half, comprising the suite, Pulcinella, the Symphony in Three Movements and Apollon Musagète. Stravinsky conducted in the second half, two sections from The Firebird – the Lullaby and Finale (I was there).

Joy Tonks’s history of the NZSO records the remark Stravinsky made later to NZBS (before the name changed from NZ Broadcasting Service to Corporation) Head of Music Malcolm Rickard: ‘Why was I given only one programme to play with this fine orchestra?” “Because, Maestro”, said Rickard, “that was all you were prepared to do”.

“But I didn’t know they are so good”, Stravinksy replied and looked reproachful.

However, The Firebird is not one of the ballets in the RNZB’s current season.

Petrushka

The evening begins however with Petrushka. (The common spelling, Pétrouchka, is the French version. As such it should have an acute accent on the ‘é’). Petrushka is the exact English transliteration of the Russian (Петрушка).

Wikipedia records the following comments about its reception in Paris and elsewhere: “While the production was generally a success, some members of the audience were taken aback by music that was brittle, caustic, and at times even grotesque. One critic approached Diaghilev after a dress rehearsal and said, “And it was to hear this that you invited us?” Diaghilev succinctly replied, “Exactly”. When Diaghilev and his company traveled to Vienna in 1913, the Vienna Philharmonic initially refused to play the score, deriding Petrushka as ‘schmutzige Musik’ (“dirty music”): a foretaste of Hitler’s treatment of much contemporary art and music as ’Entartete Kunst’ – ‘degenerate art’.

Sir Jon Trimmer performs the role of Puppet Master, but, in the words of the publicity, the person pulling the strings behind the scenes in Russell Kerr who has a 52-year relationship with the company – in other words he started during the company’s first decade of existence; and he first prepared Petrushka for the then New Zealand Ballet in 1964, having worked with the London Festival Ballet where he learned the repertoire alongside the masters who created the ballets of Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes. Petrushka was one of them.

Kerr and other dancers from London Festival Ballet were thus able to ensure that the choreography was faithful to the 1911 original. His role now is the same.

Milagros – The Rite of Spring

Le sacre du printemps – The Rite of Spring – was the ballet, and the music itself, that really made Stravinsky the most famous composer of his day, a position he retained throughout his life, though it is fair to say that his place in 20th century music has altered in the last forty years with the emergence of certain younger composers of comparable stature (Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Hindemith, Berg, Messiaen, Britten, Martinů, Lutoslawski…) and the reappraisal of others such as Schoenberg, Rachmaninov, Sibelius and Richard Strauss.

Here the company is reviving its 2003 production of their own commissioning of an account of the ballet by Venezualan dancer and choreographer Javier de Frutos, called Milagros, which employs a rare piano roll version of the score performed by Stravinsky himself.

According to dance commentator Anne-Marie Daly-Peoples writing in 2005, “De Frutos has brought accolades to the Royal New Zealand Ballet. Milagros was first staged by the company in 2003 recently earning itself a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for Best New Dance Production and Best Choreography (Modern) at Britain’s Critic’s Circle Dance Awards.

“Wherever Milagros may be performed, no doubt they will be aware that it was created for the Royal New Zealand Ballet Company. That is its legacy, performed for the first time here in Wellington.”

Versions by other choreographers are to be expected since Nijinsky’s original choreography was not properly preserved and has been reconstructed by various hands since. One of the least happy was that used in Disney’s Fantasia where the music was re-ordered and changed and, according to Stravinsky, execrably played. He felt that the animations, on the other hand, had understood the work.

Wikipedia has a good account of the origins, transformations both musically and choreographically, of the Rite. We quote:

“Stravinsky made two arrangements of The Rite of Spring for player piano. In late 1915, the Aeolian Company in London asked for permission to issue both the Rite and Petrushka on piano roll, and by early 1918 the composer had made several sketches to be used in the more complex passages. Owing to the war, the work of transcribing the rolls dragged on, and only the Rite was ever issued by Aeolian on standard pianola rolls, and this not until late 1921, by which time Stravinsky had completed a far more comprehensive re-composition of the work for the Pleyela, the brand of player piano manufactured by Pleyel in Paris.

