Day: 18 May 2014

Innovative and balanced programme from Aroha Quartet at Waikanae

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Waikanae Music Society

Mozart: String Quartet no.1 in G, K.80
Sam Piper: Dance of the Sidhe
Zhou Long: Eight Chinese Folk Songs
Schubert: String Quartet no.15 in G, D.887

Aroha String Quartet (Haihong Liu and Blythe Press, violins; Zhongxian Jin, viola; Robert Ibell, cello)

Waikanae Memorial Hall

18 May 2014, 2.30 pm

What immediately struck me was not that Mozart should have written such a quartet at the age of 14, remarkable as that is, but rather the beauty of the playing by the Aroha Quartet.  Their tone, subtle gradation of dynamics, their blend and balance were utterly disarming.  Unafraid of playing real pianissimos, these musicians brought much light and shade, and delicacy, to this, the first of Mozart’s string quartets.

The allegro second movement provided a considerable contrast, its fast tempi and lively expression taken together made it utterly unlike the almost dreamy first movement.  Juvenile high spirits were disciplined, however.

A precise minuet was full of graceful poetry, while its trio was a charmer, constrasting with the slightly more robust minuet.  Rondeau was quite a rollicking movement. Naturally, compared with Mozart’s later compositions, there was not the range of musical ideas here. Nevertheless it was well worth hearing, especially at the hands of these accomplished players.

I have heard works by young New Zealand composer Sam Piper before, but I rather think they were all choral.  Dance of the Sidhe (Irish ‘little people’) was made up of three short pieces.  The first, marked ‘furioso’ was sparkling and tuneful, mainly for violin with innovative accompaniment for the other instrumentalists, including clapping, finger-snapping, and tapping the instruments.  The second, “Dance of the Elder: largo con molto rubato’ began with a melody for cello, beautifully played, followed by the same on viola, while the others shimmered on repeated two note motifs.  There were lovely modal harmonies. The third piece, a presto, was more folksy in manner.  A spirited violin melody was accompanied by staccato from the other players.  This was fine playing of entertaining music.

It was very appropriate to have some Chinese music, with two Chinese musicians in the Quartet’s make-up.  The settings of eight folk songs, for which the titles were given in the programme were delightful, and as a description in the programme notes stated the composer’s music was ‘embedding elements of two cultures in a consistent, seamless, and original musical language’.  This was certainly true of the first one – a fine fusion.

The pieces were played without breaks.  The second, ‘Driving the mule team’ was very pictorial, the second violin creating the sound of the animal’s hooves by playing pizzicato on two strings together, while the others played legato melodies.

The third, ‘ The flowing stream’ was very descriptive of flowing water, and wistful longing.  ‘Jasmine flower’ was quite a spiky piece, in which the use of the pentatonic scale was very prominent. ‘A horseherd’s mountain song’ was a very rhythmic work song, in which the workmen uttered vocalisations.  Uncertainty or even querulousness entered into ‘When will the acacia bloom?’ about the young woman embarrassed at being caught waiting for her lover; the musicians treated it with sensitivity.  There were interesting cross-rhythms in the pizzicato parts.

Number 7, ‘A single bamboo can easily bend’ featured very sonorous cello, while the final ‘Leaving home’ was a busy piece that seemed to be more about travelling and work than any sadness at parting. This was a well-constructed sequence of pieces which the audience patently enjoyed.

Schubert’s long quartet is so full of change and variety that sustaining interest was not a problem.  Excellent programme notes aided the listening.

The power of expression that Schubert had, and the poetry of his utterance in chamber music and song is peerless.  In the first movement, the dark opening, full of dram, gives way to a sprightly melody, almost like folksong, on viola.  It is followed in turn by a beautiful first violin and viola duet on a  brief, ethereal theme.  The cello then takes the place of the viola.  The change of key that follows sounds almost brutal.  One marvels at the creativity that brought forth a work of such diversity.

