Author: Peter Mechen

Michael Houstoun plays Beethoven

Posted on by Peter Mechen

BEETHOVEN – The Last Three Piano Sonatas

Michael Houstoun (piano)

Recorded live at the Gallagher Concert Chamber,

Hamilton, in November 2007

Interview with Michael Houstoun

“The Last Three Beethoven Piano Sonatas”

(Interviewer: Terry Snow)

HRL Morrison Music Trust DVD MMT 4001

What a thoroughly enjoyable and life-enhancing experience! I well remember my excitement, back in the 1990s, when Michael Houstoun began recording the Beethoven sonatas for Trust Records, beginning with the “Middle Period” works (MMT 2001-3), marvellous playing captured in what I thought was perfectly decent and listenable sound-quality. Alas, my excitement was considerably lessened by the recorded sound on subsequent issues in the Trust series, a change of venue for the late sonatas set that followed (MMT 2004-5) producing an oddly cold and brittle piano tone, and throughout the remaining two collections a distressingly dry and airless ambience that did Houstoun’s laudable efforts no favours. This was piano-playing which I thought deserved oceans more support than what Houstoun was being given at the time by those making the recordings – one had only to sample the contemporaneous Radio New Zealand broadcasts of his live performances of the cycle, to hear what ought to have been captured in the studio.

It’s pleasant to report, therefore, that Trust has brought out this beautifully-recorded DVD of a concert featuring Houstoun’s playing of the last three Beethoven sonatas. Interestingly, I found those earlier studio performances of the same works bolder and more sharply-etched, the interpretative points more “gestural” to my ears, forcefully and unequivocally made. One of Michael Houstoun’s strengths as a pianist is for me his sense of utter conviction about how he interprets the music he’s playing. So, however much the listener might want the music to be played a different way at the time, what’s being presented is done with such clear-sightedness and surety it seems the right way for the music to go at that moment of hearing. That direct, focused quality has stood him in good stead over the years – and going back to those Trust CDs not only reconfirmed for me Houstoun’s strength and clarity as an interpreter, but alerted me to finding more flexibility of phrasing and gradations of tone this time round than I was ready to give him credit for previously. I still found the recorded sound of the late sonatas set cold and glassy, though it was only in the lovely A-flat Sonata Op.110 that my ears remained troubled throughout by an acoustic that wouldn’t let the music bloom in places as I thought it ought.

Which, as I’ve said, is where the new DVD especially comes into its own – those opening chords of Op.110, the quickening pulse as the melody rises towards the oncoming sunlight, and the happy, cascading release of tumbling arpeggiated notes are beautifully realised and activated by Houstoun, and winningly captured by Wayne Laird’s sound-recording, made in 2007 at Hamilton’s Gallagher Concert Chamber in front of an appreciative (though entirely unviewed) audience. The second movement – often hammered mercilessly in places by pianists striving for the effect of contrast – here receives an unexaggerated yet articulate performance, eschewing the “whisper-then-roar’ approach which some interpreters use to illustrate the picture of a composer prone to violent mood-swings and temperamental instabilities. Houstoun keeps the chordal introduction to the slow movement moving, equating the musical line with declamation rather than thought, and easing naturally into the “Klagender Gesang” lament, everything kept clear-eyed and poised, awaiting the fugue, eloquently voiced throughout, and given a subtle warmth of expansion at the climax. As with the other interpretations on the DVD, Houstoun seems to me to have embraced a “less-is-more” principle, relying more on the paying out of rhythms within phrases and longer sentences, and allowing lines to develop their own buoyancy in such a way that they speak with an engaging naturalness. The second “lament” intensifies the mood of the first, bringing the music to the point that the pianist characterises so movingly in the interview which follows the concert on the DVD – the spirit sinking almost to the point of dissolution, before finding the spark that re-activates life, and gradually emerging from the darkness via the repeated chords whose sounds build upwards and outwards in a quietly, and deeply affecting way.

The remaining two sonatas in concert on the DVD largely repeat that paradoxical process of enrichment and simplification of what the pianist achieved in his earlier recorded performances. With Op.109 I thought the earlier performance a shade more daring and energetic – surprising, really, as the received wisdom is that musicians sound “more like themselves” away from the recording studio and in front of an audience (I don’t have the pianist’s radio broadcast performances of the 1990s to hand to fully back up that statement, unfortunately!). Much is shared between the readings – the balance at the very opening between structural focus and visionary freedom remains finely judged, while the march conveys similar energy and purpose, the studio recording giving an edge to the sound in forte that can both stimulate and irritate, something that the DVD renders far more fully and roundedly, interestingly, at once seeming to liberate and “contain” the playing. But throughout the theme-and-variation movement Houstoun brings out the varying characters of the episodes with remarkable surety, making so rich and heartfelt those elongated ascents to the cadence-points of release in the fifth variation (again, a mite stronger and even theatrical in the studio; and more direct and simpler before the audience, though no less telling in effect).

Rehearing the studio performance of Op.111 after playing the DVD I thought the former very fine, more involved and deeply-considered than I remember acknowledging when the recordings were first issued, especially in the second movement. In the interview on the DVD Houstoun talks of the “pure drama” of the key of C minor in this music, and both CD and DVD performance bring this out – the rawness and cosmic blackness of the opening unison leaps, and the focused energy of the dotted-rhythm chords and the rolling demisemiquavers “tell” magnificently. Houstoun hurls himself into this drama in the studio, the cool, splintery recording doing the essence of this work less damage than to its A-flat companion. On the DVD the attack in concert isn’t quite as furious, though the pianist’s left hand slightly splits the lower note of the second downward unison plunge, pointing the jaggedness of the gesture further. However, the cumulative energies of the spiky unisons and the dogged passagework register just as strongly as before – and with the newer recording the listener is mercifully freed from the occasional wincing as the double fortes hit home. Again, the energy, tensile clarity and vigour of the playing is remarkable, though less of a full-frontal attack than a cumulation of strength and energy, this time around, the big chords near the movement’s end skilfully weighted so that the onslaught is gradually allowed to play itself out.

Perhaps it’s just that before the audience the pianist’s expression is simpler, less inclined towards extremes and gesturings, as if the whole conception of the music has tightened, but in a totally free and life-enhancing way – also, as if, in front of an audience, Houstoun felt less bound to project, no longer attempting, as in the studio, to counter the remoteness of the ears and sensibilities for which his playing was intended. And I wonder if the concert venue’s warm ambience meant that Houstoun didn’t have to hold onto the final chord of the movement for so long, the silences nicely carrying the resonances over to the shared-key opening of the second movement’s beginning.

In the second movement, with its vigorous “dance of life” sequence (Beethoven’s most spectacular foray into “boogie-woogie”) I thought the pianist’s placings of the various episodes very beautifully done, especially the later minor-key introductions leading to trills whose lightness of being were seem to momentarily leave the physical world for spiritual realms, the hands delineating the spaces between by exploring the keyboard’s extremities, then teasingly fusing the two, with both corporeal dance sequences and stratospheric trillings, the leave-taking from which concludes the work. Houstoun holds his audience spellbound with the simplicity of it all, at the end letting the silence surge back into the spaces with complete assurance.

