Month: December 2020

Now on CD! – Claire Cowan’s incandescent score for the RNZB’s recent “Hansel and Gretel”, played by the NZSO with Hamish McKeich

Posted on by Peter Mechen

CLAIRE COWAN – Hansel and Gretel; a Ballet in Two Acts

Hamish McKeich (conductor)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Recording produced by John Neill and Claire Cowan
Assistant Producer: Brent Stewart
Pro-Tools Editor: William Philipson
Illustration and Design: Fuller Studio

Verses: Amy Mansfield
Reader: Jonny Brugh

Recorded 2020 at Stella Maris Chapel, Seatoun, Wellington

After reading various reviews of the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s production of Auckland composer Claire Cowan’s Hansel and Gretel, toured by the company during 2019, I’m left feeling like one of the “gentlemen of England now abed” from Shakespeare’s Henry V play, those whom the monarch prophesised would “think themselves accurs’d” for not being at Agincourt to share in the splendour of the occasion’s success. And now, having listened to the enticingly-presented double CD set of the ballet’s music which the NZSO with conductor Hamish McKeich subsequently recorded, I feel doubly aggrieved at having missed out on seeing what “sounds like” a cornucopian feast of excitement, energy, colour and drama, if the music alone is anything to go by.

Of course, judging by the critical adulation given last year’s aforementioned stage production, this could well be a work that has now begun its journey towards becoming the balletic equivalent of German composer Engelbert Humperdinck’s well-known operatic setting of the Grimm Brothers’ classic fairy-tale, and thus a staple of any self-respecting ballet company’s repertoire. So, there may be hope for me yet!

Cowan’s experience of writing for dancers previous to this production had been in the contemporary field, so writing a ballet score, with the story and music “leading the way” and dictating what the dancers do was a new experience for her. Having met RNZB choreographer Loughlan Prior, who conveyed to her his long-held desire to make a ballet from the classic Brothers Grimm Hansel and Gretel story, Cowan agreed to undertake the project with him,  firstly trying out different “slants” on the original story and characterisations to give the scenario a fresh and more contemporary feeling. Working with Prior highlighted the specific requirements for dance music , such as the care needed when choosing time signatures and tempi, even if Cowan found that her choreographer preferred her music’s symmetrical rhythms to the angularities of 5/4 or 7/4 – but she confesses she simply didn’t want to be confined to 2/4, 3/4 and 4/4 the whole time!

A dancer herself as a child, she had gone back to listen to some of the ballet classics –  Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Stravinsky – to “check out” what those composers did, watching a  actual production of “The Nutcracker” and finding herself surprised at how much more music there was besides those well-known “iconic” moments in the score, some of which seemed to her like “filler” – Cowan promised  she would set herself the goal in her own work of giving those continuity moments as “magical” a quality as anything else in the score through constant reiteration of variants of the main themes, so that the music’s special distinction was always present.

Though she’s actually not the first woman to compose a ballet for the New Zealand Ballet Company, as has been claimed in some quarters – Dorothea Franchi’s work Do-Wacka-Do, written in 1956, firstly as a jazz combo, and later as a suite rescored for full orchestra, was (coincidentally, like Cowan’s) a revisiting of 1920s musical styles (Franchi called her work “good old American Jazz”) frequently performed by the Company, and (again, like Hansel and Gretel) one toured throughout the country in 1961 with piano (the composer’s?) accompaniment – Cowan’s “Hansel and Gretel” is, however, definitely the first full-length ballet by a woman to be performed by the RNZB, Franchi’s work having usually been part of a “double bill”, or performed with other smaller separate items.

The 2019 tour of Cowan’s and Prior’s work, having been such a success, it seemed wholly appropriate for the venture to be preserved in one form or another – the composer certainly felt that the work could be “shared” with many more people who didn’t have the opportunity to attend one of the live performances via a recording. Conductor Hamish McKeich encouraged  Cowan to approach the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra with a proposal that reflected both the success of the live performances and the obvious prestige of association with the same for the orchestra, the result being that fifty of the players’ services were donated by the Orchestra to the undertaking, with Hamish McKeich the obvious choice as conductor. The chosen venue was the Stella Maris Chapel at Seatoun in Wellington with John Neill, of Park Road Post producing the recording. Cowan embarked on a crowd-sourced Boosted campaign to make up the remainder of funds needed for the project, and with all the arrangements and the planning in place, its completion seemed certain.

This of course being 2020, nothing was thus assured, with a community outbreak of Covid-19 in Auckland in August bringing plans to a standstill. Undeterred, though at considerably greater expense, Cowan continued the process piecemeal with a series of two-and-fro operations between Auckland and Wellington , the work having to be recorded in sections with different instrumental groups, and painstakingly dovetailed together at the end. It’s a tribute to the determination, expertise and patience of everybody concerned that the end result seems to my ears as magnificent as if there were no disruptions!

From the Overture’s beginning the music is a kaleidoscopic delight of sensation and impulse, the piece illustrating a burgeoning of things to come in the story from what seem like wistful, everyday situations.  It’s beyond the scope of this review to describe the whole ballet, but the opening scene gives the listener more than enough enticement to pursue the wonders that the story in its entirety delivers. The Street with its ceaseless comings-and-goings movement illustrates the world of the children’s family, the piquant detailing of busy-ness and cheerful purpose set against the frequent singing lines which depict care and longing, as well as something of the family’s circumstances in a world of harsh economic realities.

A Mary Poppins-like frisson of premonition introduces The witch’s ice-cream bicycle, the composer cleverly blending wonderment and unease at her antics, then normalising her presence by having her disappear into the falling dusk along with everybody else. Cowan illustrates her mastery of transition here, morphing the crepuscular ambiences into a kind of night-life scenario as both colours and impulses begin to repeople the scene, taking us from this into the children’s family home (no cruel and heartless stepmother, here, but simply loving and caring parents), where Dinner is being served, the parents obviously doing their best to remain cheerful, passages for solo violin and strings expressing the family’s bonds of love and care , while various other passages (wind and brass) suggest the paucity of fare.

The ear is constantly tickled by Cowan’s invention, each impulse pf movement and phrase of melody a suggestive experience for the listener. Particularly touching is the Pas de Deux for the Mother and Father, blending characterful concerted movement with complete freedom, the imagination both shaped but unconstrained by limitations of time and space – it was here I strongly felt Cowan’s experience as a film composer coming through, in her evocation of a “state of things”, one into which we as listeners were readily invited to observe and “feel”.

The rest follows the outlines of the Grimm Brothers’ classic story, though with some particularly “tasty” ingredients added, suggested by sequence-titles like The Witch’s Baking Charleston , Cowan‘s 1920s settings having liberally spiced the music with Broadway and jazz influences. In general, the music for the second part is brighter, brassier and more extrovert, as befits the blandishments of the gingerbread house scenario in which the children find themselves. Across this, recurring themes knit the episodes into a compelling whole, with associated groundswells of emotion bubbling up in places like the reprise of the Pas de Deux for the Mother and Father while looking for their children, a self-confessed favourite moment in the work for the composer!

The CDs contain a “bonus” at the end of the ballet’s action, a retelling of the story in verse, written by Amy Mansfield, here, racily delivered by Jonny Brugh, of 800 Words and What We do in the Shadows fame, to the accompaniment of musical excerpts from Cowan’s soundtrack. Mansfield’s words, saucily mixing finely-tuned imagery with drollery and outrageous doggerel, catch the spirit of Cowan’s music with gusto and relish, a delectable introduction/reminiscence of the complete work, if perhaps not, like gingerbread houses themselves, to be indulged in too freely or frequently!

No, the music itself, its creation and realisation, is the true joy of this delectable offering; and, as with the works of those luminaries previously mentioned, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Stravinsky, on the strength of this recording able to stand alone and bear witness to composer Claire Cowan’s stellar achievement. Whether those words of Shakespeare’s quoted at this review’s beginning resonate with you or not, you are urged to investigate this beautifully-appointed recording of “Hansel and Gretel” without delay!

(I am advised by Claire Cowan herself that the set is available only on bandcamp at this stage. For more information click on the following link –www.clairesmusic.bandcamp.com for both physical CDs and digital copies. The physical copy comes with a digital download too.)

