Author: Lindis Taylor

Elios Ensemble captivates at St Andrew’s season

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Elios Ensemble (Karen Batten – flute and alto flute, Martin Jaenecke – violin and soprano saxophone, Victoria Jaenecke – viola)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace Season of Concerts

Music by Bartók, Igudesman, Debussy, Reger, Mansurian, Ginastera and Beethoven

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Tuesday 15 March, 7.30pm

This was the kind of programme that probably sorts out its own audience, or rather, it would sort them out if there were enough to provide a good statistical sampling.

On the one side are those who are drawn to a concert by names that are familiar, both composers and pieces; and on the other, Stendhal’s ‘Happy Few’, those who are enticed by a mix of the familiar and names that are evocative, half-heard, that arouse curiosity and suggest ambiguity and other-worldliness, as well as having an emotional force. You gauge the latter as much by what you have come to know of the performers as by the composers’ names and titles of the music.

How could you resist a programme that included a delightful early piece of Beethoven, another chance to explore Max Reger whose true nature, I feel, keeps eluding me; some of Bartók’s 44 Duos for Two Violins; and two names that merely rang bells?

Let’s go chronologically. Beethoven’s little six-movement Serenade Op 25 was written for these very instruments, and his writing for the flute, for starters, showed how acute Beethoven’s sense of instrumental timbre and capacities was. The first movement, starting with a veritable flute fanfare, belonged very much to Karen Batten.  Elsewhere, violin and viola were rewarded and these two superb, somewhat unacknowledged players had plenty of exposure, in particular in the Andante con variazioni.

Reger’s Serenade was very clearly based on Beethoven’s and afforded him the chance to show a levity and gaiety that are not qualities usually encountered. Written about a year before his death in his early 40s, perhaps he was attempting to redress the balance. It showed Reger as a perfectly gifted melodist (I read a recent review that remarked that he couldn’t write a tune to save himself – not true!). Generally, he had concerns other than merely writing tunes, which might have been a bit misguided.

This proved an engaging suite – like Beethoven’s, in six movements – that was sometimes thoughtful, often gay (original sense), entertaining in its treatment of the three instruments and achieving nicely, just what one felt Reger wanted.

Debussy’s contribution was the predictable Syrinx for solo flute where Karen Batten demonstrated her virtuosity as well as her feeling for the piece’s place as sinuous, sensuous impressionism, and a brilliant little show-stopper.

Bartók comes next, though his pieces were first in the programme. I’m not acquainted with the entire collection of 44 Duos, but after this brilliantly played foray in which the two violins were replaced by, variously, viola, alto and normal flute and soprano saxophone, I will be exploring them. The pieces played were Ruthenian Song (Ruthenia was the little territory at the eastern end of the inter-war Czechoslovakia, north of Hungary and Romania and now in Ukraine), Teasing Song, Slovak Song, Pillow Dance, Fairy Tale, Mosquito Dance (very nocturnally disruptive), Sorrow and Dancing Song.

Ginastera’s Duo was originally for flute – alto flute – and oboe in three movements; like much of his music, it’s a bit hard to place both geographically and chronologically. At times, it seemed like a serious Françaix or Ibert, even, at times, not very remote from Britten’s sound world. There was little evidence of the popular Latin American musical world, and one accepts the statement that it employs Argentinian folk music. Persuasively performed, the Duo nevertheless made less impact on me than most of the other pieces in the programme.

Tigran Mansurian was born in 1939 in Beirut of Armenian parents. His piece, Lachrymae, is for soprano saxophone and alto flute, offering a lovely exhibition of these two very distinctive instruments. In general terms it evoked the sounds of the region – Caucasus, central Asia, the Levant, which of course is as various in its music as in its history and its religions; the use of quarter tones was just one of the identifiable features. It was also curious to hear the soprano saxophone exploiting its lowest register, sounding like an alto sax. As it did with one or two of the Bartok pieces, the saxophone seemed radically to alter the character of the music, inevitably in a trans-Atlantic direction.

I thoroughly enjoyed Lachrymae, making a mental note to explore more of Mansurian’s music.

