Category: Live performance

Polished viola student performances of Bach suites plus some unfamiliar music at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s lunchtime concert

NZSM Viola Students: Zephyr Wills, Deborah King, Grant Baker; accompanied by Catherine Norton

Music by Schubert, Britten, Bach, Enescu, Kreisler and Walton

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 17 October, 12:15 pm

One rarely goes to a recital by students from Victoria University’s school of music (also known as the New Zealand School of Music and Te Koki), without being surprised to be exposed to interesting, often unfamiliar music played admirably by gifted players.

Zephyr Wills began with the first two movements of Schubert’s sonata for Arpeggione, the odd and short-lived hybrid guitar-cello (D 821). No one today plays the weird instrument for which Schubert was invited to compose (though you’ll find an example on a modern replica on YouTube), and it’s usually played on the cello (I wonder how it sounds on a guitar). So the viola struck me as a very engaging, persuasive choice, bridging the gap between cello and violin in a way that seemed to find the best of both worlds. Though I can’t claim to find it an especially beguiling piece of Schubert, Wills and Catherine Norton exploited its pleasant, melodic character charmingly, especially the second movement, Adagio, which was calm and played with particular sympathy.

He followed with Britten’s Elegy for solo viola, a youthful work, of 1929, when he was only 16, yet it illustrates Britten’s early readiness to explore some of the more radical tendencies of the early 20th century. Elegiac in tone, though the young composer can hardly have had much reason to adopt funereal demeanour. There were eloquent double-stopping dissonances, and evocative use of the mute, as a feeling of grief took hold. It drew attention to a very promising first-year student.

Deborah King played two pieces: the first, the Prelude from Bach’s second cello suite, in D minor. In the minor key, it is mildly sombre; she was careful in the formation of each note, excellent intonation, and the her confident bowing spoke of resilience and strength.

George Enescu is getting more and more exposure these days, and his music, while still with certain Romanian folk elements, sounds to me much more mainstream, of its early decades of the 20th century. This fairly early piece, Konzertstück  – he was 25 – seems to have been composed for the viola; and Deborah King created a pretty persuasive case for it, as it moved between sunny and passing overcast moods; each instrument presented it in perfectly idiomatic fashion. The piano played a distinctive, enquiring part, not a mere accompaniment, and later it seemed to aspire to the character of a concerto. In truth however, I didn’t feel driven  to hear it again.

Grant Baker played the Prelude from Bach’s 4th cello suite, in E flat, one of those that Johannes Moser played on Sunday afternoon in this same venue. Series of variegated arpeggios, drawing attention to the implicit, shifting harmonies. Though his playing’s persuasive praeludial style seemed to call pleadingly for the following allemande movement.

Baker followed with another solo piece, the Recitativo and Scherzo-Caprice which Kreisler wrote to play, himself; though it exists in a viola arrangement (not clear whether by Kreisler). The Recitativo creates a tone that seems unusual for Kreisler, with a good deal of mild dissonance through double-stopping and fluttering trills. But the Scherzo-Caprice is in striking contrast, the mood more arresting and optimistic than the emotionally dark Recitativo. Rhythms, intonation and general spirit sounded thoroughly authentic.

Perhaps the most significant music in the concert was the second and third movements, Vivo, con molto preciso and Allegro moderato,  of Walton’s viola concerto. Baker’s performance provided a very persuasive reminder of the stature of the work, distinctively of its period, though not following the style of most English music of the 1920s. So it was lively and interesting; and though the third movement seems to be rather too careful to avoid melody that might stick in the memory (a jotting during the performance remarked that ‘”melodic” might be to stretch the meaning of the word’). However, Baker played the decorative lyrical parts with aplomb, and I was happy to remain listening to the two players as the recital went 15 minutes over time.

It struck me that the Victoria University school of music may be the best place in the country for aspiring viola students, under the dedicated, sympathetic tutelage of New Zealand String Quartet violist, Gillian Ansell.

 

Admirable concert of well-chosen music from Wellington Youth Orchestra under Mark Carter

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wellington Youth Orchestra conducted by Mark Carter with Samantha McSweeney (flute).

Beethoven: Coriolan Overture, Op 84
Copland: Appalachian Spring
Mozart: Andante in C for flute and orchestras, K 315/285e
Tchaikovsky: Suite from The Nutcracker
Riley Centre, Wellington High School

Sunday 14 October, 6 pm

The last musical occasion I was in the Riley Centre (alias, the school hall) at Wellington High School was, I think, for the splendid International Viola Congress in 2001, led by the indomitable Professor Donald Maurice (as was the most recent one in Wellington in 2016). My recollection of the acoustic then was confirmed on Sunday. The orchestra has tended to confine itself in recent, post-Town Hall years, to smaller and acoustically constricted places like St Andrew’s and the Sacred Heart Cathedral; this hall struck me as better suited to the character of the orchestra, in allowing all instruments to be heard clearly but not in an acoustic that was inclined to draw attention to inexperience.

The Egmont Overture is a fine piece for a youth orchestra: I can attest from personal experience, having played it in the predecessor of the Wellington Youth Orchestra, back in the 1950s. I have never grown tired of the dramatic character of the work that blooms into a triumphant Coda at the end. And I hope current orchestra members still derive the same emotional delight from it.

Here, conductor Mark Carter transmitted a strong sense of its heroism as well as its deeper humanity. Balance between strings and woodwinds was excellent, and the violin sections in particular sounded like thoroughly rehearsed professionals.

I don’t think I’ve heard Copland’s Appalachian Spring played by amateurs before and was delighted to realise how well is suits young players. There’s a lot that’s not too difficult technically, but a lot, on the other hand, that demands finesse and can reveal weaknesses in intonation and control of articulation and dynamics. The leisurely opening music is dominated by strings, flutes and soon clarinets, admirably finding the right open-air, springtime feeling (though Copland did not compose the ballet, for Martha Graham, with a specific scenario or even a title in mind: the title was suggested at the last minute when Martha suggested a line from a poem by Hart Crane).

The quiet opening exposed the players, rather to their benefit, and they showed reassuring pleasure in their charmingly animated playing. Later came a fine, attenuated trumpet on top of more general brass, and further opportunities to admire fairly important bassoons as well as the solo opportunities for trombones (the latter were all Youth Orchestra players – though several other sections, including the strings, were strengthened by a few guest players).

This longish piece, containing a great deal of slow, delicate music as well as much that’s sprightly and animated, can lose audience attention and patience in unskilled hands: not here.

Then came the Mozart Andante, written as an alternative slow movement for one of his flute concertos. It proved semi-familiar to me and was well worth hearing. It evolved, slowish and attractive, the solo part beautifully played by flutist Samantha McSweeney who is in her second year at Victoria University school of music.

