Month: 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.

 

 

 

 

Waikanae Music Society scholars through their paces in impressive concert

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Scholarship showcase

Waikanae Music Society Charitable Trust for Young Musicians

Gemma Lee, Rafaella Garlick-Grice and Maria Mo (piano)
Melanie Pinkney (violin)

Memorial Hall, Waikanae

Sunday 11 October, 2:30 pm

The Waikanae Music Society’s Charitable Trust for Young Musicians was formed in 2008 to help talented young musicians in their studies, mostly overseas.
It has been a considerable task to bring them together to help demonstrate to the citizens of Kapiti how worthwhile the project is proving to be. This concert has fully justified the effort.

It opened with Gemma Lee who has just returned from Britain where she was the first scholar in music education under the Pettman/Dare International Performance Scholarship scheme. (Dare? Can anyone translate? Is it “Dareyou” which appears in their email address? My efforts on the internet are fruitless). Pettman was earlier associated with the Royal Overseas League (ROSL) in providing scholarships for New Zealand young chamber music groups to tour in Britain, and Gemma had earlier studied and toured in Britain under the Pettman/ROSL.

The Pettman/Dare Scholarship gives musicians the chance to work in English musical organisations, including Opera North and the University of Leeds, together with New Zealand Opera and the University of Auckland.
Look at the website: Dareyou.org.uk/contact/projects/pettman-dare-scholarship-2015-open-for-applications/pettman/gemma-lee-dare-scholar-in-music-education-2015

She played Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Sonata, in D, Op 28. It may not be one of his towering masterpieces, but in her hands it was immediately arresting and clearly the product of an intelligent and imaginative sensibility. The pace of the opening Allegro was gentle, swaying; she played the pairs of quavers in the first theme to make them and for that matter, every note, things of individual attention and interest; and her prolonged pauses at the scene changes were most effective. Her playing was clean and the staccato elegant.

I go on…. It was a performance that commanded attention and made you reassess the music not through any flamboyant spectacle but through her insights and illuminations.

Maria Mo played Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin. This too was a performance full of little revelations and awakenings. The Prélude light in spirit, no hint of lament while the Fugue suggested a contemplative mood, the steady pace becoming almost monotonous, but slight hesitancy at each successive entry signalled its strange, enigmatic character. I liked her playing of the Rigaudon with its drifting, pensive middle section.

The Menuet neatly imitated through ornaments the fancy steps of the baroque dancers and in the dynamic Toccata there was full scope for her fluency and virtuosity that captured the essence of Ravel’s huge talent as piano composer. The orchestral version is all very well, but it’s the original piano version that really matters. Maria’s overseas studies were at the Conservatorium of the Vienna Private University (Konservatorium Wien Privatuniversität), which, oddly, is fully funded by the City of Vienna.

Maria remained on the stage as violinist Melanie Pinkney came out to play, first Rachmaninov’s Vocalise and then the Scherzo tarantella by Wieniawski. The Vocalise found her slightly insecure, not intonation-wise, but just in the general feel of her playing. The notes are not hard to find, but the long lyrical lines are not so easy to keep under perfect discipline.

The more flamboyant Wieniawski piece was technically harder but lay more comfortably once all fingering and demanding bow control were mastered; it can seem like flying on automatic pilot, Nevertheless the calmer middle section gave a fresh view into her ability to handle the more lyrical music. Still only 13, and as I’m alleged to have said about her last year (at a Wellington concert), she’s to be considered something of a prodigy.

Rafaella Garlick-Grice is somewhat older. She grew up on the Kapiti coast, took her doctorate at Waikato University and now teaches what is known as ‘collaborative piano’ courses at Victoria University. Her task was to negotiate Schumann’s Fantasiastücke, its starkly contrasting moods and technical challenges that speak through Schumann’s imaginary creations Eusebius and Florestan, polar opposites in mood. There were genial and hesitant episodes, heavy and violent movements, some unremittingly passionate, and it ends in the hands of the dreamy Eusebius, quietly, at rest. Schumann is hard, it often lies awkwardly under the hands, and the odd slip was just noticeable towards the end, but it was a delightful performance of one of the most fascinating smaller masterpieces in the piano literature.

Then at the end Melanie returned to play the first movement of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. Perhaps her violin’s tone was a little to edgy for the piece, lacking warmth at the top (as it perhaps was in the Rachmaninov), but along with the rhythmically supportive accompaniment by Maria Mo, she maintained her control in terms of intonation and shape even if the ultimate polish, naturally, still eludes her. She carries the cadenza off with great confidence, swinging it splendidly back to the ‘orchestral’ body of the movement.

These might have been students still refining their skills and talents, but the combination of interesting music and some very remarkable playing made this a most enjoyable concert.

New Zealand Opera’s Tosca a triumph at all levels

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Tosca by Puccini (production by New Zealand Opera)

Conducted by Tobias Ringborg; directed by Stuart Maunder

Solo voices: Orla Boylan, Simon O’Neill, Phillip Rhodes, James Clayton, Barry Mora, James Benjamin Rodgers, Wade Kernot, Matt Landreth

Assistant director: Tamsyn Matchett; set designer: Jan Ubels; Costume designer: Elizabeth Whiting, lighting designer: Jason Morphett

St James Theatre, Courtenay Place

Saturday 10 October, 7:30 pm

The Wellington run of Tosca no doubt benefitted after uniformly positive reviews and word-of-mouth reports from Auckland.

The reports from Auckland were not mistaken; here was one of the most impressive and successful productions from this company yet.

In Wellington, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra was in the pit, and it was, of course, a superb collaboration that obliged the audience to notice Puccini’s masterly dramatic orchestration and the ways in which, under the experienced Tobias Ringborg, it supported and enlivened the story and the characterisations.

The chorus too, recruited separately for each city, was conspicuously excellent in the important episodes where it shone – nowhere better than in the Te Deum at the end of Act I; there, together with the fine boys’ choir.

