Author: Peter Mechen

Orpheus Choir – Cloudburst

Posted on by Peter Mechen

CLOUDBURST

ERIC WHITACRE – Three Songs of Faith / Cloudburst
DANIEL LEVITAN – Marimba Quartet
MORTEN LAURIDSEN – Lux Aeterna

Barbara Graham (soprano)
Handbell Ringers from Wellington Cathedral of St.Paul
Members of the Vector Wellington Orchestra
Orpheus Choir of Wellington
Richard Apperley (organ)
Michael Fulcher (conductor)

Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul, Wednesday 24th June 2009

Considering that this concert was subtitled “Contemporary American Choral Classics” one could be forgiven for anticipating with great interest and perhaps some caution the kind of musical fare which was to be served up by the Orpheus Choir and their conductor Michael Fulcher. Would the music be esoteric, austere, remote and dissonant, in a ‘modern” manner, as opposed to the use a more traditional language and tonal idiom? Or would the result be something of an amalgam of old and new? I’ll risk a certain amount of derision by admitting that I had never heard of Eric Whitacre, nor Morten Lauridsen, before this concert, which enabled me to come to their music freshly and without preconception. I thought Whitacre’s music the more interesting of the evening’s two vocal composers, with his opening Three Songs of Faith (settings of poetry by ee cummings) filled with wholehearted responses to the musicality of the poet’s texts, the wonderfully arching lines and the delicious rhythmic delineations of the phrases and words most surely matched by the composer’s musical imagination.

The first one I will wade out was marked by its wonderfully leaping opening, whose buoyancy was splendidly conveyed by the choir and further glorified by the church’s reverberant acoustic. That same angular muscularity returned at the words “I will rise” after a haunting ostinato-like treatment of “alive with closed eyes” and with the full “organum” of the voices giving expressive weight to “the sleeping curves of my body”. The music fused without a break into the second poem I hope via atmospheric cluster harmonies, each individual word treated like a variation on a tolling bell with the sounds rolling over each other, until with the word “soul” the voices come to rest, suggesting an eternity in each phrase-breath of the music. The last poem  I thank You God for most this amazing  began from these same ethereal regions, swelling and growing upwards, the soprano soloist Barbara Graham adding her voice to the words “which is yes”, and reaching a point of transcendence at “I who have died am alive again today”, with quietly ecstatic modulations, and repeated clustered-chords.

As with the voices in quieter choral passages, the dulcet tones of the marimba in Daniel Levitan’s Marimba Quartet took on a more-than-usually unworldly aspect in the cathedral acoustic, the sounds almost disconcertingly disembodied, apart from the occasional szforzando. The instrumental timbres made a pleasing change as a foil for the choral items, though the effect was perhaps a bit generalised in such an environment, even if the rolling chords that linked the two movements certainly took us to distant realms of enchantment, almost a “Prospero’s Island” of sounds rich and strange. Jeremy Fitzsimons and the rest of the group from the Vector Wellington Orchestra handled their instruments with the expected flair and finesse, their contribution making a mellifluous impression as an interlude of musical abstraction.

Eric Whitacre’s work Cloudburst, which gave the concert its name, has brought its composer considerable success, winning an American Choral Directors’ Award, and being frequently performed world-wide. Intriguingly scored for a twelve-part choir and forces such as handbells, piano and percussion, it combined conventional and aleatoric techniques to produce an evocative pre-thunderstorm ambience, whose textures seemed to merge and overlap constantly, setting off the words of the Spanish-text poem by Mexican Octavio Paz which were variously sung (by both soloists and choir) and spoken. Speaker Linda Van Milligan’s nicely-focused delivery of “We must sleep with open eyes” worked magically against a choral backdrop, as did both Barbara Graham’s and Kieran Rayner’s singing voices, with Barbara Graham’s warm, rich tones at “…and return to the point of departure” in particular beautifully augmenting the flow of mystical radiance engendered by the choral and instrumental sounds . In places David Hamilton’s The Moon is Silently Singing came to mind, though the use of percussion gave Whitacre’s work more of a volatility in places, splendid drum rolls whose percussive impact filed the cathedral with sound.

Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna  is a kind of requiem, without following the normal liturgical sequences – more a meditation on the theme of “light” as employed in various medieval and renaissance texts. Written in 1997 for the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the work doesn’t seek to explore any avant-garde harmonies or melodic contourings, preferring instead to speak simply and directly, a world of musical language not dissimilar to that of Durufle, or even Faure. The Orpheus responded with firm lines and blooming tones, all beautifully balanced by Michael Fulcher, in the opening “Introitus” reaching towards ecstatic realms at the words “et lux perpetua” then with the reprise of “Requiem aeternum” building once again from a hushed,“experienced” viewpoint towards a sonorous fusion with the following “In te Domine, speravi”, where a rather more angular, somewhat questioning tone occasionally gave the music an unexpected twist, though the mood remained firmly grounded in the hushed tones of “Miserere nostri, Domine”. Warm, rich harmonies banished all dissent in “O nata lux de lumine”, the choir beautifully realising the tonal surgings towards “…nos membra confer effici”, the words delineating physical union with the blessed body of Christ.

Lauridsen’s setting of the well-known “Veni Sancte Spiritus” brought forth resplendent organ tones (Richard Apperley bestriding the organ console) with beseeching utterances from the choir, the whole swift-moving, celebratory and all-embracing, the organ breaking out with a final flourish at the end, leaving the voices to drift the music downwards and into the hushed, reverential depths of the “Agnus Dei”, a series of three varied choral recitatives repeating the opening words and augmenting the last of the three with the echoed word “sempiternam”. After this, the fugal treatment of “Cum sanctis tuis” begun by the tenors gave rise to a “many-tongues” effect, the final alleluias resplendent at first, then serene and rapt right at the end, with the organ softly joining in at the richly-deep-throated “Amen”. Not, I think, a great work, but an eminently approachable one; and here given every chance to make its full effect with some richly mellifluous and  strongly committed work from the Orpheus Choir under Michael Fulcher’s expert direction.

A Mozart Double Bill – Boutique Opera and N.Z.Opera Society

Posted on by Peter Mechen

“Mini” Magic Flute & Bastien and Bastienne

Boutique Opera and The NZ Opera Society

Directed by Ian Graham (The Magic Flute) and Kate Harcourt (Bastien and Bastienne)

Musical Director: Lesley Graham  Piano: Fiona McCabe

St Andrew’s on-the-Terrace,  Sunday 21st June, 2009

This was my introduction to the work of “Boutique Opera”, a company whose activities are based around the studio of Wellington singing teacher, Lesley Graham, and which gives aspiring singers the chance of performing experience on stage in operas and musicals. The productions today, in collaboration with the New Zealand Opera Society, featured an adaptation of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” for young singers, and a complete performance of the same composer’s youthful singspiel “Bastien and Bastienne”. In their entirely different ways, both performances were immense fun to watch, it being a fascinating, instructive and rewarding notion to set a novice production alongside an accomplished “adult” one, albeit of different works – the experience for the young singers of being able to watch their more seasoned counterparts close at hand on stage would have been invaluable.

