Author: Peter Mechen

Ghost Trio’s St.Andrew’s concert haunts the memory

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Chamber Music presents:
Ghost Trio –
TAKEMITSU, BEETHOVEN, DOWNIE and SHOSTAKOVICH

The Ghost Trio – Monique Lapins (violin), Ken Ichinose (‘cello)
Gabriela Glapska (piano)

TAKEMITSU – Between Tides (1993)
BEETHOVEN – Piano Trio in D Major Op.70 No.1 “Ghost”
GLEN DOWNIE – Sonata da chiesa (2024)
SHOSTAKOVICH – Piano Trio No.2 in E Minor Op. 67 No.2

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Te Aro, Wellington
Sunday 17th August, 2025

Review for “Middle C” by Peter Mechen

“What’s in a name?” could well have been the unspoken phrase hovering about St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace on Sunday afternoon prior to the opening of Wellington Chamber Music’s most recent presentation, whose first item was, as per the written programme supposed to be Beethoven’s D Major Piano Trio Op,70 No.1, better known as the “Ghost”, due to its haunting second movement, ripe for association with  famous theatrical “ghosts” such as those that occur in Shakespeare – Hamlet or Macbeth coming most readily to mind. And here, on the performers’ platform was scheduled  none other than an eponymously-named trio of musicians to open the concert by “playing their song”. What happened instead, of course, is now history, with the musicians themselves deciding that Beethoven’s somewhat overwhelming string of “ghostly” scenarios could result in tidal waves of resonance that would swamp the gentle undulations of the work by Tōru Takemitsu due to follow.

So, in the minds of listeners who knew the Beethoven, and would have prepared themselves for the exhilaration of that tumultuous opening salvo of energised sounds, the surprise intervention by the Takemitsu work “Between Tides” would have seemed like the proverbial sea-change into something rich and strange! – beginning with such delicacies of sound evoked by lightly astringent piano harmonies, answered by string phrases whose solo lines variously trail into their own silences, or intertwine, Ravel-like in places, briefly touching on their own worlds before returning to the piano’s sway, and awaiting the next version of exchanges.

Throughout, the instruments’ voicings create a world of  chameleon-like pursuit of one another, every wave of impulse with its own variant of the same life-force. I was reminded while listening of human breath when still, and of surrendering to impulses not necessarily my own – also of the infinite variety of the experience in terms of what comes with it from one’s imagination – whole worlds of difference, individually with the harmonics or tremolandi played by the strings or the free-ranging spaces between piano notes, contrasted with assertive unison utterances that give further musical food for contemplation. It’s a piece I found throughout to be “in waiting” in general terms, though its tensions occasionally bubble up and almost right over – its ending is satisfying enigmatic, leaving one with the idea of, in TS Eliot’s words, “an eternal action, an eternal patience” ……

Having been suitably dispersed over vast vistas by the action of tides, our sensibilities were then gathered in once again with a vengeance by the promised Beethoven! I was at last allowed the delayed indulgence of pointing out an obvious kind of coincidence, correlation or conjunction with what seemed to me like paradigmatic “ownership” of this music by the ensemble – right from the very first whirlwind ascending phrases there was, I felt, a “this is what we do” feeling of full-blooded identification! The intensities of this work are concentrated, throwing together both heroism and turmoil throughout the opening movement,  with as much sprung intensity in the hushed exchanges of the second subject as in the flamboyant opening unison – how “breathing as one” they sounded, here, throughout these contrasting episodes, and how much they relished the concerted singing passages in the development as the more vigorous “horse-and-rider” episodes leading to the recapitulation – such an invigorating journey!

Cello and violin are vibrato-less at the slow movement’s beginning, the piano interspersing with suitably ghostly eloquence, extended by the ‘cello and violin who together voice the feeling of some kind of other-worldly presence, though leading us towards some consolation amid the gloom. The music’s central section begins darkly, the cello leading the way, contrasting agitated and desolate-sounding lines, suggesting personal sorrow, loneliness and frustration in the music’s explorations, the players leaving us with a single repeated enigmatic note over which to ponder at the end.

How resilient the mind that can produce such a finale after so downcast a mood! Here, like with the first movement, was a “tour de force” of ensemble playing, with absolutely brilliant pianism from Gabriela Glapska, and equally stunning dovetailing of their concerted passages from Monique Lapins and Ken Ichinose. The “questioning” aspect of the opening theme led to all kinds of suspensions and adroit manoeuvrings of both the whimsical and helter-skelter variety, leaving us all breathlessly invigorated at the end, and somewhat gob-smacked at both the individual and concerted virtuosity of the players!

Glen Downie’s was a new name for me, as was the work, Sonata da Chiesa, a piece written this year for the Ghost Trio to take on tour. The music takes its name (literally, “Church Sonata”) from baroque times, and was inspired by music written by Vivaldi for the ‘cello. In a programme note Downie talks about the music “breaking away” from its original inspiration (characterised by ruins of “worn material”) and attempting to rebuild anew from the “surviving stone”. A specific inspiration for the piece was a UK building, the Christchurch Priory, originally a Norman building, but containing layers wrought by different eras in the building’s history, a quality Downie intended his piece to replicate as “a uniform expressivity”

In four movements, the piece began with piano arpeggios, and attention-grabbing violin notes, the latter reverting to a sombre exploration of the piano figurations, whose buildup suggests an architectural quality, with a dancing violin astringency supplying outward detail and reaching a climax as the cello supports the structure with an ostinato-like figure.

Beginning with a rushing piano figure, the second movement highlights strings pinging , burning and slashing, with the piano’s chords structurally resonating at first at first, then exchanging spiky figurations with the strings. The more resonant-sounding piano notes beautifully morph into pregnant-like water-droplet notes, as the cello and violin play “out of the air” pizzicato harmonics – the piano finishes as it began, with agitatedly mobile figurations.

Sostenuto-like cello chords begin the third movement, here backed by limpid piano sounds – the violin. something of a decorative, outwardly-defining constant force, plays more tortured figures as the cello muses with the piano – what lovely, long-held notes! – the violin again sounds acerbic, and we hear the “clash of seconds” that the players had demonstrated beforehand, which then gradually resolve – very architectural, solidly-based timbres and tones – from meditative to grand and imposing!. The violin “grows” a lighter, more evanescent outward texture, as the music for cello and piano goes deeper, more inward, the players digging into their tones with rolling figurations – very ‘cello-centred! The violin remains a more quixotic-flavoured  figure, here, its tones  pointilistic in effect, with harmonics and pizzicati, and in places almost pentatonic-sounding!

The fourth movement has a very pointillistic beginning – knockabout notes from the strings, pizzicato and arco, and the piano very punch-line in effect! The strings are very legato against the piano’s cryptic staccato comments – the movement is very short!

Certainly it all suggests something I feel that’s structural in the music’s bones – I would like to hear it again, being able to relate parts more readily to the whole – there would have been many connective references I didn’t place in context first time round, and am keen to explore that connective tissue aspect of the work relating to architecture and to the ravages of time on any kind of structure given such status by my experience and imagination! It was all brought off with the greatest of aplomb and confidence by the players!

The concert concluded with Dmitri Shostakovich’s deeply personal 1944 Piano Trio in E Minor, composed in memory of the composer’s friend Ivan Ivanovich Sollertinsky who had died in February that year of a heart attack at the age of forty-one. As with many “documented” incidents on Shostakovich’s life, accounts differ as to when the composer began work on the Trio (principally whether it was before or after hearing the news of Sollertinsky’s death, the latter event even presenting in one account as a rumoured NKVD (Russian Secret Police) murder rather than a heart attack) – however, a certain consensuality (as with the present programme’s notes on the music) places the first movement as all but completed when Shostakovich received the news.

The work’s been represented variously as a requiem, either for one man or for the millions of Russians who perished during the war, as a protest against the anti-Semitism rife in the Soviet Union culminating in the Nazi atrocities committed against Russian Jews in the death camps of the time, and as an indictment of the Soviet System in general under the iron-fisted Stalin, whose censorship of the composer’s music reached its nadir at this time, causing the Trio to be banned from public performance in1948 as “decadent “ and “formalist”. Not until the dictator’s death in 1953 did the work begin to gradually return to favour

It’s now celebrated as one of the greatest of Shostakovich’s works, and part of an enviable “piano trio” tradition in Russia alone  – Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Arensky, Borodin, Taneyev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Cui and Rachmaninov all helped “pave the way” for the younger composer, whose own writing, however, eschewed the prevalent quasi-orchestral textures of the Romantic piano trio, choosing instead a sparser, more transparent sound-picture, not without force and impact, but with a bleaker, and less “cushioned” effect. Shostakovich had always professed an admiration for Jewish music, delighting in what he called its “multifaceted” quality  – appearing to be happy when in fact it is expressing tragedy (a quality shared by Mahler’s music) – and this ambiguity of expression comes to the fore in the Trio’s finale, a veritable Todtentanz with macabre associations, more of which below. The work as a whole gravitates from being the composer’s grief for his friend’s death to a catalyst for his feelings regarding the other tragedies whose impact were weighing increasingly heavily on his existence.

What, then, of this performance? In a word, gripping, from its very first intensely spectral harmonic note intoned hauntingly by cellist Ken Ichinose almost at the top of the instrument’s range and soaring above the violin’s conventionally-voiced though similarly elegiac tones and the piano’s basso profundo utterances – the spell’s intensity was palpable, the instrumentation a play of parallel states of being, dream floating alongside consciousness, and both far above deeper and darker reality – within  the same being, or with three different beings cast adrift?  Briefly, the cello “comes back to earth” then joining the violin in a steady single-note rhythm, exchanging single-note-accompanying and melodic roles as the momentums continue with both tempi and intensities building, until the music swings into a dark-browed and determined jogtrot mode! The musicians seem gripped by the music’s compulsions, pizzicato exchanges, trenchant piano chordings, slashing single-note string utterances, all suggesting some kind of search for a way through, with Monique Lapins’s violin-playing in particular, in places incredibly exploratory!

If respite was sought, it was not to be found in the second movement – Allegro con brio, the music proclaimed, with violin and cello flexing muscle and expiating energies, and further driven along by the piano’s pounding chords and trumpeting arpeggiations.  What began as a high-spirited fun dance seemed to get more obsessive and trenchant, descending into repetitions of groaning drone-like tones trapped in their own vortices – a trio-like section almost promised the dance-theme some breathing-space, but the wildness soon returned, pianist Gabriela Glapska’s seemingly endless energies spearheading the music’s drive towards a breathless concluding flourish! Whew!

But then! – bleakly spaced-out piano chords seemed to slice the ambiences pitilessly  into shards, with first the violinist and then the ‘cellist picking up from the fragments a tragic, elegiac theme – a Passacaglia, with violin and cello continuing to play variants of the theme over the piano’s repeated sequences. The sense of desolation grew with the instruments’ gradual descent into depths of sorrow, the mood at its darkest  suddenly interrupted by the piano beginning an insistent, hypnotic rhythm ,and introducing the Mahlerian irony of a Yiddish-like dance, one whose themes the composer would repeatedly use in his later music (Shostakovich later described them as dances of death and despair, perhaps mindful of accounts he had heard of atrocities such as Jewish prisoners in the “death camps” made to dance on their own graves by their Nazi captors before being executed).

I found this music extraordinary, even almost hallucinatory jn places, thanks to what seemed like the three performers’ total and unstinted immersion in its composer’s world. The build-up to the music’s ironic interplay of humour and savagery in the finale was overwhelming, with the gradual evaporation of that nightmarish scenario right at the work’s end leaving one utterly drained and aghast at what one had just been told.

Even among what must surely seem for Wellington Chamber Music over recent times like a plethora of outstanding performances, this one by the superb Ghost Trio had, I thought, something uniquely special to return to in one’s memory and relish anew.