Finally came a name altogether unfamiliar to me: Aleksey Igudesman (born Leningrad 1973). A more knowledgeable friend described his stage (or cabaret?) performances, with Hyung-ki Joo, that are very clever, very musical and very funny. (See www.igudesmanandjoo.com). There were three pieces, all with their feet in Ireland, but their heads somewhere else, mainly in the former Yiddish world of Eastern Europe where Klezmer was endemic. They were highly entertaining; the first in the infectious rhythms made familiar by the phenomenon of the River Dance. I have never heard such a piquant rendering of Danny Boy which I recoil from in its usual boring, unadorned harmonic dress. Igudesman had devised such an engaging and amusing harmonic setting – comparable to, but even more diverting than, Britten’s folk song arrangements – that it became a new song. The Klezmer element was strongest in the third piece, Giora Feidman lost in Dublin. Loved all of it.

Enchanting concert by Antipodes Trio at Waikanae

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The Antipodes Trio (Christobel Lin – violin, Nicholas Hancox – viola, David Requiro – cello)

Dohnanyi: Serenade in C, Op 10; Lilburn: String Trio; Handel/Halvorsen: Passacaglia in G minor on a Theme by Handel (from Harpsichord Suite HWV 432); Schubert: String Trio in B flat, D 471; Beethoven: String Trio in C minor, Op 9 No 3

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday 13 March 2.30pm

One of the reasons for going to this concert was the patriotic impulse to hear a Wellington musician who’s making good in Europe. Nicholas Hancox took his B Mus (Hons) at Victoria University and has now completed a master’s at the University of Michigan. Learning never ends: he has moved to Munich for post-graduate work at the Hochschule (Academy) für Musik und Theater. The group’s violinist Christobel Lin is from Auckland and studies four hours away by train, in Vienna. Their cellist derives from a New York connection; he’s appeared as a soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington and the Tokyo Philharmonic, and is now artist-in-residence at the University of Puget Sound in Washington State.

The subsidiary reason for going to Waikanae, really just a big bonus, was the pleasure of going all the way by train which discharges you about 100 metres from the hall. Even without a Gold Card, the journey would be so infinitely more enjoyable than sitting behind a car wheel: the commuter queues on the roads north leave me incredulous.

Finally: the concert. They confess that their ensemble is not of long standing, but I needed to be told that as it would not have occurred to me. Individually they play with great accomplishment; it may well be perceived that the cellist has a slight edge in terms of finesse in articulation and tonal variety, but the excellence of their musical togetherness kept me from observing significant differences in their levels of artistic attainment. Critics often make a display of perceiving such niceties; the truth is that only the players themselves and perhaps their tutors can really notice the almost imperceptible nuances.

The string trio is a much less common creature than either the string quartet or the piano trio and its repertoire is much smaller. Two of Beethoven’s early opus numbers comprise string trios, usually seen as rehearsals for his graduation to the string quartet; we heard the third of the Opus 9 group. With its C minor key, it has the outward signs of seriousness and it was the second movement where both the music’s quality and the players’ understanding became evident, taking their time through its spaciousness and imposing, slow tempo. That was the last piece in the programme.

The concert had begun with Dohnanyi’s now rather familiar Serenade (it was played in the recent Chamber Music Festival at Nelson), written with an ear touched by the Beethoven model (his Serenade, Op 8, in D and the Serenade for flute, violin and viola, Op 25, which the Elios Ensemble played two days later in the St Andrew’s season of concerts ).

The Dohnanyi was handled with vivacity, with striking attention to the detail of dynamics even to the detailing of individual notes. that could be compared not unfavourably with its performance by the Hermitage Trio in Nelson. The serenade form here seems to be shorthand for a series of short movements that avoid the sonata form’s succession of themes and their development and elaborate recapitulations. There was no time to become impatient of slender ideas, no matter how charming. Interest was maintained through sharply contrasted movements: a Romanza that took us on a light-hearted journey, diverting through the varying roles given to the three instruments and their playing techniques: each had its turn in the limelight. A Theme and Variations had ever-changing tempi, and allusions to the most serious devices employed by serious classical music.

Lilburn’s string trio from the mid 40s, when he was about 30, is a fairly insubstantial piece. Any kind of criticism of Lilburn is comprehensively outlawed in this country, but I have to confess to finding this piece so generally uneventful, the melodic fragments insipid and so tentatively handled that it is hard for me to say much apart from remarking its sympathetic and idiomatic performance.

