Author: Lindis Taylor

NZSM Saxophone orchestra, quintet and quartet beguile at lunchtime

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand School of Music
Fugue in G minor “Great”, BWV 542 for saxophone quintet (J.S. Bach, arr N. Woods)
Cantilene  for saxophone quintet (Ida Gotkovsky)
PR Girl for saxophone quintet         (Andrew Tweed)
Saxophone Quartet (Alfred Desenclos)
Toccata and Fugue in G Minor(?) (D minor, BWV 565) (J.S.Bach, arr. Guy Lacour for saxophone orchestra)
Tango for saxophone orchestra (Stravinsky, arr. J van der Linden)
Slava! for saxophone orchestra (Bernstein, arr. J van der Linden)

 

Conductor: Simon Brew, Leader: Reuben Chin, Artistic direction: Debbie Rawson. 

 

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

 

Wednesday 25 May, 12.15pm

 

At the New Zealand School of Music, Deborah Rawson attracts a lot of students to the saxophone. And her success in getting skilled performers into the community, as well as in the periodic concerts given by students and others, such as her long-standing ensemble, Saxcess, is slowly bringing a realization of the place of the instrument(s) in the classical music sphere.

 

While the jazz world was almost entirely dominated by the alto and tenor saxes, with one or two notable exceptions like baritone player like Gerry Mulligan and sopranist Sidney Bechet, the classical genre has become more accustomed to the whole consort of saxes which, on the showing of this concert, numbers at least six.

 

No details of either the pieces (only composers’ names, not in order) or the players was available at the concert, which led to a guessing game, in which I scored poorly. I got marks only for Bach and Stravinsky; I obtained details later.

 

Two of the most successful pieces in the concert were Bach’s ‘Great’ fugue in G minor played by the quintet, and the Toccata and Fugue in D minor played by the orchestra. The latter, particularly, created a rich sound that did justice very interestingly to the character of the original. The fanfare elements in the Toccata were splendidly arresting while the differing ranks of instruments allowed the various fugal passages to be heard distinctly.

 

I thought it worked a little better than the Fugue, which was arranged for quintet (Reuben Chin – soprano, Emma Hayes-Smith – alto, Annelise Kreger – alto, Katherine Maciaszec – tenor, Geraint Scott – baritone). It was played fairly quickly which seemed to make it harder to achieve variety of colour; but I enjoyed the way the soprano soared above the others, and it was the one, like a soprano voice carrying an aria, that allowed touches of a humanizing rubato to surface. 

 

Ida Gotkovsky was born in 1933 and is Professor of Composition at the Paris Conservatoire. She has composed for all main genres, including many solo and chamber pieces for saxophone.

 

Her Cantilene for quintet opened in deliberate manner, led by alto then tenor in plaintive tones. A second phase developed a lighter character, with arresting ostinati from tenor and soprano saxes. I was safe to have guessed this as post-Messiaen French: I hadn’t heard of the composer.

 

Andrew Tweed’s PR Girl was introduced by fast didgeridoo sounds (so I suspected he might have been Australian, though I find he is a British saxophonist/composer, born 1963) on baritone sax, followed by lively, entertaining jazz strains, modulating to satisfying effect towards the end.

 

The major work of the concert was the saxophone quartet by Alfred Desenclos, a major figure in the saxophone world, played by the quintet members minus Annelise Kreger. Written by the 50-year-old Desenclos in 1962, it could have come from no other national school than that of Françaix and Poulenc  A website comment reads: “it is one of the very few really substantial sonatas in the saxophone repertoire… technical and artistic challenges abound.”

 

In three movements: Allegro non troppo, Andante poco largo, Allegro energico, it immediately created an air of expectation, as the introduction ended in a string of evanescent rising scales, and the movement continued in vivacious spirit. The second movement rose slowly from a somnolent state to a mood of peaceful dreaminess. The third movement set off with little fanfare motifs which accelerated in syncopated rhythms, and the four parts entered into a somewhat fugal episode which became quite excitable. But I was somewhat disconcerted as it approached its end to become aware of a certain tonal monotony in the patterns of the four instruments; would I have had a similar reaction to the music if it had been played by four stringed instruments? I don’t know.

 

Nevertheless, the performance brought it to life with a variety of thoughful expressive colourings and dynamic contrasts.

 

Then the saxophone orchestra emerged from the vestry: eleven of them: the quintet plus six non-students (David McGregor – sopranino, Debbie Rawson – soprano, Lauren Draper – alto, Hayden Sinclair – tenor, Will Hornabrook – tenor, Graham Hanify – bass), plus conductor Simon Brew.

 

Their first piece was Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565.  As I remarked at the beginning it was a very striking arrangement, replicating organ sounds most convincingly. I was impressed too by the conductor’s decisive guidance and his ability to hold a lively pulse, dramatic energy and to command excellent ensemble. It was followed by Tango by Stravinsky, one of the first pieces he wrote after arriving in the United States in 1940. It proved a colouful, effective piece that the orchestra played carefully, with some fine comic gestures.

 

Finally came a short party piece that seemed to come out of Sousa, Ibert and Chabrier. I was surprised, on getting the complete list of music, to find it was by Bernstein, called Slava!; the name Sousa had occurred to me at the time without imagining it to be American. 

 

All the players did a splendid job in all phases of the concert, in persuading us of the saxophones’ legitimacy as solo, chamber music and orchestral instrument.

 

Tasmin Little clothed, with naked violin, in diverting recital

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The Naked Violin

Playing and talking about the violin: Luslawice Variations by Paul Petterson; Bach: Solo Violin Sonata No 1, BWV 1001 and Partita No 3, BWV 1006; Eugène Isaÿe: Sonata in D minor, Op 27 No 3 ‘Ballade’

Tasmin Little (violin)

Ilott Theatre

Sunday 22 May, 3pm

Tasmin Little is in New Zealand as one of the adjudicators for the Michael Hill International Violin Competition, but she has also played the Sibelius Concerto with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and a solo concert in Christchurch in the place of a concert with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra since the earthquake damaged the Town Hall.

Her Naked Violin performances was arranged in Hamilton and Wellington through the chamber music societies in each city.

It is encouraging that eminent musicians such as Little are more often being invited to perform in contexts additional to the main purpose of their visit, in other places around the country. Too often in the past, players of international renown come to play a concerto with an orchestra, but no effort is made to set up solo recitals for them, even in the city in which they play.