 

Very properly, the simplified “Magic Flute” came first, complete with narrator (Charles Wilson) and piano accompaniment (Fiona McCabe), both contributions extremely capable and stylish throughout, making the most of their storytelling opportunities. The enthuisiastic acting by the young Monster, Wiremu Andrews, as he attempted to attack the Prince Tamino stole the show during the first scene, but decorum was restored by the entry of the Three Ladies, Rima Shenoy, Evgenia Chamritski and Chloe Garrett, whose tremulous but effective intervention saved the Prince’s life. Papageno, the bird-catcher, was nicely acted by Henry Hillind with plenty of personality, if rather small of voice. James Adams as Tamino, the Prince, made a good fist of his “portrait aria”, with some expressive acting and singing. A treasurable moment was when the Queen of the Night failed to appear on cue the first time round (unfortunately, there was no Shakespearean dialogue of the “methinks I was mistook” variety to help the cast through the hiatus, so they simply started the music again, and the invocation was successful the second time through!). The queen, sung by Georgia Gray, survived her “what time is the next thunderclap?” glitch in style, giving us some true-voiced singing and a series of nicely-placed high notes, though the aria was truncated with nearly all of the coloratura cut. Her second aria, later in the opera, was even more impressively handled, with some of the high work left in to great effect on notes such as the third “Hear!”.I was disappointed that only the Three Ladies sang the music describing the flute and the bells which were given to Tamino and Papageno on their “quest”, and not the men in reply, because it is some of the loveliest music in “the Flute”. The Ladies’ tones were nicely blended and they handled the harmonic descents most sensitively.

 

I liked Lara Denby’s  Pamina, true-voiced, sweet and nicely tremulous, her vulnerability the perfect foil for the menacing Monostatos of Sam McBain; and later, her dramatic instinct finding a believable tragic note for “Ah, my heart is broken” in the face of her apparent rejection by Tamino. The Three Boys (Girls, actually – Rosemary Thomson, Chloe Garrett and Lauren Yeo) sounded lovely, with attractively youthful tones and good harmony. As Sarastro Michael Miller seemed overwhelmed by the occasion, but he kept his singing line and extracted what resonance he could from the music in both of his arias, better of the two being “O Isis and Osiris”. At various points in the drama Fiona McCabe’s piano-playing was a joy to register, no more so than during the teasing by an old crone (Papagena in disguise) of the hapless Papageno, the acting by both in this scene both entertaining and touching even if the singing was rather small-scale. In all, I thought this production managed to capture a lot of the full opera’s feeling and flavour, quite obviously a valuable experience in different ways for the youthful participants.

 

After an interval of almost Wagnerian proportions (presumably to allow the youngsters to change, clear the decks and join the audience for the second half) we were treated to an enchanting performance of Mozart’s youthful “Bastien and Bastienne” (a work I didn’t know, to my shame). The performers included James Adams (the Tamino in the first half’s “Flute”) as Bastien, with Barbara Graham an enticing and cocquettish Bastienne and Roger Wilson as the wily and sonorous-voiced Rawleigh’s man (an inspired piece of Kiwiana up-dating!), with Fiona McCabe, as throughout the first half, providing splendid piano support (a beautifully-played introduction, with the principal theme exactly that of the opening of the “Eroica” Symphony!). I was held spellbound as much by the assurance of the teenaged Mozart’s writing as the beauty and deft theatricality of Barbara Graham’s singing, both in the lovely “I’ll wander through the meadows” and in her subsequent interaction with Roger Wilson’s Colas, where she conveyed a whole range of emotion in an entirely believable way. 

 

As the Rawleigh’s Man with an eye for the main chance, Roger Wilson’s Colas hugely entertained us, taking in his stride his failure to win a kiss from the distraught Bastienne with a powerfully-delivered “Don’t forget – do what I’m advising”. And his magic potion aria “Hokus Pokus” (with great support from pianist Fiona McCabe) had show-stopping impact – finely sung and acted. Although James Adams as Bastien didn’t have quite the same vocal heft, he established his character surely with some nicely-focused singing; and he managed to created a telling amount of furious emotion at the thought of his sweetheart Bastienne’s supposed infidelity. The on-stage rapport of the lovers, later in the piece, also made for entertaining results, using such diverse objects as a shepherd’s crook, some sunflowers and a cell-phone – all such stand-off confrontations staged and delivered with a sure dramatic instinct.

 

Again and again I was left marvelling at the inventiveness of the young Mozart, with so many precursors of the goings-on of the later and greater operas served up for us here in beautifully-crafted form. The production brought out the work’s strengths in this regard, the final scene typifying the sense of fun and instinctive theatrical touch of director Kate Harcourt working with talented singer-actors – the concluding ensemble “Children, children” featuring Colas tying the lovers together with a rope, and then, in the final refrain “The Great Rawleigh’s Man” Colas skipping as the lovers turned the rope for him. All very joyous and tremendous entertainment – a great success!

Kari Kriikku and the NZSO – Second Concert

Posted on by Peter Mechen

TCHAIKOVSKY – Overture “1812”
TIENSUU – Puro, for Clarinet and Orchestra
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV – Scheherazade

Kari Kriikku (clarinet)
Pietari Inkinen (conductor)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Saturday 20th June 2009, Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

I must admit to having been thrilled at the NZSO’s programming of one of my all-time favourite warhorses, Rimsky-Korsakov’s symphonic suite Scheherazade in the subscription concert series, but less keen about having Tchaikovsky’s hotch-potch battle-symphony-like Overture “1812” on the same programme, mainly through having heard so many routine performances of it. Also offered was a contemporary work for clarinet and orchestra written by a Finnish composer, Jukka Tiensuu, and featuring the astounding playing (judging by what I heard in another concert) of visiting clarinettist Kari Kriikku. So, with reservations about the Tchaikovsky, all was good, including the time-slot, which must have given many people like myself the chance to get to see both the NZSO and the All Blacks on the same day, thanks to the concert being an afternoon matinee (how times have turned things around!).

As it all turned out, the orchestra played a blinder, making even the Tchaikovsky Overture sound like great music, conductor Pietari Inkinen leading the charge against Napoleon with thrilling, nail-biting results, much the same as the All Blacks managed to do against the French at the Westpac Stadium later in the evening. Inkinen drew golden tones from his ‘cellos at the Overture’s beginning, with plaintive utterances from the woodwinds and urgent shouts from the brass urgently voicing the cry of war. The allegro depicting the advancement of Napoleon’s army into Russia began a little sedately but soon gathered excitement, the “Marseilles” sounding and resounding splendidly over the battlefields as the French drove towards Moscow. The folk-like interludes were poignant and plangent, the battle reprise vivid and biting, and the build-up to the first cannonade brimful with anticipation, the electronic explosions resoundingly satisfying, and the descending string figurations for once sounding jubilant and festive, setting the scene for a peroration that rocked the building with tsunamis of cannonades, churchbells and brasses and percussion – what I would call playing the music for all it was worth!