After the interval, the trio played the Passacaglia for violin and viola that Norwegian composer Halvorsen based on theme of Handel (the Harpsichord Suite No 7, HWV432). A tune that lends itself to variations, it is treated with little reference to its origin, handled with imagination and variety in the sequence of variations that such a theme often invites. Being something of a virtuoso showpiece (though it is rather more than that) it was just one occasion that I was highly impressed by the performances by Lin and Hancox. Both combined bravura and artistry, nowhere better displayed than in a beautiful, breathless, pianissimo passage played at the octave. It was as satisfying an experience as anything else in the programme.

The remaining piece was the single movement String Trio in B flat, D 471, by Schubert. A simple utterance based on charming themes, it gains its place more through that melodic simplicity than through any interesting evolution and development. The players had all the musical resources to make it a wholly enchanting performance.

Two supreme chamber works at St Andrew’s season of concerts

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Musika Ensemble – Christina Vaszilcsin and Lyndon Taylor (violins), Peter Garrity (viola), David Chickering (cello), Catherine McKay (piano)

Borodin: String quartet No 2 in D; Dvořák: Piano Quintet in A, Op 81

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Friday 11 March, 7.30pm

The second concert in this admirable series arrived at the very heartland of chamber music. The two pieces played are, I am sure, among the top ten of any real music lover’s favourites, both coming from the wonderful store of Slav romantic masterpieces. But you wouldn’t guess that from the sad array of worthy but utterly predictable stuff that gets into Radio New Zealand Concert’s New Year count-down every year.

Just to animadvert there for a moment. No piece of chamber music made it this year; though there were a couple of piano pieces (including, amazingly enough, the Waldstein and not the Moonlight sonata). However, I recall that both Schubert’s marvelous String Quintet and his Death and the Maiden Quartet have been there in past years.

You’d have thought that the endlessly played trailer that touted for votes for weeks might have prompted a few punters to include Berlioz’s Nuits d’été. But I suspect that, failing to recognize it, none had sufficient curiosity to identify it. I don’t recall Berlioz ever featuring on the list: to me, blindingly incredible.

It’s one of music’s great tragedies that Borodin was such a conscientious scientific researcher that he had so little time to compose; many have compared his genius with Schubert’s for its natural sense of form, its spontaneity and melodic abundance.

His second string quartet is dangerously overloaded with tunes, rich and long, that hurl themselves at you right at the start. Hurling was the operative verb this evening as the four players, in a readily amplifying acoustic on hard timber floor, made an overwhelming noise; I mean in the way of Beecham’s joke against the British: they didn’t like music much but loved the noise it made.

Each player seemed equipped with the most opulent and beautiful instrument and each played as if they’d been together for years and were in total accord.

Curiously, none of the string players are New Zealanders by birth; and one (Lyndon Taylor), sadly, is about to return to the States.

Borodin’s first movement was driven by playing of wonderful sonority and romantic sensibility. The second, a Scherzo, without a trio but with a changed tempo middle section, was no less luxuriant in tone though it might have lost a little in polish. (A few years ago a couple of the tunes in this quartet would have been familiar because of their use in the Borodin-inspired musical, Kismet). The disappearance of that pastiche has meant that Borodin’s music no longer suggests something that at times seems overly sentimental. The fact that the Nocturne has become more familiar in an orchestral transcription, however, doesn’t help: the real thing cleanses the palette, especially in a performance such as this, shamelessly romantic.

Borodin’s attention to the string quartet form met with the disapproval of some of his fellow ‘Mighty Handful’ (‘Могучая кучка’ – Moguchaya kuchka, earlier known as ‘The Five’) colleagues. Though there are melodic suggestions of Russian folk music, they are by no means as foreign to western European ears as is much of the music of the Balkans that Bartók and others later exhumed. It has always seemed a strange obsession that some Russians are determined to claim their music to be quite ‘uneuropean’, exotic, when Russia’s cultural as well as political history is so profoundly tied up with Europe.

The audience could count itself doubly blessed, with Dvořák’s beautiful piano quintet in A as the second piece. Along with Borodin and Schubert, Dvořák too was one of the greatest naturals of the 19th century, or any century, and this quintet is as full of melody as anything in the repertory. Dvořák’s gift not only unleashes endless melody but enables him to explore and develop them in full symphonic scope.