As if the music and playing weren’t enough to satisfy, Trust has generously included an interview with the pianist, one whose content and manner could easily warrant a review of its own. Enough to say that in the space of forty minutes pianist and interviewer (Terry Snow) explore in some considerable depth different aspects of these remarkable works and Houstoun’s response to them. I thought the latter came across most impressively, with comments at once thoughtful and spontaneous-sounding, making many insightful points about the music and clearly expressing his deeply-considered reactions to the challenges the music poses, as well as the delights it bestows on the player. I also appreciated, for comfort’s sake, the extent to which the producer allows occasional hesitancies and word-slips common to normal conversation in the interests of flow and naturalness. There really isn’t enough space in these columns to do the whole thing justice (I’ve already over-indulged myself and stretched the patience of readers on behalf of the musical performances);  but those who purchase this beautifully-wrought DVD to experience the thrill of hearing and seeing New Zealand’s foremost exponent of Beethoven’s piano music play some of his greatest works will be charmed at being allowed a valuable additional insight into the workings of a great musician’s approach to that same music. Definitely a must-buy, in my opinion – and a dollop of wishful encouragement to those involved – dare we hope for more Beethoven from the same source? – and why, I wonder, does the “Hammerklavier” come so readily to my mind?

Martin Riseley – consorting with the Devil’s Fiddler

Posted on by Peter Mechen

PAGANINI – 24 Caprices for Solo Violin

Martin Riseley (violin)

St.Andrew’s-on-theTerrace 2010 Series of Concerts

Sunday 14th March

Niccolo Paganini’s Op.1, the set of 24 Caprices for solo violin, remains the ultimate test of virtuosity for a violinist – these pieces explore almost every aspect of violin technique, and remain a unique example of performance art which has subsequently continued to inspire both composers and performers. Robert Schumann described Paganini’s effect upon the musical world as “the turning point in the history of virtuosity”, and  the greatest composers of the succeeding age, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms and Schumann himself were suitably inspired by the Genoese master’s brilliance to use his themes as the basis for some of their own compositions.

The Caprices are wonderfully varied in mood, and by no means stress virtuosity at the expense of melody or poetry – in general the earlier twelve are more “technical’ in that they use the idea or innovation as the basis for the work’s substance, whereas the later twelve tend to focus more on the musical, rather than technical ideas in each of the pieces, using the latter as a means rather than an end in itself. Having said that, the degree of technical difficulty exerted by the pieces throughout remains fairly much on the transcendental level, requiring a response from any performer that encompasses both mechanical and musical brilliance.

Violinist Martin Riseley exuded an attractively boyish confidence upon taking the platform, and with little ado launched himself and his instrument into a fearsomely bristling tumblewhirl of notes, most of which were in tune! The hit-and-miss count flashed and flickered throughout, but in fact, it was generally the high-lying stand-out notes, usually at the stratospheric ends of phrases that were most at risk, the player’s energy and determination taking the attack to the rapid-fire arpeggiations, and tossing the scintillations of melismatic flourishes everywhere. Whether it was the player or this listener I’m not entirely sure, but the degree of approximation regarding intonation seemed more pronounced in the first half-dozen caprices than in the remainder – either it was increased ear-tolerance on my part as the recital went on, or the player had “warmed up” during the first quarter and was now hitting his notes more truly. Probably it was a little of both – the “baptism by fire” of those first half-dozen pieces I thought at once scarifying, exhilarating and somewhat coruscating; so much so that, when the recital’s second quarter began I’d “settled into” the composer’s sound-world and the kind of sound that the violinist was making, and was feeling more in tune with what I was hearing.

Martin Riseley began his second “quarter” with the untitled piece marked “staccato”, a piece whose initial melody is legato with staccato phrase-ends, before fiendish staccato work is capped off by glissandi at the ends of each statement. Even more fiendish was the Maestoso No.8, with double-stopping at the outset leading to a kind of “reverse-pitching”, playing higher notes on lower strings! No.9 was a hunting-horn Rondo, in which the thematic content took precedence over the virtuosic display, even with the “ricochet” (throwing of the bow) displays; while No.10 featured a devilish trill that “spikes” the music, brilliantly thrown off. The Romance and Tarantella No.11 was great fun, the latter played with a lot of energy and clean intonation, flashes of brilliance alternating with juicy-sounding tones. At this point the violinist expressed the wish for an extra finger, checking his pockets for the freak of nature that would make his task easier – as well he might when faced with the demanding Allegro No.12, which called upon the player to use two strings, one the “pedal” note, the result seeming of an order of difficulty that would defeat all but the deftest technicians, the music sounding ungratefully atonal in places.

Ample compensation was provided after the interval by the attractively sardonic No.12 Allegro, the “Devil’s Laugh”, a descending passage in thirds after each melodic statement engendering a feeling of mocking irony. The following Moderato’s “Hunting-horn” calls and rhythmic trajectories were nicely evocative, while the Pesato No.16 readily brought to mind Liszt’s keyboard pyrotechnics, with its octaves, thirds and sixths. Liszt would have responded strongly to the following Presto No.16 as well – a dark, agitated and pungent expression of troubled feeling – but instead chose to transcribe the following Sostenuto-Andante, which appears in his “Paganini Etudes” set, the middle section of which here was a breakneck whirl of octaves, returning to the theme, but with rapid fingerings and bowings in the concluding flourishes – impressively played! Just as commanding was Martin Riseley’s realisation of the “Corrente Allegro” No.18, with its relentless descending scales in thirds, capturing the daring of it all, even if not absolutely note-perfect.

The last selection of six began with a veritable circus act, the Lento-Allegro assai No.19 featuring a kind of “high-wire” performance on a single string, followed by a veritable grounding of sombre tones in the Allegretto No.20, whose drone bass note gave an eerie effect when set against the opening hymn-like tune, and whose vigorous central dance brought strong, forthright playing to bear on the music. I would have called the romanticism of No.21 tongue-in-cheek rather than the programme note’s “cynical”, as evidenced by the rapid scampering dissolutions of agitation at the end of each “stanza” – a piece more difficult than at first apparent, judging by the intonation difficulties in places. Just as demanding sounded the next piece, with its rolling tenths beginning and rounding off the music with a skitterish middle section. No.23 presented a call-to-arms presented in octaves, with a passionate gypsy-fiddle section demanding rapid scale-like passages jump from octave to octave, frenzied energies that dissipate and finish the music on a wistful, almost dying note, brilliantly realised.

The most famous of these pieces (think of Liszt, Brahms and Rachmaninov) came last – first the plain theme, then rapid arpeggio decorations, followed by octave doublings, and a wonderful “Will-o’-the Wisp” dancing episode, with descending thirds and ascending sixths, as well as the notorious left-handed pizzicato (its only appearance in the whole work). Martin Riseley’s performance of all of this was, in a word, staggering, by this time hitting his straps consistently and, though obviously tired, maintaining what seemed like superhuman energy levels to realise the music’s different voices and underlying momentum.

Reading back over what I’ve written has made me realise the extent I’ve described the music, perhaps more than I’ve focused on the actual performance – I think that’s the outcome of playing that’s stressed the importance of the music at least as much as the actual execution of it – there may be even more brilliant violinists than Martin Riseley around, but certainly, on this showing none more musical.

Ravi Shankar – a living legend in Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

RAVI SHANKA (sitar)

(with Anoushka Shankar – sitar)

Accompanying Musicians:

Tanmoy Bose (tabla)

Ravichandra Kulur (flute and tanpura)

New Zealand International Festival of the Arts, Wellington

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 12th March 2010

To convey something of the atmosphere and flavour of a remarkable concert at the Michael Fowler Centre, one of the New Zealand International Festival of the Arts series of concerts,  I can do no better than quote the words of the musician around whom this same concert was centred:

” Music can be a spiritual discipline on the path to self realisation, for we follow the traditional teaching that sound is GOD – Nada Brahma. By this process individual consciousness can be elevated to a realm of awareness where the revelation of the true meaning of the universe – its eternal and unchanging essence – can be joyfully experienced. Our ragas are the vehicles by which this essence can be perceived”.

