Author: Peter Mechen

At last! Chamber Music Hutt Valley’s 2020 Season!

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Georgian England: Country Fiddle to Court – Music by John Playford, Joseph Gibbs, and Georg Frideric Handel

PLAYFORD – “Paul’s Steeple” and “La Folia” (from “The Division Violin”)
GIBBS – Sonatas for Violin and Continuo Nos. 4, 5, 6, and 8
HANDEL – Sonatas for Violin and Continuo HWV 361, 364a and 371

Lara Hall (baroque violin)
Rachael Griffiths-Hughes (harpsichord – instrument courtesy of Douglas Mews)

St.Mark’s Church, Woburn Road, Lower Hutt

Friday 28th August 2020

If ever an organisation merited a special award for stickability in the face of troubles, it would, in my book, be Chamber Music Hutt Valley – after facing dissolution at the end of 2019 through difficulties in finding enough people “on the ground” to assist with running the concerts the Society overcame that problem only to find its well-crafted 2020 programme severely disrupted by Covid-19! The response was a reorganisation of the season which resulted in the year’s first two concerts having to be cancelled and a substitute found for the final concert’s would-be performers, prevented from visiting the country by the pandemic! Somewhat bloodied, but still unbowed, the Society made the changes and finally opened the doors for its first 2020 concert on Friday 28th August, one which appropriately marked the occasion with distinction as regards both the artists and their presentation – violinist Lara Hall and harpsichordist Rachael Griffiths-Hughes brought to us a delightful programme of music from Georgian England.

Until relatively recently the Georgian era of music and music-making in England was popularly thought to have been dominated by non-English composers such as Handel, Corelli, Geminiani and Veracini, a historical perception that in its way underpinned the development of the idea (particularly opinioned in nineteenth-century Germany) that England had indeed become “Das Land ohne Musik”. But harpsichordist Rachel Griffiths-Hughes in her excellent notes for the programme accompanying this concert, pointed to a more recent resurgence of interest in the contributions made to Georgian musical life by English composers hitherto neglected, prominently figuring one Joseph Gibbs (1698-1788) in these explorations.

Born in Dedham, Colchester, Gibbs was the son of a musician, John Gibbs, who played in a shawm band called Colchester Waits. The son became an organist, firstly at Dedham St.Mary’s Church, in 1744 and then, more prestigiously, at St. Mary le Tower, in Ipswich, a post he remained in until his death – he was obviously an all-round musician, being (a) in considerable demand as a performer in Ipswich’s musical life and (b) producing collections of both violin sonatas and string quartets, though unfortunately only a few pieces of his organ music seem to have survived time’s ravages. His fame did spread beyond these regional confines with the publication of the sonatas, subscribed to by composers William Boyce and Maurice Greene, to name but two contemporary sources of interest in his work. The Sonatas have more recently been praised by various commentators as representative of the finest work of that era by an English composer, and they have actually been recorded – by both the Locatelli Trio on Hyperion (CDA 66583, unfortunately deleted!) and Eboracum Baroque (on a hard-to-find “Sounds of Suffolk” issue!) – frustration, I fear, awaits the enthusiastic collector!

All the more reason to welcome the advocacy of Lara Hall and  Rachael Griffiths-Hughes, whose playing brought the music and its composer to life with considerable elan and winning sensitivity. One of the articles  I read in an on-line interview with a violinist who had played these sonatas mentioned Gibbs’ extraordinary “eye to the future” in the music’s portrayal of “realistic characters and raw emotions”, going on to further comment that while Gibbs, compared with Handel and Geminiani “perhaps lacks (their) innate understanding of the violin and the finesse of their compositional idioms”……one has the sense that he (Gibbs) “….understood the drama of performance”. He went on to comment that the brilliance of the writing seemed often to demonstrate an eagerness to explore as many performance and music-character ideas in the shortest possible time!

The programme featured four of Gibbs’ Sonatas, along with two by Handel, and two sets of Variations  by John Playford (1623-1686), from a collection called “The Division Violin” – Playford took popular tunes of his day and wrote elaborate-sounding sets of variations on each of them. In the midst of all of this rather more consciously-contrived “display”, Handel’s music from two of his Violin Sonatas actually sounded somewhat more conventional to the ear, given that it was characterised by the strength, nobility and lyrical feeling we have come to expect from this composer. Next to the music of his great contemporary, however, Gibbs’ work held its ground by dint of the playing’s focused engagement with the music, the conveyance of something special and characterful. Rachael Griffiths-Hughes’s helpful introductions to each piece gave us something to listen out for, encouraging us to pick up on certain things the music was doing, the rest being up to us!

First up was John Playford’s Variations on the tune “Paul’s Steeple” a song which appeared in the wake of St.Paul’s Cathedral being struck by lightning and catching fire. In the manner of all good ballads the tune began in sombre fashion, then surrendered itself to all kinds of variant treatments, angular, mischievous, melancholic and ceremonial –  Lara Hall’s fleet-fingered playing brought out a kind of narrative folksiness, the sounds vividly conveying an actual story.
Then, the first of Joseph Gibbs’ Sonatas on the programme (No.VI in F major)  continued in this same almost “pictorial” vein, a sprightly swinging dotted-rhythm introducing the piece, Hall teasing out the voicings of the line, and suggesting a certain “restlessness” about the music. A busy and energetic Allegro ended in an almost stately manner, succeeded by a Largo e piano which spoke of solitude and loss, beautifully “emoted” by Hall’s discreet touches of vibrato, and a lovely accord between the instruments, before we were suitably “sprung” by the energetic concluding Gavotta.

Handel’s appearance in the programme brought a marked majesty and serenity to the lines, a beautiful inevitability of grace and repose in the opening Andante of his A major Sonata HWV 361. The succeeding Allegro grew out of the poise and solemnity, the playing triumphantly astride the music’s energy and graceful movement. A brief Adagio brushed in a
winsome gesture of melancholy before the Allegro skipped our sensibilities away with the wind, the players catching the notes’ strength and exhilarating “fizz” of the composer’s invention. Before proceeding with the next work, Gibbs’ Sonata V in F major, Hall alerted us to the latter’s relative volatility compared to Handel’s lofty serenity, telling us to expect a caprice-like feel to the music, and some extraordinary “flights of fancy”. The opening Adagio soared from the outset, before digging in with some vigorous figuration mid-stream, and continuing with impulse-like gestures. Then, the Vivace was a fugue, no less, with plenty of virtuoso double-stopping – perhaps not every note was hit perfectly, but certainly  the fiddling conveyed a sense of the music’s forceful flow. A lovely contrast was given by the Sarabande, both instruments in serene, thoughtful accord, a brief respite before the Gigue’s life-enhancing energy burst upon us, tumbling warmth alternated with touches of rustic drollery, Gibbs’ music leading us a merry dance via Hall’s and Griffiths-Hughes’s eloquently nimble fingers!

Again, Handel’s music “lifted” our threshold of awareness, the opening music of his D Major Sonata HWV 371 somehow having a “marbled” aspect suggesting great columns of nobility and strength – and how the phrases of the Allegro which followed the opening leapt from the instruments with god-like confidence! What, then, a difference in the Larghetto! –  the first minor-key phrase seemed to take us to a well of worldly sorrow  – the lines beseeched us with a candour and then a sweetness which captivated the ear! Then, the Allegro, with its strong, running passages and its chameleon-like easeful moments made one catch one’s breath – Hall and Griffiths-Hughes resisted the temptation to “indulge” the music’s mastery of utterance at the end, though we would have allowed them a certain expansiveness with the last few phrases had they been so inclined!

After the interval came what Griffiths-Hughes described as the most demanding of Gibbs’ Sonatas by dint of its key-signature – Sonata VIII in E-flat Major, a challenge particularly for the violinist re the “remoteness” of the key to the violin’s own tuning. Adding to the difficulties were Gibbs’ “inventive” touches, the opening Grave continuously double-stopped, here richly and gloriously voiced, the subtleties closely and meticulously worked. The Siciliana’s grace and poise momentarily relieved some of the intensity, though the music abounded with spontaneous impulse denoting light-and-shade – then the Fuga, in no less than four parts, drew us into an amazingly complex web of sounds, relieved by the finale’s “hunting-horn” aspect – “Corno poco allegro”, if you please! – vividly trenchant “digging in” by both instruments vividly recreated a sense of the chase – a remarkable evocation which brought a visceral response from both musicians! Handel’s G Minor Sonata HWV 364a which followed had its share of evocation, too, the opening Larghetto sounding as if borrowed from/loaned to the composer’s own “Water Music” – such beautiful, buoyant gravitas, leading to flourishes introducing – no, not the famous “Hornpipe” from the latter work, but an equally brilliant Allegro of another provenance! The succeeding Adagio, brief as it was, had as well an air of familiarity; but there was no time to ponder its associations before the final Allegro swept everything before it in Hall’s and Griffiths-Hughes’s hands with an irresistible flow of notes – “the achieve of, the mastery of the thing” were words that came to my mind……..