“The Pleyela/pianola master rolls were not recorded using a “recording piano” played by a performer in real time, but were instead true “pianola” rolls, cut mechanically/graphically, free from any constraints imposed by the ability of the player. Musicologist William Malloch observed that on these rolls the final section is at a considerably faster tempo, relative to the rest of the composition, than in the generally used orchestral score.

“Malloch opines—based upon this evidence, the composer’s revisions of the orchestral score, and a limited number of very early phonographic recordings of performances—that Stravinsky originally intended the faster tempo, but found that significant numbers of orchestral players at the time were simply unable to manage the rhythmic complexity of the section at that tempo, and accordingly revised the tempo markings. The Benjamin Zander recording [with the Boston Symphony Orchestra] includes both the pianola version, and the orchestral Rite with the faster tempo restored to the final section. A low-fidelity recording is available.”

Even before the orchestral score was finished Stravinsky wrote a four hands version which he and Debussy played. It was in this form that the ballet was first published, the full orchestral score not being published till 1921.

All in all, the Royal New Zealand Ballet looks set to present an extremely interesting programme that both honours the composer and presents imaginative versions of two supreme masterpieces, plus a revival of the less familiar Scènes de Ballet.

*A few other opera centenaries: Saint-Saëns’s Déjanire, Ravel’s L’heure Espagnole, Debussy’s Le martyre de Saint Sébastien, Mascagni’s Isabeau, Zandonai’s Conchita, Wolf-Ferrari’s The Jewels of the Madonna


Puertas String Quartet in Hunter Council room recital

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Haydn: Quartet in G, Op.77 no.2
Zemlinsky: Quartet no.4, Op.25
Keith Statham: Romance no.1
Beethoven: Quartet in E flat, Op.127

Puertas Quartet (Tom Norris and Ellie Fagg, violins; Julia McCarthy, viola; Andrew Joyce, cello)

Hunter Council Chamber, Victoria University

Thursday 5 May, 7.30pm

Despite the clash with the Hutt Valley Chamber Music Society concert and the fact that the concert was not advertised in that day’s Dominion Post Arts Supplement, a good-sized audience greeted this English-New Zealand string quartet. The audience was seated facing the east window in the Council chamber rather than north or west, as I have experienced before, so no-one was seated in the east gallery. Whether this had any acoustic effect I do not know, but certainly the sound was first-class.

The four young musicians served up a meaty programme; perhaps the dessert was the delightful Romance.

The Puertas players have not been together for very long (I think ‘worked together in different guises over the past 15 years’ in the printed programme must be a mistake for ‘past five years’).

Tom Norris is co-principal second violin with the London Symphony Orchestra, with which his wife Ellie Fagg is trialling as a violinist. Andrew Joyce was recently appointed principal cello with the NZSO and his wife Julia McCarthy is on trial for that orchestra’s principal viola position.  They are graduates of the Royal College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and have regularly performed with London orchestras. They formed their quartet in 2009. As a result of reaching the semi-finals of the international Bordeaux String Quartet Competition in 2009, they have performed on board a luxury cruise ship, and around the United Kingdom.

One commentator has said that Haydn ‘packed all his experience and skill into this, his last complete string quartet’. Certainly it is full of charm as well as skill. The first movement begins slowly, then becomes a bright and vigorous allegro. They were very much in accord with each other – blended tone, absolute accuracy of timing and nuances, understanding of a mutual approach to the music.

A presto minuet followed, with a slower, even romantic chorale-like trio, where the first violin melody was accompanied by the others. Ellie Fagg, who was first violinist for this work, exhibited a beautiful warm tone here.

The third movement andante began with first violin and cello only, playing a stately dance. This was very resonant, but delicacy was there when required. The first variation had the second violin playing the melody, with the first violin adding decoration, the viola and cello adding the harmony, then following up with the melody carried sonorously below. Further variations followed. The fourth movement was a delightful fast and light-hearted piece, revealing Haydn’s humour.

