Author: Lindis Taylor

The Tudor Consort celebrates Mexico’s National Day with great 17th century music

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

‘Missa Mexicana’

Missa ego flos campi by Juan Gutiérrez de Padilla and other Mexican baroque music

The Tudor Consort conducted by Michael Stewart with Matthew Marshall and Jamie Garrick (guitars)

Church of St Mary of the Angels

Saturday 15 September, 7.30pm

The inspiration for this concert of Mexican music, mainly liturgical, came from its coinciding with Mexico’s national day, celebrating independence from Spain in 1810 (though not from the economic colonisation by the country to their north).

For all the cruelty of the conquistadors towards the pre-Colomban peoples, Spain had nevertheless planted a richer and in some ways a more permanent linguistic, cultural and religious character on the country, in the shape of splendid religious architecture, painting and music; though of course that went with a conservative social and economic framework that the countries of Latin America are still suffering from today.

Recall that a major Spanish composer, Padilla, who lived in Mexico through the mid 17th century while the English colonies to the north remained relatively uncultivated, had found an environment that had already succeeded in replicating the culture and sophistication of the home country quite profoundly.

When Padilla was 26, in 1616, he became Maestro di capilla at the Cadiz Cathedral, and travelled to Mexico by 1622 where he became Maestro di capilla at the Cathedral in Puebla. Puebla, now a city of around a million, had by the 17th century become remarkably rich and had gained a pre-eminent position in Mexican cultural life, especially music. Padilla was the leading, and an enormously prolific, composer whose name, curiously, will not be found in English music reference books of earlier years. However, a glance at ‘Mexico’ and his own entry in the New Grove Dictionary of Music, will put him in context.

It was one of his many masses that formed the backbone of the concert: Missa ego flos campi (‘I am the flower of the field’, from The Song of Solomon). It was accompanied by Michael Stewart on the chamber organ and two guitars played by Matthew Marshall and Jamie Garrick.  Apart from that, there seemed little to distinguish it from the polyphony of Morales or Victoria, and the choir performed with its accustomed elegance and clarity. The Gloria attracted special attention with its opening tenor solo, leading to passages that were perhaps a little more light-hearted than earlier masses; while the Sanctus introduced rhythms with a hint of syncopation.

I was particularly charmed by the translucent singing of the Agnes Dei which was greatly enriched by the simplicity of guitars and organ.

As is common in concerts of this kind, the mass was interspersed by smaller motets and guitar pieces, and there were some changes that were reportedly brought about by rehearsal problems.

Between Kyrie and Gloria, the Xácara (a Portuguese word meaning ‘ballad’; the Spanish is ‘jacara’), ‘Los que fueran de bien gusto’ was sung by three soloists from the ranks: sopranos Erin King and Jane McKinlay and alto Megan Hurnard: syncopated rhythms were accompanied with clapping.

After the Gloria Matthew Marshall played a Prelude, allegro and gigue by Francisco de Vidales, which had been programmed in the second half. (It replaced a xácara by Padilla). The prelude, slow and meditative, led to a charming triple-time allegro which revealed the hand of an accomplished composer and a spirited performance. In the Gigue quite tricky rhythms had me wondering whether a particular phrase was smudged or merely an unusually complex little turn.

Soprano Erin King sang again after the Sanctus: ‘Marizapalos a lo divino – Serafin que con dulce harmonia’ by a contemporary of Padilla, Joan Cererola. Her singing was warm and soft, and perhaps in my imagination, I was hearing the wonderful Montserrat Figueras’s voice.

Matthew Marshall contributed another solo, this time way out of the era: ‘Por ti mi corazón’ by the father of Mexican nationalism in music, Manuel Ponce. Its gentle meandering melody suggested Mompou or Turina, in a performance that spoke of modesty and refinement.

The choir then returned to the 17th century with Garcia de Zéspedes’s ‘Convidando esta la noche’ (which I suppose means something like ‘Convivial is the night’). Part way through Michael Stewart took to a drum set while a singer handled maracas as the spirit of the music grew more and more lively, with an energetic tenor taking command towards the end.

Though the concert was a bit shorter than might have been expected the goods were of the finest quality and the audience showed great delight at this move away from the heartland of the early baroque, no doubt to open many ears in surprise to the sophistication of New Spain in the 17th century.

 

 

Baroque ‘musick for several friends’ at the Adam Concert Room:

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Musick for several friends: No 3: Baroque wind

Music by J J Quantz, Leclair, Philidor, Duphly, Telemann, J S Bach

Kamala Bain (recorder and voice flute), Penelope Evison (baroque flute), Douglas Mews (harpsichord)

Adam Concert Room

Sunday 9 September, 4pm

This was the third of three concerts that offered various perspectives on the music of the Baroque period; the first for viols, the second for two harpsichords and this one for wind instruments. And their musical delights were enhanced by offerings of snakc and drinks afterwards.

J J Quantz was a flutist, one of the principal musicians at the brilliant counrt of Frederick the Great who was himself a flute player and also a composer. Quantz’s Sonata for recorder, flute and continuo was a substantial, four-movement work that offered both tunefulness and opportunity for display which these players were very well-equipped to deal with. It is not common (for me anyway) to hear recorder and flute playing together, and it was a real pleasure to hear how well they sounded together, the recorder with a resonant sound, though not so capable of producing vibrato and varied articulations.

A Leclair sonata was introduced by Douglas Mews, recalling the composer’s sticky end on the violent streets of mid 18th century Paris, and the mixed influences of Italian and French music to be heard in his music. Here, the flute lay in a slightly lower register than was called for in the Quantz, and it also presented technical difficulties which caused minor slips later. But in general the music and its playing was charming.

The next piece was also French, from Pierre Philidor, a composer from a large musical family; his cousin, François André, thirty years younger, was one of the most famous French opera composers between Rameau and the Revolution (a major early exponent of opéra-comique).

