Month: September 2019

Nailing it with Style – Circa’s “The Pink Hammer” a delightful and moving tribute to playwright Michele Amas

Posted on by Peter Mechen

THE PINK HAMMER – a play by Michele Amas
Circa Theatre, Wellington

Director: Conrad Newport
Cast :
Louise       Anne Chamberlain
Helen        Ginette McDonald
Siobhan    Harriet Prebble
Woody     Alex Greig
Annabel   Bronwyn Turei

Set and Costume Design – Daniel Williams
Lighting Design – Tony Black

Circa Theatre, Taranaki St., Wellington

Tuesday, 10th September, 2019 (until 5th October)

Author of “The Pink Hammer”, playwright Michele Amas – also an actor, theatre director and poet – died at the very end of 2016, after a 30-year career in television, radio and theatre. Towards the end of her career she turned her hand increasingly to writing, to poetry and for the theatre, producing firstly a pantomime, and then a play, the present production, premiered in 2014 at Palmerston North’s Centrepoint Theatre. She described “the Pink Hammer”, her own work, as “outrageous, laughter-filled, and heartwarming”, a judgement confirmed by a review of that first production, which succinctly described the play’s action as “what happens to a bloke when his man’s shed is taken over by four women who want to get their hands on his tools”.

I saw Michele Amas act only once, in her second of two appearances, 25 years apart (!) in Robert Lord’s Joyful and Triumphant, her portrayal “owning” the character wholly, as she had reportedly done a different character the first time round – I thought her acting “sensitive, low-keyed, but deeply-wrought….”, indicating across the roles of writer and actor something of the command of an impressive range of sensibility and response in her theatrical makeup.

On the face of things (the title included), “The Pink Hammer” was a kind of rollicking “Girls can do anything” presentation intended to further the cause of women’s equality, in this case depicting a scenario of a group of women infiltrating an overtly-regarded bastion of maleness. Stereotypes of all kinds abounded at the outset of the play’s action, such as the setting, a “dedicated” man-hole – in this case a handyman’s shed, replete with tools of the “trade”, along with the presence of various “stimulants” associated with a bloke’s relaxation after a job well done, including liquid refreshment (beer in a fridge), erotica (a pin-up calendar) and entertainment (television). Into this “holy-of-holies” came four women, introducing themselves one-by-one, each a distinctive (if recognisable) personality, all driven by different needs to attempt to acquaint themselves with the use of carpenter’s tools.

Straightaway the tensions began winding in unexpected ways as we discovered that the basic carpentry “workshop” was to have been held by another woman, Maggie, who seemed meantime to have taken herself off somewhere unexpectedly, putting her hitherto unsuspecting husband, Woody (engagingly and convincingly given the full “Kiwi bloke” treatment by Alex Greig), in the “gun seat” as the unwilling, in fact, initially downright hostile, would-be instructor. It was left to one of the women, Helen (Ginette McDonald, with a masterly, no-nonsense display of compelling persuasiveness), having observed evidence of a certain illicit activity on Woody’s part, to slyly convince him of the face-saving efficacy of “taking over” as the workshop’s saviour, in the process matter-of-factly revealing her particular and singular motivation for acquiring woodworking skills.

We had by this stage gleaned the extent of the variety of personality “types” depicted by these four wannabe woodworker women! – Ginette McDonald’s hard-bitten Helen didn’t take long to mercilessly anatomise the painful awkwardness of Anne Chamberlain’s well-meaning but gauche and insecure Louise in their characters’ initial interactions. However. the gulf between the two was then heartwarmingly “packed in” by the irrepressible sunniness of the young Irish colleen Siobhan (winningly and liltingly – a beautiful singing voice – portrayed by Harriet Prebble). Her attractive amalgam of youthful exuberance and not-quite-innocent suggestibility made for plenty of theatrical conundrumming in itself, let alone when set against the “straight-down-the-line” feminism of the guidance counseller, Annabel – Bronwyn Turei’s initial strength and energy made the hidden vulnerability of the latter’s character all the more touching when revealed.

