Month: April 2023

Wellington Youth Orchestra take on Verdi, Grieg and Tchaikovsky

Posted on by Peter Mechen

A GLORIOUSLY UNINHIBITED CONCERT EXPERIENCE

Wellington Youth Orchestra
Music by Verdi, Grieg and Tchaikovsky

VERDI – Overture “Nabucco”
GRIEG – 4 Norwegian Dances
TCHAIKOVSKY – Symphony No.5 in E Minor

Mark Carter (conductor)
Wellington Youth Orchestra

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace Church, Wellington

Sunday, 30th April, 2023

St. Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace was positively burgeoning with people on this holiday afternoon, all bent on celebrating what was the final day of April. The auditorium was jam-packed full, and bristling with excitement and expectation as well as sporting what seemed like a forest of violin bows brandished by seated uniformed platoons of fresh-faced youngsters, affiliated with similarly attired groups sporting wooden and metal whistles, and backed up by others carrying  gleaming brass bells with tubes attached or standing next to pairs and trios of sizeable rounded objects that straightaway invited banging and crashing together.

In fact the orchestra (which was what this assemblage was) seemed to take up at least half the auditorium’s floor-space, a prospect which seemed very likely to involve at some particular stage a right royal welter of assorted sound! One presumed that attendance at such a farrago would certainly not be for the faint-hearted!

Such was the bustling scene that any Sunday afternoon passer-by would have encountered. who might have  looked into the church to see what was going on!  Posters displayed on the street outside would  have given people in the “know” more clues as to what was brewing within, and especially as the name “Tchaikovsky” dominated what seemed a tantalisingly lurid seascape image which most excitingly took up the whole of the display. And once tempted through the doors of St.Andrew’s the casual visitor would have then been irresistibly drawn into the  ferment, with no possible chance of having second thoughts regarding the adventure, or of resisting the ready blandishments  and associated excitements being primed for tumultuous action!

Of course, for me it was at first simply another concert to add to the cache of my own musical experiences – and with all the things I’d seen and heard since arriving at that oft-visited church on Wellington’s The Terrace, part of the by-now-familiar fabric of preparation for music-making. And yet, from the time I’d ascended the church steps and eased my way through the entrance portals and into the auditorium, I’d again caught that whiff of excitement in my nostrils that can still, even on the ultra-umpteenth concert occasion, stimulate one’s interest – and the hubbub of the things I’ve already described upon arriving certainly did it for me again this time round.

Although the name of Tchaikovsky dominated the bill of fare, no less interest was generated by the supporting items from the equally illustrious pens of Verdi and Grieg – each as well being striking examples of orchestra virtuosity and of sounds characteristic of its respective composer. I hadn’t actually heard Verdi’s “Nabucco” Overture for some time, never having seen the opera on the stage, though the music brought back many recollections of my youthful tourings as a beginner actor in a children’s theatre troupe, our play using a recording of the very same overture! – excellently vivid, impactful sounds which, thanks to the composer’s irrepressible native theatrical instincts, have stayed vividly in my memory.

So it was, from the first solemn utterances of the brass chorale that opened the work, an evocation of magic from trombones and tuba, the sounds beautifully-rounded and splendidly-finished – and the characteristic, theatrical Verdian outburst from the entire orchestra that followed, stunning in its impact and setting the theatrical tone for the rest of the work. I was impressed with the response of  the players to their conductor Mark Carter’s insistence upon razor-sharp orchestral attack and beautifully graded dynamics, bringing out the composer’s native theatrical instincts, and preparing the way for our first taste of the famous melody “Va pensiero”, which was to bring the composer such lasting fame in its choral version from later in the opera. Time and again throughout the piece a particular orchestral detail in the playing from these youthful musicians made me prick my ears, such as the delightfully insouciant wind episode which lightened the wound-up tensions of the martial-sounding allegro, the nail-biting crescendo which then followed, and the “caution-thrown-to-the-winds” coda of the work, which left us all breathless with exhilaration at its conclusion.

Where Verdi’s music was innately theatrical and dramatic, Grieg’s was, by contrast, redolent with folkish charm and out-of-doors exhilaration, the Four Norwegian Dances positively exuding a bracing northern outlook – by turns each one bewitches and invigorates the senses with its specific evocation of time and place. Yet Grieg in his own music was never content to merely copy his country’s traditional melodies and rhythms, wanting to convey to a wider world these characteristics by echoing them in his own music. Though these Dances are all derived from Norwegian folk-tunes, he invested them with his very own harmonic brands (whose strains were to subsequently inspire Debussy, Ravel and Delius in their music) and similarly flavoured the native dance rhythms the composer so loved with the same piquancies and contrasts of mood and atmosphere. Written in 1881 first of all for piano four-hands by Grieg, the set of Dances has become more widely-known through their orchestral version, made in 1888 by the distinguished Czech violinist, Hans Sitt, and presumably used here.