 

 

At last! – the 2020 NZSO National Youth Orchestra gets to show what it can do

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents:
“Finale” –  the NZSO National Youth Orchestra 2020

LISSA MERIDAN – Firecracker
JOSHUA PEARSON – When a pale blue dot breathes
PYOTR TCHAIKOVSKY – Fantasy-Overture “Romeo and Juliet”
SERGE PROKOFIEV – Suite from “Lieutenant kije”
ARTURO MÁRQUEZ – Danzón No. 2

(Joshua Pearson is the NZSO National Youth Orchestra Composer-in-Residence 2020)

NZSO National Youth Orchestra 2020
Hamish McKeich (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Thursday 18th December, 2020

NZSO Chief Executive Peter Biggs called this evening’s concert “a belated wish come true”, after the NZSO NYO’s plans for mid-year Wellington and Auckland performances together with the NZSO of Shostakovich’s epic “Leningrad” Symphony were cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. After such a disappointment, the young players were “overjoyed” that the lifting of restrictions nation-wide enabled a new concert to be announced for the year’s end, with the Shostakovich project re-scheduled for 2021.

Conductor Hamish McKeich put the occasion in an even wide perspective in welcoming us all to the concert after the orchestra had performed the first two items, Lissa Meridan’s spectacular 2000 work Firecracker, and Joshua Pearson’s 2020 NYO-commissioned When a pale blue dot breathes, by asking us, amid the joy of having our National Youth Orchestra performing tonight, to spare a thought for young musicians in other places around the world at this time unable to come together in like manner due to pandemic-induced restrictions. So, added to the relief of being able to perform was a determination on the part of all present to make the very most of the occasion, which the music-making to my ears certainly achieved.

I can still remember the excitement of first hearing the Auckland Philharmonia’s CD set of NZ commissioned “Millenium Fanfares” brought out by Atoll Records in 2000, one that began, as here, with the aforementioned Firecracker by Lissa Meridan, a brilliant evocation in orchestral terms of light, colour and energy, stunningly realised by McKeich and the players – what an “ear” for sound on the composer’s part was displayed here! Meridan wrote this fanfare while serving as the Director of the Lilburn Electroacoustic Music Studios at Wellington’s NSZM, and the music’s astonishing blend of textural fluidity and dynamic variation suggests the kind of limitless possibilities open to one well-versed in sonic explorations, the kaleidoscopic instrumental combinations as ear-catching when lightly-scored as they were overwhelming when flooding the ambiences with wave upon variegated wave of brilliant and impactful irruption.

As the thoughtful programme note by Febry Idrus indicates, NZSONYO Composer-in-Residence Joshua Pearson’s new work When a pale blue dot breathes suggested a kind of antithesis to Lisa Meridan’s scintillating creation, at the outset a realisation of a kind of William Blake-like “world in a grain of sand”, the “pale blue dot” of the title representing the earth glimpsed from outer space silhouetted in a sunbeam, a dot containing “a crowd of cacophony”. Its componentry is further characterised by sound-vignettes representing the space-ship Voyager’s “Golden Record”, one containing sounds and images from Earth as a kind of “message in a bottle” for forms of life as yet unknown to us conveying various “essences” of human existence, including examples of spoken language.  The piece’s opening underlined its subject’s relative insignificance in relation to the surroundings, the sounds creaking, shuddering and shivering into being, the ambiences eerie and strangely non-corporate, until, like nature abhorring a void, a tumult of voices rose as if an act of sheer will, looking to somehow co-ordinate its impulses, rallying trumpet fanfares and jaunty piccolo tunes putting flesh on the music’s bones and characterising the self-conscious “outreach” of humankind into the unknown, from its “best of all possible worlds”.

It’s all somewhat Tower-of-Babel-like, one that appears to lose its voice at one point when the wind and brass players “sigh” tonelessly through their instruments, as a mute recognition of language and gesture perhaps needing more, or perhaps giving way to simply being and putting faith in a process of continuance. I liked the balloons being spectacularly burst towards the end, possibly as a sign of risking all and expending empty baggage……the composer was well received by the audience at the piece’s thoughtful, enigmatic conclusion, the latter prompting thoughts of the music being a kind of “Also Sprach Zarathustra” for our time, perhaps?

After this, Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture might have required something of a quantum shift of brain-cell response on the part of listeners – but in the end the music’s opening ambiences seemed to grow out of the resonances already stirred and shaken, the winds this time unusually “weighted” by the bassoon’s prominence over the clarinet throughout the introductory measures. Hamish McKeich kept everything else poised and expectant, hinting at the unease and tension which then sprang eagerly forward at the fist signs of warring unrest between two feuding families, the strings generating speed rather than weight and building the excitement towards full-blooded conflict most excitingly.

McKeich prepared his players beautifully for the famous love-theme’s appearance, the oboes deftly supported by the horns, and the strings’ veiled quality readily suggesting the tenderness between the lovers from the outset – again some lovely work from the winds and horns, and afterwards harp and cor anglais. Urgency ahead of any initial suggestiveness marked the strings’ plunge into their reiteration of hostilities between the warring families, the percussion nicely “terracing” the music’s dynamics, and delivering maximum weight when required – the return of the lovers’ theme wrung our sensibilities out properly (excitingly supported by the bass drum at one point) – and the players brought off the music’s jagged syncopations with great elan as the conflict peaked and suddenly imploded, the lower strings digging deeply into the black depths of tragedy reinforced by the shattering timpani roll, the ensuing funeral march almost perfunctory with sheer numbness.

As much as I would rather the composer had defied his mentor, Mily Balakirev, and retained his earlier, quieter ending for the piece (I’ve always found the brassy ending to the work too “stock”, too conventional, and seeming to run counter to Shakespeare’s concluding lines in his play  “A glooming peace this morning with it brings/the sun for sorrow will not show his head”), the players here made Tchaikovsky’s harshly-expressed finality hit home with all appropriate force at the end.

And what a brilliantly-conceived contrast followed! – even when separated by an interval! – Serge Prokofiev’s totally delightful Suite (originally music for a Soviet film of the same name, “Lieutenant Kije” – actually, in Russian, “Kizhe”) was put together by the composer shortly after the film’s release in 1934, with the composer’s Paris-based publisher using the French form of the name. Prokofiev then expanded the somewhat fragmentary film music soundtrack, and re-orchestrated it for full orchestra – he described the process as “difficult”, but was determined to complete the task, as he wanted to try and “normalise” his relationship with the Soviet authorities after returning to Russia from the West.

The film’s source for the story was lexicographer Vladimir Dahl’s 1870 publication of a collection of “Stories from the Time of Paul I” (son of Catherine the Great and Peter III, Paul I was Tsar between 1796 and 1801 prior to his being assassinated), the tale describing the life, adventures and death of a mythical officer, invented as a result of a clerical error, which couldn’t be admitted to for fear of angering the Tsar! It was taken up by the novelist Yury Tynyanov, who wrote the screenplay for the film. The story naturally appealed to the Soviets as an example of ridicule of the “old order”, though the bureaucratic bungling and fear of displeasing one’s superiors was to remain a worldwide trait throughout most of the twentieth century.

Prokofiev’s music was a wholly delightful affair, right from the very first magical solo cornet/trumpet strains  (it isn’t specified which one was played here, but Isabella Thomas was the flawless off-stage soloist) which announced “The Birth of Kije”, to the same theme’s slightly augmented reappearance at the Suite’s end. This dream-like encapsulation belied the rest of the music’s excitement, colour and immediacy, the characterisations of both the hero and his adventures springing engagingly to life-life, as with all rattlingly good yarns! The composer’s penchant for vivid orchestration gave the NYO players ample opportunities to shine, the percussion in particular having a proverbial field day though mention must be made of the distinctive contribution made by the tenor saxophonist (Tessa Frazer), her playing deliciously enlivening the textures of both the second movement Romance and the third movement, Kije’s Wedding. My favourite of the Suite’s movements has always been the Wedding, though its effectiveness depends on the degree of tongue-in-cheek “swagger” given the trajectories by the conductor and players – here, the “oohm-pah” brass rhythms were an absolute delight, underpinned by outrageous explosions of festive joy from the full orchestra, the percussion holding nothing back!

