Month: August 2018

Third fine Orchestra Wellington concert, unthemed but with Dvořák 7, a great success

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Orchestra Wellington conducted by Marc Taddei with Michael Houstoun (piano)

Mozart: Piano Concerto No 14 in E flat, K 449
Gao Ping: Wild Cherry Tree
Dvořák: Symphony No 7 in D minor, Op 70

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 11 August 7:30 pm

The third of Orchestra Wellington’s 2018 subscription concerts offered an unusual mix of music: nothing unusual about the theme symphony-Composer, Dvořák, and an unfamiliar Mozart piano concerto, but the premiere of a commissioned piece by a Chinese composer with New Zealand associations, no doubt raised a certain curiosity … or misgivings: that may have explained the slightly less-than-sold-out audience – a rarity for this orchestra these days.

Mozart K 449
The Piano Concerto No 14 is the first of the second set of three (K 449, 450, 451) that Mozart wrote after coming to Vienna in 1782; they are regarded as the beginning of Mozart’s period of greatest creativity. No 14 was the first to be recorded in Mozart’s own notebook listing his compositions, from 9 February 1784.  It is common to marvel at Mozart’s output of masterpieces from that time, especially the piano concertos (but of course much else, including the great operas) in the dozen years from 1784.

I was actually surprised to find that I didn’t know this piece very well and that the one I had expected and knew well, was No 12, one of the earlier group of three written in Vienna. So this proved a delightful re-awakening to a serious, confident, at the same time, very sanguine work, from the hands of just that kind of pianist, with conductor and orchestra who could do it splendid, totally sympathetic justice.

My initial feeling was the orchestra was perhaps a little too stripped back to ‘classical’ dimensions, though the numbers (12, 10, 8, 6, 3 as far as I could see) seemed fine; but it seemed to invite a warmer, richer sound. So the back and forth motifs between piano and orchestra in the first movement and the sonorities generally might have been a little more robust and fully-fleshed. But the orchestra once more revealed its responsiveness to this engrossing music; and I loved Houstoun’s elegant little ornaments, and the overall joyousness that he managed to draw from its E flat tonality.

The Andantino movement has a somewhat reticent air and to keep audience attention might not have been easy, but it happened, with Mozart exploiting his skills at embellishing and varying working its magic, with Houstoun’s lyrically detailed fingering. I loved the way they handled its final, reticent notes and the non-emphatic opening of the Finale, where a typical, characterful melody takes hold, beguilingly, stretching it till the time for the Coda, triplets, brought it quickly to an end.

Wild Cherry Tree
The main piece in the first half was a premiere commissioned by Prof. Jack Richards from Gao Ping, for some years lecturer in music at Canterbury University. Wild Cherry Tree is based on folk tales and impressions from the region where he was born – Sichuan, the province in south-central China, east of Tibet. The vocal parts, presumably in Mandarin, or the Sichuan dialect of Mandarin, were sung by counter-tenor Xiao Ma and bass Roger Wilson. The first thing to record was the size of the orchestra, normal late-Romantic – four horns, though just double woodwinds and trumpets. But the back row could have marked it as a post-serialist juggernaut, with several keyed percussion instruments, a variety of drums, a set of three tuned gongs, claves and certain items whose names escape me. Their noise, dominated initially by timpani and bass drum, was impressive, but it was often refined by sensitively blended woodwinds, as well as the many more subtle percussion items.

The first of the four ‘movements’ was sung by Wilson whose pronunciation was a matter of admiration, though there remained a European timbre that no amount of linguistic virtuosity, with which he is generously equipped, can disguise. Without recourse to the programme notes, I might have been hard-pressed to attribute the sounds to ‘Snow-capped mountains’. But then, scenic or narrative associations of music often escape me and rarely seem relevant in my appreciation of music, particularly of Asian music which seems to be much devoted to landscape and other visual sources. So I found the orchestral episodes elucidated the vocal parts, and as the music passed, its meaning and emotional qualities and made increasing musical sense.

The second part, ‘Scarlet Horse’, seemed to have set itself challenging subject matter: ‘overlapping romantic relationship between past and present, fantasy and reality, with contrasting visual images… roaming the world on a scarlet horse’. If the theme seemed to be a matter of some obscurity, galloping rhythms enlivened it, and the actual sung episodes delivered by Xiao Ma’s counter-tenor offered a musical experience that felt perfectly matched and coherent. The timbre of his voice, of rare purity and beauty worked persuasively to suggest what we have come to associate with Chinese music even though the pentatonic scale did not dominate the soundscape. Later, the two voices duetted, sometimes in passages that were colourful and animated, sometimes in what I took to be wordless episodes.