 

 

 

Nota Bene’s melodious and heartwarming Wedding of Liesl and Duncan

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Nota Bene Choir presents:

THE WEDDING OF LIESL AND DUNCAN
7:30pm,16th August, 2025
Wesley Church, Taranaki St., Wellington

Liesl – Barbara Paterson (soprano) / Duncan – Robert Tucker (baritone)
Friends and Guests – Nota Bene Choir
Pianists: Heather Easting / Emma Sayers
Music Director – Maaike Christie-Beekman
Devised, Written and Directed by Jacqueline Coats

Order of Service:
WELCOME – Liesl’s family, friends and  guests in the Old Hall

J.STRAUSS Jnr. – Champagne Chorus (Die Fledermaus) – Liesl, with Choir
HAYDN  –  Die Beredsamkeit (Eloquence) – Choir
LEHAR  – Vilja Lied (Die Lustige Witwe) – Liesl, with Choir
SCHUBERT – Der Tanz – Choir
SCHUMANN – Lied der Braut – Liesl – solo
BRAHMS – Sehnsucht – Choir
BRAHMS – Wie bist du, meine Königin – Duncan, solo
SCHUBERT – Schicksalslenker, blicke nieder – Duncan, with Choir
HAYDN – Die Harmonie in der Ehe (Harmony in Marriage) – Choir
SCHUBERT – Trinklied – Duncan – solo

Guests are invited to be seated in the Church

THE SERVICE – Entrance of the Bridal Party
WAGNER – Wedding March from Lohengrin –  Choir
BRAHMS – Liebeslieder Waltzer
1. Rede, Madchen, allzu liebes (speak, dear girl) – Choir
Exchange of Vows
2. Am gesteine rauscht die Flut (the tide rushes on the rocks) – Choir
3. O die Frauen, O die Frauen (O women!) – Tenors and Basses
4. Wie des Abends schöne Röte (the evening’s beautiful red) – Sopranos and Altos
5. Die grüne Hopfenranke (the green hop vine – Choir
6. Ein Kleiner, hübscher Vogel nahm den Flug (a small, pretty bird took flight) – Choir
7. Wohl schön bewandt was es (my lover no longer sees me) –  Liesl
8. Wenn so lind dein Auge mir  (If your eyes are so gentle) – Choir
9. Am Donaustrande da steht ein Haus (By the Danube stands a house) – Choir
10. O wie sanft die Quell – (Oh, how gentle the spring) – Choir
11. Nein es its nicht auszukommen (No, it is not possible..)- Choir.
12. Schlosser auf, und mache Schlosser (Locksmiths, up and make padlocks!) – Choir
13. Vogelein durchrauscht die Luft (Birds fly swiftly through the air) Sopranos and Altos
14. Sieh, wie is die Welle klar (Look how clear the waves are!) Tenors and Basses
15. Nachtigall, sie singt so schön (Nightingale, you sing so beautifully) Choir
16. Ein dunkeler Schacht ist Liebe ( A dark pit is Love!) Choir
17. Nicht wandle, mein Licht (Do not wander, my Light) Tenors
Exchange of Rings
18 Es bebet das Gestrauche (The bushes tremble) Choir
Pronouncement and Celebration
MENDELSSOHN  (arr. Nota Bene) – Wedding March

“The Wedding of Liesl and Duncan” – a fertile music-theatre brainchild of director Jacqueline Coats, which makes creative and heart-warming use of the manifold skills and attendant enthusiasms of musicians belonging to and associated with Wellington’s Nota Bene Choir.  Readers expecting a conventional review of a group  performing a first-half programme featuring a collection of operatic solo and choral items, followed by a second-half presentation of Brahm’s Liebeslieder Waltzes might wonder at encountering, first-up, this introductory  plethora of detailed information that could take as long to read through as the actual review itself! I hope the method in my madness at offering this storehouse of elaboration to begin with “sets the scene” for the effusion of delightfully theatrical, and even in places intensely dramatic entertainment which  elevated much of the music’s otherwise divertissement-like status into far more connective musical tissue.

Brought into play was a real, infectious sense of a nuptial occasion by (a) the choice of venue, in Wellington’s Taranaki Street Wesley Church, and (b) the theatrical method of incorporating the audience into the actual celebrations. So it was that we were all invited at the outset to join the bride’s family, friends and guests into one of two gathering-places capaciously provided and linked by a corridor (I suspect each simply “filled up” followed by the other, leaving, incidentally, very few spare seats!). At each place was a pianist (ours was the versatile Heather Easting, while the other would have certainly enjoyed the equally capable artistry of Emma Sayers) – after being welcomed by the indefatigable Jacqueline Coats and enjoying some soothing strains of firstly Bach and then Pachebel on the piano, there subsequently appeared suitably-attired guests and friends of the couple to be married, along with the major participants, Liesl (Barbara Paterson) and Duncan (Robert Tucker) who alternated between both of these places, by turns recounting for each of the groups some of the history of their meeting and subsequent engagement.

This “getting to know” first the bride and then the groom was accompanied by the first “Welcome” bracket of songs, beginning with a spirited “Champagne Aria” from J,Strauss Jnr’s “Die Fledermaus” sparklingly (ahem!) delivered by the bride and guests. I found a lot of the spoken commentary from all the characters difficult to make out in that acoustic, sitting as I was at the far end of the group – but I could hear enough to decipher salient detail, such as information pertaining to the non-arrival, thus far, of the groom – a droll chorus (“Eloquence” by Josef Haydn) suitably commenting on various apposite kinds of character traits! To my great pleasure we heard next the ravishing “Vilja Lied” from Lehar’s “Die Lustige Witwe” most plaintively sung by Paterson (with lovely dynamic control of those ecstatic high notes) and echoed by the chorus. Schubert’s “Der Tanz” followed, after which Liesl introduced, a mite confusingly, both her “adoptive’ and “real” parents, in tandem with Schumann’s lovely “Lied der Braut”, Liesl’s solo here blending affectingly with the following “Sensucht” by Brahms, for the choir.

Consternation reigned as Duncan (Robert Tucker), the Groom, suddenly turned up, effusively pressing his suit with another Brahms song, “Wie bist du, meine Konigin!”, beautifully and pliantly delivered here by both singer and pianist. We got some semi-confessional “history” from the singer of a previous relationship and an existing offspring (too much information?) associated with the beseeching “Schicksalsenker” by Schubert for tenor and choir, which captured all hearts, before the groom was off again, “looking for Liesl!”, to the strains of Haydn’s satirical “Die Harmonie in der Ehe”, all boisterous good fun for the choir! Duncan returned, jubilant, and in a time-honoured gesture to blokedom, launched into a Schubert “Trinklied”, extolling Baccchus, “Plump Prince of Wine!” – the wedding was definitely “on!”

The preliminaries having been addressed and given their due, we were enjoined to be upstanding and take ourselves via some of the way we had already come to the church for the ceremony. Our director-cum celebrant fulsomely welcomed our presence, reminding us that before things went any further we needed a bride! –  and so we had the lump-in-throat enchantment of the expectantly fresh-toned “Wedding March” from Wagner’s Lohengrin as Liesl and her escort came down the aisle to the altar.

The bride being thus delivered and the groom suitably prepped, our celebrant took the opportunity to “set the scene” with the help of the composer of the aforementioned “Liebeslieder Waltzes”. I had listened to these songs perhaps once before and remember at the time thinking them somewhat underwhelming as regards the “must hear again” department – but what a difference here, brought to life via the bright and sparkling Nota Bene voices, Maaike Christie-Beekman’s exuberant direction, and our duo pianists’ by turns incisive and melting playing  – how wonderful for these songs to be given such a vibrant theatrical and even dramatic context! Each one seemed to “possess” its different character, imbuing the normally threadbare three-four trajectories with tangible on-the-spot representations as well as tying together their unifying flow in the larger scheme that held the whole evening together so successfully.

If we had thought the marriage “done and dusted” by then, we were in for a few (almost soap-opera) surprises! –  from the beginning, the celebrant touched on the potential “will it happen?” travails of a relationship, underpinned by the first song’s “Rede, Madchen, allzu liebes” (Will you, who rouse passion, relent?”) to which the groom, Duncan, reopened his “confessional” doubts, spurred by the choir’s “Am gesteine rauscht die Flut” (The flood rushes onto the rocks), and the age-old bachelor’s refrain “O die Frauen, O die Frauen” (further elaborated here as “I’d have been a monk were it not for women”). It was time for Liesl to enjoy some affirmation with the soprano/alto voices’ beautiful “Wie des Abends schöne Röte” (How the evening redly glows).

As the vows begin, so do the doubts arise, darkly harmonised by “Die grüne Hopfenranke”  (like a creeper stuck in the ground) from the choir, the celebrant suitably agitating and the mothers appearing to give their daughter solace (all superbly theatrical!). Liesl isn’t much  comforted by the idea of a pretty bird being caught  -“Ein kleiner, hubscher Vogel nahm den Fug” (Christie-Beekman brings out so much more flavour from the choir’s voices in these places than I previously recall!). The bride remains unmoved at first, remembering how “it all seemed much easier when we were young” – “Wohl schön bewandt was es”, and now…….The choir quickly moves to comfort Liesl with “Wenn so lind dein Auge mir” – reassured by gentle eyes, she takes her bouquet as the next song quickly capitalises on the mood –  “Am Donaustrande, da steht ein Haus” , sings the choir, breaking through the impasse of doubt as if shattering a barrier of glass! Liesl completes her vow! – triumph!

To the strains of “O wie sanft die Quelle” the couple waltz to the moving waters!  Just when it all seems plain sailing comes another cloud – “If any person knows of any reason, etc…..” From the ranks of the choir a man steps forward and confesses his secret love for the bride! – Pandemonium! The Choir erupts with “Nein! – es ist nicht auszukommen!” (No! It’s impossible!”) The couple run away from the tumult as the choir angrily declaims “Schlosser! Auf, und mache Schlösser” (Locksmith! Up, and make some locks!). but peace is soon restored and the errant suitor is dismissed, as the sopranos and altos sing of birds rushing through the air to their rest  (“Vögelein, durchrauscht die Luft”) and the tenors and basses extend the peace further with “Sieh, wie ist die Welle klar” .

The nightingale sings, and the world seems to stand still – “Nachtigall, sie singt so schön”  intones the choir – Liesl is firmly on the side of love and helps steer Duncan through his “dark night of the soul” memory at “Ein dunkeler Schacht ist Liebe” (Love is a dark pit”), though he’s lost for words at this, the last fence! “Boys, you gotta help me out, here!” his whole aspect is saying, and the  tenors come to his aid with “Nicht wandle, mein Licht” – a beautiful reassurance of a homecoming, AND of the appearance of the rings – where? – here! – no! – yes! – with the choir giving the final and  clearly affirmative “lift” to the rhythms and tones of “Es bebet das Gesträuche” – (as the bushes tremble with the birds’ flight, so does my soul with desire and fear at the thought of you!).  As the couple sign the register and their union is pronounced, so does Mendelssohn’s Wedding March sound and resound as Liesl and Duncan are resplendently (and deservedly) acclaimed! What a journey, and how richly bedecked it all proved, proclaiming Jacqueline Coats’s vision as transformational and the response of all of the performers, conductor, singers and players, something to truly savour in the memory.

A Masked Ball – Wellington Opera’s presentation of perilous concealment

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Julien Van Mellearts (Renato) and Jared Holt (King Gustavo)
photo – Stephen A’Court

Wellington Opera presents:
Giuseppe VERDI – Un Ballo in Maschera  (libretto by Antonia Somma)

Jared Holt – Gustavo, King of Sweden
Julien Van Mellearts – Count René Anckarström (Renato), the King’s secretary
Madeleine Pierard – Amelia, the Count’s wife
Natasha Te Rupe Wilson – Oscar, the King’s page
Kristin Darragh – Ulrica Arfvidsson, a sorceress
Samuel McKeever – Count Ribbing, a conspirator
Morgan-Andrew King – Count Horn, a conspirator
Lila Crichton – Judge
Daniel O’Connor – Cristiano, a sailor
Chris Anderson – Amelia’s servant

Director – Jacqueline Coats
Set Design – Michael Zaragoza
Lighting Design – Rowan McShane
Costume Design – Lee Erihäpeti Williams

Conductor – Brian Castles-Onion
Wellington Opera Chorus (Director – Michael Vinten)
Orchestra Wellington

Opera House, Wellington
Friday, 8th August 2025

Wellington’s beautiful Opera House was the venue for the latest offering from the city’s eponymous opera company –  Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera, which opened on August 6th – I attended the second Opera House performance two evenings later, conscious that the production had had already garnered a good critical response.

