Month: May 2015

Auckland Ensemble in delightful programme at Waikanae, but need time to mature in ensemble and articulation

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Auckland Ensemble (Caroline Almonte, piano; Leo Phillips, violin; Serenity Thurlow, viola; Edith Salzmann, cello)
(Waikanae Music Society) 

Mozart: Piano quartet no.1 in G minor K.178 (allegro, andante, rondo allegro)
Brahms: Piano quartet no.3 in C minor, Op 60 (allegro non troppo, scherzo: allegro, andante, allegro comodo)
Schumann: Piano quartet in E flat major, Op.47 (sostenuto assai – allegro ma non troppo, scherzo: molto vivace – trio I – trio II, andante cantabile, vivace)

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday 17 May 2015, 2.30pm

An interesting and attractive programme did not, nevertheless, attract as large an audience as has attended many of the Society’s concerts.  Was it the welcome fine, sunny weather after so much rain recently that proved more enticing than sitting in a hall?

Edith Salzmann, formerly cello teacher at Canterbury University, is now teaching the instrument at the University of Auckland, where violist Serenity Thurlow is also teaching.  Leo Phillips (UK) is a visiting tutor at the same university, and Caroline Almonte (Australia) is giving master-classes there.

The Mozart work is quite a well-known one, but despite the first movement being played slower than I have heard it before, it seemed to find the Ensemble less than cohesive as a group, especially in the tone department, in the first movement. The viola tone disappointed, and for my taste, there was excessive slurring of the melody line on the violin; I would expect a crisper articulation for Mozart, and fewer intonation wobbles.  Pianist Caroline Almonte’s playing was delightful, and beautifully articulated. The andante featured some fine playing, and the lively allegro movement demonstrated more uniformity of tone, therefore blend.  However, it also revealed some of the same faults of articulation and intonation as the first movement, and in the latter part of the movement all three stringed instruments were slightly under the note at times.

The Brahms work I was not particularly familiar with.  A fiery opening led to a more tranquil section, soon disturbed by more vehemence, to be followed by more tranquility.  In this work the viola tone was stronger and warmer.  Certainly, this is a Romantic work, while the Mozart is Classical, implying a different approach.  The cello pitch disappointed periodically. The scherzo of the second movement was full of verve and dynamic changes, to the point of sometimes being abrasive.  The beautiful andante with its wonderful opening cello solo with soft piano accompaniment sang like a mellifluous song.  It puzzles me why Brahms never wrote a cello concerto.  He is reputed to have said, on hearing Dvořàk’s cello concerto ‘If I’d known a cello concerto could be like this, I would have written one’, or words to that effect.  Yet both this and the wonderful cello solo in his second piano concerto seem to cry out for being part of a concerto. 

Later, the piano takes up the theme; this was played in a delightfully delicate manner, then was joined by the cello with a lovely depth of tone and expression, to be followed by the other strings.  The movement seems to express nostalgia and deep feeling. The allegro finale introduces a violin solo with piano accompaniment.  Again there were intonation glitches – not major, to be sure.  The other strings join in boisterously, before a chorale-like passage, the melody and harmony gently spelt out over a rippling piano accompaniment, before the excitement returns.  Reiteration of the cello theme from the previous movement, including on the piano, and variations thereon gave interest and variety to this movement.

Schumann’s marvellous piano quartet has special significance for me, so I was greatly looking forward to a live performance of it.  After a spooky, sotto voce chord, we are immediately into the four-chord theme that dominates the movement, in both solemn and jocund moods.  (Did Sibelius consciously or unconsciously base the opening of his famous soulful hymn-like theme in Finlandia on this tune?)  The pianissimo on the piano was both chilling and thrilling. 

The Schumann work found the ensemble much better blended.  The scherzo and its two trios were joyous, and skilfully played.  As the programme note put it, “nimble with a sense of urgency.” The andante features a sublime melody on viola and violin, later tellingly repeated on the cello.  For this movement, the cello had to re-tune her bottom string from C to B-flat, and then tune it back to C for the vivace finale, which was a brisk and busy movement.

This was a wonderful programme, but I was disappointed in its execution.  It seems that this group of players have not had enough time together to ‘jell’; their situation is very different from established quartets such as the New Zealand String Quartet, where blended tone is marked.  My remarks about intonation perhaps need to be seen in light of the temperature.  Unusually for this hall, I found myself cold after the first work, and had to add a garment earlier discarded.  The heaters were put on in the interval, and this improved matters; they were not left on for the last work, but this was not necessary.  It may have been that the players’ fingers were cold, and that this affected intonation and articulation.

When the members of the ensemble took their bows, Caroline Almonte gestured to the piano, revealing her delight in playing on the Society’s Fazioli grand piano.

 

Storms, remonstrations and resolutions from the NZSO

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents:
INTO THE STORM
Music by Britten and Sibelius

BRITTEN – Four Sea Interludes from “Peter Grimes” Op.33a
– Violin Concerto Op.15
SIBELIUS – Symphony No.2 in D  Op.43

(at the concert’s beginning, the orchestra played a short piece written by Jack Body, the New Zealand composer who died the previous Sunday, in Wellington – this was the fifth movement Non posso altra figura immaginarmi  of Body’s Meditations on Michelangelo for violin and strings.

Anthony Marwood (violin)
Thomas Søndergård (conductor)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday 16th May 2015

Everything seemed to fall into place throughout this concert, one of the most finely-planned and beautifully-realised evenings of orchestral music-making I’ve ever heard from the NZSO.

Central to its success was the degree of rapport I felt coursing between the players and conductor throughout. Thomas Søndergård, making his debut with the orchestra, secured playing at once clearly focused, finely proportioned and satisfyingly expressive in each of the works presented.

To begin, the orchestra paid a tribute to composer Jack Body, who had recently died. The piece chosen was hardly elegiac, but had instead an appropriate vigour and energy, just as Body himself would most likely want to be remembered. This was an exerpt from a work for strings and violin Meditations on Michelangelo, the fifth movement Non posso altra figura immaginarmi (I cannot imagine another figure) – marvellously scored music, with overlapping figurations, dynamics and timbres giving the listener plenty of antiphonal and textural excitement.

A more sombre note was struck immediately by the opening measures of Benjamin Britten’s first “Sea Interlude” from the opera Peter Grimes, a sequence depicting Dawn, but with the ocean as the chief protagonist, with beautifully-projected surface detailings, underpinned by ominous swellings of oceanic power. Sunday Morning introduced a human element to the scenario, with church bells rhythmically counterpointing various people’s to-and-fro movements in between irruptions of of clamorous activity – a particularly sonorous church bell here sounded a somewhat menacing note towards the piece’s end.