And so to Gibbs’ last Sonata of the evening, the fourth of the set, in B-flat major, one whose first half my violinist who had recorded these works had described as, for him, “the trickiest”, with a challenging cadenza, and demanding double-stopped passages, not to mention some triple-stopping later in the work! The opening Largo was filled with extravagant gesturings, in both major and minor key sequences, beautifully “thrown off” by Hall,  the melodic lines seemingly more extravagant than were Handel’s, more improvisatory, the “flow” being frequently broken by impulsive gesturings. After a more conventional Allegro (demonstrating that Gibbs could “finger” lines with the ease and fluidity of Handel), the concluding Affetuosa and Variations revisited the composer’s fondness for detailing a melody with echo phrases and triplet sequences, the concluding Minuet Allegro again horn-like in its display-mode and disarmingly compelling in its single-mindedness! And after the rigours of these structured displays, it seemed fitting that Hall and Griffiths-Hughes go back to the beginning, and another of John Playford’s Variations sets, this one most enticingly titled “La Folia” (The Madness), reckoned by some to be the most enduring tune ever devised, one whose history derived from the folk music of Portugal, spreading to Spain and thence across the Mediterranean, where it reached its peak of popularity at the end of the seventeenth century, though still exerting creative impetus today.

The tune seemed here to coalesce from the instruments’ tunings, the simplicity of the line having its shape, its figuration, its texture and its gait reinvented by Playford to remarkable effect, profoundly satisfying our by now finely-honed taste for variation of the most diverse kinds, here concluding with a vigorous running sequence rounded off by a brilliant flourish! A triumph, in short, to “finish off” the evening, and one for everybody concerned!

Camerata’s latest Haydn in the Church concert elegantly “framed” by youthful endeavours

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Camerata presents:
HADYN IN THE CHURCH
Music by Mozart, Haydn and Grieg

MOZART – Sinfonia K.V.35  from the Singspiel Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebotes
HAYDN – Symphony No. 11 in E-flat
GRIEG – From Holberg’s Time – Suite in Olden Style Op.40

Camerata
Concertmaster and Director: Anne Loeser

St.Peter’s-on-Willis.St, Wellington

Thursday, August 20th, 2020

With a single downbeat at the beginning of this concert from Camerata we were taken, it seemed to me, into a kind of youthful magicland of creative wonderment, via the eleven year-old Mozart’s Sinfonia from a sacred Singspiel Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebotes  (translated as “The Obligation of the First and Foremost Commandment”), a kind of allegorical depiction of the trials of a Christian soul. This was Mozart’s first opera, premiered in Salzburg in 1767, a shared endeavour (a not uncommon occurrence at the time) with two other composers, Michael Haydn and Anton Adelgasser, organist at the Salzburg Cathedral – for whatever reason, only Mozart’s contribution, which was the first of the work’s three parts, has survived.

We heard only the Overture to the work, but it was enough to give notice of the budding genius of its composer, the music having a buoyancy and confidence that I recall marked my first encounter with some of the young Wolfgang’s wonderful early symphonies in those late 1960s’ Argo recordings made by Neville Marriner’s St.Martin’s Academy, recordings which were made in a similar kind of church acoustic. Here, Camerata’s bright and energetic playing instantly brought back to me something of that long-ago thrill of discovery – in fact, the relative unfamiliarity of the first two pieces of the concert had the effect of entering into a “bright new world”, while the better-known Holberg Suite by Grieg which concluded the concert itself still had a freshness of approach here from the players that further added to our sense of rediscovery.

I’ve been delighted with Camerata’s presentations of Haydn’s early symphonies thus far, and was as charmed as before with the ensemble’s “latest”, the Symphony No. 11  (which, incidentally, was given a remarkably high rating (7th out of 104!) in the canon by an on-line commentator who set himself the task of evaluating in order ALL of the Haydn Symphonies!). One could immediately “feel” the music’s distinction – the beautiful opening processional aspect, hinting at a deeply-felt sense of occasion, with the horns’ “held” notes beautifully opening up the vistas created by the strings’ silken lines, prepared the listener for an allegro which had C.P.E-Bach-like touches (the vigorous downward phrase that “answered” the opening, and the tremendous energy that drove the music on), with momentary minor-key sequences breaking into smiles as the sounds rolled forward.

The Minuet had both weight and “snap”, the players bringing out the angularity of the “leaned on” accents, with festive, trumpet-like figurations proclaiming the “country sports” aspect of the music. And I loved the way the winsome, wispy syncopated-note texture shrouded the trio in a bit of “elsewhere business” mystery, with one voice leading the other a merry dance! After this the Finale’s Presto opening theme snorted and snuffled its way through the textures, the hi-jinks punctuated by horn calls and reinforced by chattering winds whose sounds coloured the ample St.Peter’s acoustic in a pleasingly ambient fashion. The sleight-of-hand off-beat figures of the second episode had my ears pricked for a few moments, wanting a place to safely put my two left feet! – but the playing’s control was never in doubt, the music’s recapitulation nicely keeping us guessing as to which way our antennae would point in pursuit, and the sheer elan of it all encouraging us to hang on as best we could, with breathlessly exhilarating results.

Though more familiar territory, Grieg’s Holberg Suite (despite its piano version origins one immediately senses how the music “blooms” in its string orchestra version!) came up here right from its opening “as fresh as paint” (that phrase has unaccountably “stuck” with me from somewhere!) with playing that never looked back from the ensemble’s lively accenting of the very first note, the ascending phrases almost trenchant in their “digging into” the music, and contrasting beautifully with the light-as-air, flowing replies. The brisk tempo brought some smartish scampering from the inner voices, and some exciting descending spirallings which reprised the (now augmented) opening theme – and how the players relished the grandeur of the final statements!

How beautifully sounded was the opening of the Sarabande, hymn-like in effect, but enlivened by the energised echo-phrase at the end of each sentence – there’s some lovely work by the ‘cellos, with their individual lines drawing us into the detailings of the texture, and then followed by a wondrously-glowing reiteration of the opening theme from the ensemble, the music singing like crazy! The next movement , the Gavotte/Musette, featured violins and violas introducing the folkish opening strains, answered by the full orchestra, with lovely antiphonal statements adding to the music’s out-of-doors ambiences – the Musette, taken a bit faster, brought out the drone bass and folk-fiddle sound more pictorially, over which the melody was allowed to blossom with each succeeding phrase.

What really caught me up in the music’s flow was the Air, here launched with great concentrated purpose, and built with finely wrought tensions from the upper strings to a full-throated climax, the combination of a sombre bass and  anguished upper string lines making for a moving effect. The major key sequence featured some heart-warming exchanges between solo cello and the violins, before the other cellos joined in, taking the lead, and drawing with them the upper strings towards a reiteration of the earlier outpourings of feeling, before everything rapidly and circumspectly fell away to silence. Out of the somewhat “spent” ambience then began the Rigaudon, the solo violin cheekily enjoining its companions to “cheer up” and join the “life-dance” , underlining its enjoiner with a saucy ascent to its final throwaway note – lovely, delicate solo  playing by Anne Loeser! The ensemble then acquiesced with a flourish – and, a brief introspective sequence later, the invitation and its response was repeated – the day had been won!

Most unexpectedly and  charmingly, we were given a brief encore – a piece of Sibelius’s music I didn’t know existed, one called Vesipisaroita (Water droplets), supposedly his  first composition, written at the age of nine, for violin and ‘cello – a far cry from the masterpieces that had brought the composer world-wide fame (and including several beautiful, if lesser-known works for string orchestra), but certainly ending the concert as it had begun, with youthful endeavours, and in the process underlining a kind of “return to simplicity” which we could take unto ourselves into the night comfortably and reassuringly…….

 

 

 

Baroque Voices’ “Bingen to Becker” a harmonious celebration

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Baroque Voices presents:
BINGEN TO BECKER (Vocal music from the 12th to the 21st Century)

A Concert of Music by Hildegard von Bingen, Morley, Dowland, Hume, Monteverdi, Poulenc, Durufle, Pepe Becker, Jack Body, Constantini, Handel, Annea Lockwood, and Anon/Trad…..

Baroque Voices: Pepe Becker (director), Anna Sedcole, Jane McKinlay, Rowena Simpson, Andrea Cochrane, Katherine Hodge (with Robert Oliver – bass viol)

The Third Eye – Tuatara’s Temple of Taste, Arthur St., Te Aro, Wellington

Sunday 16th August, 2020

Thanks to a newly-emerged Covid-19 chapter in Auckland we were a precautionary “restricted” audience for this concert, but of good cheer, nevertheless, with convivial company and food and drink available at the venue, the evocatively-named “The Third Eye – Tuatara’s Temple of Taste”, from out of which scenario “emerged” the musicians, informally dressed and congregating at the platform end of the listening-space, six singers and a bass violist, all as relaxed as if spontaneously inspired to entertain the company! By way of settling both the ensemble and its audience in, we were treated straightaway to the programme’s first two items, the first something of a “Pepe Becker Special”, Hildegard of Bingen’s O ignis spiritus, the soprano having made Hildegard’s resonant, ecstatic vocal lines music very much her own of late in these parts, and deservedly so – this was followed by an anonymous 14th-Century 3-part Canon “O Virgo Splendens” whose catchy dance-rhythms combined sacred worship and secular energy in a wholly delightful way, the ensemble’s six voices imitating a flowing river of streamlets intertwining and separating within the irresistible flow of the whole.