The counter-tenor alone sang through the third part, ‘Little Flower’, accompanied by percussion, including the small gongs, marimba and high, delicate woodwinds. flutes. Both voices shared the fourth movement, ‘Under the Wild Cherry Tree’, with the two alternating in a sort of dialogue, charmingly, with delicate string playing, alongside tuned percussion.

This was a challenging score in every way, though not in the avant-garde, contemporary western music sense; there was no doubt that the orchestra’s success with it flowed from some serious rehearsal under conductor Taddei along with the orchestra’s high level of musical skill that can easily be unremarked.

Dvořák’s Seventh
It was Dvořák’s 7th symphony from which the concert’s name ‘London’ derived (though oddly, that was mentioned neither in the season brochure nor in the evening’s programme book; however, it had been mentioned in much earlier publicity). It was first performed in London in 1885 (he made nine visits to England between 1884 and 1896). The composer himself regarded it very highly.

With their decision to feature five Dvořák symphonies this year, Taddei and the orchestra have already shown their flair and affection for his music; I hope that audiences have understood how his earlier symphonies, and not just those numbered 1 to 4 which had earlier been excluded from the canon altogether, have been seriously under-exposed as a result of what I feel is the blind popularity of the Ninth. The Fifth and especially the Sixth have been revealed as very fine works, but the last three are more or less on a par, i.e. to be compared with Schumann’s and Brahms’s, and some scholars rate the Seventh as the best; I’m so inclined as well.

This was a beautiful, sensitive performance that explored all the delicate and meditative aspects of this D minor work, a key that for some reason most composers have used to convey sadness, grief, sometimes anger, certainly, seriousness of purpose. (Mozart’s piano concerto no 20 and Brahms’s first piano concerto, the Choral Symphony, Schubert’s Death and the Maiden quartet, Mozart’s Requiem, Franck’s symphony, Bruckner’s ninth, Sibelius’s sixth, Shostakovich’s fifth symphonies…. )

Those characteristics were evident right from the beginning: sombre, with restless, uneasy melodies, but before long these same ideas acquire a feeling of contentment, with passages that are optimistic and almost joyous, and it slowly subsides to end peacefully. The orchestra captured the greatness of the second movement, with its beautiful, near flawless horn passages, and descending themes that expressed a meditative spirit, a mood that for all the composer’s joyful, Slavonic flavoured music, harbours very a deep pensiveness, and the playing here was both meticulous and moving.

There is also a very special character about the Scherzo which, miraculously, combines the jocular, a feeling of contentment with looming sadness. There is a remarkable persistence of mood and musical spirit throughout the work, with a feeling of inevitability as movement follows movement. That seemed especially strong at the end of the vigorous Scherzo and opening of the very deliberate, serious-minded Finale: the two movements, superficially in tempo, far apart but their moods are so satisfyingly complementary.

I think I have recently lamented the way musical taste gets dominated by a single ‘great’ work by a composer, in each genre, and that’s true for Dvořák; for me this fine performance of the Seventh, emphatically put the New World in its place: not above, but simply in the same class of musical inspiration and integrity as the 7th (and the 8th, which we come to in October; not to mention last month’s 6th which used for a long time to be a cherished cassette tape companion in the car).

The programme might have looked a bit lacking a common theme, with a big, pageant-like Chinese work between a Mozart concerto and the Dvořák; but it proved a wonderfully enjoyable evening.

 

Ensemble Zefiro a breath of fresh, tangy air in Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Chamber Music New Zealand presents:
ENSEMBLE ZEFIRO

Alfredo Bernardini , Paolo Grazzi – oboes
Alberto Grazzi, Giorgio Mandolesi – bassoons
Dileno Baldin, Francesco Meucci – horns

HANDEL – Due arie HWV 410,411
Marcia in F Major HWV 346
FASCH – Sonata in G Minor, FWV N:g1
TELEMANN – Ouverture in F Major TWV 55:F9
HAYDN – Parthia in C Major Hob.II.7
MOZART – Divertimento in E-flat, K.252/240a.

Michael Fowler Centre,

Friday 10th August, 2018

I’ve copied out the titles of the pieces as per programme, which accounts for the unusual names for aria (arie), overture (ouverture) and partita (Parthia), the last of which I thought at first was some kind of misprint. But no – there it was – Parthia, an alternative form of “partita”. So as it was something I didn’t know before I thought it was worth committing to review! However I must admit to being a little bemused by something else in the programme, the description of the Greek God Zefiro (whose name the ensemble has adopted) as “tender and Kind”, when I knew the legend of the same God’s jealous petulance which prompted the mean-spirited act of using his powers to blow a discus off course to disrupt a game between Apollo and a young boy, Hyacinth, whom Zefiro fancied – which ploy went horribly wrong when the object hit and killed Hyacinth! – the best-laid plans, etc…….still. there are so many conflicting stories regarding these deities, it’s a case of “pick-and-choose” when it comes to identifying with certain personalities and their traits. (hmmm – I’d better get on with the review, I suppose…….)

