Category: Live performance

Engaging recital of obscure, quirky music on saxophone and harp at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Duo Eolienne: Genevieve Davidson (saxophone) and Michelle Velvin (harp)

Music by Debussy, Yusef Lateef, Britten, Bernard Andres, Satie, William Alwyn

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 11 April 12:15 pm

Here was a recital that seemed to fit the space acoustically and offered a range of mostly unfamiliar music that was yet approachable; many of the audience might well be happy to hear these pieces again.

The first piece was by a sixteen-year-old Debussy: Beau soir (beautiful evening). The words of the poem by Paul Bourget were printed and we were left to assume that the score, presumably voice and piano, had been arranged for saxophone and harp. In a shy, gentle triple rhythm it produced a peaceful mood as the poet employs the image of a stream flowing to the sea suggesting life ending in the grave. It worked well for and was played charmingly by both instruments.

Yusef Lateef’s piece, Romance for soprano saxophone and harp, was actually written for these instruments. It was a longer piece, featuring quirky solos: I was able to tell it had finished only when the next piece, Britten’s Six Metamorphoses after Ovid, for solo oboe (saxophone) began. Its moods varied: evocative, fanciful, imaginative.

Two of Britten’s Six Metamorphoses dealt with Pan and Phaeton. Obviously, the saxophone was well suited to Pan, and the impression of Phaeton who came to grief by riding on the sun’s chariot may well have been an accurate picture of that interesting bit of Greek mythology; they were slight though beautifully crafted pieces.

French composer and harpist Bernard Andrès obviously pursues the classical music rather than popular or jazz tradition. I have the impression that he is a major figure in the contemporary harp fraternity; he wrote a large number of solo harp Preludes and judging by the two he played (nos 12 and 14) owes much to the traditions of Chopin and Debussy. The harp in these Preludes suggested a piano influence, their feet firmly planted on the ground, in music of a formal spirit and shape. The second piece was much livelier than the first.

Satie’s Gnossiennes, Nos 1, 2 and 3, were originally piano pieces but their scoring for saxophone and harp came very close to whatever their classical source was, and these players offered a very convincing case for hearing them in this guise. Though less popular than the Gymnopédies, the Gnossiennes evoke a classical world rather well. There is more variety of melody and texture, and they suggest greater kinship with traditional classical compositional styles and spirits. Satie’s reputation has suffered through being seen, lazily, as little more than an odd-ball, eccentric who was mainly interested in mocking and satirising his contemporaries and the classical tradition. I have long felt that he is a much more important and interesting a composer than that. The plaintive character of the soprano saxophone suited this music; its nuances were a great contribution to the interpretation.

The recital ended with William Alwyn’s Little Suite for Oboe and Harp, obviously an excellent candidate for the switch to soprano sax. Alwyn was, as the programme note said, a rather neglected composer, perhaps because of his fecundity and the multiplicity of genres and styles he adopted. In large part his neglect is that of many composers who chose to remain in the main-stream classical tradition rather than adopt the doctrines of the avant-garde, and who devote themselves to writing for each other and for academic approval rather than for real music lovers.

The three dances were firstly, a Minuet of gentle charm, then a quicker Valse, strongly melodic with a surprise ending, and finally, a fast Jig, with a slower section in the middle and another surprise ending.

This piece in not of Mahlerian scale or moral depth or Boulezian complexity and intellectual bite, but it’s attractive and was played with levity and skill; it suggests that there’s other Alwyn music worth exploring.

So it was an enjoyable, stimulating little recital delivered by two excellent musicians.

Wellington Chamber Orchestra in interesting Alfred Hill exploratory mode

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Wellington Chamber Orchestra conducted by Donald Maurice, with Jian Liu (piano)

Brahms: Tragic Overture, Op.81
Alfred Hill: Piano Concerto in A (New Zealand première)
Richard Strauss: Symphony no.2 in F minor

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday, 8 April 2018, 2.30pm

An adventurous and stimulating programme was chosen by the Wellington Chamber Orchestra for this first concert of 2018.  The works demanded, and received, almost a full symphony orchestra.  Whether the bright acoustic of St. Andrew’s can cope with this number of players, including brass (mercifully this time not in the sanctuary – it was occupied by the piano, and the percussion) is another matter.  A number of rows of seating had been removed front of the church to accommodate the 64 players.

The programme was planned around the linkages between the composer.  The young Alfred Hill, fresh from Wellington, studied in Leipzig from 1887 to 1891, saw Brahms conduct, and heard this early symphony of Richard Strauss.  Hill’s own work was composed when he was 72.  The excellent programme notes not only made these linkages, but also provided other interesting information.  ‘This programme, while having much stylistic similarity, clearly highlights the unique language of each of these three composers…’.  Neither Strauss nor Hill, despite living in a time of much change in musical language, departed much from the Romantic style of their youth.

Brahms’s overture was written in 1880.  Wikipedia calls it ‘…in essence a free-standing symphonic movement…’.  It has much more complexity and variety than most overtures.  There was plenty of life and feeling in this performance.  There were a few shaky notes, but in the main the playing was strong.  Winds were very good, for the most part.  Brahms’s luscious orchestration was given full expression.  The work’s serious themes, at times grand, were given full weight .

Alfred Hill, is a composer claimed by both New Zealand and Australia (he lived in both countries).  A review of Piers Lane’s recording of this concerto in 2016 (Hyperion) says: ‘Alfred Hill’s 1941 concerto has a breezy, sunny disposition, with hardly a dark cloud in the sky…’.  It was written when Hill was in his 70s, and had been largely lost sight of.  Donald Maurice, today’s conductor, has been a champion of Hill’s music, and has recorded (as violist in the Dominion Quartet) many of the composer’s string quartets, which feature the same cheerfulness as the concerto.

Hill named the movements thus: 1. The Question: adagio, allegro moderato; 2. Intermezzo (Fancies): presto; 3. Nocturne (Homage to Chopin): adagio con moto; 4. Finale (Contrasts): allegro.

After a short introductory adagio, the animated allegro arrived.  The questions were between the piano and the orchestra.  The movement became romantic; there were echoes of Rachmaninov.  A lovely oboe melody featured, beautifully played.  A brilliant piano part was expertly performed by Jian Liu.  Although the work must have been new to him, his assurance and subtlety in rendering it were impressive.  The orchestral writing, however, was sometimes rather pedestrian, though for the most part elsewehere, Hill’s orchestration was skilled and appealing.

The second movement’s Fancies were most imaginative.  The music of this short movement was imitative between piano and orchestra.  The third had a romantic, lyrical main theme.  There was piquant writing for percussion and woodwinds.  The gentle piano writing was indeed reminiscent of Chopin in places.

The finale was agitated, yet assured.  A fine bassoon solo was followed by a dramatic, extended piano solo, which I thought included touches of Mendelssohn.  Then we were into a grandiose tutti to end.  The audience gave the players, and particularly the soloist, a great reception.

In contrast with Hill’s age when writing his concerto, Strauss was only 19-20 years old when he wrote his second symphony, which Hill heard performed in Leipzig a few years after its composition.  Its first movement, allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso.  After its intriguing opening, great use was made of  the four horns (perhaps naturally, since the composer’s father was a professional horn player).