I thought the conductor’s tempo at the beginning of the third Interlude Moonlight a shade brisk at the outset, taking a while to capture a nocturnal version of the opening Dawn seascape, but succeeding in delivering a sense of that oceanic power again waiting to swell up in anger and crush anything caught in its mesh of unbridled fury. This of course came with the final Interlude, the Storm, here a savage unleashing of the forces suggested in places by the previous sequences, Søndergård properly challenging the players at a frenetic, no-holds-barred tempo. From the trumpet’s shrill clamour to the tuba’s tummy-wobbling pedal point blasts, the brass timbres “spoke” with terrific presence and excitement, assisted readily by the timpani – those contrasting moments of exhausted stillness just before the final onslaught made all the greater an impression in the midst of such elemental ferocity.

What a richly-wrought work the same composer’s Violin Concerto is! – the first movement was presented here as a bitter-sweet journey into realms of great beauty and nostalgia, everything held together by the opening motif played on the timpani. I immediately thought of Walton’s music with the entry of the strings, the writing having a similar bitter-sweet quality, as with the soloist’s first “endless melody” cantilena. Though Anthony Marwood’s tone wasn’t as richly-upholstered as I was perhaps expecting, his focus and purity of line was something to savor throughout. I loved the Ravel-like fanfares played first by the violin and then, following an exhilarating downward plunge by the strings, taken up by the brass, as if a character from the composer’s ballet “The Prince of the Pagodas” was about to arrive.

How beautifully Marwood played the languorous solo that followed, gorgeously accompanied by the orchestral ambiences, leading to a deeply-throated ritualistic march, the strings soaring and the soloist playing the opening timpani motif – so atmospheric, so delicate and tremulous as the music stole to the movement’s end. And what an exhilarating change we were plunged into with the scherzo, the soloist’s Prokofiev-like ascending solo line danced over scampering rhythms, towards a “trio” section, orchestral hammer-blows leading to a more circumspect “trio” section featuring discourses between the solo violin and the winds, followed by a breath-catching cadenza, here quite superbly voiced by the soloist, and  evocatively leading into the final movement’s Passacaglia.

We were quite literally spell-bound as the theme began deeply and softly on the trombones beneath the solo violin’s rhapsodizing, then spread like the rays of a rising sun throughout the rest of the orchestra, the structures shaped like ranges of mountains. The music was, by turns stern and dark (brass and timpani), then warm and yielding (strings and oboe), a sense of ritual becoming more and more apparent, energized in places by things like rapid solo violin triplets (excitingly done!) and rapid variants of upward scales, the different sections exhilaratingly counterpointing their rising and falling lines. Having been impressed by the music’s grandeur and solemnity, we were then taken to more valedictory realms by the concluding Andante lento sequence, the solo violin rhapsodizing both sorrowfully and stoically over muted brass and wind chords whose resonances seemed to stretch forwards into the unknown – I thought the performers “held” this elegiac quality with utmost concentration and skill right into and through those heartfelt silences.

Having thus been emotionally wrung-out by the Britten, we were able to replenish our oxygen supplies at the interval in time to square up to Finnish composer Jean Sibelius’s epic Second Symphony. In conductor Thomas Søndergård’s hands the music balanced this long-breathed character with plenty of rhythmic verve and a good deal of sensitive lyricism. The first movement, notable for a kind of “hide-and-seek” game which the composer plays with his own rhythmic and lyrical fragments, was here beautifully realized, the different figurations adroitly juxtaposed, contrasted and then mellifluously brought together, making for a pastoral scenario depicting both sparkling detail and more rugged, far-flung spaces. I thought the players’ detailings of these scenarios were everywhere exemplary.

The sterner, altogether more tragic ambiences of the second movement were allowed plenty of space to unfold – the dramatic pauses that abounded in this music helped build the tension and uncertainty regarding the narrative’s direction. Sibelius was apparently inspired by the legendary Don Juan when writing this music, though the dark, foreboding moods created by some of the episodes evoked a rugged landscape as readily as a swashbuckling hero’s premonition of death. The ambiences swung from brooding uncertainty and looming tragedy to calmer, more settled ambiences and then back again. All of this was splendidly realized by Søndergård and his players, the dynamic contrasts, antiphonal figures and and rhythmic variants delivered with flair and sensitivity – in fact a single brief brass “fluff” was the only mishap I noticed throughout the music’s volatile and complex journeyings.

I enjoyed the “bristling and spilling over” aspect of the scherzo, Søndergård encouraging his strings to throw themselves and their instruments at the music and take risks by way of conveying near-uncontrollable excitement – and what a contrast was provided by the trio, with gorgeous, lyrical sounds coming from the winds and reinforced by the strings, before the sudden reprise of the scherzo’s opening shattered the repose, with the brass  this time taking the lead. Søndergård excitably pushed along the “transition music” leading towards the finale, then drove both string and brass ostinati figures stirringly towards the first of the movement’s two “big tunes”, here delivered muscularly and full-throatedly on the strings. The counter-melody, at first “teased out” of string murmurings on the winds was here rolled along splendidly, giving way firstly to some hymn-like utterances and then a fugato-ish figure begun by the ‘cellos, and building up with growing energy and force through the entire orchestra until bursting forth on the strings (wonderful horn accompaniments!) as a reprise of the first big tune! I loved it – such a splendid and pivotal moment!

But, of course, it wasn’t the work’s conclusion – and Søndergård became like a man possessed, driving his forces with even more of a will, firstly through the counter-melody’s almost Bolero-like repetitions to its revelatory minor/major key change, and then into the coda and the return of the first “big tune”, the entire orchestra here playing its collective heart out, and giving its all with its conductor and for the composer – if not the most grandly epic performance I’ve heard, it was certainly one of the most exciting ones! What really endured in my memory was the playing’s focus, its unerring direction, and the “sheen” on the sound of every instrumental section throughout the whole concert – performances that one imagines would have had the composers’ shades nodding with contented approval.