I loved the ensemble’s playing, right from the beginning, though I must admit that Handel’s music is one of those phenomena happily available to all and sundry that simply can’t help inducing a sense of well-being and contentment on contact! Here, straightaway, we in the audience (a decently-stocked ground floor at the MFC) were simply buoyed along by the energy, wit and charm of the composer’s seemingly limitless invention, fully realised by the ensemble’s playing. And what made the music even more endearing on this occasion were those characterful “authentic-instrument” sounds, the arrestingly nasal oboes, the throaty bassoons and the fruity (if occasionally asthmatic) horns. The point of the exercise seemed to me to refreshingly differentiate and contrast, rather than blend and smooth over, the different strands, the distinctive voices.  Why, I found myself thinking, as the music went along, would you want to “blend” sounds in a way that negated so much character and individuality, of the kind that was on show here?

Well, as Ecclesiastes says, there’s a time for everything, a time to blend and a time to differentiate (to coin an extremely unpoetic phrase!). It was simply refreshing to encounter an evening’s playing which seemed to proclaim “Vive la difference!” rather than seek to contain, control and smooth out differences in sounds. Not that Ensemble Zefiro couldn’t “blend” when they wanted to – but even when they did no individual strand or timbre disappeared or lost any of its character. It’s a quality I sometimes encounter when playing older orchestral or wind ensemble recordings, on which one hears sounds that are individual to the point of being quite “ornery” at certain moments – afterwards, turning to recordings of almost any 21st-century orchestra one finds oneself at a loss to discern any individual “character” in the actual sound, however skilled the playing might be.

Another quality that the authentic instrumental timbres underlined in the music was its “out-of-doors” aspect, and not only regarding the horns – in the second of the Handel “Arie” (HWV 411) I felt a kind of “spaciousness” about the sounds, a ready evocation of the “al fresco”, to do with, perhaps, a number of things, the players standing in a line accentuating the music’s antiphonal aspect, and the spaciousness of the Michael Fowler Centre, not to mention the horns in particular having “outdoor” associations anyway. But regarding the last point, both oboes and bassoons here took on more of a rustic character than I often associate with them – and in fact, the group’s spokesperson, Alfredo Bernadini, alluded to this “out-of-door” association, ironically when introducing a very different work by the evening’s second composer, Johann Friedrich Fasch (1688-1758).  Bernadini described Fasch’s piece, a Sonata in G Minor for two oboes and bassoon, plus bassoon continuo, as much more “chamber” and intimate in style.

The piece opened with a Largo movement,  the tones sombre and plaintive, and the instrumental timbres expressive and gorgeously fruity. One could hear before long why it was that JS Bach had a high regard for Fasch’s music, with the piece moving steadily and unerringly towards an expressive climax immediately leading to the second movement Allegro. Here was zest and bounce aplenty in the writing, the oboes offering chattering melodic leads and the bassoon delicious stepwise counterpoints. The composer replicated his markings for the following two movements, the second Largo enabling the bassoon to demonstrate its engagingly wheezy lyrical tones, working with its continuo partner in figurations an octave apart, and sounding like a pair of ancient, characterful voices! The Allegro finale really put the onus on one of the bassoons with an insanely virtuosic part, the notes literally flying from his instrument!

Telemann’s music then made an appearance, an “Ouverture in F Major”, a work written along the lines of JS Bach’s Orchestral Suites, consisting of an initial piece also called an “ouverture” followed by a number of French dances – while Bach wrote only four such words for instrumental ensemble, Telemann produced well over a hundred. This particular Ouverture (or “Suite”), for two oboes, two horns and bassoon continuo, was nicknamed “The Hunt”, referring in part, perhaps, to the prominence given the pair of horns in the work.

Certainly the opening piece gave the pair ample opportunity to make their presence felt, mostly by interrupting the more garrulous oboes at every possible opportunity, reminding them that they were still “here”. The Allegro section of the opening was spectacularly marked by the horns with a fanfare-like figure, again keeping a watchful ear on what the oboes and bassoon were doing. Throughout, the bassoon seemed almost an intermediary between the garrulous Montague-like oboes and the volatile Capulet-like horns, calling the ensemble to order when things got outlandish (particularly the occasional hi-jinks from the Capulets!).

Right through the course of the dances, the instrumental detailings gave us great delight, chirpy phrases galore from the oboes and occasional blasts of wind from the horns during both of the Passepied sections, a lovely glow illuminated with horn calls during the Sarabande, fanfares and giggles at the ends of phrases further enlivening the Rigaudon, and a dignified, regal sweep and grandly processional poise accompanying the concluding Le Plaisir. The ensemble certainly gave us “moments per minute” during this varied and entertaining sequence.

