Author: Peter Mechen

Stravinsky from the Royal New Zealand Ballet

Posted on by Peter Mechen

STRAVINSKY SELECTION

ROYAL NEW ZEALAND BALLET

MILAGROS (after Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre du Printemps”) Choreography – Javier De Frutos

SATISFIED WITH GREAT SUCCESS (after Stravinsky’s “Scenes de ballet”) Choreography – Cameron McMillan

PETROUSHKA – (music by Stravinsky) Choreographer (after Michel Fokine)  Russell Kerr / Designer (after Alexandre Benois) Raymond Boyce

Royal New Zealand Ballet Company

Vector Wellington Orchestra

Marc Taddei, conductor.

St.James Theatre, Wellington

20-21 May 2011

Opportunities both gloriously taken and frustratingly unrealized – that was my immediate reaction to the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s “Stravinsky traversal” during which we saw and heard settings of the music for two of the composer’s ballets, (including the infamous Le Sacre du Printemps) and a full-scale production of Petroushka, both works among the most famous of their kind of all time. Allowing time for my feelings to settle somewhat before writing this review hasn’t greatly altered my reactions, though I’m wanting to point out that I thought the evening’s successes spectacular ones, and that the rest was never less than interesting and absorbing.

Heretical though it may seem to balletomanes, I tend to sympathize with Stravinsky’s reaction to choreographers and dancers who wanted the composer to write music and conduct his scores to suit their needs. The veteran choreographer Russell Kerr, in part of an interview printed in the program, related an incident involving the composer conducting a production of Petroushka in the United States in which Kerr was dancing. “I do not conduct for the dancers; they dance to my music!” the composer retorted, when asked to delay a section of his score to fit in with some stage business. If that attitude seems like the music is put first and foremost, its principle is a welcome corrective to a lot of choreography I’ve encountered which appears to take little notice of aspects of the music to which the dance steps are allegedly set.

I thought it interesting with this idea in mind to compare the opening item on the program with the full production of Petroushka which concluded the evening. The former was Milagros, a work which had been performed before by the Royal New Zealand ballet, on tour of the UK in 2004. It was impressive to read of Javier De Frutos’s award-winning status as a choreographer – certainly his movement scenario seemed brimful with ideas, and in places resulted in powerful and memorable theatrical imaging. Nevertheless, I thought his over-wrought modulations of the dance’s ebb and flow ran counter in many places to the primitive, rawly-focused nature of Stravinsky’s score (played, incidentally from a pianola roll made in the 1920s, one whose tempi had been supervised directly by the composer, and was here realized in a recording by player/pianist Rex Lawson).

It was as though De Frutos was trying to do too much, blunting his moments of connection with the music’s rhythmic thrust with unfocused superfluous movement that, for me, didn’t match the tones and pulsations of what we were hearing. There were times when the archetypal impulses of the music reflected themselves all too tellingly on the stage (some of the interactions I found quite disturbing, in fact – a friend of mine at the interval used the word “misogynistic”, which feeling in places I agreed with, though the occasional savageries were gradually developed in both gender directions). But whatever rituals were being enacted (and some of the imagery was stunningly presented – the head-stacking, for example) I felt it was as if the choreographer had allowed too many echoes of previous settings (his fourth of this music, if the program note is to be believed) to blur the focus. Whatever the theme, setting or prevailing current, the music unequivocally gives all the clues – and these oft-swirling masses of bodies didn’t consistently and coherently hold my sensibilities in a tightly-concerted enough grip throughout.

There was no doubt as to the commitment of the dancers to the work, particularly in the individual characterizations and teamwork of Abigail Boyle and Brendan Bradshaw, with Lucy Balfour contributing an eye-catching solo, all of whom communicated plenty of energetic conviction, however equivocal the expressive results.I’ve heard and read enough opinions regarding the work and its performance to freely admit my own inadequacy of response. I only wish I could testify to my having more connection-points with what I saw.

After this (leaving aside the second work for the moment), I couldn’t help but feel the difference in both focus and intent coming from the stage with Petroushka, which took up the evening’s final performance segment. Suddenly here were dancers who seemed completely energized and driven by the music, just as if they were stunningly-realised visualizations of what Stravinsky’s themes, rhythms and textures were actually doing. In this case the choreography had been supervised by Russell Kerr, following the original dance-plan of Michel Fokine, but of course with the New Zealander’s “take”  on the proceedings. In fact Kerr had first choreographed and designed Petroushka with his colleague Raymond Boyce as long ago as 1964. What I found remarkable was the ability of each of the dancer to “personalize” his or her character on stage, even when acting in concert with others, so that the crowd scenes had a naturalistic quality in parallel with the stylishness of the dancing and movement. It was mightily impressive to look at, and astonishing to reflect on there being not a single trace of self-consciousness in evidence from any movement, gesture or expression.Normally the “character” parts in ballet steal the theatrical thunder, but Sir Jon Trimmer as the Charlatan was by no means acting and moving in a vacuum, in his engrossing portrayal of cynical enslavement of his performing puppets – his character and aura found ready responses from members of the company, as did the dysfunctional antics of his three marionette charges.

As with Russell Kerr’s performing lineage and its links to both Stravinsky and his inspirational impresario Serge Diaghilev, designer Raymond Boyce’s formative experiences were with comparable traditions. He studied at London’s Slade School of Fine Arts, where one of his tutors, Vladimir Polunin, had been a scenery-painter for Diaghilev’s Company, and from him Boyce learnt the Russian scenery-painting style. From 1959 to 1997 Boyce designed productions for the Royal New Zealand Ballet Company, working with the company’s founder, Poul Gnatt, during those early days. In this latest Petroushka the focus of the setting was very much on unity – while the painted sets projected a kind of artificiality very much of their time, the designs served to focus upon the illusory nature of the story-line, reminding one of Lady Macbeth’s reference to a “painted devil”. In only one place I thought more pro-active lighting might have advanced the story’s cause, which was the hallucinatory effect of the charlatan’s picture in Petroushka’s room – more aggressively-focused spot-lighting on the image and momentarily darkened surroundings would have heightened the nightmarish aspect of the moment and imparted some edge to the somewhat naive-art, two-dimensional comic-book reproduction.

Besides Sir Jon’s wonderfully disturbing Charlatan (some of his expressions the stuff of nightmares for susceptible sensibilities), the three principal dancers gave thoroughly absorbing portrayals of their roles, each straddling the worlds of reality and make-believe with disarming alacrity. Medhi Angot’s Petroushka caught all of the character’s awareness of his plight as a puppet with a human heart, conveying for us his tragic despair at his loss of love and life, before reappearing, ghost-like at the end, to tease our sensibilities. Both Tonia Looker as the Ballerina and Qi Huan as the Moor brought plenty of skilful motoric impulse to each of their characters, contrasting their somewhat cardboard cut-out personas with Petroushka’s more complex and vulnerable consciousness.

I’ve left until now my ruminations regarding the middle ballet Satisfied With Great Success because I found it something of a puzzle, as much for what wasn’t done as for what we saw. Firstly I think the expectation created by the advance descriptions of some kind of interaction between historic footage of the composer in New Zealand and live stage action would have, in the event, left some people nonplussed. Whether previous or subsequent performances of this work used more of this much-touted “50 year-old film footage” I’m not sure, but I thought the juxtapositioning between the film and the live performance lame in effect, to say the least. I’m presuming that the film’s (a) slow-motion quality and (b) reverse continuity and imaging (the composer walking backwards through an orchestra whose members were positioned as if in a mirror-image) was in aid of imparting some kind of dream-dance ritualization to the scenes thus caught – well,maybe.  As it turned out (and contrary to my expectations), the film sequences proved to be mere clip-ons, with little or no interactive relationship between the footage and what the ballet actually did – and so, what was the point of it all?

Here was part of a visual record of the twentieth century’s arguably most important composer conducting some of his music in New Zealand – why couldn’t the ballet sequences have played out their “deconstruction, visual imagery and complex relationships” (the choreographer Cameron McMillan’s own words) as a series of connective impulses acknowledging these visuals? – whether fast, slow, forwards, backwards or still-framed, recording a significant aspect of our musical past? As a tribute to Stravinsky what was shown was somewhat less than token, and as a depiction of the composer’s relevance to “today’s world of creation and performance”, well, the exercise for me was practically a non-starter.

Regarding the ballet itself, there were some lovely moments, both solo and concerted (I liked the diagonal lines of bodies moving in accord, as well as various manifestations of strong duo work) but I thought some of what was presented only intermittently in accord with Stravinsky’s music (Scenes de Ballet). An example was a glorious Copland-like orchestral outburst of intense emotion at one point, superbly delivered by Marc Taddei and the Wellington Orchestra – but for all the reaction on stage, the music may as well have not been there – as was the actual case with another episode, where the dancers stepped intriguingly through uncannily silent vistas. Even more than with Milagros I had difficulty discerning an overall choreographic focus to Satisfied with Great Success, and wondered what the composer might have thought of his title-quote applied to the work in hand.