Concluding the concert’s listed items was a piece by Mexican composer Arturo Márquez, Danzón No. 2, a piece championed by the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela under Gustavo Dudamel during that orchestra’s tour of Europe and America in 2007. I thought the music had a kind of “Latin American Gershwin” kind of feeling in places, with firstly the clarinet and then the oboe voicing the melodic lines, piano, percussion and pizzicato strings encouraging the music’s impulse to ‘dance’, each refrain introducing livelier trajectories, swooning into sultry, suggestive passages which build the harmonies to expressive heights before re-energising the rhythms once again – the bursts of energy set against contrasting episodes of languor gave the piece a volatility whose climax drew from conductor and players plenty of edge-of-the-seat abandonment and a cataclysmic finish!

Despite, or perhaps because of the brilliance of the concert’s ending an encore seemed more than appropriate by way of extending the occasion’s frisson of excitement, with Khachaturian’s “Sabre Dance from the ballet “Gayaneh” brought scintillatingly into play, the famous glissandi brass notes more expressive that I can ever remember, rather than producing merely the usual “snarl”, and the shock of the abrupt changes of texture and dynamics towards the end startlingly pulled off! Very great glory, indeed, to this year’s NYO, conductor and players making the most of their opportunities and to the NZSO for making it all happen in the face of unforseeable difficulties.

 

 

End of the musical year for Wellington Chamber Orchestra with an Emperor and Franck’s symphony

Posted on by Steven Sedley

Wellington Chamber Orchestra
Conductor and piano soloist: Andrew Atkins

Verdi: La Forza del Destino overture
Beethoven: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No.5 in E flat major. op.73 ‘The Emperor’
César Franck: Symphony in D minor, FWV 48

St. Andrews on the Terrace

Sunday, 13 December 2020

Verdi: La Forza del Destino overture
The overture to Verdi’s opera, ‘The Power of Fate’ is much more popular than the opera itself. It encapsulates the drama of the opera, its lyricism and its wonderful melodies. It opens with three unison chords for the brasses, followed by repeated agitated phrases by the lower strings, which foreshadows the tragedy of the drama to follow. A beautiful mournful theme from Act 3 of the opera is introduced by the winds, followed by the haunting prayer of Leonora, the heroine of the story, played by the strings, and towards the end of the overture a theme from Act 2 is played by the oboe and winds, suggesting the emotional resolution and redemption before Leonora death. It was a great opening for the concert, testing all sections of the orchestra. Some beautiful playing by the wind solo stood out. This was a colourful lyrical reading of the piece. Andrew Atkins conducted with graceful movements and a clear beat.

Beethoven: Emperor Concerto
This concerto, Beethoven’s longest and arguably his most dramatic, is a challenge even for seasoned pianists who play it repeatedly on international concert tours. For a young musician without the benefit of such opportunities and conducting from the keyboard, this is bordering on chutzpah. But from the very beginning, the opening runs on the piano, it was evident that Andrew Atkins was up to the challenge. His playing was sensitive, lyrical, and confident.

The orchestra provided a sound support notwithstanding the distraction of the conductor jumping up and down from the keyboard during the tutti passages. The chorale of the second movement, with the fine interaction between the soloist and the orchestra stood out for its sensitivity. The last movement reflected the sense of joy of the performers. To the great credit of soloist and orchestra, every note sounded carefully considered, yet this did not detract from the natural flow of the music. For an encore, Andrew Atkins played a beautiful meditative piece, Liszt’s Consolation No.3, with the flair of a fine pianist and with a true love of music.

Franck: Symphony in D minor
César Franck’s Symphony is a difficult nut to crack. It is an amalgam of the German tradition of Wagner and Liszt, it quotes late Beethoven, yet has a certain French sensitivity. In its form it differs from the classical symphonic model of Haydn to Brahms. It is in three movements which are interrelated. The opening themes keep recurring in modified form as they modulate throughout the symphony. It is one of the landmarks of the symphonic repertoire. It starts with a hardly audible pianissimo on the lower strings, echoing the Muss es sein? (Must it be?) phrase from Beethoven’s Op 135 String Quartet, then a piercing cor anglais solo introduces the main theme. This theme recurs throughout symphony in different forms, slow and fast, expansive and agitated.

The orchestra rose to the technical challenges of the work, but somehow the tempi sounded driven and variable. I felt that the brass were not given the space to fly, or the strings the air to let the music sing. The subtlety of the symphony was somehow missing, The listeners should have been left sitting on the edge of their seats. But let this not detract from the laudable effort of every single musician in the orchestra. Just mastering this complex work deserves credit.

The concert reflected the objective of the orchestra, to ‘enjoy the experience of creating live music together’. Whatever reservations I might have had, it was great to have the opportunity to hear these wonderful works live in Wellington on a Sunday afternoon. We value the talent in our midst.

 

 

Acclaim at Wellington’s MFC for Handel, the “Messiah”, the NZSO, the Tudor Consort, the soloists, and conductor extraordinaire, Gemma New

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents:
HANDEL:  Messiah – an Oratorio, HWV 56

Anna Leese  – Soprano
Sarah Court – Alto
Frederick Jones – Tenor
Robert Tucker – Bass

The Tudor Consort (Music Director – Michael Stewart)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (Concertmaster – Donald Armstrong)

Gemma New (conductor)

MIchael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday, 12th December, 2020

I can’t remember a Wellington audience leaping to its collective feet at the conclusion of a recent “Messiah” with quite such unbridled enthusiasm as we all found ourselves doing this evening, caught up in what suddenly felt like, from where I had been sitting, a near-tsunami of acclamation for the musicians and the music at the end of the performance’s final “Amen” chorus.  Certainly, our sensibilities had been “stoked” by conductor Gemma New’s ear-bending exhortation to us at the concert’s beginning to rise from our seats and “join in with” the magnificence of the renowned “Halleluia” chorus! – oo-er! – wot larks! – a daring break with protocol which “came off” as intended, heightening our involvement with the performance that conductor, singers and players had steadily built up throughout the work, and which seemed to break over us all at the end.

Poet Dylan Thomas wrote of his memories of childhood Christmasses in Wales that “One Christmas was so much like another” – and the same could be said regarding the various performances  of “Messiah” that pile up in the memory-banks without reference to specifics outlined in reviews, diaries or letters. And even when certain particular strands of recollection resonate, it can be difficult to pinpoint them in time and context without help – I would have to go to the archives to make specific comparisons with the present, though memories of previous performers such as soprano Madeleine Pierard and bass James Clayton have persisted due to particular distinctions not easily forgotten.

What will, I think, stay with me for some time regarding this most recent performance is its quality of consistency across the strands that make up the music’s tapestry. Beginning with the orchestral playing, I was taken by the sheer focus of the instrumental sounds, both in terms of atmosphere and narrative, which certainly delivered conductor Gemma New’s promise made in a programme note, that the orchestra would realise “the mood, setting, inflections and characters as much as the soloists and choir do with the text”, through “constantly creating contrasts of colour, pacing and volume”. At every point this quality was in evidence, from the shaping of the opening Sinfony, through the manifold realisations of mood –  the solace of the introduction to “Comfort Ye”, the serenity of the Pifa or “Pastoral Sinfony”, the tingling excitement of “And suddenly there was with the angel”, contrasted with the sorrowing of “Behold the Lamb of God” and the brutality of the opening to “All they that see him”, to the confident warmth of the strings at “I know the my Redeemer Liveth” and the  triumphal strains of “The trumpet shall sound)” – coming full circle with the splendour of the “Worthy is the Lamb” and “Amen” choruses.

Just as telling were those orchestral moments whose textures were at once made manifest and held in check to allow the singers’ tones through – alto Sarah Court’s evocation of refiner’s fire  by turns flickered, glowed and sizzled most convincingly, while the jaggedly-bowed accents of “He gave his back” still allowed enough sound-space for the singer’s piteous commentary of “His cheeks to them that pluck’d off his hair” to make an impact, and a proper contrast with the   Bass Robert Tucker’s voice at “For behold” grew portentously but reassuringly out of the gloom towards the light; and later rolled splendidly and easefully around the ambiences in partnership with Michael Kirgan’s stellar “trumpet-sounding” calls.

