Day: 10 December 2017

Masses in times of war celebrated by the Bach Choir under Ivan Patterson

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Kodály: Missa Brevis
Haydn: Mass in D minor, H 22/11 (Missa in Angustiis or ‘Nelson’ Mass)

Bach Choir of Wellington, conducted by Ivan Patterson, with Douglas Mews (organ), Rowena Simpson (soprano), Maaike Christie-Beekman (mezzo), Jamie Young (tenor), Simon Christie (bass)

St. Peter’s Church, Willis Street

Sunday, 10 December 2017, 3 pm

With a great line-up of soloists and some marvellous music to sing, the stars were lined up well for the Bach Choir’s concert.  A sizeable audience was present to hear them.  The title for the concert derives from the fact that both masses were written under the stress of wartime conditions: Napoleonic Wars in Haydn’s case and the Russians beating back the Nazis in Budapest in 1943 in Kodály’s case.  The latter work had extra point by being performed within days of the composer’s birthday.

While the Haydn work was written to be performed with orchestra (here, organ substituted), the Kodály was scored for chorus and organ in its original version.  An impressive organ prelude to the work was almost impeccably played by Douglas Mews, and formed a fine introduction.  It was followed by a beautiful, almost ethereal ‘Kyrie’ movement. from the choir.

Jamie Young intoned the plainsong chant before the appropriate movements; before the ‘Gloria’ it immediately was striking and firm.  The choir followed, also strongly.  The soloists turn came in ‘Qui tollis’; it was notable for the solo singing of Maaike Christie-Beekman, who was strong and confident as usual, as well as producing a lovely tone.  Then Simon Christie sang, his sound firm and rich, followed by Jamie Young.  Finally the choir took over at ‘Tu solus sanctus’ and made a good ending to the movement.

Throughout, Kodály’s clear, uncompromising, different harmonies were apparent, but made some difficulties for the choir; intonation sagged in a few places, mainly in quiet passages.  Otherwise the singing was good, and clear.  Having sung this work, I know it is not easy.  Not only are some of the harmonies difficult, the bass notes required to be sung are sometimes very low.

The ‘Credo’ is sung by the choir, and the music differs for its three sections: God the Father and Creator; Christ’s Incarnation and Crucifixion; his Resurrection and Ascension.  The colours, tempi and moods of the music were expressed well by the choir, and words for the most part were clear.  The tone from the sopranos especially was splendid.

The ‘Sanctus’ opened with pianissimo from the women.  The altos sounded less secure than the sopranos.  Here, as elsewhere, there was plenty of contrast, and key modulations.  There was a need for more attention to consistent vowel shaping.

Varying tonalities featured in the ‘Benedictus’ also.  The choir a few times were not totally with the organ rhythmically.  The high notes for the sopranos were excellent.  However, I found grating the constant ‘Hosannerin’, having been tutored in choirs to make a brief glottal stop after the final ‘a’ in the word.

In the ‘Agnus Dei’, the ‘qui tollis’ was most beautifully introduced from the tenor and mezzo, soon joined by stratospheric sopranos.  It was delightful to hear ‘Agnus dei’ pronounced beautifully, and not as ‘Agnes Day’, who made an appearance on the radio in the morning.

The Missa Brevis is an impressive work, and some but not all of this was conveyed by this performance.  Douglas Mews had a huge role in this; the work ended with a magnificent postlude from him.

The ‘Nelson’ Mass is a very different work, although it too featured a grand organ introduction (in this version)..  Then the soprano appears early in the piece; her ‘Kyrie’ was clear and strong.  The choir men, however, were not quite in tempo for a bit following their entry.

In this mass in this mass there are wonderful contrasts between the grand and the intimate.  The ‘Gloria’ introduced the soloists – soprano, tenor and bass; all were first-class, and a joy to hear.  Douglas Mews’s variations of registrations throughout echoed the instruments that would be heard in the full orchestral version, and were splendidly realised.  Simon Christie gave us some gorgeous low notes in ‘Qui tollis’ against Mews’s gorgeous organ.  Rowena Simpson’s ‘deprecationem nostram’ was superb, likeweise the ‘quoniam’.  Some of the men’s vowels were what Peter Godfrey would have called ‘agricultural’.  Intonation was more secure here than in the preceding work, but then the Haydn is much easier to pitch.  Rowena Simpson had plenty of radiant solo singing in the here, whereas she did not have much to do in the Missa Brevis.

However, pitch dropped ajust a little in the ‘Credo’ movement.  The lively parts of the ‘Credo’, such as ‘Et incarnatus est’ found the choir flexible and agile.  ‘The ‘Et resurrexit’ was taken very fast, but the choir coped.  There are so many felicities in this wonderful work.

The ‘Sanctus’ received a splendid performance.  A feature of the ‘Benedictus’ was the beautifully phrased and articulated organ part.  There were a few raw notes from the tenors, but the rest of the choir sounded very good.  As elsewhere, the writing provided plenty of climaxes.