Finnish composer Jukka Tiensuu’s piece for clarinet and orchestra Puro was described in the Finnish Music Information Centre programme note as “a hall of mirrors”, music in which the solo clarinet initiates ideas which “are reflected in sounds and gestures from the orchestra”. The music’s opening bears this out, with the soloist’s first high, shrill note echoed in the violins, and the ensuing melody rippling through the orchestral textures, rather like a continuous dialogue over the top of ambient string-and-wind chords. As with the Lindberg Concerto, I found the sheer density of invention in this work simply amazing, a combination of creative combustion with a superb instrumentalist (Kari Kriikku) setting ablaze all kinds of orchestral responses ever leading the ear onwards. If the overall impression was less dynamic than Lindberg’s work, more consistently reflective (no pun intended) and ambient in effect, there was still enough occasional raw excitement to satisfy the sensation-mongerers, especially in the wake of the instrumental cadenza, where the orchestral contribution seemed to notch up on confrontational insistence and send swirling strings and percussion crescendi shooting outwards until the restoration of calm, and the soloist finishing the piece’s journeyings with a quizzical squawk! But the overall mood of the work had long since been set by sonorities seemingly having a lot in common with Arvo Pärt’s “tumbing strain” tintinnabulations with occasional touches of Dali-esque melt-down keeping stasis at bay, and leading ever forwards to other realms. Without a doubt the performance was a stunning achievement by all concerned.

Jukka Tiensuu’s work and its epic qualities were nicely set in relief by an encore from Kriikku and the orchestra, Tanze aus Korond by Laszlo Draskodzy, a czardas-like piece, with all kinds of gypsy-inflections, played with tremendous swagger, and a good deal of showmanship (perfectly appropriate in this setting), involving the soloist collapsing at one point on the floor in a heap and playing part of the work while lying on his back, leaping to his feet again for the final “friss” section. I enjoyed watching the two clarinettists in the orchestra, Philip Green and Patrick Barry, “grooving away” during the music’s course with enjoyment and appreciation of Kriikku’s astounding playing.

What set the seal on the afternoon’s music-making was a superbly atmospheric and evocative performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, with the fabled storyteller in tip-top narrative and descriptive form fending off the bloodthirsty intentions of her vengeful husband, and, in the end, winning his heart. The violin-playing of Vesa-Matti Leppänen at the outset would have won over the most hard-hearted of tyrants, and the scenarios, characterizations and tales woven by Inkinen and the orchestra were by turns thrilling, colourful and ravishing, one of the finest performances of the work I’ve heard. Some examples to instance such praise – the maritime evocations of the first movement, alternatively tempestuous and calm, delivered with both deep-throated sonority and winsome sensitivity; the eloquent wind-playing by all principals throughout, the strikingly “conversational” bassoon/oboe narratives at the beginning of the second movement, and the exciting “a-tempo” pace throughout the same movement (like Ferenc Fricsay’s edge-of-the-seat reading in his old DGG recording), the brass-playing full of panache despite the occasional “fluff”; the slow movement’s rapturous string-playing; the finale’s fearful opening exchange between Scheherazade and her impatient husband, full of menace and urgency, the fantastic virtuosity of the orchestra throughout the “Festival” sequences, and the cataclysmic wrecking of the ship in the storm against the rock, with again some achingly beautiful violin-playing, by both Vessa-Matti Leppänen and his cohort Donald Armstrong at the very end. Pietari Inkinen and the orchestra, take a bow! – a most enjoyable and thrilling concert.

Tasman String Quartet

Posted on by Peter Mechen

TASMAN STRING QUARTET

Wellington Chamber Music:

Bartok – String Quartet No.3

Thomas Ades – Arcadia for String Quartet Op.12

Beethoven – String Quartet in F Op.59 No.1 “Rasumovsky”

Tasman String Quartet: Anna van der Zee, Jennifer Banks (violins), Christiaan van der Zee (viola), Miranda Wilson (‘cello)

Ilott Theatre, Wellington, Sunday, 31st May, 2009

Bartok was originally to have been Mozart, in this concert, a change obliquely referred to by the violist, leaning conspiratorially towards the audience just before the music began, and warning us not to think their Mozart horribly out of tune, or words to that effect! As it turned out, the Quartet’s playing of Bartok’s Third String Quartet was beautifully-nuanced throughout, poised and lyrical, the “special effects” such as playing on the bridge and with the wood of the bow never unduly emphasized for their own sakes, but incorporated into a kind of lyrical folkish manner. It really was playing of an order that seemed beyond the group’s years, except that the intensity of their involvement with the music could be as easily attributed to youthful ardour – but even more impressive was their osmotic way with the music, the different episodes seeming to flow with a naturalness in keeping with the players’ interactive aspect, a constantly flowing process that the group, like their distinguished colleagues, the New Zealand String Quartet, seemed to be able to express with physical movement, almost in choreographic terms, adding a further dimension of appreciation for the audience.

Their sound as a group I thought not especially “moulded” whether by choice or otherwise, but it resulted in a tangy, flavoursome set of timbres whose combination made for ear-catching results. There was so much to savour about their playing of the Bartok – the terrific rhythmic point of the folk-dance episode against the second violin’s sustained trillings, the exciting interplay of their pinpoint pizzicato note-attack leading into an on-the-toes fugato, and the eerie skeletal timbres heralding the “air-raid siren” glissandi from the lower instruments as the rest run for cover; but overall the impression was of a deeply thought-about interpretation, whose salient points – fluidity, colour and rhythmic interplay – took place within an overall shape whose moulding allowed every significant detail to make a telling contribution.

New to me was the Thomas Ades work, Arcadiana for String Quartet, a name suggesting a kind of earthly Paradise, a Greek version of Shangri-La, the music in seven short movements suggesting various aspect of this state of earthly perfection. From the opening Lullaby, whose sounds refracted through a “do I wake or sleep?” kind of sensibility, with things drifting, changing, advancing and receding, the Quartet thoroughly immersed itself in the music’s sound-world. A ‘cello solo sings operatically against bright, chirruping strings in No.2, while the third, taking its cue from Schubert’s watery song invitation seems to glide downwards into as well as along the surface of aqueous depths. Pizzicati spark off arco variants of a heavy-footed dance, folk-fiddles digging in and adding an exotic element, music whose dance-rhythms were inspired by the words “Et in Arcadia ergo”, music in which the “here and now” gradually becomes a kind of swinging gate, as the playground empties, and the golden girls and boys make their way outwards to glory. Delicate, sighing harmonies characterize the opening of the fifth section, leading to an Elgarian reminiscence of an England whose past glories have an autumnal glow, an ambience that extends via the ‘cello solo into the last section, whose name, Lethe, appropriately characterizes the oblivion into which the music disappears at the end.

After the interval the Tasman Quartet tore into the first Beethoven “Rasumovsky” work (Op.59 No.1) as though their lives depended on the outcome, the playing urgent, thrusting and directional, though with enough flexibility to register the music’s mood-changes. The players kept things very tight and tense throughout, the music’s ebb and flow geared to a strongly-maintained pulse, though they didn’t ever make a meal of any of the movement’s “big moments”, such as the great chordal statement of the theme just before the movement’s end, keeping such utterances urgent and dynamically terraced. The second movement’s opening was nicely poised and sharply-etched – perhaps a bit too earnest (youthful intensities to the fore), though the second theme had great ‘schwung”! Trenchant playing in the movement’s middle kept the voltage high and pushed the intensity needle consistently into the red, though the players did relax a little for the cantabile moments, and the “theme-exchange” passages between the instruments.

