Category: Live performance

National Youth Orchestra’s summer concert a brilliant showcase for cellist Balzat in Elgar concerto

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

NZSO National Youth Orchestra conducted by Guy Noble with Matthias Balzat (cello)

Beethoven: Leonore Overture No 3, Op 72b
Elgar: Cello Concerto in E minor, Op 85
Dvořák: Symphony No 8 in G, Op 88

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 3 February, 7:30 pm

To start the year, neither Peter Mechen nor I was prepared to forego hearing the National Youth Orchestra and debated the question of authoring a review. We settled by both giving up something we each hated being deprived of – that is, the entire concert.

The compromise: I cover the first half and Peter, the second.

Much as one attempts to avoid repetitious expressions of amazement at the remarkable accomplishment and musicianship exhibited by the National Youth Orchestra, and talented young musicians generally, those qualities of talent and insight are drawn out by gifted mentors and conductors and cannot be ignored.

Though the MFC was at least half full, these concerts deserve full houses. Professed music lovers should never miss them; there, as well as hearing thoroughly rehearsed performances, they will often be exposed to great music that seems to get overlooked in regular concerts. Dvořák’s earlier symphonies are a case.

Leonore III
The first half of this concert was rather more familiar, for the Elgar cello concerto gets a fair amount of exposure, and Leonore 3 is probably the most played of Beethoven’s four overtures for his much revised opera Fidelio, and more than his several other great concert overtures.

Guy Noble is an Australian conductor who has a reputation for popularising and demystifying classical music, often working with young people, hosting educational programme and collaborating with musicians in the pop world. The effect of his easy manner on the players quickly became clear in the opening bars of the overture.

Leonore Overture No 3 was the overture for the first revision of Fidelio in 1806; it’s generally considered the most substantial of the four overtures, using material from the opera, including famously, the trumpet call announcing the arrival of the minister, Don Fernando in the nick of time, releasing the illegally imprisoned Florestan. It’s sometimes played in Act II of opera performances.

Just a musicological aside: there were other operatic interpretations of the actual event during the French Revolution. The programme note referred to two French settings: only one was French: Pierre Gaveaux (Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal, 1798). Two later settings by Italian and German composers in 1804 just preceded Beethoven’s: L’amor coniugale by Donizetti’s famous teacher Simon Mayr, and Ferdinando Paer’s Leonora, ossia l’amour coniugale.

The opening, after the big call to attention, proceeded with the exquisite hushed first phrases on strings bearing a secretive message that set the tone for the whole performance – in turn restrained, suspenseful, heroic, joyous…, moving with an unusual secretiveness till the lovely rising triadic theme from principal flute Matthew Lee (and he shone again with the main theme later) signalled the beginning of the drama. The music rose confidently, dwelling not on the events in the opera’s first act but inspired mainly by Leonore’s bravery and her ultimate triumphant rescue of her husband. Its performance, marked by careful balance between strings and brass whose playing was particularly dynamic, though timpani was occasionally too strong. It certainly left one aroused, rather hoping that the entire opera would follow.

Elgar’s Cello Concerto
A few years ago I suffered Elgar cello concerto over-exposure, and Dvořák’s too, through regular attendance at the Christchurch cello competition inspired by late, lamented Alexander Ivashkin. The Adam International Cello Competition ran from 1995 to 2009 and its end was a result of the Christchurch earthquakes, perhaps one of the most lamentable losses due to the earthquakes.

This performance by Matthias Balzat, last year’s winner of the National Concerto Competition and a number of other important competitions,  awakened me again to its very special character, its deeply pensive musical inspiration, far from the character of Elgar’s earlier, ‘imperial’ symphonic works.

The cello, together with an orchestra that proved comparably sensitive to the unique spirit of the music, produced a totally arresting performance right from the cello’s other-worldly opening with merely hesitant gestures from other strings. The cello part’s handling by the 18-year-old Waikato University graduate (a James Tennant pupil) of the gorgeous main theme of the first movement Adagio set the tone for the heartfelt, melancholy music, which permeates the piece, especially the third movement – also Adagio.

Those two movements are filled with a profound meditative spirit which can be ascribed to its composition after his wife’s death, the First World War and presentiments of the end of Empire; cello and orchestra captured its spirit, exquisitely, in perfect unity.

In the brief but arresting second movement – Molto allegro – Balzat exhibited a fully-formed, virtuosic confidence, sustaining a feeling of trembling expectancy. He coped with all that ferocious demi-semi-quaverish tremolo with energy that would have won the admiration of Jacqueline du Pre. And the last ten minutes or so – Allegro – Moderato – largely rids the scene of the lingering grief, at least in the orchestra. The cello’s sometimes wild ride was subdued with spacious, beautifully phrased passages where some of the Adagio’s depth of emotion resurfaced.

Perhaps it’s taken some time for my appreciation of the concerto to recover from the Christchurch competition’s over-exposure: this performance by a very gifted young cellist and an orchestra under a conductor who emerged as rather more than merely a good front man and colourful advocate for classical music, accompanying in the most apt, sensitive and unobtrusive way, restored this great concerto’s place in my musical pantheon.

(Peter Mechen’s continuation, covering the Dvořák symphony, follows below….)

Dvorak – Symphony No.8 in G Major
A truly Bohemian symphonic musical experience – one of Dvorak’s masterpieces
by Peter Mechen

After the interval, conductor and orchestra returned to the platform to tackle one of the most adorable of romantic symphonies, Dvorak’s G Major Eighth Symphony. For many years concert-goers and record collectors knew the work as No.4 (a number of the composer’s earlier symphonies having not been published and numbered, as it were). Dvorak had previously made a breakthrough as a symphonist with his Sixth Symphony (the first one to be published), a work whose outer movements were unashamedly (and fascinatingly) modelled on Brahms’ Second Symphony. He followed that with the stern, and in places tragic tones of his Seventh Symphony (originally labelled No.2), which, though obviously a greater, more original work, is in a sense, the least “Czech” of all his symphonies, owing little to ethnic dance elements or melodic expression.

With the Eighth, the composer declared that he wanted to write something completely different, “with individual ideas written out in a new manner”. The result was a work which, more successfully than any other the composer had produced, spoke with a truly distinctive voice, expressing easily and naturally within a symphonic framework those ambiences and rhythms we most readily associate with Bohemian music. Apparently Brahms, who was one of Dvorak’s most avid supporters, was not impressed with the work, considering its ideas “attractive but fragmentary”, and lacking the symphonic focus required to give an impression of strength and true seriousness.

But Dvorak was by this time more than ready to be his own man as a symphonist, and where one finds, in the previous symphony, plenty of “strength and true seriousness”, here in the eighth there’s a joyous exuberance added to the symphonic argument which brings it all to life in a far more characteristic central European way. Everything flows in a thoroughly uncontrived manner, though still beautifully crafted and characterfully detailed. Like Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, this is music which for me “age cannot wither….nor custom stale…..”

So it was with some initial concern that I listened to conductor Guy Noble’s direction of the work’s introductory bars with his young players, the melancholic opening phrases seeming to me pushed along and not allowed much chance to properly “voice” the turns of their phrases. Fortunately, things started to “flesh out” – the succeeding episodes were given more space for the players to build and shape their tones, the strings relishing their accompanying triplets beneath the winds’ soulful utterances, and gathering strength and momentum as they pushed upwards towards their climaxes, with everything excitingly capped by the brasses.

The detailings came thick and fast from this point onwards – a lovely flute phrase lead to a heart-warming partnership with the violas, one replicated by the violins and oboes, the horn barely able to contain its excitement as it summoned the rest of the orchestra to arms, leading to a thrilling and resplendent climax, in the wake of which sounded the dulcet tones of the cor anglais. The music’s volatility kept things moving, clarinets buoyed along by the lower strings’ rhythms, and thoroughly galvanized by the strings’ brilliant, gleaming ascent, answered by the brasses, and driven to an exciting ending, the timpanist splendidly on the ball with his rapid-fire detailings.