It was played with verve, unanimity and commitment. The constant fast passage work was always together and bang in tune. Through the whole concert I noticed perhaps two bung notes.

Prior to the Zemlinsky quartet, cellist Andrew Joyce spoke to the audience, explaining a little about the composer and the work. He remarked that it was amazing to think that Zemlinsky was composing at the same time as Brahms (initially), and Mahler, since his musical language was so different from both. He prefigured Schoenberg, whom he taught (and Schoenberg married Zemlinsky’s sister). Joyce said that the composer’s best music was in his quartets.

This quartet was written in 1936; the composers dates are 1871-1942. So it is not surprising that there are hints of Schoenberg here. Joyce explained the structure of the work: a suite of three pairs of movements, rather than the standard quartet structure.

The adagio first section, Praeludium, opened with a chorale which turned into a funeral oration. This was followed by Burleske (vivace) which featured impressive, rapid pizzicato on first violin, this time played by Tom Norris (the previous movement gave the cello plenty of pizzicato). Later, the second violin took it up, echoing the first violin. Spicato followed.

The next pair (second movement) started with an Adagietto, at first in unison. This had a sombre feel, morphing into wistful, tender longing. The second part, an allegretto Intermezzo was a theme and variations, that ended with rapid phrases. Its partner, a slow Barcarole, featured unusual harmonies and a Hungarian feel to the melodies. The first violin part was dominant. A lovely tone was created in a section with muted viola. A beautiful cello solo was rich and reverberant, full of expressive timbres, that reached anguish. Here, at times, all the instruments were muted except the cello, which served to deepen the anguish. Disturbing emotions were expressed. The last few pages were of this extensive and expressive section were fast and furious. The finale was frantic, vigorous and dissonant.

Zemlinsky is little heard of today; perhaps the fact that I found his music didn’t move me as does that of Mahler or Brahms has something to do with it. Nevertheless, this difficult music was not merely competently played, but inspiringly performed. A commentator has said that Zemlinsky did not compromise truth for the sake of beauty.

After the interval, a short Romance by Keith Statham an English-born New Zealand resident and friend of the quartet members was played, introduced with remarks from Andrew Joyce. Ellie Fagg led the quartet again. There were whiffs of Mendelssohn, Dvořák, Tchaikovsky, and especially Elgar and the English composers. This was a simple romantic piece, but with rich harmonies. It was played smoothly, with plenty of subtlety; a charming work.

Beethoven was represented by his late quartet, Op.127. The allegro started strongly, and continued with much rhythmic emphasis. The players made a big sound, more so than in the other works. The sombre adagio featured a fine violin solo from leader Tom Norris; in effect, a decorated chorale. Then we were into bouncy rhythms with intertwining parts between the two violins and accompaniment from the lower instruments. This was all done with grace, warm tone and faultless rhythm and intonation. More solo work allowed the first violinist to shine. This was a beautiful movement.

The scherzo began with a lilting opening, but soon livened up. The sheer variety and inventiveness of Beethoven (who by this time was stone deaf) is at its most astonishing in these late quartets. The movement juxtaposes passion with dance-like passages, but always there is energy and forward drive.

The finale consists of impassioned fervour interspersed with anxious restlessness. There are so many different episodes in this movement; it is innovative and brilliant.

This was ‘one out of the box’ as a chamber music concert. All the players executed their work with great attention to detail and dynamics. They are exceedingly proficient, considering the comparatively short time that they have been a quartet. The audience showed its warm appreciation for this ambitious programme and its performance.

I did think that the beauty of the female players’ full-length, sleeveless turquoise dresses was not echoed in the men’s attire; despite their having turquoise handkerchiefs poking out of their top pockets, the open-necked business shirts were too informal in contrast with the ladies’ look. Maybe turquoise bow-ties would have been more appropriate, or a different style of shirt, or jacket. One of the men had smart cuff-links – hardly designed to go with an open-necked shirt!