The addition of a piano to the ensemble seemed to bring about a degree of tenderness and refinement in the playing. Here, there was no question of any unwelcome dominance by the piano, and things were near perfect. For much of the time the strings create such beautiful sounds, having the monopoly of thematic presentation, that the piano is there simply (far from simply) to create illuminating texture, a feminine, supportive role, offering sparkling contrasting splashes. But every so often the piano grabbed the spotlight. When she had it, Catherine McKay used it with discreet delicacy, lightly fluttering, sounds of ravishing musicality, weight without noise, flawlessly judged in its relationship with the strings.

To simulate an orchestral sound is not the aim of chamber music, but the best chamber music, played by the most percipient musicians in a generous acoustic does attain that level of richness and opulence. This was such an occasion.

For the Dvořák, first and second violins changed places. While in the Borodin, Taylor’s lead fiddle was strong and confident; in the Czech music, Cristina Vaszilcsin led with a greater delicacy and diffidence in places where it counted, and that included the most boisterous parts of both the Dumka and the Furiant movements. Her own background in the Transylvanian region of Romania, and with what I assume to be (from her name) her own Magyar descent, she sounded at ease in the music from a few hundred kilometers to the north, with no need for invented histrionics.

I must say I was somewhat distressed that a larger crowd was not here for this programme of two of the most beautiful pieces of music – ideal as an introduction to anyone who thinks classical music is not for them. This is the kind of programme and the kind of musicians that an enlightened education ministry (don’t laugh – I’m serious) should be funding to tour the secondary schools of the country on a regular basis in an attempt to alleviate the cultural deprivation that curriculum changes over the years have stricken us with.

Wellington’s music in 2011 – our ‘Coming Events’

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

It is timely to remind you about the musical services offered by Middle C.

We have recently been loading into our ‘Coming Events’ details of all concert series and individual concerts being presented in the Wellington region in 2011.

Though we remain ready to add any that we have overlooked or that have not been drawn to our attention.

St Andrew’s Concert Series
In particular, we should highlight the St Andrew’s on The Terrace Season of Concerts that will take place between 10 and 20 March. It is a reprise of the series that Richard Greager and Marjan van Waardenberg presented last year alongside the International Arts Festival. Its impulse was the continued failure of the International Arts Festival to provide modestly priced lunchtime concerts which had been such an important part of the festivals from the very beginning in 1986, fading out through the late nineties.

Even though this is not a ‘Festival’ year, it was obvious that a regular series was the best way to establish a musical tradition that opened Wellington’s musical year in a striking manner. The ten concerts this year are in the evenings at 7.30pm with a 3pm concert on each of the two Sunday afternoons.

For full details of the programme, beyond what is in Coming Events in Middle C, go to http://thestandrewsseason.blogspot.com/

All the concerts

All the main concert series throughout Greater Wellington will be found here: from the NZSO and the Vector Wellington Orchestra, the opera, and Chamber Music New Zealand to the Mulled Wine concerts at Paekakariki, the new Tuesday lunchtime series from Expressions at Upper Hutt, as well as their evening series, the chamber music series at Waikanae and Lower Hutt and the Ilott Theatre Sunday afternoon concerts, as well as organ series at St Paul’s Cathedral. And not forgetting the many choral concerts though so far not all have been finalized. We look forward to being advised of more details as they are confirmed.

The major performances in the coming month include the NZSO playing Mahler’s fourth symphony on 25 March and Bach’s St Matthew Passion on 10 April. The Eggner Trio in the Town Hall on 24 March and the Wellington Orchestra’s first concert in the Town Hall on 16 April, with Borodin’s second symphony; and the Bach Choir singing two interesting French choral works with France-based organist Christopher Hainsworth.

For Christchurch

As well as the organ concert on Friday evening at St Peter’s Church, Willis Street, which remembered three members of the South Island Organ Company who had restored the church’s organ recently, and who were killed in Christchurch when the Durham Street Methodist Church was destroyed as they were working on its organ, there will also be a concert by The Tudor Consort at the Sacred Heart Cathedral on Monday at 5.30pm for the benefit of victims of the earthquake.

In Memoriam: organ restorers remembered at St Peter’s

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Organ recital to remember three members of the South Island Organ Company killed in Christchurch on 22 February.

Paul Rosoman, Dianne Halliday, Richard Apperley, Michael Fulcher

St Peter’s Church, Willis Street

Friday 4 March 5.30pm

Only two weeks after the inaugural concert for the restored organ at St Peter’s three of those who had worked on the project were killed on their next assignment, the organ in the Durham Street Methodist Church in Christchurch; this extremely beautiful church built in 1864, called the “Mother Church of Methodism” in the South Island, was totally destroyed.