The concert ended with the Nutcracker Suite; at least, most of the dances from the Suite. Here, there were charming episodes from flutes and other winds, including rather impressive horns (admittedly including a couple of guest players) excellent harp contributions and throughout, seamless, well integrated strings. Though there were, of course, minor blemishes, it was possible to listen to these all too familiar pieces with the same delight as from a professional orchestra.

I don’t believe citing individual players for praise is helpful for a band of young players however; generalities are more appropriate. Certainly, the polish and confidence, what seemed a real balletic flair, audible in Nutcracker, and elsewhere, was singularly impressive and evidence of both the overall level of musicianship and the result of first class direction by conductor Mark Carter.

 

Monumental NZSO concert of Russian masterpieces with cellist Johannes Moser

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Peter Oundjian with Johannes Moser – cello

Borodin: Overture: Prince Igor
Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No 1 in E flat
Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet, selections from the ballet

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 13 October, 7:30 pm

Plus a review of Johannes Moser’s solo cello recital
Bach: Cello Suites Nos 1 in G, 4 in E flat and 3 in C
St Andrew’s on The Terrace
Sunday 14 October, 3 pm 

The NZSO concert Saturday 13 October

This Russian programme might have been expected to be a winner, but it wasn’t, in terms of audience size.

However, in terms of musical quality and sheer excitement, it was a tremendous success. It’s a surprise to me that Shostakovich’s 1st cello concerto didn’t fill every seat; does that suggest that our musical horizons are getting narrower every year? For it’s a truly stupendous work, and we heard one of today’s most brilliant cellists sitting at the front of the stage.

Secondly, does a crowd smaller than is expected suggest that the general run of classical music lovers doesn’t hear properly some of the greatest ballet music ever written; that there’s a huge gulf in taste and intellectual curiosity between ballet groupies and Beethoven groupies?

Even the opening overture should be better known and more sought after than evidently it is.

Borodin’s Prince Igor Overture
My first encounter with it, on the radio many years ago, was associated with the then popular story that Borodin had not written the overture down, but that Glazunov had heard him play it on the piano, and with his phenomenal memory, went home and scored it completely. Roughly true but both Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov left written accounts. Rimsky wrote: “…Glazunov and I settled the matter as follows between us: he was to fill in all the gaps in Act III and write down from memory the Overture played so often by the composer…”

Glazunov’s own account is this:
“The overture was composed by me roughly according to Borodin’s plan. I took the themes from the corresponding numbers of the opera and was fortunate enough to find the canonic ending of the second subject among the composer’s sketches. I slightly altered the fanfares for the overture … The bass progression in the middle I found noted down on a scrap of paper, and the combination of the two themes (Igor’s aria and a phrase from the trio) was also discovered among the composer’s papers. A few bars at the very end were composed by me.”  

These quotes are from the splendid Wikipedia article on the opera which is fascinating, evidently authoritative and very much worth reading.

Productions are rare in the west, and I was lucky enough to catch it conducted by Mark Ermler in the Olympiahalle in Munich in 1989. A film from the Metropolitan Opera was screened here a couple of years ago.

Borodin’s great historical opera may be heavy-going for some, but it’s got a lot of hit tunes and the Overture contains some of them. It opens calmly, remotely, but in a couple of minutes conductor Peter Oundjian had successfully anticipated the opera’s epic grandeur with fierce brass heroics on top of general orchestral energy. What a splendid introduction to the later direction of Russian music, parallel with Tchaikovsky and Rimsky, but on through Rachmaninov, Glazunov, Medtner, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Kabalevsky, Schnittke, Weinberg (?)…

Shostakovich Cello Concerto – Johannes Moser
This was Johannes Moser’s second visit to New Zealand. In 2016 he played Lalo’s cello concerto, impressing, but it’s not a work on which super-star reputations are often built. However, he could not have made a more astonishing impact than in his performance of Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto. It was written in 1959 a few years after Stalin’s death, for Rostropovich who famously committed it to memory in four days, and played it with the Leningrad Philharmonic under Mravinsky the same year.

Even more memorably (for us), Rostropovich played it with the NZSO under Maxim Shostakovich in one of the orchestra’s most famous events, in the 1988 International Arts Festival in Wellington (an era when we had truly great international festivals). I will never forget sitting side-on in the MFC gallery, hearing and watching that monumental performance.

Now this weekend’s performance was on a par, from a cellist who had likewise utterly absorbed the work. He played with a ferocity that was chilling, often producing a sort of vibration (different from vibrato) that created all the emotional power that a full orchestra might have supplied; for the work is scored only for strings orchestra and modest pairs of woodwinds (though they are not merely decorative in their contributions), timpani, celeste… and one horn (Samuel Jacobs) whose role was pivotal, somehow providing all the chilling, suspenseful, intense atmosphere that made more elaborate orchestration superfluous.

The cello dominates the first movement, but there are fleeting, less troubled, almost lyrical and rhapsodic passages in the second movement, plenty of scope to hear the orchestra’s dramatic strength under Oundjian’s highly expressive leadership. The four movements are played without break, so the extended and often magically beautiful cadenza which slowly takes shape at the end of the second actually comprises the third movement.

The last movement returns to the troubled spirit of the first, involves the cello in impressive passages combining bowing while plucking strings with the left hand. The work ends with repeated assertions of both the composer’s self-awareness and the emotional value of the signature DSCH (his name abbreviated in German musical notation) as an enigmatic motif. Just in case we were to forget who the composer was: but neither this performance, nor the work itself will ever make that likely.

A charming encore by John Williams was something of an antidote, perhaps a bit long considering the environment.

Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet 
The second half was taken with a memorable performance of about half of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet ballet music – about an hour. The programme book did not attempt to list the numbers included: most were familiar from the three orchestral suites that Prokofiev himself put together, but there were certain episodes not so familiar. Again, perhaps there was a bit much; without the important accompaniment of the staged ballet, the music itself, even in all its variety, dramatic strength, visual evocativeness and its ability to conjure one’s recollections of the ballet itself, doesn’t quite hold a concert audience as does a Mahler or Bruckner symphony of similar length.

Nevertheless, this was a performance that should have reinforced the belief that we have here an orchestra of real international distinction, able to capture a huge range of musical colours and narrative characteristics. A score like Prokofiev’s, though not demanding all the peripheral instrumental forces that some Strauss or Mahler scores do, make prolonged demands on everything from heroic virtuosity to chamber music subtlety and refinement with equal conviction.

So at its end, apart from delight at having lived through the previous two and a quarter hours, I remained all the more disturbed that an obviously remarkable concert had not pulled a full house.

 

Solo recital by Johannes Moser
St Andrew’s on The Terrace
Sunday 15 October, 3 pm

The added attraction of a solo recital by the soloist was advertised for the following afternoon. It’s a practice that the orchestra should adopt routinely with its soloists who could often serve to attract people to kinds of music – chamber music or song – that might normally be outside their main interests.

