Month: October 2012

NZSM singers entertain in Upper Hutt arts centre foyer

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Arias from opera; songs

New Zealand School of Music: Vocal students of Richard Greager, Jenny Wollerman, Margaret Medlyn and Lisa Harper-Brown, with Mark Dorrell (piano)

Rotary Foyer, Expressions Arts and Entertainment Centre, Upper Hutt

Tuesday 9 October 2012, 1pm

This was the last of a monthly series of free concerts given by performance students from the New Zealand School of Music.  It attracted a full house, there being over 100 people present.  It was the same last year; obviously hearing singers is particularly attractive to the music-lovers of Upper Hutt.  All the singers presented their items with poise and confidence.  There was a mixture of arias from opera, and songs.

The foyer has a fine acoustic, and both pianist and singers did well there.  There is a café sharing the space, and this meant a certain amount of noise.  However, it was seldom very loud, nor was it constant, so it made a pleasant, informal venue .

Baritone Christian Thurston opened the programme with ‘Alla vita che t’arride’ from Un Ballo in Maschera by Verdi.  Just over a week ago, Thurston made a very fine Figaro in a concert of opera excerpts by NZSM students, at the Adam Concert Room.  He has a wonderfully rich voice, very Verdian, well controlled and produced with good support.  After a spoken introduction, he sang confidently and clearly; his runs were particularly good.

Next we heard from soprano Christina Orgias.  Her introductions her three songs were among the best for fluency and meaningful presentation – and these characteristics were true of her singing also.  Her mature voice has a natural resonance, quite a lot of vibrato, and plenty of volume.  ‘Before my window’ by Rachmaninov was gorgeous.

Amelia Ryman (soprano) sang firstly ‘The Trees on the Mountains’, from Carlisle Floyd’s 1955 opera, Susannah (not the Liszt song shown in the programme).  This singer has a powerful voice, but it was beautifully controlled.  She gave a very pleasing performance of the aria, with subtlety, and the appropriate American accent.

Jamie Henare (bass) sang perhaps the saddest song in Schubert’s song cycle Der Winterreise: ‘Der Leiermann’ (The organ-grinder).  His German language was good, but the song was not sufficiently well projected in the quiet passages.  However, his voice has a very pleasing quality.

Excellent German articulation was heard from Christina Orgias in her second song: ‘O wüsst’ ich doch den Weg zurück’ by Brahms.  She conveyed the mood of homesickness, the theme of this song, very well.

Soprano Elita McDonald followed, with a Richard Strauss song, ‘Die Nacht’.  Her voice has a lovely quality, and seemed just right for Strauss, though the lower notes were a bit out of her range; however, her high notes were pure and delightful.  Hers, too, was a very good spoken introduction.

Strauss returned, this time with Christian Thurston singing ‘Zueignung’.  I enjoyed neither his rather unclear introduction nor the song so well.  I would rather hear it sung by a mezzo or a soprano.  A low voice simply cannot demonstrate that marvellous ecstatic lift that the composer has given to this wonderful song.

Jamie Henare’s first aria was from La Bohème: ‘Vecchia zimarra’, in which Colline sings about having to sell his old coat in order to have money to buy medicine for the ailing Mimi.  This suited him better than the Schubert song – and speaking of suits, he had an old coat with him as a prop.

Then came the undoubted star of the show, Isabella Moore.  The three items she sang were certainly longer than those performed by her fellow-students, and done to a greater level of proficiency.  First, also from Puccini’s La Bohème, ‘Si, mi chiamano Mimi’.  This well-loved aria was sang with a naturalness, confidence and assurance presaged by her introduction.  She used gesture well, but it was her voice that drew the attention.  She has a great voice, which she uses with intelligence and subtlety.  With it, she could grace the operatic stage right now.  This was a wonderfully moving performance, with superb tone and excellent projection.

Amelia Ryman followed up with ‘Daphne’, one of William Walton’s setting of Edith Sitwell texts.  This was a bright performance, but the voice was rather shrill at the top.

Elita McDonald returned to sing Vaughan Williams’s very lovely song ‘Silent Noon’.  This was beautifully and expressively sung, but could have done with a little more delicacy in places.

Now for something completely different: Isabella Moore sang Benjamin Britten’s witty cabaret song ‘Johnny’; the words by W.H. Auden.  This is heard not infrequently, but a rendition that was memorable for me, over 20 years ago, was by Sarah Walker, the English mezzo, when she visited New Zealand.  Moore’s performance was well up with this high standard, her facial expressions and use of the words making it fully characterised.