Interviews on both National Radio and RNZ Concert during the past week revealed an engaging and sparkling personality and they may well have led to a full Ilott Theatre. Her routine involves no comedy one-liners or risqué gags – ‘Naked’ was clearly sufficient enticement.

After explaining what she aimed to do she took us step by step through the first piece, named for the place of a Polish chamber music festival, by English composer Paul Patterson. By the time the performance arrived the themes that she’d laid out sounded like old favourites (almost). It was no doubt chosen for the range of violinist playing devices that it demands, from left hand pizzicato to spiccato and false harmonics through the length of each string.

Parts of two Bach solo violin pieces followed. Two movements each from the Sonata No 1 in G minor and the Partita No 2 in E minor. Her playing is personally undemonstrative; rather, its impact on the audience came from its obvious and straightforward urge to make contact musically with the audience, just as she had through her open and self-effacing dialogue with them.

In the middle of the programme Tasmin invited questions from the floor about anything relating to the violin, the music or to her own experiences and intentions. That resulted in some interesting questions, and answers, about ‘historically-informed’ performance, how Bach would find performances of his music today, the way the performer might alter what the composer had in mind, how she managed to achieve success as a performer. Her reply to the small girl’s question, what was ‘her favourite song’ when she was young, might not have meant a lot to her (a piece by Delius).

Her last piece was the third solo violin sonata by Eugène Isaÿe; though I’ve heard it played several times and admire many aspects, it still sounds more like a very elaborate cadenza which I expect to end with the awaited ‘cadence’ that allows the orchestra to re-enter the fray. However, the performance was, like all her other playing, marked by an unostentatious mastery and a musicality that drew attention simply to the musical qualities of the piece.

Antoni Wit and cellist Hurtaud score in wonderful NZSO concert

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Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima (Penderecki); Cello Concerto No 2 in D (Haydn); Symphony No 3 in E flat ‘Eroica’ (Beethoven)

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Antoni Wit with cellist Sébastien Hurtaud

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday 21 May, 8pm

Though Antoni Wit had recorded a couple of highly-praised CDs with the NZSO four years ago, he has never conducted a public concert with the orchestra. It is perhaps a timely moment to reflect on the number of performances that the orchestra has recorded with a number of distinguished conductors whose work has not been heard in public concerts. This has long seemed a strange policy, and a great pity.

And this was his only concert, which is being presented in five cities: but why only one programme? Penderecki’s Threnody is hardly a typical or useful representative of Polish orchestral music in the past century, and in any case, it has been played by the orchestra in recent years. There’s so much other rewarding Polish orchestral music; a concert featuring a Szymanowski symphony or violin concerto, symphonies and other works by Panufnik, Lutoslawski, Penderecki would have been a most interesting departure and Wit on the podium would ensure a good reception.

Nevertheless, Antoni Wit’s emergence in the Michael Fowler Centre was a very conspicuous success. There was a a full house, a not very frequent occurrence these days. And the reception given to the orchestra and conductor at the end of the ‘Eroica’ was almost ecstatic. The audience clearly recognizes a conductor with that special gift and whose virtues flow in part from his adherence to the old school of Central European conductors.

The first thing to be noticed after the interval, as the ‘Eroica’ began was the unusual rearrangement of the orchestra. In the first half, strings were in the normal pattern, rising pitch from right to left. But here, double basses were on the far left, cellos in the second violins’ usual place, while the latter were front right. Where I was sitting, facing cellos and basses, the sound was certainly wonderfully enriched from its foundation of low register instruments.

Wit’s gestures are expressive, using an interesting variety of hand movements, particularly of the left hand; but the real secret of the conductor’s magic is much less definable and those in the choir gallery might have had a more interesting visual experience, observing the face which is where most of a leader’s magic resides. The result was constantly arresting music with exciting and finely tuned dynamics that allowed details of the scoring such as clarinet adornments and the middle harmonies from second violins and violas more than usual clarity.

It was Robert Orr’s oboe whose plaintive beauty was most conspicuous in the Marcia funèbre, grave and dignified. It was here, in particular, that Wit created the most deeply-felt grandeur, which tempers the heroic and hopes for the betterment of society with the ever-present awareness of life’s transience and individual weaknesses that bedevil man’s greatest ambitions. A great performance can raise such feelings that lie quite outside any verbal description of the way in which it is achieved.

The ‘Eroica’ is not the sort of work whose later movements become less profound or more light-hearted. And this performance did no such thing. The pulsing force of the Scherzo, often driven from the bottom by powerful timpani and basses, carried on the argument while Wit recreated the great Finale , manicured every phrase with a tireless care for dynamics and moved from one variation to the next with astute tempo changes.

The concert had begun with the Threnody; a typical example of a 1960s composition at the then cutting edge. Basically, like so much of its genre, it mistakes the creation of a powerful emotional state through certain kinds of noise, for music. Unfortunately, the job of a composer of music is to transmute the emotion that might underlie a wish to create a work of art in sound into a fabric of melody and rhythm – music.

The dense tone clusters, better defined in the excellent programme note as ‘sound mass’, worked as intended, with brilliant impact by a conductor and orchestra that brought the piece compellingly to life.

The Haydn cello concerto generally seems to transcend what one is often led to believe about it: an attractive, somewhat light-weight piece. It’s rather more than that, and the beautiful performance by young French cellist Sébastien Hurtaud, limpidly lyrical, mellifluous, and of course singularly virtuosic, would have banished any tendency to dismiss it lightly. I heard some comment about the lack of baroque sound from the orchestra which, from other than eager young students out to demonstrate their critical acumen, is a bit tedious. It was comforting to hear the sensible comments of violinist Tasmin Little at her Naked Violin concert the following afternoon about period instrument practice.

In other words, this performance from a suitably reduced body of strings, and winds as prescribed in the score, was admirable, suiting perfectly music that Haydn had written for the baroque beauties of the 400-seat theatre at Esterháza. Hurtaud’s performance, while well gauged for the acoustic, suggested chamber music sensibility and on this showing, gets his results not through biting attack or conspicuous bravura. Even in the liveliest passages his playing is essentially legato, the notes seem to have no sharply delineated beginning, but rather a continuous song line.

The slow movement is one of the loveliest things that Haydn wrote, much anthologized in students’ albums. It seemed to be where Hurtaud’s soul really dwelt. Yet, in the Rondo finale, he revealed a wonderful energy and breathtaking agility in the handling of the more that usually elaborate and brilliant ornaments with which he so judiciously peppered his playing. The audience virtually demanded and encore and he played the finale from a Cello Suite by great Spanish cellist Gaspar Cassadó.

