Day: 5 June 2016

Wonderful Lieder recital ends Schubertiade at St Andrew’s, with powerful case for more

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Ein Liederabend
A score of Schubert songs

Barbara Paterson, Maaike Christie Beekman and Jared Holt and Bruce Greenfield (piano)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 5 June 2016, 6:30 pm

I got to four of the five concerts in this splendid little Schubert Festival which I like to refer to as a Schubertiade. I know of no other such social/musical circle that formed spontaneously around a living composer; the sure sign that not only did plenty of people in the Vienna of the 1820s recognize Schubert’s enormous gifts, but they actually loved the guy.

The most famous contemporary version of the institution is in the small towns Hohenems and Schwarzenberg in the Vorarlberg province of Austria, close to Liechtenstein and Switzerland. The festival, growing bigger every year, moves between Hohemens and Schwarzenberg six times from late April to early November; there are about 90 concerts each year, and many are hard to get tickets for.

They feature song, piano recitals and all kinds of chamber music, and for many years the music has extended well beyond Schubert, and just occasionally reaches before 1800 and after 1900. Think of almost any prominent name and you’re almost certain to find him or her appearing at some stage each year.

Wellington’s version isn’t quite as busy. Five concerts involving about 22 musicians, with attendances at the concerts I attended between 40 and 70, at a guess; but the quality of the audience members was, naturally very high: quality, not quantity.

However, the series is a huge credit to the perseverance and judgement of Richard Greager and Marjan van Waardenberg.

All the earlier concerts were of solo piano or chamber music, but the Saturday and Sunday evenings were in part or wholly devoted to song. This one consisted of 19 songs, from three singers, covering the range of fachs from soprano through mezzo to baritone.

The opening songs were familiar and among the best loved; one with a melody that was used in a great string quartet, and ending with deep Angelegenheit with ‘An die Musik’.

The singers scattered their offerings throughout the programme. From high to low voice:

Barbara Paterson
Soprano Barbara Paterson began hers with one of the three popular songs that opened the recital: ‘Frühlingsglaube’ (Faith in Spring). Hers is a high, bright soprano which could not have matched the song’s spirit more successfully. She next sang three of the so-called ‘Mignon songs’, from Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. Schubert set the three Mignon poems several times; the group listed in Deutsch’s catalogue as No 877, published as Op 62 in 1826, included four songs, including the 5th and 6th settings of ‘Nur wer die Sehnsucht…’. There was more than one setting of the other two poems as well. There is also the famous ‘Kennst du das Land’, D 321

The first was ‘Heiss mich nicht reden’, which Paterson sang with a voice that alternated between timidity and boldness; though I’ve heard this sung by a mezzo with a different emotional result, Paterson’s high voice was convincing.

‘Nur wer die Sehnsucht…’ was also famously set, perhaps more famously, by Tchaikovsky and known in English as ‘None but the lonely heart’: the essence of longing – Sehnsucht, which I reflected on in my review of Saturday evening’s concert. Slender, pale, and with a tender though penetrating voice, she expressed the sentiment beautifully. And Goethe would have loved the singing of the third song, ‘So last mich scheinen’, as the music seemed to fit the words so well, both in their melodic shapes and in the way it reflected the poem’s emotion.

Paterson later sang three songs in successions: ‘Am See’, ‘An die Laute’ and ‘Die junge Nonne’.

‘Am See’ should be translated ‘On the lake’: Sea is Das Meer. Not to confuse with the Heine song, ‘Am Meer’ that Richard Greager sang the previous evening.

‘Am See’ responded beautifully to Paterson’s pure, lyrical voice, also exhibiting a resolute edge and holding her last note chillingly, without vibrato. ‘An die Laute’ (to the lute) was also in a swaying triple time, featuring a charming piano part. ‘Die junge Nonne’ is a poignant and dramatic song, with vivid Romantic character that depicts a storm and a chiming bell, clear in the turbulent piano part.

Maaike Christie-Beekman
Mezzo Maaike Christie-Beekman both opened and closed the recital: ‘Im Frühling’ at the start and ‘An die Musik’ at the end. Hers is a confident and accomplished voice that probably sits more comfortably with many of Schubert’s songs and these much loved songs offered her a comfortable setting, to be heard to her advantage.

Her second appearance was with the two Sukeika songs, based by Marianne von Willemer on a Persian love story. Though I’ve heard them before, I didn’t remember them. ‘Was bedeutet die Bewegung’ (what does this stirring mean?) starts quietly and weaves a song that slowly makes a strong case for itself. In ‘Ach um deine feuchten Schwingen’ (Ah, I envy your watery wings) a pulsating, repeated note gives the piano a strong presence, as it helps in the depiction of the West wind, echoing the East wind’s portrait in the first song. Shelley wasn’t alone in sensing the Romantic qualities of the winds (His Odd to the West Wind was written in 1819 while these songs were written in 1821: pure coincidence I guess. I can’t think of an East Wind poem in English though). The song seems to accelerate excitedly, suggesting a messenger on an urgent mission.

