Category: Live performance

Ron Newton plays for St James 2017 Sunday Organ Series

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

St. James’s Church and Wellington Organists Association

Ron Newton (organ)

John Baptiste Calkin: Festal March in C
Mendelssohn: Sonata no. 2
Edvard Grieg: Holberg Suite – Sarabande, Air and Gavotte
J.S. Bach: Prelude and Fugue in F minor, BWV 534
Vaughan Williams: Rhosymedre
Eugène Gigout: Toccata in B minor

St. James Church, Lower Hutt

Sunday 25 June 2017, 3pm

Dr Ron Newton, as well as being an organist, is an organ builder and travels throughout the country working on organs

English composer John Baptiste Calkin (1827 – 1905) is not often heard of these days.  He wrote a lot of church and organ music.  I found his march rather undistinguished, though obviously written for a time when organ music was often symphonic in nature (and often being transcriptions of symphonic works), the prevalence of symphony orchestras being much smaller than it is now in England.

Mendelssohn published his organ sonatas in 1845.  He was 36 years old, and reputed to be a fine organist.  However, while a great admirer of his music in general, I have never warmed to his organ sonatas; I find them the least good of his great output.  They are not in standard sonata form, the harmonies seem conventional, and the works lack the spark of humour or lightness to be found in many of his compositions.

Indeed, on the way home from the recital, my car radio played his wonderfully melodic, uplifting and exciting Octet, written when he was only 16.  Maybe the age at which he wrote the sonatas is the difference – though he could not know that he had only a couple more years of life after the sonatas were published.

Ron Newton employed some excellent registrations, especially in the slow third movement.  In the last movement there was some extremely fancy foot work, and much changing of stops (or tabs in the case of this organ) towards the end.

The printed programme did not give composers’ dates, and suffered from a number of inaccuracies.  The next composer performed was not Edward Greig; the spellings are as above.  The name of the arranger of the Holberg Suite, originally written for string orchestra, was not given; I find from Google that there have been several who have arranged it for organ.  The same comment as given above for the reasons for arrangements of orchestral works for organ does probably not apply here; the  arrangements I found on Google were recent ones.  The subtlety and mellowness of the original strings did not come through on this organ.

However, much technical expertise was required in executing the pieces, swapping from one manual to another for different sound effects.  The pedal stops chosen seemed too woolly in their effect compared with the sounds from the manuals.  The clarity of the upper parts in the Air was spoilt by the muddy bass.  The Gavotte was taken rather faster than in the string orchestra originals that I have heard, both live and in recordings.  It is a dance – the dancers would have had to move astonishingly fast to dance at this pace.

The  Bach Prelude was, again, a little fast compared with recordings I have of the work.  I suspect that this could be due to the quick touch of the keys on St. James’s modern organ.  The registrations were splendid, as was the pace of the Fugue.

Vaughan Williams wrote his study on the Welsh hymn tune ‘Rhosymedre’ in 1911.  Newton’s performance brought out the hymn tune well – sometimes to the detriment of the lovely accompanying parts.

The final piece was a short Toccata by Eugène Gigout (not Edouard as in the printed programme).  He lived from 1844 to 1925.  Like Grieg’s work this was written in an earlier style.  It had a lot going on, and was both dramatic and showy – hardly like the eighteenth century style Gigout purported to be writing in.  It ended a concert of variety, that showed off both organ and organist, to a sizeable audience.

 

Excellent and interesting mix of Mozart quintet and Respighi song

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Karori Classics:
Anna van der Zee, Anne Loeser (violins), Christiaan van der Zee (viola), Sophia Acheson (viola; Mozart only), Ken Ichinose (cello), Maaike Christie-Beekman (mezzo-soprano; Respighi)

Respighi: Il Tramonto (The Sunset)
Mozart: String Quintet in C, K.515

St. Mary’s Anglican Church, Karori

Friday 23 June 2017, 7pm

The sun had well and truly set before I made my way to Karori through cold southerly rain and wind for a charity concert in the series organised by Christiaan van der Zee and others.  The regular Friday evening concerts in winter have usually been in St. Ninian’s Church; the change of venue brought a quite different acoustic.  This church has a vaulted timber ceiling and plastered walls, producing a clear, direct sound.  There was no difficulty in hearing every note clearly from the back of the church.  The strings sounded bright, and every sung note could be heard, even if pianissimo.  It was great to have professional musicians performing; I imagine that this acoustic could be unkind to less competent players.

I did not know the Respighi work at all.  It is a 1914 setting for string quartet and soprano of an Italian translation of a poem, The Sunset by English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.  The English words were displayed progressively on two screens mounted on pillars in the church.  The entry in Google speaks of the work’s “musical poeticism and its intense expressiveness”, with which I totally agree.  It proved to be an utterly suitable vehicle for Maaike Christie-Beekman’s fine voice and her subtle colouring; she was as convincing in the dramatic moments as in the meltingly romantic ones.

Respighi’s music is Romantic in style, suited to the poet’s words.  The poem concerns a young woman who finds her young lover dead after their night of love and sleep.  Like most of the composer’s music, the movements in France, Germany and elsewhere to changed musical languages were ignored.  The music was played superbly by the quartet, supporting and enhancing the splendid singing; a range of emotions was depicted.

The Mozart quintet exposed the lovely music of the composer in all its glittering detail.  Dynamics were subtle and through their infinite variety, commanded attention to the music.  In the glorious, long allegro first movement, constant rising figures give a positive feeling.  The robust second movement, Minuet (allegretto) and Trio yet contained many moments of delicacy.   Mozart’s constant invention of charming and mellifluous ideas is astonishing.  The slow movement, being andante, is more sombre, but in a calm way, with themes in the minor key (the principal key being F major), the interplay of instruments, all making a beautiful sound, was a delight.

