Day: 24 July 2012

School of Music string ensemble brings lovely music to Upper Hutt

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Mendelssohn: Symphony in C minor (two movements)
Dvořák: Serenade for Strings Op.22 (four movements)

New Zealand School of Music String Ensemble, conducted by Martin Riseley

Expressions, Upper Hutt

Tuesday, 24 July 2012, 1pm

This was a good-looking ensemble, all players were smartly dressed in black, hair just so, and all standing to play (except for the cellos), and an attractive programme had been chosen.  The ensemble comprised four first violins, four second violins, three violas, three cellos and one double bass; 12 women and three men.  Some of the audience seats were close to the players; people sensibly steered clear of the danger of sitting in those seats that might have resulted in their becoming bow-legged (aren’t cellists anyway?) from having a cello bow thrust into their legs.

The Mendelssohn work was written for strings alone, when the composer was only 12 years old, one of a number of works written in his childhood to which he never gave opus numbers.  Two movements were played: the short slow movement marked grave, and the allegro finale.

The players were all highly competent, and played well together.  There was a strong sound from them in this happy piece; an astonishing composition for a 12-year-old.

The violinists rearranged themselves for the second work.   The first movement, moderato, I thought was a little pedantic, and could have done with more phrasing – not to say that there was none.  However, things improved as the movement went along.  Like so much of  Dvořák’s output, this work is wonderfully cheerful and tuneful.  A serenade was originally a work played out-of-doors; one could imagine having this played while strolling in a garden, or while eating a meal outdoors on a warm evening.

The wooden floor and mainly wooden walls and ceiling in the large foyer space at Expressions made for a good sound on the whole, but sometimes it was somewhat harsh or shrill.  This effect may have depended on where one was sitting.

In the second and third movements, tempo di valse and scherzo, the slower passages were played with a rich timbre; the faster ones suffered from rather too frequent intonation discrepancies.  The lively, dry acoustic may have shown these up more than would be the case in some venues.  Nevertheless, I was surprised at their number.

However, there are some very fine players here, notably the leaders of each of the four main sections of the ensemble.

The final movement played (the fifth, allegro vivace) featured delightful cello and double bass pizzicato, which I’m not sure I had been sufficiently aware of before.  Sitting close to the cellos revealed how enchanting this part of the music was.

The last quiet section began rather out of kilter – no-one appeared to be watching the conductor.  The return of the robust main theme terminated the work happily.

The concert was well-attended; over 100 people came to hear the young musicians.

 

 

 

Duo Tapas appetizing at Old St.Paul’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Old St.Paul’s Lunchtime Concert Series

Duo Tapas

Rupa Maitra (violin) / Owen Moriarty (guitar)

Music by PAGANINI, VIVALDI, SENENCA, SARATATE, GRANADOS and IMAMOVIC,

Old St.Paul’s Church, Thorndon

Tuesday July 24th 2012

Every now and then one hear something played at a concert which startles the sensibilities into momentary confusion. As when one turns on the radio and encounters something familiar mid-stream, the thought starts to drum away with the music: – “Now, just what is this?”

The Paganini work, Centone di Sonata No.1 which opened this duo recital sounded at first like a transcription of the beginning of the Mahler Fifth Symphony, played on a solo violin – a one-note “call to arms” dominating the opening. The attractive allegro maestoso which followed featured some fine flourishes and an exciting dynamic range -a more lyrical central section brought some major-key sunshine to the A-minor opening of the work.

Interestingly,  Paganini knew a lot about the guitar, partly perhaps because of having earned to play the mandolin before the violin. He once declared that “The violin is my mistress, but the guitar is my master”, and wrote a lot for the guitar in a chamber-music context, not just accompaniments, but with a virtuosity in places which was admired by his fellow-musicians at the time.

One wonders whether the composer’s interest in the guitar was due to its association with romance – Paganini did have a liaison with a “mystery woman” who played the guitar herself, one who possibly was the composer’s “muse” for a time, considering the number of works he wrote involving the instrument.

This work , and the Vivaldi D Minor Sonata from 1709 that followed, brought out lovely tones from the violinist, Rupa Maitra, and sensitive, perfectly-judged partnering lines from guitarist Owen Moriarty. The violinist’s very focused sound served Vivaldi particularly well, bright, Italianate tones lightening the textures and the wood-grainy, muted surrounding of the church’s interior. The character of both the slow, grave Minuet and the more vigorous finale with its different bowing and dynamic contrasts was nicely presented.

Giovanni Seneca (mis-spelled as”Senenca” in the programme) a Neapolitean guitarist and composer, born in 1967, contributed two works to the recital, Balkan Fantasy and Mazel Tov. I liked the second piece better – the first I thought somewhat filmic, a bit all-purpose, like something one might hear in a bar or restaurant – though some of the double-stopping seemed quite demanding, in places, parts of which sounded a bit strained. More interesting, I thought, was Mazel Tov, a work beginning as a slow dance, the notes “bent” for expressive purposes, with very soft playing at first from both musicians, but fuelling up as the music’s catchiness and energy increasingly took hold, the players bringing off a triumphant finish.

Some indigenous Spanish music followed, by Sarasate and Granados. I enjoyed reading George Bernard Shaw’s comment regarding Sarasate, to the effect that though there were many composers  of music for the violin, there were few of “violin music”, and that Sarasate’s playing (he was a virtuoso violinist as well as a composer) for Shaw “left criticism gasping miles behind him”. His Spanish Dances are popular encore pieces for virtuosi, intended to show off what the performer could do. Rupa Maitra captured the sinuous, haunting quality of “Playera”, the first of the composer’s set of Op.23 Dances. Though intonation wasn’t flawless what mattered as much was the atmosphere and the tonal flavourings of the piece, brought out here strongly.

I thought the famous Dance No.5 from Sarasate’s countryman Granados’s own set of Danzas Españolas which followed took a while to find its “point” here, in the wake of the Sarasate. It seemed to me that the playing could have done with a bit less legato throughout the opening (my ears perhaps too attuned to hearing the piece as a work for solo guitar) and the intonation was again a bit edgy on one or two violin notes – but when it came to the middle section, there was suddenly more distinction, like a lover’s musing upon a memory, the violinist making nice distinctions between registers. And where the guitar takes over the theme and the violin decorates was quite enchanting – lovely, soft arpeggiations. I thought Owen Moriarty mis-hit a chord during the reprise, but the playing recovered its poise to deliver a beautiful concluding note to the piece, a “was it all a dream?” kind of impulse…..

The concert finished with Jovano, Jovanke, a work by Bosnian guitarist and composer Almer Imamovic, an arrangement of an old Macedonian song about two young lovers in a “Romeo and Juliet” scenario. The music reflects the emotional turmoil of the two young people in their situation, soulful at the beginning, angular and rhythmically syncopated , with very Middle-Eastern kind of melodic contourings and flavorings, the music building up to great excitement by the end. Bravo!