Author: Lindis Taylor

New Zealand wind music to mark Waitangi Day at Nelson

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Waitangi Winds. ‘To be announced’ (Sketches towards imagining the musical encounter between Tasman and Maori at Golden Bay); Philip Brownlee: Te Hau o Tawhirimatea for flute; Ken Wilson: Wind Quintet; Lilburn: Wind quintet (1957); Harris: Jazz Suite for Wind Quintet (2005)

Zephyr Wind Quintet (Bridget Douglas – flute, Robert Orr – oboe, Philip Green – clarinet, Edward Allen – horn, Robert Weeks – bassoon) and Richard Nunns – nga taonga puoro)

Nelson School of Music, Sunday 6 February, 1pm

A concert to mark Waitangi Day in appropriate fashion took place at lunchtime in the Nelson School of Music. It was given over to wind instruments, driven no doubt by the decision to feature Maori instruments, taonga puoro, largely wind.

The first piece for taonga puoro had been commissioned by Richard Nunns from Martin Lodge, but illness had stopped Martin from getting past a few sketches. Recent studies by Nunns with the late Allan Thomas and others has succeeded in throwing some light on the contribution that music might have made to the tragic outcome of the arrival of Tasman on these shores. Nunns described the scene that has been recreated from what paltry documentary sources there are, ignored by all the Dutch accounts of Tasman’s voyage.

The tribe would have delivered a challenge to the ships that had appeared in their bay and he proposed the long, recorder-like instrument, the pukaea, and the putatara, a small conch-shell instrument. Tasman would have looked for some way of responding. It so happened that some time earlier, Nunns had come across an old Dutch horn known as the mid-winter horn which Ed Allen, NZSO principal French horn, volunteered to manipulate. The exchange between these two fairly primitive horns was an uneasy one, and it was not hard to understand the scope for misunderstanding: a serious challenge had been responded to by sounds that the Maori perhaps interpreted as offensive or insulting: a classic case of people speaking past each other, so that when Tasman’s men set off next morning in the boats everything went wrong.

Culture contact in its most risky form, still to be seen in the phenomena of religion-fuelled strife today. The music’s further development and performance should awaken new interest in the unhappy events of 1642. For now the music which, Nunns remarked, might remain with the name ‘To be announced’, was very incomplete, but Nunns and flutist Bridget Douglas made a brave attempt to realise what the musical exchange between ship and shore might have been.

The following piece written by Philip Brownlee, Te Hau o Tawhitimatea (the breath of the wind god), employed three further instruments; the putorino, another long, recorder-like pipe that has a variety of playing techniques and five distinct functions; the koauau, a small piece carved from a dog bone, though I suppose bones of other mammals would have been used before Europeans arrived; and lastly the small white pumotomoto, used in birth rites, and played into the baby’s fontanella. While Nunns played these, Bridget Douglas played a modern flute and a piccolo.

The rest of the concert was devoted to three wind quintets by New Zealand composers.

The earliest was Lilburn’s of 1966 which has been resurrected in recent years by Ross Harris. Its character was retiring, and suggested a certain diffidence in its musical inspiration that was reflected in tentative weaving among the instruments with musical ideas that bore the familiar LIlburn stamp in their rhythmic shapes and melodic gestures.

Ken Wilson, a former NZSO clarinettist, wrote one of the early, classic New Zealand wind quintets. His idiom is strongly influenced, to no disadvantage at all, by French early 20th century wind compositions such as Poulenc’s; this is a piece that deserves to be heard more often.

The most likable of the three wind quintets was Ross Harris’s Jazz Suite for Wind Quintet., a set of short – mostly very short – pieces that captured a variety of traditional or 1950s jazz, swing, blues, all displaying Harris’s melodic confidence and his feeling for scale and shape.

The Zephyr Quintet gave all three pieces colourful and lively readings.

Ensembles combine in magnificent Nelson concert

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Mozart: Divertimento in E flat, K 563; Brigid Bisley: Unbound for String Quartet; Strauss: Metamorphosen for string septet

Hermitage String Trio, New Zealand String Quartet, Hiroshi Ikematsu (double bass)

Nelson Cathedral, Saturday 5 February, 5pm

At several points during the festival the question what was the essence of chamber music arose through the pieces played. Given thaat the essential ingredient of chamber music is music with one player to a part, the rearranging of music from orchestral to chamber music, and vice-versa, raises interesting questions; and there’s the related question, the effect of arrangements for other instruments or for more or fewer instruments that originally conceived, either by the composer or by another.

The Saturday evening concert presented a case of the latter.

Strauss wrote his Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings, surely one of the largest pieces of genuine chamber music, though we still await the instrumental equivalent of Tallis’s 40-part motet. It was later rescored for string septet by Rudolph Leopold, after Strauss’s sketches were found in 1990 showing that his original intention was for a septet. This could well have been a mistake, an artistic travesty, which is what I feel about some of the contractions of Romantic orchestral music for chamber ensembles by Schoenberg and Webern. But I was delighted by this, by the greater clarity and purity of expression produced by the seven instruments (the three members of the Hermitage Trio, and three of the New Zealand String Quartet – not Helene Pohl – plus Hiroshi Ikematsu, bass). It seemed to be a better vehicle for the expression of emotion, of grief at the destruction of so much of Germany’s cultural substance. Oddly, I have always hoped to feel a more powerful emotion listening to the usual version of the piece, and have felt that it is too dense and thickly textured for that to find its expression.

Here it was however.

Obviously some of its rich harmony has been dispensed with, but what is left struck me as achieving more effectively what I suppose Strauss had wanted. The programme notes recorded that it was Swiss music philanthropist and conductor Paul Sacher who had asked Strauss for the big ensemble.

This was one of two masterpieces played at the 5pm concert in the Cathedral.

