Author: Lindis Taylor

Amici’s beautiful French programme at Upper Hutt

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Upper Hutt Music Society: Amici Ensemble (Donald Armstrong, Cristina Vaszilcin, Gillian Ansell, Rowan Prior, Philip Green, Bridget Douglas, Carolyn Mills)

 

Two Interludes (Ibert), Quintet for Clarinet and Strings (Françaix), Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp (Debussy), Three Pieces for String Quartet (Stravinsky), Introduction and Allegro (Ravel)

 

Expressions Theatre, Upper Hutt

 

Tuesday 3 August 8pm

 

I missed Amici’s concert in Wellington Chamber Music’s Sunday series at the end of May so was delighted to be able to hear this engaging programme in what I repeatedly refer to as the most attractive concert venue in metropolitan Wellington.

 

There was only one change from the Wellington programme – the substitution of Jean Françaix’s clarinet quintet for Ross Harris’s new piece that the Wellington organization commissioned.

 

This group with varying membership, led by NZSO Associate Concertmaster Donald Armstrong, is a particularly valuable feature of Wellington’s musical life, for chamber music is so dominated by the string quartet and the piano trio that audiences have come to feel that all else is inferior.

 

I discovered the truth in my teens when in one of the surprising by-products of compulsory military training an Air Force colleague introduced me to the lovely Debussy and Ravel pieces that feature the harp in different configurations – respectively the Danse sacrée et danse profane and the Introduction and Allegro; the latter brought the present concert to an end. Debussy’s other piece with harp, played here, I discovered many years later. Sadly, while there are many beautiful pieces for string quartet plus other instruments, particularly winds, the harp continues to have a thin time of it.

 

So the Debussy and Ravel pieces were at the heart of this concert and were separated in the second half by Stravinsky’s rarely played quirky, diverting pieces for string quartet which was an adroit move.

 

Violist Gillian Ansell introduced the Debussy nicely, with illustrations of the motifs in the first and second movements, always an excellent way to prepare the mind to follow the course of unfamiliar music.

 

My first thought as it began was how miraculous Debussy’s music still sounds when juxtaposed with most other music of its time and after. Of course the Stravinsky piece is evidence to the contrary, also written during the first World War, but the two pieces in the first half, charming and interestingly written as they were, seemed not to have imbibed much from their great compatriot who cultivated tonality with originality and wit, ignoring the arid, artificial procedures that some contemporaries were alienating audiences with.

 

In the first movement, rather enigmatically called Pastorale given its Boulevard Saint-Michel flavour, these brilliant players gave vivid expression to the spare themes that are innately decorative and contain their own intrinsic development, needing no further embellishment; just an uncanny genius for turning from one to another with ingenuity and an unerring feeling for their relationships. The second movement contains more extended ideas and its discursiveness did offer an ‘Interlude’ of greater repose. The ensemble’s performance, with flute assuming the violin’s usual role in chamber music, made it a brilliantly cut gem where all three players were so in accord.

 

The Ravel was the only piece employing all seven players and it is a pity that such a singularly attractive blend has not become a standard. It is a remarkable, virtuosic as well as perfectly idiomatic piece for all the players, particularly Carolyn Mills strong and brilliant display on the harp; and again, the performance was simply of recording quality, so finely balanced, so together, so lively, graceful, elegant.

 

An encore involving all seven was not easy to find: Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on Greensleeves fitted admirably.

 

Their achievement is no doubt the combination of years of orchestral discipline and a great deal of playing in small chamber groups where they can hear and respond to everything so clearly.

 

The first half was devoted to two much later French pieces, post second World War; they were obviously influenced by their great predecessors, but some way below them in musical profundity and imagination.

 

The Ibert of Escales or the Divertissement is really rather more interesting than these harmless though highly expressive pieces; the second ‘Interlude’, more purposeful, allowed more of Ibert’s liveliness to show.

 

The Françaix quintet was, naturally, a more serious effort, but the character of its raw material and its treatment does not suggest a neglected masterpiece. It was very much a piece that celebrated the clarinet, allowing Philip Green the spotlight with a great deal of entertaining work; in an interesting feature in the last movement, the clarinet departed from the general jaunty pattern to follow a much slower, independent path till a brilliant cadenza led it back to the main route.

 

Happily, the entire performance was so polished and filled with energy that it was possible to overlook the music’s less memorable features. The entire concert was extremely accomplished and hugely enjoyable.

 

 

Superb Aroha Quartet in the Sunday Series

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Beethoven: String Quartet Op 18 No 1; Tan Dun: Eight Colours for String Quartet; Britten: String Quartet No 3, Op 94

The Aroha Quartet (Haihong Liu, Anne Loeser, Zhongxian Jin, Robert Ibell).

Sunday afternoon, 1 August

Since its formation about six years ago the Aroha Quartet has gained a place close to the New Zealand String Quartet for its intuitive musicality and virtuosity.  Their previous performances in this series and for Chamber Music New Zealand around the country have left no doubt about their quality and so it was a little surprising to find the 300-seat Ilott Theatre little more than half full: the weather; the Film Festival; too much other music?