And I was delighted that so many New Zealand singers were on stage: all but Orla Boylan in the title role.

Updating of opera and theatre has become almost de rigueur for today’s stage directors, and it can serve an opera well, when the story is generic in character. Here, it is shifted from 1800 to the 1950s and the programme note offers various parallels with the original time when Italy was partly and temporarily under Napoleon’s control.

As stage director, Stuart Maunder, demonstrated his skill and experience in guiding his characters in realistic behavior, in sensible and coherent action, whether a formal church ritual at the end of Act I, or the uneasy disposition of Scarpia’s henchmen in Act II. Costumes conformed to the chosen era and the stage design and lighting contributed imaginatively to the changing moods and emotional states described by the music and words.

After the unmistakable, ominous chords that launch the opera, Angelotti bursts through the doors of a dark, wood-panelled church of Sant’Andrea della Valle, having escaped from prison wearing suit and tie. And James Clayton carried his agitated yet commanding role splendidly.

Expectations were high for the appearance of Simon O’Neill as Cavaradossi, a role that he has not been very conspicuous in, though he has sung it in Hamburg and Berlin. Though his strength lies more in the heroic, military roles, called the Heldentenor in Wagner and German works, he employs vocal power and elegance to portray a convincing artist, political activist and lover for whom love is not, actually, the strongest force; who never allows any of the pious sneers of the Sacristan any leg-room, and whose resolute resistance to tyranny is always foremost. ‘Recondita armonia’ came across, as it should, very fine, a somewhat portentous, pretentious efflorescence, in contrast to the Sacristan’s simplistic piety, and also to Tosca’s more elemental erotic impulses.

How good it was to have a Sacristan of the experience and histrionic subtlety as Barry Mora in the role! There was droll wit in some of his ritual gestures relating to Satan and the pretty non-existent religious paraphernalia in the church.

The Scarpia of Phillip Rhodes was perhaps the unknown quantity. I had seen Phillip in several slightly smaller roles for New Zealand Opera as well as in Hawkes Bay as a journeyman singer in the late 1990s. This time it was the real thing. Though not tall, and dressed in what I suppose was a 1950s Mafioso style of a ‘spiv’ rather than a gold-braided police chief, the confidence of his movements, the colour and quality of his voice created a character of authority. His arrival in the church at the end of Act I and assumption of command, the ugly ranging of his henchmen around his chamber, and his approach to wine and women – his credo – in Act II, ‘Ha piu forte sapore’, came across with chilling force. Though the opera has him at ease with aristocratic manners and interests, he’s more the low-life crook who’s got to the top through violent means than a corrupt aristocrat.

Then there’s Tosca. Orla Boylan is tall, and had all the presence of a diva as well as a voice of strength and character; but there was little electricity in her relationship with Cavaradossi; or much irresistible sex-appeal in her demeanour, other than her position in the arts world, that might have driven Scarpia in his determination to rape her. But her singing did it all, from the ‘Non la sospiri la nostra casetta’ as she tried to seduce a slightly distracted Cavaradossi in Act I, and the show-stopper, ‘Vissi d’arte’; these were totally convincing and her style, again like O’Neill, not primarily of a sensual, lustful nature. So the streak of steel in her nature conformed with her stabbing Scarpia several times, just to be sure. Deep down, perhaps her performance was saying that she lived for art and love, but more for art?

The other characters were well taken. James Benjamin Rodgers as Spoletta, Wade Kernot as Sciarrone and the small roles of the Gaoler (Matt Landreth) and the shepherd boy (Archie Taylor) were not only excellently cast but also, for the first time in several years, almost all were New Zealanders (James Clayton now lives in Wellington).

Unusually, the curtain remained down throughout the first ten minutes of Act III, with the shepherd boy’s charming singing which sets a bucolic scene, designed to create a stark visual contrast with the ugly scene of Cavaradossi’s execution, Castel Sant’Angelo. The melody of his movingly sung, pathetic aria ‘E lucevan le stelle’ permeates the whole act.

As for the execution itself, though the firing squad had taken aim, Spoletta suddenly grabbed Cavaradossi, forced him to his knees and shot him with a handgun at point-blank range. A difficulty remained for Tosca: she sees this, and there can be no mistaking that Scarpia’s ambiguous remark to Spoletta, ‘as in the case of Palmieri’ had meant a pretend firing-squad execution was itself a pretence and her lover is dead.

Yet she still approaches Cavaradossi urging him to get up.

Tosca has positioned herself on a platform four metres or so above the roof of the Castel Sant’Angelo and we witnessed a much more than usually breath-taking leap to her death.

The period change in this production deserves a little further consideration.

Where the time and place of an opera are very clearly prescribed by the background story, here a play, as well as by the librettist and composer, in Napoleonic Rome in 1800, the matter is a little more complicated. One needs to think hard whether any real advantage will be gained by moving it forward 150 years. It’s in the 1950s and the programme note draws comparisons with post-war Italy, the presence of the Catholic church, ‘a regime dominated by foreign interests’, and the mafia in the background, and suggests, rather tendentiously I think, ‘a time of secret police, of terror, suspicion and corruption supporting a fragile, conservative regime’. Maybe that’s sufficient.

Earlier productions of Tosca
In the preview articles for New Zealand Opera’s 2003 production of Tosca, New Zealand Opera News, which I was editing, devoted a good deal of space to the much more detailed back-story of Tosca that was narrated in the play by Victorien Sardou, which had been a world-wide success from its Paris premiere in 1887. It was one of most famous roles of the great French actress, Sarah Bernhardt.

The magazine also printed a list of all the New Zealand productions of Tosca that had been recorded.