The allegro final movement featured a return of the rising chords and cadences of the first movement.  This fast finale engendered a cheerful mood.  A delicate but bright ending brought to a close an hour of accomplished and enjoyable music-making.  The audience was rather more slender than those at previous concerts in the series that I have attended, probably due to the bad weather.

 

 

Archi d’Amore Zelanda with delightful programme of New Zealand compositions, plus Bach

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Archi d’Amore Zelanda
Donald Maurice (viola d’amore), Jane Curry (guitar), Inbal Megiddo (cello)

David Hamilton: Imagined Dances
J.S. Bach: Suite no 1 in G major for solo cello
Michael Williams: Archi Antichi

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 14 June 2017, 12.15 pm

The ensemble brought a thoroughly delightful programme to an appreciative audience.  What was unusual was that apart from the solo Bach work, the music played was contemporary, whereas one would expect that the viola d’amore would be playing music from a much earlier times.  The programme notes included this comment ‘…the instrument has been enjoying a renaissance since the mid-twentieth century, with new works being composed and old works being adapted…’

Just over a year ago I reviewed a concert of Vivaldi music performed by Archi d’Amore Zelanda, which on that occasion consisted of eight players.

The common factor between the items was that all were suites of movements (almost all) based on dances.

The David Hamilton work suffered from the fact that all three instruments were stringed, whereas the composer’s original had been for flute, violin and guitar, though the composer had approved the version we heard.  The original would have had more contrasting timbres than this version.  Thus, in this version individual instrumental lines and characters did not always stand out; the closeness in pitch of the guitar to the viola d’amore was another factor.  The Williams work, on the other hand, was written for these instruments, and it was constructed differently, with more solo, or solo and accompaniment passages.

Hamilton’s dances began with a pensive Sarabande, a slow dance.  A flamboyant Tango followed, then a Waltz with a lilting melody; after a slow introduction, it was fast and rhythmic.  The final Mexicana had stirring rhythms and repetitive phrases, with a shriek at the end.

Inbal Meggido made some introductory remarks, as did Donald Maurice at the beginning of the concert, but unlike him, she held rather than used the microphone, so I did not catch most of what she said.  However, her performance of Bach’s first Suite for Cello was superb.  Never have I heard it played with such variety of dynamics and tone.  The opening Prelude was a statement in which her playing overcame familiarity; its freshness was a delight.  There was a fine resonance, and very subtle bending of the rhythm.

The Allemande was gracious but at the same time rhythmically sparkling.  Courante was a fast and spirited run.  Meggido’s variety of tone and dynamics gave the music meaning.  There was nothing mechanical about the playing.

The Sarabande, being slower and more thoughtful was an excellent contrast to its predecessors.  Minuets 1 and 2 were bright and vigorous, working up to the lively Gigue that ended the Suite.  This was a splendid performance.

Archi Antichi was written for Archi d’Amore Zelanda, and as the title indicates, was based on antique dances, to some extent.  It consisted of Fugue, Cavatina, and Arrhythmia (though missing its first ‘h’; commemorating the heart condition the composer had experienced).  As Donald Maurice said in his remarks opening the concert, it was somewhat ‘Lilburnish’ – particularly in the opening movement, I found.

Jane Curry introduced the work, and I was pleased to hear her pay tribute to Marjan van Waardenberg for the work she does organising these lunchtime concerts.

The Williams work began with the cello alone, in Bach-like manner.  The others joined in with pizzicato.  Moving into a minor key, the music became more complex, the parts following their individual lines clearly, but nevertheless making a pleasing and cohesive whole.  A slower section again had each instrument complementing the others in a satisfying way.

The cavatina had a slow, undemonstrative start, followed by a strong but mournful duet for cello and viola d’amore.  The guitar joined in after a time, in a beautiful piece of writing.  The other instruments blended gorgeously in accompanying the melody.  The “Arrythmia” featured pizzicato in an off-beat rhythms and good interplay between the parts before the music became agitated; it ended with a delicious little motif – perhaps saying ‘everything is all right now’, to end a fine concert of interesting and well-played music.

 

 

 

 

Winds and piano: a masterpiece and three French delights from Zephyr

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Zephyr Wind Ensemble with Diedre Irons (piano)
Bridget Douglas – flute, Robert Orr – oboe, Rachel Vernon – clarinet, Robert Weeks –  bassoon, Ed Allen – horn
(Waikanae Musical Society)

Mozart: Quintet for piano and wind instruments, K 452
Poulenc: Trio for oboe , bassoon and piano
Sextet for piano and winds
Ibert: Trois pièces brèves, for wind quintet

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday 11 June, 2:30 pm

The players from the NZSO who comprised five-sixths of the Zephyr Wind Ensemble have played together in varying combinations over the years, and several will have played with Diedre Irons.

What this leads one to expect is ensemble and musical rapport at a very high level. It was.

One of the characteristics of the famous Mozart quintet is the entrancing interlacing of the individual instruments. As with most chamber music, it allows no one to hide; furthermore, given the different timbres of each and the tendency of certain instruments to sound more loudly than others, more attention to balance is required than with, for example, a string quartet (though I can imagine protests from string players about that).

Each player seemed to rejoice in Mozart’s detailed writing for each part, making it both distinct and perfectly in harmony with its companions. Winds seem to deal better than strings with the natural dominance of a piano; in any case, Diedre Irons’s playing was most sensitively accommodated to the natural characteristics of each wind instrument. This was particularly impressive given that the music suggested a non-legato, quasi detached style of playing through much of the first movement. Much as one resists singling out individuals, Ed Allen’s horn was both fluent and warmly articulated.

The Larghetto second movement was gently paced, but here I wondered occasionally whether the playing needed to be as detached as it was at times, yet there was plenty of opportunity to admire the particular beauties, including especially the bassoon of Robert Weeks.

