Day: 22 August 2015

Orpheus Choir under Brent Stewart outstanding with Bruckner and Poulenc

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Orpheus Choir of Wellington conducted by Brent Stewart

Poulenc: Gloria (Rachel Alexander – soprano)
Bruckner: Te Deum (Rachel Alexander – soprano, Rebecca Woodmore – alto, James Benjamin Rodgers – tenor, James Henare – bass-baritone)

Organ (Douglas Mews) and instrumental ensemble: Matthew Ross (violin), Jennifer Vaughan (flute), Barrett Hocking (trumpet), Shadley van Wyk (horn), Julian Kirgan (trombone), Grant Myhill (timpani), Ludwig Treviranus (piano)

Cathedral of Saint Paul

Saturday 22 August 7:30 pm

Though this concert was advertised as being accompanied by the cathedral organ, without mention of other instruments, the programme disclosed the names of seven instrumentalists. I am one of the pernickety race that hopes for performances from the voices and instruments prescribed by the composer. However, while I’d have loved Orchestra Wellington to have been on hand, the small band and Douglas Mews’ organ playing did very well, supplying needed colour. (I am very fully aware of the economic constraints applying in the value-system of our political culture).

Brent Stewart took over as the choir’s conductor at the end of last year; this was my first experience of the choir since then (I missed their acclaimed Elijah in May).

I am almost always pleased when a conductor does more than merely bow as he/she steps on to the podium, and reaches for a microphone or perhaps simply projects his voice well. Stewart spoke interestingly about Poulenc, his character and that of his music, though I imagine his warnings about the often unserious nature of his music hardly prepared those of the audience unfamiliar with this or other music of Poulenc, for the uncommon tone of the religious music with which his Gloria opens. The audience: surprisingly large on a cold night.

Here, I must confess, I had wished for a more complete orchestral support, as certain instruments enjoyed a somewhat unbridled jaunt: single lines where Poulenc has brass or woodwinds playing in harmony. Poulenc’s writing for wind instruments is vivid and very characteristic and I did rather miss the full sounds of the orchestra both playing by itself and in support of the choir. Perhaps the fifth movement’s introduction, scored prominently for woodwinds, suffered most from the absence of other than a solitary flute, beautiful as that was.

However, the choir’s contribution was full of vigour and well integrated, overcoming impressively the long and testing echo that is both a strength and weakness of the cathedral. While the lively, Stravinsky-like, outer sections of the ‘Laudamus te’ and the ‘Domine fili unigenite’ were splendid, with its staccato rhythms in both choir and instruments, the acoustic was more bothersome in some of the fast, complex passages. Nevertheless, the ‘Laudamus Te’, with the surprising, quiet ‘Gratias agimus’ in the middle, demonstrated most clearly the essential spirit of the work as well as of Stewart’s success in leading the choir with clarity and wonderful energy.

The soprano soloist is employed in the more pensive third and fifth movements where flute and horn led to Rachel Alexander’s beautiful contribution. Her sensitivity was most clearly shown in the last movement, ‘Qui sedes’, where she had an unaccompanied passage followed by a quite poignant passage
leading to the Amen.

Before starting Bruckner’s Te Deum, Stewart spoke again about the music, but also drew attention to the choir’s farewell to choir member and administrator Judy Berryman, choir member for 30 years.

The Te Deum, unlike his three masses, which had preceded his mature symphonies, was written about 13 years later, about the time of the 6th symphony. It demanded all four soloists and a full orchestra. Strangely, instrumental sparseness seemed far less significant here than in the Poulenc, though in truth, the orchestra makes a glorious contribution that usually affords me quite as much delight as the singing. However, my notes made no reference to any inadequacy here and the strength of the singing by both choir and soloists proved more than enough in itself. Perhaps it was a case of the discriminating organ and the individual instruments supplying enough for the imagination to fill in the gaps.

After the arresting opening, at ‘Tibi omens Angeli’, the four soloists entered one by one – soprano, tenor, alto, bass, and each made a fine impact, dominated in many ways by the strength and clarity of James Rodgers’s tenor (he led again, impressively, at the opening of the ‘Te ergo quaesumus’); and there was a conspicuous violin obbligato from Matthew Ross. If the orchestral element was lacking, the choir achieved a wonderful feeling of exultation in the following choral passage, contrasting with the mystical, subdued, ‘Patrem immensae majestatis’. One tries not to smile at the emotional climaxes
that accompany certain words like the composer’s excitement at ‘Tu ad dexteram Dei sedes’; we attend the music and not the doctrine however, and the music and its singing continued at a level of commitment and richness that could be achieved with a choir approaching a hundred in number.