The New Zealand premiere was in January 1917 in Auckland, the first port of call of the Gonsalez Italian Grand Opera company.
1919/20 Willamson Grand Opera Co
1932 Williamson Imperial Grand Opera
1949 J C Williamson Italian Grand Opera
1961 New Zealand Opera Company (nation-wide tour)
1973 National Opera Company/Auckland Opera Trust (in Auckland only)
1980 Dunedin Opera Company
1984 Wellington City Opera
1985 Mercury Opera, Auckland
1990 Canterbury Opera
1992 Wellington City Opera
1993 Dunedin Opera Company
1996 Canterbury Opera
Opera Hawkes Bay
Opera New Zealand (formerly Auckland Opera, and performed only in Auckland)
2003 NBR New Zealand Opera (both Wellington and Auckland)
2005 Canterbury Opera

Nine different productions in the fifteen years after 1980! None after 2005 till the present. And that typifies the drastic decline in the range of operas produced all over the country after the flourishing decades of the 80s and 90s.

Sparkling performances from superbly schooled Youth Choir

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wellington Youth Choir

Te Quiero (‘To adore, to love, to have faith’)

Directed by Hazel Fenemor and Jared Corbett (accompanist)

Music included by Stanford, Childs, Chilcott, Mendelssohn, Mark Sirett, Alberto Favero, Gershwin and traditional songs

Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Hill Street

Friday 9 October, 7:30 pm

The name given to this concert, Te quiero, was borrowed from the song that ended the first half. It was an attractive, slightly sentimental song by Argentinian multi-talented musician, Alberto Favero. A nice title for a concert as a general sentiment, though its relevance to most of the items seemed a bit indiscriminate.

There was a reasonable audience, part of which seemed to comprise a sort of claque or bunch of groupies who led vociferous, rock-concert-style clapping and shouting at every opportunity. A spirited and enlivening backing that surely encouraged the singers, under the gifted Hazel Fenemor, to invest their performances with the energy, zeal, precision and polish that characterised all their singing.

Even the singing of the first item, a Latin motet of pious character, inspired wild enthusiasm. And though I applauded in a more restrained fashion, I felt the same as the fans about the splendid singing of Stanford’s ‘Beati quorum via…’, literally, ‘Blessed (are those) whose path is undefiled (and the rest is ‘who walk according to the law of the Lord’). His delightful setting gave space to each section of the choir to display its virtues, while finally blending beautifully in full ensemble.

David Childs, US-based, New Zealand composer’s ‘O magnum mysterium’ (which doesn’t refer to an inscrutable, outsize champagne bottle) employed the choir much more in ensemble mode, again a cappella and again full of energy and clarity.

That ended the Latin, and Bob Chilcott’s arrangement of the Londonderry Air, with Jared Corbett at the piano, followed; it was gently paced, with sopranos leading the canon-like opening through each section of the choir, in attractive harmony.

The concert’s structure was carefully devised, with interesting variety, avoiding the risk of unduly upsetting any audience members with musical prejudices. So Schubert came next; Will King sang ‘Ich frage keine Blume’ (Der Neugierige) from Die schöne Müllerin. An attractive unforced voice that carried comfortably over Corbett’s piano and across the church. (One Schubert song is never enough).

Mendelssohn didn’t dabble in Latin either and his motet ‘Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe’ (or, in the Gloria of the Mass: ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo’). Balance between men and women of the choir shifted interestingly; and it was an opportunity for several solo voices from the choir to come forward: Kristin Li, Hannah van Dorp, Joel Miller and Will King. These and almost all the solo singers impressed me with their ease of delivery and awareness of the demands of articulation and integration with a larger whole.

From this point familiar composer names diminished. Mark Sirett is an admired Canadian composer, from the Acadian region – Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, or part thereof. One of his very popular choral pieces is ‘Ce beau printemps’, a setting of a poem the great 16th century French poet Pierre de Ronsard, conducted by Jared Corbett: another quiet, quasi-religious, a cappella motet with wide musical range, it was engaging.

Then the eponymous song, ‘Te quiero’. The programme seemed to suggest that its meanings were variously as in the heading; but ‘quiero’ is not the infinitive form, but the first person singular and according to my limited grasp of Spanish means ‘I love’ or ‘I adore you’ or perhaps, ‘I have faith in you’.
Anyway, it’s by Argentinian composer Alberto Favero, a multi-talented musician who’s very popular; this a cappella song involved women’s voices prominently, and two soloists, soprano Samantha Morris and bass William Briscoe. An attractive setting, with a touch of sentimentality, or perhaps just sentiment; the word that came to me at the moment was ‘very nice’.

After the interval the singers took their places all round the nave and down the aisles, creating effects that would have varied hugely according to one’s place in the church. They sang the Norwegian ‘Jesus gjør meg stille’ (Jesus makes me silent) starting with some very remote and quiet voices but suddenly they burst into full voice. Bass Phill Houlihan took a solo part and the men maintained a drone which led to more complex, climactic polyphony, slowly fading away with women’s voices in unison. The effect was enchanting.

The concert continued with more traditional items, including another Norwegian song, Northern Lights, sopranos and altos prominent, dynamics beautifully controlled. The Beatles’ ‘I want to hold your hand’ was sung by Lizzy Olliver with guitar accompaniment. The Traditional spiritual ‘This little light of mine’ brought Corbett back to guide singers though this slow, dreamy song, featuring alto Jenna Cook. Christianna Stewart sang Gershwin’s ‘Someone to watch over me’, with vocal subtlety, wispy, ethereal, that rather undid me.

‘I want it that way’ was coloured by a barbershop, a cappella quality; as I should have remarked much earlier, under their conspicuously talented director Hazel Fenemor, they produced brilliant vocal colour and character, ensemble was excellent and thus diction was invariably clear, and I choose the Backstreet Boys’ 1999 hit, to draw attention to these qualities.

And finally, another splendid Broadway classic, Gershwin’s hit from Funny Face, ‘S’wonderful’, complete with solo alto voice Lee Stuart, Eddie Kerr (snare drum) and Phill Houlihan (bass).

This was an admirable concert, quality and variety excellently judged, hardly any piece that was not really worth performing and made worth listening to by this splendidly schooled choir.