Surprisingly, the players sounded to my ears at first slightly less comfortable with Grieg’s more bucolic measures than they had done with Verdi’s tight-as-a-drum rhythmic patterns, the opening of the first Dance seeming a shade “drunken” rather than spot-on with the rhythms, as if the dancers had helped themselves too freely to the Aquivit before the band struck up – but all seemed well by the time the music’s gorgeous trio section was reached, some beautiful oboe playing alternating with heart-on-sleeve string responses. And I had no reservations whatever with the Second Dance, utterly entranced as I was by the performance here of one of the world’s most charming melodies, again on the oboe (principal David Liu thoroughly deserving a mention!) and then just as beguilingly on the strings. I wasn’t prepared for the extent to which conductor Mark Carter put his foot down for the Trio section, but the fast and furious response by the players was brilliantly achieved! – making, of course, the reprise of the opening all the more “lump-in-throat” than before!

After which the Third Dance might well have made many people like myself get up and actually begin dancing, with the winds right on form and the strings and brasses even having a friendly rhythmic “tussle” at one point during their replies. In this Dance’s Trio, too,  I could hear instances of Grieg’s chromatic harmonisings of the kind that Delius obviously admired and would “echo” in his own music. The Fourth Dance seemed, at the outset, as it was going to pre-date its more sophisticated cousin-to-be, the Fourth Symphonic Dance in the later Op.64 set of Dances – more portentous than any so far at the outset, and threatening to maintain the ominous mood throughout (with even Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony’s introduction briefly echoed) – but then, with a few enlivening gestures, the dance spirit was reactivated and the music “ready!-steadied” into life once more, though the accompaniments here were interestingly enough the “darkest” of any throughout the set. On this occasion, too,  the Trio sounded especially melancholy, becoming a kind of miniature tone-poem of contrasting mood, with strings and brasses darkly accompanying first the oboe and then the flute, before further intensifying the melancholy mood (wonderfully black-browed brass and timpani here, almost Wagnerian in effect!) – then, suddenly, the dance broke in again, as before. This time, there was a gorgeous “We’ll see you again sometime” kind of coda, with flutes and horn making “farewell” exchanges, before the music suddenly erupted with energy and stormed to a brilliantly abrupt finish!

A short interval later and we were ready for the Tchaikovsky, his Fifth Symphony being the most classically-conceived of the composer’s three numbered later symphonies, though still imbued with plenty of characteristic late-romantic feeling – as this performance was to demonstrate with considerable elan. The orchestral masses having suitably regrouped, we were off, straightaway plunged into melancholy with superbly delivered clarinet phrases underpinned by dark-toned strings, intoning the work’s hauntingly sombre “motto theme”.

Conductor Mark Carter gave his players enough room to maintain a portentous march-tread for the Allegro con anima  opening theme while  keeping the music’s energies active in the rippling wind counterpoints to the theme, and to all of its various adaptations, such as the strings’ and then the winds’ beautiful rising variant, followed by the winds’ perky repeated fanfare call. The only difficulty for the strings came with the equally gorgeous but trickily syncopated second subject, whose rhythm pattern the players repeatedly anticipated, pushing it ahead of the accompaniments – however, the repeated fanfare figures on full orchestra fortunately restored order, with the horns and winds reliable in their turn.

Carter had obviously worked the players meticulously through the tricky rhythmic dovetailings of the development, so that the few strands that unravelled were easily pulled into place once more, the players achieving a fine cataclysmic ferment of interaction at the climax before the sounds gradually wound themselves back into the recapitulated allegro con anima, the winds doing the honours at first with distinction before the strings strode into the picture once again. The same problem of the strings’ syncopated melody recurred, but things were again righted by that same repeated fanfare figure of yore, which then led excitingly and defiantly to the movement’s coda – at the ferment’s zenith-point Carter gave his players extra elbow-room to hurl out the phrases expansively, before allowing the music to subside into a kind of brooding silence.

One of Tchaikovsky’s greatest symphonic slow movements followed, on its own terms a lyrical drama with a central episode leading to a magnificent motto-theme-led climax (that same motto theme makes an unscheduled return towards the movement’s end as well, which gives the drama extra “clout”) – but all the greater as a central part of an overall symphonic plan with each of its unifying strands fully activated. The scope of this review doesn’t permit a full description, but allows tribute to be paid to the conductor and players in this case who breathed life into every aspect of the structure – the darkly ample strings at the beginning, the magnificently-realised horn solo (played by principal Isabelle Faulkner) featuring the first of the themes that unify this movement, the oboe/horn duet that sounds the second and most-repeated theme, and the clarinet theme (played by Joseph Craggs, and backed up by Maya Elmes’ bassoon) that dominates the movement’s central episode until the motto theme’s reappearance blows it all out of the water. I felt in general that we got the best playing in the whole work from this movement, both with the soloists involved in the different themes and with the orchestra as a whole superbly committed towards expressing the different character of each of the sections.