In adding Alex Greig’s delightfully “gung-ho” (if all too human) exuberance as Woody to this already richly-wrought mix, one had a recipe for interaction replete with possibility, especially when his initial hostility began to erode for various reasons……perhaps there were sequences in which Amas’s writing did in places over-favour words at the expense of action, as has been suggested elsewhere, but this cast had the vocal energies as well as the physical fluidities to make everything seem as if in mid-stream, rather than caught in eddyings that impaired the flow. In fact I couldn’t have imagined the play’s dialogue and movement better done than here, a tribute not only to the playwright and the actors, but to director Conrad Newport, who, of course, directed the premiere at Centrepoint in Palmerston North, and most surely brought the full force of that previous experience to bear on this undertaking.

The different motivations that brought each of the women to enlist in the course gradually revealed themselves, enriching, and emboldening them in their different ways. One found oneself focusing increasingly on each of the characters as unique individuals at least as much as registering their “cause” and its accompanying polemic, all of their personalities, including Woody’s, both uncovering and being uncovered. Each of the journeyings had its own profundity, though the playwright adroitly kept our emotions sufficiently balanced with a “tragedy to the heart and a comedy to the mind” quality leavening the action for as long as was needed for the story’s purposes.

Daniel Williams’ set and costume designs seemed at once contemporary and timeless in their evocations, the objects representing  a mix of up-to-date technologies (“apps” on cell-phones, and nail-guns are two that come to mind) with traditional, iconic standard items such as saw-horses! And Tony Black’s lighting unerringly evoked an appropriately utilitarian quality, bright, analytical and pitiless at full strength, and with an unnerving, almost “concentration camp” kind of aspect when illuminated from the outside, adding to the feeling of something “alien” or “dream-like” about various of the action’s happenings.

I came away from the production with two enduring feelings – firstly that I’d witnessed what seemed almost like an effortless sense of identification on the part of each of the actors with their characters, so that the former “were” who their characters were (and, as importantly, were people I felt I knew and could readily recognise and/or identify with, all or in part). Secondly, that sense of “connection” spoken about by director Conrad Newport was richly, if subtly, reflected in the way the actors were an “ensemble”, again something that seemed entirely natural and inevitable, but was obviously the result of an art that concealed art.  That such strong and vivid individual characterisations could jell so readily and unselfconsciously suggests a singular alchemy at work, here satisfyingly and memorably provided by the playwright, the actors and the director in spadefuls. And, after all, glimpses of ourselves are always worth seeing…..

 

 

 

 

 

Percussion-driven “Carmina Burana” with the Orpheus Choir a triumph

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Orpheus Choir of Wellington presents:
CARMINA BURANA

CASEY CANGELOSI – Jazz on Saturn
NEY ROSAURO – Marimba Concert No. 1*
Yoshiko Tsuruta (marimba)*
Orchestra Wellington Percussion Ensemble

CARL ORFF – Carmina Burana (arr.Wilhelm Killmayer)
Amelia Berry (soprano)
Declan Cudd (tenor)
Joel Amosa (bass-baritone)
Wellington Region School Choirs –
Wellington East Girls’ College CANTATA /Wellington Girls’ College TEAL VOICES
Kelburn Normal School / Scots College / Catholic Cathedral Children’s Choir
Samuel Marsden Collegiate Choir
Orpheus Choir of Wellington
Thomas Nikora / Stephen Clothier (pianos)
Orchestra Wellington Percussion Ensemble
Brent Stewart (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday, 7th November, 2019

Oddly enough, nowhere in the programme could I see mentioned that this was a version of Carl Orff’s most renowned work prepared by his “disciple” Wilhelm Killmayer in 1956, and authorized by Orff himself, 20 years after the original composition, one allowing smaller instrumental ensembles the opportunity to perform the piece. While relishing the prospect of hearing the Orpheus Choir’s “different” take on the composer’s evergreen “Carmina Burana”, I was nevertheless wondering how the absence of a full orchestra would “work” in music that relies for a good deal of its impact on instrumental colour and weight of tone. I needn’t have worried in the slightest, as it turned out, as the sheer energy and coruscating excitement generated by the voices, the two pianos and the ensemble of percussion instruments under Brent Stewart’s direction made for suitably overwhelming results – different, but just as impactful. And though one registered an instrumental phrase here and there with less “projection” than in the full orchestra version, what was BEING played almost everywhere caught us up most thrillingly in a “here and now” of it all that left no need for comparisons – just a feeling of being immersed in an oceanic surge from all concerned of total and utter commitment to the music.

