Day: 13 April 2014

A rare conjuction of string octets, Enescu, Shostakovich, Mendelssohn, from the Amici Ensemble

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Waikanae Music Society

Shostakovich: Two pieces for String Octet, Op.11
Enescu: String Octet in C, Op. 7
Mendelssohn: Octet in E flat, Op.20

The Amici Ensemble (Donald Armstrong, Kristina Zelinska, Rebecca Struthers, Malavika Gopal violins; Andrew Thomson, Lyndsay Mountfort violas; Andrew Joyce, Sophie Williams cellos

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday 13 April 2014, 2.30pm

An interesting programme performed by fine musicians is always an attraction – even on a gorgeously sunny, warm day in spring.  That’s what I wrote as the introduction to a September 2012 review of this ensemble.  This time, despite 24deg. last Sunday in Waikanae, it was chilly and damp.  On that 2012 occasion, they played Enescu; this time it was a much more extended work by that composer; Donald Armstrong said this was a New Zealand premiere, as far as he had been able to discover.   It is a rare event to hear octets; even a luxury.

Assembling this number of players is quite problematic, and all praise to Donald Armstrong for giving us three such works.  The concert was not only well attended, with probably over 400 patrons, it was also a very attentive audience.

I had just been told before sitting down, about the possibility of a siren going off, summoning the Volunteer Fire Brigade (I had never heard it at the numerous concerts I have been to at the venue).  As Donald Armstrong began to speak into the microphone, that is exactly what happened!   The locals knew, but he didn’t, that a second sounding would follow; his second attempt had to be aborted.
However, if it had to go off, it was perfectly timed, before a note had been played.

Among Armstrong’s prefatory remarks was one about the lightness of texture of these octets, there being no parts for double bass.  The ensemble was seated as two quartets, i.e. violas were seated separately, between cellists and violinists; the violinists changed positions for each item.

The remarkable thing about this concert was that each composition was written before the respective composers had reached their twentieth birthdays; Mendelssohn was only 16 when he wrote his wonderful Octet.  As the heading to the programme notes had it “The works in today’s concert were all written by great composers when they were very young.  They are vibrant, energetic works that demonstrate the emerging genius of their creators.”

The first Shostakovich piece was a Prelude, written in memory of a friend, a young poet. It began crisply, yet the playing was sonorous.  There was a chorale-like opening, but immediately the music became dissonant, (it was written in 1924, before Stalin and his strictures on all forms of artistic endeavour) then sad, even gloomy.  Solo passages for violist Andrew Thomson were followed by a pizzicato dirge, and then by an animated section.  Poignant slow suspensions intensified the mood.

The Scherzo, in contrast, was not only fast, but also furious at the beginning, and then became soulful, especially in a cello melody.  There were spiky, strong rhythms, and the ending was briskly energetic. The work certainly demonstrated the composer’s early talent and skill, and indeed those of the players as well.

George Enescu was a Romanian composer, but lived most of his life in Paris, where he was a virtuoso violinist and teacher (Yehudi Menuhin was a pupil) and composer. His quite lengthy and grand quartet in four movements was taxing for the players.

At the beginning of the first movement, parts were quite often in unison between two or more instruments.  Gorgeous melodies and striking harmonies fell easily on the ear, as did the quiet pizzicato while a viola solo was played. Then came the second movement, with some strident, declamatory passages.   The third movement was played with mutes, giving a sombre, yet smooth and peaceful effect to the chords.  Violin melodies were played over slow, interrupted chords on the lower instruments. Intensity and utter accuracy typified the playing of this movement .  There was much pizzicato, beautifully done, and many unexpected elements.  It was a commanding performance that held the audience’s attention.

The final movement, ‘Mouvement de valse bien rythmée’ ranged over tonalities and octaves.  Though marked ‘waltz’ it would not have been easy to dance to!  A strong cello and viola melody stood out.  Only in this movement did I begin to think that Enescu was somewhat long-winded – and then it ended.

The extraordinary Mendelssohn work was written one hundred years before the  Shostakovich Prelude.  In my book, the former is one of the top ten, if not the top six, works of chamber music. The sublime musical ideas start from the dramatic opening, a rising phrase that builds in dynamics as it rises in pitches.  A mood of youthful exuberance pervades the writing, for the most part pervading the Amici playing too.  Nevertheless, quiet passages were rendered beautifully.  Breadth, elegance and soaring melodies are abundant in this glorious music.