The words are, of course, those of Ravi Shankar, 90 years young this year (2010) and performing in New Zealand for the first time, with his daughter Anoushka, with tabla-player Tanmoy Bose and flute-player Ravichandra Kulur. This was more than a concert occasion – it was an act of homage on the part of a receptive Western audience towards one of the acknowledged “great ones” of World Music. Even if he played for only half of the concert, Ravi Shankar made his presence felt through the wonderful playing of his daughter Anoushka,who gave us two ragas in the concert’s first half. Since the age of nine she had studied the sitar with her father, making her debut in public in 1994, at the age of thirteen. She’s obviously also become a powerful force in the world of Indian music, and in World music in general. Her playing made, to these untutored ears, an interesting contrast with that of her father’s, when he made his appearance after the interval – obviously she had inherited his focus and directness of expression, and had the physical means to apply that energy to her music-making more consistently and strongly than he was now able to do. Her tones were fuller, her rhythmic detailings more direct, and her passagework more even – manifestations of youthful strength and stamina which the elder Shankar could command no longer.

But in Ravi’s playing one constantly sensed the imagination going beyond the boundaries of the technique – there was nothing “contained” about what his very physical way with the sitar suggested. Rather like passages in the late Beethoven Quartets, whose ideas transcend their means of execution, the Indian master’s explorations of fancy took us right through and above the means of making the sounds, into realms whose relative frailty of physical manifestation seemed to further “charge” the experience. A player able to resound his or her instrument with far less apparent physical effort may produce a more beautiful, more even and well-rounded sound, but might be satisfied with what is produced and no more. What I sensed we took from Ravi’s playing was a feeling that there was always something beyond, something that his gestures often suggested even when there was little sound – his movements choreographed the act of reaching out towards those regions where sound is indeed God,  beyond reason and understanding, and into the realms of awareness and revelation.

So, it was very much a concert of two halves, each with its own specific kind of raison d’etre, as well as reflecting in the lustrous glow cast by the other. At the beginning, Anoushka Shankar introduced her fellow-musicians and told us that her father would appear for the concert’s second half. The group then played two ragas, the music in each case arising out of the ambient colour of the concert’s general atmosphere, the familiar “drone” sound and downward flourish of plucked strings introducing each of the works. In the first raga, the flute joined in with the opening recitative-like explorations, the cannily-placed microphones “catching” the sounds and their resonances and overtones, and bringing them out without seeming to interfere with the antiphonal relationships of the instruments. The entry of the tabla opens up the vistas, especially by means of the instrument’s deep bass notes, the rhythms at this stage teasing, going in surges and pulling back, but maintaining a mesmeric pulse. Heretical though this might sound, I actually found the flute a distraction whenever it entered, so mesmerised was I by the interaction of sitar and tabla, and the spectacularly complex rhythmic patternings made by the drummer. The second raga presented was written by Ravi Shankar for his daughter, the sounds at the outset giving the impression of being made upon impulse, as if something spiritual is using player and instrument as a conduit through which to pass whatever message. Whether or not I had penetrated several layers into a different kind of time-frame by this stage, I coudn’t be sure – but this work seemed to move more quickly towards the tabla’s entry, the music more forthright than in the previous raga, the drumming very lively and volatile-sounding, with scalp-prickling szforzandi matched by the sitar, indicating something of the framework of the piece beneath the surface configuration’s spontaneity.

After the interval Ravi Shankar’s arrival onstage was a great moment. Smiling, gracious, both frail-seeming and with bird-like resilience, he acknowledged the tribute before settling to the ritual of tuning. He then welcomed his audience “to Wellington” to great applause and some amusement, and told us about what he would be playing. The first piece he began dreamily and unhurriedly, as if reflecting on a great deal of experience. More so than his daughter Anoushka, he moved his instrument about, choreographing the shakes and swoops and crests of tone, occasionally shaking the sitar almost tonelessly, as if the notes were suggested rather than played. Anoushka joined in with the recitative, taking up the argument – her joining in underlined the very ‘tactile” feeling communicated by Ravi in his playing, perhaps partly due to age, and partly to the physical effort of realising those sounds. Together the sitars built up the mood’s momentum and amplitude almost imperceptibly, each exchange adding a kind of different level of energy, the result magnetic and compelling. No tabla was in this part of the piece – the sitars carried it all before them. It was unclear whether the tabla-accompanied episode which followed the audience’s applause was part of the same work or a different stand-alone work, but it involved exhilarating exchanges between the sitars, with remarkable agility displayed by both musicians.

The final work was a raga in classical form but with modern improvised interpolations – my Indian friend who accompanied me to the concert called it a “crowd-pleaser”! Again, one could experience and enjoy the contrast in styles between father’s and daughter’s playing, Ravi’s meditative, almost other-world fancies set alongside Anoushka’s more direct and cleanly-focused phrasings. The themes and accompaniments seemed quite Westernised in places, with a very quasi-Oriental theme brought out at one point (rather “cheesy” in effect), which was then blown away by a terrific accelerando, featuring some remarkable thematic invention expressed with a lot of energy from the sitars plus the tabla. The player of the last-named instrument, Tanmoy Bose, was able to show his mettle in a cadenza-like sequence whose volatile physicality was almost transcendental in effect, music-making visibly acknowledged by both Shankars, before they joined in with bringing the Sawal jabab, the exciting final section of the raga, to a close.

Not unexpectedly, the applause was rapturous at the end, especially so when Ravi himself came out to take the final bow – the acclaim was for many things at once, but set the seal on a rich and truly memorable occasion.

SMP Ensemble: Nexus – Poles Apart

Posted on by Peter Mechen

SMP Ensemble

Music by Jack Body, Anton Killin, Simon Eastwood, Karlo Margetic,

Jan.W.Morthenson, Charles Ives, John Adams, Francis Poulenc,

Henryk Gorecki, Richard Robertshawe, Andrzej Nowicki, Carol Shortis

The SMP Ensemble

St.Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace Season of Concerts March 2010

Wednesday 10th March

The SMP Ensemble was formed in 2008, and set up as a forum for the work of Wellington-based composers and performers. Over a short period it has, under the direction of Andrzej Nowicki,  already developed a reputation as a fresh and stimulating force in the capital’s contemporary music activity, organising and performing a number of concerts. Its most recent was a presentation at one of the St.Andrew’s March 2010 concerts, set up to run parallel to the NZ International Arts Festival music offerings.

One of the concert’s themes was a Polish connection, hence the “Poles Apart” reference in the concert’s title. A number of the works drew inspiration from Polish writing, history or political events, among them a work by local composer Carol Shortis commemorating the arrival, sixty-five years ago, of a group of Polish refugee children in New Zealand, many of whom still live in this country. Other works by Simon Eastwood and Karlo Margetic took as their starting-points events or artistic achievements whose source was Poland. As it turned out, the concert presented a tantalising mix of home-grown and off-shore music whose sources of inspiration seemed to demonstrate the “music in the air” maxim.

Jack Body’s “Turtle Time” sets a text by Russell Haley, here spiritedly spoken and enacted by Karlo Margetic, his powerful expression of the words and use of the physical spaces heightening the piece’s theatrical qualities. The ensemble produced some lovely sounds which variously chatter, babble, scintillate and clatter, the sound-picture flipping between ambient and pointillistic, sometimes running with, sometimes countering the words of the poem. These constantly-changing colours and patterns of the soundscape were a source of continual delight, apart from the organ’s swell-pedal which I found too crudely applied and rather irritating.  Given that Karlo Margetic used his voice and the stage so well, I wondered whether the musicians and their instruments could have been placed more outrageously antiphonally, emphasising both the fragmentary nature of the realisation and the efforts made by the ensemble itself to bring their individual sounds more in accord with one another. Interestingly, the voice wasn’t microphoned or otherwise enhanced in any way, as it is on the work’s only recording that I know of, made for Kiwi Records in the 1970s – for me the piece worked just as well in the “real” physical space of St.Andrew’s, the sounds exchanging the claustrophobia of the recording’s close-microphoning for a freer, more theatrical interaction. At the piece’s end, the escape by the “voice” from the turtles’ predatory time-snapping, past wave upon kaleidoscopic wave of obsessive instrumental obstruction, had a satisfying, almost ritualistic feel to it in concert. Abstractionists might object, but my feeling regarding a piece such as this, with so many overtly theatrical elements already present, is that the work’s innate capacity for suggesting interactions in visual terms cries out to be exploited further.