An interval later we were taken into the classical world of Haydn and Mozart, necessitating a change of instruments for the oboe- and bassoon-players. Thanks in part to the cheekiness of Haydn’s writing for the ensemble in the first movement of his Parthia in C Major, we didn’t notice as sharply as we might have the change in actual “engagement” of the instrumental sound, the tones smoother and more elegant-sounding in themselves, though here employed by the composer in ear-catching ways with writing whose wit and sparkle recalled  certain of the composer’s piano sonatas. The first of the work’s five movements featured a fanfare-like leading motif being tossed about in gay abandon, and given extra pomposity by the horns, and finishing with an abruptly-turned phrase which left a single low note unashamedly exposed (I involuntarily snorted with laughter, and had to apologise to my companion at the next break in the music!).

A regal and dignified Menuet-and-Trio began with oboes only, before turning to a Trio section with delightfully emphatic horns, all of which preceded an Adagio with a lovely, easeful rhythmic carriage, the oboes rhapsodising, the bassoons gently jog-trotting and the horns contributing answering or “rounding-off” phrases – everything so beautifully and expressively played. Then came ANOTHER Menuet-and-Trio, this time lots of minor-key staccato strutting, completely different in character to the one before. Haydn then rounded off the work with an unbuttoned presto gallop across the fields for all concerned, the bassoons performing miracles of articulation and repeated-note playing, and horns whooping in delight, the piece finishing with a Beethovenish “take that!” gesture!

The Mozart Divertimento K.252/240a in E-flat concluded the programme in style – the ensemble generated an engaging “swing” to the rhythm over which the oboes sounded the melody, the horns and bassoons easefully alternating between chordings and “echo phrases”. The Menuetto was a sprightly dance with gloriously “burbled” horn-writing, exhilaratingly performed, before a rather strange Trio section with a repeated descending figure, here played faster than the main dance, for some reason – it sounded merely as though the players wanted to get it over with so they could get back to the real fun!

Then came, rather unexpectedly, a Polonaise, its rhythm catchy and foot-tapping, like a popular dance number – some lovely antiphonal writing here, which the ensemble coloured nicely with varied dynamics, the horns making much of the rhythm’s syncopations. Presto assai said the finale, and the players responded with energy and wit, finishing with a flourish! We thought the players would by then have “blown themselves out”, but they generously came back for an encore – one, moreover, with a difference, a work entitled “Homage to Haydn” (sitting some way back from the platform as we were, neither my friend nor I could quite make out the announcement of the actual composer’s name).

Beginning with and establishing an infectiously strutting march reminiscent of Haydn’s “Military” Symphony, the music reached what we all thought sounded like a concluding cadence, but then continued, despite one of the bassoonists standing up, bowing, and then leaving the platform and coming down into the auditorium as the others played on. After another sequence had finished, one of the horn players did the same thing, followed a few measures later by the second horn player, leaving the oboists and one of the bassoonists continuing to play! One by one, each oboist finished a phrase, and then stood up and left the platform, with the single bassoonist left – he played a doleful-sounding minor-key cadenza-like passage finishing with a trill, and then stood up, acknowledging our laughter and applause, as did the others who rejoined him.  It was all great fun, and completely in accord with the delight we’d experienced and enjoyed throughout the concert.

 

NZSM classical voice students show their talents at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

NZSM Classical Voice Students
With Amber Rainey, piano accompanist

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Thursday, 9 August 2018, 12.15 pm

A Thursday lunchtime concert apparently does not have the appeal of the regular Wednesday one; the audience was quite small.  However, it was an opportunity to hear some promising young singers, and a first-class accompanist.

The singers were all sopranos, and a mixture of first, second and third year students, the majority being second years.

First up was Olivia Stewart.  She sang two items in English: ‘Angels ever bright and fair’ from Handel’s Theodora was first.  Olivia’s voice was clear and fresh, with pleasant, unforced tone.  It was well-projected, and the words could be understood with ease.  Immediately the excellent work being done on the piano by Amber Rainey was apparent.  With the piano lid on the short stick the accompaniment never dominated, but was always executed with skill and sympathy.

An excellent feature of the concert was that the librettists’ names were always shown, where known.  The second song was by a composer unknown to me: Richard Hageman.  He was a Dutch-born American conductor, pianist, composer, and actor (1881-1966).  However, I had heard the song  before: ‘Do not go my love’, the words by Rabindranath Tagore.  The singer conveyed the feelings very well, and communicated with the audience.

Grace Burt sang a Vivaldi aria ‘Piango gemo’, a rather mournful song.  Here was a richer voice, with quite a lot of vibrato – suited to the Italian repertoire.  Enunciation was good, and also in her second item, ‘Sebben crudele’ by Antonio Caldara, from an opera long in obscurity, except for this aria (which has been recorded by Cecilia Bartoli and others).  This was simpler musically than the Vivaldi, and exhibited the singer’s good range of dynamics, and her attractive strong and passionate tone.