Another concerted effort from the players was in the ballet-like Waltz movement which followed, one demanding particularly adroit instrumental counterpointing from both the different string sections and  a number of soloists, particularly the winds, all of whom performed like heroes, including the flute principal, Keeson Perkins-Treacher, and, as well, the trumpet principal, Lewis Grey, whose notes I clearly and cleanly heard at salient points.

Having already remarked that I thought the Symphony’s second movement contained the work’s best playing on the part of the WYO, I must confess that I can’t anywhere in my notes find reference to any mishap, failing or inadequacy in the orchestra’s full-blooded tackling of the work’s finale. Beginning with the words – “Finale – attacca!” I proceeded to nail my critical colours to my private mast (my notebook), and generally wax lyrical! – viz. “Splendid at the outset – brass forthright and confident, and winds the same! – the climax to the Intro is worked up well! The brass subsequently sonorous and oracular in their pronouncements!” That, of course, was the slow introduction….

Then came the allegro vivace (alla breve) – “Strings and chattering winds and brass do excellently well through the allegro’s opening charge! Winds are lovely and sonorous….strings also keep the melody buoyant! Brass resound the Motto splendidly! Winds give us plenty of swirling detail – the stamping theme is magnificent, underpinned by the timpani! Brass calls really nail the essential tumult, Winds and strings lean into the “Russian Dance: episode – the music gradually becalms, conductor holding the players nicely in check until the explosion restarts the conflagration….”

So far, so good! – the reprise of part of the finale elicited a comment, “Again the orchestra handles it all well – as before,  strings are fantastic! The brass and winds support the tumult! – the music rushes airborne towards the motto theme!”

Then came the Apotheosis – “Triumphal homecoming, great and heartwarming! Everybody playing their hearts out! What a coda! Mark is keeping it splendidly on the rails! Majestic right at the end!” And that was it! – a glorious and celebratory occasion! (I obviously knowed no more that afternoon!)

With those final in situ comments I rest my case! Well played, WYO!!

 

Orpheus Choir tackles JS Bach’s Mass for the Ages

Posted on by Peter Mechen

JS BACH – Mass in B Minor BWV 232

Brent Stewart (conductor)
Anna Leese (soprano)
Jenny Wollerman (soprano)
Maaike Christie-Beekman (alto)
Benjamin Madden (tenor)
Simon Christie (bass)
David Morriss (bass)

Orpheus Choir of Wellington
Orchestra Wellington
Jonathan Berkahn (harpsichord)

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 29th April 2023

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Mass in B Minor is one of those works that has taken on a life of its own largely independent of the intentions of its composer. The work was composed in separate sections at different times, the two opening sequences (Kyrie and Gloria) appearing as early as 1733, so that the composer could at that time demonstrate his credentials for a job as Court Composer in Dresden – unfortunately, it was a position he failed to secure. Fifteen years later he returned to these sequences and completed the work with the Credo, Sanctus, and the remaining movements – Osanna, Benedictus, Agnus Dei and Dona Nobis Pacem. No-one knows exactly what his intentions were, and there’s no evidence that the whole work was ever performed in Bach’s lifetime.

Musicologists however tend to the view that Bach wanted to set down a kind of compendium of his skills as a composer, an overview of his life’s work. Adding credence to this view is the extent to which the composer employs practically every church music style ranging from austere counterpoint to dance and operatic styles which he’d used in previous works, the result a compilation of matchless variety. However, probably because of Bach’s localised and therefore limited reputation during his lifetime, the work did not find favour in general terms until some way through the 19th century – the music wasn’t printed until 1845, and the first documented performance didn’t occur until 1859.

Of course the actual performance sound-world of Bach’s music in itself has undergone radically change in relatively recent times, spearheaded by a desire of musicians to attempt to reconstruct something akin to what the composer himself might have heard in his own performances of his music.  Consequently, at the present time no two scholars’, conductors’ or musicians’ interpretations of practically any baroque work will sound alike as current ideas concerning just what earlier eras DID hear can markedly differ. Available recordings today offer a fascinating range of practices,  from the still-conventionally-sized choral groups and orchestral ensembles to certain new-age minimalist one-to-a-part performances that stress clarity ahead of sheer visceral vocal impact as a prime concern.

The programme accompanying the Orpheus Choir’s and Orchestra Wellington’s performance here in Wellington at the MFC contained a note (uncredited, but almost certainly from conductor Brent Stewart) on certain performance practices followed in the music on this occasion. Probably the most radical in terms of frequency this evening was to reallocate certain sections of the chorus’s music to the soloists as well as enabling those soloists to join in with the sections of the choir that correspond with their particular voices. This very probably accords with Bach’s own practice of using small ensembles of 12-16 voices, and sometimes only solo voices, in certain of his cantatas. In such instances the reduced number of voices can highlight changes of mood and/or atmosphere in the pieces, and underline the clarity of the polyphonic lines.