Anton Killi’s electroacoustic piece A Priori resembled for me a message in human speech deprived of its consonants, nostalgically accompanied by feed-back-like squeaks, whines and ambient “radio noise” interference, suggesting to my ears memories of the golden age of radio. Along with these half-words underpinned with white-noise resonances came Ligeti-like vocalisings, impulses of communication either dragging themselves from the pupa or distending their resonances into lengthy, ritualistic sequences of mesmeric mystery.  Less equivocal was Simon Eastwood’s “Jericho – Walls Will Fall”, one of several works in the concert with a Polish connection, in this case the music inspired by a protest song from the 1980s Polish Solidarity Movement, describing how walls will fall if people have the will to knock them down. Written for a Brass Trio, featuring trombone, horn and trumpet, the work constantly delights with its inventive explorations over four brief movements. The first sounds plenty of warning warring notes, each instrument in turn allowed to take the lead with its own patternings. Then, Alex Morton’s horn and Mark Davey’s trombone mute their tones and become nature-drones, leaving Dave Kempton’s trumpet to play its own flourishes, before joining with the others in further melodic and rhythmic combinations. A toccata-like piece follows, trumpet and horn stuttering while the trombone swaggers and struts its stuff. By this time the walls seem to have capitulated and fallen, because the fourth-movement brass cantilena is valedictory in tone, though more insistent at the point where things abruptly cease, the fight having been won.

Karlo Margetic’s “Hommage a W.L.” is a tribute to the Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski, the gesture itself an interesting idea, giving rise to the question regarding which composer’s work should take the credit for whatever success the ensuing piece earns for itself or is accorded. Quoting Lutoslawski’s idea of using aleatoric compositional techniques in a free and spontaneous way, Margetic characterises the older composer’s avoidance of rigour and dry complexity as “a wonderful act of subversion against the dogmatic avant-garde”. The piece (for mixed ensemble) begins with a woodblock-like roll (repeated at certain “get ready” transition-points throughout the work), and a “Bluebeard’s Door” chord immediately following, whose sustained resonances beautifully build the musical argument through melismatic strings-and-wind repetitions towards magically transformed stratospheric explorations of similar material. A string quartet “jams it” along with tattoo-like percussion rhythms, screwing up the tension until the breaking tides wash up and leave aeolian harp-like figurations teetering backwards and forwards, the strings and winds returning to tighten and screw things up again, to the point of near-frenzy. After still more irruptions the energies and tensions slowly dissipate and unravel, brass and piano contributing to a somewhat crepuscular feeling, which the composer promptly and somewhat unexpectedly banishes with an abrupt forte and a pulsating woodblock having the final word. I thought this was a great work, deserving of future notice.

I liked also Jan W. Morthenson’s Unisono, for bassoon, piano and electronics, a piece in which two instruments play with the idea of working in unison, but experience all kinds of tensions while trying to do so. Kylie Nesbit’s bassoon was amplified after her opening acoustic gambit in tandem with Jonathan Berkahn’s piano harmonies, Richard Robertshawe contriving all kinds of timbral modifications to the former, creating almost surreal effects, especially during the ensuing game of chase with the piano, both instruments occasionally pushed to their physical extremities for single notes or chords, and each trying to outdo the other in constructing edifices of sound. Even more of a “cosmic landscape” was attempted by Charles Ives’ 1906 piece “The Unanswered Question”, a work not published for over thirty years after its creation. Ives writes beautifully for the strings at the beginning, the chords slowly oscillating and changing colours before the trumpet enters (here placed at the back of the church, as were wind and brass ensembles), interacting with the antiphonal forces with a view to solving certain of life’s mysteries, but being little the wiser at the end of it all.

After the interval came John Adams’ rumbustious (and, I thought, rather gruff!) tribute to John Phillip Sousa, one which didn’t really do much for me, apart from evoking marching feet and a sense of cumulative excitement. Far more to my taste was the wonderful Sonata for Bassoon and Clarinet by Francis Poulenc, played here at a crackling pace by Kylie Nesbit and Andrzej Nowicki, with sheer momentum and nimble articulation the order of the day right up to the last few drolleries being lightly tossed off. A nicely-judged slow movement, with each instrument a perfect foil for the other, was followed by a finale whose romp of exchange would have melted all but the hardest of hearts. Songful clarinet and droll bassoon momentarily resembled Don Quixote and Sancho Panza setting off home to recover from the latest set of exploits, while the circus clowns returned to flop-start the exchanges for the stop-start concluding statements of the work. A more telling contrast than the Piano Sonata by Henryk Gorecki (he of “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” fame) couldn’t be imagined. Its ferocity and teeth-in-the-bone tenacity owed much to Bartok, with similar drive and folk-like primitives and repetitions. The brief but exceedingly lovely slow movement provided but a respite for the sensibilities before the finale burst into the ambient spaces, drove through contrasting episodes, then teased us all somewhat with whimsical juxtapositionings of energy and reflectiveness towards the end, before finally delivering a brutal-sounding payoff to finish. Great playing throughout by Sam Jury.

This concert had promised both substance and variety, which by this time had been achieved handsomely on both counts, though there was still more to come. Andrzej Nowicki’s whimsically-titled Concertino 5b was light relief after the Gorecki work, featuring two musicians dressed in pyjamas, one with an amplified clarinet and the other working the electronics.

It was an entertaining piece of music-theatre, with the energetic clarinettist gradually running quite seriously out of steam, and going to sleep, making in the process some suitably drowsy sounds. Synthesised resonances of what the clarinet had commented on and shared before added a kind of coda to the remnants of the performance.

Finally, another work with Polish resonances was performed, a short cantata-like piece by Carol Shortis whose music was inspired and based on both a Polish folk-song “Polskie Kwiaty” and a13th-century hymn Bogurodzica, and was written to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the arrival in New Zealand of Polish refugee children in 1944. Most of these children had been separated from or lost their parents and other family members. Carol Sortis wrote “Tesknota” (Yearning”) as a response to the story told by one of these refugees, using the traditional melodies of folk-song and hymn to evoke “Old Poland” before the Russian and German invasions of 1939.

Beginning darkly on a double bass, then a ‘cello, and climbing into the higher strings the music sweetly and lyrically bloomed as the choir entered, with the words “Spiewa Ci obcy wiatr” (A foreign wind sings to you) to the accompaniment of wind noises made by additional voices. Counter-tenor Laurie Fleming rejoined with “A serce teskni…” (But the heart yearns….”), the voice truthful and clear, if not ideally strong in the lower register, so that he’s somewhat masked by the other voices at times. Stronger and brighter was soprano Olga Gryniewicz with her “Stokrotki, fiolki, kaczence i maki” (Daisies, violets, buttercups and poppies), the voice pure, radiant and beautiful, the high note at the start pure and sweet with little hint of strain. From here, strings and piano radiantly sing an almost Martinu-like accompaniment, the counter-tenor and soprano voices rising briefly for the last time out of the instrumental and vocal ambiences which go on to conclude the work. Heartfelt and extremely moving.