Tenor Frederick Jones properly caught our attentions with his opening “Comfort ye”, the voice having a real “ring”, compelling our interest further with the growing urgency of his message, surviving a brief rhythmic glitch at one point of “Speak ye comfortably”, and properly energising the textures at “The voice of him”, before joining in with the joyous levity of “Ev’ry valley”, investing every phrase with meaning, declaiming, and then reassuring, as the text required. Later, in his series of vignettes depicting the anguish of Christ’s suffering at the hands of the Romans, he fully conveyed the piteous and brutal nature of the words, harsh and declamatory at “All they that see Him”, and beautifully weighing each sorrowing word of “Thy rebuke” and the succeeding “Behold and See”, then relishing the prospect of divine retribution with stinging force in “He that dwelleth in heaven” and ringing high notes in “Thou shalt break them”.

Mentioning Anna Leese’s performance  in conjunction with Madeleine Pierard as a previous soprano soloist in this work is perhaps the highest compliment I can give the former in terms of the pleasure her singing gave me – Leese has also appeared previously in this role in Wellington, but I thought she surpassed even her previous efforts on this occasion, bright and vibrant from the outset,  capturing the full gamut of serenity, fear, and wonderment of the shepherds in the fields, and following this with a vivaciously swinging 4/4 “Rejoice greatly” whose contrasting serenity for the middle section’s “He shall bring peace” was unexpectedly and thrillingly set dancing by conductor New’s adoption of the 12/8 version of the aria at the reprise – an inspired moment of scalp-tingling exhilaration!

Both alto and soprano by turns brought a distinctive strain of beauty to “He shall feed His flock”, each singer right “inside” the words, and contributing to the contrasting effect of different voices, the first gentle and comforting, the second radiant and persuasive. Of course the soprano’s most eagerly-awaited moment is “I know that my Redeemer liveth“, one that was here, to my ears, fully “owned” by Leese, as completely as any singer I’ve previously heard, the voice moving between the notes with complete confidence and the words with irrefutable “ownership” – and with an ascent at “For now is Christ risen” at the end which brought tears to the eyes of at least one person present!

We have heard the Tudor Consort perform these Messiah choruses before, with what I remember to be the utmost distinction – but surely not with more beauty, finesse, imagination, drama and intensity than as on this occasion! Despite what the authenticists would almost certainly say, I’m capable of enjoying the sound of a large choir thundering out the “Halleluiah!” chorus with gusto, given that the forces would have to be balanced with comparable instrumental numbers for the “give-and-take” to make sense! But here we had a choir of less than forty voices whose focus enabled a choral sound whose proportionality was overwhelming in terms of its intensity, variety of texture and dynamic range. To single out particular numbers for comment can only hint at the wholeness with which the character of each of the various sequences was realised, with its plethora of detailing and unifying sweep, be it intimacy or grandeur that was needed.

An enduring impression is the clarity of the singing lines, whatever the dynamic levels and textural densities, and achieved here without any self-consciously “mannered” or exaggerated effect of the kind that I recently experienced on a much-vaunted recording (and quickly grew tired of). A couple of examples must suffice: – “And He shall purify” became a veritable rivulet of tinkling, chattering sounds all in perfect accord with one another (and with the instrumental accompaniments), whereas in another part of the work the combatative “Let us break their bonds asunder” sounded like a veritable fusillade of stinging notes, precisely aimed for maximum impact!  Later, the darkly sinister undertones of  “Since by man came death” were given more-than-usually dramatic treatment, with certain of the opening notes scarily accented, heightening the unease and sorrow associated with the dying of light and life, giving the passage a “from fear to hope” slant additional to the usual “darkness to light” progression, culminating in the joyously energetic “by man came also the resurrection”, impactful and liberating!

All of this was presided over by Gemma New, whose New Zealand visit to make her NZSO conducting debut was extended by the privations of Covid-19 to be able to include two further concerts including this one, in which she substituted for British conductor Thomas Blunt, unable to travel to New Zealand to conduct “Messiah” as scheduled. It’s been our great good luck that the concert has been able to happen at all, but to have someone of the obvious talent of New, described as a “rising star in the conducting firmament”, to take over on such an occasion has been an extraordinary kind of “windfall”. And then, to have witnessed such a remarkable re-thinking of an established classic by an up-and-coming conductor (who just happens to be a New Zealander) is a circumstance that has, I suspect, the potential to enter the realm of legend for all present. Everything seemed to come together for the performance to make it distinctive – and I can forsee people in years to come discussing NZSO “Messiah” performances and hearkening back to 2020 with the words, “Ah, you should have been there when Gemma New took over at short notice for “Messiah” during that first “Covid” year, and brought us all to our feet, firstly to JOIN IN with the “Halleluiah” Chorus, and then at the end, OFF OUR OWN BAT we did, to acclaim her and the other musicians, for a performance for the ages! Cheering at the end? I can hear it yet!”

 

RNZAF Wind Quintet plus piano, in diverting programme closes Marjan van Waartenberg’s era at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s Lunchtime concert
RNZAF Wind Quintet: Rebecca Steel – flute, Calvin Scott – oboe, Moira Hurst – clarinet, Vivien Reid – horn), Oscar Lavën – bassoon; with David Codd – piano

Giulio Briccialdi: Wind Quintet, Op 124 (the Allegro marziale)
Poulenc: Sextet for piano and winds, Op 100
Bizet: Jeux d’enfants, arranged by Gordon Davies: 1. Trompette et tambour, marche; 2. Petit mari, petite femme; 3. La toupie
Zequinha de Abreu: Tico-tico (‘Bird in the cornmeal’)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 9 December, 12:15 pm

Not only was this the last in the 2020 St Andrew’s lunchtime concert series (not counting the church’s Christmas carol service next Wednesday, 16 December); but the last concert organised by Marjan van Waardenberg at St Andrew’s: a voluntary job she has done since 2005. The concerts have been transformed dramatically during the time she has led them, from short series of concerts through the year to an unbroken series usually starting in February, sometimes twice in a week, apart from their disturbance in the face of pandemics. The church’s generous role in allowing free use by musicians, without fees, dependent solely on donations, has also been singular. Such is their support by musicians that there’s often a waiting list for performance dates. Free concerts are a valued benefit for many audience members who might be unable to afford to pay for weekly concerts.

There is no comparable series of free, weekly concerts anywhere else in the country. They have become a very significant concert series in the city, enhancing the Wellington’s reputation as a leading musical centre; in particular, providing excellent opportunities for students from Victoria University School of Music to be heard in a down-town venue.

Marjan’s organisational role will be taken by Kristina Zuelicka while actual hosting of each concert will be done by other individuals; the programme encouraged ‘concert host’ volunteers to approach Jillene Everett in the church office; office@standrews.org.nz.

The concert 
The last appearance by the RNZAF Wind Quintet at St Andrew’s was reviewed in July 2019 by Steven Sedley. This, led again by flutist Rebecca Steel, with the same colleagues, elegantly dressed in formal air force uniforms attracted a bigger-than-average audience to this memorable recital.

There were two rather unfamiliar names among the composers represented at this week’s concert: the mid-19th century Italian, Giulio Briccialdi and the Brazilian composer, Zequinha de Abreu (really known solely for the popular Tico-tico), who lived in the early 20th century.

Briccialdi was a distinguished flutist and composer, and the melodious piece with which the recital began makes his popularity during his life very credible. Though the flute was prominent, it was far from the dominant instrument in the piece, which, apart from the repetitive bassoon motif, offered attractive passages for the other three instruments.

Poulenc’s Sextet
The main work was Poulenc’s Sextet for piano and winds, probably written in 1932. Its most distinctive feature is its variety in the treatment of musical ideas as well as the variety offered each instrument at various times. The first such case was a dreamy solo from the bassoon, more than compensating for its treatment in the earlier piece, and the horn enjoyed occasional solo episodes. The music typified Poulenc with its almost rude dissonances, but which actually delight, not merely because they shift suddenly into a reflective mood but because it’s wit that characterises them.