One has to hope that the focus of the city’s recovery will quickly start to dwell on the vital importance of rebuilding the city’s most important and beautiful buildings. If Dresden and Warsaw and many other war-wrecked cities of Europe could take their time to restore the physical element of their spirit, calmly and determinedly, so can Christchurch.

Four Wellington organists took part; a fifth, Douglas Mews, was unable to participate as he was overseas. Paul Rosoman opened the programme with Bach’s Partita on ‘O Gott, du frommer Gott’, BWV 767, unfamiliar to me. It was one of Bach’s earliest organ works, a set of variations rather than what we now understand as a partita. Its solemn opening of the Lutheran hymn on the pedals made an imposing statement, though it is alleviated by more lively, and light-spirited sections as it progresses.

Dianne Halliday followed with Lilburn’s Prelude and Fugue in G minor, subtitled ‘Antipodes’ of 1944 sounded uncharacteristic of Lilburn. In fact, being unable to see the organists who slipped unobtrusively from a door beside the console, I wondered for a while whether I was listening to the Herbert Howells piece that Richard Apperley was scheduled to play. None of the familiar Lilburn melodic and rhythmic ticks were there, and it seemed as if the composer, dealing with an instrument that till then had no significant body of New Zealand music, placed himself almost entirely in the hands of English organists of the first part of the 20th century. Nevertheless, its weight and its evident accomplishment made it a particularly valuable contribution to the concert.

Her second piece was Bach’s ‘Schmücke, dich o liebe Seele’, BWV654.

Richard Applerley played Howells’s Master Tallis’s Testament, beginning in a state of calm but slowly creating a remarkable and portentous essay during which the sun suddenly broke through the clouds and the west-facing stained glass, after which the sound subsided. For me it was a moving discovery.

And he followed it with Théodore Dubois’s ‘In paradisum’ a spirited, somewhat insubstantial (in the best sense) and glittering piece.

Michael Fulcher concluded the concert with Franck’s Third Chorale, all three from his last year, 1890. My pleasure in Franck may be driven by an all-embracing franc(k)ophilia which withstands the deprecations of unLisztian and unFranckian friends. I greatly enjoyed Fulcher’ rendering, with its shimmering opening, its impressive contrapuntal progress and its final triumphant ending.

I had missed the inauguration of the restored instrument and relished this chance to hear it put through its paces in a good variety of music. It sounds admirably in tune with the church’s acoustic and in both its loudest and quietest moods produces sounds that are beautifully right. The reed stops caught my ear for their unusual, slightly nasal character, but they seemed in perfect accord with the charmingly decorated pipes and the meticulously restored wooden case.

All donations were sent through the Red Cross to help with their work in Christchurch

 

Brio Vocal Ensemble imports the USA for a St Andrew’s lunchtime.

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Barber’s A Hand of Bridge and items from Sweeney Todd (Sondheim) and Candide (Bernstein)

Brio: Janey MacKenzie (soprano), Jody Orgias (mezzo), John Beaglehole (tenor), Justin Pearce (baritone) and guest singer Michel Alkhouri (bass baritone)
Piano: Robyn Jaquiery

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 2 March, 12.15pm

This was my first lunchtime concert for the year. It was a good start with a moderate sized audience. The performances were well presented and conveyed their dramatic qualities as well as is possible in a well-lit church with the sanctuary as backdrop and religious symbols as props.

Usually St Andrew’s is an acoustically friendly place, for chamber music by both strings and winds. Often, the piano is treated well though on occasions when a mat of some sort has been put beneath it, the sound has been less clangorous that when it is played with the lid fully up and standing on polished timber. Robyn Jaquiery’s playing of the accompaniments was admirable, though there were times when the sound lay too heavily on the singers.

I sat downstairs during the Sweeney Todd pieces and found it hard to catch words and was uncomfortable with the combination of voices and piano, so I went upstairs for the rest of the concert. There, voices were clearer and the words a little more understandable, but the hard reverberation was still troublesome.

Five very contrasted voices were involved: Janey MacKenzie’s soprano is agile and warmly lyrical, and she gave one of the few agreeable items in Sondheim’s opera a fine showing, and she was charming as Cunegonde in the happy waltz duet in Candide; as her partner, John Beaglehole portrayed the naive Candide with comparable affection and warmth.

