Author: Lindis Taylor

An unusual trio throws fresh, sometimes questionable light on a variety of chamber pieces

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Trio Amistad (Rebecca Steel – flute, Simon Brew – saxophones, Jane Curry – guitar)
(Wellington Chamber Music)

François de Fossa: Trio No 1 in A, Op 18
Piazzolla: Histoire du Tango – Café and Bordello
Sergio Assad: Winter impressions for Trio
Bach: Trio Sonata VI, BWV 530 (arranged Eric Dussault)
Debussy: Petite Suite (arr. Timothy Kain)
Falla: La vida breve – Danse espagnole (arr. Owen Moriarty)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 3 May, 2:30 pm

This, just incidentally, was the third recital involving a flute within a month – see Middle C of 1 and 29 April.

The Trio by the amateur and rather obscure 19th century French composer, François de Fossa, was written originally for violin, guitar and cello (reflecting the widespread interest in the guitar in the first half of the 19th century).

I had not heard of De Fossa and have been interested to find him, of course, through Google, significant in the guitar world, responsible for bringing Boccherini’s guitar quartets to notice, arranging Haydn quartets for guitar duo, translating a guitar method from Spanish.

Since Fossa himself had arranged for the guitar, music written for other instruments, I guess there can be little objection to musicians today arranging his. The thing that struck one at once however was the dramatically different sound produced by the tenor sax, and by the end of the concert the question remained; it was the most problematic of the six pieces they played.

The original would certainly have held together sonically and the flute substitutes easily enough for the violin, but the timbre of the saxophone seemed to contribute a quality that was rather too prominent. One can understand the hesitancy of classical composers, since the invention of the saxophones, to embrace them as fully legitimate members of the family. Even without knowing its history, one can sense that the saxophone is of another time; though I wonder whether, if it had not been taken up so completely by the world of big band jazz, it would sound more comfortable in classical music.
In its style the trio shows echoes of Haydn (the occasional amusing, deliberate miss-step) or Boccherini, or perhaps George Onslow; it was very agreeable, and it was played with charm.

In the two pieces they played from Piazzolla’s Histoire du tango, Simon Brew picked up his alto sax, again, not an instrument Piazzolla had envisaged, but here it fitted the sound world with a perfect authenticity (and it made me wonder whether the alto might have made all the difference to the Fossa piece). They began with the second piece, Café 1930, which is charming and gay; there was more evidence of the true roots of the tango in the first part of the suite, Bordello 1900, as you’d expect, and the players rejoiced in the syncopated rhythms and captivating melodic shapes.

Brazilian composer Sergio Assad (using the tenor sax again, in place of the as-scored, viola) wrote his Winter Impressions in 1996. I would have doubted the existence of much of a winter in the area around São Paulo, and Jane Curry’s guitar was the only one of the trio whose music hinted at The Frozen Garden – the first movement. The flute in the second movement contributed a dreamy tune, and the distinct lines for all three instruments created a most delightful musical pattern. The last movement, Fire Place, created an air of charming sociability, with animated talk punctuated by meditative pauses. Assad struck me as a natural, gifted composer with his own voice in music that had arisen because it had to be composed and not to fulfill academic assignments or important commissions.

The 6th of Bach’s Trio Sonatas, written for his oldest son Wilhelm Friedmann, was reportedly pieced together from parts of his other works, which is the reason for their sounding familiar, though I could not name or place them. Music long familiar has a habit of sounding more substantial and, of course, memorable, and so did this. The first movement was a successful wedding of flute and alto sax, each echoing the other. As I had with the Piazzolla, I found the alto a more comfortable companion with its colleagues here, and its soft, rather beautiful tones in the Lento, middle movement, held the music together in an organic manner. It was a most successful adaptation, colourfully played.

Debussy’s Petite Suite for piano duet has been much arranged, for orchestra and a variety of chamber ensembles, which would seem to give permission for virtually anything. Here Rebecca Steel’s flute seemed utterly natural, taking, as was explained, the piano primo part while the saxophone took the secondo (bass) part, much duetting in 6ths. The effect here was for the guitar to be placed rather inconspicuously, simply accompaniment; though there was a charming duet between flute and guitar in the Menuet. Nevertheless, though I am unhappy about most amplification, it’s often necessary for the guitar and might have been useful here.

The Spanish Dance from Manuel de Falla’s La vida breve ended the programme, and here again I felt the alto sax might have been a better choice than the tenor in the mix with two lighter instruments; in its top register however, it was fine; the guitar had more prominence which was most welcome; and the piece brought this charming concert a delightful finish.

 

NZSO with Lilburn’s Symphony No 2, his successor’s impressive piece plus striking Swedish composer and trombonist

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NZSO Aotearoa Plus

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra; Christian Lindberg conductor and trombone, and David Bremner – trombone

Michael Norris: Claro
Jan Sandström: Echoes of Eternity
Lilburn: Symphony No 2

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 1 May, 6:30 pm

The title of this concert covered two-thirds of its music, though perhaps the most spectacular element was supplied by trombonist-plus, Christian Lindberg in a work by compatriot Sandström, Echoes of Eternity. The concert, in the two New Zealand works, spanned almost the entire post-war musical history of the orchestra and its home, Wellington. For the orchestra was founded in 1946 shortly before Lilburn moved from Christchurch to Wellington to become a lecturer at the newly established Music Department of Victoria University in 1949. There he finished his first symphony, played two years later by the then National Orchestra; the second followed quickly. Both Lilburn and the NZSO remained in Wellington, the orchestra rather slow to take seriously a responsibility for New Zealand music, but Lilburn and the school of music soon became the pre-eminent harbingers of New Zealand music. This year (2 November) is Lilburn’s centenary.  

The orchestra’s early dilatoriness can of course be understood, for its first task, obviously, was to establish its importance to the community at large which had, in a very short time, first to become familiar with the huge central body of classical orchestral music in live performance. Only having ingested the basic repertoire was there any real hope of audiences coming to grips with the music that our few composers were then writing.

The other New Zealand work in the programme was by a young composer, inheritor of that Lilburn-Victoria University Music School tradition: Michael Norris, 2003 winner of the Lilburn composition prize at Victoria, now senior lecturer in composition, as was Lilburn. As well as composing for orthodox instruments and orchestra forces, he engages with avant-garde techniques – sonic arts, electro-acoustic music, which he studied with fellow-New Zealander Denis Smalley at City University London.

Lindberg appeared as both conductor and trombonist. He ran on to the stage, bounded on to the podium, in a tight, glistening black jacket hinting at his self-image as some kind of bad-boy – at least a bit unorthodox – of music.