No movement remained consistent. Though the second movement starts quietly, its title Divertissement soon took over with the reappearance of first-movement liveliness. Unfortunately, the church’s teasing acoustic occasionally interfered with clarity, blurring the amusing character of both individual instruments and ensembles. So the most satisfactory parts were those in which only one or two instruments led the way. Though the third movement, Finale, is marked ‘Prestissimo’ it is only partly accurate as there’s a sudden slowing of speed halfway through, allowing the three treble clef instruments to be heard with closer, more rewarding attention.

Its last few minutes are both surprising and charming, as the mood – the tempo – suddenly changed: enigmatically. In spite of little shortcomings this performance was a delight.

I realise I haven’t mentioned the piano: that’s simply because David Codd’s playing integrated so well with the wind players. Poulenc was in fact a fine pianist and chamber pieces for piano and various solo-string and wind instruments are significant though not numerous.

I’ve been a Poulenc captive since my late teens, when I heard the witty ballet Les biches on the radio. It could still be worth an airing.

Jeux d’enfants  
Three pieces from Bizet’s Jeux d’enfants provided music that is somewhat related to Poulenc, and these twelve purportedly children’s pieces rested interestingly alongside him, making one aware how Bizet’s Mozart-aged death was such a tragedy for far more than simply opera. Though I can’t remember who played them, I can recall quite a while ago hearing the full suite of twelve piano pieces played in Wellington. And of course, apart from piano and chamber music there’s the evidence of a gifted symphonist in Bizet’s now famous, eighteen-year-old Symphony in C, lost for eighty years in the Paris Conservatoire archives.

The quintet played just three of the Jeux d’enfants: La toupie, Trompette et tambour and Petit mari et petite femme (in their published order).

Trompette et Tambour was an appropriate opening: a nice arrangement of this prancing, jaunty piece while Petit mari, petite femme, a dreamy middle movement, featured the horn nicely; and the brief but lively Toupie was a well-chosen conclusion. The quintet justified their appropriation of Bizet’s piano duet original, or its orchestrations by Bizet and others, very persuasively.

Finally, perhaps a time-filler, was Tico-tico, once familiar on radio in all sorts of versions. It proved a lively arrangement for the wind quintet’s closure.

Marjan: “duizendmaal dank”.

 

 

Compelling Beethoven recordings from Eugene Albulescu

Posted on by Peter Mechen

BEETHOVEN – Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major Op. 15
Piano Concerto No, 5 in E-flat Major Op.73 “Emperor”

Eugene Albulescu (piano/conductor)
Orchestra of Friends

(Recorded January 12th 2020,
Baker Hall, Zoeliner Arts Centre, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA)

AMP Recordings

AMPREC 022

It’s a measure of the remarkable staying power of Beethoven’s music that new performances and recordings of works that many of us know so well through having heard them countless times over the years simply keep coming (and show no signs of abating two hundred and fifty years after the composer’s birth).  Having recently heard a good deal of the New Zealand String Quartet’s acclaimed traversal of the great man’s works in that genre, I can directly testify as to the music’s almost uncanny capacity for renewal – “forever contemporary” as Igor Stravinsky once said of one of these pieces, the “Grosse Fugue” op. 133, a description that, although specifically intended, suggests also something of the capacity of most of Beethoven’s music to speak directly to us, free from time, place or convention.

So, when I heard of Eugene Albulescu’s recording of two of the piano concertos (both of which, incidentally, the pianist directs from the keyboard), I was immediately interested. I’d experienced at first hand his playing in concert during those years he’d spent in New Zealand (his family had emigrated from Roumania in 1984), and had previously reviewed at least two of his earlier recordings, including an astonishing Liszt recital, released on the Ode/Manu label, one which won the young pianist the Grand Prix du Disque Liszt in 1994. He’d by then left these shores, going to Indiana University to study with Edward Auer, and graduating in 1994; and he’s since performed in various places around the world, as a solo pianist, chamber musician and conductor, establishing himself firmly in the United States with successful concert appearances and radio broadcasts. He’s currently a Professor of Piano on the music faculty at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA.

Albulescu’s orchestra in this recording is described as the “Orchestra of Friends”, which suggests a “pick-up” group, though in fact it’s an ensemble associated with the University made up largely of players who had recently worked together with the pianist/conductor on another performance project, so that they were more than usually “in accord” with one another for the Beethoven sessions. In a fascinating essay presented in the booklet accompanying the disc, Albulescu outlines his “history” of contact with the concertos, involving his taking three different roles in performing them at various times – as soloist, as conductor, and as a soloist/conductor – which for him has shaped and formulated many insights and attitudes towards the music and its performance over the years. I was delighted to learn of his association with another advocatee of the practice of “conducting from the keyboard”, one of my all-time pianistic heroes, Paul Badura-Skoda, whom I never heard play “in the flesh”, alas, but who was the pianist who “introduced” me to Beethoven via his recordings of a number of the piano sonatas during the 1960s..

Albulescu stresses at one point in the essay (in all its parts it’s an absorbing “read”) that his attitude towards performing these works as a soloist/conductor wasn’t designed to eschew  or even undermine the role of a conductor in performances of these works, but merely to explore the processes of music-making and its effect on the work when soloist and conductor are one and the same. Implementing this practice certainly seems to me to make a radical shift in terms of weighting the music’s basic message, not so much in the two earlier Beethoven works, but very much so in the more romantic and dramatic theatres of exchange presented by the later concerti. Even so, I find myself taking some issue with Albulescu’s subsequent characterisation of a separate conductor’s presence in performance of these works as an “interference”, further compounded by what he terms the “non-playing” contribution of the latter (which then raises an age-old point of discussion regarding a conductor’s “influence” upon sounds made by his or her musicians!). I agree regarding the likelihood of a performance’s “unity of vision” being easier to realise under the control of a single interpreter, but would also argue that the alternative – a creative partnership between a soloist and conductor – can bring just as fascinating outcomes and rewards to concerto performances.

But this is supposed to be a review rather than any kind of dissertation on MY part – so I’ll forego any further comment along these lines and concentrate henceforth on the music-making on the disc!  For the most part I found these totally engaging performances, presented in fresh, crisp and immediate sound whose touch of dryness makes for a degree of clarity that allows us to enjoy all the more these players’ distinctive orchestral textures – the timpani rolls are especially “present”, as opposed to the indistinct rumble we often hear in recordings. Albulescu’s own playing is characterful from the outset, his phrasings having a spring and urgency that suggests pulsating life rather than something on any kind of safe, “middle-of-the-road” course. One senses a truly symbiotic partnership between players, such as the horns’ exchanges with the soloist just before the first movement’s recapitulation, full of poised, deliciously- sprung expectation – or the way the ensemble builds the excitement in the leadup to the first movement cadenza.  Incidentally what a cadenza this was! – no less than the third Beethoven had written for the concerto, and written much later than the other two (I thought it was possibly the pianist’s own, until I read the booklet notes more carefully!). It certainly encapsulates a somewhat transcendent mood compare with the remainder of the movement, though the performance had, in a retrospective sense, already prepared the way for something special to happen at this point.

Perhaps the slow movement’s ambience took a while to counter the sound’s dryness but the playing still resonates amply throughout – and the resulting instrumental clarity allows the listener full awareness of the detailings and dovetailings that give the music so much inner life. It’s not exactly “innigkeit”, here, but something fresher, a living flow, an eagerness to communicate which I found myself constantly aware of and relishing to the full. Came the finale, however, and I confess I was initially taken aback at the brusqueness of the piano’s introduction, Albulescu’s energies driving the figurations past the point of carefree fun towards and into a “Rage over a Lost Penny”-like urgency. While perhaps compelling in itself, it imparts for me an “edge” to the light-hearted theme which I’m still not entirely used to at this stage, preferring far more of a sense of fun and delicious interplay between piano and orchestra. Albulescu’s players are, however, with him all the way, grandly introducing the solo cadenza, then at the very end, bidding the piano a fond farewell, then abandoning the instrument altogether in their final tutti, given here with loads of panache.

So to the “Emperor” – and here was grandeur aplenty right from the start, the orchestral chording rich and sonorous, the replying piano flourishes combining flair, excitement, energy, control and quixotic impulse. The allegro sets off with no-nonsense singularity which burgeons into detailed purpose as the music broadens its scope, though still keeping the forward thrust to the fore even as the different instrumental groups strut their bounteous stuff. With the piano’s entry, Albulescu establishes his credentials as a worthwhile keyboard partner in the journey ahead, working hand-in-glove with the ensemble, bringing out the “character” of each episode, and maintaining that inexorable sense of forward movement that marks any “great” Beethoven interpretation.