This was complex music in places, and it showed in rather more out-of-tune playing in the strings than had been apparent in the earlier works.  Some of the music revealed the presence of Wagner.  The maestoso passages had me expecting to see Siegfried pop out at any moment.  The brass in full flight were somewhat overwhelming, as they played a majestic melody with strong underpinning orchestration; their sound completely covered whatever it was that the woodwinds were playing.  The music was highly rhythmic.

The scherzo: presto movement began on violas; its sprightly character featured gorgeous flutes floating above the strings.  I thought I detected Mendelssohn here, in the characterful figurations.  The lighter mood was overtaken by more ponderous passages, then a repeat of the lighter section arrived; the movement ended with pizzicato.

Marked andante cantabile, the third movement was initially calm and serious, with an oboe solo over broad harmonies, later joined by the other woodwind instruments.  The music was rhapsodic in a solemn manner.  Horns intone, and all instruments develop the theme.  Perhaps it would have sounded more cantabile in a different acoustic from  St. Andrew’s.  It was certainly quite different in character from Tchaikovsky’s famous movement.  There was some choice clarinet and flute playing.  Some of the writing seemed excessive; brevity could have sustained the interest more.

The final movement (allegro assai, molto appassionato) seemed to be rushing somewhere, with its grand march-like theme and chromatic figures.  A lightening of the mood with pizzicato passages was followed by portentous chords, with timpani.  Again, Wagner seemed to raise his head.  This was surely the molto appassionato; it was fast and furious.  Calls from the horns introduced the final bars of the symphony, with some interesting discords among the pomposity and final flourishes.

I would not be rushing to hear this work again, but it is amazing for a 19-20-year-old!.  This was a demanding concert of contrasting but linked works, in the main well played.

 

De Waart and NZSO: Brilliant Mozart two piano concerto and epic Mahler performance

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Edo de Waart
Piano duo: Christina and Michelle Naughton

Mozart: Concerto for Two Pianos in E flat, K.365
Mahler: Symphony No. 5

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 6 Apr, 6:30 pm

For me, two of Mozart’s most beguiling works have adjacent numbers in the Köchel catalogue: the Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola (K 364) and the Concerto for two pianos (K 365), meaning that scholars believed they were written about the same time, 1779. Certainly, they have both been deeply embedded in my affections, perhaps through the performances I first heard.

This was a little before Mozart’s leaving Salzburg for Vienna (around the same time as he wrote the flute concertos, the Coronation Mass, the Posthorn Serenade, Symphony No 33, the Solemn Vespers). It was the last piano concerto, numbered 10, written in Salzburg; next came the first three in Vienna, Nos 11, 12 and 13, in 1782, the first of the 17 truly mature and immortal piano concertos.

Mozart’s instrumentation varied. What we heard from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra under  their music director Edo de Waart, was Mozart’s original score which he played with his sister, Nannerl; it involved, as well as usual strings, only pairs of oboes, bassoons and horns. Mozart revised it later when he played it with a pupil, adding pairs of clarinets and trumpets. The string numbers were interesting too: instead of the usual declining numbers through violins to basses, De Waart employed eight each of first and second violins, and violas; I couldn’t see all the cellos but suspect there were 6, and probably 2 basses. I wondered whether De Waart had employed these numbers to create a fuller sound in the middle range, to balance with the weight of two pianos.

The orchestral introduction was elegant and deeply felt, with flowing rhythms; its character was complementary to the pianos which entered boldly, but quickly subsided to a delicate, rather affecting mood. Rather than pitting them against each other, the main feature of their playing is an almost uncanny interweaving of lines, sharing the music with beguiling charm, often taking over from each other mid-phrase, and ensuring that it was never possible to feel that one was the ‘primo’, the other ‘secondo’, as is usual with duets.

The major attraction was of course, the piano duo, Christina and Michelle Naughton: twin sisters, aged 28, born in Princeton, New Jersey of European/Chinese ancestry. They grew up in Madison, Wisconsin and their musical education was at the Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute. They occupy the sort of place among duo pianists enjoyed for several decades by the Labèque sisters. They lack nothing in musicianship, technical skill and interpretive insight.

The second movement, Andante, prolonged the sense of elegance, the pianos often elaborately decorating and echoing the orchestral lines through the long melodies. Till the pianos eventually came to dominate in an extended cadenza-like episode in which the orchestra re-joins just before the end. It seemed like a magical introduction to the spirited, optimistic mood of the Rondo with its long curving lines that the two pianists adorned with tasteful ornaments. They led the confident fugal passage in a playfully rhetorical fashion, that seemed to mock the expectation of a portentous finale.

The whole was far more than the sum of its parts however, as it was obvious throughout that we were hearing a couple of immaculate pianists who performed, as was repeated in promotional material, as if one, each seeming to process her part through the same mind and hands, neither seeking pre-eminence, and creating the feeling that each felt as if merely a half of a single instrument.

Their encore was something of a curiosity and a surprise. No doubt encore pieces for piano duo are thin on the ground: this was Variations on a Theme by Paganini for two pianos – based Paganini’s 24th Caprice, by Lutosławski. The other pianist when it was written in 1941 was composer Panufnik who had also remained in Warsaw during the war and they played it in the city under horrendous German occupation (read Panufnik’s gripping autobiography, Composing Myself). They survived the terrible months in late 1944 when Soviet forces remained passively on the east bank of the Vistula, making no move to defend Warsaw while the German forces destroyed the city; it suited Soviet anti-Polish policies.
One YouTube listener to a performance of the piece by Argerich and Kissin remarked “époustouflant!” The Naughton sisters played it from memory; “époustouflant!” indeed!

I was surprised to see a few empty seats after the interval (it had looked a very full house before), as the Mahler approached. Fancy forgoing the chance to hear, not just an ordinary performance but what emerged after 70 minutes as a superb, emotionally elaborate and intellectually sophisticated creation.

There are trumpet fanfares and trumpet fanfares, and this was the latter, if you see what I mean. Michael Kirgan was flawless: flamboyant perhaps, but arresting, heroic, while at the same time relaxed. The fanfare foreshadowed the spirit and narrative of this, perhaps most familiar of all the symphonies. Then the grand yet melancholy tone of the strings prompted anticipation of the momentous epic that was to follow.

Mahler linked the first two movements as Part I, and he treated the last two similarly, as Part III. Apart from the thematic connections between movements that might have been fairly uncommon before his time, there seems little reason today to think of the work as other than in five movements.

The second movement is marked Sturmische bewegt, mit grosser Vehemenz; De Waart opened with ferocity and vehemence as instructed, while later his orchestra depicted an extraordinary calm, with feathery emotions dominated by beautiful woodwinds, alternating with passages from strings expressing a returning disquiet, and turbulent passages that probably taxed the brass but emerge flawless.

The middle movement, Scherzo: Kräftig, nicht zu schnell (Strong, not too fast) hardly complied with the instruction to express strength; its scherzo character, its luminosity seemed to predominate, and there are charming dance-like episodes of string pizzicato, dreamy horns and woodwinds. Its triple time certainly lends itself to suggestions of the Ländler and the Waltz: whether that it amounts to ‘social commentary on excess’, as the programme notes suggest, bears consideration…

The audience seemed to sigh at its recognition of the arrival of the beautiful Adagietto; and its mood was indeed one of inconsolable sadness, while never losing itself in weakness or lacking in a feeling of profound humanity. Scored for only strings and harp, there were many beautiful passages for those instruments to express poignancy and reflectiveness.