The ‘Agnus Dei’ was cheerful in character, yet subtle too, with complex interweaving of the soloists’ quartet.  They then joined the choir in the final ‘Dona nobis pacem’ section.

Altogether, it was a most successful concert.  The voices soared, as did the audience’s spirits.  Thank you Papa Haydn, Kodály and Bach Choir, accompanist and soloists.  St. Peter’s proved to be an excellent e with its beautifully restored pipe organ, its fine acoustics and its good lighting.

 

Admirable Sibelius as well as Lilburn and a rare trombone concerto from Wellington Chamber Orchestra

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wellington Chamber Orchestra conducted by Ewan Clark with David Bremner (trombone)

Lilburn: Suite for Orchestra (1955)
Tomasi: Trombone Concerto
Sibelius: Symphony No 2 in D major, Op. 43

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 10 December, 2:30 pm

Lilburn’s Suite for Orchestra was composed for the Auckland Junior Symphony Orchestra in 1955. Thus it was a sensible piece for a non-professional orchestra, though that is not to suggest that its wide-ranging moods, brilliant orchestration and rhythms that range widely from the utmost subtlety to the unusually boisterous are not very taxing.

Subtle brass playing is rarely a highlight of amateur orchestras and it was trumpets and trombones that had some difficulty in adapting to ensemble expectations, particularly in the opening Allegro movement. However the large string sections and both the horns (four of them) and woodwinds contributed the sort of sounds that are recognisably Lilburn. The middle movement, Andante, offered rewarding opportunities to oboes and horns; while the orchestra’s timpani has been problematic in this church in the past, Alec Carlisle’s handling ensured its role was perfectly integrated in the orchestral texture.

The fifth movement, Vivace, is a delightfully scored dance in Latin rhythms – Mexican I guess, which is no doubt the reason for J M Thomson’s programme notes for William Southgate’s recording remarking on a Copland influence (I imagine, with El salon Mexico in mind; a solo trumpet sounded very idiomatic). Conductor Ewan Clark gave the players their head in this movement and the result was perhaps a rare occasion when Lilburn lets rip – not too much, mind you. However, the performance was a happy opportunity to witness a not often heard aspect of his personality, and it was also sufficient to make the audience aware of the composer’s international stature.

Henri Tomasi (French, not Italian; of Corsican origin) flourished through the middle of the 20th century; he wrote a number of concertos, mainly for winds, and this one seems to have gained popularity. The opening movement is in triple time, entitled Andante et scherzo – valse, and this gave the piece a dreamy quality. David Bremner’s programme note mentions jazz influences – Tommy Dorsey in particular, though I tended to listen for French influences. Debussy and Ravel are there though not dominant, and there are rather more suggestions of later French composers such as Ibert or Jolivet; but Tomasi’s language, while essentially tonal, melodic in a Poulenc sort of way, sounds more radical, testing than either – more acidic, harmonically complex.

There were interesting forays for most other instruments. One interesting event was a sudden break off in the middle of the second movement (Nocturne) which had been going along in a calm, bluesy manner: a trombone breakdown. A gadget called a trigger broke; it enables the player to obtain low notes by diverting the sound back through the tube behind him instead of fully extending the slide forward. Since none of the orchestral trombonists was playing, one of those instruments came to the rescue. So it continued its rather charming (Ellingtonian, I thought) way.

The last movement too was rather diverting, though Bremner didn’t pull off a comparable stunt; here, there were offerings from side drum, timpani, xylophone…, all ear-catching, quirky and attractive.

I’d like to explore Tomasi’s other music.

Sibelius 2
Then came the main course: Sibelius’s Second Symphony. The work opened very promisingly, as we were drawn in with those expectant, pulsing strings and the oboe and then the four rapturous horns; and the strings long legato lines, handled with gentle emotion. This was the first Sibelius symphony I heard played live by the then National Orchestra in the 1950s, and still a feeling of rapture overcomes me.

The second movement is announced almost threateningly, with a startling timpani fanfare, followed almost silently by a longish pizzicato episode that emerges slowly from basses then cellos, overlaid by questioning bassoons. Its rather rhapsodic character – it’s labelled Tempo andante, ma rubato – and its increasing grandeur involved much from the fine horn section; and though other brass didn’t always blend in the otherwise good ensemble, the whole was certainly more successful and more beautiful than the sum of its parts. The slow movement runs to around a quarter of an hour and to hold audience enraptured throughout is a considerable challenge for a conductor, one that Clark met admirably.

The emotional crux of the scherzo movement, Vivacissimo, is the contrasting string of nine repeated notes (B flat?, and repeated a semi-tone higher) from the oboes and these were beautifully played. And the transition from a further evocation of those repeated notes through the steady build-up to the grand opening out into the Finale, Allegro moderato, remains just another of the glories of the work that I have simply never tired of, and although this was not to be compared with the many magnificent performances that one has heard by professional orchestras, live and recorded, any performance that seems driven by an awareness of the emotional and spiritual splendour that Sibelius conceived here, simply works. This one did.