Jessica Kauraria was next.  Or so the programme said, but thanks to Google I have confirmed my suspicion that the surname is ‘Karauria’.  First she gave us ‘Lamento’ by Duparc.  Here was yet another different voice.  It is good to know that NZSM does not turn out singers who sound like each other; each is an individual.

Jessica’s pensive, slightly darker tone suited the sad nature of the song; she made a good job of the French language and her style was appropriate for a Duparc song.  She then sang the lovely aria from Dvořák’s opera Rusalka, ‘Song to the Moon’.  Jessica sang in the Czech language.  It seemed to take her a few bars to get into the song, and here and there she sang just a shade under the note.  But she had plenty of strength in this good performance of quite a long aria, and was dramatic when she needed to be.

Alexandra Woodhouse-Appleby has yet another vocal quality.  She sang first Hugo Wolf’s ‘In dem schatten meiner Locken’ (‘In the shadow of my tresses’, from The Spanish Songbook).  The voice was smooth with easy production.  The second song, by Rachmaninov, sung in Russian, particularly revealed a lovely rich quality.

The next singer programmed was unable to appear due to illness.  I was sorry not to be able to hear the gorgeous ‘Le Colibri’ by Chausson, and ‘Ach, ich fühl’s’ from Mozart’s Magic Flute.

Instead, we had Teresa Shields, who sang ‘Verdi Prati’ from Alcina, by Handel.  It was sung in Italian, and initially without much expression.  As the singer warmed up, she developed more character in the voice, which was rather smaller than most of the others.  Teresa’s second song, quite short one, was ‘Les Cloches’ by Debussy.  This was most attractively performed.

Michaela Cadwgan has quite a powerful voice, and a rich timbre.  She performed first Mozart’s concert aria ‘Vada ma dove’.  It was very dramatic, suiting the words, all about torments and doubts in love.  Music, words and emotions were all projected well.

The second song was quite different; Poulenc’s ‘C’, which speaks of a place in France much ravaged by war; the song was composed in 1944.  Michaela produced a lovely, mature lower register tone in this song – but her top was fine too.  It was an affecting rendition.

The last singer was Cheyney Biddlecombe.  She performed first ‘As when the dove laments her love’ from Acis and Galatea by Handel.  Her voice was agile, but had rather a ‘covered’ quality.  Her words were not as clear as those of some of the other singers, and there was not a lot of variety in the dynamic range.  The accompaniment was particularly beautiful.

Cheyney’s second song was ‘O del mio amato ben’ by Stefano Donaudy (1879-1915), whose name was unfamiliar to me.  A slightly rasping tone was evident in this song, especially in the lower register, but the song was communicated well.

Amber Rainey proved to be a most accomplished accompanist, supporting the singers extremely well.  The latter all acquitted themselves to a high standard.

 

 

One piano, six hands and a programme of highly unfamiliar, surprising music by composers in unorthodox mode

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

NZ Six Hands Trio: Hamish Robb, Nicole Chao, Beth Chen

Rasim Ramazanov: Salsa Rhythm and Small Rhapsody (trio)
Rachmaninov:  Barcarolle and Scherzo, from Six Morceaux, Op. 11 (Hamish Robb & Beth Chen)
Johann Strauss (arr. Greg Anderson): Blue Danube Fantasy (Nicole Chao & Beth Chen)
Mike Cornick: Bénodet Breeze, from Three Pieces for Six Hands (trio)
Gershwin, arr. Manfred Schmitz, ‘I Got Rhythm’ (trio)
Lidia Kalendareva and Alin Cristian Oprea: Russian Dance for Six Hands (trio)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 8 August , 12:15 pm

Though this three-pianist ensemble has evidently been around for a while, I hadn’t encountered them. All three were masters students together at the New Zealand School of Music at Victoria University nearly 20 years ago.

They operate at one keyboard, in case you have the impression that even the piano duet format is a bit crowded and might be uncomfortable; their places at the keyboard varied with each piece.

Clearly there was neither discomfort nor embarrassment here, for they emanated a feeling of considerable enjoyment.

The first two pieces were by Rasim Ramazanov. I am always interested in composers’ identity but there were no notes and the material that the trio sent to me later did not offer any information about him. Nor did the Internet help initially as there are scores of people with the name, but eventually I spotted a composer-pianist whose name fitted, evidently from Crimea or Ukraine, with a Tartar connection; there were several others of the name in Azerbaijan.

Anyway, the first of his two pieces, Salsa Rhythm, was vigorously rhythmic, jazzy, suggested Gershwin influence and involved ‘prepared piano’ technique, creating dampened string sounds, while the second, Small Rhapsody, was calmer and more melodic, again involving strumming deadened strings inside the piano; there was a third piece, not mentioned in the notes: perhaps one of the two named was in two parts.