There was an air of great delight at the Interval after Hurtaud’s performances, just as there was prolonged applause after the ‘Eroica’, at the end of the evening.

Anniversaries of 2011

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The year 2011 is not quite as rich in musical anniversaries as was 2010, but delving a little deeper and more obscurely, there are a number of interesting ones.

The reason they are of interest is the way in which, at least for those with a certain sort of mental condition, they lead one to follow paths that look curious, that ring bells of recognition in a lateral sense.

The following, starting in the Renaissance, might lead you to follow up by reading or by seeking out recordings that will enrich the depth and range of your cultural equipment. We include a number of non-musical anniversaries, perhaps guided by personal interests in other spheres.

We begin in 1511 with the publication of Erasmus’s In Praise of Folly. (1511)

Then in 1561, again in the realm of thinkers/writers – seminonacentennial (450th) of the birth of the English philosopher and scientist Francis Bacon (1561-1626), one of the claimants, by the weird race of Shakespeare-deniers, as author of the plays and poems.

1611 saw the death of great Spanish Renaissance polyphonic composer Tomás Luis de Victoria (born in 1548).

It was the year of publication of a collection of keyboard music by Bull, Byrd and Gibbons called Parthenia.

It was also the year of the publication of the King James Bible, the year’s most famous event in the English-speaking world, and arguably the most powerful influence on English prose style.

1661

In 1661 we encounter the first musical anniversaries with the death of Louis Couperin, not quite as gifted as his nephew François Couperin (who was born in 1668).

Georg Böhm was born in 1661.

Opera was flourishing by now. Cavalli was the most important figure around 1661 – his Ercole amante premiered in 1662.

But his lesser contemporary, Cesti, produced his La Dori in Florence in 1661.

1711

A very important opera premiere took place in 1711: Handel’s Rinaldo, his first in London.

William Boyce was born in 1711: the greatest English composer, with Arne, of the 18th century.

And the slightly less known Jean-Joseph Cassanea de Mondonville, violinist and opera composer.

David Hume, Scottish philosopher and historian was also born in 1711.

1761

1761 saw the start of Haydn’s career, with his appointment in this year to the Esterhazy court.

The last phase of Gluck’s career, his association with librettist Calzabigi, was about to start, though this year he produced his famous ballet, Don Juan. His first reform opera, Orfeo ed Euridice, came in 1762.

However, another Armida was premiered in 1761 – by Tommaso Traetta, one of the most important composers of the period. (Gluck’s Armide was not till 1777, in Paris)

Artaserse – not the one by Arne of 1762 that has recently become famous – but by J C Bach, was first performed in Turin.

Novelist Samuel Richardson (Pamela) died in 1761.

1811

1811 yields a fairly interesting collection with the birth of Liszt and of Ambroise Thomas, whose Hamlet has been seen recently in the Metropolitan Opera HD in cinemas. (Hamlet was staged in 1868).

Ferdinand Hiller was born. Perhaps he’s more famous for Reger’s ‘Hiller Variations’ for orchestra.

Rossini’s second opera, L’equivoco stravagante, was produced in Bologna.

And Weber’s Abu Hassan. in Munich.

Novelist William Thackeray was born in 1811.

And so was poet, music critic and Romanticist par excellence Théophile Gautier (Berlioz set his poems in his Les nuits d’été).

1861

1861 just misses important births on either side – Mahler, Albeniz, Delius, Debussy.

There were three lesser figures:

Charles Loeffler, violinist and composer, born in Alsace in 1861.

Marco Bossi was born at Lake Garda, one of the chief Italian composers seeking to revive non-operatic music after a century of opera domination of Italy.

And Anton Arensky, born at Novgorod, and much influenced by Tchaikovsky, best known for a fine Piano Trio and Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky.

Notable operas seem scarce in 1861, though there are important ones on either side such as Ballo in maschera, Faust, La forza del destino.

However, Offenbach was riding high; he produced five operas-bouffes in the year, including M. Choufleuri restera chez lui and Le pont des soupirs.

1861 was the year of Melba’s birth.

Brahms wrote his Op 24 (Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel), and the two piano quartets, Opp 25 and 26.

Literature:

Great Expectations was published 1861 and poetess Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Robert’s wife), born in 1806, died.

1911

1911 saw most famously, the death of Mahler.

It was also the year of the births of Menotti, Armenian-American composer Hovhaness and film composer Bernard Hermann.

Also, for francophile organ-afficionados – the brilliant French composer/organist Jehan-Ariste Alain was born; he was killed in the war in 1940.

That links major interests for this reviewer. Please forgive this quote from Wikipedia:

“Alain became a dispatch rider in the Eighth Motorised Armour Division of the French Army. On 20 June 1940, he was assigned to reconnoitre the German advance on the eastern side of Saumur, and encountered a group of German soldiers at Le Petit-Puy. Coming around a curve, and hearing the approaching tread of the Germans, he abandoned his motorcycle and engaged the enemy troops with his carbine, killing 16 of them before being killed himself. He was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre for his bravery, and according to [musicologist] Nicolas Slonimsky was buried, by the Germans, with full military honours.”

Jehan was the brother of distinguished organist Marie-Claire Alain. He received musical tributes from admiring contemporaries Dutilleux and Duruflé.

1911 is famous for the premieres of Der Rosenkavalier and the ballert Petrushka.

There were a few other opera centenaries: Saint-Saëns’s Déjanire, Ravel’s L’heure Espagnole, Debussy’s Le martyre de Saint Sébastien, Mascagni’s Isabeau, Zandonai’s Conchita, Wolf-Ferrari’s The Jewels of the Madonna. Most are awaiting modern revivals.

There were three significant deaths in 1911.

I encountered the Lithuanian composer, Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, on a visit to Vilnius ten years ago, and was quite impressed by his music. He was born in 1875; he was also an important painter whose works can be seen in the M. K. Čiurlionis National Art Museum in Kaunas. He was a ’synesthete’; that is, he perceived colors and music simultaneously. Many of his paintings bear the names of musical pieces: sonatas, fugues, and preludes.

The notable organ organist and composer Félix-Alexandre Guilmant, born in 1837, died in 1911.

So did Norwegian composer Johan Svendsen (born in 1840).