The ensuing variety of vocal colours, textures and tones from the soloists in their freshly-allocated concerted roles certainly made for interesting results, even in the somewhat ungiving Michael Fowler Centre acoustic (which has never to my ears particularly favoured solo voice lines when compared with those heard in the warmer and more generous ambiences of the Town Hall). Generally the trio of female solo voices coped better, I thought, with the prevailing MFC conditions than did the males, though each of the latter had their moments in either their solo or duet numbers.

Tenor Benjamin Madden most ably partnered soprano Anna Leese in the enchantingly “give-and-take” lines of the  “Domine Deus” duet from the Gloria, though I thought he found the high tessitura of his later solo “Benedictus” aria  somewhat effortful in places. Bass David Morriss negotiated his runs in the “Quoniam tu solus sanctus” with growing certainty as the voice and Logan Bryck’s solo horn-playing gradually asserted a shared confidence. And fellow-bass Simon Christie made, I opinioned, a generally good fist (if just ahead of the beat, I thought, in places) of his demanding traversal of the difficult “Et in Spiritum Sanctum” from the “Credo”. As previously indicated, I did tend towards hearing the women’s solo voices more easily in these various choral “cribbings”  throughout.

Of the women’s voices it was as much a case of “vive la difference” as of varying amplitude of tones between them. In one or two instances I found myself lost in admiration for how well the singer was coping with the various melismatic demands as much as for the sheer vocal quality, a particular example  being Jenny Wollerman’s stirring duet performance with violinist Martin Riseley of the beautiful “Laudamus te”,  even at a tempo that set the pulses racing faster than I had been used to hearing, and having an exhilaration all of its own!

Maaike Christie-Beekman gave particular pleasure with her alto voice throughout, specifically in both her partnering of Alison Dunlop’s gorgeously-played oboe d’amore  in “Qui sedes a dextram Patris”, and even more feelingly in the “Agnus Dei”, her finely-chiselled tones beautifully augmented by the strings throughout. And the somewhat dry acoustic seemed to hold no terrors for soprano Anna Leese, whose tones set even the MFC precincts dancing in places, such as in each of the two sensuous duets within the work’s Part One, the “Christe eleison”, with an equally responsive Jenny Wollerman, and my out-and-out favourite duet, the “Domine Deus” from the Gloria, in which her deliciously insouciant, sinuous lines were matched by Karen Batten’s radiant flute-playing and Benjamin Hodder’s reliably responsive vocal partnering. Yet another duet, “Et in Unum Dominum” , featured Leese’s and Christie-Beekman’s voices spectacularly playing off against one another’s, their teamwork exemplary.

The Orpheus Choir’s numbers perhaps didn’t on this occasion accord size-wise with the resources Bach himself used, but one would have had to possess a heart of stone to remain unmoved by certain moments in the work whose resounding impact couldn’t have been achieved with fewer voices – the very opening Kyrie, for instance, and in the Gloria, the climaxes of “Gratias agimus tibi” with its steady, scalp-pricking accumulation of vocal tone at the end, and similarly with the  celestial jubilations at the beginning and the conclusion of “Cum Sancto Spiritu” , an effect also replicated by those cascading vocal triplets throughout the “Sanctus”, drenching us in all-enveloping tonal torrents!

Not that our enjoyment of the choir’s efforts was confined merely to the “spectacular moments” – Bach’s aforementioned penchant for exploring a plethora of musical styles brought to us such varied vocal expression as that characterising the deeply-concentrated and awe-struck “Et incarnatus est” , followed by a subtle change of mood and tone to one of sorrow and grief  for the ‘’Crucifixus”, with the ensuing “Et Resurrexit” giving, of course, the voices the chance to demonstrate their versatility with the change from desolate feeling to unbridled joy. And what better way to conclude the whole work than with the majesty of the “Dona Nobis Pacem”, Brent Stewart’s visionary direction of his forces inspiring the Orpheus’s utmost commitment towards and (as throughout the work) admirable technical finish in this valedictory expression of the composer’s faith and confidence in his Maker.