This quartet has one of the many great slow movements found in Beethoven’s music – at the beginning the players found what felt like a natural-sounding expression, with nothing forced or strained, the lively-sounding Italianate thirds expressed by the violins perfectly in scale. I would expect these players to gradually find over subsequent performances of this music even more stillness in some of the less driven parts of the middle movements. Though exciting and engaging, the intensities of this performance I felt imparted a somewhat dogged feel occasionally to rhythms whose gait could have been less “pushed”, and whose unrelenting focus made true intonation difficult in places for the violins. But having said that, it was all part of a superbly-delivered musical conception which, if occasionally wanting a touch of humour, crackled and sparked with wonderful intensity throughout.

HAYDN – New Zealand School of Music Students

Posted on by Peter Mechen

ST.ANDREW’S ON-THE-TERRACE

LUNCHTIME CONCERT SERIES 2009

New Zealand School of Music Students and Staff

JOSEF HAYDN (1732-1809)

String Quartet in C Major Op.33 No.3 “The Bird”

Donald Maurice, Rupa Maitra (violins),Helen Bevin (viola), Brenton Veitch (‘cello)

Concerto in D Major for Piano and Orchestra Hob. XVIII/11

Richard Mapp (piano), New Zealand School of Music Ensemble, Uwe Grodd (conductor)

St.Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace   Wednesday 27th May 2009

Amongst the great composers I couldn’t think of a better lunchtime companion than Josef Haydn, judging from what’s come down to us regarding the man and his personality that’s to be found in his music, with its strength, candid directness and wry humour. I would expect to come away from such an encounter with the great man totally charmed, highly amused and utterly humbled in the presence of such a rare amalgam of sophistication and simplicity. For his part, I would imagine, he would be part flattered, part amused at the attention his death-anniversary was currently getting world-wide, and would also spend a lot of our time together telling me how marvellous he thought the music of his younger colleagues Mozart and Beethoven was, probably explaining that he’s since had ample time on his hands to revise his initial, somewhat bemused impressions of the latter’s work!

Thanks to the efforts of various members of the New Zealand School of Music staff and student groups, and the St Andrew’s concerts organizers, Haydn was indeed the guest of honour at a recent lunchtime concert in the church which celebrated his life and music by featuring two works, a string quartet from the Op.33 set (subtitled The Bird), and a keyboard concerto, written in the cheerful key of D major. Violinist Donald Maurice introduced the concert, and talked a little about Haydn’s work in developing the range, scope and status of the string quartet, eventually establishing the genre as one of the most significant and elevated forms a composer could use to express his deepest and profoundest thoughts.

Haydn’s Op.33 set of six quartets, sometimes known as the “Russian” Quartets (for the simple reason that Haydn dedicated the set to the Grand Duke Paul of Russia) is a group of works much admired by musicians, a favourite being the third of the set, subtitled “The Bird”, so named because of various avian goings-on during the course of the music, most notably during the first movement, where the tiny grace-notes decorating the first violin’s repeated figures sound like birdsong. The music tells its own little story as well, with the birds’ chattering at one point interrupted by a darkening of the textures, causing some anxiety as to the prospect of rain spoiling a good day out – but with the recapitulation all is well. After a rather un-scherzo-like scherzo, enlivened by some violinistic warblings, the slow movement brought out some elegant phrasing and subtle voicings from the group, with the fairy-tale-like narrative taking us in the music’s darker central section to places where no self-respecting bird would dare to go. The finale presented a relatively unclouded aspect with the cellist providing strong rhythmic support for the rest of the group’s chirruping high-jinks. A few very minor intonation lapses had little effect upon one’s overall feeling of intense pleasure in the music and the playing, the characteristic throwaway-ending essayed with po-faced relish by all concerned.

For the second part of the concert the physical scale of things was somewhat enlarged with a keyboard concerto, featuring an ensemble of a dozen or so players directed by Uwe Grodd, and with Richard Mapp as the soloist. The smallish group revelled in the opportunity to explore and contrast the music’s differentiating textures and colours, the whole delivered with plenty of energy and good humour. Richard Mapp’s playing sounded perfectly in scale, his tones crystalline and stylish, the first movement’s cracklingly quick tempo heightening the music’s sense of joie de vivre. His cadenza had more than a suggestion of Beethoven in its exploratory modulations, but nevertheless preserved the style of the whole. A chamber-like air infused the interchanges between soloist and players in the slow movement, the music encouraging a degree of intimate engagement that I found extremely touching. The wind players did well, here, their sustained notes unerringly supporting the textures and preserving the overall ambience. The Rondo finale was marked “all’Ungherese”, and was taken at a great lick, the tuttis giving strings and winds plenty to do as the horns held forth with golden tones in support, as the soloist’s fingers scampered this way and that. The music’s rapid mood-switches were taken in the musicians’ stride, from piano and strings exploring interesting modulations, through a heavier-footed peasant-like “Ungherese” section, into a piquant minor-key mini-adventure, and then back into the sunlight of the opening, all delivered by the musicians with the kind of infectious enjoyment one feels that Haydn had precisely in mind – all, in all, a modest, but fitting tribute to a great composer.

Salzmann and Irons at Waikanae

Posted on by Peter Mechen

WAIKANAE MUSIC SOCIETY
Edith Salzmann (‘cello) and Diedre Irons (piano)

JS BACH – Suite for solo ‘cello No.2 in D Minor BWV 1008
BEETHOVEN – Sonata for ‘cello and piano in A Major Op.69
DEBUSSY – Sonata for ‘cello and piano in D Minor (1915)
FRANCK – Sonata for ‘cello and piano in A Major (1886)

Memorial Hall, Waikanae
Sunday 24th May 2009

Composer/pianist Gao Ping was to have played in this concert, but had to cancel, so his place was instead taken by Diedre Irons, necessitating a programme change in the original plan – but considering the calibre of the artists involved in the rearrangement, no-one could possibly have felt hard done by. The programme was a ‘cello-fancier’s dream, beginning with one of those iconic works for the solo instrument, a suite by JS Bach from the set of six, regarded by many as the greatest music ever written for the ‘cello, and followed by sonatas by Beethoven, Debussy and Franck. ‘Cellist Edith Salzmann, born in Germany, has lived in New Zealand since 2001, working at the Canterbury University School of Music and playing in the Canterbury Trio, while maintaining a busy and varied international schedule of performance and teaching. Her colleague, Diedre Irons, well-known to Wellington audiences, has also had a long association with Canterbury, teaching at the University for a number of years until taking up the position as Senior Lecturer in Piano at the New Zealand School of Music in Wellington in 2004.

Beginning with the Suite for solo ‘cello by Bach (No.2 in D Minor BWV 1008), the programme took us straight to the heart of the instrument’s expressive and technical geist. Edith Salzmann’s playing I took some time to fully engage with, partly the result of an acoustic in the Waikanae Hall which allowed her tones very little warmth and resonance. As the work progressed my ear “caught” more and more of what she was actually doing with the music, though her approach throughout the suite remained on the “intimate”scale, as though she was performing for a circle of friends, and the rest of us were eavesdroppers. She didn’t seem to want to ever “command” the music, preferring a lighter, more quixotic manner, with suggestions here and there of wider, more deeper realms, her ignoring of most of the repeats contributing to the evanescent nature of it all. The work’s Prelude was delivered in a free and rhapsodic way, with some of the notes in places brushed so lightly as to be practically inaudible – an interesting and somewhat circumspect discourse. She caught the character of the different dance movements well, expressing their speech/movement flexibility with a light touch, digging in where appropriate (as with the Sarabande), and differentiating nicely between the two Minuets. Her final “Gigue” set the dance leaping over the nicely-voiced “drone” throughout, but still, a somewhat “held-back” manner left me with the feeling that she would rather have been playing this music to a small circle of friends.

