Author: Peter Mechen

The Tudor Consort – Holy Week Lamentations

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Lamentatio Jeremiae Prophetae – Music for Holy Week

Works by ANON (Gregorian Chant), THOMAS TALLIS, ERNST KRENEK, GIOVANNI DA  PALESTRINA and ROBERT WHITE

The Tudor Consort

Michael Stewart, director

Sacred Heart Cathedral, Hill St., Wellington

Good Friday, 2nd April 2010

Thanks to Vaughan Williams’ well-known Fantasia for String Orchestra, the musical language of Thomas Tallis (c.1505-1585) has a familiar ring for many concert-goers. The composer’s intensely melancholy minor modes with their “dying fall”, were quoted by Vaughan Williams from the work Archbishop Parker’s Psalter, and were also very much in evidence throughout what we heard of Tallis’s during this concert. The music seems to speak directly across the centuries, evoking at once both a timelessness and the atmosphere of the troubled times in which the music was composed.  Tallis’s settings of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, taken from the Old Testament and describing the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., were part of a Good Friday presentation given by the Tudor Consort, featuring various settings of these Lamentations, among them one from the twentieth century by Ernst Krenek (1900-91), and others by Palestrina and a lesser-known English Renaissance composer, Robert White. Two liturgical responses from Gregorian plainchant provided both framework and context for Tallis’s and Krenek’s settings in the concert’s first half.

For me, the Tudor Consort’s presentation in Sacred Heart Cathedral on Good Friday evening was magnificent, but also risky. I thought the repertoire chosen was possibly too consistently meditative, lacking the context of an on-going ritual or any marked contrast with different music. Of course, one suspects that, as with the case of the music-lover who compiles concert-hall-length presentations of slow movements only, there will be various staunch ideas regarding how best to present this repertoire in public. On Friday evening the insertion of two pieces of plainchant between the first-half settings of the Lamentations provided a little of the foil against which these pieces could have individually shone and glowed, not to say placed as part of a service – I liked the juxtapositioning of voices in the first Gregorian Chant exerpt , the Responsary In monte Oliveti shared between Michael Stewart singing the verse “Vigilate…..” and the choir’s wonderfully sinuous unison lines in response. But I felt less comfortable during the somewhat disembodied rendition by Stewart of the plainchant Lesson In coena Domini from the pulpit as the prelude to Krenek’s Lamentations setting – less to do with the singer’s own voice than his seeming abandonment of the choir, left standing in place as though it had been suddenly decommissioned.

Individually, the items were difficult to fault as regards singing, pacing and shaping – in every case the message of the text was projected with expression appropriate to the words’ meaning, Michael Stewart’s control of the ebb and flow of the singers’ delivery ensuring a constant connection on the part of the singers between words, phrases, paragraphs and whole works, and their message. But I wondered whether, by the time we had reached Robert White’s second-half Lamentations setting, a “less-is-more” situation was starting to develop. Given that the settings did use different texts in most instances, the almost wall-to-wall complaint and beseechment did begin to weigh upon the spirit of at least one listener, especially as the second half had no leavening plainchant or contrasting interlude between the two sets (Palestrina and White).

What was evident was that, with Palestrina after the interval, Vaughan Williams completely disappeared! The textures of the Italian’s writing seemed richer, and certainly different harmonically – perhaps something to do with a “certainty” or “centering” of spiritual identity, unencumbered by the travails of Protestant upheaval. Certainly, his work is regarded as having, in the words of one critic, “an austere serenity almost unique in post-medieval Christian art” – and the work of the choir brought out this beauty in places like the sopranos’ “Pupilli facti sumus” (all of this beautiful music, here and elsewhere, depicting despair and abandonment!), and tellingly-attenuated lines throughout the concluding “Jerusalem”, a beautifully-voiced supplication.

