Wellington City Orchestra at St.Andrew’s
NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV – Antar” Symphony (1875)
ALEXANDER SCRIABIN – Piano Concerto in F-sharp Minor Op.20 (1896-97)
ANTONIN DVOŘÁK – The Golden Spinning-Wheel Op.109 (1896)
William Berry (piano)
Andrew Atkins (conductor)
Wellington City Orchestra
St.Andrews-on-The -Terrace, Wellington
Saturday, 19th September, 2026
Review for “Middle C” by Peter Mechen
None of these three works are likely to be the ones that the average concertgoer would straightaway think of if asked to name pieces of music associated with each of these three composers – and yet they’re all entirely worthy of performance in their own right, and have things of interest to tell us about their creators. Of these, the work of Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) is probably the least widely known, with perhaps the grandiose symphonic poem for orchestra “Poem of Ecstasy” having achieved a measure of fame (some of it in the form of notoriety at the time of its creation) with its “mystical” associations, representing “escape” from the physical world and union with a “vast cosmos”! In more recent years the composer’s keyboard works, represented most comprehensively by his nine Piano Sonatas, are increasingly being played, along with his single (and eminently approachable) Piano Concerto.
Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) is of course the composer of the much- and rightly-loved orchestral work “Scheherazade”, though he has other “classics” next to his name such as “The Fight of the Bumble Bee” (and who WOULDN’T take time out to enjoy a spanking performance of “Capriccio Espagnol”? – yet another piece to add to an indispensable list of “Spanish” music NOT written by Spaniards!) Closer to the composer’s home is a work I would definitely be including, the magnificent “Russian Easter Festival Overture”, which STILL sends shivers down the back of my spine in places, even after listening to it for more than fifty years! And then we come to the music by Rimsky scheduled for today, which bears the title “Antar” – whether a symphony or, like “Scheherazade”, a “Symphonic Suite”, it’s difficult to decide; and the composer was of little help when it came to actually designating the work, himself fluctuating between both “symphony” and “ symphonic suite” (more when we get to the performance!)
The third of these enterprising concert choices for today was a work by Antonin Dvořák, one of a number of “symphonic poems” the composer completed upon returning to Bohemia from New York, where he had served for three years as Director of the National Conservatory of Music of America. Obviously wanting to “reconnect” with his native land, he straightaway wrote four tone-poems, each one drawn from poet Karel Jaromir Erben’s grisly stories based on Czech folk-lore, with today’s featured work “The Golden Spinning Wheel” among the nastiest content-wise chosen by the composer. This was after his having earned through the better-known symphonies , concertos and chamber music the approbation of no less a critic than Eduard Hanslick, a fierce opponent of the Lisztian school of “programme music”, who had described such works as products of “the swindle of false erudition”. Consequently, Hanslick was not impressed with Dvořák’s sudden forays into tone-poems, writing of “the dangers of this latest tendency” and also that “Dvořák now indulges in ugly, unnatural; and ghastly stories which correspond so little to his amiable character and to the true musician that he is.”
With such an enterprising and interestingly-stocked programme, the concert could scarcely fail to please – and so it proved, with conductor Andrew Aitkins’s infectiously boundless enthusiasm and direct, clearly-delineated gesturings drawing from the players sonorous, detailed and characterful responses, all of which excitingly and satisfyingly “warmed up” as the afternoon’s music unfolded – a case in point was the somewhat tentative beginning of the concert with “Antar” whose tones steadily and patiently transformed themselves into a splendid orchestral panoply, finding full expression in the exuberant Dvorak work with which we began the concert’s second-half!
Rimsky’s 1875 revision of his original version of “Antar”, a work based on a Middle Eastern legend, was presented in today’s concert – conductor Andrew Atkins contributed a commendably cogent programme note summarising the work’s genesis and subsequent “development”.) The composer eventually produced FOUR published versions of “Antar”, the ”original” 1868 version and its 1875 revision – then a SECOND revised version in 1897, and (confusingly!) a reworking of the 1875 version! Armed with sufficient scores and recordings (plus a designation-change by the composer) the enthusiast would have an absorbing time coming to grips with the versions and their history!
