Author: Peter Mechen

A night to savour – Britten’s “Dream” enchants at NZSM

Posted on by Peter Mechen

BRITTEN – A Midsummer Night’s Dream (opera in 3 acts)

The New Zealand School of Music, Wellington

Director: Sara Brodie

Cast:  The Fairies – Joe Baxter (Puck) / Bianca Andrew (Oberon) / Bridget Costello (Tytania) / Angelique MacDonald (Cobweb) / Amelia Ryman (Peaseblossom) / Daniela Young (Mustardseed) / (Christina Orgias (Moth)  Mitchell Chin (Indian Boy)

The Lovers – Imogen Thirwall (Hermia) / Thomas Atkins (Lysander) / Bryony Williams (Helena) / Kieran Rayner (Demetrius)

The Mechanicals – Simon Harnden (Peter Quince) / Thomas O’Brien (Flute) / Christian Thurston (Snug) / Fredi Jones (Starveling) / William McElwee (Snout) / Thomas Barker (Bottom)

The Royals – Robert Gray (Theseus) / Emily Simcox (Hippolyta)

Chorus: Awhina Waimotu / Rebekah Giesbers / Esther Leefe / Isabella Moore / Tess Robinson

New Zealand School Of Music Opera Orchestra (Leader: Arna Shaw)

Conductor: Michael Vinten

Memorial Theatre,Victoria University of Wellington

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011

Performances to come: Saturday 6th (sold out) / Tuesday 9th August

Enchanting! – put simply, a “must-see!” production – so all-pervading was the atmosphere emanating from the stage of the Memorial Theatre I found myself enjoying a child’s delight at the magical evocations of sight and sound, the production taking me to what felt like the beating heart of a creative fusion of words, movement and music. I did have wits about me enough to scribble a few things in the dark along the way, mostly hardly intelligible afterwards – but I had little need of these skeletal hieroglyphics, as only part of me was awakened at the end, leaving other parts even now still dreaming the wood outside Athens and the shadowy epilogues of the “most lamentable comedy” performed by the Mechanicals in the house of Duke Theseus.

Bearing in mind what I’d heard concerning the almost perversion-ridden and voyeuristic slants taken by some recent overseas productions of this opera, I read beforehand with some relief in director Sara Brodie’s notes her avowed desire to “celebrate and balance the scales in favour of revealing the lighter side of Britten’s genius”, thus holding at arm’s length the current, somewhat pathological urge on the part of opera directors to imbue established works with spurious, and often, at the most, peripheral up-datings and psycho-analytical re-workings. Brodie’s significant comment regarding directorial alternatives for this production – “such journeying…I suspect, would have led to darkness” is evidently well borne out elsewhere in the operatic world, and, one would think in some cases, to everybody’s cost in the long run. The power of mere suggestion was, by contrast, here amply brought into play by the Mozartean ambivalence (hang on, but who came first, da Ponte or Shakespeare?) of the lovers towards one another at the conclusion (well, maybe) of their confused and dream-like re-partnerings (echoes of another opera, Cosi fan tutte, indeed…perhaps I meant Britten – or Mozart!).

Britten’s genius was, I think, expressed in completely entering the Shakespearean world of “reality versus dream” that runs almost seamlessly through the latter’s works, with merely Lysander’s line “compelling thee to marry with Demetrius” being the sole, explanatory non-Shakespeare original utterance in the opera. Writing as someone who’s acted in the original play, I’m at every hearing struck freshly dumb at Britten’s imaginative response to words and dramatic situations I imagined I already knew, but realize how much more there is still to know. Far more than merely re-activating that process for me, this production stimulated wonder that Britten hadn’t subsequently turned to that most operatic of Shakespearean plays, “The Tempest”, one which might have, I suspect, as strongly fired his creative sensibilities (alas, my wish the stuff of different kinds of dreams, I fear.)

That chink of curtained magic and mystery which parted to the touch of the sweetly-pyjama-ed “Indian Boy” at the beginning drew us inexorably into the world of Faery, the orchestral playing darkly- and diaphonously-woven under conductor Michael Vinten’s direction (the orchestra on the stage), and the fairies of marvellously unearthly substance, singing with haunting tones, and galvanized by Puck’s equally fantastical but more visceral and volatile appearance, brilliantly realized throughout by Joe Baxter. Our audience-space was magically enveloped by the warring monarchs of Fairyland, Oberon and Tytania, hurling their opening disputations across the auditorium’s vistas, drawing us into the conflict over the “Indian Boy”. As Oberon, Bianca Andrew’s richly-wrought tones brilliantly and easefully negotiated music the composer originally conceived for a counter-tenor (the renowned Alfred Deller was the role’s creator), and her haughty deportment and piercingly-focused gaze powerfully informed her scenes with the equally implacable Tytania of Bridget Costello (who made a drop-dead stunning appearance upon the auditorium’s stairs). Though the latter’s singing wanted a shade more vocal allure in places (during her love-potion-induced reaction to the bemused ass-headed Bottom, for instance) she looked wonderful, and made something lasting of “Oh, how I love thee – how I dote on thee!”

Both fairy monarchs are slightly undone, Oberon by Puck’s injurious approximations with the flower’s love-juices, and Tytania by being, of course, temporarily “enamor’d of an ass”. Oberon’s thwarted desires brought out nicely-accented tantalizing touches of androgynously-coloured eroticism in his dealings with the hapless Puck, though I felt Tytania’s parallel journeyings through her dream-experience didn’t seem greatly to infuse her subsequent character (she’s somewhat inert and “unconnecting” with Oberon in the dance sequence when he sings “Now thou and I are new in amity”, thus failing to suggest that the experience of her “sleep” has actually touched her in any way). This certainly wasn’t the case with the lovers, whose experiences in the Athens wood (so rich a symbol of what outwardly conceals the inner fecundity and revelatory power of the mind’s explorations) were depicted as having changed them forever, in terms of both the world and their inner selves – their subconsciously-driven partner-exchange dance after their final awakening an insightful representation, I thought, of the deeply equivocal nature of things, akin to an “elective affinities” scenario, with which the story leaves us.

As much as the excellence of most of the singing I was struck by the security and confidence of the acting of the couples – they LOOKED so right, for one, and throughout their marriage of movement and gesture to their vocal declamations had a rightness that I felt faltered only during parts of the confrontation scene between Hermia and Helena, when for me the musical and dramatic focus was blurred with too much stage movement – we lost some of the poignancy of Helena’s grief at Hermia’s apparent rending of “our ancient love asunder”, much of which was sacrificed to excessive hurly-burly. This impression apart, I found so much to admire in each performance, securely sung and characterfully acted. I liked the differentiation between them – Thomas Atkins’ Lysander very boyish, overcoming some initial inertia and producing some beautiful singing of some of his later phrases, and Kieran Rayner’s more worldly Demetrius, the voice ever-sonorous and expressive as to word-values. The women were similarly contrasted, Imogen Thirwell’s demure aspect and beautifully modulated utterances as Hermia a perfect foil for Bryony Williams’ wonderfully uninhibited Helena, vocally and dramatically risking composure in search of the appropriate expression, and engaging our sympathy throughout.

Against these “real” people, the cardboard cut-out figures of Duke Theseus and his Queen Hippolyta were always going to struggle; and Robert Gray and Emily Simcox did their best with ungrateful parts, singing their phrases clearly and directly (dressed thus, I feel sure I also would have had trouble with Theseus’s words “Hippolyta, I woo’d thee with my sword and won thy love, doing thee injuries”….perhaps a notch or two more dramatic stylization of their characters might have helped overlay the occasional chinks of discomfort evinced by people with, in reality, very little to do – the “idle rich” personified, no doubt). However, there was definitely not a shred of doubt regarding the status of the renowned “Mechanicals”, the group of common workmen desirous of performing a play for the nuptial celebrations of their Master, the Duke. Their representation on stage was, here, simply a delight from beginning to end. The plum of the parts is, of course, Bottom, played and sung here with terrific energy and enviable dramatic skill by Thomas Barker – one imagines his skills would be as successfully applied to spoken theatre as to opera, though the latter would be the poorer if such a circumstance were to take him in the other direction. His command of the stage in places was unequivocal, though such was the strength of the production’s dramatic instincts for balance, his rustic collaborators were by no means overshadowed.

While Bottom more-or-less superimposes his own personality upon his part of the hero, Pyramus, in the play, the others, apart from the group’s nominal leader, Peter Quince, have “double-personae” with whom to engage. Firstly, William McElwee’s Snout diverted us greatly with his Wall and chink, while, together with Bottom as Pyramus, Thomas O’Brien’s Flute won our hearts against all good judgement with his tremulous portrayal of Thisbe, Pyramus’s would-be sweetheart. Christian Thurston’s Snug the joiner awakened our sympathies for the underdog before assuming the Lion in the play to wrathful effect; while Fredi Jones’s Starveling marvellously delineated his own discomfiture on stage as Moonshine, and his annoyance at being constantly interrupted! And finally, in the first utterances of the group’s nominal leader, Peter Quince, we enjoyed the sonorous tones of Simon Harnden, whose rich bass-baritone I would anticipate hearing more of, in years to come.

This was a stunningly-dressed production – there simply wasn’t a costume that I thought didn’t do its job nicely, a tribute to the expertise of designer Diane Brodie. The colours and configurations of these shone truly and satisfyingly throughout, apart from one or two upstage moments (generally avoided by the director, and with good reason) where people emerged from relative gloom into the full atmospheric splendor of Tony Rabbit’s fluidly-applied lighting scheme. Incidentally, the proscenium arch also seemed to my ears a barrier to vocal quality and volume, though again, Sara Brodie cannily kept things well to the fore as often as she could.