In contrast with the first movement, I was more attracted in the Finale to the ensemble maintained by all players, though there were still many moments in which just one, two or three instruments had opportunities to demonstrate an individual finesse. And though I was tempted to think from time to time that it was Mozart’s specially favoured clarinet that made the most characteristic sounds, in the end I felt that it was Robert Orr’s oboe that made the simply most beautiful music.

There were two of Poulenc’s chamber pieces for piano and wind instruments on the programme, both written in the inter-war years; it was good to hear them as it tends to be the three wind sonatas of his last years that are most played. The trio and the sextet are however as important if not as serious as the three post-war sonatas.

However, the trio’s irregular, avant-gardish-sounding opening might come as a surprise to those more used to the jocular and witty Poulenc, to the Poulenc of just three or four years earlier, of Les Biches, for example. However, very soon, tunes that might well be related to parts of the ballet score appear. It offers fine opportunities for both oboe and bassoon which the players relished, as did Diedre Irons at the piano.

In the Andante Poulenc seems determined to show his independence of the Stravinskian or Schoenbergian, perhaps even the Debussyish influences that weighed upon composers in the 20s.  It’s lyrical in a pointillist manner. In a way, there was more scope for instrumental individuality here than in the Mozart piece, and again it was good that the bassoon of Robert Weeks had such exposure. The music returned to the more familiar Poulenc in the last movement, with rewarding some spot-lighting of the Diedre Irons’s piano.

The opening of the Sextet sounded a bit easy-going in the first few bars, but quickly a sense of rich single-mindedness emerged, even if I have to confess to having heard more velvety ensemble on record. The movement almost comes to a stop before a long and beautiful series of slow-paced solos from each changes the tone completely for a couple of minutes.

The slow movement, Divertissement (a favourite word for French composers, but think not of the famous one by Ibert), was almost a lament, led by the oboe, proving that a French composer in the inter-war years was capable of a moment of reflection. Suddenly it turned into the flighty tune from the first movement, but soon returned to the meditative spirit. The finale is full of action and the players caught its occasionally mock-Germanic tone. After a few more twists and turns the piece ends with the bassoon attempting to find a big tune.

This was the piece that ended the concert.

In between the two Poulenc pieces was Ibert’s Three Short Pieces for wind quintet – no piano present. They were conventional in form: the first piece, Allegro, very familiar tune, confirming to me that I knew the pieces, though the anonymous-like title hadn’t helped. The witty music passes from one player to another, each having a lively turn. The second movement took a gentle course, ‘intermezzo’ like, beautifully led by Bridget Douglas’s flute, but again using each instrument distinctly to keep interest alive. The last is defined: Assez lent, after a dignified introduction, the tempo picks up and finally a clear and delightful waltz-like melody, Allegro scherzando, much dominated by Rachel Vernon’s clarinet, though there is very democratic sharing of the pleasures.

The enjoyment of the players, expressed in performances where the opportunity to exhibit inter-wars music that was clearly fun to play and certainly fun to listen to, was grasped wholeheartedly.

 

Naxos issues CD from NZSQ of Brahms’s 3rd string quartet and clarinet quintet

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand String Quartet and James Campbell (clarinet)
Brahms: String Quartet No 3 in B flat, Op 67 and Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op 115

Naxos CD Recording. Recorded at St Anne’s Anglican Church, Toronto; 14-16 July 2015 (Naxos 8.573454)

The New Zealand String Quartet recorded Brahms’s first two string quartets, Op 51, in July 2014 at the same place.

All modern recordings of Brahms’s three string quartets fill the second disc with another comparable (occasionally a non-comparable) work, sometimes by Brahms; the filler has been the clarinet quintet on several occasions.

String Quartet No 3
Setting the third quartet alongside the clarinet quintet was logical enough, but the juxtaposition created a somewhat unexpected, though by no means disagreeable experience. The quartet came from 1876 when he was 43, while the quintet was among his twilight compositions, in 1891, when he was (only) 58. The tone has changed from buoyant and confident, though even in earlier music infused with a gentle melancholy, to a generally subdued, elusive, seriously inward and elegiac character. But the quintet is one of the most beautiful things Brahms wrote.

The quartet in B flat major is rather more sanguine and confident than the two of Op 51, which are both in minor keys.

The first impact of the NZSQ’s playing was their vivid articulation, immediacy, which was intensified in a very luminous acoustic. The first movement opens with strikingly contrasted phrases, first from 2nd violin and viola, and then two bars, much more emphatic, from all four strings, a pattern that continues for about 20 bars.

Right there, the passing prominence of Douglas Beilman’s second violin made me conscious of the fact that this might have been his last recording session (he retired at the end of last year), and so I listened particularly to the beautiful, mellow sounds of his instrument, generally distinct from Helene Pohl’s brighter first violin; and again there were phrases towards the end of the second movement where the second violin is particularly ingratiating.

The players produce an immediately arresting spirit and though the mood of the music calms later, the clarity of each instrument never dims and the emphatic triplet rhythms are a constant delight.

I can imagine certain listeners finding the Andante movement perhaps too casual, after the propulsive first movement; for me, that contrast was perfectly judged, its meditative lyricism, at times meandering.

Speaking of individuals, there were the long, glorious melodic strands from Gillian Ansell’s viola through the lovely third movement and at the start of the fourth. Though there are entrancing beauties throughout the piece, I found myself returning often to the last movement with its endless modulations and inventiveness, the return of a dancing, triplet episode from the first movement, and growing wonderment at Brahms’s melodic gifts and the endless subtleties of the music’s patterns and procedures.

Clarinet Quintet
Recent recordings of the clarinet quintet have linked it with clarinet quintets by Hindemith, Reger, Mozart, an eccentric piece by David Bruce, as well as with other Brahms pieces: string quartet No 2, and with his clarinet trio and other pieces.