The concert had started with another of Mozart’s pieces given names that suggest light, occasional music. Just as the big wind serenade is no doubt the most powerful and delightful piece of music in its genre, so the Divertimento in E flat stands above any formally named String Trio in existence.

Not only did we hear this all-too-rarely played work, but it was played by a trio which had invested it with enormous attention, detailed study and reflection. There are times when excessive layering of nuances and ever-changing colour and dynamics can become ridiculous. It all depends on the musical intelligence and instinct of the players; the Hermitage Trio had done all that and had sacrificed none of its compositional inventiveness, compromised none of its essential greatness. Their leaning into phrases, their subtle tempo changes – rubato, changes of colour and timbre within a note, were a matter of constant delight. It was often cellist Leonid Gorokhov who seemed to lead the most acute dynamic shifts, while violinist Denis Goldfelt relished tensile, high-lying flights; the violist, Alexander Zemtsov, sustained the centre, offering more steady dynamics and contributing to but not extending the cellist’s gestures.

The six-movement work is quite long, but this performance was such that one hoped it will never end.

Lying between these two great works was a new string quartet by New Zealand composer Brigid Ursula Bisley, called Unbound. I am not known for unbounded and uncritical enthusiasm for every new piece by our composers. This one felt like music that might have had a slow gestation, but had nevertheless derived from musical inspiration that came from within. It did not sound as if the composer had sat looking at each bar wondering what to write next. It felt as if it was there and only needed refinement and arranging.

It certainly helped that the composer spoke to us and asked the players to illustrate certain elements. And it was a relief that she concluded by saying “I hope you enjoy the music”, instead of the fatuous injunction “Enjoy!” which has become almost universal. “Thanks, but would you mind if I remain responsible for my own feelings?”

It opened quietly, each instrument contributing intriguingly to a pattern of disharmony till a melody emerged and after a while viola and cello laid down some bass support. Influences? Yes, Bartók quite distinctly, but more important was an impression of music that was beholden to no school or musical ideology, but simply sounded alive to today’s environment, whatever that means, and aimed at engaging with the listener. Lots happened; there was a beguiling, dreamy phase, a yearning spirit as Doug Beilman’s second violin cried while Helene Pohl’s first violin sang a high descant over the cello’s pedal support.

There were so many elements that appeared distinct but ultimately created a coherant musical story; and it ended without flourish or rhetoric.

Rare and wonderful Mozart opens Nelson’s festival

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Adam Chamber Music Festival: Grand Opening: Dvořák, Halvorsen, Mozart

Nelson Cathedral

Friday 4 February 7.30pm

For those who knew their music, this was a rare treat. Dvořák’s string sextet is a rich and gorgeous piece, one of those pieces that has familiar moments but is surprisingly neglected. Is it really too hard to get the necessary six player together? The sextet gains it special sonority and interest both from the more complex textures available and the addition of two lower instruments, an extra viola and cello. The four New Zealanders were assisted by the violist and cellist from the Hermitage Trio.

The extraordinary gifts of the latter trio were further revealed as the violinist and cellist played an astonishing duo composed by Norwegian Johan Halvorson based on a tune by Handel. No mere virtuosic show-piece (though it was all that), but a sophisticated and brilliant little composition in its own right. It unleashed a storm of applause.

But the real masterpiece was Mozart’s Gran Partita, or Serenade for 13 wind instruments (though the 13th is Ikematsu’s double bass) in B flat, K 361. It had profoundly impressed those who heard it in Vienna in 1784, and it has continued to enchant audiences ever since. It is less often heard live because it’s hard to get a dozen top-class wind players together. But the NZSO Soloists helped out and the performance was deeply musical, moving, tear-inducing, enthralling. Four horns, and two each of oboes, clarinets, basset horns and bassoons, plus double bass.

It’s almost an hour long, with seven movements including two minuets, a theme and variations movement and others in rondo or sonata form. There are very few other such ensembles and none that touch it in musical inspiration and depth.

It is a ever-changing pattern of solos from the various instruments, sonorous symphonies of sound from different combinations and often the entire band. There’s too much to detail, but constantly striking was the string bass, often suggesting timpani, from Ikematsu, grounding the whole fabric. Most rapturous was the third movement, an Adagio, in which Robert Orr’s oboe provided long ecstatic cries underpinned and echoed by clarinets and one by one, all sections. The remarkable fifth movement too captured deeper responses through its exquisite melancholy alternating with a brisk march rhythm, often accompanied by a hypnotic tread or pulsating chords from bassoons and basset horns.

The concert had begun with the little heard sextet in A, Op 48, by Dvořák, again neglected on account of its configuration. It really is too bad that string quartets have come to so dominate the chamber music field that the numerous quintets, sextets and larger ensembles are little known.

The beauty of the sextet in its normal configuration is a string quartet plus additional viola and cello, which gives both a heart-warmingly greater sonic foundation as well as allowing the composer to engage in more complex harmonic paterns. Though much of the melody was folk-derived, there was nothing peasantish about the composition or its performance.

The third movement – a furiant in place of minuet or scherzo – was probably most likely to sound familiar, from kinship with Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances, but the entire work is filled with melody that the composer knows how to make use of in ever-shifting ways.
While the playing was polished and opulent, there were moments, as in the dumka second movement when a little more boisterousness might have helped. In the last movement a long viola solo from Gillian Ansell caught the ear: a theme and variations, whose melody and its various guises were enchantingly played by this happy ensemble that found complete unity of spirit throughout. Someone asked Haydn why he didn’t write string quintets and he said he’d tried but could never find the fifth voice (or something to that effect); Dvořák had no such problem finding richness through six parts with which to clothe his fecund source of melody.