The only disappointment with this evening of music was the printed programme. There were no programme notes, which mattered particularly for the Zemlinsky work; no listing of the movements, and even the dates when the composers flourished were not printed.

Alexa Still and Diedre Irons – irresistible duo

Posted on by Peter Mechen

ALEXA STILL (flute) and DIEDRE IRONS (piano)

Chamber Music Hutt Valley

Music by POULENC, BOYD, PROKOFIEV and BORNE (flute and piano)

DICK and MARAIS (flute solo)

CHOPIN (piano solo)

Little Theatre, Lower Hutt

Thursday 5th May 2011

Mistakenly thinking the concert was being held in nearby St.James’ Church, I wasted several precious minutes retracing steps and re-aligning my destination, finally being led by the sound of Alexa Still’s silvery flute tones to the entranceway of Lower Hutt’s Little Theatre. I thus missed the opening Allegro malinconico part of Poulenc’s Sonata for flute and piano, but was charmed, by way of compensation, both by the friendliness of my reception at the door, and the full, rich and impassioned playing from both Alexa Still and Diedre Irons which continued throughout the Cantilena second movement.

In the past I hadn’t much liked visiting this venue on account of what I thought I remembered was a dry, boxy acoustic, but these musicians were managing to fill the ambiences with plenty of rich, golden tones as to make the spaces seem positively resonant. Alexa Still’s tonal mastery was evident throughout Poulenc’s kaleidoscopic changes of focus and emphasis throughout the finale – the music’s character cheeky, heroic, profound and mock-serious by turns, requiring stellar command of control and reserves of energy! With pianist Diedre Irons displaying her characteristic ebullience and quicksilver reflexes, both players brought out the music’s constant flux in mood and manner, delivering to we listeners a veritable chaos of charm and delight right to the end.

Alexa Still introduced the flute items, interesting us with her remarks about the music and her experience of playing the works previously – she obviously has an extremely wide repertoire and musical sympathies to match, judging by the range and scope of this concert. A piece by American composer Anne Boyd was next, Goldfish through Summer Rain, a work which uses exotic colors and pointilistic techniques. The piano caught the effect of raindrops, while the long, languid lines of the flute made the perfect foil for the piano, creating something of the same floating effect as in Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun. I thought the whole work imbued with a kind of longing for a world of beauty, wishful of bringing into creative being an order of things – what a friend of mine would describe as “very Zen”!

Prokofiev’s Sonata I knew in a version for violin and piano, so I was surprised and delighted to find a familiar piece of music in what was for me a new and exciting guise – in fact its original form! – and sounding here as though it thoroughly belonged to the flute-and-piano repertoire. Like many great composers, Prokofiev wrote music whose identity with its creator is evident within a couple of bars’ hearing, no matter how unfamiliar. Straightaway there’s that characteristic astringent flavour to the melody and its harmony, and an accompanying volatility of textures and dynamics which “spikes” the composer’s best work. Something of a neoclassicist as well as a revolutionary, Prokofiev drew these elements beautifully together in works such as this sonata – we so enjoyed the first movement’s clean-cut melodic contourings and their beautifully-crafted symmetries, elements of the music to which both Still and Irons brought their capacities for articulating volatile detail within a larger framework, returning us richly and surely to the opening mood at the movement’s end.

The quirky Scherzo “bucking-broncoed” our imaginations most energetically, the performance putting plenty of élan and glint into the vertiginous figurations, before  pulling everything momentarily to order for a lovely, somewhat melancholy trio section, one which the composer nevertheless keeps on its toes with occasional skyrocketting irrruptions. Still and Irons had a fine time with the “big tune” at its return, tossing its angularities about with fine style, before dispatching the music at the end with a deft gesture wrought of magic. After this the slow movement amply demonstrated Prokofiev’s way of conjuring melody and feeling from grey matter –  beautiful in places but essentially austere, a feeling which the jolly, heavy-footed dance that opened the finale was able to rescue us from most thankfully. As well as plenty of lusty energy, Still and Irons brought granite-like strength to the “building-blocks” episodes, and just the right amount of circumspection to the movement’s lyrical centre, before seamlessly reinvigorating the figurations with the energies needed to lead the music back into the dance – a heart-warming performance.