Following Palestrina’s setting, Robert White’s Lamentations sounded very “English”, a return some of the way to the sound-world of Thomas Tallis. Whether it was because the evening was wearing on and the singers were tiring, I didn’t really know; but I thought the choir’s lines not as “moulded” as earlier, with the tenors especially likely to ever-so-slightly obtrude, – though I must say that, for me this stimulated the ear and enlivened the textures in places, and dispelled any hint of bland homogeneity. As with Tallis, there seems to me an underlying melancholy about the harmonies, one that permeates English choral music – perhaps the influence of folksong? Some lovely moments in this work were nicely brought off by the choir – one I noted at the conclusion of “Sordes ejus…” in which the spaces between low men’s and high women’s voices suggested to me the breadth and depth of mankind’s affliction. As well a beautifully osmotic impetus was generated by the first “Jerusalem, Jerusalem”, beginning with the tenderness of the tenors’ supplication, and gathering girth and intensity with “..convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum” right through the descending repetitions.

A brief word on Ernst Krenek’s setting, which, despite one or two strained moments, was brought off quite magnificently by the Consort – sounds filled with light and air at the beginning, out of which spaces grew harmonies nicely piquant and kaleidoscopic. Again, evocative realms were generated between lower and higher voices, even if the harmonies at each end were often tightly-worked – and I liked a long, rolling section during which women’s voices soared above the lines of momentum with single high notes, before descending to continue the flow. The sinuous lines of the “Jerusalem” section explored far-flung paths, Michael Stewart keeping the voices in touch with considerable skill and sensitivity. An unexpected delight!

Wellington Chamber Orchestra – Warring Walton and Enigmatic Elgar

Posted on by Peter Mechen

WALTON – Spitfire Prelude and Fugue

Suite from Henry V

ELGAR – Serenade for String Orchestra

Variations on an Original Theme “Enigma”

Wellington Chamber Orchestra

Rachel Hyde, conductor

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

Sunday 28th March, 2010

The music-comedy team of Michael Flanders and Donald Swann (of the show At the Drop of a Hat fame) would invariably begin their live performances with a roistering number “A Transport of Delight” (happily preserved on recordings). This was, as Michael Flanders would explain, to help them “get the pitch of the hall”, a phrase which came immediately to my mind when Rachel Hyde and the Wellington Chamber Orchestra began the band’s first Sunday afternoon concert of the year. Although not as large an orchestra as, say, the Vector Wellington ensemble or the NZSO at average strength, the Wellington Chamber Orchestra is sizeable enough to make a pretty stirring noise at full throttle – one that always takes a bit of getting used to at the beginning of any concert in the confined spaces of St.Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace. Walton’s rousing “Spitfire” Prelude did the trick, the full-blooded sounds pinning our ears back, blowing away exterior and interior cobwebs, and probably temporarily flattening out our finer hearing sensibilities, thus enabling us to cope better with the rest of the programme! In such an immediate, even raw-sounding acoustic, it’s difficult for any orchestral group to produce a pleasing tone, not to mention surviving a fairly analytical spotlight; and the Chamber Orchestra emerged from this concert with considerable credit on both counts.

After the cinematoscopic strains of the “Prelude”, the orchestra launched into the splendidly-written fugue, negotiating its leaping energies steadily and giving the phrases plenty of “point” under Rachel Hyde’s direction. I enjoyed picking up the different changes of texture as different instrument groups threw their weight into the fray, the heavy brass sounding particularly exciting. The slower central section was sensitively handled, despite some string intonation diffculties; and apart from some slight out-of-sync problems between strings and wind when the fugue returned, momentum was excitingly restored, with the brass’s toccata-like statements at the end capping off a great finish to the work.

Elgar’s adorable Serenade for Strings was next; and to my delight it received a sensitive and glowing performance throughout – a lovely opening, the very first viola phrase’s leading note beautifully accented in a way that was echoed throughout the movement, imparting to the music a “charged” quality that gave the rhythms and phrasings a real lift, that characteristic Elgarian “stride” which informs much of his work. I thought the violins a bit reticent at first, but they leaned into that wonderful upwardly-leaping phrase so beautifully and with such heart, that the music readily took on the glow it needed to work its magic. The violas momentarily lost their poise at the reprise, but quickly recovered, supporting the violins with their last heartfelt utterance, before things were brought to a beautifully autumn-coloured close. Rachel Hyde encouraged some lovely phrases at the slow movement’s opening, the three-note figure like a sigh leading to and away from the middle note – most affecting. The strings sweetly understated the “big tune’s” first appearance, then radiantly resolved the minor key episode at the top of the phrase – very nice! Altogether, the ebb and flow of feeling in this movement was beautifully caught by all concerned, the violas at the end chiming in with a moment of smoky beauty – lovely. The wind-blown start to the finale generated deep-throated ascents from the lower strings and great strength of tone at the reprise of the tune – an untidy transition to the “striding” episode soon passed, allowing us to enjoy that lump-in-throat key-change to the full, capturing the music’s almost valedictory nostalgia at the end so tellingly.