I thought the slow movement’s performance particularly successful, everything deeply considered and beautifully shaped, with the minor-key irruptions properly volatile and dramatic. And what a stunning contrast was afforded by the trio section’s dancing rhythms, the violin solo plaintively singing, and urging the rest of the strings on. Nothing was stinted, here, the strings fervent and fiery, the timpani strong and unremitting, and the solo trumpet gleaming at the snow-capped climax.
How confidently the players moved from episode to episode here, under their conductor’s beautifully-paced direction, with the horn and then the strings inviting groups of winds to forcefully having their say, and make something strong and virile of the exchanges.

But I particularly enjoyed the strings’ heart-on-sleeve manner with the dance-tune’s reintroduction, their tones saturated with warmth, and the horns chuckling with pleasure in their accompaniments. What a tremendous moment it therefore was when the music darkened unexpectedly once more, brass and timpani making their presence felt while the strings strove to keep the agitations within control, allowing the disturbances to pass and put themselves to rest.

The scherzo exuded grace and confidence, the instrumental detailings having enough thythmic elbow-room to sing and deliciously dance at the same time, not perhaps as indulgently as some performances I’ve heard, but still with beguiling effect. And in the trio, firstly the winds and then the strings flooded the textures with feeling and sentiment, the strings adding a touch of portamento, making for an ambience so very beautifully realized. The coda then properly galvanized our sensibilities, rousing us from our reveries in preparation for the work’s finale.

Trumpets splendidly called the opening, echoed by throbbing timpani and dark- browed winds, before the strings ambled in, the violins particularly bright and focused when counterpointing the lower strings, and then incisive and muscular when the allegro kicked-started – a lovely airy wind-and brass exchange contrasted nicely with the more “boots-and-all” sections – all very rustic and vigorous and exuberant.

I greatly enjoyed the “skin-and-hair” excitement of the middle-section, especially the shouting brass, with the trombones and tuba making telling contributions, and thought the quieter variation sequences worked the music’s contrasts to perfection – what lovely playing from the individual instruments here – flute, clarinet, oboe, horn, bassoon, all underpinned by strings so beguilingly. It made the final stamping, cheering payoff all the more effective, with the final brass clamourings tumultuous!

Obviously I find it difficult to contain my love and enthusiasm for this music when writing about its performance – but here, the players’ enthusiasm and the conductor’s steady and unflagging hand combined with the composer’s natural exuberance to give a truly joyous overall effect. I forgot to mention that I noticed ‘cellist Matthias Balzat (the soloist in the first-half concerto performance) sitting with the other cellos during the symphony’s performance, enjoying the music-making as much as any, and delighting those of us who noticed him there all the more.

I thought the music-making remarkable under the circumstances, continuing with the strong impression the first half of the concert made upon my reviewing colleague, Lindis Taylor. I hope people will find our sharing of this first Middle C orchestral review of the season to their taste, and look forward to it all coming together for you to read.

NZSO opens the musical year with Bach, Rameau and Locatelli

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, led by Vesa-Matti Leppänen

Bach: Brandenburg Concertos nos. 1 in F (BWV 1046) and 3 in G (BWV 1048); Air from the Suite no.3 in D, BWV 1068
Locatelli: Concerto in E flat, Op.7 no.6 ‘Il Pianto d’Arianna’
Rameau: Suite from Dardanus

Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul

Friday, 2 February 2018, 7.30pm

The orchestra made a start to the New Year that was rather different from usual.  A band without conductor, but led from the violin, that was made up of between 12 and twenty-five players, depending on the work being played.  Unusually, the players stood to perform, except of course the harpsichordist (Douglas Mews) and the cellists; the horns and percussion had chairs to sit on in those movements where they were not playing, in the Rameau Suite.  The men’s dress was black shirts, business-style suits and dark ties, not full penguin-rig.

It was a thoroughly refreshing performance; I heard audience members expressing this sentiment as they walked away afterwards.  I was fortunate to be sitting at the front of the church, and so did not suffer from the effects of the long resonance time which may have affected people sitting further back in the packed venue.  However, I could see and hear well and my fears about fast baroque music sounding jumbled in this venue were unfounded.

What I heard was crisp, vital playing.  The string players for the most part adopted baroque bowing technique, played with greater detachment of the notes than they would employ in playing Classical or Romantic music, and rendered stress and phrasing in a baroque manner. The wind instruments were all modern ones; their greater force than had their ancestors in the Baroque period meant that they were sometimes a little too loud for their string colleagues.  Nevertheless, their contribution was tasteful; there was no attempt at vibrato, and notes were frequently slightly detached.  The playing was in a straightforward manner.  However, when the winds were playing, the harpsichord could barely be heard.

The concert began with a fanfare from two trombones placed in the side gallery, near the front of the church.  They were unannounced and their contribution was not to be found in the printed programme.  When Leppänen spoke to the audience following the first Bach concerto he mentioned the fanfare as a celebration of the opening of the 2018 NZSO series, but did not name the composer.  Two of the musicians whom I asked thought that it was Monteverdi, which seemed not only likely, but appropriate, being brass sounding from a high gallery à la St. Mark’s in Venice.  It sounded great in this acoustic.

Brandenburg No 1
The first, and longer, Brandenburg Concerto, was played stylishly.  The contrasts between Minuet, Trio, Polacca, were delightful.  The concertino players: Leppänen, plus three oboes and two horns, were admirable.  Leppänen’s leadership of the ensembles was effective throughout the concert.

The Locatelli work is seldom heard.  It is described as a short opera without words, but sad in theme (‘pianto’ is Italian for tears, weeping), depicting the sufferings of Arianna, deserted by her lover, a story much beloved of writers of opera.  The composer’s dates were 1695 to 1764.

This work was performed by a smaller ensemble.  After an andante-allegro movement, came a largo with a singular and appealing violin solo, followed by an even slower grave movement.  Throughout, the instruments depicted the drama.  Another allegro led to a final largo; an unusual way to end an orchestral work, but appropriate to the tragedy of the operatic story; mournful for the sad end of Arianna.   Again, there was beautiful playing from Leppänen.  The music could not be said to be as inspiring as that of Bach, nor as lively as Rameau’s offering to come.

Rameau
After the interval came another unusual work, by baroque French composer Jean-Philippe Rameau.(1683 to 1764).  The suite consisted of 14 movements, but some of these were repetitions.  Dardanus was an opera by Rameau written in 1738 but greatly revised in 1744.  A very sprightly Overture was followed by ‘Air gracieux pour les Plaisirs’, and gracious it was, featuring flute.  Then we heard percussion, consisting of a traditional (not modern) timpani (strictly timpano, in the singular) and a tambourine, expertly played by Thomas Guldborg and Leonard Sakofsky respectively, in a movement, repeated, named for the instrument: ‘Tambourin’.

The Pleasure ended, with the ‘Entrée pour les Guerriers’.  The movement was indeed martial, with drum in a very lively march.  It was followed by a repeated rigaudon, a French dance of lilting quality.  It began with strings only, then woodwinds joined in.  The next movement, ‘Air’, was slow and piquant in character.  Minuets were elegant and yet bright, with a change to the minor key for contrast.  The ‘Tambourin’ returned, but with piccolo adding a sparkling quality.

‘Air Tendre’ opened with a cello solo, soulfully played by Andrew Joyce, then flute entered.  There were notable passages from Leppänen’s violin.  The final ‘Chaconne’ featured oboe, and later bassoon joined in.  The mood was jolly and sombre by turns, and completed a delightful suite that was lively and interesting at every turn.

Brandenburg No.3
We returned to Bach for his Brandenburg Concerto no.3, probably more popular than the no.1, as the audience showed by their prolonged applause at the end.  A smaller ensemble performed it, in a very energetic and rhythmic style, the allegros being faster than one often hears.  Again, it was a complete contrast with the preceding work.  In this music I was aware of the vibrant and rich viola tone.  The adagio was short and solemn, before a return to liveliness for the last allegro.

