Category: Live performance

Solo cellist Christopher Hutton in Wellington Chamber Music’s second 2017 concert

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Christopher Hutton (cello)
(Wellington Chamber Music)

J S Bach: A Suite Sampler
Britten: Suite for solo cello No 1, Op 72
Reger: Suite No 1 in G minor, Op 131c
Bolcom: from Suite No 1 in C minor
Harbison: Suite for solo cello (1993)
Corigliano: Fancy on a Bach Air

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 28 May 2017, 3 pm

Though originally from Wellington, Christopher Hutton had most of his education in the United States, at Boston University, the Eastman School of Music at Rochester, the University of North Carolina and the University of Delaware, before becoming an associate professor at the Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina.

He has made previous tours for Chamber Music New Zealand and Wellington Chamber Music, recently as cellist in the Poinsett Piano Trio. This may be his first return visit as solo cellist.

Given the general unfamiliarity with most of the music exists for solo cello (apart from Bach), he put together an interesting, and generally engaging programme.

Bach
It began with a not unsuccessful ‘sampler’ of a movement from each of Bach’s six cello suites, arranged in the same pattern as Bach followed, thus: the Prelude from No 1, the Allemande from No 2, the Courante from No 3, and so on. Apart from those with perfect pitch, the mixture of keys (no two are the same – the Bourrées in E flat followed by the Gigue in D) presented no problem. In the cases of very familiar movements, there was merely the matter of hearing, as each ended, the next actual movement in your head.

Before each piece, Hutton spoke interestingly and fluently, and his confident, unhesitating manner carried into his playing, through the varied phases of the first Prelude as well as the Allemande and the brisk Courante. At times it felt a little too restless. The Sarabande (from Suite No 5), however, was given its due as a more meditative piece. And he struck a clear contrast between the two Bourrées from the E flat suite.

Britten’s cello suite, one of three dedicated to Rostropovich, ‘clearly echoes Bach’, as Hutton says, but in such a way as to rather puzzle an innocent listener, who is likely to be less musically gifted and sophisticated than Rostropovich. It’s one of those pieces that is ‘tonal’ but not necessarily enrapturing. But I am not a reliable observer; I’ve long loved the Serenade for tenor, horn and strings, the operas Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, The Turn of the Screw and Gloriana, the War Requiem, the folk song arrangements, the piano and violin concertos; but some of the chamber music in particular, which some find ‘interesting’, I might find cold, obtuse, calculated, often cluttered with complexity.

However, Hutton gave it a splendidly idiomatic performance though perhaps it was one emphasising its rigour and intellectualism, driving it so fiercely that whatever lyricism and more simple beauty became a bit hard to discern.

Reger
Much more to my liking was Max Reger’s first suite; he, like Britten, wrote three cello suites paying homage to Bach. Forty years older than Britten, he lived just in time to avoid the serialist and other avant-garde pretensions, so his Bach emulations sounded much closer than Britten’s to their source; my notes even went so far as to ask: ‘Bach’s Seventh Suite?’

There were quite extrovert, even exhibitionist, passages but it was essentially musical. The Adagio middle movement was charming, with lengthy passages of double stopping, which made me wonder whether this was a candidate for extracting as solo, Bach-aria-type piece. There was an impressive fugal episode in the last movement which the soloist’s notes likened to Bach’s solo violin sonatas.

Bolcom
Three American composers, all born in 1938, followed. I’m more familiar with William Bolcom’s songs, which are very attractive, than his chamber and other music, but the three movements from his first cello suite had many agreeable features; it was in the Badinerie movement (Bach’s famous example is in the second orchestral suite) that Hutton displayed particular aplomb in handling its bravura character with confident mastery. And he captured the almost flippant spirit of the Alla sarabanda final movement splendidly.

Harbison
Bolcom was born on the west coast; John Harbison was born in Massachusetts. Hutton’s notes remark that his suite for solo cello resembles Bach’s solo violin sonatas and indeed, here was another approachable American composer who successfully took Bach as a model. Less easy to discern was the influence of Britten’s cello fugues, as suggested by Hutton; the blustery Fuga-Burletta, second movement, rather suggested Bach to me. Again, the genial musicality and the engaging scraps of melody that seemed to evolve one to another; the sober Sarabanda, and the rhythmically riotous Giga avoided anything that might alienate a mainstream listener. The music was imaginative, spontaneous in feeling, elegantly composed; and persuasively played.