Beth Chen and Hamish Robb played two pieces from Rachmaninov’s Six morceaux, Op 11. The Baracrolle sounded Prokofievish rather than Chopinesque while the Scherzo was playful, even frenzied in character with dotted rhythms, sounding very uncharacteristically Rachmaninov. But there was no question about the pianists’ command of the notes and their idiom.

A highly unorthodox yet entertaining fantasy version of The Blue Danube followed, possibly still recognisable by Johann II had he stopped by, as it could, at a pinch, have been a particularly adventurous Lisztian paraphrase.

Mike Cornick’s Bénodet Breeze, from his Three Pieces for Six Hands again had hints of Gershwin or perhaps Poulenc; extremely dense, as if all 30 available fingers were involved at times.

Gershwin himself, arranged by Manfred Schmitz, arrived next, with ‘I got rhythm’, with sequences of heavy, rising chords exaggerating the basic rhythm.

And finally Russian Dance for Six Hands by Lidia Kalendareva and Alin Cristian Oprea. Lidia is from Saint Petersburg and Alin was born in Bucharest; both were educated partly in Germany; both studied at Rostock, a famous university city in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, north-east Germany. They are involved in many styles of music, prominently film, judging by websites. They operate as LA Music. One could well wonder how the composing partnership worked – perhaps each contributed one player’s part while the third was a compromise. This again revealed echoes of Prokofiev, pausing after a while to resume in a more relaxed manner, now dropping hints of Bartók, mining his huge collection of Balkan folk music.

I found this on their website: “Lidia Kalendareva & Alin Cristian Oprea founded LA Music in 2005. They perform and create international award winning custom made music for a variety of different purposes: reaching from music and arrangements for media, movies, games, commercials, to ballet shows and concert music.” Try it out: https://www.la-music.com/ – quite beguiling.

It was a high energy recital, the main object seeming to be to strip away orthodox expectations of the nature of piano music, and listeners’ prejudices, that might be limited to Chopin and Brahms.

Monteverdi’s Orfeo – a “rarely comest…spirit of delight” from Eternity Opera

Posted on by Peter Mechen

CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI – Orfeo (1607)
An opera in Five Acts
Words by Alessandro Striggio

Cast of Singers
Music – Laura Loach
Orfeo – Will King
Euridice – Alexandra Gandianco
Nymph / Prosperine – Olivia Sheat
Shepherd 1 / Infernal Spirit 2  – Garth Norman
Shepherd 2 – Sally Haywood
Shepherd 3 / Infernal Spirit 1 – Peter Liley
Shepherd 4 / Infernal Spirit 3 – Minto Fung
Messsenger – Alexandra Woodhouse Appleby
Hope – Milla Dickens
Charon / Pluto – Joe Haddow
Echo – Tania Dreaver
Apollo – Theo Moolenaar
Chorus – Bill MacKenzie
Chorus – Philip Oliver

Eternity Renaissance Orchestra

Concertmaster – Anne Loeser (violin)
Viola – Sophia Acheson
Viola da Gamba & ‘Cello – Imogen Granwal
Cornetto & Trumpet – Peter Reid
Alto & Tenor Sackbuts & Recorder – Peter Maunder
Bass Sackbut – Jonathan Harker
Guitar – Christopher Hill
Theorbo – Jonathan Le Coeq
Triple Harp – Tiffany Baker

Music Director – Simon Romanos
Producers – Emma Beale, Minto Fung, Alex Galvin
Lighting –  Haami Hawkins
Repetiteurs – Craig Newsome, Joel Rudolph

Hannah Playhouse, Wellington

Saturday 4th August, 2018

To my consternation, I learned after the performance on Saturday evening was completed, that this was to be the only “outing” for Eternity Opera’s production of Monteverdi’s Orfeo! On a number of counts, this was regrettable, if only for the fact that I knew of a number of people who weren’t able to attend the performance and who had expected (as I certainly did) that there would be at least one further chance to catch up with it – a matinee the following afternoon, perhaps? But no, that was “it”, I’m afraid – and though I’m counting myself among the lucky ones who witnessed such a bold and breathlessly beautiful undertaking by Eternity Opera, I’m feeling dismayed by the thought that neither would a new audience be given the opportunity to enjoy Monteverdi’s masterpiece, nor would the performers be allowed the satisfaction of consolidating their achievement with a second public performance.

There would have doubtless been any number of reasons for this, both artistic and financial – my general lamentations merely reflect the interest and excitement which I experienced over the time leading up to the production, the in situ enjoyment of and pleasure in the performances, and the aftermath’s glow of satisfaction as I recalled the music’s and the presentation’s delights. A pity that such an enterprising venture (one, incidentally, which was completely sold out) lacked what it was in material terms that would have enabled the performance to have become a “season”, however tantalisingly brief a one!