My frank reaction to this piece would never do in the pages of Gramophone or the International Record Review; I can’t find the usual ‘critic-speak’ phraseology, for I simply get weak at the knees listening to a recording of this quality – no, not just technical flawlessness or interpretation that accords with today’s fashions such as adherence to the performance practice of the music’s own era, but old-fashioned adolescent emotion, spiritual and heart-strings-pulling rapture. My main criteria are not artistic integrity, intensity of expression, but simply to be moved by the obvious love that all five players feel for this very special masterpiece.

The five know each other very well and it shows right away, in the perfect tonal sympathy they share. Eminent Canadian clarinettist James Campbell has had a relationship with the NZSQ for many years, starting, I imagine at the Banff International Chamber Music Festival. Inter alia, they have played together at the Nelson Chamber Music Festival, first time in 2007 when my chief memory is of a wonderful concert at a Marlborough vineyard that included the clarinet quintets of both Mozart and Brahms. In later visits I recall Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, Weber’s Clarinet Quintet, the Schubert Octet and Schumann’s Märchenerzählungen.

As Mozart and others had found long before, the blending of four strings and a clarinet seems to raise inspired musical ideas to a level of sublimity. The effect was that the strings and the clarinet each took on the characteristics, were absorbed into the sonic cosmos of the other. It was evident right at the start with the slow ethereal arpeggio of the clarinet entry, and Campbell’s intimate relationship with the tones and colourings of the strings sustained a magically integrated spirit through all four movements.

The quintet is unusual in that its basic spirit seems not to change much from movement to movement, though it does change in tempo and rhythm, and the third movement, which is as close as Brahms gets to a sort of Scherzo – there’s even a section marked Presto; and of course there are more animated episodes in the Finale, Con Moto, which can be heard as vivacious or animated; nevertheless, there’s an air of graceful melancholy throughout. It’s especially remarkable in the Adagio in which the clarinet seems to be present, uninterruptedly throughout: his playing was a vital element in a movement that was other-worldly, just achingly beautiful.

Again, though the whole was inevitably greater than the sum of the parts, the individual beauties kept catching the ear; there were times when the loveliest companion for the clarinet was Rolf Gjelsten’s cello.

Though reviewers with access to multiple versions of the clarinet quintet can attempt comparisons, commenting on minutiae, on perceived or imagined variations in emotional intensity, indulging such insights as finding “the tone of gentle love but no regret” for example, the few that I have on vinyl and CD make pointless such an attempt on my part.

Many performances are rewarding and are no doubt as deeply satisfying as this. However, none touch me more movingly.

Excellent performances of UK and US music from Wellington Youth Choir

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wellington Youth Choir conducted by Jared Corbett; Deputy Musical Director: Penelope Hooson; accompanist: Gabriel Khor

Songs from Britain and the United States

Metropolitan Cathedral of the Sacred Heart

Friday 9 June, 7 pm

The Sacred Heart Cathedral is a good place for singing – for both singers and listeners, and so it was especially good to hear this generally well-schooled and enthusiastic young choir, in a wide variety of songs.

The British song tradition
The concert began with an account of God Save the Queen, which prompted no one to stand, because it was clearly an arrangement, and a rather entertaining arrangement of the anthem, by Tahlia Griffis and Will King, two choir members. Each of the later, unfamiliar stanzas took the form of a variation in a musical sense: a nice clean performance, part-singing well balanced, and the last verse especially amusing and harmonically quirky, without becoming conspicuously republican in spirit.

For Gunnar Erikson’s arrangement of Purcell’s charming Music for a While, the choir divided into a group of eight soloists with the words, against humming by the main body of the choir.  There followed other songs by English composers, generally in a folk song vein, by Herbert Howells and perhaps Elgar, and two songs from Britten’s Ceremony of Carols. (I’m not sure whether either the Howells or the Elgar was dropped, as I caught only half of what the conductor said as he introduced the group – nor did assistant conductor Penelope Hooson speak distinctly enough for me to catch all her remarks). Whether Howells’s In Youth is Pleasure or Elgar’s The Snow, it was a delightful performance, lively and luminous.

Penelope Hooson took charge of strong sopranos plus very distinct altos in a lovely rendering of Britten’s ‘Ballulalow’ and the lively ‘This Little Babe’ from his Ceremony of Carols.

There followed familiar folk songs: Bobby Shaftoe, Londonderry Air, and two songs from John Rutter’s arrangements in Five Traditional Songs: ‘O Waly, Waly’ and ‘Dashing away with the Smoothing Iron’. There were ecstatic harmonies and a penny whistle in Bobby Shaftoe, hard to keep in tune; tuning was also a challenge in Danny Boy though that seemed to increase its charm.

Rutter’s setting of ‘O Waly Waly’, employing pure, unison women’s voices to begin, was a fine and successful test of technique and accuracy; the ‘Smoothing Iron’ was a more traditional setting.

Bob Chilcott’s The Making of the Drum, quite extended – maybe 10 minutes? – called on some unusual tricks like rubbing hands together, humming and noisy breathing and later, less unorthodox singing like a four-note motif from women and melancholy part-singing by the men; but the words and the musical sense of the work escaped me, even in passages that were more orthodox. One of those occasions where the innocent listener perhaps tries too hard to find what the composer does not intend to supply or for the audience to worry about.

Songs from the United States
United States songs occupied the second half. More of them were traditional or derived from jazz or Broadway, than in the case of the British songs.

It began with the choir disposed around the side and cross aisles; the singing spread from the front and slowly took hold throughout, so that sections of the choir seemed to come from unexpected quarters as they sang an arrangement of the Appalachian folk  song Bright Morning Star.

Penelope Hooson then directed the spiritual Didn’t my Lord Deliver Daniel and Deep River, both in Moses Hogan’s arrangements. They were well balanced among the sections of the choir, sustaining a uniform tone.

My notes at this stage remarked on what I began to find a bit inauthentic: country or bluesy rhythms turned salon music, which overlies most concertised American folk music. Probably unfair, but my feeling at that moment.