At St Andrew’s on Sunday, 3 pm, Moser played three Bach solo cello suites: No 1 in G, No 4 in E flat and No 3 in C. The church was near full. And the three performances were of spell-binding, compelling strength. We have come a great distance from the days when it was proper to play these and other baroque music as if in a straight-jacket, as if baroque instruments and their players didn’t allow rhythmic, dynamic expressive variety. These performances were hugely fluent and expressive with episodes in the preludes and the sarabandes, for example, that were emotional, pensive and full of humanity, and where clusters of notes and double-stopping turned them into impressive ensemble works rather than just one person on one cello.

And on the other hand we heard lively dances in which Moser’s suggestion that the suites could be heard as if describing the phases of a social gathering, from introductory, exploratory preludes through somewhat formal, conversational allemandes to more relaxed, letting-hair-down courantes, gigues or bourrées (in nos 3 and 4), was an interesting way of envisaging developments.

It was indeed a most rewarding hour-an-a-half, both for the audience, and I hope for the orchestra management which should be inspired to expand on this example.

In earlier years, such concerts were organised routinely – just one example, I recall recitals by Julius Katchen in the St James Theatre; but they were frequent.

But I see nothing to indicate such recitals in the 2019 programmes. Surely some of the soloists featured would be delighted to offer small-scale recitals – mezzos Susan Graham and Anna Larsson; soprano Lauren Snouffer; pianists Joyce Yang, Denis Kozhukhin, Steven Osborne, Louis Lortie; violinists Carolin Widmann, Jennifer Koh; trumpeter Håken Hardenberger, the orchestra’s own horn-player Samuel Jacobs … or the quartets of singers in the Choral Symphony and Messiah???

 

Choral concert to celebrate new digital organ at Cathedral of Saint Paul

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Organ Festival: Choral anthems 

Choirs and Choristers of Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul, Choir of the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Sacred Heart (Directors Michael Stewart and Michael Fletcher, organists Richard Apperley and Michael Stewart)

Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul

Saturday, 13 August 2018, 7 pm

With the organ moved to the side, the rather small audience had full view of the choirs in their red cassocks.  In his introduction, Michael Stewart referred to ‘choral blockbusters’; we had a few of them!  First was Handel’s famous coronation anthem ‘Zadok the Priest’.  It was sung with the usual robust cheerfulness, as was the next anthem, Parry’s ‘I was glad’.  Richard Apperley accompanied this in fine style, giving a ringing fanfare at the beginning.  The effect when the choir came in was thrilling.

Again (cf Friday night’s organ recital) I did not hear the clarity from this digital organ that would have been present in the pipe organ that was damaged in the November 2016 Kaikoura earthquake.  In the quiet parts, Apperley used the Choir manual, and throughout both choir and organ had a commendable range of dynamics.  The choir moved to several different positions for the different items; throughout, the singing was good.  The sound from the two choirs was unified in singing this music, which is tricky in places.  It is one of Parry’s most effective compositions, and not as bombastic as some of his utterances; rather it has a positive mood.

Before his solo item, Michael Stewart remarked that the organ was very comfortable to play.  He played ‘Fête’ by Jean Langlais (French composer for the organ again), an appropriate choice for initiating a new organ.  In festive style, we were caught up in a whirligig of excitement.  Especially in the slower sections, both Solo (right hand) and Choir (left hand) organs were used.  The final passages were jubilant, with plenty of foot-work.

Now it was the turn of the children who make up the Cathedral Choristers.  First, they sang a piece by Sir John (alias Johnny) Dankworth: ‘Light of the World”.  This was beautifully sung.  Next was ‘Look at the world’, words and music both, by the prolific British choral composer John Rutter.  This was a more difficult sing, but well performed.  Both items were sung in unison, accompanied by Richard Apperley.   The choristers were joined by the Cathedral choir to perform Jonatham Dove’s ‘Gloria’ from his Missa Brevis.  This British composer’s bright and jazzy piece incorporated a rapid organ accompaniment and a grand ending.

Gerald Finzi, another Brit. despite his surname, wrote charming, lyrical music. The combined three choirs sang his anthem ‘Lo, the full, final sacrifice’, with words by the mystical poet Richard Crashaw, who flourished in the early seventeenth century.  The performance was notable for the very fine men’s voices.  Not to demean the women, who sang extremely well, but it is often the men who are the weaker parts of a choir.

It was good to have the words printed in the programme, because it was not always easy to pick them up in this resonant building.  The music was very varied; some pensive, some jubilant.  Likewise the organ accompaniment – very dramatic.  The piece ended in a calm, peaceful ‘Amen’.

After the interval came an organ solo from Richard Apperley.  In his introductory remarks, the organist said that his improvisation upon this piece was the final music at the last service in the Cathedral before the earthquake – therefore the very last on the pipe organ.  He explained that the music built to cataclysmic effects, not inappropriately.  It was not clear if today’s performance included improvisation.

The piece was ‘Evocation II’ by Thierry Escaich, another French organist and composer, this time, contemporary. A repeated pedal note and staccato chords above gave a sense of foreboding as did the alternation between manuals, and gradual build-up of volume.  It ended in a ‘Wow!’ moment.

Michael Fletcher from Sacred Heart Cathedral now conducted the two adult choirs in Edward Bairstow’s ‘Blessed city, heavenly Salem’, with Michael Stewart at the organ.  The composer’s dates (1874-1946) put him between Parry and Rutter.  A lyrical  piece, it was in a style distinct from both his predecessor and his successor.  The music changed moods to suit the words.  The choirs not only sang accurately, they exhibited a splendid soaring tone.  The organ also went from ff to ppp.  A soprano solo in the last verse, with sotto voce accompaniment from choir and organ, was most effective; the anthem had a beautiful, subtle ending.

Zoltán Kodály was the only non-English composer represented.  His quite substantial choral and organ work, ‘Laudes Organi’ simply means ‘In praise of organs’.  It was based on a medieval text, and was written in 1966, a year before the composer died.  The organ as an instrument goes back to much more ancient times than the medieval; the Romans had small organs.

The Latin text was translated in the programme.  The second verse consists of instruction to the musician who will play the instrument.  The organist is instructed not to stand on the bellows, but to practice hard.  The choirs were preceded by a long, varied organ introduction.

The choral music not only featured very effective part-writing, it was illustrative of the words, notably at the beginning of the second verse: ‘Musician! Be a soldier; train yourself…’  Before the last verse (of four) there was a gorgeous organ interlude.  A jubilant organ postlude followed by a lovely polyphonic ‘Amen’, and final grand organ chords ended the work.  This was very fine singing and organ-playing indeed.

Like much of the composer’s music, the tonalities ran through a bunch of keys, or rather, made use of Hungarian modes, not exclusively those used in northern and western European music.  This made the music striking, significant, even magical in places; an admirable composition.

The last item of the evening was Vaughan Williams’s setting of the canticle ‘Let all the world in every corner sing’, words by the great metaphysical poet and cleric George Herbert.  After a great build-up from the organ, the choirs came in, in full voice for this well-known and dramatic setting.  Gymnastics were required from the organist, especially on the pedals.  Like the previous item, it was directed by Michael Stewart, with Richard Apperley at the organ.  Great refinement was evident in the quiet passages, before the piece’s upbeat ending.