Although Walton’s fashionable literary circle friends (notably the Sitwells) disliked Elgar’s music, Walton himself admired Elgar. There are touches of Elgarian colour and spectacle of the sort one encounters in Falstaff to be found also in Walton’s music for the wartime film Henry V, which famously starred Laurence Olivier. Walton’s score for the film has gone on to have a life of its own in the concert hall, and Rachel Hyde’s energetic leadership of her orchestral forces throughout did ample justice to the music’s pageantry and colour throughout, evident in the fully technicolour opening The Globe Playhouse. The two strings-only movements, The Death of Falstaff and Touch Her Soft Lips and Part brought lovely tones and sensitive voicings from the players, while the visceral Charge and Battle again brought the big guns into play to great effect, with terrific work from all sections of the orchestra, and an echo of the famous “Bailero” tune from Canteloube’s Songs of the Auvergne in the aftermath of the battle. The concluding Agincourt Song found the brasses again in fine form, with winds adding fine flourishes to the resplendent colours, and the strings determinedly keeping the triplet rhythms going steadily and strongly. Altogether  it was a great and fitting flourish of a finish.

At the second half’s beginning, Rachel Hyde spoke to the audience about the concert’s major item, Elgar’s famous “Enigma’ Variations, getting sections of the orchestra to play examples of the composer’s use of his theme throughout the work – a helpful and engaging thing to do, especially for younger listeners. She spoke also about Elgar’s original ending for the work, a more sombre and circumspect one that conductor Hans Richter persuaded the composer to change, hereby concluding with a great burst of positive energy, and sense of optimistic well-being instead!  The performance was loving, detailed and deeply committed throughout, technically fallible in a few places, but conveying a real sense of a creative artist’s genius in bringing so many different human personalities into view. Highlights were many, from the tenderly-phrased opening statement of the theme, with beautiful winds and lovely viola-and-‘cello counterpoint, through and into the first variation depicting the composer’s wife, Alice, the music’s grace and dignity giving rise to the utmost depth of feeling via a passionate climax, nicely poised and shaped by conductor and musicians. Some of the more tricky syncopated rhythms and dovetailings sorely tested the players, the strings in No.2 (H.D.S-P) never really settling, and the opening of No.4 (W.M.B.) shaky at the beginning – but No.7 (Troyte) was terrific, with strong timpani playing, and swirling strings that caught the mood, and delivered the requisite snap at the end, as did, incidentally, the playing in No.11 (G.R.S.), strings nimble, brass punchy, and winds and timpani emitting fine shrieks and thuds at the end. People who came to hear No.9 (Nimrod) first and foremost wouldn’t have been disappointed, either – the conductor kept things moving, nicely building the blocks of sound, and shaping episodes beautifully, such as the wind phrases in the central section, and the noble brass outpourings at the reprise of the famous tune. And framing Nimrod were No.8 (W.N.) and No.10 (Dorabella), each here appropriately charming and lyrically played.

The work’s grand finale, No.14 (E.D.U.) started with plenty of swagger from the players, and continued with great rhythmic elan through all the accelerandos towards those great colonnades of sound at the climaxes, building up the tension and excitement well. Just towards the end I sensed something of a “Starting to run on empty” feeling about the playing, as if, having given their all, the musicians were struggling to find enough energy for the final payoff. But even if that was the case, with everybody hanging in there for life itself’s sakes, the achievement was notable and memorable. Applause for conductor and orchestra was whole-hearted, the response auguring well for the rest of the season. Full credit to Rachel Hyde, as well as to the players – I would like to hear and see more of her as a conductor over the next while, as she got an excellent response from her musicians, and did interesting and thoughtful things with them to make it all come really alive.