Interesting exploration of varied guitar music in NZSM’s students’ showcase

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand School of Music: St Andrew’s Showcase week

Guitar students: Jake Church, George Wills, Dylan Solomon

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Thursday, 8 October 2015, 12.15pm

The last of the four showcase concerts from the New Zealand School of Music offered guitarists a platform. One of the four programmed players could not appear, meaning that a piece by New Zealand composer Mike Hogan, Hammerowen, was omitted.

Thus, in contrast to the hour-long viola concert on Wednesday, this one was about ten minutes shorter than the normal 45 minutes.

Two guitarists calling themselves Duo Kita, Jake Church and George Wills, began with two pieces from Brazilian composer Sergio Assad’s Summer Gardens Suite. It rather established the character of the whole concert: undemonstrative, gentle, subtle, discrete, for it supplied an appropriate though back-to-front opening piece, Farewell, a restrained and regretful lament.

Twentieth century guitar music sometimes seems to have little connection with the popular image of guitar music, probably coloured in the imagination by that of the great Spanish composers. In these two pieces the resources of the two instruments are carefully and imaginatively exploited and the expressive potential of a full range of dynamics (other than fortissimo, though careful amplification can achieve striking effects), and articulations deriving from the variety of plucking techniques. The second piece, Butterflies had little connection with either Schumann’s inventions or of Offenbach’s boisterous ballet score; dominated by a rather a hypnotic, self-reflective spirit that was driven by a repeated, rising four-note motif.

Jake Church remained in his place and then introduced the concert; unfortunately I did not catch certain key details (the microphone was iffy) and had to check things later. He explained that he was about to play a Bach suite that was different from that in the programme: the Suite in E flat, BWV 998 which, according to the usual reference source, was written for keyboard but later arranged for guitar. “Arranged for guitar, it is usually played in D major with a ‘Drop D’ tuning [that means the low E string is tuned down a tone to D]. Julian Bream played it in a BBC2 broadcast on television in early 1978 at the All Saints chapel of New Wardour Castle, when he announced it as ‘of vital importance’.” (Wikipedia). Church played the Prelude and the third movement, Allegro.

The Prelude was quietly cheerful with rolling triplets while the Allegro was a dance-like piece with quicker triplets, quite charming. I could well understand how guitarists were happy to purloin it, under what-ever pretext, from the plentifully-endowed keyboard players.

And Jake Church followed that with a Levantine Suite by Dusan Bogdanovich, born in Yugoslavia (presumably Serbia) just 50 years ago. One of the most distinguished contemporary guitar composers, his three movement work was an impressive exercise in quite complex counterpoint and rhythms, interesting textures, often delicately decorated, and Church’s playing was up to its demands. I confess to losing track of the shifts between the three sections, but there was an episode involving fractured scale passages, and it came to an end as the composer would have wished, without rhetoric or attention seeking.

Dylan Solomon’s offering was one of Scarlatti’s 500 or so keyboard sonatas , K 213 in D minor, a steady-paced, deliberate piece in which the original conception for harpsichord could be readily heard, without creating any sense that the guitar was inappropriate; a short pause in the middle led to a repeat that seemed somewhat of a variation on the first section, at least in tone and articulation. It was admirable.

Tarrega’s Adelita and Preludio No 2 was played by the other half of the Duo Kita, George Wills. It was a charming revelation of the gifts of a composer whom most of us would know only from the unforgettable Recuerdos de la Alhambra. Here was the same melodic gift, gently paced; the first piece sounded to me more improvisatory, ‘preludish’ than the more song-like second piece and I wondered whether Wills had played Adelita second for it sounded more song-like, restrained and perhaps infused by a feeling for whoever Adelita was.

George Wills brought the recital to an end with Danza Negra by Columbian composer Lucas Saboya. The title rang bells but I found it was a recollection of a Dansa Negra by Brazilian composer Guanieri – a piano piece played by Katherine Stott at the Nelson Chamber Music Festival earlier this year (useless trivia).

The real enigma rested with the programme note that referred to Saboya’s piece as part of Suite Ernestina, the last part of which contains an ‘allusion’ to a Danza negra by one Antonio Lauro’s Suite Venezolana. In a samba rhythm with a generalised South American character (meaning I’m not really able to pin-point the melodic and rhythmic styles), it involved virtuosic scales and other fast finger-work that Wills handled with impressive, idiomatic skill.

Though the recital was rather abbreviated, it gave the happy few who were there the chance to expand their musical horizons with both original guitar music and excellent adaptations from the classical masters from three most adept instrumentalists.

Violist Gillian Ansell and student Aidan Verity with viola concertos at NZSM Showcase

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand School of Music; Showcase week – viola students

Stamitz: Viola Concerto in D, Op.1
Schumann: Märchenbilder for Viola and Piano, Op.113
Walton: Viola Concerto

Aidan Verity, viola; Gillian Ansell, viola; Rafaella Garlick-Grice, piano

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 7 October 2015, 12.15pm

Having been told the previous day, and by the listed outline of concerts to come in this week of NZSM student recitals that this was to be one of ‘viola students’, I was disappointed to discover that in fact only one such student was playing, plus her teacher, Gillian Ansell.  I hastily add that it is no disappointment to hear Gillian Ansell play, but over the years NZSM has excelled with its viola students, and we have heard numbers of such students perform at end-of-year recitals.  So today was a surprise.

The works were not performed in the order in which they were printed the programme, and no announcement was made to indicate that the order of the first two items was reversed. This might have confused some.

The student, Aidan Verity (spelt in the programme also as ‘Aiden’) is a very accomplished performer. Her Stamitz concerto, in a piano reduction version, as was the later Walton concerto, quickly revealed her gorgeous tone and highly skilled playing.  Her deeper tones were particularly mellifluous.  She was a confident and assured performer, and made double-stopping and fast runs seem easy.  Just occasionally intonation was a little suspect, but these occasions became fewer and fewer as she warmed to her task.  The overall performance was delightful, and in places magical.