And it’s a momentous journey, filled with the drama of both collaboration and confrontation during moments when imposing brass and timpani join forces to “slug it out” with the soloist, hammering single notes back-and-forth at one another in a trial of endurance, before the combatants regroup their forces and come out together with a reprise of the concerto‘s opening! This and other exchanges seem to me tailor-made for a test of different wills exemplified by piano and orchestra with soloist and conductor respectively, the ensuing confrontations causing sparks to fly, points of view to be contrasted, bargains to be struck and dovetailings to come together, a process that advances the music’s drama and resolutions in a properly full-blooded way. But Albulescu and his players also keep such potentialities open throughout, holding nothing back on either the piano’s or orchestra’s side and setting impulse against impulse in a convincingly dramatic manner, the piano by turns strong, spiky and combatative to the end, and the orchestra equally sonorous and responsive in reply!

After the energies, storms and rapprochements of the first movement, the Adagio un poco moto exudes a welcome calmness and serenity at its opening, Abulescu and his players giving the floating lines plenty of play over a strong, spacious undertow that keeps things constantly interactive, connected the whole time to terra firma with those beautiful wind and brass realisations suggesting a kind of replenishment of the spirit by nature. Having experienced the relative severity of the treatment given the C Major Concerto’s finale by these musicians, I was wondering whether a similarly “edgy” spirit would be unleashed by the players here, and couldn’t help a feeling of sharp-edged expectation hanging about the opening, the strains of the finale’s theme “plucked from the ether” so magically by the piano……

At the beginning Albulescu’s vigorously-propelled, somewhat angular projection of the theme on the piano suggested various kinds of feelings regarding his intent and mood – was it natural exuberance, excitabililty or sheer devilment of purpose which fuelled such  impulsiveness? As with the C Major Concerto’s finale, the pianist’s fingers imparted an “edge” to any sense of Olympian or Godlike ebullience or jocularity, here rather more appropriately suggesting perhaps serious intent in itself, or else intended as a “foil” to some of the movement’s contrasting episodes. We heard gentler tones sound the ringing of the key-changes throughout the central sequences, for instance, delivered by the pianist with grace and charm, before bigger-boned phrasing introduced the vigorous minor-key section which then tremulously and radiantly blossoms into a shared paean of exuberant praise of existence itself as the opening piano theme returns. Finally, the beginning of the movement’s coda is here so beautifully crepuscular in its realisation, pianist/conductor and timpanist capturing a sense of spacious resonance that one imagines as gently undulating throughout a cosmos stirred and shaken by a unique creative exuberance – one which bursts out over the final bars of the work in a vigorous exchange of life-affirmations!

Despite the quibbles, there’s no doubt in my mind that with this disc Eugene Albulescu has triumphantly demonstrated, together with his intrepid band of excellent players, that these oft-played and recorded works can still surprise, startle and arrest the attention, with performances that both challenge and affirm, as well as surprise and delight. Having said all of this, I’m aware that the business of actually procuring the recording might well be an “easier said than done” process for anybody! Though the disc doesn’t appear to have found its way to Marbecks in Auckland, yet (or hadn’t the last time I checked), it does feature on Amazon –https://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Concertos-Emperor-Eugene-Albulescu/dp/B08GMTSND4, – and there are these things called “downloads” which remain a mystery to me, as I’m firmly of the persuasion that still prefers a physical object such as a CD to the ephemeral idea of a download from the ether. This site seems to offer some help in this regard, though I’m not sure about purchasing any kind of product – but it does seem as though you can get to listen to the performances!  The “link” I found to a site that promises a review AND the complete recording doesn’t seem active, but I found it on Google by typing “piano magazine Eugene Albulescu” – the rest is over to the intrepid and the fearless!  Whatever it costs in effort or riches, the rewards are well worthwhile ……

Orchestra Wellington: huge percussion resources exploited in Psathas masterpiece from Olympus complemented by huge Rachmaninov symphony

Posted on by Steven Sedley

Orchestra Wellington conducted by Marc Taddei
With Jeremy Fitzsimons (percussion) and Michael Houston (piano)

John Psathas: View from Olympus: Concerto for percussion, piano, and orchestra
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op 27

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday, 5 December 2020

The large line-up of percussion instruments at the front of the orchestra would have given an inkling to the audience that they would be in for a challenging, interesting evening of music. Although the John Psathas’ View from Olympus has had many performances, premiered by the Halle Orchestra in Manchester in 2002, it is still music off the beaten track for an audience of predominantly older concert goers. The Rachmaninoff Symphony is something else, a justifiably well-worn favourite of the concert repertoire.

John Psathas, View from Olympus
This concerto work was commissioned by the internationally renowned percussionist, Evelyn Glennie. It draws on the New Zealand composer’s Greek heritage. It makes use of Greek mythology and describes in three movements 1. The Furies and their avenging spirits, 2. To Yelasto Paithi (The smiling child), and 3. Dance of the Maenads. The first movement, conjuring up the Furies opens with vigorous rhythms that echoed some of Stravinsky’s early ballet music, but the music was distinctively Psathas, exploiting the tone colours, tone quality and unique sounds of the large array of percussion instruments.

In the midst of the furious loud noises a solo violin is introduced for a few bars, something that clearly had a special meaning for Psathas and Greek listeners familiar with the music of the popular Greek violinist, Stathis Koukoularis. The second movement is calm and peaceful, reflecting, as Psathas said, ‘the feelings inspired by his own precious children. A passage with wind chimes gently ringing creates an otherworldly dreamlike sound. The rhythmic patterns suggest children’s songs, games. nursery rhymes, without explicitly quoting any. The last movement is violent, suggesting the Maenads possessed, in an ecstatic frenzied dance, belabouring each other. The loud drum beats create an unsettling impression of mayhem.

The piano was a partner in a dialogue with the percussion instruments. It was also a link, a commentator, that gave coherence to the sounds of a large group of diverse percussion. There is none of the romantic singing tone, the light and shade that is associated with the grand piano. The piece is an exploration of rhythmic texture, and asks questions about the nature of music, can there be music without melody, based purely on rhythm and various tone colours?

The constant repetition of small musical patterns suggests minimalism, but there is nothing minimal in this huge innovative concerto. It uses large resources with not only a percussion solo that involves vibraphone, marimba, simtak (a steel cylinder played with fingers), dulcimer, steel drums, wind chimes, drum stations, cymbals, tom-toms and various other instruments to hit or stroke, as well as a solo amplified piano, but also an orchestra with two percussion players, timpani, two harps, a full complements of brass, wind and strings.

John Psathas does not belong to any modern musical tradition. He is an individual, unique entity, and his music is like that of no one else according to his publisher Promethean Editions.  Innovative, different, perhaps difficult as this work might have been, it was received with an enthusiastic ovation by the large audience.

As an encore Michael Houston and Jeremy Fitzsimons played Fragments for vibraphone and piano, a work associated with this concerto. It is related in musical material to the second movement of the concerto. John Psathas joined Michael Houston to turn the pages.

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2
Rachmaninoff harks back to a very different era. This symphony was written in the turbulent times of 1906-7 and this is reflected in the tension and drama of the music.  It captures the spirit of old Russia that was about to change. Rachmaninoff wrote it in Dresden where he moved to escape the turmoil in Russia in the wake of the 1905 revolution. He set out to write a symphony following the success of his Second Piano Concerto and establish himself as a symphonic composer after the critical failure of his first symphony.

The Second Symphony is a huge challenging work for an orchestra. It is a long, demanding work that lasts about an hour. It is very intense music which places, great demands on every section of the orchestra. The first movement starts with a brooding, dark, slow introduction. This leads to a haunting melody which is then expanded, broken up into small blocks that become a constituent part of the development. There are colourful wind and brass passages. The strings are required to dig deep to produce a lush, rich tone. The second movement starts with a hectic, driven passage that leads to an expressive melody. Then layers upon layers of the song-like melodies lead to a grand climax.