Chamber Music Festival under way in Nelson

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Adam Chamber Music Festival, Nelson, 3 to 12 February 2011.

The Eleventh Adam Chamber Music Festival began with a gala dinner and concert at the Woollaston Winery out of Nelson with musical contributions from all the musicians present at that point; the New Zealand String Quartet whose first violinist and violist are the festival’s artistic directors; Canadian clarinettist James Campbell joined the quartet to play Weber’s Clarinet Quintet; special treat throughout the 10-day festival, of a fast rising Russian string trio, the Hermitage Trio. Their contribution was one of Beethoven’s string trios – the Op 3. Members of both the quartet and trio contributed towards Boccherini’s String Quintet in C. Finally, the NZSO’s principal bassist, Hiroshi Ikematsu, found a slot with cellist Rolf Gjelsten to play Rossini’s hair-raising and hilarious duo for those two instruments.

It was a stylish affair, with music between each of the courses of the elaborate dinner. I was not there, but patrons were delighted at the entire presentation.

The purely musical Grand Opening however was on Friday the 4th in the Nelson Cathedral.

Audiences at the festival have grown steadily over the years, till now several concerts were either sold out or almost so. That can be explained partly by the eventual awakening of New Zealanders, and a few overseas visitors, to the phenomenon that has taken firm root in other parts of the western, and even the Asian, world: the music festival, usually in summer in a charming place – like Nelson. The other stimulus in the case of New Zealand is the steady decline in artistic standards by the New Zealand International Arts Festival in Wellington, to the point where classical music has a minor place and the festival is dominated by events aimed to attract casual audiences of limited interest in the arts, little cultivation and knowledge of music or the other mainstream performing arts. None of the other festivals in New Zealand, least of all the one in Auckland, takes its role as an arts festival seriously either.

Esa-Pekka Salonen recently remarked that people in their thirties and forties are awakening again to real music: “You realise that your time in not unlimited, that there might be an end to all this, and that life is too short to be wasted on things that are not quality”. In most countries, a whole generation has been let down by a school of ill-educated educationalists who have impoverished school curricula and allowed what is called the relativist view of culture to banish the systematic teaching of literature, general history, and the arts.

They have discovered that they can now come to Nelson for a rich diet of great, varied and wonderful music from top international players.

This festival was compressed into 10 days in comparison typically to about 17 days in the past. There have been varied reactions to this and time will tell how a programme with more music each day, but somewhat less overall, will impact on audiences and musicians …  and the bottom line.

We will post reviews of each concert in the coming days.

Michael Houstoun’s gala welcome to the new Fazioli at Waikanae

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Waikanae Music Society: Inauguration of new piano

Bach: Italian Concerto BWV 971; Schumann: Kreisleriana, Op 17; Kapustin: Sonata No 2, Op 54; Liszt: Three Petrarch Sonnets and The Fountains of the Villa d’Este

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday 30 January 2011, 2.30pm

For a long time, pianists and some of the audiences at the Waikanae Music Society’s concerts had been a little dissatisfied with the piano, given the character of the concert space, a large multi-purpose hall in which sounds could dissipate for those not close to the performers. For more than a decade the society had been accumulating funds to buy a replacement and the time came last year. The achievements of the Waikanae Music Society should be seen as a shining example to all other musical organisations.

In consultation with Michael Houstoun the society settled on a Fazioli and it arrived three days before the concert. This special gala concert, meaning somewhat higher than usual prices, drew a very large audience – almost 500. The piano seemed easily to reach to the back and many remarked on its richness of tone. (For an enchanting insight into Fazioli pianos, let me recommend a chapter in T E Carhart’s The Piano Shop on the Left Bank).

The recital consisted of one piece that Houstoun had played in the past year in at least a couple of recitals in the Wellington region – Schumann’s Kreisleriana, some pieces we’ve not heard from Houstoun, at least for quite along time, and one very singular piece: an extended four movement Sonata in the jazz idiom, by Nikolai Kapustin.

Kapustin is a Ukrainian composer whose training at the Moscow Conservatorium was orthodox enough, but quite soon he fell under the spell of jazz, and was influenced there by someone he called a great teacher, Avrelian Rubakh.

Houstoun’s performance of the second piano sonata (out of eighteen), a many-faceted piece, suggested a myriad of jazz pianists from Earl Hines, though Errol Garner, Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Chick Corea, even Keith Jarrett – particularly Oscar Peterson, whose amazing virtuosity astonishes both classical and jazz lovers.

Houstoun has recently been exploring jazz, perhaps inspired by his association with Mike Nock, and his feel for it impressed both by its command of the often highly complex rhythms, the star-bursts of cascading notes, with whirl-wind scales and arpeggios, all played as if pouring out as improvisation both spontaneous and inspired. Nevertheless there were times when, in the more bluesy passages such as in the Largo third movement, a feeling of more total relaxation might have been missed, and some driving climaxes fell a little short of the rapturous excitement that a Garner might have created.

Perhaps it is a surprise that Kapustin had no problems pursuing jazz in the Soviet Union where Stalin had proscribed it. But Khrushchev’s reforms created a considerably more comfortable climate for jazz and Radio Free Europe allowed Russian jazz enthusiasts to hear it.

So while Kapustin’s interest was not main-stream at the Moscow Conservatory, what made it acceptable was that it involved no improvisation and its employment of classical forms with jazz influences kept it free from criticism. Kapustin said, “I was entirely free; no problems. My music wasn’t avant-garde.”

The second sonata and other music by Kapustin has been famously recorded by Marc-André Hamelin. I have not heard it but reviews are electrifying, and so evidently is his playing. But I would be surprised if it were to prove much more idiomatic and consummate that what we heard on Sunday.

Judgement about the worth of the music is of course something entirely different. For the moment, it must simply be regarded as a remarkable, highly entertaining piece, brilliantly played.