It was quite an exacting programme to have, following Stamitz’s three-movement concerto, the Schumann work of four movements.  There were some tricky passages here, especially in the Rasch (quick) third movement, which demands some fast finger-work.  The final movement, Langsam, mit melancholischen Ausdruck (slow, with melancholic expression) is, strangely, in a major key despite its melancholy nature, while two of the earlier movements are in minor keys, despite the more lively characters.

Aidan gave the last movement, with its abrupt ending, a fine interpretation, making the music sing soulfully; a curious contrast to the brighter temperament of the previous two movements.

To have perhaps the most important viola concerto in the repertoire rendered by a professional violist of Gillian Ansell’s standing and experience at a lunch-hour concert was an unexpected bonus.  Here, as in the Stamitz work, Rafaella Garlick-Grice’s performance at the piano was remarkable; her rendition of the orchestral role was thoroughly accurate, supportive, and idiomatic to the different characters of the two concertos.

Gillian Ansell introduced the work, telling us of the link between her viola and this concerto.  As the excellent programme note told us, the first recording of the concerto was made by the noted English violist Frederick Riddle who was a previous owner of her viola, and she thinks it likely that that recording was made using what is now her instrument.

Ansell took a little time to settle, but then played splendidly, with a mellow sound.  However, despite the skill of the performers, I found the concerto did not ‘grab’ me; the absence of an orchestra subjected the work to too severe a test as the lack of orchestral colour, variety of timbres left it feeling a rather cold piece, even pedestrian in places. Yet this was an admirable performance by both Gillian and Rafaella which revealed the music’s lyric qualities but was simply not able to exploit them as fully as orchestral support would have allowed.   It goes without saying that the many technical difficulties were well within Gillian Ansell’s grasp.

To say the pianist’s contribution to this concert was major, is an understatement.  As in most of Schumann’s music for instrument and piano or voice and piano, the latter is vital, its part and varied.  To play two concertos substituting for orchestra in the one concert, plus another major work is a considerable challenge, and one that this performer fully met.

As I’d expected, there was a bigger audience than on the first two days; for Wednesday is the usual day for St. Andrew’s lunchtime concerts.  The timing of these concerts in the school holidays might also have contributed to the rather disappointing turnouts.  Though the programme ran a quarter of an hour longer than the usual lunchtime concert, I did not notice anyone leaving, which suggests that these concerts are not attended in the lunch-breaks by many workers in the area who had to return to their jobs.

 

NZSM Voice-Students at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Arias from Opera, and Songs
New Zealand School of Music: Vocal students of Richard Greager,
Jenny Wollerman, and Margaret Medlyn,
with Mark Dorrell (piano)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Tuesday 6 October 2015, 12.15pm

A varied programme was provided, both in terms of the styles of voices, and of the composers whose music was sung.  The items were all solos, unlike the equivalent programme two years ago, when ensembles were included in the programme.  There was a nice mixture of the familiar and the less familiar.

Each singer sang two or three (or in one case, four) items.  I have grouped the items by each singer, but in most cases they sang one song and returned later in the programme to perform more. It was a pity that no programme notes, words or translations of the songs were provided.

Luka Venter was, sadly, the only male on the programme.  His light tenor voice was suitable for the Monteverdi opening aria, ‘Vi ricorda o boschi ombrosi’ from L’Orfeo, which he sang in robust style, with clear words. Despite this not being a big voice, it was used well, amounting to an effective presentation.

Later Luka sang the sublime and well-known ‘Morgen’ by Richard Strauss.  It receivedappropriate phrasing and emphasis.  I couldn’t help being reminded of Renée Fleming’s wonderful performance with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra recently.  Here, it was sensitively sung and played, but perhaps it required a fuller voice.

However, Luka must be congratulated for tackling the greatest variety of songs (and languages) in the programme, including the earliest one, the Monteverdi.  Finally he sang Manuel de Falla’s ‘Seguidilla Murciana’ from Siete Canciones Populares Españolas.  While sung accurately and with panache and commitment, the voice was not sufficiently mellow or sultry for this song.

Next we heard from Hannah Jones, the first of the five women, all of whom were sopranos. Singing Donizetti’s ‘Chacun le sait’ from La fille du régiment, she was not always spot on with intonation in the difficult, high introductory part of the aria.  Later on, the high notes were very secure.  Her sound was very pleasing, and pronunciation and enunciation of words were excellent, as was the case with all the singers.  A little more variation of tone would have added to a dramatic performance.

Her second piece was a song by Rachmaninoff, which translates as ‘Oh, never sing to me again’.  She conveyed the Russian language and idiom well, and the drama of the song; this was a very fine performance.

Elyse Hemara, like Hannah Jones, had been noteworthy in the School of Music’s  operas this year – Dido and Aeneas, and L’enfant et les Sortilèges (Elyse in much smaller roles).  Her voice has a lovely quality throughout.  Expressive singing was enhanced by excellent words.  Her singing was very accurate and ‘Una voce poco fa’ from Il Barbiere di Siviglia by Rossini demonstrated her considerable range.

Later she sang three short songs by Ned Rorem, a contemporary American composer notable particularly for the huge number of songs he has written.  ‘Stopping by woods on a snowy evening’, ‘Ferry me across the water’ and ‘Love’ featured clear words, while tone and presentation were excellent.  Elyse appeared to know the songs really well, so that she could concentrate on communicating them to the listeners.  Her tone was attractive, and her vowels immaculate.

She was followed by Alexandra Gandionco, who gave us first ‘Mondnacht’ from Liederkreis Op. 39 of Robert Schumann.  This singer has a pure, open sound which is gorgeous.  After the excesses (sometimes) of opera, this was a beautiful pool of calm delight.  It illustrated what I had just been reading about soprano (and mezzo) Christa Ludwig, that there is an opera voice and a lied voice.

