Author: Peter Mechen

Wellington Chamber Orchestra – Psathas, Lilburn, Beethoven, Vaughan Williams

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Conductor : Michael Joel; Soloist: Catherine McKay (piano)

PSATHAS – Luminous;   LILBURN –  Overture “Aotearoa”;  BEETHOVEN – Piano Concerto No.4 in G Major;     VAUGHAN WILLIAMS – A London Symphony

St.Andrew’s on-the-Terrace, Wellington; Sunday, 28th June, 2009

This was a richly-conceived and engagingly-presented concert from the Wellington Chamber Orchestra, the music covering a kaleidoscopic range of repertoire, with the character of each separate work explored and brought to the fore for the listener’s delight. Things are seldom what they seem, as the saying goes – and it may have appeared to the average audience member that the concert would be something of a “separate halves” affair, with the “lighter” and therefore “easier” works placed in the first half, followed after the interval by a lengthy and hugely demanding single symphonic work. In fact, the programme had varying kinds of technical and interpretative challenges for the musicians all the way through the afternoon, most of which were triumphantly surmounted, even if there were occasionally moments of not-quite-together ensemble. Right at the end, the orchestra rose magnificently to the challenge of the finale of the Vaughan Williams symphony, throwing everything into the music’s impassioned utterances, and then achieving with their conductor Michael Joel (and leader Ann Goodbehere’s lovely final solo) an evocative and compelling stillness and beauty throughout the epilogue. In a sense it was appropriate for the concert to end this way, because establishing and sustaining a specific mood, especially in the slower music, was one of the things that the orchestra did extremely well at various times throughout the afternoon’s music-making.

The opening item, John Psathas’s Luminous, was recreated by conductor and players with breath-catching beauty, underlining that dichotomy of stasis and osmotic movement with firm, well-focused but still diaphanous tones, and a magical “other-world” ambience caught at the moment of withdrawal of a full orchestral triple-forte. The musicians nicely brought out the composer’s concentrated suffusion of the textures with light and atmosphere, very Ligeti-like in places, and building to the full weight of an orchestral climax with sound judgement, the close ambience of the hall allowing us to enjoy the full-textured differences between the smoky brasses and the more translucent strings. From outer (or perhaps “inner”) spaces we were taken out of our heads and out-of-doors in Lilburn’s Overture “Aotearoa”, the striking opening as plangently delivered as I’ve ever heard it by the bright, long-breathed flutes, contrasted beautifully with the other wind timbres, secure strings and nicely “terraced” brass, exchanging rhythmic figures with strings. The tricky dotted-rhythm motto theme of the work was occasionally a stumbling-block, the strings in particular not quite certain as to how much “snap” to generate in places, which put ensemble “out” in places. There was also an occasional rawness of tone, now and then a bit intrusive, but mostly helping to capture the bracing ruggedness of the writing, very much at the service of the music’s intentions – and better the occasional roughness than something lacking in spirit, which this performance never was. Though lacking finesse in places the playing plainly and forcefully brought out the music’s essential character.

Readings of Beethoven’s G Major Piano Concerto seem either to declaim the notes as if intoning a sacred ritual, or trip a kind of light fantastic, carrying little ballast – this performance was of the latter, light-footed variety, the orchestra kept very much on its toes by Michael Joel’s edge-of-the-seat tempi for the opening tutti. Catherine McKay’s silvery playing was delightfully poised throughout, her rhythmic trajectories giving the notes plenty of phrasing-space while keeping up the music’s basic momentum, something which the orchestra found difficult to successfully emulate in places. The orchestra by contrast, seemed tenser, the playing even slightly “accelerando” in places, so that some of the “tumbling passagework” sequences took a while to find complete accord between soloist and band. Despite the lightness of touch, certain places where Beethoven hints at more esoteric, even metaphysical realms, received full due – the piano’s rapt modulation into distant harmonic realms mid-movement nicely highlighted the rolling concertante arpeggiations that followed, though I confess I wanted from Catherine McKay more of a contrast with the big G Major-related chords from the magically elfin passage that follows immediately after. The cadenza was the longer, more conventional of Beethoven’s, beautifully shaped by the soloist, and, despite a miscalculation by the oboe, nicely augmented by the winds at the end. The slow movement’s first string declamations were terse, abrupt and to the point, provoking a rather more assertive reply from the pianist than one usually experiences, more emotion-laden than ethereal and distant. As for the finale, what the strings lacked in rhythmic poise at the start they made up for in sensitivity of tone – and the whole orchestra made a splendid showing in the tutti passages in between the soloists’s fleet-fingered counter-statements. I thought the violas made lovely sounds during their “moment”, just before the build-up to the reprise of the opening; and the winds and strings worked well in accord throughout the myriad modulations leading up to the cadenza, the “stamping beginning” one, to which Catherine McKay gave plenty of dash and élan. Finally, what a joy to hear the horns right at the end sound the hunting-call with such confidence and relish, bringing the work to an exuberant close.