Full-frontal Mahler at St.Andrew’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

MAHLER – Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth’s Magic Horn)

Linden Loader (mezzo-soprano) / Roger Wilson (baritone)

Terence Dennis (piano)

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

Friday 19th March

No composer is more identified with song as integral to his output than Gustav Mahler. The creator of a number of vast symphonic edifices, he worked into most of these compositions either direct quotations from his own songs or melodies derived from them. His Eighth Symphony is, in essence a choral symphony, and his orchestral song-cycle Das Lied Von Der Erde he regarded as a symphony in all but name.

Mahler grew up in the garrison town of Jihlava, in Moravia, a region steeped in folksong, and a place which would have frequently rung with the sounds of military marches, the boy’s enthusiasm for these tunes probably accounting for the prominence of such melodies and forms in his instrumental works up to the Eighth Symphony. His forty or so songs include no less than twenty-one settings of verses from a German folk-collection of verses entitled Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth’s Magic Horn), an anthology which first appeared in 1805, with two further volumes following. These poems, collected by Achim von Arnim and Clemens Bretano, include a colourful variety of themes, topics and characters, both religious and secular, all displaying an engagingly simple but deeply direct set of fireside-wisdoms.

Mahler first set some of these verses in 1883 for a collection entitled Lieder und Gesange; but better-known are the twelve settings which make up the composer’s “Wunderhornlieder”, and which we know indeed as Des Knaben Wunderhorn. The use of orchestral accompaniment brought out Mahler’s skill at fashioning chamber-like instrumental sonorities, often using single lines or small groups for colouristic effect, though the expediences of publication and performance saw Mahler write piano versions of the accompaniment as well.

To have the whole set performed live would be, I think, a rare treat anywhere; and singers Linden Loader and Roger Wilson along with pianist Terence Dennis threw themselves into the humour, tragedy, irony, drollery, foolishness and romance of the different settings with plenty of feeling and gusto. The theatricality of some of the duets brought out a ready response from Roger Wilson, putting his extensive operatic experience and vocal acting skills to good use with some vivid characterisations. If somewhat less outwardly demonstrative and spectacular in her character portrayals, Linden Loader’s beautiful voice made the perfect foil for her partner in their duets, such as in the opening Der Schildwache Nachtlied, a dialogue between a soldier and a beautiful ghostly temptress. And she nicely caught the cocquettishness of the girl in Trost im Unglück, a song abut a hussar and his recalcitrant sweetheart, one in which the singers played the contrasts off each other deliciously. For me, the “plum” of the duets is Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen, a song whose music is filled with eerily-charged beauty and deep regret, depicting an encounter between a girl and her dead lover – both singers here characterising their parts with the utmost feeling, and Terence Dennis’s piano-playing getting everything right, from the ghostly trumpet calls near the beginning to the flashes of anguish transfixing the girl’s vocal line, and the beautiful transitions between the warmly romantic music in 3/4 time and the spectral reveille-calls of wind and brass. Elsewhere, perhaps Roger Wilson’s extremely boorish lad in Verlor’ne Müh might have been thought by some too dunderheaded to be a credible object of a young girl’s attention; but I enjoyed it immensely.

The individual songs were no less finely done by each singer. Again, Roger Wilson pointed the words of Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt with obvious enjoyment, relishing the irony of the fishes’ pragmatic response to St Anthony’s sermonisings, and later, turning his gift for comic irony towards creatures of a different kind in Lob des hohen Verstandes, bringing off the brayings of a donkey most beautifully. He was suppported to the utmost by Terence Dennis, whose playing nicely underpinned the garrulousness of the saint’s preachings (a fiendishly difficult “perpetuum mobile” piano-part), as well as pointing all the fun and pomposity of the animals’ pronouncements in the latter song. And Linden Loader caught our sympathies all too heart-rendingly on behalf of both mother and child, in the tragic Das Irdische Leben, but then in due course restored equanimities with a charming, nicely-related Rheinlegendchen, the music lovely, lilting and lyrical (the performance surviving the all-too-audible and out-of-rhythm tappings of a nearby workman!).