 

 

Cenerentola brilliant in every aspect – principals’ singing and acting, orchestra and chorus, production, sets and costumes from New Zealand Opera

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand Opera

Rossini: La Cenerentola, or La Bontä Trionfa (in Italian with English surtitles)

Directed by Lindy Hume, with Musical Director Wyn Davies, Orchestra Wellington, Freemasons NZ Opera Chorus (Wellington), soloists Sarah Castle, John Tessier, Marcin Bronikowski, Ashraf Sewailam, Andrew Collis, Amelia Berry, Rachelle Pike

St. James Theatre

Saturday 9 May 2015, 7.30pm

While writers may disagree concerning whether La Cenerentola (Cinderella) is a comic opera, there is no doubt that New Zealand Opera played it as such, with much humorous activity.  Perhaps some of the symbolism and solemnity of this moral fairy tale was lost in the process, but the rich variety of visual and aural delights made for a thoroughly enjoyable entertainment.  The version of the story used by Rossini’s librettist Jacopo Ferretti was certainly not as grim as that by the brothers Grimm.  It was not until comparatively recently that this opera was seen as a masterpiece comparable to the composer’s The Barber of Seville and The Italian Girl in Algiers.

Gioacchino Rossini was indeed a precocious talent, as the title of the essay in the programme by Peter Bassett declares, having written numbers of operas while still in his teens.  But not quite as precocious as the dates 1817-1868 shown above his portrait opposite the essay would indicate.  1817 was the date of the composition of Cenerentola.  Not Rossini’s date of birth, which was 1792.  The opera comes at the midpoint of Rossini’s opera-writing career: it was his nineteenth opera, and there were 19 to follow over the next decade, after which he wrote no more operas.

The Director’s decision to set the story in Dickensian London led to marvellously detailed and evocative sets from designer Dan Potra.  The opening set, seen by the audience as background to various high-jinks during the overture, was a huge library, obviously in a great house.  It returned at appropriate points through the story, doubling at one point as the wine cellar in the prince’s palace – when, as if magically, several book shelves transformed into wine-racks, liberally stocked with bottles, including (according to the ‘revised’ libretto shown in surtitles) Cloudy Bay!  Above the highest shelves were portraits of past British monarchs; thus the audience was immediately informed of the locale.

Among the entertainments during the overture was the showing on a screen in a gilt frame of a series of portraits (photographs from the nineteenth century or early twentieth) of prospective brides for the prince, who is under pressure to get married.

The overture is one of the best-known parts of the opera, and its liveliness was rendered with proficiency by the orchestra, under the opera’s musical director, Wyn Davies.  (Too often, including on radio, is it implied that he is there just to conduct the orchestra.  Not at all; he directs all the musical aspects of the production, including all the singers.)

Rossini’s usual good humour and ability to entertain an audience were immediately in evidence.  This joint production with Opera Queensland had much going for it, including not least a cast of principal singers who were uniformly of the highest standards, not excluding the two young New Zealanders as the step-sisters.

The scene transformed, through London fog, to a street view of Don Magnifco’s well-stocked emporium, where the opening duet from the step-sisters, Clorinda (Amelia Berry) and Tisbe (Rachelle Pike) takes place.  At the beginning, they sounded occasionally unsure, but this was soon overcome, and was about the only vocal problem (and a minor one) in the entire performance.

As Angelina (Cinderella), Sarah Castle was immediately impressive, in her first aria: a song in a simple folk-like idiom, about a king who decides to marry an innocent, beautiful but poor young woman for her goodness, rather than marrying for rank, title or money.  The subtitle of the opera means ‘Goodness Triumphant’.

Castle had the coloratura style required for Rossini’s florid writing to a ‘t’, and she and prince Don Ramiro (John Tessier) really lived the parts, as did the excellent Dandini (Marcin Bronikowski).  This character in particular, resplendent in a red suit while he was posing as the prince, and the sisters also, were required in this production to overact, or shall we say act up for laughs; this they did fully.  If at times this gave a vulgar tinge to the production, it obviously lived out Lindy Hume’s conception of these characters.

The many ensembles were excellent, disguising their considerable vocal difficulty.

The male chorus, through numbers of changes of costumes and roles, was energetic and well-voiced.  Some of its members were dressed as women, though obviously being men, most sporting beards.  This added variety not only to their appearance, but to the acting required.  Their set pieces were splendid, not to mention the typical Rossini patter songs, which require such vocal, verbal and labial agility.

Andrew Collis sang and acted his part of Don Magnifico… well, magnificently.  His movement, facial expressions and general deportment spoke of an older man, and one with ideas of improving his station in life.  No wicked step-mother in this story, but a cruel and vain step-father.

Ashraf Sewailam as Alindoro was outstanding, both vocally and in characterisation.  He had the right degree of magnanimous dignity, and his singing was a delight to hear.  However, it did bother me that, as a dignified tutor, he wore his top hat too far back on his head – a symbol of a scoundrel, which he certainly was not.  The hat should be worn squarely on the head (likewise the ‘lemon-squeezer’ military hat).  But so often in dramatic productions (and at other times) one sees them perched towards the back of the head.  (It was noteworthy that on Anzac Day Sir Jerry Mateparae wore his correctly.)

Costumes and props were numerous, colourful and appropriate, given the chosen setting.  Although this version of the story involved bracelets rather than the glass slippers (or should it have been fur?) that we are accustomed to, at a suitable moment when Angelina was being robed for her wedding, Don Ramiro placed new slippers on her feet – a nice touch.

The show was beautifully lit, and there was opportunity for some extraordinary effects, including during a storm with lightning, the chorus the while waving its umbrellas, bedewed with visible raindrops.

This was certainly a production requiring much acting, and also dancing, a particularly amusing sequence being when the chorus danced at the prince’s palace, with suitable seriousness.  The choreographer for this and other dance episodes was Taiaroa Royal.  At this point I thought I felt a slight earthquake – and then the word, and the actions of people suffering from one came up in the opera (to excess, of course!).  On consulting GeoNet later I found that there was a 3.4 quake west of New Plymouth at about the right time.  Did I feel it, or was it precognition?

Two other scenarios were used: the spacious grounds of the prince’s palace, bedecked Capability Brown-style with ornamental trees, which proved useful both because they could be moved, and because characters could hide behind them.  The perspective effect in this scene was beautifully achieved.

An unacknowledged keyboard player (perhaps Wyn Davies?) accompanied the recitatives that opened the second Act; meanwhile lots of stage business involved undressing and dressing Don Remiro as he sang a magnificent aria that included several wonderful high notes.  In this instance, I did find the amount of acting by members of the chorus detracted from the impact of his beautiful singing.

