Day: 27 November 2011

‘Make sure your cellophonia are ON’: memorable injunction from the School of Music

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

‘Cellophononia’

Music written or arranged for cello ensemble, by Corelli, Villa-Lobos, de Falla, Klengel, Popper and Bach (arrangements by Claude Kenneson)

Cello Ensemble Concert in association with New Zealand School of Music

Hunter Council Chamber, Victoria University of Wellington

Sunday, 27 November 2011

What a treat!  Eight cellists from the New Zealand School of Music, NZ Trio, New Zealand String Quartet, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Vector Wellington Orchestra and Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra (their new principal, Eliah Sakakushev) formed the backbone of ‘Cellophonia’. They performed with 14 others joining later in the concert, from various other ensembles and none.

It was a mystery as to why this concert was free.  Surely most people in the audience could afford at least a koha, which could have gone towards teaching music to young people, including those in underprivileged situations.  An increasing amount of music teaching is going on in such circumstances; some money from this source would have been a great fillip to them.

The usual request to ensure that cellphones were off seemed to be particularly relevant this time.  But this playing had no extraneous sounds, and was utterly transparent in character.

First up was Corelli’s Concerto Grosso in G minor, Op.6, no.8 the ‘Christmas Concerto’, with 8 cellists (Ashley Brown, Rolf Gjelsten, Andrew Joyce, Inbal Megiddo, Annemarie Meijers, Sally Pollard, Rowan Prior and Eliah Sakasushev).  The music did sound a little strange, with the mainly lower-pitched sonorities – and it can’t be said that intonation was perfect.  The lack of variety of timbre made this familiar music less than appealing to me; it was gravelly (and grovelly), despite some fine playing, and appropriate tempi and dynamics.

The later sections had more movement and were lighter in quality, with Andrew Joyce (who led) playing at a higher register.  The playing of Joyce and Megiddo was particularly effective.  The final Pastorale was characterised by sonorous contemplation that was most satisfying.

It was followed by Mahler’s dreamy Adagietto from his Symphony no.5.  This time the leader was Ashley Brown, and an additional cellist (Jane Young) took part.  The piece worked very well; the harp of the original was rendered on plucked strings, and the whole maintained its nostalgic, elegiac quality.   Being Romantic music rather than baroque, it worked much better for this combination.  Ashley Brown’s solo part was very beautifully played, if a little metallic in the upper register.  Mahler’s seductive melody and harmony could not fail to play upon the heart-strings.

The arrangements of this and the Corelli were by Claude Kenneson, about whom I could learn nothing from Grove, and the printed programme was silent about him.  However, Google led me to some information about this Canadian (American-born) cellist, born in 1935, and his long period of teaching at the Banff Centre for the Arts, where the New Zealand String Quartet has been resident.

Now for a work actually written for 8 cellos: Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas Brasileiras no.1.  The popular series of 9 pieces is most well-known for no.5, the one with voice.  As Grove says “…he wrote polyphonies for groups of cellos and obtained, from an extended range, resources of an almost orchestral richness.”  This time the group was led by Rolf Gjelsten.  (The complex rearrangement of the players between items, particularly in the second half, reminded me of a skilled marching team in action.)  He played the gorgeous melody in the Preludio with warmth and mellifluous tone.

The rich sound from all the performers blocked out the howling of the wind outside.  Villa-Lobos’s music transported me to another world, through the incessant rhythm of the  Introduction, and the thrilling timbres achieved by the players.   For the Fugue, Gjelsten swopped with Andrew Joyce; mostly there were duos of cellos to each part.  It was a lightly rhythmic fugue à la Bach, with a modern twist and complex writing.  The fact that the piece was written for this instrumentation certainly showed.

On now to Spain: the Suite Populaire Espagnole by Manuel de Falla, again arranged by Claude Kenneson.  Originally a work for voice and piano (Keith Lewis has recorded it with Michael Houstoun), it translated well to the medium of 8 cellos.  In the first movement, ‘El Paño moruno’, Andrew Joyce played very high on the finger-board; the melody sounded most sonorously, despite the carpeted floor.  His superb playing demonstrated the great versatility of the cello.

A quiet ‘Asturiana’ followed, with Rolf Gjelsten taking the solo.  A quiet, sultry atmosphere was created.  The next, ‘Jota’, incorporated delightful dance rhythms, using spiccato technique, and a solo from Ashley Brown.  However, I missed castanets.  The ‘Nana’ movement had all the players using pizzicato except the solo from Eliah Sakakushev, with Inbal Meggidu bowing a bass drone.  She performed the soulful and beautiful solo in ‘Canción’, with an accompaniment that could have done with some different timbres.