For this piece, in addition to Penelope Evison’s baroque flute, Kamala Bain produced her voice flute which, she said, could be called a tenor flute. Its sound is something that might cause the flute sceptic to revise his views. The second movement, marked Chaconne, was not the sort of chaconne we are familiar with listening to the typical, slow, triple time German piece. It was bright and quite lively.  Here was a thoughtful piece, emotionally quite expressive in which the two instruments blended beautifully.

Douglas Mews then played, alone, two pieces from a set simply called Third Book of Pieces, by Jacques Duphly. Unlike music French music of the time – a generation after Philidor – dotted rhythms were did not predominate and it did rather suggest a German character. The first movement, La Forqueray (honouring the composer so-named), was in slow common time, written to exploit the harpsichord’s lower range, so producing an agreeable resonance, giving it a feeling of substance and depth. The second piece was La De Belombre (the name unknown to me, to the New Grove Dictionary and to Wikipedia), and its brighter character suggested a spirited fellow, who liked dancing, but who also saw the trade of composing music as being quite important.

Then the musicians took us back east, to north and central Germany. Telemann’s Sonata for recorder and continuo displayed his rhythmic inventiveness and facility in all the compositional devices that marked one for success in the early 18th century, and alternating darting forays by recorder and harpsichord, . The Larghetto had a singing line that emerged without the assistance of vibrato; the Vivace last movement was quite a aural spectacle, demanding virtuosity from both instruments.  And the trio played another Telemann piece, from a concerto for flute and recorder, as an encore.

Finally I heard, for the second time in a week, Bach’s Sonata for two flutes and continuo, BWV 1039; the Nikau Trio played it as a ‘Trio Sonata’ at Lower Hutt. As so often with concerts of baroque music, after a variety of less-known  music by lesser composers, the Bach sounded like a masterpiece, more profoundly lyrical where that was the intent, ornaments than were integral to the shape of the music, use of the two flutes with real flair and imagination. I particularly enjoyed the two instruments in the Adagio third movement, handling the slow, rising four-note triad, creating a pensive tone.  The Presto was a charming, lively piece that sounded most accomplished in these hands.

The entire concert was interestingly constructed, supplying the curious with music that carried various styles and influences as well as a lot of pure pleasure.

 

 

Fancy having such a quartet in our midst! The last of the glorious Beethoven series

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Beethoven: the late string quartets from the New Zealand String Quartet

String Quartets: No 13 in B flat, Op 130 (with the Grosse Fuge as its finale); and No 14 in C Sharp minor, Op 131

Church of St Mary of the Angels

Saturday 8 September, 6.30pm

This concert brought to an end what might well be considered a pinnacle in the career of the New Zealand String Quartet. The quartet’s earlier achievements have been distinguished enough, with their complete cycle of Bartók’s quartets and the Naxos recordings of the complete quartets of Mendelssohn. And it has had an important role in enhancing New Zealand’s reputation as a country that places high value on the arts and music through tours every year in North America and very widely in Europe, not to mention the important contribution to music in New Zealand, for example through the biennial Adam Chamber Music Festival in Nelson, guided by quartet members.

Beethoven’s late quartets fall into two groups. Prince Galitzin had first asked for ‘at least’ three quartets and Beethoven delivered the first three (Opp 127, 130 and 132; Op 132 came before Op 130 in its completion) in 1825 and early 1826. He then continued to complete the two further quartets: Opp 131 and 135, and then in response to his publisher’s urging, he wrote the alternative finale for Op 130, and left the replaced Great Fugue as Op 133.

The New Zealand String Quartet decided here to follow a growing trend worldwide, to put the Great Fugue back in its place as the last movement of the wonderful B flat quartet, Op 130.

I should first remark on the visual beauties of the church, many candelabra and the massive columns supporting the arches around the sanctuary lit from below; the players in spotlights with just enough light for the audience to look at the names of movements. The two men wore standard black while the two women wore most elegant floor-length skirts of shimmery black and grey.

Now the music.

This quartet does not produce a sound that became familiar in the earlier part of last century; dark and burnished, evoking a religious feeling that might have been appropriate in this setting. Their sound is warm enough, particularly Douglas Beilman’s violin and Gillian Ansell’s viola, but what this quartet’s instincts veer towards are the sounds that have given them such authenticity in Bartók and Ravel and, I think, Mendelssohn.

The last quartets, at least the three that depart markedly from the conventional four-movement shape, continue to be quoted by today’s avant-garde composers to support a defence of very general non-acceptance by claiming that Beethoven in these works had far outrun his audiences and that they were not understood for many decades. That is not true: apart from some formal misgivings and the sort of discussion that still takes place about the way the bits relate to each other, they were played at once and widely appreciated. The famous French commentator, Joseph de Marliave, for example, writes: “Certainly there was recognised here extraordinary beauty but marred by blemishes and passages of inexplicable obscurity. One gains the impression of admiration mixed with an uneasy, even awestruck astonishment.”

Accessibility certainly poses no problem in this, Op 130 (nor of course in any of them), and its six distinct movements make the relationships between and within movements easy enough to follow; the mood generally is sanguine and even touched with gaiety, though infusing its melodiousness with a sort of luminous spirituality. I smiled at the remark about the banality of the Presto, second movement, in Rolf Gjelsten’s programme note (I wonder how he feels about the Presto in Op 131); I can see how this might arise, but it’s a mistake to hear a moment – and it’s very short – of esprit, a flash of self-mockery, as a flawed passage. Happily, its role was perfectly captured by the quartet’s performance, as it follows the multitudinous emotional experience of the first movement, offering us a uncomplicated pause to prepare for the beauty of the not-so-slow, Andante movement which seems to hesitate occasionally between contentment and grief.

There was a charming curve to the rhythmic shape of the beguiling, barcarolle-like melody of the Alla danza tedesca that lent special appeal.