Norris’s piece, newly commissioned by the orchestra, reportedly composed for the same orchestral forces as Lilburn’s second symphony was, apart from anything else, a remarkable exercise in imaginative orchestration and harmonic ingenuity; with a more precise musical memory, I could have figured out whether its initial outlaying of pitches constituted a tone row. Even if it did, and in spite of its hardly throwing out any melodies that would persist in the mind long into the night, it was by no means music of the jagged kind that one longs to be finished. There was a recognisable recurrence of certain intervals that rose several times to a state of near resolution; a rising quasi-arpeggio passage with shimmering violin solo and harp; there were interesting passages for tuned percussion – xylophone and marimba. It was all propelled, somewhat miraculously, and mesmerizingly, by the man on the podium given to far-flung, angular arm gestures, commonly both arms mirroring in opposite directions.

The composer’s words in the programme suggested the title of the work, Claro, implied a “state of transparency, lightness and clarity”, and it would be hard to find more specifically descriptive language to characterise it.

That we are now in an era that has turned aside from the alienating styles of composition that drove audiences away, was clear through hearing admiring, if sometimes a bit bemused audience comments, broadly appreciative of all they’d heard.

Lindberg’s showpiece was a sort of concerto for two trombones and orchestra by the 61-year-old Swedish composer, Jan Sandström, written for the Extremadura Symphony Orchestra, the region west of Madrid, adjacent to Portugal. Its major city, Cáceres, has UNESCO World Heritage status, with important Roman, Islamic, Gothic and Renaissance architecture and these features, says the composer, inspire the music.

An off-stage trombone sounds as the orchestra awaits the conductor’s arrival, a long legato melody rising and falling. Now he enters, in a close-fitting white jacket brandishing trombone, continuing to play, accompanied by wood-blocks (virtually the only percussion on hand) and a bed of strings. Nothing could have been a greater contrast with the previous impressionist/virtuosic, multi-tonal Norris than this forthright, quasi-conventional orchestral tutti, big opulent melody verging, for some ears, no doubt, on blowsy. Later there are near-percussive throbbing passages from cellos and basses.  

We’d had a long wait for the other trombonist who eventually entered from the right: NZSO principal trombone David Bremner, and the two were soon involved in battle even as Lindberg continued, as best he could, throwing his right arm towards the orchestra behind him, which seemed enough to keep the players alongside. 

Prominent in the orchestral melee was the tuba, as the two trombones, occasionally inserting mutes, became increasingly frenzied, doing things at a speed one might have thought impossible. There was a calm point in the middle when Lindberg recited a poem that described Cáceres, which did not have quite the impact that a reading by a George Henare (recalling the ANZAC concert last week) might have had. Among later diversions was the winding of a air-raid siren driven by a sort of wind-machine that lent a note of terror – was the city attacked by murderous Falangist rebels in the Civil War?

Music that is conspicuously tonal, though now reinforced by some of the more expressive, perhaps aggressive, features of the difficult music of the past era, has returned, and is no longer scorned. Audiences can now feel welcome in the concert halls again.

Conductor Lindberg appeared in the second half in a plum-coloured jacket (I exercised myself conjecturing synesthestic implications) to conduct Lilburn’s second symphony, written in 1951 but not performed till 1959. Opening with vivid trumpet over firm strokes by strings, this symphony has now signalled Lilburn’s escape from some of the slightly repetitious decorative gestures that constituted an unneeded trade mark in earlier music, and a total maturity and self-confidence. I soon felt that I was hearing a fresh and unhesitant, thoroughly thought-out performance as proved by a conductor who’d committed the score to memory.

It was energetic, assertive in its handling long phrases, its breathing of dynamics, the contours studied and explored with care and traversed with confidence. Again Lindberg was a conductor whose gestures were compelling, for the audience at least (I haven’t asked players whether they were valuable or something else). My only pause came with the feeling that the main theme and the signature motifs in the last movement were overstated.

Never mind: this was a very fine performance, and it was great to have a committed and serious view taken by a non-Anglo conductor capable of grasping its character and inspiring a pretty electrifying performance.

Though the MFC was not full, the audience was no disgrace considering the absence of an acknowledged masterpiece. And the applause was generous. 

 

Delightful, varied recital by Ingrid Culliford and Kris Zuelicke at St Andrew’s

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St Andrew’s Lunchtime concerts

Ingrid Culliford (flute), Kris Zuelicke (piano)

Ernest Bloch: Suite modale for flute and piano
John Ritchie: The Snow Goose
Miriam Hyde: The Little Juggler and The Evening under the Hill 
Anne Boyd:  Goldfish through Summer Rain
Carl Vine: Sonata for Flute and Piano

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 29 April, 12:15 pm

A flute recital that contained no big composer names might not have seemed particularly enticing. And in some ways it wasn’t, there was nothing that really demanded being embedded in the memory or prompted a visit to Parsons (whoops!) to look for a CD of a particular piece.

What made it interesting (for me at least) was the theme of Australia, no doubt bearing in mind a centenary that is absorbing a lot of media space just now. In the 1980s and 90s when I used to make frequent trips to Sydney and Melbourne I used to browse the CD bins at the Australian Music Centre in The Rocks, Sydney and all the well-stocked music stores that proliferated in those civilised times. And I became familiar with the music of most of the leading Australian composers. I was often disconcerted to find so much new music across the Tasman that was interesting and engaging, still able to withstand the pressures of the avant-garde that many composers in New Zealand were striving to emulate.

Then there was the presence of women composers who emerged much earlier in Australia than here; significant women composers began to appear in Australia by the 1920s, starting with Margaret Sutherland, and then Miriam Hyde (born two years before Lilburn), Peggy Glanville-Hicks …

Miriam Hyde’s The Little Juggler, of 1956, and Evening under the Hill were played at this concert. The first, a happy, uncomplicated piece in fairly traditional style, seemed to reflect an English character, brushed by the influence of French flute composers like Françaix or Pierné. The second, from a set of five pieces of 1936, did not especially evoke evening, but was a charming impressionistic piece nevertheless.

However, the recital began with Ernest Bloch’s Suite modale, in four movements, mainly contemplative in character; even the last two movements marked Allegro giocoso – a subdued joy perhaps – and Allegro deciso maintained a meditative and slightly sombre spirit in spite of fluttering scalic passages that rose and fell. Its fine performance by a gifted, versatile flutist and a pianist whose role was both distinctive and accommodating of the characteristics of the flute promised a recital of considerable interest and pleasure.

It was good to be reminded that the flute need not be restricted to music that’s light and airy but that it can express more pensive moods, allowing more basic musical qualities to emerge from music of substance.

