Day: 20 September 2015

New Zealand String Quartet’s extensive tour ends in Wellngton, a triumph

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand String Quartet: Russian Icons

Nikolai Kapustin: ‘Fuga’ from String Quartet no.1
Stravinsky: Three Pieces for String Quartet
Shostakovich: String Quartet no.4 in D (allegretto, andantino, allegretto, attacca – allegretto)
Borodin: String Quartet no.2 in D (allegro moderato, scherzo, nocturne: andante, finale: andante – vivace)

New Zealand String Quartet (Helene Pohl and Douglas Beilman, violins; Gillian Ansell, viola; Rolf Gjelsten, cello)

Hunter Council Chamber, Victoria University of Wellington

Sunday, 20 September 2015, 3pm

This was the last concert in a tour of 11 towns and cities (there were two concerts in Wellington) in which the quartet performed four separate programmes, incorporating seven different Russian works for string quartet.

The second Wellington concert drew a large audience to the Hunter Council Chamber.  Here was a real chamber – not a church or a concert hall, but a room ideal for chamber music.  Audience members could be close to the players, but the room’s double height meant a favourable acoustic, revealing the full resonance and tone of the instruments and of the music they played.

The short works in the first half were unfamiliar to me, but were interesting. Nikolai Kapustin is a contemporary composer, born in 1937.  His work is heavily influenced by jazz.  The music began with the cello playing a jazzy melody while the other players tapped on their instruments with the wood of their bows.  This was followed by the second violin, then the viola and finally the first violin playing the melody, with the cello now playing pizzicato.

The interweaving melodies became quite romantic, utilising variable rhythms over an underlying pulse.  Driving intensity built up, followed by more jocund phrases.  There were rapid episodes where the sounds made it seem as though each instrument was playing a separate piece of music.  Relatively calmer passages intervened between the frenetic ones.  There was a sudden, amusing ending.

Helene Pohl spoke to the audience about the Kapustin and Stravinsky works before the latter was played.  The composer later arranged the Three Pieces, which were very short, for his Four Studies for Orchestra, where the three were given apt titles ‘Dance’, ‘Eccentric’ and ‘Canticle.  It was explained that the subject of the second was a clown with a limp.

The pieces started with a difficult, hectic, pulsating dance for three instruments, while the viola maintained a steady stream of notes played sul ponticello (almost on the instrument’s bridge).  Then the limping clown showed up, in off-the-beat rhythm.  There was strong pizzicato followed by a charming little violin solo while the others continued the pizzicato.  ‘Canticle’ consisted largely of long, slow, unusual chords with interesting shifts in harmony.  To end there was a short but beautiful section of the instruments employing harmonics (the high notes obtained by touching the strings lightly rather than pressing them down).

Doug Beilman, playing probably his last public concert in Wellington as a member of the quartet (for 26 years), gave a longer introduction to the major work on the programme, the Shostakovich quartet.  He noted that the composer admired Stravinsky, though was forced to have a speech delivered on his behalf in New York that denounced the older composer.  Beilman noted  Shostakovich’s circumstances at the time of writing the quartet, and pointed to the placement of a dance on a Jewish theme as the third movement, at a time when anti-semitism was still rife in official Soviet circles.

The quartet’s opening was quite balmy and cheerful, with full-bodied sound from the instruments, and slow, rich and mellow chords.  The second movement began with a melancholic violin solo, underpinned with dour couplets from second violin and viola.  The cello joined in with deep, sonorous notes, the whole building to a higher pitch of almost excruciating tension.  Closely-spaced intervals spoke of sorrow and distress.  Suddenly the heaviness wore off, as if exhausted, and the three upper instruments seemed to be quietly recovering from the effort.   Rich chords returned briefly, with plaintive plangency.