Performing Revelge, the longest song of the set last of all in the concert naturally threw weight onto the darker, more serious side of the collection – the piece describes a post-battle parade of ghost-soldiers, with music that’s mostly funeral-march in character, but filled with sardonic, mock-heroic gestures as well as grim finalities. I thought Roger Wilson and Terence Dennis gave the piece such vivid, in-your-face treatment that anything that followed afterwards would have seemed impossibly pale and wan. The singer’s repeated cries of “Tra-la-li” at regular intervals seemed, if anything, to increase in energy and desperation as the song marched grimly onwards, with the piano-playing at times practically orchestral in its amplitude and colour, resolutely supporting the singer to the bitter end. For some tastes, perhaps, a little TOO over-the-top – but not for mine! Any music written by a man who, upon visiting Niagara Falls, exclaimed “At last – fortissimo!” cries out for the kind of full-blooded performances which we certainly got during this splendid concert.

Freiburg Baroque Orchestra – sounds from the Old World

Posted on by Peter Mechen

HAYDN – Symphony No.91 in E-flat Hob.1:91

MOZART – Concerto for Horn and Orchestra in E-flat K.495

MOZART – Symphony No.38 in D Major “Prague” K.504

Teunis van der Zwart (natural horn)

Freiburg Baroque Orchestra

Rene Jacobs, conductor

New Zealand International Festival of the Arts Concert

Wellington Town Hall

Wednesday 17th March, 7.30pm

Without a doubt, a Festival highlight – two concerts on consecutive evenings in the Town Hall by the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra with conductor Rene Jacobs gave local aficionados the chance to hear a crack European “authentic instrument” ensemble perform. Recent recordings, mostly on the Harmonia Mundi label, have already established something of the group’s and the conductor’s name and reputation in this country, and the concert programmes mirrored some of that repertoire, such as the Haydn and Mozart symphonies featured. And how interesting, for people both familiar with and as yet unaware of those recordings, to hear these live performances in a local context, in venues where we’re accustomed to hearing our own orchestras play.

My brief was the first of the two concerts; and although each was similar in format – Haydn Symphony/Mozart Concerto/Mozart Symphony – there would have been ample interest and variety for those fortunate enough to attend both.  Each Haydn symphony (No.92 in the second concert) would demonstrate the composer’s incredibly fertile invention and contrapuntal skills, the different Mozart concertos (the “Turkish” Violin Concerto featured on the second night) would bring out the specific instrumental character in each case; and having the “Jupiter” Symphony (Thursday) follow the “Prague” on the previous evening would, I think be a Mozart-lover’s heaven.

As much as I applaud in theory the work of “authenticists” who try to perform baroque, classical and early romantic music as the composers themselves would have heard it, I confess to finding the results in many cases disappointing, my pet dislike being pinched, vibrato-less string-playing in particular, a horror invariably compounded by impossibly rushed tempi and brusque phrasing – all of which is frequently served up in the name of “authenticity”. In the pioneering days of authentic baroque and classical performance many musicians seemed to be seized with a “born again” fervour in their rigid application of the “no vibrato” rule for either string players or singers. Fortunately, there’s been a degree of modification on the part of some of these performers in their playing style, allowing for some warmth and flexibility in a way that, to my ears, the music often cries out for. So, what kind of “authenticated” impression did the musicians from Freiburg make during their concert?

Tempi were generally swift, apart from the rather more relaxed interpretation of the Mozart Horn Concerto, whose trajectories gave both soloist and players plenty of time to “point” their phrases and make the most of the music. Mozart’s “Prague” Symphony went several notches more swiftly in its outer movements than I’ve ever heard it taken previously, to exhilarating effect, as the players still seemed to have ample time to phrase and point their accents. Perhaps having had a solo career as a singer, conductor Rene Jacobs was able to impart a flexible, “breathing” quality to the orchestra’s playing, in a way so as to make nothing seem unduly rushed – though I generally prefer slower tempi for this music, I found the performance of the “Prague ” Symphony on this occasion quite exhilarating. I’d never before heard the connections between this work and “Don Giovanni” so underlined, with great timpani irruptions and minor key explosions in the slow introduction to the work. Then, again like in Don Giovanni, the mood switches from tragedy to an “opera buffa” feeling with the allegro, energy spiced with great trumpet-and-timpani interjections.