That was followed by an attractive narrative piece by John Ritchie, The Snow Goose, which was a  sentimental and hugely popular post-WW2 children’s and young person’s story of bravery involving a goose repaying its rescue and nursing by the hero in helping evacuate thousands of British troops from Dunkirk in 1940. Sensitive playing of melodic shapes and occasional sunlit flights suggested elements of the story.

An Australian composer of the next generation after Hyde, Anne Boyd, wrote a piece inspired by a poem in the form of a haiku, Goldfish through Summer Rain, in which the flute could well be heard adopting the character of the Japanese shakuhachi, and unsurprisingly, reminded me of Takemitsu.

The recital ended with a flute sonata by Carl Vine, born in 1954, one of Australia’s leading male composers. He has described himself as ‘radically tonal’ and that is indeed a way to describe his energetic, melodic, muscular first piano concerto and his Choral Symphony which I have on CD and have just been refreshing my memory with. As I listened to this flute sonata I scribbled words about the first movement, Fast, like ‘not afraid to write big attractive tunes’ and ‘accessible music’, not words that quite a few younger New Zealand composers would feel comfortable with.

The middle movement, entitled Slow, showed the gentle Vine, rhapsodic in character. Predictably, the last movement is ‘Very Fast’ (Real composers of course would have applied proper musical terms in an appropriate foreign language like Vivace, Lento and Molto vivace). I was amused at the composer’s teasing, long-anticipated closing cadences, sort of mocking the common, endless perorations of some of the great 19th century composers.

Anyway, it proved a splendidly unconventional way to end a flute recital, a complete turn away from flutish composition of the classical era, of the French school founded by Taffanel, or of misty dreaminess of early 20th century English music.  The Vine was a bit special, but the earlier music in the programme, some of which might have been characterized by my last sentence, was varied, expanding our flute horizons, and highly enjoyable in the context devised by the players.

 

NZSO and Sydney Symphony Orchestra in moving shared ANZAC concert of new works by composers of both countries

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New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Benjamin Northey

Spirit of ANZAC
Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man
Michael Williams: Symphony No 1 Letters from the Front (with Madeleine Pierard – soprano and George Henare – narrator)
James Ledger: War Music (with the New Zealand Youth Choir)
Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis

Michael Fowler Centre

Wednesday 22 April, 6:30 pm

Note that this review is for the most part what I wrote and posted on this website two days later on Friday 24 April, but now modified in various ways in the light of listening to its broadcast by Radio New Zealand Concert on Saturday evening.
I delayed further, to listen to the broadcast on Monday afternoon of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s performance (presumably also performed on the Wednesday).

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra has joined forces with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra to present the same programme, to mark the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings. The SSO’s two performances of the concert take place on the same evenings as this concert in Wellington and, on Friday, in Auckland. Dominating the programme were the two principal works, commissioned by the two orchestras from prominent composers in each country.

A further link with Australia was through Australian conductor Benjamin Northey who has been seen here before, conducting both the National Youth Orchestra, in February 2014 and the NZSO in November last; and he takes over as Principal Conductor of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra this year.

Fanfare for the Common Man
The concert began with a shattering performance of Copland’s brief Fanfare for the Common Man, a title that reflects his humane, left-wing sympathies. (He was classed as subversive by the House of Representatives committee on Un-American Activities in the early 1950s and black-listed by the FBI, one of the 150 American artists so classified during those paranoid years).

It opened with a frightening seismic thunder-clap on timpani and bass drum, and continued with brilliant, spacious brass playing: a monumental performance.

Symphony No 1 by Michael Williams
Michael Williams has composed this, his first symphony, ‘Letters from the Front’, on commission by the orchestra. The commission may well have been prompted by the success of his opera, The Juniper Passion, about the Battle of Monte Cassino in the second World War. My first knowing contact with him had been a moving performance, featuring Paul Whelan, Joanne Cole and Stephanie Acraman, in his earlier chamber opera, The Prodigal Child, at the Taranaki Arts Festival in 2003.

His symphony opens with the rattle of a side drum, and the orchestra expands to create a trembling, fearful, chaotic environment which was much more than heterogeneous noise: it was music. There were snatches of melody, barking brass, rippling flute, poignant cor anglais; and short breaks of calm where beautiful strains of music emerged.

In the second and third movements, the orchestra was joined by soprano Madeleine Pierard who sang lines of Wilfred Owen’s poem, Arms and the Boy, interspersed with extracts from letters from New Zealand soldiers in the first World War read by narrator George Henare; one of the letters was from Williams’s great-grandfather who was killed at Passchendaele in 1917.

Henare’s delivery was carefully paced, reflected the grim pathos of the poem, without succumbing to any exaggerated or false sentiment. Pierard’s voice was perfect for the Owen poem, lyrical in a thin, penetrating way; I couldn’t help being reminded of the quality of voice and orchestra in Gorecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs; in addition, Pierard injected an unearthly, intense vibrato that lifted it to a spiritual realm.

The third movement starts with a sort of excitable mockery of a bugle call; oboe and cor anglais feature again, but their human dimension is obliterated by a depiction of a terrifying artillery bombardment, as Pierard resumes the poem accompanied by a trembling flute. There were moments, as it moved on, when a less penetrating voice might have been obscured by the orchestra. The relationship between soprano and the various instruments was tested throughout, somehow dramatising the pathos of the fates of the men whose lives were taken.

James Ledger’s War Music
It was Australia’s turn after the interval, with James Ledger’s War Music.

But here I am revising what I wrote following the concert and posted on Friday morning. These remarks follow my hearing the broadcast of the concert’s recording by RNZ Concert on Saturday evening. Though I usually argue that it is much more rewarding to listen to live music than via the radio or from recordings, I had to concede that I was getting a clearer impression and rather more purely musical enjoyment on the small radio at our bach at Waikawa Beach than at the concert.

First, the following is part of my original review:
The first movement was entirely orchestral, portraying the subject through a multitude of instrumental devices, some familiar, some unusual, such as patting the mouthpiece of the brass instruments to produce soft, muffled tones, passages of pulsating, throbbing sounds evoking fusillades, screaming glissandi by strings, the rattle of tom-toms. Though the composer’s note states that he recognised the difficulty of attempting a realistic picture of war, and concentrated on ‘the broader aspects of war’.

I had written that the use of so many unusual articulations and ‘extended’ instrumental techniques seemed to draw attention away from the subject to focus too much on unusual instrumental articulations and combinations, perhaps too much striving for the literal sounds of battle and so on. Nevertheless it was an interesting, colourful adventure in contemporary orchestral writing, brilliantly executed by winds and percussion in particular and handled spiritedly, with precision by Benjamin Northey.