“Antar” was based on a Middle-Eastern legend concerning an eponymous warrior-cum-philosopher who has renounced humanity and taken refuge in the desert, where he saves a gazelle from a giant bird – the gazelle then reveals its true identity as the beautiful Queen Kul-Nazar, and grants her saviour the “three joys” he most longs for, which, true to form, are vengeance, power and love, and which the music depicts over the remaining movements. I noted the effectively dark, spacious timbres of the opening from bassoons and horn, the violas’ tender playing of the “Antar” theme’s first appearance, the winds reinforcing of the upper extensions of this theme, with the flute performing evocatively exotic” figuration” , the strings’ steady articulation of the lines in the music’s first agitated tutti, and their lovely Borodin-esque “lilt” in the following dance-tune, with the horns splendid delivery of the “Antar “ theme as an occasional counterweight – and to cap off the movement, the grand tutti statement of the “Antar” motif at the movement’s end!
The second movement coalesced rather than began, with deep, murmuring beginnings and surges of tone bringing forth a march-like figure, its subject set upon warfare and revenge, as manifested by the occasional “general welter of sound” (to quote Sir Thomas Beecham, who championed the music of the “Russian Five”, of which group Rimsky-Korsakov was a member). The players kept their martial momentums going splendidly, throwing in plenty of suitably combatative exchanges between strings and winds, capped off by rousing percussive crashes and deliciously portentous touches from the heavy brass, the music ending not in triumph, however, but with a melancholy strings-and wind reiteration of the theme. It brought out all the more the “Russian festiveness” of the third movement’s swaggering opening (reminiscent of works like the composer’s own “Tsar Saltan” and Borodin’s “Prince Igor”), with gorgeously lyrical contrasting themes from the strings, and from an evocative wind-decorated solo horn! Such was the excitement that continued and built up over the last couple of pages, that we all broke into spontaneous applause at the movement’s end!
Gorgeous wind-playing from various soloists marked the finale’s opening (from where I was sitting I couldn’t see who was playing what instrument, the players’ music-stands obscuring all but the tops of bobbing heads! – though it all sounded most evocative), in places rivalling “Scheherazade” for atmosphere and allure, with the strings doing so well with their long, sinuous lines. As the story concluded with the hero’s death in his beloved Queen’s arms the finale had no hint of any sort of stirring “grandstand finish” but rather, a kind of gradual expiation, which conductor and players despatched as meaningfully as the composer’s surprisingly prosaic treatment allowed them to do – C’est la vie, c’est la mort!
Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) was an almost exact contemporary of Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943) studying piano under the same teacher in Moscow, Nikolai Zverev and continuing together at the Moscow Conservatory, each graduating with honours for piano-playing. However, they soon developed along different lines as composers, with, in general terms, Scriabin the more adventurous, Rachmaninov the more conservative. Scriabin’s music, though largely misunderstood in his day, is enjoying increased interest and appreciation, while Rachmaninov’s, more conservative in outlook and enjoying a popularity that has largely endured, is still considered old-fashioned and regressive in some circles.
How interesting that both composed youthful Piano Concertos which shared the same F-sharp Minor key, Scriabin at the age of twenty-four in 1896 (his first work involving an orchestra) and Rachmaninov much earlier, at the age of eighteen in 1891-2 (the composer’s 1917 revised version does an excellent job of removing the youthful longeurs and tightening up t the piece’s overall trajectories!). Scriabin’s work was written before he had embarked upon quasi-mystical, harmonically-radical explorations of chromaticism and tonality in his later work. Though each was critical of the other’s work Rachmaninov made a point of going out of his way to promote his colleague’s music after the latter’s untimely death, giving the repeated heresay account of Rachmaninov casting aspersions on his friend’s state of mind difficult to take entirely seriously.
More to the point is that Scriabin’s only Piano Concerto was here given a performance by 22 year-old William Berry of the utmost finesse, control and sparkling brilliance, one accompanied hand-in-glove by conductor and orchestra. The work’s dreamy opening, brought into being by the horn and strings, was answered confidently and then increasingly passionately by the soloist, interacting with the orchestra both in full-blooded and playfully filigree exchanges, with a poetically responsive horn obbligato in attendance! – I loved the spacious rolling exchanges between orchestra and piano – and how Rachmaninov-like were the glorious melodic string lines prompting full-blooded responses from the pianist (and vice-versa!), These were activated into fairy-like dancings from the soloist. to the strains of pipers playing, and alternated with surges of Romantic feeling whose continued insistence eventually drew pianist, players and conductor into a grand summation of arrival – a thrilling place to have been taken, with William Berry graciously acknowledging the audience’s appreciation at the music’s end!