Listening to the Cavatina never fails to touch the emotions strangely, more with its sheer beauty than through the expression of the composer’s pain, and this performance conveyed it in the form of acceptance and peace.

I have become more used to this movement being followed by the Great Fugue in certain recordings, and its size, weight and determination now seem indispensable in providing emotional balance to a work that might otherwise be heard as being somewhat dominated by a lightness of spirit. And this was a superb, unrelenting, though wonderfully varied, performance, making the quartet’s entire three-quarter hour length not a minute too long.

The C sharp minor quartet is considered by many the greatest of them all; Beethoven himself apparently did. It presents a more obscure form to a new listener because its seven movements are played without a break, so it is useful to follow it with a score on first hearing.

If profundity is rather the same as an expression of deep feeling, rapture, grief, playfulness, here is the quartet that qualifies. The fugue that opens the first movement has a very different character from that which ended Op 130. Its tonality never seems to settle and fresh, evolving ideas arise. The programme note here, and most that one reads are of little real help in the absence of the score. Failing that, only careful repeated listenings will lead to enlightenment, of committing its main features to memory.

The impression of the quartet is rather that of a fantasia whose shape is determined by impulse, but which has no less or weaker artistic integrity for that.

The heart of the quartet is movement 4, Andante, an extended set of variations, based on a melody of melting beauty, and containing passages that often drew attention to individual episodes such as the rapturous dialogue between Helene Pohl’s violin and Rolf Gjelsten’s cello in the Piu mosso  variation. Its very length, about 15 minutes, is itself a marvel in terms of its overwhelming hypnotic force.

The task of investing the movement with musical coherence, as well as creating an emotional landscape that will take hold of the emotions, even of the spirit, is the greatest challenge of a performance. Did the New Zealand String Quartet quite succeed in sustaining me, you, through this journey? I’m not sure; even with the help of the atmosphere of the church, the lighting, the sense of occasion, my attention drifted occasionally, yet their playing was of a very high order in expressiveness, richness of tone, of subtle dynamic and rhythmic variety.

But responses to music are very personal, and it is usually much more useful to admire the outward characteristics of a performance which here comprised unity and balance, the beautiful individual performances that often reveal striking personal insights, and the sustained feeling for the architecture of each quartet.

Much of the series, under three different promoters has been heard in the main centres as well as certain provincial cities; the Beethoven cycle was the most fitting way for the quartet to celebrate its 25th anniversary, and will have been one of the year’s absolute highlights wherever it was heard.

 

Nikau Trio creates charming new repertoire for their ensemble: at Lower Hutt

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Nikau Trio: Karen Batten (flute), Madeleine Sakovsky (oboe), Margaret Guldborg (cello)

Haydn: Trio No 3 in G, Hob. IV:3 (originally for two flutes and cello continuo)
J S Bach: Trio Sonata in G, BWV 1039
Beethoven: Variations on ‘La ci darem la mano’ from Don Giovanni, WoO 28
Vivaldi: Chamber concerto in G minor RV 103

St Mark’s Church, Lower Hutt

Wednesday 5 September, 12.15pm

The lunchtime concerts at St Mark’s church on Woburn Road have been growing in popularity, and there seems to be a trend towards presenting music of greater substance over the past year or so. But that’s not the only pleasure in making the journey. The church has a light and open lobby where free tea and coffee are available before the concerts; and the church itself, with its high vaulted wooden ceiling, allows the music to bloom in the most engaging way.

The little trio in G by Haydn, written while he was in London for the Salomon concerts that featured his twelve last great symphonies, might be slight in terms of musical profundity, but perfectly matched the sunny day and the temperament of the three polished musicians. All free-lance, professional musicians, they created a beautiful ensemble, perhaps even more attractive than the original for two flutes would have been. Attention moves from one to another as they play, to admire the polish and individuality of each in turn, but then the sound of the trio as a unit overtakes you.

Given the work’s origin, it was to be expected that both flute and oboe would lie in a similar range, mostly quite high. To my ears, the oboe’s contribution lent a welcome textured colour to the sound, and the fine cello playing of Margaret Guldborg kept it well grounded.

Bach’s sonata was one of his few ‘Trio Sonatas’ (this one for two flutes and continuo); it was a very common genre in the early 18th century, and Bach wrote it during the years at the small court of Anhalt-Cöthen during 1717 – 1723, his instrumental music years (because the Prince was a Calvinist and was not interested in choral music). Cöthen is a bit north of Leipzig, in the present province of Sachsen-Anhalt.

It is in the traditional slow-fast-slow-fast pattern, and though hardly one of his major works, it offered enough musical substance in the form of counterpoint to hold the attention. And the opening Adagio was of a sanguine character, spiced by the Bach gift for the slightly unorthodox, to end the movement on an unresolved cadence. Though I can’t recall hearing the piece before, the second movement, Allegro ma non presto, and the last movement, were familiar. A trio sonata might stand somewhere between a solo or duet sonata and a concerto, and there were hints of the texture of one of his concertos in the third movement.

The Beethoven variations too were originally composed for a slightly different combination: two oboes and cor anglais, in 1796. It is quite an extended work with considerable variety between the eight variations though its pattern is little different from the very common variation form that prevailed across the centuries. The three players here exhibited considerable delight in this variety, whether tossing motifs back and forth or enjoying a brief duet in charming harmony. The eighth variation became more elaborate in its concertante character, both flute and oboe extremely busy while the cello looked after the melody. The rhythm in the coda turned into a gigue, with the cello again important; but the piece subsides to a quite poignant conclusion.

The Vivaldi concerto is one of his less common excursions for particular instruments: here he wrote for recorder, oboe, bassoon and strings. In G minor, it opens brightly, with Guldborg’s cello fluent and lively, then taking on a serious quality in the Largo led by the flute and oboe and the trio’s always splendid sharing of the motifs as well as the warmth and accuracy of the ensemble made this a thoroughly delightful recital.