The second movement opens with the violas, then a cello is added, succeeded by an ethereal melody.  The second theme is equally lovely.  Armstrong’s phrasing and timbre were a delight in his extended solo. Rich and ever-changing sonorities characterised the movement.   The Scherzo (allegro leggierissimo) was indeed light and fantastic, presaging the composer’s later ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ music.

This was followed by the dynamism of the fugal final movement. Such complexity from a 16-year-old! The reiteration of Handel’s music to the words ‘And he shall reign for ever and ever’ in the Hallelujah chorus (Messiah) had been pointed out by Donald Armstrong. There it was, passing from instrument to instrument, the theme in the busy finale.

Sustained applause greeted the end of the work.  I felt privileged to have heard such an outstanding performance of Mendelssohn’s Octet, and to have heard for the first time the two preceding works. This was a demanding programme for the players, who deserved every plaudit they received.  If I had one reservation, it was that sometimes the cellos were rather dominating.  But there was little to detract from the marvellous achievement that this concert represented.

 

Splendour and Strife from the Wellington Chamber Orchestra

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Chamber Orchestra presents:

BORODIN – Overture “Prince Igor” / BRUCH – Violin Concerto No.1 in G Minor
TCHAIKOVSKY – Symphony No.5 in E MInor Op.64

Simeon Broom (violin)
Rachel Hyde (conductor)

St Andrew’s on-the-Terrace, Wellington

Sunday 13th April

There’s something about Russian music which makes for a kind of instant combustion of attraction for the listener – it’s a combination of energy, colour, feeling and fantasy that intoxicates the senses, so that other, more abstract considerations seem irrelevant in the midst of all the excitement. And yet, when you force yourself to stop thinking “wow!” and concentrate on “how?” you find the music possesses its own logic of design and advances its own priorities with the kind of sure-footed certainty and vision that marks out great and distinctive art.

But there’s the case of this particular Russian composer whom I’m thinking about, where he was too preoccupied with his other interests and activities to actually get whole sections of his works properly completed –  what’s remarkable is that his music, as completed by his colleagues after his death, still possessed these aforementioned qualities in abundance, for goodness’s sakes! You’d be right in thinking that it’s Alexander Borodin (1833-1887) whom I’m referring to, though if you hadn’t glanced at the review’s heading you might have spared a thought for Modeste Musorgsky, another Russian composer for whom life even more seriously got in the way of music, with a number of compositions having to be “edited” after he died, a self-ravaged dipsomaniac.

One could say that the music of Borodin shares a lot of characteristics in common with that of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, fellow-composer-colleague, so that the effect of having the latter work on the former’s music for much of the time resembles the “rescue operation” activities of a kind of posthumous “alter ego”. But because Borodin’s music emerges from these rejuvenations sounding practically as much like Borodin as do the original, completed works, it suggests a uniquely-focused creative spirit was at work, one whose music with its distinctive harmonic and lyrical qualities has the mark of a genius.

So it is with the Overture to Borodin’s unfinished opera “Prince Igor” – both Rimsky-Korsakov and another composer-colleague, Alexander Glazunov completed the composer’s unfinished sketches of parts of the opera, with the latter taking on the job of reconstructing the Overture. Glazunov himself recorded that he composed the music “roughly according to Borodin’s plan”, using themes from other parts of the opera and from associated fragments. He modestly admitted that “a few bars at the very end were composed by me”, though, as with the rest of the reconstructions, the spirit of Borodin seems to shine out of every episode.

You could hear that distinctive voice immediately make its presence felt in the opening bars of the Overture which began the Wellington Chamber Orchestra’s first concert of the 2014 season. Conductor Rachel Hyde asked for and got a dark, rich sound from her players at the outset, the strings digging deep and the winds, though not perfectly in accord with their tuning, still bringing out that curious blend of splendor and plangency so characteristic of Russian music. I noticed that, for this concert, the brass and some of the percussion were brought out of the recessed altar area at the top of the steps, and into the more open performing-space, with a much more integrated, rounded-sound effect, to my untutored ears, than in previous orchestral concerts.