That is no doubt how Liszt was regarded in the 1830s and 40s, though there were plenty of conservative critics ready to condemn him out-of-hand (there are still some). Houstoun ended his recital with the three Petrarch Sonnets, sensitive, poetic, carefully crafted in terms of dynamics and rubato, but again, not as abandoned as some might have wished, to the romantic excesses that were the thing at the time they were written: and The Fountains at the Villa d’Este; all from the Italian book of Years of Pilgrimage. The latter, insubstantial but enchanting, and played accordingly.

In this two-hundredth anniversary of his birth I hope for some serious exploration of this somewhat neglected and misrepresented composer. Houstoun is an obvious proponent; he has made a fine start.

The recital had begun with a fine and intellectually quite severe reading of Bach’s Italian Concerto (homage to the piano); it was elegant and fluent, rhythmically firm in the first movement, gracious and thoughtful in the second, racing, but perfect in its clarity and spirit in the last movement.

Kreisleriana featured in Houstoun’s programmes last year, the Schumann bicentenary, and both Peter Mechen and I wrote reviews of the performances. Though an important and highly imaginative work, for me it doesn’t have the delight of Carnaval, Papillons, the Abegg Variations, the Symphonic Etudes, or the inspired rapture of the Fantaisie.

But a highly persuasive account of it. I will leave it at that.

Dialogues des Carmélites – the sources

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

In my review of the New Zealand Opera School’s gala concert on 13 January, I mentioned that Poulenc’s opera, Dialogues des Carmélites, in the last scene of which the Carmelite sisters are guillotined and which the women singers at the opera school performed, was based on a novel by Georges Bernanos.

I erred.

It was based on a drama by that novelist, but the story’s origins go much further back.

It derives from actual events during the Terror that followed the French Revolution in 1793/94, when the sisters of the Carmelite convent at Compiègne were indeed guillotined. The story was told by one of their members, Mother Marie, who is assistant prioress in the opera and survived the massacre to live till 1836. The publication of her chronicle, Relation, led to the beatification of the sisters in 1906. The German writer Gertrude von Le Fort turned it into a novel in 1911, inventing the role of Blanche, naming her ‘de la Force’, an adaptation of her own name.

After the Second World War, the French resistance fighter Father Brückberger created a screen-play on the story, and invited Bernanos to write the dialogue. He too invested something of himself in the work; he was dying of cancer, like the Prioress, Madame de Croissy, and he even gave her his own age, 59. And he clothed the Prioress’s discourse with Blanche on theological matters and the character of their order. with his own religious obsessions and feelings.

But Bernanos’s work was regarded as unsuitable for film and it was turned into a stage play which Poulenc saw in the early 1950s. So that when his publisher, Ricordi, suggested it to Poulenc as the subject of an opera, he seized the chance at once. The opera was premiered at La Scala, Milan, in 1957, in which the role of Blanche was sung by Virginia Zeani, founding principal tutor at the Wanganui opera school.

As I wrote in the review, this ensemble was perhaps the most striking of all the performances at this year’s concert. Perhaps it will prompt an enterprising impresario or opera company to tackle the entire opera, generally considered one of the greatest of the twentieth century.

(drawn from the Grove Book of Operas)

 

Whanganui hosts a sell-out opera school gala concert

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Seventeenth New Zealand Opera School at Whanganui. Director of the school: Donald Trott; Performance director: Sara Brodie

Royal Wanganui Opera House

Thursday 13 January 2011

For the first time, the gala concert to end the summer opera school was a sell-out. A brilliantly contrived TV item may have been partly responsible, with a rehearsed ‘ad hoc’ performance in a street market a couple of days before featuring the brindisi from La traviata.

In recent years a group has become established, Wanganui Opera Week, which helps popularise and make visible and audible the school’s activities in the city. And year by the year appreciation of the rare distinction that Whanganui enjoys in the survival of its Victorian opera house grows. A house not only of considerable architectural interest but also with excellent acoustics.

The last four summer opera schools have had the benefit of staging and, shall we say, dramaturgical embellishment by choreographer and opera and theatre director Sara Brodie. And it was this element, in addition to the widely acknowledged rise in vocal skills, that dominated audience conversations. In contrast to last year’s concert which comprised a series of tableaux each with something of a common theme, this concert was guided by two ideas.

The first was an audition session from the inside, with Sara Brodie playing the key role in the assessments. The first candidate, Bianca Andrew, sang a vivid ‘Parto, parto’ from La clemenza di Tito, all the taxing roulades cleanly delivered, and she was rewarded with an immediate, ‘You’re hired!’.

The auditioning process recurred from time to time throughout, but it was overlaid by a French cabaret or revue setting, and the colour blue seemed to be a constant image, along with the sensuous use of large feather boas; they became a sort of trade mark. The joint MCs of the revue scenes were Bianca Andrew and Cameron Barclay; he later sang the aria from Les Troyens.

Nothing could have been more French than the four excerpts from Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann and the panel’s conferring about the singer led to the Students’ drinking song from the Prologue to that opera, sung by the men – I counted nine. Was this a record? I don’t think there have been so many excellent male singers at the school before.

The first ‘Act’ closed with the Barcarolle – the duet from the Giulietta act, with the surprise inclusion of the Sri Lankan counter-tenor Stephen Diaz, who had attracted wide attention last year. He took Nicklausse’s mezzo role, inauthentically, as a female mezzo normally sings the part of Hoffmann’s male friend. His performance was immaculate and authoritative. Bryony Williams sang Giulietta, well, though the two voices seemed to inhabit quite different acoustic spaces; was it a quirk of the theatre or was there some subtle amplification taking place?