The delightful sextet a little later is one of the high points of the opera, as the main characters amusingly roll their r’s, particularly in the word ‘gruppo’ (knot) which they utter numerous times to describe the tangled web of relationships and characters, particularly the transformation of the ‘valet’ into the prince, and vice versa, and the transformation of Angelina into the prince’s betrothed.

The final scene of the opera took place in front of and on the balcony of the prince’s palace.  It appeared remarkably like the central section of the façade of Buckingham Palace.  It was created by conveniently turning around Don Magnifico’s emporium.

Every effort was made to extract humour from the opera, but pathos and seriousness were not absent, particularly in Angelina’s role.  The underlying themes of the exploitation of servants and the effects of the class system were not entirely lost.  Sets and costumes alone were a feast for the eyes; the singing and orchestral playing made up a feast for the ears.  Congratulations are due all round, not least to set-builders and costume-makers.

The season continues in Wellington on Tuesday 12 May at 6pm and Thursday 14 May and Saturday 16 May at 7.30pm.  The Auckland season opens on 30 May.

 

 

NZTrio’s fascinating collaboration with three young composers in a range of their and other contemporary works

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Chamber Music New Zealand in New Zealand Music Month
collaboration with SOUNZ (Centre for New Zealand Music) and NZTrio

Conlon Nancarrow: Sonatina (piano)
Ravel: Pièce en forme de habanera (cello and piano)
Webern: Four Pieces, Op 7 (violin and piano)
Alex Taylor: burlesques mécaniques (piano trio)
Ligeti: Cello Sonata
Ravel: Sonata for violin and cello (movements 1 and 2)
Claire Cowan: ultra violet (piano trio)
Salvatore Sciarrino: Capriccio No 2 (violin)
Ligeti: Cordes à vide (piano)
Webern: Three Little Pieces, Op 11 (violin and piano)
Karlo Margetić: Lightbox (piano trio)

NZTrio (Sarah Watkins – piano, Justine Cormack – violin, Ashley Brown – cello)

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 9 May, 4 pm

As a contribution to New Zealand Music Month, Chamber Music New Zealand, together with SOUNZ, developed a concert programme for NZTrio that would give the job of selecting the works to three young composers. So each selected three or four pieces, including one of their own, and at the start of each bracket, one of the members of the NZTrio read a short apologia by the composer, sketching his or her philosophy of composition.

At the end of this review you will find an appendix containing the words from the three composers who have curated this concert.

Alex Taylor’s choice
Alex Taylor introduced his choice, referring to his belief that music should challenge, disturb and cause discomfort rather than simply enjoyment; certainly an objective that seems common enough among composers of the modern era. (are you too an old fogie puzzled by the use of the word ‘groove’ which Taylor used, that one has heard in a pop music context, unenlightened?) Nancarrow was famous as a composer who came to feel that it was an advantage to remove an ‘interpreter’ from process of bringing his music to listeners, composing on to piano rolls for the player piano, and it is those that I am familiar with. But I had not come across this Sonatina, an early work, said to be the last he wrote for performance on an ordinary piano, prepared later for the player piano. It exhibited the characteristic sounds of his later pure player piano compositions. His very recognisable style suggests to me a dehumanised, dissonant Scarlatti, Ives-indebted, jazz-inflected, sometimes amusing. However, none of its technical challenges bothered Sarah Watkins.

The only mainstream composer represented in the concert was Ravel – twice (pace Webern, only eight years younger, but separated spiritually from him by a half century). The decisions on the programme were of course a collaboration between the three composers, as is noted in the appendix. Ravel’s Pièce en forme de habanera, originally entitled Vocalise-étude en forme…, was here played by cello and piano (in April I heard a visiting flutist play it) where Ashley Brown took care with its lyrical characteristics as well its bravura flights. In the light of Taylor’s manifesto, was it a surprise to find this charming, perhaps ironic piece among his choices?

Webern’s two pieces together, were probably of shorter duration than most of the other single pieces. One can listen to (though not come to grips with) his entire oeuvrein a few hours, and these, for violin and piano, were typical of his highly economical, compressed utterances, violin and piano often inhabiting separate domains though in whole-hearted accord and commitment.

The contributor of the first bracket, Alex Taylor, offered his burlesques mécaniques, the longest of the four pieces, involving the whole Trio for the first time. It comprised ten pretty short pieces that the composer described in his notes as ‘ a rather extroverted collection of grotesque miniatures … dances … mechanised, electrified…’. They were identified by names that were sometimes pertinent, sometimes difficult to recognise, titles that were not all that common in ordinary musical literature, like ‘a spanner’, ‘tumbledry’, ‘anglegrinder’, ‘scaffold’, but the main title had warned us. The writing for the instruments was hectic, though there were ‘stuck’ moments, a series of spaced piano chords; the character of the three instruments became important elements in the portrayal of each piece.

Claire Cowan’s bracket
Ligeti’s Cello Sonata was Claire Cowan’s first piece, which I’d heard only once before, in Wellington: it’s a fairly accessible, tonal work, drawing fleetingly on folk music, written before his escape from Hungary in 1956 to find refuge(?) with the Darmstadt/Stockhausen school. For many, like me, music written by composers who had comparable experiences, sometimes induces the feeling that some of the constraints of Soviet hegemony were not all bad, obliging young composers to master their craft based on the old masters and on popular music, as all composers had in previous eras. In any case, this was a fine, energetic, indeed virtuosic performance by Brown and Watkins.

The second Ravel work was the first two movements of the less familiar Sonata for Violin and Cello, written in the early 1920s, coloured to some extent by the prevailing return to aspects of the classical style.  Ravel’s music is almost always welcoming, full of delights and intelligent pleasures.

Claire Cowan’s own piece, commissioned by CMNZ, ultra violet (our young composers seem to have an e e cummings proclivity; is it a sort of mock humble demeanour?), written for the full Trio, plays with the phenomenon of ultra-violet light, beyond the normal range of light frequencies visible to humans, but ‘seeable’ by various creatures including the ‘most lusciously hued crustacean in the world’, the mantis shrimp. She extends this to the realm of sound, ‘navigating a musical landscape … on a journey to create and discover colours beyond the edges of our visible spectrum’. And so, the music made use of harmonics, very high, very quiet, but comforting, with strains of beauty, hinting at the sounds of contemporary minimalists of the Baltic rather than American kind.

Karlo Margetić’s contribution
Sicily-born Salvatore Sciarrino’s Capriccio No 2 for solo violin, dedicated to Salvatore Accardo, was Karlo Margetić’s first choice. It began with harmonics, very high, very fast, very detailed, hinting at the natural world with magical bird-like sounds: a startling performance by Justine Cormack.