Beethoven – and Diedre Irons – brought the ‘cellist out of her shell somewhat for the next work,  the A Major “Cello Sonata Op.69. A lovely opening ‘cello solo begins this work, beautifully played here, and answered beguilingly, setting the scene for a fascinating interplay to follow throughout an extensive first movement. A patch of nebulous intonation at the top of the ‘cellist’s first exposed ascent was quickly forgotten amid the hurly-burly of the rest of the movement’s exchanges, contrasting the flying skin and hair in places with a wonderfully hushed reprise of the main theme’s “ghost” before the recapitulation proper. The scherzo, one of Beethoven’s wonderfully angular creations, was relished by both players, the ‘cello’s rather quixotic singing line and the piano’s dancing augmentations providing plenty of forward momentum. A deeply-felt  but short-lived adagio cantabile led into an energetic finale, delivered with plenty of spirit, and building up strongly to an almost orchestral climax with terrific surges of tone from both players.

The concert’s second half presented two works from the French repertory. Debussy’s ‘Cello Sonata is a late work, the first of six instrumental sonatas that he planned to write “for diverse instruments” – alas that only three were completed before his death in 1918. I thought this a strongly characterised performance of the sonata, bringing out the music’s almost superabundance of invention as episode followed episode. The opening’s forthright exchanges between the instruments melts into a lullaby-like section, whose awakening in turn leads to a big-boned, epic passage redolent of the same composer’s “The Engulfed Cathedral”, here relished by both players. The sounds then take on a veiled, sombre quality, emphasised by the ‘cellist’s slight “under-the-note” manner continuing in this vein to the movement’s end, with Edith Salzmann’s ‘cello giving us a lovely high harmonic chord. The second movement began with pizzicato exchanges between the instruments, the extraordinary voicings used by the composer uncannily blending the sounds of the two instruments, though interspersed by volatile goings-on between ‘cello and piano of an entirely different character, Salzmann and Irons really sparking off one another. The finale enters without a break, a cheerful folk-like melody giving the movement in places an almost Dvorakian feel. I felt Salzmann and Irons judged the balance in this movement between propulsion and languour to near-perfection, in a way that heightened the excitement of the final run-up to the work’s piano-and-pizz. conclusion.

Finally, we heard a well-known work in a less familiar guise, Cesar Franck’s Violin Sonata arranged for ‘cello and piano (the work of one Jules Delsart, done with the composer’s approval). Perhaps the ‘cello has to work a bit harder to maintain an equal voice with the piano, when compared with the brighter, more insistent violin, but the deeper voice has an attractive “withdrawn” quality at times, especially suiting the first movement’s introspection. Such was the warmth and richness of Diedre Irons’ piano-playing I found it difficult to concentrate elsewhere, so fascinated and absorbed did I become in places by what she was doing. The scherzo’s “whisper to a roar” beginning for piano, and the ‘cello’s colouring the melodic line were brought off with great gusto, the players’ energies and focusings capturing the “schwung” of it all, despite occasional mis-hits by both, which somehow added to the excitement. As telling in this movement were the rapt recitative exchanges between the instruments, the contrasts underpinning the music’s passionate outpourings. Difficult for the ‘cello is the scherzo’s coda, as the instrument can’t really “shine” against the piano’s onrushing figurations as the violin can do, and intonation sounded strained here in the attempt. With the slow movement returns the rapt ambience of the scherzo’s central section, the dialogues between ‘cello and piano capturing that “moment in time” quality so powerfully. Salzmann and Irons beautifully varied the intensifications, facilitating a real ebb and flow of emotion. After all of these somewhat confessional utterances, the finale comes as unalloyed joy; and so it was here, with the music’s contourings again beautifully served, and the work as a whole brought to a thrilling and satisfying conclusion.

New Zealand School of Music Classical Voice Students

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Music by Rossini, Debussy, Finzi, Mozart, Harris, Head, Messiaen, Schumann, Menotti, Donizetti

Rachel Day, Rose Blake, Issac Stone, Sophie Kemp, Laura Dawson,  Imogen Thirwall, Michael Gray, Olga Gryniewicz

Accompanist: Emma Sayers (piano)

St.Andrew’s on-the-Terrace, Wednesday, 20th May

Recitals such as these can amount to less than the sum of their parts if not organised and prepared for well; and the announcement at the concert’s beginning that several of the students had colds as a result of excessively wintry weather didn’t do anything to lift expectations of what was to follow to any great extent. However, what we should have taken into account was the enthusiasm and sheer determination of these young singers to make the most of what this concert offered them; and in fact the listening experience was packed with interest and intensity due to every bracket of songs being that particular vocalist’s chance to shine.

Rachel Day had the responsibility of beginning the recital with two songs by Rossini, from a set of three called “La regatta veneziana”, describing the scene at a Venetian gondola race, during which a girl excitedly encourages her lover, both before and during the event, to try his best to win. Her “salty tang” timbre admirably suited the songs, as did her engagingly focused “out-front” projection, putting across plenty of tumbling warmth and enthusiasm, and finding her high notes well. The two Debussy songs that followed were delivered with contrasting subtlety and atmosphere by Rose Blake, “Clair de lune” demonstrating a nice sense of the song’s shape, and “Fantoches” (Puppets) confidently and entertainingly suggesting storytelling abilities.

Isaac Stone was possibly one of the sufferers referred to at the concert’s beginning, as he seemed not to be able to project the lower tessitura of Gerald Finzi’s “Come Away, Death”, although the lighter, more lyrical episodes were nicely shaped, and the expressive points were well noted. “Who is Sylvia” exhibited a similar lyrical sensitivity. Sophie Kemp overcame some nervousness to sweetly deliver Barbarina’s “hankerchief” aria from Mozart’s “Figaro”, and relaxed somewhat into Ross Harris’s setting of Bub Bridger’s “The Swans”, confidently enunciating the meaning of her words.

Laura Dawson’s bracket of Michael Head’s songs was most impressive, her authoritative singing able to make her softer notes “tell” as significantly as her fuller declamations, and her interpretations of each song capturing a unique atmosphere with subtly-applied variation of emphasis and colour (supported by some superb playing from Emma Sayers). After “The Gondolier” came “Rain Storm”, whose opening notes were delicately-coloured and sensitively placed – the singer survived a slight voice-discolouring on the first of two high reaches towards the end, but beautifully managed the second one –  altogether, these were a memorable pair of performances. Different, less imposing, but as authoritative in a more whimsical manner was Imogen Thirwall’s singing of Messiaen’s Trois Melodies, varying bright and subtle tones and using face and gesturings well to convey the quizzical sense of “Pourquoi?”, then relishing the wistfulness of the reflective “Le Sourire” (another beautiful accompaniment from Emma Sayers), and the drama and resignation of the final song “La Fiancée Perdue”.