And of the second part I wrote:
The second part depicted the horror and grief of war: the choral element called up music of a very different character from that in Part I; it had an impact that was moving and awakened a real emotional response. The youth choir’s participation and its music turned the work in a direction in which music can be more successful than words, the setting of a poem by Paul Kelly, of admirable simplicity and directness: its last two lines, poignant and unaffected: “Remember us, we died in smoke / We died in noise, we died alone”. The words, unless one was reading the words in the programme, rather escaped attention for they were not very clear but their force emerged through the music they inspired from the composer. The choir’s performance was extremely beautiful, suggesting the most careful and sensitive rehearsal under David
Squire and the evening’s conductor.

After hearing the broadcast, however, I found myself with considerably more admiration for both the commissioned works.

Michael Williams’s symphony was a thing of more vivid reality and immediacy, and I was paying more attention to the expressive orchestral writing and the way it supported, commented on what the voices were doing. Henare’s readings had more heart-wrenching impact, while my impression of the force of Madeleine Pierard’s singing was strongly confirmed.

But it was hearing Ledger’s music for a second time, through a different medium, and without the ‘distraction’ of watching the orchestra to see how some of the unusual sounds were created, that enhanced my appreciation. Rather than feeling that the highly sophisticated orchestral effects detracted from the emotional power of the music, I was moved simply by the resultant music, its coherence,and what is called (a little pretentiously I always feel) the ‘architecture’ of the music quite engrossed and enchanted me.

In fact, I was entranced now by the remarkably imaginative sounds that Ledger had created. The need to revise my views came as something unsettling, yet illuminating once I had removed myself personally from the process.

Tallis Variations
The choice of Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis to conclude the concert was inspired. Here, regardless of the meaning of the Latin text, we have a work, written well before the world descended into the catastrophe of the first World War, that seemed to capture a profound lamenting that could represent an emotional depiction of any horrendous, man-induced disaster such as the Great War which ended by killing millions of people. For strings alone, it demonstrated how a composer can produce the most powerful, deeply-felt response through the simplest and most economical means.

As a final comment, now able to compare the two performances, the Wellington performance seemed just a little more robust, vivid and fully realising the horror and tragedy of the subject the than the Sydney one.

Considering the absence of a big popular work, there was a large audience in the Michael Fowler Centre that responded with great enthusiasm at the end.

 

A brave Kapiti Chamber Choir gives good account of Bach’s Mass in B minor

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Kapiti Chamber Choir conducted by Eric Sidoti

Bach: Mass in B minor

Soloists: Katherine McIndoe – soprano, Elizabeth Harris – soprano, Ruth Reid – contralto, John Beaglehole – tenor, Roger Wilson – bass
And Orchestra

Paraparaumu College Auditorium

Sunday 26 April, 2:30 pm

The Kapiti Chamber Choir is the smaller of the two choirs in the district (the other, larger, choir is the Kapiti Chorale) established or taken over by Peter Godfrey after he came to Kapiti.

Some might have felt that it was singularly ambitious for an amateur choir to tackle one of the biggest and most demanding choral works. In their defence, however, their conductor Eric Sidoti reported that this was the runaway favourite when, after taking it over in 2013, he surveyed the choir on its wish-list. He minimised the challenge by suggesting that his main task had been to ensure that he had the forces to cope with the varying orchestral, choral and soloists requirements.

Middle C finds itself a bit stretched at present in terms of the availability of its small team of reviewers, and it fell to me (by no means reluctant) to make a southward trip from a retreat at Waikawa Beach, miscalculating travel times and traffic. I arrived about 15 minutes late as the reprise of the Kyrie began.

I sat on the nearest seat, right under the noses of the soloists, which gave me a feeling of intimacy and almost participation, but a somewhat unbalanced impression of the chorus, as well as having certain parts of the orchestra, for example, trumpets in the Gloria, and the soloists too close. Perhaps it allowed me to enjoy a certain amount of slightly disorganised playing occasionally, iffy intonation and approximate ensemble, such as the start of the ‘Laudamus te’. But it gave an unjust overall impression, as I found when I moved to the back of the hall after the interval.

I’m sure that the orchestral skills had not suddenly improved by the Credo, after the interval; and that whatever blemishes I heard at close quarters simply became rather unimportant when one heard the whole in proper, fairer perspective.

One thing that struck me throughout was the general strength of the men’s parts of the choir, and the curious impression that there were more weaknesses in sopranos and altos, though they too never amounted to real shortcomings.

Soloists were very able, ranging from experienced singers like alto Ruth Reid, tenor John Beaglehole and bass Roger Wilson (his solo in ‘Et in spiritum’ lay quite high, but there seemed no strain; his solo in ‘Quoniam’ on the other hand was lower), to new graduates who took the two soprano parts, Katherine McIndoe and Elizabeth Harris both of whom displayed bright, attractive voices that filled their roles with intelligence and accuracy.

There were some fine moments: Elizabeth Harris with Jay Hancox’s violin obbligato in the ‘Laudamus te’ of the Gloria; the duet between Katherine McIndoe and Ruth Reid, ‘Et in unum’, went well. John Beaglehole had fine moments in ‘Domine Deus’ (with Katherine McIndoe) and with flutist Malu Jonas in the Benedictus; the duetting of Roger Wilson and trumpeter Andrew Weir in ‘Quoniam’ made an impact, and trumpets were again brilliant in the ‘Et resurrexit’ in the Credo. One of the trumpets (Mark Carter’s?) looked and sounded like a piccolo trumpet, lending an authentic baroque character.

The conductor chose to use soloists in place of the chorus in certain places, as is done quite often, affording better clarity as well giving them more welcome exposure.

I was very glad that we had an orchestra accompanying, with some nice oboes (one came close to sounding like an oboe d’amore) and flutes; I enjoyed the capable timpani contribution too.

The Mass, much of it drawn from earlier music written for other contexts, is remarkable for its aesthetic coherence, but its various origins also afford it a variety of style and emotion that is not only appropriate to the subject of each section, but also maintains the audience’s interest. And even from a smallish choir of non-specialist singers, the long work did indeed hold the attention, and gave the almost full house a very satisfying two hours of great music.

 

Italian Embassy brings pianist to Wellington with interesting programme

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Luciano Bellini – piano
(presented by the Embassy of Italy)

Domenico Scarlatti: Sonatas, in E, K 380 and in D minor K 64
Luciano Bellini: from the Album Mediterrando (Spartenza, Habanera, Fado, Preludio e Aria Egea, Promenade, Tramonto sul Bosforo, Sirtaky, Bolero, Saltarello)
Luciano Berio: Six Encores for Piano: Brin, Erdenklavier, Wasserklavier
Verdi: Romance without words and Waltz in F major
Leoncavallo: Canzonetta
Alban Berg, Sonata Op 1
Ferruccio Busoni, All’Italia
Alfredo Casella: Due Ricercari sul nome B.A.C.H.