Margetić’s second offering was Ligeti’s Cordes à vide, the second study from his first book of piano Études dating from his post-communist period, bringing the concert full-circle, back to Nancarrow’s influence. Though for piano, the title means ‘Open strings’. Ostensibly inspired by Nancarrow’s polyrhythms and African music, those features were so integrated in the music that its impact was as a piece that pursued its own inevitable evolution in an interesting organic manner.

The second Webern of the afternoon was his Three Little Pieces for cello and piano, Op 11. Characteristically, a lot of silence between cautious, economical though evocative notes offered by the two instruments, cello muted. Though the second piece, ‘Sehrbewegt’, began at least, exhibiting a sort of normal, agitated energy for 20 seconds or so before retreating to the composer’s customary notational frugality. In spite of this admirably sympathetic performance.

My life with Webern began when I saw, 60 years ago on the back corridor notice-board of what is now called the Hunter building (housing both the entire arts and law faculties) of Victoria University College (let me be accurate), what I took to be a misspelling of Carl Maria von…’s name in a notice about a Thursday lunchtime concert in the Music Department. In the intervening decades, his constricted emotional palette and what I feel as pretentiously minute expressiveness has never much touched me.

Finally Margetić’s own music, Lightbox, a word of which I have had to ask the meaning. I liked it, from the violin and cello opening, soon joined by the piano: a busy, varied story with touches of familiar, idiomatic harmonies and evolutionary processes; they helped to keep grounded a listener who needs one foot on firm familiar ground allowing the other to shuffle confusedly through an unmapped landscape. The composer’s remarks about the ill-assorted nature of the instruments of a piano trio were illustrated in occasional surprising outbursts by the piano, separating it from the generally happy duetting of violin and cello. The result was indeed, in the composer’s own words, ‘an unexpected and strangely beautiful assemblage’.

Jack Body
Next day, Jack Body died; he was an unparalleled inspiration to composers, musicians, music lovers and the arts world in general throughout New Zealand and in many exotic places. No student composer not only in Wellington, but also throughout New Zealand can have been untouched by his manifold talents, his example, openness, humanity and generosity. Though I was never close to him, whenever we met, I felt that his very own sympathetic nature, his warmth, induced feelings in me of greater generosity and tolerance, certainly of affection towards him. I never detected the slightest antipathy that might have existed for one who had sometimes expressed misgivings about aspects of the direction and character of contemporary music.

 

Appendix:

An overview describing the concepts adopted by the three composers, from Alex, Karlo and Claire:
“While this programme may look eclectic and forbidding on paper, in practice it draws together a range of threads that connect the three New Zealand composers. We have built an overall framework rich with contemporary resonances, within which each New Zealand work has its own mini-programme and narrative arc. We have tried to pack the concert full of energy and stimulation for any audience.
“We have decided against choosing standard repertoire piano trio works, most of which have only a tangential relevance to New Zealand composition in the twenty-first century. Instead we have broken up the trio into solos and duos, building up the ensemble for each third of the programme.. This approach provides textural relief between the ensemble pieces and helps to build continuity through each section of the programme.  The shorter accompanying pieces create dialogue and draw focus towards the longer (New Zealand) works.
“All of the composers we have chosen are highly individual but linked by a strong concern with colour and texture. Within this there are two general stylistic themes: continuations of the modernist tradition (Webern, Nancarrow, Ligeti, Sciarrino, Taylor, Margetić); and concern with older forms, especially dance forms and folk music (Ravel, Nancarrow, Ligeti, Taylor, Cowan). Two pieces in particular accommodate both of these ideas – Nancarrow’s Sonatina, with its echoes of hyperkinetic Jazz idioms (Art Tatum?) and foreshadowing of Ligeti’s etudes, and Ligeti’s Cello Sonata, taking traditional folk melodies as a springboard for discursive play.”  

 

Here are the texts of the short introductions from each of the three composers read by members of the trio before they played the works each had chosen:

Alex Taylor says::
Artistic expression in today’s world is not simply about beauty and emotion. It is not an easy way to pass the time. It’s about the discursive and the disturbing, the ephemeral and the offensive. I go to a concert to be jolted out of my everyday perspective. That’s what we’ve attempted to do in creating this programme. To give you a jolt. But also to give you a platform for exploration. To find your own way through. To get you started, here are a few threads to pull on.
First, modern vs. postmodern: there’s an interesting dialogue here between the desire to create something new and the desire to repurpose something old. Composing is a dialogue with tradition, but also a dialogue that leads outside of that tradition. Engage with the familiar and the unfamiliar.
Second, groove vs. gesture: some of these pieces rely on a groove to drive them forward. Some deliberately resist grooving, treating music as a collection of finely sculpted objects rather than a continuous rolling landscape. Some take the idea of groove or gesture and altogether confound it.
Third, straight vs. camp: although there’s some profound, deep music here, it’s also an opportunity for play, superficiality, artifice and irony. Perhaps not everything is what it appears to be.
So rather than asking you to sit back and relax, I’d encourage you all to lean forward and draw your own connections through this very special programme.  

Claire Cowan says:
I chose Ravel and Ligeti to stand shoulder to shoulder with my new work to represent my continued inspiration and fascination with colour. Ravel, the masterful French colourist; and Ligeti, whose solo cello work showcases the cello’s versatility beautifully (and I suppose I am biased, being a cellist myself). It reminds me of the Bach solo cello suites in its clarity of gesture and emphasis on melodic lines. It just goes to show – composers can have fun adopting other composer’s sensibilities; challenging expectations while at the same time also being true to themselves. Ultimately I think we write what we need to write, for ourselves..my composition is both my craft, my survival and my therapy!

Karlo Margetić says::
In some ways, the works that precede my piece form an exposition of its basic building blocks. All are transparent in texture, and simultaneously manage to be elegant and completely unrelenting in their approach. I’m quite drawn to music that has this continuous, unrelenting quality, from the cycles of fifths that form the bulk of Ligeti’s Etude, to the minutely varied repetitions in Sciarrino’s Caprice that make it feel as if time has been suspended. Writing Lightbox was like getting lost inside a maze designed by M.C. Escher, complete with impossibilities, improbabilities and optical illusions. I hope you will all enjoy being lost in it too.