Jody Orgias has an unusual voice which I happen to like but its heavy texture does have its limits in the interpretation of some characters. But she acts splendidly and she had a good deal of convincing work as Sally in A Hand of Bridge and in ‘We are easily assimilated’ from Candide. Justin Pearce too has a voice with certain limitations, and they made for a properly disturbing Sweeney, as well as good contributions in ensembles in Candide.

The guest artist was Michel Alkhouri (of Arab descent, growing up in Marseille) who had made his mark at Baron Trombonok in Il viaggio a Reims in the Opera in a Days Bay Garden last December. He opened with a striking scene-setting role in the Ballad of Sweeney Todd and was perfectly cast at Dr Pangloss in Candide.

I have to say that I find Sweeney Todd the most disagreeable theatrical piece I have ever seen and never want to be exposed to it again; it is currently fashionable to allow Sondheim as the Broadway composer most accepted by the classical world, perhaps because of the paucity of his melodic invention; I am not among his fans.

The other two works, however, are most worthy. A Hand of Bridge was interestingly done by the erstwhile Wellington Polytechnic Conservatorium of Music a couple of decades ago; though very short and very slender in content, it works musically and dramatically. And Candide is simply a brilliant, musically rich little masterpiece which deserves a full production in Wellington.

Oh, for our own professional opera company!

Further to the review of Lewis’s Winterreise in Nelson: surtitles

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

My review of the recital at Nelson at which Keith Lewis and Michael Houstoun performed Schubert’s Winterreise had overlooked what I felt at the time to be a major innovation: the use of surtitles. I have now inserted the following paragraphs in my review of 9 February.

“First, I should note an innovation that sets an admirable precedent for voice recitals: the projection of surtitles. Occasional whines are still heard about them in the opera house though I have been a wholehearted supporter from their first appearance in the late 80s. If there are plausible objections to their use in opera, however, there can be none in the recital. The decision was made to not include the words or translations in the programme, to avoid the interrupting rustle of collective page turning and the dispiriting vision, for the artists, of audience heads down during the performance. In recital, eyes do not need to be constantly on the stage watching movements, gestures, expressions; nothing is lost by raising the eyes to read the words. And the surtitle screen was of ideal size, allowing easy reading of full translations in images that were very clear.

“At the end of the concert booklets containing full German and English texts were distributed. The whole process was handled with great care and thoughtfulness.”

Climactic finale to a splendid festival

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Adam Chamber Music Festival: Grand Finale

 

New Zealand String Quartet, Alexander Zemstov (viola) and Leonid Gorokhov (cello) of the Hermitage String Trio, Hiroshi Ikematsu (double bass), James Campbell (clarinet), Edward Allen (horn), Robert Weeks (bassoon)

 

Beethoven: Duet in E flat (‘Eyeglass’), WoO 32; Vieuxtemps: Capriccio in C minor for solo viola; Weber: Clarinet Quintet in B flat, Op 44; Schubert: Octet in E, D 803

 

Nelson Cathedral, Saturday 12 February 7.30pm

 

The last concert in this compressed festival brought most of the players in the two string ensembles together plus other prominent soloists. It was an odd-looking programme, but anything goes at a farewell party, and this certainly did that.

 

The Beethoven duet was an unpublished piece, unfinished, in only two movements, but a highly entertaining one. The players were from the Hermitage Trio who may well have made it something of a trademark, such was their conspicuous flair with it. Written for a patron, an amateur cellist, with whom Beethoven (a violist) had a particularly jocular relationship; presumably for them to play together. So it is a delightful piece, playful, witty and rather lovely in its melodies and the spirit of friendship which is not hard to discern. Needless to say, the performance was brilliant, witty as far as music can be witty, and immaculate.

 

Gillian Ansell got a solo slot in the last concert, playing a rarity by great Belgian violinist Vieuxtemps. Tuneful and quite challenging, it offered a good opportunity to hear the fine violist of the New Zealand String Quartet on her own; she proved a most worthy candidate for such exposure.

 

James Campbell also had another chance to play. As chamber music Weber’s clarinet quintet hardly meets some of the tests, for it is a rather shameless show-piece for the instrument and the four strings (the NZSQ) merely accompany as if in a very routine classical period concerto. Campbell made the most of its beauties and its brilliant writing however to produce an extremely entertaining performance.