Leppänen spoke again, saying that the encore had been included in the printed programme: the firm favourite known as ‘Air on the G string’ (Air from Bach’s Suite no.3 in D, BWV 1068).  A larger orchestra played this final item.  The pizzicato on cellos and double bass was most effective, and the beautiful melody was fully exploited, without any un-baroque excess.

All in all, a most satisfying concert to open the year’s NZSO season.

 

Legal choristers and instrumentalists in anniversary class action supporting child cancer campaign

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Crown Law Presents: Counsel in Concert: Musical Anniversaries; in aid of the Child Cancer Foundation

Items by Monteverdi, Telemann, Haydn, Gershwin, The Beatles

Lawyers’ choir and orchestra, with soloists. Conducted by Owen Clarke

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Tuesday, 19 November 2017, (12.15pm); 5.30pm

It was heartening to see such a large bunch of lawyers who enjoy making music – and the large, mainly young audience who came to hear their second performance.  The 38-strong orchestra included some 21 players from the NZSO and Orchestra Wellington, but only one lawyer – the indefatigable Merran Cooke, who rehearses the performers and organised the concert.  The choir consisted of 53 singers.

The composers selected were a heterogeneous bunch, chosen for their anniversaries this year.  The programme notes gave details: 450 years since the birth of Monteverdi, 250 years since the death of Telemann, 250 years since the composition of Haydn’s ‘Stabat Mater’, 80 years since the death of Gershwin and 50 years since The Beatles’ ‘Sergeant Pepper’ album.

The first item, which included a harpsichord continuo, was the opening movement from Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610: ‘Deus in adjutorium’.  Those opening words are intoned in plainchant, followed by the magnificent ‘Domine…’ from choir and orchestra, each part singing on its own single note for a couple of pages.  The heightened drama of this effect is resolved in triumphant fashion when all parts shift on the word ‘Alleluia’.  It was a very effective performance, even if the splendid brass almost drowned out the choir at times.  It made a great opening for the concert.

Next was a welcome from the Solicitor-General, Una Jagose.  She spoke of the health and social benefits of making music in groups.  Telemann’s Der Tag des Gerichts, or The Day of Judgement (appropriate for legal professionals to perform).  Two choruses from this religious work were given: ‘Schallt ihr hohen Jubellieder’ and ‘Die rechte des herrn’.  Only a slight knowledge of the German language is needed to deduce that the first was about sounding jubilant songs, while the second deals with another suitable subject for lawyers – the rights of men.

A line-up of five soloists from the choir sang well in these excerpts, particularly Amanda Barclay, soprano, apart from starting slightly off-key.  Then the choir gave Telemann all they had, in a very vigorous performance.

The soloists sounded more comfortable in Monteverdi’s ‘Beatus vir’, a setting of Psalm 122 from his Selva Morale e Spirituale of 1640.  It is probably his best-known choral piece.  Four of the five soloists from the Telemann appeared again, with the addition of two other male singers.  The women on the whole acquitted themselves better than the men, and again, occasionally the choir and soloists were drowned by the orchestral sound.  However, with strings only, we heard more from the soloists.  The choir sang well, with plenty of lung power; the orchestra played with appropriate style.  Rhythm and articulation were good, and the beauty of the woodwind playing stood out particularly.  The choir parts were clear and confident.

Owen Clarke has conducted the annual concert for a number of years, even after moving to Auckland, and now Australia.  He spoke briefly to the audience about how he enjoyed taking part in this annual event.  He was followed by Lara Cooke (no relation to Merran Cooke), a teenager who has suffered two major bouts of cancer.  She spoke clearly, fluently and unemotionally about her experiences, and the help she and her family had received from the Child Cancer Foundation.  It was a moving experience to learn a little of what she had gone through, including having to move to Christchurch and Auckland at different times to receive treatment.

A medley from George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess followed; an arrangement by Ed Lojeski.  ‘I got plenty o’ nuttin’ opened for the orchestra, and the wind players certainly opened their lungs.  Anna Rowe sang ‘Summertime’, amplified, to excellent effect – although in St. Andrew’s acoustic I did not think that amplification was necessary.  The choir came in too, and piano and percussion were added.  The choir reiterated the opening number, using the pronunciation ‘nothing’.  Then there was ‘It ain’t necessarily so’, with Ken Trass an excellent soloist, along with the choir.  ‘Bess, you is my woman now’ had similar treatment.

Idiomatic, well-rehearsed singing of a good standard were the marks of the entire medley, with clear words.  There were some delightful clarinet passages before the medley ended strongly with ‘O Lord, I’m on my way’.

Three Beatles songs concluded the programme, the music arranged by Daniel Hayles, a New Zealander who teaches jazz at the New Zealand School of Music here in Wellington, the skilled arrangement being commissioned for this concert.  The soloist was Mauricio Molina, a Wellington singer originally from Argentina.  I found his amplified voice too loud in the first song, in the St. Andrew’s acoustic.  The choir also sang, in Sergeant Pepper, Penny Lane  and All you need is Love, but in the first song they could hardly be heard.  Things were much better in the gentler Penny Lane.  The soloist was not too loud, his words could be understood, and the choir could be heard.  The triumphant ending of the last song had the audience joining in clapping the rhythm.  The beginning and ending of the song features phrases from La Marseillaise – a great effect.

Sponsors contributed to the cost of the concert; all audience donations would go to the Child Cancer Foundation. I trust this was a considerable sum; the musicians worked hard for it.

 

 

 

Organist Bruce Cash momentous performance of Messiaen’s La Nativité du Seigneur

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Rejoice!

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992): La Nativité du Seigneur (1935)

Bruce Cash (organ)

St. Mary of the Angels Church

Sunday, 17 December, 3pm

To hear a splendid work of meditation for organ on the fine organ of St Mary of the Angels with its marvellous acoustics and its ambience since its recent restoration, was a treat in itself; to hear Bruce Cash play it so well was the icing on the cake. Bruce Cash had described the work in his interesting pre-concert talk, which was accompanied by slides. They included two of the wonderful, tall, narrow, stained glass windows of Sainte-Chapelle in Paris and by audio examples from the work, from a recording of Messiaen’s organ at La Trinité church in Paris (where he played for over 60 years), and on the piano. Bruce Cash spoke of the Greek verse rhythms and Indian rhythms Messiaen employed.

Messiaen’s work is in nine parts; each part was introduced by titles and Biblical texts which he used, read in French by Robert Oliver. In what follows I will give the titles in English.

First was The Virgin and the Child. The magical opening passage with its distinctive descending figure, was a euphony for the Epiphany, with clear, repetitive melodies in different scales/modes. The music was subtle and unhurried. Perhaps an impulse of wonderment, of characterising Mary regarding her child. Beautifully clustered notes created a warbling melody, the child peacefully brought into being in the midst of hustle and bustle. The middle section sounded like a great outpouring of many-voiced joy, rhapsodic and free, with an ostinato carillon on the pedals – ecstatic stuff! The music returns to the opening, reiterating the descending figure – everything in cool colours; the music generating contrasting orange and yellow hues. As Bruce Cash said in his pre-concert talk, Messiaen was one of those who saw colours when he heard music.

Second was The Shepherds, which began with separated chords – were these the angels appearing? Some of the melodies were particularly song-like, or chant-like. The music exploited the huge range of sounds available on this organ, including those echoing the shepherds’ pipes. Clustered tones of wonderment, gentle rocking rhythm on reeds, hypnotic in effect and connecting with a greater peace from ages beyond understanding. Registrations were fresh and beautiful.

Third, Eternal Designs, had a broader, fuller sound, slow and grand. Was this an aural picture of God? Again, an interesting scale/mode was employed as the basis, and unusual harmonies were featured. The deep pedal notes gave the music a mysterious, other-worldly mood. Lovely long, rich, dark, solemn, deep undertones, reedy textures suggested relief and light, the bass reaching to the earth’s bowels.