The final ‘Polo’ was stirring stuff, again with Inbal Megiddo as soloist.

Now to a work for twelve cellos – but played here by 23.  Hymnus was composed by Julius Klengel, a German cellist and composer for that instrument, who died in 1933.

The opening of his piece was conducted by Andrew Joyce, but after that, everyone was on their own.  Not all the cellists were playing for much of the piece.  The melody was taken first by Ashley Brown, then Andrew Joyce joined in at a higher register, and others followed in this soporific but beautifully romantic piece.

David Popper was an Austrian cellist and composer in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with many compositions to his name, including much for his own instrument.  Again, there was a big, lush sound in his Requiem Adagio for 3 cellos and piano (add 20 to that).   There was a wonderfully wide dynamic range, and great cohesion and rhythm in this slow and soulful piece.  With this performance, it was hard to see how it could all be played on just 3 cellos.   While Jian Liu could not readily be seen by most of the audience, his sensitive and musical support and clarity in the effervescent piano part were readily heard.

The fact that the Corelli did not really come off led one to expect the same of the Bach; this could not be further from the truth.  After yet another complicated change of positions, all 23 played again, without conductor in a very effective performance of Brandenburg Concerto no.3 in G major, BWV 1048.

After the delightful Allegro came the Adagio with Inbal Megiddo as soloist.  She played with great style and tonal variety, and with Gjelsten and Brown in the last movement, ending with her playing solo again.

The concert attracted a full house – but a good deal of the downstairs area usually used for audience seating was taken up by cellists, leaving only two rows of chairs, instead of the usual four or five.

The programme could be called experimental, but on the whole the items worked superbly well.  Full marks to the musicians, and also to Claude Kenneson, who arranged most of the pieces.  All the cellists made a fine sound, and the effect of their combined forces was exotic, lush, and thoroughly enjoyable.

 

The Bach Choir – Where would we be without Messiah?

Posted on by Peter Mechen

HANDEL – Messiah

Amelia Ryman (soprano) / Megan Hurnard (contralto) / Thomas Atkins (tenor)

David Morriss (bass)

The Chiesa Ensemble (Leader: Rebecca Struthers)

Douglas Mews – Continuo

The Bach Choir of Wellington

Stephen Rowley (conductor)

Sacred Heart Cathedral, Wellington

Sunday 27th November 2011

Though associated by dint of its “Birth of Christ” references with Christmastime, Messiah has as many affinities with the other “big” Christian event of the Liturgical year, which is, of course, Easter. Conductor Stephen Rowley seemed to emphasize the latter connection at the very beginning of the work in the Bach Choir of Wellington’s recent performance. In fact, it could have been that “High Priest of the German classics” Otto Klemperer conducting, so solemn, grand and slow were those chords at the opening of the overture, though the succeeding Allegro was sprightly enough, with perhaps just a touch of heaviness here and there. It wasn’t a performance for “authenticists” – too full-toned, with an almost romantic sensibility about the music’s expressive unfolding (but in a more cosmic sense, its unique delivery very much in a spontaneously “baroque” tradition).

Having admired and enjoyed the Chiesa Ensemble’s playing on many past occasions, I was a little surprised at the number of noticeable instrumental spills I noticed along the way (insufficient rehearsal, perhaps?) – ensemble awry at the beginning of  the recitative “For Behold…” and again with the soprano in her recitative “And suddenly…..”  – as well as some ragged playing in “Since Man came by Death”. Against these moments were some magnificently buoyant and pin-precise episodes, great support for the choir in “For Unto Us a Child is Born”, as indeed there was throughout all the choruses, another highlight being “And With His stripes” where both singing and playing was excitingly vigorous and secure.

Certainly those big moments, where one wants the utmost glory and majesty, were brought off thrillingly – I actually couldn’t see whether it was Mark Carter or Tom Moyer playing the solo in “The Trumpet Shall Sound” so beautifully, but both gave their all during the final choruses, amply supported by Larry Reese’s scalp-tingling timpani-playing, and full-toned outpourings from strings, winds and continuo.