The quartet has adopted a new second violinist temporarily replacing Beiyi Xue; she seems to have slipped gracefully into the sound world that distinguishes the quartet.

Beethoven’s first set of string quartets, written aged about 28, show him mature and confident, disposed to make big demands of players, though not departing significantly from the form and musical style of his time.

In some music, played by some quartets one struggles to pay attention to the work of individual players, but the striking individuality of these players sometimes distracted me from attention to the bigger picture. That did not mean any lack of a unified view of the music, of homogeneity, for the integrity of the whole persisted through the perfect command of rhythms and the sense of flow and the meaning of whole paragraphs. Here it was the viola that captured my ear first and at many later stages, but the cello’s alert and lively contributions also stood out. The slow second movement is a remarkable creation and the quartet played it with a rare fastidiousness, with its singular pauses extended to create an uncanny feeling of anticipation, utterly unhurried.

Every movement in fact carried delights and surprises that are not routinely to be found with such familiar music.

Tan Dun’s Eight Colours brought us face to face with modernity; not a particularly abrasive kind, though the first section, Peking Opera, took the instruments’ capacities to extremes, with some use of ‘extended’ techniques like heavy bowing to produce harsh sounds. In the second section, Shadows, the cello and viola brought more comfort with their more lyrical, bowed passages.
The piece was written when the composer was about 28, his first after reaching New York and it reflects both Chinese and Western forms.

The titles seemed arbitrary; I paid no attention to them during the performance and afterwards was surprised that the music had suggested so little of what they hinted at, though the glissandi in Pink Actress might have been diverting. Black Dance did indeed feature a nice little dancing idea, leading to descending glissandi and hard, rapid pizzicato from the viola. Black as in evil or in nocturnal?

Perhaps the most visible, for the literally-minded, might have been the low-set cello opening of Cloudiness, and the later descending cello phrases that might have described an aircraft descending through cloud.

The second half was devoted to an important work that I had not heard live before. It was written in Britten’s last year, 1975. Robert Ibell who talked a little about it before playing had led me to expect a more tragic or despairing quality, but in spite of references in the last movement to motives from Death in Venice, it emerged as strong and life-affirming, if elegiac and profoundly thoughtful.

In particular, it again offered proof of the striking gifts of the first violinist, Haihong Liu, whose every solo passage illuminated the music so vividly. Though she has not quite the strong musical personality of her leader, Anne Loeser’s contributions matched the ensemble with her acute feeling for style and musical shape.

Certainly there were a few angry moments, as towards the end of the first movement, but much more music that was seriously absorbing and pretty sanguine. Of influences, Britten offers few hints, such is his strength and originality. But the opening of the third movement, Solo, in many ways the heart of the piece, Shostakovich was present, in a sense of disconnection and loss; again, the viola was prominent in carrying a long melodic idea and then an accompanying passage where its powerful cross-string motif actually dominates the scene.

The form was interesting: the scherzo divided to frame the middle movement, so disguising its basic four movements. So the last movement, Recitative and Passacaglia, like the third, is substantial, with important utterances, that again expose the strengths of each individual player. The combination of tonal expression, rich musical content and some kind of reminiscence of string quartet origins suggested nothing less than the world of Beethoven. 

It may have contained two works from the last quarter century but the whole was a concert of very great interest and satisfaction. I only hope one of the reasons for the small attendance was not the programme.

NZSM Orchestra downtown for major concert with the school’s star teachers

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Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde (Wagner); Our Own Demise (Pieta Hextall); The Red Violin – Chaconne for Violin and Orchestra (Corigliano); Nocturnes – II Fêtes and III Sirènes (Debussy); Francesca da Rimini (Tchaikovsky)

The New Zealand School of Music Orchestra conducted by Hamish McKeich with Margaret Medlyn (Soprano) and Martin Riseley (violin)

Wellington Town Hall

Friday 30 July 7.30pm

The Red Violin was a 1997 film by François Giraud for which John Corigliano wrote the score; it told the adventures of a haunted violin. From it the composer arranged a piece for violin and orchestra – a Chaconne for Violin and Orchestra and it proved a fine showcase for Martin Riseley. It may have been his first appearance with an orchestra in a public venue since he returned to New Zealand to take up his position as Head of Strings at the New Zealand School of Music.

It has been a few years since the university orchestra performed down-town, at the Town Hall. So this was a very significant occasion, an opportunity to hear two of the school’s most distinguished teacher-performers, with international reputations.

The second was Margaret Medlyn. 

It was a particularly interesting programme that would both challenge a student orchestra, and thoroughly engage an audience.

It was also an unorthodox programme, starting with the Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan. Not the purely orchestral version that many would be familiar with, but with Margaret Medlyn who emerged through the orchestra during the last minute of the Prelude to deliver a ringing, passionate performance of the apotheosis that ends the opera – the ‘Love-death’. There was power without strain, riding easily over the orchestra’s ebb and flow, until the climax, the orgasm if you like, where the orchestra did rather dominate.  I am sure it was an arresting experience for all vocal students from the school to hear one of New Zealand’s finest singers in such repertoire.