The Word is the title of the fourth section. God declares ‘You are my Son’ to a discordant opening, then there are strident pedal sequences. There are rapid rhythmic figures and thickly clustered chords. A high, shrill melody was succeeded by a return to strident pedals, with shimmering ululations behind. This section was in two parts, the second having a more mellifluous melody appear, in meditative character, calm in its effect after the declamatory mood.

No. 5, The children of God, had a more disturbed, more excitable sound of clustered sonorities. The music developed loud expostulations, but with more conventional harmonies, then dissolved into reassurance. It was a short movement.

No.6, The Angels, featured spectacular galaxies of sounds. There were high and spiky fanfares and cascades, retreating at the end. The programme notes speak of a continuous peal of joy.

Jesus accepts the suffering was the title of no.7. Harsh reeds and blustering utterances contrasted with lighter, higher tones. The effect was like a conversation between two opposing forces – one bluff, angry, and the other mild, conciliatory. Then diapasons brought the voice of acceptance between the opposing ideas. The long final chord was at full volume.

No. 8, The Magi, or Wise Men brought music that was appropriately exotic. There was a travelling character to its rhythm and notation. A recurrent melody could be a song from the East. A more peaceful sequence followed – perhaps the visitors reaching the stable? There was a quiet chord to end. But I did not detect the star overhead that the programme notes described. Simplicity rather than grandeur was the mood.

The final part, No 9, God in our midst, opened loud and spiky, with ponderous pedals. This was followed by a mild sequence (the Virgin Mary utterance of the Magnificat); then angular sounds with rapid, high-pitched figures built momentum. Crashing chords and a brass voice blared forth before a triumphant Widor-like toccata ended the work.

Peter Mechen, who was also at the concert, offered his notes to me; he ended with “an unbridled frisson of energetic outpouring, the music descending spectacularly before winding up and growing like a vortex of cosmic proportion, heading inexorably towards the musics’ great final chord over a descending bass”.

This performance was an amazing tour de force; music played to perfection. What a composer! What an organist!

 

A Consort Christmas: Tudor Consort assembles brilliant and diverting package of words and music

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Tudor Consort directed by Michael Stewart

A Consort Christmas; carols and secular and liturgical pieces by Jean Mouton, Matteo Flecha ‘El Vielo’, Tallis, Francisco Guerrero, Byrd, Sweelinck, Praetorius, Peter Cornelius, Rachmaninov, Healey Willan, Howells, Poulenc, Richard Madden, and Gregorian chant  
and readings on Christmas themes from Robert Easting and Bryan Crump

Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Saturday 16 December, 7:30 pm

Given The Tudor Consort’s splendidly rehearsed and executed array of carols, chants, liturgical and secular songs connected with Christmas, one had to wonder whether the unusual quantity of Christmas-related music over the past few weeks had brought about some aural fatigue resulting in a smaller audience than I would have expected.

And so, to remind you of all the Christmas-like concerts over the past three weeks, look at the end of this review.

First came a Gregorian chant, Puer natus est nobis, which the programme described as the Introit for the third mass of Christmas Day, which sounded from the back (west end) of the church as choir members walked slowly up the centre aisle with music director Michael Stewart in their midst. Its spirit was one of optimism and joy.

A variant on that subject followed: Hodie Christus natus est by Jan Sweelinck, recorded in the programme as the Antiphon for Vespers of Christmas Day. Here emerged a marked characteristic of the choir’s performance – glorious, high sopranos, including voices that would be soloists in the Tallis Missa puer natus est nobis and elsewhere.

Readings: Robert Easting
After the Sweelinck, erstwhile choir member Robert Easting, Professor Emeritus (English language and literature) at Victoria University, delivered a splendidly orated recital of the 16th century ‘carol’ The Carol of Jolly Wat, replete with convincing contemporary pronunciation and profane histrionics.

(Introducing his verses, Easting mentioned the death this week of another distinguished Wellington academic at Oxford, Douglas Gray. It brought back memories: Gray was Dux at Wellington College in my third form year. By the time I was studying English at Victoria, he was junior lecturer in Professor Ian Gordon’s English Department, and I recall his lectures and seminars in stage II in Middle English and/or Anglo-Saxon. A further pedantic offering: one of our text books was Kenneth Sisam’s classic Fourteenth Century Verse and Prose, still somewhere on my shelves. Sisam too was a distinguished New Zealand scholar at Oxford).

You’ll find the carol in Helen Gardner’s New Oxford Book of English Verse. The idiom of this late Middle English, popular verse seemed to lie between the literary language of Chaucer and Langland, and the early Tudor poets who are still broadly comprehensible to our ears.

Readings: Bryan Crump
There were three later readings, by Bryan Crump who is familiar as an RNZ news reader. The first relating to a Christmas at Scott Base from a journal of Harry Jones, with amusing observations; the second, Marsden’s account of the first Christmas celebration in New Zealand, in 1814: a bit revelatory, especially in light of later exposure of Marsden’s violent proclivities; and finally a delightfully droll letter to Mark Twain’s (Samuel Clemens) daughter from Father Christmas.

The ‘serious’ music was interspersed by traditional carols in which the audience was required to join: God rest ye merry, gentlemen (in the programme, victim of common mis-punctuation – the comma before ‘merry’); Silent Night; Good King Wenceslas; Silent Night.

Tallis: Missa puer natus est nobis
The ‘composed’ music was by all those named in the heading. Tallis ‘Christmas Mass’, Missa puer natus est nobis, was divided into three parts and sung at three points in the programme; so it set the concert in what might be considered the heartland of Renaissance choral music. It is regarded as untypical of the Tallis known in most of his other music, perhaps because it was composed as the Catholic monarch, Mary, came to the throne in 1553, after the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, offering a much more friendly climate for Catholic musicians, as Tallis was. The absence from the score of soprano voices is attributed to Mary’s marriage to Philip II of Spain (the same Philip who features in Schiller’s and Verdi’s Don Carlos) whose Chapel Royal which was resident in England with the king seems not to have used high treble voices.

Bits of the mass had been published in the monumental ten-volume Tudor Church Music series in 1928 but no satisfactory performing version was known till 1961, when additional sections were discovered. Though the Mass remains incomplete (most of the Credo is still lost and some of the other movements have missing voices), it has now had several impressive recorded performances; it is now regarded as one of the great masterpieces of the Tudor era. A scholarly edition appeared in 1977 (these details from an article in the Musical Times, on the Internet).

Its characteristics
It has no Kyrie, but begins with the Gloria. As noted in Michael Stewart’s comment below, it follows the shape of Taverner’s Missa Gloria tibi trinitas which was sung by the Tudor Consort in February last year; I reviewed it but had forgotten that detail. I’d noted there that the Kyrie was not regarded as part of the Ordinary of the Mass before the Reformation; though I’m not sure that’s altogether correct. Further, Tallis scored his mass for seven voices; seven soloists led it while the rest of the choir (as far as I could tell, sitting some way back) contributed wonderful richness to the Gloria, in which men’s voices dominated initially, while the high voices soon entered creating a luminous quality above the wonderful polyphony of the middle vocal lines.

I had wondered about references in other sources to the scoring, for seven voices, but no sopranos. When I contacted Michael Stewart to clarify it, he told me he’d mentioned it in his pre-concert talk, which I had missed; he explained: “The sopranos were singing ‘mean’ parts, which had a lower range than the ‘treble’ parts that one would expect from earlier music such as the masses of John Taverner… Compare the tessitura of the Tallis compared with the very high lines the sopranos had to negotiate in last year’s performance of Taverner’s Missa Gloria tibi trinitas for instance. The mass would undoubtedly have been performed lower and with falsettists singing the women’s parts, but that necessitates men who can sing very low and very high, and would preclude the sopranos involvement!”