Amongst the intriguing advance publicity for the work were references to the production’s use of classical archetypal elements presented in the ancient Greek myth of Artemis and Actaeon, the famous “hunter becomes the hunted” story. The opera’s Prelude accordingly depicts the drama’s monarch, King Gustavo of Sweden, with a pair of hunting dogs, cleverly mirroring this theme at the work’s end with a depiction of the King at a “masked ball” wearing a pair of stag’s antlers, thus symbolising the victim he was to become of a conspiracy amongst his courtiers.

The masks of course underpin another defining motif of the work, that of concealment, one emphasised in a programme note by the production’s director Jacqueline Coats, and given obvious emphasis in the opera’s final definitive ball scene, but also throughout the story in different ways.

Permeating the drama, of course, were the dominant themes of the King’s covert love for Amelia, the wife of his best friend Renato, in tandem with the conspirators’ plot to assassinate their monarch. And various intrigues enriched the action, such as Gustav’s and his courtiers disguising themselves for a visit a fortune-teller who had been threatened with banishment. This in turn led to a midnight tryst between Gustav and Amelia, and their affair’s eventual discovery by Renato, engendering the latter’s secret alignment with the conspirators to bring about Gustav’s end.

From the beginning the drama’s musical fabric was wrought of magic by Orchestra Wellington under conductor Brian Castles-Onion’s direction, the latter never missing a beat or a turn of phrase denoting an action or emotion by his players and singers. The chorus, representing both “allies” and “enemies” of the king, acquitted themselves sonorously as befitted their intentions, the result of Wellington Opera chorusmaster Michael Vinten’s always expert coaching  – Jared Holt’s King Gustav replied regally and graciously as the loved-cum-hated monarch, a foil for the initially more workmanlike tones of Julien Van Mellaerts’  Anckarstrom (Renato), the King’s secretary,  whose opening canzone “Alla vita che t’arride” was solicitious and dignified as suited the occasion.

Natasha Te Rupe Wilson (Oscar) – photo, Stephen A’Court

Some of the scene’s most consistently-engaging singing came with Natasha Te Rupe Wilson’s portrayal of Oscar, the King’s Page – the voice and theatrical deportment were a real delight in places such as her defence of the fortune-teller, Ulrica, in her ballata “Volta la terrea fronte alle stelle”, rebuffing the condemnations delivered here somewhat jejunely by Lila Crichton’s Judge. In conclusion Jared Holt was able to generate plenty of devil-may-care energy in his “Ogni cura si doni al diletto”, inviting his courtiers to join him in donning a disguise and visiting the fortune-teller’s lair!

Scene Two, while vividly wrought by the orchestral introduction, seemed to visually fall short of Kirsten Darragh’s vivid descriptions in her “Re dell’abisso, affrettati!”. Nor did the chorus’s “O come tutto riluce di tetro”  reflect “how luridly everything glitters” –  here,  more ice-cold than lurid and infernal, as if this Ulrica was Erda out of Wagner’s “Ring” instead. As with the ensuing scene’s supposedly “campo abbominato”, I thought it all too brightly- and cooly-lit to reflect the “dark and infernal” aspect of the words, though the singers did their best. Ulrica’s palm-reading realisation that the man whose future she was predicting was REALLY doomed  was tellingly conveyed by Kirsten Darragh, especially the idea of the killer being his friend! Jared Holt did well with the rebuff of this in his “Ề scherzo od è follia”, his “laughing” tones adroitly conveying his public incredulity at the prophecy.

Madeleine Pierard’s Amelia rose above the discrepancies evident between the scenario of her gathering of the magic herb and her descriptions of it – her opening “Ecco l’oriddo campo ove s’accoppia al delitto la morte!” made me wonder whether the valiant scene-shifters had actually got the right “piece” out on the stage! – hardly suggestive of a place of execution such as a gallows, and with the scene itself surely needing to be darker to reflect Amelia’s terror and loathing (“m’empie di ricappriccio e de terrore!”). She and Jared Holt worked hard at their love-duet that followed without, I felt, recapturing the exhilarating charge of their “Tosca” the previous year here in Wellington, their kiss here far from any kind of “caution abandoned” quality suggested by their words.

By contrast, the arrival of, firstly, Renato to warn the King of danger, and then of the assassins themselves was superbly staged, the overt menace of the latters’ concerted torch-lit aspect making the mordant “comedy” of their discovery of Renato with his wife on a “nocturnal moonlight stroll” all the more delightful – their “laughter”, relished enormously by the audience well aware of the subject couple’s acute anguish, proved a highlight of the evening!

Madeleine Pierard (Amelia) – photo, Stephen A’Court

No less riveting was the subsequent exchange between vengeful husband and sorrowing wife, Madeleine Pierard’s “Morro, ma prima in grazia” as deeply-felt and moving as Julien Van Mellearts’s “Eri tu” was by turns impassionedly angry and deeply grief-stricken. And two more voices to impress in the following “plotting” scene were those of the conspirators, Samuel McKeever as Count Ribbing and Morgan-Andrew King as Count Horn – a resoundingly dark-toned duo!

Rivalling these two scenes in impact here was the splendid finale, launched by the brief appearance of the antler-clad King and the appearance of the masked revellers at the ball, the singing and choreography of the chorus again outstanding. Interactions between Oscar (another superb song-and-dance cameo from Natasha Te Rupe Wilson) and Renato over the mystery of the King’s identity further heightening the tensions created by the masked conspirators closing in on their prey with Renato in the van ready to strike, unaware that his victim had already proclaimed Amelia’s innocence by giving her the freedom she desired (touchingly expressed here, at the end, by Jared Holt’s mortally-wounded Gustav.)

No other art-form conveys so many different emotions in simultaneous ferment so exquisitely and heart-rendingly. Given some production aspects that didn’t resonate with me, I still found myself, along with the rest of this evening’s audience, warmly appreciating and acclaiming this “A  Masked Ball” as a feast of compelling theatrical action and music-making.

THE SHOCK OF THE NEW REVISITED – New Zealand premieres from Orchestra Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

                                                                                                     Shostakovich and Britten

PARTY FAITHFUL

BRITTEN – ‘Cello Symphony Op.68
SHOSTAKOVICH – Symphony No. 3  in E-flat Major Op. 20 “The First of May”*

Lev Sivkov (‘cello)
Marc Taddei (conductor)
*Orpheus Choir of Wellington(Brent Stewart, director)
Orchestra Wellington

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington
Saturday, 26th July 2025

Review for “Middle C” by Peter Mechen

What an occasion! – TWO New Zealand premieres, Britten and Shostakovich, in one evening! While perhaps not unique in this country’s concert-giving history, such an event’s “blue-moon” aspect provoked all kinds of responses from the capital’s music fraternity, with the music’s unfamiliarity seeming at once a drawcard with its own kind of excitement and sense of discovery, and something of a risk! – the relatively unknown administered here in what might have seemed to some like over-sized doses! With characteristic adventurousness, Orchestra Wellington and the Orpheus Choir of Wellington plunged into the fray, and emerged triumphant on all fronts, the audience’s enthusiastic response at the conclusion of each of the concert’s halves unequivocally and unstintingly great-hearted, more than making up for the marginally thinner attendance compared with the numbers present at the season’s first two concerts.

How was this near-miracle of approbation brought off so heart-warmingly? – several reasons; firstly by the charismatic cellist Lev Sivkov’s “owning” of the somewhat elliptical solo part of Benjamin Britten’s formidable ‘Cello Symphony; secondly, via conductor Marc Taddei’s remarkable mastery of the scores and control of his orchestral and choral forces; and lastly through the astonishing results of the intrepid musicians’ meticulous efforts in regard to each of the works’ completely different demands!  So it was that Marc Taddei would have felt more than justifiably vindicated in his pre-concert enthusiasm regarding the “adventure” of this undertaking.

First up was one of the more enigmatic works by Benjamin Britten, his singularly-titled “Cello Symphony” begging the question regarding the piece’s actual genre, having an instrumental soloist in a work styled as a “symphony”, and bringing together what might normally be regarded as differently-constituted musical narratives. It wasn’t an entirely unknown format, with previous works by various composers entitled “Sinfonia Concertante”, and with composers (like Berlioz in his work for viola and orchestra “Harold in Italy”) having produced “symphonies” with solo instrumental parts.

Such works had in the past produced problems of thwarted expectation on the part of musicians (the most well-known being the legendary violinist Paganini’s dismissal of Berlioz’s aforementioned work, and which the former never played). Britten’s dedicatee was the renowned cellist Mstislav Rostropovich (for whom he had already composed several pieces), and who had probably expected a brilliant instrumental concerto showpiece compared with what he actually received. What Britten was writing proved to be a tribute to the ‘cellist’s musicianship as much as to his technical brilliance, as the work casts the soloist as an equal partner with the orchestra in their exchange and development of the work’s themes and juxtapositions and contrasts.

An enjoyable and intriguing aspect of tonight’s performance was the engagingly demonstrative playing of the cellist, Lev Sivkov, whose gestures had an expressiveness which choreographed the musical line and strengthened the interplay between soloist and orchestra. Though the cello’s opening double-stopped chords were brusque compared to the orchestra’s darkly-conceived lines, they had a pliability that suggested  dialogue more than opposition, even when the soloist’s increasing  energies  brought “spiky” wind chordings and “snappy” brass notes, as subsequent lyrical exchanges between the cello and clarinet and flute phrases more readily suggested, and which the oboe and brass softly continued. Particularly memorable was a touching sequence of interplay between pizzicato strings and cello outpourings, even if the latter’s somewhat anxious two-note phrases against the strings pizzicato began suggesting more darkness than radiance and conflict afoot, brought into increasing prominence by the timpani’s repeated patternings, and the  winds and heavy brasses exchanging chords. But a desire for accord persisted with brass-and-percussion irruptions balanced  by beautifully poignant-sounding wind-harmonies – almost fairy-tale sounds – as if simultaneously-wrought “threads” were constantly trying to “dance around” each other, with the cello playing a kind of “fulcrum” role, keeping determinedly businesslike amid the claustrophobia of heavy percussion irruptions, brass “pedal-notes” and skitterish wind passages. We sensed relief with the soloist’s response to it all – poised pizzicato chordings over resignedly rumbling lower instruments, while the winds played a Mahlerian “dying fall” theme – a soft gong-stroke and a few pizzicato notes later this absorbing movement came to an enigmatic close.

What a marvellously nocturnal scherzo we got next! – the cello  quicksilver,  playful and even furtive, and straightaway alerting the muted brasses! The soloist’s dancings were answered throughout with either gruff single notes or quixotic, melismatic figures haunted by the brasses’ echoings. Constant movement and exchange became  increasingly frantic, halted at the end  by the cello’s animalistic whimperings and a dismissive grunt from the brass – all brilliantly-conceived, and  here superbly-realised! By contrast, the Adagio’s solid, granite-like tones brought a solemn march, the cello’s solemn, step-wise theme replete with massive timpani ramparts and mournful keenings from winds and an evocatively responding horn solo – and what beauties the soloist with supporting horn, strings and gentle percussion gave us here! The rest of the movement returned to the march-like opening, the brass splendidly building the music’s progress towards a grim magnificence while the cello increasingly rhapsodises in defiance, and eventually breaking into a cadenza, one whose progress soloist Lev Sivkov mesmerically “defined” for us with his rapt, seemingly improvised gesturings throughout

Without a break, the music transmorgrified into the finale, the solo trumpet sounding a kind of “liberation” as the cello seemed to walk from the darkness and into the light afforded by the concluding Passacaglia’s six variations. I loved the winds’ dancing  sequences, the cello’s mad scamperings pursued by winds and percussion, and the intensely Mahlerian rhapsodic fervour of the cello’s musings immediately before the great surge of long-awaited optimism given to us by the whole orchestra’s tsunami-like concluding response to the soloist’s heartfelt efforts!

If I’ve dwelt overmuch on the music’s detailings at the expense of its actual delivery,  here, it’s because the performance was a further (and remarkable) step towards my own appreciation of what I found an initially challenging listen! – I hope these reams of self-indulgence have some point for the reader, especially any finding themselves going through the same process of determined discovery!