Festiva Piano Quartet playing for keeps at St.Andrew’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

St.Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace Season of Concerts 2010

MOZART : Piano Quartet in G Minor K.478

MAHLER – Piano Quartet in A Minor

BRAHMS – Piano Quartet No.3 in C Minor Op.60

Festiva Piano Quartet: Cristina Vaszilcsin (violin), Peter Garrity (viola),

Robert Ibell (‘cello), Catherine McKay (piano)

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

Tuesday 9th March

I can think of no higher praise for the playing of this group throughout the present concert than expressing the wish to hear them tackle, one day, (with the help of another violinist) a favourite work of mine, the Cesar Franck Piano Quintet. That’s not to say that I don’t want to hear them in other repertoire as well – in fact, one of the features of this concert was how completely and unselfconsciously the musicians found the style and voice of each composer’s music throughout the evening. To the Mozart work they brought strong, well-focused contrasts – dark and sunshine, tension and gaiety – knowing just when to “grip’ the music and when to relax. The relatively unfamiliar Mahler Quartet Movement was given concentrated and committed advocacy, with singing lines and deeply-dug intensities from all concerned, while the Brahms work added to the playing tensile strength and intellectual vigour, realising the music’s remarkable synthesis of romantic feeling and iron-wrought discipline.

I mention the Franck Quintet, because I couldn’t help being frequently reminded of it throughout the latter part of the concert, especially during the Festiva Quartet’s wholehearted tackling of the Brahms work – though Franck’s language and thematic constructions are of course quite different to Brahms’ in this Quartet, the works share a fair degree of nineteenth-century “sturm und drang”. No less heartfelt was the musicians’ approach to the Mahler, whose often feverish effusions in places put one even more in mind of the Belgian composer’s candidly-expressed outpourings. Again, the playing brought out the character of the music in each case, I thought, emphasising in Mahler’s work a certain febrile quality in some of the writing, while informing the Brahms Quartet with richer, deeper-throated tones, bringing out a more layered and complex web of expression.

First up, however, was the Mozart Quartet, the key of G Minor promising, as with other works from this composer, a vein of dark, agitated feeling colouring the music. So it proved, the players making the most of the music’s contrasting moods, the opening filled with foreboding and unease, and the second subject light and tripping, with some nice flashes of musical temperament in violinist Cristina Vaszilcsin’s work. It was playing that made the repeat a real pleasure to experience, as one could focus on different aspects of the music-making – the strong rhythmic support from Robert Ibell’s ‘cello, for example, and the clear, sparkling lines maintained by pianist Catherine McKay. The development’s surge and flow was nicely realised, the strands of melancholic feeling well-activated, with intense dialoguing between violin and viola (Peter Garrity), and an almost Beethovenian strength coming out in the piano part.

In the slow movement, the piano-and-strings exchanges exhibited grace and tender feeling, the violinist negotiating her extended “running” solo with deft elegance. The group generated great “schwung” in the finale’s concerted passages, the piano taking the spirited lead, and the individual strings allowing themselves some “glint” when negotiating their separate lines, occasionally setting against this lovely trio-voicing moments during softer episodes. The players enjoyed the work’s “teased-out” ending, Mozart treating us to a few bars of remote modulation before returning to the home key for a grand finish.

Mahler’s Piano Quartet Movement came from a work written when the composer was just 16, the rest of which he later destroyed, apart from a few bars of a Scherzo. It remains a fascinating glimpse of a “composer-in-gestation”, one whose characteristic fingerprints are already discernable. The piano-dark, brooding opening, with its repeated emphasis on a three-note motif swung between lyricism and angst, building up towards lines of running counterpoint, with every instrument singing its own song. The three-note motiv dominated the music’s central section, driving things to fever pitch in places, and creating what seemed like an unstoppable tide of impassioned feeling – full credit to Catherine McKay for her full-blooded pianistic flourishes, and to the strings for their similarly-expressed energies. The music and the playing continued to enthral, throughout contrasting episodes of exhausted calm (voices singing atop of murmuring piano chords), quickening tensions with occasional major-key flirtations, and exotic colourings (a gypsy-like violin solo leading a valedictory processional – very Mahlerian!), right to the hushed pizzicato ending.

But it was the Festiva’s playing of the Brahms Op.60 Piano Quartet which capped off an evening’s remarkable music-making. Big-boned playing, with full-bowings and richly dark piano tones captured the work’s opening, and made the contrast with the second subject markedly “tell”, the piano’s lyrical reflections answered with real depth of feeling, real “hurt”, conveyed by the rest of the ensemble. In places I could almost feel the players listening intently to their own interactions, while in others I had a sense of playing-for-keeps risk-taking, close to the edge of abandonment, as the music surged and seethed through the development. The performance had the feeling of a soul taking stock of its own strength after intense tribulation, and renewing its journey through sheer will.

The scherzo’s tricky syncopations were played with glint and fire and real “point”, with a dynamic range encompassing everything from a roar to a whisper, and a  storytelling impulse able to realise the suggestion of headlong flight with demons in pursuit. By contrast, the slow movement’s various instrumental combinations wrought magical results, ‘cello and piano beginning, followed by violin and ‘cello, and then violin and viola, each pair adding a different strain of feeling to the melody, whose eventual dying autumnal fall at the close evoked an atmosphere so beloved of this composer. The group caught the agitations of the finale’s opening, strings pounding in three against the piano’s four (and then swapping around!), the second subject’s hymn-like respite being overtaken by the restless opening music, the turbulence surging and abating throughout the development – exciting playing from all concerned! Catherine McKay’s emphatic march-like piano chords triumphantly proclaimed the hymn-like tune’s affirmations on its return, though to conclude the composer resolutely led the argument through a further agitated flurry and into the autumnal regions once again, the players determinedly and assuredly going with the music’s flow and delivering the final chords with proper and characteristic gruffness.

The muicians received an enthusiastic and well-deserved ovation from an audience whose enjoyment would, I’m sure, have helped spread the word regarding these St.Andrew’s concerts, in the wake of such exciting and involving performances.

Festival Jazz at St.Andrew’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Tessa Quayle Jazz Trio / Claude Bolling – Jazz Concerto

Tessa Quayle sings Jazz Standards with Ben Wilcock (piano) and Alistair Isdale (double-bass)

St.Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace March Concerts

Tuesday 9th March

Claude Bolling – Concerto for Classical Guitar and Jazz Piano Trio (1975)

Matthew Marshall (guitar) with Anita van Dijk (piano), Paul Dyne (bass) and Roger Sellers (drums)

St Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace March Concerts

Thursday 11th March

That old cliche “A time and place for everything” came to my mind while listening to and enjoying jazz singer Tessa Quayle’s cool and laid-back delivery of a selection of jazz standards at a St.Andrew’s lunchtime concert. As much as I thought her singing, and the playing that accompanied her efforts from the other members of her Trio, thoroughly expert and professional, I found myself wanting more from the experience. Had Tessa Quayle chosen Cole Porter’s “It’s all right with me” as one of her numbers, I think I would have been able to put my finger on what was lacking for me at the time – “It’s the wrong time / it’s the wrong place….” I feel sure that the singer’s extremely relaxed and loose-limbed style and deportment would have worked marvellously in a bar or nightclub or cabaret or theatre, and, just as importantly, at night (or in a setting that suggested a nocturnal ambience). It simply didn’t seem the right ambience at St.Andrew’s for the songs to fully work on and be worked upon. In retrospect I felt the need for a more atmospheric and quasi-theatrical environment, with dim lighting, drinks and (dare one say it in these nicotine-unfriendly times?) a touch of cigarette smoke to create the appropriate mood for such music and its performance.