The Choir itself, somewhat compromised by the imbalance of women’s against men’s voices (an all-too common phenomenon among choral groups these days), performed honestly and reliably throughout, here and there actually touching realms of true sublimity. There were instances where those middle and lower voices were overpowered by the higher ones – though in live performances it’s amazing what the “eye” can imagine the “ear” is actually hearing, especially if one knows the music well. Thus a chorus like “And He shall purify” featured a more-than-usually gleaming soprano line, though one could sense the effort of projection on the part of the other strands, coming together splendidly at the words “That they may offer unto the Lord”.

I liked conductor Stephen Rowley’s emphasizing of some of the choruses’ expressive gestures – the chorus ‘HIs yoke is easy” was nicely modulated throughout, with the dynamics well-controlled, and the tones of the voices on the last word “light” nicely softened into a diminuendo. And the voices’ emphasizing of the word “Death” in “Since Man came by Death” made for a dramatic, breath-catching moment. The Choir also sustained splendidly the long lines of “Behold the Lamb of God” at the words “taken away”. In short, splendid moments, these and others, transcending the difficulties, also occasionally apparent, of the group’s varying strength in different sections.

Of the soloists tenor Thomas Atkins was the first to impress with a thrilling “Comfort Ye”, the recitative properly declamatory and prophet-like, and the aria “Ev’ry valley” joyously energetic (and supported by some lovely string-playing). Also, he made something distinctive, I thought, of his sequence beginning “All they that see Him laugh Him to scorn”, the singing powerful and sonorous, as it was through “Thy rebuke hath broken His heart” . I must confess to wondering, throughout the first half, whether the microphone in the church’s pulpit (from where each of the soloists sang) had been left switched “on” as the voice-tones seemed to have for a while a somewhat augmented and “directional” resonance – but I never got to the bottom of the mystery, except that throughout the second half the voices seemed to my ears more naturally projected.

Contralto Megan Hurnard gave reliable, centered renditions of her solos, the voice gravely beautiful throughout her centerpiece “He was despised”, even if some of the words sounded a shade inert, needing more emphasis in order to make them live and breathe. I thought, for example, that during “He gave his back” the singer could have risked a little roughness of tone to get something of the sting of words like “smiters”, and even “spitting” across to us.

Bass David Morriss gave us something of that vocal energy, interestingly poetic-sounding and beautiful where I expected him to be darker and more sepulchral in “For behold, darkness shall cover the earth”. But he nicely “grew” the phrase “……have seen a great light” with an unerring sense of what the music ought to be doing, as with the more hushed tones of “And they that dwell”. The dramatic “Why do the nations” went splendidly also, with the figurations generating plenty of agitated bluster; and perhaps the brief moment that went awry in “The kings of the earth rise up” was due to the same unaccustomed “lurch” we all felt, of tumbling straight afterwards into the “Halleluiah” Chorus (one gets so used to another chorus “Let us break their bonds” coming beforehand – we were, in fact, so caught up by surprise that nobody on this occasion stood up!).  As for “The trumpet shall sound”, the introduction was full of expectancy and growing excitement, and, one or two “ensemble” moments notwithstanding, the interchanges between singer and trumpet-player were nimble and enlivening.

I enjoyed soprano Amelia Ryman’s bright, silvery tones throughout, celestial and sparkling at “And lo, the angel of the Lord”, and surviving some out-of-sync moments with the orchestra at “And suddenly there was” (the string players making amends with some beautifully hushed work at the end). The spirited, but difficult “Rejoice greatly” was negotiated confidently and securely (breathing an issue in places, here, with such long and florid vocal runs). And her entry during”He shall feed His flock” was a highlight, like an unveiling, an irradiating of the musical textures. Of course, the soprano’s big moment is “I know that my Redeemer liveth” – and we got a heartfelt rendition balancing poise with impulsiveness in places, which I liked – one sensed the words here really meant something, such as at “And though worms destroy this body”. A lovely ascent at “For now is Christ risen” capped off a pleasingly-wrought performance.

I’m sure many people feel as I do, that the year’s concert-going wouldn’t be complete without hearing a live performance of Messiah. By dint of the various performing editions and the possible combinations arising from these, let alone the difference between singers, instrumentalists and conductors, the work for me invariably emerges newly-minted from each encounter. My preference (not necessarily with all works, but this is one of them) would be to hear a performance in the evening – for me there’s always been something about the interaction of music performance and darkness that creates extra frisson (but I am having therapy!). Seriously, I thought this was a presentation with its own distinctions and set of ambiences, one which contained some excellent performances, and which readily conveyed to us the work’s on-going greatness.