 

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‘Cellissimo’: Upper Hutt recital by NZSM cello and piano lecturers

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Classical Expressions at Upper Hutt

‘Cellissimo’ – Inbal Megiddo (cello) and Jian Liu (piano)

Boccherini: Sonata in A major; Beethoven: Handel Variations (‘See the conquering hero comes’); Cello Sonata No 4 in C, Op 102; Schubert: Introduction, Theme and Variations, Op 82 No 2, arranged by Piatigorsky; Rossini: Concert Rhapsody on The Barber of Seville, arranged by Mario Castelnuovo Tedesco.

Genesis Energy Theatre, Expressions Arts Centre, Upper Hutt

Monday 3 September, 7.30pm

This was the fourth in the fine series of recitals that are jointly promoted by the arts centre and the Upper Hutt Music Society. I always enjoy a trip to Upper Hutt, though I have yet to get myself there by train, which is so convenient at the Upper Hutt end, with an arrival at 7.20pm and departure at 10pm.  The arts centre itself is an attractive space, usually with an art exhibition to visit before or during the interval and a coffee bar open at those times too.

It was an interesting programme, though by the end, I felt that Ms Megiddo had chosen a bit too much showy music at the expense of a couple of more lyrical works for the cello. (By the way, her name is pronounced with a hard ‘g’ and stress on the second syllable: clues to pronunciation should be routinely clarified in every reference to names whenever there is the slightest chance of uncertainty, as there is, even, in many ordinary English names).

It began with one of the large number of cello pieces composed by the 18th century’s most famous cellist, Luigi Boccherini; I count about 23 cello sonatas in the Gérard catalogue (and he wrote over a hundred string quintets that call for two cellos). It opened with an Adagio, gentle in tone with a long ornate melody that nevertheless offered plenty of scope for display of his own virtuosity, typical of writing by a composer for himself; though it was not without minor bowing flaws. It continued in the Allegro movement with much decorated material, in a vigorous rhythmic style.

Turning attention to the piano, Jian Liu’s playing was in immaculate accord with Megiddo’s playing, supporting it admirably.

Beethoven’s Cello Sonata No 4 followed. If I found the performance a little lacking in tonal richness, I’m inclined to put it down to her instrument, which has plenty of projection but which makes it hard to obtain a warm, lyrical line. As a result the work sounded a bit severe, its most notable quality being to bring out musical structure, rather than the flesh that gives music its essential life.

Beethoven’s variations on the aria from Handel’s Judas Maccabeus, ‘See the conquering hero comes’ responded better to Megiddo’s playing; here there seemed better scope for a dramatic approach which had the side effect of injecting more colour and spirit. The sharp differences between each of the variations lend the piece a good deal of its interest, with excellent opportunities to mark the cellist’s technical skills, and the piano’s contribution, with its own striking ornaments, was again, most rewarding.

The second half gained through its singular variety of styles. Megiddo captured the bare beauty of Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel in a very arresting, keenly focused performance, with remarkable pianissimos and long-held, deeply intoned notes as the piano handled the more detailed elements.

Megiddo’s note for a piece written for the cellist, marking the 50th anniversary of Israel’s emergence, succinctly described the character of contemporary Israeli concert music, and it was an excellent introduction to her playing of Eretz by Hanna Levy. There were indeed echoes of the various cultural strands that contribute to the complex fabric of Jewish peoples in Israel, and they made for an interesting, often attractive, symphony of disparate sound. This too found Megiddo in a very comfortable space.

The next two pieces struck a curious note for someone always intrigued by unexpected juxtapositions. Schubert and Rossini were very close contemporaries; the prodigal flowering of Rossini’s music, aged about 18, that almost at once gained world-wide popularity occasionally stood in the way of the 5-years-younger Viennese composer’s hopes of success, especially in opera. Another odd circumstance is the fact that Schubert ended his composing life through dying, poor and not widely celebrated, just a few months before Rossini ended his opera career by retiring in Paris in great fame and wealth.

But here was a set of variations composed for piano four-hands by Schubert, not, I should have thought, primarily a show-piece for the players. (It’s in the Deutsch catalogue as: Variations on an Original Theme in B-flat major, Op. posth. 82, No. 2, D 968 A). It sounded fairly unexceptional as a conventional set of variations. However, I am not in a position to know what Schubert’s original was like, nor what changes cellist Piatigorsky made in the course of his arrangement, but what we heard had plenty of material for a skilled cellist to make excellent use of.

The Rossini variations were also an arrangement by another hand, this time by Italian composer, best known for his guitar compositions, Mario Castelnuovo Tedesco (translating as ‘Newcastle-German’, if you’re interested). It didn’t start terribly well on the cello, though I didn’t think it mattered as it did not impress me as an especially worthy piece of music.

Rather better was their brief encore, one piece from the Suite popular española by Manuel de Falla which seems to be an arrangement, probably for violin, of six of his Siete canciones populares españolas (properly translated as Seven Spanish popular songs, and not ‘Popular Spanish Songs’).

A somewhat uneven programme, somewhat unevenly played on the cello though very fine at its best, and with sufficient musicality and musical substance to make the journey worthwhile.

 

John Chen’s highly rewarding detour for piano recital at Waikanae

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(Waikanae Music Society)

Mozart: Piano Sonata No 15 in F, K 533 and K 494; Enescu: Piano Sonata No 1 in F sharp minor, Op 24 No 1; Dorothy Buchanan: From the Mountain to the River; Schumann: Fantasie in C, Op 17

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday 2 September, 2.30pm

John Chen paid a flying visit from Auckland to play this one concert for the Waikanae Music Society after which he returned to Auckland to pick up his flight the same evening, to Hamburg. The good citizens of Kapiti could well feel privileged.