Her second song was from Gounod’s Faust: ‘Faites-lui mes aveux’.  This did not suit her as well as did the lied, and her tone was a little breathy, though it improved.  Her top notes were very good.

Rebecca Howie sang Schumann’s ‘Widmung’ from Myrthen with feeling and gusto, but intonation was occasionally slightly wayward.  Just a little rubato here and there would have made the performance seem less breathless.   Her next piece was the lovely Mozart aria ‘Ach, ich fühl’s’ from Die Zauberflöte.  A pleasing tone was evident, but again, some notes were not quite nailed.  As with her lied, the performance was a little mechanical, as though she was not right ‘inside’ the music (another Ludwig quote), and having to think about it too much.  Nevertheless, she had a variety of tone colours.

Katherine McIndoe was ‘L’enfant’ in the recent opera, and performed extremely well.  Today’s first offering was also in the French language, though written by Benjamin Britten: ‘Parade’ from Les Illuminations.  The drama of the poem (by Rimbaud) was in her vocal tone and in her face.  She was thoroughly involved in that drama, and her French pronunciation was excellent.  Katherine then sang ‘Summertime’ from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.  It’s a song heard frequently, but here it was beautiful.

Katherine was the only performer to choose three twentieth-century songs – or was the last one twenty-first century?  It was by recently-retired Professor of Music at Otago University, John Drummond, with words by well-known comedy playwright, Roger Hall.  It was entitled ‘Prima Donna’.  There have been other songs that spoofed opera themes and the role of the soprano heroine, but I don’t recall any of them being as intelligently funny as this one!   

Katherine’s soprano wished to make a living from dying, and demonstrated this energetically, including with a rather convincing knife.The music was appropriately operatic, and the excesses involved were hardly greaterthan they are in some operas.  The humorous words were very clever.  Katherine sang in a thoroughly believable way, with great timing and panache.  The piece was difficult and demanding, and was given a very musical and entertaining performance.

Brilliant writing made this parody of opera heroines a great way to end the concert. Mark Dorrell’s accompaniments were sensitive or dramatic as occasion required.  He was never too loud for the singers, but had plenty of spirit when opportunities arose.

Rich and entertaining fare from student cellists at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand School of Music: Concert Week

Cello students: Jordan Renaud, Tierney Baron, Caitlin Morris, Lavinnia Rae, Olivia Wilding, Elena Morgan, Rebecca Warnes, Bethany Angus
Directed by Inbal Megiddo

Bach’s Cello Suite No 5 in C minor – Praeludium, played by Lavinnia Rae
Bach’s Cello Suite No 6 in D – Sarabande
Barber: Adagio for strings
Piazzolla: Libertango
Rossini: Overture to The Barber of Seville

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Monday 5 September, 12:15 pm

Eight cello students from Victoria University’s school of music, led by head of cello, Inbal Megiddo, delivered a highly diverting concert, the first in the school’s end of year showcase which is taking place between Monday and Thursday this week.

The advertised programme was amended by the addition of a solo performance by one of their number, Lavinnia Rae. Hers was another piece from Bach’s Cello Suites: the Praeludium from the fifth suite in C minor.

I forgot to ask, and I couldn’t observe, whether Lavinnia had followed Bach’s instruction for playing that one, that the A string be tuned down a tone, to G. I assume it was, as that allows the top note, A flat, in certain chords in the key of C minor to be played on the “A” string, when it would otherwise have to be played on the D string, which is taken to play a lower note in chords. It also has the effect of slightly decreasing the brightness of that string.

Her playing was warm and confident, with an energising bite to those chords in the first part of the Praeludium. Her rhythm was fluid and flexible, creating a nice rhapsodic quality in its first section. Quite soon Bach presents a bit of a surprise with a shift to a 3/8, gigue-like, rhythm, its energy rising and falling, and becoming increasingly lively as it approaches the end with its sudden shift into C major. A lovely performance.

Then all cellists emerged, along with Megiddo, to play the Sarabande from the sixth suite (which also has its peculiarities, being written for an instrument with five strings, somewhere called a ‘viola pomposa’, which has an additional, higher, E string). The impact of a symphony of cellists playing in a somewhat harmonised version of the music created an entirely different effect, Italianate perhaps, a big warm study in baroque chordal expressiveness.

Samuel Barber’s Adagio is much more familiar in a variety of guises; here, Megiddo parked her cello and picked up a baton to conduct it. The players with the leading high parts were very secure and created a movingly elegiac spirit that probably few other ensembles could match in this chameleon-like music.

The admirably varied and imaginative programme then treated Piazzolla’s bandoneon-dominated Libertango to the civilising (is that what I mean?) effect of a phalanx of cellos, with Megiddo resuming a seat in the midst of her students. They began with a gentle tapping on the belly of some of the instruments, and then the music proceeded to demonstrate how Piazzolla would have scored it if he’d been born of Argentinian blood in, say, Vienna with the local Philharmonic at his disposal. In fact, the transition from bandoneon to cellos is not sonically such as leap, given players of talent and stylistic acuity. The playing was hair-raising in some respects, especially the handling of the accompanying figures in the bass, and there was challenge enough, in fingering and rhythms, in the upper parts too.

The last item was the greatest leap from one genre to another. For a piece as familiar as the overture to The Barber of Seville to be deprived of its brass and woodwinds, and to ask big, warm-hearted instruments like cellos to indulge in its brilliant and flashy emotional effects made for an experience that was almost bizarre and had me smiling even more than Rossini usually does. In fact there were moments of near satire and pure comedy; and in the accelerandi and crescendi, which so delighted this incomparable composer, the joke seemed to be on the players and the result was downright hilarious.

So this was one of the most entertaining concerts I’ve been to for a while.