The orchestra opened after the hall was appropriately dimmed to create a quasi-theatrical scene, with those famous, unresolved harmonies carefully articulated, well balanced, and with scrupulous attention to dynamics. One could often be forgiven for thinking one was listening to an experienced professional orchestra, in this and much else in the programme.

Next came the piece that won the 2009 Jenny McLeod Composition Prize, Pieta Hextall’s Our Own Demise, for which she offered a ‘programme’ in the form of quasi-political reflection on the curtailment of freedoms through the increasing complexity of society: a latter-day yearning for the age of the noble savage?. I quickly abandoned any attempt to make connections between that and the music, though the purpose of the alternation of spacious, pure harmonies and increasingly dense and complex textures was clear enough. Early, a phase of primitive, elemental sounds –strings tapped lightly with the bow, ethereal percussion – suggested a time of innocence, perhaps a very low level of social life. Later, an apparently aleatoric episode perhaps told of societal breakdown.  Its variety of expression and texture, mood and emotion maintained interest; it was coloured by an occasional almost melodic, consoling episode from the solo violin, then a gruff phrase from double basses and tutti tremolo that suggested swarming insects.

In some ways, I felt the idea lent itself too easily to the temptation to employ too many resources too insistently and too chaotically, and that less use of musical disharmony and confusion might have produced better music. But there was no denying Hextall’s imaginative, highly accomplished piece which the orchestra had clearly worked at very conscientiously.

Then came the Corigliano: a name not as well known here as in the United States where his fairly accessible orchestral music as well as his ‘opera-buffa’ The Ghosts of Versailles, have penetrated public awareness. Ghosts was one of the very few new operas to have been staged by the Met in New York since WW2.

The form of the piece, loose variations on a chaconne (basically a slow dance in triple time) ground bass, announced its attention to musical tradition and though its sounds could have derived from no other than the current era, there were some rhapsodic, unashamedly lovely episodes from the soloist, a striking flute solo, with echoes by other woodwinds, all demonstrating admirable musicality. Later we were treated to an almost hummable tune on the viola.

In short, it is music in the Barber, the popular Copland or later Rochberg tradition, for all of whom the audience mattered.

It achieved its aim of drawing attention to Riseley’s distinction as violinist.

The second half would have been welcome in an NZSO concert: two of Debussy’s Nocturnes for orchestra and Tchaikovsky’s great symphonic poem, Francesca da Rimini. The first was a scrupulous, admirably accurate portrayal of luminous, highly coloured scenes, hardly nocturnal I always feel. Fêtes sparkled with lively rhythms and brilliant performances by wind players, and also by well-disciplined strings (students filled the ranks of both violin sections: guest professionals did no more than enrich the lower strings). Sirènes featured a small and warmly seductive vocal ensemble underpinning more colourful playing.

If the concert so far had impressed by the orchestra’s precision and balance as well as its vitality under Hamish McKeich, Francesca da Rimini revealed some shortcomings. Strings got by very well but slips in the brass suggested less adequate rehearsal. Yet there were fine solos again here, in particular from clarinet and the lovely cello passage that follows. And the final phase built to its tragic, though exciting climax with splendid energy and youthful exuberance.

I must comment on the programme notes, by Frances Moore. More than commonly literate and displaying a wide-ranging musical knowledge, her notes for each of the three standard repertoire pieces – the Wagner, Tchaikovsky and Debussy – indicated an unusual talent for describing in imaginative terms, with a comfortable familiarity with pertinent literary, philosophical and artistic questions, significant musical connections that illuminate both composer and the music.

I was relieved that, though the gallery was closed, the stalls were well filled. It was an event that deserves to become an annual fixture that should get a lot more publicity. I was disappointed to see no acknowledgement of any City Council backing which I would have expected, giving substance to the council’s readiness to boast of the city as cultural capital.

Viola and piano in innovative, delightful recital

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Victoria Jaenecke (viola) and Mary Ayre (piano)

Ravel: Kaddisch from Two Hebrew melodies; Weber: Andante e rondo ungarese; Hindemith: Duo Sonata, Op 11 No 4 ‘Fantasie’; Kodaly: Adagio

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 14 July midday

I’ve been familiar with the name Jaenecke for many years, first, I suppose, at the Adam Chamber Music Festival in Nelson, where Victoria lived before moving to Wellington. Her performances in the festival always seemed to put her in the forefront of indigenous Nelson players; most musicians at the festival, naturally, are from elsewhere.

This was a most attractive opportunity to hear her in a duo setting, in music that is less familiar mainly because most of it was written for viola. I entered just after they began playing and before looking at a programme; I couldn’t guess the composer.

The viola’s wonderful, warm sonority in the Kaddisch captured the common aural image of Hebrew music, rather like the music of Ravel’s contemporary, Bloch whose Schelomo has long been engraved in my head. It was a gorgeous performance from both viola and Mary Ayre at the piano.

Weber’s piece was originally written for bassoon and orchestra and exists in various arrangements; viola and piano certainly suit its character. Though I am a cellist, the viola has always seemed to me the perfect voice – a mezzo voice, the quintessential voice – among all the string family: I don’t need the violin’s brilliance and high register most of the time, and not all cellists produce really beautiful sounds at the bottom. So it’s the viola that I wish composers had lavished their time on.