We were given an enticing taste of the excitement in store for us in the concert’s main work by the Orchestra Wellington Percussion Ensemble’s presentation of two first-half items, the first featuring the Ensemble alone, in an explosive item whose energies recalled the great days of Wellington’s own “Strike” percussion group (one of whose members, Jeremy Fitzsimons, was in tonight’s ensemble). This was a work called “Jazz on Saturn”, written in 2018 by American composer Casey Cangelosi, for percussion quintet – the programme note promised us, among other things, “an exuberant finale – complete with party poppers!” Unsure of what PRECISELY this meant, I was nevertheless grooving most uninhibitedly with the music’s almost Dionysian exuberances in places, while registering, within a basic trajectory of pulse the most beguiling contrasts of texture and colour – mere touches and splashes of gentle scintillation whose whisperings were as impressive in their own way as the ensemble’s’ full-on virtuoso roar – when at the explosive end of an irresistible crescendo the air was suddenly filled with a fusillade of confetti and streamers amid the ensemble’s concluding payoff!

Orpheus Choir Director Brent Stewart who came on stage to introduce and direct the next item apologised to the first few rows of the audience for their unexpected confetti-shower amid great amusement, though I was half-waiting for him to generate further merriment by requesting of those same bedecked rows of people something like, “Now, could we have it all back, please?”

Stewart then introduced and led a warm welcome to the Japanese-born New Zealand-domiciled marimba soloist Yoshiko Tsuruta, appearing to perform what has become the “Concierto de Aranjuez” of the marimba world, a work by Brazilian composer Ney Rosauro, his “Marimba Concerto No.1”, a piece which, according to the programme note, has received over 3,000 performances since its composition in 1986. As graceful and spectacular to watch as the music she played was to listen to, Tsuruta demonstrated complete and utter control and poise in her delivery of this most attractive music, easefully wielding two mallets in each hand as if endowed with the same by nature, and coaxing, both energetically and hypnotically, the music from her enormous instrument – the largest marimba I’d ever seen!

Rhythmically angular and motoric at the beginning, the music relaxed into a more song-like mode as the first movement progressed, the sounds quixotically exploring contrasts between vigorous and lyrical. The second movement opened mysteriously, low sounds providing a contrast with fragments and scintillations, creating a vast and resonant sound-space into which were released some evocative creations. A third movement seemed to me to comprise variants of a sinuous waltz-theme, darkly portentous and symbolic of time slowly passing……..an angular-rhythmed introduction brought in what seemed like a final movement, one whose six-plus five rhythm created in itself beautifully choreographic movements and gesturings, a solo cadenza allowing the player some repose from the tyranny of insistent trajectory, before once again rising to the challenge of the final, vigorous gestures which concluded the work.

And so, to the second half of the concert, and “Carmina Burana” – I thought it was a wonderful idea to project the English translations of Orff’s Latin texts for us to read and enjoy during the work, even if the exercise straightaway reinforced my feeling that most conductors I’ve heard in concert or on record take the famous opening chorus “O Fortuna” too quickly to my ears, turning what the words indicate is a harsh, piteous lament – one that concludes with the words “mecum omnes plangite” (Weep with me, all of you!) – into a jolly, rousing, foot-tapping number, with the dark, ominous rhythms left to skate merrily along the music’s surface! Brent Stewart’s tempo at the outset, while making for superficially exciting results didn’t really explore the music’s dark, pessimistic mood – but neither did Marc Taddei’s treatment of the same passage in Orchestra Wellington’s 2014 performance of the full version, again with the Orpheus Choir.