The introduction having “cleared” all throat and nasal (singers) and auricular (listeners) passages, Becker officially welcomed us to the concert, intended as a 25th Birthday affair for the ensemble, but “extended” to being closer to a 26th  celebration by dint of the aforementioned worldwide events exerting their influence to within Aotearoa’s shores. She talked about the concert’s themes, the items prominently figuring both love and death, and suggesting that, with humanity still in the grip of an on-going ailment, the music was expressing something of where we all were at present. Thomas Morley’s Arise, get up, my dear appropriately “revitalised” the programme from this point onwards, the singing confidently resounding through the range of tones from the altos’ beginning phrases to the silvery utterances of the sopranos at the top. “Semper Dowland semper dolens” went the name of one of the composer’s songs, and came to characterize Dowland’s oeuvre in the public’s mind – and Can she excuse my wrongs? proved no exception to this mood, Pepe Becker’s plaintive tones given a sure trajectory by Robert Oliver’s nimble accompaniments.  The changes were further rung by Oliver’s sure-fingered solo rendition of Tobias Hume’s A Pavin, featuring some extremely deft double-stopping enlivening the second part of the dance’s ritual of elegant sobriety!

Again Dowland figured with a characteristically-titled song Flow my tears, the Becker/Oliver combination suitably sombre in effect, the soprano doing well in a vocal range I wouldn’t have associated with her natural gifts, achieving dignity and clarity – the second half of the song brought forth a degree of liberation into the light, with phrases such as “Hark! – you shadows!” ringing out clearly. What a difference in every way was wrought by Monteverdi’s Madrigal Come dolce hoggi (How sweet is the breeze!) from the composer’s Book 9, the singers’ tones appropriately bright and outdoors-ish at the beginning, the vocal expression thrown widely and exploringly, the vocal ornamentations strengthening on repetition as the voices accustomed themselves to each frisson of energy, the piece’s ending expansive and resonantly lingering in the silences – lovely! The unaccompanied Poulenc Ave Verum Corpus bore an attractive, melancholy colour,  the “open” harmonies occasionally adding a medieval-sounding touch – and while the Durufle piece Tota pulchra es shared some features with the Poulenc, a pleasing melancholy, and “older” touches of harmony, the piece had a livelier, more insistent and declamatory texture, kept airborne by a lovely rocking rhythm, here beautifully regulated by the singers.

To finish the half, Becker introduced her Taurus 1: Night and Morning, a setting of Robert Browning’s pair of poems “Meeting at Night” and “Parting at Morning”, wryly mentioning to us the piece was now twenty years old (an “excesses of youth” commentary, perhaps?)  – the singers’ mingling of exhalations of breath, charged utterances and harmonic tensions, with the darkness lit by occasionally soprano soarings, all established the “romantic tryst” mood, the brief (and presumably heartbreaking) epilogue of the morning’s parting encapsulating the experience as a recalled moment in time.

On to the concert’s second half, then it was, beginning with two “Nowel/Nowell” settings (though unseasonal, it hardly matters, as each Christmas comes so quickly on the heels of another in any case, these days!) – both lively, “ringing” kinds of evocations in their different ways, the first revolving the joyous message in an infectious “back-and-forth” way, with acclamation-like cries at the end. Jack Body’s “Lithuanian manner” Nowell began with characteristically crunchy harmonies exchanged by two pairs of singers facing one another, something Mussorgsky (of “Pictures from and Exhibition” fame) would have, I think, relished, in memory of his similarly sequenced dialogues between voices in “The Market Place at Limoges” – here, the singers  built on the earthy figurations’ growing excitement and accumulations of joy and certainty as the exchanges reached a plateau of exhilaration, humanity enlivened by tidings from on high!

Alessandro Constantini’s Confitemini Domino continued the festive mood, resounding with joyous and angelic utterances, Oliver’s accompaniments reinforcing the Alleluia’s dancing rhythms with gusto. A remarkable and contradictory precursor of a similar mood evoked by the great Handel was the following duet No, di voi no vo’fidarmi, here sung superbly by Becker and Rowena Simpson, with Oliver’s assured bass viol accompaniment,  the familiar lines of “For unto us a Child in Born” from Messiah  used in the service of a completely different text, one of accusation and dismissal of love – Handel had written this (and another duet Quel fior che all’alba ride similarly re-used) a matter of weeks before beginning work on Messiah, and duly incorporating the music into the larger work! – what a delight to encounter the “original” version of such well-known music, and to hear such a committed and assured performance!

Gentler, with longer-breathed lines, and tensions of a different kind brought into play was another work by Handel, Amor, gioie mi porge, a somewhat calmer portrayal of the hardships of love, one which gathered weight and darkness as it proceeded, taking in a central, more energetic section allowing the sopranos to soar, but returning to beseechment and despair at the end, the two singers, Anna Sedcole and Becker sustaining their lines throughout with great spirit! The prospect of hearing any of Annea Lockwood’s music always excites interest, though I was disarmed by the simplicity of her 1983 work Malolo, (Rest), a Samoan lullaby using hypnotically repeating sounds, the singers “terracing” their utterances to enable all kinds of echoes and resonances, the lower voices finishing the piece as hauntingly as  it began.

Three traditionally Irish folk-song settings arranged by Pepe Becker were filled with drollery, melancholy and gentle wit, my favourite being “The Galbally Farmer”, with its rhythmic “snap”, earthy, drone-like accompaniment, and wryly-sounding vocal reinforcements of some of the text’s phrases, concluding with the tried-and-true existentialist lament “I wish I had never seen Galbally Town!”. Becker’s compositional skills were again evoked by When will we know?, a gentle balled-like setting whose closely-worked harmonies had a cool, even bluesy colouring from the viol’s plucked-string accompaniments and wind-blown vocal abandonments at the song’s end. We thought at first the evening’s music would finish by circling back to its opening, with another of Hildegard’s hymns, O viridissima Virga – this one a long-breathed unison for all the voices, ambiently accompanied by Becker’s shruti box and Oliver’s viol, the whole a kind of ritualized “bringing together” of elements presented in a flexible, organic, very human manner, the voices not perfectly together, but in expressive purpose acting as one – to our surprise and delight, we were treated to a brief encore, which deserves its own paragraph……

Once attributed to Henry Purcell, How Great is the Pleasure – Canon for Three Voices was actually written by Dr. Henry Harington (1727-1816) an English physician, composer and author, and was published around 1780 with the title Love and Music – a Favourite Catch for Three Voices. Beginning in unison, with accompaniment from the viol, the melody soared like a Shaker Hymn, then divided among three parts, finishing with words that could have described the evening’s music-making – “When harmony, sweet harmony, and love do unite!” Most satisfying!…….

 

 

 

The phenomenon of Beethoven – celebrated here by Wellington Chamber Music with Te Kōkī Trio

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Chamber Music presents:

BEETHOVEN – Sonata for Violin and Piano in C minor Op.30 No. 2
Sonata for ‘Cello and Piano in A Op.69
Three Duets for Violin and ‘Cello WoO 27
Piano Trio in E-flat Major Op.70 No.2

Te Kōkī Trio – Martin Riseley (violin) / Inbal Megiddo (‘cello) / Jian Liu (piano)

St.Andrew’s -on-The-Terrace

Sunday, 9th August 2020

It’s a bit of a truism to say that Beethoven and his music represent a kind of apex of enduring creative expression for modern-day humankind; and while such pronouncements can be literally questioned in terms of world-wide demographics and cultural bias, they still carry weight in a kind of “perceived-by-many” fashion – it would be difficult to think of another composer whose music has penetrated such widespread spheres of human awareness, however deep or superficial. Certainly, there’s a ready and ongoing perception of Beethoven’s “everyman” quality, which, aided and abetted by popular legend regarding many aspects of his life with all of its struggles, and setbacks, has resulted in widespread “identification” with what’s regarded as his essential character, one of wholehearted and unquenchable energy and purpose, and emergence from it all as a figure of the utmost inspiration. His music triumphantly supports  this “wholeness”, its many-faceted characters having, it seems, something to say to all peoples engaged in the business of simply being human.

At this point I could exclaim “Goodness! – I don’t know what came over me!” – or even whisper as an aside, “Sorry! – that just slipped out!”, having stepped down from my self-proclaimed orator’s dais and realised what pompous utterances I’d just finished making. But the concert I attended on Sunday at St.Andrew’s of Beethoven’s music was so very replete with human personality and engagement I could straightaway concur with those words that I had read in the afternoon’s printed programme by none other than Igor Stravinsky (expressed much more simply and effectively than my high-flown observations!) – and felt “inspired” on re-reading them at this point, unaccountably enough to add my above two cents’ worth!

One of the intentions of the musicians in presenting this concert was to, as per programme, “demonstrate many facets of Beethoven’s craft”, which aim they succeeded brilliantly in doing. Most democratically the items chosen featured three appearances by each of the afternoon’s performers, and even included a work I wasn’t familiar with – the first of Three Duets for Violin and ‘Cello, WoO 27, a work whose actual authorship is still being contested in some circles, but whose energy, wit and grace certainly resulted in some “Beethoven-like” sounds! I thought the “creative contrast at the outset between Martin Riseley’s violin’s bright, silvery tones and Inbal Megiddo’s  ‘cello’s warmer, richer resonances created a fascinating kind of process throughout these three movements of the sounds from both players gradually “connecting” – whether that process of frequency-sharing was unique to my peculiar “listening sensibility” I’m not certain, but by the time the pair had plunged into the opening piece’s “second episode” I felt their different sounds had begun to resonate more surely together – and the dovetailing of detail was certainly exciting!