Rene Jacobs got a “flowing river” kind of feeling from the slow movement’s opening, with winds full-throatedly singing out their contributions. I loved the D-major “drone’ sound mid-movement, lovely and rustic, bringing forth some lovely ambient timbres from the winds, and contrasting markedly with the darker, more dramatic utterances of the development and recapitualtion. The finale’s near-breakneck speed worked, thanks to the skills of the players, miraculously able to articulate their phrases at Jacobs’ urgent tempo, strings and winds even managing a giggle with the trill just before the fanfares at the end of the exposition. It was fun to listen to, while perhaps at once regretting that so much wonderful music was literally speeding by – thank heavens for the repeats, both of the exposition and the development, which means we got to enjoy those marvellously angular syncopations of the melody twice over!

Still, I enjoyed the Haydn Symphony that began the programme even more – there’s something abut the tensile strength and muscularity of this music that responds to vigorous treatment, more so, I think, than does Mozart’s. I thought the players produced a lovely colour throughout the introduction, which was followed by a fleet and flexible allegro, with unanimity from the strings and solo work from the winds that reminded me of Charles Burney’s oft-quoted remark concerning the Mannheim Orchestra of the time – “an army of generals” – even a mishap concerning a broken string of one of the violins disturbed the music not a whit!  A briskly-walking Andante featured beautiful phrasing from a solo basson at one point, and some exciting dynamic contrasts, the lively tempo enlivening the textures and giving the music a strong sense of shape. Even more sprightly was the Minuet, with whirling passagework for strings, and lovely “fairground” trio section, horns chuckling off the beat, and winds counterpointing the strings’ tune the second time round, and with a “nudge-wink” dash to the end. Again, in the finale, the players exhibited the capacity to nicely sound and phrase the music at rapid speeds, the rapid, hushed figurations creating real excitement and expectation, the infectious joy breaking out accompanied by whoops of joy from the horns and rollicking oom-pahs from the lower strings.

Just as life-enhancing was the well-known Mozart Horn Concerto K.495, the one whose finale was adapted by Michael Flanders and Donald Swann to perform in their “At the Drop of Another Hat” concerts. However, this performance had its own set of distinctions, largely through being played by a soloist using a valveless horn, of the kind that Mozart would have written the music for. I had never heard such an instrument played “live” before, and marvelled both at the sklll of the player, Teunis van der Zwat, and at the remarkably distinctive tones produced by his instrument – many of the notes sounded “stopped” or “pinched”, giving the sounds a kind of “other-worldly” ambience in places, quite pale but very characterful – a wonderful cadenza, with great low notes and lovely trills, and a final flourish that brought in the orchestra on a low chord before the cadence.

In the slow movement in particular, the scale passages brought out notes of different individual timbres so that the music had a kind of “layered” effect, almost antiphonal in places. I wondered to what extent the soloist deliberately engineered this effect with his hand-stopping, or whether the variegated timbres happened anyway when he played. His tones were quite withdrawn for a lot of the time, even in the finale, though he brought out an exciting rasping effect on the repeated triple-note patterns, and some nice out-of-door flourishes at the work’s end which pleased the punters immensely.

I should add that Rene Jacobs and the orchestra gave us a lovely bonus item, in fact the finale of the Haydn symphony programmed in the second concert, the “Oxford”. Its delicately-scampering opening measures and full-throttled tutti passages made the perfect “sweetmeat” encore – and, of course, was the perfect “taster” for those intending to go the following evening. Joyous, exhilarating playing, bringing out the music’s wit alongside its colour and brilliance – marvellous sounds, indeed, from the Old World.

3 2 Tango and Friends – pleasures of the dance

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Music by Astor Piazzolla and Peter Ludwig

LUDWIG : Tango Triste / Casar der Hund / E / Tango Nuevo / A.G.Mius

PIAZZOLLA : Oblivion / La muerte del angel / Seasons of Buenos Aires / Sprng and Winter / Le Grande Tango   Libertango

Catherine McKay (piano)

Slava Fainitski (violin)

Brenton Veitch (‘cello)

Matt Collie (percussion)

Rebekah Greig (accordion)

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

Wednesday 17th March, 12.15pm

For this concert, the group 3 2 Tango became four, and then five, firstly with percussionist Matt Collie joining the group, and a little later, accordion player Rebekah Greig. And, as if the pleasures of those tango rhythms and tones alone weren’t sufficient, we in the audience were able to luxuriate in the tango dancing of a couple who were introduced as “Sharon and Stephen”. What was more, we were invited by concert organiser Richard Greager to join in with the dancing if the spirit moved us so; but I suspect the presence of two fairly confident and polished dancers made it difficult for anybody else to feel they had something as good to put on display – and so only one other person, a woman, dancing solo, took up the invitation to the floor to join in, almost at the very end. For myself, I can report that my enjoyment of both music and dancing was sufficiently palpable for me to feel as though I’d been treated to a real-live tango experience, without ever leaving my seat!

