Admirable performances from Kapiti orchestra under Ken Young and hornist Ed Allen

Kapiti Concert Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Young with Edward Allen (horn)

Beethoven: Egmont Overture, Op 84
Fauré: Masques et bergamasques
Mozart: Horn Concerto in E flat, K 447
Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin – Waltz and Polonaise
Saint-Saëns: Romance for horn and orchestra, Op 36
Brahms: Hungarian Dances Nos 1, 5, 6

Church of St Paul, Kapiti Road, Paraparaumu

Saturday 30 August, 3 pm

I don’t think I’ve heard the Kapiti Concert Orchestra play before, which does seem an extraordinary state of affairs. In fact, Middle C seems to have noticed the orchestra’s performance only once: my colleague Rosemary Collier reviewed their concert for Christchurch in March 2011.

This concert under conductor Ken Young revealed an ensemble that must be one of the most accomplished to arise in a community of only about 40,000, though it’s fair to observe that several players come from other parts of the Wellington metropolitan area.

The programme was a model of what is appropriate for an amateur orchestra. It began with Beethoven’s Egmont Overture, which does not present any insuperable problems for such players. I can say that for it was one of the pieces that the orchestra, the predecessor of the Wellington Youth Orchestra, in which I played, tackled satisfactorily in the 1950s.

This dramatic overture began with a massively arresting sound, with basses delivering truly stentorian chords. The following steady tempo that pictures the hope of the Low Countries for relief from brutal Spanish rule under the leadership of Count Egmont. The playing was clean and purposeful; the tension that precedes the transformation that follows Egmont’s sacrificial execution was powerfully created and the coda, in spite of the odd flaw, quite inspiring.

Faure’s Masques et bergamasques was, as the programme note explained, a suite of eight pieces drawn mainly from earlier pieces, some of which had never been published. Given the charming character of most of the suite, it serves to remind us of how much music gets sidelined and goes unheard, for obscure reasons. The orchestral suite includes only four of the eight pieces: the Ouverture, a Menuet and Gavotte (all from an abandoned 1869 symphony) and Pastorale (the only new movement).

The unused pieces, Wikipedia notes, were Madrigal (Op. 35, 1884; for chorus and orchestra), Le plus doux chemin (Op. 87 No. 1, 1904; for tenor and orchestra), Clair de lune (Op. 46 No. 2, 1887; for tenor and orchestra), and a Pavane (Op. 50, 1887).

It’s interesting that in 1869, when this symphony was drafted, Fauré had no significant French symphony of conventional form as a model (Gounod perhaps, but Bizet’s was unknown, and Berlioz’s works hardly supplied a model for a composer of a more orthodox turn of mind). So we can think of Masques et bergamasques as containing at least something of his first attempt at a symphony; there’s also a later unpublished Symphony in D minor (1886). So it’s not typical, especially of his mature period.

The playing was perhaps rather more forthright than one is used to in Fauré, but if the notes are there, then who am I to comment on the way the conductor wants to hear them? In any case there was quite admirable playing from various quarters – violins, oboes and clarinets. But I felt the Minuet wasn’t much of a dance: rather plodding, and the Gavotte emphasized the peasant origins of that dance. With its confident touch of the romantic, the Pastorale felt French and reflecting more of the composer’s ethereal, disembodied personality.

The main course in the first half, in the whole concert in fact, was a good performance of Mozart’s third horn concerto (they’re all in E flat except the first which is in D).  Not only did we get a warm and immaculate performance from former NZSO principal horn Ed Allen, but the orchestra was clearly energized, even inspired, by the task they had taken on, under the conspicuous leadership of Ken Young. The string playing in the slow movement was particularly accomplished.

After the interval – it was a bit long considering there’s no café or much to do other than watch traffic on Kapiti Road – the orchestra played the two dances from Eugene Onegin; the waltz and the polonaise. Instead of a ballabile, flowing quality, the waltz took on a too staccato character, and here I felt the wind players showed excessive energy; timpani too, perhaps as a result of its placing towards the corner, produced a troublesome booming at times.  Something of the same fore-square quality also bothered me in the polonaise, though the marching character of this very formal dance may justify such an approach.

Ed Allen stayed for a second horn piece: one of Saint-Saëns’s pieces for instruments whose solo potential was overlooked. This was a Romance, in slow triple time with a contrasting middle section. Though not one of the composer’s more memorable inspirations, it offered another chance to
hear Allen’s superb playing.

The concert ended with three of Brahms’s Hungarian Dances.  I think these, originally for piano, are pretty hard for an amateur orchestra to bring off for they need an instinctive feeling for flexible, varied rhythms and nicely judged dynamic nuances. While the notes may not be too hard to get, they are the sort of music, like Strauss waltzes, and ballet music, that we’ve heard played in relaxed style, effortlessly, idiomatically, flawlessly, by the very greatest orchestras.  It’s music that needs playing with utter simplicity, limpidity and perfection: our taste has been spoiled.