The Opera House, Manners Street

Sunday 19 April, 5:30 pm

A colleague picked up information about a piano recital by a visiting Italian pianist, under the auspices of the Italian Embassy. Luciano Bellini: not a name I knew; a bare outline of his programme; some names that suggested quite serious music among some oddities and curiosities.

One has to take seriously someone advertising Berg’s Piano Sonata, as well as a couple of pieces by Italian composers of real distinction: Berio and Casella, and a perhaps slight piece by the great Italo-German pianist/composer Ferruccio Busoni. Two of Scarlatti’s little sonatas are always a nice prelude to any piano recital.

So I managed to get back on the train from the New Zealand String Quartet’s concert at Waikanae, just in time – but sadly missing the last piece at Waikanae, Dvořák’s String Quartet Op 105.

Foyer quite busy with a number of notably well-dressed people – clearly Italian: glad I wasn’t in shorts and jandals.

Luciano Bellini does not disclose his age in the material I’ve been able to see on the Internet. I’d guess early or mid 60s.

I enjoyed his Scarlatti, relaxed, graceful, pleasantly rhythmical, by no means concerned to display brilliance or speed, but simply making music in his own way.

Then came an album of shortish pieces by the pianist himself, called Mediterrando, extremely colourful and varied pieces that evoke the sounds and rhythms of many – nine – parts of what the ancient Romans and evidently Italians today, called Mare Nostrum – ‘our sea’, the Mediterranean. They began with an inspiration from Sparta, touched Spain with a habanera and Portugal with fado, Turkey, modern Greece, and so on.

Luciano Berio was a leading figure in the Italian avant-garde after the second World War, associated with the Darmstadt school with Dallapiccolo, Boulez, Stockhausen, Ligeti, Maderna … His Encores for Piano, written in the 1990s, were three in number from a total of six. Four of them, according to
notes I have found on the Internet, only in Italian, explored the sonic potential of the four elements: earth, air, fire and water, as defined by the pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles (this from the pianist’s notes); he was famous in myth for perishing in an eruption by Mount Etna on Sicily. The first, Brin – the timbral possibilities of the piano achieved through clever games with pedals and sustained notes. The other two: the ‘Earth Piano’ and the ‘Water Piano’, considered these elements in terms that reflected the understandings of the ancient Greeks.

The music itself was both intriguing and attractive, even though cast, as to be expected from Berio, in a near serial language, and Bellini’s performance exposed its colour and variety.

Two piano pieces by Verdi were interesting if unremarkable, Mendelssohn close by in the Romance without words, and a charming Waltz, not Straussian, but operatic in tone, a bit blowsey as a composition and in its playing, appropriately.

If ever you wondered what Leoncavallo did with the rest of his life after Pagliacci, here was an example: a Canzonetta, an enjoyable fast piece in dance rhythm. Can’t find a reference to it anywhere, including the only CD of his piano music I can find, by Dario Müller for Naxos.

Then came the major work, clearly intended to demonstrate that we were not hearing a mere salon piano player: Alban Berg’s piano sonata, his Opus 1. It’s gritty, more gritty that the many songs he wrote earlier, and later. Though he’d started taking lessons from Schoenberg it is not a serial work, or even atonal; however, its tonality is often obscure and it is not notable for its tunes. This was a very competent if not highly illuminating or arresting performance. Its mastery doesn’t come readily, and Bellini is to be admired for its inclusion.

Ferruccio Busoni was born in Tuscany, a brilliant pianist and conductor as well as composer, who sought to promote contemporary music, but whose own music perhaps lacked something of melodic and emotional appeal. He lived in various parts of Europe, but mostly in Berlin where he died. His most famous work might well be his piano arrangement of the Chaconne from Bach’s solo violin Partita in D minor. Bellini played his approachable salute to Italy, All’Italia, containing echoes of turn of the century compositions; the second part was in a saltarello rhythm, rhapsodic with occasional smudges. This too was far from boring.

The recital ended with another moderately familiar and quite important Italian composer, Alfredo Casella, a near contemporary of Berg, musically educated in Paris and influenced by Debussy. His 1932 Due ricercari on the name BACH, followed many who had used the letters, in German notation, as a theme for variations. The repetition of the notes B flat, A, C, B soon became too insistent. After all, the range is very small and the emphatic playing tended to obliterate whatever interest there may otherwise have been in the work.

There were a couple of very suitable encores – Musetta’s waltz song from La bohème and a Chopin mazurka.

Though it was a curiously constructed programme, there was enough variety to entertain a general audience, and a few significant pieces by important composers to engage those more anxious to explore the unexpected or unusual. Professor Bellini’s visit to Wellington was worthwhile and the Embassy is to be encouraged to undertake such ventures again. One of the ambassador’s predecessors took a very real interest in Wellington’s musical life, taking every opportunity to bring Italian music and musicians to our attention.

 

Orchestra Wellington on brilliant form opens six-concert series dominated by Tchaikovsky, Michael Houstoun and Russia

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

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

Glinka: Kamarinskaya
Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No 3 in D minor, Op 30
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No 1 in G minor, Op 13

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 18 April 7:30 pm

The year’s programme which this concert inaugurated, has been most interestingly designed; with aspects that should kindle the interest of newcomers, of which I imagine there were many, as well as those more familiar with the orchestral repertoire.

This was achieved by the brilliant device of offering all six concerts for $108, or $18 each, so filling the auditorium.  I’m sure this is an example of the sophisticated economic phenomenon: ‘Less Is More’.

Given the numbers unfamiliar with real orchestral repertoire and the fact that Radio NZ Concert was recording it for use in June, it was sensible for genial and witty radio presenter Nigel Collins to appear on stage to coach the audience in useful radio audience behaviour and in the formalities followed as concert-master, conductor et al. arrive on stage.

This took a few minutes and I was surprised to hear, and hear of, certain grizzles from those to whom it was all ‘old-hat’, about the intrusion into their time.

The other reason for the success of this concert and, I’m sure, the whole series, is the programming.

Not that there’s anything radical or unusual these days about delivering programmes of the complete works of a particular composer or in a particular genre, or works of a particular era.

In the light of the common perception of Russia’s current political behaviour, the chance should be welcomed to be exposed to the country’s cultural riches, revealing its centuries of close integration in European culture and civilisation generally.

And what a stroke to engage Michael Houstoun to play Russian (and a New Zealand) piano concertos throughout the series.

For all this we have to thank Music director Marc Taddei and General manager Adan Tijerina.