Up there with the chorus’ sterling efforts deserving of the highest praise were those of the Orchestra Wellington players, who in both solo and ensemble terms had under conductor Stewart’s direction a burnished brilliance which fitted Bach’s music like a glove. The numerous instrumental solos were delivered in full accordance with the music’s character in each case, ranging from the elan of Martin Riseley’s violin solo in “Laudamus te”, piquant elegance in the case of Karen Batten’s flute solos in both “Domine Deus”, and “Benedictus (the latter supported additionally by Brenton Veitch’s ‘cello), and heroic energies from Logan Bryck‘s horn in “Quoniam”, to Alison Dunlop’s  heartfelt oboe d’amore solo in “Agnus Dei”, and her mellifluous partnership with fellow-oboist Alison Jepson and bassoonist Jessica Goldbaum in “Et in Spiritum Sanctum”.  But as with the voices, the corporate energies of the players formed the bedrock on which this performance proved such a great success, to which Jonathan Berkahn’s harpsichord continuo provided unfailing sustenance. Whether it was a hushed ambience, a playful energy or a monumental magnificence required, the players in so many instances spectacularly delivered, the strings endlessly providing lyrical and rhythmic support, the winds beautifully colouring the different textures, and the brass and timpani frequently capping off the big moments with plenty of requisite tonal splendour and impact.

Having touched upon many of the exemplary features of the performance from those concerned, it seems appropriate to underline the fact of the event’s circumstances having had various teething problems – included was a kind of “historical” aspect to the undertaking, relating to postponements of the event due to COVID restrictions going back as far as 2020, recurring in both 2021 and 2022, and then finally easing sufficiently to allow this 2023 performance! To add to these difficulties came a clutch of more recent glitches involving indisposition of scheduled singers and players, resulting in belated replacements for the original bass singer and horn-player (and very nearly for one of the female soloists as well! In recounting these mishaps, director Brent Stewart did, he told me, wonder whether some “higher power” really didn’t want this performance to go ahead, almost right up to the scheduled starting time on the day, when what he termed “apocalyptic traffic” added to the stress and strain (and caused a ten-minute delay to the concert’s actual “kickoff”!)

When thinking back to the performance, with its memory continuing to churn and resound in my head, what remains for me is a sense of the music being propelled by its many committed performers with boundless energies and in beguiling varieties of ways.  All of these qualities arguably lead the work’s listeners to realms which encourage singular manifestations of purpose in human existence, as many as there are different people. All of it left me with a profuse gratitude to Brent Stewart and his forces at so readily bringing their abundant skills to bear on this enthralling  music.

Magnificent Endurance

Posted on by Anne French

NZSO – Enduring Spirit: Bloch and Shostakovich

Aaron Jay KERNIS (1960–), Musica Celestis
Ernest BLOCH – Schelomo
Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH – Symphony NO 10 in E Minor, Op. 93

Nicolas Altstaedt, cello
Sir Donald Runnicles, Conductor
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Friday 28 April 2023

This was always going to be a big concert, with Shostakovich 10 programmed alongside Bloch’s remarkable work Schelomo. It was also contrabassoonist David Angus’s last concert with the NZSO, after 42 years with the orchestra, so it was fortunate that he had plenty to do.

The Kernis work was unknown to me. The affable Runnicles, who spent several minutes briefing us in, was surprised that Kernis and his music were unknown to most of us.  Musica Celestis means ‘music of heaven’, and the programme notes made references to the music of the mystical Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) and to Barber’s Adagio for Strings. Runnicles described it as ‘mystical, medieval, magical, and modern’. It’s an attractive work, which began life as the slow second movement of Kernis’s String Quartet (1990), and was later re-scored for string orchestra. We got the full-fruit string orchestra version (eight desks of first violins, including Co-Concertmaster Giulia Brinckmeier, who took Vesa-Matti Leppanen’s chair for the first half of the programme).

Having sung some of Hildegard’s works, I’d have to say that, despite its grace, it did not remind me of her or her soundworld. It opened with the faintest hint of modal tonality and long, slow chords with a rather glittering tone, but apart from a very slow start that builds to a passionate, flowing crescendo, with a full-throated, warm orchestral sound, I failed to spot Hildegard or indeed anything remotely medieval. The next section was based on a single low note from the basses (‘almost RVW’, say my notes), via tremolo strings, and then silence, from which ultimately emerges a beautiful melody on the viola. The melody is passed to the first violin to complete, and the work draws to a graceful close.

The second work on the programme was Bloch’s remarkable Schelomo, for solo cello and orchestra. Before the concert started, Runnicles passed the microphone to the cello soloist, Nicolas Altstaedt, who told us something about the circumstances of composition of the work, the last movement of Bloch’s Jewish Cycle. He originally conceived the work as a setting of texts from Ecclesiastes for voice, but after meeting the cellist Alexandre Barjansky, Bloch decided to use the cello to represent the voice of King Solomon. Barjansky’s cello, Alstaedt told us with some excitement, was now in the possession of a local musician, Rolf Gjelsten, from the New Zealand String Quartet – something he had learned only the day before. (I understand that Gjelster and Altstaedt met backstage during the interval, so that the soloist could make the acquaintance of the very instrument that had inspired the composer.)