Michael Gray’s ardent, thrusting performances of three of Schumann’s “Dichterliebe” songs were also a highlight of the concert, the first “Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen” bright and eager, urgent to the point of vocal tightness, but with the interpretative heart in the right place; then a delicately-delivered “Hör ich das Liedchen klingen” and a forthright “Ein Jüngling liebt eine Mädchen” with lovely “pinging” notes at the beginning. Finally, Olga Gryniewicz demonstrated her communicative and theatrical skills with two operatic exerpts, the first being “The Black Swan” from Menotti’s spooky “The Medium”, sung with elegant phrase-turnings and nicely-shaped notes, if a bit monochromatic in colour during the middle section, though with fine ardour and a confidently floated high note at the aria’s conclusion. Then, to finish, we were treated to Norina’s cavatina “Quel guardo il cavaliere” from Donizetti’s “Don Pasquale”, the opening lyrical and confident, the line drawn strongly, the ensuing coloratura nicely ‘sprung’, warming up as the music dances onwards, and  enabling the singer to triumphantly negotiate without mishap the high work at the end – impressive enough!

Very, very great honour and ample plaudits to the participants on this occasion, for giving us a wonderful concert.

Cantoris – Amaryllis and Absalom

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Madrigals by BYRD, TALLIS, GIBBONS and TOMKINS
Cantoris, conducted by Richard Apperley (guest conductor)

St.Peter’s Church, Willis St., Wellington, Saturday 9th May, 2009

Cantoris is one of a number of Wellington-based choirs whose activities serve to bring to local audiences a richly diverse range of the choral repertoire in committed and skilful performances. St. Peter’s Church on Willis St. provided a picturesque and elegant setting for this, the first Cantoris concert for 2009, featuring madrigals, sacred and secular, with one’s pleasure further enhanced by a beautifully-printed programme containing texts and commentaries about the music. Conducting Cantoris for the first time was Richard Apperley, Assistant Organist at Wellington Cathedral of St.Paul, and previously of Lincoln Cathedral in the UK, where he also formed and conducted the Cathedral Chamber Choir. With the help of Tessa Coppard, the choir’s assistant conductor, who rehearsed the programme before Richard Apperley arrived, the singers were amply prepared for the not inconsiderable demands made by a widely-ranging programme of sacred and secular music by Tudor composers.

In a programme note, Richard Apperley confessed to being a devotee of the music of Thomas Tompkins (1572-1656), a composer whose work began the concert with a setting of a Psalm text O sing unto the Lord a new song, a work which demonstrates, according to Apperley, the composer’s fondness for full-blooded expressiveness, using constantly changing tonalities and syncopated rhythms. The singers got over a somewhat nervous beginning to the piece, with tones and rhythms that strengthened in focus as the piece progressed. The voices took time to properly blend, but their differentiations added colour to the lovely antiphonal effects from the women, the whole acquiring a kind of appropriately raw fervour by the time the “Alleluias” at the end of the piece were delivered. Tomkins was again the composer of two laments using Biblical texts from the story of King David, concerning the deaths of his sons, Jonathan and Absalom – the first Then David mourned challengingly slow, taxing the sopranos with their high entries in thirds, and the choir elsewhere, and the second When David heard having a particularly “stricken” quality, well-captured by the voices, the performance extremely moving at the words “O my son”, and handling the “layered” receding ending into silence with control and skill.

Tomkins’ six-voice anthem Woe is me followed, the voices supported by a nicely sustained organ accompaniment. The music has an attractive “rolling” aspect which the choir brought out well amid exchanges of phrases between the women’s voices. Another anthem,
O God the proud are risen against me set for eight voices, vividly evokes conflict and its resolution – although the basses took a while to get the pitch of their phrases, the sopranos came to the rescue with beautifully-held long notes at “slow to anger”, and the choir achieved a properly celebratory climax with the words “great in goodness and truth”.

In general the choir seemed more at ease performing Orlando Gibbons’ music, with rounder tones and securer harmonic tuning. Gibbons’ madrigal The Silver Swan brought forth nice work from all sections, as did a second madrigal Ah dear heart, whose sensitive beginning inspired sweet-toned work from the tenors and later, sonorous archways of splendour from the basses  with long lines held together well. William Byrd’s work, too, seemed to bring out a consistent strain of engagement with Cantoris, whose voices under Richard Apperley’s direction caught the infectious gait of the madrigal This sweet and merry month of May with its skipping rhythms at “for pleasure of the joyful time”, its pleasantly pastoral merrymaking aspect contrasting strongly with the meditative beauty of the following Lullaby, before switching back to pastoral themes with Though Amaryllis dance in green,a tricky, syncopated rhythm-feast of a madrigal, confidently sung by the choir, relishing the piece’s many-stranded aspect and “snapping” rhythms.

Byrd’s Vigilate was another work in which the choir gave of its best, the strength of the writing matched by confident, declamatory tones at the outset, realising the urgency and directness of the work’s focus, with lines and interchanges kept going with spirit and clarity (a nice touch being the basses’ deliberately “gauche” timbres at the moment of cock-crow). Perhaps not every opportunity was taken to characterise the music fully, but the final cries of “Vigilante” went with an infectious swing. Byrd’s great contemporary was Thomas Tallis, whose five-part Te Deum concluded the programme, a hymn of praise whose English text allowed us to savour some of the composer’s word-painting, and appreciate the choir’s responses to the text – for example, catching the music’s rolling aspect of “The Holy Church throughout all the world”, and responding to both the surge of grandeur at “Thou art the King of Kings, O Christ” and the harsh pointedness of “the sharpness of death”. Again, if not all of the composer’s variation of mood and feeling was fully realised throughout, there was still a sense engendered of a great musical journey, with Richard Apperley and the choir making the most of “O Lord, in Thee have I trusted” at the triumphant conclusion of the piece.

Two organ solos played by Richard Apperley, one by Tomkins and the other by Byrd, gave even more variety to a concert whose repertoire and presentation made an interesting and absorbing impression throughout a most enjoyable evening.

PULSE – Vector Wellington Orchestra’s first 2009 subscription concert

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Body – Pulse; Beethoven – Piano Concerto No.1 in C Major, Op.15; Janáček – Sinfonietta

Vector Wellington Orchestra: Marc Taddei (conductor); Michael Houstoun (piano); Members of the Central Band of the Royal New Zealand Air Force

 

Wellington Town Hall

 

Saturday 18 April 2009

 

First things first – full marks to Vector Wellington Orchestra’s programming flair for this concert, bringing together such an interesting juxtapositioning of works to open its subscription season. The remaining concerts in the series don’t in my view have quite the same enterprising zeal (we could have done with at least one other New Zealand work, for example, to counterweight things like Duke Ellington’s Suite from The River and Piazolla’s Tangazo). No matter – Michael Houstoun’s performances of all the Beethoven piano concertos will, I’m certain, more than compensate, along with crowd-pleasers such as Strauss’s Four Last Songs and Respighi’s Pines of Rome.