1961

Percy Grainger (born in 1882) died 1961. So did Thomas Beecham (born 1869).

Ernest Hemingway, born in 1899, died in 1961.

Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony was premiered.

The only opera I can see premiered that year was Hindemith’s The Long Christmas Dinner, based on a short story by Thornton Wilder, written in English; but it had its premiere in Mannheim in German translation in 1961. It was performed some years ago by the then Wellington Conservatorium of Music.

Brilliant Shostakovich from violinist Riseley and NZSM Orchestra

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New Zealand School of Music Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Young with Martin Riseley (violin)

Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture (Tchaikovsky); From Peter Grimes – Passacaglia and Four Sea Interludes (Britten); Violin Concerto No 1, Op 99 (Shostakovich)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Saturday 14 May 2011, 7.30pm

In the past year the School of Music seems to have made a distinct move towards offering the city a lot more music in the public sphere. Once upon a time, performances by students and staff were held mainly in the Adam Concert Room in the furthest reaches of Victoria University’s Kelburn campus; and those by the Conservatorium of Music of Massey University were at one stage in the former Fever Hospital at the back of Newtown and later at the main campus at the top of Taranaki Street. Neither was within easy reach.

One of the benefits of the merger of the two schools (and the benefits are not very conspicuous) is a wider range of performance opportunities mow happening downtown. For the full range see the school’s website called Dawn Chorus (http://www.nzsm.ac.nz/events/).

Occasionally, as on Saturday evening, we get a full-scale orchestral concert of the sort offered by one of our professional orchestras. Later in the year there will probably be another major orchestral concert in the Wellington Town Hall, with a performance by the winner of the school’s concerto competition, which takes place in the Adam Concert Room next Wednesday, 25 May.

This began with the Romeo and Juliet overture. Under the energetic baton of Kenneth Young it was a highly energetic performance, often given to extreme dynamic experiences that in the limited space and hard acoustic of the church was a bit too audible. The opening phase was not remarkable but the arrival of the dramatic Allegro Giusto phase marking the feud between the two families, allowed the orchestra to display its emotional energy and the following exciting, syncopated passage from around bar 140 created a special frisson as if brass and the racing quavers in the strings were not quite together.

Though it is fair to record that some of the brilliance of the brass – specifically horns and trumpets – may have been enhanced by guest players from the NZSO and the Wellington Orchestra, the overall impact flowed from student players who comprised all the players in most sections. The quite thrilling climax in the scene that perhaps depicts Tybalt’s death, was the real thing, with Fraser Bremner impressive on timpani. No less moving were the long passages of affecting lyrical melody representing the lovers.

Excerpts from Peter Grimes followed: the Four Sea Interludes, but also, to begin, the Passacaglia from Act 2. Most striking early on was the fine viola solo – I presume, John Roxburgh – over timpani, pizzicato cellos and basses. It captured, as intended, the uneasy and menacing mood of the opera, and even though not as immediately arresting as the other four pieces, deserves to be treated in this way. Throughout the other pieces violas and cellos often had further strong contributions; the whole ‘suite’ was most impressive, even though in the final section, Storm, the confusion of sound may have been carried a little further than the score provided.

The most awaited event was the performance of Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto, which seems not to have reached the ranks of much performed masterpieces of the 20th century: it’s not as familiar as the Sibelius, Elgar, the two Prokofievs, Berg, Bartok, Barber, Khachaturian, Korngold… (But perhaps that’s personal experience). If you’re into this sort of thing, Google the 50 best known violin concertos from 20th century: interesting, as it usually stimulates exploration.

The performance was a privilege. For such a big work, the orchestral forces are quite modest. Horns the only brass, apart from a brief tuba entry later. Written after the Zhdanov denunciation in 1947 of ‘formalism’ and other evils, it was not performed till 1955, after Stalin’s death in 1953. So the concerto has all the signs of Shostakovich’s fears of reprisals or worse, even though Shostakovich, with Oistrakh, had made modifications to it in the interim.

The opening movement departs strongly from the normal sanguinity of a first movement: Nocturne, which makes no mark in terms of melody, but tells the audience straight away that the composer is serious, that what he’s saying is important and he wants to make an impact emotionally through its sombre, painful beauty. The orchestra had the necessary weight and Riseley’s playing was a balance between tonal beauty and tough-minded rigour.

The Shostakovich of the sardonic Fifth Symphony emerged in the Scherzo, with dark brilliance. An even bleaker movement follows with the Pasacaglia, opening in chilling spirit with elephantine timpani, cellos and basses, soon joined by horns. The violin’s entry here brings a sudden lightening of mood though bass instruments don’t allow you to ignore the realities out there. It dies away, slowly leading a tortured path to the remarkable cadenza which demands all the virtuosity available to Oistrakh, for whom it was written, but also handles the variety of emotions that the earlier movements have explored. It leads straight into the Burlesca in which Shostakovich seems to be exploiting his familiar vein of false jollity with its brash orchestral colouring and wind interjections. The entire work was splendidly guided by Kenneth Young, maintaining a steady pulse, hitting the exciting tempo increase in the Coda, and keeping orchestral balance successfully in this sometimes difficult acoustic.

This was a remarkably feat, great credit to soloist, conductor and orchestra.

Michael Fulcher’s farewell with organ recital at St Paul’s Cathedral

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Great Music 2011: Organ of St Paul’s Cathedral

Franck: Chorale No 1; Jongen: Chant de mai; Henri Mulet: Carillon-Sortie; Vivaldi (arr. Bach): Concerto in A minor, BWV593; Vierne: Carillon de Westminster

Michael Fulcher (organ)

Cathedral of Saint Paul, Wellington

Friday 13 May 12.45pm

Michael Fulcher is moving on after seven years as Organist and Director of Music at the Anglican Cathedral. He is returning to Brisbane to take up the position of Organist at St John’s Cathedral, where he started as a choir boy.

Such an occasion might have called up a few war-horses like the Widor Toccata, Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor or one of the Sorties by Lefébure-Wely. But the audience’s taste was flattered by less familiar, yet just as interesting music,

It opened with the first of Franck’s Chorales, one of the three that were his last compositions in the year of his death. Fulcher drew attention to the use of a new rank of stops in the Swell organ, the Vox humana, which he used for the second theme of the Choral, varied by opening and closing the Swell box. It was a gift of the National Carillonist, Timothy Hurd.