Fortunately, the rest was, in a word, magnificent! Stewart’s insistence on urgency between verses and choruses in numbers such as the following “Fortune plango vulnera” (I weep for luck’s wounds) kept the music’s juices flowing, as did the choir’s crisp articulation of their lines – and the sheer energy of both Thomas Nikora’s and Stephen Clothier’s piano playing combined with the excitement generated by the other instrumentalists to really pin back our ears!  Then it was suddenly all light and air with beautiful, birdsong-like piano and percussion sounds at the beginning of “Primo Vere” (In Springtime), the words almost breathlessly chanted, as if the singers were mesmerised by the music’s beauty, the “ah-ah” passages particularly magical in effect.

Baritone Joel Amosa delivered his “Omnia sol tempera” (The sun soothes all things) with great sensitivity, fining down his head-voice to poetic, almost vulnerable effect in places – later, he brought plenty of energy to his “In Taberna”, though he was at full stretch throughout the higher passages – as he was with the Third Part’s “Dies nox et omnia” (Day, night and all things), which he nevertheless hung onto throughout the outlandish voice-changes with great determination – however, he greatly relished his rollicking part in the third section’s “Tempus et iocundum”, along with the soprano’s and children’s voices.

I particularly enjoyed the theatricality of the performance, such as the vivid painting of the opening “Floret silva nobilis” (The noble wood) we heard in the cantata’s second part, where women’s and men’s voices enacted a vignette of longing – the women’s plaintive “Ubi es antiquus meus amicus?” (Where is my old lover?) answered by the men’s “Hinc ecqitavit” (He rode away) in heart-breakingly jogtrot rhythm! This was followed by an almost visceral depiction of an older woman “glamouring” herself up to catch a younger lover – “Seht mich an, jungen man!” (the words lapsing into German at this point!), the choir humming a seductive chorale in-between the verses with almost insouciant suggestiveness. Another intensely theatrical moment was superbly realised by tenor Declan Cudd, in his depiction of the roasted swan singing of happier days before suffering his ignoble fate on the spit – vivid and anguishedly-coloured singing from the tenor, punctuated by lamenting interjections from the men’s voices – “Miser! Miser modo niger, es ustus fortiter!” (Wretch that I am! – now black and roasting fiercely!).

Soprano Amelia Berry had to wait for the cantata’s third part “Cour D’Amours” (Court of Love) to be heard, though as is usually the case, the effect was arresting, with the pianos, tinkling percussion and children’s voices sweetly preluding the soprano’s entry with their “Amor volat undique” (Love flies everywhere). Berry’s sweetness of tone captured our sensibilities in an instant and held us still, as she did also with “Stetit puella” (A girl stood) over its two verses. And though at full vocal stretch with the cruelly-demanding “Dulcissime” (Sweetest one), Berry held her stratospheric vocal line steadfastedly and truly, till all was properly given and spent.

How resoundingly everybody then poured their energies into the following  “Ave formisissima!” (Hail, most beautiful), here given plenty of space and weight, the stage-surround lights suddenly and effectively joining in with additional illumination! And if the concluding “O Fortuna” again went like an express train, the concluding bars of the work reaffirmed the undoubted effectiveness of this percussion-driven version of Orff’s choral masterpiece, with sounds saturating the precincts of the hall and occasioning a rapturous audience response! Definitely a triumph for all concerned!

 

 

 

 

Asher Fisch, Louis Lortie and the NZSO in splendid form with classical masterpieces

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Asher Fisch with Louis Lortie (piano)

Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No 2 in C minor, Op 18
Strauss: Tod und Verklärung, Op 24
Wagner: Overture to Tannhäuser

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 6 September, 6:30 pm

Asher Fisch is taking this NZSO programme with pianist Louis Lortie on a four city tour. It’s his first visit to New Zealand, though I encountered him as conductor of the production of Wagner’s Ring cycle in Adelaide in 2004 (it was an Australian production, in some kind of reaction to the cycle borrowed from the Châtelet Theatre in Paris, six years before).

Rachmaninov’s Number Two
‘Rach 2’, along with the Tchaikovsky No 1, are probably the most popular of all piano concertos. The opening is magical: seeming to emerge from nowhere and by no means easy to invest with definable feelings; however, they got it absolutely right, with the slow emergence of the crescendo of rich, opulent sounds. Perhaps the piano was a bit recessed during the following violin-led passage, but the balance was recovered and Lortie’s command technically and interpretationally was immaculate.