Worlds of Music – Lilburn, Vaughan Williams and Mozart from the NZSM Orchestra

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music presents:
MOUNTAINS AND MOZART

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS – Norfolk Rhapsody No.1
MOZART – Piano Concerto No.20 in D Minor K.466
LILBURN – Symphony No. 1

Xing Wang (piano)
Kenneth Young (conductor)
Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music Orchestra

Sacred Heart Cathedral, Hill St., Wellington

Thursday 1st October, 2015

So, what on earth has Mozart got to do with Douglas Lilburn? By a happy coincidence, the concerto (Mozart’s K.466) with which the brilliant soloist Xing Wang earlier this year won the NZSM Concerto Competition First Prize was again performed by her during this concert, to stunning effect. But alongside Lilburn? Mountains and Mozart?

Anybody who has read Lilburn’s beautifully-wrought treatise on being a composer here in New Zealand (first given as a talk at the 1946 Cambridge Summer Music School, and subsequently published as “A Search for Tradition” – Douglas Lilburn : Lilburn Residency Trust, 2011) will recall the sequence describing a journey made by the young composer on the night train northwards from Wellington, and his thoughts upon experiencing a clear, moonlit night’s view of the central North Island mountains on that journey and the vivid aromas of the surrounding bush country – particularly resonant are the words concluding his description……

At that moment, the world that Mozart lived in seemed about as remote as the moon, and in no way related to my experience.

It struck me, therefore, as a fitting kind of resonance from those words to have a concert which is part of the “Lilburn 100” centennial presentation we’ve been enjoying so much this year featuring his music cheek-by-jowl with none other than Mozart’s. And to add flavour to the situation, Lilburn’s work took the form of a symphony, constructed along the lines of principles known and used by Mozart in his own works of that genre. Rather than signalling a capitulation to any kind of un-New Zealand way of doing things, Lilburn’s treatment of and provision of content for symphonic form both acknowledged the precedents and instilled a genuine, home-grown flavour of newly-minted discovery to the sounds allied to the music’s structure.

Another, more direct connection to Lilburn and his music was provided by the presence of a work by Vaughan Williams at the concert’s beginning, the Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1. Readers who either attended the Wellington Chamber Orchestra’s concert of less than a fortnight ago, or read my subsequent review of the event, will recall that the Vaughan Williams Rhapsody and the Lilburn Symphony were played then as well (possibly creating a “shortest duration” record for the time between two public performances of any Lilburn Symphony by different artists!). Vaughan Williams was, of course, Lilburn’s composition teacher at London’s Royal College of Music.

So, by either chance or contrivance, the NZSM concert was flavoured with interlinks of various kinds between the items, themselves, of course, making a splendid programme per se. And what a beautiful job the players made, under Ken Young’s guidance, of the opening of the Norfolk Rhapsody!  I couldn’t help thinking, as the music unfolded via haunting strings and winds, how wide of the mark that oft-quoted jibe “the English cow-pat school” is in many cases, particularly in relation to Vaughan Willliams (one also thinks of Peter Warlock’s dismissive comment  “a cow looking over a gate” regarding the older composer’s work in general).

Here, the melancholic beauty of the opening, with the strings and winds stealing in from afar, and welcomed by harp, lower strings and clarinet, lost no time in building up the music’s intensities, richly-coloured by a beautifully-played viola solo. As the sounds of winds, brass and timpani dovetailed with the strings and Ken Young allowed the orchestral throttle some juice, the music galvanized our sensibilities, the strings taking on that “anguished” quality on also finds in the same composer’s Thomas Tallis Fantasia, with full-throated support coming from the brass and timpani at the music’s passionate extremes.

By contrast, the “sailor-dance” central section was great fun, having plenty of swagger and roistering intent, before the jog-trot rhythms are effectively squared off amid swirling string-tones intent upon returning us to the opening, the brass managing a beautifully-voiced farewell reminiscence of the “dance” as the mystery of the piece’s opening surged softly backwards – so finely-controlled, and with the sounds beautifully floated by all the players. No cow-pats, and no cud-chewing eye-ballings over wooden gates – instead, a treasurable evocation of different kinds of ecstasies, some of them lump-in-the-throat, thanks to the beauty and focus of the playing.

It’s possible to feel that Douglas Lilburn may have been a little hard on Mozart’s music in suggesting its essential remoteness from certain aspects of the New Zealand landscape, though it would be fair enough to consider that the latter’s D Minor Piano Concerto K.466 (the work next on the program in this concert) is more about the world of the opera “Don Giovanni” than anything else. However, I could imagine certain Adagio movements from other works like the Wind Serenade K.361 wouldn’t have gone amiss as an ambient backdrop to moonlit mountainous slopes amid native bush – and if grandeur was wanted, the opening of Symphony No.39 would do very nicely, there being plenty of majesty and upward thrust in that music (however, NOT in one of these so-called “authentic” hell-for-leather performances afflicted upon us during more recent times, I hasten to add!).

Still, the concert triumphantly achieved a coming-together of both composers’ worlds and time-eras, demonstrating that differences can happily co-exist and be savoured, when there’s a will. In fact Mozart’s K.466, together with the C Minor Concerto K.491, made the greatest impression on nineteenth-century sensibilities, which “connected” with the music’s dark urgency, stormy tones and volatile character, rather more than with some of the composer’s more rococo-like utterances. The works were, in fact, seen as a precursor of romanticism, and were both greatly admired by Beethoven.

At the piano was the 2015 NZSM Concerto Competition winner, Xing Wang, whose focused and totally committed performance seemed to me to wholly “own” the work. From where I was sitting (over to the right-hand side – I had no view of the soloist’s hands but was able to “read” the music in her face most enjoyably, as she played) the piano in this particular acoustic – a carpeted floor – seemed mellow-sounding almost to a fault, so that the soloist found it difficult to generate a truly assertive tone in places. Still, the exchanges with the orchestra had real tension and purpose, amid all those dark D Minor tones and syncopated rhythms! I thought the violins were occasionally inclined to “stretch” their phrasings a bit more than the other orchestral sections, but the effect amid Mozart’s tense, anxiety-ridden dovetailings simply added to the music’s danger, without ever letting chaos get the upper hand.