Though both winds and strings stumbled at the beginning of that trickily syncopated second subject melody, the playing brought out plenty of the music’s rhythmic excitement throughout – what a fine time the winds had with their “galloping” rhythms in places!  I liked, also, the antiphonal calls of the brass and the sheer “presence” of the tuba at crisis-points, sensationalist that I am!  As well, the horn solo was beautifully managed and the strings replied in kind with appropriate fervour. Despite the occasional spills one had a sense of conductor and players’ properly engaging with the music’s sheer physicality, a quality that’s needed for Russian music in particular to work its magic and properly stir the blood.

The orchestra has enjoyed collaborations with some pretty amazing concerto soloists over the years, and this concert continued in that tradition, with violinist Simeon Broom giving us the evergreen G Minor Concerto by Max Bruch, something of a “calling card” for virtuoso players. Broom has recently returned to New Zealand after ten years of study and performing in Europe to take up a place in the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. On this showing he can certainly lay claim to considerable accomplishment as a soloist, bringing to the music here a wonderfully burnished tone and plenty of interpretative imagination – a momentary lapse of concentration during one of the double-stopped descents in the first movement a minor blip in the otherwise fluent performance flow.

I thought the orchestral support for Broom wholehearted and finely-wrought, Rachel Hyde getting on-the-spot attack from all sections and some lovely moments of collaboration with the solo violin line. Detailings such as the winds’ series of descending phrases counterpointing the solo line leading up to the “big” tutti gave particular pleasure.

The soloist’s eloquent playing of the cadenza was superbly capped off by the orchestra’s precise attack leading to the music’s gear-change into the slow movement. Broom’s lovely spinning-out of the lyrical lines here, though not absolutely note-perfect, created a lovely frisson of feeling and  and atmosphere, one which built inexorably towards the movement’s great and glorious outpouring of heart-on-sleeve emotion, a process in which conductor and orchestra played their part lyrical and nobly.

The finale was launched strongly and expectantly by the orchestra, a touch of less-than-perfect ensemble mattering not to the argument, and advanced beautifully by the soloist with some stunning upward runs. Rachel Hyde and the players held the big moments firmly and in focus, while at the same time keeping the ebb and flow of exchange with the solo instrument vibrant. The brief and exciting coda was thrown off by all concerned with great aplomb. Altogether this was a performance which gave considerable delight to we listeners.

What seemed like sterner business was afforded by the Tchaikovsky E Minor Symphony after the interval, a work whose considerable technical and interpretative demands were bravely, if not altogether easefully, tackled by the musicians. I thought the two middle movements the most successful, each featuring some skillful solo playing and some nicely dove-tailed ensemble, as well as tremendous surgings of tone and energy when required. The outer movements each had their moments, but each I felt lacked that last ounce of energy and edge in certain other places which would have suitably invigorated the music’s overall impact.

But details such as the slow movement’s tricky horn solo, and the clarinet figurations in support were beautifully done, as was a lovely “afterglow” effect at the movement’s very end, thanks to some hushed string-playing and (again) some lovely clarinet work. And in the third-movement Waltz I loved the horns’ eerie stopped tones and the wonderfully balletic string “scurryings” and other “Nutcracker-like” gestures from the winds, so characterful and colourful.

The Symphony began well, with those dark, suggestive clarinet tones so characteristic of the composer, and some deep and sonorous lower-strings support – however, despite Rachel Hyde’s suitably “energized” tempo for the allegro, the wind players seemed to let their figurations coagulate, slowing the music’s pulse down in places, to the point of dragging. Away from the step-wise rhythm, things were more animated, the strings’ marvellously expressive tune sung fervently and the brass chiming in and tightening things up when they could. But the overall pulse of the movement for me simply lacked enough underlying forward momentum to make the music work – a question not necessarily of tempo, but as much to do with accent and phrasing, and of things being kept alive and purposeful.

The “attacca” into the last movement was, however, just the job! – and, indeed, the whole of the introduction had both girth and momentum, the conductor holding things together splendidly, though the succeeding Allegro energico’s stuttering figurations and syncopated entries led a few players momentarily astray. Brass and timpani made the most of their big “motto theme” statements, pushinging the rest of the orchestra through the vortex-moments of the development section. Matters concerning ensemble did come to a head with the reprise of those stutterings and syncopations (an extended sequence, this time!), where, in the midst of the ensuing dislocations, Rachel Hyde had to very properly stop the players and start again, most resolutely at the flash-point of the troubles! But the players grasped the nettle and made the sequence work the second time through, so honour was restored.

While the symphony didn’t consistently “fire” it had its worthwhile moments – and the playing from all concerned in the other two items did both the music and the musicians proud.