I was seated centre stalls and was a little surprised how, in full-orchestra passages, individual instruments tended to be obscured, while those less densely orchestrated had impact and clarity. All the usual wind instrument strengths were there – particularly, a beautifully pure solo horn passage expressed peace after Rachmaninov’s long period of depression following the shameful performance of and reaction to his first symphony.

There was fitful applause at the end of the first movement which I charitably ascribed to a genuine feeling that it had been particularly moving.

The second movement offers lovely solo opportunities to flute, then clarinet, over calm rolling arpeggios from the piano. My pleasure increased here as I reflected on how long it had been since hearing a live performance of this richly romantic masterpiece. There are several near-solo, piano passages that serve as kinds of cadenzas with quite subtle music from individual instruments, till eventually an actual cadenza takes over, rather briefly, followed by a resumption by dreamy, legato strings. Again, Lortie’s performance was of the greatest subtlety, wonderfully in sympathy with the entire work.

The last movement, more rich in tumbling bravura, is also music of engrossing variety of emotion, pace, with a return in the first few minutes of a meditative beauty; and it resumed its basic character, maintaining a fast pace to the finish. Rachmaninov’s orchestration never drew attention to itself but it is a major element in the concerto’s greatness and that was thoroughly exploited in the subtlety of its performance, wrapping itself sensitively around the piano part.

Greatly loved, some might even call it hackneyed, it might be; but that in no way diminishes its reputation, and this evening’s performance confirmed its standing most convincingly.

It puzzled the audience at the end when Lortie manoeuvred himself back to the piano and another chair was brought out; and it dawned on us that Fisch himself was going to take part in an encore. I didn’t recognise the duet movement they played, though it was pretty clearly Mozart era though I didn’t think it was actually him. So I was surprised to learn that it was in fact Mozart: the second movement, Andante, from his Sonata in D for piano duet, K 381.

Tod und Verklärung
In the second half German classics held sway. Strauss’s Tod und Verklärung is among the composer’s earlier compositions and for many, his most moving (for me too). Written aged 24, immediately after Don Juan, it always feels like the music of a much older composer, long exposed to the pains of life and realities of death.

My last recollection of it by the NZSO is in 2010, under Alexander Shelley.

Immediately, it created a sombre mood of a unique character, opening without first violins, confining the orchestra to second violins, violas, cellos and bases, bassoons and timpani.  But soon its mood is modified as first violins enter as well harp and flute. The sudden outburst by timpani, trombones and tuba, announcing the struggle between life and death, was more stunning than I have ever heard before. It quickly subsides as the orchestra’s handling of the tortured mood and dynamic changes took charge, expansive, with a sort of profound grandeur. Bridget Douglas’s flute created a trembling agitation depicting one part of the battle.

Through the turmoil of near-death experiences, Fisch never allowed the tension and excitement to subside. Its singular beauties were constantly threatened but never overwhelmed by brass-led crescendo passages that depicted the dying man’s agonies, and his reflections on a heroic life, on love, on his pursuit of ideals. Interestingly, Strauss commented on the fact that while Don Juan started and ended in E minor, this work dwelling fundamentally on death starts in C minor and ends in C major, the most sanguine of keys.

There dwelt, throughout, a powerful, ecstatic feeling that one might consider the epitome of late Romantic sensibility. That is certainly the way I have always felt about it, since first hearing it in my 20s, and the many hearings since then have not altered my opinion or reduced the profound impact of the work. This performance confirmed again my love of its conception, enhanced strongly in this musical realisation from Asher and the NZSO.

Wagner’s Tannhäuser overture
It seemed slightly odd to end the concert with an overture, though I could tell, given the decision to perform these works, that arranging things in terms of length and in handling the piano in the easiest way, led to this sequence. Before the concert I had wondered whether scheduling it last might have encouraged the orchestra to follow the overture with the Venusberg music, the ballet music that Wagner had to write for its 1860 Paris Opera production, and which is often played immediately after the overture in concert. Given that the concert ended a quarter of an hour before usual, that would have been entirely possible.