The performance was distinguished by his careful increasing of the richness of registrations, through what are basically variations on two related themes. Much of Franck’s organ music doesn’t reveal all its secrets at once, yet this performance more than suggested the rewards that come with familiarity.

Belgian composer Joseph Jongen was born in Liège, like Franck, and organ pieces form an interesting part of his output. His little piece¸ Chant de mai, was subtle in expression, and its performance maintained a clarity that allowed the later emergence of a romantic melody on the pedals to be enjoyed.

There was just one departure from the Franco-Belgian organ school: Bach’s arrangement of one of Vivaldi’s concertos for two violins, which became BWV 593. It was handled with a discretion proper to music of the period, on predominantly diapason stops, not too highly coloured, and Bach’s adaptation plus Fulcher’s comprehensive mastery of this organ offered all the evidence needed for its value in the Baroque repertoire.

Two carillons completed the programme. The first, Carillon-Sortie, by the somewhat obscure composer Henri Mulet, proved energetic, with many voices tending to tumble over each other in canon. It was a striking vehicle through which Fulcher’s virtuosity at the instrument could be heard without empty display. The last piece was the familiar Carillon de Westminster by Louis Vierne – based of course on the famous chimes. Its rather unvarying attachment to that theme hardly enhances its enjoyment by other than listeners of rudimentary experience in this kind of music in spite of its sophisticated harmonies and careful counterpoint. Nevertheless, it made for an arresting conclusion to this farewell recital.

In response to quite heart-felt applause from a largish audience, we had an encore in the form of a, for me, unknown piece by Jean Langlais (another blind organist) called Pasticcio from Ten Organ Pieces: almost comical sounds in dancing, dotted rhythms, that created towards the end, real or illusory echo effects. From what I have heard of Langlais in the past, I had not expected that he might have been given to such an overtly entertaining showpiece.

Michael Fulcher has made a major contribution to music in Wellington, both through his Cathedral activities, and as musical director of the Orpheus Choir, and he will be greatly missed. There is general interest in the selection of his successor.

Royal New Zealand Ballet puts Stravinsky in the limelight

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Of the various anniversaries this year (Liszt’s and Ambroise Thomas’s 200th birthdays, Menotti’s centenary, Mahler’s death in 1911, premiere of Der Rosenkavalier, the King James Bible, poet and music critic Théophile Gautier’s bicentenary, and much else*) the premiere of Stravinsky’s Petrushka deserves note. (see performance details in ‘Coming Events’).

It was his second ballet for Diaghilev – the first was The Firebird in 1910 – and the first in which, it is generally accepted, Stravinsky evidenced a real individuality. It was premiered on 13 June 1911 at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. The Rite of Spring followed in May 1913, at the newly built Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (not on the Champs-Élysées); and it was that of course, via the riot and accompanying scandal, that made Stravinsky the most famous living composer (well, almost).

The Royal New Zealand Ballet is presenting a triple bill of Stravinsky ballets in their May/June season which opens in Wellington on the week-end 20-22 May. It then progresses through Auckland, Napier, finishing in Invercargill on 9 June. The damage to Christchurch’s Theatre Royal means the loss of those earlier-planned performances.

The three ballets:

Satisfied with Great Success – Scènes de ballet

The three ballets include two of the great three. Missing is The Firebird; in its place, as it were, is a little rarity which is disguised behind the title ‘Satisfied with Great Success’. The ballet in question is an abstract work simply entitled Scènes de ballet. It was commissioned by Billy Rose for a Broadway revue called The Seven Lively Arts, premiered at the Ziegfeld Theatre on 7 December 1944. It was choreographed by Anton Dolin who, with Alicia Markova, danced the leading roles. .

Rose used only parts of the score that Stravinsky composed. After the preview in Philadelphia, Rose famously telegraphed Stravinsky as follows:

“YOUR MUSIC GREAT SUCCESS STOP COULD BE SENSATIONAL SUCCESS IF YOU WOULD AUTHORISE ROBERT RUSSELL BENNETT RETOUCH ORCHESTRATION STOP BENNETT ORCHESTRATES EVEN THE WORKS OF COLE PORTER.” To which Stravinsky replied: “SATISFIED WITH GREAT SUCCESS.”

Of a trumpet tune in the Pas de deux, Lawrence Morton writes: “Remove from it the marks of genius, make it four-square, give it a Cole Porter lyric, and you have a genuine pop-tune.”

Three later choreographers have been involved with the music: Frederick Ashton choreographed it afresh for Sadler’s Wells Ballet, premiered on 11 February 1948 at Covent Garden. It was the first performance of all the music Stravinsky has written. There, it was very much a showcase for Margot Fonteyn and Michael Somes.

The next production was to choreography by John Taras, who was ballet master at New York City Ballet, in the context of a now famous Stravinsky Festival following the composer’s death in 1971, premiered on 22 June 1972 in the New York State Theatre in the Lincoln Centre. , and Christopher Wheeldon provided new choreography for the School of American Ballet by New York City Ballet, premiered on 19 May 1999..

The music is open to limitless interpretations as it was conceived by Stravinsky without plot or any concept apart from ideas about certain dancers representing certain instruments. He wrote: The parts [eleven of them] follow each other as in a sonata or a symphony in contrasts or similarities”. It was conceived for two principals and a corps de ballet of four boys and two girls.

Here we have a (at least) fourth version, by expatriate New Zealander Cameron McMillan (no relation of course to the great choreographer Kenneth MacMillan).

According to the promotion, “the ballet unfolds in a series of electrically-charged scenes played out before 50-year-old film footage of Stravinsky in New Zealand”. But the sound will not be there as the accompanying soundtrack is apparently not good. The Wellington Orchestra will perform.

Stravinsky’s famous tour to New Zealand in 1961, at which he conducted just one concert, in Wellington, is one of the high points in the orchestra’s and New Zealand’s cultural history. With him was his associate/amanuensis/conductor/musicologist, Robert Craft. Craft conducted the first half, comprising the suite, Pulcinella, the Symphony in Three Movements and Apollon Musagète. Stravinsky conducted in the second half, two sections from The Firebird – the Lullaby and Finale (I was there).

Joy Tonks’s history of the NZSO records the remark Stravinsky made later to NZBS (before the name changed from NZ Broadcasting Service to Corporation) Head of Music Malcolm Rickard: ‘Why was I given only one programme to play with this fine orchestra?” “Because, Maestro”, said Rickard, “that was all you were prepared to do”.

“But I didn’t know they are so good”, Stravinksy replied and looked reproachful.

