Day: 28 April 2013

Adventurous performances of testing and witty music by a dead composer

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

A Mews Celebration, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the death of Dr Douglas K. Mews 
Music by or arranged by Dr Douglas K Mews
Bach Choir, conducted by Douglas Mews, with Eleanor Carter, cello

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday, 28 April 2013 5pm

Dr Douglas K. Mews was Associate Professor of Music at theUniversityofAucklandfrom 1974 until his retirement in 1984.  He was also Director of Music at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Auckland from 1970 to 1982.

He was a composer, and a lively, instructive and entertaining broadcaster on what was then the Concert Programme, his soft Newfoundland accent being very easy to listen to.

There is a complaint that the general view is that ‘the only good composers are dead ones’, in terms of programming and public appreciation, in New Zealand we seem almost to have the reverse view: contemporary composers such as Anthony Ritchie, David Hamilton and Gareth Farr are frequently performed, less so dead composers.  I  do not imply that those named should not be performed – of course they should.  But, apart from the Dominion String Quartet’s exemplary promotion of Alfred Hill, there is not enough music heard from our past.

The concert began with two motets and a mass.  First, ‘A sound came from heaven’, which has been heard from the National Youth Choir of New Zealand. Unaccompanied, as were all the items in the first half of the concert, it proceeded well – a very effective piece and performance, aside from the lack of unanimity on the opening note.  The final sentence, ‘Come, O Holy Spirit’ suffered the same fate as the beginning.

The Mass’s opening, ‘Lord have mercy’ had a much better unison start. The setting interspersed Latin with English.  ‘Gloria’, was highly musical, varied and enjoyable.  The section beginning ‘For you alone are the Holy One’ was positively jolly in its setting.

‘An Introit of Beatitudes’ followed.  Here, particularly, was Douglas Mews’s fine and inspiring word-setting, the music following the natural speech rhythms.  Plainsong basis it might have had, but there were lovely harmonies, as well as much unison singing – always difficult, as the tenors found, introducing extra notes, and not sustaining repeated notes on pitch.

‘Holy, Holy’ was loud and joyful.  While the music was largely in an English tradition, it was not reminiscent of any other composer. It was complex in places, with cross-rhythms and crossings of vocal parts.

From unaccompanied voices to unaccompanied cello: Eleanor Carter, now a member of the NZSO (and Wellingtonorganist), was a student of Professor Mews at AucklandUniversity.  She played Five Melodies of Passion and Dispassion.  The first piece began with a big sound.  It was interesting to hear how resonant the solo cello was in St. Andrew’s. 

The piece suggested anguish, concern, anxiety, and ended with pizzicato, but no feeling of resolution.  The next piece was soft and mellow, in the form of question and answer between treble phrases and bass ones.  This questioning continued through much of the piece, followed by a more affirmative section, with a question at the end.

The third part began with some rough stuff – many short notes, and a querulous, even cross, argumentative tone.  One could almost hear words in this conversation, especially the expletive at the end.

Piece number four was all calmness again (dispassion?), with long sustained notes.  It seemed to be the calm of resignation rather than of happy repose.  Gentle pizzicato preceded a solemn ending. 

The final piece began with rapid pizzicato, then turned to powerful passion.  These features alternated, incorporating anguished outbursts.  There were cries from both extremes of the instrument’s range, and running pizzicato before an ending which incorporated the opening phrase of Saint-Saëns’ ‘Swan’ from The Carnival of the Animals – perhaps the most well-known cello solo there is.

The second half began with settings of two poems by Karol Wojtyla, who became Pope John Paul II.  He worked in a quarry during the Nazi occupation of Poland, and wrote a cycle of poems entitled The Quarry; we heard them in English translation. 

The first “Hands….. are a landscape” began in unison (again, the pitch was a little wayward) then went into close harmony.  The words about the physical effects of labour included “shoulders and veins vaulted” at which point the music had a vaulted sound: multi-part writing, as the words are “For a moment he is in a Gothic building”.  These and other words were first spoken and then sung.  At the final line “Some hands are for toil, some for the cross”, the interval of a second was held well, with a low bass ending. 

Eleanor Carter played percussion in these songs – large stones at two different pitches, used sparingly.  This was most telling at the end of the first song, where they doubtless represented the hammering of nails into a cross.

The second song, ‘In memory of a fellow-worker’, used not only the stones, but also two different bells, which chimed three times at appropriate intervals.  The setting featured sprechstimme, a cross between speaking and singing, and some awkward intervals, all of which were managed well.  The men were accurate and characterful on the whole.  Angular phrases contrasted with legato ones.  The whole was wrought, and performed, with sombre effect.