Asher Fisch emphasised the pseudo-religious character of the music with the tune from the Pilgrims’ hymn, evoking sounds hinting at an organ in the apotheosis of a religious occasion.  But the equally important element in the overture is the Venusberg music, which is expanded in the ballet that became Act I, scene one in the Paris version, and Fisch drew from it all the wildness that is inherent in it, with as much as possible of the erotic freedom permitted in a respectable concert. The overture ended with a grand return to the pious strains of the Pilgrims chorus, leaving no doubt about the success of conductor and orchestra in handling this rather over-the-top music.

The performance of overtures, which used to be a standard way of opening concerts till a couple of decades ago, should be resurrected. This case, even though in an unorthodox position in the programme, at least offered an example of the sort of music to be found in scores of the once popular and well-known overtures that introduced and illuminated most concerts in the old days; and more importantly, are still an ideal way for young people to be won over to classical music.

Korngold: exploration of beguiling Lieder one didn’t know, from Georgia Jamieson Emms

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Lunchtime Concerts at St Andrew’s
Georgia Jamieson Emms (soprano) and Bruce Greenfield (piano)

Lieder by Erich Korngold: settings of poems, mainly by Eichendorff, from Op 9 and Op 38

St Andrews on The Terrace, Wellington

Wednesday 4 September, 12:15 pm

Middle C has been neglecting its responsibilities with respect to the wonderful lunchtime concerts at St Andrew’s on The Terrace. Partly the result of our diminished ‘human resources’ and partly … well, other things.

There are notes for two or three of them that seem to have failed to find a first sentence, but given time, some the right words and thoughts might emerge on the RNZAF woodwind quintet, six hands at the keyboard, recorder and harpsichord…

The name Korngold doesn’t seem to be found in the average survey of German Lieder, not even among the lesser figures like Marschner, Hiller, Berg or Pfitzner. But since the word is merely the plural of the German word for ‘song’, and applies to German composers strictly speaking, almost all German composers from the late 18th century will have things called ‘Lieder’ among their compositions. But in the course of writing this and exploring books and the internet on the composer and his music, it’s clear that has been a somewhat serious omission. I’d known little more than Korngold’s most famous, precocious opera Die tote Stadt and some of the film music written in Hollywood after he left Germany when Hitler arrived.

Most of the songs Georgia chose were also early and four were to poems of Eichendorff which were most commonly chosen by the famous German Lieder composers: Schumann, Brahms, Strauss and Wolf (Schubert died before much of Eichendorff’s poetry became known). I was interested to discover several recordings of both cycles; since I’d heard none of them before, I must report that further hearings by singers like Barbara Hendricks and Angelika Kirchschlager increased my respect for and enjoyment of them.

The six songs of Op 9 were composed between the age of 14 and 19, and it was not difficult to hear rather unsophisticated tunefulness. One tries to hear influences and I succeeded in hearing, in Schnneeglöckchen, the sounds of early 20th century American operetta: Romberg, Friml, Herbert…, perhaps not the richness of the best of those, but a genuine, Liederish character. The second song was Nachtwanderer, whose theme is very close in subject and in certain musical hints to Goethe’s Erlkönig, but certainly suggested nothing of the song Schubert wrote at about the same age. Neither was the next song, Ständchen, again set to an Eichendorff poem; Schubert’s Op 889 is of ‘Hark, hark, the lark’ from Cymbeline., and his Ständchen in the cycle Schwanengesang is by Rellstab. There are several poems with the name and various settings of several of them. Korngold’s had a sparkling character, and it was one of the few that showed evidence foe me of his gifts: a gift for melody.

Liebesbriefchen revealed something wistful and interesting musically, in spite of a rather modest little poem. Das Heldengrab am Pruth was a gentle, touching little song with interesting piano accompaniment that captured bird-song charmingly. (I notice that Renee Fleming recorded it recently on a DVD anthology). I think Georgia said that Sommer was written for Lotte Lehmann to sing with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, which would have accounted for a piano accompaniment that was orchestrally a bit clangorous; translation ‘blackbird blaring’? That is not in the least a criticism of Bruce Greenfield’s carefully considered and sympathetic accompaniments throughout the programme.