Jazz singing suggests a kind of generic style described by words such as those I’ve already used – cool, laid-back, relaxed, and so on – but given the circumstances and physical surroundings of the concert, I wondered whether the performers needed more than that on this occasion. Without the “trappings” the focus was very much on the singer, and, to a lesser extent, on the trio as a whole; and I thought their music-making, when put under such scrutiny, somehow lacked real intensity. Seldom during the performances did I sense the musicians were “transfixed” or totally absorbed by what they were playing – and, of course, I freely admit in relaying this impression the fault could well be mine through inexperience of this style of music and performing. However, I could imagine performances of these songs conveying heartfelt emotion across a range of feelings – and I suspect that this just wasn’t Tessa Quayle’s style. What she and her musicians did would have obviously suited some of the songs admirably; but across the span of an entire concert I couldn’t help feeling a sameness regarding the ever-so-noticeable detachment she brought to each song. Perhaps I needed to sit closer up, to give the visceral possibilities a better chance – though I suspect that such connection wasn’t what these performances were about.

The concert began with Sonny Burke’s “Black Coffee”, the singer a bit difficult to hear at first, though as “the pitch of the hall” was established, my ear became accustomed to her sound, enough to appreciate the agility of her wordless vocalising in “Bernie’s Tune” originally an instrumental by Bernie Miller. I liked “Autumn Leaves” with its high bass work and nifty exchanges between singer and pianist, and the ear-catching rhythmic irregularities of Thelonious Monk’s “In Walked Bud” with its 4 versus 3 rhythms. However, I found myself wishing for a more gutsy, abandoned feeling from the singer in “Come on Home”, though I liked her similarly wry delivery of “Anthropology”, which she referred to as “Charlie’s Anthropology”, presumably by way of tribute to Charlie Parker. “Nica’s Dream” was notable for a marvellous piano solo from Ben Wilcock, but a real highlight was the duo “Come Rain or Come Shine” (Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer), the musicians free and flexible at the beginning, and generating real “swing” towards the end. Finally, there was the quizzical, sometimes declamatory “Moanin”, with its Negro-spiritual-like feeling, activated again by fluent and mellifluous piano and bass improvisations and easeful teamwork among the trio.

Perhaps one day I’ll get the chance to hear Tessa Quayle sing in a different setting, one in which she’ll more readily ignite those performance sparks which her amazingly rich and varied experience as a singer so far indicates she’s capable of. An enjoyable concert, then – but leaving less of an impression that I’d hoped it would. I confess to having fewer initial expectations from a second concert at St.Andrew’s involving jazz musicians, one involving classical guitarist Matthew Marshall and a jazz group, the work being Claude Bolling’s Concerto for Classical Guitar and Jazz Piano Trio. One of a number of “crossover” works by Bolling, written for classical guitarist Alexander Lagoya in 1975, it made an attractive if uneven impression on me, through no lack of committed advocacy from Matthew Marshall and his cohorts – like a lot of “other genres with classical” works it did best exploring its “own” territories, its jazz rhythms and timbres, and was at its weakest when trying to imitate “classical” styles and gestures (rather like Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and almost every jazz-inspired mix with classical forms ever since).

Parts of the work I found surprisingly involving and interesting, such as the first movement’s Hispanic Dance in 5/4, bluesy in places, Spanish in others (owing a lot to Rodrigo) – the blues episodes reverted to 4/4 in a kind of “trio” section, before driving back to the 5/4 rhythm, and just before the end “stressing” the patternings differently, to exhilarating effect. I also liked the third movement’s busy fugal scamperings, the instrumental lines nicely dovetailed before Anita van Dijk’s  piano “jazzes up” the patterns, inspiring the double bass (Paul Dyne) to take the lead, after which guitar and piano resume their dialogue, all very Bachian, with a nice rallentando ending. Matthew Marshall’s solo guitar work was in evidence at the beginnings of at least three of the movements, by turns improvisatory, and strongly rhythmic, each evoking a different kind of sultriness, then in the work’s finale, generating exhilarating pace with rapid scamperings, contriving with the piano to produce a “Saint-Saens” kind of ending, brilliant and flowing. Pianist Anita van Dijk skilfully recovered her poise after seeming to lose her way  momentarily in this movement, in time to support her drummer, Roger Sellars, letting off percussive firecrackers towards the end of the work, and with the others, gathering in and winding up the threads with a grandly ascending flourish.

Entertainment, enjoyment, and food for thought regarding music, times and places….

Organics for free at the International Arts Festival in Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

John Wells – Organ Recital at the Wellington Town Hall

JS Bach – Toccata and Fugue in D Minor BWV 565 / Frank Bridge – Adagio in E Major

Alfred Hollins – Concerto Overture No.2 / Cesar Franck – Piece Heroique

Josef Rheinberger – Sonata No.3 “The Pastoral” Op.88 / Alfred Louis James Lefebure-Wely – Sortie in B-flat

Saturday 6th March

Douglas Mews – Organ Recital at the Wellington Town Hall

Edwin Lemare – Marche Moderne / Erima Maewa Kaihau –  A koako o te Rangi (Whisper of Heaven)

JS Bach – Prelude and Fugue in A Minor BWV 543 / Brahms – 2 Chorale Preludes Op.122

Tchaikovsky (arr. Lemare) – Fantasy Overture “Romeo and Juliet”

Sunday 7th March

Each one of these recitals was given for free at the Wellington Town Hall, both showing off the resplendent grandeur and variety of tones of the Town Hall’s recently refurbished organ. Of the two recitals I enjoyed John Wells’ as a whole better, largely because of the programming, though both his and Douglas Mews’s recitals had some very fine and interesting things in them. Each featured  some resplendent Bach, Wells treating us to the old warhorse the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (which showed off the organ excellently) and Douglas Mews the A Minor Prelude and Fugue BWV 543, a tighter, rather less theatrical and Gothic work, though one with some light and shade during the fugue, via an episode of contrasting registration, before the final payoff returned us to imposing magnificence. But John Wells’s programme showed us more of the instrument’s byways via works by Frank Bridge, Alfred Hollins and Josef Rheinberger, then concluding with some absolutely delightful music by Alfred Louis James Lefebure-Wely, a lovely Andante from a larger work “Meditaciones Religiosas” and a “Sortie in E flat” of a kind that would be played as a postlude to a Mass at a Parisian Church such as Saint Suplice.

What came off best for me in Douglas Mews’ recital, besides the Bach Prelude and Fugue, was a charming work by Erima Maewa Kaihau, one called “A koako o te Rangi” (Whisper of Heaven), music which readily evoked a strong, rich period charm. I was moved to try and find out something about Erima Maewa Kaihau, a name I didn’t know (as it turned out, to my shame!) – born in 1879 at Whangaroa, she was given the name Louisa Flavell by her European father, whose background was suffused with romantic conjecture. He was supposedly descended from a member of the French aristocracy who escaped the bloodshed of the Revolution, and also from a musician connected with the court of the Austrian Emperor. On her mother’s side her whakapapa could boast the Nga Puhi chief Hone Hika of Ngati Rahiri. Maewa married Henare Kaihau, by whom she had six daughters and two sons – Kaihau was the MP for Western Maori until about 1920. Maewa’s musical talents expressed themselves readily in song-writing, most famously with the song  “Haere ra”, known in English as “Now is the Hour”, and also “A koako o te Rangi” (“Whisper of Heaven”). The latter was recorded by the famous singer Ana Hato, but I don’t as yet know who made the transcription for organ solo. Erima Maewa Kaihau died in 1941.

I thought it was unfortunate that Douglas Mews chose to conclude his recital with a transcription of Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet” Overture. In theory the idea had some interest, but in practice it wasn’t a success – the transcription, though it suited some aspects of the work (the slow wind chording at the beginning, for example) failed to deliver the goods in other places. What disappointed me most seriously was the conflict music between the Montagues and the Capulets, which sounded both underpowered and rhythmically out-of-sorts. I could imagine that transcriptions of this sort would have had their place in the days when symphony concerts were less common and accessible to people than they are now, and this was the means by which a lot of music got a hearing at all. As such, the exercise had, I suppose, a kind of historical-kitsch value. But really, Tchaikovsky’s music wasn’t done any favours; and I couldn’t help thinking that, if organists really wanted to play symphonic music they ought to investigate (or make) transcriptions of things like the Bruckner symphonies, whose harmonies, textures, and rhythmic trajectories would seem far more suited to the instrument. I could even, I think, really enjoy a work like the Cesar Franck Symphony in an inspired transcription – there would be some point to hearing in transcription such works which probably owe some of their gestation to the activities of their composers in the organ-loft. However, I fear that, on the evidence of what we heard, some music might well be left well alone!