Shostakovich’s Third Symphony, another work new to me, was a different kind of journey, one no less fascinating, but somewhat less “layered” than the Britten work, though it brought its own set of distinctions to the concert, One of these was its composer’s own remark, now forever associated with the work – “It would be interesting to write a symphony where not a single theme would be repeated”. one that he strove to fulfil with this remarkably vernal, pulsatingly “in-your-face” music.

What made the performance more than worthwhile was the up-front orchestral playing, and the “joyful and triumphant” tones of the evening’s “rent-a-socialist” ensembled voices, the Orpheus Choir. Printing the English words in the programme was tongue-in-cheek enough – a real blessing was being given these indecipherable words as sterling statements unimpeded by on-stage visual translations! – heed was taken of conductor Vasily Petrenko’s words in the programme notes concerning the “banal, amateur” poetry – and the supreme irony of the presentation came with the performance’s full-blooded commitment to the cause (of the music, of course!). Maybe some day we’ll get to hear some of those later Shostakovich symphonies from this orchestra as well! (imagine the subscription numbers generated by the thought of THAT series!)

For now, we had our ears bent in somewhat different directions as Marc Taddei and his seemingly tireless musicians took to Shostakovich’s most irreverent piece of symphonic writing to date. Despite its beautiful opening for two clarinets (superbly delivered) the work soon accelerated into a veritable ferment of action. dissonant passages crowding one another as the trajectories rang the changes from grim martial rhythms to maniacal scamperings, culminating in grotesque “horror-chordings” and continued reckless headlong careerings, whose frenzied momentums were lessened  by a side-drum’s call to attention, a solo clarinet succeeding in quelling the energies of the flight, and bringing an uneasy calm to the soundscape after further horror chordings reacquainted acquainted us with the obstacles still to be surmounted.

From here, we were given a few stress-free moments of relative tranquility from solo violin and eerily spectral winds, the latter gradually shrugging off their ghoulish aspect in search of some much needed pastoral charm, gladly welcomed by the strings, their warmth  persuading other elements that a salvation of sorts might be imminent –everybody dug more deeply, pulling from out of the depths of texture sonorities and impulses which seemed to gradually ignite the whole orchestra! A fresh burst of momentum brought in compulsions of rhythm, particularly Russian in flavour, whose energies pushed the music onto a kind of plateau of heroic expression, underlined by a great percussive onslaught –something momentous was being enacted, leaving us awaiting the arrival of some great endpoint, a kind of magnificence whose presence we sensed but whose entry was still being prepared. Then, with a great cymbal crash, the choir suddenly stood up, electrifying us all!

A brief orchestral introduction and the voices burst out, whole-heartedly, lustily –  oceanic waves of sound punctuated by percussive irruptions, peaking and breaking over the edges and washing over their listeners.  We knew and did not know of what they sang – it mattered less than their fervour and spirit and sense of joy!  And at the conclusion, with the musicians having given their all, we relished their achievement  amidst our shared relief and exhilaration!

Joanna Dann and David Neild – a feast of ‘cello-and-piano presentation at St. Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

St, Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace Lunchtime Concert series
JOANNA DANN (‘cello) & DAVID NEILD piano)

ROBERT SCHUMANN – Fantasiestücke Op.73
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN – Sonata for ‘Cello and Piano No. 4 in C Op. 102/1
SERGEI RACHMANINOV – Andante (third mvt.) from Sonata for ‘Cello and Piano Op.19
FRANZ SCHUBERT (arr. David Popper) Du Bist die Ruh (Rückert -1823)

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington
Wednesday, 16th July, 2025

Some blithe spirit must have quietly done the rounds and spread the word  regarding this particular recital, with  St.Andrew’s Church close to being more-than-usually packed by eager lunchtime-concert-goers, as noted by the organiser who welcomed us and introduced the artists – it would have been especially heartening for both cellist Joanna Dann and pianist David Neild upon entering to encounter such a veritable sea of eagerly awaiting faces! The programme was, of course, a drawcard in itself, containing the kind of music which would warm both senses and sensibilities in a direct “simply add water” kind of way – and so it proved, judging by the warmth of the reception the pair’s playing of these works drew from the audience at the end.

Robert Schumann’s Op.73 Fantasiestücke opened the concert – is there another composer whose music always so quickly betrays its creator’s identity? Both performers drew forth lovely, light-and-lyrical tones from their instruments, moving easily between the major and minor modes, and with neither instrument claiming any ascendancy – the cellist almost uncannily “matched” the piano tones whether in lyrical tones or quicker figurations, producing a kind of seamless interplay. This continued throughout the second movement’s “lebhaft – licht” (Lively – light), in which the players achieved an almost fairy-like grace with their interactions, the pianist’s gossamer-like tones mirroring the similarly “will-o-the-wisp” peregrinations of the cellist. I was, however, expecting rather more forthright sounds than we got in the “Rasch und mit feuer” finale, where I began to crave more cello tone expressing Schumann’s more assertive writing, his ardour and muscularity which contrasts with those passages where, once again, the interplay between the voices seemed like a “marriage of minds” – but in other places  I couldn’t help feeling  like a kind of Oliver Twist, asking the cellist for more!

Beethoven, in his five ‘Cello Sonatas of course transformed the previous role of the cello in this genre from being either a solo instrument with extemporised “accompaniment” by one or more players, or an obbligato instrument for a keyboard sonata. His first two Cello Sonatas (Op. 5) were written in 1796, and in fact designated “Two Grand Sonatas for the Harpsichord or Pianoforte with a Violincello obbligato”, but unlike those earlier “obbligato” sonatas, both of the Op.5 works had through-composed cello parts which in places were independent of keyboard figurations. By the time he had reached his two Op.102 Cello Sonatas in 1815, the composer had embarked upon his “late” period of composition, so that these works readily display those characteristics we’ve come to recognise as typical of that time, such as unconventional form, and deeper, more probing expression.

His Fourth Cello Sonata begins with a ‘cello solo, beautifully voiced, gently joined with by the piano, the lines concentrated and sonorous, seemingly “captured from the air” rather than composed, the instruments gently nudging the sounds together, until a sudden vigorous unison breaks the spell! Here the forceful piano somewhat dominated the ‘cello, whose notes one had to strain to hear in all but during the occasional quieter episodes, somewhat negating the composer’s intention of giving the instrument more of a “voice”! What I could hear of the cellist’s playing sounded true in terms of rhythm and intonation, but the piano was so much to the fore, it sometimes couldn’t help giving an impression that the cellist was playing more for herself than for us.

The Adagio brought the ‘cello back to us again, the players each giving us enough to better balance the sound, with the long sombre lines of the opening, and the beautiful exchange between the instruments that followed working really well in relative terms – though I thought there was still scope for the ‘cello to “sing” even more in places. The finale’s beginning with its playful exchanges made a properly whimsical impression, and the ‘cellist bought out some of the darker lines, but the higher, brighter melodic exchanges needed to bubble and sizzle more equally more often! One could hear there was a fine interpretation there, but it was simply a question of coaxing more tone from the ‘cello for the music’s course to sustain its full and glorious effect!

The Rachmaninov ‘Cello Sonata’s  Andante movement in places brought out the best qualities in both players, with the wonderful major/minor key sequences of the piano’s opening paragraph gorgeously realised, as were plenty of subtle gradations enticing our ears further and further into the piece; while the ‘cellist replied in kind with much sensitive articulation of those long melodic lines – though the tone lessened as the line moved up the stave she chose to give her lines a quieter, more reflective sound, even though I could occasionally have done with more “outward push” in some of the phrases – but still, what gloriously vibrant music emerged in places from these players’ efforts (I should have liked to have heard the whole sonata, accustomed as I am to wanting more of such things!)

Instead we got what was surely the highlight of the programme for most people – this was cellist David Popper’s arrangement for ‘cello and piano of one of Franz Schubert’s most beautiful songs  – the composer’s 1823 composition “Du bist die Ruh”. Both the pianist and ‘cellist by turns realised this music to exquisite degrees – a beautiful piano introduction was gorgeously augmented by the ‘cellist’s tones in her opening phrase – has anybody composed anything more heart-rendingly beautiful than this? When it came to the song’s climax, that glorious ascent towards a celestial high note, we were taken by the composer and his two musicians to some kind of Elysium-like place for a moment, not once, but twice – and of course there are as many ways to “sound” that final note as there are musicians! Between them, Joanna Dann and David Neild gave us untold pleasure with such moments – a most satisfying way to end any lunchtime’s music-making!

A double bill from Wellington Opera which pulled no punches – Dame Gillian Whitehead’s Mate Ururoa, with Ross Harris’s Notes From the Front

Posted on by Peter Mechen

ROSS HARRIS – Notes from the Front (texts by Vincent O’Sullivan)
DAME GILLIAN WHITEHEAD – Mate Ururoa (libretto by the composer)

ROSS HARRIS  –  Song-cycle “Notes from the Front”
Richard Greager (tenor), Matthew Ross (violin), Emma Sayers (piano)

DAME GILLIAN WHITEHEAD – Chamber Opera “Mate Ururoa”
Cast: David Tahere (Captain Roger Dansey)
Brent Allcock (Commanding Officer)
Ariana Tikao (Whaea / Taonga Puoro)
Director: Sara Brodie
Theatrical Designers: Jacob Banks/Rebecca Bethan Jones
Conductor: Hamish McKeich
Stroma Contemporary Ensemble

The Hannah, Wellington

Friday, 11th July, 2025

Wellington Opera has surely brought off a kind of coup with these two works, Gillian Whitehead’s opera Mate Ururoa and Ross Harris’s song-cycle Notes from the Front being brought together for performance at a time when people everywhere on our planet surely have no greater, nor more urgent cause to question the rationalization, antecedents  and vindication of war.  Each of these stories draws from the same source, the conflict known as the First World War (1914-18), in which millions of people, mostly soldiers, but also civilians, perished, and which, ironically, drew in significant participation from the country geographically furthest from the actual conflict – Aotearoa, New Zealand.

Of these two works the earlier (2014) and first-performed was Ross Harris’s Notes from the Front  (the title in this context practically self-explanatory), with the text of the seven songs drawing from the letters “home” of Dunedin-born Alexander Aitken, who enlisted with the Otago Infantry as part of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. The letters were written in places where he served in action, from Gallipoli to the Somme, at which latter place he was wounded. Aitken was particularly remembered for smuggling a violin into his “kit” to take with him and play on occasions in between the sequences of  “action” (the instrument miraculously survived all of this and was brought home, to be later donated to the Otago Boys School, where it is currently on display).

Though not all verbatim quotes from Aitken’s letters, poet Vincent O’Sullivan based the songs’ texts on the latter, summarising the soldier’s traumatic (and in places even surreal) experiences while on active service, and poignantly rounding the sequence through a declaration to Winifred, his future wife, whom he had met when a student, and with whom he subsequently emigrated to Scotland, taking up a mathematics professorship at Edinburgh University.

Aitken’s feelings regarding the war and its effects upon humanity in general were here laid bare in the first, and in places hallucinatory song  Visions, much later, which delineate the psychological traumas that haunted him throughout his life – “nightmare seizes me – the veiled figures…….I count on nothing more….”  – words hauntingly voiced by tenor Richard Greager, and underpinned by pianist Emma Sayers’ beautifully-focused touch, along with violinist Matthew Ross’s wraith-like postscript. The second song The Notes depicts Aitken hauntingly playing his violin in situ, “between concussions”, the latter suggested by short, sharp piano irruptions – along with bemused “that’s his violin” comments from his listeners.

Bitter irony and  savage underlinings characterise the third song’s outbursts, the piano subdued, its notes almost cowering, as the singer describes the hell of the trenches, a nightmare like nothing described in official dispatches – “it’s the blood – and the guts – and the stink of the flies!….that’s how you tell we’re Anzacs!…….” – Richard Greager grips our sensibilities as he describes people he knew from home – “Harry..…the bloke from Tuatapere……the sun turns black!….” as these people’s lives are destroyed, and the bitterness reaches its peak at the words  “…..it’s a change from Gallipoli, soldier, when you reach the Somme….”