In the second movement, the Gypsy rondo, Jaenecke brought energy and bite and an element of peasant daring.

The viola was Hindemith’s instrument, and while there are moments of his characteristic acerbity in this sonata, there is lyricism and tunefulness as well. One always seeks similarities to other composers and it was Prokofiev who came to mind, with his comparable brusqueness and occasional strong melody, though the latter is more elusive with Hindemith.

It was in this piece, not easy to bring off, that the pianist’s contribution became distinctive and impressive and together they held the attention; the piece became much more than a series of geometric gestures and cool motifs, but a living creature in which its ‘fantasie’ character could blossom.

I did not know the final piece, by Kodaly, either. It too captured the viola’s human and elegiac spirit through rhapsodic passages; it had no pretensions, and expressed itself with perfect sensibility and then petered out.

It was a typical and delightful example of the kind of slightly unusual recital that is the ideal for a free concert in an inner-city church: excellent music beautifully played.

The free lunchtime concert on Wednesday 21 July is by the Seraphim Choir of Chilton St James School, choir with a reputation for excellent musicianship

 

Taiwanese-American pianist marks the two pianist bi-centenaries at Old Saint Paul’s

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Ya-Ting Liou (piano)

The Chopin and Schumann bicentenaries: ‘Sheep May Safely Graze’ (Bach, arr Egon Petri), Ballade No 2 in F, Op 38 (Chopin), Kreisleriana, Op 16 (Schumann); Danza del gaucho matrero, from Danzas Argentinas, Op 2 (Ginastera)

Old St Paul’s, Mulgrave Street

Tuesday 6 July, 12.15pm

Schumann’s Kreisleriana was the centrepiece of this interesting concert by a pianist unknown to everyone there, I imagine. Of Taiwanese origin, Ya-Ting Liou’s abbreviated CV discloses connections with Canada, the United States, and Argentina; she currently teaches at the University of Missouri in Kansas City.

She opened with an arrangement of Bach’s ‘Sheep May Safely Graze’, sounding slightly ill-at-ease, and Chopin’s second Ballade was given to transitions in mood and tempo that did not convince me. Her intention may have been to illustrate her reading of whatever narrative is thought to have lain beneath the surface of the piece; marked by changes in spirit and tempo that did not altogether create an integrated work; I would have to be exposed to such an interpretation again for it to have a chance of persuading me that it was what Chopin had intended.

The concert ended with another non-anniversary piece: an aggressive, ferocious dance by Ginastera, a composer she has obviously made a particular study of in her relationship with Argentina. It was a spectacular, pretty flawless performance to send the audience away with.

So I was expecting to find a player who took naturally to the impulsiveness and extreme mood changes that Schumann is given to, and nowhere more than in the wild spontaneity of Kreisleriana (The name comes from an E T A Hoffmann story of a Kapellmeister named Kreisler). Its does not have quite the immediate ecstatic delight of Carnaval or the deeply emotional power of the Fantaisie in C, but it grows on one, to become one Schumann’s most beloved works.

Up to a point Ya-Ting Liou expressed the music’s romantic impetuousness and spontaneity, but what was somewhat lacking was finesse and an ability to express the fantastic in refined, colourful, entrancing terms.

There is a consensus however about the difficulty of interpreting Schumann, especially this piece. If the opening section – Agitatissimo (to use the Italian equivalent of Schumann’s German markings) – did not augur well, cluttered, rushes of arpeggios and scales not cleanly articulated, there was light and calm in the succeeding phase whose short rising and falling motif anchored the music.

Some of her most appealing playing was in the slow sections, starting with the second, ‘Sehr innig und nicht zu rasch’ (Con molto espressione, non troppo presto), and again in the fourth section, ‘Sehr langsam’. In the second, ‘Sehr innig’, hesitant chords became flowing melodies, and the two fast Intermezzi contained within that section where the impulsive Schumann is at his most typical, there was some entrancing playing. No section maintains a uniform mood or tempo, and it was one of the pianist’s virtues that she did more than simply lurch from one to the next without somehow finding a convincing connective spirit.

Clara did not find this work congenial in spite of Schumann’s embodying ‘Clara’ themes in it and it was for that reason, possibly, that he dedicated it to Chopin – an appropriate link for a recital in this year. Though this performance had its shortcomings, even for an all-forgiving Schumann groupie like me, it was a most welcome opportunity to hear one of his great piano works, played in one of Wellington’s most charming ambiences.

Špaček and Houstoun in delightful Wellington concert

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Josef Špaček (violin) and Michael Houstoun (piano)

Violin Sonatas by Martinů (No 1), Janáček and Beethoven (Op 30 No 2) and solo Violin Sonata in E, Op 27 No 6 (Ysaÿe)

Wellington Town Hall

Monday 5 July

This concert in Chamber Music New Zealand’s evening series was co-promoted with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra: part of the first prize in last year’s Michael Hill International Violin Competition.