Appropriately enough, this first concert opened with what is regarded as the first piece of Russian orchestral music that draws on Russian folk music, Kamarinskaya. Though he had written orchestral music earlier, including the brilliant ‘Jota Aragonese’, Glinka is regarded at the father of Russian music mainly as a result of his two operas drawn from Russian history: A Life for the Tsar and Russlan and Ljudmila.

As Taddei remarked, Kamarinskaya is a slight piece, with an Adagio introduction on a wedding song, treated with spaciousness and clarity, and a lively folk dance. The short tune of the latter quickly palled through excessive repetition, in spite of the orchestra doing all it could to lend variety to its series of ‘variations’.

There was no need at all for any special efforts by the orchestra or soloist to create interest in Rachmaninov’s third piano concerto. Some might have been a little surprised at the conspicuously moderate pace and perhaps cool emotional character adopted for its first movement, evidently an approach shared by conductor and pianist.  It was as if they were carefully refraining from prematurely exhausting their ammunition the better to make striking dramatic points when those opportunities really arrived, early in the development section.

Yet it did not in the least dampen the arresting spirit of the performance; on the other hand, nothing detracted from the subtle darkness that pervades the first movement if not the whole work. The lengthy first movement cadenza gave Houstoun the chance to illuminate his modest yet dazzling pianism, alongside the secure yet adroit tempo and dynamic nuances that kept the piano, not necessarily in the forefront, but in just the right position in the integral sound.

The Adagio second movement touches me most, with its curious rhapsodic character, its brief moments of passion, even frenzy, but its overall thoughtful spirit, that more than once turns aside from a fully-fledged climax to regain calm and poise; and again, this performance captured all its complexity and beauty.

Even the Finale with its enchanting melodies often seems to have much longer passages of meditative music than I expect, and it always delights me: the horns have a lovely episode punctuated with a roll on timpani. Finally, of course, the composer gives the audience the thrills it’s been waiting for, as orchestra, and pianist in particular, execute all its demands with wonderful energy and dense cascades of virtuosity. It brought about a standing ovation.

We could have been induced to feeling, because Tchaikovsky’s first symphony is the least familiar, that it’s uninteresting and merely to be paid ritual attention. But it is simply a youthful (well, he was 26)masterpiece. The pedant, or the studiously censorious might have searched for signs of immaturity, of structural uncertainty, but given the sheer melodic inventiveness and already a fine mastery of orchestration (the final touches of revision were made, in 1872, after he’d written a couple of operas and was already at work on his second symphony).

The opening is propitious, with clarinets over tremolo strings, then joined by bassoons, violas and cellos in music that fitted their timbres beautifully; Tchaikovsky’s character, his fingerprints, are already distinctive and the whole movement belies rumours that the symphony is a somewhat unsatisfactory youthful attempt.

The day-dreams are most present in the second movement, Adagio cantabile, with its lovely string writing and oboe solo and lots of other delicious opportunities for orchestral colour, all delicately drawn. I wondered why it hadn’t acquired the sort of stand-alone fame that Tchaikovsky’s other, famous (Andante) cantabile had.

Nor is there any hint of uncertainty in the third movement, Scherzo, again furnished with melody that doesn’t pall, and which of course upset the pedants at the St Petersburg Conservatorium who were Tchaikovsky’s mentors. (Someone has acknowledged that it may have been his melodic gift that made adhering to the conventions of the classical sonata form difficult: perhaps the latter only became de rigueur because some composers lacked the genius for melody that was Tchaikovsky’s). The Waltz that takes the place of the Trio in in the earlier ‘Minuet and trio’ scheme of the classical symphony, lends the Scherzo a delectable contrast, pointing to the soon-to-be composed Swan Lake with its delicious waltz episodes.

And lastly the 12-minute Finale which opens with a sombre hymn-like introduction rich in warm, dark woodwind sounds, soon brightens, but only temporarily. It never loses interest, moving between dreamy moods and fanfare-driven pages of the Allegro Maestoso, full of confidence and optimism, using the composer’s acute sensitivity for orchestral colour like a seasoned master.

The orchestra’s playing continued flawlessly and luxuriously, tempos subtly varying, dynamics scrupulously managed, to bring the concert to a triumphant conclusion.

 

Brilliant guitar recital from Owen Moriarty at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Owen Moriarty – guitar

Music by Marek Pasieczny Joaquin Rodrigo, Manuel Ponce, Mauro Giuliani

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 8 April, 12:15 pm

At some stage at most guitar recitals, the famous words of Chopin come to mind. “Nothing is more beautiful than a guitar, except, possibly, two.” We had only one, though Jane Curry, head of guitar at the university School of Music, was there too, evidently without her guitar.

Owen Moriarty began with the youngest piece, a Little Sonata by Polish-born Marek Pasieczny (it was wrongly spelled in the programme). It was in four movements, inspired by Schubert’s set of four piano pieces, the Impromptus, Op. 90; and the title was suggested by Hindemith’s ‘Kleine Sonate’.  In truth, it was quite some distance from Schubert, but I knew what he meant: each movement was in a spirit that, give or take a couple of centuries, owed something to the outward shape or spirit of Schubert’s. Schubert’s first piece is marked Allegro molto moderato; Pasieczny’s is Moderato galante; the second, the favourite Schubert Impromptu, in quaver triplets in E flat, is simply Allegro while Pasieczny’s is marked Lento religioso, rather different.

Never mind. The first was ‘galant’ – mid 18th century – sure enough, in character, though somewhat advanced in melodic shape and harmony. Like most of the programme, it afforded Moriarty excellent scope for his superb dynamic subtleties; and the gentle second piece was an even better example of the way the player shifted the sound not merely through the vigour of the plucking but by the position of his right hand working the strings. The third piece, Arpeggiato largamente opened with spacious broken chords that led to charmingly worked out themes; while the fourth, the equivalent of Schubert’s fast A flat Impromptu, exploited the guitar’s essential strumming technique, vigorous and somewhat grand as it reached the end.

Rodrigo’s Bajando de la Meseta is one of five pieces in a suite characterising regions of Spain, this one literally, ‘Lowering the plateau’; Meseta refers here, specifically to the plateau of New Castile (Castilla Nueva), the most central region of Spain in which Madrid is situated. It opened in a deliberate manner, lento strumming, in fast common time, which shifted to triplets, increasingly virtuosic with fast scales and fancy decorative passages.

Ponce’s Balletto and Preludio comes from a generation before Rodrigo. He had an association with Andres Segovia and the two were complicit in publishing this pair of pieces as a newly discovered work of the great lutenist Silvius Leopold Weiss, a contemporary of J S Bach; this was the era when Kreisler was turning out pieces that he attributed to various baroque composers.

It certainly worked as a piece of that age, the Balletto, charming, slow and danceable; while the Preludio was subject to several rhythm changes with motifs weaving through various lines adroitly delineated by the player.