Diaz had earlier sung an aria by one of the great composers of the castrato era – Riccardo Broschi, the brother of Carlo, more famous as the castrato Farinelli, from his opera called Idaspe (Venice, 1730). Though this year’s aria (‘Ombra fedele anch’io’) was unknown, it made no less impact than Handel’s ‘Ombra mai fu’ did in 2010. Though Diaz made his performance with its dazzling embellishments look easy, it was not merely the uncommon vocal register that made him stand out, but also his musicianship and lyrical gift, his natural expressive powers, the penetrating strength and subtlety of his singing that placed him in a class of his own.

Bryony Williams’s solo aria was in the second half – Catalani’s greatest hit, ‘Ebben? Ne andrò lontana’ from La Wally. Here, in a long blue gown, Wally enters being chased from her father’s house because she persists in her love for the son of her father’s enemy. Her polished voice and arresting stage presence did full justice to this evocative aria.

The second offering from The Tales of Hoffmann was the Kleinzach chorus, sung in English, with the final sound of both that name and the Bach town of Eisenach pronounced ‘k’; no need to anglicize to that degree. However the singing was spirited. It was followed as if there was some narrative connection, by ‘Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix’ from Samson et Dalila; Elisha Fai sang it in French, showing a few flaws though hers is a pleasing and promising voice.

A Samson presented himself at her feet during her performance, which was followed by the metamorphosis from Samson to Hoffmann to a continuation of Kleinzach. Darren Pene Pati’s voice exhibited colour and real beauty as well as impressive control.

We did not hear him in an extended aria till his beautiful performance of ‘Che gelida manina’ (Bohème) near the end of the concert. His was one of the highlights of the concert and it received a well merited ovation. His Mimi, Xing Xing Wang, followed it naturally with ‘Si, mi chiamano Mimi’ in a perfect interpretation that was vocally affecting and histrionically poised and moving. Applause for her was hardly less enthusiastic.

The third piece from Hoffmann was the above mentioned Barcarolle; the fourth, fittingly, was the septet that brings the opera to an end, as it did the concert itself, with the entire assembly singing with huge gusto and enjoyment. Bruce Greenfield accompanied all the Hoffmann excerpts, lending the spirit of the fantastic and the recklessness that characterizes the story of Offenbach’s hero.

Other French pieces included a lovely aria that is familiar but whose provenance is probably obscure: ‘Oh! Ne t’éveille pas encore’ from Jocelyn by Benjamin Godard, a contemporary of Fauré and Chausson. Oliver Sewell did not altogether avoid the danger of allowing its charming sentiment from sliding towards the sentimental; a good voice but as yet little stage presence.

In ‘Act II’, the first French aria came from a rather neglected quarter: Berlioz.

Cameron Barclay repeated his successful recipe from last year, with something very unfamiliar. In 2010 he sang an aria from Copland’s The Tender Land; this time it was Iopas’s aria ‘O blonde Cérès’ sung to console Dido in Act IV of Les Troyens. His French was good and the quality of his voice promising as he found the right idiom and phrasing for Berlioz’s sometimes unusual metres.

There followed two familiar arias from familiar operas, Carmen and Faust, but first, and most remarkably, the final scene from Poulenc’s devastating opera Dialogues des Carmélites. (Note the proper title of the opera is without the definite article). Here, in the opera based on Georges Bernanos’s novel, all 11 women in the school took the parts of the nuns, falling dead in full view on stage as we hear the swoosh of the guillotine, in one of the many terrible acts of fanaticism perpetrated during the Terror following the French Revolution. In the only live production I’ve seen, the nuns are led out one by one to be executed out of sight; the effect is, as always, far more chilling and powerful than for violent acts to be portrayed graphically, a fact to which most theatre and film directors today seem oblivious.

It was perhaps the most dramatic and memorable item on the evening.

School director Donald Trott reminded those of the audience unaware of the career of founder tutor of the school Virginia Zeani, that she had sung the major role of Blanche de la Force at the La Scala world premiere of Carmélites in 1947 – the opera made such a remarkable impact that productions followed in the same year in Paris, Cologne and San Francisco.

Kieran Rayner followed that with Valentin’s aria from Faust pleading that God watch over his sister Marguérite while he is away at war. As with his brindisi from Thomas’s Hamlet in 2010, aria Rayner showed his flair in the French repertoire, striking presence and a robust attractive voice. Oddly, I found some of his French vowels a little eccentric.

From fifteen years later, Carmen made its appearance in Micaela’s second aria, ‘Je dis que rien ne m’épouvante’.Rachel Day chose it well for it lay comfortably for her even though her top notes were a little shrill.

Other nationalities were represented in a few items.

American operas had interesting exposure, starting with Bernstein’s Candide. Here was a splendid vehicle for promising coloratura Olga Gryniewicz who sang a Rimsky-Korsakov aria in 2010. In truth, some of the high notes in ‘Glitter and be Gay’ showed her at a little below the polished and assured brilliance of some earlier performances, but there is both fine musicianship and vocal virtuosity here; and she is a vivid actress.

Menotti is American rather than Italian and the aria from The Old Maid and the Thief opened ‘Act II’; Bridget Costello sang the droll ‘Steal me, sweet thief’ with clear diction and straight-faced irony; her voice is well schooled, has excellent dynamic control and she inhabited the role well.

The third American opera was Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah from which Amelia Berry sang ‘The trees on the mountain’. She sings with skill and confidence, her voice firm, accurate and expressive. In choosing this aria she demonstrated both adventurousness and a musicality that should take her far.

Two singers had chosen Britten.

Rose Blake sang the Embroidery aria from Peter Grimes, a long and difficult piece to interpret musically and with lyricism, yet her well-supported voice and secure high notes complemented her musicality.