Thus ended a memorable concert, aptly celebrating the new organ.
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“Sogno Barocco” and more We have recommendations for you. Your Amazon.com Today’s Deals See All Departments Lindis Taylor, Amazon.com has new recommendations for you based on items you purchased or told us you own. Sogno Baro
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Review The Book of Everything. NP This play has been the talk of Hamilton since it toured here last week. It was a bugger that I wasn’t able to go as was in Wellington. Many said it was the finest and most interesting play they had
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Recent Films. Well Jenny you are a real trooper and manage to see so much. How very brave and daring of you to go to Dead Lands. We thought it terrific. Very impressed that you enjoyed it so much – and sort of surp
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The Guardian today: Brussels raids: Belgium police arrest six people after suicide bombings View in browser the guardian todayFriday 25 Mar 2016 Editor’s picks More » Brussels raids: Belgium police arrest six people after suicide bombings Series of raids carried out late on Thursday as crit
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Waikawa 3 Yes fine with us —–Original Message—– From: Mark Taylor [mailto:marktaylor@xtra.co.nz] Sent: Friday, 25 March 2016 11:54 a.m. To: Chris Taylor <Chris-Taylor@clear.net.nz>; Lindis Taylor <LindisT
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FW: Music Matters, sort of Hello Janina This lady goes to many concerts here and overseas. You need to be aware of these problems and get them sort out. Best wishes Russell —–Original Message—– From: Jenny Wilson [mailto:
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[Friends] Reminder – Tudor Consort performs Schütz, Good Friday Hello everyone,Just a quick reminder about our concert tomorrow evening with Guest Director Peter Walls, Please find attached a recent interview with Peter talking about the programme. Our Holy Week c
Mar 24

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Rosemary <rogcoll@paradise.net.nz> Great news about what Matthew Painter has been able to accomplish! Re Thursday: I had suggested 3pm, but I’d rather do it earlier, if possible. I rang Jeanette’s cellphone as you suggested, but no rep

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lindistaylor@xtra.co.nz Picking this up at Otaki Tuesday midday. As we agreed on the phone, Rosemary, noon Thursday would suit me, Archives. Peter: how are you? Does this time suit you? Lindis

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Rosemary <rogcoll@paradise.net.nz> The Tudor Consort, conducted by Peter Walls Heinrich Schütz: Musikalische Exequien (Funeral Music), SWV 279-281 Matthäus-Passion (St. Matthew Passion), SWV 479 Soloists: John Beaglehole (tenor), Sim

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Heroic welcome for the new digital organ in St Paul’s Cathedral

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Cathedral Festival for the digital organ

Joseph Nolan, organ

Bach,: Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582
Franck: Prelude, Fugue and Variation
Marcel Dupré: Variations sur un Noël
Widor: Symphonie V in F minor, Op.42 no.1

Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul

Friday, 12 August 2018, 7:30 pm

To celebrate the inauguration of its new Viscount Regent Classic digital organ, the Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul has put on an Organ Festival.  The guest organist, Dr Joseph Nolan, is a British organist, formerly organist at the Chapels Royal in London (involving numbers of different organs, including one at Buckingham Palace), but since 2008, Organist and Master of Music at St. George’s Cathedral in Perth, Western Australia.

Probably due to a competing concert and to what was the coldest evening in Wellington all year, the audience was rather smaller than one would have expected.  A beautifully produced programme booklet was provided, for this recital and the next evening’s choral concert.  Magnificent photos of the organ console were on front and back of the booklet.  Inside, all information and full texts and translations for the choral items were given, in an easily-read typeface (as always when Michael Stewart has a hand in things).

The organ’s specifications and other details were printed in the programme.  There are 38 speaker cabinets, mainly housed (in rather ugly fashion) in the former main pipe chamber above the chancel, opposite the position of the late lamented pipe organ’s console.  A small number of speakers are in two other locations to the right and left, facing into the church.   The console has four manuals: Great, Swell, Choir and Solo, plus Pedal.  The organ was built by the Viscount company in England, with a custom-built console made by a Devon company.  The keys are wooden, so do not look white like the keyboards we are accustomed to.  All details were devised by Michael Stewart and Richard Apperley, Organist and Director of Music, and Assistant Director of Music respectively, at the Cathedral.

With twenty speaking stops for the pedals and only a small number fewer for each of the manuals, this is a large organ.  Swell, Choir and Solo are all shown as being ‘enclosed’.  On a pipe organ this would mean the relevant manuals’ pipes are enclosed in boxes, which can be opened or closed by the use of special foot pedals, to achieve softer or louder sounds. Of course, there are no pipes and no boxes with this organ, but the same effects can be achieved.  Pistons (which bring out various pre-set combinations of stops, when pressed) number over thirty thumb pistons, and over twenty toe pistons, which were of a different design from usual, the rubber (or similar) flat tops making it less likely that a foot would slip off them.

The organ resonated well in the building, though not having the same sort of resonance as a pipe organ.  I found the clarity somewhat less compared with the old  instrument, and the distinctive sounds of, for example, flute, oboe or diapason stops less, well, distinctive.

For this recital, the organ console was moved to a position below the chancel, but at the centre, so that the audience could readily see Dr Nolan in action.  For the choral concert on Saturday it was moved to its usual position, to the right.

Bach’s towering Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor was written while he was still quite a young man, when there were few demands for him to write a constant flow of church music, compared with the situation during his later years in Leipzig.

The Passacaglia consists of twenty variations on a theme, which is initially stated solely on pedals, the variations being sustained throughout by a repetition of the pedal part (or ostinato), which then becomes the main theme of the double fugue that follows.

When the manuals entered, the registration was not so hefty as to blot out the strong pedals.  The melody eventually moved from pedals to the Great manual, later to the Choir, each move bringing forth a different array of sounds.  Some may say that was not an ‘authentic’ performance, but it did demonstrate the organ’s capabilities.  The ending was fast, fantastic, and loud!

Not to mention the capabilities of Dr Nolan, whose facility at romping around the manuals and the pedal board was nothing short of astonishing.  There were lovely ripples from the Choir organ, returns to stentorian pedals, more stops added – but the result was never too thick. The elaborate, lengthy work was thrillingly executed by Dr Nolan, displaying not only his great ability but also the scope, resonance and fine quality of the organ.

Such is the veneration of Bach, Telemann, Buxtehude and others of the North German school, and the recordings we hear of English organs, many music-lovers may not realise the sheer plethora of cathedrals, and thus cathedral organs, in France.  A tour two years ago took me to some of these in southern France.  So it is not surprising that there are  many works written by French composers for the instrument.  Saint-Saëns and Poulenc are two eminent composers; each has written a major symphonic work for orchestra and organ, which are probably the only ones performed regularly by a standard symphony orchestra, with soloist.  Thus the remainder of the programme consisted of three works by French composers – as indeed was the encore..