The work’s Larghetto second movement featured a dialogue between violin (so very graceful) and ‘cello (sonorous and romantic) which together developed into a kind of “communion” in the quieter exchanges, again demonstrating  a kind of “opposites attract” concourse of sensibilities from both players – but in no time at all, the sounds had energised into the Rondo-finale, the ‘cello breaking off from the lively opening exchanges to sing an “out-of-doors” theme with the violin continuing to dance in attendance, with some minor-key wistfulness along the way creating some distinctly Beethovenish moments, a forthright unison episode notably among them!

Having jumped precipitately into a description of the music that began the concert’s second half, I feel I owe it to the reader to introduce a semblance of order and backtrack to the first half’s beginning, which featured Martin Riseley and pianist Jian Liu in one of Beethoven’s characteristically up-front C Minor works, the Op.30 No, 2 Violin Sonata. How directly this music speaks! – the terse opening piano figure descending into darkness, the violin’s reply intensified by keyboard agitations, and a brief confrontation between the two instruments suddenly transforming into playfulness! – as Gerard Manley Hopkins once wrote in a poem about the flight of a kestrel, “the achieve of, the mastery of the thing…” – meaning that here, exposition and development are made to the composer’s own specifications, the “playfulness” evident in the music, for example, drawing on darker, more serious elements which extended the emotional capacities of the sounds beyond where we might have expected. Riseley and Liu generate terrific tension in places, their sharply-honed teamwork focusing on the music’s volatility of invention in a way that left us disconcertingly breathless after only the first movement!

The piano’s troubadour-like song which began the slow movement was here echoed almost privately by the violin, the players musing their way through the melody’s second half, the instruments then taking turns to “augment’ their partner’s reprises of the theme, the violin contributing decorative birdsong counterpoints, to which the piano replied with swirling counterpoints above and below the music’s surface. A couple of disruptive outbursts apart, the music enchanted in this performance, Liu’s gossamer fingerwork the perfect foil for Riseley’s silvery tones. The Scherzo galvanised these realms of poetic utterance into places of action, playfully at first, but with sudden intent to sting, the piano in response effecting to try and  “swot’ the offending violin! – again such surety of contrast on the composer’s part! Without being too pronounced a contrast, the Trio’s rumbustion was delightfully enabled, Liu’s nimble reflexes and Riseley’s silvery lines carrying the day.

The finale’s brief but characterful repeated opening crescendo here made me think of a train bursting out of a tunnel and into the open, the biting accents having their moment before exchanging  grimaces for grins as the players launched into the dancing measures that followed, even though the minor key sequences furrowed the brows once again. With the train’s every re-emergence came a different mood, a sunny rondo whose performance brought smiles to listeners’ faces, a darker, more purposeful venture into the light in search of a resting-place, and, finally, a wistful remembrance of times past, until a burst of no-holds-barred energy seized both performers and their instruments and drove the music home!

It was then Inbal Megiddo’s ‘cello’s turn to take us on a different creative strand’s exploration, in the composer’s Sonata for ‘Cello and Piano No. 3 in A Major – here, the exposition began lyrically instead of tersely, the ‘cello singing its opening phrase, and the piano replying as would a sweetheart, with equally fond sentiments, and a show of gallantry, before each “exchanged” blandishments with comparable gestures. After some shared minor-key complainings, Mediggo’s ‘cello began the first of those wondrous ascending phrases that seemed to lift our sensibilities to a higher plane of feeling, Liu’s piano following suit before joining in with the ‘cello in a heartwarming affirmation of shared purpose. The turn towards the darker regions of the development brought out, by turns, plaintive and passionate playing, Beethoven presenting us with impulsive, but organically-flowing contrasts of light and energy,  Megiddo and Liu then beautifully returning us from the depths of one of these exchanges us to the recapitulation’s reaffirming light. A jumpy scherzo, filled with syncopation, followed – Liu’s piano was away first, vaulting over hedges and other obstacles, the ‘cello drawing level in time for both to board the contrasting Trio’s droll roundabout, each instrument lending a hand to the music’s droning momentums and self-satisfied ditties.

A punchy “tutti” and a mysterious, sotto voce conclusion to this brought us to the final movement, one containing an Andante Cantabile introduction – what a melody! – and here, made into such a beautiful moment by these musicians! –  Megiddo’s ‘cello so lovingly preparing the way for the piano’s delightful energisings, Liu’s nimble-fingered tattoo of repeated notes buoying the ‘cello’s lyrical pronouncements along and giving rise to exhilarating exchanges, major key effervescence alternating with darker insinuations – again one marvelled at the music’s sheer articulateness of interchange, generating such momentums while maintaining a play of light and dark, strength and lyricism in the ebb and flow of it all.

Following the aforementioned Duos it was “all on stage” for the concert’s finale, The Op.70 No.2 Piano Trio in E-flat Major, a work somewhat in the shadow of its “Ghost” companion, but nevertheless having a definite character of its own. The programme-note writer particularly mentioned Schubert in connection with this work, a kinship which particularly resonated for me in the piano writing throughout the Minuet and Trio, but which was evident in the freedom of the work’s treatment of contrasting moods. At the work’s beginning, Megiddo’s cello led the way into exquisitely-shaped portals of melody, the outpourings unexpectedly galvanised by a sudden irruption of energy which served notice that anything could happen during the work’s course! The players brought out the Allegro ma non tanto’s attractive swaying motion, making the rhythm’s sweep central to the argument, fitting the motifs (including the dreamy second subject) into the music’s rounded corners with grace and ease, but also with plenty of forthright energy as those same motifs in other places jostled for position – I would have thought Brahms’s sturdy treatment of his themes in his chamber music owed something to this work as well.

The courtly grace of the second movement’s opening proved deceptive as the music served up variation after differently-characterised variation, hugely enjoyed by the players, and ranging from impish scamperings to vigorous Cossack like stampings! Eventually, the music’s inventive energies dissipating as quickly and po-facedly at the end as surely as the final forthright payoff suddenly slammed the last word home! The third movement’s gentle lyricism maintained the work’s varied character, Beethoven (somewhat surprisingly on first hearing) opting for a kind of old-world grace as a contrast to what had gone before, instead of giving us one of his physically trenchant scherzi – but in view of the finale’s unbridled exuberance and the players’ astonishing “give-it-all-you’ve-got”, response to the writing, things couldn’t have gotten much more involved or exciting as here! Those incredibly “orchestral” upward rushes repeatedly essayed by the piano crackled with firework-like energy in Jian Liu’s hands, inspiring his companions to generate their own versions of brilliant, coruscated response, leaving us at the work’s end both exhilarated and exhausted, though at the very end we greedily implored them for more, and were rewarded for our acclamations by a repeat of the graceful Minuet and Trio – a judicious “return to our lives” epilogue to an exhilarating concert experience !

Following last year’s NZ Opera production, another local “take” on Henry James’ famous ghost story “The Turn of the Screw”

Posted on by Peter Mechen

THE TURN OF THE SCREW – A film (2020) by Alex Galvin  after the novella by Henry James (1898)

Cast: Greer Phillips (Julia/Governess) / Ralph Johnson (Richard) / Ben Fransham (Uncle/Peter Quint) / Jane Waddell (Mrs Grose) / Ella Olssen (Flora) / Alex Usher (Miles) / Sarah Munn (Miss Jessel)

Writer – Alex Galvin
Producers – Alex Galvin, Emma Beale, Nicola Peeperkoorn, Edward Sampson
Production Designer – Debbie Fish
Costume Designer – Sally Gray
Music – Ewan Clark
Musicians – NZSM Orchestra
Sound – Matthew Lambourne, Callum Scott, John McKay
Cinematographer – Mark Papallii
Editors – Elizabeth Denekamp, Edward Sampson, John McKay
Executive Producers – James Partridge, John McKay

Embassy Theatre, Wellington

Thursday, 6th August, 2010 (NZ Premiere)

A recent feather in the cap of New Zealand film-making has been the inclusion of “The Turn of the Screw”, an adaptation of Henry James’s classic ghost story by Wellington director Alex Galvin, in the recent Shanghai film Festival. Within a few days of the Shanghai showing the film had its New Zealand premiere at the Embassy Theatre in Wellington, an event that was sold out. Its audience witnessed an intriguing “take” on James’ novella, one which effectively paralleled the way the author “framed” his original story by having a guest at a country house party produce a written account of a new governess’s experience with two children she claimed were “haunted” by two dead servants wanting to “possess” them. Here, the story was enacted as a dress rehearsal for a stage production at the Wellington Opera House,  where a replacement actress for the part of the governess (Greer Phillips) arrives by taxi just before the rehearsal is about to begin, and is quickly and somewhat bewilderingly thrust into her stage character by Richard, her director (Ralph Johnson). The latter’s slightly creepy fulsomeness supported James’s own observation that there should be “a suggestion of strangely gruesome effect” in the story from the beginning, and even if none too subtly as the action proceeded, this state of things was certainly engendered here.