No praise can be too high for conductor Michael Vinten, and for his committed, hard-working musicians, whose realization of Britten’s score had, at their best by turns moments of such evocative mystery, gossamer loveliness, and bright, unequivocal gaiety as to take one’s breath away in many places. True, there were a couple of moments, especially towards the end, where the string tone faltered and some orchestral poise had to be regained. But my over-riding impression was one of kaleidoscopic beauty and infectious energy, with many and varied contributions (special mention must be made of trumpeter Raynor Martin, dragged around and about the stage on a leash by the mischievous Puck during one of the former’s fiendish first-act trumpet solos, yet managing to accurately hit nearly all of his notes in a spirited fashion!) Added to this was singing from the chorus that also made many moments unforgettable, none more so than the lump-in-the-throat conclusion to Act Two, when the assembled fairy group sings the unearthly “On the ground, sleep sound” to the exhausted and totally confused lovers. It was a moment that for me seemed to sum up the achievement of director Sara Brodie and all others concerned with this beautiful production – a New Zealand premiere of the work, incidentally; and one of which the same people (and opera-lovers in general in this country) can be justly proud.

NZSO Soloists – becoming as sounding brass

Posted on by Peter Mechen

BRASS SPLENDOUR from the NZSO Soloists

ELGAR (arr. Wick) – Severn Suite Op.87 / GRIEG (arr. Emerson) – Funeral March in memory of Rikard Nordraak

HANDEL (arr.Maunder) – Music for the Royal Fireworks / GABRIELI – Sacrae Symphoniae: Canzon 10

BRUCKNER (arr.Rose) – 2 Motets / R.STRAUSS (arr. Maunder)- Festmusik der Stadt Wien

NZSO players:

Michael Kirgan, Cheryl Hollinger, Mark Carter, Thomas Moyer (trumpets)

Peter Sharman, David Moonan (horns)  / David Bremner, Peter Maunder (trombones)

Andrew Jarvis (tuba) / Bruce McKinnon, Leonard Sakofsky, Thomas Guldborg (percussion) / Laurence Reese (timpani)

Guest players:

Andrew Bain (horn, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra) / Elizabeth Simpson (horn, Ottawa National Arts Centre Orchestra)

Tom Coyle (trombone, Queensland Symphony Orchestra) / Scott Kinmont (trombone, Sydney Symphony Orchestra)

Town Hall, Wellington

Thursday 28th July, 2011

The irony of former Principal Horn Ed Allen’s retirement from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra virtually on the eve of the Orchestral Brass Soloists’ Tour wasn’t lost on the writer of a section of the concert program, the part entitled “Musical Chairs”. Replacing Ed Allen for the four-concert tour was Andrew Bain, (sporting the title “Guest Principal Horn”), in fact Principal Horn of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. But there’s more – compounding the musical “exchange rate” were three other “guest musicians” featured on the “Brass Splendour” tour – the Queensland Symphony Orchestra’s Tom Doyle sat in for NZSO Principal Bass Trombone Graeme Browne (on leave), while Canadian Elizabeth Simpson (from the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa) swapped places with NZSO Sub-Principal Horn Heather Thompson, who’s enjoying a Canadian summer playing Fourth Horn with the Ottawa NACO. As well, Sydney Symphony Orchestra Associate Principal Trombone Scott Kinmont was invited to join the tour. I’m put in mind of what comedian and raconteur Michael Flanders once said, introducing a performance of his and Donald Swann’s show “At The Drop of A Hat” – “Right! – double bookings sorted out, are they?” However, despite these changes having been rung, the ensemble looked and sounded confident and stylish as its members filed onto the Wellington Town Hall stage and began the concert.

Elgar’s Severn Suite was first up, an arrangement for brass ensemble by Dennis Wick. The original brass band version, sketched out by Elgar and orchestrated by one Henry Geehl (over which result there was trouble between arranger and composer) was dedicated to George Bernard Shaw, who declared that the music “would ensure my immortality when all my plays are dead and damned and forgotten”. Amusingly, Shaw suggested to Elgar that he ought to use bandsmen’s language in the score instead of the usual Italian: – “For instance, remember that a Minuet is a dance and not a bloody hymn; or, steady up for artillery attack; or now – like Hell!” Shaw claimed his suggestions would help some of the modest beginner players.

Perhaps this ensemble’s members had read Shaw’s advice to Elgar as well – because they tore into the opening “Worcester Castle” almost unceremoniously, leaving behind any notions of Elgarian “nobilmente” in favor of urgency and energy – too much so, for me, though plenty of others would have found it exciting. I thought the lack of pomp and grandeur at the beginning made an insufficient tempo contrast with the following “Tournament” which was where the true excitement needed to happen. As it was, the drum-taps beginning the “Tournament” episode didn’t have the sense of pent-up expectation they ought to have generated, largely because a lot of rhythmic impetus had already been spent by the playing throughout the opening. I wondered whether this was a factor in the noticeable proportion of mis-hit notes we heard early on, the players certainly taking some time to “warm up”. As well, I wondered whether for this particular work the ensemble actually needed the guiding hand of a conductor, someone who could have helped bring out the “swagger” of the off-beat rhythms, so difficult for an undirected group to bring off. In fact, at one point during the “Minuet”, I did notice trombonist David Bremner (I think it was) making conducting gestures, lending the group a pre-arranged hand, no doubt. By the time the opening music had returned (still a shade too fast for me – Elgar’s music has to have, I think, a certain “stride” in which both energy and solid girth have a part to play, with every footfall cogently advancing the argument in its own way) the playing had settled and the attack and intonation were more secure.

Things came together wonderfully for the players’ heartfelt rendition of a Grieg rarity, Funeral March in Memory of Rikard Nordraak. (Nordraak and Grieg were fellow-composers, the former inspiring the latter to make as his life’s work the cause of Norwegian music). Giving the music time for the tones to amply fill both physical and temporal spaces, the ensemble literally rose to the occasion in delivering a full-blooded,percussion-supported climax to a sequence that began with such wonderfully hushed, expectant melancholy at the outset. The players brought out the different instruments’ timbres, in particular making much of the contrasts in softer passages between trumpets and horns, and enjoyed the major key change in the “Trio” section of the music, Grieg interrupting the more cheerful, if piquant mood with a great horn outburst at the music’s heart, extremely forthright, but both brazen and noble by turns. This being a new work for me, I was impressed at the range, depth and darkness of emotion wrought by the composer, and thrilled and moved by the performance.

Trombonist Peter Maunder certainly had been busy for this concert, rearranging a lot of music for this particular ensemble, including Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks (the programme’s playing order said Richard Strauss’s Festmusik der Stadt Wien would follow the Grieg, but the Strauss and Handel items were swapped around). So it was Handel in Peter Maunder’s skilful realization, the playing here seeming to me influenced in style and sharp focus by the “authentic” school of Baroque performance – admirable in terms of clean, lean lines and sharply-defined rhythms, but somehow lacking a real sense of “occasion”. It’ll be considered heresy of me to say so, but I’ve always loved Hamilton Harty’s full-orchestra arrangements of this music, simply because they always sound so grand and ceremonial. On the other hand, I’ve also dearly loved for years my old Pye recording of Charles Mackerras’ “ultra-authentic” recreation of one of those first London performances of this music, with every available wind player in London at the time seemingly brought into the fray. Neither of these examples have much to do on paper with what we heard in concert, except that, expert though the playing was, I simply wanted, I think, more out-and-out performance flair and panache (again, a conductor might have helped) – more grandeur in places, and energy in others, more abandonment on the part of the percussion, more space in and around the music (almost anything goes with Baroque realizations, judging by how readily the composers borrowed their own and each others’ music for whatever purpose which suited).

As if putting my thoughts and feelings into “demonstration mode” the first item after the interval provided all the “frisson” of spectacle one associates with ceremonial brass, one of Giovanni Garbrieli’s joyous Sacrae Symphoniae, the Canzon 10. With the players exploiting the antiphonal potentialities of the playing-space by standing in two rows at the top of each half of the “organ gallery”, the Hall was, literally, saturated with resplendently produced sounds, readily evoking old-world ritual and sensibility – we in the audience loved it (because of my relative unfamiliarity with much of Gabrieli’s music I felt at one with those caught up by Sir Thomas Beecham’s well-known remark pertaining to English audiences, who “don’t know much about music, but like the noise it makes”). More unfamiliar music of a beguiling aspect was to follow, unscheduled as per program, but readily welcomed by an intrigued audience – two of Anton Bruckner’s Motets, played by four trombones – in a way, the antithesis of the Gabrieli we had just heard, but at the same time the beautiful solemnity of the sounds (gorgeous playing) presenting the perfect foil for the Italian’s fulsome brilliance.

Exuberance and excitability marked the opening of Richard Strauss’s Festmusik der Stadt Wien (another splendid arrangement for the ensemble by Peter Maunder), the music then characteristically going on to a more nostalgic vein, with evocative modulations (nice trumpet work in thirds and sixths – definitely the former, the latter being a keen listener’s guess!) the sound of an “Imperial Vienna” provenance. With the players really hitting their straps by this stage of the evening, there was page after page of “on-to-it” music-making, the whole casting a refulgent glow, leading up to a grand Straussian build-up and a vigorous coda, filled with virtuoso writing for the instrumental combinations, before the music touched our hearts with parting-shot nostalgic promptings of imaginings of a world forever disappeared. What we expected to have been a rousing finish to an evening was then delightfully augmented by “something completely different” – firstly, the spectacle of Lenny Sakofsky being pushed to centre-stage, sitting amidst a drum-kit configuration of “splendiferous magnitude” (in fact it seemed as though he might at any moment have kick-started the monster with a roar and a cloud of blue smoke and disappeared up the aisle and out the Town Hall doors!), and then the mellifluous strains of Duke Ellington’s Do nothing’ till you hear from me, the players “swinging” with what seemed to me like total identification with the idiom.