We were warned by Alexa Still, before playing the first item after the interval, for flute solo, that she might be making some strange sounds, and these were entirely on purpose! The work was one I’d heard her play at a previously concert, Fish are Jumping, for flute alone, by the American flutist and composer Robert Dick. This was a languid, lazy and bluesy piece, not, as one might expect, a variation on Gershwin’s Summertime tune but a realization equally as atmospheric, with flourishes of energy in places. Still’s technical facility astonished, here – her uncanny ability to play “chords” (two notes simultaneously, with what sounded like accompanying overtones) made for a distinctly exotic and unworldly impression, making the whole a kind of “transport of delight” to the enchantment of other realms. A comparable distancing, in time, was achieved by Still with Marin Marais’ Le Folies d’Espagne, with the inestimable help of a wooden mouthpiece, to achieve a more authentic timbre for this piece – a sombre theme at the outset, but with variations that had a wider range of expression that I expected from this composer.I’d always thought of Marais as a kind of French equivalent to John Dowland, he of the “semper Dowland, semper dolens” reputation – as the French say, l’air ne fait pas la chanson…..

Came pianist Diedre Irons’ turn for a solo, and she gave us Chopin’s F Minor Fantasy, her playing exhibiting that alchemic mixture of clear-sighted discipline and far-flung and fantastical imagination, so that we, as the composer intended, appear to be witnessing a spontaneous creation of the spirit, the music both taking and being taken throughout fanciful realms. The pianist’s mastery of rubato married strength and spontaneity in a wonderfully osmotic way; and the strength of her playing negated the venue’s tendency to dryness, instead filling the vistas with surges of tone and proper “glint” at the tops of the figurations. Regarding the piece’s freedom I’ve always tended to regard the Fantasy as a kind of subconscious homage on Chopin’s part to Liszt, his colleague/rival, with the brilliance of some of the piano writing balanced by the almost Faustian character of some of the darker episodes, only with more equivocal treatment in places of the virtuoso keyboard writing – the music occasionally stopping as if to listen to its own voice, in places. I thought the piece’s essential character captured here so well in this respect, so that, in Diedre Irons’ hands Chopin was still always Chopin.

After this, I’m afraid, the gaucheries of Francois Borne’s Fantasy on themes from Bizet’s “Carmen” sounded more than embarrassingly hollow, though both musicians characteristically gave it their all – perhaps if we had taken up Alexa Still’s invitation to us to “sing along with the bits you recognize”, the work could have had at least some point. This all sounds very snobbish on my part, but I’m aware of there being a number of brilliantly-constructed, rather more “organically” conceived fantasy-like “reminiscences” of Bizet’s eponymous opera, written for various instruments – if this is the flute’s only representative relating to the work, then it’s a pity Still herself hasn’t thought about bringing her musical intelligence and virtuosic skills to producing something for her instrument making use of those glorious tunes that hangs together more convincingly than this – all that spectacular fingering and tonguing, all those beautiful tones (maybe if Sarasate had played the flute…….).

An encore written by Ravel – a Habanera, but not from Rapsodie Espagnole – was sufficient balm for the senses, in the wake of the previous item’s lurid horrors – here we had worlds of evocative gesture and tonal ravishment from both instruments over a few short minutes, a display of mastery, all in all, on the part of composer and musicians alike. It was a heart-warming way to conclude a brilliant musical evening.

Graduate string students from New Zealand School of Music at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Caprices Nos 16 and 20 by Paganini – played by Irina Andreeva (viola)
Scherzo (by Brahms) from the FAE Sonata; and the third movement from Brahms’s Violin Sonata No 3 in D minor, Op 108 – played by Joanna Lee (violin) and Jian Liu (piano)
Violin Sonata No 8 in G, Op 30 No 3 by Beethoven – played by Jun He (violin) and Jian Liu (piano)

St Andrew’s on the Terrace

Wednesday 4 May, 12.15pm

The St Andrew’s lunchtime concerts are in the midst of their series of performances by students at the New Zealand School of Music.