The last movement, Rondo, follows the course prescribed by Mahler: Allegro-Allegro giocoso. Frisch (lively); and there is much delicate, pastoral scoring, initially for strings, gently becoming ‘giocoso’ with horns, oboes, trumpets and the rest, all immaculately played. And a longish fugal section that is the vehicle for dancing and gaiety rather than for musical seriousness.

Not only was this a wonderful performance that would have converted any Mahler sceptic (and the slight thinning of the audience suggests they still exist), but would have left even the most confirmed or blasé listener with a renewed feeling of wonderment and optimism, overcoming for the moment, disquiet at all the world’s increasing turbulence and horrors. Mahler might have lived during a period of relative international peace and temporary personal happiness, yet there was, nevertheless, in this most sanguine, as well as tumultuous of symphonies, material for listeners to this magnificent performance a century or more later to experience a huge range of external and personal emotions, both grieving and ecstatic.

 

Polish and Shakespearean themes lead fine St Andrew’s lunchtime recital

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Music for voice and solo piano

Eleanor McGechie, mezzo-soprano (item 1))
Gabriela Glapska (piano – accompanist and items 2 & 3)
Will King. Baritone (item 4)

André Tchaikowsky: Seven Sonnets of Shakespeare  (two songs)
Chopin: Preludes, Op.28 nos. 7-12; Ballade in F minor, Op.52 no.4
Gerald Finzi: Let us garlands bring, Op.18

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 4 April 2018, 12.15 pm

Shakespeare ‘book-ended’ the programme, with two sets of songs, separated by Chopin.  It made an interesting programme, featuring mainly the piano, but with pleasing songs to begin and end.

The pianist and composer André Tchaikowsky was not, we were told in the pianist’s introductory remarks, related to the great composer of the same name.  I remember him visiting New Zealand to play with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, a long time ago.  He was Polish, and died in 1982, at only 47 years of age.

He was apparently a great fan of Shakespeare.  The first sonnet, ‘To me, dear friend, you never can be old…’ was preceded by a long piano introduction.  Eleanor McGechie proved to have a rich voice, and especially gorgeous low notes.  She was well up to singing the wide range of pitch demanded by the song.  The second song, ‘So are you to my thoughts as food to life…’ had a calmer quality.

The song was moody in temperament at first, but later became sprightly, particularly in the piano part.  Both singers in the concert are students at the New Zealand School of Music – and therefore could be excused for using the scores rather than singing from memory.

The Chopin Preludes were skilfully and passionately played (though I counted five, not six).  The link here was Polish nationality, not only of André Tchaikowsky but also of Chopin and of our pianist at this concert.  There were both depth and sparkle in her playing, despite technical difficulties in the Preludes, and the Ballade, which apparently held no fears for her, though the Ballade was not faultless.  All Gabriela’s pieces were played without use of a score.

The Ballade began beguilingly, with poetic, beautiful passages.  The middle section is demanding and very fast, requiring great dexterity – which she has.  Her playing brought out the contrasts very well.  The latter part of the piece was also very fast; the notes shimmered, while maintaining the melodic line, power and forward movement   The pianism was very intense in this intricate music; an impressive performance despite the few flaws.

Gerald Finzi was a litterateur as well as a composer; his love of Shakespeare is depicted in his exquisite song cycle Let us garlands bring (the last line of the song ‘Who is Sylvia’) illustrates his superb word-setting.  The songs, with the plays in which they appear, are:

‘Come Away, Come Away, Death’ (Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene 4)
‘Who is Silvia?’ (The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act IV, Scene 2)
‘Fear No More the Heat o’ the Sun’ (Cymbeline, Act IV, Scene 2)
‘O Mistress Mine’ (Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene 3)
‘It Was a Lover and His Lass (As You Like It, Act V, Scene 3).

Will King enunciated the words very well, and he projected them with a lovely tonal quality.  The effect was magical in places.  In the first song, the opening chords on the piano presaged something ominous.  The next song was a complete contrast; ‘Who is Silvia’ has a cheerful mood.  The delightful running accompaniment adds to its endearing quality, especially the ending.

The performers did justice to this inspired song cycle.  Each word had its proper emphasis and phrasing.  The accompaniment’s dynamics were just right – Gerald Moore’s famous book title (‘Am I too loud?’) did not need to be uttered here.

Will King’s voice was fine, apart from some strain and rawness when singing fortissimo.  After the rather sombre ‘Fear no more the heat of the sun’ there was  return to joy with ‘O mistress mine’.  This could have been sung in a slightly lighter style and tone, and the piano could have done with less pedal for the sprightly final song.  Nevertheless – bravo to all three performers!

 

 

Tudor Consort successfully aligns Easter concert with ending of World War I

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

The Tudor Consort, conducted by Michael Stewart, with Milla Dickens, soprano, and Richard Apperley, organ (As the leaves fall)
‘Music for Holy Week: Eternal Sacrifice’

Purcell: Hear my Prayer, O Lord
Parry: Songs of Farewell (Six Songs. or Motets, interspersed throughout)
Byrd: Miserere mei, Deus
Harold Darke: As the leaves fall
Gibbons: Drop, drop, slow tears
Weelkes: When David heard
Poems by Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon

Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul

Saturday, 30 March 2018, 7:30 pm

As Michael Stewart explained in his pre-concert talk, in considering music for the yearly Good Friday concert, he had the idea of aligning music for Holy Week with music marking the end of World War I. Therefore he chose appropriate music written during that war, and interspersed it with music of earlier times written by English composers, and with poems written by two poets of the Great War. All this made for a very interesting programme.

Hubert Parry has perhaps tended to be regarded as a minor figure: very much of his  age – late Victorian and Edwardian, and the composer of the famous Jerusalem (‘And did those feet in ancient time…’), the lovely hymn tune Repton (‘Dear Lord and Father of mankind…’), the anthem I was glad, composed for King Edward VII’s coronation, and other choral pieces well-known in Anglican choirs. Tonight was quite a revelation – of the range, skill, and modernity of his choral writing.

Parry became director of the Royal College of Music in London, and professor of music at Oxford University. Stewart (and Grove’s Dictionary) stated that Parry had revitalised music in the United Kingdom, which had reached a low ebb. He was involved in teaching, among others, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst, both of whom made a huge contribution to British music. Another claim to fame was his  assistance to George Grove in 1877, in the compilation of the latter’s massive Dictionary of Music and Musicians.

Given a small choir performing, able to use the resonance of the cathedral to its advantage, there was not the problem with clarity of words that there can be with a larger body of singers.

As one who had studied in Germany, to Parry, war between Britain and Germany was unthinkable. When it occurred, with its tremendous loss of life, including among music students of his, he was deeply shocked and horrified. This is reflected in the Songs of Farewell, written between 1916 and 1918, the year of his death, not least in the poetry he chose to set..

As usual, printed programmes were on A4 paper, with print large enough for the words to be read during the concert, thanks to sufficient lighting. Dates for all the composers and poets were given, and the words of the songs were printed. (Other choirs please copy these exemplary practices).