The violin begins the elegiac fourth song On a Different Note as if playing “Deutschland Uber Alles”, accompanied by a deep piano rumbling which then breaks off – the notes the violinist plays reminds the singer of Haydn’s tune, heard at another Christmas from a German’s violin –“….a single line, defying war…..”  expressed in deep-throated tragedy. The next song Pretty Much Verbatim is the blackest irony possible, as the singer and piano characterise a fellow-soldier “Clark of Dunedin” with a description of how this friend sacrificed himself against a live grenade, holding it hidden from his mates –  “…….it is pride enough to tell I was there…..what I breathe is his….”.  Though more rhapsodic, the sixth song  Close as this is just as unsparing, describing the soldier’s imagined reunitement with a friend killed on the battlefield, but alive, back in Otago – “on the peninsular……we met where one of us had no shadow, one of us living, one of us dead….close as this……”

The last piece, Song for Winifred is a tribute to Aitken’s wife and an impassioned hope for a return to a normal life together – begun by the violin and joined by the piano, the singer passionately declaims “….Love, love in any weather….in the summer grass – and God! – the seasons pass……”  – beautiful and intensely moving. The work’s but one all-too-eloquent example from Ross Harris’s and Vincent O’Sullivan’s group of resounding collaborations regarding the subject of war’s inhumane ambition and senseless carnage.

Besides its own intrinsic qualities the Harris work made the perfect introduction to Gillian Whitehead’s Opera Mate Ururoa (a title translated as “fight bravely” or “fight to the death”, and taken from a Maori  whakatauki, or proverb “Kaua e mate wheke, mate ururoa” (Don’t die like the octopus  (that gives up easily), die like the shark (that keeps on fighting)). Whitehead undertook to write the work at the behest of David Tahere, a US-based Maori baritone whose whanau, he discovered, had close historical connections with that of Roger Te Kepa Dansey, the central character of the opera who enlisted as a member of the “Native Contingent” formed here when Britain declared war on Germany in 1914.

Dansey’s wartime story tells of the humiliation of both the Maori and Nepalese Gurkha soldiers being regarded as “second class” by the British hierarchy, and relegated to performing menial jobs like digging trenches – only when the casualty lists at places like Gallipoli deemed it necessary were Maori and Gurkhas allowed to fight. Promoted to the rank of captain, Dansey then fell foul of his commanding officers by refusing to follow orders which would result in his men facing certain and pointless death, resulting in his disgrace through accusations of cowardice and desertion, in the wake of his famous assertion regarding fighting a “white man’s war” where soldiers were “sent into” battle rather than “the Maori way” of men led by their chiefs from the front.

Thanks to the efforts of influential Maori politicians of the time Dansey’s true qualities of leadership were recognised and he was reinstated. After returning to the frontline in France at the Somme, he was gassed and had to be sent to England to recover – he remained in Europe for the next nine years, working on rehabilitation schemes in Belgium before returning to New Zealand in 1927 and settling in Rotorua, where he died in 1938 of complications resulting from his war injuries.

Whitehead wrote her own libretto for this work, intending at first for it to be a “working draft”, but deciding as she developed the piece further to retain it as a strong “from scratch”  initiative, one  creating its own on-going tradition. She was assisted throughout by David Tahere’s knowledge through his connections with Dansey’s surviving whanau, and by director Sara Brodie’s enthusiasm. respect and feeling for the project However, preparations for the first performance of Mate Ururoa at Carnegie Hall, New York, in November 2021 were unexpectedly thwarted by the Covid epidemic, so the “premiere” had to be rescheduled, not inappropriately, to its Southern Hemisphere origins.

Interviewed a couple of days before the premiere, the triumvirate of composer, director and lead singer delineated aspects of their respective journeys towards the oncoming performance.  Whitehead, with several music-theatre pieces of different kinds under her belt, was calmly philosophical regarding outcomes, emphasising the phenomenon of a work existing only in the moment of performance, and expressing quiet confidence in the extent to which her colleagues would help successfully realise these outcomes. For Brodie there was “a humbling satisfaction” at what she felt privileged to be part of (she and Whitehead had previously worked together on a 2016 music-theatre piece of the latter’s, Iris Dreaming).  Tahere characterised the opera as resembling something presented in a kind of “dream state”, with many “fragments” of the protagonist’s experience brought into play in vastly differing situations involving diametrically-opposed cultures, drawing attention to the composer’s representation of these differences, with the used of both conventional instruments (and taonga puoro (Maori instruments), straightaway giving an extra dimensional feel to these different worlds.

As with the earlier Ross Harris song-cycle, the presentation of the opera generated its own singular ambience of almost claustrophobic intensity in its depiction of a single individual pitting himself against almost insuperable odds with courage and resolve……my notes are as follows: Upon entering this wonderfully indeterminate but pliable performance space finely modulated by designer Rebecca Bethan Jones, and ambiently lit by Jacob Banks, David Tahere’s presence as Captain Roger Dansey flows into its world like a beam of light awakened by the taonga puoro “call” from one of the bird-song-like indigenous instruments played by Ariana Tikao, the singer’s words making reference to his birthplace, near Ohinemutu, in Rotorua – “Here the steam rises – my home, my resting place”…. and at once we realise that here is a man looking back over his life, the first reminiscence being his confrontation with Brent Allcock’s stiff upper-lipped Commanding Officer accusing Dancey of defying orders at Gallipoli in order to save the lives of his men. Conductor Hamish McKeich keeps his Stroma Ensemble forces on the boil throughout, their frequent interjections representing both the establishment and the individual, tracking the exchanges between both personalities and the interaction of modern instruments and taonga puoro to underline the conflict between not only Pakeha and Maori but officers and enlisted men.

The mention of a “white man’s war” and Maori’s progress from being an “enemy” of the British to an “ally” brings great declamatory tones from Tahere, and a distinctive “conch shell-like” call from Ariana Tikao’s taonga puoro instrument accompanied by the cracking together of percussive stones. As Dansey recounts his people’s history of interaction with the British, McKeich and his players elaborate with music that fuses sounds of warfare with ceremonial regimental-like calls – and the singer intones the opera’s theme ”Kaua e mate wheke, mate ururoa!”  (Die not like an octopus, but like a hammerhead shark!) before breaking into the famous haka, followed by a lament, in Maori “Let me weep for my dead! – they are not like the cabbage tree that springs up again!” (according to witnesses the haka by the soldiers apparently took place on the beaches at Gallipoli….).

Seemingly unimpressed, the British Officer again appears demanding an explanation for Dansey’s disobedience, to which, to the accompaniment of the taonga puoro  Dansey refutes the charge and sings about the chiefs in Maoridom “leading their warriors into battle” – unlike in the “white man’s war” where soldiers alone are sent to slaughter! His explanation is ignored, and he is dismissed and sent back to New Zealand – sostenuto wind tones then are sounded to haunt the words  “I saved many lives”, to a ferment of instrumental affirmation!

From here the music and the scenario becomes almost transcendent, with Tahere recounting his subsequent reinstatement due to intervention by influential Maori politicians of the time, his return to Europe and his experiences in the trenches at the Somme, where he is gassed and has to be relocated to England to recover – we witness his delirium (a bull-roarer sounding what seemed like a heartbeat as he struggles to rid himself of the poison in his system) – the players blow soundlessly through their instruments to further depict the desolation – and he imagines being comforted by his mother (who is sung by Ariana Tikao), her words foretelling his recovery and his work in post war Belgium, helping people recover their lives.

The Soldier sings a duet with his mother – these exchanges have a “time standing still” feeling, as we sense when she sings to him he has since returned to his present back in New Zealand and is near death. “You will stay here beside the rippling waters of Lake Rotorua – Kua wheturangatia” – words which means “Return to the celestial realm of your ancestors”…… –  What gave this particular performance a unique turn at this point was the voice of an audience member suddenly replying with a poropororoaki (a farewell to the dead) to the singer playing Dansey and then the rest of the assembled whanau of the story’s dying man standing and singing  “Aue Ihu tirohia”, the official hymn of the 28th Maori Battalion….. and so we sing the displayed words with them…

The lights eventually do come up and we applaud, most vociferously when Gillian Whitehead comes to the stage to acknowledge our tribute – a redolently memorable glimpse into aspects of our nation’s past that continue to give crucial relevance to our somewhat tumultuous present!

 

Flinders Quartet and Michael Houstoun’s singular “Of itself and part of…” concert

Posted on by Peter Mechen

 

Wellington Chamber Music Sunday Concert –
Flinders Quartet and Michael Houstoun

BEETHOVEN – String Quartet No. 11 in F Minor Op. 95 “Serioso”  (1810)
DEBORAH CHEETHAM FRAILLON – Bungaree (for String Quartet) – 2020
DVOŘÁK – Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major Op.81 (1887)*

Flinders Quartet – Elizabeth Sellars and Wilma Smith (violins), Helen Ireland (viola),Zoe Knighton (cello) – *with Michael Houstoun (piano)

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington
Sunday, 6th July, 2025

Now here was an enterprising programme, with cosmopolitean content allied to a distinctly trans-Tasman flavour supplied by the Melbourne-based Flinders Quartet, whose second violinist today was Fijian-born ex-New Zealander Wilma Smith  – and was joined in the programme’s second half, by a Wellington audience favourite, pianist Michael Houstoun. Contributing to the “Antipodean” feeling of the occasion was the Quartet’s presentation of the New Zealand premiere of a work by Aborigine Australian composer Deborah Cheetham Fraillon, a beautifully ambient work for string quartet with the title “Bungaree”, a musical characterisation of one of the most significant “First Peoples” in early colonial Australia, and of whom there’s more later in this review.

Firstly, though, came music by the acknowledged “everyman” of composers, Ludwig van Beethoven, though here in an uncharacteristic, less-than-all-encompassing mood, with a quartet he himself described as “never to be performed in public”. This was his Op.95 F Minor Quartet which takes its nickname from the composer’s own designation of the third movement – Allegro assai vivace ma SERIOSO (my emphasis), a description that eminently suits the remainder of the work as well, such as  its intensely wrought opening. The composer’s determinedly experimental features included a fierce condensation of expositional material,, unpredictable modulations and incendiary contrasts as if fuelled as much by anxiety and fury as by any exploratory impulses.

I thought the Flinders Quartet utterly “possessed’ these same impulses from within, particularly throughout the first three movements – the players’ quick-fire dynamic and trajectorial  contrasts during the first movement were to be relished, as with both the viola’s and cello’s gorgeously lyrical playing of the second theme, and, later, the wonderful “sting” of the violins’ off-beat notes during the coda, followed by that almost unnervingly quiet ending to the music! And in the second movement I thought the themes compellingly “shaped” (a lovely, plaintive tone from the viola in particular in the fugue, for instance). It seemed the later “ornamentation” of the fugue here was more “shadowy” than I’d often heard, more, perhaps of an “intimate” quality, and suggesting further that the composer was primarily writing the music for himself. Compelling, too, were the lovely free and floating tones of the ‘cello in the introduction’s return, and with those “wrong note” cadences here sounding wistful and remote rather than self-consciously attention-grabbing.

Those same “quick-fire dynamics” helped launch the Scherzo, into which the players plunged with tremendous forward drive, and whose momentums all the more underlined the almost vertiginous “upward lurch” into the Trio, the winsome sounds having a kind of improvised, “out of the air”  quality. I did enjoy the Scherzo’s return on each occasion for the players’ heightened sense of overlapped “gambolling” and the “what now?” reappearance of the Trio, this time very much aware that its time was limited (as was the Scherzo’s itself!).

The “sighing” opening of the finale held our expectations momentarily in suspense before transforming its tentative two-note concluding phrase into quicksilver. – suddenly the trajectories galvanised with the theme urgent and agitated, the group superbly bringing together the strands for the vortex-like repetitions from whose clutches the music wrestled its way forwards and into moveable space – incredible twice-times over excitement, but all done by the players here with as much whimsy as desperation! They put a bit more “schwung” into the strong, resolution-like phrases which took the work to its softly-voiced, enigmatic, “out-of-nowhere” F-major chord releasing the music from its slough of despond, and taking us all here at breakneck speed into an ending which one commentator described as “absurdly and deliberately unrelated” to the work as a whole. I liked the programme’s reference to American composer Randall Thompson’s remark re the ending that “no bottle of champagne was ever uncorked at a better time!”