Maaike’s songs continued with two entitled Life and Art. ‘Im kalten rauben Norden’ (In the cold raw north) from Aus Heliopolis 1 by Mayrhofer, one of Schubert’s closest friends. It reads in English: “In the cold, rough north, I received word of a city – the city of the sun”; in the words of the intelligent programme notes, “the ideals of the Enlightenment reign supreme”.

In the same aesthetic vein, Goethe’s ‘Der Musensohn’ (Son of the muses), Christie-Beekman captured the feeling of ecstasy, her voice brilliant in racing delivery, with arms wide-spread, almost outpacing Greenfield’s piano in full flight. Here her smiles really meant something!

And she sang the last song in the programme, the beautiful masterpiece ‘An die Musik’, with aching emotion.

Jared Holt
Jared Holt continues to make fine contributions to Wellington’s music scene. His range of songs here was extensive, starting with the lovely ‘Auf dem Wasser zu singen’ (on the water at sunset), in register quite low and resonant. Then ‘Ganymede’ was another song drawn from Classical mythology, showing how the Romantic movement by no means set itself against Classicism in subject matter, or in fact in form as the ordinary four-line rhyming stanza is generally the shape of choice. Holt caught its monumental character, after the piano had subtly set the scene. And the third of this group, Goethe’s ‘Rastlose Liebe’ (Restless love) revealed a totally different, disturbing quality beginning with ‘Dem Schnee, dem Regen, dem Wind entgegen’ (against snow, rain and wind….); it’s short and dramatic. Early it certainly is, but ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’ was written the year before, in 1814 (he was 17) and ‘Der Erlkönig’, ‘Heidenröslein’ and ‘Wanderers Nachtlied’, like ‘Rastlöse Liebe’, in 1815.

Later Holt sang ‘Gondelfahrer’ (The Gondolier), which I didn’t know; it’s in a slow triple rhythm, not quite the rhythm of a barcarolle which is suppose, literally, it really is. It had a mysterious quality, and lay rather high for a baritone, but it didn’t bother Jared. The song whose theme was used for the famous string quartet, ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’, is not as familiar as one would expect, with its sombre tone, in which the girl resists Death’s blandishments (story obviously echoing ‘Erlkönig’: is this a German ethnic stereotype?). ‘Auf der Bruck’ was Holt’s last song, powerful and urgent, and he seemed to identify confidently with its desperate spirit of pursuit; Greenfield’s piano once again made its indispensable, matchless, apparently untiring contribution.

A wonderful penultimate piece before the calming, quasi-religious ‘An die Musik’.

I remain convinced that if promoters were to present song recitals, carefully composed of enough thrilling masterpieces such as we heard today, the wearisome view that there’s no market for vocal recitals within a chamber music context would be dispelled.

Schubert’s Chamber Music Swan-Song at St.Andrew’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

SCHUBERT AT ST.ANDREW’S
Concert Four – The Aroha String Quartet

String Quartet in E-flat major D.87 (Op.125 No.1)
String Quintet in C major D.956 (Op.Posth.No.163)
(with Ken Ichinose, ‘cello)

The Aroha String Quartet
Haihong Liu, Simeon Broom (violins)
Zhongxian Jin (viola) / Robert Ibell (‘cello)

St.Andrew’s on-the-Terrace, Wellington

Sunday 5th June, 2016

It’s almost inconceivable that a “Schubertiade” of the kind organized here at St.Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace would not include the composer’s last and greatest chamber music work. This, of course, is the String Quintet in C Major D.958, which was completed just two months before Schubert’s death, a work he never heard performed. In fact it had to wait until 1850 for its first public performance, and another three years before it was actually published.

Despite his having completed fifteen string quartets, and numerous other chamber works besides the String Quintet, Schubert was never taken seriously by his contemporaries as a chamber music composer. He was probably inspired by Mozart’s and Beethoven’s work (both also wrote string quintets in C Major), except that Schubert chose to use a second ‘cello instead of the additional viola employed by the older composers.

Schubert’s work is therefore richer- and darker-sounding that those of his models, in a sense befitting the composer’s desperate personal circumstances at the time of the work’s writing. Of his other chamber works only his last String Quartet in G Major D.887 can compare with the Quintet in its range and scope of tragic expression – like the Quintet it was not performed in the composer’s lifetime and not published until 1851.

For this concert the Aroha String Quartet enlisted the services of NZSO ‘cellist Ken Ichinose to join with the group to play the Quintet. I had previously heard the Quartet perform the work with another NZSO ‘cellist, Andrew Joyce, and was interested as to what the ensemble’s response to the work would be like this time round with different personnel (as well as a different ‘cellist, the Quartet’s second violin had changed, Simeon Broom having taken over from Blythe Press).