 

Benefit for organist Thomas Gaynor, studying in United States, covers satisfying range of organ masterworks

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Thomas Gaynor, organ

Louis Vierne: Allegro, 2nd movement from Deuxième Symphonie, Op.20
J.S. Bach: ‘Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr’, BWV 676 (from Clavierübung III)
Mendelssoh : Organ Sonata, Op.65 no.6
Mozart: Andante for mechanical organ in F, K.616
Liszt: Fantasie und Fuge über das Thema B-A-C-H, S.260iii

Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul

Friday 8 May 2015, 6pm

Approximately 50 people were there to hear Thomas Gaynor on a welcome return to his home city, from study in the USA

The opening  item was full-on organ music, from one of the masters of the French organ school (Vierne’s dates: 1870-1937), but there were subtle contrasts in texture and volume, and melodies interwove the more dogmatic passages.  The audience heard some magnificent sounds, demonstrating that the organ is a spatial instrument, producing sounds from different quarters; the acoustic of the building amplifies them and resonates with them, distributing them to all corners.

There was much fast foot and finger work required of the performer.  It was a grand, if portentous, composition, amply well played.

Bach followed, with a chorale prelude.  Here a gorgeous flute registration accompanied a light reed stop playing the melody clearly.  The registration added to the lovely flowing lines and the glowing, peaceful quality of the music.

Mendelssohn’s sonata in three movements was full of interest.  The first movement consisted of variations on a German chorale.  Grove says of the composer’s organ sonatas: “[in] the noteworthy organ sonatas op.65 (1844-5) he reverted to the contrapuntal style of Bach…”.   Wikipedia expands the description in Gaynor’s printed programme somewhat, to: “No. 6 in D minor (based on the Lutheran Bach chorale Vater unser im Himmelreich [Our Father in heaven], BWV 416) (Chorale and variations: Andante sostenuto – Allegro molto – Fuga – Finale: Andante)”.

The first variation was quiet, with running quavers beneath the melody; the next was chordal with running pedals below.  Then there was an oboe solo with flutes accompanying, followed by a very fast and much louder rendition on diapasons.  The melody line, with variations, was finally on the pedals.

The grand fugue featured counterpoint between the pedals and the inner parts.  A big, thick organ sound gave way to the fugal complexity.

A quieter, hymn-like passage followed, with singing tones.  This andante was most appealing in a typically Romantic genre, unknown to Bach (despite Grove’s writer).

The short work by Mozart was a complete change.  The mechanical organ, or musical clock, had limitations with only slight appeal to the composer.  Searching on the Internet turned up this comment: “Less solemn and complex than its two companions, K616 possibly reflects Mozart’s increasing irritation with a commission that obviously bored him from the outset (Letter to his wife of October 1790)”.

While charming, it was reminiscent of his writing for glass harmonica, and in its tones.  The latter was also an instrument also limited in its range and opportunities for Mozart’s inventive skill.  The piece was for manuals only.  The cast of Thomas Gaynor’s head while playing this music indicated that this and perhaps other parts of the programme were played from memory. 

Despite the limitations, there was complexity and much modulation in the piece.  Rhythm and timing were nicely nuanced.  The music was pretty, but it was not a substantial work and became overly repetitive.

Liszt’s work was, as usual, full-on.  The organ got a good pedal work-out both near the beginning and again later.  Bach would not have approved of such shifting tonalities employed in the celebration of his name!  Rippling arpeggios made a grand effect in the fantasia.  The fugue left little doubt as to the theme.  It started quietly, with spooky notes on the pedals followed by the exciting stuff.  Much virtuoso playing was required, not least on the pedals.  Towards the end the music blazed out, Liszt being really carried away.  After a short quiet passage, Liszt let ‘em have it!

For an encore, Thomas Gaynor played one of Bach’s beautiful chorale preludes on the chorale ‘Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier’.  In a couple of places, I would have liked a little more of a break at the end of the text’s phrases.  However, the ornaments were beautifully managed and the whole effect was supremely musical and delightful.

There is no doubt that Thomas Gaynor is a talented young organist on the way up.  A varied, interesting and inspiring recital made good use of the splendid organ under his hands and feet.  The recital was  fundraiser for Thomas’s continuing studies in the US, in which all will wish him both pleasure and success.

 

Cantoris tackles imaginative programme exploring Hungarian influence in Brahms’s music and related musical phenomena

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Zigeunerlieder

Cantoris, conducted by Bruce Cash with pianist Thomas Nikora

Zoltan Nagy: from 25 Hungarian love songs
Beethoven: Songs – Elegischer Gesang and Meeresstille und GlücklicheFahrt
Rossini: Péchés de vieillesse (Sins of Old Age) – La passagiata and I gondolieri
Brahms: ‘Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen‘ from the German Requiem, Op 45; and Geistliches Lied, Op 30
Brahms: Prelude and Fugue in G minor (organ)
Brahms: Zigeunerlieder,Op 103 (Gypsy Songs)

St John’s church, Willis Street

Wednesday 6 May, 7:30 pm

Some musical programmes cry out to be heard and experienced because the music is famous and/or promises emotional excitement: expect a big audience; others offer little-known music that rings no emotional bells: expect a thin house.
This was a concert of the latter kind.

Yet the theme of this concert was interesting – the exploration of Brahms’s handling of Gypsy or Hungary-influenced music, and the concert reflected intriguingly on its origins and presented other music that might have tapped a comparable vein, perhaps tenuous, such as music touched by nature, with notions of liberty, freedom of the human spirit, some of Beethoven’s that touched the grand aspirations of the Congress of Vienna of 1815; but the connection of some, such as Beethoven’s Elegischer Gesang and the two spiritual items by Brahms was harder to divine.

Bruce Cash, Cantoris’s current music director, talked interestingly about the music and its contexts, especially about Brahms’s personality, the Vienna of his times and his relationships with patrons. To introduce the theme of Hungary he spoke about Brahms’s two important Hungarian musician friends Eduard Reményi and Joseph Joachim, and his lasting affection for Hungarian music. So they began with a couple of real Hungarian songs collected by Zoltan Nagy, difficult to capture idiomatically as they sang a cappella, and then their arrangements by Brahms in his Zigeunerlieder which they sang in its entirety in the second half of the concert, accompanied by pianist Thomas Nikora.

The two songs by Beethoven were from around the time of the post-Napoleonic Congress of Vienna in 1815, when he no doubt shared Europe’s general feeling that Eureope was free to revert to the old forms of more or less absolute monarchy, freed from Napoleon’s imposition of French Imperial hegemony combined with enlightened governmental and administrative reform.