Back to the evening’s “Great Successes” – the overall conception and realization of Petroushka, the amazing sonic impact of that  pianola recording of Le Sacre du Printemps, the few glimpses we got on film of Stravinsky here in New Zealand, the musical direction of Marc Taddei and the playing of the Wellington Orchestra for the second and third ballets (a few brass “blips” here and there in Petroushka notwithstanding), and the chance to experience at first hand something of the excitement and commitment of those early ventures into ballet production via the presence and efforts of Russell Kerr and Raymond Boyce – for me THIS was the most telling manifestation of (I quote the program notes once again) “the relationship between past and present through 21st century eyes”. For that alone, thank you, Royal New Zealand Ballet.

Made in New Zealand – Enchanted Islands

Posted on by Peter Mechen

MADE IN NEW ZEALAND – ENCHANTED ISLANDS

Music by Ross HARRIS, Anthony RITCHIE, Douglas LIBURN, Lyell CRESSWELL,
Gareth FARR, Chris GENDALL

Stephen de Pledge (piano)
Kirsten Morrell (soprano)
Tama Waipara (baritone)
Hamish McKeich (conductor)
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Wellington Town Hall

Friday 13th May 2011

In a real sense this concert epitomized what a “Made in New Zealand ” concert ought to be about – presenting its listeners with plenty of excitement, frustration, argument and satisfaction, putting life alongside art in fine style. Everybody will, of course, make up their own cocktail mix from the aforementioned ingredients when recalling the concert and its afterglow (some will add other things, while others will make do with less, or even with none of the above). But I thought there was a palpable buzz within the audience at the start (a peculiarly “Town Hall” phenomenon, it seems to me) followed by plenty of effervescent discussion at the interval in the wake of a first half of colourful composition and splendid music-making. Even at this stage of the proceedings there was excitement aplenty, all that one could wish of a contemporary music concert’s effect upon an audience.

As for the frustration, I’m sure there will be people, like myself, with their own list of favorite, neglected pieces of New Zealand music hoping for the same to be given an airing via these concerts – perhaps next year, or the year after? It could be that we listeners don’t drop enough hints to those who are the musicmongers that sort out the catch brought in by those trawling the creative currents in this particular ocean – maybe I need to tell twenty times the number of people I already do how much of a crime I think it is that some of our “founding symphonic documents” are unaccountably ignored by our orchestras year after year after year. If I mention David Farquhar’s First Symphony in particular (no public performance since its premiere in 1959!), I’m equally determined that I’ll be fair and report back to these pages any response, written or verbal, to my piece of opinionated partiality, so that others can have their say as well about what they might like to hear in subsequent “Made in New Zealand” concerts.

I mentioned argument as an ingredient of the occasion; and conversations at the concert’s end seemed to have a different tenor to those during the interval, largely thanks to Gareth Farr’s Sonnets, settings for two singers and orchestra of a number of Shakespeare’s eponymous poems. This work divided opinions I heard into not just two camps, but a number of sub-groups, with discussions freely flowing. For myself, I thought the piece didn’t work well within the normal concert-hall setting that was imposed upon it – as if the musicians were trying to perform something like Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Given that both singers (soprano Kirsten Morrell and baritone Tama Waipara) were “miked” because neither seemed to have the vocal “heft” to compete acoustically with the orchestra, I thought the concert’s organizers ought to have taken their cue accordingly and emphasized the piece’s rather more mainstream popular-music-genre. I would have liked the singers not only in their own performing-space away from the conductor and players (even perhaps individually separated for antiphonal/visual effect and spotlit with appropriate lighting), but also have them given properly-modulated microphones that would enable their voices to be actually HEARD. With the precedent in mind of last year’s “Made in New Zealand” concert with its spectacular, if somewhat ill-conceived, visual imagery accompanying most of the music, I would have imagined such a recreation to be perfectly possible this time round.

What’s ultimately most important, however, is the degree of satisfaction given by the music and the music-making – and despite these diverse ingredients, or perhaps because of them, the concert gave to us the feeling as though it had indeed satisfied by the end. It started with a wonderful wallop, courtesy of Ross Harris’s Fanfare for the Southern Cross, a work for brass ensemble whose sombre, almost Brucknerian opening blossomed spectacularly into a brilliant toccata-like display. The music seemed to scintillate like a comet crossing the night sky, before disappearing, much too quickly! – would that it were a prelude to a suite of movements, or something, so that our pleasure at the composer’s exuberant mastery of those radiant textures could be enjoyed for longer!

I took great pleasure also in Anthony Ritchie’s A Shakespeare Overture, a thirty year-old work from the composer’s student days receiving its first-ever performance (with revised touches). I found myself admiring the young Ritchie’s exuberant orchestral writing and sure sense of balance between passages of chamber-like delicacy and piquancy, often involving winds, which were set against more heavily-scored strings-and-brass episodes, occasionally rhythmically spiked with percussion. My notes contain phrases such as “colourful scoring”, “energizing percussion”, and “beautifully dovetailed motifs leading the ear onwards” – besides such detail, I had a sure sense of the piece being well-organized throughout, so that the orchestral forces at the end were able to unerringly build things towards a thrilling climax, a grand exposition of sounds. In all, I thought the piece a worthy addition to this country’s home-grown concert repertoire.

Has any performance of Lilburn’s Four Canzonas featured more beautiful string-playing than what we heard on this occasion? – I doubt it, even if I thought Hamish McKeich’s tempo for the Willow Song (Canzona No.2) a tad quick, Donald Armstrong’s lovely solo playing for me not quite “laden” enough with foreboding at this speed, as befits the work’s original inspiration.I was struck anew by how Sibelius-like the third Canzona sounded, like something out of the latter’s Rakastava, certainly Nordic, rather than Shakespearean in atmosphere. But these were certainly very beautiful performances.

With Lyell Cresswell’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (significantly, not entitled a “piano concerto”) the evening’s music-making lurched well-and-truly into relatively unknown territories, soundscapes of the heart and soul, it seemed, considering the circumstances under which the music was written. The work was commissioned by that generous patron of the local arts, Jack Richards, for pianist Stephen de Pledge to play at this concert, so that the performance was a world premiere. It seemed that Lyell Cresswell wanted more of a concertante than a concerto-like work, and this was shown in the extent to which the orchestra reflected and extended what the piano did, very much a concourse rather than a contest.

The work commemorates the memory of a friend of the composer, who actually died while the piece was being written, but whose terminal illness overshadowed the work’s entire conception. No wonder, then, at the extent to which both piano and orchestra gave voice during the work to harsh, jagged outpourings, in grief and anger at a friendship’s loss. Even so, Cresswell found plenty of scope for expression of episodes whose eerie beauty astonished the ear, by way of both recollection of times past and resigned reflection in the wake of death. The work’s seven movements had an intensely volatile quality, indicating parallel strands of feelings and instincts as likely to be in violent opposition as in an uneasy accord. I scribbled phrases like “jagged defiance” and “tolling pulses” while listening to the opening Funeral March, then “bird-song piano figurations” and “ethereal string ambiences” during Adagio 1. And I noted the savagery of the brass attack and the dominance of the heavy artillery throughout Scherzo 1, all the while marvelling at the compositional virtuosity of Cresswell’s writing for orchestra.

The work’s centre, Addolorato (meaning upset or distressed), was the work’s emotional core, expressing both quiet and violent grief by turns, while throughout the following movements variants of the relationship between head and heart were further explored – a characteristic contouring might feature the piano playing the visionary, creating a rapt, magical atmosphere more of the mind than of the world, echoed by Ligeti-like string chords before being splintered by vitriolic brass with toccata-like textures that curdle without warning into amazing air-raid siren-like sonorities. Some of the orchestral figurations might well have owed something to Messiaen’s similarly visionary sound-worlds, but in this case one felt the tones and textures were exploring a very real emotional context of their own. Again my scribblings attempted to capture aspects of this incredible set of soundscapes – “maniacal instrumental energies in a ferment”, or “brass cackle like hooting harridans”, or even “strings become swirling stinging bees”…..all of which hopefully serves to give the reader an idea of the range and scope of sounds created by the piano/orchestra combination. The final presto, though flung at the listener almost peremptorily was able to link briefly with the opening in the midst of its toccata-like tagging, indicating (as the program notes suggested) that from questions can come still more questions rather than answers.

Wanting to earn my keep as a critic, naturally enough, but struggling to offer any comment of sufficient worth in a critical sense about the piece, all I could think of saying was that the music did seem to me to begin to overwork the material towards the end – but then the composer would confound my reaction by producing yet another magical sonority which opened up a fresh vista of wonderment – and despite my occasional instinctive feeling of there having been enough said, I couldn’t bear the thought of any of those sounds being excised! I hope someone moves to have Stephen de Pledge record this work before too long, so that we can get to know it by hearing it often and gradually unlocking at least some of its secrets. I thought it a very great work indeed.