 

Finally, the piece for which all this had really been merely a curtain raiser: Schubert’s Octet. It’s one of those pieces the needs an unusual variety of musicians: a string quartet, a double bass, clarinet, bassoon and horn. This time it was an entirely New Zealand affair apart from the clarinet, never mind that almost all the others were foreign-born New Zealanders.

 

And so it proved an extremely lively, immaculate performance, a first movement setting out confidently with an air of high expectancy, as if on a big journey. There was something about the spirit of the playing that seemed to announce the size and range of this unique masterpiece right from the start, which would have made it hard to imagine its stopping for example at the end of the fourth movement, which would not be improbable given its extensive theme and variations form. The soul of the piece might well be the Adagio second movement which expressed a marvelous relaxation, fielded a blend of strings and wind instruments that was rapturous in the rich and voluptuous blend. That fourth movement offered lovely opportunities for all the players, exceeding expectations of mere perfection, in ever-changing combinations and solo episodes through the way Schubert uses the variations pattern. The last movement began with foreboding tremolos and steady-paced mystical passages before upping the tempo for the coda that seemed unable to bring itself to an end. Few in the audience would have been hoping for that for it also meant the end of the festival; there was a long, rowdy ovation for this performance and for the festival as a whole. 

 

It had been a festival made more full-on for the audiences who in a few days could have heard more music than previously, but imposed greater demands, with less leisure time, on the players. I hope the effect of that does not discourage visiting musicians in the future from what has become quite famous as a time of bacchanalian relaxation as well as companionable music making. 

 

It had been a wonderful festival. 

Last day at Nelson. Bickerton with kids and Riseley with Paganini

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Adam Chamber Music Festival. Saturday Music at Nelson. Bob Bickerton with Kid’s Concert; Riseley plays Paganini Caprices

Nelson School of Music and St John’s church

 

Saturday 12 February 10am and 1pm

 

Bob Bickerton is a multi-talented musician, a composer as well as a versatile, gifted performer on many instruments, he has been heavily involved in bringing music to children and young people over the past couple of decades. I went along to see him in action on Saturday morning. He and his boxes of instruments were on the stage while his audience was on the tiers of seats behind the stage.  

 

Naturally, he has an engaging personality, likely to catch and hold children’s attention. And he did – most of the time; though in spite of what I thought were entertaining anecdotes and observations, quite a few of the children were inattentive. Might one suppose that the floods of highly coloured, endlessly energetic, violent, visually exciting stuff on television and DVDs has so inured them to ordinary people telling them things without high-speed histrionics, that it fails to engage them.

 

Bickerton began by demonstrating how blown instruments produce their sounds, starting with a milk bottle and progressing to pipes and flutes and reeds; then the effects of causing taut strings to vibrate when plucked or stroked with horse hair. Then he played examples of music from various countires, on various instruments, with humour and considerable skill.  

 

I would be surprised if a higher proportion of children than of adults become really engrossed by music. Nevertheless, I’m sure that in

the climate in which most children find themselves today, it is easier for most to escape any real exposure to ‘good’ music than ever before. As with many things, most significantly languages and poetry, unless minds and memories are furnished with music by adolescence, it might escape them altogether.

 

Paganini Caprices Op 1
Martin Riseley played the entire 24 of Paganini’s Caprices at 1pm. Always a formidable task, this was a very considerable feat. He had decided to take his time with them by pausing for applause after each and by talking briefly about each beforehand, and he took short breaks after each six. This probably added fifteen or twenty minutes to the recital. There were a few departures after the halfway mark.

 

It is easy to hear them as mere displays of bravura and party tricks. But in reality the tricks are modest and limited in comparison to the hair-raising stunts that became common later in the 19th century. It’s not profound and soul-searing music such as might be found in the Bach solo sonatas and partitas, but I believe that if you listen open-eared without letting comparisons with his contemporaries like Beethoven or Weber, Schubert or Rossini distract you, there is musical substance and an inventive musical mind that has created interesting and enjoyable music. Some do seem somewhat empty, but far more seem to have considerable merit, such as numbers 6, 7, 9, 12, 13, 18 and 24 of course.

 

His performances were not flawless, but it was an enjoyable if unnecessarily long recital of one of the more uncommon chefs d’oeuvres in the violin literature.