What was also straightaway evoked as the story itself began, by dint of superbly-wrought lighting and properly-suggestive music (a tangibly atmospheric, if perhaps sometimes over-wrought, score by composer Ewan Clark) was a sense of disorientation on the part of both Julia, the actress, and her character the governess, most convincingly “inhabited” by Greer Phillips at this and every other point. This was aided by a prevailing opaque luminosity of visual effect working hand-in-glove with a soundscape that engendered and harboured all-pervading unease – unlike with the written word, which the reader can modulate at his or her pleasure in terms of a time-frame, a spoken narration or drama grips the listener or observer in a more-or-less continual flow – so James’s story was here essentially telescoped into what seems like a much shorter period, having the effect of taking over in real time a “house of horrors” from which there could be no relief. The reader might register with the story’s telling the gradual disappearance of summer into autumn, and the succession of days passing “without another encounter” (with the ghosts), but we in the theatre seemed as prey to omnipresent interaction with these spectral forces, or the threat of it, as seemed the story’s ill-fated governess to be.

The effect of this concentration of untoward incident I thought akin to a ride on one of those “ghost trains” of my youth set up in the amusement parts of fairs, with bangs, screeches and crashes at regular intervals, each played for its maximum effect!  At first the sheer visceral impact of each “scare” I found overwhelmingly sonorous and atmospheric but soon felt the too-frequent scares becoming counter-productive with every irruption (one has only to recall F.W.Murnau’s silent film “Nosferatu” to remind oneself how the visual alone can make as terrifying an impression). I thought the “bird” incident, for example, the killing of a stray sparrow by the housekeeper, Mrs Grose, gratuitous in effect, accompanied by a noise out of all proportion to the action. Still, there were places during which  the camerawork allowed images to create their full effect largely unaided, generating enormous tension and anxiety – the governess’s discovery of and approach towards the veil worn by Miss Jessel, for example, let us for a few moments ourselves do some of the work towards creating tensions in our own minds, culminating just as fraughtfully with the shock of our unexpectedly encountering the housekeeper.

Something the film certainly conveys is the ever-burgeoning obsessiveness of the governess regarding the presence of the ghosts and their intent regarding the children, a point which has taxed analyses of the original James story since its appearance – there have been various “stances” taken by critics, ranging from those who regard the story as an out-and-out supernatural tale, to the argument that the governess herself is an “unreliable” narrator, bringing her own imaginative, deluded and, ultimately fatal obsessions to bear on the situation. Complicating the ambiguities of James’s own colouring of the character’s narrative is the stress and uncertainty the film’s setting and action puts her as an actress under from the outset, so that we are having to take into account her having to “feel her way” through the stage business’s unknown territories irrespective of her knowledge of the script – her “off the cuff” expletives in response to various happenings are mere tips of the iceberg which compound her uncertainties (and her reactions) in this role, and effectively “run together” the strains of motivation for her actions.

Generally I thought the actors’ characterisations had a basic and attractive naturalness and ease, cleverly contrived to create tension whenever this was disturbed. Alongside, and a perfect foil for, the governess of Greer Phillips was the non-imposing figure of the housekeeper, Mrs Grose, played by Jane Waddell with disarming literalness – in James’s narrative she is described by the governess as “a magnificent monument to the blessings of a want of imagination” (itself an intentionally spontaneous self-revealing remark), and Waddell’s unequivocal, if occasionally uncertain response to the governess’s quickness of supposition effectively throws the latter’s obvious susceptibility to such things into bold relief.

The children, Ella Olssen as Flora, and Alex Usher as Miles, both looked and lived their respective roles most assuredly, playing their part in heightening the ambivalence of our feelings towards their states of awareness, the camera-work a particularly candid exploration of skilfully-wrought expressive nuance on the young actors’ part delineating their interactions with the governess. With Miles, the elder of the two,  around whom an aura of misconduct had already been created by his supposed expulsion from school, the sexual tensions which are contrived via the governess’s superheated protectiveness of the boy from the house’s malignant presences, are inversely reflected by her earlier alienation from the girl, Flora, in dramatically confronting her with a kind of  supposed “guilt of awareness” of those same presences. Each of the encounters exploits the full impact of one’s immersion in appropriately dramatic visual and sonic happenings – climaxes in a veritable symphony of drama, and appropriately full-blooded at those particular moments.

Regarding the “ghosts”, both brought to their respective presences a time-honoured frisson of fearful thrill through their unerring immersion in the drama’s capacities for shock and surprise, however much I thought some of the gestures might have been wrought or framed in a less obvious kind of way. An interesting touch was having Ben Fransham play the roles of both the Uncle (in the story’s Prologue) and the ghostly manservant, Peter Quint, underlining the elsewhere-expressed theory of Quint being a kind of “alter ego” of the Uncle (whom the governess gives every indication of being infatuated with), a juxtaposition which would heighten her “reverse abhorrence” of the idea of Quint having anything to do with Miles. The other ghost, Miss Jessel, an even more enigmatic presence (James deliberately sparing with his detailings concerning her, with Mrs Grose being the “agent” of information for the governess in each of the ghost’s cases, rendering the unfortunate pair in terms mixing memory and heresay. Sarah Munn as Jessel fully matches and fills out whatever projection of fear and unease we might bring to an encounter with her character in such a context.

How these “onion layers” of supposed actuality, conjecture and fantasy play themselves out is a process which I thought here made by and large a riveting experience in the cinema/theatre. And the drama’s closing post-rehearsal scene presents a final enigma, one that bonds with the film’s opening circumstance of the young replacement actress, Julia, tossed into a kind of maelstrom of her character’s overall fantasy and (possibly) self-delusion. Interestingly, the circumstance is presented plainly and simply, its stark actuality all that is needed to suitably disturb. Writer, producer and director Alex Galvin has here formulated an absorbing “take” on a much-examined story, at once “bringing it home” to us in a localised and contemporary way via the setting, and expanding our own sensibilities and visions in the context of a vibrant occasion of world-wide currency.

 

“Morgen” – pianist Rae de Lisle makes a welcome return to performing, with ‘cellist Andrew Joyce – and with help from Julia Joyce

Posted on by Peter Mechen

MORGEN
Songs for ‘Cello and Piano
Andrew Joyce (‘cello)
Rae de Lisle (piano)

items marked * with Julia Joyce (viola)

BRAHMS : Liebestreu Op3, No.1 / Minnelied Op.71, No.5 / “Immer leise wird mein Schlummer Op.105 No.2
“Wie melodien zieht es mir leise durch den Sinn” Op.105, No.1 / Sapphische Ode Op.94 No.4
Feldeinsamkeit Op.86 No.2 / Wiegenlied Op.49 No.4
DVORAK: Als die alte Mutter Op.55 No.4 / Lass mich allein Op.82 No.1
REYNALDO HAHN – L’heure exquise / A Chloris    FAURE – Apres un reve Op.7 No.1
SCHUMANN – Widmung Op.25, No.1 / Du bist wie eine Blume Op.25 No.4 / Mondnacht Op.39 No.5
BRAHMS – Zwei Gesange Op.91 – *Gestillte Sehnsucht / *Geistliches Wiegenlied
ERICH KORNGOLD – Marietta’s Lied – “Gluck, das mir verblieb”
SCHUBERT – Du Bist die Ruh Op.59 No.3 / Nacht und Traume Op.43 No.2
ALFREDO CATALANI – Ebben? Ne andro lontana / RICHARD STRAUSS – *Morgen  Op.27 No.4

Atoll Records  ACD 280

This recording has gone to the top of my “play for friends” list!  The beauty and expressiveness of it all instantly captivates whomever I demonstrate the disc to, and never fails to re-ignite my own initial struck-dumb response  – beginning as a “double distillation” of beauty, with Andrew Joyce’s ‘cello and Rae de Lisle’s piano exquisitely duetting their way through vistas of the utmost enchantment, it transforms into a trio when a fellow-traveller, violist Julia Joyce briefly joins the pair for an equally rhapsodic mid-journey sojourn, and then reunites with them right at the end. The recording is, of course, a “family affair”, cellist’ Andrew Joyce being the son-in-law of pianist Rae de Lisle, and violist Julia Joyce her daughter, and the ‘cellist’s partner – whether as a duo or a trio, their combination, on the strength of this recording, produces for this listener an unforgettable amalgam of artistry and feeling.

For pianist Rae de Lisle, this album has meant something of a “return to life” as a performer, having over the past quarter-century been in retirement through injury from her previous career as a successful concert pianist – though never having heard her play “live” I well recall a series of television programmes from around the 1970s featuring her as the soloist in a number of presentations of Beethoven piano concertos, recorded in those halcyon days when people in charge of New Zealand television regarded the arts as a necessary component of what went to air to the public. De Lisle, of course, subsequently became one of the crucial figures involved with fellow-pianist Michael Houstoun’s rehabilitation as a performer after the latter suffered similar injuries, helping him “remodel” his piano technique to a point where he was able to return to public playing. She herself describes in a personal note something of her own process of dealing with injury and her painstaking “retraining” to the point where she could actually make music again, and of her immense joy in being able to collaborate with the talented musicians in her own family!