However, The Firebird is not one of the ballets in the RNZB’s current season.

Petrushka

The evening begins however with Petrushka. (The common spelling, Pétrouchka, is the French version. As such it should have an acute accent on the ‘é’). Petrushka is the exact English transliteration of the Russian (Петрушка).

Wikipedia records the following comments about its reception in Paris and elsewhere: “While the production was generally a success, some members of the audience were taken aback by music that was brittle, caustic, and at times even grotesque. One critic approached Diaghilev after a dress rehearsal and said, “And it was to hear this that you invited us?” Diaghilev succinctly replied, “Exactly”. When Diaghilev and his company traveled to Vienna in 1913, the Vienna Philharmonic initially refused to play the score, deriding Petrushka as ‘schmutzige Musik’ (“dirty music”): a foretaste of Hitler’s treatment of much contemporary art and music as ’Entartete Kunst’ – ‘degenerate art’.

Sir Jon Trimmer performs the role of Puppet Master, but, in the words of the publicity, the person pulling the strings behind the scenes in Russell Kerr who has a 52-year relationship with the company – in other words he started during the company’s first decade of existence; and he first prepared Petrushka for the then New Zealand Ballet in 1964, having worked with the London Festival Ballet where he learned the repertoire alongside the masters who created the ballets of Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes. Petrushka was one of them.

Kerr and other dancers from London Festival Ballet were thus able to ensure that the choreography was faithful to the 1911 original. His role now is the same.

Milagros – The Rite of Spring

Le sacre du printemps – The Rite of Spring – was the ballet, and the music itself, that really made Stravinsky the most famous composer of his day, a position he retained throughout his life, though it is fair to say that his place in 20th century music has altered in the last forty years with the emergence of certain younger composers of comparable stature (Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Hindemith, Berg, Messiaen, Britten, Martinů, Lutoslawski…) and the reappraisal of others such as Schoenberg, Rachmaninov, Sibelius and Richard Strauss.

Here the company is reviving its 2003 production of their own commissioning of an account of the ballet by Venezualan dancer and choreographer Javier de Frutos, called Milagros, which employs a rare piano roll version of the score performed by Stravinsky himself.

According to dance commentator Anne-Marie Daly-Peoples writing in 2005, “De Frutos has brought accolades to the Royal New Zealand Ballet. Milagros was first staged by the company in 2003 recently earning itself a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for Best New Dance Production and Best Choreography (Modern) at Britain’s Critic’s Circle Dance Awards.

“Wherever Milagros may be performed, no doubt they will be aware that it was created for the Royal New Zealand Ballet Company. That is its legacy, performed for the first time here in Wellington.”

Versions by other choreographers are to be expected since Nijinsky’s original choreography was not properly preserved and has been reconstructed by various hands since. One of the least happy was that used in Disney’s Fantasia where the music was re-ordered and changed and, according to Stravinsky, execrably played. He felt that the animations, on the other hand, had understood the work.

Wikipedia has a good account of the origins, transformations both musically and choreographically, of the Rite. We quote:

“Stravinsky made two arrangements of The Rite of Spring for player piano. In late 1915, the Aeolian Company in London asked for permission to issue both the Rite and Petrushka on piano roll, and by early 1918 the composer had made several sketches to be used in the more complex passages. Owing to the war, the work of transcribing the rolls dragged on, and only the Rite was ever issued by Aeolian on standard pianola rolls, and this not until late 1921, by which time Stravinsky had completed a far more comprehensive re-composition of the work for the Pleyela, the brand of player piano manufactured by Pleyel in Paris.

“The Pleyela/pianola master rolls were not recorded using a “recording piano” played by a performer in real time, but were instead true “pianola” rolls, cut mechanically/graphically, free from any constraints imposed by the ability of the player. Musicologist William Malloch observed that on these rolls the final section is at a considerably faster tempo, relative to the rest of the composition, than in the generally used orchestral score.

“Malloch opines—based upon this evidence, the composer’s revisions of the orchestral score, and a limited number of very early phonographic recordings of performances—that Stravinsky originally intended the faster tempo, but found that significant numbers of orchestral players at the time were simply unable to manage the rhythmic complexity of the section at that tempo, and accordingly revised the tempo markings. The Benjamin Zander recording [with the Boston Symphony Orchestra] includes both the pianola version, and the orchestral Rite with the faster tempo restored to the final section. A low-fidelity recording is available.”

Even before the orchestral score was finished Stravinsky wrote a four hands version which he and Debussy played. It was in this form that the ballet was first published, the full orchestral score not being published till 1921.

All in all, the Royal New Zealand Ballet looks set to present an extremely interesting programme that both honours the composer and presents imaginative versions of two supreme masterpieces, plus a revival of the less familiar Scènes de Ballet.

*A few other opera centenaries: Saint-Saëns’s Déjanire, Ravel’s L’heure Espagnole, Debussy’s Le martyre de Saint Sébastien, Mascagni’s Isabeau, Zandonai’s Conchita, Wolf-Ferrari’s The Jewels of the Madonna


Graduate string students from New Zealand School of Music at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Caprices Nos 16 and 20 by Paganini – played by Irina Andreeva (viola)
Scherzo (by Brahms) from the FAE Sonata; and the third movement from Brahms’s Violin Sonata No 3 in D minor, Op 108 – played by Joanna Lee (violin) and Jian Liu (piano)
Violin Sonata No 8 in G, Op 30 No 3 by Beethoven – played by Jun He (violin) and Jian Liu (piano)

St Andrew’s on the Terrace

Wednesday 4 May, 12.15pm

The St Andrew’s lunchtime concerts are in the midst of their series of performances by students at the New Zealand School of Music.

This one featured three – a violist and two violinists, accompanied by Jian Liu, the school’s piano faculty member for the next two years. He studied with Claude Frank at Yale where he is completing a doctorate in musical arts. As well as teaching and accompanying students, he will shortly give concerts of his own.

The Paganini Caprices on a viola was certainly a surprise to the ears; Irina Andreeva (also a DMA student) has been inspired by the voila versions of the Caprices that William Primrose created (Primrose, after Lionel Tertis, was the father of the modern awakening to the viola as a solo instrument). No 16 lay for long stretches on the C string, allowing no suggestion of its violin origin. I am highly attracted to the viola and so the two Caprices, offering strong contrast, were most diverting, even if, especially in No 20, a bit flawed in intonation and articulation. But Andreeva’s warm musicality and rhythmic vitality compensated for some lack of light and shade.

