Day: 16 October 2015

Wonderful recital of music by Viennese composers from Vienna Piano Trio

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Chamber Music New Zealand

Haydn: Piano Trio no.42 in E flat, Hob. XV:30
Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht (arr. Steuermann)
Brahms: Piano Trio no.1 in B, Op.8

Vienna Piano Trio (David McCarroll, violin; Matthias Gredler, cello; Stefan Mendl, piano)

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday, 16 October 2015, 7.30pm

It is wonderful for chamber music audiences in New Zealand to welcome back an ensemble of the prestige and reputation of the Vienna Piano Trio – but this time, with a new violinist, a young American, who joined the Trio only months ago. Although the downstairs of the Michael Fowler Centre was not full (the upstairs is not opened for chamber music concerts), the audience was perfectly creditable. It became rather hot in the auditorium; the outside temperature was perhaps warmer than the hall authorities had envisaged. Fortunately for the Trio, their garb was informal.

The use of a platform a couple of steps lower than the main stage brought the musicians closer to their audience, and permitted something of a chamber music ‘feel’ to the concert, despite the large venue.

The programme was thoroughly based in the Trio’s home city; Haydn spent a good part of his life there and died there; Schoenberg was born and lived a great part of his life there, and Brahms spent most of his adult life there and died there.

Excellent programme notes on all the works in the concert were partly wasted at the time by the usual strange New Zealand custom of having the lighting too low. This does not occur, in my experience, in Europe or the United Kingdom, where they obviously want people to be able to read their programmes.

Haydn’s chamber music is always a great delight, and this trio, probably his last, though basically Classical, contains many more adventurous elements, and is quite substantial. The allegro moderato opening movement was light and bright, but with some lovely sonorities. Mendl’s light touch on the piano emulated well the sound of the pianos of Haydn’s day. This lightness of touch was echoed by the other instruments.

The second movement, andante con moto, had almost a modern sound, with appoggiaturas and other ornaments being semitones to the melody notes, and sometimes making minor rather than major intervals. In short, quite skittish, or even jazzy on occasion. There were quick dynamic changes that kept the movement lively.

In both the music and the playing there was delicacy, and also strength, making for continuing interest, and utter vitality and musicality of performance.

I would hazard a guess that Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) is the most frequently performed of Schoenberg’s compositions, in its original version for string sextet, or more often in the composer’s arrangement for string orchestra,, the one most often recorded and performed. The version for piano trio was made by Eduard Steuermann (1892-1964), a pupil, friend and performing associate of Schoenberg’s. He was an influential figure in Vienna, and in the United States where he taught, having fled from the Nazis in 1938.

The work is based on a poem by Richard Dehmel (1863-1920). The stages of Dehmel’s poem are reflected throughout the composition, beginning with the sadness of a young woman who, walking with her new lover, confesses that she is carrying the child of another man.

The music builds slowly from a very quiet opening, and then excited melodies on the strings intrude. The build-up of intensity in the music for the moment when the woman confesses, is gripping, tense, and climactic. The violinist elicited an anguished tone from his instrument; the cello responded with calm but glorious tone, as the man sought to reassure the woman that their relationship continued, and that the child would be transfigured by their shared love.

In the second half, the cello (representing the man) declares his feelings and reassurances, to which the violin (woman) responds. The piano plays rippling passages below a sublime violin, with alternating echoes on the cello. The parts continue in mellow accord. Passion ensues briefly, before a return to serenity, reflecting the man’s acceptance and forgiveness of the woman; a slow ending winds up the eventful walk in the woods.

Despite the spell-binding playing, I was not convinced that Steuermann had improved on Schoenberg’s own versions of the work – but of course he has made it available to a smaller ensemble.

Next came what is perhaps my favourite of Brahms’s chamber works. For this half of the concert I moved to a much better seat, further back in the auditorium, where I could see all three instruments much better. The wonderful allegro con brio’s opening immediately summoned up ideas of pathos, nostalgia and longing – typical Romantic-era sentiments, perhaps. The parts for the instruments are so marvellously balanced and interwoven, and the subtleties were beautifully conveyed. The variety of dynamics obtained by these players, even in a single phrase, was quite staggering. While the Trio seemed perfectly at home in all the works, perhaps this Romantic music composed by Brahms is their especial forte.

The scherzo (allegro molto) second movement opened with brilliant rhythmic figures that were both dance-like and ominous. It was a very spirited movement, with great contrasts, including quiet passages. As the movement became more complex around the reiteration of the main theme, there were notable mellow notes from the lower register of the violin – almost as though a viola had suddenly been introduced. The calm ending belied the very exciting nature of this movement.

The adagio movement opened with delicious slow chords on the piano, soon joined by the strings playing stark harmonies. This was such a completely different atmosphere from that evoked in the scherzo. The melding of the sounds and the rapport between the instruments were absolutely superb. There was a gentle ending, before the Finale (allegro) rippled into life on cello and piano. The violin’s entry led to a dramatic, almost fiery section, that leaves one suspended regarding what key it is in. Brahms’s way of putting one in tonality no-man’s-land is a feature of a number of his works, but one is led out of uncertainty to a new and vibrant reality. The work ends triumphantly. Brahms could hardly have been better served than by these splendid players.