However, everyone came away marvelling at the excellence of the concert, and the fact that an orchestra of such comparative accomplishment has taken root in the Kapiti area. Only in the presence of such generally excellent playing would I have felt able to make the few critical remarks that have fallen inadvertently onto the keyboard.

 

2013 National Youth Orchestra shines and glows

NZSO National Youth Orchestra 2013

SAM LOGAN – Zhu Rong Fury!
BEETHOVEN – Piano Concerto No.3 in C Minor Op.37
TCHAIKOVSKY – Symphony No.5 in E Minor Op.64

Richard Gill Conductor
Lara Melda Piano

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Friday 30th August, 2013

This event was one of those marvellous musical experiences that proves to be as much a celebration as a concert. It was an evening that showcased some 75 young kiwi musicians brimming with talent, passion and stunning professionalism. They were led by Australian conductor Richard Gill, an outstanding educator and musician who has encouraged thousands of youngsters in their journey to musical maturity, and the rapport between conductor and players was palpable from the initial downbeat.

The programme opened with Zhu Rong Fury! a short work commissioned for this concert from Sam Logan, the young NYO Composer-in-Residence. It was a programmatic work depicting the furious struggles between the Bronze-Age  Chinese deity Zhu Rong and his son Gong-Gong who played out a creation myth not unlike that of Rangi and Papa in Maori legend. The score was highly inventive in its colourful orchestration, and exceptionally demanding technically, particularly for the percussion whose role was to express all the fury and violence of the divine confrontation. It was an explosive start to the evening and the NYO pulled it off with great panache.

The following Beethoven Piano Concerto No.3 in C minor, Op.37 called for a complete quantum shift in the players’ mindset, but they did not falter. It was clear that this performance had been crafted by conductor, soloist and orchestra with great care and devotion: each was attuned to the other in a mutual understanding of the profound depths of this music. Yet that understanding was tempered with a lightness that wonderfully expressed the youthful joy they found in the rich delicacy of melodic writing, offset against the powerful dramatic contrasts that typify the work.

The 20-year-old British soloist Lara Melda was born in London to Turkish parents, and currently studies at the Royal College of Music. She is rapidly making her mark in the world of recitals and international competitions, and is also an accomplished viola player who enjoys chamber music on both instruments. This broader background was obvious in the conversations she created with the orchestra, and particularly with the woodwind principals as together they wove melodic fabric of exquisite complexity and sensitivity. Her dynamic range displayed an astonishing mastery of the keyboard, and a technical command that enabled a reading of this concerto that left a sense of  real musical completeness. It brought the house down, and she returned with an encore of Chopin’s Butterfly Etude – sixty seconds of magic executed with breathless lightness and delicacy.

Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.5 in E minor, Op.64 comprised the second half of the concert. This huge work is a real endurance test for any orchestra, but the NYO and Richard Gill threw themselves into it, and clearly revelled in the opportunity. The brooding theme of the opening Andante was beautifully stated by clarinets and bassoons, and followed by a rich warmth from the massed strings that immediately set the scene for the breadth of  this score. They moved effortlessly into the drive and energy of the following Allegro con anima and gave great colour and contrast to its sudden shifts in temperament.

The Andante Cantabile opens with one of the most famous and evocative horn melodies in the entire orchestral repertoire. It fell to principal William McNeill who, unlike many professional orchestral principals, was not supported by a fifth horn to take over some of the slog of extended tutti passages. Undeterred, he played it with great sensitivity that truly captured the heartbreaking beauty of this melody. And this yearning passion marked out the entire movement as the whole orchestra reached far into the depths of its richly expressive writing.

The Valse that followed was played with a lilting grace that endowed this classic courtship ritual with a delightfully youthful, slightly breathless aura.

The huge Finale movement was tackled with no hint of the exhausting demands of this huge work. Players and conductor alike launched themselves at its furious, larger-than-life orchestration with no holds barred. Following the somber majesty of the introduction, they gave full force and brilliance to the power of its relentless drive, right through to the final dramatic chords. It was a fitting end to an outstanding performance of this work that would do credit to any professional orchestra.

I had only one issue with this concert. It was a remarkable display of youthful kiwi talent, yet the management chose to bypass that same talent in their selection of the solo performer. New Zealand has so many outstanding young musicians who would do more than justice to this role, be it on piano or some other instrument, yet that call was not made. If it was good enough to showcase a kiwi for the Queen Mother’s special youth orchestra concert in 1966 (with violinist Michael McLellan), why not now and in future years?