​The opening Purcell Psalm verse was grave and quiet, with exemplary tone; dynamics were beautifully managed. The poem Anthem for doomed youth by Wilfred (not Wilfrid) Owen was read immediately after, giving point through the well-known opening words: ‘What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?’ And the last line: ‘And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds’.

The first two Parry songs followed, the first a setting of the wonderful poem by Henry  Vaughan, one of the 17th century, metaphysical poets: ‘My soul, there is a country Far beyond the  stars’, which I memorised when a student. Its emphasis on peace was very telling in  this context. While the words have their own beauty, the unaccompanied setting did  not take from this euphony. Especially at the beginning, the piece was rather typical  English part-song – but no worse for that – the setting of words was very fine.

The next song, I know my soul hath power to know all things was attractive and  expressive, in a homophonic setting, in contrast to the greater intricacies of the first  song. It was followed by Byrd’s Miserere. (The more famous Allegri setting had  been on the radio that afternoon, as had Tudor Consort’s Good Friday concert from  2017). The superb polyphony was brought out by the singing, nevertheless all the  voices were skilfully blended.

Another Owen poem followed: ‘Greater love’, then the next Parry song Never weather-beaten sail, with words by Shakespearean-era poet Thomas Campion. The  setting was appropriate for these words and their period. It differed in mood from the earlier songs, and featured lovely harmony. The second verse’s words about ‘high Paradise’ were set to soaring phrases; a glorious song.

The last work before the interval was the only one featuring extended vocal solo from Milla Dickens, and also organ, by Richard Apperley. Harold Darke, who died in 1976 after a long life, was a well-known British organist and composer. He is widely known mainly for his setting of the carol In the bleak midwinter. The poem As the leaves fall was written in 1916 by Lieutenant Joseph Courtney, as a very young man. Heart-wrenching it is, particularly in the words addressed to mothers and maidens, for the loss of the male youth. The song began with a long organ introduction. Throughout, the organ part was interesting and varied.

Choir and solo soprano alternated, and sometimes sang together, reaching a climax in the final section, triumphantly proclaiming confidently ‘There is no death…’. This was quite an unusual, lengthy work that had considerable impact.

After the interval, Gibbons’s simple but sublime Song 46: Drop. Drop slow tears was simply gorgeous. (There is also a beautiful anthem on these words by New Zealander Richard Madden.) It was followed by a tragic wartime poem by Siegfried Sassoon: ‘Suicide in the Trenches’. Back to Parry, and There is an old belief. This received a very imaginative setting, and gave the impression of being difficult to sing. While expressing hope in heaven, the nineteenth-century poet John Gibson Lockhart seemed unsure about the hope, ending his poem ‘Eternal be the sleep If not to waken so’ (i.e. waken in the creed of life ‘Beyond the sphere of Time’).

​

New Zealand String Quartet at Waikanae deliver major works with assurance, passion, delicacy

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand String Quartet (Helene Pohl, Monique Lapins, violins; Gillian Ansell, viola; Rolf Gjelsten, cello)
(Waikanae Music Society)

Schubert: String Quartet in C minor, “Quartettsatz”
Debussy: String Quartet in G minor, Op.10
Beethoven: String Quartet in E flat, Op.127

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday 25 March 2018, 2.30pm

How fortunate we are to have such a fine quartet performing to us frequently!  They are national treasures – worth their weight in gold.  And that is how they appeared at this concert: in new, gold encrusted outfits.  In Rolf Gjelsten’s case it was restricted to his tie, but the women’s tops were much more flashy – but not so much as to be a distraction from the wonderful music performed.

The order of the works was changed from that printed in the programme, and began, rather than with the Beethoven, with the shortest item: Schubert’s lovely single movement quartet.  As always with Schubert, this was a highly melodic work.  The extent of his invention leaves one astonished.  The players also astonished, with the delicacy but clarity of their pianissimo playing.  Every delicious detail was brought out by these highly accomplished musicians.  The lyrical music was mainly in a joyous mood, but tinged with melancholy.  The short, lovely quartet is a great introduction for people not familiar with chamber music.

The Debussy quartet was in quite a different language.  Use of modes and of gamelan influences are among his innovations.  The latter (gamelan) music he would have heard at the great Paris Exhibition of 1889, four years before the quartet’s composition.  This was quite a distance from the German music which had dominated European music for most of the century.

This year is the centenary of the composer’s death, so a lot of his music is being programmed and broadcast.  The first movement of his only quartet, marked animé et très décidé, is based on a single melody; indeed, it is used throughout the work.  After an emphatic, concerted opening, many refined elements appeared on individual instruments, varying from delicacy to firm and strong, to excited.

The second movement, assez vif et bien rythmé, begins strikingly with a repetitive melody on the viola and a pizzicato accompaniment from the other instruments.  The first violin then took over the melody, followed by the cello.  A mysterious quality came over the music, which had been quite emphatic, sliding chromatically.  Bold statements intersected a shimmering accompaniment, then the pizzicato returned for all players.  The movement was enchanting in its effect.

The slow movement is marked andantino, doucement expressif.  A slow, thoughtful movement, it featured the use of mutes early on, and again towards the end.  There were frequent viola solos based on the quartet’s main theme.  Use of the deepest cello notes was significant.

The finale is marked très modéré.  It illustrated again how different are the musical colours, rhythms and textures in this work from those in the compositions of Schubert and Beethoven.  The movement had a level of gaiety not apparent in the earlier movements; in fact, it became frenetic at times, despite the tempo marking.

These musicians all play with assurance and deep familiarity with the music.  The playing is in no way pedestrian; all is pointed, intense and significant.  The lovely final chords completed this stunning performance.

Beethoven’s late quartets are pinnacles in music history; their profundity, moods, melodies and unflinching confrontation of despair and infirmity are without precedent – or successors.  This, the first of these late quartets, like its fellows, larger in scale than previous compositions in this form.

As with the other works, the brief spoken introduction by a member of the quartet (this time, Rolf Gjelsten) was informative and illuminating, without being too long.

As a portent of its scale and solemnity, the first movement is marked maestoso – allegro.  The majesty of the opening soon gives way to an allegro of interweaving parts; the opening passages return several times.  This was playing on a grand scale, with splendid tone.  It had great impetus, constantly driving forward, yet with subtle variation of dynamics and tone.

The slow movement, adagio, ma non troppo e molto cantabile, is a set of variations, but not in an obvious way – these were subtle and indirect in their manner; shifting harmonies accompanied beautiful, contemplative melodies.  While mainly restrained and elegant, the music was passionate at times, including a contrasting short, jolly, highly rhythmic dance-like middle section..

This was a long movement, with its variations on the main themes.  The return to the sombre mood came with the melody initially on the first violin and staccato accompaniment.  Then the viola takes it up, followed by a return to the violin.  It is intense yet eager music, full of twists and turns.

At last the scherzando vivace third movement arrives, to relieve our dark mood.  Its playful dance is quick; its rhythm creates a liveliness that makes the music less profound than that in the other movements.  It is still complex in places, however.

The finale is fast, with a positive and emphatic mood.  It makes its way through different keys and tempi, and grand statements, to proclamations of great confidence, a virtuoso ending and jubilant final chords.