The first-movement cadenza, dynamic and Beethoven-like, allowed Xing Wang to bring out the instrument’s colouristic qualities, the concluding phrases excitingly matched by the orchestra’s attack at its re-entry, keeping the sombre mood. Pianist and conductor then kept the music moving during the opening exchanges of the slow movement, seeking to keep the tempo of a piece throughout, rather than romanticize the lyrical opening and over-dramatise the turbulent middle section. Only my critical conscience prevents me from commenting that I actually prefer the movement with greater contrast between the two “faces” of the music, however stylistically correct Xing Wang’s and Ken Young’s (and Mozart’s!) way with it all might have seemed to most listeners.

Most importantly, at this flowing tempi nothing dragged, and the strings’ phrasing of the melody had in places a most attractive lissome grace. Yes, some of the “surprise element” was lost, with the central section plunging in at the same basic pulse – but the winds did so well to keep their long-breathed lines steady throughout. I did feel the “return” to the opening couldn’t help sounding a little perfunctory at this speed – but there I go again! I think I missed being reminded of the ending of “Figaro” here, where the warmth of the opening’s return seems to engender a sense of reconciliation of characters in conflict, Mozart’s music tugging at one’s heartstrings as the slow movements of these concerti so often do.

At the finale’s beginning Xing Wang kept the music’s momentum steady rather than “breakneck” with her upward flourishes and rounding-off phrases, trusting in her ready ability to phrase and point the music to generate excitement. Ken Young and his players echoed her trajectories with beautifully-timed responses that caught a sense of things spontaneous erupting, the exchanges reflecting the enjoyment and exhilaration all around. After an assertive and exciting cadenza (which I didn’t know), the “coming out” into the radiance of the major key was a great moment, all sunshine and happiness after the journey’s shared travails.

Mozart having been given his dues, we thus came to the proper “mountains” part of the concert, Douglas Lilburn’s first-ever symphony, completed in 1949, and given its first performance by the National Orchestra under their conductor Michael Bowles in 1951. It was the first-ever performance of a symphony by a native-born New Zealand composer, and received a lot of attention of the “not bad for a New Zealand composer” variety, most commentators obviously cautious regarding their own abilities to make a judgement concerning a work by a fellow-New Zealander, though one notice discussed the work’s “shortcomings”, such as the “abstruse” and “discursive” principal themes. Critic Owen Jensen probably gave the work its fairest appraisal at the time, praising its “originality and vitality” regarding the themes, and their integration and working-out, while commenting that the symphony “contains nothing that is startlingly new”.

A remark rather more of the “seeing ourselves as others see us” variety came from British conductor Sir Charles Groves, who directed a performance with the National Orchestra on a visit here in 1988, and made the observation “Lilburn seems to me to have captured the natural genius of the landscape”. This attitude, which is where the mountains loom into significance, was largely borne out by Dr.Robert Hoskins of Massey University in an illustrated talk about the symphony given just before the concert’s second half began, and in which he made reference to “the nurturing forces of nature”, a statement in accord with what Lilburn himself called “the naive, generous country that gave one its joyous force.”

As I’ve mentioned before, this was the second performance of the work I’d heard within a fortnight, making amends for some long fallow periods of neglect. Lilburn’s Second Symphony has definitely found more favour with the critics, regarded as a less derivative, more home-grown manifesto of one creatively “standing upright here” and being counted – but the presence of this later, more monumental work ought not to deny us opportunities to enjoy the young composer’s exuberant energies in his earlier symphonic outing. After all there are plenty of similarly youthful works in the established repertoire which pay audible homage to older music without their effectiveness being compromised one jot.

Taking his immediate inspiration from Christchurch’s Port Hills, the composer immediately throws open the vistas at the beginning, everything taken in at a glance and straightaway acted upon by the music’s confident forward momentum – here, the opening trumpet call was clear and purposeful, the winds fresh and out-of-doors, and the strings athletic and vigorous, a mood celebrated by brass and timpani in no uncertain terms – a great opening from Young and his players! Their playing brought out both the majesty and the isolation of the scenarios, encouraging the lines’ occasional striking out on their own, evoking the skylarks’s songs, and demonstrating, in Lilburn’s own words, the “well-nigh bewitched” feeling of “that air so far up with that view before and that music above”.

Yes, there were energetic Coplandesque moments and Sibelian-like evocations of the processes enacted between air, land and water, but time and place nevertheless seemed securely set, here in this performance, the dying echoes at the end nicely-judged and resonantly-voiced. The second movement’s hymn-like ruminations steadily unfolded at a pace that allowed air and space but maintained the work’s overall momentum – conductor and players enabled the music’s amalgam of physical strength and ritualistic transcendence, unerringly building both outward and inner intensities towards a tutti of almost pantheistic splendour, before horns and violas quelled the strings’ anguish – how lovely, and elegiac an atmosphere was wrought at the end!

That wonderful unfurling of the textures at the finale’s beginning had its full effect, here, the composer seemingly drawing, however subconsciously, from Sibelius’s Tapiola in places, with dark, brooding string phrases and wood-sprites darting between the trees, though there always seemed more light and warmth than gloom in this particular wanderer’s heart. And though we also experienced great Oceanides-like swells from the strings, there were recognizably “Aotearoa” brass calls which drew us out from the darknesses, evoking thousand-ton building-blocks of majestic rock, the fanfares energizing the strings and similarly inviting our spirits to rejoice and dance – a great moment, reinforced by the lower strings’ climbing the heights to join with the other voices in the celebrations!

As it all unfurled at the finale’s beginning, so the music then suddenly called itself to order, and took stock of where it had come to, taking us along as well – those last pages of the work then built into a kind of consecration, a merging of spirit and surroundings, an expression of hope in our eventual achievement of oneness with our surroundings, and of a heritage that those “born in a marvellous year” will be able to claim as their own. In that sense, how appropriate it was for an orchestra of youthful players such as these to be able to give sonorous and assured tongue to this visionary message.