The work is scored for a large orchestra: three flutes, two oboes, cor anglais, two B flat clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, tambourine, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, tam tam, celesta, two harps, and full strings. In this case, there were 8 desks of first violins, 7 desks of seconds, 6 desks of violas (including Guest Section Principal Caroline Henbest), 5 desks of cellos (led by Pei-Jee Ng, Guest Section Principal and an old friend of the cello soloist, and Pei-Sian Ng, Guest Associate Principal), and no fewer than 8 basses. Bloch would have been delighted with these forces.

I have heard the Bloch work before, and it is always deeply moving, but I have never heard it played as Nicolas Altstaedt played it. It was as though he had a direct connection to the composer. There was no sense of ‘performing’; rather, it was as though these painful, moving passages of music were being drawn directly from Bloch, through the cello, directly to our ears.  Bloch said that in composing it he ‘listened to an inner voice, deep, secret, insistent, ardent…’, and that is exactly how we received it.  It was a privilege to listen to such a powerful work so well played.

And after all the applause, there was an encore. I am no lover of encores. I would rather hold the work in my heart for a little longer than have it over-written by some short crowd-pleaser. In this case, I wasn’t too perturbed. Nicolas Altstaedt decided to give us a movement from a sonata by Jean-Baptiste Barrière (1707-1747), a renowned French Baroque cellist, which he played as a duet with Pei-Jee Ng, the Guest First Chair of the cello section. It was delightful.

The last work on the programme was Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony. After the emotional depth of the Bloch, I hardly felt fit enough to listen to it. It is a monumental work at 52 minutes. There is a huge first movement; a terrifying second movement (the demonic portrait of Stalin, who had died only months before it was premièred); the beautiful and hopeful third movement, featuring the D-E flat-C-B motif that indicates Shostakovich’s name (D  SCH, in German notation), a waltz, and a beautiful horn motif; and the dancing and ultimately triumphant final movement.

The orchestra rose magnificently to the challenge of the music. At times Runnicles stopped conducting, simply allowing the solos to unfold. There were wonderful solos from Robert Orr (oboe), Michael Austin (cor anglais), Sam Jacobs (horn), Bridget Douglas (flute), Johanna Gruskin (piccolo), Rachel Vernon (bass clarinet) – and, of course, the estimable David Angus on contrabassoon.  This was the perfect repertoire to round off his NZSO career.  The percussionists were terrific, notably the sinister side drum, which adds such menace to the mirthless Stalin music, and there was some truly memorable tam tam playing. At other times, especially in the 3/4 passages, the conductor nearly jumped off the podium as he danced along with the music.

I had the feeling that the orchestra was enjoying working with Sir Donald Runnicles. He is an understated conductor (compared with, say, Gemma New, who has directions to give for every bar, and gives them in a very expressive manner). But he achieved some wonderful effects.  This was a magnificent and very moving concert.

As a footnote, there is a charming interview with David Angus on RNZ Concert. Bryan Crump (the Afternoons presenter) visits him in the workshop in which he machines parts for his motorcycles as well as fettling various bassoons and contrabassoons. The interview ends with Angus riding off into the sunset. It can be found here: https://www.rnz.co.nz/concert/programmes/three-to-seven/audio/2018887086/the-lowdown-on-dave-angus

 

The Bach Choir of Wellington – ambitious and imaginative ANZAC concert

Posted on by Roger Wilson

DURUFLE –  Requiem
– and  music for ANZAC Day.

The Bach Choir of Wellington
Directed by Shawn Michael Condon

Sinéad Keane – mezzo soprano
William McElwee -baritone
Lucas Baker – violin|
Eleanor Carter – cello
Douglas Mews – piano & organ

Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Saturday 22 April 2023

(Guest reviewer – Roger Wilson)

The Bach Choir, an important component of Wellington’s musical life for the past 55 years, is in good heart. Under the astute direction of Shawn Michael Condon the overall sound made by 50-odd voices is well integrated, intonation and the balance  between the parts good. It was easy to see that the choir has been well rehearsed with considerable attention to detail, but it has to be said that in the notoriously cavernous acoustic of Wellington Cathedral of St Paul it was sometimes more a matter of seeing people doing all the right things rather than always hearing the benefits. A pity, because this was an enterprising and interesting programme. Were it not for needing the organ close by it might have been worth turning the pews round and placing the choir in the gallery against the west wall.

The first half of the concert comprised a selection of pieces selected with themes appropriate for ANZAC Day, remembrance of the fallen, contrition, a longing to escape the horrors of war, praise of the saviour, grief for the separation from a beloved, a reflection on mortality and jubilation at the vision of a better world post-War. Some of these works  were very  familiar, especially Elgar’s We will remember them, a setting of Binyon’s For the Fallen, and Parry’s account of Tennyson’s Crossing the Bar, others new to most listeners. None was more effective than contemporary composer Thomas LaVoy’s The Last Letter, a poignant  farewell written by an American Civil War soldier to his dearly loved wife. The performance was much enhanced by the addition of a baritone soloist, William McElwee, which ensured that the all-important text was declaimed with a clarity difficult for the choir to achieve  in the circumstances. Another highlight of the half – even occasioning spontaneous applause – was the fifth movement, Louange à l’Éternité de Jésus,  of Messiaen’s visionary Quartet for the End of Time, composed and first performed in a German prison camp. The duet for cello and piano was beautifully played by Eleanor Carter and Douglas Mews who observed the difficult instruction ‘Infiniment lent, extatique’ scrupulously. In the  preceding Parry work Lucas Baker’s solo violin also sounded beautifully in the space.