An Angel Released – music by Eve de Castro-Robinson

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Eve de Castro-Robinson – RELEASING THE ANGEL

with: David Chickering (‘cello) / Tzenka Dianova (piano)

Vesa-Matti Leppānen (violin)

Lyrica Choir of Kelburn Normal School, Wellington (director: Nicola Edgecumbe)

Blade / Trilogy (kinetic sculptures by Len Lye)

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra / Conductor: Kenneth Young

Atoll ACD 141

(recorded in the Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington)

Listening to the very opening of Releasing the Angel, the first music track on composer Eve de Castro-Robinson’s new, eponymously-titled CD from Atoll Records, leaves me “on-the-spot smitten” by the music’s attractive tactile quality. How readily those shimmering orchestral sounds fly towards and wrap themselves around and about my ears! – and how, just as tantalizingly, they fall away, leaving the voice of a solo ‘cello floating in those same spaces. This is, of course, the voice of the “Angel”, a personification inspired by a quote from the great Michelangelo, whose words “First it was stone, and then I released an angel” could be regarded as a metaphor for any kind of creative artistic activity.

In the case of the present recording, the ‘cello is that of the work’s dedicatee, David Chickering, associate principal ‘cellist of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. These artists premiered the piece in 2005, at a concert which I attended, being at the time similarly enthralled by the inspirations of both the work and its performance. Interestingly, I thought the orchestral resonances surrounding the ‘cello just as “charged”, the fashioning of the angel happily breathing life into its context. These “enfolding” ambiences give tongue according to their own lights, at first rhapsodizing, and then becoming more dynamic and rhythmic in their gradually-energised spaces, developing a kind of ritualistic processional,with exotic-sounding themes and instrumentation. After some excited tremolandi the ‘cello indicates it wishes to perform the act of final release, with the help of a few orchestral ecstasies, and a repeatedly whistled motif from the soloist. Suddenly, but timelessly, there’s peace with the then and now, and for the ages. As what happens when one reads Huckleberry Finn, one leaves the spell of this music  with similar regret.

A significant aspect of this new release of Eve de Castro-Robinson’s work is the compositional ground it covers for the composer, the oldest work dating from 1987 – Peregrinations, for piano and orchestra, actually written as part of the composer’s doctorate, though revised by De Castro-Robinson in 1990. Despite it being what she calls “an old work” she values its representation of “signature sounds and compositional predilections”. I was fortunate enough to hear this work, played by Dan Poynton with the NZSO in 2006 – but for now, the pianist on the new recording is the superb Bulgarian-born Tzenka Dianova, whose energy and focus gives the writing that wonderful sense of spontaneous re-creation which accords brilliantly with the work’s overall raison d’être.

The work’s got a Ravelian beginning, growing out of what seems primordial material, impulses striving upwards towards the light, then stimulating an incredibly toccata-like frenzy in the orchestra which spawns all kinds of energies – there’s a kind of spontaneous impishness at work, here, in line with what the composer calls her “musical journey….a setting out on an expedition whose destination may not be clearly defined.” So, alongside the pre-planned musical landmarks, there’s an omnipresent sense of things wanting to go in unexpected directions. Out of a becalmed episode comes a violin solo (Vesa-Matti Leppānen), which in turn inspires a flowing cantilena from the strings, opening up the vistas of the orchestra and allowing space for an imposing tremolando to spread across the orchestral landscape. What’s remarkable about de Castro-Robinson’s writing is its transitional skill, an almost osmotic ability to move organically to and from extremes of colour, texture and rhythm. The result is a journey through the landscapes of the mind that sets a momentous feeling in places, against a quixotic and volatile spirit. Right to the end of the piece the “expect the unexpected” principle both keeps our interest and leaves us wanting more from each episode, thanks in part to the total identification with the work demonstrated by pianist, conductor and orchestra.

De Castro-Robinson’s music takes on a polemical edge with Other echoes, the one work on this CD previously recorded commercially, in this case by the Auckland Philharmonia and Nicholas Braithwaite, as part of the orchestra’s “Fanfares for the New Millennium” project of 1999. The music, featuring the imagined calls of the extinct huia as well as the threatened kokako, highlights the dangers for wildlife species posed by human activity; and continues to exert its power to disturb and awaken feelings regarding the issue. Its counterweight on this CD is the heartwarming These arms to hold you, written in 2007 for the Royal New Zealand Plunket Society on the occasion of its 100th birthday, and featuring a collaboration between the composer and poet Bill Manhire. De Castro-Robinson felt a special affinity with Plunket because of her involvement with the organization at the time of the birth of her son, Cyprian, to whom the work is dedicated. It was the first collaboration of hers with the poet, and the first music she’d written for a children’s choir, here, the Lyrica Choir of Kelburn Normal School in Wellington, directed by Nicola Edgecumbe. I’m quoting (without permission) from the composer’s own words, here, from a message she very kindly sent to me regarding the making of this CD………

“A lot of emails to’d and fro’d between Bill and me, and I grew to love his economical approach to the texts which included phrases drawn from a selection of his friends’ Plunket books: fit and well, bonny babe, two teeth, four teeth, crawling now, motions normal, on the move, etc which was delightful to set for the kids in a chantlike style.  Bill’s Lullaby, “Here is the world in which you sing, here is your sleepy cry, here is your sleepy mother, here the sleepy sky…Here is the wind in branches, here is the magpie’s cry…here are these arms to hold you, for a while” was particularly inspirational. Every time I hear my setting of the phrase ‘here are these arms to hold you’, I get a great lump in my throat. That’s what originally told me to use that phrase as the work’s title, and Bill agreed…it was the emotional heart of the text.”

Whosever idea it was to bring in the children’s choir from the distance, as it were,the voices running, laughing, chattering and bubbling with joy at being children, as it were, deserves a special mention in despatches. It makes for the most heartwarming introduction to the music, which is already infused with the magic of a child’s first sensations, and carries readily over into the motoric chanting of “It’s a boy – it’s a girl”, complete with hand-clapping, the music then gravitating, with de Castro-Robinson’s accustomed skill to a lullaby mode, the tones open and spacious, not unlike Elgar’s in parts of his “Sea Pictures”. There are instrumental quotes from nursery-rhyme tunes, and more chantings, this time from comments out of those Plunket Books, phrases that would have resounded in the memories of parents who had such records kept of their babies’ progress throughout those early years.

Concluding the disc with what, in fact, sounds practically like a hiss and a roar, is Eve de Castro-Robinson’s orchestral tribute to Len Lye, the New Zealand-born kinetic artist, sculptor and film-maker. The composer aptly describes the work Len Dances as “quite a romp, lots of dance tunes and so on…” Written in 2002, parts of this work will reappear in de Castro-Robinson’s opera LEN LYE, which will premiere in September next year at the Maidment Theatre. A feature of the work I really like is the use of the sound of some of Lye’s actual kinetic sculptures – Blade, the great twanging blade and cork ball most people associate with him, and Trilogy.

The opening of the work is all motoric and metallic impulse, awakening something that resembles a human pulse – gradually rhythms coalesce and settle into popular dance-forms – the Charleston leads the way, followed by something from Latin America – wonderfully sleazy work from solo clarinet and lower brass, and a gloriously vulgar trumpet. But the clarinet isn’t finished, and sparks off further energies, the percussion taking over and providing a rhythmic framework for the glorious sounds made by some of Lye’s sculptures, in particular, Blade and Trilogy, whose reverberations and resonances have the last word.

I’m certain that the enormous amounts of energy, spirit and technical skill emanating from this production come from the scenario generated by what de Castro-Robinson describes as “three days of intensive, dedicated recording by the magnificent sound-machine that is the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra – a composer’s dream!”. Obviously everything came together, musicians and technicians producing a notable sound-document of which everybody involved with can be justly proud. My only complaint – a small but reasonably significant one – is the lack of documentation in the production regarding recording dates and venue (uncharacteristic for Atoll). In every other respect (including the wonderful frontispiece illustration taken from a painting, Birds, by Peter Madden) this is a disc that proclaims a standard for contemporary music’s presentation. Everybody should hear it, and especially those who think they don’t much care for contemporary New Zealand music – there’s an angel waiting to be released in each one of them as well!

Keyboard magic from Jun Bouterey-Ishido

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Jun Bouterey-Ishido (piano)

Chamber Music Hutt Valley

JS BACH – English Suite No.1 in A BWV 806 / RAVEL – Le Tombeau de Couperin

BARTOK – Out Of Doors Suite (1926) / BRAHMS – Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel Op.24

St.Mark’s Church, Woburn, Lower Hutt

Sunday 24th July 2011

If you haven’t already done so, find a space on which to write down the name Jun Bouterey-Ishido, a space you’ll remember and can refer back to when the rest of the world catches up with this young pianist’s remarkable talent. Evidence was amply provided by this recital, filled with good things, and even more praiseworthy in that the pianist was able to make a fairly inertly-voiced instrument “sound” with plenty of the different music’s varied characters.

Jun Bouterey-Ishido sprang to pianistic prominence in 2008 when he won the Kerikeri National Piano Competition, impressing the judge, Australian virtuoso pianist and composer Ian Munro, with artistic maturity and potential far beyond his years. Born in Christchurch, Jun had studied previously with Diedre Irons, and then Peter Nagy, Gao Ping and Judith Clark, before being admitted to the Masters Programme at the Liszt Academy in Budapest, where he’s presently continuing his studies with Peter Nagy.

I was fortunate enough to have heard him play in the final round at Kerikeri, remembering in particular an exciting rendition of Ravel’s Alborado del Gracioso, and a powerfully taut reading of Schubert’s A minor Sonata D.784. Experiencing his playing again almost three years later, what freshly struck me was his engaging physical fluidity at the keyboard – if anything, even freer than before, the gestural choreography more expressive, but still in a way that focused entirely on what the music was doing. And although his aspect and mien remained remarkably boyish (most evident when acknowledging applause, his slight diffidence with that process at odds with his ease and command at the keyboard), there was a deeper, more profound effect about his playing that immediately linked his listeners’ sensibilities with the world of the music, transcending time and place, youth and experience.