Nyon Nyon by Jake Runestad was new to me; the high-lying words sung by women while men murmured below them, with strange vocalisations, nasal sounds, offered what might be called, perjoratively, noises as distinct from music, which can soon induce weariness rather than delight.

Looking for background on the composer of the next two songs, from Three Nocturnes by Daniel Elder, I found this comment about Ballade to the Moon : “Marked Adagio Misterioso, this evocative work has been appearing on festival lists all over the country, and for good reason – it is an important contribution to the choral repertoire.” (https://www.jwpepper.com/Ballade-to-the-Moon/10283255.item#/).

I’d scribbled remarks like ‘melodic, sentiment – not sentimental, singing moves about the choir interestingly, pretty piano accompaniment’ (and it’s timely to compliment the pianist Gabriel Khor on his lively and supportive playing throughout the concert); and about the second song, Star Sonnet, ‘another slow, inoffensive melody, monotone, basically sentimental  ’.  However, they proved a nice change from the earlier prevalence of over-arranged, Gospel-inspired material.

The rest of the concert included a nice setting of Fats Waller’s Ain’t misbehavin’ and a well-rehearsed if unadventurous account of Gershwin’s I got Rhythm.

There was a rather prolonged series of thanks to sponsors and supporters of the choir before the last two songs; a strange, low-key, hymn-like arrangement of The Star-spangled Banner and a sort of religious flavoured song by Susan LaBarr: Grace before Sleep.

Some reflections
For me, more strongly persuaded of the central importance of Continental Europe in most aspects of broadly western musical culture, the choice of music seemed somehow peripheral. There were virtually no mainstream classical choruses or ensembles or art songs in the programme; the nearest were a few British arrangements of folk songs by important composers. However, the choice of songs within those rather limited genres was eclectic, and the choir’s refinement, control of dynamics, colour, and their flexibility in some off-beat and unorthodox vocal techniques, was often most impressive; and I have to confess that the range of pieces produced an evening of entertaining and well-schooled performances.

I might finally comment on the programme. I see the job of critiquing live music performances as, in part, to create a record of classical music performance in the Greater Wellington region to help future music or other historians to obtain a better picture of activities than is likely to be accessible through the often non-existent archives of a multitude of individual orchestral, choral, chamber music organisations, tertiary institutions and music venues that are of variable accuracy and comprehensiveness.

Basic archival information, time, date and place of the performance(s), was missing. Though it did record the details of all the pieces sung and the names all choir members, musical directors and accompanist.

Choral singing flourishes in Wellington region Big Sing gala concert

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand Choral Federation Secondary Schools’ Choral Festival
Big Sing, second gala concert

Michael Fowler Centre

Thursday, 8 June 2017, 7.00pm

As I said in 2015 (in a review of the Big Sing National Finale concert), it is marvellous to find so many young people taking part in choirs and obviously enjoying it.  Apparently there are more choirs in the 2017 Festival than ever before, and it seems to me that the standard is always rising.  The fact that all the choirs learn all their pieces by heart is staggering to us mere adults who sing in choirs, to whom this is an almost overwhelming difficulty.  An excellent effect of memorisation is that for the most part, words come over clearly – not always the case when singers are constantly glancing down at printed copies.   Every eye here was on the conductors – except for those few choirs who were able to perform without anyone standing in front of them to direct things.

This year, there will be 10 regional finales.  39 choirs participated in the two evening concerts (the other on Wednesday), from 22 schools in this region, plus one from Tauranga.  As always, the excitement in the hall and the large, enthusiastic audience made for a memorable occasion.  Compared with the first of these events I attended some years ago, not only is the number of participants much greater this time (choirs varied from about 20 members, to one of near 200), the audience is much larger.  Each choir sang one item, chosen from the three it had performed in the daytime sessions.

Everything is run with almost military precision by excellent young stage managing staff, plus the very professional but friendly manner of Christine Argyle, the compère.  The judge was well-known local soprano, Pepe Becker, who made helpful remarks at the awards presentation at the end, comparing attitudes required for singing to those for sport.

The performances were being recorded, so that the judges for the national finale later in the year could choose the best choirs from all the regional concerts.

The printed programme could not contain a lot of detail, but it would be an advantage to have the names of choir directors and composers printed in a less skinny, pale type-face, since during items the house lights are lowered completely, and in between items is a short space of time, such is the precision with which choirs move on and off the stage.

The first choir was Dawn Chorus from Tawa College – over 100-strong.  Like a number of the choirs, it has taken part in most, if not all, the regionals since The Big Sing began 29 years ago.  ‘The Seal Lullaby’, a peaceful song by American Eric Whitacre involved singing in both unison and harmony – the former is often harder than the latter.  Sections of ‘oo-oo’ singing were excellently done; the choir’s tone was good.

Tawa’s Early Birds, a small all-girls choir with a student director, came next singing ‘Homeward Bound’ by Marta Keen.  I found this song rather bland, and not the best suited to this group.

Yet a third Tawa College choir, Blue Notes, consisted of about 30 boys and girls.  Their item was by New Zealand composer David Childs: ‘Peace, my heart’.  This quite complex song was given a very restrained rendition.  It was accompanied by solo cellist Benjamin Sneyd-Utting.  It was a musically satisfying performance.

Whitby Samuel Marsden Collegiate’s 30-strong choir Viridi Vocem performed Gershwin’s well-known ‘Fascinating Rhythm’, the mixed choir employing actions to amplify the rhythm.  Words were clear, but the tone left something to be desired, and there was little variety.

Wellington College, and one of the other choirs, employed a professional accompanist.  Their chorale sang ‘Yo le canto’ by David Brunner, a contemporary American songwriter.  The rhythmic clapping enhanced the good sound the 35 boys made.  The harmony was extremely well rendered, and the intonation was spot on.  There was a feeling of unanimity in this spirited performance.