The programme’s next item would have been for many people in the audience something of an unknown quantity, as would have been its composer – Deborah Cheetham Fraillon, born in 1964, is an Aboriginal Australian soprano, composer, playwright and educator who has worked ceaselessly to help re-establish her and her people’s First Nations Australian heritage. Separated from her birth-mother when only three weeks old, she grew up with adopted parents in Sydney, discovering only later that many of her original First Nations family members were musicians – and so music became an integral way of reconnecting at what she called “a much deeper level”. She now champions the voice and visibility of indigenous musicians by means of the example of both her own pioneering work as a creator and an organiser, and of her many achievements and awards in these same performing arts, as well as her continuance as an instigator and director for the development of indigenous artists.

Cheetham wrote Bungaree in 2020, a work named after the historical figure Bungaree, a leader of the Garigal clan at Broken Bay, north of Sydney, one whose intelligence and ability to interact with the growing colony of Europeans enabled him to quickly learn English and befriend English explorer Matthew Flinders and travel with him as an intermediary with indigenous people they would meet on Flinders’ circumnavigation of the Australian continent in 1802-03. Afterwards Bungaree became a familiar figure for colonists in the Sydney/Port Jackson area, together with his “principal” wife. Karoo (also known as Cora Gooseberry). He was patronised by the Governor, Lachlan Macquarie and granted an allotment of land at George’s Head, achieving a kind of celebrity status as “Chief of the Broken Bay Tribe, though his importance was arguably seen through colonial eyes as “quaint” rather than significant for his people and their cultural heritage. He died in 1830.

I was fascinated, while exploring the resources I needed to build up a “picture” of this singular personality, to encounter frequent “cautionary” messages intended for indigenous people who might similarly encounter this material which “contained names, images and voices of deceased persons” – obviously a cultural “non-practice” practice, similarly alluded to in the programme note when it points out the musical depiction of Bungaree’s name is something that in itself deserves sensitivity in relation to certain people. This was here how the work began – the three lighter instruments playing long-held notes, while the ‘cello in recitative style “sounded” the name – the violins and viola then played melismatic elaborations of the held notes, elaborating on the ‘cello’s solo, all strangely and satisfyingly ritual-like to my ears! Motifs were sounded variously as pizz. and arco, continuing to frame the sonic landscape as the variations seemed to push out the boundaries. The music had a hypnotic quality of energy and timelessness, with the cello’s repeating of the “name” sparking some energies which ranged from playful to furious – in places I was reminded by the sharp-edged tremolandi figures of Sibelius’s “Lemminkainen in Tuonela” and I wondered whether these and further were suggestive of Bungaree’s and Flinders’ experiences while circumnavigating the continent.

The second movement, Kaaroo, was a depiction, we were told, of Bungaree’s wife, highlighting her “beauty and strength of character”, which the rhapsodic nature of the ensuing music lost no time in
declaiming, upon all the instruments, with the ‘cello then adding a separate voice, and the “portrait” incorporating passages of agitation suggesting movement, action, and even conflict. These were repeatedly alternated with sequences recalling the beauty and tranquility of the piece’s opening – a stunningly vibrant and feisty personality, perhaps? A brief pause brought in the final section “Navigating the Truth”, whose “totality” I confess puzzled me a little (perhaps here I’m like the concertmaster in cellist Zoe Knighton’s story, who played those famous violin solos in Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben brilliantly without ever realising they were “about” something specific!) – Cheetham  began the piece in epic-like fashion, depicting a great vista and suggesting the beginning of a journey. But though the melodic detail developed plenty of variation, and the players began to increasingly “dig into” the material towards the end I found myself wondering (perhaps like the hapless concertmaster at the end of his terrific solos) just where the music had taken us to – I was expecting some kind of obvious transformative revelation, (as suggested by the title), but  Cheetham’s “way” was perhaps too subtle for me to glean on a single hearing from this music, all of which left me with the desire to hear the work again. with more (fewer?) open-minded expectations!

I was on surer ground with the concert’s concluding item, a favourite chamber work I’d known since my student days, Antonin Dvořák’s adorable Piano Quintet, his second and more satisfying attempt at the form (he’d initially planned to revise his earlier (Op. 5) Quintet, but thought better of it, deciding to start afresh!) This new work begins beguilingly with a cello theme accompanied by the piano, before the other instruments burst into the picture, the players relishing the contrasts between the music’s lyrical and energetic sequences. I loved the “openness” of Dvořák’s textures, even in the most heavily-scored places, and the enchantment of exchange  in those passages where, firstly, the first violin replies so tenderly to the piano’s reiteration of the opening, and then when the first movement’s “second” theme (introduced beautifully by the viola) undergoes all kinds of changes before the instruments gather in the trajectories as the piano plays haunting diminished-note flourishes which bring in the development – Dvořák is so gorgeously exploratory, throughout, and  the sense these players give of journeying with us through these fascinating sound-vistas is palpable, right to the movement’s end!

The slow movement’s opening is so very Bartok-like for any ex-piano student (on hearing that melody I could practically “see” the title page of my “For Children” Bartok piano-book all over again!) – and here, adding to the nostalgia of remembrance was the beauty of the viola’s “reply” to the piano’s plaintive opening phrase. The players moved the music to a happier place, with ingratiating pizzicato trajectories from the violins, the ‘cello then taking a richly-toned turn at solo before the music jumped suddenly into activity with a vigorous jig-like tune! – one that, when we’d all breathlessly welcomed the melancholic three-note theme back, we realised it was actually the same tune, but on “speed” or something similarly enlivening! For Dvorak this is, conversely, something of a Brucknerian movement in terms of its scale, with the players here beautifully sustaining its mood and variety of energies and utterances.

Then came one of those Dvorak movements – a scherzo – that can’t help but delight with every hearing! – after the strings and then the piano trip the light fantastic opening, the ‘cello gets the brief but gorgeous second tune, before the opening returns, the piano so effervescent with those wonderful “top of the keyboard” notes that I always listen out for. Each of the violins has alternated turns at the winsome second theme – BUT WHAT A GORGEOUS TRIO! – solemn and chordal but gently rhapsodic in a heart-rending way, before the scherzo dances back in and whirls us all about to its conclusion.

The finale’s ”get ready “ introduction primed us up for more fun – though I’ve a soft spot for the “rustic jollity” approach, I’ve always enjoyed the “brilliant and breathless”, with exhilaration and energy rather than bucolic charm on the menu. I must admit the mid-movement fugato is very exciting at this speed – a kind of “hang on tight” approach that works really well – afterwards the players saved their great crowning gesture of effusive homecoming for the coda proper with the strings and piano then enjoying the concluding rush of energised celebration. We in the audience took our cue from this and joined in at the end with like acclaim!

Superbly-wrought varieties from The Chamber Pot-Pourri Ensemble at the Long Hall

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Comfy Concert No. 4,  from The Chamber Pot-Pourri Ensemble

FRANZ SCHUBERT – Allegro for String Trio in B-flat Major (1816)
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH – String Quartet No.10 (1964) – dedicated to Moshe Weinberg
Elegy from “Lady Macbeth of Mtensk”
Polka from “The Golden Age” Ballet
FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN – String Quartet in D Major, Op.76 No. 5 (1797/8)

Helene Pohl and Anna van der Zee (violins), Nicholas Hancox (viola), Rolf Gjelsten (‘cello)

The Long Hall, Roseneath, Wellington
Saturday, June 2nd 2025

This was the fourth concert in the series of Helene Pohl’s and Rolf Gjelsten’s inspirational “Comfy Concert” presentations at Roseneath’s eponymously-named “The Long Hall”, a venue whose “comfy” aspect per se might be regarded by some as an imagination-stretch, but whose musical rewards have been unanimously acclaimed by attendees I’ve spoken to on each of the occasions so far. Central to the undertaking have been performances by Helene’s and Rolf’s variously-constituted “Chamber Pot-Pourri Ensemble” of a number of Dmitri Shostakovich’s string quartets, as a way of  commemorating the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death. However, the fare we’ve enjoyed has intriguingly involved additional concert items, all enhancing our appreciation of the Shostakovich works through fascinatingly different viewpoint perspectives.

Certainly this concert’s entertaining varieties possessed more to them than met the ear – at the time we were highly diverted by the “quantum leaping” between realms which at first seemed chalk-and-cheese, as with the plunge from the beautiful pliabilities of Schubert’s adorable String Trio Allegro into a world of ever-present unease embodied by Shostakovich’s music in general and in particular his string quartet-writing, then tangentially to Haydn’s domain of “invention, fire, good taste and new effects” circa 1798 – and with a delightful “extra” at journey’s end in the form of a 20th century return to Shostakovich at his most sardonically playful, the famous “Polka” from the ballet “The Golden Age”.

Even more diverting was the idea that the concert might have included an item from the First Smile Gamelan ensemble, whose instruments are housed at The Long Hall, and whose gong had on earlier occasions been ceremonially resounded as a kind of taslismanic beginning to these concerts – alas, indisposition of personnel put paid to such an appearance, depriving us of further colourful variance!

Still we were able to bear our loss thanks to the riches whose rewards were securely sounded – and despite the differences mooted above one could easily equate certain through-lines connecting the pieces by taking larger views of the juxtaposings – Schubert, for example, was no stranger himself to unease of a different but still existence-threatening kind, even if his music could cheerfully and stoically step outside his very real fears (as Shostakovich also did on occasions, such as here with his outrageously irreverent “Polka”). And Haydn’s ambitious treatment of form and substance in his Op.76 No.5 work resulted in the music acquiring the name Friedhofsquartett (Graveyard-Quartet) on account of the slow movement’s extended length and remote F♯ major key, characteristics that align the work with much of Shostakovich’s string quartet output.

With these thoughts in mind my memories of this concert resonate all the more – Helene Pohl began proceedings by warmly welcoming us to the Hall and drawing our attentions to the programme note concerning the music-teaching organisation Arohanui Strings, of which she herself is Patron, referring to the inspirational work done by affiiliated music tutors in many parts of the Wellington region with youthful musicians, and to the support which concerts like these can give via people’s donations to such a cause.

Then came the music, beginning with Schubert’s Allegro for String Trio (violin, viola and ‘cello), a work that broke into song immediately, while ensuring sufficient strong and definite statements around which the melodies could be adorably placed. Here the dialogue (or, “trialogue”) between the instruments was so ear-catchingly “give-and-take” it gave one an almost-naughtily enjoyed frisson of well-being, a pleasure in sound akin to relishing a portrait or landscape whose structures and hues have a kind of mutually-assured compatibility of a striking and memorable kind. With the development section we were straightaway drawn into what seemed like new page of upwardly-modulated wonderment, with the previously-voiced themes being given different aspects to explore –  the playing flowed seamlessly into the recapitulation, an absorbing same-but-different journey homewards, a lovely “did we dream you or did you us?” kind of experience.

Violinist Anna van der Zee then joined the group for the Shostakovich Quartet No.10, a work introduced by Rolf Gjelsten, whose words “music that’s never truly comfortable” seemed aptly to characterise the whole of the composer’s output – certainly all that I’ve heard, anyway. He described the Tenth Quartet as something of an enigma, music by someone “who has been through darkness and tragedy”. Part of the work’s enigmas is the violently aggressive second movement, Allegretto furioso which gave rise to a quote repeated by Rolf (and whose source I’ve not been able to find) that the movement, for instance, contains “not a single human note in the music”. After this there’s an elegy in Passacaglia form consisting of eight variations, and to finish, a fourth movement Allegretto whose dance-like manner variously revisits parts of the work then returns us to the notes with which the quartet commenced.

Beginning with a kind of bugle call, part quirky dance, the first violin opened the work, the three other instruments commenting nonchalantly on the tune, which returned on the violin as the others continued their responses. These included a more resonant ‘cello melody and an eerie sul ponticello viola passage presaging the return of the bugle tune with pizzicato and gently-retiring arco support, all ambiently and pin-pointedly placed.

Any such vestige of tranquility or delicacy was then exploded in the violence of the Allegretto furioso’s attack, the violin playing an aggressive theme punctuated by stinging chords from the others. The onslaught then continued as it began, with the players often pairing for a double-edged effect – such as  violins grotesquely repeating the opening together, then screaming with anguish against tremolandi from cello and viola, before taking up stinging mirror-phrases against those of the cello and viola, the latter groaning heavily against the two violins’ shrieking repeated-note patterns – and so on, until a brutal concerted repeated-note unison lambasted its way to a relentlessly hammered out ending! We sat there, gobsmacked!