 

Intriguing improvisatory performances by Robbie Duncan and Bernard Wells at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s lunchtime concerts
Sonic explorations – original music for guitar and piano

Robbie Duncan (guitar, effects) and Bernard Wells (piano, keyboard)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 21 March 12:15 pm

This is a belated, ‘sort-of’ review of the St Andrew’s concert on Wednesday 21 March. So I have filed it out of date order for a few days so that it will be noticed.

I didn’t arrive at the concert till after 12.30; the first few minutes were spent tuning my head to the sounds and to the character of the playing, and trying to sense the players’ personalities and that of the music, so I lost further time before my receptors were working properly. Nevertheless, from the start, I felt in the presence of genuine, serious and imaginative music making. For one who has neither been gifted with nor been able to cultivate improvisatory musical abilites, these gifts in others have always seemed to be a kind of magic making.

Improvisatory talent is not especially rare, but as with every kind of art, the degree of talent varies hugely.

Being rather unfamiliar with the language of jazz commentary, I had initially decided that I couldn’t offer any kind of sensible review. But I gathered that guitarist Robbie Duncan had spoken interestingly and perceptively at the start of the concert; and because I had found the performances more than commonly interesting, I decided to ask whether Robbie could send me an outline of what he (they?) had said. The indirect email messages between us took some time to get through however, and so this is two weeks late.

Robbie began by remarking on the sound qualities of the church, noting that for many years he had used digital emulations of a natural reverberation in recording music. “Now at St Andrews we get to play with the real thing – a beautiful natural reverb, and a real Steinway piano.” Now they could play into and work with the natural reverberation, “allowing silence and space be part of the music”.

Then he touched on the nature of extemporisation as it is more commonly called in classical music. “Not all music has to be written down”, he said. “Jamming is what some musicians do purely for fun – it can be a social activity that those with the language and the interpersonal skills can do simply for fun. Listening is as important as speaking.”

“The scary thing is taking it into the public domain”, he said, likening the process to quantum physics where the observer (the audience) changes the outcome.

“I was initially introduced to improvisation in the 70’s by a Wellington band named Highway, and was then was inspired by Keith Jarrett’s solo piano playing where he would just make it up –  the music has a flow and a trajectory of its own.”

Then he turned to the music that they had played in the concert. “The first piece we played was to settle us down and to tune us into the sound, the acoustic space and to each other. The piece East Cape originated from a back injury I had sustained.” He found that through being in constant pain his guitar playing would speed up, and East Cape was composed with the intention of slowing himself down, with pauses, “where I could remember my breathing and reset myself tempo-wise”.

“The second and third pieces were totally improvised; we knew the start point – that is, the guitar tuning – but from there the music has a life of its own.

Improvising is all about the present moment, he said: relying on both the conscious and the subconscious mind. But more, he suggested, by the unconscious, “for by the time you have analyzed what the other musician is playing the moment has gone – for me, I just have to trust my fingers will know what to do”.

“For me this is extreme sport for musicians – there is no pre-planned structure, It’s like surfing  – you catch the wave and flow with it – sometimes you fall off but that creates the space for the next wave and the next wave.”

Another analogy would be like a dance, Robbie remarked; “sometimes one leads and sometimes one follows”.

Then he touched on his role as master of ‘effects’. “I used the ‘Empress’ echo system for the guitar effects – I believe our brains subliminally like the subtle tensions which can be created both rhythmically and harmonically.”

And unorthodox tunings also featured. He is exploring alternative tunings.
“Creating a new tuning means you can’t play your usual chords or scales,” meaning the fingers don’t instinctively go to the right places on the finger board. “It forces me as a guitar player to develop a new vocabulary, and each new tuning creates a constraint within which to work.”

Bernard responded a bit later to my approach, offering comments on the art of improvisation, and specifically on their own approach to it. He stressed that they practise together to make ‘composition in the moment’ a conscious process, “a dialogue that can continue in conversation long after we have stopped playing! There is however, always an unconscious or intuitive element entering when we play”.

All sorts of different music can be their point of departure, and he mentions everything from Gregorian Chant, through Renaissance and Baroque music to dance traditions, popular songs, jazz….

The process of improvisation “can begin with a meditative, spiritual aspect, a sense of listening to something outside ourselves (the music of the spheres or sensing a ‘potential for music’) that is always there, waiting to manifest through musicians in the physical world”.

The spiritual element begins, he says, “with musicians and the audience in silence and involves trust that we will somehow begin and honour this creative process through to its completion”.

Bernard then described the different or additional challenges with collective improvisation: “We adapt our individual styles to the fact that we are often improvising together and we thus play perhaps fewer notes, e.g. single finger piano lines to make space for the other. This approach leaves us open to invite others to participate in an expanded lineup and yet preserve our transparent musical texture where every voice is heard. We play together with an awareness for transparent quality in the combined musical line and dynamics and pitch register allowing the different qualities of the piano and guitar to be heard (timbre, attack, dynamic, sustain etc.).”

Bernard referred to listening and intuition in exploring “the unspoken communication between musicians improvising as we listen, react and respond to one another in the moment”, which involved practice and the development of intuition, “to sense who is leading at a particular moment and where the music is going (taking us)”.

So although I had missed the first 20 minutes or so of their performance, I found these perceptions by the two musicians retrospectively illuminating, and they resonated with my impressions of the ways in which the two reacted and interacted in the process of spontaneous creativity. Though one has heard improvisation of all kinds over the years, I had the feeling that these two were, more that is often the case, allowing themselves to be genuinely inspired by what had been played by each other, and by what felt like some kind of inevitable elaboration of what had just fallen from their fingers.

There was no question of trying to identify consciously just what was happening in the shape of shifting tonalities, of contrapuntal moments, elaboration of melodic fragments and all the other musical processes that musicians have devised and practised over the centuries. The resultant music had simply left the impression of something that was aesthetically attractive and emotionally rewarding.

I’d certainly like a chance to hear Wells and Duncan again in this environment.

Great singer, and audience, sold short at hybrid festival concert

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Festival 2018

Anne Sophie von Otter (mezzo-soprano) with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Benjamin Northey

Schubert: Overture to Rosamunde
Lieder: Der Vollmond strahlt (one of the songs from the incidental music for the play Rosamunde)
Die Forelle (orch. Britten)
Gretchen am Spinnrade (orch. Reger)
Im Abendrot (orch. Reger)
An Sylvia (orch. Anon.)
Erlkönig (orch. Reger)
and her encore: Nacht und Träume

Zemlinksy: Die Seejungfrau – orchestral fantasy

Michael Fowler Centre

Thursday 15 March 2018, 7:30 pm

I’ll see if I can find space later on to mention the few good things about this concert, apart from the fact that the great Anne Sophie von Otter actually came here and sang for a while.

The Programme
First, let’s see what we could have expected. The first statement in the notice of her recital in the festival season brochure wrote: “Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sophie von Otter is one of the titans of grand opera and French chanson”. And the very abbreviated profile mentioned singing at two famous opera houses, sharing the stage “with the world’s greats”. And the Wellington programme was to “include personal favourites from Schubert lieder and more” (my underlining).