Corigliano
The last item was something of a playful offering, from the many-sided John Corigliano (best known I suppose as composer of The Ghosts of Versailles, for the Metropolitan Opera, New York). His piece was called Fancy on a Bach Air; in fact, the Aria from Bach’s Goldberg Variations.  It was characterised by long-breathed melodic ideas as well as very large intervals that, strangely, taxed Hutton’s intonation ever-so-slightly. Yet it was splendidly played, a fine way to end this successful, generally not too challenging, though unusual recital.

Further programme material from Christopher Hutton

Christopher Hutton had supplied interesting backgound notes to Wellington Chamber Music for incorporation into their printed programme.  Space constraints prevented most of the text from being used.

They are reproduced below as they deal interestingly with each of the pieces played. I should add that I refrained from reading them till I had written my review in order not to be influenced by words not available to the audience on the day; naturally, there are certain things that do not perhaps line up with my own impressions of the music. So be it.

Lindis Taylor

Today’s program juxtaposes music from J.S. Bach’s much beloved Suites for Unaccompanied Violoncello with music by later composers who were influenced or inspired by Bach’s music.

As hard as it may be to imagine, J.S. Bach was not widely known as a composer when he wrote his cello suites almost 300 years ago, and as famous as he is now, there is plenty we do not know about the genesis of this music. We do know they were written in Cöthen between 1717-1720. It is uncertain who exactly might have first performed them, but they may have been intended to impress his employer Prince Leopold who was an enthusiast of the Viola da Gamba. Bach surely never intended this music to be used for actual dancing but he knew that his contemporaries enjoyed dance music so much that dance styles were commonly integrated into instrumental music written purely for amusement.

This meant that Bach could readily draw upon firmly conventionalized styles with meters and figuration specific to each kind of dance. As such, each suite consists of an introductory prelude followed by a series of five dances, always appearing in the same order: Allemande (moderate-tempo in 4/4 time), Courante (quicker, in 3/4 time), Sarabande (slow and stately in 3/4, often with a particular emphasis on the second beat), and Gigue (fast, with triple rather than duple rhythmic subdivisions). Between the Sarabande and Gigue each suite has a pair of short dances called Galanteries: Minuets in the first and second suites (moderately quick, 3/4); Bourées in the third and fourth suites (quicker, in 3/4), and Gavottes in the fifth and sixth (relatively quick, in 4/4 time). All seven of these dance styles have their roots in courtly dances that had become standardized in France in the late seventeenth century, and although by 1720 the French court had moved on to newer dances, the older styles were still common in other countries.

Because a performance of all six suites lasts well over two hours, today’s program begins with a “Suite Sampler”, presenting one movement from each of Bach’s Suites, each in a different key. By combining movements from multiple suites one can get an impression of the musical affect of each suite and of the variety of different movements contained within, perhaps whetting listeners’ appetites to seek out the set of six suites as a whole. This set begins with the Prelude of the first, G major Suite, which is almost certainly the single most famous movement of solo cello music ever written. It is remarkably simple, a series of arpeggiated chords that modulate through a number of keys before settling on the dominant (fifth scale degree).

Resolution back to tonic is inevitable, but is withheld. The tension inherent in that delayed gratification builds until the chords of the opening measures return in a cathartic moment of rapture. This is followed by the usual series of dances with the contrasts between each style heightened by the different keys and character reflective of each suite: the introspective Allemande in D minor, the fleet-footed Courante from the sunny C-major suite, the melancholy and extraordinarily sparse Sarabande from the C minor suite, the playful Bourées from the otherwise grandiose E-flat Suite, wrapped up with the brilliant and thrilling Gigue of the D major suite.

Though the cello rose to prominence as a solo instrument in the nineteenth century and cellist-composers wrote for unaccompanied cello, this music has generally not become a part of the modern cellist’s canon. The first solo cello works to have attained the status as standard repertoire were three suites composed by Max Reger (1873-1916) almost two-hundred years after Bach’s suites. Though written in 1914, after Schoenberg’s early forays into atonality and Stravinsky’s landmark Rite of Spring, Reger’s suites are deeply rooted in the richly chromatic tonal harmonies of the Romantic era. Each of Reger’s suites is dedicated to a leading cellist of the day: Julius Klengel (1859-1933), Paul Grümmer (1879-1965), and Hugo Becker (1863-1941). These names are likely unfamiliar to general audiences, but are well-known to cellists as composers of etudes and other music, and editors of music including Bach’s suites – versions of which are still in print from each of these cellists!