Later in the work, it was good to hear other soloists more conspicuously, especially James Henare at ‘Et rege eos’ in the fourth section. And in the final section, ‘In te, Domine, speravi’, the four sing in one of the rare ensembles, allowing soprano Rachel Alexander and alto Rebecca Woodmore, to be heard to impressive effect. That section, involving the repetition of only eight words for seven or eight minutes, was offered more chances to enjoy separate sections of the choir, the sopranos against the altos; women and men interweaving in counterpoint.

I might remark that the usual custom of offering words to help the audience follow the action, is not a bad tradition – both Latin and English preferably; though I must acknowledge the pithy and illuminating notes that were printed in the programme.

The two works each lasted between 20 and 25 minutes, meaning the concert lasted only about an hour and a quarter, a bit shorter than is normal. Nevertheless, the strength and commitment – quality – of the singing compensated remarkably for lesser quantity.

Nothing really diminished the impact of the final page or so of the work, with brass and timpani doing their best along with the splendid, climactic efforts by the choir, combining to make Brent Stewart’s second major concert with the choir a resounding success.

 

Clik the ensemble – you’ll be glad you did….

Posted on by Peter Mechen

New Zealand Chamber Music presents:
CLIK THE ENSEMBLE

John Chen (piano) / Natalie Lin (violin) / Edward King (‘cello)

ENESCU – Prelude and Fugue for solo piano
BRITTEN – Suite for Violin and Piano Op.6
GARETH FARR – Shadow of the Hawk
SCHUBERT – Piano Trio in B-flat Major D. 898

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday 22nd August 2015

What a lovely idea for a concert! – each member of the “Clik the ensemble” trio was given the chance to shine more-or-less as a soloist in different works during the first half, while the second half featured all three musicians playing the programme’s major work. It’s almost certainly something that’s been done before, but surely no more enjoyably and successfully as happened here.

“Clik the ensemble” is a group made up of young soloists who were members of groups that won previous NZ Community Trust Chamber Music Competitions – John Chen in 2001 and both Natalie Lin and Edward King in 2005. All have since successfully participated in further competitions, and have now come together to share their love of chamber music for the benefit of audiences throughout the country, Welington being the mid-point of their tour for Chamber Music New Zealand.

The concert began with John Chen as soloist, playing the music of Roumania’s most famous musician, Georges Enescu. While more widely known as a violinist, (he was actually Yehudi Menuhin’s teacher, and in 1949 made a famous recording of Bach’s solo violin Sonatas and Partitas in 1949) he was obviously no slouch as a pianist (Alfred Cortot thought highly of his playing), and actually produced several works for the keyboard, including two full-scale sonatas.

John Chen played the Prelude et Fugue, which was written in 1903, when Enescu was just 22. It seemed to me to be a kind of neoclassical work (along the lines of Grieg’s “Holberg Suite”, though more harmonically discursive), one owing a great deal to Bach’s keyboard example. The Prelude’s festive character was brought out with the music’s middle section’s celebratory and clangorous sounds, the sounds then reaching sideways and outwards to harmonic realms that gave the music a wonderful, exploratory perspective. The bell-sounds eventually “morphed ” into slow, pendulous cadences with time almost standing still in between each chord – a breath-catching effect.

The fugue stole into this world via a distinctively ornamented figuration, one which rhythmically put me “off the scent” for a while until I got the music’s “schwung”. It all then took the form of variations which again felt celebratory, mirroring the first movement’s festive atmosphere. John Chen played the piece in a masterly fashion – of course he’s well-versed in music of contrapuntal nature, having performed the Well-Tempered Clavier in concert with great distinction. Such neoclassical interweaving held no terrors for his educated fingers and his lucid, far-reaching grasp of the overall structure.

The pianist didn’t, I think, overdo any particular aspect of the work’s character, but kept things ever so slightly enigmatic – we were left pondering as to whether the music was an act of homage to Bach (a kind of pastiche in the word’s best sense?), or a determinedly neoclassical work, one which unashamedly uses baroque music as a kind of “springboard” to revitalize present-day creativity (as Stravinsky was wont to try and do)? Chen didn’t nail the music’s colours to any particular mast, playing it as he would any of the “48” and letting the composer’s own piano writing suggest what it might – a masterly performance.