It was this immediate connection which I found particularly memorable, especially throughout the recital’s first half – the pianist had evidently been thinking over his program, because he announced a change of order before he began, reversing the positions of Bartok’s Suite Out of Doors, and Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, more a case of relating these works to their other companions, I think, than to each other, and with better results. So, after a richly-hued Bach English Suite we were able to enjoy a twentieth-century refraction of further classical elegance in the form of Ravel’s parallel tributes to friends killed in the Great War, as well as to his illustrious countryman, Couperin. I couldn’t imagine a more winning amalgam of freedom and elegance, clarity and colour as we got from Bouterey-Ishido in the  Bach work. Right from the beginning the playing had that timeless quality of sculptured marble, but with the life within awakened and activated. Perhaps for some tastes his playing might have been thought too plastic, too freely-conceived (but I would urge the doubters to consider the word “Baroque” with all of its connotations!) – for me he had the gift of being able to express the “inner life” of his phrasing with, in places, the liquidity of something by Debussy, yet convert the whole into a solid, enduring structure.

Playing like Bouterey-Ishido’s I find hard to “explain”, except to use generic phrases like “infectious” and “spontaneous” – his command of rhythmic gait seemed to have an entirely natural kind of impulsive motivation, a symbiotic process of music and performer creatively interacting. In fact this Bach-playing  gave me so much pleasure, i now find it hard to tear myself away from thinking and writing about it. Fortunately, Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin inhabits a world of similar poise and elegance, partly through its ostensible connections with earlier times, and partly due to the fastidiousness of the work’s creator. Here I noticed from the outset how, more than with his Bach-playing, the pianist’s decorative impulses were somehow tighter, their “filigree whiplashings” reminding me of the playing of Rachmaninov’s in his recordings – the notes are all there, but they’re delivered with the swiftest and deftest of touches! Bouterey-Ishido has the technique to generate larger-scaled vortices of impulse, whirlpools of sound that can clear like torrents of water cascading over rocks and turning to spray, an exhilarating effect at the conclusion of the Prelude to the Suite. A beautifully-modulated Fugue was followed by the perennially bitter-sweet Forlane, the rhythms kept beautifully steady, allowing the sounds to “flesh out” the available spaces and suggest plenty of orchestral colour in places.  And the Rigadoun was, here, a joyous irruption of energies set against moments of introspection, different states of being rubbing shoulders with one another.

But the emotional heart of this suite is the Menuet, delicately begun by Bouterey-Ishido with finely-poised tones, inexorably moved along in processional mode and expanded into a grand archway of feeling – from these big, rolling sounds the emotion was nicely gathered in, the mask of feeling re-adjusted and the delicacy of the opening re-established, concluding with a wistful, almost other-worldly tremolando figure. By contrast the brilliant Toccata carried both rhythmic drive and rhapsodic asymmetry along its exuberant course, well captured by the pianist, revelling in the opportunities for orchestral weight and brilliance.

After this, the “earthiness” of Bartok’s Out of Doors Suite came as a bit of an aural shock, albeit an exhilarating one. No aural quarter was given by Bouterey-Ishido throughout the opening “With Drums and Pipes”, the succeeding “Barcarolla” seeming almost to creep out from behind the shelters after the opening onslaught, establishing uneasy undulations and dark-browed, short-breathed melodies. The pianist resolutely took to the insistent patterning of the “Musettes” – a strangely claustrophobic evocation for an out-of-doors piece. By contrast the dark of night’s spaces was all-enveloping in Bouterey-Ishido’s hands throughout “Musiques nocturnes”, the loneliness exacerbated by snatches of folk-melody wandering throughout the dark. All the stops were pulled out for the concluding “Chase”, the pianist’s reserves of strength and energy put to overwhelming, almost cataclysmic use.

The interval gave us all a chance to properly digest the already meaty substance of the first half’s fare, before tackling what had seemed on paper like the recital’s main course, Brahms’ magnificent Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel. If not the Everest of the romantic piano literature, the work belongs among the highest of the pianistic Alps; and it requires a robust amalgam of virtuoso bravura, visionary zeal and poetic sensibility to bring off. One of the work’s difficulties for the performer is judging the extent to which each variation ought to be characterized according to its own intrinsic nature while making certain of the overall continuity, the inexorable progress towards the imposing fugue that snow-caps the structure’s magnificence. How much virtuoso bravura, classical clarity, or poetic feeling is needed at any given point, and with watt effect upon the overall structure? Happily for the performer, the “greater than ever can be played” rule applies to this work with a vengeance – its possibilities and potentialities for different expression are immense.

Had I been blindfolded and taken to this recital I might not have guessed the pianist’s age throughout the first half of the concert; but throughout the Brahms piece I found myself thinking, “A young man’s performance….” Everything was very direct, presented surely and unequivocally, an approach which brought out a certain purposeful unity to the variations, even if it sacrificed some of the subtleties and depth of expression of some of the pieces. The very opening, played with bright, forthright insouciance, had an extrovert quality that reflects a youthful view of the world, and the variations were entered upon with that same spirit of joie de vivre, knitting the theme and variation together, and completely eschewing the “motorcycle kick-start” launching of that first variation (a flash of virtuoso delight in rhetorical gesture which bubbles to the surface now and then in some performances). Bouterey-Ishido commanded the big guns necessary to deal commandingly with the octaves of Variation 4, though I thought he rushed No.7, smudging and losing a bit of detail. Here, and in the delicious Variation 10 a touch of impatience indicated that perhaps not every note of this work has quite gotten under his “skin”. The second of two deep bell-tolling variations was splendid, however, with the pianist again “snapping” his decorative figurations excitedly and urgently.

Against the occasional moments where I felt the music propelled a shade over-impetuously (the “hunting horn” Variation (No.14) had an almost manic, rather than an heroic, aspect) were the episodes, such as the Sicilienne-like No.18, Mediterranean in impulse, but with a lovely warm Germanic feeling brought to the playing; and the beautifully elusive, rather Schumannesque No.21, whose performances inhabited the music’s spaces with the conviction of complete ownership. Bouterey-Ishido fearlessly plunged into the waters of the final three variations, taking them in a single breath, perhaps sacrificing some of the music’s cumulative power to momentary excitement, but certainly with exhilarating results, the occasional splashiness part of the process. And his playing of the fugue was splendid, nicely arched towards the moment when the cascading bells break forth and flood the sound-vistas with a wonderful sense of arrival and fulfillment.

There’ll come a time when Jun Bouterey-Ishido’s playing of this work will fuse even more deeply with the music – but equally to be cherished is the here-and-now of his youthful whole-heartedness and remarkable physical and technical ease at the keyboard – I know of no other pianist who looks more “at home” with himself and his world when playing. The recital was rounded, in Shakespeare-like fashion, by “a little sleep” – a short but beautiful and dreamy piece by Kodaly whose title I missed hearing, thanks to rain which had begun to fall heavily onto the church’s roof.

Wellington Orchestra’s unfinished business

Posted on by Peter Mechen

UNFINISHED SYMPHONIES – Schubert, Mozart, Berio

SCHUBERT – Symphony No.8 in B Minor D.759 “Unfinished”

MOZART – Piano Concerto No.24 in C Minor K.491

MOZART – Concert Aria “Ch’io mi scordi di te….Non temer, amato bene” K.505

BERIO – Rendering (1989)

Vector Wellington Orchestra / Marc Taddei (conductor)

with: Diedre Irons (piano) and Margaret Medlyn (soprano)

Wellington Town Hall

Saturday 23rd July 2011

This concert both played the game and bended the rules in the most interesting possible way – we had what’s become a common orchestral concert format of introductory work, concerto and symphony, but most interestingly constituted and creatively “placed”, so that the feeling of “the same old formula” was nicely avoided.

Basically, it was a Schubert/Mozart evening, but with a major contribution from a more-or-less contemporary voice. This was the Italian composer Luciano Berio, who in 1989 produced an orchestral work, Rendering, one which took the fragments of Schubert’s uncompleted work on a Tenth Symphony as the basis for a three-movement work. “Not a completion or a reconstruction” of the Symphony, declared Berio, but a “restoration” – and the work gave an uncanny feeling of two intensely creative impulses separated by two hundred years coming together for a kind of reawakening.

Instead of an overture beginning the concert we had an intensely dramatic performance of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony, which, together with Mozart’s C Minor Piano Concerto K.491, suggested a preponderance of seriousness throughout the concert’s first half, a state of things which didn’t eventuate to the expected degree, I thought, more of which anon. The second half was similarly innovative, beginning with Mozart’s best-known Concert Aria for soprano, Ch’io mi scordi di te…Non temer, amato bene K.505, and concluding with Berio’s Rendering.

So, our expectations were nicely-tempered by these prospects; and the concert got off to the best possible beginning with a performance of the eponymous “Unfinished” Symphony which seemed akin to giving an old masterpiece a restoration job of its own – Marc Taddei encouraged his orchestra to play out in all departments, less of a rounded “Germanic” sound and more a thrustful, characterfully Viennese texture, lean and detailed, the brass occasionally risking obtrusiveness but generally making their presence refreshingly felt. With several on-the-spot contributions from timpanist Stephen Bremner, and wonderfully soulful playing from the winds (magnificent individually and as a group throughout the concert), the work here “spoke” with a directness and candour which too many routine performances over the years in concert and on record have sadly blunted. I ought to mention the strings, too, characteristically playing well above their weight (those “slashing” off-beat chords just before the second subject had such ear-catching focus and determination), pulsating the first movement with energy and life throughout. And I’ve never experienced a sense of the abyss opening up so ominously at the beginning of the development section as in this performance – those lower strings evoked such darkly disturbing realms as to bring home in no uncertain terms the tragic subtext beneath the music’s surface energies.

Those energies enabled the musicians to make more of the contrasts between the movements, with the opening of the Andante measured, mellow and easeful. Apart from a slight hiccup with the final note of her “big tune”, Moira Hurst’s clarinet playing sounded as beautifully heartfelt as we’d come to expect, the phrases echoed as memorably by the other winds, before being savagely pirated by baleful brass,whose forceful chordings over the string figurations were a striking feature of this performance. Near the end of the movement Taddei conjured from his players some gorgeously-coloured modulations (what Schumann called “other realms”) before the music resignedly returned to its destiny. If a couple of pairs of applauding hands in the auditorium broke the spell at the work’s end somewhat abruptly, the impulses were sound and their intrusion forgivable – I thought this was, through-and-through, a magnificent performance.