Joanna Lee comes here after study at McGill in Montreal where she has been specializing in Brahms. So it was no surprise to hear such confident and polished performances of these two pieces from opposite ends of Brahms’s career.

The FAE Sonata (‘Frei aber einsam’ – free but alone, intended as a tribute to violinist Joseph Joachim) was a 1853 collaboration between Brahms aged 20, Schumann just before his mental collapse and the forgotten Albert Dietrich, who wrote the sonata’s long first movement. Schumann wrote the slow movement and the Finale. The Scherzo is from Brahms, already so characteristic, and Joanna Lee played it with a firmness and maturity that indeed demonstrated an intuitive instinct for Brahms.

There was time for only one of the two movements scheduled from the (four movements of the) third violin sonata – the scherzo – Un poco presto e con sentimento. However, it is a substantial piece and was a highly convincing demonstration of a major talent. Again the two players found a singular rapport, with careful placing of emphatic notes and violin chords, all its impulsiveness managed in flawless ensemble.

The third of Beethoven’s Op 30 set of violin sonatas is the shortest of the three and was a delightful choice for a lunchtime concert. As well as again showcasing an admirable piano part, it gave violinist Jun He the opportunity to explore the very distinct moods of this sonata: calm sanguinity in the first movement, joyfulness in the last, but a menuetto in the middle that is profoundly meditative and lyrical, heart-easing (to use an old-fashioned expression).

Jun He is another recent arrival at the School of Music, originally from China, having studied at various universities and academies; she is here to complete a doctorate in musical arts. She took great care with dynamics and exercised beautiful control of the discreet ornaments, with the two instruments in perfect sympathy. Though given no invitation by the music for display or histrionics, the two players created a poised, modest, warm-hearted partnership. There can be few so un-dancing minuets as this; eager dancers would have been stilled by the beauty of the music and, in this instance, its performance.

The last movement was simple joy, the violin articulated so softly, with exquisite ppp sounds from the piano, which even at the odd fortissimo never clouded the violin or generated any percussiveness. And the witty modulation to E flat near the end dramatically altered the colouring.

Though this was the only ‘entire’ piece in the programme the whole could be enjoyed at a level far above the average ‘student’ performance.

NZSQ and Wollerman reveal beauties in Schoenberg, and others

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand String Quartet and Jenny Wollerman (soprano)

Beethoven: String Quartet in A, Op 18 No 5; Schoenberg: String Quartet No 2 in F sharp minor, Op 10; Smetana: String Quartet No 1 in E minor ‘From my life’

Wellington Town Hall

Tuesday 3 May 7.30pm

I suspect that few musical performances in Wellington have done as much, as quickly, as this to overturn long-held attitudes about a composer. Often without really putting it to the test, many ordinary music lovers have accepted that, apart from Verklärte Nacht, Schoenberg’s music was and has remained cacophonous and unlistenable. The composer himself complained quite early that the problem was poor performance: nothing difficult about his music!

All that was needed then was the phantom arrival of a New Zealand String Quartet and a Jenny Wollerman to illuminate what Schoenberg had created; for no one I spoke to at the interval did not exclaim at the transformational performance by both string quartet and soprano.

Even though for perhaps many, this might have been a first hearing, and the splintered character of the lyricism and the unpredictability of the music from minute to minute and still surprise, there was an unmistakable feeling that real music was present, of beauty and natural human impulse.

If this concert had been heard through radio or recording, it might not have had the effect it did, for the impact of watching these players, so profoundly engrossed and so whole-heartedly enraptured in their performance, was a most persuasive aspect. One felt as if each player relished opportunities to sing, to prove that they were playing genuine music, not some intellectual contrivance, even though the shapes of the songs were unusual. The first movement is simply a restless, soulful meditation of great beauty; the mood overall not very different from the nocturnal strangeness of Verklärte Nacht. After moving passages from first violin, then viola, Rolf Gjelsten seemed transported as he played cello phrases that expressed alternating grief and resolve.

The second movement changes the mood entirely, skittering violin over abrupt cello notes, with its use of the German folk song ‘Ach, du lieber Augustin’, mocked and tortured. Perhaps it was the only way for the composer to handle the traumatic loss of his wife to his painting teacher, though we must not imagine the music to be any kind of direct account of that. The playing was remarkable in its quixotic, kaleidoscopic impulsiveness, and the notes of the song are broken, dissected. Another frenzied passage closed the movement,

What disconcerted its first Viennese audiences lay in the next two movements – the arrival of a soprano to sing two poems – how outrageous for a voice to invade the sacred world of chamber music! It’s a setting of Stefan George, a poet who is compared to the French Parnassiens and symbolists. (One noticed that the programme notes observed the poet’s Cummings-like capital letters fetish in the German texts: nouns not capitalized).

The first, Litanei, with lines like “… Grant some peace to my faltering steps … extinguish all hope, send out [better perhaps, ‘dispatch’] your light …Kill the longing, close the wounds…”. Jenny Wollerman’s voice proved a quite exquisite vehicle for the poem and its music taxing a voice with its fragments of melody that are determined to give no comfort; projected strongly, accurately, with emotional intensity. Though the score was before her, she appeared to have every word and every note utterly secure.

The last movement used the poem Entrückung (approximately ‘rapture’) and it expressed that, in the uneasy quiet of the opening, depending heavily on the cello, curling and twisting in preparation for the voice’s entry. In the movement’s ten minutes or so, there was time for the listener to begin to find melody in the spectral cirrus, and with the compelling performances by all five, we were left with a sense of music of the greatest beauty.

Though I’ve paid much attention to the Schoenberg, the other pieces were played with no less power, subtlety, and beauty of tone and expression.

The happiest of Beethoven’s first published set of quartets opened with an almost droll, whimsical air, an ethereal dance, set among scintillating flashes from Helene Pohl’s brilliant violin, all brought to its senses with some sombre phrases from the cello. The Menuetto was a particularly sensuous Viennese affair, its swaying rhythm set charmingly against the warm romantic tune of the Trio. The Andante cantabile with its variations and sometimes fugal passages found Beethoven and the players in a jovial mood, smiles flickering across their faces, responding to comic effects. The movement ends with a sudden subsiding to a minor tonality that stilled the audience utterly – apart from a solitary cough – in the pause before the Finale.