 

It’s interesting that both the Wellington Orchestra and the NZSO chose works by Jack Body at the beginning of their respective seasons. I have nothing but admiration for Body’s music, and consider his orchestral works excellent concert choices, but am left wondering when any of our local orchestras are going to get around to giving neglected works by, say, David Farquhar, John Rimmer, Edwin Carr and even Douglas Lilburn (his First Symphony languishing in concert-hall obscurity) the chance to become repertoire classics of a homegrown kind, music which can be heard alongside and compared favourably with any from anywhere.

 

Still, it was fascinating to compare the performances of Body’s music by two different orchestras and conductors (albeit in different works), Melodies with the NZSO a fortnight previously, and Pulse with the Wellington Orchestra in the present concert. The NZSO and Pietari Inkinen scored points in matters of ensemble and polish, but regarding flair, colour, atmosphere and rhythmic excitement, Marc Taddei and the Wellington Orchestra seemed to me to have a distinct edge, taking us right inside the intoxication of ritualistic frenzy noted by the composer when observing the original New Guinean fire-dance from which much of this music was transcribed.

 

There’s been some discussion regarding Jack Body’s transcription pieces, with opinions expressed as to the validity of regarding the works as original compositions – but Jack himself has no such inhibitions regarding his sources or inspirations, describing his Pulse as ‘a radically conceived composition for orchestra based completely on transcription and quotation’.

 

The work liberally quotes from Beethoven’s Eroica and Pastoral Symphonies, Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique and Stravinsky’s ballets Agon and Le Sacre du Printemps, though the ‘borrowings’ are intriguingly, at times even gruesomely refracted (Beethoven ‘synthesised’ by Berlioz?) through a pulsating latticework of rhythmic and textural incident, making the point that all music worldwide and through the ages is derived from ‘pulse’. Interestingly, it was as much melodic as rhythmic pulse which Body’s use of those quotations brought out – and who would have ever thought that the opening chord of the Eroica would give rise to smiles and chuckles from an audience?

 

Michael Houstoun then took the stage to give us the first instalment of his much anticipated cycle of Beethoven Piano Concertos with the orchestra, beginning with the First (actually composed AFTER the Second, but published as No.1 in C Major).

 

Houstoun gave us poised and finely shaped playing at the outset, his first entry and subsequent taking up of the leaping octave theme slightly more relaxed and mellow than Taddei’s opening tutti with the orchestra, which seemed at first a little edgy in places in intonation and rhythm. A beautifully-pedalled ambient glow from the pianist marked out the development’s beginning as a magical entry into a realm of enchantment, anticipating something of the romantic feeling of the work’s Largo movement. The cadenza was a marvellously exploratory exercise in modulation, Houstoun occasionally gathering up armfuls of tonal weight and splendour, which would then be tossed aside in favour of differently constituted ideas, in a way that I found fascinating – and I liked the witty “Yes? – No….Yes!” series of indications from the piano regarding the orchestra’s reentry point..

 

The slow movement was gorgeously introduced by Houstoun’s opening paragraph, one which I felt Taddei and the orchestra took a little time to warm to, some unexpectedly brusque phrase endings from the orchestra suggesting that the players’ concentrated feeling for the music didn’t quite extend to the whole of some of the passages.

 

With Houstoun, there’s not a note I think that hasn’t cost him a great deal of thought regarding where it fits in the scheme of things, so that you get the feeling that he values it all so much and presents it as something cherishable and to be taken seriously. The reprise of the orchestra’s reply to the pianist’s opening was more lovingly shaped by Taddei, as if things had by then come into wider focus; and the rest was characterised by some rapt exchanges between piano and orchestra, a momentary ‘blooped’ brass note at one point reminding us of how expertly delivered everything else was.

 

Altogether, the performance was a wonderful realization, with the ebb and flow of the argument between soloist and orchestra nicely maintained. The only thing I miss with Houstoun, and this was especially evident in the concerto’s finale, is a ready sense of humour – nothing is ‘cheeky’ or just a wee bit outrageous or simply ‘thrown away’ though, I must admit that at one point during the Rondo Houstoun surprised me by finishing a phrase on a diminuendo when I was expecting an upsurge of tone, which made me smile. In all other respects it was a very strong interpretative viewpoint, as always with this pianist, and one I suspect that would stand up to repeated hearings and remembrances really well – I look forward eagerly to the remainder of the Beethovens from him during this year.

 

In a sense Janáček was a kind of Beethoven of his time, wholehearted and expressive in his emotions, single-minded in his pursuit of musical ends, totally uncompromising in the face of diffidence or hostility of others towards his music, and obsessed with the musical ‘idea’ ahead of its execution, pushing things to extremes in search of his goals. His Sinfonietta was originally planned as a set of fanfares for a gymnastics festival in Brno, but the work then took hold of the composer and grew into five movements for full orchestra.

 

Resplendently filling two rows of organ gallery seats in the Town Hall on Saturday night, the dozen or so members of the Central Band of the Royal New Zealand Air Force made a stunning initial impression with their playing of the opening fanfares, even if Marc Taddei’s tempo was, I felt, a shade too quick for them to get successfully around the treacherous syncopations of the toccata-like middle section, which could have done with more ‘point’ rather than speed.

 

But the players were able to fill out the grander phrases with marvellous tones, aided and abetted by the hard-working stick-flailing timpanist Stephen Bremner. The second movement, played attacca, brought in the full orchestra with its utterly different sonorities to great effect, strings and winds playing their hearts out – though the players at first found the tempo changes between different sections unsettling, causing ensemble difficulties and affecting incisiveness at points.

 

Things came together nicely to herald the epic brass statements (played by three of the Central Band ensemble’s trumpets), creating a stirring, open-air feel around the proceedings, their highest notes having a kind of snow-capped splendour, with one player surviving and quickly rectifying a false entry towards the dying fall of one of the phrases.

 

The orchestra really came into its own in the third movement – a melancholy string phrase at the start was underpinned by deep, sonorous notes from the tuba, and plaintive winds echoed the opening string phrase – after which the orchestral brass announced itself, quite magnificently, with nicely nimble work from Peter Maunder’s solo trombone, and waves of great black tone pinning back our ears and bringing forth appropriate shrieks of terror from the winds. The horns couldn’t quite keep their ‘whooping’ up at the cracking pace Marc Taddei set when charging towards the movement’s climax, but it was a small blip on a mightily impressive sound-sequence.

 

More fanfares in the fourth movement were this time played keenly and crisply by the orchestral brass, with strings supplying an agonized counterpoint, and one of the percussionists bashing the tubular bells for all he was worth! Taddei and the orchestra also nicely brought out the folkish aspect of the last movement’s introduction, before Moira Hurst’s clarinet and Timothy Jenkin’s piccolo began to screw up the tension, leading the way into a kind of chaotic vortex of confusion which the composer resolves with a cymbal crash and a trumpet call, the fanfares of the opening returning with a kind of full orchestral counterpoint adding to the ceremonial magnificence. Was the tempo a shade too fast for the brass once again?

 

Taddei did broaden the pulse for the coda, which was spectacularly delivered by all concerned, an overwhelming final chord bringing out the raw grandeur of the music.