The third movement opened in bouncy style, with the Jewish folk-influenced melody.  The mood was piquant, not entirely extraverted. Melodies began to soar; added mutes changed the quality and timbre of the sound, yet the music became more frenetic. The folk melody became somewhat insistent before a new melody on viola intervened, with intermittent pizzicato from the other players.  Harsh pizzicato chords took over with the fourth movement, accompanying equally harsh melodies on the violins, then there were very exciting, even disturbing passages.

The instruments were played for all they were worth, demanding much energy from the performers.  Mutes were remounted, and a more peaceful, calming down section ensued.  A considerable emotional journey had been travelled.  This was an outstanding performance.

The work following the interval could not have been more different.  Borodin’s lovely second quartet was introduced by Gillian Ansell.  As she said, it is one of the best-loved string quartets, with famous melodies in the second and third movements.

The composer wrote it for his wife on their 20th wedding anniversary; Gillian informed us that Helene Pohl and Rolf Gjelsten had very recently celebrated the same anniversary (applause).  The sublime, romantic melodies were eminently appropriate for such occasions – and they were composed by someone who was not a full-time composer, but were written when time was available from his scientific job.  The cello part epitomised Borodin, and the first violin, his wife Ekaterina.

The airy, exalted feeling of the first movement certainly elevated my mood.  The interplay between instruments was quite delightful; after the stresses of Shostakovich, this was so relaxing!

The scherzo second movement was sunny and bright, yet whimsical also.  The gorgeous opening melody of the well-known nocturne, was first played on cello, and soon taken up by the first violin, while the others supplied beautiful lower parts.  The romantic nature of the music suggests yearning.  Then the dance-like riposte got into its stride with clarity and cheerfulness.  Phrases from the melody returned at a variety of pitches.  The movement ended with a languorous repeat of the theme.

The finale opens in declamatory style, then there is a high-speed, animated development.  Many enchanting variations on the opening theme follow, with much dynamic variation.

These accomplished players gave us the lot without reserve throughout the concert;  the audience’s enthusiasm was genuine and unanimous.  Four of the most beautiful bouquets could not have been more well-deserved – and another for Helen Philpott, who represented the tour’s sponsors, the Turnovsky Endowment Trust.

This was one of the most satisfying chamber music concerts I have attended in a considerable time.  All the hallmarks of NZSQ – splendid tone, impeccable style, intonation and dynamics and playing with absolute unanimity were there, plus outstanding performance of difficult work.

 

Admirably adventurous piano programme from Jason Bae at Waikanae

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Jason Bae – piano

Liszt: Three concert études, S 144 (Il lamento, La leggierezza, Un sospiro)
Puccini/Mikhashoff: Portrait of Madame Butterfly
Chopin: The four Ballades

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday 20 September 2:30 pm

The concert by Jason Bae was one of a nationwide series arranged through Chamber Music New Zealand. He also plays, a different programme (see our Coming Events), on 27 September at St Andrew’s on The Terrace for Wellington Chamber Music.

It is commonly a mark of an intelligent and serious minded musician when he plays entire works and, where it’s feasible, complete sets of pieces. Liszt’s Three Concert Études and the four Chopin Ballades are examples of groups of pieces that benefit from being heard together, and formed the major part of an interesting programme.

Il lamento announces its subject with a series of descending phrases, though with little decorative turns that partly disguise much overt grief. In fact, to my ears, rather than the loss of a loved one, it suggests the sort of emotion one feels at the end of an exciting and happy holiday, when the reality of work and chores looms again; but always tempered by delightful memories, and that was reflected in the somewhat sentimental tune that takes over through most of the study. Bae’s playing was unaffected, free of any rhetorical or theatrical excesses, and he even maintained a fairly limited dynamic range, hardly above a mezzo-forte.

La leggierezza assumes a tone that is, of course, lighter, creating a mood of pleasure, where circumstances have produced an ebullience in the spirit; it was fluent and colourful and though he seemed to hit the notes purposefully, they were never percussive.