The real spectacle came with Rossiniana No 1 (of six) by the Italian guitarist Giuliani whose guitar concertos (more than one I think) were familiar a few years ago, but not heard (by me) recently. This was one of six pot-pourris on tunes from Rossini’s operas arranged freely and with huge flair and an eye to impressive virtuosity. The tunes were somewhat familiar, at least one from L’italiana in Algeri?, with the last leading to the typical Rossini crescendo of increasing excitement and spectacular agility by both the guitarist’s hands

Another piece by Rodrigo was the last item in the programme: Pequena Sevilliana – The Girl from Seville. Coming from Andalusia, flamenco music was to be expected, but quirky, with little twists that involved the fingers darting all over the finger-board. It was a delightful finish to a highly entertaining and revelatory recital of, quite simply, international calibre guitar playing.

 

Memorable and illuminating exploration of the Miserere, its rivals earlier and later, by The Tudor Consort and Michael Stewart

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Tudor Consort conducted by Michael Stewart

Miserere:  Music for Holy Week

Cathedral of Saint Paul, Wellington

Friday 3 April, 7:30 pm

I have been rather neglectful in recent years of pre-concert talks. This time, even in the disagreeable face of train replacement by buses and possible crowds heading for the Stadium, I decided to expose myself to the possibility that I might learn something by listening to Michael Stewart. I had already heard him talking with Eva Radich on Upbeat and wanted to get a bit more clarity on the subject of the vicissitudes of Allegri’s Miserere. A very good crowd had also come early to hear the talk, which Michael illustrated with projections of various parts of various versions of the work, as well as by singing key phrases with such acute brilliance.

The Miserere is the first word of Psalm 51 (50 in the Latin, Vulgate Bible) and has long been a part of the Catholic liturgy for Holy Week, sung at the end of the Tenebrae office, ritually sung in increasing darkness as 15 candles are extinguished in the course of the singing. At its end there follows the Strepitus, or loud noise that represents the earthquake believed to have followed Christ’s death, done by ‘slamming a book shut, banging a Hymnal or Breviary against the pew, or stomping on the floor’ (Wikipedia).

Michael Stewart’s commentary
Stewart spoke of the various versions of the Miserere, both before and after Allegri’s; the secrecy imposed on the Allegri setting by the Vatican, its notation by the 14-year-old Mozart (thus in 1770), and the Papal response later, as Clement XIV praised Mozart personally for the genius of his accuracy in transcription. In the meantime Mozart had given English music historian Charles Burney a copy and it was published in 1771 (so soon?).  Later aural recordings were made by Mendelssohn and Liszt.

The young Mozart’s action was recorded in a letter home from Wolfgang’s father immediately after.

It was also recorded in 1792, the year after Mozart’s death, by his sister: “…they travelled on the 15th March 1770 to Parma, Bologna, Florence, [on] to Rome, here they arrived during Holy Week. On Wednesday afternoon they accordingly went at once to the Sistine Chapel, to hear the famous Miserere. And as according to tradition it was forbidden under ban of excommunication to make a copy of it from the papal music, the son undertook to hear it and then copy it out. And so it came about that when he came home, he wrote it out, the next day he went back again, holding his copy in his hat, to see whether he had got it right or not. But a different Miserere was sung. However, on Good Friday the first was repeated again. After he had returned home he made a correction here and there, then it was ready. It soon became known in Rome, [and] he had to sing it at the clavier at a concert.”

But one has to note that the co-author of the version performed by The Sixteen under Harry Christophers, Ben Byram-Wigfield, writes: “And several myths have grown up around the piece, such as the idea that the Pope forbade copying of the work, punishable by excommunication; and the young Mozart supposedly copying the work after hearing it performed. Neither is true.”  (http://ancientgroove.co.uk/essays/allegri.html)

The question of embellishment was also interesting. It is said that the actual ornaments used in the Sistine Chapel were, as much as anything, the most closely guarded, and the version that Burney published did not include them. They were not in the public domain until Roman priest Pietro Alfieri published an edition in 1840, which preserved the performance practice, including ornamentation, of the Sistine choir.

Stewart also dealt with the modifications to the scoring accounting for the non-authentic ‘high Cs’ in the version we know, thought to be the result of transposition. Again, Ben Byram-Wigfield notes: “the ‘Top C’ version, which was never performed in Rome, … merely a serendipitous scribal error”.

Thus, what a great idea to perform both the original version and that current today!

Two Allegri versions
The conventional version with the High Cs was sung in the first half. To enhance the impact of the high female voices, all singers of the quartet (sopranos Pepe Backer, Melanie Newfield, alto Andrea Cochrane and bass David Houston) went to the gallery above the south (Molesworth Street) door and their voices created the most thrilling effect at each return to inauthentic (if you must) bursts of spiritually ecstatic exclamation. The contrast with the other fourteen singers was marked, their voices more suffused in the huge main space of the cathedral. There was a breathless conviction about the whole performance.

Alfieri’s account of the original, with the best realisations we will ever have of the original embellishments, was sung after the interval. Here, all the singers except Paul Stapley who sang the plainsong part from the pulpit, remained at the front of the Choir. While the female voices had similar effects to handle, it was naturally less thrilling that with voices emanating from high above the nave, though awareness of the modern version teased us with an expectation that treble phrases would rise higher. Stapley’s contributions were very fine, projected with ease, even delivery allowing discreet dynamic changes, but with arresting pauses in the middle of his stanzas.

The other Miserere settings
But there was much more of great interest in this concert whose intention was to let us hear other treatments of the Miserere. First was a short setting by William Byrd, the performance of which revealed the composer’s ability to convey the feelings of lamentation and self-flagellation so beloved of religion.

And the even earlier setting (around 1503) by Josquin des Prez, evidently the best known setting before Allegri. It was thought to have been inspired as a testament to Savonarola who called for ‘Christian renewal’ and the church’s reform. He denounced clerical corruption, despotic rule and the exploitation of the poor, and was a painful thorn in the Papacy’s side. He was tortured and executed by Pope Alexander VI in 1498. Josquin’s composition is not given to expressing much sense of exultation, and expression of praise of the Almighty, which is a significant purpose of the Psalm, but emphasised our sins and the need to be purged and cleansed. Among otherwise pretty flawless singing of the other works in the programme I felt there was a touch of insecurity in ensemble and balance here.

Giovanni Croce’s Miserere of 1599, 40 years before Allegri, came from Venice (Josquin’s was from Ferrara, not far away), with the sounds of the Gabrielis in the background, and here was the precursor of the sort of high soprano ecstasy, with richer harmonies cultivated by Allegri. It was also curious, not that it seemed to affect the mood or richness of the musical setting, that the Psalm text was paraphrased as a sonnet by Francesco Bembo, whose name only calls up painters.