What was indubitably given to her many piano students over the years of her indisposition poignantly “mirrors” the loss experienced by us in having the quality of pianism such as can be heard on this new CD cruelly denied us over the years. In the course of listening to these treasurable tracks, one readily appreciates – in fact, right from the disc’s beginning (featuring a group of Brahms’ songs given an eloquent introduction with Liebestreu Op.3 No. 1,) – how the “line” of lyrical expression is so unerringly shaped by both instruments, with the piano preparing the ground for the ‘cello in so many subtle ways, in the course of a handful of phrases suggesting and then leading, shaping the way forward and then echoing the fulfilment by the ‘cello of the music’s expressive quality. This piece epitomises the creative interplay at work in so many varied ways throughout the rest of the disc, as does the succeeding Minnelied Op,71 No. 5, demonstrating such exquisite sensibility from both players as to bring tears to the eyes of those susceptible to such things!

Both of the Dvořák settings are “lump-in-the-throat” affairs as realised here, de Lisle bringing out the music’s astringent quality of reminiscence in the piano’s opening to Als die alte Mutter Op 55 No.4, which so sharpens the sensibilities for the hushed quality of what follows, with Joyce’s ‘cello tone fusing the voice of the “mother” with that of the narrator, as the vocal line catches an individual accent or phrase which rivets the attention. And the gentle melancholy of Lasst mich allein Op.82 No.1 speaks volumes in the subtlety with which the minor key-shift deepens the emotion.

There’s insufficient space in which to comment on all of the tracks – but their characterisations by these two artists readily transport the listener into what Robert Schumann called “wondrous regions”, with Schumann’s own music ready to illustrate these magical excursions – the central, beautifully half-lit sequence at the centre of Widmung Op.25 No. 1, for example, followed by a beautifully rapt Du bist wie eine Blume Op.25 No.24, and the more extended, equally hypnotic Mondnacht Op.39 No.5. And, of course, there’s a brief but telling augmented strand contributing its own resonance to the proceedings, in the form of Julia Joyce’s viola, adding its wholly distinctive voice to those of the ‘cello-and-piano duo, in a pair of songs composed by Brahms for the violinist Joseph Joachim, the Zwei Gesange Op.91. The reprise of the first song is a particularly melting sequence, the viola and ‘cello duetting in counterpoint with rapturous accord, while the brighter-eyed setting of the carol “Joseph Lieber, Joseph mein” imparts a warmly ritualistic aspect to the musical collaboration, by turns full-throated and gently reassuring.

I ought to mention Andrew Joyce’s astonishingly candid realisation of Korngold’s Marietta’s Lied, from the opera Die tote Stadt during which his instrument sings the vocal lines with almost unbearable emotion, “inhabiting” the intensity of characterisation that the music suggests so readily. The disc ends, somewhat less fraughtfully, with another stellar display of string-playing, Julia Joyce’s viola substituting for the usual violin in Richard Strauss’s Morgen Op.27 No.4, the combination triumphantly expressing the essential flavour of the composer’s regard for the voice and his love for his wife, Pauline, in a new day’s blessed context.

Beautifully-balanced, warm and clear recorded sound completes a most attractive issue from “Atoll”.

NZSM Concerto Competition – an evening of elegance, frisson and feeling

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music Concerto Competition 2020 – Final

Finalists

Lucas Baker (violin) – BARBER: Violin Concerto
Isabella Gregory (flute) – REINECKE: Flute Concerto in D Major, Op.283
Otis Prescott-Mason (piano) – SAINT-SAENS – Piano Concerto No.2

Collaborative Pianist: David Barnard
Adjudicators: Catherine Gibson (CMNZ)
Vincent Hardaker (APO)

Adam Concert Room, NZSM Kelburn Campus
Victoria University of Wellington

Thursday, 30th July 2020

This year’s final of the NZSM Concerto Competition provided something of a musical feast, even if one of the concertos performed (Saint-Saens’ Second Piano Concerto) was presented with a somewhat truncated finale, for whatever reason. With three promising and extremely accomplished performers playing their respective hearts out (and admirably supported by the efforts of collaborative pianist David Barnard, whose playing of the orchestral part of the Samuel Barber Concerto was a treat in itself to experience), it made for an absorbing listening experience, one to rate at least equally with the actual result of the contest, at least for this listener, with no “affiliations” connected with the outcome!

First up was violinist Lucas Baker, whose chosen work (Samuel Barber’s beautiful Violin Concerto) brought out the young player’s seemingly instinctive feel for the “shape” of the composer’s largely rhapsodic phrases and larger paragraphs – throughout, I was convinced by Baker’s heartfelt approach to both the work’s lyrical and more heroic sequences, his instantly characterful tones enabling us to quickly enter the “world” of the music, despite some untidiness of rhythm and intonation in some of the transitions. The player then confidently attacked the angularities of the second movement, and nicely brought out the fervour of the lyrical writing and the silveriness of the contrasting stratospheric section, concluding with beautifully withdrawn tones at the movement’s end.

The finale’s technical difficulties were also most excitingly squared up to by Baker, his fingers flying over his instrument’s fingerboard to exhilarating effect, with his pianist an equally committed and involved participant in the composer’s vortices of note-spinning – the spills were as exciting and involving as the thrills, both players capturing the devil-may-care spirit which abounds throughout this final movement. Whatever niceties of detail were smudged or approximated, Baker readily conveyed to us an engaging sense of “knowing how it should go”, which carried the day as a performance.

No greater contrast could have been afforded by both the player to next appear and the work chosen! – this was flutist Isabella Gregory, and the work Carl Reinecke’s D Major Flute Concerto, written (somewhat surprisingly, I thought, upon hearing the piece) in 1908, the composer hardly deviating from his early enthusiasms for the music of Mendelssohn and Schumann. In effect, the work is that rarity, a romantic flute concerto – here, it was given a sparklingly lyrical performance by its gifted performer, obviously in complete command of both the piece’s overall shape, and the mellifluous detailings that gave the music such a unique character – complete with a surprisingly abrupt conclusion to the first movement! The sombre nature of the second movement’s opening accompaniment contrasted with the solo instrument’s more carefree manner, played here by Gregory as a somewhat easy-going accomplice to rather more stealthy mischief-making, though I found the Moderato finale a wee bit under-characterised – I thought the rhythms could have a bit more “kick” in places, though this was something which the more energetic concluding sequence in due course suitably enlivened, the virtuosity of the soloist making a breathlessly exciting impression to finish! Altogether, a delightful and suitably brilliant performance!

The evening’s final contestant was pianist Otis Prescott-Mason, who had chosen Saint-Saens’s wonderful Second Piano Concerto – a work whose character I recall once described as “beginning like Bach and ending like Offenbach”! Throughout the first movement I found myself riveted by the young musician’s spell-binding command of the music’s ebb-and-flow, the “spontaneous” element of the opening improvisation as finely-judged as I had ever heard it played, Prescott-Mason truly “making the music his own” and working hand-in-glove with his collaborator to create the sense of Baroque-like splendour that informs the music – what I particularly liked was the spaciousness of it all, allied to the clear direction of the underlying pulse of the music, to the point where the sounds had an inevitability of utterance which perfectly fused freedom and structure, Saint-Saens at his most potent as a creator. What a pity, then that such poised, and finely-tuned focus seemed to me to be then somewhat impatiently cast aside, the second movement’s playfulness over-rushed and the rhythmic deliciousness and delicacy of it all to my ears duly lost – Saint-Saens’s humour is always po-faced and elegant, and the playing in this movement I thought unfortunately failed to realise that “insouciance” which keeps the music’s character intact. I then hoped that the whirlwind brilliance of the finale might have restored some of the impression created by the pianist in that superbly-crafted first movement – but the work was unexpectedly and severely shortened, allowing little opportunity for a “renaissance” of identification with the music’s world on the young player’s part.

All in all, the result of the competition very justly, I thought accorded the laurels to flutist Isabella Gregory, whose performance indicated an impressive totality of identification with the music she played, as regards both execution and interpretation. Both her rivals, Lucas Baker and Otis Prescott-Mason, I thought, turned out most engaging performances of their pieces, without quite rivalling the winner’s consistency and strength of purpose. But what things all three achieved in their different ways!  And how richly and gratefully we all relished their talent and musicality in entertaining us us so royally during the evening!

Koru Trio – giving the St.Andrews’s audience its koha’s worth and more……

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Koru Trio at St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington

BEETHOVEN – Piano Trio No.5 in D Major Op.70 No. 1 “Ghost”
ZEMLINSKY – Piano Trio in D Minor Op, 3

The Koru Trio – Anne Loeser (violin) / Sally Isaac (‘cello) / Rachel Thomson (piano)

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace Lunchtime Concert Series, Wellington

Wednesday, 29th July, 2020

One of the largest lunchtime concert audiences I’ve seen at St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace enthusiastically responded to two splendid performances by the Koru Trio, a group known to me up to now by reputation only – a quick check of the Middle C review archive confirmed that so far I’d not had the good fortune to review a single concert by the ensemble. I must record here that, long before the interval I was already bemoaning the opportunities I’d missed out on over the years, the Trio having been formed as long ago as 2011! In fact, to my astonishment and pleasure,  the concert replicated the excitement and interest of another I’d recently attended at the same venue, and had subsequently reviewed – that by the newly-formed Ghost Trio, coupling, as here, one of Beethoven’s masterly works in this genre with a lesser-known one by a different composer. On that earlier occasion it was the miraculous Op.1 Piano Trio of Andrzej Panufnik, while here, the Koru Trio after THEIR Beethoven performance gave us the no less remarkable, youthfully-conceived Op.3 Piano Trio of Alexander Von Zemlinsky.