One has to confess that, far from offering a brilliant young violinist – still only 23 – a platform for performance that he might still be struggling to establish, the benefits are surely entirely in the other direction. For winning the contest obliged a player already with an international career, to play in Motueka and Whakatane, Waikanae and New Plymouth: hardly necessary for one who has already played in many of the world’s famous halls and with many of the great orchestras and conductors.

Špaček is a fully-rounded and superbly schooled musician, a case where a more ordinary mortal wonders, on reading that he studies at the Juilliard School with Itzhak Perlman, what on earth even a Perlman might have to teach him. When he can bring forth music from the fantastic galaxy of cascading notes that litter Ysaÿe’s solo sonatas. For this was the first time I have heard one of these post-Paganini extravagances brought to life as a complete and beautifully formed musical gem.

His encore, Henri Vieuxtemps’s riotous handling of Yankee Doodle (Souvenir d’Amérique, variations burlesques sur ….) was another example of fireworks in which he turned a perhaps vapid show-piece into an exhilarating, thrilling farewell offering. . 

To follow the Isaÿe piece with Beethoven’s beautiful and somewhat melancholy Sonata in C minor was, first, the mark of a perceptive and original programme builder, but more significantly, a demonstration of an artistic maturity that the Isaÿe might not have proved. He moved through each of the four movements with such an unerring feeling for style and musical mood. In the Adagio cantabile, for example, there was his febrile, urgent thrust, with its dark Mephisto quality, against Michael Houstoun’s elegant piano which laid out restrained, sombre and immaculate textures that supported the violin’s subtle, long breaths. How nicely they handled the little fanfare-like cadences that punctuated the later phase, pretending to presage the close, with straight-faced, Haydnesque wit. But the real close, when it came, was disarming and gorgeous. Here in the finale was playing, again, of an essentially Beethoven melody that was quite without indulgence or pretention, the very essence of honest, insightful musical performance. 

The first half was a celebration of his own country. Janáček’s sonata, on the strength of this performance, is an under-exposed masterpiece, not of modernist complexity, but of richness and singularity; Špaček, together with Houstoun’s highly idiomatic contribution, understood and enhanced its unique beauties while relishing the characteristic intervals that make Janáček’s music distinctive.

For me the Martinů was the greatest delight however: if not quite the equal of the Janáček, it is a delightful example of Martinů in his French/ragtime/neo-classical phase. And Špaček gave full colouring to the contrasts between the meandering, somewhat angular solo violin, and the ragtime rhythm and the solid swing that the piano’s entry suddenly brought about. It is an interesting case of the two instruments representing sharply contrasting styles, which yet creating an entrancing whole.

 

 

Alliance Française Concours de la Chanson

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(French Singing Competition)

Wellington June 19-20, 2010

In association with the Cultural Service of the French Embassy, NZ School of Music and NZ Opera Society.

To celebrate the international Fête de la Musique (World Music Day), the Alliance Française Wellington invites entries from singers aged 18- 30 years for the inaugural Concours de la Chanson to be held in Wellington the weekend of 19-20 June, 2010. The competition comprises two categories: modern chanson and classical mélodie. A prize of $1500 will be awarded to the winner of each category, consisting of $1000 plus a scholarship of two terms’ tuition at the Alliance Française Wellington. Entries close June 6, 2010. Information and entry forms available at www.french.co.nz

Rules:

1. The competition is open to solo singers aged 18-30 years. Only accompaniment by a single live instrument is permitted. No recorded accompaniments.

2. All songs must be sung in French.

3. There are two categories of competition:

i) modern chanson as epitomised by the work of popular singers like Jacques Brel, Georges Brassens, Edith Piaf, Charles Aznavour, Barbara, Léo Ferré and Serge Gainsbourg.

ii) classical mélodie, that is, classical art song written in French for solo voice and piano in the style of French composers of the 19th century or later such as Berlioz, Massenet, Duparc, Chausson, Chabrier, Fauré, Debussy, Ravel and Poulenc.

4. Entrants may enter both categories.

5. Entrants will be judged on accuracy of language and appropriate style for the genre as well as singing performance.

6. An elimination round may be held on the afternoon of Saturday 19th June.

7. Final at St Andrews on the Terrace, 7.30pm Sunday 20 June.

8. 1st prize in each category is $1000 plus a scholarship for two terms’ tuition at Alliance Française Wellington (not transferable).

9. Enquiries phone 04 475-9909

Entries:

By June 6, 2010 by post, email to alliance@paradise.net.nz or delivered to our Wellington office with the following details:

Name, date of birth, address, telephone, and email.

Teacher’s name and contact details if applicable.

Title of song, composer and approximate length.

NZSM voice students at St Andrew’s for lunch

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Voice students from the New Zealand School of Music, accompanied by Emma

Sayers: Imogen Thirlwall, Xingxing Wang, Laura Dawson, Thomas Barker,

Bridget Costello, Olga Gryniewicz 

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 12 May, 12.15pm

We are in the season of mid-year, students’ recitals from the New Zealand School of Music; in this, we had five women and one man in a programme that was varied and delightful.

Though I missed the first three songs, from Imogen Thirlwall and Xingxing Wang, they both reappeared later so that I could gain some impression of their talents.