Despite Franck not being one of my favourite composers, I find his Prelude, Fugue and Variation delightful, especially the simple but beautiful opening of the Prelude. Mellow tones on the Swell underpinned the melody, the latter played on the Choir organ.  Nolan employed less rubato than one often hears in performances of this work  The fugue utilised a bigger and heavier sound palette on the Great.  It was amusing to see the organist conducting himself with one hand while playing the Variation with the other.  Here again, nimble foot-work was remarkable.

A variety of attractive registrations were utilised on Swell and Great; the variations on the charming melody were enhanced by judicious stop choices.

I thought some of Nolan’s hand movements while playing were somewhat pianistic but that did not seem to affect the result .  Maybe he caught them from one of his teachers: New Zealand-born Gillian Weir, who has the same tendency.  His other principal teacher was the eminent Frenchwoman, Marie-Claire Alain.

The next work was by Marcel Dupré; his Variations are enchanting, based on a traditional French carol.  The melody was illuminated all over the organ. with delightful accompaniments.    Nolan exhibited amazing finger-work on the Great, especially in one very excitable variation.  This illustrated how responsive the keyboards are on this instrument.

The melody changed key, thus retaining the piece’s interest.  Dupré obviously had a great musical imagination; some of the variations were very quirky.  I was aware of distribution of sounds around the building; a fast, loud variation was definitely emanating from further to my left than others.  This was a brilliant, virtuoso performance.

Widor’s Toccata, the final movement of the symphony played as the last item on the programme, has had almost pop status for many years.  Written in 1870, the Symphonie is a massive work in more ways than one.  It has five movements, varying from the allegro vivace first movement to an adagio fourth movement, followed by the Toccata, which returns the work to a fast tempo.

The first movement was quite restrained and matter-of-fact, contrasting sounds from the Great and the Swell.  Some wonderful effects were achieved, especially on the Choir and Swell manuals, as the movement progressed – at speed!  The ending was quite rambunctious.  The second movement, allegro cantabile, produced an attractive singing melody from the Swell organ,  with an accompaniment below on the Great.  Another section consisted of an accompanied flute melody.  Nolan was again a magician on both manuals and pedals.

The andantino third movement began with pedals only.  The music moved to the Solo manual and then came a hymn-like pronouncement on the Great.  The pedal work involved using two feet on the go at once, an octave apart.  Full Great organ ensued.  Sometimes the sound was a bit muddy, such as you would not get from a pipe organ.  However, it has to be said that most of the time one was not aware that it was a digital organ.  The quiet ending of this movement led to the quiet adagio fourth movement’s chorale-like opening, with the ‘box closed’.  The dynamics went down to a triple piano softness.  I found the switch from ‘closed’ to ‘open’ a little too obvious.

Then the famous Toccata, with all its fire and sparkle, switching between manuals.  It made a very effective finale.  When the principal melody was being played on the pedals, it required toes and heels of both feet.  The last phrase was fortississimo!

The encore, quite lengthy, was the Finale of a Louis Vierne organ symphony, which showed off a lot of the organ’s range of sounds.  Some of the playing, here and elsewhere  was, I felt, too fast; the audience could not always appreciate all the subtlety and sounds of the fast figures in the music.

Nevertheless, this was a superb and dramatic recital, played with bravura and virtuosity.  It did the new instrument proud.

 

Sending it up on the double bass and sparkling at the piano, plus other strings

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Chamber Music New Zealand
Piers Lane (piano) and Hiroshi Ikematsu (double bass) and members of the New Zealand String Quartet: Monique Lapins (violin), Gillian Ansell (viola), Rolf Gjelsten (cello)

Schubert: Adagio and Rondo Concertante in F, D. 487
Piano Quintet in A Major, D. 667 (“Trout”)
Rossini: Duo for Cello and Double bass in D Major
Ross Harris: Orowaru (CMNZ Commission for the Quintet]

Michael Fowler Centre

Thursday 11 October, 7:30 pm

This concert in Chamber Music New Zealand’s subscription series had an unusual character.

It featured two international-class musicians alongside three of the members of the New Zealand String Quartet. Piers Lane has made several visits to New Zealand, including at least a couple of times to the Adam Chamber Music Festival in Nelson. As in the present concert, both pianist and bassist have often been in combination with chamber music ensembles. This was such a concert, made especially diverting through the involvement of bassist Hiroshi Ikematsu.

Schubert: mock ‘piano quartet’
They began with a piano quartet by Schubert which I’d never come across. It was written in 1816, when he was 19 or 20, his only piece for piano and string trio, and one of the first pieces for that combination. (Mozart had written two that are well known, in 1785-6; Beethoven wrote three (WoO 36) in his mid teens, in the same year as Mozart’s; Weber wrote one in 1809; Mendelssohn’s first three opus numbers are piano quartets, written typically, in his early teens, 1823–1825 aged about 15).

But Schubert’s is not formally a piano quartet for it has only two movements and presents itself as something of a showpiece, with a piano part that doesn’t sound designed for himself to play, at least not in the Rondo Allegro (he didn’t consider himself a concert pianist). However, the first movement, Adagio, offered genial, lyrical tunes that weren’t very sophisticated and one rather looked forward to perhaps a more mature, interesting Allegro movement. The second movement certainly lent itself to a more vivid and showy performance; its phrases were generally short-winded, and avoided any suggestion that Schubert’s intention was to compete with the pieces by Mozart which he might have known. Beethoven’s were not published till after his death. Piers Lane’s approach to the piano part was flamboyant in its fluency and dynamism, building towards the end with an extended Coda which gave the piece a stature that might have evaded other players.

But it hardly created a feeling that Schubert might have flourished as a composer of concertante music, such as a piano concerto.

Rossini’s Duo for cello and double bass
Hiroshi Ikematsu’s presence was explained by the Duo for cello and double bass by Rossini, written during a lucrative London visit in 1823 for a distinguished Italian bass player working in London, Dominico Dragonetti.

Rossini and Ikematsu were a perfect fit; both delighted in exploiting the potential of music to raise a smile, sometimes almost to give in to laughter. The bassist is one of those beings with the talent for exploiting the funny aspect, even sometimes not intended, of musical gestures, through a facial expression, his stance, and obviously what he does with his arms and hands. The kind of thing that in less intelligent and gifted musicians could seem crass and crude. But much of the wit was there in the music itself, but only if the player(s) can exploit it, and Gjelsten perfectly matched his companion in a slightly less riotous wit. If you need proof that it’s possible to play the piece straight – beautifully certainly – but without the jokes and japes, look at one of the YouTube recordings like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqzuuOdKsAg&start_radio=1&list=RDtqzuuOdKsAg&t=67.