First came the Beethoven Trio, Op.70 No.1, known popularly as the “Ghost”, a nickname attributed by most accounts to the composer’s former pupil Carl Czerny associating in later years the second movement’s evocative writing with the ghost of Hamlet’s father – interestingly enough, Beethoven was toying at the time of writing this trio with the idea of an opera about Macbeth, which accounts for the forgivable slip of association in the Koru’s otherwise excellent programme notes, which had Beethoven’s music recalling Hamlet’s encounter with his father “in Shakespeare’s Macbeth”! The work begins completely differently, of course with an exciting, energetic unison, here instantly grabbing the listeners’ attention with strong, focused playing, which continued throughout the lyrical response to the opening “helter-skelter”. The development began with “another way of doing the opening”, whimsical exchanges leading to major key exhortions and wonderful roller-coaster ride figurations, and left me relishing the thought of the composer’s chortling with exuberant glee at the “plunge” back into the recapitulated opening figure! As much as I loved the energy of the playing I was as much taken with the delicacy and feathery quality the players found in some of the writing, even if from where I was sitting the St.Andrew’s acoustic seemed to favour the piano at the strings’ expense.

Vibrato-less tones from the strings added to the slow movement’s “spooky” effect, the lines suitably eerie and suspenseful, punctuated by sudden bursts of tone and spidery keyboard descents and tremolandos – I thought pianist Rachel Thomson’s beautifully-sustained trilling and tremolandi helped create an almost Musorgsky-like atmosphere in places, with Anne Loeser’s and Sally Isaac’s string playing suitably spectral in attendance. The group marshalled the tensions to great effect – in places the tones were more “lament-like” than ghostly, with the two crescendi almost unnerving in their lack of inhibition. I thought that, as the movement’s end approached, the instrumental sounds in places became “as from the earth”, the music a mere conduit through which mysterious impulses were giving tongue.

A measure of relief was afforded by the first strains of the finale – a kind of “glad we’re out of there” feeling which burgeoned into exuberance in places, every player contributing to the buzz of activity, and sharing the bouts of momentary bemusement at the lines occasionally spinning upwards and disappearing in Houdini-like fashion, only to reappear as if descending by parachute! It made for a thoroughly invigorating entertainment, bristling with good humour and well-being, just the stuff needed! – a lovely performance!

Alexander von Zemlinsky’s Piano Trio made up the rest of the concert, the work exerting no less a fascination on an audience by this time in thrall to the blandishments of the music-making. The work’s Schumannesque opening – darkly passionate, as if its composer was “wrestling with ghosts” – alternated with contrasting sequences, a wistful longing which transforms into a feeling for the German woods with characteristic horn-calls evoking the romance of darkness and mystery. We heard long-breathed lines whose harmonies modulated in and out of the shadows in fine Romantic style, the influence of Brahms, who encouraged the younger composer, readily apparent (Brahms, incidentally, insisted that his own publisher print Zemlinsky’s work). A grand romantic summation ended the first movement, brought off here with great style and panache!

A warm, richly upholstered piano solo (in places bringing to my mind Janacek’s piano writing) began the slow movement, before violin and ‘cello joined in, and so initiated a most passionately-voiced threesome, bristling with impulsive sequences (amid which I caught an echo of Dvorak’s ‘Cello Concerto!) and reaching a kind of fever-pitch before subsiding, exhausted, into gentleness and rapture. By contrast the finale was all skitterish urgency and al fresco energy to begin with, accompanied by redolent hunting sounds from the piano, which fought a rearguard action to keep the strings on the move – I enjoyed the lively interplay between the opposing camps, Zemlinsky’s writing never predictable, and, in fact, saving a brightly-gleaming frisson of surprise and delight for the very end – a work I enjoyed getting to know, and through which the Trio made a lot of fun in sharing with us so joyously!

 

 

Orchestra Wellington concert triumphs despite first-half technical glitch

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Michael Houstoun plays Rachmaninov

RACHMANINOV – Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor Op.30
TCHAIKOVSKY – “Manfred” Symphony in B Minor Op.58

Michael Houstoun (piano)
Orchestra Wellington
Marc Taddei (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday, 25th July 2020

Saturday evening’s concert by Orchestra Wellington, the first of the ensemble’s somewhat rearranged 2020 season, promised to be something of a blockbuster occasion, with two justly famous (for vastly different reasons) works from the Russian  repertoire together making for an evening’s spectacular music-making. Long regarded as one of the most difficult and demanding of romantic piano concertos, Rachmaninov’s legendary D minor work has proven an irresistible challenge for many of the greatest pianists over the years, and on this occasion was given a beautifully persuasive rendition by Michael Houstoun, supported both flowingly and meticulously by conductor and orchestra. An unexpected hiatus during the work’s second movement caused by a technical problem was quickly and securely dealt with, and the music safely gotten on the rails again by the musicians in an entirely admirable fashion.

Tchaikovsky’s programmatic B Minor Symphony “Manfred” has achieved a different kind of fame over the years, one based on its relative neglect by default, having as many detractors as champions, and being generally regarded until recently by both musicians and commentators as the weakest in a structural sense of the composer’s seven works in this form. Marc Taddei and his musicians ignored all such preconceptions by approaching the symphony very much on its own terms, fully embracing its programmatic nature and thus setting free all of the music’s dramatic and poetic possibilities, with truly spectacular results!

Added to the attraction of the programme was a real sense of occasion generated by the musicians involved brought about by the post-lockdown recommencement of Orchestra Wellington’s original programming for the season – achieved with a couple of time readjustments,  this was possibly a “first” for any orchestral body in the world for 2020. Music director Marc Taddei paid tribute in a short speech to the leadership and purpose demonstrated in high places which had enabled concerts here in New Zealand to be recommenced in such a manner. The orchestra had, of course, already made a highly-acclaimed reappearance on the concert platform for a Mozart series during the previous month, one featuring concertmaster Amalia Hall as both soloist and music director.

Another musician whose plans (sadly for us all, for retirement) had been “put on hold” through his generous response to a need created by the Covid-19 pandemic for his services was the evening’s soloist, Michael Houstoun. Having on previous occasions amply demonstrated his mastery of all aspects of Rachmaninov’s piano writing in this concerto, Houstoun seemed here to take a less virtuosic, more-than-usually organic view of the music this time round, with little untoward irruption or attention-drawing point-making allowed to disturb the flow of ideas, instead expressing everything as integral to the whole, and certainly never allowing the piano to dominate . The orchestral voices were given full rein, making for a fascinatingly-voiced dialogue of phrases and longer lines, with the wind-writing in particular making its presence felt. Rachmaninov has never, I feel,  been given sufficient credit for the more “intellectual” aspects of his writing, his detractors in particular quick to overemphasise his emotionalism and his “outdated” romantic gesturings, ignoring felicitations such as the skill with which he inter-relates the various motifs throughout this work. And those moments of “glorious expansion”, particularly those given tongue by the strings in places, here grew out of the material so naturally, for me further underlining a sense of being caught up in the first movement’s incredible flow of impulse and colour.

Just as beguiling here was the second movement’s richly-wrought sense of undulation, those various outpourings of feeling building and breaking over the waves’ edges so gloriously, led variously by the piano and then the orchestra – such a pity that one of these oceanic burgeonings was unexpectedly interrupted by the pianist’s electronic page-turner malfunctioning or inadvertedly losing its way, bringing the music to a halt – a brief re-alignment from soloist, conductor and orchestra, and we were off again, climbing towards that same ecstatic fulfilment of expression with even more determined energies – by contrast, the movement’s “scherzo-waltz”  section was here deliciously, almost lazily realised, giving the notes a chance to scintillate rather than merely “blur at speed” – the nocturne-like mood returned impassionedly, the strings allowing another surge of feeling before being silenced by the piano’s sudden call to action, heralding the finale.

Again, Houstoun chose not to assail the music with flailing figurations, but kept the momentums at a steady surge, holding the tempo in accord with an overall flow and imparting by turns a delicacy and an impish quality in places. Noble brass tones resonated the textures before hushed winds and strings introduced the haunting contrast afforded by a delicate scherzando sequence – lovely, crystalline playing from Houstoun, here, leading to the magical reiteration of the latter part of the first movement’s second subject, perhaps the concerto’s most “lump-in-the-throat” moment. Afterwards came the return of the “galloping horse” motiv that began the finale, and the almost combatative exchanges between piano and orchestra leading to the work’s apotheosis (Rachmaninov’s own “Cossack Cavalry” moment during this section rivals Chopin’s “Polish Cavalry” surgings in the latter’s Op.53 Polonaise). The orchestral strings sang the “big” concluding D Major melody like crazy, so it was a pity that the dovetailing right at the end of the work between piano and orchestra seemed suddenly fraught and uncertain, and the ending somewhat roughly-wrought! – so uncharacteristic of the performance as a whole!