Jamie Henare completed his trilogy with ‘Ho capito, Signor si!’ from Mozart’s Don Giovanni.  This received a better introduction than did his previous two items.  The voice quality was fine, but there was not enough projection of the character.  The Don is being addressed by the hapless country lad Masetto, who is fearful for his girlfriend Zerlina’s virtue, with the Don about to be alone with her.   This all came over as too pat, too glib.  Yes, many of us know the aria, but it must appear to be freshly minted for each performance.

Mozart was the composer of the next aria also: ‘Come scoglio’ from Così fan Tutte, sung by Christina Orgias.  This aria incorporates a lot of florid singing which the singer executed well, with a commendable variety of dynamics.  She varied the words intelligently, and gave a completely characterised Fiordiligi.

Christian Thurston’s last aria was ‘Questo amor, vergogna mia’ from Edgar by Puccini.  He gave a very fine performance.

The recital ended appropriately with Isabella Moore, who sang from Massenet’s Herodiade Salome’s aria ‘Il est doux, il est bon’, about her infatuation with John the Baptist.  Moore’s language was again immaculate.  She gave a very expressive and brilliant performance; in fact, she was the compleat singer.

It was noticeable that this singer was the only one to mention accompanist Mark Dorrell as a fellow performer, and to gesture her thanks to him at the end of each of her items.  The audience rewarded singers and pianist with hearty applause.

Music hath charms…  and the audience was certainly charmed by this recital by promising singing students, accompanied throughout by the incomparable, or should we say unashamed, accompanist.

 

A new piano trio presents two fine concerts, in Wellington and Upper Hutt

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Poneke Trio (Anna van der Zee – violin, Paul Mitchell – cello, Richard Mapp – piano)

Dvořák: Trio No 4 in E minor, Op 90 (Dumky); Kodály: Duo for violin and cello, Op 7; Shostakovich: Piano Trio No 2 in E minor, Op 67 (Wellington); Brahms: Piano Trio No 2 in C, Op 87 (Upper Hutt)

Two concerts: Ilott Theatre, Wellington Town Hall and Genesis Energy Theatre, Expressions Arts Centre, Upper Hutt

Sunday 30 September, 3pm and Monday 8 October, 7.30pm

All three members of the newly formed Poneke Trio have become familiar around Wellington: Richard Mapp over the course of many years; Anna van der Zee and Paul Mitchell more recently. It sounds like a group that has been waiting to happen, an event such as might tempt a believer to ascribe to the Almighty’s having a good day.

That was one reason for getting myself to both their concerts in Greater Wellington; the other was in order to hear both the Brahms and the Shostakovich trios, and because I had not been able to make the Wellington concert till part-way through the Dumky Trio.

One of the happiest pieces in all music opened the programme; the Dvořák trio is one of those creations that seems to have sprung fully formed into the mind of the composer, such as scarcely any composer in the century since has been inspired to write or perhaps been capable of writing.

So, I knew at once that I was in the best of hands, as the players began with a resolute tone from the cello and a gentler expression from the violin; then heartfelt chords from all three. The work consists of six movements, all between four and five minutes and in sharply varying tempi, in which Dvořák resists a temptation to elaborate too much his beguiling material, at least in a conspicuously sophisticated way; that induces the players to draw as much as possible from the music’s spirit while they have the chance.

This compression emphasises the music’s relatively informal character, that of a suite of dance-inspired pieces such as composers of the Baroque age used in their suites. Though each movement is cast in an A-B-A pattern the reprise of A is no mere repeat; and the programme note draws attention to further evidence of art concealing art in the pattern of keys from movement to movement, some clearly related while others a bit remote, such as that from D minor/major to E flat.

The well-conceived and idiomatic performance was rich in the Romantic spirit of the late 19th century.

Though written only 30 years later, the Kodály Duo for violin and cello seemed to come from an entirely different world and age. At first hearing many years ago I found it pretty alien, but it has slowly taken shape and its ‘melodies’ have become, at least, slightly familiar; though I would hardly echo the programme note’s description; after admitting that its slow acceptance was because of ‘Kodály’s idea of a tune’, it then asserts that ‘the work is rich in glorious melody’. For me, words like ‘harsh’ and ‘angular’ still come to mind, yet there is undeniably an absorbing character both in the music and certainly in this compulsive performance.

If one’s pleasure lies in finding flaws in a performance, one can almost always satisfy it by trying, and it’s not hard with such a demanding piece that calls for such persuasive advocacy. More important than perfection is evidence of sincerity and conviction on the part of the two players: that was there.