And Il sospiro, understandably more popular as a result of its sighing (if I can’t find a better word), mildly reflective tone; again even tone, taking full advantage of the fact that humans have two hands; and loving warmth rather than self-indulgence. The trio of beguiling pieces induced me, at home, to dig out a couple of LPs, one by Katchen, one by Jerome Rose, both in lovely warm analogue sound, in performances that hardly surpassed what I’d heard a few hours before in Waikanae.

One approaches arrangements or transcriptions or paraphrases or reminiscences or pot-pourris of others’ music with caution (I’m still thinking of Liszt of course, though a lot of his are wonderfully heart-warming and exciting). An arrangement, perhaps rather a fantasia, on music from Act II of Madama Butterfly, by an American pianist/composer Yvar Mikhashoff (real name Ronald Mackay), is one of several transcriptions from Puccini operas which have been recorded by Jean-Yves Thibaudet.

It’s a very creditable and attractive piece, with most of the recognisable themes from ‘Un bel di’ and the Flower Duet onward; they captured the spirit of self-delusion and of the character of the opera generally. It seemed to be cast the three parts, like a classical suite, with plenty of scintillating virtuosity that suited Jason splendidly.

Then came the rare chance to hear all four of Chopin’s Ballades played successively. They run almost the full gamut of Chopin’s composing life in Paris from 1831 to 1842, and explore all the moods to be found in his piano music: the delicacy, the achingly melodic, the sentimental, the massive climaxes, the limpid gentleness; from passages that even an ordinary pianist can cope with to the parts where that pianist simply closes the score and gets a recording. I

These were admirable performances, which seemed to be enhanced by close proximity to each other. They are hard work and I sensed that towards the end a little tiredness revealed itself. One sometimes wonders whether it is only musical tradition that permits some disparate groups of movements to be known as sonatas or suites and others, like Schubert’s Impromptus or his Drei Klavierstücke, like Chopin’s Scherzi or Ballades, which are rarely played as a group. But then, the challenge of playing them all in a row might be quite a persuasive reason.

After most of the crowd stood in acclamation, Jason talked his way to playing another tough piece, another opera transcription. Because he judged that not many in the audience might have been familiar with the story of Peter Grimes, he went through it and then played a seven-minute-long Peter Grimes Fantasy by Ronald Stevenson, a pianist and composer who died earlier this year (why is he only a vague name to me?). It’s a fantasy on many of the musical ideas in Britten’s great opera and the sounds he produced created a disturbingly realistic impression of the opera, with recognizable moments like the storm, Ellen’s Embroidery aria, motifs from the last harrowing scene, suggesting the dawn and the sea and the work’s enigmatic conclusion. Towards the end he stood to reach inside the piano to pluck the strings: for once with some musical purpose. Though the place in the opera of the little evanescent motif eluded me, it conjured the uncanny atmosphere that Britten evoked during the depiction of Grimes’s crisis and disappearance.

I found a quote by pianist John Humphreys about Stevenson’s piece: “His seven minute ‘Peter Grimes Fantasy’ encapsulates the essence of the opera in a way that astonished Britten at a private performance in Aldeburgh”.

As an encore it was courageous and in a way, was the most revelatory and memorable piece that we heard in the afternoon. It also revealed something of the breadth, and perhaps the depth, of this young musician’s musical experience and understanding; he is no mere piano virtuoso, but a well-schooled artist with an admirable curiosity, and the entire programme reflected those qualities.

 

 

Welllington Chamber Orchestra – significant, important, moving……

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Chamber Orchestra presents:
LILBURN AND VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

LILBURN – A Song of Islands / Symphony No.1 (1949)
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS – Concerto for Tuba in F Minor / Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1

Naomi Christensen (tuba)
Ian Ridgewell (conductor)
Wellington Chamber Orchestra

St Andrew’s on-the-Terrace, Wellington

Sunday, 20th September, 2015

A significant, important and moving concert. Significant? – with two works by Douglas Lilburn included, the orchestra splendidly commemorated the composer’s 100th birthday year. Important? – the concert included in the programme Lilburn’s First Symphony, one that ought to be in our main-centre orchestras’ regular concert repertoire, but is hardly ever played – see “Stop Press” below, however. Moving? – the concert was dedicated by the orchestra to the memory of one of its members who had recently died, the well-known luthier and ‘cellist, Ian Lyons.