The G-major Suite, Op. 131c No. 1, opens with a running sixteenth-note (semiquaver) figuration instantly recognizable as relating to Bach’s prelude in the same key. In Reger’s case, however, the range is greatly expanded, and the simplicity of Bach’s model gives way to much more extroverted virtuosity. This opening movement is followed by an Adagio that is not clearly based on any specific movement by Bach, but combines extended passages of double-stops (common to many of Bach’s Sarabande movements) with intricate, quickly-moving scales. Bach only wrote one movement for solo cello that one might call a fugue (in the prelude to the fifth suite), but he wrote movements titled “Fuga” in each of his three sonatas for solo violin. Writing a fugue for a solo instrument is a challenge, but in the finale of his suite Reger (like Bach before him) uses a relatively simple subject that permits the layering of the theme over (or under) other voices. While not the same as one of the four-part masterpieces of the Well-Tempered Clavier or a fugue for organ, the technique is remarkably effective.

Like Reger, Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) wrote three suites for solo cello, though in this case not as a set, but rather among a series of five works written between 1960 and 1974 for and dedicated to the Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich (1927-2007). The first suite was written in 1964 and premiered at the Aldeburgh Festival in 1965. Inspired by Rostropovich’s playing of Bach suites rather than Bach’s music itself, it still has movements that clearly echo Bach. Both the Canto which recurs in different guises throughout the Suite (much like the Promenade of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition) and the Lamento relate quite strongly to Bach’s Sarabande in C minor in the way they explore the dissonant interval of a half-step (semitone). The Fuga channels the contrapuntal writing of Bach’s fugues, and here Britten comes up with the ingenious idea of including silences in his theme which allows him more leeway in giving the impression of multiple voices (allowing voices in other registers to fill in the gaps).

Rather than imitate the typical kinds of dance movements found in a Baroque suite, the later movements are distinctly Britten. The serenade is played pizzicato throughout, with strings plucked by both the left and right hands. The sarcastic march (perhaps echoing Shostakovich, another composer who collaborated with Rostropovich) has trumpet and drum effects which gradually draw closer and then further away. The fifth movement, Bordone, alternates between higher, scurrying themes played with the bow contrasted with lower and slower notes plucked by the left hand, all layered with a sustained drone D. Later in the movement the quick motive dissolves into the drone itself which then accompanies a plaintive melody first above and then below. In the finale Moto perpetuo the scurrying theme of the Bordone is further developed, culminating in a return of the Canto refrain. The Canto that has been haunting the suite is finally exorcised and at the end of the movement the last note is a dyad of the dissonant half-step of F# and G which resolves to G alone as the open string rings longer. The piece is a real tour-de-force both of composition and as a showcase for the abundant talent of its dedicatee.

The remaining works on this program were all composed within a span of two years (1994-96), and coincidentally were all written by composers born in the same year (1938).

William Bolcom adapted his Solo Suite No. 1 in C minor from his score for Arthur Miller’s play Broken Glass. Like most of Bolcom’s cello works, it was written for the cellist Norman Fischer who now teaches at Rice University in Houston, Texas. The Prelude is a brusque and angular march with percussive effects. That contrasts greatly with the playful third-movement Badinerie. “Badinerie” is a relatively obscure French term that might best be translated to the more commonly used Italian term “scherzo” (joke), and is a title that Bach used in the finale of his second orchestral suite. The final movement of Bolcom’s suite, titled “Alla sarabanda” is a direct homage to Bach with a recomposed version of Bach’s C minor Sarabande
followed by a series of five increasingly technical variations, and followed by a reprise of the theme.

John Harbison’s Suite for Solo Cello is set in four movements, very much in the form of Bach’s Sonatas for solo violin (written around the same time as the cello suites). It begins with a rhapsodic, improvisatory Preludio followed by a Fuga-Burletta which is – as suggested by its title – a comic fugue. It has similarities to the fugues in first suites of both Britten (with its use of silences in the subject) and Reger (with voices layered into double- and later triple-stopped chords). The brief Sarabanda updates Bach’s Sarabandes with 20th-century harmonies, while the Giga (Gigue) finale is a rip-roaring moto-perpetuo inspired by some of Bach’s cello gigues (notably that of the fourth cello suite) and the fast finales of his violin sonatas and partitas.