The second movement’s opening melody on cello is full of nuances and warmth.  Schubert’s sudden fortissimos, characteristic not only here but in much of his music other than chamber music, serve to command attention.  Much beauty resided in this movement, and the music was always moving somewhere; the players had a good idea of the shape and structure of the movement.

The third movement scherzo was pleasantly busy, like birds chattering, while the melodious trio featured cello followed by first violin in exposing the tuneful and animated melody.  The finale was described in the programme note as ‘full of sudden dynamic contrasts, and rhythmic complexities.  This harmonic and rhythmic tension carries the movement in an exhilarating ride to the finish’.  I could hardly believe through the lively opening section that the same composer wrote the opening lines of the quartet.  Yet soon, we were plunged into minor harmonies again.  Towards the end, song-like themes emerged once more.

The innovative programming and skilled playing made for a thoroughly enjoyable concert.  Not every note was perfectly in place, but the musicality of the playing, the sense of unified approach and tone, and the delight of the music performed completely overcame any thought of aberrations.  It was a marvelous experience to hear such great music so well played.

A familiar, brief Shostakovich piece, mainly pizzicato, was played as a humorous encore, to send the audience away with smiles on their faces.

 

Brilliant and vibrant exuberance from John Chen

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Chamber Music presents:
JOHN CHEN (piano)

BARBER – Piano Sonata in E-flat Op 26
BEETHOVEN – Piano Sonata in C Minor Op.111
MENDELSSOHN – 7 Character Pieces Op.7 – Nos 3 and 5
HINDEMITH – Piano Sonata No.3 in B-flat Major (1936)

St.Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace, Wellington

Sunday, 18th May 2014

This was in many respects a masterly recital, a most interesting and, indeed, challenging programme, delivered by John Chen with piano-playing whose seismic performance energies in places would have given the foundations of St Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace a particularly singular workout. It was music that seemed to bristle with challenges for the pianist, though a different kind of challenge for both player and audience was due, I thought to the running order of the music that was chosen. I did know beforehand, for example, that both Beethoven’s Op.111 Sonata and Samuel Barber’s 1949 Piano Sonata were being performed, but not that they would be put right next to one another.

At the point when John Chen finished his blistering traversal of the Barber, which opened the program, I was ready for strong coffee, or something of an even more restorative nature! This was by way of my feeling somewhat drained of listening energy through close proximity to such supercharged music-making. What I really didn’t want to happen at that particular moment in time was to then be confronted with the alarming incongruity of encountering nothing less than Beethoven’s Op.111.

But here was this young pianist, having thrown off one of the great keyboard masterworks of the twentieth century with huge aplomb and complete commitment to the cause, ready to climb a different kind of Everest, with what seemed scarcely a pause for breath. It seemed a fraction – well, excessive……Perhaps if someone had appeared and said something like, “There will be a short break before the programme’s next item….” we would have been able to better realign our sensibilities for what was to follow.

Once Chen began the Beethoven, certain things about his playing of the music compounded the incongruity. With the Barber work he seemed to have both understood and fully entered into the music’s free-wheeling spirit of fearless creative ferment. However, his playing throughout the opening of the Beethoven work seemed somewhat constrained, the rough-hewn, elemental piano-writing I thought a shade too moderated in effect, to convey a sense of the music’s composer hurling his message outwards and upwards towards the heavens.

So much about his reading was to be admired – its pacing, timing, clarity of fingerwork and overall structuring all seemed clearly thought-out, and skilfully brought into play – and perhaps, in a different context it would all have convey more of the music’s intrinsic character. But after that performance of the Barber work it seemed to me as though Chen had with the Beethoven become too intent on conveying the music’s different “style”, instead of trying to directly get to grips with the work’s physical, emotional and spiritual content.