Boys from this school then combined with girls from Wellington Girls’ College to sing a spiritual ‘How can I keep from singing?’.  It was a very competent performance.

From across the city came 35-strong Wellington East Girls’ College Senior Choir.  They performed the ABBA song ‘Super Trouper’ by Barry Anderson and Björn Ulvaeus, with a student director.  I found the tone and dynamics unvarying.  Although words and notes were very clear, it was a dull performance – though the audience was enthusiastic to be hearing something they knew

The same school’s Multi Choir, of about 60 singers, sang ‘Ki Nga Tangata Katoa’, by Lernau Sio, the choir’s student director.  The performance was accompanied by guitar, and there was a student vocal soloist (amplified).  The choir made a robust, authentically Maori sound, and matched their excellent ensemble with appropriate actions.

From the Wairarapa came two schools forming one choir: Viva Camerata, with students from Rathkeale College and St. Matthew’s Collegiate.  They sang a traditional African Xhosa song, ‘Bawo Thixo Somandla’, transcribed by their director, Kiewet van Devente.  The performance incorporated a lot of movement.

The singing was very good, with a strong, forward sound.

Next came the largest choir of the evening, Wellington Girls’ College’s Teal – reflecting the colour of their school uniform.  Despite the choir’s large size, here was clarity plus, in the excellent performance of Gluck’s ‘Torna, O Bella’, the only truly classical piece we heard all night.  It was a delightful performance of this piece from Gluck’s opera Orpheus and Euridice.

The Year 9 Choir from the same school was smaller, but still numbered about 80 members.  They sang David Hamilton’s ‘Ave Maria’.  The sound was a little too restrained, with insufficient variation of dynamics, and the piano sounding a mite too loud.

New Zealand composer David Hamilton appeared again with yet another choir from Wellington Girls’ College – Teal Voices.  They sang his beautiful ‘My Song’.  And it was beautifully sung, with feeling, fabulous clarity and a great dynamic range.

Heretaunga College’s Phoenix Chorale gave us ‘Skyfall’ by Adele Adkins (not Atkins) and Paul Epworth.  The song is based on the theme music from the James Bond film of the same title.  I’m afraid I found it boring.  It began quietly, but later the singers pushed their voices unattractively.  The students’ faces showed no involvement or communication whatever.

Chilton St. James School in Lower Hutt has featured frequently in The Big Sing over the years.  Its first choir to sing was I See Red.  They sang ‘L’Dor Vador’, a Jewish song by Meir Finkelstein.  The approximately 40 singers sang with delightful tone; both notes and words were very clear.

The school’s second choir, Seraphim, performed a Basque song, by Eva Ugalde: ‘Tximeletak’.  Mastering the language must have been quite an assignment!   Though we couldn’t understand the words, they and the music were clear; it was an interesting composition.

Another long-standing regular at The Big Sing, St. Patrick’s College’s Con Anima choir, sang Phil Collins’s ‘Trashin’ the Camp’, a song from the 1999 film Tarzan.  It was accompanied by electric bass guitar and piano, and featured a brief vocal solo.  The 30-strong choir’s rendition involved lots of movement; the piece was very popular with the audience and was sung with style, accuracy and splendid vocal tone.

To end the evening were performances from choirs at Samuel Marsden Collegiate in Karori.  The first, Ad Summa, was directed by the student who composed the piece sung by the second choir.  First up was ‘Te Iwi E’, transcribed by student Gabrielle Palado, who, Google tells me, is a champion golfer.  The singing was accompanied by actions in the best traditions of the action song.  A guitar was used to accompany this 90-strong choir.  It was a fine performance.

The other choir, Altissime, was conducted by teacher (and distinguished soprano) Maaike Christie-Beekman.  She gave a demonstration of active, intelligent, involving directing.  The song ‘I am a sailor’ was by student Neakiry Kivi.  It was an impressive composition for a student to have written.  Its music was in places quite difficult.  The composer herself narrated, using a microphone, through part of the song; the last part was in te reo.  The 30 singers had wonderful tone, control and blend.  The dynamics were superb.  Perhaps this was the best item of the night.  I rather think this is the same song, given now an English title rather than its Maori equivalent, with which Kivi won the Royal New Zealand Navy’s 75th anniversary Secondary Schools’ Creative Competition.

Judging was on the basis of the day’s performances as well as those at the evening concert; the same went for the Wednesday sessions and concert – there were awards at the close of that concert too, though the printed programme did not distinguish as it should have between the awards given each night.

There were many certificates presented, but here I list only the cups.  The Victoria University of Wellington College of Education award  for the best performance of a New Zealand composition was awarded to Rathkeale College and St. Matthew’s Collegiate choir Viva Camerata.  The Shona Murray Cup for classical performance went to Wellington College Chorale; the Dorothy Buchanan Cup for ‘other styles of music’ was won by St. Patrick’s Con Anima choir.  The Festival Cup for ‘overall attitude to The Big Sing’ was awarded to Wellington Girls’ College.  Finally, a new financial award from the Ministry of Youth Development, named ‘Spirit of the Festival’ Youth Ambassadors Award, presented   in the form of a framed certificate, went to Heretaunga College.

Every choir member, director, trainer and accompanist deserves congratulations – not ignoring the fact that a number of the choirs sang unaccompanied, with accuracy and consistency, showing excellent musicianship.  Let’s hope that the students will maintain their singing, through youth and community choirs, when they leave school.

 

Engaging recital of once much-played piano pieces from young pianist

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s lunchtime concert

Louis Lucas-Perry (piano)

Haydn: Piano Sonata in F, Hob. XVI/23
Debussy: La cathédrale engloutie, No 10 of Preludes, Book I
Liszt: Ballade No 2 in B minor, S. 171
Chopin: Polonaise No 3 in A, Op 40 No 1 (‘Military’)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 7 June 2017, 12:15 pm

Louis Lucas-Perry’s brief biography printed in the programme writes of performances in Upper Hutt and Nelson (a Grieg Piano Concerto there), of winning a New Zealand School of Music ‘Directors’ Scholarship. He offers no information about the schools attended, but mentions teaching and accompanying the Big Sing, students’ choral festival, and chamber music groups.