The Schoenberg was followed by Smetana’s autobiographical piece: a life that allowed much variety, Gillian Ansell’s viola played a significant role at many points, passionate and rich in the opening movement. She underpinned the dance in the second, along with particular rhythmic energy from Beilman’s violin; they relished the almost saccharine sentiment of the third movement, without embarrassment.

There was a somewhat smaller audience than usual at this very fine concert. Are our chamber music audiences still subject to the blinkered attitudes that Schoenberg faced in Vienna a century ago?

Tudor Consort sings Victoria’s Tenebrae Responsories

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Music for Holy Week

The Tudor Consort directed by Michael Stewart

Tenebrae Responsories by Tomás Luis de Victoria with plainchant interludes from Pange Lingua by Venantius Fortunatus; De Profundis by Pizzetti; Three Motets, Op 110 (Brahms); Crucifixus à 8 by Lotti

Cathedral of St Paul

Good Friday, 22 April, 9pm

When I starting writing reviews for The Evening Post in 1987, I was not particularly au fait with very much liturgical music and even less with its technical vocabulary, having not been brought up in a religious family. Coming to grips with the significance of parts of the liturgy like the Tenebrae responories and their use in the church was interesting….

Let me assume that fewer today, even the nominally Catholic, are very familiar with some of the more arcane areas of the liturgy.

Holy Week is the busiest period in the calendar of the Christian church, and the commemoration of the events surrounding Christ’s crucifixion supplied the church with the opportunity for an extensive and complex variety of rituals most of which involved, from the earliest times, the speaking, chanting or singing of texts from the Bible; at Easter, that was mainly from the Gospels. And the events in the story provide for the expression of emotions of every kind, of betrayal, persecution, grief, experience of death both by the victim and by others, and the mysteries of the resurrection. The ceremonies that evolved very early to symbolize and represent the story involved extinguishing candles in gathering darkness (though there was no enactment of that in this concert), accompanied by chant and, from the 16th century, polyphonic choral singing of some of the most richly and emotionally charged compositions in the western musical tradition.

The best, straightforward account of the Tenebrae is from the New Grove Dictionary of Music: I paraphrase: the combined offices of Matins and Lauds on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday of Holy Week. The service is marked by the extinction of 15 candles, one after each psalm. At the end of the canticle Benedictus Dominus all the candles are extinguished and what follows is said or sung in darkness – ‘in tenebris’. The musically significant parts of the ceremony are the first three of the nine ‘lessons’ of the Matins, taken from the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and the responsories that follow each.

The Responsories are just that – responses to each of the readings of lessons at Matins (the equivalent after readings at Mass is the Gradual). It was in the late 16th century that polyphonic settings of the Tenebrae responses became common. Out of the full 27 responsories to the Tenebrae ceremonies, Victoria set 18 of them and just six of those were sung on Friday evening. Each response consists of two parts – the respond and the verse – and the distinction in this performance in terms of voices used and the more hortatory character of the settings, was dramatically rendered.

The choir, positioned between choir stalls and sanctuary, while the audience occupied the choir stalls and seats between, sang with remarkable musical, though less verbal clarity: consonants were often allowed to pass unattended. But the deeply contemplative and grieving mood was wonderfully sustained and the singers grasped every expressive opportunity. In ‘Unus ex discipulis’, dealing with the betrayal by Judas, the descending lines and the highly charged singing described the event and its impact far better than any explicit expression of condemnation or outrage could.

Interspersed between parts of the Responsories and other pieces, were plainchants from the 6th century ‘sequence hymn’ by Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers, Pange lingua gloriosi proelium certaminis. They are chanted during the Adoration of the Cross on Good Friday and so were actually more exactly appropriate to performance on the evening of Good Friday than the Tenebrae Responsories themselves.

This concert included from Pange lingua, the ‘Crux fidelis’, ‘De parentis protoplasti’, ‘Hoc opus nostrae’, ‘Quando venit ergo sacri’, ‘Sola digni tu fuisti’ and ‘Aequa patri filioque’. Long stretches of plainsong I sometimes find tedious, but these were quite brief and, in any case, sung so exquisitely, shared between male and female voices and then together, that they were highly satisfying intercepts.

In addition to the selections from the Tenebrae Responsories and punctuating plainsong from the Pange Lingua, was one of the most remarkable pieces of modern polyphony reflecting the Renaissance style: The De Profundis of Pizzetti. (Pizzetti, 1880 – 1968, 20 years or so younger than his more famous operatic contemporaries, wrote mainly orchestral and vocal music, though he did have some operatic success, for example with his setting of T S Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral – Assassinio nella cattedralae).

De Profundis, composed in 1937, is drawn from Psalm 130. It emerged as a religious expression of great integrity, bearing essential marks of 16th century liturgical music, but with harmonies and colours clearly post-Brahms, and recognizably of 20th century sensibility, and handling of voices. It was a superb performance; one of those that will drive me to explore more of Pizzetti’s music (though I did see Assassinio nella cattedrale in Rome a few years ago).

Then there was the group of three motets of Brahms, late works. The first and third could be compared with the Pizzetti motet, composed lineally in flowing counterpoint, while the second, ’Ach, arme Welt’, had a clear German chorale character, with vertical harmonies. The choir’s adroit stylistic shift was a further mark of its versatility. 

Another composer was called in to end the concert. Antonio Lotti, who lived from 1667 to 1740, about a hundred years after Victoria, continued to compose in the Renaissance style. Music had changed very considerably from the time of Victoria. As well as writing liturgical music (he was maestro di cappella at St Mark’s Venice), he wrote some 24 operas (though only eight survive) and he spent two years as opera composer for the Elector of Saxony, Friedrich Augustus I at Dresden.

The Crucifixus for eight voices from a Credo in F is a famous and popular piece; in turn it comes from his Missa Sancti Christophori, which was written while Lotti was at Dresden.

For this final piece, the choir was spread out across the full width of the sanctuary; it lived up to its promise, melodically interesting with women’s voices in long descending lines against varied accompaniment by male voices. Though the mass itself is written with instrumental accompaniment, in this section only a continuo line remains, and that was of course dropped from the performance, no doubt making the maintenance of pitch rather more difficult.

It brought a thoroughly enrapturing concert to an end, neatly affording a view of the high Renaissance from a beautiful, backward-looking work of the Baroque period. Once more, this superb, world-class choir which is far more than simply an ‘early music’ ensemble, delivered performances of warmth, precision, wide-ranging expressiveness, beauty and impressive ensemble.