Unfortunately, these relatively momentary “glitches” saw the pianist depart from the performing platform after acknowledging the orchestra and the audience, and not return, despite our enthusiastic applause, All of us most assuredly wanted to (a) let Houstoun know that the mishaps were of little consequence compared with the magnificence of the whole and (b) salute him and his fellow musicians for responding to these happenings with such efficiency and professionalism – one would hope that something like these same sentiments would have been conveyed to him as a matter of course afterwards.

Whether or not this somewhat “damp squib” ending of the first half made conductor and players all the more determined to bring off what followed in the concert with something wholly memorable is probably academic conjecture – the fact was that, from those first haunting wind chords of the opening “Lento lugubre” movement of Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony, the playing exerted a vice-like grip on our attentions, the remainder of the orchestra amassing its forces in the most full-blooded manner imaginable – such trenchant string tones and baleful brass, recalling like passages in the same composer’s “Francesca da Rimini” – there was tenderness, too as the strings savoured the theme Tchaikovsky wrought to characterise his hero Manfred’s memory of a lost love, followed by wild desperation as the memory became an obsession and a torment, culminating in a full-orchestra reiteration of Manfred’s own despairing motif.

Respite from the gloom was provided by the work’s inner movements – firstly by the whimsical charms of the watery abode of the Witch of the Alps, and a charmingly graceful Trio section which could have come from one of the great ballets, Tchaikovsky adroitly working the “Manfred” theme into the music’s blandishments – both the feathery scherzo-like textures and the silken grace of the trio were brought off here with great orchestral panache. The Berlioz-like third movement at first evoked pastoral scenes with a beguiling oboe solo carried on by flutes and counterpointed by a horn with the strings, a rustic dance bursting delightfully on the scene, but just as quickly swept away by an almost martial sequence – the volatility of the music amazed and entertained as the sounds swirled into a kind of passionate frenzy, brought to a halt by distant church bells and begun again by the winds, the music’s volatility leaving one bemused as to what next to expect!

The finale was an “Allegro con fuoco”, a bacchanalian-like riot of colour and energy with a distinct Russian flavour, delivered with tremendous elan – as the excitement died down, the brass sounded a kind of ‘knell”, returning us to the mood of the symphony’s opening, the hero having failed to elude his doom, one cruelly “mocked” by a driving fugue, which quickly turned into a kind of danse macabre, hurling itself to no avail against the “iron gates” of fate. What anguished strings and pitiless harp cascadings! –  all leading inevitably to desolate lamentations and a final reiteration of Manfred’s fateful theme, given the full, apocalyptic (perhaps that should read apoplectic?) treatment, an organ thrown in for good measure at the end, to bring some spiritual peace to the hero with death’s release. Conductor Marc Taddei would have at the end, I think, been justly proud of his own and his players’ efforts in bringing this “symphonic monster” to such overwhelmingly visceral life!

Surely RNZ Concert ought to have recorded this, an historic occasion for so many different reasons? Wouldn’t one have expected this to have been an occasion worth preserving? I would have thought so!……however, as I saw no microphones, it seems as if memory alone might have to suffice when we hearken back and remember what we can of this remarkable feast of music-making, in the midst of remarkable times!

Ghost Trio haunts sensibilities long after final notes in concert sounded

Posted on by Peter Mechen

A remarkable lunchtime concert by the Ghost Trio at the Adam Concert Room….

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

BEETHOVEN – Piano Trio In C Minor Op. 1 No.3
MARTIN LODGE – Summer Music (2001)
SHOSTAKOVICH – Piano Trio in C Minor No.1  Op.8

Adam Concert Room, Te Kōkī NZ School of Music, Victoria University of Wellington

Friday, 17th July 2020

I had heard the Ghost Trio perform the same Beethoven work more than a fortnight previously (a concert reviewed below by my colleague, Steven Sedley), though this time round it was coupled to a different programme. Instead of the remarkable Piano Trio Op.1 by Polish composer Andrzej Panufnik (which I would have liked to hear again), the musicians chose to branch out in a different direction,  with each of the accompanying works expressing what I thought was a certain affinity with Beethoven’s music. We heard Kiwi composer Martin Lodge’s engaging “Summer Music”, whose effect was a kind of miniature out-of-doors, “Pastoral Symphony-like” sound-adventure, interlacing both natural and human noises. This was followed with a Piano Trio written by the then sixteen year-old Dmitri Shostakovich, a work whose Beethovenian “charge” of emotion alarmed the young composer’s professors at the Petrograd Conservatory as profoundly as was Josef Haydn disturbed by the boldness of his most famous pupil’s Op.1 C Minor Piano Trio.

As with the St.Andrew’s performance, the players drew their listeners into the composer’s world of dark and serious purpose from the very opening phrases, the sequences generating a disturbing quality throughout the instrumental interactions which never relinquished its grip. Sitting closer to the players in the Adam Concert Room this time round I felt involved all the more in the constant flow and ebb of  intensities, the explosive nature of the music’s dramatic contrasts, and the disconcerting upward\downward semitone shifts of the opening theme in places. Though the gloom was occasionally leavened by a contrasting, if briefly-wrought lyrical theme, any sunnier prospect was quickly clouded over again in no uncertain terms, the first-movement repeat emphasising the thrall in which we were held – and the development was similarly charged with tensions, light and darkness unceasingly pushing and shoving one another to one side – it was quite a ride!

The theme-and variations second movement promised some relief from Beethovenian brow-beating, and the players responded at the opening with some nobly-wrought sounds – perhaps it was partly due to the music’s playfulness but I found myself listening as much to the playing’s solo lines as to the concerted effect of the music-making throughout, the dialogues and “trialogues” as involving as the ensembled sounds – I relished the playful pizzicati of the third variation, the soulful cello solo of the fourth, and the sparkling chromatic keyboard runs of the fifth (all beautifully executed and characterfully dovetailed), to mention but a few ear-catching features.

As much scherzo as minuet, the third movement fused a certain wistful quality with playfulness, the piano’s frequent decorative figurations making a marked contrast with the occasional emphasised accent – again, the musicians gave the music’s angularities full scope to proclaim the work’s character, while allowing a fantastic element (those strangely-echoed resonances which suggested in places hidden voices directing the ebb and flow of things) some treasurable moments of sleight-of-hand, even magic.  As for the prestissimo finale, the players found more character than mere “virtuoso roar” with which to give voice to the music’s agitations, their nimble articulations (the pianist especially fleet-fingered!) creating wonderment and delicious anticipation as well as excitement, with the composer reserving the biggest surprise for the hushed, somewhat “spooked” coda, the musicians voicing the mystery and unease of it all to perfection at the end.

I hadn’t heard Martin Lodge’s “Summer Music” for some time but thought its appeal as instantly-involving as ever, with “hit the ground running” energies at the outset leading the listener into a world of vividly-wrought happenings. Both music and performance came across as remarkably organic, with swirling piano figurations and swinging thematic lines eventually giving way to sequences of stillness, the world stopping to listen to itself and inviting us to eavesdrop. Out of these breath-catching pointillistic etchings returned those same songs, a yearning for the natural world amid “humanity’s mad inhuman noise”, perhaps? – all very “Scene by the Brook”-like in its rediscovered innocence –  and leading into and through various undercurrents of pulse  to a beautiful and wistful blending of action, nature and memory at the end. The performance here caught me up in its vivid response to the music’s “story” and its accompanying array of alternating bustle and beauty.

So to the Shostakovich Trio, an equally remarkable evocation of the sixteen year-old composer’s thrall to a young woman, Tatyana Glivenko, whom he had met on holiday in 1923 in the Crimea (he was actually convalescing from tuberculosis at the time) – the music grew partly out of material he’d written for other works he had since abandoned, a Piano Sonata and a Quintet. Though nothing serious developed from the encounter with Tatyana, Shostakovich kept in touch with her by correspondence for many years. Two years after completing the Trio, the youthful composer performed the work as part of his application to continue his musical studies at the Moscow Conservatory, and was actually accepted, though his continuing ill health in the end forced him to remain at the Conservatory in Petrograd.

This single-movement work owed much of its bold, almost cinematic character to the composer’s part-time job as a cinema pianist playing the accompaniment for silent films. Shostakovich’s sister Zoya remembered that her brother and two of his friends actually used the cinema accompaniment as a rehearsal for the Piano Trio on one occasion, remarking that “the people whistled and booed!” But Shostakovich’s music from an early age seemed to revel in these characteristics, a family friend, the novelist Konstantin Fedin recalling hearing the boy playing his own compositions to guests at the family home – “….unexpected works which forced one to listen as if one were in the theatre, where everything is so clear that one must either laugh or weep.” Despite, or perhaps because of this ready accessibility, the Trio wasn’t published during Shostakovich’s lifetime, and had to be reconstructed from various sources, the missing last twenty or so bars of the piano part in fact “recomposed” by his pupil Boris Tishchenko.

Again, this was a remarkably involving performance, the players at full stretch in the more virtuoso, densely-woven ensemble passages, but “owning” their full-blooded expressionist character as great-heartedly as they did the more lyrical and unashamedly romantic passages, the whole almost Mahlerian in its all-embracing fervour. To comment on this or that individually-wrought passage seems of less importance than marvelling at the concerted “sweep’ of the music’s realisation by the ensemble – long may the Ghost Trio’s efforts continue to thrillingly haunt their audience’s sensibilities thus!