The work’s slow movement drew from me a response similar to that I’ve often experienced with the Chopin Second Piano Concerto’s slow movement – beautifully limpid opening phrases from the strings, repeating the heart-stopping high point of the melody, and then repeating the sequence for the clarinet, and with the piano decorating the moment with a gossamer-like finish – such exquisite beauty! And what fun it suddenly seemed for one’s spirit to jump up up and dance with the piano’s spirited cavortings, then to pause and contemplate the stillnesses as the melody drifted all about its self-created loveliness, the piano joined by the clarinet before the strings returned to further savour the moment.
A swinging ¾ rhythm from the piano began the finale, with one of its measures repeatedly dancing to the top of the keyboard and down again, an exuberant flourish which kept the movement’s momentum alive and unfettered for a flurry of milliseconds! – interspersded among this was a heart-bursting, burgeoning piano melody whose ascent flung open the vistas and urged the instrumental lines to take the plunge and augment the journey. The piano eventually persuaded the orchestra to abandon all caution and throw open everything widely and fill the spaces with this glorious melody! Having done this and found it good, piano and orchestra reminisced together – both the “open vista” melody and the exuberantly-dancing piano flourish were revisited and treated as old friends, the composer paying homage, consciously or otherwise, to his friend Rachmaninov’s gift of piling up climax upon climax and allowing the emotion full rein right to the forthright conclusion
Our pianist had something special in store for us at the concerto’s end, returning to the platform to give us some music by another composer whose music also deserves to be heard more often – this was a piece by Polish composer Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937), a work whose title I couldn’t hear from where I was sitting as announced by William Berry, though I was able to fully appreciate the music’s quietly rhapsodic opening minor chords, whose wandering, exploratory melody flowered into lusciously-coloured tones, the music exploring both depths and heights on its path towards a monumental climax of sound and feeling – it all unwound slowly and pensively, letting the tensions release their grip and fall away, eventually returning to the piece’s opening, with the journey redeemed at the end by the solace of a major key…..a special conclusion to a memorable overall performance!
After the interval came the Dvořák tone-poem “The Golden Spinning-Wheel” – what a great piece of music it all was, if not perhaps as tone-paintingly graphic in places as fellow-countryman Smetana’s depictions of events in the latter’s orchestral work “Ma Vlast” (eg. the pictorial descriptions of Smetana’s “Vltava” and of the brutal events of “Sarka”). Still, Dvořák’s delineations of his story gave enormous pleasure to this listener in what was obviously a characteristically grisly tale of betrayal, murder and revenge – and the extent to which the music could be enjoyed “as music” and away from the story’s specifics was, I thought, remarkable!
The story told of a peasant girl Dornička, whom a king encounters on his travels, falls in love with her, and proposes to make her his Queen – the girl is then murdered by her stepmother who installs her own look-alike daughter as the king’s projected bride, but a magician retrieves the murdered girl’s body in exchange for a golden spinning-wheel whose magic then betrays the stepmother’s crime and restores Dornička to life, so that, in the words of Oscar Wilde’s Miss Prism, “the good end happily and the bad unhappily”. Andrew Atkins and the orchestra grasped the mettle firmly and plunged into the music’s glorious opening, strings and percussion establishing the trajectories, with horns and winds sounding the approach of the king, before the strings enable the royal party to sweep onto the scene, and the king to catch sight of and fall in love with the beautiful peasant girl at her spinning wheel, beautifully portrayed by detailings such as the interaction of solo violin and cor anglais, with colourful and atmospheric touches from the harp and percussion. The rest of the story unfolded with readily-evoked energies and panoplies of detail and colour, in many places satisfying as “absolute music” besides serving the narrative – but we particularly enjoyed those characteristic Dvořákian touches, such as the glorious string theme in thirds which heralded the king’s return from the wars to greet his supposed bride, and whose spinning-wheel then unexpectedly “spins out” the grisly tale’s details, resulting in the King’s rightful bride’s reinstatement, and the punishment of her would-be-murderers.
Though much was new to me, and probably to most people in the audience, this afternoon’s music successfully captivated and held our attention with its exotic fascination, colourful orchestration, and here, sturdily and enthusiastically committed performances – all credit to Andrew Atkins’ enterprise and his players’ dedication and sheer elan in bringing it all so enjoyably to life for our pleasure!