The second part of Tallis’s ‘Christmas Mass’ opened the second part of the programme: Sanctus and Benedictus. The solo sopranos (Chelsea Whitfield and Phoebe Sparrow) were also conspicuous in here. (The other soloists were Megan Hurnard – alto, Philip Roderick and Garth Norman – tenors, David Houston and Simon Christie – basses). The elaborate counterpoint, taking the text on interesting journeys in the Sanctus; the Benedictus lowered the dynamic level distinctly, giving the sopranos a hushed, ecstatic quality. The Agnus Dei was sung towards the end of the concert, slow and placatory, rhythmically complex, and harmonically dense.

Other Renaissance and later music
Much of the other music was also from the Renaissance, consolidating our feeling for the variety to be found in the early period (Mouton’s Nasciens Mater and the two more secular Spanish pieces, with peasantish, dancelike suggestions), and later composers (Byrd’s English setting of This day Christ was born and Praetorius’s In dulci jubilo).

Particularly striking were two liturgical settings by composers primarily known for orchestral and instrumental music: Rachmaninov and Poulenc: the best-known section from Rachmaninov’s Vespers (‘All night Vigil’), deeply felt, employing idiomatic-sounding Russian, Bogoroditse devo; and Poulenc’s O magnum mysterium the first of his ‘Four Motets for Christmas’.  It was a sumptuous, yet delicate performance that to me remains a fine model of mid-20th century music that is engaging and accessible and at the same time inventive, and sounding clearly of it age.

Music of the 19th and 20th centuries filled most of the second half: two distinct pieces entitled ‘The Three Kings’ (set to different poems), by Healey Willan (a curious yet interesting setting of a poem by Laurence  Housman – brother of A E H), and Peter Cornelius (better known perhaps as an opera composer – The Barber of Bagdad, still heard occasionally in Germany), with a very taxing solo part from Simon Christie.

Finally, pieces by Herbert Howells and Richard Madden. Howells’ ‘Here is a little door’, a curious, childlike text set to music that always strikes me as the quintessentially English, religious manner. While that was an a cappella piece, a 15th century verse, ‘I sing of a maiden’ by still-living Richard Madden was accompanied by Chelsea Whitfield at the organ, with solos by Phoebe Sparrow and Philip Roderick.

The pair of Spanish songs returned us to the 16th century, with composers Matteo Flecha ‘El Vielo’ and Francisco Guerrero: Guerrero’s A un Nino Llorando, with opportunities for well-contrasted female soloists to be heard (Whitfield, Melanie Newfield, Jane McKinlay, Andrea Cochrane and Amanda Barclay); and the latter a peasant-like, Christmas-related song in Riu riu chiu which offered a chance to hear other than seriously liturgical Spanish music of the period (with three good bass soloists – Christie, Houston and Thomas Drent).

 

Christmas (mainly) choral concerts of the past three weeks  

Vox Serbica
Cantoris
Supertonic Choir
A Soprani Christmas (Duo of singers Paloma Bruce and Ruth Armishaw)
Wainuiomata Choir
Baroque Voices in Monteverdi (not strictly Christmas)
Wellington Young Voices
Metropolitan Cathedral Choirs and Orchestra
Tudor Consort
Orpheus Choir and NZSO Messiah
Bach Choir
Festival Singers and The Northern Chorale
Nota Bene:

And to come:

Messiaen’s La Nativité – organ Brian Cash
Counsel in Concert (not strictly Christmas)
Baroque Voices with Palliser Viols

Masses in times of war celebrated by the Bach Choir under Ivan Patterson

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Kodály: Missa Brevis
Haydn: Mass in D minor, H 22/11 (Missa in Angustiis or ‘Nelson’ Mass)

Bach Choir of Wellington, conducted by Ivan Patterson, with Douglas Mews (organ), Rowena Simpson (soprano), Maaike Christie-Beekman (mezzo), Jamie Young (tenor), Simon Christie (bass)

St. Peter’s Church, Willis Street

Sunday, 10 December 2017, 3 pm

With a great line-up of soloists and some marvellous music to sing, the stars were lined up well for the Bach Choir’s concert.  A sizeable audience was present to hear them.  The title for the concert derives from the fact that both masses were written under the stress of wartime conditions: Napoleonic Wars in Haydn’s case and the Russians beating back the Nazis in Budapest in 1943 in Kodály’s case.  The latter work had extra point by being performed within days of the composer’s birthday.

While the Haydn work was written to be performed with orchestra (here, organ substituted), the Kodály was scored for chorus and organ in its original version.  An impressive organ prelude to the work was almost impeccably played by Douglas Mews, and formed a fine introduction.  It was followed by a beautiful, almost ethereal ‘Kyrie’ movement. from the choir.

Jamie Young intoned the plainsong chant before the appropriate movements; before the ‘Gloria’ it immediately was striking and firm.  The choir followed, also strongly.  The soloists turn came in ‘Qui tollis’; it was notable for the solo singing of Maaike Christie-Beekman, who was strong and confident as usual, as well as producing a lovely tone.  Then Simon Christie sang, his sound firm and rich, followed by Jamie Young.  Finally the choir took over at ‘Tu solus sanctus’ and made a good ending to the movement.

Throughout, Kodály’s clear, uncompromising, different harmonies were apparent, but made some difficulties for the choir; intonation sagged in a few places, mainly in quiet passages.  Otherwise the singing was good, and clear.  Having sung this work, I know it is not easy.  Not only are some of the harmonies difficult, the bass notes required to be sung are sometimes very low.

The ‘Credo’ is sung by the choir, and the music differs for its three sections: God the Father and Creator; Christ’s Incarnation and Crucifixion; his Resurrection and Ascension.  The colours, tempi and moods of the music were expressed well by the choir, and words for the most part were clear.  The tone from the sopranos especially was splendid.

The ‘Sanctus’ opened with pianissimo from the women.  The altos sounded less secure than the sopranos.  Here, as elsewhere, there was plenty of contrast, and key modulations.  There was a need for more attention to consistent vowel shaping.

Varying tonalities featured in the ‘Benedictus’ also.  The choir a few times were not totally with the organ rhythmically.  The high notes for the sopranos were excellent.  However, I found grating the constant ‘Hosannerin’, having been tutored in choirs to make a brief glottal stop after the final ‘a’ in the word.

In the ‘Agnus Dei’, the ‘qui tollis’ was most beautifully introduced from the tenor and mezzo, soon joined by stratospheric sopranos.  It was delightful to hear ‘Agnus dei’ pronounced beautifully, and not as ‘Agnes Day’, who made an appearance on the radio in the morning.

The Missa Brevis is an impressive work, and some but not all of this was conveyed by this performance.  Douglas Mews had a huge role in this; the work ended with a magnificent postlude from him.

The ‘Nelson’ Mass is a very different work, although it too featured a grand organ introduction (in this version)..  Then the soprano appears early in the piece; her ‘Kyrie’ was clear and strong.  The choir men, however, were not quite in tempo for a bit following their entry.

In this mass in this mass there are wonderful contrasts between the grand and the intimate.  The ‘Gloria’ introduced the soloists – soprano, tenor and bass; all were first-class, and a joy to hear.  Douglas Mews’s variations of registrations throughout echoed the instruments that would be heard in the full orchestral version, and were splendidly realised.  Simon Christie gave us some gorgeous low notes in ‘Qui tollis’ against Mews’s gorgeous organ.  Rowena Simpson’s ‘deprecationem nostram’ was superb, likeweise the ‘quoniam’.  Some of the men’s vowels were what Peter Godfrey would have called ‘agricultural’.  Intonation was more secure here than in the preceding work, but then the Haydn is much easier to pitch.  Rowena Simpson had plenty of radiant solo singing in the here, whereas she did not have much to do in the Missa Brevis.