At the Sunday concert at the Ilott Theatre, Shostakovich’s Trio, Op 67, filled the second half. Perversely, an early thought was: why could Shostakovich write a piece like this piano trio, set in a time even more horrendous than that which Kodály lived through 30 years earlier, yet clothe it in sounds that touch the emotions so powerfully and involve the listener through an understandable language?

The trio played its famous opening with all the skill needed to create the foreboding atmosphere that lightens surprisingly quite soon, then continues sometimes animated, sometimes static. The second movement really showed what the trio was made of, switching from flashing energy with suppressed excitement while a sense of unease was always present, somehow at odds with the surface brilliance of the playing. I have heard the portentous piano chords that open the third movement played with just too much force, more than is needed to presage the plain dominant to tonic entry by the violin; here, Richard Mapp’s attack was just right and these players found an excellent balance. And in the clockwork rhythms that rule the last movement, the stiff-legged march theme alternating with pizzicato strings could have left its Soviet listeners in no doubt as to an underlying meaning; the strings bowed heavily, simulating shouting protest till things subsided into a more measured argument. All these nuances were captured expressively but not too emphatically to end a highly satisfying performance of a great work.

Brahms’s second piano trio was played at Upper Hutt. The opening phrase came with a warmth and unanimity of tone, at a pace that might be called languid; while I felt that Mapp was straining a little to lift the tempo at the start, I soon decided that the three were very much of one mind, not just about speeds but about the emotional colours of the piece as a whole. They were totally at home in the essentially Brahmsian, muscular and slightly sentimental first theme.

The steady pace of the Andante movement, with the almost heroic double octaves in the piano, made a memorable impression, punctuating the melody heard first on the violin; it’s a variations movement that forms the emotional heart of the whole work, and though there are always minor matters where one wonders about a balance or a phrasing detail, it was beautifully played. More taxing in a technical sense is the Scherzo, particularly for the piano and this was sparkling and pretty flawless; one of Brahms’s loveliest tunes adorns the Trio section and it was given careful, succulent exposure.  Through the finale, Giocoso, the sense of jollity seems clouded and the performers did nothing to conceal that it is foolish to expect happiness to last, and it is the movement’s nobility and seriousness that left the strongest impression from this performance.

It’s timely again to remark on the pleasure of simply attending concerts at the arts centre in Upper Hutt, with its spaciousness, its nice café and an appropriately sized auditorium with agreeable acoustics – and no parking problems, though the railway station, too, is close by.

 

 

A Clarinet Trio at St Mark’s lunchtime concert: great music making with minor flaws

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Bruch: Andante and Allegro con moto, from Eight Pieces, Op.83
Mozart: Trio in E flat, K.498
Schumann: Märchenerzählungen (Fairy Tales), Op.132
Divertimento (Tim Workman, clarinet; Victoria Jaenecke, viola; David Vine, piano)

St Mark’s Church, Lower Hutt

Wednesday 3 October, 12.15pm

An attractive programme of great music, highly competent performers, an acoustically pleasing venue, but they did not add up to a totally satisfying concert.  The first disappointment was the printed programme, which obviously had not been proof-read.  The violist was honoured with joining the family of the great Czech composer, Janacek (minus his diacritical marks); the Mozart trio was catalogued as K.000; there were spelling, punctuation and syntactical errors aplenty.

The first Max Bruch piece was introduced by the superbly mellow tone of Jaenecke’s viola, and the clarinet followed suit.  In contrast, the piano sounded rather muffled, dull and distant.  Perhaps against the sonorous, forward sound of the clarinet, it would have been better to raise the piano lid higher.

The Andante (the first of the Eight Pieces, and written in A minor) was a most attractive, though sombre, work, with splendid interweaving of the parts.  The second piece, in B minor, was faster, and stormy in nature compare with the first; this considerable contrast made them a good pair to perform together.

The Mozart trio again suffered from the piano part not sounding out sufficiently, particularly the treble, except in solo passages for that instrument.  This was especially the case in the sunny allegretto finale, where I found over-pedalling affecting the character of the music.

This fabulous music lacked sparkle, principally because of the dullness of the piano sound.  Tone and expression from the viola and clarinet were very fine, along with excellent phrasing.

Schumann’s four characterful pieces found the balance better, and more piano tone came through, but it still sounded heavy, and stronger in the bass, especially in quicker sections.  Three of the four movements were marked ‘lebhaft’ (lively), while the third piece was slow and sad – and beautifully played.  The instructions of Schumann, implicit in the titles he gave to each piece, were expressed admirably by the performers.

The concert was over-long, due to unnecessarily lengthy spoken introductions to the music.