Laura Dawson had just begun Der Nüssbaum from Schumann’s cycle Myrthen as I entered and I was at first enchanted by the simple beauty of her voice and its easy delivery, even in quality throughout its range; her style was appropriate, warm and lyrical. But in her second song, Jemand, her relaxed and rather unvaried interpretation didn’t meet its demands so well. It needed a little more energy.

Baritone Thomas Barker sang what turned out to be the centre-piece of the concert: Ravel’s three songs, Don Quichotte à Dulcinée. They come at the end of Ravel’s life, yet offer no hint of any fall-off in inspiration or liveliness; they were an entry to a competition for music for Pabst’s film Don Quixote which featured Shaliapin. Ravel was slow and the award was eventually given to Ibert. But it is Ravel’s songs that have lived.

I had just been reading a chapter on Ravel by Australian critic and composer Andrew Ford. “Perhaps it s the restraint that endears this composer and his music to an age that shows little restraint of its own. … he never harangues us, never forces an emotional response, never tells us what to think or how to feel…Instead he offers us his expensive distractions, which are always made to he highest standard. And he keeps his distance.” I love ‘expensive distractions’; I have long felt that Ravel’s music is one of the best of all possible models to present to aspiring composers: not for the young the voluptuousness of Daphnis et Chloë, but rather the brilliance, clarity and restraint of the piano music, and the precisely captured images in the chamber music and songs such as these.

Barker is on the way; while he sounded uneasy taking the corners of the first song, Chanson romanesque, his Chanson à boire was confident, his voice strong and even; a riotous little triumph. And Emma Sayers played a brilliant piano part. 

I last heard Bridget Costello at this church last September, and again enjoyed her singing. Duparc’s Chanson triste is mature music that probably comes more easily to a singer with more years of experience and pain; yet this seemed a fine Duparc voice in the making, still a bit thin at the top but expressing a calm and sincere emotion.

Later she sang a song by Dorothea Franchi, one of New Zealand’s most talented song-writers: Treefall. The air of awe at the danger, the magnitude and monstrousness of the act were more than hinted at. 

Xingxing Wang was a voice new to me. Though Mimi’s Act I aria is so familiar its difficulties are real and they were evident in this performance; she did well, but the creation of a steady, legato line sometimes eluded her. And her interpretation captured little of Mimi’s shyness and vulnerability, and the intimacy of her self-revelation.

The extravert ‘Je veux vivre’ from Roméo et Juliette suited her far better; at this stage it’s her soubrette quality that is most conspicuous, and she carried it off with a carelessness that is the essence of Juliette’s feeling in this scene.

Olga Gryniewicz has had a high profile in the school’s performances and while her voice still displays shortcomings, the top of her register and her agility are striking. Two Rachmaninov songs, in Russian, offered strong contrast: the panic of Loneliness, conveyed through some taxing, very high, florid passages; and ‘How beautiful this place’, much more romantic and lyrical yet still calling for some stratospheric notes.

I’d have liked to hear Imogen Thirlwall in Roussel’s Le bachelier de Salamanque which was the first item on the programme, for I was a little disappointed in her singing Pamina’s aria, ‘Ach, ich fuhl’s’ from The Magic Flute. An attractive voice, but her intonation was shaky occasionally and she has yet to gain confidence in expressing emotion – the loss and perplexed pain that Pamina feels at this point.

NZSO demonstrates a century of New Zealand music

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New Zealand Symphony Orchestra: In a New Light

Concert of New Zealand music by Arnold Trowell (The Waters of Peneios), Ross Harris (Violin Concerto; The Floating Bride, The Crimson Village), Claire Cowan (Legend of the Trojan Bird), John Psathas (Seikilos)

Conducted by Tecwyn Evans with Anthony Marwood (violin)

Wellington Town Hall

Friday 7 May, 7.30pm

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra made a striking contribution to New Zealand Music Month.  It attracted a pretty full house, perhaps many freebees, but at least they came.  And I spotted a couple of Auckland music critics too. Instead of the usual concert of New Zealand music, devoted to music of the past 20 years, at most, this exposed a near-century-old work by a very obscure composer who was a much more famous cellist, and one born in Wellington: enterprising!

A common thread was Greece, as three of the pieces had reference to Greek myth and music.

I was greatly intrigued by the unearthing of this very interesting piece by the Wellington-born composer Arnold Trowell (his real name was Tom – he adopted Arnold as a more ‘artistic’ name), who was the object of largely unrequited adoration by the young Kathleen Beauchamp (Katherine Mansfield), a year his junior. He was already a gifted cellist and inspired Katherine to take it up; Trowell’s father was the teacher and she displayed considerable talent too, to extent that music as well as writing became a serious ambition. Both Trowell and Beauchamp went to London around 1903 and the relationship continued for about six years, he sending her his compositions.

As a student I remember cello pieces, either composed or arranged by Trowell; I still have one.

The Waters of Peneios (the river that flows through the Vale of Tempe in Thessaly) was written when Trowell was about 30, by then a renowned cellist, and Katherine had only about five years to live.