As for Gareth Farr’s Sonnets, somebody I spoke with briefly at the end of the concert said that the performance of the Farr work seemed to them a pale shadow of the music’s previous incarnation as The Holy Fire of Love, which on that occasion featured the vocal talents of Rima Te Wiata and Kristian Lavercombe. It would seem from the reviews I’ve read that these singer/actors projected the songs rather more successfully and theatrically than happened with the fatally straight-laced quasi-classical treatment accorded the words and music on Friday evening in the Wellington Town Hall. To me it seemed all so wrong-headedly presented, to the extent that to comment any further would, I think, be to do the composer and his music an injustice.

Finally in the concert, one of the country’s most exciting younger composers, Chris Gendall, was represented with a work that in a sense was a foil for the Lyell Cresswell concerto in the first half – this later work Gravitas was tough, uncompromising and unyielding, abstracting orchestral sounds and their meaning where the older composer sought direct, straight-from-the-shoulder emotional engagement from his audience with his instrumental tones. I thought that Gendall had written some kind of Etude for Orchestra here, an idea emphasized by the composer’s own note about the music, describing the relationship between a piece’s construction and its most audible elements. Less cerebrally-minded listeners, such as myself, would probably register and enjoy more readily the sharply visceral aspects of the music, its cutting-edge accents set against both deep-throated sonorities and troughs of pregnant silence, its obsessiveness with repeated notes and an interval of a third, and the feeling of these and other notes eventually breaking free of such hegemony and enjoying episodes such as “chaos of delight” pizzicati passages and volatile hide-and-seek scamperings across the orchestral blocks.

As with many a “tough” piece I’ve come to enjoy, it’s necessary to live with the music for a while and get used to the sharp edges – I hope Chris Gendall’s piece gets its chance to be heard rather more often than has been the case with other works I’ve mentioned from time to time, one of them (David Farquhar’s First Symphony) earlier in this review. Gravitas certainly played its part in helping to make the occasion one of the best and most interesting “Made in New Zealand” Concerts of recent years. All credit to conductor Hamish McKeich, to pianist Stephen de Pledge, and to the orchestral musicians, for giving us such magnificent playing throughout the evening.

Alexa Still and Diedre Irons – irresistible duo

Posted on by Peter Mechen

ALEXA STILL (flute) and DIEDRE IRONS (piano)

Chamber Music Hutt Valley

Music by POULENC, BOYD, PROKOFIEV and BORNE (flute and piano)

DICK and MARAIS (flute solo)

CHOPIN (piano solo)

Little Theatre, Lower Hutt

Thursday 5th May 2011

Mistakenly thinking the concert was being held in nearby St.James’ Church, I wasted several precious minutes retracing steps and re-aligning my destination, finally being led by the sound of Alexa Still’s silvery flute tones to the entranceway of Lower Hutt’s Little Theatre. I thus missed the opening Allegro malinconico part of Poulenc’s Sonata for flute and piano, but was charmed, by way of compensation, both by the friendliness of my reception at the door, and the full, rich and impassioned playing from both Alexa Still and Diedre Irons which continued throughout the Cantilena second movement.

In the past I hadn’t much liked visiting this venue on account of what I thought I remembered was a dry, boxy acoustic, but these musicians were managing to fill the ambiences with plenty of rich, golden tones as to make the spaces seem positively resonant. Alexa Still’s tonal mastery was evident throughout Poulenc’s kaleidoscopic changes of focus and emphasis throughout the finale – the music’s character cheeky, heroic, profound and mock-serious by turns, requiring stellar command of control and reserves of energy! With pianist Diedre Irons displaying her characteristic ebullience and quicksilver reflexes, both players brought out the music’s constant flux in mood and manner, delivering to we listeners a veritable chaos of charm and delight right to the end.

Alexa Still introduced the flute items, interesting us with her remarks about the music and her experience of playing the works previously – she obviously has an extremely wide repertoire and musical sympathies to match, judging by the range and scope of this concert. A piece by American composer Anne Boyd was next, Goldfish through Summer Rain, a work which uses exotic colors and pointilistic techniques. The piano caught the effect of raindrops, while the long, languid lines of the flute made the perfect foil for the piano, creating something of the same floating effect as in Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun. I thought the whole work imbued with a kind of longing for a world of beauty, wishful of bringing into creative being an order of things – what a friend of mine would describe as “very Zen”!

Prokofiev’s Sonata I knew in a version for violin and piano, so I was surprised and delighted to find a familiar piece of music in what was for me a new and exciting guise – in fact its original form! – and sounding here as though it thoroughly belonged to the flute-and-piano repertoire. Like many great composers, Prokofiev wrote music whose identity with its creator is evident within a couple of bars’ hearing, no matter how unfamiliar. Straightaway there’s that characteristic astringent flavour to the melody and its harmony, and an accompanying volatility of textures and dynamics which “spikes” the composer’s best work. Something of a neoclassicist as well as a revolutionary, Prokofiev drew these elements beautifully together in works such as this sonata – we so enjoyed the first movement’s clean-cut melodic contourings and their beautifully-crafted symmetries, elements of the music to which both Still and Irons brought their capacities for articulating volatile detail within a larger framework, returning us richly and surely to the opening mood at the movement’s end.

The quirky Scherzo “bucking-broncoed” our imaginations most energetically, the performance putting plenty of élan and glint into the vertiginous figurations, before  pulling everything momentarily to order for a lovely, somewhat melancholy trio section, one which the composer nevertheless keeps on its toes with occasional skyrocketting irrruptions. Still and Irons had a fine time with the “big tune” at its return, tossing its angularities about with fine style, before dispatching the music at the end with a deft gesture wrought of magic. After this the slow movement amply demonstrated Prokofiev’s way of conjuring melody and feeling from grey matter –  beautiful in places but essentially austere, a feeling which the jolly, heavy-footed dance that opened the finale was able to rescue us from most thankfully. As well as plenty of lusty energy, Still and Irons brought granite-like strength to the “building-blocks” episodes, and just the right amount of circumspection to the movement’s lyrical centre, before seamlessly reinvigorating the figurations with the energies needed to lead the music back into the dance – a heart-warming performance.

We were warned by Alexa Still, before playing the first item after the interval, for flute solo, that she might be making some strange sounds, and these were entirely on purpose! The work was one I’d heard her play at a previously concert, Fish are Jumping, for flute alone, by the American flutist and composer Robert Dick. This was a languid, lazy and bluesy piece, not, as one might expect, a variation on Gershwin’s Summertime tune but a realization equally as atmospheric, with flourishes of energy in places. Still’s technical facility astonished, here – her uncanny ability to play “chords” (two notes simultaneously, with what sounded like accompanying overtones) made for a distinctly exotic and unworldly impression, making the whole a kind of “transport of delight” to the enchantment of other realms. A comparable distancing, in time, was achieved by Still with Marin Marais’ Le Folies d’Espagne, with the inestimable help of a wooden mouthpiece, to achieve a more authentic timbre for this piece – a sombre theme at the outset, but with variations that had a wider range of expression that I expected from this composer.I’d always thought of Marais as a kind of French equivalent to John Dowland, he of the “semper Dowland, semper dolens” reputation – as the French say, l’air ne fait pas la chanson…..

Came pianist Diedre Irons’ turn for a solo, and she gave us Chopin’s F Minor Fantasy, her playing exhibiting that alchemic mixture of clear-sighted discipline and far-flung and fantastical imagination, so that we, as the composer intended, appear to be witnessing a spontaneous creation of the spirit, the music both taking and being taken throughout fanciful realms. The pianist’s mastery of rubato married strength and spontaneity in a wonderfully osmotic way; and the strength of her playing negated the venue’s tendency to dryness, instead filling the vistas with surges of tone and proper “glint” at the tops of the figurations. Regarding the piece’s freedom I’ve always tended to regard the Fantasy as a kind of subconscious homage on Chopin’s part to Liszt, his colleague/rival, with the brilliance of some of the piano writing balanced by the almost Faustian character of some of the darker episodes, only with more equivocal treatment in places of the virtuoso keyboard writing – the music occasionally stopping as if to listen to its own voice, in places. I thought the piece’s essential character captured here so well in this respect, so that, in Diedre Irons’ hands Chopin was still always Chopin.

After this, I’m afraid, the gaucheries of Francois Borne’s Fantasy on themes from Bizet’s “Carmen” sounded more than embarrassingly hollow, though both musicians characteristically gave it their all – perhaps if we had taken up Alexa Still’s invitation to us to “sing along with the bits you recognize”, the work could have had at least some point. This all sounds very snobbish on my part, but I’m aware of there being a number of brilliantly-constructed, rather more “organically” conceived fantasy-like “reminiscences” of Bizet’s eponymous opera, written for various instruments – if this is the flute’s only representative relating to the work, then it’s a pity Still herself hasn’t thought about bringing her musical intelligence and virtuosic skills to producing something for her instrument making use of those glorious tunes that hangs together more convincingly than this – all that spectacular fingering and tonguing, all those beautiful tones (maybe if Sarasate had played the flute…….).