An encore followed: the second movement of Beethoven’s Trio Op.70, no.2 (allegretto). It was very calm and peaceful, and delightful to hear, in a mood not dissimilar from that of the Brahms, but comprising a couple of themes, and variations upon them.

The audience thoroughly appreciated the skill of the musicians, and the music they performed so gloriously.

 

 

Viola d’amore takes place with guitar and cello in lovely NZSM-based trio

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand School of Music

Archi d’Amore Zelanda (Donald Maurice – viola d’amore, Jane Curry – guitar, Emma Goodbehere – cello)

Music by Paganini, Handel, Piazzolla, Lilburn, Michael Kimber

Adam Concert Room, NZSM Kelburn Campus, Victoria University

Friday 16 October 12:10 pm

The last concert of the year in the university school of music’s Friday lunchtime series. I’ve been getting to too few of these rewarding little concerts in the past few years – a failing that I’ve commented on before.

But I was very happy to be there today to listen to what could be described as a somewhat experimental performance: the putting together of two modern, conventional instruments with one, the viola d’amore, that was common between the late 17th century and the end of the 18th, although its use has continued in particular situations to the present, for example in some operas, including Madama Butterfly.

So the viola d’amore was an odd late-comer to and eccentric member of the viol family which was being superseded by the violin family from the late 17th century. The viola d’amore is about the size of the modern viola, held under the chin; it has seven strings plus seven sympathetic strings which resonate with the sounding of relevant pitches on the bowed strings.

It was an enterprise led, no doubt, by NZSM violin and viola teacher, Professor Donald Maurice, who has been drawn to explore this uncommon instrument which can add a subtly different quality to an ensemble, and even to the colour of an opera score.

Strangely, none of the pieces in this concert were written for the viola d’amore, yet each piece sounded thoroughly idiomatic in the amended guise in which the guitar, too, was an unforeseen presence.

The first was a Terzetto for violin, cello and guitar by Paganini (who was a guitarist too). I have to remark that the sound of the viola d’amore was a bit less than comfortable in the beginning, not as close to the warm, mature voice of the viola as I’d expected, but rather thinner and less romantic. When, finally, the cello emerged with the leading voice the whole sound came into much better focus, particularly with the charming guitar contribution. Then there was an engaging conversation between cello and viola d’amore. In the second movement, Andante larghetto, a pretty waltz tune lent a nostalgic quality to the whole and the sound of the viola really did settle down, though the effect of the sympathetic strings didn’t seem to contribute what I’d expected to be a slightly richer array of sonorities from those strings.

Handel was closer to the early phase of the viola d’amore’s existence though I find no evidence that he wrote for it. The Lento from this sonata in G minor for two violins however, was quite lovely with one part given to the viola d’amore and the second to the cello.

Piazzolla’s Histoire du Tango offered Jane Curry the chance to play a part actually written for her; but it was also the opportunity for Donald Maurice to change instruments, from that tuned in D major to a second one tuned to A minor. The reason for this was that the instrument is treated like many of the wind instruments, as a transposing instrument, the fingering following the written notes, but not their sound. They played the Café movement of the four movement suite, the guitar with a dreamy, rhapsodic sound and the viola d’amore more mellow than previously. It sounded a very decorous café enlivened with polite, charming music.

It was a real pleasure to hear the first two of Lilburn’s Canzonas. The first is best known because of its beguiling tune which suggests, to me, that had the composer been encouraged to write more in this vein, there could have been a Lilburn equivalent of Farquhar’s Ring round the Moon music. The arrangement for these three instruments was imaginative and effective with guitar picking up the originally strummed viola part and the melody passing delightfully from viola d’amore to Emma Goodbehere’s cello.

The biggest piece – about a quarter of an hour – was Variations on a Polish Folk Song (Ty pójdziesz górą) by American composer Michael Kimber, originally written for viola and string orchestra, based on what sounded like a characteristic peasant folk song. Maurice spoke about the group’s planned trip to Poland next year when they will play this.

Three of the middle variations include a vocal part, presumably the song itself, which the players explored the options for: in Polish? in English? And then because of the innate musicality of the vowel sounds, Maori was settled on. Donald Maurice’s niece Renée Maurice was recruited to sing, and it intrigued me to hear her adopt a singularly authentic Maori quality, with little grace-note-like catches at the beginning of some phrases. As well, a second vocal line was taken rather engagingly, as a moonlighting job by Jane Curry, continuing with her bright instrumental part. The variations were, well, various, some dance-like, some lyrical, some rather dark and disturbing. There was even time to notice the evidently tricky viola d’amore part that Maurice handled, with hardly a slip in the big challenge of bowing only one at a time of the seven only fractionally differentiated strings, not to mention fingering three more than usual strings with the left hand.

The trio is scheduled to play again at the lunchtime concert at St Andrew’s on The Terrace on Wednesday 11 November.