But behold! No opera or French chanson; and certainly, not “more”!

Anyone familiar with the international opera scene and classical music in general knows Von Otter’s wide range in classical vocal music as well as various kinds of folk and tastefully chosen popular music. Since she was the only artist mentioned in the advertising, apart from the orchestra and conductor, it was reasonable to assume that she would dominate the programme with several brackets of opera arias and art songs and perhaps a few European popular songs.

Characteristically, such a programme is fleshed out with three or four orchestral pieces, perhaps an opera overture, an intermezzo, a shortish symphonic poem. But the second half was filled by an unfamiliar symphonic work by Zemlinsky, which turned out to be well worth hearing but seemed an odd accompaniment for a solo vocal recital.

A few days before, Von Otter had sung an excellent programme at the Adelaide Festival, which has, from the very beginning, been a key associate of our festival, in its use of major international artists. There, she had sung, with piano accompaniment, just the sort of programme I might have was expected: innovative, stimulating, appropriate festival fare, doing full justice to both herself and a reasonably knowledgeable audience.

Lieder with orchestra?
Then there’s the question of singing Schubert with an orchestra. Yes, she had done that before, winning a Grammy Award in 1997 for her recording of Schubert Lieder with Orchestra with Abbado and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. The impact of performances with orchestra on record is very different from those in a big concert hall, where the problems of balance and atmosphere are difficult. Many such arrangements exist and were popular especially in earlier times: seen as a way of breaking down barriers for people who might be afraid of a concert entirely from a singer and piano accompanist. That was the reason offered here, in the belief that there was no audience for solo vocal recitals, a fiction broadcast by some music promoters here too; which I have always refused to believe.

If she had come here with Bengt Forsberg, her long-standing accompanist, they would have made a tremendous impact. Erlkönig would have set the audience by the ears with its miraculously dramatic piano accompaniment; it and scores of other wonderful Lieder and French mélodies would immediately have created a huge audience for classical song.

Earlier festivals had some wonderful solo voice concerts, one of the most memorable for me being from tenor Peter Schreier in 1990 or 92 in a packed Town Hall.

Rosamunde
The concert opened with the overture to the unsuccessful play, Rosamunde, for which Schubert wrote a variety of incidental music; it was a nice idea, and conductor Benjamin Northey led the orchestra through it carefully – a very slow opening – with clarity and energy supporting its sparkling Rossini character.

And the first song was from the Rosamunde music: a simple, unaffected melody to typically sentimental words: Der Vollmond strahl, naturally orchestrated as part of the orchestral incidental music. (Rather like Bizet’s incidental music for Daudet’s play L’Arlésienne, the music was immediately popular as the play bombed.) The audience had clapped unrestrainedly after the Rosamunde song, persisting even in the absence of any acknowledgement by singer and conductor; and the audience failed to read their clear messages after each subsequent song. Even if unfamiliar with the etiquette, one might have thought they’d have read the musicians’ expressionless wait between the songs. The determination to clap persisted later between movements of the Zemlinsky piece.

Then came five genuine Lieder. Die Forelle written aged about 19, was sung first; it was orchestrated imaginatively by Britten, more interestingly than the three by Reger; I was not altogether captivated by its singular pathos and wit of words and music. Gretchen am spinnrade followed, Schubert’s second published, in 1813 when he was 16, after Erlkonig; both are considered miracles in their musical invention and extraordinarily acute emotion expression. The genius of Gretchen was not much obscured by the orchestration and the singing of the first two songs offered the singer wonderful opportunity to let her undimmed vocal gifts be heard, finding the unsettled innocence of Goethe’s heroine, though one has heard more passionate outbursts, of phrases like ‘…und ach! Sein Kuss!’

Im Abendrot is a slightly less familiar song, and since its piano accompaniment is a little less embedded in the mind, Reger’s orchestration was tolerable, and the performance evoked its oddly religious character well.  An Sylvia is a very old favourite. It was among my parents’ collection of 10” 78s; not much played by them, but it became part of my aural furniture as a child. Even though the orchestra, in the anonymous arrangement, was pared down, the chomping cellos and basses did sound odd.

And finally Erlkönig; Here was a disappointment, not only the absence of the irreplaceable piano part, but also, I fear, not a male voice that for me at least has become such an essential character in the story, perhaps inadmissibly these days. The awakening of the father’s terror with ‘Der Vater grauset’s, er reitet geschwind…’ (the translations of these marvellous words were pathetic) just passed by…

The best song of all was the encore: Nacht und Träume, a late-ish song from around 1825, where I actually enjoyed the horn’s opening phrases followed by other orchestral felicities that, because it’s a song whose piano part has not taken root in my head so much; though I love it. It was beautiful.

Die Seejungfrau
Introducing Zemlinsky’s Die Seejungfrau, in the second half the conductor congratulated those in the hall for staying (many had left in the interval, compensated by a great increase in orchestral forces with quadruple, and more, winds!). And he talked about the link between this and the NZSO’s earlier festival venture into Star Wars, the music by John Williams, and his film music predecessors Bernard Herrmann and Korngold, to Zemlinsky who taught Korngold in Vienna. And he filled in possible gaps in musical knowledge noting the loss of his first wife, Alma Schindler to Gustav Mahler, who in turn lost her to Walter Gropius. Northey noted another detail that might well have been mentioned in the programme note, the orchestra’s recording of the work, under James Judd, for Naxos.

Much as I was uncertain about how the Zemlinsky, which I had failed to familiarise myself with, would sit in this context (on the face of it, strangely ill-assorted), I was quickly won over by its Strauss-era character (its opening might have suggested the beginnings of Tod und Verklärung or Also sprach Zarathustra) as well as its own character that in fact is some distance from Strauss. The performance had a vivid quality that was immediately charming, colourful, warmly lyrical. The work felt coherently structured in spite of the composer refraining from calling it a symphony or even a symphonic poem. The second movement (unnamed) was more light-hearted and mercurial. I didn’t attempt to create from the music images of mermaids and the ocean or other details of Hans Andersen’s tale. And the third movement became more reflective and elegiac, allowing anyone so-disposed to conjure the mermaid’s sad fate.

It was a most accomplished performance, Northey showing himself as fully capable of extracting the emotional qualities, the rich orchestral fabric, the dynamic and rhythmic pulses that brought it convincingly to life. At the end, the enthusiastic applause here was indeed in the right place.

As I load this on Monday morning, I see an excellent, pertinent letter on the programme from Deryn and David Groves in The Dominion Post.

Interesting if unorthodox Festival programme of music for organ and brass at St Mary of the Angels

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Festival 2018: Chamber Music Series

“Fields of Poppies”
Paul Rosoman (organ) and Monarch Brass Collective: Mike Kirgan, Mark Carter, Barrett Hocking (trumpets), David Bremner, Matthew Allison, Shannon Pittaway (trombones), Andrew Jarvis (tuba), Lenny Sakofsky (percussion)

Music by Schubert, Stanford, Widor, J C Kerll, Giovanni Gabrieli, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Bach, Vierne

Church of St Mary of the Angels

Tuesday 13 March, 6 pm

Having attended the previous chamber music concert in St Mary of the Angels which seemed to have an audience of only about 60 or 70, I was rather astonished to find that what was a predominantly organ recital was a full house (or should that be una chiesa piena?).

