Day: 31 March 2012

Tudor Consort revives Schütz’s St Matthew Passion

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Heinrich Schütz: St. Matthew Passion

The Tudor Consort, directed by Michael Stewart, with John Beaglehole (Evangelist) and Ken Ryan (Christus)

Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul

Saturday, 31 March 2012, 7.30pm

An appropriate pre-Easter work, this St Matthew Passion was presented in a slightly unusual way.   The choir performed from the rear of the sanctuary, while the audience was mainly seated in the choir stalls and on chairs placed in the sanctuary between the choir stalls.   There were a few people seated in the nave.  The performance took place in near darkness, with just enough light for the choir to be able to read their scores.  It made me think of being in a German church in the composer’s time, and hearing the work as the congregation would have.

By seating the audience close to the singers, and virtually not using the nave, the slow reverberation of the building did not assert itself as much as usual.  Ken Ryan’s rich bass voice suffered more from ‘feedback’ than did John Beaglehole’s tenor, or the choir.

Instead of the words being printed in a programme, the English translations of the sung German were projected on a screen placed between the choir and the audience.  The work is unaccompanied, and unlike J.S. Bach’s well-known Passion settings, there are no chorales or arias; apart from the final movement, the text is entirely St. Matthew’s gospel account of the events leading up to, and including, the Crucifixion, and of the burial of Jesus in the tomb.

Approximately 20 singers made up the choir; some of them took small solo roles.  In the gloom I could recognise only Andrea Cochrane, who took not only several female roles, but also that of Judas Iscariot; all were admirably delivered.

From the opening attack, with instant smooth tone, the choir excelled itself.  There was a wonderful unity of sound, and beautiful diminuendos.  The maintenance of pitch throughout the work (despite a few aberrations from minor soloists, particularly Caiaphas) was a marvel; John Beaglehole was utterly reliable, apart from slightly falling pitch in the part where he reports on what Pilate said. The tenor has a very big role – there was a great deal for him to sing, but he did not flag; this was quite a tour de force.  Michael Stewart had trained his singers well, with crisp rhythms and exemplary entries.  The semi-dark allowed the focus to be entirely on the music and the message.

Bass Ken Ryan varied his tone and expression to deliver the character of Jesus and the meaning of the words throughout the performance; tenor Beaglehole less so.  It could be argued that the Evangelist is the reporter, not an actor in the drama.  Towards the end of the work however, he gave more characterisation.  A large proportion of the music is for these two soloists only.

At 50 minutes long, Schütz’s work cannot readily be considered in the same class as Bach’s great, dramatic Passions.  Yet it has its own drama – in the word-setting, and the pacing of the various recitatives, Jesus’s utterances, and in the chorus numbers.  Some surprising harmonies for the chorus add to the drama.

The most dramatic part was that dealing with Pilate – both his role and that of the mob, demanding that Jesus be crucified.  Here, the chorus was very strong.  Women were part of the mob, but also part of the soldiers’ and priests’ choruses.   There was much interweaving of parts in these choruses, but also sections of homophony, and word-painting.

Beaglehole was very fine in singing the translation of Jesus’s utterance which in English is “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”, and the lovely pianissimo from the choir set it off beautifully, in “He calleth for Elijah”.  Throughout, the German language was pronounced and projected very well.

The chorus of priests asking that the tomb be guarded was splendidly sung, as was the final chorus, “Christ to you be the glory”, which is the only comment on the action, the remainder of the words being all from the Biblical account.  This was sung poignantly and with feeling, and made an exquisite end to the performance.

This performance proved to be appropriate in another way: Radio New Zealand Concert has Schütz as its Composer of the Week for the coming week, so listeners can expect to hear this work again in the coming days.  Some of what follows is based on Indra Hughes’s introductory talk on radio.

Schütz wrote the St. Matthew Passion in his 80s, after he had survived the Plague, the Thirty Years War, and the loss of his wife and two young children.  His early tuition with Giovanni Gabrieli in Venice seems to have resurfaced in this work; it is written in stile antico, not the more dense and complex (and exciting) stile moderno, which he also studied, later in life, with Monteverdi, Gabrieli’s successor at St. Mark’s.

With this tuition behind him, Schütz brought back to Germany elements of  the Italian style, which became a huge influence on the music of the latter country, not least contributing to the way in which J.S. Bach wrote his Passion settings, a century later.  This influence can partly be attributed to the fact that his employment was in Dresden, the centre of musical life at the time, in Germany.

It was interesting, though, that in his old age Schütz reverted to the counterpoint of stile antico for this Passion.  No instruments, no arias, no chorales or extended choruses in this work, although there are in others of his works.

Schütz’s is therefore an interesting time in church music history, since he straddled the renaissance and the baroque eras.