The Waikanae hall which is basically an indoor sports arena has not been an ideal music venue, particularly for chamber music, has been cleverly adapted so that sound projects more strongly and cleanly. A recessed stage was created a few years ago which acts as a kind of amplifier, and this has recently been improved with a hard-surfaced ceiling at 45 degrees which further enhances the sound.

Chen cultivates a reputation for looking out for unusual music, and it is music that generally rewards his risk-taking. That was certainly the case here with two rather unfamiliar pieces. Mozart’s Sonata No 15 is not unfamiliar, but it is just not so often played as half a dozen other sonatas that are more popular.

It was composed in two separate parts. In June 1786 he had written a Rondo (or Rondeau in one account), to which Köchel gave the number 494, and some months later he wrote an Allegro and Andante.  At his publisher Hoffmeister’s request, he joined those two movements with the earlier Rondo, adding a twenty-seven measure cadenza to it, to form a three-movement sonata.`

Chen’s playing introduced it unpretentiously, light and confident, yet betraying its sophisticated, contrapuntal character and the interesting inner voices seemed to gain particular point.  His articulation was precise, with lively staccato, all of which commanded attention.

Each movement contains musical ideas that are both attractive and arresting and which lend themselves to imaginative development; the themes are not especially catchy, but they soon take on the nature of a thinking person’s sonata. The meaningful pauses in the Andante movement are not characteristic of a late 17th century work; : each note, in Chen’s hands, seemed to be in the inevitably right place, and it was as if Mozart was responding to an instinct that was taking him rather wide of the conventions of his day.

It was the next piece that was the real discovery: Enescu’s first piano sonata. He wrote three, but the second has been lost; in the light of this one, that is very sad. Everyone has expectations of Enescu through the two wonderful Romanian Rhapsodies (the second, much less played, is quieter but just as infectious); the reality of the other music that he’s written is quite different however, and his opera Oedipe is ranked by many among the great operas of the 20th century. I have long regretted having to opt out of booked seats to see it in Bucharest about eight years ago.

The opening is very plain, single notes, but slowly complexity gathers, rhythms and tonalities shift to create an air of unease or instability; it place in the march of music history is defined by an occasional subtle bluesy harmony, but its ancestry can only be heard as coming from the eastern side of the Atlantic. If there are traces of Romanian folk music, they merely go to show that my acquaintance with that music is uncultivated. The general impression is of a work rich in melody of a fleeting kind, that makes its points obliquely and modestly. I Googled the work (as one does almost routinely these days – my set of the New Grove Dictionary of Music gets consulted much less) and found a review of a performance which made excellent general remarks about the music:

“Perhaps one reason why not a lot of pianists have paid attention to Enescu is because, while it is fiendishly difficult to play, the music rarely offers virtuosic thrills that bring concert audiences to their feet. To be sure, playing Enescu is just as difficult as playing Bartok, Ravel, Prokofiev or Rachmaninov, but Enescu requires a selfless kind of virtuosity, one that goes far beyond absolute control of the instrument.”

I thought there were weaknesses, not in the playing, but in passages that struck me as prolonged by needless passagework or repetition of mere decoration; and, particularly in the second movement, the promise of an interesting development that was tantalisingly unfulfilled. However, Chen’s achievement was to invest such moments with interest and liveliness, and the last movement slowly created a ravishing and magical landscape by which all minor misgivings were forgotten.

A short impressionistic piece by Wellington composer Dorothy Buchanan opened the second half, imaginative, unpretentious, and Chen gave it a gentle, careful reading.

The big draw-card was of course Schumann’s Fantaisie in C, widely loved even by those poor souls who don’t love Schumann’s music unreservedly.  Though it is allowable to regret that he did not quite find this glorious vein of composition again. Chen revealed a real affection for it through playing that was both hugely capable (it’s not for amateurs, I say sadly), but poetic and restrained, and in the powerful central movement giving full vent to all of the composer’s wonderful impulsiveness, never mind a couple of unimportant smudges, and expressed so rapturously, the composer’s ecstatic hopes for a future with his beloved Clara.

And so, after rather clamorous applause, he played the Prelude to Bach’s 4th English Suite in F, BWV 809.

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Gendall’s Triple Concerto perplexing highlight of Wellington Orchestra concert

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‘The Toy Box’

Vector Wellington Orchestra conducted by Marc Taddei

Haydn: Symphony No 60 in C (Il distratto); Triple Concerto by Chris Gendall with the NZ Trio (Justine Cormack – violin, Ashley Brown – cello, Sarah Watkins – piano); Debussy: ballet score – La boîte à joujoux – narrator: Jackie Clarke

Wellington Town Hall

Saturday 1 September, 7.30pm

This concert was performed in the Masterton Town Hall on the previous night.

In Wellington, there was a rather smaller audience than in the past, and one can only surmise the reasons;  perhaps, the absence of a thematic link that has been so successful in the past?

Il Distratto
Haydn’s 60th symphony, (Il distratto, or the absent-minded man) was in part a satire on the incompetent composer whose command of form and taste is deficient, which was a not uncommon procedure in the classical era when matters of form were very important.

The spoofs began with the opening Allegro, with the leading motif dying out as if the hero of the story was experiencing memory loss; not once but several times. The second movement involved the juxtaposition of alien tempos. And so it goes till the last movement when bad tuning causes the whole orchestra to stop in chaos and to re-tune laboriously.

My old LP of this symphony, under Vittorio Gui, explains that Haydn actually instructed the violins to tune the G string down a tone at the start of the Finale which creates the foreign harmony of D minor when the two bottom strings play together; it is that which brings about the chaos.

The effect on the night was funny nevertheless as the retuning process is a totally unprofessional procedure; the orchestra played it with a suppressed smile that was audible, staking out the music variously, in a vein that was mock serioso or absurd, and it brought the symphony to a end, promising perhaps that the rest of the concert might carry on in the same high spirits.