However, pitch dropped ajust a little in the ‘Credo’ movement.  The lively parts of the ‘Credo’, such as ‘Et incarnatus est’ found the choir flexible and agile.  ‘The ‘Et resurrexit’ was taken very fast, but the choir coped.  There are so many felicities in this wonderful work.

The ‘Sanctus’ received a splendid performance.  A feature of the ‘Benedictus’ was the beautifully phrased and articulated organ part.  There were a few raw notes from the tenors, but the rest of the choir sounded very good.  As elsewhere, the writing provided plenty of climaxes.

The ‘Agnus Dei’ was cheerful in character, yet subtle too, with complex interweaving of the soloists’ quartet.  They then joined the choir in the final ‘Dona nobis pacem’ section.

Altogether, it was a most successful concert.  The voices soared, as did the audience’s spirits.  Thank you Papa Haydn, Kodály and Bach Choir, accompanist and soloists.  St. Peter’s proved to be an excellent e with its beautifully restored pipe organ, its fine acoustics and its good lighting.

 

Admirable Sibelius as well as Lilburn and a rare trombone concerto from Wellington Chamber Orchestra

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wellington Chamber Orchestra conducted by Ewan Clark with David Bremner (trombone)

Lilburn: Suite for Orchestra (1955)
Tomasi: Trombone Concerto
Sibelius: Symphony No 2 in D major, Op. 43

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 10 December, 2:30 pm

Lilburn’s Suite for Orchestra was composed for the Auckland Junior Symphony Orchestra in 1955. Thus it was a sensible piece for a non-professional orchestra, though that is not to suggest that its wide-ranging moods, brilliant orchestration and rhythms that range widely from the utmost subtlety to the unusually boisterous are not very taxing.

Subtle brass playing is rarely a highlight of amateur orchestras and it was trumpets and trombones that had some difficulty in adapting to ensemble expectations, particularly in the opening Allegro movement. However the large string sections and both the horns (four of them) and woodwinds contributed the sort of sounds that are recognisably Lilburn. The middle movement, Andante, offered rewarding opportunities to oboes and horns; while the orchestra’s timpani has been problematic in this church in the past, Alec Carlisle’s handling ensured its role was perfectly integrated in the orchestral texture.

The fifth movement, Vivace, is a delightfully scored dance in Latin rhythms – Mexican I guess, which is no doubt the reason for J M Thomson’s programme notes for William Southgate’s recording remarking on a Copland influence (I imagine, with El salon Mexico in mind; a solo trumpet sounded very idiomatic). Conductor Ewan Clark gave the players their head in this movement and the result was perhaps a rare occasion when Lilburn lets rip – not too much, mind you. However, the performance was a happy opportunity to witness a not often heard aspect of his personality, and it was also sufficient to make the audience aware of the composer’s international stature.

Henri Tomasi (French, not Italian; of Corsican origin) flourished through the middle of the 20th century; he wrote a number of concertos, mainly for winds, and this one seems to have gained popularity. The opening movement is in triple time, entitled Andante et scherzo – valse, and this gave the piece a dreamy quality. David Bremner’s programme note mentions jazz influences – Tommy Dorsey in particular, though I tended to listen for French influences. Debussy and Ravel are there though not dominant, and there are rather more suggestions of later French composers such as Ibert or Jolivet; but Tomasi’s language, while essentially tonal, melodic in a Poulenc sort of way, sounds more radical, testing than either – more acidic, harmonically complex.

There were interesting forays for most other instruments. One interesting event was a sudden break off in the middle of the second movement (Nocturne) which had been going along in a calm, bluesy manner: a trombone breakdown. A gadget called a trigger broke; it enables the player to obtain low notes by diverting the sound back through the tube behind him instead of fully extending the slide forward. Since none of the orchestral trombonists was playing, one of those instruments came to the rescue. So it continued its rather charming (Ellingtonian, I thought) way.

The last movement too was rather diverting, though Bremner didn’t pull off a comparable stunt; here, there were offerings from side drum, timpani, xylophone…, all ear-catching, quirky and attractive.

I’d like to explore Tomasi’s other music.

Sibelius 2
Then came the main course: Sibelius’s Second Symphony. The work opened very promisingly, as we were drawn in with those expectant, pulsing strings and the oboe and then the four rapturous horns; and the strings long legato lines, handled with gentle emotion. This was the first Sibelius symphony I heard played live by the then National Orchestra in the 1950s, and still a feeling of rapture overcomes me.

The second movement is announced almost threateningly, with a startling timpani fanfare, followed almost silently by a longish pizzicato episode that emerges slowly from basses then cellos, overlaid by questioning bassoons. Its rather rhapsodic character – it’s labelled Tempo andante, ma rubato – and its increasing grandeur involved much from the fine horn section; and though other brass didn’t always blend in the otherwise good ensemble, the whole was certainly more successful and more beautiful than the sum of its parts. The slow movement runs to around a quarter of an hour and to hold audience enraptured throughout is a considerable challenge for a conductor, one that Clark met admirably.

The emotional crux of the scherzo movement, Vivacissimo, is the contrasting string of nine repeated notes (B flat?, and repeated a semi-tone higher) from the oboes and these were beautifully played. And the transition from a further evocation of those repeated notes through the steady build-up to the grand opening out into the Finale, Allegro moderato, remains just another of the glories of the work that I have simply never tired of, and although this was not to be compared with the many magnificent performances that one has heard by professional orchestras, live and recorded, any performance that seems driven by an awareness of the emotional and spiritual splendour that Sibelius conceived here, simply works. This one did.

 

Aroha Quartet: one of the year’s most wonderful lunchtime concerts

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Aroha Quartet: Haihong Liu and Ursula Evans (violins), Zhongxian Jin (viola), Robert Ibell (cello)

Haydn: Quartet in C, Op 76/3, ‘Emperor’
Dvořák: Quartet in F, Op 96, ‘American’

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 6 December 2017, 12:15 pm

Though St Andrew’s free lunchtime concerts usually populate the church very respectably, a professional group like the Aroha Quartet (though I assume they play, like all performers in these concerts, without payment) tends to draw a larger crowd and that was the case this week. Both the reputation of the quartet and the choice of music accounted for the responsive audience today; it enjoyed quite long applause, and several of the more discerning listeners stood at the end to show their delight.

Haydn
The ‘Emperor’ Quartet, named for Haydn’s tune that had become Imperial Austria’s national anthem, is one of the composer’s most felicitous and popular, and it was clear from the start that we were to enjoy a performance that, rather than energetic and full-blooded, was emotionally warm and entertaining as well as insightful and alert to Haydn’s varied dynamics, articulation and ever-present humour. The players’ sensitivity to subtle changes in bowing, between legato and phrases that approached staccato, and the understated rhythmic changes that suggest diffidence or hesitation. Every repeat of a phrase displayed a studied individuality.

The famous tune in the second movement, Poco adagio, can sound hackneyed, but its performance here was seriously thoughtful, a classic example of an orthodox set of variations, handled with unpretentious skill and imagination.  And the Menuet with an almost swinging triple rhythm, elegant and polished, and the sharply contrasting Trio in the middle, beautifully poised.

Presto means different things to different players. The Aroha adopted a speed that was probably above average and did it with such commitment and skill that it was totally vindicated.

Dvořák
Dvořák’s most famous string quartet, like the Haydn, is not long – each is around 25 minutes – and thus ended at only a few minutes after 1pm. While its familiarity might be a reason to come to the concert for those averse to ‘music they don’t know’, there are no doubt others who feel they know it so well that it’s a bore; their folly could hardly be sustained here. The proliferation of alternative kinds of so-called entertainment has probably reduced the numbers in both categories. But judging by the reception to this performance there was a wonderful confluence of both classes; and tyros would have been startled into a state of ecstasy by the performance of both works.

There are just so many delicious and heart-warming aspects to this piece, as in much of Dvořák’s music (and I’m delighted that Orchestra Wellington are performing his symphonies in next year’s series – even the little-known fifth!).