I notice that I reviewed a student concert that included him in October 2015; there he also played Liszt’s Ballade No 2.

However, on the evidence of his playing he has reached a very respectable level of both technical skill and musical insight. He opened with Haydn’s splendid piano sonata in F major, a fine response to the key which inspires many composers to music that is open, cheerful, often witty (think Mozart’s piano concerto No 19, Beethoven’s Pastoral and No 8, Dvorak’s American quartet). This was staccato, bright, limpid, delighting in sudden modulations, which clearly also delighted the pianist.

Never mind that the second movement, Adagio, in F minor, changes the mood sharply, with a lamenting tone but employing one of Haydn’s most affecting melodies. Haydn can scarcely release it and it returns, blessedly, time and time again, played with infinite tenderness. The melody has such poignancy that I was convinced that I’d heard it long ago, but not for many, many years. I’m sure that everyone in the audience (of around 70) would have been entranced and that all copies of CDs of it in the library would have disappeared shortly after the concert. The last movement restored the spirit of delight (suddenly Shelley came into my head: ‘Rarely, rarely, comest thou, / Spirit of Delight!’ Though the next lines are not so pertinent – ‘Wherefore hast thou left me now / Many a day and night?’).

Debussy’s Sunken Cathedral doesn’t present obvious, enormous technical problems – merely the huge challenge of playing Debussy properly. So it was played carefully, perhaps too carefully for the strangeness of the imagery to emerge with a great feeling of mystery. After all, it’s in C major, mostly.

Liszt’s 2nd Ballade used to be familiar, played on the 2YC, predecessor radio station to RNZ Concert, dinner music programme. But it’s not much played by professionals today; why not? It contains lots of characteristic Liszt – melodic, passionate, mysterious – and Lucas-Perry clearly responded to it with a genuine Lisztian instinct. The pianist’s own imagined ‘programme’ – the legend of Hero and Leander – wasn’t a bad idea as long as one didn’t try to fit it literally to the story. But there were sufficient thundering bass passages and turbulent storm-tossed seas to fit all sorts of romantic legends. And he did a convincing job of telling the tragic tale.

Chopin’s Military Polonaise too, used to be a familiar dinner-music piece on radio (such times now seem to be filled by arrangements for inappropriate instruments of opera tunes and flashy scraps of well-known popular classics). Lucas-Perry took the march-like music cautiously but again demonstrated an ability to play all the notes accurately and capture the spirit of Chopin quite convincingly.

An engaging and enjoyable recital.

 

Acclamation for Auckland Viva Voce’s remarkable performance of enthralling work on pilgrimage: Camino de Santiago de Compostela

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Viva Voce, conducted by John Rosser

Joby Talbot: Path of Miracles

St. Peter’s Church, Willis Street

Sunday, 4 June 2017, 4.30pm

The programme’’s sub-title for the work was “Joby Talbot’s stunning choral depiction of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage.”  The blurb was right; this was a truly remarkable work, of just over an hour’s almost constant unaccompanied singing (apart from the periodic use of 8 traditional small cymbals,or crotales), with no applause until the end.

Talbot is a 46-year-old British composer who has written in many genres, including opera and ballet, and for film and television.  This work was composed in 2005, a setting of a commissioned text from Robert Dickinson.  Although the printed programme has a photograph and note about Talbot, there is nothing about the poet, but John Rosser did tell us a little about him in his excellent introductory remarks.  The text is quite astonishing, not only for the fact that 7 different languages are used.  Rosser believes that the three performances by the choir (Auckland [the choir’s home city] and Napier before this one) are the first in the southern hemisphere.

Wikipedia gives little information about Dickinson, who is a British novelist.  The work traces both the story of St. James, who tradition says returned from martyrdom in Jerusalem to Galicia where he had previously preached, and that of walkers on the renowned (and now revived) walk to Santiago de Compostela, where the martyr’s bones were found 800 years later.  Dickinson created a brilliant text, printed in full in the programme – though not always easy to follow, due to the variety of languages, and much repetition, particularly of refrains.

Rosser informed us that there are now approximately a quarter of a million people walking the Camino each year; I know people who have done it, and I have stayed in an ancient village in southern France that was on one of the many routes through that part of the country, and bore on a wall the scallop shell symbol of the pilgrimage.

The men of the choir entered the church first, vocalising on low notes.  They walked to the front and stood in a circle, round a circle of stones.  The notes very gradually rose in pitch until they became high, reaching a scream as the women joined in from the back of the church, and the cymbals joined in.

The women advanced up the church, led by a solo voice.  The singing at this stage was quite loud, but dynamics varied throughout the work   The voices were very fine, and the resonance superb.  All were very precise both musically and in incisive enunciation of all the languages, in this sometimes intricate work.  The musical style in this early part was medieval. This first part was entitled Roncesvalles, the name of the place in northern Spain where the Camino starts, though many started in times past in southern France.  As the pilgrimage progresses, marked by the choir by numerous episodes of walking slowly around the church and into different positions on the platform.  The other parts are named Burgos, Leon and Santiago.

Walking and repositioning were not the only choreographed parts of the performance; part way through the first section the choir began swaying.  Then a bass with a very deep, fruity voice intoned from the pulpit while the choir sang pianissimo.  That was followed by a soprano and tenor duet.  The use of the cymbals was quite beautiful here.

In the second section there was a change to a modern style of composition.  The mood here was more conversational, as though the pilgrims were recounting to each other some of the trials of the journey (apparently ‘the English steal’), the tone being more mellow, with a prayerful quality.  Some of the more ghoulish sections of text conveyed a desolate sound, through both vocal tone and the intervals employed.