Chris Gendall’s premiere
There could have been nothing more different than the next work. My earlier experience of Chris Gendall’s music had led me to considerable curiosity about a work with a title suggesting a move into the Beethovenian heartland of symphonic music. It was not that; and there was no time to make any calm, spiritual preparation for what followed.

The last piece of Gendall’s I heard was Intaglio; it too was played by the NZ Trio, both at a Mulled Wine concert at Paekakariki and at Lower Hutt (I heard both, mainly in order better to grasp Intaglio).

The NZ Trio is a leading advocate of new New Zealand music, especially of the more adventurous kind, and their contribution in this performance was quite as prominent as such a soloist group would ordinarily be. But there was little familiar in the way they interacted or used their instruments.

The relationship between trio and orchestra bore no relationship to any Beethoven-born expectations: no conventional rivalry, but a completely integrated sensation, all contributing in the ways suggested primarily by the possibilities of the instruments themselves.

Gendall was a music graduate of Victoria University and has since completed doctoral studies at Cornell University. He has been celebrated at international festivals and conferences on contemporary music, and he has been a frequent prize winner, starting with the Lilburn composition prize at Victoria University. He was Composer-in-residence at the New Zealand School of Music and is now Composer-in-residence with the Vector Wellington Orchestra which has led to this performance.

You will find four other reviews of his music on this website by using ‘search’.

The Triple Concerto
Some of those reviews, though admiring, suggested a dense and difficult character. That was indeed the case with this concerto, which is probably one of the largest and most ambitious works Gendall has undertaken. I should have made an attempt to hear it in rehearsal; to read the score of such an extraordinarily multifaceted, complex work would have been no help at all (extracts are on the SOUNZ website).

The programme booklet did not have space for notes that appear on the SOUNZ website, recording Gendall’s description of it. It might have helped define beginnings and endings of the five sections of the music, let alone to get the hang of the musical ideas, and their evolution.

Here is the link: Chris Gendall’s Thumbnail Sketch of the Triple Concerto

Perhaps the music’s character will be suggested by a quote from Gendall’s programme notes, that explains the five movements as “traversing a variety of sonic terrain, … to explore the distinction between diffused sounds and those in close proximity in rhythmic, harmonic and physical space”.  The latter was demonstrated, among other things, by disposing a number of brass players around the perimeter of the gallery, hinting fleetingly at Gabrieli-style sounds, but that proved misleading. In the event I felt the opportunity to create some kind of major stereophonic effect was not fully exploited.

If the impact of the sounds, relentlessly produced and making formidable demands on players’ accuracy and skills of all kinds,  left many in the audience bemused or confused, the work nevertheless displayed an accomplishment and aural imagination that would probably gain it attention in international contemporary music circles. For it demonstrates a most impressive command of compositional techniques and command of orchestration that would amaze Berlioz or Rimsky-Korsakov, but which are the material of today’s version of the avant-garde.

But just as the old-fashioned virtuoso aimed to overwhelm his listeners by putting all his skills on show, so in a show-piece of avant-gardism, technical brilliance, the impulse to demonstrate a command of an astonishing array of composerly skills, leaves this listener feeling bewildered, first through the sheer multiplicity of sounds and their transformations, and secondly from an overwhelming sense of the music’s complex intellectual character; which can leave a feeling of dismay and frustration at one’s inability to grasp and hence enjoy the music. Does the music have a heart?  Are there human emotions at work there? Is there a soul? The answer may be, Yes, but there can be a problem if some glimmering of those things cannot be perceived.

Little music of this kind is actually performed in normal orchestral concerts for ordinary music-lovers, however. On the other hand, performance of new music in the exclusive environment of the contemporary music concert or festival is a defeatist response, for the ordinary music lover has not in the past found digestible material there, and they stay away.  One fruitful solution can be a ten minute exploration of some of the key elements of a new piece in the concert itself, before the piece is played.

One can say, as many listeners do, that composers would do themselves and their potential audiences a favour by refraining from employing all the extremely advanced notions, concepts and techniques they might command, for the sake of engaging with their listeners.

La boîte à joujoux
Debussy’s La boîte à joujoux is one of his least known extended pieces. I’d not heard it before. Though written in 1913 while Debussy was alive, it was not produced as a ballet till 1919, when he was dead, at the Théâtre lyrique du vaudeville in Paris.

It was written for his own daughter, nicknamed Chouchou (c.f. Joujoux), based on a scenario by painter André Hellé, but left in 1913 as a piano four-hands score, with only 93 measures orchestrated. The orchestration was completed by composer/conductor André Caplet, after its first performance as a ballet was delayed by the war.  This performance, without dancers, needed a means of telling the story and Dave Armstrong adapted a spoken narrative drawn from a scenario (was it the original by Hellé or something prepared later for a possible concert performance such as this one?).

But even though delivered vividly by actress Jackie Clarke, in a manner that was charming and entertaining (though her voice was often overwhelmed by passages of orchestral tutti), it didn’t really change it from a rather childish confection.

The music itself was rather slight, though tuneful and pleasant, especially that for the Pretty Doll, but it’s clearly not a neglected masterpiece which explains, I suppose, why it has not become familiar, and has not even inspired the extraction of a suite.

However, Marc Taddei had inspired the orchestra to play as if it was a delightful, undervalued treasure; what more can you ask?

So here was a programme that had some hurdles to clear, some of which were just a little too high to achieve a uniformly polished, flawless concert. Nevertheless, though this was not an unmixed triumph in terms of the box office and audience response, its exotic and eclectic character made its impact, and reflecting on it over the next two days was to recall it all with increasing satisfaction, and certainly a sense of discovery.