It’s interesting that the viola (Zhongxian Jin) opens the piece and seems to emerge from the texture with more than commonly prominence – Dvořák was of course a viola player (like Mozart and many composer-violinists) and clearly enjoyed the subtle emotional warmth of the instrument. But the melodic delights are soon scattered around in a profligate manner.

Dvořák never allows his music to remain in the same rhythmic or melodic mode for long and for the beginner, no doubt, it can be hard to know what movement is being played, if one hasn’t been paying attention; but that variety is a major source of delight. When it dips into a meditative passage however, it’s never maudlin or sentimental, but constantly inventive and surprising. The slow movement, a sort of modified Largo of the Ninth Symphony, might come close to the sentimental, with its characteristic falling minor third, but its sheer melodic beauty prevents any falling away from complete integrity.

The third movement can hardly substantiate the legitimacy of the ‘America’ tag, as its affinity with the Slavonic Dances is so obvious; and the same rhythm persists through the Trio-like middle section. It was played with a wonderful lightness of spirit. Sometimes, the simply astonishing level of melodic inspiration causes me to jot down remarks like: ‘How come no composer had thought of such a gorgeous tune before this?’. It happens more with Dvořák than almost any other composer.

In the last movement, it’s the first violin that stands out with its enchanting, dance-like tune, which gives over to a related tune that simply intensifies the energy or, occasionally, allows for a slower passage that offers a respite from the vitality that drives the movement as a whole.

While I have noted aspects of the playing of leader Haihong Liu and violist Zhongxian Jin (both founding members), the conspicuous beauties in the playing of the newest member, second violinist Ursula Evans, and cellist Robert Ibell were just as striking, and their sustained excellence in ensemble and balance and their emotional subtlety and warmth places the quartet among the finest chamber groups in the country.

This was one of the year’s most wonderful lunchtime concerts; and perhaps not even to be modified by the word ‘lunchtime’.

A polished and scrupulously studied recital by male vocal quartet, Aurora IV

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Aurora IV: singing Renaissance to 20th century music
Toby Gee (alto counter-tenor), Richard Taylor (tenor), Julian Chu-Tan (tenor, Simon Christie (bass)

Music by Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson, Byrd, Jean Mouton, Richard Lloyd, Lasso, Ludovico da Viadano, Poulenc, Tallis, Andrew Smith

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 22 November 2017, 12:15 pm

I’m fairly sure that this was my first hearing of Aurora IV, a male vocal quartet whose repertoire stretches from the 16th to the 21st century, though I have long been familiar with Simon Christie’s voice and recall hearing Richard Taylor in other groups, particularly The Tudor Consort.

One of the characteristics of the recital was the choice of words and music from widely separate eras. Thus the opening piece was a two-year-old setting of a hymn by 13th century Icelandic poet Kolbeinn Tumason. The programme took the trouble of spelling the Icelandic names using authentic letters, using the voiced ‘þ’ and unvoiced ‘ð’ which in English, of course, are left undistinguished by ‘th’.*

The modern setting of Kolbeinn Tumason’s Heyr himna smiður by Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson made strong references to early Renaissance music, which these musically literate singers captured very convincingly; it provided, for me, a chance to be highly impressed by the effective blending and dynamic uniformity of their voices, without in the least avoiding illuminating particular voices where called for.

The first, ‘Kyrie eleison’, of three parts of Byrd’s Mass for Four Voices followed. Here bass Simon Christie as well as male alto Toby Gee, emerged prominently, though the two tenors were obviously important in filling the rich polyphony. Neither ‘Gloria’ nor ‘Credo’ were performed here, and the ‘Sanctus’ and ‘Benedictus’ followed later: the former an interesting contrapuntal piece in which, again, the quality of each voice was conspicuous.

Tenor Richard Taylor seemed to take the lead at the start of the calmer, devotional ‘Benedictus’. The recital ended with the quartet singing the ‘Agnus Dei’, full of pain; till then I had not been particularly aware of second tenor, Julian Chu-Tan, as I was on the right while he faced left. But here I became more aware of him, slightly less robust that Taylor, but perhaps even more finely attuned to the character of the quartet as a whole which presented such a finely nuanced and spiritually persuasive presentation that it’s quite unreasonable to attempt to characterise individual voices.

To resume the order of the programme: Jean Mouton, one of the leading French composers of the 15th-16th centuries, his ‘Quis dabit oculis nostris’; in spite of my hesitation above, here were prominent and moving offerings by Taylor and Gee, in this beautiful lament on the death of his patron Anna of Brittany in 1514. It captured a uniquely idiomatic French style with integrity.

Then a modern English setting of a lyric by 13th century theologian Thomas Aquinas, ‘Adoro te devote’. The composer is Richard Lloyd, composed, as with the Icelandic piece, in 2013, and similarly embracing an authentic Renaissance sound, though with a melodic and harmonic character that rather gives away it more recent origin.

The variety of spellings of Lassus’s name (Orlande de Lassus, Roland de Lassus, Orlando di Lasso, Orlandus Lassus and many others) arises partly from his peripatetic earlier life, born in the Netherlands – in Hainaut, now in Belgium – travelled and worked in France and Italy, but eventually settled in Munich; contemporary of Palestina, Tallis, Byrd….

His ‘Matona, mia caro’ lends itself to a variety of approaches, sometimes by women, sometimes by mixed voices, and by large choirs; these singers adopted a lively, crisp rendition that stressed its exuberance and light-heartedness, even music to dance to. I’ve heard it sung in very differently ways, sometimes like a religious motet; Aurora IV carried the folk, onomatopoeic character ‘don don don…’ excellently.

Ludovico da Viadano who composed ‘Exultate iusti in Domino’, the words from Psalm 33, might be a relatively obscure composer, but his motet seems to be widely popular judging by the number of performances to be found on YouTube. It’s spirited, almost dancing in its energy, starting and ending in triple time, while the main central part is in solid common time. Here was another delightful late Renaissance song that should be popular with young choirs.

Poulenc seemed an abnormal phenomenon in the midst of Renaissance or pseudo-Renaissance song. Two of his ‘Four Prayers’ (Quatre petites prières de Saint François d’Assise) served to sharpen musical receptivity, though presenting a spirit that seemed ambivalent, outside the mainstream. Toby Gee introduced them. They were composed at Poulenc’s Loire Valley refuge, Noizay, in 1948. ‘Tout puisant’ (‘All Powerful’), the second of them, in somewhat ardent, laudatory spirit, was in a distinctively 20th century idiom, faintly coloured by an earlier style, vaguely Renaissance     not easily definable     . The third Prayer is Seigneur, je vous en prie (‘Lord, I implore you’); it presented itself with more sobriety, in a minor key, with a striking passage from Richard Taylor towards the end.

One had been waiting for Tallis in this company. ‘If ye love me, keep my commandments’ fulfilled the Tallis need, with its restraint, its sombre, exquisite tone, seeming to suggest that Tallis had found a balance between the religious conflicts of the age (it was published in 1560, just after Elizabeth had come to the throne, meaning an abrupt shift from the ruthless Catholicism of Mary).  A beautiful performance of a beautiful motet.

Another recent Biblical setting by Norwegian composer Andrew Smith (born in Liverpool, moved to Norway in his teens) picked up on a pattern common in the recital. I didn’t record remarks about the version sung here, which was based on an anonymous 13th century English motet, of words from Isaiah. Presumably, the striking, spare harmonies, infusing the recent arrangement, reflected the original setting (or was it wholly recomposed, in a sympathetic style?).

And it ended with the Byrd’s Agnus Dei which I touched on above, concluding an intelligent, seriously well-studied and polished recital of four-part polyphony.

 

* I was familiar with these Icelandic letters since they were used for the same sounds in Anglo-Saxon, which was a compulsory element in university English language and literature studies in my day. A paper in Icelandic, including readings in the sagas, some originating in the 9th century, but recorded from the 13th century, was an optional paper at master’s level. Further trivia: the Sagas, e.g the Saga of the Volsungs, and the Poetic Edda, were important sources for Wagner in the Ring cycle.