Perhaps less successful, despite the choir’s best efforts, was Tallis’ motet O sacrum convivium, anglified to I call and Cry to thee, where the clarity of the musical lines was harder to distinguish. Another living American composer, Craig Carnahan, supplied a wonderfully exuberant Armistice 1918, War poet Siegfried Sassoon’s Everyone suddenly burst out singing,  to end the first half with enthusiasm.

The second half of the concert was Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem, really the only work for which the French composer is remembered. It was commissioned by the collaborationist Vichy régime in 1941 and completed in 1947 so it is also very much wartime music. The original commission was for a symphonic poem but Duruflé decided instead on a requiem, eventually dedicated to the memory of his father, but it might well also be for the fallen in World War II. A church musician all his life, Duruflé used a great deal of thematic material from the Gregorian chant of the Mass for the Dead, skilfully interwoven with his own harmonies. The ghost of Fauré and his Requiem with the whiff of incense are never far away. Both composers deliberately avoid the terrors of the Day of Judgment, such a feature of other Requiems, stressing rather tranquillity and rest, and the configurations of both French Requiems, for all their differences, are also similar, even to the apportioning of solo voices (Offertorium, Pie Jesu and Libera Me). Duruflé’s work, conceived for a large church, lent itself  to Wellington Cathedral’s particular properties and such is his skill as an organist that one does not miss the full orchestral version. With its sinuous Gregorian lines, the choral singing of the Requiem, underpinned by the masterful Douglas Mews on the organ, worked convincingly in this cathedral, and the Bach Choir did composer and conductor proud. William McElwee took the baritone solos tidily and Sinéad Keane sang the Pie Jesu with stylish commitment.

This was an ambitious and imaginative concert, despite some reservations about the building, well conceived and executed to a good-sized audience.

Fundamentally thrilling – Orchestra Wellington

Posted on by Anne French

Orchestra Wellington – Fundamental Forces

Carl Philipp Emanuel BACH – Symphony in E Minor
Igor STRAVINSKY – Violin Concerto in D
Josef HAYDN – Symphony No 39 in G Minor, ‘Tempesta di Mare’
Sergei PROKOFIEV – Scythian Suite

Natalia Lomeiko, Violin
Orchestra Wellington
Marc Taddei, Music Director
Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday 15th April, 2023

The concert was billed as ‘Fundamental Forces’, but the disparate collection of works confused me. What could a symphony by CPE Bach possibly have to do with an early work based on a ballet by Prokofiev?

Having missed the pre-concert talk, I was none the wiser by the time the small orchestra (2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 horns, plus strings, with Jonathan Berkahn on harpsichord) took the stage. The stage had already been set for a much larger work, with percussion stations at the back of the orchestra for 8 percussionists, and three sets of cymbals at the front of the choir stalls.  The little orchestra was surrounded by many empty chairs. That kindled a feeling of anticipation.

My companion (who had attended the talk) helpfully whispered in my ear that the programme was ‘all about the beginning of emotionalism in music’.

The CPE Bach symphony was a delightful work, stylishly played. On the basis of his work with Wellington Youth Orchestra (2002-2007), I had always considered Marc Taddei a late Romantic specialist, preferring Mahler to pretty much everyone else. His work with Orchestra Wellington has made me review that opinion.

Although the orchestra used modern instruments at concert pitch, Taddei had his head in the period, the last days of the Baroque, when new ideas were exerting their influence. Taddei’s programme notes quoted Mozart: ‘Bach is the father; we are the children’, and explained that Mozart was not referring to the great JS Bach, but his second son, Carl Philipp Emanuel (1714-1788). The symphony was written in 1759, nearly a decade after the death of Bach père, and already you could hear ideas and approaches that the three-year old Mozart would later make his own. The symphony is in three movements, lasting 12 minutes, which simply made me wish it had been longer. According to Taddei’s notes, Bach fils used to say, ‘Play and compose from the soul!’ His aesthetic approach came to be known as the ‘Sensitive Style’. This symphony has plenty of musical ideas and is full of terrific effects, such as abrupt changes of dynamic within a big dynamic range, and the most alluring hesitations, when everyone stops playing, then suddenly resumes with the next set of brilliant notions.