An encore written by Ravel – a Habanera, but not from Rapsodie Espagnole – was sufficient balm for the senses, in the wake of the previous item’s lurid horrors – here we had worlds of evocative gesture and tonal ravishment from both instruments over a few short minutes, a display of mastery, all in all, on the part of composer and musicians alike. It was a heart-warming way to conclude a brilliant musical evening.

Orpheus Choir triumphs with the St Matthew Passion

Posted on by Peter Mechen

JS BACH – St. Matthew Passion

Paul McMahon – Evangelist; Michael Leighton-Jones – Jesus; Jenny Wollerman – soprano; Claire Barton – alto; Andrew Grenon – tenor; Daniel O’Connor – bass
Choristers of Wellington Cathedral of St.Paul; Orpheus Choir of Wellington
Douglas Mews – continuo / Robert Oliver – viola da gamba
Vector Wellington Orchestra
Michael Fulcher – conductor

Wellington Town Hall

Sunday, 10th April, 2011, 6.30pm

From a mere listener’s point of view I invariably approach the prospect of attending a performance of Bach’s most monumental undertaking with keen anticipation tempered by feelings of mild anxiety. The work always astonishes with its capacity (as observed by the redoubtable Professor Frederick Page, quoted in the program notes) to furnish “a glimpse into eternity”; though performances can sometimes suggest eternity in more uncomfortably temporal ways, more especially in church settings where the seating seems designed for the infliction of on-going penance upon listeners, ahead of repose and solace. I’m therefore happy to report that this was a performance whose beauties, energies and overall focus made for an enjoyable and involving musical experience throughout.

Michael Fulcher’s direction of the work’s ebb and flow seemed to me a key element – in his hands the music unfolded with a naturalness of utterance that enabled the music’s essential character at any given moment to shine forth to its advantage. There were two or three moments that I felt worked less well than they might, but in the overall scheme so much seemed right, that our engagement in what was being played and sung never faltered. The work’s very opening, ‘Komm, ihr Töchter’, was splendidly launched by both orchestra and choir, Fulcher’s lilting direction enlivening the lines and textures while encouraging from the musicians plenty of pointed phrasing, the sound-picture both focused and beautifully transparent. Only in the difficult Aria for Alto and Chorus ‘Ach! nun ist mein Jesus hin!’ that opens the second part did I catch a sense of things being slightly out-of-sync, the music’s different elements working hard to try and gell, the various dove-tailings of the lines a truly precarious business.

Above all, there’s a story being told by this music, and in this respect the performance delivered splendidly – I thought the Evangelist Paul McMahon excellent in his dramatic focus, so alive to the text’s possibilities and so fluent a technique as to do his interpretation full justice. The other soloists, including several from the body of the choir taking minor but still significant roles, played their part in realizing the drama and pathos of the story. Perhaps not as visceral and graphic as the exchanges in Bach’s other great Passion, that of St.John, these nevertheless came resoundingly alive throughout the recitatives, giving us a real sense of the work’s inexorable progress towards that mystical fusion of death and fulfillment that accompanies godly sacrifice in Christian and non-Christian cultures alike.

Each of the soloists “entered” his or her roles in complete accord with the proceedings – soprano Jenny Wollerman, though over-tremulous of voice in places, brought her dramatic instincts marvellously to bear in episodes such as her recitative ‘Er hat uns allen wohl getan’ and aria ‘Aus Liebe’, whose sequence, together with some beautiful wind-playing at the beginning made a truly affecting impression. I was also much taken with the voice of the alto, Claire Barton, whose bright, slightly plangent tone-quality gave life and meaning to her utterances, despite some slightly ungainly moments in passagework here and there – obviously a voice to listen out for in years to come. Right from her opening recitative ‘Du Lieber Heiland du’, leading into the aria ‘Buß und Reu’, her tones struck the lines squarely and resonantly, to memorable effect, again supported by on-the-spot instrumental duetting and continuo playing (flutes and solo ‘cello).

Of the men, baritone Michael Leighton-Jones, long-time resident in Australia, made a welcome return to Wellington as a sonorous, dignified Jesus, never over-playing the drama (as befits the role’s god-like dignity of utterance), but often touching this listener with the resonant simplicity of his tones, emphasizing the text’s and music’s humanity and vulnerability. Promising performances came from his two younger colleagues, tenor Andrew Grenon, and bass Daniel O’Connor, each of whom had taxing arias to grapple with, and in both cases emerging with considerable credit. Despite the occasionally strained note, Grenon took to his recitative ‘O Schmerz!’ and aria ‘Ich will bei meinem Jesu wachen’ with real commitment, making something truly heartfelt out of ‘Er solo vor fremden Raub bezahlen’, and bringing real “point” to his interaction with the choir throughout both recitative and aria. I loved the vivid “plodding” quality of the accompaniment to Grenon’s recitative ‘Mein Jesus schweigt zu falschen Lügen stille’, the combination of organ and viola da gamba here and throughout the aria most affecting.

Daniel O’Connor did well negotiating Michael Fulcher’s urgent speeds during the bass aria Gerne will ich mich bequemen, after delivering a well-rounded and sonorous recitative ‘Der Heiland fällt vor seinem Vater nieder’; and again survived the bluster of a spanking pace for ‘Gebt mir meinem Jesum wieder!’
He demonstrated a fine feel for line during all of his recitatives, relishing the beautiful Vivaldi-like pictorial writing for both voice and instruments of ‘Am Abend, da es kühle war’ (a kind of Bachian ‘In the cool, cool,cool of the evening…’!), even if both soloist and orchestra struggled a bit with the ensuing aria ‘Mache ditch, mien Herze, rein’, trying to do justice to the syncopated figures and getting a just voice/instrumental balance. Of the solo voices from the choir, special mention needed to be made of Kieran Rayner’s true-toned Pontius Pilate, and Thomas Barker’s angst-ridden Peter, the disciple who denied his Master three times.

True-toned and eagerly responsive throughout, the Orpheus Choir sang like angels, whether divided into two antiphonal groups or en masse, completely at one with Michael Fulcher’s overall conception of the music. At first I thought the more dramatic choral interjections were going to lack sufficient urgency and bite, as with the choir’s contributions to the soprano and alto duet ‘So ist mein Jesus nun gefangen’, but the immediately subsequent ‘Sind Blitze, sind Donner’ had all the vehemence one could want, as did the accusatory cries of ‘Er ist des Todes schuldig!’ in response to Kieran Raynor’s vengeful High Priest. Elsewhere, the voices brought just the right amalgam of radiance and gravitas to the chorales, as exemplified by the wonderful ‘Wie wunderbarlich ist doch diese Strafe!’ in the “Jesus before Pilate” section of the work; and a winning tenderness to the exchanges with the soloists in the penultimate recitative ‘Nun ist der Herr zur Ruh gebracht’. It was fitting that, in tandem with the orchestra, the choir had the last say, delivering the words with the same focus, fervor and vocal splendor with which the same voices had begun the journey a couple of hours before. Contributing with bright, bell-like tones to the choral sonorities as well were the Choristers of Wellington Cathedral of St.Paul, dressed as for a church service, and contrasting as such with the secular severity of the main choir’s black attire.

Yet another bastion of the performance was the Vector Wellington Orchestra, its playing for Michael Fulcher unfailingly stylish and characterful, whether from the groupings of strings spread across two antiphonally-placed orchestras or among the various combination of winds whose tones enlivened many a texture along the way. Further interest was generated by fine solo continuo playing from both ‘cellist Paul Mitchell and viola da gamba specialist Robert Oliver (though the conductor’s rapid tempo for the bass aria ‘Komm, süßes Kreuz’ resulted in Robert Oliver’s viola da gamba accompaniment sounding uncharacteristically breathless). Organist Douglas Mews as well contributed unfailingly secure support in the continuo role. In sum, the performance was of a concerted splendour, with the music-making’s refulgent glow warming hearts and satisfying intellects alike – an achievement of which the Orpheus Choir and its various cohorts can, in my opinion, be justly proud.

Colours rich and strange, from the SMP Ensemble

Posted on by Peter Mechen

SMP Ensemble presents: XPΩMATA – Colours

Music by Tristan Carter, Jack Hooker, Carol Shortis, Anton Killin, Iannis Xenakis (Greece), Pauline Oliveros (USA), Michael Norris, Ewan Clark, Robbie Ellis, Andrzej Nowicki

The SMP Ensemble

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

Saturday 9th April 2011

Continuing its work on behalf of classical music’s contemporary voices, the SMP Ensemble produced yet another absorbing and thought-provoking line-up of works from home and abroad with its program XPΩMATA – Colours. Without resorting to mega-anarchic practices, the group seems always to manage (via its own version of an incredible lightness of being) to blow invigorating gusts of fresh air through normal concert procedures and presentations, making each event a unique delight.