A reduced choir sang some of the text, and this produced an effective contrast.  Louder passages followed towards the end of the Burgos section and the deep bass made further utterances.

The women began the Leon movement (of which there was plenty) at the back of the church, intoning much repetition of the opening refrain.  Then the men, describing the land they walked through, sang loudly.  Rich harmony ended this section, at the words ‘We pause, as at the heart of a sun that dazzles and does not burn.’  Here as elsewhere there was consistent tone and pronunciation, and the blend was superb.

In Santiago there was more virtuosic singing  All of it was dynamically interesting and varied.  The first passage in Latin sounded like a chant, but was sung in harmony.  With the concluding words the choir faced and looked directly at the audience, singing ‘Holy St James, great St James, God help us now and evermore.’  The choir walked off, each picking up a stone from the stone circle and placing it with the others in a cairn at the foot of the platform.  They continued singing the last passages from memory, fading as they made a wonderful conclusion to the work as they continued to walk into the porch, still singing.

This was a real choir, unlike TV’s ‘Naked Choir’ contest, of which John Rosser is a judge.  What with mikes and costumes, they are not as naked as Viva Voce, which really does rely solely on its voices.

The choir returned to repeated enthusiastic acclamation, some in the audience rising to their feet in tribute to this outstanding and remarkable performance of this complex but enthralling work, which my mere words cannot hope to adequately describe.  This was a unique experience.

For a very cold late Sunday afternoon, there was quite a sizeable audience in the church.  There was some heating on, but it was insufficient on such a cold day.

 

Renowned Bach scholar and conductor Suzuki with fine baroque ensemble Juilliard415

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Masaaki Suzuki & Juilliard415
(Chamber Music New Zealand)

J.S. Bach: Orchestral Suite no.1 in C
Concerto for 2 violins in D minor
Cantata BWV 82a, Ich habe genug
Orchestral Suite no.3 in D

Michael Fowler Centre

Tuesday, 30 May 2017, 7.30pm

It is wonderful for audiences in New Zealand to welcome back Masaaki Suzuki, this time with an ensemble of students from the famous Juilliard School based at the Lincoln Center in New York.   The 18 instrumentalists came from 8 different countries.

Suzuki, as well as running his own choral and orchestral ensembles and teaching in Tokyo, teaches also at Juilliard.  He is a renowned Bach scholar and conductor, and Wellington audiences delighted in his performing with his musicians two Bach concerts in the 2014 Arts Festival.  His Bach Collegium Japan echoes Bach’s Collegium Musicum in Leipzig, for which some of these works were written.

The ensemble was led by Cynthia Roberts, a noted American baroque violinist.  She bowed, as did some of the other musicians, in baroque style, but I could not tell from where I was sitting if period-style string instruments were in use; the bows did not appear to be, and there was nothing in the extensive printed programme to inform the audience on these points, beyond reference to the historical performance program at Juilliard.

Perhaps this is an academic point; the playing under Suzuki’s hands was crisp, pointed and always strongly rhythmic, and undoubtedly historically informed.

The first orchestral suite was one I was not familiar with.  Its various movements, based on dances, numbered 11 (taking into account that there were two Gavottes, two Menuets, two Bourées and two Passepieds).  Bach added so much to these traditional forms; his musical invention made something new out of something old.  Their traditional metres and structures were preserved, making a work that provided great delight to the audience, and doubtless to the musicians also.

The concerto is a delightful three-movement work that provides plenty of challenges to the soloists, and much pleasure to the listeners.  The features of returning phrases (ritornelli) sections for the soloists and the intricate counterpoint made for a work of constant freshness and colour through the three movements: vivace, largo ma non tanto and allegro.  The conversations between the soloists were always full of interest, but I found their tonal qualities distinct from each other, with that of Karen Dekker, who played second violin, more pleasing than the thinner, at times even metallic, sound from Isabelle Seula Lee.  Nevertheless, their performance, and that of the ensemble, was always vigorous, with plenty of dynamic contrasts

The cantata was for me the highpoint of the concert.  It was first performed in Leipzig in 1727 and was written for a bass singer.  It is this version with which I am familiar, having a fine recording of the lovely aria ‘Schlummert ein, ihr matten Augen’ with Rodney Macann singing.  Bach did later versions for soprano and alto and substituted the flute for the original oboe.  The soloist, Rebecca Farley, is a Juilliard graduate, and has a lovely and expressive voice.  I felt that some sections of the music were a little low for her, and there, the notes did not carry well through the auditorium.  There was a short section where the soloist got slightly out of time with the players, and needed Suzuki’s particularly close attention.  By and large however, it was a superb rendition, the words beautifully articulated, and the sentiments of the three arias and two recitatives communicated without seeming effort.  A short vocal encore was a reward for the audience’s enthusiasm for the performance.

It was good to have the lights left on in the Michael Fowler Centre so that the printed words, with translations could be read (it doesn’t always happen!).  Throughout, the ensemble’s playing was sympathetic and supportive, the flute (baroque flute) obbligato in this version for soprano being a characterful contribution, from Jonathan Slade.  The programme note stated that this version ‘…retains the unfathomable yet affirming qualities of the original.’

The last work, consisting of five movements (or 7 counting two Gavottes and two Bourées) was more familiar territory.  After the stately Ouverture, came the well-known Air (often mistakenly called ‘Air on the G String’).  It is deservedly popular, its calmly beautiful procession of notes is supremely serene and exudes quiet confidence.  I did miss the brass in the later movements – our ensemble consisted of strings and woodwind plus harpsichord.

The woodwind players at all times made a huge and delicious contribution to the works in which they played.  All the players made a big contribution to a concert of rich music that entranced the audience, but it is perhaps not unfair to credit particularly the guiding hand and ideas of their distinguished conductor.