The second work in the first half was Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto in D of 1931, with a big orchestra and the Russian violinist Natalia Lomeiko as soloist.  Born in Novosibirsk, Lomeiko made her debut with the Novosibirsk Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of seven, and was appointed Professor of Violin at the Royal College of Music in London in 2010 (surely whilst still a child, as she looks about 25). She won the Michael Hill International Violin Competition in 2003 and the Premio Paganini in 2000. The Paganini is one of the most important violin competitions in the world. My high expectations climbed higher when my violinist companion whispered that Stravinsky was not a violinist, and didn’t realise that the opening chords of the concerto were unplayable. ‘Watch her left hand!’ he said.

I watched her left hand, but even knowing that Stravinsky had created a remarkably tricky chord, stretching two and a half octaves, from D4 to E5 and (yikes) up to A6 did not detract from its effect. Stravinsky had been commissioned to write the concerto for the Polish violinist Samuel Dushkin. Dushkin, so the story goes, recoiled in horror at the sight of the chord when Stravinsky wrote it on a napkin over lunch but found, once he tried it at home, that it wasn’t quite as hard as he thought. Just as well: Stravinsky called the chord the ‘passport to the concerto’, and used it to start each of the four movements.

The concerto is scored for full wind (piccolo, 2 flutes, 3 clarinets, 2 oboes, cor anglais) and brass sections (3 bassoons plus contrabassoon; 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, and tuba), as well as timpani and bass drum. Not surprisingly, it was noisy at times, and the gorgeous sound of the solo violin was a bit overwhelmed. (Indeed, I overheard a confident remark on the stairs on my way out that it was ‘under-powered and unimpressive’.)  I disagree – the orchestral texture was at times as lush as you’d expect from that line-up, but was mostly kept thin so that the violin’s presence was heard. That thinness, together with the rhythms, gave it a wonderful vitality. There was some stunning bassoon playing from principal Jessica Goldbaum and colleagues, and lovely clarinet solos from Nick Walshe and team on B flat, A, and E flat clarinets. The work is full of surprises: rhythmic; harmonic; textural. I especially enjoyed the audience’s reaction of surprise at the end of the second movement: a collective, involuntary ‘Oh!’ Once again, at 22 minutes, it was all too short. I could have listened to it all over again. But no. Instead the soloist played a movement from a Bach partita as an encore, as emotionally rich a reading as anyone could wish. What a player!

After the interval, a second pair of works. This time, an early Prokofiev work was paired with (or introduced by) Haydn’s Symphony 39, ‘Tempesta di Mare’. The Esterhazy orchestra, for whom it was written in 1765 (a couple of years after the CPE Bach symphony), was big enough to run to two oboes and four horns, which made the tempestuous first and fourth movements lots of fun. This was one of Haydn’s Sturm und Drang (‘storm and stress’) symphonies, a precursor of Romanticism. Again, interesting and unexpected harmonies, clean rhythms, and a wide dynamic range. The opening movement was busy and energetic, but with odd silences – as though the wind was building, but with sudden lulls. The Andante second movement, E flat minor and in 3/8, was delightful. No horns or oboes, but full of expressive pauses. The Menuet and Trio were in contrasting minor and major keys, with gorgeous accents from the horns and lower strings. and charming duets in the Trio between horns and oboes. Back to a 4/4 allegro molto for the Finale – fun and fast and all too short at 16 minutes.

Finally, the moment the percussionists had been waiting for: the Prokofiev Scythian Suite. The work was commissioned in 1914 as a ballet ‘on prehistoric Russian themes’ by the impresario Diaghilev from the 23-year-old Prokofiev, fresh out of the St Petersburg Conservatory. Prokofiev was then known for his dissonant works for piano, impossible to play by anyone but him.  But Diaghilev didn’t like what Prokofiev wrote, so he turned it into a suite instead, retaining the blood lust, demonism, and ritual sacrifice.

The scoring for this work included 8 horns, as well as the aforementioned 8 percussionists, contrabassoon, bass trombone, tuba, lots of trombones and trumpets, and two harps. It must cost a fortune in extra players which accounts, perhaps, for its not being performed very often. That is a huge pity. I’d rather hear the Scythian Suite again than another Rite of Spring or even another Firebird.

The work opens at an electrifying fff (it has to be said that Taddei literally ran to the podium, as though he needed to catch the orchestra before they took off, which added to the drama), and doesn’t let up until all the cymbals and every other bit of percussion kit have been played, very loudly. That’s not to say it lacks beauty. The third movement, ‘Night’, featured shimmering muted strings, tuned percussion, and ravishing harp chords. But if (as I do) you like loud, rhythmically exciting music with lots of unexpected effects, then this work is for you. It’s only 20 minutes long, which meant that it stopped all too soon.

So there you have it. A fantastic concert made up of unusual works tied together by an interesting idea. The audience applauded with gusto. The subscribers do love Taddei and his extraordinary programming. I walked out into the night with a big grin on my face , as did – I noticed – most of the performers.