 

Saint John Passion from the Orpheus Choir

Posted on by Peter Mechen

ORPHEUS CHOIR and VECTOR WELLINGTON ORCHESTRA

J. S. Bach – Saint John Passion

The Orpheus Choir, the Choir of the Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul, Vector Wellington Orchestra, Douglas Mews (organ), Michael Fulcher (conductor)

Nicola Edgecombe (soprano), Ellen Barrett (alto), Gregory Massingham (tenor) – Evangelist, Hadleigh Adams (bass) – Pilate, Daniel O’Connor (baritone) – Jesus

Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul

Sunday 29th March

The Wellington Cathedral of St Paul is, by capital city standards, an imposing structure from the outside and an awe-inspiring space from within. Often its voluminous spaces are used for music performances, of which I’ve seen and heard a number in recent times, nearly all splendidly uplifting affairs. My listening experiences in the building tended to confirm what one would think of the cathedral’s acoustic by viewing these vast spaces – it’s an area which adds considerable bloom and resonance to whatever sounds singers or players make, which means that for some music it enhances the listening experience immeasurably.

For a lot of music composed for performance in ecclesiastical spaces that agglomerated tonal effect is built into the writing, so that any resonance or even echo gives added value to what the performers are producing. A crucial factor for the listener at a concert in such a space is his or her proximity to the performers, which has a marked effect on what that listener hears – if reasonably close to the performer or performers the listener is able to hear a good deal of sound directly from its source, however much the acoustic might then add to the sound in the way of resonance and colour

When preparing to go with a friend to hear the Orpheus Choir’s performance of Bach’s St.John Passion with the Vector Wellington Orchestra, late on the afternoon of March 29th of this year, I failed to take into account the choir’s following among concertgoers and the interest generated in Bach’s great choral masterpieces by a number of splendid performances of them over recent years here in Wellington. Consequently, when we arrived at the Cathedral we were greeted by vast queues of people on the steps in front of the church; and when we were able to get into the building there were a few seats left in the very back row, which we were grateful to get. The Orpheus Choir organisers must have been gratified by such a splendid turnout, because every available seat seemed to be filled, and the church was bristling with the most pleasant sort of expectation (fuelled by the delay in starting while seats were found for everybody).

People reading this review might well be asking themselves what all of this has got to do with a performance of the St John Passion, one of three Passions written by Bach, and of the three the most dramatic, theatrical and involving in an overtly emotional way. That, too, has a bearing on the review below, the reason being that, from where I was sitting I found different parts of the work affected in different ways by the acoustic of the building and the vast distance between myself and the singers and instrumentalists.

The dramatic nature of the work meant that some of the music was quick-moving in rhythm and theatrical in expression, and it was in those parts of the score that I found the most difficulty in closely following what was going on. The more reflective episodes, such as the choruses and chorales and some of the recitatives I could follow. But when things got “lively” the acoustic joined in and made it all twice as lively. There were no seats to be had closer to the front, so I had no choice but to stay where I was and make sense of what I could from my own perspective.

From what I could make out, the choirs (the Cathedral Choir and the Orpheus Choir) along with the Wellington Orchestra seemed to be revelling in Michael Fulcher’s forthright direction. At the very opening the wind lines sang upwards and outwards, while the strings, with tones far less penetrating, took on a kind of feathery ambience up high and a throbbing engine-room-like insistence down below. The choral entries were stunning on single notes, the cries of “Herr!” in that opening chorus resounding through the building, though the succeeding vocal polyphony then proceeded to envelop itself in a cornucopia of tones, from which a line would occasionally extrude before being overtaken by its own resonance and brought back into the latticework again. It was obviously going to be a performance that would give us ‘back-seat’ listeners plenty of atmosphere, sweep and colour, rather than a lot of fine detail.

The two choirs divided the work, the Cathedral choristers sometimes taking the chorales alone and sharing others, while the Orpheus Choir took the choruses and the crowd participations in the story. In the slower chorales the effect of the Cathedral’s spaces on the beautiful singing was near-celestial, the Chorale immediately beginning the Second Part Christus, der uns selig macht (Christ who brings us joy) being particularly lovely. And, despite the acoustic, the bite of the dramatic exchanges between the crowd and Pilate still came across – the Orpheus’s attack with Wir haben keine König denn den Kaiser (We have no King but Caesar) was scalp-prickling, following on from the contrast of the Chorale Durch deine Gefängnis, Gottes Sohn(Your imprisonment, Son of God) with the savagery of Lässest du diesen los (If you let this man go). No wonder Bach was criticised by some of his contemporaries for presenting “opera in church”!

Among the soloists, soprano Nicola Edgecombe made a consistently attractive and positive impression, bringing to her first aria Ich folge dir (I follow you) a bright, eager, winning quality, and a nice sense of working with the wind accompaniments, surviving Bach’s brutal chromatic ascents with sufficient poise to emerge with credit. Her aria in Part Two Zerfliesse, mein Herze (Dissolve, my heart) with a moving Dein Jesus ist tot! (Your Jesus is dead) complete with trill, similarly impressed with lovely sustained notes and elegantly negotiated turns throughout. Alto Ellen Barrett exhibited an attractive tone quality and flowing aspect to her passagework, in her opening Von den Stricken meiner Sünden (From the bonds of my sin) though her note-pitching faltered in a couple of places. And although she didn’t have quite the vocal heft to make Der Held aus Juda (The Hero from Judah) truly triumphant in her second aria, the first part Es est vollbrach! (It is accomplished!) caught the lament-aspect nicely with focused, heartfelt tones.

Both Daniel O’Connor as Jesus and Hadleigh Adams as Pilate delivered their recitatives with sonorous voices and dramatic power, their confrontation during Part Two generating plenty of tension and interest, as did their interaction with the chorus/crowd baying for Jesus’ blood. Hadleigh Adams created a touching tenderness in each of his arias, the first following Jesus’ flogging Betrachte, meine Seel (Think, my soul) and the second Mein teurer Heiland (My dearest Saviour) immediately after his death, intertwining his vocal lines with those of the choir singing the chorale Jesu, der warest tot (Jesus, you were dead) and, despite some occasional strain on his high notes, producing an effect indescribably moving.

Evangelist Gregory Massingham showed his obvious experience in singing the role, creating a great sense of story, and keeping the dramatic momentum moving at all times, though he displayed moments of somewhat distressing vocal fallibility in places, his tone and sense of pitch often faltering when the lines took his voice anywhere above the stave. As if singing the part of the Evangelist wasn’t taxing enough he unwisely took on the tenor arias as well, which were simply too much for his vocal resources on the day. Had somebody else been engaged to do these, he might have coped better with the Evangelist’s music at stressful points, though his delineation of both Peter’s crying bitterly and Jesus’ flogging were both distressingly approximate realisations. A great pity, because much of his Evangelist’s work was more than perfectly decent – and to his credit he kept on, even when things seemed about to fall apart in the tenor arias, which were the performance’s least comfortable moments.

Whatever conductor Michael Fulcher might have felt about his tenor soloist’s vocal troubles he kept both orchestra and choruses focused on the task throughout, getting singing and playing from his massed forces that carried the day, the final choruses appropriately having the last say, with a beautifully rapt Ruht wohl (Rest well) and a majestic, sonorous and valedictory Ach Herr, lass dein lieb Engelein (Oh Lord, send me your angels), sending us away from that massive church with the sounds of eternity ringing in our ears.