Although the concert was described in the blurb as one “focusing on the legendary Tango composer Astor Piazzolla”, much of the first half featured the music of Peter Ludwig, a modern exponent of the tango both as composer and performer, the pianist in a duo called Tango Mortale, with ‘cellist Anja Lechner. The five tangos of his which 3 2 Tango presented during this concert were interesting and varied pieces, the composer preserving the traditional “fixed rhythm” of the dance while avoiding what a European reviewer called “the gloomy, depressive and low-spirited tangos which come from Argentina” – doubtless a sideswipe at the great Piazzolla and his imitators, here! For myself, I thought Ludwig’s music on the present showing itself lacked nothing in sultry expressiveness, though perhaps not as consistently dark-browed as Piazzolla’s, having more of an “emotion recollected in tranquility” feel to it. But, untrained though my ear might be in such things, I detected no marked “lurch into the mire of humanity” when, during the concert, Piazzolla’s music became the focus of our attention.

The concert began with Peter Ludwig’s Tango Triste – piano and violin evoking cool ambient spaces at the very start, into which Brenton Veitch’s ‘cello poured the most sonorous of tones, a lovely beginning.  Slava Fainitski’s violin and Catherine McKay’s piano dug into the rhythms, adding snap and volatility, with some percussive help from Matt Collie – the mood swung readily throughout from full-blooded and heartfelt physical address to sombre and sultry withdrawal, with lovely string slides adding to the ambivalence of the atmosphere. The dancers joined in with the next tango, Casar der Hund, their movements quite “tight” and controlled, very “together” and with little open space explored in the way that I imagined tango dancers did (of course, I’m conscious of showing my limited knowledge of things, here!)……

The next tango, enigmatically called E, ran a volatile course, with frequent changes of metre and lots of rubato – a lovely ‘cello solo once again, some “gypsy-sounding” violin-work, and then skyrocketting glissandi from the piano all built towards a spectacular flourish at the end. Again, with Tango Nuevo, feelings both ran deeply and coruscated the surface of things throughout, the agitated rhythms digging fiercely in, suggesting darker passions and emotions suited to a nightscape, whose uneasy calm was evoked by violin tremolandi, ‘cello pizzicati and piano murmurings, before irrupting once again and concluding with a spectacular downward slide – great stuff! And A.G.Mius (another enigmatic title) brought out a headlong helter-skelter dash from the trio, strings bouncing the bows rhythmically as the piano called the tune, the players generating terrific momentum throughout, the music suggesting more than a touch of Magyar gypsy to me in places, and none the worse for that.

Piazzolla’s music made its first appearance on the programme with Oblivion, the group being joined by accordion-player Rebekah Greig. Despite a short pause for some player re-alignment as a result of music being mislaid,  not a beat was missed after the restart, the music redolent with suspense and tension, and the accordion adding both colour and “edge” to the sound – the dancers moved haltingly and asymmetrically to this one, their steps seeming almost improvisatory, as did the music. La muerte del angel was much the same in effect, the piece building tensions by intensifying rhythms and crescendi. Almost thankfully, Seasons of Buenos Aires I found rather more discursive and easeful, though still atmospheric and descriptive; as was Spring and Winter, whose deep, sonorous and languid opening rhythms metamorphosed into something resembling Red Indians on the warpath before returning to a more piquant note to finish. Perhaps the most well-known of Piazzolla’s pieces, Le Grand Tango, written for and premiered by Mstislav Rostropovich in the 1980s, delighted us with its full-on explorations of instrumental colour and gesture, the players revelling in the composer’s demands, and flexing their imaginations in the music’s different directions. After this, the final Libertango seemed comparatively straightforward, definitely one to dance to, though including our single free-spirited audience member, it remained a dancing menage a trios, the rest of us content with paying tribute to all of the performers at the end for a wonderful and spirited lunchtime’s music-making.

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.