DIRTY BEASTS and other stories

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Oliver Hancock – Three Tolkien Miniatures / Paul Patterson – Rebecca / Little Red Riding Hood

Martin Butler – Dirty Beasts

Nigel Collins (narrator), Diedre Irons (piano)

ZEPHYR – Bridget Douglas (flute), Robert Orr (oboe), Robert Weeks (bassoon), Phil Green (clarinet)

with: Vessa-Matti Leppanen (violin), Rowan Prior (‘cello), Patrick Barry (clarinet), Mark Carter (trumpet),

David Bremner (trombone), Leonard Sakofsky (percussion), Emma Sayers (piano)

New Zealand International Festival of the Arts

Wellington Town Hall

Saturday, 7th March 2010, 2pm

Music, theatre and story together provided diverting entertainment for an enthusiastic audience of children of all ages at the Town Hall, with something for everybody, young and old and somewhere in between. These settings of different generations of cautionary tales for children by contemporary composers were brought to life by narrator Nigel Collins, with vivid and colourful support from some of Wellington’s finest musicians, some of whom were, at times, tantalisingly difficult to recognise in their various costumes.

A pity the staging of this presentation wasn’t ideal, with the Town Hall platform built out as a smallish square onto which the performers crowded, the musicians in a rather tight and inwardly-looking semi-circle that didn’t help generate enough performer-and-audience contact – we weren’t sufficiently encouraged by the arrangement to project ourselves into the music-making spaces. What it meant was that Nigel Collins and his cohorts had to work all the harder to draw their audience in and enable that fusion with fancy and imagination which makes for memorable theatrical (and musical) experiences. And, if the stage was too small, the venue itself was too big, the empty spaces not allowing that sense of intimacy and involvement between and with all those present, performers and audience members.

This said, the energies and skills of the performers kept up the flow between platform and auditorium – of course, the “nature of the beast” meant that there would possibly be a few surprises in store, everything seeming to be somewhat outside the parameters of a “normal” concert-going experience, which was itself an enticing prospect. The performers certainly entered into the spirit of the entertainment, and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves – as did the audience, a few “drop-offs” apart (which is par for the ‘children-entertainment’ course, I would expect).

Nigel Collins’ appearance as The White Rabbit was the occasion for great mirth, though I thought the section describing the predatory habits of wolves, vividly illustrated by the musicians though it was, elongated the somewhat arch Roald Dahl story of Little Red Riding Hood overmuch in Paul Patterson’s setting. Even the narrator’s gorgeously dipsomaniac Grandma didn’t rescue the retelling from its longueurs (partly the author’s fault), though the denoument, with a very modern Miss Riding Hood conquering all, finally got things moving (and I loved the epilogue’s Facade-like strains accompanying Miss Hood’s parading of her wolf-skin coat). Oliver Hancock’s Three Tolkien Miniatures was next, the wind players, helped by some magical piano-string activations, marvellously evoking the dark expanses of the Forest, with its gradually-burgeoning alarms and horrors recalled by the Tolkien poems, focusing upon both Middle-Earth and pre-Hobbit characters.

Paul Patterson’s Rebecca (who slammed doors for fun and perished miserably) brought to mind for those with long enough memories a different, somewhat more punitive era of child-rearing. Projected with a deliciously awful French accent by Nigel Collins, the “contes de fée noir” came to life with the help of the deliciously disguised Emma Sayers on piano and Lenny Sakofsky contriving percussive noises, the latter making excruciating sounds with a number of balloons after releasing a brace of helium-filled ones (an opportunity for child-involvement missed, there, I thought). Nigel Collins mixed up a couple of words in the excitement surrounding the unfortunate eponymous heroine’s demise, but it all added suitably to the furore, which became nicely funereal towards the end (apart from a rogue balloon leaving its mark on the proceedings, doing what balloons do best).

Last was Martin Butler’s “Dirty Beasts”, settings of Roald Dahl’s somewhat nauseously crude poems depicting various interactions between animals and humans. Of the three sections I enjoyed the music for the first most of all, the spiky, chattering writing for winds readily evoking the pig’s rising panic concerning his fate and his vengeful plan of grisly retribution. Somehow the other two realisations didn’t have sufficient visceral impact to be truly memorable, the “Tummy Beast” in particular disappointing us with its refusal to explore any truly gastro-endocrinal depths in the writing – perhaps a contra-bassoon was what was lacking! Nevertheless, appetites were more-or-less satisfied, and a sense of good having more-or-less prevailed sent everybody home contented.

Gems of German Baroque at St.Andrew’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Philipp Telemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

Calvin Scott (oboe)

Margarte Guldborg (‘cello)

Ariana Odermatt (harpsichord)

St.Andrew’s Lunchtime Concert Series 2010

Wednesday, 3rd March

Here, throughout this lunchtime concert at St.Andrew’s, was old-world charm and sensibility aplenty, a kind of “window in time” feeling, adding to the pleasure of it all. The music was delivered by three skilled musicians bringing varied instrumental voices and markedly different temperaments to play in their combinations, of the kind that nicely brought out that “baroque” sensibility of contrasting conversation and elaborate soliloquy. A sensitive, small-toned harpsichord threw into bold relief a bright, cheery oboe sound, while the ‘cello took a middle course, now soft-grained, now penetratingly nimble in passagework, always alive to what was suggested by the other two instruments. Contrary to my expectations regarding this composer’s music, the CPE Bach work that began the programme was more than usually urbane and straightforward, played here by oboist Calvin Scott with plenty of warmth and feeling, though I thought harpsichordist Ariana Odermatt took a while to warm up at her instrument, producing steady, but overtly mechanical playing throughout the first movement. The Adagio second movement brought out a more expressive manner, with flexible pulsing from both players and some admirably sustained notes from the oboe. Not even in the finale did CPE Bach reveal his sometimes peppery and idiosyncratic side, apart from a certain insistence in the music’s repeated, stuttering notes at one point, the music remaining highy engaging in a conventionally conversational manner, nicely brought off by both instrumentalists.

The next two items came from “Old Bach”, a Prelude, Fugue and Allegro in E-flat major (BWV 998) for solo harpsichord, followed by a sonata written for viola da gamba and harpsichord in G major (BWV 127). The harpsichord solo established a stately, gracious mood at the opening, the formalities being allowed to nicely “unfold” in Ariana Odermatt’s hands. The player seemed not to be inclined to use the upper keyboard of the instrument, except for the occasional “echo effect” in the last movement. With the sonata for viola da gamba (played here on the ‘cello by Margaret Guldborg), the music’s expressive capacities moved upwards several notches – the opening Adagio, though surprisingly light on its feet, was given a soft-grained and sensitive performance. This was followed by an Allegro in which the players again brought out the lyrical than the rumbustious aspects of the music, which might have been thought by some a little too much of a good thing by the time the subsequent Andante had finished – but I loved the way the “held” notes from the ‘cello allowed the harpsichord’s voice to decorate the linear spaces. Happily, the concluding Allegro moderato sparked exchanges of gaiety between the instruments (“gambolling” I wrote), with some skilful rapid passagework by the ‘cellist.