There was no mention of the Mendelssohn overture, Meeresstille und Glückliche Fahrt, of around 1828 which was probably inspired by the Beethoven cantata. Here, in particular, the problem that tended to affect most of the choir’s performances became clear: the rather too small body of singers that could both lend important support to each other and consequently sing with adequate confidence.

Two Rossini songs from his retirement years in Paris were nicely accompanied though a solo soprano had an unenviable, lonely task.

After the interval and before the Gypsy Songs, Cantoris retreated from the floor to the organ gallery above the sanctuary to sing a couple of Brahms’s religious choral pieces: ‘How lovely are thy dwellings’ from the German Requiem, and the Geistliches Lied (Spiritual Song), Op 30, both sung with appropriate piety. Bruce Cash took the opportunity to talk about Brahms and Hamburg where he was born. He mentioned St Michael’s Lutheran Church where Brahms was christened and which featured in some of his activities during his return to his birth place from 1856 to 1863; I missed what he said about St Michael’s other than that it was where his Frauenchor (women’s choir) often performed.  (In 2013 I spent a delightful week in Hamburg, at the last three parts of Simone Young’s performances of the Ring cycle, exploring all five principal churches including the wonderful St Michael’s, and both the Brahms and Telemann museums in Peterstrasse). Before leaving the organ gallery Cash played Brahms’s youthful Prelude and Fugue in G minor, chosen for its own sake as well as deriving from the same years as the two preceding choral pieces.  

Then came the eleven Gypsy Songs; though they may have derived from the much earlier relationship with the Hungarian violinist Reményi, much of a Hungarian or Gypsy character seemed to have faded from Brahms’s soul by the time of their composition, ten years before his death.  They were written for four voices, no doubt with four trained voices in mind. For an amateur choir, especially one without enough singers able to contribute in any section in a soloistic manner, it was a struggle to create any real Hungarian character or, to be honest, to make of these fairly slender songs anything very interesting. Sadly, their successful interpretation, including an injection of ethnic and stylistic character, colour, rhythmic fun, rubato, commitment, calls for performers with a certain flamboyance and distinguished musical gifts. These qualities showed themselves all too rarely in this performance. 

 

An unusual trio throws fresh, sometimes questionable light on a variety of chamber pieces

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Trio Amistad (Rebecca Steel – flute, Simon Brew – saxophones, Jane Curry – guitar)
(Wellington Chamber Music)

François de Fossa: Trio No 1 in A, Op 18
Piazzolla: Histoire du Tango – Café and Bordello
Sergio Assad: Winter impressions for Trio
Bach: Trio Sonata VI, BWV 530 (arranged Eric Dussault)
Debussy: Petite Suite (arr. Timothy Kain)
Falla: La vida breve – Danse espagnole (arr. Owen Moriarty)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 3 May, 2:30 pm

This, just incidentally, was the third recital involving a flute within a month – see Middle C of 1 and 29 April.

The Trio by the amateur and rather obscure 19th century French composer, François de Fossa, was written originally for violin, guitar and cello (reflecting the widespread interest in the guitar in the first half of the 19th century).

I had not heard of De Fossa and have been interested to find him, of course, through Google, significant in the guitar world, responsible for bringing Boccherini’s guitar quartets to notice, arranging Haydn quartets for guitar duo, translating a guitar method from Spanish.

Since Fossa himself had arranged for the guitar, music written for other instruments, I guess there can be little objection to musicians today arranging his. The thing that struck one at once however was the dramatically different sound produced by the tenor sax, and by the end of the concert the question remained; it was the most problematic of the six pieces they played.

The original would certainly have held together sonically and the flute substitutes easily enough for the violin, but the timbre of the saxophone seemed to contribute a quality that was rather too prominent. One can understand the hesitancy of classical composers, since the invention of the saxophones, to embrace them as fully legitimate members of the family. Even without knowing its history, one can sense that the saxophone is of another time; though I wonder whether, if it had not been taken up so completely by the world of big band jazz, it would sound more comfortable in classical music.
In its style the trio shows echoes of Haydn (the occasional amusing, deliberate miss-step) or Boccherini, or perhaps George Onslow; it was very agreeable, and it was played with charm.

In the two pieces they played from Piazzolla’s Histoire du tango, Simon Brew picked up his alto sax, again, not an instrument Piazzolla had envisaged, but here it fitted the sound world with a perfect authenticity (and it made me wonder whether the alto might have made all the difference to the Fossa piece). They began with the second piece, Café 1930, which is charming and gay; there was more evidence of the true roots of the tango in the first part of the suite, Bordello 1900, as you’d expect, and the players rejoiced in the syncopated rhythms and captivating melodic shapes.

Brazilian composer Sergio Assad (using the tenor sax again, in place of the as-scored, viola) wrote his Winter Impressions in 1996. I would have doubted the existence of much of a winter in the area around São Paulo, and Jane Curry’s guitar was the only one of the trio whose music hinted at The Frozen Garden – the first movement. The flute in the second movement contributed a dreamy tune, and the distinct lines for all three instruments created a most delightful musical pattern. The last movement, Fire Place, created an air of charming sociability, with animated talk punctuated by meditative pauses. Assad struck me as a natural, gifted composer with his own voice in music that had arisen because it had to be composed and not to fulfill academic assignments or important commissions.

The 6th of Bach’s Trio Sonatas, written for his oldest son Wilhelm Friedmann, was reportedly pieced together from parts of his other works, which is the reason for their sounding familiar, though I could not name or place them. Music long familiar has a habit of sounding more substantial and, of course, memorable, and so did this. The first movement was a successful wedding of flute and alto sax, each echoing the other. As I had with the Piazzolla, I found the alto a more comfortable companion with its colleagues here, and its soft, rather beautiful tones in the Lento, middle movement, held the music together in an organic manner. It was a most successful adaptation, colourfully played.

Debussy’s Petite Suite for piano duet has been much arranged, for orchestra and a variety of chamber ensembles, which would seem to give permission for virtually anything. Here Rebecca Steel’s flute seemed utterly natural, taking, as was explained, the piano primo part while the saxophone took the secondo (bass) part, much duetting in 6ths. The effect here was for the guitar to be placed rather inconspicuously, simply accompaniment; though there was a charming duet between flute and guitar in the Menuet. Nevertheless, though I am unhappy about most amplification, it’s often necessary for the guitar and might have been useful here.