The Adagio began its Passacaglia – eight variations, promising at least some visceral if not emotional relief, judging from the passionately-played opening – apart from a brief major key flirtation with a first violin phrase the mood remained sombre and dark-browed throughout, until the viola began the first few measures of the Allegretto finale – a dance which grew out of the last variation’s sustained tones and with which the second violin joined. The momentums were by turns wafted and coloured by drone-like notes, then jogged along more gratefully by various pizzicato accompaniments, the players gradually turning up the tensions as the forward moment became more restless and volatile!
We found ourselves “leaning into” the trajectories more and more with the players as the violins emphasised their running rhythms and the violist and cellist punctuated the textures with sforzandi, the music splendidly threading these elements together – gradually it all fell back until we registered to our surprise that the first violin’s reiterations of the jogtrot rhythm had become mere fragments, leaving only the music’s remnants and then silence.

The interval gave us sufficient time to readjust to the here-and-now, and for more Shostakovich! This was a precious remnant of the composer’s infamous opera “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District”, the work which had sparked a serious falling-out for Shostakovich with Josef Stalin, who found the work not at all to his taste (the Soviet newspaper Pravda published a review of the opera, allegedly written by Stalin at the time, called “Muddle instead of Music” – it was later proved to be the work of  a “ghost writer”) but at the time Shostakovich found himself a near-outcast of the establishment, with all the attendant fears one associated with being “out of favour with the Great Leader”). It took, of course, the writing of the composer’s Fifth Symphony to win back the Leader’s approval!

Wellington audiences will have the opportunity to experience at first hand some more of the actual “Muddle” in question (though, alas, not the whole work!) when Orchestra Wellington performs excerpts from the Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District opera as part of the orchestra’s concert series in October of this year! For now, we had to be content with a transcription (by the composer)  for String Quartet of the “Elegy” from the opera – an arrangement of the heroine Katarina’s aria from Act One, Scene Three of the opera, in which she is lamenting the boredom and oppression of an unhappy marriage.

The aria’s melody is taken up by the first violin – sad, desolate, bitter-sweet, almost lullabic in places, but with an agitated middle section. A more elegiac sequence after the music’s climax is faintly reminiscent of parts of Schoenberg’s “Verklarte Nacht” – there’s a kind of cadenza for the viola before the violin recommences the melody, the music rising through the strings before a final kind of “Amen”.

The concert’s bounteousness wasn’t yet exhausted – no less than a delectable Haydn String Quartet awaited our attention, a counterweight of sorts (or so I imagined would be the case), to the gravities exerted earlier by the Shostakovich Quartet. One of Josef Haydn’s Op.76 Quartets, it was No, 5 of the set, thus one of the last such works the composer completed. Its key is D Major and there are four movements, the first being somewhat unusually in variation form. The 6/8 opening movement began brightly and breezily, the composer beginning simply and then elaborating detail within each of the variations in ear-catching ways. The second variation, begun by the cello at the same tempi as the opening, suddenly gathered its garments and broke into a mad galloping sequence, returning at the behest of the viola who was then able to “lead off” another round at a sensible tempi, but had to put up with individual instruments “making a dash for it” every now and then! Most diverting of all was the final variation, played attacca, in which everybody simply put their ears back and went for it, up hill and down dale! Very satisfying!

The slow movement, Largo, Cantabile e mesto, was rich and strange merely in terms of its somewhat contradictory markings – “lyrical and melancholy” which reflected something of the music’s capacity  to generate both contentment and sobriety or pensiveness, and accounting, of course, for its aforementioned nickname in some countries. Without recourse to any kind of tragedy or profound sadness the music demonstrated a capacity for affectiveness regarding a more-than-usual range of poignant sensibility.

Haydn then gave us a sprightly, eager, and even thrusting kind of Minuet (but not too much so, as per the marking!), one with lovely off-beat downward trajectories in places, and with a Trio that again expresses a greater emotional range of expression that one might normally expect – all beautifully realised, here with the players alive to those mood-variants and making them “tell”. The finale is one of those that “begins with an ending!” – those two opening notes would make a most exciting conclusion to any piece! in fact, come to think of it, the whole Quartet could seem in some moods as if it was composed in reverse! This was in effect the most enchanting game of chase, and was thrown off with incredible skill by the players, to the considerable enjoyment of all of us present.

And, of course, one mustn’t forget the afternoon’s “star turn” as regards pure entertainment! This was another Shostakovich arrangement for string quartet, one which even more resoundingly, I thought, proclaimed the composer’s genius as a writer for strings. Normally one hears the world-famous “Polka” from the Ballet “The Golden Age” with all its orchestral accoutrements, including a colourful range of percussion, without which the work might seem somewhat plain and lacking in essential surface impact. Here? Not a bit of it! Despite having played the original countless times as a “party piece” recording for guests (one which never fails to extract visible signs of pleasure) I got as much enjoyment and delight and titillation from the efforts of the four quartet players and the sounds they produced from their instruments as I’ve ever done – I was expecting to be entertained, but was left literally and truly beside myself with almost unspeakable pleasure!

 

Wellington City Orchestra – a Matariki celebration of nature, legend and art

Posted on by Peter Mechen

JENNY McLEOD – Three Celebrations for Orchestra (1986)
ANTONIN DVORAK – The Noonday Witch B.196
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN – Triple Concerto for Violin, ‘Cello and Piano Op.56

The Ghost Trio – Monique Lapins (violin), Ken Ichinose (‘cello) Gabriella Glapska (piano)
Hamish McKeich (conductor)
Wellington City Orchestra (concertmaster, Paula Carryer)

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Te Aro, Wellington

Sunday, 22nd June 2025

Why have I never before encountered Jenny McLeod’s cheekily iconic “Three Celebrations for Orchestra”? – particularly as the pieces are each so heartwarmingly “grounded” in atmospheres that readily recall my own childhood memories, of forests, beaches and rural celebrations that proclaim a uniqueness of experience with tradition that’s in danger of disappearing as life here becomes increasingly “global”. I thought also that it’s music that “connects” with other examples of composers’ depictions of environments and activities worldwide – the opening “Journey through Mountain Parklands” for me strongly echoed parts of Finnish composer Jan Sibelius’s “Legends”, as well as similar landscape evocations from American composer Aaron Copland – and the final ”A&P Show” was startlingly redolent in places of the latter’s ballet “Rodeo”.

As a sometimes-conductor of the Wellington contemporary music ensemble Stroma, today’s conductor Hamish McKeich was able to draw from his performing experience to recall for us Jenny McLeod’s earlier compositions as being “rather different” in style and flavour to what we were about to hear from this, a later period of her work. By then she had turned away from the avant-garde and towards more “populist” styles, declaring at one point that “both writing and performing music should definitely be enjoyable!” – a disarming attitude that has earned her compositions increasingly diverse interest and respect from audiences.

Here, we revelled in the epic, voyaging opening of the “Mountain Parklands” journey, the trajectories straightaway moving the ground beneath our feet as the textures pushed out the vistas and spectacularly opened up the scenarios – exhilarating! Those Copland-like impulses further detailed our responses, the saxophone bringing to the ambiences shimmerings of romantic allure and the piccolo chirruping its delightful birdsong, before the Sibelius-like brasses brought a renewal of the adventurous nature of our journeying, accompanied by “music blasting away on the car stereo” – (the composer’s own down-to-earth comment on the proceedings at that point!). It all made for something terribly nostalgic for me – at times I was flashbacking to those family holidays in the car again, following railway lines, traversing hills, crossing bridges and catching sight of those, my own, mountains of memory……..

Next we found ourselves “At the Bay”, the cor anglais setting a different scene, with mellow winds dancing a slow waltz with a ‘cello – such lovely wind decorations and with the horns adding beautiful colours. Strings and percussion and then horns poured out the emotion, the mood enlivening gradually and spreading though the orchestra – the brass seemed to be enjoying themselves hugely, while the percussionists kept things rolling. As the mood quietens a slow dance ensued, coloured by wood-block-like beats – everything had a relaxed “by the sea” feel, with the winds encouraging a solo cello then joining in themselves with counter-themes and decorations. it all built up to a burst of emotion from strings, brass and percussion, and then, like memory sometimes does, slipped almost mischievously back into hiding with piano-and bassoon-notes, a sliver of percussion and wind, all as elusive as a dream….

To finish, how wonderful to have an A&P Show here documented! – I loved them so much! Like one’s own pent-up youthful excitements, the music was full-on, right from the start – a big, striding theme,  buoyed by strutting brass and a sinuous saxophone (the latter, incidentally, played superbly throughout by Tessa Frazer, whose name unfortunately wasn’t listed in my programme’s orchestra personnel lineup!). The winds played a kind of chirpy cakewalk, and we caught the sounds of a distant hoe-down, but here, mixing in with cameo-like episodes of different side-shows, we had a kaleidoscopic experience of images as well as sounds, everything very “outdoor” and mixing fairground excitements with more pastoral ambiences. But, like the real thing, it was all over too soon, as a percussion flourish steered us excitingly into and through that world of fantastic entertainment, everything working like a well-drilled whole – ha! – another hoedown! –  taking our sensibilities for a final ride with a wind-and-orchestra gesture of all-too-familiar satisfaction and regret!

Having had our own national identities reaffirmed we were then transported to the diametrically opposite realms  of Central Europe, and to a world of folkloric atmosphere marked largely by unease, superstition and brutality  – Antonin Dvořák spent the last few years of his compositional life returning his attentions almost exclusively to the folklore of his native Bohemia, writing orchestral music inspired by verses from the nationalistic poet Karel Jaromir, who had published a collection called Kytice (Bouquet), one of which was Polednice (The Noon Witch). a tale which, if not exactly bloodthirsty in a visceral sense was still blood-curdling!

Though all of Dvořák’s orchestral music has a readily recognisably Bohemian character, he hadn’t before fully exploited a penchant for descriptive orchestral writing in the manner of his fellow Czech composer Bedrich Smetana with his out-and-out nationalistic work Ma Vlast  (“My Country”) – it was only after Dvořák had completed his From the New World Ninth Symphony that he turned to the musical form of the “tone poem” that had been introduced by Franz Liszt and then ceaselessly pilloried by conservative critics such as the notorious Eduard Hanslick, who, up until this time had praised Dvořák’s “pure, absolute music” compositions.

In fact Polednice (“The Noon Witch”) is a masterpiece of musical description! – it’s basically, a “cautionary tale” of a mother whose child is so badly behaves she threatens him with the spectre of a witch who traditionally appears during the hour before midday to steal naughty children away. Inevitably, the Polednice DOES appear, and a battle ensues between the mother and the witch over the child, which ceases when the midday bell sounds and the witch disappears. But when the father returns home he finds his child lifeless, smothered in the arms of his unconscious wife.

The orchestral winds opened the story in deceptively charming folk-tale style, with firstly the clarinet and then the oboe depicting the naughty child and his toy cockerel. The mother’s anger burst forth from the strings, agitating in fine style, the whole orchestra then plunging into a splendidly vivid evocation of what the Polednice would do to the boy if she came to claim him! Seemingly undeterred the child sounded his toy cockerel again and the mother reiterated her anger and frustration at his naughtiness, further describing what sounded like a veritable “witch’s ride” in the orchestra.

Suddenly an ominous note on the lower brass introduced a sinister passage as the witch DID enter! – the splendid lower brass playing sounded uncannily like the dragon, Fafner, in Wagner’s “Siegfried” emerging from his cave! A kind of “fate” motif was ominously sounded by the orchestra as the witch advanced on the mother and child, the strains repeated by the clarinet and strings, and further hurled out by the brasses. We held onto ourselves or to each other as the witch came closer, orchestral momentums scarily depicting the mother’s struggles to keep hold of her child – until the noon-bell sounded and the spectral figure vanished.

In the wake of all of this, how carefree the homecoming father’s music sounded at first! And how uneasily the oboe and clarinet put the questions in his mind as to why his house seemed so silent! A brief moment of relieved recognition was followed by the unfortunate man’s rapidly escalating anxiety at finding his wife unconscious and then his ultimate horror to discover his child was dead! The orchestra’s whiplash-like concluding chords were here merciless, brooking no help or pity!