 

A fine recital of Fauré mélodies at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Songs by Fauré sung by The VoxBox:  Megan Corby (soprano) and Craig Beardsworth (baritone)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 29 August, 12.15pm

I last heard these two accomplished singers at a lunchtime concert at St Mark’s church, Lower Hutt, a few months ago, when  they sang an amusing variety of American songs. For Wellington City they chose a slightly more rigorous programme, though only in the sense that all the songs were by one composer, and a classical composer whom many would not rank among the top ten.

But this little recital went some way to establish Fauré as a composer who can easily sustain interest in a programme dedicated solely to him.

The two took turns. Megan Corby sang the first two songs: Au bord de l’eau, a charming barcarolle, which served to get piano and voice in balance with each other; dynamics were a little uneven, but her French was carefully delivered; then Ici bas, in which her attractive voice found a comfortable level; it’s a lament on the shortcomings of life on earth compared with another life elsewhere. Both were songs to poems by Sully-Prudhomme. (He was associated with the group known as Parnassiens, who advanced the notion of l’art pour l’art – ‘art for art’s sake’).

Craig Beardsworth sang a third song to a Sully-Prudhomme poem, Les berceaux. It was good to hear his voice in such good shape, in a song that called for subtlety where his velvety baritone seemed sleepily suited; the idea is unusual, with a rocking motion that relates both to a cradle, and to a boat whose shape also suggests a cradle: the words reflect on the roles of men and women,

Megan returned for Aurore by an obscure poet, Armand Silvestre, and her voice flowed comfortably over its long lines. (Silvestre, incidentally, was more noted as a playwright; he wrote the play HenryVIII that Saint-Saëns set as an opera). She followed with the languorous Les roses d’Ispahan by Leconte de Lisle, the leader of the Parnassiens, capturing a fitting sensuous quality.

Craig offered a few comments before some of his songs. He explained the origin of Nell (also Leconte de Lisle), as derived from a poem by Burns and his singing was enriched by its varied timbres. Craig’s remarks before several of the songs were apt and well-informed: I am not one who has an objection to performers speaking.

Megan next sang one of Fauré’s best-known songs, Après un rêve. Her delivery was a little more declamatory than its lines seemed to suggest to me: rather whispered.

Craig, without the score in front of him, sang a trilogy of songs, Poème du jour (by another obscure poet, Charles Grandmougin). Though minor poems, Fauré has created a set of expressive songs telling a predictable little love story, in which Craig’s voice rose comfortably, occasionally, into the tenor register.

Megan’s final songs were Chanson d’amour, Clair de lune and Mandoline – the last two to poems by Verlaine. Chanson d’amour was slight enough, repeating unvaried the words ‘Je t’aime’ at the start of each stanza, but she created an air of superficial contentment. Both Clair de lune and Mandoline are settings of good poems in some of Fauré’s loveliest music, and Megan explored their individual character most affectingly, leaving a convincing impression of a singer with the secrets of the French mélodie in her soul.

Craig’s last songs were Le secret (about which he told an anecdote: Fauré who was never a confident composer, had played it to Duparc who exclaimed: ‘Bête sauvage’ which reassured Fauré that he’d been successful); and En sourdine, also by Verlaine. Over an accompaniment of broken arpeggios, it refers to a muted stringed instrument, though it’s a song of wide-ranging character that would hardly call for a mute if played on a violin, and was a fine way to confirm Beardsworth’s accomplishments as a sensitive singer of French mélodies.

The whole programme was very well conceived and, given the outdoor attractions of nice weather, well received by a quite large audience.

 

 

Young Leonari Trio produces elegiac joie de vivre at Lower hutt

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Leonari Trio (Hilary Hayes – violin, Edward King – cello, Maria Mo – piano)

Beethoven: Piano Trio in D, Op 70 no 1 (‘Ghost’); Rachmaninov: Trio élégiaque No 1 in G minor; Arensky: Piano Trio No 1  in D minor, Op 32

Lower Hutt Little Theatre

Tuesday 28 August, 7.30pm

This young trio which came together at the University of Waikato in 2009 has had a charmed life, after winning the Pettman Royal Overseas League scholarship and touring Britain with singular success, visiting some fairly notable concert venues. Individually, they have gained some prestigious awards: both string players were in the NZSO National Youth Orchestra while pianist Maria Mo has played concertos with the Opus Chamber Orchestra and the Waikato Symphony Orchestra.

This concert fell in the middle of a nationwide tour for Chamber Music New Zealand; a second, very attractive programme called Viennese Tales, has been played in other centres, sadly not in the Greater Wellington region (you could catch it in Cromwell on 2 September).

Though it was unfortunate that I arrived a little late, the boisterous sounds of their playing met me as I opened the outside doors of the theatre and I could well have stayed there with no loss of clarity or excitement from their playing.

I could at once understand how their gusto and an almost reckless abandon that exposed an occasional fluff, would have won audiences over in their UK tour, and since.  Perfect accuracy becomes irrelevant when music is attacked with such open enthusiasm and delight in a rapport that was so attractive and immediately obvious.

Fortunately my colleague Rosemary Collier was there too and she left me with a few remarks about the first two movements of the Beethoven, generally admiring their individual accomplishment, that combined so strikingly in ensemble. Their slow movement was most expressive, and technically interesting, another friend remarked about the impression that certain of Hilary Hayes’ violin sounds had, resonating with those in the piano, evidencing excellent intonation.

The choice of pieces brought to mind the music that was played by the wonderful Turnovsky Trio more than a decade ago. Both Rachmaninov’s first Trio élégiaque and the Arensky Trio were in their repertoire, as I recall.  It’s worth noting the fact that Rachmaninov also wrote a second Trio élégiaque, this one in D minor, and given Opus No 9: a full-scale, three movement work modelled on Tchaikovsky’s and written in his memory; he had died shortly before, in 1893.

These players tackled the music with an approach that was similar in spirit, virtuosity and youthful joie de vivre to the Turnovsky Trio.  The Leonari Trio began the Rachmaninov with a hushed, magical, cross-string motif that becomes the accompaniment to the piano’s first romantic theme; the playing was full of drama and refinement, even though it rose to quite an extrovert and energetic character before long.