Mozart’s C Minor Concerto K.491 promised more storms and stresses, though it was largely the orchestra that agitated the musical argument, Diedre Irons’ piano playing taking a more stoic, in places relatively circumspect manner and aspect. Though the tensions weren’t repeatedly screwed to their utmost by such an approach, there were compensations in Irons’ detailed and rhapsodic exposition of the music, alive to every nuance of sensitive expression, apart from a measure or two towards the end of the movement where a brief moment of piano-and-orchestra hesitancy seemed to slightly blur the lines of the argument for a couple of seconds. In certain places, Irons, Taddei and the players superbly realized the music’s power, those dark coruscations of interchange at the heart of the development dug into with a will, while elsewhere, such as in the orchestral lead-up to the first movement cadenza, there was drama and thrust aplenty, soloist and orchestra each taking it in turns to galvanize the other.

Pianist and conductor played each of the concerto’s movements more-or-less attacca, which worked well, and emphasized the symphonic character of the work’s overall mood. The slow movement stole upon us almost out of nowhere, Irons’s playing allowing the melody to speak directly and simply to the heart, adding the occasional decoration to phrase-ends when the melody is repeated. The orchestral winds really showed their mettle in this movement, Taddei encouraging plenty of urgency and dynamic variation from the players to contrast with the piano’s simplicity, making for some glorious, chamber-music-like moments of lyrical interaction. After this, the “coiled spring” opening of the finale was like an awakening from a dream, the urgencies taking different shapes and forms, until the winds adroitly turned the argument towards open spaces and festive activity for a few measures, valiantly but vainly attempting to elude the demons that continued to stalk the music right to the end, through the piano’s chromatic scamperings and the orchestra’s desperate concluding flourish. I could have imagined sterner, bigger-boned piano playing in this work, but Irons’ approach brought a degree of vulnerability to the musical discourse, one that could be readily applied to human experience.

After the interval more Mozart, but with a difference – the adorable Concert Aria written for one of the composer’s favorite singers, Nancy Storace (there’s conjecture as to whether she and Mozart were lovers for a brief period, though the supposition is based on conjecture rather than proof – Mozart wrote in his dedication of the work, “…for Mme Storace and me…”). The Aria, Ch’io mi scordi di te…Non temer, amato bene K.505 is notable not only for its intense operatic expression, but for its beautiful piano obbligato, which, in a real sense, is a “second voice”. Margaret Medlyn told us in a program note of her early involvement with the work, an experience which she says has never left her. There was no doubt as to her intense involvement with the emotional range and depth of the aria – Medlyn is always extremely satisfying as a performer on that score – and if the tessitura at the very end sounded a bit of an ungainly stretch (rather like an ocean liner trying to negotiate a treacherous piece of water) the visceral effect of the singer’s total involvement was thrilling. Diedre Irons, Marc Taddei and the players gave Medlyn all the support she needed, making for an uncommonly involving vignette of intense listening and feeling.

And so to Luciano Berio’s Rendering, which would, I think, have been an intriguing prospect for most listeners, myself included. I liked the concept (explained by Marc Taddei before the work began, using the analogy of paint that had fallen off an original work) of a “restoration” of Schubert’s original sketches for an unfinished – yes, ANOTHER one! – symphony (there are also piano sonatas…..but we won’t go into that). Berio himself explained that his work was like modern restorations of medieval paintings, such as frescoes, which aim at reviving the old colours within, but without trying to disguise the wear-and-tear of time – meaning that gaps would inevitably be left in the original (as with the famous Giotto frescoes in Assisi). Berio, however, interpolated other material into these gaps (bits of “other” Schubert and bits of Berio himself), colouring the sounds with that of a celeste (of the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” fame), the delicate, rather disembodied effect imparting a somewhat “other-worldly” ambience to these passages, as if the composer’s shade was sifting through the assembled material, muttering his thoughts to himself.

The original material is very recognizably Schubert – the composer left a considerable amount of material (which was, for whatever reason, made public as recently as 1978 in Vienna, the date being the 150th anniversary of Schubert’s death). I scribbled down many impressions of the music, noting the reminiscences of works I knew – after the fanfare-like opening, near the beginning, there’s a lovely clarinet solo, reminiscent of the Third Symphony, for example – a bit later, the ‘cellos have a melody like that in the “other” Unfinished, to quote another example. But interspersed with these things, and the ghostly, celeste-led interludes, the music was quite forthright, even swashbuckling in places, and hardly, one would think, the utterances of somebody preparing for an early death.

The second movement, Andante, made a more sober impression, the oboe and bassoon playing adding plangent tones to the argument, the mood ennobled by a theme on the full orchestra, then suddenly taken to that “other world”, in this movement the sequences seeming to me in places to combine Schubert’s actual melodies with a counterpoint of Berio’s “renderings”, more so than in other parts of the work. A pizzicato chord sparking off furious activity suggested the finale’s beginning, featuring a tune with what sounded like a Scottish snap, and orchestral energies building up to the kind of joyous rhythmic repetition found in the finale of the Ninth Symphony. The “ghost music” and the composer’s more forthright original material vie for attention throughout, before the work ends with a big, muscular forte orchestral statement – emotional health in the midst of worldly privation!

What can one say to all of this, except Bravo! to Marc Taddei and the Vector Wellington Orchestra!

Schubert from Houstoun at Paekakariki – Matching Poesies

Posted on by Peter Mechen

SCHUBERT – Piano Sonata in G Major D.894 / Piano Sonata in B-flat D.960

Michael Houstoun (piano)

Mulled Wine Concert Series / Memorial Hall, Paekakariki

Sunday, July 17th, 2011

Waiting outside the Memorial Hall in a July afternoon’s wintry sunshine at Paekakariki was for me a kind of poetry in itself, colored partly by the expectation of hearing live performances of two of Schubert’s greatest piano sonatas, but also by the ambience of the open spaces, rugged hills to the east, and the beach and distantly lovely Kapiti Island to the west. I’ll doubtless be accused of “event-dropping” here, but I was reminded by all of this of my visit to the Aldeburgh Festival in Suffolk (too many years previously that I care to number!), where one finds a similar “homely” aspect to many of the concert venues, and the same rural outdoor “far-from-the-big-city” atmosphere that gives to the whole enterprise such distinction.

Inside the hall at Paekakariki, the excitement-buzz was palpable, the sense of an occasion somehow made more manifest by the community-hall nature of the venue – a kind of “music is where you find it” spirit that, as I’ve said, heightens the special nature of the event. I was not aware of Michael Houstoun having any previous significant association with the solo piano music of Schubert, and so this for me seemed to add to the concert’s specialness. Naturally, I knew Houstoun had recently performed with tenor Keith Lewis the great “Winterreise” song-cycle, as well as the “Trout” Quintet as part of Chamber Music New Zealand’s “Schubertiade” – so I found myself keenly anticipating the pianist bringing his own unique qualities as a performer to music I’ve loved for much of my listening life.

First up, and I think rightly so, was the G Major Sonata D.894. Like its recital companion, the B-flat Sonata, it’s a work whose first movement alone, when played with the repeat can dwarf in sheer size and scope the movements which follow, especially in the hands of an interpreter who emphasizes the music’s potential for what Robert Schumann famously called its “heavenly length”. Perhaps taking its cue from Schumann’s observation, there’s a school of interpretation that advocates the most spacious of tempi over certain of Schubert’s movements, more pronounced, I think, than with any other classical composer. But as with all great music, there are diametrically opposed notions regarding how it should be played, ranging from those rooted in abstraction and severity of symphonic form, to ideas which advance the feeling that Schubert’s work should all be thought of as subservient to song, since (following this line of thinking) he was a lyricist, and not symphonic in outlook, and that his structures should be regarded as little more than somewhat naively-extended melodies.

Michael Houstoun’s playing of the sonata’s opening suggested a course that took into account both structural awareness and lyrical impulse on the composer’s part. We heard at the outset phrases given plenty of air and space, richly-toned and with leading lines sung out, along with strong, well-focused chordings and clearly-etched melodic patterns, suggesting that the pianist took the idea of Schubert the long-term symphonic thinker seriously, though without, it must be said, going to the extremes of profundity attempted by the likes of pianist Sviatoslav Richter. Houstoun, to my ears, sought from within the movement a judicious balance between profundity and momentum that found the best of both the intellectual and emotional worlds of the music. Throughout the introductory paragraphs he differentiated the different voices with considerable sensitivity, withdrawing his tone for the minor-key utterance, and warming it with slightly more body for its repetition in the major mode – as well, he beautifully energized the music at the point where it consciously begins to pulsate, the melody subtly detailed (a slight finger-slip in the filigree right-handed runs possibly the result of the phrasing being, I felt, a shade too “stiff”, more an etched pattern than a dance), the rhythm given sufficient girth to remain relatively light upon its feet. I thought Houstoun’s observation of the repeat just that wee bit more exploratory and expansive – if, this time round, the filigree runs in the right hand seemed freer and more dance-like, there was also an added hymn-like quality to some of the more chordal utterances, very much a feeling, one could say, of a “song of the earth”.

The rest of the movement was as fine in Houstoun’s hands, with only a touch of “bluntness” at some of the phrase-ends suggesting that there were still a couple of corners of the work he hadn’t yet negotiated with complete ease. Largely his approach to the darker, stormier development was lean and forward-looking, more agitated than tragic in feeling, building up the chordal sequences impressively, but playing with translucent tones that never threatened to crush the music under its own weight. The lead-back to the opening was nicely “breathed”, as was the coda, the music’s “homecoming” aspect given plenty of songful feeling. The slow movement’s first few phrases energized the stasis of the first movement’s conclusion, almost too much so, I thought at first, thinking that those wonderful phrases weren’t being encouraged to “flower” with sufficient poetry – but as the music progressed, so did I warm more to the playing, thanks to the flexibility and subtlety of the pianist’s rubato. The music’s key-change brought a big-boned contrast, but also some beautifully pliant phrasings in the gentler responses – Houstoun actually surprised me with his readiness to yield in places, getting a lot out of the music with his beautifully nuanced contourings.