Considerably less familiar is Britten’s Rape of Lucretia though its first appearance just after World War II led to many productions. The former Wellington Polytechnic produced it about a decade ago. It was not the title-role we heard – made famous by Ferrier and Baker – but the part of Tarquin, as he contemplates the sleeping Lucretia. Thomas Barker’s baritone was beguiling and attractive rather that expressing the violent lust that drives him.

Stravinsky’s The Rakes’s Progress can also be classed as English for Stravinsky set this operatic interpretation of Hogarth’s set of engravings in English. Imogen Thirlwell sang Anne’s poignant aria, ‘No news from Tom’ with clarity and some sensitivity.

Since the last gala concert of the opera school, several of these singers were heard in one or both of the operas in Rhona Fraser’s Days Bay garden: The Marriage of Figaro and Rossini’s The Journey to Rheims. There they all demonstrated their ability to handle not just individual arias but sustained performance in a real opera.

Mozart in fact out-numbered Offenbach, with six singers in a variety of well-known arias from four operas. There were two arias from Figaro.

Isabella Moore sang the Countess’s ‘Porgi amor’, her first appearance at the beginning of Act II. I thought her red dress offered the wrong image for the betrayed wife, but her singing showed her understanding nevertheless.

A little later in Act II the young page Cherubino, a mezzo trouser role, seeks the help of Susanna and the Countess in understanding his unrelenting priapism: ‘Voi che sapete’, and Ceit McLean sang it well enough; as yet she has not developed the flair and confidence to carry such an aria off with real elan.

I mentioned Bianca Andrew’s ‘Parto, parto’ from Tito, which opened the concert.

Tavis Gravatt sang the baritone role of Guglielmo from Così fan tutte: ‘Donne mie, la fate a tanti’, in a sturdy, capable performance, not yet invested with much charm.

Another baritone, Anthony Schneider, sang the first of two arias from The Magic Flute: Papageno’s ‘Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja’, natural seeming; the by-play seemed a little de trop, as the Three Ladies made their appearance which would have made sense only to those familiar with the story. There were glosses on several other performances that would have had meaning only to the initiated. Schneider carried it very well.

The tenor ‘hero’ Tamino in the Flute is less funny than Papageno, and so makes quite different demands. A somewhat rapturous reaction is called for as he looks at a vignette of the princess Pamina, and neither Jamie Young’s costume nor his demeanour quite met the requirements; the by-play was again a little distracting but his actual singing portrayed Tamino effectively.

Accompaniments were uniformly splendid; in addition to Greenfield, they were Greg Neil, Iola Shelley, Evans Chang, Travis Baker, Mark Dorrell, and Philippa Safey. Michael Vinten conducted choruses. The tutors were Prof Paul Farrington, Margaret Medlyn, Barry Mora, Richard Greager; Flavio Villani tutors in Italian and Kararaina Walker was production assistant and delivered the opening Karanga.

In a country so isolated from the musical, especially operatic, resources and performances available in Europe and even in North America, more than usual efforts need to be made to provide opportunities to hone skills and cultivate talents and interpretive insight as well as taking part in live performance. This now 17-year-old opera school at Whanganui provides some of the scarce experiences of the first kind.

The Whanganui project is the result of extraordinary efforts on the part of a few dedicated enthusiasts, led by Donald Trott, dependent on huge fund-raising efforts which ought to be taken up to a far greater degree through the state-assisted tertiary education system.

We need both advanced training and journeyman experiences for our rising singers, plus professional companies that can stage more than two productions a year to provide a basic livelihood in their own country.

While New Zealand often seems content to congratulate itself for producing gifted musicians and others in the arts, little attention is paid to the stark fact that this country is right at the bottom of the OECD in terms of arts funding at all levels and in all the serious genres. What initiatives the Government does take seem, extraordinarily, to be devoted to energy and money-wasting ‘reviews’ and consultative processes, to cutting and imposing ever-increasing barriers and demands on poverty-stricken, already struggling enterprises.

Soprano Barbara Graham wins major French vocal prizes

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The New Zealand School of Music website reveals that Wellington soprano Barbara Graham has won important French music prizes, not long after her arrival to study and audition in Paris.

Soprano Barbara Graham , an alumnus of NZSM, won both the French Melodie Prize and First Prize in the Festival de Musique et de langue français – des mots et des notes –  a competition for French language and music in Paris. With nine singers in the final, eight of them French, this was quite a coup for the Kiwi girl! Barbara was invited to stay on and sing a concert with a Parisian orchestra and will give two more Paris concerts with the orchestra in January. One of the judges told her that her French was better than the French singers!

Barbara also came second in the big Symphonie d’Automne competition in Macon with judges including Rudolph Piernay and Teresa Berganza. She didn’t realise she had won something until she heard her name, walked out on stage and was handed some wine and an envelope marked ‘Second’. She said she nearly dropped onto the floor with surprise.

As NZSM Classical Voice tutor Richard Greager points out: “With literally thousands of sopranos vying for recognition in Europe, for Barbara to achieve these results is quite simply outstanding.”

The Tudor Consort in a brilliant Christmas Oratorio

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Bach: Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248

 

The Tudor Consort and the Vector Wellington Orchestra conducted by Michael Stewart. Soloists: Anna Leese (soprano), Kate Spence (alto), David Hamilton (tenor), Jared Holt (bass)

 

Wellington Town Hall

 

Saturday 18 December 2010, 7.30pm

 

The Tudor Consort’s courage in hiring the Town Hall for its Christmas Oratorio was rewarded by a good audience and by an absolutely wonderful performance. Anna Leese was no doubt an important draw-card, but in the event the success was achieved through the other three principals, by the choir itself, and very importantly, the superb baroque ensemble drawn from the Vector Wellington Orchestra.