It proved an attractive tone poem of quite singular accomplishment. If it suggested orchestral colours of Debussy, perhaps a facile (in the listener’s mind) connection with Debussy’s faune, as shimmering strings in the opening passages underlay a flute, and then oboe, that is fair; but just as conspicuous were touches of Delius and Strauss and of the climate of the more advanced music to the First World War.

In a time when originality is something of an obsession, audible influences of predecessors are sometimes deprecated, but in all previous eras it has been the way a composer learns his trade; and it is surely to be expected of a composer who had not written much orchestral music. In the central stormy episode there were strains of melody and orchestral colour that were Straussian, and the later river evocation might have been akin to Siegfried’s Rhine episode.

According to the pre-concert talk by the work’s discoverer, Martin Griffiths, it was first performed in 1917, and as many as 27 times since then, including one by New Zealand conductor Warwick Braithwaite, and last in 1976. He said there were many other extant orchestral pieces by Trowell. Though his New Zealand connection obviously became tenuous, their exploration and recording by the NZSO could be an interesting exercise.

It offered musical images of water, of a river in calm and turbulent modes, though hardly of the character that were displayed on the big screen behind the orchestra – mountain tops, mighty waterfalls, racing clouds: to my mind an unfortunate, distracting, even quite misleading element.

The music seemed to show a composer fully conscious of the need for careful shaping of ideas and of the overall structure. And so it held the attention, offered much delight, throughout its revelatory quarter hour.

The playing of New Zealand music or at least music by New Zealanders, needs to reach back to earlier generations. The orchestral music of Alfred Hill, 20 years older than Trowell and whose string quartets are now getting attention, is still ignored by our orchestras: there are a dozen symphonies. There are other composers of the years before Lilburn and in two decades after him who are neglected, giving the false impression that Lilburn came out of nowhere and that it has taken till the last quarter century for composers of comparable talent to appear.

Though the screen was used again to accompany both the music of Claire Cowan and John Psathas, with little more purpose, it was thankfully absent from the first performance of Ross Harris’s Violin Concerto. Here in fact was a highly impressive performance – a huge credit to orchestra and conductor – of a highly impressive work, commissioned by Christchurch arts patron Christopher Marshall.

Its opening called up more hints of a 20th century violin concerto such as Berg’s, Szymanowski’s or Ligeti’s than of neo-romantic examples by Barber or Korngold, Khachaturian or Shostakovich: its quiet opening in wide-spaced pitches, from harmonics to sonorous G string bowings, then a more lyrical comment on similar material from clarinet. These fragments slowly coalesced with the increasing involvement of the rest of the orchestra, heaping layer on layer till a full, almost opulent, string chorus took over.

Written in one movement, through a 20 minute span, its story passed through phases of fragmentation and reassembly, in predominantly fast tempi and highly virtuosic writing both for the violin, brilliantly realized by English violinist Anthony Marwood, and for the orchestra under the assured command of Tecwyn Evans. Contrasting episodes of agitation, even frenzy, and lyrical, pensive moods and later a magnificent, rich brass chorale, in which scraps of themes slowly came to be recognized, maintained the feeling of a narrative, and of a satisfying form; the violin often adorned, with dancing, Mefisto-like, the ideas as they evolved in the orchestra.

The common device of employing the opening ideas in modified form at the end did indeed serve the piece well, bring a sense of peace and resolution.

After the interval Jenny Wollerman sang Harris’s orchestral incarnation of the set of songs to poems by Vincent O’Sullivan, inspired by Chagall’s paintings. I heard her sing these in Nelson at last year’s Adam Chamber Music Festival, accompanied by Piers Lane at the piano. Naturally, the richness of an orchestra transformed them into songs of more immediate attractiveness, and it was easy to be seduced by the beauty of the scoring, transparent, very supportive both of the imagery in the poems and of the voice. Silly as such a comment might seem, there was a quality in the orchestration that brought reminders of another work inspired by paintings – Mussorgsky’s in Ravel’s garb: in the fourth song, The Rabbi, for example. The orchestration of Give me a Green Horse was particularly entertaining, while the evocation of As the Night in low woodwinds helped form a picture of deep Chagall blue.

Wollerman’s voice is in fine shape, and carried easily over the generally discrete orchestra; if sensuousness was not very required or available, her singing was expressive and her diction clear, though the words, sensibly, were in the programme.

The concert ended with two further programmatic or narrative works. Claire Cowan’s Legend of the Trojan Bird was accompanied by no mention of the significance of a Trojan bird, or a source in Homer: I can recall no mention of a bird in The Iliad; yet the music stands on its own feet. One was free, perhaps with the help of some poetic lines by the composer, to conjure one’s own pictures; what was not helpful was the reappearance of someone else’s images on the screen, either sadly literal or irrelevant.

The music was tonal, skillfully orchestrated, coloured by several excellent solos from orchestral principals, episodes that were variously aerial and ethereal, earth-bound and ominous, droll and sensuous.
Finally a twelve-year old piece by John Psathas, written for performance by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, based on a verse etched on an ancient Greek tombstone with rudimentary hints of its accompanying music. The message of the verse is ‘live for the day’; Seikilos is vintage Psathos, rich in orchestral effects, especially percussion, strong, complex rhythms, it radiates boisterous joie de vivre, and this was really the only time that the visuals, mainly a sparkling sphere that exploded like sunspots from the sun, and swelled and contracted to reflect comparable emotions in the music, its outbursts of delight and their subsidence.