Darkness giving some of its space to candlelight set an expectant scene for the opening item, Tohoraha, by Tristan Carter. Away from the program note one might guess the players who had assembled and were delicately activating different acoustical properties of their instruments were concerned with representing either a subaqueous or a stratospheric state of being – these were sounds I reckoned to be outside of my direct biospherical experience! The coalescence of these sounds generated a micro-excitement which prepared the scene for something of a give-away conch-shell set of signals – very spectacular, if irrevocably conjuring up an oceanscape. A cursory knowledge of Te Reo Maori would have by this time alerted most people to an association of the piece with whales, and the connections readily translated into the idea of some kind of “dialogue among higher beings”, here, for all kinds of reasons, acoustical, environmental and emotional, a “transporting of the mind” experience, rich and strange, in any case for this listener.

Jack Hooker’s Field Murmur, ambiently titled, used electroacoustical means to evoke its world, arresting and splendid at the very beginning, as well as disconcerting, with something like a door or cupboard opening and shutting. I imagined animal or bird or even insect activity, though my carefully-constructed soundscape was peremptorily shut off by a revereberation-less halt to the sounds, which was presumably intended, as the effect was repeated with different kinds of evocations – it generated a kind of schizoid response to the medium as opposed to the message, the uncertainty of imminent closure creating its own set of tensions.

Carol Shortis’s The Riddle of Her Flight was a setting for soprano, piano and vibraphone of part of a poem by Mike Johnson. The music readily courted both pictorial and emotional responses, grumbling bass notes on Jonathan Berkahn’s piano at the beginning stimulating shafts of light from deft touches upon the vibraphone criss-crossing the soundscape. The sound of the soprano Olga Gryniewicz’s voice was perhaps siren-like, or maybe that of a wood-nymph’s, haunting and pleading. The singer emphasized the idea of “sanctuary”, aided and abetted by the instrumentalists, Takumi Motokawa’s vibraphone occasionally bowed as well as struck, producing lovely tintinabulations, and stimulating bell-like diction from the singer at the words “You must find the island”. At the end of a richly-extended lyrical episode, the final cadence following a culminating high note felt like a real homecoming. The music couldn’t help but repeatedly take my sensibilities to what seemed like “other realms” associated with Shakespearean fantasy, such as Prospero’s Island, or the Magic Wood of Oberon outside Athens.

Andrzej Nowicki was the clarinettist in tandem with his own pre-recorded playing of fragments from the same work, for composer Anton Killin’s absorbing Absence; Primes. The soloist listened at first to the recorded performance, then began a dialogue with the original, fascinatingly exploring the idea of feedback, discussion and even “second thoughts” regarding one’s own creative impulses. At first ruminative, Nowicki’s “live” clarinet-playing animated the textures, the discussion a “brightly-lit” affair until a brusque declamatory statement brought the dialogue to a sudden end.

The programme’s first “offshore” work was Yannis Xenakis’s Echange, in effect a bass clarinet concerto, bringing the first half of the concert to an end with plenty to engage the thoughts. The composer called the work “terrifying and mysterious”, and indeed, the single-note clarinet opening brings forth a disquieting subterraneous soundworld from trombone (Xenakis wanted a tuba, but…) and bassoon into which the cello oscillates and over the top of which the soloist exuberantly barks – perhaps a European manifestation of Alistair Te Ariki Campbell’s “gods of the middle world” flexing their might and muscle into a colour-change chord irreverently “curdled” by the soloist’s contribution. The clarinet ruminates deeply as its ambient surroundings ring changes of tempo, texture and articulation, creating memorable vignettes of incident – a wonderfully seismic “wobble-chord”  from the ensemble, and a “blues in the night” response from the soloist, very jazzy and lively playing, which, however develops into a kind of ritual of attempted domination on both sides, the impasse declared by implacable brass against whose black tones the soloist slashes and stabs. We fear for the safety of the music itself, at the point of dissolution the sound-world’s resonating voices asking questions we can only numbly acknowledge. A good place for the interval!

We were prepared even less for what was to follow – audience participation! – fortunately, humming was all that was required, the SMP ensemble members walking around the auditorium antiphonally encouraging us to add our unique vocal vibrations to Anton Killin’s realization of Lullaby for Daisy Pauline by the American composer Pauline Oliveros, one of the composer’s “Sonic Meditations” aimed at engendering a focus among listeners on “the intimate reality of sound”. Philosophically, Michael Norris’s work which followed, Blindsight, explored the antithesis of Oliveros’s shared ambient construct, describing his work in a context of fragile individual sensory reality. Norris’s work translated this “process of sensory faith” into a musical work involving strings and winds, with the piano as a kind of intermediary. The winds played chords using halftones, to which the piano and strings responded in a kind of instinctive manner, “feeling” their way towards a kind of kinship with the original sounds. The piano seemed then to take the lead, the winds responding to the instrument’s chords and patterning with characteristic sonorities (a kind of “opening up’ of an essential sound-nature for both groups, the winds sostenuto, the strings oscillating and flurrying melismatically. Whether growing in confidence or in desperation, the responses by both groups to the piano reached a fever-pitch of animation before sinking, exhausted. The piano maintained a dispassionate “devil’s advocate” kind of stance, allowing the winds to blow themselves out, leaving the strings fulminating amongst themselves, then relinquishing their voices with a last sotto-voce gesture – I was given the feeling of micro-processes continuing, after the overt activities had ceased…..

Reversing the program order, Robbie Ellis’s Maeve set recorded voice against solo piano, to the former’s disadvantage, unfortunately, the piano’s declamatory style in places obscuring the speaker’s tones (the loudspeaker would have been better-placed in front of the piano, eliminating the “competitive” aspect which seemed to be set up regarding the soundspace – a pity we were thus distracted, because the piano-part was gorgeous-sounding in places, Debussy-like in its focus and delicacy, while Leila Austin’s story, read by the author, would have filled out its place in the sound-tapestry in a much more balanced and contextual way – a further performance needed, I feel. Following this, Ewan Clark’s Reverie set parts of Alistair Te Ariki Campbell’s Elegy for soprano, clarinet and piano, Olga Gryniewicz’s clear and pure voice making the most of the vocal line’s beauties at “Sweetness to the root – may the tree climb high against the sun”, while Andrzej Nowicki’s clarinet-playing conjured up whole eternities of bird-song underpinned by Jonathan Berkahn’s rich and  resonant piano realization. A lovely performance of a beautiful work, capturing the lonely beauty and desolation of the poet’s evocations.

Concluding the generous program was a work by the group’s director, Andrzej Nowicki, appropriately entitled Unknown Realms, the ensemble (strings, organ, piano and winds) conducted by Karlo Margetic. We expected a kind of “road” piece, with much and greatly varied terrain covered, and weren’t disappointed. A nascent, almost tentative piano presence at first addresses only dark organ tones and subterranean bass clarinet sounds – forces of darkness holding sway, almost daring other, brighter impulses to ignite and energize the textures towards the light. The clarinets stimulate the strings’ awakening, the latter holding steadfastly to their notes as the drama unfolds, the clarinets having a “field day” both instigating and repelling various agitations, the organ joining in with weighty presence, provoking the conductor’s patience to breaking-point in the face of such concerted anarchies – a marvellously petulant “Will you stop it!” ejaculation from the podium restores order amid chaos. Great fun, nicely “placed” amid the trials and tribulations.

The group’s director, Andrzej Nowicki was warmly and ceremoniously farewelled by all at the concert’s conclusion, on the eve of overseas explorations – the best of all possible send-offs, one would think, via this musical feast from the SMP Ensemble.

Tudor Consort – Prophetic excellence at Lower Hutt

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Settings to music of prophetic writings throughout the ages

Music by Hildegard von Bingen, Orlando de Lassus, William Byrd, Gustav Holst, Alonso Lobo, Michael Praetorius, Alban Berg, Heinrich Schutz

The Tudor Consort, directed by Michael Stewart (Presented by Chamber Music Hutt Valley)

St.James Church, Lower Hutt

Wednesday, 6th April, 2011

What an inspired idea for a concert! – fascinating to collect together a broad chronological range of composers’ responses to prophetic texts to register any commonalities and enjoy the differences. Not surprisingly, these factors were the two most readily prominent features of the concert, namely the power of the texts to elicit a heartfelt response from every composer, and the sharply varied flavour of each individual setting. The result was an evening replete with strongly heartfelt utterances, expressed with a variety of musical styles and modes – in other words, a “best of both worlds” occasion.