Calvin Scott returned with his oboe for a Sonata in E Minor by Georg Philipp Telemann, for oboe and basso continuo – he produced a lovely, creamy sound in the opening Largo, and set the tone for fine teamwork in the following Allegro, stimulating a skilful give-and-take between the instruments.The brief pastoral Grave was an idyllic moment between two separate energies, the Vivace finale going at a great lick, but with the players finding a balance between driving energy and boisterous spirits – delightfully adroit phrasing from the oboe, and some telling touches from the ‘cello, solidly supported by the harpsichord.An eloquent conclusion to the concert was provided by a sinfonia from one of JS Bach’s cantatas, No.156 “Ich steh’ mit einem Fuss im Grabe” – a heart-easing performance,with musical touches in every register – oboe lyrical and plaintive, ‘cello gently purposeful, and harpsichord tastefully colouristic and decorative.

A truly festive “Symphony of a Thousand”

Posted on by Peter Mechen

MAHLER – Symphony No.8

(“Symphony of a Thousand”)

Twyla Robinson (sop.) / Marina Shaguch (sop.) / Sara Macliver (sop.) / Dagmar Peckova (m-sop.) / Bernadette Cullen (m-sop.) / Simon O’Neill (tenor) / Markus Eiche (baritone) / Martin Snell (bass)

New Zealand Youth Choir / Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir / Christchurch City Choir / Orpheus Choir of Wellington / Choristers of Wellington Cathedral of St.Paul

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Vladimir Ashkenazy (conductor)

New Zealand International Festival of the Arts Opening Concert Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Friday 26th February, 2010

No, it wasn’t opera, but it was in its own way as spectacular, and as an occasion did give a “festive” kind of thrill for all concerned, which was exactly what was wanted. This most flamboyant of all of Mahler’s works (its nickname “Symphony of a Thousand” stemming from the first public performance in Munich in 1910, conducted by the composer, in which 858 singers and 171 instrumentalists took part) is perhaps the most perfect festival offering that symphonic music can provide. Of course the work can be performed quite satisfactorily with somewhat lesser numbers, as it was on this occasion (three hundred choral voices, eight soloists and a hundred-and-twenty instrumentalists) all of whom when singing and playing together made a wonderful noise in Wellington’s Michael Fowler Centre!

Spectacle was certainly one of the ingredients of the proceedings, to which was added the lustrous glow of the presence on the podium of one of the world’s most renowned musicians, Vladimir Ashkenazy. Originally finding fame and honour as one of the great interpreters of the romantic keyboard classics, Ashkenazy has for the past thirty years consolidated a “second career” as a conductor, though he continues to perform and record as a pianist. In the past I’d not associated him greatly with the music of Mahler, although he’s conducted the symphonies with various orchestras in different parts of the world, coming to them through his involvement with the music of Shostakovich, the latter a professed admirer of the older composer’s music. Ashkenazy has recorded several of the Mahler Symphonies with the Czech Philharmonic already, but over the next two years there are plans to both perform and record all of the symphonies with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, of which he’s Principal Conductor.

Along with Ashkenazy, the performance boasted an impressive lineup of soloists, one which included two New Zealanders presently building successful career portfolios as performers overseas, tenor Simon O’Neill and bass Martin Snell. With German baritone Markus Eiche the men made a formidable trio of voices, their strength and consistency overshadowing the women’s quartet, in which soprano Marina Shaguch alone seemed completely at home with her part, delivering her soaring lines with an ease and freedom that her colleagues couldn’t quite match. Fellow soprano Twyla Robinson approached her in fervour, even if her highest notes occasionally showed strain; while both mezzos, Dagmar Peckova and Bernadettte Cullen kept their lines secure and reliable throughout. If they seemed relatively underpowered in places when singing solo, they made up for it through their sterling ensemble work, especially amid the feverish energies of the Symphony’s first, and largely vocal part. Soprano Sara McLiver’s brief but mellifluous contribution to Part Two as Mater Gloriosa was another strength of the performance, her voice placed further back than the other soloists for an other-worldly effect, even if her all-too-workmanlike entrance and exit through the choral ranks somehow didn’t go with the ethereal quality of her singing.

Mahler’s intention with this work was to give the impression of “the whole universe beginning to sing and resound…..no longer human voices, but coursing planets and suns”. Ashkenazy very quickly set the music on its course at the start, galvanising his forces into action, almost before the audience had finished welcoming the great man onto the platform, and was settling itself down once again in preparation for the work’s beginning. The music was more fire and volatile energy in Ashkenazy’s hands than cosmic majesty, his precise beat keeping things moving, with the sound-surges erupting like geysers and blowholes, but without ever tipping over into stridency or incoherent noise. During Part One the few orchestra-only passages were packed with beautifully-articulated detail, the sheer effervescence of the string-playing more than compensating for a slight moment of imprecision at the final surge forward in tempo towards the end, where the build-up of overlapping voices and instrumental tones did indeed give the impression of the universe itself bursting into full-throated song.

By contrast with the “music of the spheres” aspect of the symphony’s opening, the second part takes us to the very heart of German Romanticism, Mahler’s setting of the final part of Goethe’s Faust. Here the orchestra paints a stark, rugged landscape representing a world of direct contact between nature and the human spirit – Goethe’s directions, reproduced with the text, speak of “Mountain, gorge, forest, cliff, desert”, with “Holy Anchorites…sheltering in rocky clefts”. Ashkenazy and the orchestra seemed to underline the contrasts within the instrumental prelude between the starker, more jagged and elemental writing, and passages of smoother, warmer legato harmonies, as if representing human aspiration and feeling seeking communion with these wild, rugged natural places. I felt the dry-ish aspect of the MFC robbed the hushed choral entries of much of their resonance and atmosphere, so that the musicians had to work that extra bit harder to convey the depth and fullness of Mahler’s vision – fortunately the performers possessed the necessary skill, concentration and focus to bring out the music’s raw power and sense of awe. Both Markus Eiche as Pater Ecstaticus and Martin Snell as Pater Profundus made the most of their wonderful declamations, the former energetic and passionate, the latter rich and sonorous, if ever-so-slightly troubled by the highest of his notes. As for Simon O’Neill, singing the part of Doctor Marianus, once one accepted a slightly “pinched” quality to his highest tones, his whole-hearted, engagingly radiant acclamation of the Mater Gloriosa, accompanied by the children’s and women’s choruses, readily evoked the presence of the “Eternal Feminine”, and even managed to transcend the incredibly cheesiness of the euphonium-accompanied string passage which Mahler wrote to depict Goethe’s directive “Mater Gloriosa soars into view”.

Throughout, the choruses gave their all, including the children’s choir whose singing made up in charm and point what it lacked in sheer volume, in places. After the magnificently energetic and all-encompassing fervour of Part One, the different choirs girded their loins and with Ashkenazy’s encouragement gave us exactly what the more diffuse Part Two demanded – long-breathed utterances interspersed with episodes of transcendent delight. What Mahler said about symphony – “It is like the world – it should contain everything!” was brought to triumphant fruition by the final “Chorus Mysticus”, whose gigantic paean of acclamation must have rumbled and shaken every fibre of being in the auditorium. Ashkenazy responded charmingly to the enthusiastic applause of the audience at the end by insisting upon repeated bows from the soloists, to further applause, and so on.

It’s well worth recording that, as if these goings-on within the Michael Fowler Centre weren’t enough to proclaim “festive occasion”, there were worlds wrought outside worlds for a wider audience, courtesy of good will and technological wizardry. The performance of the symphony was relayed “live” via big screen and speaker colonnades to a crowded Civic Square, an absolutely splendid gesture on the part of the festival organisers, the orchestra and, one supposes, Ashkenazy himself, as the concert itself had been sold out for many days beforehand. Happily, the weather was kind that evening, and the music-making was, according to my spies, conveyed vividly and truthfully enough to make for a memorable out-of-doors Mahlerian experience. So whether one was outside or within the hall, that sense of the spectacular and extraordinary was all around, which for an Arts Festival is, of course, just how it should have been.