But such was not to be – and we had, instead, performers giving their all as if their lives depended on the outcome, presumably buoyed along by knowing that this was going to be their only “shot” at the business in hand, and in the process conveying something of that feeling to we in the audience. Even before the music began our expectations of something out of the ordinary were galvanised by the presence of certain instruments alone, such as the gigantic theorbo, a viola da gamba, a triple harp, a cornetto and a couple of tarnished, trombone-like sackbuts alongside those which were rather more familiar, all brandished by the players of the Eternity Renaissance Orchestra.

In Monteverdi’s score over forty instruments are designated, though their exact usage was often decided upon by the interpreters depending upon the forces (and performing spaces) available – and the number of players needed were always fewer because the composer kept certain instruments for certain scenes. Here, for example, the score was realised by no more than nine players, some of whom changed to a different instrument in places – to give one example, sackbut player Peter Maunder demonstrated all-round skills with some nifty recorder playing at certain points.

At the beginning we very properly got all three renditions of the well-known opening flourishes, a martial-sounding toccata, played variously by the winds and strings at contrasting dynamic levels, as was the custom at the court of Mantua, in honour of the Duke. On the face of things an obsequious gesture very much of its time, the sounds have since become a splendid springboard for the entry of listeners into a timeless realm of expression, graced by Monteverdi’s music and  Striggio’s poetry. Mentioning at this point the momentary inaccuracies of intonation and rhythm in the playing at the outset is to get the unimportant things out of the way, first – what fully engaged us instead was the music-making’s focused purpose and its continuation throughout the drama, a purpose which never flagged across the work’s five-act span.

This was a “concert” rather than a “staged” performance, and was sung in English, both of which circumstances enabling the Introduction’s singer, Laura Loach, to completely command the stage in the role of Music. Her whole deportment was arresting, her diction perfect, and her voice true, appropriately varied, and thoroughly engaging, everything beautifully balanced between voice and instruments. While neither Garth Norman nor Sally Haywood (as First and Second Shepherds respectively) could similarly imbue their voices with similar strength and precise focus, each maintained a steady vocal line with sufficient expression to give their words an inner life. Each of these singers then joined in with the choruses, as did the others at various times throughout.

Conductor Simon Romanos kept things judiciously moving between singers and instrumentalists, picking up the lines between voices and the various ritornellos and sinfonias as required, and keeping firm control of the numerous changes of rhythm and metre as well. He seemed to give the individual singers the space they required to properly “phrase” their individual figurations, and the instrumental ensemble similar leeway throughout. Olivia Sheat as Nymph took a few phrases-worth of space, I thought, for her voice to settle in her solo, though in the Fourth Act singing the part of Proserpine I thought her tones steady, her vocal inflections convincing and her sense of rapport with her cohort as Pluto, Joe Haddow, absolutely delightful!

With the arrival of Will King’s Orfeo on the scene, everything seemed to begin to pulsate more deeply, partly to do, I think with the expectation created by the imminent appearance of the eponymous hero, but also with King’s own vibrant sense of presence in the role, capped off by his fine, ringing voice! His on-stage partner, Alexandra Gandianco as Eurydice, though not as resplendent vocally, responded with a clear, true voice, leading up to the choruses which proclaimed the marriage, the “Come Hymen, come” sequence particularly beautiful, the voices evocatively augmented by instrumental strains. Various expressions of delight came from Peter Liley’s Third Shepherd, again the voice not especially voluminous but focused and agile – the singers felt more freedom in the following duet and trio, whose words remarked on the symbolic progress of winter to spring.

Act Two’s liveliness at the outset mirrored the nuptial happiness of Orfeo in his declaration of new-found joy at the beauty of the woods, and the sturdy duetted response of the two shepherds, Garth Norman and Peter Liley, with wonderful support from the ensemble, including great violin- and recorder-playing. The mood became even more euphoric with Orfeo’s comparison of his previous misery to his present joy, made all the more exuberant by King’s exultant singing and the ensemble’s energetic playing.  All of this, of course, made the arrival of Alexandra Woodhouse-Appleby’s Messenger all the more dark and disturbing, here given an expressively stark and tragic aspect by the singer’s power of concentrated sorrow in both appearance and voice. At the news of Euridice’s sudden death the shock was galvanic, the hurt unmistakable on Orfeo’s part, King’s response then beautifully grown out of his character’s dumbstruck grief towards a powerful and passionate resolve to rescue his beloved and bring her back “to see again the stars”.