Symptomatic of this approach to the music was Chen’s omission of the first-movement repeat, as if for the pianist some structural logic was best served by its excision. I find its inclusion a significant intensification of the music’s character, a fleshing-out of the composer’s own dictum that “the idea counts more than its execution”. Removing the passage might serve some abstracted formal symmetry, but surely detracts from the range and scope of Beethoven’s emotional and spiritual architecture. It’s not quite a stylistic matter, but again it raises the question of priorities, this time regarding form and content and their relative importance. Of course, as with so many things musical, opinions will vary.

Going back to the issue of which piece should have followed which, my preference would have been for the pianist to have re-aligned the program, beginning with either the Hindemith Sonata or the Mendelssohn Character Pieces instead of the Barber Sonata, and playing the latter as a barnstorming finale  – after which, of course, the coffee would go down REALLY well!  But one day, I hope Chen will choose another alternative solution when programming Op.111, which will be to bring more of his own particular kind of creative abandonment to his playing and interpreting of the work. I don’t mean he should be riding roughshod over the music’s stylistic elements, but nor should they inhibit or be treated as ends in themselves – they’re a starting-point, a springboard from which to express Beethoven’s idea as the player sees fit and feels the music.

The remainder of the program seemed admirably suited to John Chen’s skills and sensibilities. Mendelssohn’s two Character Pieces (Op.7 Nos. 3 and 5) in places literally bubbled with enjoyment in the pianist’s hands. These were both fugal, and were from a set of seven, which the composer called “Character Pieces”, in line with how fugues were regarded by the Romantics, responding to the moods and intensities created by the interplay of different voices. In No.3 I enjoyed both the “ring” of the pianist’s right-hand work and the lovely singing quality he brought out from the lines, while the following, more devotional-sounding opening of No.5 gradually grew in warmth and momentum here, towards a wonderful and celebratory conclusion.

Paul Hindemith’s music is often a puzzlement for listeners mindful of reputation and prevailing attitudes. Contrary to the “dry and academic” labels which my early encounters with descriptions of his music seemed to repeatedly turn up, his music seems to me as deeply-felt as any, and in some instances, great fun to listen to. There is a certain rigour at times – but while I wouldn’t characterize the composer’s Third and last Piano Sonata as a barrel of laughs, it’s as readily approachable as any of the composer’s trio of works in this genre. Central to this accessibility is the first movement which uses a beautiful, slightly folksy melody that for me recalled a tune in Gustav Holst’s Brook Green Suite. Here Chen confidently and whole-heartedly brought out all the composer’s variants and developments of the theme in various “adventures” culminating in a kind of “laying-to-rest” ritual amid chordal progressions whose delicacies of dynamics were unerringly shaped, before the melody’s final winsome statement.

Then came a garrulous scherzo whose bumptious angular manner contrasted beautifully with a skitterish and sometimes gossamer-sounding trio (beautiful pianism, here), followed by a third movement March, grand and stately at the outset, but replete with lovely, mock-serious touches, Chen’s colourful playing by turns excitingly orchestral and atmospherically withdrawn. The fugal finale was a glorious undertaking, strong and assertive in places, more circumspect and playful in others – shades of the composer’s glorious Weber Symphonic Metamorphosis breaking though – Chen’s performance doing rich and whole-hearted justice to Hindemith’s rigorously-organised but fascinatingly-varied world of sound.

At the recital’s end I couldn’t help recalling the words of Sir John Barbirolli in an interview I once heard, during which the conductor talked about ‘cellist Jacqueline de Pre’s wholehearted approach to music and performance, and the reaction from various commentators to her allegedly over-fulsome style – “I love it!” grunted the maestro – “When you’re young you should have an excess of everything – otherwise, what are you going to pare off as you mature and refine your approach?” Which is not to characterize John Chen’s playing as excessive and fulsome – but that “excess of everything” referred to by Barbirolli is, I think, part of the essence of being a young performer, and wanting to encompass the full range of what music has to offer.

John Chen certainly exuded that essential quality in places throughout this recital – and we can count ourselves as fortunate that we’re able to share those moments, those transportings of delight when music combines with performance to produce something unique and memorable.