 

Fun, virtuosity and the hugely popular Vivaldi at Nelson

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Adam Chamber Music festival. Four Seasons

Boccherini: String Quintet in C; Rossini: Duo for cello and bass; Paganini: Introduction and Variations on ‘Nel cor piu non mi sento’ from La Molinara by Paisiello; Motoharu Kawashima: Paganigani (1999); Vivaldi: The Four Seasons (Le quattro stagione), Op 8, Nos 1-4

Nelson Cathedral, Friday 11 February, 7.30pm

The penultimate evening concert from this splendid festival moved into the large territory of very popular, and very funny, and very extraordinary music. It was a brilliant success.

There was a surprise at the beginning. The artistic directors had realised that the Boccherini quintet that was played at the opening gala dinner and concert should be heard by more than those who were there (I was one of those not there), and perhaps heard again by the latter.

Boccherini is a composer whose music depends somewhat on the spirit and skill of the performers to reveal its real worth. There is huge scope for musicians of that calibre and who care to explore, for the Yves Gérard catalogue of Boccherini’s music lists some 140 string quintets and almost 100 string quartets, masses of other chamber music, some 10 cello concertos and 30 symphonies and so on to over 600 works. There are probably a couple of dozen quintets in C major.

Though I haven’t been able to identify it in the catalogue, the one they played is distinctive because its last movement was used by Jean Françaix in his ballet based on Boccherini’s music, Scuola di ballo of 1933; its Allegro con moto is indeed a rhythmically striking piece. The ballet suite used to frequent the Dinner Music programme on 2YC, the predecessor of Radio New Zealand Concert and I was happy to discover there was more to Boccherini than the Minuet.

The quintet was played by the musicians of the Hermitage String Trio plus Helene Pohl and Rolf Gjelsten, in the additional violin and cello parts, and the opulent tone they all produced and the careful handling of its subdued and charming accents awakened the audience to this composer’s importance.

Rossini’s Duo for cello and bass was introduced by Hiroshi Ikematsu, principal bass player of the NZSO, in a mixture of fact and facetiousness. The latter was the right manner for it proved one of Rossini’s incomparable masterpieces in the field of almost impossibly difficult as well as comic creations. Ikematsu ended by adding that it was worth noting that it was written for an amateur cellist but a professional bass player, grinning superciliously at Rolf Gjelsten. Along with the music itself, there was a stand-up comic routine comprising alarming difficulties, riotous musical juxtapositions and absurd virtuosity. I doubt that the piece has ever had such an exponent as this; and Gjelsten wasn’t too bad either..

Ikematsu was back on his own later with a piece by a Japanese colleague (Motoharu Kawashima), bearing the name Paganigani, which when translated phonically into Japanese ideographs contains the word ‘crab’. It combined a great deal of game playing with a gloved hand that I eventually understood to be the crab, that caused him a good deal of trouble, interfering with his attempts to play what he confessed was impossibly difficult music. He said he’d spent hundreds of hours on it, but it had all been a waste of time.

In somewhat the same class was an almost as extraordinary piece by the real Paganini, based on an aria from an opera of Paisiello, played by Martin Riseley. It contained every trick the book, at least up to his time, and the performance was highly accomplished, delivered with apparent ease, though the price one pays for such speed and dexterty is often some loss of tonal richness.

The crowd was there for The Four Seasons however, and I saw no glum faces at the end. It was a nice idea to have Danny Mulheron’s recorded voice reading the little poems with which Vivaldi had prefaced each concerto. Most of the players from the two string ensembles formed the ripieno group, one to a part, and the soloists formed part of it when they were not playing the solo.

Helene Pohl played Spring with shining tone, great brilliance, and the entire sound was so fine that one was delighted that Radio New Zealand Concert had managed to find funds from their ever-tightening budget to record this and the most important concerts in the festival. After the boisterous applause, she smiled as broadly as any in the audience. Douglas Beilman took the next concerto, Summer, which features the famous summer storm. He produces a much more velvety tone from his vintage violin and it generated a splendid dark colour for the hail and destruction of the crops.

From the Autumn concerto Rolf Gjelsten took over the cello part from Leonid Gorokhov while the soloist here was Martin Riseley, delivering the peasant style harvest jollity with tugging down-bows and strong rhythms. Finally, Hermitage Trio violinist Denis Goldfeld was the soloist in Winter, which gave him the privilege of playing the beautiful second movement. He used short chilling strokes with shivering irregular rhythms, enhanced by playing sul ponticello – close to the bridge – at one point.

There was a great outburst of applause at the end with many on their feet.