Douglas Mews played his father’s Sesqui Suite for solo piano (no prizes for guessing the year in which it was written) of three sections: ‘Auckland Awakening’, in which bass notes intoned, with a gentle phrase at the top of the treble that gradually opened out to a mainly quiet awakening; ‘Auckland Awhiowhio’, in which the spritely wind (no, that’s not a misspelling) was all over the place – will-o’-the-wisp, some of it very high at the top of Mt. Eden, other gusts at ground level; ‘Auckland Awash’ with a surging sea, featuring ripples and crashes of waves.  This was scene-painting, impressionistic music.  It was played with great accomplishment and sensitivity to the varying moods and subtleties.   

The lighter part of the programme began with an original Mews setting of Lear’s well-known ‘The Owl and the Pussy-cat’.  More delightful word-painting, especially the spoken “Dear Pig, are you willing…” followed by a high squeak “I will”.  The choir demonstrated precision and good tone.

Arrangements followed: of Simon and Garfunkel’s version of ‘Scarborough Fair’; where the men lost pitch to some extent; the spiritual ‘Little David’, which featured a semi-chorus of sopranos, and excellent contrast in dynamics.

Finally, arrangements of three Maori songs: ‘Hoki hoki’ (which I always find a tear-jerker), ‘Akoako o Te Rangi’, which began effectively with men and altos humming while sopranos sang the melody line, and finally that most often sung song, ‘Pokarekare ana’.  This was a superb arrangement beautifully sung, with good consistency of pronunciation, despite the pitch dropping.

This was evocative music and both entrancing and interesting to hear.  Some of it should certainly be heard more often.  The range of genres of music and of invention was impressive; the whole was a magnificent tribute to an importantNew Zealandcomposer.  For the choir’s part, there was much that was difficult without the support of accompaniment, and all members acquitted themselves well.

 

 

Uncovering the fullness of Monteverdi – Baroque Voices

Posted on by Peter Mechen

THE FULL MONTE – Concert Four

MONTEVERDI –  Madrigals Book 4 (1603) – complete

Selected Duets from Madrigals Book 7 (1619)

Baroque Voices : Pepe Becker, Jayne Tankersley (sopranos)/ Andrea Cochrane (alto)

Christopher Warwick (countertenor) / Jeffrey Chang (tenor) / Simon Christie (bass)

Continuo: Jonathan Berkahn (virginals) / Robert Oliver (bass viol)

Sacred Heart Cathedral, Hill St., Wellington

Sunday 28th April 2013

On the face of things, this was another expertly put-together and engagingly-performed concert in Baroque Voices’ Monteverdi series, with pretty much the same underlying features as in previous concerts. But the ensemble has now reached Book Four of the composer’s nine separate madrigal collections, one which represents a crisis-point in the series.

Monteverdi was to thenceforth embark on a new path, what he called his “Seconda Pratica”, moving away from traditional unaccompanied polyphonic modes in favour of freer and bolder uses of harmony and ornamentation,including the use of continuo instruments. He announced his intentions in his written preface to the Fifth Book, published in 1605, declaring that he would make “the words the mistress of the harmony and not the servant”.

So, the music of parts of this concert represented a kind of summation of an era, given that we as listeners following the series had already been well-and-truly initiated into the new age! Thanks to the group’s alternation of madrigals from both of the stylistic eras in every concert thus far, we’ve enjoyed and already marvelled at some of the expressive possibilities of the composer’s “Second Practice”. Though this may have “muddied the waters” for those wanting clearly-defined divisions in performance, for me the presentations have, in a different sense, been enriched with the use of these contrasts in the music as renaissance turns into baroque.

In any case part of the fascination for me of having the two “practices” presented cheek-by-jowl was, as with other concerts in the series, having those “window-in-time” opportunities for registering how the younger Monteverdi was always straining at the leash of compositional convention, and occasionally (to quote Franz Liszt’s famous words) “hurling his lance into the future” with unexpected and scalp-prickling emphases and irregularities which earned him the ire of him more conventional colleagues and rivals.

There were far too many moments of sheer musical illumination to catalogue adequately during the course of this concert – of course, we have become thoroughly accustomed to, indeed spoilt by the “moments per minute” nature of the presentations thus far – and so it proved here. I shall content myself with recounting my impressions of some of the more “stand-out” realizations achieved by the group, while noting the presence of a few moments which seemed to me to be less successfully achieved than the group might have wanted.