Besides the actual concert, two of Ian Lyons’ close friends, Chris and Anna Van Der Zee, together with the NZSO’s Alan Molina and former principal ‘cellist of the same orchestra, David Chickering, played, at the beginning of the second half, the slow movement from Haydn’s String Quartet in D Major Op.20 No.4. – a beautiful and appropriate gesture.

Conducting the orchestra for the concert proper was Ian Ridgewell, English-born with a background in tuba-playing, composition (he studied with with Sir Malcolm Arnold) and conducting, both of brass bands and symphony orchestras, currently living and working in the Wellington region as a teacher of music. And, to add to the concert’s interest, one of the items was none other than a Tuba Concerto by Vaughan Williams, played by Naomi Christensen, who was awarded “Brass Player of the Year” for 2014 at Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music here in Wellington. We were told, in a brief biographical note in the program, that her “journey with the Tuba” began at aged ten, “from atop a pile of ‘phone books (allowing her to reach the mouthpiece)” – presumably not just the telephone’s, judging by the skill and ease with which she handled her instrument.

For the orchestra it seemed no easy task to tackle not merely one, but TWO challenging pieces by Lilburn. Though the Symphony is the later work, it seemed to me that the “Song” was in some ways just as difficult a nut to crack, both technically (it contained some extremely difficult string-writing) and interpretatively (needing a strong and secure “overview”, without which the music would have simply wandered and become shapeless and confused). To both the players’ and the conductor’s credit these things were well-attended to, the playing focused and detailed, the overall view purposeful and clearly laid out as the piece progressed.

The music opened strongly and emphatically, given enough space to allow the rolling phrases plenty of room and the brass plenty of time to expand. I enjoyed the prominence given to the finely-crafted appearances of those warm, golden harmonies which seemed to impart a glow over the vast oceanic spaces and the ruggedness of the terrain. Importantly the conductor maintained tight rhythmic control, designed to keep the music’s underlying pulses alive, while capturing detailings like the oceanic swells and the contours of the freshly-discovered landscapes.

Throughout the strings and winds had a somewhat volatile interaction, each having a turn at being either thematic or rhythmic – in some places the debt by Lilburn to Sibelius was palpably demonstrated,  but invariably with a South Seas accent. These exchanges were punctuated by moments of great splendour on the brasses, sounding the composer’s “song” while the rest of the orchestral textures kaleidoscopically energized and interacted with great volatility. The ecstasy of fulfillment at the end as strings and then brass “humanized” the orchestral textures brought out some great playing from all concerned.

Something completely different was the Vaughan Williams Tuba Concerto, a work which has provoked divided responses among listeners and critics ever since its composition in 1954, but which has steadily increased its following and popularity, having since been recorded over a dozen times. It’s a fine, jovial work, rumbustious in the outer movements and surprisingly expressive in the central Romanza movement. What a performance here from this young musician! With on-the-spot support from conductor and orchestra, Naomi Christensen and her alter ego of an instrument brought out all of the music’s character, to begin with bluff good humour, and then plenty of swagger and wry rhythmic agility both in the second subject section, and throughout the jaw-dropping cadenza.

That legendary tuba-playing raconteur Gerard Hoffnung would have , I’m sure, enjoyed her playing immensely, both here, and in the nostalgia-tinted central movement, where the soloist “partnered” the string melodies at the outset, later adding occasional piquant touches, rather like what an observer would do while walking through the midst of a glorious landscape. As for the last movement, the solo instrument was hardly silent, leading the bucolic romp with great élan, the orchestra allowed only a tiny moment of self-contained glory just before the final cadenza – again, masterly playing from the soloist, wryly-expressed rhetorical gestures with wonderful trills, and a cataclysmic “all fall down” finish. Glorious and memorable!