The concert couldn’t have begun more appropriately and strikingly than with Erin King’s beautiful singing of music by the twelfth-century composer, poet, visionary and abbess Hildegarde of Bingen. The otherwise excellent program note didn’t directly indicate that the text of the antiphon O pastor animarum was Hildegarde’s own, though it’s very likely part of her renowned “Symphonia armonie celestial revelationum”, her own collection of poetry and music which she assembled and herself enriched throughout her life.

But the work around which most of the concert’s program was constructed was Orlando de Lassus’s Prophetiae Sibyllarum, a visionary outpouring of highly personalized responses to texts that transported his creative sensibilities towards extraordinary flights of fancy. The texts, attributed to various mystic seers, were largely appropriated from antiquity by the early Christian Church, though it’s thought that Lassus himself wrote the words of the Prologue. The various settings were performed by the Consort in groups of two and three, and interspersed throughout the concert, creating interesting juxtapositionings with the work of twentieth-century composers such as Holst and Berg. Although these composers and others featured in the concert used texts from different sources, the shared intensities of both music and performance fused the varieties of eras and styles into what I felt to be a deeply satisfying whole.

Lassus’s settings featured a kind of chromatic restlessness in places, which, allied to marked flexibility of rhythm and pulse, readily created sound-worlds whose mystical realms seemed somewhat removed from ordinary experience, the texts truly sounding as if from remote times and places. I was reminded in places of Italian madrigals and their volatility of utterance, making for unexpected shifts of harmony, colour and rhythm by way of bringing the texts to life. Michael Stewart, director of the Consort, had introduced the composer and the music, characterizing Lassus’s work as “wonderfully weird” – and the group brought out the music’s varied intensities throughout each of the three groups of Prophetiae before the interval, with beautifully-judged gradations of sound and finely-honed intonation. In the Sybilla Europaea’s Virginis aeternum from the first group of Prophetiae after the resumption I thought the bass lines less well integrated with the whole – the rest soared and whispered across a stunningly varied sound-spectrum, the startling modulations and spooky “sotto voce” ambiences of the piece utterly spell-binding. And again, in the following Verax ipse Deus of the Sybilla Tyburtina the men’s voices again sounded to my ears a shade too nasal in effect, compared with the rest of the choir.

Amends were made with the beautifully-turned final group of Lassus’s Prophetiae, the two settings rather more conventional in effect, I thought, apart from occasional modulations which, though unexpected, we had by now come to expect! As a whole, the work was a perfect foil for the rest, William Byrd’s beautiful Ecce Virgo concipiet seeming like balm to our senses, coming as it did in the midst of all of Lassus’s convoluted chromaticisms. Holst’s Nunc Dimittis, too, seemed more “anchored” harmonically, though the overlapping eight-part opening created a frisson of expectation which built unerringly towards a real cathedral-style apotheosis at the final Gloria. And the Spanish composer Alonso Lobo’s Ave Maria had a gloriously rolling-sound kind of perpetual-motion character (the double choir creating something of an inexhaustible voices effect), all beautifully delivered.

In the second half of the concert we were able to enjoy contrasting settings (separated by three hundred years) of the German Advent Carol Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen, by Michael Praetorius and Alban Berg, the latter here eschewing his Second Viennese School associations for a more late-Romantic tonal setting. Praetorius’s essentially simple, straight-to-the-heart treatment of the words admirably set off Berg’s more extended and somewhat tortured, though still achingly beautiful setting. Concluding what I thought was an evening’s glorious singing was the Teutsch Magnificat of

Heinrich Schütz, set for double choir, and featuring at the outset richly-wrought antiphonal exchanges between the two groups. The composer cleverly varied the word-pointing in places, telescoping the word-pointing and creating a kind of word-excitement which bubbled out of and over the edges of the music – “singing for the joy of singing” was the phrase that came to my mind as I Iistened, caught up in the exuberance and beauty of it all – marvellous!

Eggner Trio wins all hearts

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Eggner Trio

Chamber Music New Zealand Kaleidoscopes Concert Season 2011

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN – Piano Trio in B-flat Op.11 “Gassenhauer”

IAN MUNRO – Tales of Old Russia

ANTONIN DVORAK – Piano Trio No.3 in F Minor Op.65

Georg Eggner (violin) / Florian Eggner (‘cello) / Christoph Eggner (piano)

Wellington Town Hall

Thursday, 24th March 2011

CMNZ’s 2011 Season couldn’t have gotten off to a better start with the return of the inspirational Eggner Trio from Vienna, being no less than the third visit by the Trio to New Zealand. Good also to read in the program a message of support from Carolyn and Peter Diessl, the latter in his role as Honorary Consul-General for Austria in this country, and as a major supporter of the arts in New Zealand – a kind of connection-making process that other organizations such as the NZSO could pursue more readily on certain occasions (I’m thinking of the orchestra’s Sibelius Festival last year, when there was not one iota of outside Scandinavian “presence” in this country acknowledged or referred to – by contrast, CMNZ was able to place this concert in a wider cultural context with a simple act of acknowledgement). Even closer to home in a sense was Chief Executive of Chamber Music New Zealand Euan Murdoch’s mid-concert spoken message of support from all associated with the organization to the citizens and chamber music-lovers of Christchurch, in the wake of the recent devastation experienced by that city.

As everybody knows, the trio consists of a group of brothers whose upbringing obviously laid the foundations for developing an enviable musical rapport – right from the first few phrases of the opening work on the program one got a sense of total engagement from the participants with both music and their interaction. On the face of things, communication seemed all to flow towards the violinist, Georg Eggner, with both brothers, ‘cellist Florian (his John Belushi-style spectacles bringing a touch of visual free-wheeling glamour to the music-making) and pianist Christoph, readily making eye-contact with their seemingly more circumspect violinist brother. However, proof of the pudding, as my grandmother used to say, was in the eating – and the trio’s demonstration of individual impulse brought together in a unified flow brilliantly exemplified that particular joy of interactive music-making which can make chamber music so rewarding an experience. Any performing group worth its salt can, of course, do this – but the Eggners were equally adept at drawing its audience into the world of the music. We seemed not merely bystanders, but participants in the ebb and flow of things.

All of this has been said before far more eloquently by others at other times and in other places – but I truly felt that this was music-making that didn’t get much better, anywhere. The Beethoven work which began the program was new to me, but it hummed and crackled with it’s composer’s characteristic fingerprints from the outset – an assertive unison statement at the beginning, a remote-key second-subject, at once hushed and full-bodied, a development section whose ideas shouldered and pushed one another about, and a wonderful “false ending” whose forthright final-chord cadence suddenly and unexpectedly turned upon itself and continued for a few more bars – a sequence delightfully brought off by the players. A beautifully-expressed Adagio (magical sounds from each of the instruments both in turn and together) was balanced by a theme-and-variations finale during which the composer’s “popular song” idea came to the fore in varying combinations, ranging in mood from the lyricism of duetting violin and viola, to the rumbustious stamping dance of all three instruments.

I had heard of Ian Munro as a concert pianist, but not as a composer; and was intrigued to discover the extent of his creative activities in this respect. His Piano Trio Tales of Old Russia suggests a fascination with narrative and drama, besides the exotic element which makes Russian art in general so attractive world-wide. Two of the three tales which particularly inspired Munro’s work are well-known – Vassilisa and the Baba Yaga, and the Snow Maiden, both partly by dint of association with other composers and their music. The third, Death and the Soldier, is an oft-repeated theme in European folk-literature, of the “wise fool” whose native cunning outwits the forces of darkness. Having witnessed the Eggner Trio’s capacities for characterization and narrative throughout the Beethoven work, I wasn’t surprised to find the musicians relishing the opportunities for evoking that sense of “a long time ago far away from here” in each of the tales. In particular, the macabre death-dance of the last story was launched with splendidly-controlled menace and ever-growing unease, reminiscent in places of Shostakovich’s “Leningrad” Symphony. The sentimental waltz towards the piece’s conclusion marked the defeat of the devils and a triumph of well-being, the musical laughter of the story’s audience at the end as much from relief as pleasure in entertainment.

The work was a perfect foil for the Dvorak Trio which took up the concert’s second part – if the Eggners had thus far shown they could convey energetic high spirits and humor, the trio proved equally capable of addressing the Czech composer’s passionate outpourings, generating full-blooded responses to the music’s every mood. I thought the group’s fusion of energy and expression utterly compelling throughout, with phrase-ends by turns adroitly tailored to succeeding episodes, or pointing the contrasts for proper musical effect. Just occasionally the violinist reached the highest note of a striving phrase less than cleanly (noticeable against the otherwise technically impeccable playing throughout), though somehow it all added to the expressiveness of the music’s wanting to bring about something worthwhile. After digging into the trenchant moods of the first two movements the Eggners relished the Adagio’s tender moments, though remaining responsive to the osmotic thrustings of swirling energy released by the music in places. The finale returned to the earlier movements’ excitement, a wistful second subject along the way providing some necessary respite before the players brought all the strands together for a noble and rousing finish.