I liked the Scherzo’s characterful dancings, the pianist bringing out the music’s lilting qualities and playing the grace-notes that punctuate the line with great “point” and care. He illuminated the melodic line of the Trio with nicely-stressed harmonies and counter-lines, enjoying the music’s contrasts as the scherzo’s chords lurched back into the soundscape. As for the finale, the playing had all the rhythmic buoyancy one could have wished for (was there a touch of hesitancy over the transition into the “running” sequence?), with everything nicely pointed and dovetailed; and then, during the stormier minor-key sequences, plenty of invigorating “schwung” to muscle up the interplay and keep the momentum going right through to the opening’s return. After these exertions, the coda was like balm for the senses, a hugely satisfied exhalation which Schubert (and Houstoun) seemed to invite all of us to join in with. At the end of all of this there was general pleasure in demonstrating our appreciation of the performance, though I have to say that Houstoun’s playing of the sonata divided opinion in my party, a situation which always invigorates discussion and sharpens all kinds of critical evaluations, both in the process and its conclusions. A friend whose opinion I respect thought the playing up to this point “all head and no heart”. But I couldn’t agree, as witness what I’ve written so far; and, for myself, I thought it was a truly praiseworthy performance.

Having said this, I had to admit, at the conclusion of the concert’s second half, that the B-flat Sonata demonstrated Houstoun’s interpretative depth and identification with the music to an extent that the G Major’s performance, good though it was, didn’t quite achieve. From first note to last, Schubert’s final and greatest piano sonata brought out what I felt was a powerful and comprehensive understanding on the pianist’s part. Even when I wanted parts of the music played a slightly different way (softer, more yielding paragraphs in one or two places), Houstoun’s conviction regarding what he was doing was such at the time that his interpretation carried all before it, the result being an entirely convincing and marvellously played performance.

Right from the beginning, the music seemed to carry whole worlds of inward feeling, Houstoun’s treatment of the chordal melody sounding and feeling almost Brucknerian in its weighty expansiveness, the vistas opening up to accommodate the tones generated by those big repeated chords which grow beneath the melody’s repetition. Not as nuanced as, and much more insistent than the music for the G major Sonata, these were more direct and forthright sounds, dealing, as Houstoun himself would probably say, in fundamental material – and no more so than at the repeat, where it might seem to the uninitiated listener as though the basic fabric of the music is being threatened by some kind of “horror from the deep” – a critical episode in the work’s discourse, here brought off by the pianist with suitably awe-inspiring power and concentration. The development brought layer upon layer of intensification, leading to what I’ve always regarded as the “stricken” passage, repeated chords sounded underneath a minor-key melody, before the opening theme returns, stalked by its trill ominously rumbling away in the bass. By the time the opening was properly reconstituted, the work had truly become “road music”, the vistas opened right out in Houstoun’s hands, the momentum kept up, the soul inexorably continuing upon its journey, bequeathing us those richly voiced chords at the movement’s end.

What a lovely colour Houstoun gave the opening of the slow movement! – its tolling bell aspect was beautifully and sensitively weighted, equivocally poised between worlds of foreboding and resignation. The music carried easefully into the major-key episode, the pianist’s rhythmic trajectories both focused and flexible throughout. Contrasting with this was the scherzo’s lightness of touch, set around and about an angular trio with Houstoun bringing out some startlingly effective bass-line accents. The playful and propulsive finale also harboured contrasting energies, the explosive mid-stream outbursts very much in keeping with the movement’s volatile character, as were the angular polyphonics leading up to the final energy-gathering pauses, and the torrents of abandonment which concluded the work. And my friend’s reaction to Houstoun’s playing of the B-flat Sonata? – words to the effect of “Well, he really nailed that one!”…..and when all’s said and done, I can’t really sum it up better than that!

Bow at St.Andrews – tightening the strings….

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Bow String Ensemble

Musical Director – Rachel Hyde

Concertmaster – Kathryn Maloney

GRIEG – Two Elegiac Melodies Op.34  / GORECKI – Three Pieces in the Old Style

TCHAIKOVSKY – Serenade in C Major for Strings Op.48

St.Andrew’s on-the-Terrace, Wellington

Sunday, 10th July, 2011

This concert was the Bow String Ensemble’s second outing, following its inaugural concert last October, also at St.Andrew’s. On that occasion the new ensemble made an admirable job of the concert’s first half, but, given the rehearsal time available to amateur players, simply couldn’t do justice to what was practically a full-length program. The result resembled what I thought was very much a concert of two halves, disconcertingly so when setting one against the other. Happily, this time round, a less ambitious, though still demanding program produced a far more consistent and satisfying overall result for all concerned.

Being an ex-percussionist rather than a string player myself, I find a certain fascination, even mystique about string playing, all to do with the sound produced by ensembles. Some of the notes and phrases produced by this group in places during the course of the concert were of “sit-up-and-take-notice” quality – and not always in passages where one would expect a mellifluous sound as a certainty. All the “sections” of the ensemble had wonderful moments, places where the tones had unanimity of focus and the phrases either “flowed like oil” or tugged at the heartstrings.

That there was also, especially in the larger work of the concert, the Tchaikovsky Serenade, a rawness of intonation and a few out-of-sync passages could be easily put down to lack of rehearsal time. But, unlike the struggle experienced by the ensemble last year to make the Dvorak Serenade properly “speak”, I felt that, for all the occasional roughnesses we were given a performance of the Tchaikovsky that truly captured the music’s heart. It was more than getting the notes right – I thought the players’ tones conveyed the character of parts of the score so well and whole-heartedly in places, as to suggest that, with more rehearsal time, the group’s potential to realize performances of comparable through-quality would result, to everybody’s enhanced satisfaction.

As with last year’s performance of the “Holberg” Suite, Grieg’s music proved an excellent concert-opener, on this occasion with the Two Elegiac Melodies Op.34. Easily dismissed as “lighter” fare, they’re actually as characteristically heartfelt and richly-layered as any music by the composer, and reward the detailed, sensitively-nuanced playing encouraged by Rachel Hyde with a most attractive and readily-grasped lyricism – they are, of course, transcriptions for strings of two songs by the composer, “Spring” and “Heart Wounds”.

I thought the ensemble’s tones at the outset had a grainy, nostalgic quality, tightly held, with dynamics controlled beautifully throughout, giving the feeling of every note having been “considered”, so that the accompaniments “told” as appropriately as did the leading lines – I also liked the unmoulded sounds made by some of the notes when “leaned into” – they had a marked visceral impact which contrasted well with the “other-worldliness” of some of the more hushed passages. “Heart Wounds” seemed more inward a piece than “Spring”, one that I suspect is more difficult to “sing” because of its chromatically-inflected melody line. This is music which sounds appropriately “cold”, with flecks of sunlight in places like the tiny ‘cello counterpoint, accompanying the melody’s turning to the major key, and clouding over again when the violas introduce the tune’s second-time though. Focusing upon these nicely-realised detailings may seem as if this review might be losing sight of the forest for the trees – but they’re part of what made the performances of this music by the ensemble resonate in the memory long after the last sounds had died away.

In her spoken introduction to the concert conductor Rachel Hyde had described the three Gorecki pieces as being “lovely, but with some really scrunchy sounds in places” – and so it proved, with the last of the trio of pieces transforming an elegiac beginning into a bell-like threnody, some claustrophobic harmonies providing the crunchy bits as promised, relished by musicians and audience alike, as the sounds alternated between outward brazenness and inwardly-sounded echoes. The first two pieces were nicely differentiated, firstly an oscillating, ritual-like processional not unlike parts of the famous Symphony No.3 (“Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”); and then a cheerful folk-dance, very out-of-doors in feeling, richly textured with dynamics that dipped, swooped and soared – the ensemble seemed to take to the different moods of the music like a duck to water.

So the Tchaikovsky Serenade was splendidly prepared for by these goings-on, and the grand, dignified opening – so ceremonial and heart-on-sleeve at one and the same time – didn’t disappoint. The tones may have been close to raw in places as the players again “leaned into” their bowings, but the result was appropriately heartfelt, especially throughout the questioning repetitions leading up to the allegro. The playing brought out the music’s Italianate quality, Rachel Hyde’s tempi and general control perfectly gauged to allow the ‘cellos time to make something of their counterpoints, and the violins and violas elbow-room for their chromatic back-and-forth figurations. The Mozartean exchanges kept their rhythmic poise,though intonation suffered in the exposed dovetailing as the music turned for home just after the pizzicati colorings – the players were much happier with all this the second time round in a lower key (C as opposed to G), a sense of real enjoyment coming though, reflected in the “juiciness” of the playing of the opening’s reprise at the end.

The Waltz, one of Tchaikovsky’s most well-known, was by turns forthright and yielding, again with that attractive “Italianate” quality so well caught by the violins in thirds, though the minor-key episode that followed sounded relatively scrappy – fortunately, amends were made by the warmth of  the major-key recap., the violas having a fine time with their counterpoint (it must be such a joy to play this work!), and the coda brought off most enchantingly by all – the pizzicati ending got a special burst of delighted applause!

I loved the Elegie all over again in this performance – a beautifully “caught” opening, the tones coloured and weighted to perfection, and the last phrase “dug into” most satisfyingly – the following pizzicato sounded a bit “muddy” at first, then cleared, and the violins started the melody confidently, seemed to “lose their nerve” momentarily at the first rallentando, but then pick up again in support of the ‘cellos. Throughout I thought the performance poised, open and nicely charged with feeling – Tchaikovsky’s candidly-open “weeping” towards the end brought out some less-than-ingratiating tones, though the players recovered for the coda, giving us a most atmospheric, “Russian-sounding” final chord.