Knowing that the last two songs, from the Fünf Lieder of 1948 were from his last decade invites one to find more musical maturity and emotional depth; and I did. Georgia began with the second song in the cycle, Der Kranke (The Invalid), also by Eichendorff, expressed in gentle, morbid tones with a repeated descending phrase in the piano. The recital ended with the first poem in the cycle: Glückwunsch, words to a beloved that seemed to hint as much at uncertainty as to unalloyed happiness. They offered further opportunities to admire Georgia Jamieson Emms’s colourful and expressive voice.

They ended with a song that Korngold wrote in his late Hollywood years: an afterthought for the film Escape Me Never which was a bit of a flop. But it was a nice way to end a very interesting and rather beguiling 40 minutes.

This exposure has led me to some exploring of Korngold. I’ve long had a recording of Die tote Stadt, which becomes darkly seductive for much more than the dreamlike, beautiful ‘Marietta’s Lied’ (Glück, das mir verblieb). Many years ago, when the Concert Programme (as it was then) used to broadcast hour-long sessions on operas on Sunday mornings, William Southgate spoke about Korngold’s second-best-known opera, Das Wunder der Heliane. Its touch of the supernatural has haunted me and one prone to expressionist sentimentality has longed to see/hear a production. Not in this country…

Lazarus String Quartet, with one New Zealander remaining, at end of adventurous tour with highly interesting programme

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wellington Chamber Music
Lazarus String Quartet (Mayumi Kanagawa and Jos Jonker – violins; Albin Uusijärvi – viola; Alice Gott – cello)

Mozart: Quartet No 16 in E flat, K 428
Bartók: Quartet No 2 in A minor
Beethoven: Quartet in B flat, Op 18 no 6

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 1 September 2019, 3 pm

Here was an interesting ensemble that formed in 2007 when four University of Canterbury students got together, winning a ROSL Arts/Pettman Scholarship in 2010 which took them to study at the Hochschule für Musik in Hanover. That led to concerts that have included St Martin-in-the-Fields in London, the Salle Gaveau in Paris, Poland and elsewhere, and at music festivals (the Edinburgh Fringe and Heidelberg Spring festivals).

The original members, all Canterbury graduates, were: Emma Yoon and Julianne Song (violins), Lindsay McLay (viola), Alice Gott (cello).

This New Zealand tour was organised by the one remaining New Zealand member, Alice Gott, and has taken them to eleven towns in New Zealand, from the famous Mussel Inn in Golden Bay, Wanaka, Otago University, Waiheke island, All Saints Church in Howick, to Gisborne and finally Wellington.

Their 2013 tour through New Zealand included a Wellington concert, also promoted by Wellington Chamber Music, that was reviewed on this website on 22 September 2013.

Mozart in E flat
This concert began with one of the six quartets that Mozart dedicated to Haydn, having been inspired by Haydn’s Op 33 set (though the E flat sonata is said to reflect Haydn’s Op 20 set). It opens with a few unison octaves played with warmth and simplicity that doesn’t seem to suggest any particular mood or clear musical character; the essence of the piece seems to be in the detailed and elaborate handling of the themes. The second movement presents a more serious tone and one is very aware of the extremely careful writing and treatment of the evolving pattern of Mozart’s material. One feels that the music is conspicuously important to the composer, and one is constantly aware of the painstaking care Mozart is taking with its every turn. These players understood the task they faced – not particularly difficult technically, but certainly spiritually and in the characterisation of the music. The mere fact of its great length, around 15 minutes, attests to that.

The Menuetto is superficially more straightforward; the players only need to find a course through a movement that normally offers a more light-hearted moment, but here displays a notably thoughtful character; they did that. Nor is the last movement, though Allegro vivace and fairly lively rhythmically, unduly buoyant and carefree; it remains a serious composition. The players’ close attention to its dynamic shifts and emotional variety kept it very much alive and filled with interest.