And what a lovely contrast the same composer’s Norfolk Rhapsody No.1 made in the concerto’s wake – At first the single lines of the opening (oboe and strings) sounded a little raw, but with the clarinet’s entry and the string harmonies warming the textures, the sound sweetened and began to glow – the principal viola, Stephanie van Dyk, deservedly singled out afterwards for a beautiful bit of solo playing, with the clarinet closely in support. I thought the ambient vistas were captured most effectively by the winds, both solos and concerted work with the strings, the oboe especially coming into its own here and delivering some lovely lines. An almost Delian sweep was achieved, the tutti delivering the rhapsodic aspect of the music splendidly and richly.

The maritime-like tunes which launched the allegro section came together after a slightly ragged start, establishing a characteristic gait and building, with brass and percussion, to a stirring climax, before the sounds began taking their leave of us, gradually returning to the solitary ambiences of the opening, winds giving us a valedictory version of the opening melody and the brasses softly chiming in with a slower haunting reminiscence of the central dance. At the end the oboe and strings, now thoroughly acclimatised, gently and sensitively sounded those opening strains as if it had all been a dream.

After the interval it was to the business of the Lilburn Symphony that we all turned. It began most promisingly, a bright, breezy trumpet call activated the echoes and ambiences, allowing a lovely Copland-esque feeling (I had, I confess, the previous evening, heard the NZSO play the Four Rodeo Dance Episodes!), with the dancing rhythms kept steadily on the rails. There’s such great brass writing in this work and the players here did so well, even if the St.Andrew’s ambience made them sound too uncomfortably close in places. The movement abounded in tricky dovetailings which conductor Ian Ridgewell and his players brought off so well, some sticky moments apart. The brass and winds were mostly right “on”, the wind lines in particular very tangy and earthy, while the strings strove mightily, recreating those characteristic tightly-knit tensions that make up the Lilburn sound.

So I was disappointed that, after maintaining such strong and secure trajectories for his players throughout and up to this point, the conductor then, I thought, pushed the slow movement along too quickly – the players seemed unable to settle, to properly hook into that obsessive rhythmic pattern, with the slight lack of synchronization producing a somewhat raucous result in places. Fortunately, once the brass were given their heads the rhythm seemed to steady – the horns were particularly steadfast, here, and things seemed to come together – how bleak at its centre some of this music is! And why don’t our orchestras play it more often?

The finale excitingly and abruptly unfurled, like a vast curtain being thrown suddenly open! – dark, almost Tapiola-like statements from the strings created a brooding, expectant atmosphere, the winds and brass soundinging particular “northern”, with moments of sunlight breaking through the clouds and just as quickly disappearing. When the rhythmic explosion suddenly drove detail into a frenzy, with warning shouts from the wind and brass, I was afraid that, again, the tempi would be too quick for these players – and indeed, some of the articulation was a blur at this speed – but mixed with the scrambling aspect was a certain edge-of-seat excitement, which saw the music through. Everything was excitingly capped by the brass and timpani, even if I felt the strings in particular were put under a lot of pressure in places.

The music’s sudden plunge back into the void of the movement’s opening was splendidly done – strings were angsting and winds were skirling in fine style – and those great building-blocks of sound which grew out of the built-up energies were here most satisfyingly sounded by the brass and timpani, a mighty and well-deserved sense of arrival, one which we in the audience truly relished. So, in all, warmest congratulations to conductor Ian Ridgewelll and his band of sterling musicians!

STOP PRESS: I’ve beaten my breast a couple of times in this review as to the relative neglect of this music over the years, but am equally excited to report that the Te Tōkī NZSM Orchestra’s planned Lilburn concert on Thursday October 1st at the Basilica in Hill Street, ALSO features this same First Symphony (as well, incidentally, as – you’ve guessed it! – Vaughan Williams’ Norfolk Rhapsody No.1!) So, as a change from famine conditions, it’s good to be able to enjoy, in the case of this remarkable symphony, a feast!