Straight into the finale, then, songful at the beginning, and with energy and bite to the dance at the allegro (the second violins couldn’t match the confidence of the firsts in the opening exchanges, but the pizzicati leading to the second subject were full of life and bounce!). Though the ‘cellos sounded a little unhappy with their theme, they then dug into the development with gusto, Hyde and the players keeping the momentum going splendidly, the up-and-down scales rocketing with energy just before the grand return to the work’s opening. Most deservedly, conductor and orchestra got a great ovation from the “in-the-round” audience, Hyde inviting comments at the end and getting one or two bravely-delivered contributions!

A quick word regarding Rachel Hyde’s invitation to children present to move around during the performance of the music – while laudable in theory I did find the audience movement distracting during the playing, and wondered whether other people also found that it actually “took” from the concert’s musical ambience – one can be warmly welcoming of children at concerts by way of dispelling a lot of the usual “stuffiness” that people associate with classical music performance, but as this wasn’t anywhere presented as a “young audience” event, I didn’t think that offering people carte blanche of movement was entirely appropriate. Perhaps I’m the one being overly stuffy, now, but I still feel that somewhere there’s middle ground with all of this that can strike a balance at concerts between enjoyment and respect, constraint and comfort – and not just for youthful concertgoers!

Earthly and Heavenly Delights from the Historical Arts Trust

Posted on by Peter Mechen

LA MUSICA – Sacra II

Earthly Delight, Heavenly Respite

The Historical Arts Trust

Music by CORELLI and HANDEL

Pepe Becker (soprano)

Gregory Squire (baroque violin) / Katrin Eickhorst-Squire (baroque ‘cello) / Douglas Mews (harpsichord)

St. Mary of the Angels Church, Wellington

Saturday 2nd July 2011

Formed in 2010, the Historical Arts Trust was set up by a group of enthusiasts involved in the disciplines of early music, theatre and dance, in order to promote interest in Medieval, Renaissance and baroque music, dance and drama in New Zealand. The aim of the Trust is to present concerts and other events such as workshops and demonstrations which showcase these highly distinctive eras, and will encourage wider awareness and involvement on the part of performers and audiences.

Dimitrios Theodoridis, well-known as a versatile singer with period vocal groups, was appointed the Trust’s first Executive Director, and was instrumental in co-ordinating the group’s first workshop, in April 2011, taken with students from both St.Patrick’s and St.Catherine’s Colleges here in Wellington, and featuring also the talents of musicians Robert Oliver, Brendan O’Donnell and Stephen Pickett. The students were able to experience the authentic sounds of renaissance music and its performance, and discuss what they heard with the musicians.

The group’s first concert, Risurrezione, which took place in May,  got the series, “La Musica”, off to an exciting beginning with the music of Biber, JS Bach and Buxtehyde. The considerable instrumental skills of Gregory Squire, Douglas Mews and Robert Oliver each played a vital part supporting the glorious singing of soprano Pepe Becker and bass David Morriss. It all promised well for the events to follow, and special interest accompanied the first of these, which featured two of the Baroque era’s most spectacular composer/performers, Arcangelo Corelli and Georg Friedrich Handel.

Stories of the rivalry between the two composers, arising from their encounters in Rome, have gone into the realms of musical legend, the most well-known one being Handel’s deliberate placement of a high E in a sonata of his that Corelli was due to perform, after the latter had avowed never to write – or perform – such a note. Despite the resulting stand-off causing a never-to-be-healed breach between the two composers, Handel wasn’t slow to recognize the popular appeal of the “Italian style” and thus adopt his own potent realization of it in his own works. The concert thus gave us a chance to further the “cheek-by-jowl” interaction of the two composers’ music, albeit playing to different respective creative “strengths”, Corelli’s with some of his instrumental sonatas, and Handel with his famous set of German Arias for soprano.

How eloquently the instrumentalists stirred the silences into life with the opening of the first of Corelli’s Op.5 Violin Sonatas! – the Grave opening marvellously punctuated by energized irruptions, the tones held and savored by the church’s grateful ambience. Greg Squire’s violin confidently led the dance, while Katrin Eickhorst-Squire’s ‘cello seemed a more “contained” though always reliable consort. In attendance, too was Douglas Mews’ ever-tasteful continuo, finding a just balance between expression and discretion in support of the violin. For a time, the combination jelled more consistently in the slower movements, during which the instrumentalists conjured up exquisitely-voiced and -balanced sounds; whereas the allegros found the string-playing a touch off-centre in intonation and more wispy in tone than was ideal – as the evening progressed, so did the playing focus more truly and consistently.

Interspersed throughout the concert with Handel’s seven German Arias we heard two further instrumental sonatas from Corelli’s Op.5 – No.9 in A Major made a nice contrast with its secular dance movements as opposed to the opening work’s more formal “churchy’ structure, longish slow movements set against virtuosic allegros and fugues. Particularly noteworthy (excuse the pun) was the performance of the Gavotte from this sonata, decorated busily with running passagework that kept the players on their toes, although the playing never lost sight of the underlying dance rhythms, the ‘cello and harpsichord working as hard as Gregory Squire’s violin throughout this work.

Fittingly, the most famous of the Op. 5 set was also represented, the D Minor Sonata No.12 being a theme and variations on the well-known La Follia. This was a glittering display of music-making form all concerned, very exciting and physical in effect, with the ‘cello given as much to do, it seemed, as the violin. Corelli’s inventiveness seemed unflagging, including many unpredictable and volatile moments, a world of ebb and flow that these performers took unto themselves without hesitation – though the playing wasn’t absolutely note-perfect, it was the energy and drive of the virtuoso irruptions set against the more poised and dignified episodes that triumphantly carried the listener’s attention throughout.

It made excellent musical sense to ring the changes between instrumental and vocal items throughout the evening. Pepe Becker was in her usual fine vocal fettle, though I couldn’t help thinking that, on this showing, her voice seemed in places somehow less comfortable with this repertoire than with the Renaissance and earlier Baroque works we’d recently heard her perform so magnificently. It’s a voice that floats and fills out melismatic contouring with the utmost beauty, of the kind that abounds in more florid music than this – here, in Handel’s more tightly-conceived figurations I noticed a blurring of the coloratura lines exacerbated by the ample acoustic which took away some of the music’s clarity in quicker passages as well as most of the singer’s consonants! Having said this, Becker made some lovely sounds, the opening Süsse Stille particularly successful, especially in the voice’s combination with the instruments. Apart from some sightly uncomfortable intonation at the end of the the aria’s middle section, the following Singe, Seele, Gott sum Preise just as successfully conveyed the music’s essence, energetic and joyful.

In the next bracket of two arias, Flammende Rose was beautifully shaped by the performers, the structure most satisfyingly “built up” by the composer,and rendered here with appropriately sonorous singing and playing. I thought the opening of Künft’ger Zeiten either Kummer (Vain care of times to come) with its low tessitura difficult for the soprano voice, but the succeeding episode featured some exquisite work, with beautifully-held notes from the singer. Two further arias immediately after the interval featured, firstly, Süsser Blumen Ambraflocken (Ambrosial petal of sweet flowers), the singer making up for somewhat blurred articulation throughout by some shining, stratospheric decoration of the penultimate line “I will soar Heavenward and sing praises”, followed by an oddly sombre and agitated setting of In dem Angenehmen Büschenand (In the pleasant thickets), the music sounding more disturbed than tranquil, with an undertow of unrest even through the more settled tones of “Dann erhebt sich in der Brust” (Then in my breast my contented spirit).

Fortunately, the concluding aria Meine Seele made amends, Becker’s voice taking to its exaltations with buoyancy and openness – a lovely, more circumspect moment at “Horen nur, Hark!” placing Creation’s delight in a more thoughtful, metaphysical context, before returning to the leaping joy of “Alles jauchzet, alles lacht” at the end. Delight in the music,in the singing and playing, and in the beauties of the venue (despite the slightly over-generous ambience already alluded to) gave this concert the kind of distinction which did the Historical Arts Trust’s purposes full justice.

Gilbert and Sullivan double bill a delight…..

Posted on by Peter Mechen

W.S.GILBERT / ARTHUR SULLIVAN – Trial By Jury / H.M.S.Pinafore

Wellington Gilbert and Sullivan Light Opera Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra

Music Director – Matthew Ross / Stage Director – Gillian Jerome

Wellington Opera House

Thursday 30th June 2011

“I do my best to satisfy you all” sings Captain Corcoran to the crew of H.M.S.Pinafore – and we in the audience at Wellington ‘s Opera House could well have, at the end of the evening, echoed the crew’s reply, regarding the production, “And with you we’re quite content!” For this was a rollicking good night in the theatre – the stage spectacle entertaining and colourful, and the music elegant and captivating. To be sure, in the wake of previous encounters with this company, one came fully prepared to make certain allowances regarding the quality of the solo singing and fluency of the stage production, but any such discrepancies had little debilitating effect on the evening’s pleasure and delight. Having heard neither “Trial By Jury” nor “Pinafore” for some time, I was delighted to have my enthusiasm for Sullivan’s music and Gilbert’s elegant and witty satires reawakened so wholeheartedly.

Pivotal to the success of the evening throughout both productions were chorus and orchestra, and in each case there was a strong and secure focus, with many felicitous touches. This was particularly so in “Trial By Jury” where the choruses are positively Greek-like in character, declaiming as one, but with the added strength and persuasion of numbers, and often interacting with individuals as such themselves. Particularly telling were the jurymen’s rapid mood-swings, ranging from utter besottment with the female plaintiff ‘s allure to savage condemnation of her ex-partner the defendant, depending upon whichever protagonist was in their immediate sights. Both jurymen and spectators in the courtroom were, in fact, splendid in every way, the singing and acting strong and purposeful.

In “Pinafore” which followed, both groups, as sailors on board the ship, and as the First Lord of the Admiralty’s accompanying bevy of “sisters, cousins and aunts”, again relished their roles, though I thought the sailors every now and then too static and deck-bound, needing to respond with more energy to what the music was doing, as with the work’s opening chorus, “We sail the ocean blue”. The First Lord, Sir Joseph Porter’s “sister’s, cousins and aunts” were nicely “contained”, bubbling onto the ship’s deck like eager schoolgirls on a Bank Holiday outing, and amusingly irritating their illustrious benefactor and patron with their attentions. Musically, though, each group put across its music with great vim and conviction, and things came together nicely in places such as the “conspirators” scene, at the end of the first act, with stage movement and vocal energy strongly conveying the scene’s power and purpose – an amusing touch was the unexpected despatching of the rogue sailor Dick Deadeye overboard, with a Goon-Show cry of “He’s fallen in the water!”