The third movement introduces a lyrical theme that has at times a fairy-tale like quality. The final movement starts with an energetic gopak kind of dance, followed by a haunting melody. It is no wonder that the rich texture of the themes of this symphony have been used in a number of films and were adopted in popular music. The orchestra mastered the challenges of this colossal work, with some beautiful playing in the solo wind and brass passages. It was a clear but restrained reading. The orchestra did Rachmaninoff proud.

This was the end of a very difficult season, but despite its challenges, the orchestra performed all its subscription concerts and gave some 180 performances. Marc Taddei, the conductor, congratulated the orchestra in a short speech.  He describes it as a virtuoso orchestra, he also congratulated the audience, and noted that this orchestra had the largest audiences of any orchestras in the country during the season,

Taddei then announced the concerts of the next season, with focus on ‘virtuoso’ music, from Paganini and Liszt to Bartók and Lutosławski as well as the orchestra’s Composer in Residence, John Psathas. It was a beautiful, moving concert, with the grand sound of the Rachmaninoff Symphony left ringing in people’s ears.

 

 

“The Older the Better” – a triumph of age and experience at Circa Theatre

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Circa Theatre and Hens’ Teeth presents:
THE OLDER THE BETTER – a Revue
(Part of WTF! 2020)

MC – Kate JasonSmith
Starring: Coral Trimmer, Sunny Amey, Dame Kate Harcourt. Linn Lorkin, Helen Moulder, Rose Beauchamp, Jan Bolwell and Margaret Austin

Producer – Kate JasonSmith
Lighting – Lisa Maule
Stage Manager – Johanna Sanders
Technical Operator – Niamh Campbell-Smith
Illustration and Graphic Design – Emma Cook

Circa Theatre, Taranaki St., Wellington
Thursday, 3rd December 2020

(until 20th December)

A footnote to the show’s title above the cast list in the programme reads: “The performers you may or may not see, tonight….”. When putting the show together around the talents of three ninety-plus performers, Dame Kate Harcourt, Coral Trimmer and Sunny Amey, the producer of “The Older, the Better” Kate JasonSmith found so many willing participants among what she called “a fabulous collection of Gold Card performers” that she was able to devise a “revolving support cast”, one whose membership would change for every performance.

It would be hard to imagine this, the opening night, being bettered, given that the show ostensibly and spectacularly revolved around the three performance “dames” (one of whom, of course, already has that official title), the rest being the “glittering gold-carders” who made up the “supporting” roles – though the beauty of the presentation was that there were no seams or lessenings of inspirational flow as turn followed star turn, with each of the “acts” offering its own characterfully-contrasted cache of distinctive delights (excuse the alliteration! – it just slipped out!)….

In keeping with the inclusive spirit which had gravitationally drawn this galaxy of heavenly bodies together, we in the audience were promptly invited to also audition for the show – as an audience! – and after agreeing, were put through our paces, demonstrating “audience behaviours” (clapping, laughing, dancing – someone even suggested “paying”!)….. I thought our “murmuring in sympathy” efforts creditable , but needing more conviction, more FEELING! – however, then, when we laughed uproariously at one of the MC Kate JasonSmith’s jokes, we clinched the role – “This audience is fine! – don’t bother to bring that other one in!” she promptly carolled towards the entranceway! – and so the show began, introduced by Kate JasonSmith, most interestingly as “Nine lovely women, and eight lovely costumes!” Oo-er!!

It would be churlish to self-indulgently “give the show away” by describing too many of the delights that followed in detail – but when “the talent” was summoned with the cry, “Talent! – Talent ON THE SET!” – the uproar that greeted the appearance of Dame Kate Harcourt to begin things in earnest was heart-warming! We got from her a vividly- coloured picture of a sassy character called Maud, who was enjoying life at ninety-three, insisting at one point that this was the oldest she had been! Putting it like that made for pandemonium in the aisles!

We had no sooner recovered when the fabulous Linn Lorkin was at the piano weaving bluesy magic with a song she wrote inspired by home thoughts from abroad while she was visiting a US beach, a number “Family at the beach” which undulated from rhythmic patter-song to dreamy, nostalgia-filled relivings of iconic childhood memories of being a child at a beach somewhere in New Zealand, capturing it all so unerringly for me, and somewhat redolently, for others as well. She morphed from this into a jazzy rhythm which brought the equally charismatic Coral Trimmer to the stage with her harmonica, aptly launching into Gershwin’s “I got rhythm” with terrific choreographic energy, then disarming us completely and utterly with “Londonderry Air”, a tune better known as “Danny Boy”, the duo’s playing milking the song’s ascending second part for all it was worth (juicy chordings from the pianist, and a glissando to boot!) before raptly delivering the piece’s concluding, lump-in-throat “water come in me eye” pay-off.

The arrival of eminent theatre administrator, producer and comedienne Sunny Amey then completed the trio of nonagenarians, Amey joining with Coral Trimmer to sing some parodies (the first of which (to the tune of “Colonel Bogey”) we all knew and joined in with the bawdy words!), then musing further on the process of ageing with gorgeous sendups of classics like “Shuffle off to Buffalo”, her gently self-deprecating forgetfulness-parables forging empathetic, belly-rumbling links with her listeners! And it was into this haze of opaque evocation that the ever-astounding diva Cynthia Fortescue and her accompanist Gertrude Rallentando (Helen Moulder and Rose Beauchamp respectively) burst to relive their triumph of “Going for Baroque” with the tried-and-truly-astounding “condensed and updated” version of Henry Purcell‘s celebrated opera “Dido and Aeneas”, here searingly and fearlessly revamped as “Diane and Andy”.

Cynthia’s unashamedly Boris Christoff-like assertion when introducing the work to us, ”I play all the characters”, seemed to me to more than adequately sum up the – well, some might think of them as “liberties” while others would unhesitatingly use the word “inspirations” – which abounded in the pair’s realisation of the age-old tale of love and betrayal – during which we as a proper “performing audience” had an infernally risible part to play as well, goaded into a frenzy by the leader of a coven of “wayward sisters”, a witch called Jacinda!  One excerpt only will I reveal from the adaptation to again convey something of the flavour of the whole – “Hear my plan/to rid Aotearoa/ of this dreadful man” –  (something involving a “Trojan virus” sent to the hapless Andy’s laptop)  – but that’s quite enough info to be going on with!….

We heard former dancer and performance-poet Margaret Austin’s wryly entertaining  “Should I lie about my age” dissertation, one which turned into a cautionary tale of association on her part with an impresario and a drink-besotted choreographer on tour throughout Europe, with its bitter-sweet conclusion; and, following further music-making from Linn Lorkin and Coral Trimmer, we were introduced to Jan Bolwell, performer, choreographer and playwright, and founder of the Crows Feet Dance Collective, whose stories touched on her father’s experiences in Italy during World War Two, when he was hidden by an Italian family from the Germans, of her own experiences in Italy when re-exploring her father’s “haunts” while a prisoner, including dealing with her sexual harassment by various Italian men, and of her defiance of the “women’s ageing” stigma in society, as expressed in a country and western song she had appropriated, whose yodelling choruses could be rewritten to fit the words “Older Ladies”. No prizes for guessing who were able to “try out” the song at a glorious full-throttle!

Not to be outdone, Helen Moulder’s Cynthia Fortescue made a plea to be allowed a final “scene” with “Dame Kate”, consisting of a single song, a delicious duet from Mozart’s “Magic Flute” opera depicting the meeting of two lovers the bird-man Papageno and his long looked-for mate Papagena, piquantly accompanied by Rose Beauchamp’s Gertrude! – had we not acquiesced we would have missed out on minutes and minutes of pure delight as the two “Pa-pa-ge-no/ge-na-‘d” themselves contentedly into the throes of connubial bliss. And then, seemingly as soon as it had all begun, it was over, with a rousing “all-for-one” rendition of a tune to which the words “The Older the Better” gave resonant ambiences for the rest of the evening. In all, it’s a heart-warming, unmissable affair, an inspirational initiative by Kate JasonSmith, a magical coming-together of past and present which will cause much amusement and delight!