I don’t think I had heard the work before and was intrigued to contemplate the endurance of the orchestral hallmarks in his music. Psathas is a striking example of a composer who found a voice fairly early and has seen no reason to abandon it significantly.  It serves very well to create images through tuned percussion and the more subtle metal and wood percussion instruments, as well as often beautiful string choruses. Its success as a piece of latter-day impressionism lay in the inconspicuous construction of its musical evolution, ending in fading undefined murmurings.

Visuals accompanying music are almost always a distraction and an irritation, especially moving images. I doubt that many composers would really have welcomed it, and wonder whether these composers were particularly happy with an idea that may have sprung from an effort to popularize the music – i.e. to dumb it down, to protect the little darlings in the audience from being bored by plain music.

Static images might have been acceptable, and a friend remarked that the one opportunity to use the screen sensibly was missed – to display the Chagall paintings as each was sung. I agree.

Otherwise, this was an enterprising concert of worthwhile music that demonstrated the reality of a century or more of serious composition by New Zealand composers; it deserved and got a large audience.

Cantoris explores the motet literature, from Bach to Rubbra

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Cantoris: Motet Perpetuem, directed by Rachel Hyde 

Bach: Lobet den Herrn and Jesu meine Freude; Brahms: O Heiland, reiss die Himmel auf, Op 74 No 2; Bruckner: Ave Maria, Op 6, Os justi, Op 10; Poulenc: 4 motets pour le temps de Noël, Op 152; Rubbra: Tenebrae Motets, Op 72, Nocturne 3

St Peter’s church, Willis Street

Saturday 1 May, 7.30pm

It must be about a year since I heard Cantoris, which was one of Wellington’s leading choirs under he direction of Robert Oliver; like most musical bodies it has had its ups and downs since then. Under Robert Oliver the choir gained distinction by presenting complete performances of Handel oratorios; it is no longer possible to excite large audiences with such things, and concerts of late have been more eclectic. In the five years that Rachel Hyde has been in command, Cantoris has largely regained its former standing.

This was eclectic, though it consisted of music called motets.

The motet is not a very precisely defined class of choral composition, generally described as a choral composition to Latin words that are not a part of the Mass, but used in other church offices; its texts are usually from the Bible.

Bach’s six motets, written probably in his early years at Leipzig, are the most famous and provide models for most subsequent so-called motets. That was the theme of the concert; each of the later motets in the programme were directly or indirectly influenced by Bach’s.

So it was interesting that the singing of the two Bach motets was less polished than several of the later ones. That is undoubtedly because they present greater challenges, largely attributable to Bach’s musical erudition and his fascination with the mathematics of music.

I was a minute late and had the charming experience of hearing the choir in full flight as I entered: the urgent sounds of Lobet den Herrn, brisk, supported by clean staccato singing, with organ accompaniment (a debatable addition). Balance among the women’s voices was excellent but the men’s voices were less homogeneous, and there were moments of suspect ensemble. These flaws were most evident in the two Bach motets (in the sixth stanza of Jesu meine Freude the tenors, opening alone, drew attention to their fragility); in the Brahms motet, too, vocal quality was uneven among the tenors.

Bach’s largest and most imposing motet is Jesu meine Freude which demands singing of some dramatic quality because of the varied character of each of the 11 stanzas, that create such an elaborate and satisfying architectural structure.

Brahms modeled his German motet, O Heiland, reiss die Himmel auf, on Bach’s, though he did depart from one formal norm of the motet – Latin words, and the complexities of the opening section were handled bravely if not perfectly. The last, ‘Du wollen wir…’ allowed a purer, cleaner sound to emerge, particularly the women’s voices that were quite admirable.

Two of Bruckner’s motets followed, again accompanied by the organ (borrowed from the New Zealand School of Music). Gentler, more submissive than Brahms, they allowed all sections of the choir to be heard to better advantage; I realized that the problems of obtrusive individual male voices was overcome by softer singing: the Ave Maria was gorgeous. Voices blended beautifully in Os Justi too, and there were subtle fluctuations of dynamics.

Poulenc’s four a cappella Christmas motets were charming examples of the composers cheerful piety. Again, the choir’s strengths were more evident than its weaknesses, coping well enough with the testing rhythms, though I found the emphases on certain words rather at odds with the meaning: for example on ‘jacentem’ in the first motet. Striking a sort of news-reader’s tone made Hodie Christus natus est rather interesting.

The Tenebrae motets by Rubbra, to words that to a non-catholic, are shockingly brutal, were not familiar to me, all seemed set to music that dealt succinctly and exactly with the subject, and the choir excelled themselves in the Third Nocturne, handling it with a deliberate, serious tone yet very musically.

It was a worthy revival of music by a gifted but neglected composer, whose music was more familiar when I was young, to end an admirably devised programme.

The concert was a benefit for the restoration of the church’s organ.