The Spanish Dance from Manuel de Falla’s La vida breve ended the programme, and here again I felt the alto sax might have been a better choice than the tenor in the mix with two lighter instruments; in its top register however, it was fine; the guitar had more prominence which was most welcome; and the piece brought this charming concert a delightful finish.

 

NZSO with Lilburn’s Symphony No 2, his successor’s impressive piece plus striking Swedish composer and trombonist

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

NZSO Aotearoa Plus

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra; Christian Lindberg conductor and trombone, and David Bremner – trombone

Michael Norris: Claro
Jan Sandström: Echoes of Eternity
Lilburn: Symphony No 2

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 1 May, 6:30 pm

The title of this concert covered two-thirds of its music, though perhaps the most spectacular element was supplied by trombonist-plus, Christian Lindberg in a work by compatriot Sandström, Echoes of Eternity. The concert, in the two New Zealand works, spanned almost the entire post-war musical history of the orchestra and its home, Wellington. For the orchestra was founded in 1946 shortly before Lilburn moved from Christchurch to Wellington to become a lecturer at the newly established Music Department of Victoria University in 1949. There he finished his first symphony, played two years later by the then National Orchestra; the second followed quickly. Both Lilburn and the NZSO remained in Wellington, the orchestra rather slow to take seriously a responsibility for New Zealand music, but Lilburn and the school of music soon became the pre-eminent harbingers of New Zealand music. This year (2 November) is Lilburn’s centenary.  

The orchestra’s early dilatoriness can of course be understood, for its first task, obviously, was to establish its importance to the community at large which had, in a very short time, first to become familiar with the huge central body of classical orchestral music in live performance. Only having ingested the basic repertoire was there any real hope of audiences coming to grips with the music that our few composers were then writing.

The other New Zealand work in the programme was by a young composer, inheritor of that Lilburn-Victoria University Music School tradition: Michael Norris, 2003 winner of the Lilburn composition prize at Victoria, now senior lecturer in composition, as was Lilburn. As well as composing for orthodox instruments and orchestra forces, he engages with avant-garde techniques – sonic arts, electro-acoustic music, which he studied with fellow-New Zealander Denis Smalley at City University London.

Lindberg appeared as both conductor and trombonist. He ran on to the stage, bounded on to the podium, in a tight, glistening black jacket hinting at his self-image as some kind of bad-boy – at least a bit unorthodox – of music.

Norris’s piece, newly commissioned by the orchestra, reportedly composed for the same orchestral forces as Lilburn’s second symphony was, apart from anything else, a remarkable exercise in imaginative orchestration and harmonic ingenuity; with a more precise musical memory, I could have figured out whether its initial outlaying of pitches constituted a tone row. Even if it did, and in spite of its hardly throwing out any melodies that would persist in the mind long into the night, it was by no means music of the jagged kind that one longs to be finished. There was a recognisable recurrence of certain intervals that rose several times to a state of near resolution; a rising quasi-arpeggio passage with shimmering violin solo and harp; there were interesting passages for tuned percussion – xylophone and marimba. It was all propelled, somewhat miraculously, and mesmerizingly, by the man on the podium given to far-flung, angular arm gestures, commonly both arms mirroring in opposite directions.

The composer’s words in the programme suggested the title of the work, Claro, implied a “state of transparency, lightness and clarity”, and it would be hard to find more specifically descriptive language to characterise it.

That we are now in an era that has turned aside from the alienating styles of composition that drove audiences away, was clear through hearing admiring, if sometimes a bit bemused audience comments, broadly appreciative of all they’d heard.

Lindberg’s showpiece was a sort of concerto for two trombones and orchestra by the 61-year-old Swedish composer, Jan Sandström, written for the Extremadura Symphony Orchestra, the region west of Madrid, adjacent to Portugal. Its major city, Cáceres, has UNESCO World Heritage status, with important Roman, Islamic, Gothic and Renaissance architecture and these features, says the composer, inspire the music.

An off-stage trombone sounds as the orchestra awaits the conductor’s arrival, a long legato melody rising and falling. Now he enters, in a close-fitting white jacket brandishing trombone, continuing to play, accompanied by wood-blocks (virtually the only percussion on hand) and a bed of strings. Nothing could have been a greater contrast with the previous impressionist/virtuosic, multi-tonal Norris than this forthright, quasi-conventional orchestral tutti, big opulent melody verging, for some ears, no doubt, on blowsy. Later there are near-percussive throbbing passages from cellos and basses.  

We’d had a long wait for the other trombonist who eventually entered from the right: NZSO principal trombone David Bremner, and the two were soon involved in battle even as Lindberg continued, as best he could, throwing his right arm towards the orchestra behind him, which seemed enough to keep the players alongside. 

Prominent in the orchestral melee was the tuba, as the two trombones, occasionally inserting mutes, became increasingly frenzied, doing things at a speed one might have thought impossible. There was a calm point in the middle when Lindberg recited a poem that described Cáceres, which did not have quite the impact that a reading by a George Henare (recalling the ANZAC concert last week) might have had. Among later diversions was the winding of a air-raid siren driven by a sort of wind-machine that lent a note of terror – was the city attacked by murderous Falangist rebels in the Civil War?

Music that is conspicuously tonal, though now reinforced by some of the more expressive, perhaps aggressive, features of the difficult music of the past era, has returned, and is no longer scorned. Audiences can now feel welcome in the concert halls again.

Conductor Lindberg appeared in the second half in a plum-coloured jacket (I exercised myself conjecturing synesthestic implications) to conduct Lilburn’s second symphony, written in 1951 but not performed till 1959. Opening with vivid trumpet over firm strokes by strings, this symphony has now signalled Lilburn’s escape from some of the slightly repetitious decorative gestures that constituted an unneeded trade mark in earlier music, and a total maturity and self-confidence. I soon felt that I was hearing a fresh and unhesitant, thoroughly thought-out performance as proved by a conductor who’d committed the score to memory.

It was energetic, assertive in its handling long phrases, its breathing of dynamics, the contours studied and explored with care and traversed with confidence. Again Lindberg was a conductor whose gestures were compelling, for the audience at least (I haven’t asked players whether they were valuable or something else). My only pause came with the feeling that the main theme and the signature motifs in the last movement were overstated.

Never mind: this was a very fine performance, and it was great to have a committed and serious view taken by a non-Anglo conductor capable of grasping its character and inspiring a pretty electrifying performance.

Though the MFC was not full, the audience was no disgrace considering the absence of an acknowledged masterpiece. And the applause was generous.