This one featured three – a violist and two violinists, accompanied by Jian Liu, the school’s piano faculty member for the next two years. He studied with Claude Frank at Yale where he is completing a doctorate in musical arts. As well as teaching and accompanying students, he will shortly give concerts of his own.

The Paganini Caprices on a viola was certainly a surprise to the ears; Irina Andreeva (also a DMA student) has been inspired by the voila versions of the Caprices that William Primrose created (Primrose, after Lionel Tertis, was the father of the modern awakening to the viola as a solo instrument). No 16 lay for long stretches on the C string, allowing no suggestion of its violin origin. I am highly attracted to the viola and so the two Caprices, offering strong contrast, were most diverting, even if, especially in No 20, a bit flawed in intonation and articulation. But Andreeva’s warm musicality and rhythmic vitality compensated for some lack of light and shade.

Joanna Lee comes here after study at McGill in Montreal where she has been specializing in Brahms. So it was no surprise to hear such confident and polished performances of these two pieces from opposite ends of Brahms’s career.

The FAE Sonata (‘Frei aber einsam’ – free but alone, intended as a tribute to violinist Joseph Joachim) was a 1853 collaboration between Brahms aged 20, Schumann just before his mental collapse and the forgotten Albert Dietrich, who wrote the sonata’s long first movement. Schumann wrote the slow movement and the Finale. The Scherzo is from Brahms, already so characteristic, and Joanna Lee played it with a firmness and maturity that indeed demonstrated an intuitive instinct for Brahms.

There was time for only one of the two movements scheduled from the (four movements of the) third violin sonata – the scherzo – Un poco presto e con sentimento. However, it is a substantial piece and was a highly convincing demonstration of a major talent. Again the two players found a singular rapport, with careful placing of emphatic notes and violin chords, all its impulsiveness managed in flawless ensemble.

The third of Beethoven’s Op 30 set of violin sonatas is the shortest of the three and was a delightful choice for a lunchtime concert. As well as again showcasing an admirable piano part, it gave violinist Jun He the opportunity to explore the very distinct moods of this sonata: calm sanguinity in the first movement, joyfulness in the last, but a menuetto in the middle that is profoundly meditative and lyrical, heart-easing (to use an old-fashioned expression).

Jun He is another recent arrival at the School of Music, originally from China, having studied at various universities and academies; she is here to complete a doctorate in musical arts. She took great care with dynamics and exercised beautiful control of the discreet ornaments, with the two instruments in perfect sympathy. Though given no invitation by the music for display or histrionics, the two players created a poised, modest, warm-hearted partnership. There can be few so un-dancing minuets as this; eager dancers would have been stilled by the beauty of the music and, in this instance, its performance.

The last movement was simple joy, the violin articulated so softly, with exquisite ppp sounds from the piano, which even at the odd fortissimo never clouded the violin or generated any percussiveness. And the witty modulation to E flat near the end dramatically altered the colouring.

Though this was the only ‘entire’ piece in the programme the whole could be enjoyed at a level far above the average ‘student’ performance.

NZSQ and Wollerman reveal beauties in Schoenberg, and others

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand String Quartet and Jenny Wollerman (soprano)

Beethoven: String Quartet in A, Op 18 No 5; Schoenberg: String Quartet No 2 in F sharp minor, Op 10; Smetana: String Quartet No 1 in E minor ‘From my life’

Wellington Town Hall

Tuesday 3 May 7.30pm

I suspect that few musical performances in Wellington have done as much, as quickly, as this to overturn long-held attitudes about a composer. Often without really putting it to the test, many ordinary music lovers have accepted that, apart from Verklärte Nacht, Schoenberg’s music was and has remained cacophonous and unlistenable. The composer himself complained quite early that the problem was poor performance: nothing difficult about his music!