 

 

Resplendent Mozart Requiem from the Bach Choir

Posted on by Peter Mechen

MOZART (edited Süssmayer) – Requiem KV 626

Amelia Ryman (soprano) / Bianca Andrew (mezzo-soprano)

Thomas Atkins (tenor) / David Morriss (bass)

The Bach Choir of Wellington

Douglas Mews (organ)

Conductor: Stephen Rowley

St.Peter’s Church, Willis St., Wellington

Saturday 31st March 2012

Wiser, more experienced concert-going heads than mine would have been better-prepared for the likelihood that the Bach Choir’s Mozart Requiem performance would use an organ rather than the orchestra the composer specified. Having grasped this state of things upon entering the beautiful Church of St.Peter’s on Willis St. in Wellington, I simply had to deal with my own withdrawal symptoms at cardinal points (alas, no trumpets and drums at Dies Irae, no trombone at Tuba mirum and no remorseless, driving strings in the Confutatis maledictis, to mention just some of the obviously affected places). As well, I needed to put Gounod’s Funeral March of a Marionette out of my mind as best I could at the performance’s almost jaunty organ-only beginning. But when the choir entered with the words “Requiem aeternam”, everything changed dramatically.

Right from these opening phrases, the choir under Stephen Rowley’s direction sang with splendidly-focused tones and full-blooded commitment, rising to the challenge of “carrying” much of the work’s weight and momentum, in the absence of an orchestra. Once I’d adjusted my own expectations I actually found more to relish in Douglas Mews’ organ accompaniments than I expected to, even if parts of the Dies Irae without trumpets and drums sounded a bit undernourished. There were places I wanted more pointed instrumental emphasis, though in one instance (the beginning of the Lacrimosa) the organ blurted out a phrase rather alarmingly before being quickly brought back into line. But mostly the organ-playing served the performance well, a touch of awry ensemble at the first “Quam olim Abrahae” being more in the realm of an occupational hazard than anything else, I would think.

I was impressed with the choir throughout, their lines confidently placed and clearly-voiced across the spectrum, given that the men’s voices were always going to have to work hard by dint of comparative lack of numbers. But whatever imbalances there were I could hear the tenors and basses at almost all times keeping their lines alive and buoyant within the ensemble. Stephen Rowley drove the opening Requiem swiftly, encouraging dramatic attack and plenty of contrast with the more hushed tones at the repeated “Luceat eis”, and allowing the beautifully-floated tones of soprano Amelia Ryman plenty of room. The fugal Kyrie also went with a will, the ensemble crisp and energetic, and the women’s voices actually relishing things like their awkward “eleision” ascents leading up to the assertive final supplication.

One had to “sound” the trumpets and drums of the Dies Irae from within one’s imagination, here, though the musicians’ energies carried the day, the men at their exposed “Quantus tremor” not especially strong, but reliably alert. Then, at the Tuba Mirum the soloists took over the performance – a glorious, magisterial solo from bass David Morriss, negotiating his wide leaps with sure-voiced aplomb, paved the way for the others. Thomas Atkins’ opening notes sounded a tad stressful at first, but he quickly settled into a warm-toned “Liber scriptus”, while mezzo Bianca Andrew’s “Judex ergo” had a rich, velvety quality conveying a properly awed response to the apocalyptic solemnity of her words. Amelia Ryman’s purely-focused lines brought to us a beautifully-ascending “Cum vix justus sit securus?” the words repeated to expressive effect by a tremulously-voiced ensemble of soloists.

A confidently-propelled Rex Tremendae from choir and organ incorporated some lovely sounds from the women at “Salva me”, followed by the reflective Recordare, delicately begun by the organ, and richly-coloured by the mezzo and bass combination, Bianca Andrew and David Morriss, contouring their tones to great effect. The same went for Amelia Ryman and Thomas Atkins a few measures later, the soprano leaving behind a momentary awkwardness at the opening to enchant us with her ascent at “Sed tu bonus fac benigne”. Stephen Rowley then got the maximum possible dramatic contrast with the choir’s Confutatis maledictis, the desperately driving momentums of which brought the subsequent creepy chromaticisms of “Oro supplex et acclinis” into bold relief. Apart from the momentary organ outburst, the Lacrimosa was brought into being with lovely gravitas, Rowley controlling its ebb and flow of emotion with considerable sensitivity, the intensification of “Dona eis Requiem” melting naturally and organically into the final “Amen”.

As the work progressed the choir’s energies seemed constantly to renew themselves, the vigour and focus of the “Osanna” fugues carrying over to the final “Cum sanctis tuis”, and bringing things to a resplendent conclusion. But there was also dignity, tenderness and warmth to be had from the Agnus Dei, with Douglas Mews’ registrations deftly coloring the music’s different dynamics. And Amelia Ryman’s brief but beautiful lead-in to the concluding Lux aeterna had the choir responding in kind, then unerringly building things towards the closure of the work’s circle.

The soloists again came into their own in the Benedictus, the singing as finely-wrought as with the earlier Recordare, with solo lines and ensemble passages alike delighting the ear. The sounds we were given made for moments of great sublimity, even if the music in this instance was more inspired than penned by Mozart, who died before the Requiem was finished. This and the preceding Sanctus were completed by the composer’s pupil Franz Süssmayer, who arranged and reworked a good deal of the music. Fortunately, the music-making throughout this performance was of a quality which appeared to ennoble the ideas and efforts of those who worked to try and realize Mozart’s intentions. It made as though we had with us a real sense of the spirit of the composer.