Bartók’s No 2
Bartók’s quartets are widely regarded as the most important since those of Beethoven, charting a course that’s radically new as well as musically rich. No 2 was written during the First World War and it shows, for the composer was deeply distressed by the privations Hungary was subjected to. It can fairly be regarded as not strongly unified as each movement presents such a distinct character. It opens in a secretive way, hinting at atonality, an impression derived mainly from its unorthodox melodic shape. I’m sure genuine tonal roots can be demonstrated.

The players had clearly absorbed Bartók’s aesthetic pretty thoroughly, reaching a level at which their playing created a sense of naturalness and inevitability in the music, especially in the meditative passages, and the underlying emotion was often quite apparent. I don’t claim to find Bartók’s music particularly congenial or easy to find delight in, but here, and especially in the second movement, Allegro molto capriccioso, the energy and the melodies, alien as they were, registered. The music was clearly expressing excitement in its own way and even when that’s in a ‘foreign language’, a receptive mood and open ears can make it interesting, even arresting. It transcended the small matter of being in a strange, unfamiliar idiom; a feeling that should surely be a thing of the past.

The third movement was rather harder to reach: remote, secretive, their playing was extremely careful, sensitive, and they drew out alien emotions so that the dissonances and unfamiliar sounds were never disagreeable. Bartók himself confessed to finding a formal template ‘difficult to define’. It goes without saying that the performers’ challenges are formidable, yet they played in a lively and persuasive way, even suggesting that they gained considerable emotional comfort in its performance.*

Beethoven’s Op 18 No 6
After the Interval, it was Beethoven’s Op 18 No 6. If my attention in the first two works seems to have been dominated by the ensemble playing rather than by individual characteristics, they were more conspicuous here. The cello on the one hand, warm and rhythmic, and the violin, quite penetrating it its prominence, particularly, leading the way in the second movement. That is particularly charming, with a memorable step-wise first theme, and though its beauty creates a hope for repeats and simply for more, it’s far shorter than the equivalent movement in the Mozart quartet. The final notes were singularly touching.

The third movement, Scherzo: Allegro, is a study in quick dynamic contrasts and very light, brisk gestures. Short as it is, there’s space for a quickly despatched trio section, all of which the quartet handled with a feeling of genuine authenticity. It’s the last movement that departs significantly from the usual shape of a string quartet. The first section is entitled Malinconia – Adagio, and the composer wrote that it must be treated with the utmost delicacy; the players obeyed scrupulously: and it emerged secretive and arresting. But even at its now Allegro pace, there remained a lightness or tentativeness, at nothing much more than mezzo-forte dynamic level. There’s a momentary return to the melancholy theme before the final dash.

The programme was structured most thoughtfully: stimulating, mainstream pieces that had very distinctly unusual features, and a major piece of relative modernity, if it’s still possible to employ that word more than a century after its composition.

* Addendum

A Bartók perspective
As an uncalled for footnote to the comments on Bartók, I came across a particularly interesting 2007 lecture on the second quartet by Professor Roger Parker of Gresham College, London, that ended with this comforting perspective on Bartók’s six quartets.

Famously, these quartets explore, and make demands on, their four instrumentalists in ways unknown (indeed, unimaginable) in previous times. You’ll hear plenty of that in a moment or two. It is interesting, though, that while in the 1950s and 1960s the Bartók quartets were regarded as among the most austere and demanding imaginable, these days they have begun to seem more mainstream and approachable. Of course, this was always supposed to happen to modernist music: when I was a music student forty years ago, we were endlessly assured that contemporary music which seemed to us incomprehensible would, with repeated listening and industrial-strength doses of aural training, sound as limpid and predictable as Eine kleine Nachtmusik. Well, I’m here to tell you that we tried, even tried hard, and it didn’t. A work like Webern’s Op. 27 sounds just as strange now as it did forty or, for that matter, eighty years ago, and my guess is that it will sound strange forever. But Bartók, even the relatively austere Bartók of the string quartets, is different. Younger players such as those we will hear today come to the music without preconceptions, without thinking that it must be impenetrable and harsh; and as a result they make more sense of it, or at least a different kind of sense: while not ignoring its challenges, and while remaining respectful of its demands, they connect it more easily to its nineteenth-century roots, and so (I think) help us understand it more clearly.