All that was needed then was the phantom arrival of a New Zealand String Quartet and a Jenny Wollerman to illuminate what Schoenberg had created; for no one I spoke to at the interval did not exclaim at the transformational performance by both string quartet and soprano.

Even though for perhaps many, this might have been a first hearing, and the splintered character of the lyricism and the unpredictability of the music from minute to minute and still surprise, there was an unmistakable feeling that real music was present, of beauty and natural human impulse.

If this concert had been heard through radio or recording, it might not have had the effect it did, for the impact of watching these players, so profoundly engrossed and so whole-heartedly enraptured in their performance, was a most persuasive aspect. One felt as if each player relished opportunities to sing, to prove that they were playing genuine music, not some intellectual contrivance, even though the shapes of the songs were unusual. The first movement is simply a restless, soulful meditation of great beauty; the mood overall not very different from the nocturnal strangeness of Verklärte Nacht. After moving passages from first violin, then viola, Rolf Gjelsten seemed transported as he played cello phrases that expressed alternating grief and resolve.

The second movement changes the mood entirely, skittering violin over abrupt cello notes, with its use of the German folk song ‘Ach, du lieber Augustin’, mocked and tortured. Perhaps it was the only way for the composer to handle the traumatic loss of his wife to his painting teacher, though we must not imagine the music to be any kind of direct account of that. The playing was remarkable in its quixotic, kaleidoscopic impulsiveness, and the notes of the song are broken, dissected. Another frenzied passage closed the movement,

What disconcerted its first Viennese audiences lay in the next two movements – the arrival of a soprano to sing two poems – how outrageous for a voice to invade the sacred world of chamber music! It’s a setting of Stefan George, a poet who is compared to the French Parnassiens and symbolists. (One noticed that the programme notes observed the poet’s Cummings-like capital letters fetish in the German texts: nouns not capitalized).

The first, Litanei, with lines like “… Grant some peace to my faltering steps … extinguish all hope, send out [better perhaps, ‘dispatch’] your light …Kill the longing, close the wounds…”. Jenny Wollerman’s voice proved a quite exquisite vehicle for the poem and its music taxing a voice with its fragments of melody that are determined to give no comfort; projected strongly, accurately, with emotional intensity. Though the score was before her, she appeared to have every word and every note utterly secure.

The last movement used the poem Entrückung (approximately ‘rapture’) and it expressed that, in the uneasy quiet of the opening, depending heavily on the cello, curling and twisting in preparation for the voice’s entry. In the movement’s ten minutes or so, there was time for the listener to begin to find melody in the spectral cirrus, and with the compelling performances by all five, we were left with a sense of music of the greatest beauty.

Though I’ve paid much attention to the Schoenberg, the other pieces were played with no less power, subtlety, and beauty of tone and expression.

The happiest of Beethoven’s first published set of quartets opened with an almost droll, whimsical air, an ethereal dance, set among scintillating flashes from Helene Pohl’s brilliant violin, all brought to its senses with some sombre phrases from the cello. The Menuetto was a particularly sensuous Viennese affair, its swaying rhythm set charmingly against the warm romantic tune of the Trio. The Andante cantabile with its variations and sometimes fugal passages found Beethoven and the players in a jovial mood, smiles flickering across their faces, responding to comic effects. The movement ends with a sudden subsiding to a minor tonality that stilled the audience utterly – apart from a solitary cough – in the pause before the Finale.

The Schoenberg was followed by Smetana’s autobiographical piece: a life that allowed much variety, Gillian Ansell’s viola played a significant role at many points, passionate and rich in the opening movement. She underpinned the dance in the second, along with particular rhythmic energy from Beilman’s violin; they relished the almost saccharine sentiment of the third movement, without embarrassment.

There was a somewhat smaller audience than usual at this very fine concert. Are our chamber music audiences still subject to the blinkered attitudes that Schoenberg faced in Vienna a century ago?