The Gesualdo setting
Then came what for me was the third most interesting piece on the programme (after the Allegri and the James MacMillan), the imaginative and original setting by Carlo Gesualdo, more famous for a certain violent episode in his life. There’s no better account than by music critic Alex Ross (have you read his The Rest in Noise?) in The New Yorker – (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/12/19/prince-of-darkness).

His music is generally said to be ‘ahead of its time’ by anything up to three or four centuries (and four would bring it up to the present decade). The words employed as evidence are ‘chromaticism’ and ‘dissonance’; neither is to be remarked upon today; the dissonance amounts to momentary departures from an expected harmonic cadence which are rather delicious. It was splendidly sung, all these little touches exposed with clarity and wit; with the excellent Paul Stapley, as in the Allegri, singing the plainsong verses, falsobordone (French: fauxbourdon) = false bass, I believe they are called. Nevertheless, the music follows a repeated pattern which allows the senses to relax each time the surprise comes round in the shape of a sort of rise in the tonality of the treble voices.

MacMillan – the today setting
Finally, the strong and arresting Miserere of James MacMillan who, I suppose, has a special authority today, as a confirmed Catholic. Men and women take the lines of the Psalm in turn, with women seeming to have more of the running, though the men are given an emphatic “Ecce…” – behold, in line 5. The energetic rhythm seems to flow naturally from the intrinsic rhythm of the Latin, a language which, spoken with resonance and fluency, has that unparalleled power, supported by a wonderful literature, that made the language survive remarkably, till my generation – the last, I fear, to have been in a state secondary school where perhaps a third of the boys in the third, fourth and fifth forms learned Latin.

Again at the ‘Libera me de sanguinibus…’, the great shout of anguish had dramatic power, that was quickly softened by the overlapping of men’s and women’s parts; as the end approached  the dynamics rose and fell with moments of ecstasy and spiritual entreaty.

When Simon Ravens founded The Tudor Consort back in 1986, the choir attracted overflowing, rock-concert style houses, such was the impact of his engrossing pre-concert talks with imaginative programming, often through liturgical reconstructions in a dramatically striking manner. No subsequent director has quite matched Ravens’ flair and charisma, but Michael Stewart, in his own way, is recapturing something of the excitement of that time which had the effect of raising audience numbers for most choirs, and inspiring the formation of new ones. This splendid concert and the size of the audience perhaps presages a real choral renaissance and more adventures to come.

 

Flutist makes sparkling Wellington premiere at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Gabriella Kopias (flute) and Richard Mapp (piano)

Music by Doppler, Debussy, Takemitsu, Fauré, Rachmaninov; Chaminade, Piaf and Ravel

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 1 April, 12:15 pm

It’s not clear what has brought Gabriella Kopias to Wellington, but it was whispered to me that she would rather like to stay here. That would be lovely, not because there is any lack of excellent flutists in town, but another of the quality of Kopias (pronounced Kópyas, I expect) could hardly be any sort of embarras de richesses.

She was born in Szeged in Hungary in 1975, graduated with distinction from both the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest and the Arts University in Graz, Austria and now makes her home in Vienna. While she has had some orchestral experience, including with the Vienna State Opera Orchestra, she seems to have made a career as a flute soloist; and also as a cantatrice: she ended her recital, leaving her flute aside and singing Piaf’s La vie en rose, with a very creditable Piaffian timbre and style. She also exhibits as a painter.

Gabriella chose a diverting and varied programme, starting with the Fantaisie pastorale hongroise by Polish/Hungarian, flutist-composer Albert Franz Doppler, who was born in Lemberg (when part of Austria in the 18th century), Lwow when in Poland after WWI (though the population from the 16th century was predominantly Polish and Jewish), and now Lviv, after the total expulsion of the Polish population (‘ethnic cleansing’) after 1945, when it was taken by the USSR to be part of Ukraine. Doppler was a close contemporary of Franck, Lalo, Johann Strauss II, Bruckner).

He wrote successful operas and instrumental pieces, the most famous of which is this Fantaisie. She played this delightful war-horse from memory, accompanied with verve and discretion by Richard Mapp; in three distinct parts, each illustrating a different aspect of Hungary’s musical character, finally a csardas, all full of lively melody and rhythm.

Debussy’s Syrinx seems to be most commonly played solo flute piece, so its place was to be expected, and most welcome.

Toru Takemitsu may still be the best known Japanese classical composer, it was the chance for Richard Mapp to be heard alone; Rain Tree reveals itself in a magical palette that derives from Debussy impressionism and the mysticism of the Buddhist or Shinto world. It seems to evolve but there is also the strong sense of remaining still.

Fauré’s Fantaisie (Andantino and Allegro) is one of those pieces, the Allegro at least, that’s familiar, attractive, but whose composer I hadn’t logged in the memory; one of the many pieces inspired by the great French flute player and protagonist, Paul Taffanel. The piano’s contribution was a very significant element in the performance, lending the first section, Andantino, more interest than it gets sometimes;
and the flute’s contribution was beguiling, fast and brilliant. The two were, as everywhere in the recital, in delightful balance, in support of each other but never invading the other’s space. (I missed the point of Gabriella’s comment, introducing the piece, about Cinderella, and quoting the words put in her mouth in the current Walt Disney film, ‘Have courage and be kind’).

I wondered whether in her next piece she would return to the platform without her flute, to sing Rachmaninov’s Vocalise, which is its original idea of course. But she played the flute, showing how adaptable this evergreen gem is.

Cécile Chaminade, in her long life (born before Puccini and died during the second World War), acquired a sort of palm court reputation in her lifetime and later, but she’s much more than that: her genius was for geniality, charm, sticking to melody and tonality through the turbulence of atonality and avant-gardism. In any case this Concertino, originally for flute and orchestra, Op 107, which was also dedicated to Paul Taffanel, gave clear indications of a capacity for those gifts to find expression in an extended piece that was carefully balanced, ending with an accelerating flourish. Again this well-matched duo proved splendid advocates for unpretentious music that is clearly surviving the years.

Then Gabriella really did leave her flute behind and picked up the microphone to sing Piaf, as I noted above. How many would accept that the definition of ‘classical’ extends far beyond the ranks of those composers whose names are followed by brackets showing dates of birth and death?

Finally, an encore listed in the programme: Ravel’s Habanera, or rather, the Vocalise-étude en forme de habanera, is a song for deep voice and piano. In arrangements for a great variety of instruments it’s been called Pièce en forme de habanera. As does Rachmaninov’s Vocalise, it sits happily for almost any instruments, and this was a most attractive way to end this introduction to a musician whom I hope we will hear again.