Throughout, I was much taken with the work of the music director, Matthew Ross, in a role I hadn’t seen him perform before. Apart from a mix-up during “Pinafore” between stage and pit over Sir Joseph Porter’s pointed hesitations for his refrain, “I thought so little – they rewarded me…” this was a nicely spic-and-span orchestral realization, by turns spirited and sensitive throughout both operettas, the playing so often mirroring the theatrical action aptly and vividly. Ross couldn’t keep the solo voices ideally together during the near-polyphonic strains of “A British Tar…” but in tutti things fairly crackled along. I would have insisted on a bigger NOISE from everybody, on-stage and off with each whiplash disturbance of the lovers’ intended flight, allowing the “Goodness me…..why, what was that?” interjections to have more hushed point and menace. But in general things were beautiful judged and nicely paced, the “For he is an Englishman” having plenty of proper Victorian gravitas (with a touch of colonial humor spicing the comparisons – “…or perhaps Aus-tray-li-yan!” which brought a ripple of laughter from the stalls).

The leading roles in both works were all nicely characterized, one or two vocal insufficiencies hardly mattering in the context of the whole, even if one did long for more honeyed tenor tones in places from both lead tenors, Peter King’s somewhat papery-voiced, if charmingly-acted Defendant, and Christopher Berentson’s effortful but commendably whole-hearted Ralph Rackstraw. And David Skinner’s Learned Judge was also notable more for his compelling stage presence than clearly-focused voice production, though his portrayals by turns of bastion of justice, raconteur and opportunist all rolled into one were amusing and convincing. John Goddard as Captain Corcoran survived an awkward first entrance as a prelude to his “My gallant crew! – good morning!” – which was surely written to be declaimed from the top deck, or at the very least, the quarter-deck, instead of from somebody crowded in on the same level as his crew right from the time he opened his cabin door. He seemed more comfortable with the jollier, more robust aspects of his role, though his understanding of the poignancy of his Serenade to the moon was evident enough.

His rapport with Stephanie Gartrell’s Little Buttercup was heartwarming, to say the least. Hers was a rich and beautifully-delivered assumption, warm and sympathetic as her boat-woman character, but able to suggest by gesture and expression sufficient exotic mystery to make good her prophetic words to the Captain, “There is a change in store for you!”. Their duet “Things are seldom what they seem” was a highlight of the evening. Malinda di Leva’s Josephine was suitably bright-toned of voice and nicely poised of aspect, ready to suggest and activate the character’s depth of feeling beneath the reserve – her wholeheartedness made a marvellous contrast with the attractive kittenish vacuity of Lynley Snelling’s dolly-bird Plaintiff in “Trial”, nicely plausible and beautifully sung. Two tenors who each took to the law, with markedly different outcomes, were Kevin O’Kane, eloquent and pleasing as Counsel for the Plaintiff, and in “Pinafore” Colin Eade as the shamelessly opportunistic First Lord of the Admiralty, a colourful and successful portrayal. Derek Miller also impressed right from the outset with his sonorous tones as the Usher in “Trial” and his gift for characterization without caricature as the unfortunate sailor, Dick Deadeye.

So, with talent enough among the performers to burn, the traditional double-bill was a great success, reminding one of a number of things – the genius of the work’s creators (too readily taken for granted), the renewability of great music (able to enchant at each hearing), the excitement of live performance (with attendant thrills and spills), and the stunning clarity of the Wellington Opera House’s stage acoustic (every word sung with good diction as clear as a bell – such a joy!). The G&S Society can, in my opinion, be proud of their “latest” – moments in time well worth the shared enjoyment!

Romeo and Juliet – beautiful but cool from Inkinen and the NZSO

Posted on by Peter Mechen

ROMEO AND JULIET – Music by Tchaikovsky, Berlioz and Prokofiev

Pietari Inkinen (conductor) / New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday, June 25th, 2011

British comedians Michael Flanders and Donald Swann penned a number called “A Friendly Duet” for their successful 1960s revue At The Drop of Another Hat, a song containing references to various famous pairs of lovers in history and literature – including, of  course, Romeo and Juliet :

No romance, said Juliet,

I haven’t left school yet,

We’re friends – just friends!

Throughout much of the first half of the NZSO’s Romeo and Juliet concert, which featured the music of Tchaikovsky and Berlioz, I couldn’t help thinking of the Flanders-and-Swann song – the clean-cut, beautifully-modulated and expertly-delivered orchestral playing presided over by maestro Pietari Inkinen impressed on a great many counts, but seemed to me to keep at arm’s length what the publicity associated with the concert emphasized as its essential component – that sadly “done-to-death” concept, passion. True, the right instincts seemed to be closely associated with the venture – the programme notes for the concert spoke of “frenetic music” and “burning passion” (Tchaikovsky), and “unbridled energy” (Berlioz),  while Inkinen and the orchestra achieved in both pieces miracles of evocation and atmosphere with certain episodes, passages that took away one’s breath with the beauty and subtlety of the sounds. However, both Tchaikovsky’s and Berlioz’s music, for me, exemplify romantic expression in its totality, where beauty and subtlety vie with full-blooded extremes of feeling – and I didn’t feel those extremities were sufficiently explored. In quoting Flanders and Swann I’ve obviously exaggerated the touches of inhibition throughout the performances, but for whatever reason, the impression remains of emotion contained rather than given sufficient expressive rein.

I must say, at this point, that in the wake of the conductor’s and orchestra’s recent overwhelming performances of the Mahler Sixth Symphony, I was hoping for more along the same lines with Tchaikovsky et al., playing that expressed the music’s innate volatility and passion (that word, again!). Sadly, it didn’t fire on Saturday night in the way that the Mahler did for me – though I’ve been wondering whether Inkinen’s success with the latter work reflected more his (laudable) punctilious care regarding detail and his players’ strict observance of Mahler’s detailed directions in the score, and less any deep-seated emotional connection on his part with the music. If so, it suggests a cerebral approach to music-making – not a bad thing with music whose appeal stems mostly from its structure, logic and precise detailing, but more problematic with works that make their impact via emotional heft. That’s not to say that the thinking interpreter’s Tchaikovsky or Berlioz can’t work – but in place of the searing “muse of fire” there needs to be, in my opinion, equally razor-sharp focus of thought and action, however unromantic. That’s what I felt we got with Inkinen’s Mahler, but, sadly not sufficiently in evidence here.

What did work during the concert’s first half were a number of extremely focused moments – the fine gradations of tone and colour in the opening “Friar Laurence” section of the Tchaikovsky overture, the beautiful blend of strings and cor anglais (Michael Austin) for the first appearance of the famous “love-theme” (winds doing an equally heartfelt job of the tune’s songful repetition), and the strings” full-throated recapitulation of the theme just before the death-throes of the “star-crossed lovers”. But, expertly drilled though the fight music was, I didn’t think the orchestral flare-ups angry and incisive enough, so that the bitterness and hatred between the warring families didn’t sufficiently presage the tragedy. As for the Berlioz, I thought it odd that the selection of orchestral exerpts made here almost completely avoided the two salient themes of the story – the conflict between the families, and the lovers themselves. So instead of Berlioz’s furious and tumultuous introduction, we began with Romeo alone just before the Capulet’s Ball, and ended with one of Berlioz’s most amazing orchestral evocations, the Queen Mab Scherzo. This actually was the performance’s highlight for me, with Inkinen and his players weaving patterns of gossamer magic through which the most delicately-voiced rhythmic impulses darted this way and that, beguiling the senses with the elfin transparency of it all – a treasurable episode of pure orchestral alchemy. And what a telling evocation towards the end of the soldier’s dream of “drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes…” with deep, menacing sounds louring out of the dark! It was playing whose delight all but made amends for what I thought was a somewhat dull Capulet’s Ball, lacking that last ounce of sheer momentum, of youthful exuberance in the performance that would have readily conveyed that “unbridled energy” cited in the program notes.

In general, the Romeo and Juliet of Prokofiev fared better in Inkinen’s hands, even though the famous pungent crescendi and jagged chords introducing the Dance of the Capulet Knights were despatched quickly and sharply, the effect being taut and terse, or short-winded and literal, depending upon your point of view. I liked the savage tread of the Knights during their dance, however, magnificently underpinned by the heavy brass, and in particular the tuba (superbly played by Andrew Jarvis). The contrasting episode had little mystery and atmosphere, though – more a dancer’s than a listener’s performance. Happily, Young Juliet, which followed, was quite lovely, with solo playing to die for from clarinet (Phil Green), flute (Bridget Douglas) and ‘cello (Andrew Joyce). In fact the solo playing throughout the concert was near-impeccable – deft trumpet and oboe solos from Cheryl Hollinger and Robert Orr in the street scenes come readily to mind as do Nancy Luther’s silvery, nostalgic piccolo echoings at the very end. Again, it was the lighter, more graceful and lyrical aspects of the score that inkinen and his players more readily and successfully brought out, whereas The Death of Tybalt, though rumbustious and exciting at a certain level had no real cutting edge – more like children excitedly playing at war rather than the real, deadly thing. And what is the point of music such as this if it doesn’t convey “hurt” in the playing and listening?

Mention of the marvellous work done by the orchestra’s stellar line-up of soloists brings me to the sadness of acknowledging the last appearance on the NZSO platform of one of the greatest of them all – principal horn Ed Allen. He was appropriately farewelled by a speech from orchestral leader Vesa-Matti Leppänen which brought forth tumultuous audience applause accompanying a standing ovation for Allen, a kiss and a bouquet presented by his double-bass player partner Vicki Jones, and an affectionate hug from his conductor Pietari Inkinen. He will be greatly missed.