Benjamin Britten’s Op. 6 Suite for violin and piano followed bringing Natalie Lin to the platform with John Chen. Britten wrote this music partly in Vienna and then in London – he had won a scholarship to travel in Europe during 1934 and (as one would) spent some time in Vienna. The work had some success, being selected for performance at a contemporary music festival in Barcelona by none other than Anton Webern and Ernest Ansermet, two avant-garde “toughies” – which would have been powerful encouragement for a composer still in his early twenties.

I was really taken with Natalie Lin’s playing of this work, in particular the movements which allowed her acute sensitivity and infinite variety of bowing and mastery of subtle coloring to “speak”. It wasn’t commanding, big-boned playing, but she had all the technique required to front up to the opening abrasive declarations (Britten showing his youthful compositional muscles) – however, she came into her own in the more intimate parts of the work, especially the third-movement lullaby. Elsewhere, her playing had a wry alertness, a precise delineation which missed nothing, and which matched John Chen’s elegance and quickfire responses, their partnership making the concluding waltz movement an absolute delight.

One of New Zealand’s most high-profile composers is Gareth Farr, whose 1997 work Shadow of the Hawk, was written for the partnership of James Tennant and Katherine Austin. Like a lot of Farr’s music, it’s a high-impact, extremely physical piece to play “requiring considerable stamina” as the composer put it. One hears the influences of both the composer’s experiences in the percussion sensible “Strike”, and the impact made on his sensibilities by the gamelan orchestras he played in as a student. This work has wonderfully-wrought contrasts – heart-stopping ascents to other-worldly realms, violent hammerings and tightly-worked motoric passages, states of drifting reverie and long-drawn crescendo leading to spectacular climaxes. It proved a marvellous “work-out” for both performers.

The young ‘cellist Edward King took to these things like the proverbial duck to water – his playing impressed with its spontaneity and enjoyment of physical engagement. He and John Chen made the most out of each of the music’s sequences, their playing drifting with the music’s inwardness in the more dreamy sections and winding up the tensions to maximum effect for the physical outbursts whose volcanic irruptions caused much excitement, right through the mighty crescendo taking all of us to to the music’s galvanic tumble-down finish.

Having “showcased” the individual talents of these musicians the concert now presented their corporate abilities as “Clik the ensemble” – and in this work by Schubert the combination resulted in the most beautiful performance of this music I can remember hearing. Right from the opening the music’s lyricism and sense of well-being was strongly in evidence. I’ve heard performance of this music delivered heroically, lots of muscle and strongly-advanced cadences, making a thrustful and forthright impression, which I really enjoy – and I though that “Clik” , being of an impetuously youthful persuasion, would similarly tear into the music at the outset. So, it was with some surprise that I registered the playing’s poetry in motion, delivered with sufficient energy to advance the music’s cause, but not allowing a single kind of character to unduly dominate.

Later in the movement there were moments of energized excitement which of course stood out all the more, rather than being ongoing episodes in a kind of big-boned epic technicolour drama – here instead was both playfulness and poetry, the irruptions of impulse as delight in first sensations. What a good thing for us all that music is always more “complete” than it can ever be actually realized at one time, so that, however satisfying a performance, one can always look forward to something else being brought out and enjoyed the next time round.

This was an approach which allowed the players’ individuality to speak at certain points, with Natalie Lin’s soft playing once again an absolute joy, and providing the perfect foil for Edward King’s freshness and vitality. And John Chen’s infinite variety of touch and phrasing seemed endlessly responsive to what both of his partners were doing, creating a mellifluous “exchange of equals” for our constant pleasure.

Perfection? – well, the Scherzo might have been a bit more bucolic, a tad more rustic, merely as a more marked contrast to the beauty of the trio section and the sheer urbanity of the rest of the music. Having said that, in some performances I’ve felt the music of the finale actually borders in places towards the end on garrulousness, but there was none of that, here – one didn’t dare stop listening for fear of missing some felicitous detail, some sigh of remembrance or impish impulse of pleasure.

One will relish the opportunity, whenever it presents itself in future, to “Clik the ensemble” – the pleasures of doing so this time round alone will long be remembered.