I have been heard to express a certain weariness at the four-year-long obsession with remembering the horrors of World War I; and the prospect of further intensification in November and perhaps long after, is perhaps not looked forward to.

Anyway, there were interesting features here: a chance to hear Maxwell Fernie’s organ played again after the church’s restoration and strengthening; the combining of organ and orchestral brass instruments, including a composer like Gabrieli; and a couple of French organ works from around the turn of the 2oth century (Widor and Vierne) – as a unredeemed francophile, I am susceptible.

The military setting was actually a very successful feature, with the crackling of a side drum (Sakofsky?) preceding the trumpet’s sounding of The Last Post (Michael Kirgan?): slow and poignant.

It was followed by an arrangement for organ and brass instruments by David Dobson of Schubert’s nonet for wind instruments, Eine kleine Trauermusik, written when he was 16 (already No 79 in the Deutsch catalogue!). I didn’t know it, but in this arrangement it certainly made a splendid sound in the church.

Stanford and Widor
Then came what I felt a less successful, and much longer work, the second organ sonata (in G minor, op 151) by Charles Villiers Stanford (the habitual use of his first names suggests that he’s still unknown to most people). Written in 1917 and dedicated to Widor (who was 7 years Stanford’s senior) and to France; its three movements depicted aspects of the war (Rheims, a solemn march and Verdun). However, its length was hardly justified by its portentousness and lack of any real humane feeling. Use of La Marseillaise was a feature but that hardly rescued it from its repetitiveness and distinctly second rating. However, the performance was bold and served to display both the organ’s clarity and colours, and the splendid acoustics of the church.

It was naturally a nice idea to follow the Stanford sonata with a Widor piece, also written during the war and actually composed for organ and the brass instruments engaged here. It displayed some of the same characteristics as the Stanford and one could sense an almost coming together of the two composers’ styles, from which Widor might have been the more disadvantaged. In spite of his famous toccata, Widor was not really a composer of flamboyant, heroic music.

The 16th and 17th centuries
Though the Thirty Years War (1628-48) set the German-speaking lands and some of their neighbours back a century in terms of cultural development (compare what was going on in 17th century France and England, even taking account of the Civil War; and look for Book Week star AC Grayling’s The Age of Genius: the Seventeenth Century), it seemed to have inspired music.

During and after the war music depicting battles was not uncommon; the example most familiar to me is by J C Kerll’s contemporary, Biber. Here, in Kerll’s ‘Imperial Battle’, brass was again as important as the organ in a piece that was processional and triumphant rather than reflecting the horrors of war. Yet the organ was adroitly integrated in the imperious clamour, and there was enough suggestion of a somewhat neglected Bach predecessor to make one curious about other Kerll compositions.

Then the brass players disappeared from the organ loft and reappeared making their way to the sanctuary where they played the following three works – by Giovanni Gabrieli, Brahms and Mendelssohn.

One expects to find prominent brass offerings in the splendid Venetian music of the Gabrieli, written to exploit with voices, organ and brass, the splendid acoustic of St Mark’s, Venice. Monarch Brass Collective chose one of the numerous pieces for brass in the Sacrae Sympnoniae, and the players’ impact with the Exultavit cor meum in Domino (C 53), in the even finer acoustics of the post-restoration church was very impressive.

Nineteenth century Germany
Brahms’s Geistliches Lied, Op 30, is an early work, written in 1856 but not performed till 1865. The programme notes remark that it was composed for chorus and organ, and so it was surprising to find it performed by the brass, without organ as far as I could tell from my restricted view of the organ loft. (I also had a restricted view of the screen suspended over the sanctuary showing Rosoman’s hands and feet at the organ, as well as the brass players and roaming around the splendid vaulting and stained glass. It was a good initiative.)

The brass ensemble remained in front of the altar to perform Mendelssohn’s second organ sonata; here I confess, I was perhaps even more surprised and perhaps a little disappointed to hear a brass arrangement of one of Mendelssohn’s six organ sonatas instead of the real thing. Not that I have ever been especially enamoured of his organ works, but I’m always ready to be invited to reconsider: not this time though. I was not the only one to find the lack of specific information in the programme a little confusing; here there was no mention of its rearrangement for brass, or details of its movements which allowed applause after each break between movements.

The arrangement for entirely different instruments rather obliterated Mendelssohn’s fingerprints, causing one to wonder whether it was indeed, Mendelssohn.

A Bach Chorale Prelude
For the following Bach piece, the brass collective, accompanied by the rattle of side drum, retreated again to the organ loft where they joined with the organ in the Chorale Prelude ‘Aus tiefer Not’ which was drawn from his cantata of the same name, BWV 38; the former is considered a more interesting piece, indeed, one of the most admired of his chorale preludes. The addition of brass was not as alienating from one’s awareness of Bach’s genius as it had been with Mendelssohn, and it came off well.

Finale in France
The concert ended with a piece by Vierne, also with a connection with war. 1921 marked the centenary of Napoleon’s death and this was a commission for the commemorative service at Notre Dame Cathedral. It was very appropriate for this concert, as it returned to the character of Widor’s piece in employing the same instrumental forces and adopting a comparable triumphant, celebratory character. Its finale was particularly effecting: as the brass died away the organ took up a great concluding fugue, and brass rejoined with a certain un-Viernish triumphalism and grandeur.

Though I have had several minor criticisms of the programme booklet and of the musical arrangements, the concert broadly achieved its aims in attracting a big audience to interesting and worthwhile music that would have been unfamiliar to most. And that’s always a good thing.

Kings Singers and Voices New Zealand combine for wonderful, eclectic concert for New Zealand Festival

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand Festival 2018

King’s Singers (Patrick Dunachie and Timothy Wayne-Wright, counter-tenors; Julian Gregory, tenor; Christopher Bruerton and Christopher Gabbitas, baritones; Jonathan Howard, bass)
Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir conducted by Karen Grylls

Henry Ley: The Prayer of King Henry VI
Bob Chilcott: ‘We Are’; ‘High Flight’
Ludwig Senfl: Das G’läut zu Speyer
Orlandus Lassus: Dessus le marché d’Arras
Eric Whitacre: ‘The Stolen Child’
Saint-Saënes: Romance du soir
Schubert: Die Nacht
Leonie Holmes: ‘This Watershed Time’
Trad. (arr. Goff Richards): Lamorna
Trad. (arr. Bob Chilcott: ‘I Bought me a Cat’
Nico Muhly: ‘To Stand in this House’
The Party Bag: classic favourites and new works in close-harmony

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday, 10 March 2018, 7:30 pm

Surprisingly perhaps, The King’s Singers were full of praise for the Michael Fowler Centre as a venue for their type of singing.  They demonstrated what true projection is, both in speaking and singing.  The breadth of their repertoire was astonishing, the clarity, precision and warmth of their utterances, breathtaking.

This concert was part of a 50th anniversary tour; it was surprising to learn that it is 30 years since they visited Wellington, though they have visited other New Zealand cities much more recently.  I certainly remember their visit here in April 1972.  While the counter-tenors this time were sweeter and fuller in tone, I thought the  baritones and bass did not quite have the fullness or  warmth of tone of the original King’s Singers equivalents, one of whom I later had the privilege of singing under in the Orpheus Choir, for whom he conducted a Mozart concert in 1991.

Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir certainly lost nothing in comparison with the British (well, one is a New Zealander) imports.  Like The King’s Singers, they sang most of the music with scores in front of them (paper, not laptops like TKS), but both ensembles sang some of the repertoire from memory.

The Ley was the opening item.  Henry Ley (1887-1962) wrote a setting of an ancient prayer was written for the singers’ alma mater, King’s College, Cambridge  The prayer of King Henry VI, the college’s founder, was written in 1441.  This, and most of the programme, was sung with the audience in darkness, as indeed were also those parts of the stage not in use.  This was somewhat irritating if one wished to read the programme – not that it contained much detail about the music performed.  However, members of TKS, mainly bass Jonathan Howard, introduced items verbally, often in a lightly humorous fashion.

The first Bob Chilcott item followed, the two items being grouped under the heading ‘The Family’, i.e. the King’s family; composer Chilcott is a former member the King’s Singers.  Warm, clear consonants were a feature of the singing; these contribute much to the clarity of the words, which were by poet Maya Angelou.  ‘Voices’ sang in this item, which was commissioned for the KS 50th anniversary.  The programme blurb said ‘Celebrating their 50th anniversary in 2018, The King’s Singers are engaging the finest choirs across the globe to chart their journey through their music… This year also marks the 20th  anniversary of Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir’.

The next sequence, sung by TKS alone, after some welcoming and descriptive remarks, was headed ‘The Joy of the Renaissance’, and included Das G’läut zu Speyer by Ludwig Senfl (ca. 1486-1543).  The short piece was to do with the ringing of church bells, and was most effective, one voice to a part.  Lassus, or di Lasso if you prefer, set a suggestive song about a soldier and a young lady in the French town of Arras.  The King’s Singers invested it with liveliness.

Contemporary American composer Eric Whitacre is a prolific writer of choral music.  Under the heading ‘The Philosopher’ was the song ‘The Stolen Child’; here Voices New Zealand joined in again, conducted by Karen Grylls.  It was a setting of a poem by Irish poet W.B. Yeats.  This had been composed for the 40th anniversary of TKS.  The spooky words evoked spooky music   This was a longer piece than many of Whitacre’s choral compositions.  Quite a complex work, it employed evocative harmonies, and particularly beautiful counter-tenor tone.

‘The Beauty of the Romantic Era’ was represented by Saint-Saëns and Schubert; TKS on their own.  The former’s Romance du soir  It goes without saying that both French and German were impeccably pronounced.  These were part songs for four singers.  Clarity plus, superb phrasing, and wonderful tone were features.  Schubert’s Die Nacht was particularly lovely.

‘The Force of Nature’ was the heading given for the commissioned work from Auckland composer Leonie Holmes: ‘This Watershed Time’, which received its world premiere.  Composer and poet were both present; the latter’s name was not printed in the programme – she was Anne Powell of New Plymouth.  ‘Voices’ was also involved in this piece.  To start with, the latter’s contribution was mainly humming.  There  were numerous beautiful solos from TKS, including difficult intervals – lots of seconds.  Dynamic variation added interest.

There were flowing sequences, appropriately sounding like the water of the title.   Sustained low notes like drones were another feature. Often there was a mesmerising effect.  All was sung with confidence and accuracy.  I had the impression that the audience did not take too well to this music – there was much more coughing in this part of the performance than elsewhere.

The hall was briefly illuminated for the composer to take her bow, before darkness again took hold for ‘The Romance of Folksong’ section.  It consisted of two traditional items, the first being the hilarious ‘Lamorna’ and the second a thoroughly delightful arrangement of the American song ‘I bought me a cat’.  Both were jolly and presented with style and humour.  The harmony in these arrangements was impressive and enjoyable; singing intervals of a second to give more accurately the sound of duck, goose, pig etc. would not be easy, but was passed off with nonchalance.  The English words in this latter piece were clear and exquisitely enunciated.

The final piece before the interval was ‘High Flight’ by Bob Chilcott, performed along with ‘Voices’. It was another work written for the TKS 40th anniversary, and was originally performed with the King’s College chapel choir.  The poem by John Gillespie Magee, an Anglo-American pilot in the Canadian Air Force, was written only a few months before he died early in World War II.  I have sung these words in a setting by John Ritchie, part of his composition ‘Wings of the Morning’.  Chilcott’s setting could not have been more different.  Where the Ritchie was contemplative and soaring, this was fast, and incorporated a great range of the aural compass.

‘The Visionary’ was the title above American composer Nico Muhly’s ‘To Stand in this House’, a commission for this 50th anniversary.  The piece started with an ancient prayer – the same one that opened the evening’s programme.  Other authors with King’s College connections represented in the four-movement piece were Salman Rushdie, and English contemporary author Zadie Smith.  ‘Voices’ sang in this work also, though at first their participation was minor.

Part of the second movement involved selective wavering of some of the voices as a potent accompaniment.  Words were clear, for the most part.  The third movement I found a bit dull.  My other comments I cannot read because of the problems of writing in the dark!  The final movement engaged the choir less.  I found the piece to have excellent word setting, musically, but it was hard to pick up much of them.  This was a highly skilled work, and pleasant to listen to, but not easily absorbed in one hearing.

The final bracket, of more popular items, was sung by TKS alone, without scores.  ‘Ob la di, ob la da’ is a 1968 Beatles song.  The singers embroidered it with vocal sound effects, at which they are highly skilled.  It provided amusement and enjoyment.  Next was ‘I’ve got the world on a string’, a popular 1932 jazz song composed by Harold Arlen, with lyrics written by Ted Koehler.  Wonderful close harmony singing was to the fore.

Then a change of style, to a lovely arrangement of ‘My love is like a red, red rose’.  The Robert Burns poem was set by a number of his contemporaries, but the tune we know today was paired with it by Robert Archibald Smith, using the tune of ‘Low Down in the Broom’ in his Scottish Minstrel book in 1821.  The close harmony here made this touching song even more moving.  Solos in the verses added to the effect.  Here, it was remarkable to note the breath control of the singers.  Despite the ‘Party Bag’ the overall tone of the concert was serious.  Gone were the frilly, coloured shirts worn for the lighter second half of the programme by the 1972 King’s Singers!

Aspects of the singing throughout were the perfect vowel matching, the precision timing with no obvious conducting happening (in the case of TKS).  It goes without saying that intonation was spot-on.  Beautiful textures, suited to the style of particular pieces were a feature.  ‘Mellifluous’ is too weak a word to describe the sounds of both ensembles.  For there is more than one sound – a mark of good singing, in my view.  The sound produced for the first item, by Henry Ley, was very different from the sound heard in the Billy Joel item – but both were beautiful.

The last item was a Dave Dobbyn number, which the audience knew: ‘Slice of heaven’.  Finally the encore, from The King’s Singers and Voices New Zealand: a Billy Joel song, ‘And so it goes’.  The singing was gorgeous from the sextet, with Voices going ‘ooh-waah’ in the background in this lovely arrangement.  So ended a wonderful concert, in which vocal music was demonstrated at its highest level, all without instrumental accompaniment.