I didn’t catch the name of the film composer who wrote the wildly unbuttoned romp of a piece the Eggners gave us as an encore – it was straight out of a Keystone Cops-type thriller, beginning with a delicious horror-chord, and erupting with high-energy velocities, a brief swooning ‘cello theme allowing us but  a breath or two’s respite before whirling everything back into a vortex of abandonment and sudden oblivion. But it was, though, of a piece with the rest of the concert regarding the group’s all-embracing way with everything that was played, and as such sent us all out into the night simmering with pleasure.

Brahms piano trio and Czech duos at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Breaking free from the Chamber – van der Zee, Mitchell and Mapp

St.Andrew’s on The Terrace Season of Concerts 2011

Janáček – Sonata for Violin and Piano
Martinů – Sonata No.2 for ‘Cello and Piano
Brahms – Piano Trio No.2 in C Minor

Anna van der Zee (violin) / Paul Mitchell (‘cello) / Richard Mapp (piano)

St.Andrew’s on The Terrace, Wellington

Sunday 20th March 2011, 3pm

Many of my most memorable musical experiences come from unexpected encounters with either unfamiliar compositions or stunningly good performances. In Wellington, these days, one expects at most concerts certain levels of musical understanding and technical accomplishment, but that still leaves plenty of stratospheric spaces for performances which take the listener to those out-of-the-ordinary heights that can’t help but enlarge and enrich one’s view of existence in general. This was a concert with many such moments.

I don’t wish to give the idea that these musicians normally don’t impress with their playing, though I have to say that in ‘cellist Paul Mitchell’s case I thought his work on this occasion exceeded in overall terms of accomplishment anything I’d previously heard him do. I’d heard Anna van deer Zee’s work previously as a member of the Tasman String Quartet, and remember enjoying her musicality in that context, somewhat removed from the realm of a virtuoso violin sonata, as here. As for Richard Mapp, I’ve always had the highest regard for his piano-playing in different settings, be it collaborative or soloistic – which is not to say that I’m never surprised and delighted by what he’s able to achieve out of the blue, as it were.

But this, I thought, was a special concert, one in which the musicians infused their material with oceans of appropriate character – fiery energy and deep concentration (Janáček and Martinů) and robust strength and romantic warmth (Brahms). And what a stunning opening to the concert it was, with the Janáček Sonata’s fiery, volatile declamations hurled at us by both violinist and pianist, only for the music to revert to the most confessional and intimate utterances without warning – such tenderness sitting alongside blazing statements and searing lines! I thought the playing simply terrific, encompassing both strength and vulnerability, handling the composer’s characteristic sudden switches into contrasting moods with great aplomb. Van deer Zee and Mapp caught the second movement’s folksy lyricism, swapping melodic lines with wonderful dexterity and, in van deer Zee’s case, beautifully true intonation.

The scherzo-like third movement set an invigorating “stomping” character at the opening against a more heartfelt trio section (these players characterized everything so vividly), while the finale’s epic treatment of tragedy cast the instruments almost as protagonists in places – the violin occasionally savaging the piano’s more long-breathed music with brutal interjections, the music in between time creating a mood of desperate and uncertain yearning for peace and harmony, constantly under threat. The players achieved an intense, heartbreaking flow of feeling at one point, but one which the echoing of the movement’s opening quickly dissolved, as if waking us from a dream and returning us to a harsher reality.

Martinů ‘s second “Cello Sonata, written in the United States after the composer had fled the Nazi invasion of Europe, is a kind of “New World” chamber sonata, containing numerous echoes of his Czech heritage. The first movement has a slightly “haunted” quality, folkish lines punctuated by episodes of great agitation, with textures for both instruments richly wrought. Mitchell and Mapp played into each other’s hands throughout quite masterfully, the focus of the ‘cello line matching and mirroring the piano writing to perfection. Together these musicians made something special out of the funeral-like Largo, recreating a whole world of sorrow and disquiet, galvanized by some virtuoso playing from the pianist leading to a most heartfelt and desperate entry from the ‘cellist – fantastic playing, completely “inside’ the music. The finale’s opening, combatative exchanges between string pizzicati with “attitude” and jagged piano writing, never let up, fusing lyricism with rhythmic energies, the players readily capturing a sense of “flight”, of desperate movement towards a kind of freedom in sadness and anger.

After these heart-on-sleeve utterances, the Brahms Piano Trio seemed at first a model of classical decorum – as well, the composer’s writing (strings often in unison) tended in the opening movement to play down the inherent warmth of this instrumental combination, so that we got an athletic, sinewy sound, focused and lean-textured. Occasionally I found the piano a shade overpowering in this movement, and wondered whether the player or the acoustic was to blame. This wasn’t so pronounced in the subsequent movements, the slow movement’s songful variations bringing the players’ tones together in a beautifully balanced outpouring of melody. The Scherzo’s wonderfully delicate, slightly “spooky” opening tones were beautifully realized, the warmer, more relaxed second subject was given plenty of character by the players, rising to something approaching heroic utterance at its climax, and switching to a Mendelssohnian feeling at the return of the opening, much relished by the musicians.

Hugo Wolf once complained of Brahms, “he can’t exult” – a judgement that this music surely and triumphantly denies. The musicians captured the flow of things right from the start, enjoying the occasional chromaticisms and contrasting them with a more chunky and bucolic character in other places. Richard Mapp’s playing I found terrific, establishing the kind of momentum which swept everything before it, his fellow-players matching the excitement right to the music’s joyous conclusion. Altogether, the concert gave us music-making of a high order, reminding us all over again (if needed) of the depth of talent to be found among our local musicians – such wealth, and at the disposal of our pleasure.

A String Quartet with a difference – the NZGQ

Posted on by Peter Mechen

NEW ZEALAND GUITAR QUARTET

St.Andrew’s on The Terrace Season of Concerts 2011

ANDREW YORK – Lotus Eaters

PETER WARLOCK (arr.Owen Moriarty) – Capriol Suite

KAISA BEECH – The Storm

GEORGES BIZET (arr. Bill Kanengiser) – Carmen Suite

SCOTT TENNANT – Celtic Fare

JS BACH (arr.James Smith) – Brandenburg Concerto No.6

NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV (arr.Bill Kanengiser) – Capriccio Espagnol

The New Zealand Guitar Quartet

Jane Curry, Cheryl Grice-Watterson, Owen Moriarty, Christopher Hill

St.Andrew’s on The Terrace, Wellington

Wednesday 16th March 2011

As one can see from the NZGQ’s program, the evening consisted mainly of transcriptions, with a few original compositions. Given that two of these reworkings were of music originally for strings (JS Bach and Warlock) and the other two drew heavily for their original inspiration on music for Spanish guitar, the presentations seemed entirely apposite, and (with one reservation, humbly proffered by this non-guitarist!) were delivered with what seemed plenty of energy, sensitivity and stylistic integrity.

I’ve previously remarked in these pages on the uncanny ability of the guitar to bring its own characterful distinction to music written for other instruments; and the quartet of players certainly brought their skills to the fore, conjuring up and delivering a wide range of colour and dynamics to works whose textures responded well to the presentations. For me the only thing I found problematical (and only in one item, throughout the evening) was the circumstance in the final work, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol, of frequent interruptions to the music for re-tuning – these hiatuses seemed to me to damage the atmosphere and sweep of the whole, and I was left thinking how “out-of-tune” the instruments would actually come to sound if left to their own performance devices for the sake of preserving musical continuity. I wondered whether a group of, say, flamenco guitarists delivering a larger-scale work which generated plenty of atmosphere, coloristic excitement and rhythmic impetus would similarly “sectionalize” the music to re-tune. I know that Rimsky wrote what seemed like “natural breaks” into his original score, but they’ve never seemed to me to be like those between symphonic movements, where there’s the usual concert-hall coughing and shuffling – one wants the music to press on, emphasizing the contrasts of the change of colour and impetus, and so on.

Interestingly enough, this was also the only work on the program in which I felt the performance lacked a bit of grunt in places. I found myself wanting to be more “transported” by it all (perhaps those “tuning breaks” were to blame) – I thought there needed to be more “schwung” to the rhythms during the final Fandango Asturiano, and simply a greater sense towards the end of of risk-taking and red-blooded abandonment (perhaps out-of-tune strings might have actually helped at that point!)…

Still, this is to risk nit-picking in the face of my overall enjoyment of an enterprising program! Delights there were aplenty – Andrew York’s attractive Lotus Eaters could have come out of a film similar to “Zorba the Greek” – I thought of the term “Mediterranean Road Music”, with, as Owen Moriarty reminded us in his spoken postscript, a very “LA” perspective. Peter Warlock’s Capriol Suite was sheer delight, the opening Basse-Danse exploiting the antiphonal effects of change and exchange among the ensemble, and the jig-like Tordion featuring beautifully “covered” pizzicato tones, everything dying away to a whisper at the end. The players dug into the final Mattachins, with bristling flourishes of (in places) spiky harmonies, leading up to a satisfying “ole!” at the final chord.