Ikematsu, without disrespect to Rossini, sometimes seemed to mock his own or the cello part, suggested that as the cello sounds were actually disappearing off the top of the A string, a quick scratch of the nose… He toys with the audience’s expectations that this is the end of the first movement… he fails, tries again, misses again, and so on.

They subtly send up the slow movement (and Rolf Gjelsten played his part immaculately, with his own subtle humour), making the combination of cello bowing and bass pizzicato hilariously absurd; one is hard pressed to understand just how they do it. And towards the end Ikematsu secretively creates ethereal sul ponticello sounds with a weird posture; it leads to another protracted Rossini-style finale send-up.

Harris: Orowaru
Then the scene changed dramatically; all five players assembled for Ross Harris’s newly-commissioned work, Orowaru (the rippling sound of water). There’s no scope here for mockery or visual or musical jokes.

Harris has created a delicate tapestry of sound that suggests very evocatively not just the literal sounds of running water, specifically in three trout-fishing rivers round Lake Taupo: Hineaiaia, Waipehi and Tongariro. It also picks up rather more metaphysical or religious aspects of the sacred art of trout fishing; for here was the crux of the concert. Ikematsu, in addition to his bass talents, is a gifted trout fisherman, and legends about his preternatural skills which are evidently attaining the status of miracles in the mysterious world of fishing, even though it involves a non-indigenous fish. Obviously, it connects with the last piece in the concert, Schubert’s Trout Quintet, and Orowaru employs the same instruments.

The piece rather successfully creates, not just specific watery sounds that may or may not be music, but the play of and between the five instruments, the appearance of recognisable musical motifs, and a sense of shape and change in the way a normally constructed piece of music does, held the attention through musical processes rather than mere imitation of the sounds of water.

And no, I didn’t pick just when we moved from the Hineaiaia to the Waipehi river, but did feel that the scene had changed after a little while. But the bell-bird (?) at the end was audible enough.

Then the Trout Quintet. After the careful and discreet performances by all five players in Orowaru, this was a performance that, perhaps significantly influenced by the very conspicuous musical personality of the pianist, was boisterous, extravert, not the least reflective; and it was again the opportunity for Ikematsu’s bass to express it’s player’s love of surprise and the slightly unorthodox.

Nevertheless, in spite of the occasional feeling that there was a distinct difference in the spirit of the performance between the full quintet and strings alone, without piano, it was easy to recognise a very conspicuous rapport among all five.

I put it down to the fact that Schubert wrote more naturally for the piano than for strings, though the character of his last quartets and the two piano trios make that a doubtful remark.

The spirit of the playing and at times the unexpected brevity of movements made me wonder whether a repeat had been passed over; though I had intended to check that with a score, my own miniature score is missing, and so… In the light of Schubert’s tendency to extend his material, in his later works, almost excessively, nothing here outstayed its welcome; the Scherzo was a singularly exhilarating case.

The Trout itself, in the fourth movement, was varied and colourful, perhaps not giving much opportunity to lament the eventual fate of the fish (does Ikematsu have ambivalent feelings here?). It was here in particular that in contrast to Helene Pohl’s luminous tone, Monique Lapins’ presence as violinist was less arresting, but warmer.

The finale was a splendid, piano-led romp, that tempts applause before its time but ended quite unscathed. A delightful concert.

 

Diverting, varied, guitar recital by NZSM students

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand School of Music Guitars

Music by Brahms, de Falla, Ravel, Philip Houghton, Barrios

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 10 October 2018, 12.15pm

It was not easy to understand what were the alterations to this concert’s programme, caused in part by illness; the microphone not working (as indeed it did not the previous week) didn’t help matters.

First up in this varied programme were Rameka Tamaki and Oliver Featherston.  They played as a guitar duo Theme & Variations from Sextet Opus 18 (second movement) by Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897), arranged by the great guitarist John Williams.  The work was in B-flat major, and was composed in the summer of 1860, while Brahms was staying near the River Elbe. It was premiered later in Hanover, by an ensemble led by Brahms’s colleague, the violinist Joseph Joachim.

The second movement andante was played in a very pleasant arrangement. The fact of it being a theme and variations based on Hungarian rhythms and sonorities made it somehow suitable for guitars. There was perfect co-ordination between the players, despite plenty of technical demands.  For the most part the music was gentle and delicate, throughout this quite long movement.

Music from Falla’s opera La Vide Breve is quite well-known, particularly the orchestral music from it, such as this Spanish Dance, adapted for performance by two guitars by Emilio Pujol, and played by the same duo as was the first piece on the programme.  It was a thoroughly pleasing performance of this delightful, bright piece.

Next were two solos, both by Agustin Barrios (1885-1944), who was born in Paraguay, but lived in other parts of Latin America for most of his life.  He wrote many works, mainly short ones, for guitar.  Chris Everest played his La Catedral and Rameka Tamaki played Julia Florida.   The first consisted of three movements; after a short Preludio came an Andante, followed by Allegro.  This was an attractive solo, the player obtaining gorgeous resonance from his instrument.  The middle movement was slow and pensive, beautifully executed.  The third movement was fast, with a sustained melody over  running accompaniment.  This demanded, and achieved, great skill.

Like the first, the second soloist played from memory.  Gentle and lilting Julia Florida qualified as a pretty piece (that is not meant to sound demeaning!).  Like the previous piece by Barrios, it was full of interest, and quite demanding on the player – I thought I noticed a few missed notes, but overall, it was another fine performance.

Megan Robson, Finn Perring, Chris Everest played an arrangement of String Quartet in F, (second movement) by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), arranged by Winton Yuichiro White, a contemporary American composer chiefly associated with film music. Ravel completed the quartet in 1903.

The movement is marked Assez vif – très rythmé. The pizzicato theme is eminently suited to the guitar; what was striking in the arrangement was the long passages played at a very high pitch – not so common perhaps in guitar music.  It was a spirited rendition, ending in a flourish.  As the programme note stated “White made use of the classical guitar’s large range of colours and techniques, utilising a 7-string guitar, to create a convincing impression of the piece.”

The programme ended with a delightful Suite by Australian Phillip Houghton (1954-2017): A Masque for Lady Nothing.  It was made up of seven short movements, and was played by Joel Baldwin and Oliver Featherston (violin and guitar).
1. Fanfare
2. Bonsai Garden
3. Tinkers’ Dance
4. Le Tombeau de Juliet
5. The King’s Blue Frog Galliard
6. Lovers Dance
7. Spanish Spaniards Pilfer Portuguese Parrots

The work was commissioned by the Sydney Guitar Trio, for the 1999 Darwin International Guitar Festival and is inspired by ancient modal music illustrating seven scenes for a masque (a Renaissance celebration of dance, song, art and all things magical), held in a long-lost kingdom. Below I reproduce the programme note, slightly edited.