NZSO players in special concert under Aisslinn Nosky with Baroque masters

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Aisslinn Nosky (director and violin soloist)

NZSO players:
Violins: Ursula Evans, Vesa-Matti Leppänen, Haihong Liu, Anne Loeser, Simon Miller, Megan Molina, Gregory Squire, Rebecca Struthers, Anna van der Zee, Beiyi Xue
Viola: Michael Cuncannon, Victoria Jaenecke, Lyndsay Mountford, Belinda Veitch
Cello: Eleanor Carter, Robert Ibell, Ken Ichinose
Bass: Malcolm Struthers
Harpsichord: Douglas Mews

Vivaldi: Violin Concerto in A minor, Op 3/6, RV 356
Handel: Concerto Grosso in G minor, Op 6/6, HWV 324
Vivaldi: Concerto for two violins in D minor, RV 565
Telemann: Burlesque de Quixotte, TWV 55:G10
Geminiani: Concerto Grosso in D minor, Op 5/12, ‘La Follia’ H.143

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Friday 17 November, 6 pm

It’s been a fine Baroque week in Wellington, at St Andrew’s, with an attractive lunch-time concert on Wednesday, with four strings from Wellington’s two professional orchestras and an NZSM harpsichordist; and this evening a special ensemble, of 18 players from the NZSO, plus harpsichordist Douglas Mews.

The story behind this evening’s concert was elaborate. NZSO violinist Anne Loeser travelled to Toronto in the Summer of 2014 for an intensive Baroque course where she met the hugely inspiring Aisslinn Nosky. Anne saw an opportunity to share her experience in Toronto with her NZSO colleagues, with the help of the June Commons Trust, a fund established by violinist Commons to foster study opportunities; and Anne’s colleagues responded enthusiastically to the opportunity. Aisslinn Nosky came to Wellington and has spent a week in lessons, workshops and rehearsals, in preparation for this concert, a mix of German and Italian Baroque music.

I arrived a few minutes late and missed hearing the first Vivaldi concerto, which an acquaintance told me had presented a hugely exiting first movement.

Handel Concerto Grosso
The chance to hear an appropriate ensemble play one of Handel’s Op 6 concerti grossi – No 6 – was a singular, rare pleasure; it employed a concertino group of two violins (Aisslinn Nosky and Rebecca Struthers) and a cello (Eleanor Carter) against the ‘ripieno’ – the rest of the orchestra. I wasn’t even sure that I’d heard it before, and was deeply impressed by the calm pathos of the first movement Largo affettuoso, and a comparably beautiful Musette, the third movement. I can’t help a reminiscence: I recall the music master at Wellington College introducing us – in the merely once-a-week ‘core’ music period – to at least one of Handel’s Op 6 set, an experience that has left me puzzled over the many subsequent decades, that such music, that I assumed was important (in other classes we heard the Hebrides Overture and the Academic Festival Overture) and which had appealed to me, seemed never to be performed. The fourth and fifth movement, both Allegros – the first in common time, the second a minuet-like dance in brisk triple time. A quite splendid concerto running to around 15 minutes.

Vivaldi Concerto Grosso
A second Vivaldi concerto followed, again from the Op 3 set, No 11 in D minor. As was intended in planning alternate German and Italian pieces, the contrast between the meaty, substantial yet delightful Handel, and lighter textured Vivaldi was interesting, though the character of this Vivaldi concerto was significantly more Germanic to my ears than the typical Vivaldi work. Though merely labelled a ‘concerto, it was in fact a ‘concerto grosso’, the concertino parts played here by Aisslinn Nosky, Anne Loeser and Ken Ichinose.

The first two movements, Allegro and Adagio, were very short and I confess to thinking they were merely parts of the first movement. Though the central Allegro was vigorous and substantial, played with painstaking rhythmic emphasis, taking care to exploit as much instrumental variety as possible: the three concertino instruments were singularly striking, making me frequently aware of the energy being injected by Nosky’s leadership, from the violin. As she played her bowing and her body movement guided her players vividly, often merely by turning her head and glancing encouragingly at players.

And the final Allegro illustrated in its gusto and opulence, the splendid balance and rapport between the soloists and the ripieno. The Largo, between the middle and final Allegros, expressing a pathos that offered evidence of the importance of Vivaldi, reinforced an astonishment that the Vivaldi revival has taken so long – like some 250 years – to take root and for him to become an accepted master in, not just Baroque music, but universally, placing him very close, it not equal, to Bach and Handel.

Telemann’s Burlesque de Quixotte was written in his last year, 1767 – in fact this is the 250th anniversary of his death, as you’ll have noticed by the huge amount of attention being paid by the popular press and commercial radio and television (though I’m not sure I’ve heard it referred to by RNZ Concert either). The suite consists of eight movements. It begins with a substantial French overture and continues with some quite brief pieces that depict some of Quixote’s adventures, that lend themselves to musical wit and drollerie. There are amusing, successful portrayals of people and events, such as the windmills, Quixote’s galloping horse, Rosinante, and Sancho Panza’s ass, which induced smiles with its bizarre, irregular dissonances.

The fact that Strauss wrote a symphonic poem on Don Quixote prompted me to wonder whether one might hear in Telemann hints of the kind of descriptive music that developed in the Romantic era. Hardly; but notable ‘programme’ music had been composed, even in the 17th century – Biber’s Battalia for example; some Renaissance English keyboard music; Couperin’s keyboard music is full of descriptive elements, for which his detailed ornamentation was an important element; there’s Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, obviously; and other pieces by Telemann himself, such as the suite Hamburger Ebb’ und Flut.

The performance was revelatory; Nosky inspired energetic playing, full of dynamic rhythm and opulent orchestral ensemble, taking every opportunity to find and exploit the colour and narrative quirks and their exaggerated orchestral depictions, with which Telemann fills his score. Nor did it mean a movement such as the Don’s amorous sighs for Dulcinea was anything but warm, supple and full of chivalric love.

Corelli’s La Follia from Geminiani
On Wednesday we heard Corelli’s variations on La Follia, played as a set of variations for violin and continuo (cello and harpsichord). It was the last of Corelli’s twelve sonatas for violin and continuo, Op 5, published in 1700, and they were arranged by Geminiani 26 years later as concerti grossi (also Geminiani’s Op 5). Friday’s NZSO baroque orchestra played No 12 of the set, entitled La Follia; one could be forgiven for hardly recognising their origin in Corelli, so much more opulent and varied was Geminiani’s version.

Nosky, as well as being a specialist in baroque performance practice, doesn’t for a moment allow scholarly scruples to inhibit her gusto and concern to give her performances all the colour and vitality she can draw from her players. Happily, one had to conclude that the players who emerged from the NZSO for this concert were all of a mind to respond with enthusiasm to her spirit; fast was as fast as possible; ornaments included vibrato, with discretion; she took every opportunity to exploit expressive gestures, with arresting emphases and rhythmic adventures. And one was always thoroughly aware of the tempo fluctuations and changes of tempo, both through hearing and through watching Nosky’s direction from the violin, which never failed to give vivid interpretive guidance.

Envoi: A Baroque orchestra
This concert by an ensemble drawn from the NZSO, reminded me that it’s rather a long time since the excellent NZSO Chamber Orchestra, led by Donald Armstrong, was disbanded, and there’s been no revival of such a group. The packed church on Friday showed the high level of interest in this kind of music, and I wish the orchestra would revive a chamber orchestra such as this that, on a permanent basis, could give professional performances of baroque and other early music that is otherwise seriously neglected. Though I suspect that dynamic chefs d’orchestre such as Aisslinn Nosky are not thick on the ground, visiting conductors as well as some local conductors with a love of Baroque music would be delighted to have the chance to play this music alongside their regular programmes with the NZSO.