 

Here was just one occasion when this fine orchestra provided an indispensable contribution to a performance. Bach calls for only about 23 players, but these were players who created an accompaniment of such finesse and sensitivity to the Baroque style that I can hardly imagine better in this country, or any other. As he had shown in his work with the choir, Michael Stewart proved an equally gifted orchestral director, as diverting to watch as to hear.

 

Most striking perhaps were the three trumpets, led conspicuously by section principal Barrett Hocking who carried most of the high-lying embellishments. No less beautiful were the four oboes two of which dealt with Bach’s writing for two deep-voiced oboe da caccia; or the accompaniment by solo violin and cello (Matthew Ross and Jane Young) of Kate Spence’s aria in Part III, ‘Schliess mein Herz’, and elsewhere.  The only outside players were NZSO timpanist Larry Reese and bass player Alexander Gunchenko whose playing made consummate contributions too.

 

On its own in the Sinfonia of Part II, all the many strengths of the orchestra, such as beautiful string playing, became most conspicuous.

 

Soprano Anna Leese had, naturally, attracted most of the pre-concert publicity; unfortunately, Bach had misread his brief and offered her fewer solo opportunities than she merited. Nevertheless, her singing stopped the audience in its tracks, as it were, in her first, short offering in Part II, as the Angel, in duet with David Hamilton’s Evangelist: ‘Und der Engel sprach zu ihnen’; again, in Part III, she sang in duet with Jared Holt, ‘Herr, dein Mitleid, dein Erbarmen’, somewhat oddly, many metres apart, at the front of the stage: her voice penetrating, dramatic, agile, and nicely blending with Holt’s.  

 

After a most delightful trio between soprano, alto and tenor, Leese got her big solo in Part VI, ‘Nur ein Wink von seinen Händen’, which only convention prevented the audience from shouting to the rafters: such variety of colour and articulation, such insight into the meaning of every word.

 

(It was interesting to look back at the Mobil Song Quest in 2002: Anna Leese, winner; Kate Spence, second; Ana James, third. The other three finalists were ‘whatever-happened-to’ names: Majka Kaiser, Andrew Conley and the recently returned from Europe and still singing-in-opera, Anna Pierard.)

 

David Hamilton deserved equal billing for his prolonged work as the Evangelist, rich with highly accomplished ornaments, and interpretation of the words in the most lively and sympathetic way. His voice hardly tired, it remained clear and accurate throughout, still singing like a thirty-year-old!  For example, he made an impressive and arresting job of the melodious aria in Part II, ‘Frohe Hirten, eilt, ach, eilet’, adorned with ornaments and charmingly accompanied by flutes.  

 

After her runner-up prize in the 2002 Mobil Song Quest and studies in London Kate Spence had only a short professional career in opera; but she often sings on the concert platform. One has to lament that support of opera in New Zealand has been so poor that a singer of such talent has not been able to stay in the profession. Her voice, a lovely mezzo with characteristic warmth at the bottom, is full of character, projects strongly, a voice that bloomed in the Town Hall acoustic. I commented on her above; and she had several other notable recitatives, arias and ensembles, such as the long aria ’Schlafe mein Liebster’ in Part II, this time attractively accompanied by oboes and flutes.  

 

Jared Holt won the Mobil in 2000 and had a promising career that even reached the stage of Covent Garden; like several other singers, he had equipped himself with the safety-net of a law degree and that is now offering him more security. A strong opera company that can employ a regular ensemble of principals would have kept him away from law. His first substantial aria in Part I, ‘Grosser Herr, o starker König’, was a fine display of his sturdy competence, vigorous and splendidly dramatic: its accompaniment by a brilliant trumpet did his performance no harm at all. And I noted above, his very striking duet with Leese.

 

The oratorio obviously offers great music for the choir itself, with its wealth of lively, often triple-time numbers, and chorales, many of which have a familiar ring since so much of the music was recycled from earlier pieces. Not unusually, the choir’s energy and confidence built through the performance. Perhaps a shade more ecstasy might have driven the opening chorus, ‘Jauchzet, froh locket’, yet it was still among the most polished and exuberant performances I have heard; the subsequent chorales, calmer, enabled the choir to gather its strength for some powerful singing, till a chorus such as the opening of Part V, ‘Ehre sei dir, Gott, gesungen’ was a thrilling exhibition of ebullience and vocal athleticism.

 

Foremost in the thoughts of audience members as they listened to the orchestra’s polished and exuberant playing, must have been the present threat to the orchestra whose existence in at least its existing size and quality is vital to Wellington’s musical life. The behaviour of Creative New Zealand which would deny this orchestra even the modest level of assistance it now receives, seems driven by either vindictiveness, some obscure, adolescent, PC-ridden agenda, or plain ignorance: perhaps all three.

 

I can only hope that those who make boasts about the cultural capital will be able to bring to their senses those who have such destructive impulses.

 

 

Creative New Zealand: proposals for major funding recipients

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The following is the press release from Creative New Zealand setting out proposals entitled Arts Leadership Investment (Toi Tōtara Haemata) decisions.

It has serious musical implications.

It will be noted that of the orchestras currrently funded by Creative NZ, only the Auckland Philharmonia is among the chosen 22 while the orchestras in Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin are in the holding pen of 10 further arts bodies.  However, the NZ String Quartet is among the 22.

It will also be noted that eight of the number are in Auckland, plus one – NBR NZ Opera – which is based in Auckland but also performs in Wellington.

The NZ International Arts Festival, Capital-E – National Theatre for Children and BATS Theatre are the only Wellington bodies among the 22. There are a number of ‘national’ arts organisations based in Wellington, which have no particular impact on Wellington.