“Each movement depicts a different story – Fanfare: the entire kingdom gathering in the woods outside the castle. Jugglers, incense, dancing and a body painter named Bosch. Let the celebrations begin! Bonsai Garden: a world where everything big is small, where stillness is a fragrant breeze. Tinker’s Dance: bawdy and swaggering, not too fast though, they’re all drunk.  “Le Tombeau de Juliet” depicts the tomb of Juliet in silence, all hearts each recall their own true love. “The King’s Blue Frog Galliard”: is a gleeful and slightly clumsy dance, obnoxious and rude. The typical instrumentation of the lute is imitated with bright ponticello and harmonics. “Lovers Dance” is flowing, graceful and entwined. Spanish Spaniards Pilfer Portuguese Parrots depicts how in olden days, not only did Spain have a superior armada than Portugal, but also a superior network of parrot smuggling.”

 

NZSM cellists under Inbal Megiddo play cello favourites, some rare, some in disguise, all skilled and entertaining

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand School of Music Cellos, led by Inbal Megiddo

Music by Mozart, Grűzmacher, Bach, Vivaldi, Brubeck, Gershwin, Joplin

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 3 October 2018, 12:15 pm

lnbal Megiddo is the head of Cello Studies at the New Zealand School of Music.  Along with her today were seven cello students, all highly competent on the instrument.  Their varied programme was heard by a sizeable audience.

The programme commenced with a very fine arrangement of Mozart’s Overture to his opera The Magic Flute, by Douglas Moore, an American composer who died in 1969. The tone of the four cellists who played this was not always well-blended.   The names of the players (five females including Megiddo, and three males) were given in the printed programme, but they were not identified individually for each piece played.

Verbal explanations were given rather too fast for everything to be clearly heard.  Megiddo explained the origins of two of the cellos – the first was given by the family of the late Wellington luthier and cellist, Ian Lyons.  The origin of the other I could not hear.  Two of the group played these instruments in Friedrich Grutzmacher’s Duo for two cellos, Op.22 no.2. Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Grützmacher was a noted German cellist in the second half of the 19th century.  This was most attractive music, very well played. The upper part was quite lovely, with an interesting lower part accompanying.  The two players swapped places from time to time, i.e alternating between upper and lower part throughout the performance so that both got a chance to be the soloist.  There were gymnastics for both parts.

Next we turned to J S  Bach; Prelude and Fugue from Suite no.5 in C minor.  It was arranged by Laszlo Varga, (1924-2014), a Hungarian-born American cellist.  The effect of the Prelude arrangement was quite romantic.  In the Fugue, the separate entries of the instruments revealed the differing timbres of each individual instrument.

A fast version of the three movements of  ‘Winter’ from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (RV 297, Op.4 no.8) followed, in an arrangement by James Barralet, a British cellist.  Inbal Megiddo played the solo parts in the first two movements; the largo was beautifully rendered.  A student performed the solo in the third movement (allegro) in fine style.  It was exquisitely played, and the performers’ ensemble was splendid.

Elegy was quite different from David Brubeck’s other compositions (assuming this is the famed jazz composer Dave Brubeck) such as the well-known Take Five.  It lived up to its title superbly. Again, Megiddo played the solo rather mournful but beautiful melody.  The music fell away to pianissimo at the end. The players had a lovely blend here.The Gershwin standard ‘Summertime’ from Porgy and Bess kept us in the United States; it was short and sweet, but effective, with Megiddo again playing solo.

Finally, in jazz-land again, we heard The Entertainer, a 1902 classic piano rag written by Scott Joplin (1868-1917).  Again the players revealed their expertise.  Although intonation was no always perfect, the playing was full of contrast, including in an excellent pizzicato passage. A cellist in the audience told me that most of this programme had been performed at this year’s Cellophonia, for cellists; ‘a week of music making and expert coaching from international musicians’ held in late August, at the New Zealand School of Music, Victoria University of Wellington.

 

 

 

Violin and piano competition winners show robust musical and technical gifts and fine rapport

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Waikanae Music Society
Ioana Cristina Goicea (violin) and Andrey Gugnin (piano)

Schubert: Rondo in B minor, D.895, “Rondo Brilliant”
Enescu: Sonata no.3 “In Romanian folk Style”
Brahms: Sonata no.3 in D minor, Op.108
Brahms: Scherzo in C minor, from the F.A.E. Sonata

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday 30 September 2018, 2:30 pm

A concert of illustrious music from an illustrious duo.  Ioana Cristina Goicea is the winner of the 2017 Michael Hill a Violin Competition, and Andrey Gugnin the winner of the 2016 Sydney International Piano Competition.  Their tour of New Zealand with Chamber Music New Zealand is in association with the Michael Hill Competition.  A good-sized audience heard this noteworthy recital, the last in the Waikanae Music Society’s 2018 series.

It wasn’t difficult to see why such accomplished musicians won their respective competitions.  Both have won numbers of other international competitions also.

The Schubert Rondo starts dramatically, revealed gorgeous tone from the violin, and demonstrated much subtle shading of dynamics, and lyrical playing.  The piece switched between major an minor tonalities, and employed a persistent dotted rhythm.  This first section was marked andante.  The music became faster and more excited in the second section, allegro; even dance-like.

The piano gets a turn at expounding the theme, after more-or-less continuous violin.

The piece featured sundry false endings.  The last section was fast and brilliant: a showpiece for the violin.  The opening theme and the dotted rhythm return; there is quite a lot of repetition.  It was a spirited performance.

The next piece was in quite another genre, by the pre-eminent composer from the violinist’s homeland: Romania.  Enescu’s sonata was described in the programme notes as “Invigorating and edgy, one feels the pulse the pulse of Eastern European fold dance…”  (There were numerous misrelated dependant clauses like this in the notes; n.b.  NZSO, guilty often of the same grammatical error.)

The work’s chromatic opening was gentle, with Eastern European tonalities.  The notes slithered here and there, like a slow, seductive dance.  Then the music broke into a faster dance.  The tempo marking moderato malinconico means ‘moderately; melancholy’, but I didn’t find this a dominant feature.  Full-toned low notes from the violin were notable.  The music returned to the slower tempo before enlivening again, and closing pianissimo. This was an intrepid movement, full of variety.

The second movement, andante sostenuto e misterioso began similarly softly.  There were many brilliant touches for the violin, particularly in the upper register.  The music then broke into a jolly dance, with birds joyfully accompanying from above.  But the mood soon became ominous, as though a cloudburst had fallen on the dancers.  Exciting descending piano ripples followed, and then the peace was restored in a restrained, muted passage

The third movement, allegro con brio ma non troppo, featured sprightly music, in unison for a time, with decorations, and very rhythmic.  Then we were back to the deep notes from the unison section, the violin part being most effective, including fast pizzicato.  The movement brought to an end a spectacular musical journey.

Throughout, the ensemble between these two superb musicians was perfect.

After the interval, we came to more sombre music, by Brahms.  His third sonata for violin and piano opens melodiously, in D minor.  It was played very thoughtfully; every note beautifully placed; nothing unimaginatively slurred, the many delights in Brahms’s writing appropriately exposed.  The playing from both was robust when required, but always the tone and timbre were splendid.