I’ve already mentioned the orchestra’s energy and commitment regarding the final movement of the Vaughan Williams symphony (such a lovely work!). Michael Joel and the players coaxed the first movement’s beginnings into life and brought about a vibrant sunrise, with a wealth of instrumental incident too numerous to recount in detail – though one remembers things like the tuba’s wonderfully rhythmic raspings leading into the allegro, and some great shouts of exuberance from the other brass in places, along with the entirely memorable “Thomas Tallis” string ambience at the beginning of the becalmed central section of the movement – lovely playing from the front desk strings. As with the Lilburn Overture, some of the jaunty syncopations in the exposed string phrases were ragged-sounding, though the section rose to the occasion magnificently in tutti at the movement’s conclusion. The slow movement I thought outstanding, the conductor encouraging playing from all sections redolent with the most wonderfully “charged” ambience, from the lovely cor anglais solo at the beginning to the dying viola phrase at the end. The wind trill that began the scherzo was scalp-prickling in its sheer joie de vivre, though the rhythmic complexities of this movement took their toll in places like the short fugato, where entries went off like out-of-control skyrockets! – such unsolicited excitement was only momentary, and generally the calm and poise of the harp and flute leading stepwise into the gloomy shadowlands of the coda spoke volumes for the playing of the orchestra as a whole throughout. All told, an exciting and warm-hearted concert to remember.

Festival Singers – Wellington Shines!

Posted on by Peter Mechen

WELLINGTON SHINES!

Works by Wellington Composers

Jonathan BERKAHN –  Resurrection Cantata “The Third Day” (premiere performance)

– with works by Andrew BALDWIN, Pepe BECKER, Jack BODY, Jonathan CREHAN, Stuart DOUGLAS, Felicia EDGECOMBE, Gareth FARR, Maurice FAULKNOR, Jenny McLEOD, Carol SHORTIS

The Festival Singers

Various Instrumentalists

Rosemary Russell (conductor)

St.Andrew’s on-the-Terrace, Saturday June 27th 2009

 

Some people might react to the expression “community music-making” with condescension bordering upon snobbery; but I can’t think of a better, more appropriate way to convey in words the remarkable scope and atmosphere of this joyous concert put on by Wellington’s Festival Singers, appropriately titled “Wellington Shines!”. A simple, cursory look at the names of some of the composers who contributed works to the concert would have been sufficient to alert concertgoers regarding the possibilities of a richly rewarding musical evening; and in fact, if not absolutely full- to-bursting St.Andrew’s on-the-Terrace had a satisfyingly “well-peopled” feeling about it, which must have gratified the concert’s organisers. This feeling was reinforced in the most appropriate way imaginable by the standing ovation that greeted the conclusion of the evening’s most substantial item, Jonathan Berkahn’s Resurrection Cantata “The Third Day”.

 

But what better way to begin such a concert than with music by one of the most people-orientated of composers, Jack Body? His “Nowell, in the Lithuanian Style” required the singers to approach from a distance, gradually forming two groups on the platform and creating a charming overlapping vocal effect, the groups eventually merging as one, physically and musically (a metaphor, perhaps, for the evening’s bringing together of diverse peoples to enjoy a concert of music?). Just as engaging, but often in a sheerly visceral sense, is Gareth Farr’s work, his 1998 “Tangi te Kawekawea” based on a Maori chant announcing the beginning of the kumera-digging season engaging both choir and percussionists, with beautiful solo singing by Lydia McDonald in particular. Stuart Douglas’s 2003 work “Chanticleer” was another rhythmically infectious piece, featuring an attractive soprano line and snappy rhythmic support from the choir’s middle and lower voices. A simpler, more direct treatment of words was provided by Felicia Edgecombe’s attractive setting of G.M.Hopkins’ well-known “Glory Be To God For Dappled Things”, in which women’s, and then men’s voices by turns intone the melody before harmonising together.