A heart-stopping moment came for a young Wellington composer, Kaisa Beech, whose work The Storm was presented by the quartet, a vividly-presented picture of a passing thunderstorm, encompassing both calm and turmoil with telling impact. Another original work, from presumably a more seasoned composer, Scott Tennant (actually dedicated to guitarist Owen Moriarty’s parents) was Celtic Fare, a work which actually grew out of an arrangement the composer made of another composer’s work, and which formed the inspiration for two further original movements. Irish folk-melodies belled and echoed throughout the first piece, to be contrasted with hoe-down energies in the final movement. Pleasant, somewhat eclectic stuff, nicely turned by the ensemble.

In general, I thought the group gave the Carmen transcription a bit more edge than they did the Rimsky-Korsakov. Each section seemed to go with a swing, the opportunities for “layering” the texture with four instruments beautifully realized and nicely detailed in performance. Occasionally I wondered why the arranger chose to set the melody of a piece an octave lower that I would have expected (with the original orchestration in my mind’s ear), making for a less brilliant and clearly-etched effect than with the original. This happened with the Habanera, and the effect was of the tune being sung by a baritone at the outset – the change to a major key brought the melody up to its accustomed level – but it did seem strange at first, as with the Seguidilla, where the melodic lines sometimes got submerged in the surrounding textures – not the performers’ fault, assuredly! Throughout, the group’s rhythmic pointing caught the snap and lift of the music’s movement so beautifully, a slight rhythmic hiccup at the end of the introduction in the Gypsy Dance mattering not a whit, as the growing physicality of the dance caught up performers and listeners alike in ever-growing excitement.

But I couldn’t praise too highly the group’s realization of the sixth of JS Bach’s Brandenburg Concerti. In true Baroque fashion, the music translated into the new instrumental medium as if fitting a perfectly-tailored glove – and the ensemble’s rendition of the individual lines brought so many deliciously-phrased strands of delight together with impeccable balance and osmotic teamwork.  The best performances of Bach have a certain feel of a living organism simply doing its thing, expressing its existence in its own unique, multifaceted way – and such was the case with the playing of the ensemble throughout the concerto – a performance that gave the very deepest of pleasure. Especially (and surprisingly) good was the slow movement, where the songful lines expressed an even more poignant quality than usual, perhaps through the notes being plucked instead of bowed, and therefore more subject to decay, as with all things to do with this worlds joye…….

The group gave an encore, occasioning a bit of “musical malapropism” on my part, thinking as I did that I’d heard it introduced as “Surrey Overnight” – however,  I found out later that its correct name was “Sarajevo Nights”. I fear my resulting abashment inhibited my critical faculties somewhat regarding this piece, as I can’t seem to remember much about it, except that it had an attractive calypso-like feeling, like a sort of jazzy chaconne. I’ve added my slip of hearing to my own private list of musical howlers……..

Diabolically fine fiddling from Martin Riseley

Posted on by Peter Mechen

St.Andrew’s on The Terrace Season of Concerts 2011

Martin Riseley (violin)

JS BACH – Sonata in C BWV 1005

PAGANINI – Introduction and Variations on Nel cor più non mi sento (from Paisello’s La molinara)

YSAŸE – L’Aurore

BARTOK – Sonata for Solo Violin (1944)

St.Andrew’s on The Terrace, Wellington

Sunday 13th March 2011

The trouble with the kind of jaw-dropping musical virtuosity demonstrated by the likes of Martin Riseley is that it can for some people obscure the actual substance of what’s being performed – since the time of the master-fiddler, Paganini himself, this “circus entertainment” aspect demonstrated by skilled executants has frequently bedeviled their musical efforts. Paganini recounted how, on one occasion, he was approached by a gentleman who claimed to have discovered his “secret”……

One individual…affirmed that he saw nothing surprising in my performance, for he had

distinctly seen, while I was playing my variations, the devil at my elbow

directing my arm and guiding my bow.  My resemblance to him was a proof of my

origin.  He was clothed in red–had horns on his head–and carried his tail

between his legs.  After so minute a description, you will understand, sir,

it was impossible to doubt the fact–hence, many concluded they had

discovered the secret of what they termed wonderful feats.”

It may come as a disappointment to some readers of this review that I’m not going to swear to having seen a similar apparition at Martin Riseley’s shoulder during his St.Andrew’s on The Terrace recital – but there was nevertheless plenty of sulphurous wizardry about his playing, albeit placed entirely at the service of the music throughout. When one encounters, as here, a fusion of virtuoso skill and musical sensibility, the results can be overwhelming. The programming judiciously underlined this marriage of technique with substance – and I recall being delighted by a previous solo violin recital of Riseley’s in which he presented the complete Paganini Caprices as a set of musical treasures, not mere virtuoso show-off pieces.

Riseley began his recital with an unprogrammed item, an Elegy by Stravinsky, to pay tribute to the people of Christchurch in the wake of the disastrous earthquake of February 22nd of this year. The violinist, himself a native of Christchurch, had already announced that he was donating his fee for the concert to the city’s relief fund. His playing of the music appropriately realized the elegiac nature of the piece, bringing to the textures a sombre, viola-like quality which made one imagine in places that the larger instrument was being used. Riseley requested that there be no applause at the end.

Strong, tensile, detailed and expressive – these words came to my mind as I listened to Riseley begin the Adagio which begins the Bach C Major Sonata BWV 1005. By the end he had managed to give us something both monumental and beautifully crafted at one and the same time. The Fugue astonished, as should be its wont, for the same reason, the player’s mastery evident in his ability to relate such a myriad of detail to a coherent structural argument – a feast for the intellect as well as for the ears. After such far-flung magnificence the Largo was bound to seem almost cowed at first, but the violinist’s lightness of touch found the essential contrast of mood, preparing us for the fleet-fingered concluding Allegro. Riseley told us at the end that he last performed the work in Christchurch’s ill-fated Cathedral, thus investing what we’d just heard with a thoughtful retrospective.

True to expectation, the introduction to Paganini’s Variations on a theme of Paisiello’s (the aria “Nel core più non mi sento”) generated flinted sparks and similar coruscations, after which the actual theme of Paisiello’s was subjected to all kinds of virtuoso “tricks”, including left-hand pizzicati. Paganini never actually published this work, for fear of his techniques being stolen by others – so posterity has had to rely on transcriptions by other people – in this case one Karl Gurh – to convey a sense of what the little wizard did with the hapless Paisiello’s theme. Throughout, Riseley’s playing properly titillated our capacities for sheer pyrotechnic enjoyment, while drawing attention occasionally to the charm and poignancy of this or that poetic turn of phrase. The virtuoso fireworks were properly put in context at the very end of the work by a deliciously throwaway ending, whose creative insouciance and deftness of touch were very much appreciated.

I liked, too, Ysaye’s L’Aurore, an evocation of dawn which gently eased us back into the fray after the interval. The work’s long-breathed lines paralleled plenty of accompanying incident, such as pizzicati and double-stopped figurations. It was as if through great lyrical archways all kinds of ambient detail scampered, the changing moods of the piece including a dance-sequence at the end, the human element in concourse with nature.

Before beginning the Bartok sonata, Riseley talked about the music’s performance difficulties, with reference to the work’s early interpreters, who were faced with what seemed like near-impossible challenges, and contrasted those endeavors with modern-day virtuosi whose technical prowess can seem just as misapplied in a completely different way when the music is made to sound almost “easy”. If the music didn’t sound “easy” under Riseley’s fingers, it was through no lack of skill on the violinist’s part. In the first movement one got the feeling of the lines being pushed to the utmost limits of physical expression, while the Fugue managed to combine ideas whose beauty, angularity and sharply-etched focus create what Riseley called in his programme-note a “tour de force” of concentrated composition. Though the Adagio chartered vastly different contourings, its concentrated mood readily found affinities with what had gone before – Riseley’s playing generated an amazing sense of extra-terrestrial traversal, those long lines and melismatic scale-fingerings together creating an unworldly effect, rich and strange.

As for the finale, Riseley characterized the music’s contrasting modes splendidly, the haunted “flight” music of the opening giving way to folk-idioms suggesting both dance and song, the melodic fragments stretched and intensified, and ever more closely juxtaposed with the urgent scherzando mood of the opening, a fragment of which seemed to become the final upward flourish of the work.

Its triumphant realization by the violinist brought to an end a truly splendid concert, one which amply served to demonstrate the wonder and privilege of having an instrumentalist of Martin Riseley’s talents close at hand to perform such music for our pleasure.