Brahms always gives the piano plenty of interesting music to play.  A passionate rendering of the main theme brought the first movement (allegro) to an end.

The serious adagio second movement introduced a wonderful broad, calm theme; the movement ended as peacefully as it began.  The third movement, un poco presto e con sentimento features lively rhythm and chirpy sequences for both instruments.

The fourth movement, presto agitato,, has thematic links with what has gone before  There are grand statements with answering phrases, and many mellifluous episodes.  It becomes fast and hectic; cascades on the piano end it.

Last on the programme was a delightful scherzo, from a quartet written as a collaborative project with some of the composer’s close friends.  The letters F, A and E denote not only the musical pitches, but also the personal motto of his friend, violinist Joseph Joachim: ‘frei aber einsam‘ (free but lonely*).

It opened quite ambiguously as to key, like others of Brahms’s compositions.  This is an early work, and is more extravert than the later sonata we had just heard, although it soon became thoughtful, even sublime, before the busy opening sequence returned, interspersed by passages of great delicacy.

As well as showing great musical and technical ability, this duo exhibited a strong rapport; they played as a unity, with each nevertheless revealing their own particular skills.

*Gloss by Lindis Taylor
“I have always felt that this translation of Einsam doesn’t reflect what Brahms might have meant. Certainly, it translates as ‘lonely’, and that is the usual translation, but is also means and here feels better translated, according to my instinct, as ‘solitary’. The latter removes the element of self-pity that colours ‘lonely’, and my feeling about Brahms is that he valued being alone, but didn’t suffer loneliness – apart from the emotions that might have derived from his enigmatic relationship with Clara Schumann.”

 

Aroha Quartet with animated, robust, delightful evening concert at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Aroha String Quartet (Haihong Liu and Anne Loeser, violins; Zhongxian Jin, viola; Robert Ibell, cello)
‘Light and Dark’

Haydn: String Quartet in C, Op.76 no. 3 ‘Emperor’
Ross Carey: Elegy (Toccatina)
Shostakovich: String Quartet no.11 in F minor, Op. 122
Dvořák: String Quartet no.12 in F, Op.96 ‘American’

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 26 September 2019, 7:30 pm

It was most unfortunate that this concert had had to be rescheduled; this made it clash with another chamber music concert in the city, which was presumably responsible for the rather small audience.

Anne Loeser substituted for the regular second violinist Ursula Evans, the latter having had an injury.

The two older works on the programme had been played By this group at a St. Andrew’s lunchtime concert less than a year ago (see Lindis Taylor’s review, Middle-C, 6 December 2017.)  The Shostakovich was played at lunchtime two months ago; see Lindis’s review, Middle-C, 26 July 2018.  The Ross Carey, too, had been played before by the Aroha Quartet.  See Peter Mechen’s review of 26 October 2016.

Accuracy you expect from an experienced quartet such as the Aroha, but the animation of their playing is noteworthy, also the subtle shading of dynamics, and the warm, often mellifluous tone, and excellent balance.

The Haydn quartet’s first movement (allegro) was robust and delicate by turns as required, making for both exciting abd pleasurable listening.  The second movement is famous for the theme, which became the Austrian national anthem, and is widely used as a hymn-tune.  The four variations each feature a different soloist from the quartet.  The first variation has the second violin to the fore, its rendition of the melody embroidered by the first violin’s arpeggios and runs.  The other instruments have a rest.

The second variation features the cello, with counterpoint from the violins, and a few comments from the viola.  The playing was rich and sonorous from the cello.  The third variation is for the viola, playing a restrained version of the melody with the violins floating above, finally joined by the cello halfway through.  The first violin takes over for the last variation, with the other instruments playing a harmonic accompaniment.

The minuet and trio third movement is of a much more jolly nature.  A few hairy notes early on did not really detract from a delightful performance.  The trio, initially in a minor key, gave a complete contrast.  The repeat of the minuet brought back the bouncy theme, with its wonderful interplay of parts and instruments.  The finale is fast and dynamically varied, incorporating shades of earlier movements, mainly the first.

The piece by New Zealander Ross Carey was not long, and was written in memory of an Australian Aboriginal singer.  Its lively opening featured a repeated dotted rhythm; a perpetuum mobile with a dark melody on viola.  It moved to the second violin and then the first violin.  The cello introduced a new melody on the upper reaches of the strings.  What a different timbre this produced compared with a violin playing notes at the same pitch!  The first violin then took over this quieter section, which had a Mendelssohnian quality.  The insistent rhythm from the beginning returned, then solemn, slow passages ended this attractive work.

Shostakovich’s 11th quartet is in seven short movements, played without pauses between them.  It was written in memory of his violinist friend, Vasily Shirinsky, in 1966. The first movement is ‘Introduction – Andantino’. It began somewhat portentously; slow, chromatic phrases, glissando flourishes  on violin and cello.

After the ‘Scherzo – Allegretto’, the following ‘Recitative – Adagio’ has a harsh introduction, and features a first violin solo that includes passages of double-stopping. over the top of the other instruments’ accompaniment.  Then comes ‘Etude – Allegro’ with fast runs for first violin and cello.   Later movements introduce more dissonant chords, and restrained melody from the first violin.

Following the ironically named ‘Humoresque – Allegro’, the sixth movement ‘Elegy – Adagio’ is calm and profound, leading to the final movement, which recapitulates earlier themes.  The end comes as quite a shock (Finale – Moderato).

The popular ‘American’ Quartet by Dvořák ended the concert.  The melodic and rhythmic invention of the composer is a constant source of delight.    One of the melodies (third movement) was based on an American bird, a picture of which Robert Ibell showed the audience, and the first violinist played its song for us.

The rich opening viola solo set the tone for a joyful experience, and brought home to me how much better it is to hear a live performance rather than a recording, no matter how good the latter.  This first movement was taken at quite a spanking pace compared with other performances I have heard (allegro ma non troppo).  The melody that follows the opening section was sublime.  Then there is a repeat of the first melody, with pizzicato accompaniment, followed by a return of the second subject, with lovely harmony underpinning it.  The whole is full of delightful and even ingenious touches.

The second movement (lento) introduces a fabulous melody, which is especially so when played by cello – ravishingly beautiful, while the third movement’s molto vivace has a folksy feel to it, like a country dance in the composer’s native Bohemia, with everyone having a good time.  The harmonies were most satisfying, as was the finale: vivace ma non troppo; a very cheerful and melodic movement, even more like a country dance than the previous one.

While it was excellent for the printed programme notes to acknowledge the sources of information, I think it was a mistake to fit it into the same format as that used for the lunchtime concerts: a folded A4 sheet.  With a much longer and more substantial musical offering, the space required forced the splendid notes into a tiny font which I for one could not read in the church.  All things are possible but not all things are expedient.