The provenance of the violin and cello which I heard about at the interval, helped explain the special beauty of tone they produced, with timbres that were so closely related that they almost sounded as if emanating from one instrument. The violin was formerly that of the late NZSO violinist Stephen Managh, and the cello was a loan from Allan Chisholm who is retiring as assistant principal cello of the NZSO later this year.

Never needing to play loudly to compete with the piano, their sound projected vividly in the theatre, which is often claimed to present a dry, difficult acoustic. Perhaps, but it just demands players capable of listening to the effect they are having, and adapting to the situation. Cellist Edward King created warm and opulent passages in its later phases.

For its part, the piano, also criticised by some (and now sought to be replaced by a shiny new Steinway), usually surprises me by its range of colour and sonority. Maria Mo seemed to have its measure, as well as the measure of the theatre, also found difficult by some. Though her playing was full-blooded, she had the lid on the short stick and her sound was vigorously lyrical rather than simply loud.

Certainly, together they made a good deal of noise but it was musical noise, and it didn’t prevent their playing of the subsiding, élégique coda with a serene peacefulness.

The Arensky trio also found the players in full sympathy with the music, starting in a lovely lyrical mood, phrased beautifully, assertive in later staccato piano episodes over tremolo violin, though becoming a little blurred in fast piano passages. They particularly relished the blousy piano tune in the Scherzo, and the piano produced delightful bell-like treble notes at the top of little flourishes in the Trio.

Flawless tone in the slow Elegia movement, all three players in remarkable accord, which was still more striking in the finale, particularly in the soft passages nearing the end.

Audiences, including several young people, have been looking better this year than in the past few years, and their warm applause won them an encore, of the third of John Psathas’s Three Island Songs, also played brilliantly.

 

Enchanting double bass recital with a little cello too, at Lower Hutt

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

J S Bach’s Sonata for Viola da gamba No 2 in D, BWV 1028;
Cello Concerto No 4, third movement (Goltermann);
Fauré: Elegie;
Bottesini: Fantasia on themes from La sonnambula

Alexander Gunchenko (double bass) and Kirsten Simpson (piano), and Daniel Gunchenko (cello)

St Mark’s Church, Lower Hutt

Wednesday 22 August, 12.15pm

The double bass is among the orchestral instruments that has struggled to find a respected place in the solo sphere; a bit like the bassoon, its role is sometimes regarded as that of musical comedian.

Yet it’s had at least one famous practitioner, both a virtuoso and a composer (also a conductor who premiered Verdi’s Aida in Cairo), Giovanni Bottesini.

Alexander Gunchenko is one of the contingent of musicians from Ukraine and Russia who were recruited by the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra in the 1990s, and helped raise its standard so dramatically.

Gunchenko, who had only recently left the Tchaikovsky Conservatorium (presumably the one in Kiev) and had a short spell with the Ukraine National Chamber Orchestra, came to New Zealand in 1999. There he continued his studies at Canterbury University; and in 2007 joined the NZSO.

I gather he has been appearing for the Hutt Valley lunchtime concerts annually over the last few years, but this was my first hearing.

Music for the cello and its earlier predecessors can readily be transcribed for the double bass, and the recital began with a sonata for viola da gamba by J S Bach (No 2 in D, BWV1028). Though the bass (which is in fact a descendant of the viola da gamba family, and not a member of the violin family) is not as strongly projecting as the cello which replaced the viola da gamba during the late 17th and early 18th century, it had its own quieter and more mellow sound which has come to be appreciated again in recent times.

That made playing by the bass particularly attractive, for its quietness, once the ears were accustomed to it, gave the music a beauty and refinement that is actually Bach would have had in mind in writing these sonatas. (Accompaniment by a harpsichord would of course have been more appropriate, though Kirsten Simpson’s partnership was always sensitive to the bass’s sound).

The opening Adagio movement was a lovely, if momentarily nervous in intonation, way to engage the mind and accustom the ear. True, the piano did tend to weigh a bit heavily on the bass in the second, Allegro, movement, but the playing was so fluent and genial, enveloping us in its long, nicely expressed phrases, that any dynamic imbalance didn’t matter.

And the next slow movement, now in a slow triple time, was a further demonstration of the bass’s lyrical character, no matter that it was mostly in the low baritone range. Where the notes do go higher, however, it was even more beautifully mellow than a cello could ever be (and I learned and love the cello).

The next item was something a bit special: The young Gunchenko, the 11-year-old Daniel, a cellist who has just completed Grade 5 with, I imagine, rather high marks; his appearance was unadvertised, but a very engaging idea. I too encountered Georg Goltermann’s fourth cello concerto (his dates 1824 – 1898, almost exact contemporary with Bruckner) when I was a student but, somewhat older, I certainly wasn’t getting around the music as fluently as young Daniel did. There are probably good reasons why the name isn’t on everyone’s lips, but this taste of one of his concertos would have made the audience wonder about that. The third movement – the last I imagine – was a tarantella, fast and very rhythmic; the two musicians maintained its pace and togetherness admirably.

Alexander returned to play another cello classic, Fauré’s Élégie. Here, one could easily have been seduced into never wanting to hear it on the cello again, so discreet and, well, elegiac was this performance. The oneness of the two was clearly evident when the piano took over the melody and the bass simply kept it company in warm,  supportive accompanying figures.

The party piece was Bottesini’s Fantasia on themes from La sonnambula, a typical 19th century show-piece that gave audiences the comfort of well-known tunes clothed in unbelievably virtuosic playing. If it looks hard for a violinist to race about the fingerboard in such music, the same behaviour on a much longer fingerboard, with greater difficulty in hitting the exact note, including a lot of high harmonics, was a somewhat breathtaking exhibition.