BATS Theatre is the only Wellington theatre to qualify: neither of the major, long-standing companies are in: Downstage and Circa.  While in Auckland, the Auckland Theatre Company and Massive Company; and the Court Theatre in Christchurch and Centrepoint in Palmerston North are among the select.

And Christchurch’s Southern Opera is among neither the select 22 nor the other 10 in the waiting room.

It might be of interest to see a geographical breakdown of the 22 qualifying arts bodies:

National

Chamber Music New Zealand
DANZ
NZ Book Council
NZ String Quartet
Playmarket
Taki Rua

Auckland

Auckland Festival Trust
APO
Auckland Theatre Co
Black Grace
Massive Company
NBR NZ Opera
Objectspace
Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust
Toi Māori Aotearoa and Touch Compass Dance Trust

Wellington

Bats Theatre
Capital E
NZIAF

Christchurch

Court Theatre
The Physics Room

Dunedin

???

Palmerston North

Centrepoint Theatre

The text of the press release is as follows:

The Arts Board and Te Waka Toi (the Māori Arts Board) has confirmed 22 arts organisations into Creative New Zealand’s new Arts Leadership Investment (Toi Tōtara Haemata) programme.

Of the 39 Expressions of Interest in the programme, 22 organisations have been confirmed to deliver one or more of the key roles.  A further 10 organisationshave been asked to provide further information before a decision is made on their ability to fulfil a key role or their fit with the programme.  As the number of organisations in the programme has not yet been finalised, no decisions have been made about the amount of funding to be allocated to any organisation.

“We are pleased to confirm three new organisations are to receive longer term funding for the first time as part of the Arts Leadership Investment (Toi Tōtara Haemata) programme.  They are Massive Company (youth theatre), the Auckland Festival Trust and Touch Compass Dance Trust (which integrates dancers with and without disabilities in professional performances and events),” Creative New Zealand chief executive Stephen Wainwright said.

Seven organisations have been declined but can apply for funding through the complementary Arts Development Investment (Toi Uru Kahikatea) programme.

“The Arts Board and Te Waka Toi have made decisions on which organisations will take a leading and collaborative role in developing New Zealand’s arts infrastructure for the 21st Century,” Mr Wainwright said.

The new investment programmes were announced in July 2010 and will take effect from 2012.  They replace the existing Recurrent Funding Programme, which was closed to new applicants, and the contestable Arts Investment and Sector Investment programmes.

Timetable for next steps
The 22 arts organisations confirmed in the Arts Leadership Investment (Toi Tōtara Haemata) programme have been asked to submit an indicative programme of activity and budget for the period 2012-2014, by May 2011. 

The 10 organisations where further assessment is needed have been also asked to submit programme and budget information as well as additional information to help assess their fit with the programme.

Creative New Zealand will be meeting with the 32 (22 + 10) organisations in February 2011 to provide advice on the information required and to discuss leadership and development of the arts.

The seven organisations not accepted into the Arts Leadership Investment (Toi Tōtara Haemata) programme, but which are intending to apply for the complementary Arts Development Investment (Toi Uru Kahikatea) programme, must submit their applications for that programme by Friday 10 June 2011.

In August 2011 the Arts Board and Te Waka Toi will decide:

  • how much will be invested in the 22 arts organisations which have been confirmed in the Arts Leadership Investment (Toi Tōtara Haemata) programme
  • whether the 10 organisations where further assessment is needed will be confirmed in the Arts Leadership Investment (Toi Tōtara Haemata) programme and, if so, how much will be invested in each.  Organisations that do not receive funding through this programme may receive funding through the Arts Development Investment (Toi Uru Kahikatea) programme, and
  • which organisations will receive funding through the Arts Development Investment (Toi Uru Kahikatea) programme and how much.

Applicants will be advised of the outcome of these decisions in September 2011.

“This is the first of two sets of decisions to be made by the arts boards as we implement the new investment programmes.  We will be working with arts organisations during 2011 to manage the transition to the new programmes and establish certainty of funding for 2012,” Mr Wainwright said.

Description of the new programmes
The Arts Leadership Investment (Toi Tōtara Haemata) programme provides support of between two to five years to well run, financially sound organisations that fulfil a key role or roles in the creation, presentation and distribution of high-quality arts experiences to New Zealanders.

The Arts Development Investment programme (Toi Uru Kahikatea) offers greater flexibility in the range of activity it can support with funding available for periods from six months to two years.

The 22 organisations which have been confirmed in the programme are: Auckland Festival Trust, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, Auckland Theatre Company, BATS Theatre, Black Grace, Centrepoint Theatre, Chamber Music New Zealand, DANZ – Dance Aotearoa New Zealand, Massive Company, Capital E – National Theatre for Children and Wellington Children’s Festival, New Zealand Book Council, New Zealand International Arts Festival, NBR New Zealand Opera, New Zealand String Quartet, Objectspace, Playmarket, Taki Rua Productions, Tautai Contemporary Pacific Arts Trust, The Court Theatre, The Physics Room, Toi Māori Aotearoa and Touch Compass Dance Trust.

The 10 organisations which have been asked to provide further information before a decision is made on whether they will be confirmed in the programme are: Arts Access Aotearoa, Artspace, Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand, Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, Circa Theatre, Downstage Theatre, Footnote Dance, Fortune Theatre, Southern Sinfonia and Vector Wellington Orchestra.

Establishing the Arts Leadership Investment (Toi Tōtara Haemata) and Arts Development Investment (Toi Uru Kahikatea) programmes was a recommendation from Creative New Zealand’s review of its programme for Recurrently Funded Organisations (RFOs).   The RFO review is the last of three funding programme reviews that Creative New Zealand undertook to complete as part of its strategic plan for 2007-2010.

In addition to the new programmes, Creative New Zealand will continue to offer Arts Grants and Quick Response Grants and continue to support the Creative Communities Scheme.