Act Three’s sonorous opening brought both splendour and darkness, the brasses thrilling amid the occasional spill with both regal pomp at the beginning, and grimmer timbres of the utmost solemnity as Orfeo entered accompanied by Hope, attempting to gain access to the Underworld. Milla Dickens’ Hope was truly and steadily sung, the voice nicely expanding as it ascended, and stylishly negotiating the figurations, bringing convincing emphasis to the words “Abandon all hope ye who enter here!”. King’s impassioned plea for Hope to remain was startlingly interrupted by the infernal combination of voice and rasping instrumental timbres, from Joe Haddow as the ferryman Charon, challenging Orfeo’s presence with beautifully sepulchral tones, splendidly supported by the brasses. The hero’s famous aria “Possente spirto” received a tremendous performance from King, ably supported by various instrumental combinations, firstly the pair of duetting solo strings, followed by the cornetto, whose phrases were echoed most effectively offstage by a sackbut. Then the guitar, theorbo and bass viol augmented the singer’s fearless coloratura-punctuated passages, leaving the triple harp to fill the brief interlude before the singer’s “Orfeo am I” with flourishes and gestures that seemed to bring time to a standstill.

At the conclusion of King’s impassioned pleas of “Give me back my love”, we were riveted, taken up with the heart-rending eloquence of the singer’s supplications, so that no-one dared move, much less applaud!! The ensuing ritornello expressed Orfeo’s ultimate triumph, as Charon slept, allowing the hero entry into the infernal regions. Act Four began with the appearance of the Underworld’s Royal Couple, Proserpine and Pluto, the former pleading with the latter to allow Orfeo to take Euridice back to the world of light and stars with him. Both of the two singers I thought built on what they had established with a separate role earlier in the drama, Olivia Sheat as Proserpine seeming to me to “find” her focused tones more freely and comfortably than when a Nymph, and Joe Haddow as Pluto an even more darkly imposing personality than his Charon – between them they actually generated a touch of “infernal” chemistry, which, together with Pluto’s decision to allow Orfeo to recover Euridice bore out the chorus’s comment in the wake of the interchange “Today, pity and love triumph in Hell”.

From this came the extraordinary sequence of events during which Euridice was regained and then irretrievably lost by Orfeo, as he wrestled with his conflicting emotions before eventually disobeying Pluto’s edict that he was not to turn and look back at her during their outward journey. Will King conveyed most tellingly the character’s characteristic volatility with both body and voice, bearing out a later chorus comment that “Orpheus conquered hell, but was conquered by his own emotions – worthy of eternal fame shall be only he who has victory over himself”. Again, the character’s overweening confidence, underlined by the jaunty instrumental accompaniments, with strings and continuo giving the rhythms plenty of spring, was in a few moments dashed by a sudden loss of confidence and crisis of faith.

Even though the drama wasn’t in a strict sense “staged” here, I still felt the moment of Euridice’s loss was awkwardly presented by the protagonists in a visual sense – their actions and movements didn’t clearly enough convey what the words and music were saying (all admittedly difficult to do in a concert scenario!). Alexandra Gandianco’s singing admirably served to put across Euridice’s sorrow and despair, as did that of King as her would-be saviour, characterised here as reaping a whirlwind out of his impetuosities. The tragedy of the moment was superbly underlined by the sneering brasses, who joined with the strings and continuo to realise a sardonic processional, heralding the chorus’s already-quoted verdict on the hero’s flawed resolve.

A cruelly cheerful-sounding sinfonia launched the final Act, bringing Orfeo to those same woods where news of Euridice’s death was brought to him. Again, Will King was equal to the music’s possibilities, realising the character with an affecting sense of heartbreak and sorrow, the mood amplified by the affecting strains of Tania Dreaver’s voice as Echo, and further intensified by Orfeo’s self-indulgence in his grief, complaining at the paucity of Echo’s replies. It remained for Apollo to descend from the heights, Theo Moolenaar making a properly dignified entrance as the God of the Sun and Light and Healing, the voice comforting and true-toned, rather than overtly celestial and all-commanding, chiding Orfeo for his intemperance, and his obsession with earthly, as opposed to heavenly delights. Their duetting worked well as Orfeo was taken to heaven, having been promised by his father that he would enjoy Euridice’s likeness in the sun and the stars.

It fell to the chorus to further lighten the mood of tragedy with sprightly and energetic verses celebrating the hero’s transfiguration, a mood we were invited to join along with the singers and the ensemble by conductor Simon Romanos, our cheerful company clapping in time with the energetic moresca rhythms that concluded the work. Rather than belittling the story’s intensities and profundities, the “lightness of being” feeling engendered by these concluding gaieties served to highlight all the more the epic nature and scope of the drama we had witnessed, a quality of overall perspective which some of Mozart’s greatest music also possesses. It was to the company’s credit that the production and its performers realised, I thought, Monteverdi’s genius at bringing into being such a work, so that its impact, like Orfeo’s lyre, sang and resounded long after the work’s last strains had been sounded.