The concert began with the first madrigal from Book Four Ah delete partita (Ah, painful departure) – a spectacular unison soprano line began the piece, subsequently cleaving into two a tone apart, creating enormous intensity which was, I thought, beautifully sculptured by the singers, though Pepe Becker’s normally secure tones seemed to me a little strained and perhaps “unwarmed”, the effort more than usually noticeable.

Pepe’s and fellow-soprano Jayne Tankersley’s very individual timbres always delight in combination, their differences illuminating the lines and, by nature, the texts. The following Book 7 madrigal, featuring both singers Non è di gentil core (No-one has a gentle heart) brought out these features, the beautiful descents at “e nel foci d’amor lieta godete” (“who revel gladly in the fire of love) and the variation of impulse at “Dunque non e di gentil core” (This proves that no-one has a gentle heart) giving the more impulsive passages a wonderful “quickened by love” aspect.

Two Book 4 settings which then followed, both texts beginning with the words “Cor mio…” served to demonstrate the composer’s inclinations towards more overt expressivity and volatility than was accepted as the norm within the framework of the “old rules”. Especially the second of these, Cor mio, non mori? (My heart, will you not die?) contrasted a charged stillness at the opening with an impulsive leap forward at “non mori?”, employing volatilities and richly-wrought harmonies hand-in-hand, seeming to look forward as readily and uncannily as our sensibilities as listeners were drawn back in time as well.

The contrasts between the two styles did tell splendidly in places, such as in Book 7’s O viva fiamma (O live flame of love) with its excitable exchanges between the sopranos – Jayne Tankersley’s expression vibrant and pulsating, Pepe Becker’s more contained and poised – and its sorrowful and pitiable conclusion at “pieta vi prenda del mio acerbo pianto” (take pity on my sorrowful lamentation). The two altos, Andrea Cochrane and counter-tenor Christopher Warwick made much of their first-half Interrotte speranze (Hopes shattered) from Book 7, conveying the intense pain of unrequited love, underpinned by some deeply-felt tones from Robert Oliver’s bass viol. I enjoyed the deep, rich vocal unisons breaking into thirds, perhaps symbolizing the text’s parting of love’s way. However, in the second half I didn’t feel that the same two singers quite nailed another Book 7 madrigal,Vorrei baciarte (I’d like to kiss you) to the same extent, the piece requiring more vocal “ring” than these two pleasing, but rather soft-grained voices could muster.

There’s a barely-concealed eroticism in a good deal of Monteverdi’s music (including parts of his Vespers for the Blessed Virgin) which here bubbled to the fore in a number of places, such as Book 4’s Si, ch’io vorrei morire (Yes, I want to die of love), put across by the ensemble with great relish. Sequences like the suggestive ascending intensities of “Ahi, car’e dolce lingua” (Ah, dear, sweet tongue) and moments such as the fully-flowering “Ahi, vita mia, a questo bianco seno” (Ah, my love, to this white breast) would possibly have earned censorship strictures at less permissive stages of human history. As for the effect, visceral or imaginative, of the repeated exclamations of “Ahi…”, either way the intention could hardly be more explicit.

Rather less evident as soloists throughout, both tenor Jeffrey Chang and bass Simon Christie made exemplary contributions to the ensemble, especially prominent in Book 4’s Voi pur di me partite (So, you really are leaving me), with its male-only middle section at “Ardo d’amor, ado d’amore!” (I burn with love – I burn!). Tenor Jeffrey Chang made a good fist of stirring the emotions in Book 4’s Anima dolorosa, with his anguished tones at “Amor spire? Che spire?”  (Love, what hopes have you?) in the midst of more dignified mourning and sorrow. And Simon Christie’s rock-steady “anchoring”of the ensembles showed impeccable judgment and sensitivity in every case, his lines coming to the fore when appropriate, as in the eloquent Book 4 Longe da te cor mio (Distant from you my dearest).

Incidentally, this madrigal occasioned the only real “glitch” of the concert, Pepe Becker stopping the singers after a few measures, and starting again, presumably to “retune”. The only other untoward things were those previously mentioned very brief instances of voices sounding insufficiently warmed when straining for high notes (both sopranos and the counter-tenor), and a couple of tiny delays due to outside aeroplane noise. The rest was unalloyed delight – and with the next concert, we will presumably get the composer’s “Seconda Pratica” in full candlepower, music’s history in its making.