 

A complete change of mood was provided by Pepe Becker’s piece for organ solo “Organis Plagalis”, using note patterns and intervals relating to birthdates, written for Douglas Mews, and played here by Jonathan Berkahn, an obsessive, even claustrophobic work which spent most of its time trying to fight free of the key of G to reach a D pedal note. Jonathon Crehan’s recently-composed “Three Songs” (2009) were great fun to listen to, the singer Frances Moore’s smallish, but responsive voice making the most of her opportunities to inflect the text and convey what the composer called the “fun, excitement and drama” of the pieces. Both singer and pianist-composer particularly enjoyed the second song, “Schadenfreude”, an amusing feline-phobic mini-drama. I thought the piano part a bit too heavily textured for the third song, everything needing a lighter touch for Eileen Duggan’s “Low Over Tinakori” to come clearly and engagingly through. But I liked Frances Moore’s singing, and found myself wondering how she would do Gershwin.  Still ringing the programme’s contrasts, Maurice Faulknor’s “The Lonely Seagull” for flute and piano pleasantly and poignantly explored melancholic realms, with episodes of flurried passagework from both Bernard Wells’ flute and Jonathan Berkahn’s piano providing added interest.

 

Andrew Baldwin’s setting of “Ave Maria” won the New Zealand Secondary Schools Choral Composition Award in 2005. I was particularly struck by the music’s rich harmonies at “Blessed is the fruit” with full flowering on the word “Jesus”, and by the “rounding-off” effect of the first line’s repetition and “homecoming cadence” at the end. Carol Shortis’s setting of a text based on Psalm 128 “Show Us Your Ways” followed along  similar richly-upholstered harmonic lines, its direct appeal linking strongly in effect to one of Jenny McLeod’s “Sun Carols” which came immediately afterwards. Entitled Indigo II: “Light of Lights”, this was another lovely work, whose rocking motion and direct simplicity of utterance linked past and present with great strength and candour, as if we were listening to the collective voice of a faith-based community.

 

In a programme note Jonathan Berkahn made the point that, while there were plenty of musical works whose subject was Christ’s Passion and Death, there were few dealing with the latter’s Resurrection. Using texts taken from the Gospels and recast into different kinds of song-forms, Berkahn’s “Resurrection” cantata recounted the story from Christ’s death and burial to his rising from the tomb and reappearance to his followers, charging them with “The Great Commission” of going forth and teaching all nations. With Kieran Raynor’s sonorous bass voice, the full Festival Singers choir and a group of instrumentalists that included violin, accordion, electric guitars, bass and drums, everything seemed set for a colourful, rip-roarin’ traversal of one of the world’s great stories. As with Baroque performing practice, the instrumentalists were given melodic lines and the occasional chordal cadence around which they were expected by the composer to fill in appropriate textures and interlocking rhythmic patterns, which they all seemed to do so in the manner born. The whole progressed with a sweep and momentum that I for one found quite exhilarating.

 

Particularly striking throughout was the ease with which the composer fused the music’s sometimes jagged rock elements with a gentler, more lyrical character, in particular the extended exchanges between the two in the “Do you remember?” section near the beginning, the accordion at times imparting an almost Klezmer-like ambience to the proceedings. Berkahn used these contrasts to great effect in different ways, the choir voices soaring over the top of the instrumentalists’ fierce rhythmic energies in “He descended to the dead”, and in the dramatic change of ambience from number to number, as with “Early in the morning” which followed immediately afterwards, guitars gently rolling over a folk-ballad rhythm appropriate to the text’s aftermath of mourning and quiet tragedy. And the sudden effervescence of realisation that death has in fact been overcome in “Did you hear the angels?” – the voices almost falling over themselves with urgency and delight – suggests that the story contains far more drama, tension and excitement than one would guess from its relative neglect as a subject by composers over the years.

 

Another memorable effect was the use of a folk-fiddle at the beginning of the work’s finale, where the instrument’s dance-like rhythm blended with the chorale-like theme sung by the choir – very Bachian, and skilfully put together. At the very end the organ spectacularly added its antiphonal voice to the proceedings, giving splendour and tremendous weight to the words “Christ is risen: he is risen indeed: Alleluiah!” After such a tumultuous finale, no wonder the composer and musicians received a standing ovation! – most richly deserved.

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.