I also liked the Quartet’s choice of an earlier chamber work by the composer as part of the concert, highlighting the extent of Schubert’s incredible creative advancement throughout his short life. We heard String Quartet No.10 in E-flat major D.87, written in 1813, when the composer was sixteen. Though the work lacks tonal variety (all movements being in the same key), there’s a good deal of assurance in the writing expressing itself in humourful gesture and characteristic lyricism – a perfect foil, in fact, for the later work.

In the case of each work on the programme, the Aroha Quartet’s approach took a direct, “take no prisoners” manner, which I found exciting and exhilarating in the quicker music, and incredibly intense in the slower, more lyrical and inward sequences. Right from the beginning of the earlier work, the players’ receptivity to the music’s light-and-shade was evident, mellow and relaxed for the opening exchanges, then dynamic and volatile when dealing with the development section’s agitations.

I enjoyed the palpable “squawkings” of the scherzo’s opening phrase, noting the mischievous, but also wraith-like echo of the ascending figure, sounded each time just before the players plunged back into the opening’s reprise. The Adagio brought out a different kind of earthiness to the sound, a grainy, sappy beauty at the beginning, which was transformed into something hushed and delicate when the sweet and lullabic second theme was floated on the air. After this, the finale’s tumbling energies was a kind of “hold on tight” ride in places, relaxing for the songful second melody, but plunging into the brief development section and the reprise of the opening with invigorating exuberance.

After the interval came “le déluge”, of course, in the form of the String Quintet, the players (this time with ‘cellist Ken Ichinose) losing no time in coming to grips with the work’s intentions, digging into the second brow-furrowed chord, and then relishing the fanfare-like cascadings counterpointed by the second cello’s sombre opening-theme musings. Then, the second subject sequence fell upon our ears like a lullaby, given firstly by the two cellos, and then by the two violins, both parings so very graceful and reassuring in effect, making the energies that bubbled up seem like exuberant pleasantries. The first-movement repeat brought out a sharper-focused response with a touch more theatricality, so that one seemed to notice more readily things like the second violin’s chattering volubility beneath the first’s melodic line, or the viola’s counterpoint to both of them at the same time.

A new realm came into view with the magical modulation into the middle section of the movement, giving rise to rougher, more physical textures cheek-by-jowl with the loveliness of the viola’s and ‘cello’s duetting, followed by a return to confrontation, the separate lines seeming to “square up” to one another and almost come to blows just before the recapitulation of the opening music. Only a brief lapse of poise in the upper strings resulting in a strained handful of notes distracted our sensibilities from the surety of the ensemble’s “putting things back together” and bringing the movement to a tremulous close.

The second movement (for which descriptive words seem inadequate) brought out playing which transcended time and space over those opening measures – long, flowing lines and beautifully-mirrored pulsations, the strings both bowed and plucked. Even more other-worldly were those sequences when the pared-back textures admitted only the pizzicati notes echoing across the charged sostenuto spaces, the players building the intensities with unerring purpose. In the agitated central section I admit I found myself craving more trenchant, less CIVILISED ‘cello-playing, the upper strings seeming to me to lack a deeply-disturbed enough foil for their lament. But in what seemed no time at all we found ourselves back in those opened-up sostenuto spaces, marveling all over again at the music’s strength and eloquence, the bitterness and anguished overlaid by the first violin’s sweetness of determined resignation.

What a contrast with the Scherzo’s opening, the ensemble’s performance almost frightening in its ferocity and abandonment – the intonation might not have been impeccable in places, but the music’s gutsiness and desperation was palpable – and here, the ‘cello’s counterweighted outbursts galvanized the ensemble’s energies splendidly. Just as profound was the group’s response to theTrio, those richly-upholstered downward plungings into darker regions giving us a sense of the composer’s extremities of despair and limits of privation – after the music delved as deeply as it could go, the Scherzo abruptly returned, whirling us along like some kind of juggernaut to its unequivocal conclusion.

The finale doesn’t explore the extremities of expression as viscerally as do its companions, but makes as great an overall impact through cumulative expression of a gritty determination, devoid of any self-pity. From the beginning the playing’s gait proclaimed strength and purpose, leavened by the beauty of the contrasting lyrical episodes – beautiful work here from the pair of ‘cellos, amply supported by the first violin’s lovely “thistledown” texturings and the ever-responsive ambient beauties of the middle-voices strings. In other places, the full-bloodedness of the playing brought out an occasional stridency, as if the upper strings weren’t always completely at one regarding intonation – but this mattered far less when set against the players’ whole-heartedness and sense of commitment to the composer and his coruscating vision of the fragilities of being.

Somewhere earlier I made mention of the last occasion on which I heard the Aroha Quartet perform this work, with a different second ‘cellist – having now re-read my review of that concert, I’m all the more buoyed up by this music’s renewable aspect, a sense of being “wowed” all over again by the same piece and (mostly) the same performers, but in a way that belongs entirely to “this time round”. There was nothing second-hand or reworked about the music-making, here – it all came to us with startling and invigorating immediacy, on its own terms truly memorable.