The interval provided extra entertainment for those who chose merely to stay put/or to stand and stretch their legs in front of their seats, enabling a life-enhancing view of various orchestral members and “behind-the-scenes” helpers “moving” the piano from its place up on the next platform down to a central front position for the Beethoven Concerto which was to follow – an operation performed with the utmost aplomb on the part of all concerned.

Something of the concert’s opening “holiday” mood had returned, now that the strictures of the Dvorak piece had passed, with the arrival on the platform of the soloists for Beethoven’s adorable “Triple” Concerto (violin, ‘cello and piano) one of the composer’s happiest creations! Though not ideally spacious as a performing venue (underlined by the extra space required for the three soloists!) the church’s layout ensured an extra “intimacy” of music-making, an almost “cheek-by-jowl” performer/audience situation, which gave the experience a uniquely treasurable flavour for the memory to lock away!

The first two movements gave me, quite simply, undiluted pleasure! Hamish McKeich’s direction brought forth an exciting and ear-catching range of dynamics at the beginning, getting the lower strings to “murmur” the opening phrase as if all the players were awakening the music from a dream, sounding the brief crescendo just before the top of the phrase, falling back to a whisper, and then springing the sounds forth with a start at the “rise and shine” call of the horns! All was then galvanic action, as the music snowballed into the first tutti, the energies joyous, the interplay delightful! As for the soloists, Ken Ichinose’s cello and Monique Lapins’ violin by turns sang their opening lines as irresistible invitations to “come and play”, to which pianist Gabriela Glapska responded in kind with gleeful eagerness, the three dovetailing their parts winningly in their concerted passages.

In response, the second orchestral tutti, though brief, was all whole-hearted agreement, as well as introducing a new theme, on which the soloists pounced with glee, Ichinose’s cello (as per usual in this work) leading the way, Lapins’s violin following with a winning  “anything you can play I can play higher!” kind of aspect, and Glapska’s piano retorting with a “Well, I’m going to play something else – follow me if you dare!” kind of spirit! It was such a celebration of teamwork, both in the accepted “trio” sense and in the interplay of the soloists with the orchestra. I loved, too, the ebb and flow of the work’s intensities, how the lines and figurations could express something so simply and beautifully, and yet within a few seconds be pushing the musicians’ fingers into and through intensely-wrought variants of the same and emerge still in tandem at the end!

The slow movement brought lovely “covered” tones from the orchestral strings at the outset, and playing to “die for” from the soloists – firstly Ichinose’s particularly radiant lines throughout his extended opening solo, and properly concomitant responses from firstly Glapska and then Lapins, in duet with Ichinose. The movement’s a remarkably short one, and part of its time is spent “shaping up” towards the finale, which, here was taken at what could be described as a “good lick” – I even wrote down the phrase, “a “devil-may-care” tempo”, at the time! This was followed by another phrase, hastily scribbled – “Wow! – they (the soloists) are flying along in those running passages! – Very exciting!” Which was true in places, though being “The Ghost Trio” they were always in remarkable, and often enchanting accord, as with the “whose turn is it?” passages where they toss pairs of notes between each other in what seem like delightfully random “first to pick up” fashion!

The orchestra played along suitably in the exchanges as well, but at times I felt Hamish McKeich and the band would noticeably move the finale’s various tutti along, rather than pick up the soloists’ way with those delicious polacca rhythms – Ichinose, Lapins and Glapska gave the movement plenty of delicious “schwung” in their solos and ensembles (and which Beethoven actually seems to indicate for the orchestra as well by including a grace-note “kick” in their descending figure that leads to the minor-key beginning of the Polacca section). It’s a small point, but I always enjoy, as here, soloists in this work who give those trajectories in the finale something of a playful character which the orchestra can respond to in kind. But hey! – far more important was all of the acclaim, such happiness and such bubbling excitement both throughout and at the concert’s end (I sat next to two people I didn’t know at all, and soon found myself chatting enthusiastically with them about the music and the playing in between each of the items!) – it was that sort of occasion, and one that the orchestra and its members and organisers and friends should definitely consider a great and resounding success!

 

 

 

Atmospheric production, ingratiating voices, gentle updating – NZ Opera’s “La Boheme” in Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Elena Perroni as Mimi and Ji-Min  Park as Rodolfo
Photographer; Andi Crown

Giacomo PUCCINI – La Boheme (Opera in Four Acts)
Libretto by Luigi Ilica and Giuseppe Giacosa

Cast:  Ji-Min Park (Rodolfo)
Elena Perroni (Mimi)
Samuel Dundas (Marcello)
Emma Pearson (Musetta)
Benson Wilson (Schaunard)
Hadleigh Adams (Colline)
Robert Tucker (Benoit/Alcindoro)
Chris McRae (Parpignol)
Joseph Haddow (Sergeant)

The Freemasons Foundation NZ Opera Chorus
Te Whanganui-a-Tara Children’s Voices
Chorus Director: Michael Vinten
Orchestra Wellington
Conductor: Dionysis Grammenos

Director: Bruno Ravella
Set Designer: Tiziano Santi
Costume Designer: Gabrielle Dalton
Lighting Designer Paul Jackson

St.James Theatre, Wellington

Wednesday, June 18th, 2025

I was interested to read in the splendid programme provided by New Zealand Opera for this production of “La Boheme” the director’s notes, headed by a paragraph in which appeared the statement containing the words “making La Boheme anew”. Having been by turns intrigued, delighted and dispirited over my years of going to opera by different directorial decision-making regarding production outcomes, I wondered to what extent the director here, Bruno Ravella, was planning to “refresh” the work’s familiar scenarios, characterisations and outcomes to a point where “La Boheme” might no longer be recognisable as such!  I needn’t have worried, as it turned out – though the setting here was designed to reflect an immediately post-World War Two ambience, the story remained in Paris, and the opera’s essential theme – the fragility of youthful relationships – emerged via the cast’s interactions with their director as whole-heartedly and with as much sweetness, volatility and vulnerability as it ever has.

Act One opened depicting the garret in which four young artists lived, the set conveying as much bohemian ambience as one would expect, its dimensions framed by huge canvasses and an enormous skylight – I did think some of the furniture set back too far (the  stove, for example) on a voluminous stage, distancing us at first from the various characters as they made their gradual appearances and revealed their personalities. Ji-Min Park’s Rodolfo and Samuel Dundas’s Marcello made an engaging pair, playing off one another throughout interactions such as their burning of the “drama” in the stove, all the while their vocal tones “colouring in” for us their sympathies and differences. They were ably complemented by Hadleigh Adams’ Colline and Benson Wilson’s Schaunard, and with each of the four voices benefitting from movement towards the front-of-stage,  particularly with the “landlord-asks-for-rent” episode, and a hilariously pathetic characterisation of the unfortunate Benoit, here, by Robert Tucker. Though Wilson’s Schaunard and Adams’ Colline didn’t project the full amplitudes of their fellow Bohemians, their ensemble during the landlord’s gulling and eventual ejection by the resourceful tenants had all the energy and humour required.

The entrance of Mimi (Elena Perroni) completely altered the ambient trajectories of the story – which took place after the Bohemians apart from Rodolfo had gone out to celebrate Christmas Eve with the ill-gotten gains of the rent money, while Rodolfo, with an article to finish for his newspaper, had stayed behind. A knock at the door, and a neighbour, a beautiful, pale-faced young girl dressed in blue appeared, asking Rodolfo for a light for her candle. Perroni’s voice was at first tremulous and faint, but upon finding she had somehow dropped her key and anxiously coming forwards, the tones suddenly blossomed and filled the spaces, as it did gloriously in her aria “Mi Chiamano Mimi” (though appreciative applause greeted Park’s earlier “Che gelida manina” the offstage banter of the Bohemians with their ”hurry up” calls broke into the spell created by Perroni’s equally ardent efforts and gave the audience no time to respond!). But an atmospheric touch was the appearance of the snowflakes descending from the dark all around the departing lovers at the act’s end.

The Momus’s Café scene opened with its traditionally swinging gusto, the crowd-choruses placed well forward and voices projecting strongly, though seemingly light on numbers,  This was in part made up for by designer Gabrielle Dalton’s eye for “period” among the crowd’s general dress-code, from which Chris MacRae’s Parpignol and his followers, the children, were differentiated with “threads and patches” – the truly amazing voices and characterisations of the Wellington Children’s Chorus members delighted with their energies and vocal clarities! Amid the merriment Marcello’s quick anger at the sound of his ex-girlfriend Musetta’s voice was tellingly conveyed, even if I didn’t think the surtitles needed to be vulgarised as much as they were in places by way of indelicate comments regarding Musetta’s moral character – this was supposedly 1947 and not 1974!

Emma Pearson as Musetta
Photographer: Andi Crown

I thought Park’s and Dundas’s voices came increasingly into focus here, Park’s tenor gradually clearing its slightly splintered first-act tones, and ringing out more truly to my ears, as did Dundas’s Marcello similarly gain in authority in response to his flighty sweetheart Musetta’s appearance. Emma Pearson’s Musetta was a show-stealer, ably reinforced by her manner, her eye-catching crimsonly-drenched costume and the pathetically-wrought attentions of her “sugar daddy” Alcindoro (Robert Tucker again, after a quick change from the hapless landlord’s attire!). From the moment of her entrance onwards, it was her “scene”, her voice by turns playfully “kittenish” and redolent with longing. Her deportment on the lowered swing became the centre of everyone’s attention, as were her antics with the shoe to break her former lover Marcello’s resistance, and win back his affections. And with an almost Mahlerian touch – the arrival of a military band on stage, playing with superb swagger and ceremony – the act marched to its picturesque end!

The most intense of the Opera’s four acts is the third, set in the dead of winter, in bleak surroundings and with a mere handful of participants, underlining the desolation of the scene and its bitter-sweet human tragedy. Cameo appearances by a guard-soldier checking people’s papers reinforced the sense of winter’s oppression, as the opera’s four principal characters met variously, conveyed their purpose and then withdrew to “winter out” the cold. Marcello and Musetta spent the time quarrelling, as Mimi and Rodolfo heartbreakingly decided they could no longer live together and would go their different ways, but not until spring’s arrival. We relished every moment of Musetta’s flirtatious behaviour and Marcello’s jealousy, while feeling both Rodolfo’s and Mimi’s initial despair at the latter’s failing health and eventual acceptance of their destinies, a scenario of contrasts beautifully judged by the composer and characterised here most ambiently by the singers and players. In particular, Ji-Min Park’s Rodolfo and Elena Perroni’s Mimi together gave us phrases and tones in places such as “Vuoi che aspettiam, la primavera ancor?” (Shall we wait until spring comes again). that in the opera’s time-honoured ways touched our hearts.

The finale returned us to Act One’s bohemian garrett, with what seemed almost like déjà vu – Rodolfo and Marcello both at work, but thinking and singing about their respective loves in absentia. A “here before” feeling was heightened when the other two Bohemians arrived, again provoking horseplay and high spirits, until Musetta’s sudden arrival with an obviously ailing Mimi put everybody into  earnest, if quietly-despairing emergency mode, leaving Rodolfo and Mimi alone together reminiscing about their past life and voicing dreams of possible continuance. The friends returned with touching accoutrements, including a muff for Mimi’s hands – but all too late! Without the music the scenario would have seemed unbearably contrived and sentimental, but Puccini’s music worked its usual magic and brought the usual oceanic breakers of emotion to the moment of the hapless heroine’s passing and the resulting consternation of those all around her.

Over three of the four acts I couldn’t fault the settings and their ambiences – a tribute to the visionary deportments of structure and detail on the part of designer Tiziano Santi, and in close conjunction with the lighting skills of Paul Jackson.  Act Two started and finished resplendently, though I missed the sheer unbuttoned festivity remembered from other production’s crowds in the opening coming-and-going scenes – and towards the end the bastions of Café Momus for me didn’t quite lift from the ground with the impact of Musetta’s Waltz song’s climax as I’ve previously experienced; still, those superb young chorus voices and the military band provided enough complementary swagger to give the scene its own distinction. I came away from the production, however, with the sounds of those voices of the opera’s four principals in Act Three stuck in my memory, superbly conjured up by conductor Dionysis Grammenos and his Wellington Orchestra players, everything passionately emoting through the contrasting bleakness – the music forging with the city’s wintry desolation an unforgettably poignant partnership.