 

Gareth Farr’s “Chemin des Dames” Concerto and Elgar’s ‘Cello Concerto together a powerful “concerted” statement on disc

Posted on by Peter Mechen

ELGAR – ‘Cello Concerto in E minor Op. 85
FARR – ‘Cello Concerto “Chemin des Dames”

Sébastien Hurtaud (‘cello)
Benjamin Northey (conductor)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Rubicon RCD 1047

I tried, I REALLY DID try to NOT look at my previous review for “Middle C” of the concert featuring the Gareth Farr ‘Cello concerto played by the same ‘cellist, Sébastien Hurtaud (also with the NZSO, though with a different conductor, Hamish McKeich) before writing this present review of the piece’s CD recording – of course, it was a different performance which needed to be “responded to” on its own merits; but I also wanted to check out my reactions to the same piece heard on a different occasion, for nothing more than my own interest’s sakes. There are, after all, so many variables of a subjective nature at work experienced by any listener hearing the same piece of music twice, to the point where it can be a totally different experience the second time round. (Incidentally, the earlier “Middle C” review can be found at https://middle-c.org/2017/05/aotearoa-plus-from-the-nzso-set-alight-by-gareth-farr-premiere/).

One of the main factors which coloured each experience differently for me was the other music which Farr’s concerto was played alongside, perhaps rather less significantly on a recording, where the listener can, if she/he wishes, choose to hear any work as a “stand alone” experience. In the 2017 concert at which the concerto was presented, we also heard music by Pierre Boulez and John Adams, neither of which pieces seemed to me to have much to do with Gareth Farr’s work – which, of course, was neither here nor there, except that the concert’s advertised title was “Aotearoa-plus!”, and I remember expending a good deal of reviewer’s energy at the time complaining about having only ONE work by a New Zealand composer in the programme!

First on this new Rubicon CD was a performance by the same artists of another ‘cello concerto, one which had a good deal of commonality of circumstance with Farr’s work – this was Elgar’s E Minor Concerto Op. 85, written in 1919, in the First World War’s aftermath, and regarded by many commentators as a lament on the part of the composer for the horrors of the conflict and the destruction of a way of life. Farr’s concerto for the same instrument, written almost a hundred years later (1917), was also written with the First World War in mind, though more specifically dedicated to the memory of three of his great-uncles, who lost their lives in the conflict, and are buried in France and in Belgium. The work’s title “Chemin des Dames” (Pathway of Women) was the name of one of these places of conflict, but was employed here by the composer to underline the impact of loss the war had on women such as the composer’s great grandmother, who had lost her brothers.

I thus began my listening with the Elgar Concerto, a work indelibly associated for a whole generation of music-lovers, myself among them, with British ‘cellist Jacqueline du Pre, whose legendary 1965 recording made with Sir John Barbirolli continues to haunt the interpretative echelons of this work for all of its subsequent performers. To his credit Sébastien Hurtaud makes the work as much his own as could be humanly possible, a rich, and deeply mellow solo statement at the opening setting the tone of the performance as one both gorgeously-voiced and sensitively nuanced. He’s partnered by the NZSO conducted by Benjamin Northey, the playing alert, fresh and direct at all times, if, to my ears recorded a tad backwardly in relation to the soloist, which I thought reduced the poignancy of solo instrumental dialogues in places, while still giving plenty of weight to the “big moments”.

The ‘cello is captured beautifully, Hurtaud’s plauying bringing out the “striving” quality of the first theme introduced by the strings and rising confidently to meet the full orchestral tutti – strong, stern stuff, indeed! The subsequent exchanges between soloist and orchestra beautifully point the difference here between the minor- and major-key ambiences, the life and energy of the latter projected so whole-heartedly – and while the orchestra’s individual instrumental lines seem to me too reticently-placed compared with the soloist, the tuttis ring out clearly and satisfyingly, with the brass a real presence.

Hurtaud makes us pay attention to the softest of pizzicati during the transition to the scherzo, the orchestra responsive, and the exchanges volatile, so that when the scherzo finally kicks in, the surge of energy is electric. Again the full-blooded orchestral shouts are most exciting, but I wanted to hear more of the pointillistic detail of the dialogues – still the accelerando at the movement’s end here has a wonderful ‘edge-of-the-seat” spontaneity!

How beautifully these musicians breathed the slow movement’s opening – lines filled with nuance, and hearts pulsing as one! The power of the music’s self-reflection and its emotion seemed at times  too candid to speak even of its own volition, the performance thus becoming a simple act of faith and will on the part of the players. Was the pause before the finale blustered in a shade too long? – when entering, the orchestra was right on the button with its crescendo, and afterwards supported the soloist’s musings with a rich carpet of sostenuto tones. Hurtaud’s sudden, thrusting, irruption-like  phrases became a veritable call to action, and we were away, with splendidly virile tutti passages in response to the soloist’s energies. The exchanges took us through plenty of incident, the cellist’s discourse vying with wind figurations and flecks of passing orchestral colour – some of which I wanted to hear more of, though the rumbustious passages had real bite – and the drollery of the orchestral ‘cellos joining up with the soloist was a sequence of truly collaborative delight!

But then, to be plunged into the work’s next section after these relative pleasantries – into what one suddenly felt to be the “dark centre” of the work! – was a shock! Elgar was profoundly affected by the war’s tragedy, and the disastrous effects on both man and beast (the suffering reportedly endured by the horses in combat zones he found particularly upsetting!) – and as Sebastien Hurtaud tells us in his notes, the composer may have, while working on the concerto, heard of the death in battle of one Kenneth Munro, the son of his long-ago ex-fiancée, Helen Weaver (who, incidentally, emigrated to New Zealand after breaking off the engagement). Here, the music seems to openly weep, all inhibition forgotten, ‘cellist, conductor and players caught up in giving voice to an outpouring of despair, its darkness leavened only by a brief quotation from the slow movement and a surge of grim defiance via a flourish at the end.

Gareth Farr expresses surprise, writing a note in the CD booklet about his concerto, that the work has so much in common with the Elgar – he never expected it to be bracketed thus, so his own work was originally conceived with no conscious thought about the older composer’s concerto for the same instrument. The cyclic quality of both works struck him forcibly when producing this recording together with Sebastien Hurtaud, whose comments about both works also highlight the ritualistic “beginning and ending” aspect of both pieces. Both also point to the shared focus of each concerto upon the tragic “Great War” years, Hurtaud describing each piece as a kind of “Requiem”, in the cellist’s words, “universal in scope and rooted in personal dramas” – a powerful and succinct way of characterising their shared qualities.

To the Farr Concerto, then, one which sounded as much awakened into being as played, with orchestral strings gently activating ambiences coloured by harp and keyboard figurations – the cello’s lament-like bird-call sparked responses from winds and brass at first before fetching up a sudden vehement crescendo of orchestral sound, brutal but brief. In the recitative that followed, the cello was echoed by winds and brass, bugle calls and a stirring of ghosts, with lots of dialogues between the soloist’s meditations and full-scale and single-instrument orchestral responses. Hurtaud’s rapt playing touchingly evoked a wanderer picking a way through a sometimes desolate, sometimes disturbingly animated landscape, as if looking for something – seeking a voice or impulse that could bring enlightment or recognition, Farr’s writing creating ambiences “stirred and shaken” with intent whose lamentings, interacting with clarinet, oboe and harp, as well as the strings, eventually provoked conflagration.

As sorrow confronted anger, the music turned on itself, the lines and textures catching the solo ‘cello up in merciless conflict – a fusillade of orchestral sounds followed, whose purpose seemed to unleash the forces of negation, which sought to fragment and undermine substance, battling with the cello’s voicing of the exotically-tinged theme, and taking it over, holding it to what seemed like ridicule. It all became a kind of bacchanale of brutality, a bombardment of grotesquely-wrought shrapnel whose repeated waves ran their course before exhaustedly subsiding.

The ’cello was left “to grasp this sorry scheme of things entire”, which Hurtaud and his instrument did in an extraordinary display of energy interwoven with inwardness, a reaffirmation of life culminating with the return of the work’s opening – strings, celeste and harp,  then percussion, winds and brass, the sounds stealing in to proclaim, amid the desolation, a laid-waste peace.

What seemed to me at the outset a pairing of entirely different compositions has, on rehearings of the disc, brought the “worlds” of the two works more closely together, above and besides the obvious commonality of association with the 1914-18 Great War –  at one and the same time a vital and thought-provoking listening experience.