John Corigliano’s “Fancy on a Bach Air” is an introspective single-movement piece inspired not by any cello music, but rather the Aria of Bach’s Goldberg Variations for harpsichord. It was written in memory of one Robert Goldberg who had commissioned a number of composers to write a series of variations for the 25th anniversary of his wedding to his wife Judy. The set of pieces was to be performed by Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax, but before the commission could be fulfilled Robert died of cancer leaving the variations to stand in memorium rather than their original, celebratory purpose. The long-breathed phrases of Bach’s original air are imitated here in long, legato lines, written without notated rhythms to suggest a sense of freedom. It seems an appropriate way to bring this program to a close.

For more information go to ReflectingBACH.com

Interesting organ programme from Tom Chatterton at St James, Lower Hutt

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

St James Sunday Organ Recital Series 2017
(St. James’s Church and Wellington Organists Association)

Tom Chatterton (organ)

Elgar: Imperial March (arr. G. Martin)
J.S. Bach: Prelude and Fugue in C, BWV 547
Mozart: Adagio from Serenade no.10 in B flat, “Gran Partita” K.361 (arr. Tom Chatterton)
J.S. Bach: ‘Komm Heiliger Geist’, BWV 651
Londonderry Air, arr. J. Stewart Martin
Vierne: Allegro first movement from 2nd Organ Symphony
Purcell: ‘When I am laid in earth’ (arr. Martin Setchell)
Jehan Alain: Litanies

St. James Church, Lower Hutt

Sunday 28 May 2017, 3pm

Tom Chatterton, a fairly recent arrival from Britain (where he attended Uppingham School, where Professor Peter Godfrey taught before coming to New Zealand), was heard by upwards of 40 people, on the impressive three-manual organ.  His mixing of shorter, more lyrical pieces between longer, more serious ones was good programming.  It was a shame that the Bach Prelude and Fugue was a substitute for Toccata in C, BWV 564 (i), a brilliant work I am particularly fond of, and the Vierne for Bach’s Concerto in A minor BWV 593 based on Vivaldi.  The organist explained that lack of sleep occasioned by his young daughter’s teething necessitated the changes.  However, no loss of technical ability was apparent in the works he played.

Chatterton’s introductions to pairs of pieces were informative, genial, and easily heard.  He introduced the Elgar as being bombastic – but the opening wasn’t, and elsewhere I found it lacking in this characteristic also.  I did wonder if moving the console into a central position on the platform (rather than being on the side, where it sits for church services) meant the organist was hearing the pipes more strongly than the audience was.  However, I did not find this effect in any of the later pieces. However,  in this one I did find the arrangement of the orchestral piece rather restrained for an Imperial March, much of the time.

The Bach Prelude and Fugue was very clear; each part could be distinctly heard, the notes being detached, but not too much.

The Mozart arrangement was interesting, calm and peaceful – but I must admit to preferring the original!

The Bach chorale prelude was a very sprightly one, played presto, its unstoppable momentum employing reeds, had pedals intoning the chorale melody underneath throughout.  It was a masterly performance.

The Londonderry Air worked well as ‘something completely different’.  Lovely flutes with plenty of ‘chuff’ were used to open the piece; later, plenty of variety of registration was used to enhance this beautiful air.

The Vierne movement opened spikily, then there followed passages for full diapason organ; loud episodes were followed in turn by episodes that sounded to me as if rather too great a mixture of stops of different tonal qualities were being employed.  It is a very inventive work (written in 1902), using all three manuals and pedals, with much variation of registration.

Purcell’s beautiful aria gave another quiet interlude.  This was an excellent arrangement, and made a very effective contrast to its predecessor.  It is interesting that arrangements of orchestral and vocal pieces seem to have returned recently to the organist’s palette; for a long time they were frowned on as Victorian and Edwardian excesses not needed in these days of orchestral concerts and recordings; organists should stick to what David Briggs described in a broadcast from Auckland played on RNZ the previous day as ‘indigenous’ organ music (he didn’t).

The final work was the only one to have some notes in the printed programme – without mentioning the composer’s famous organist sister, Marie-Claire Alain, who visited New Zealand.  The plain chant-style opening melody returned frequently sustained through many variations, changes of registration and harmonic shifts.  It was always interesting and at times, arresting.

The whole made up to a varied and pleasing concert.

 

Brahms’s Deutsches Requiem given spirited and scrupulous performance by Tudor Consort

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Tudor Consort conducted by Michael Stewart

Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem

Emma Sayers and Richard Mapp (piano)
Katherine McIndoe (soprano) and Simon Christie (baritone)

Wellington Cathedral of Saint Paul

Saturday 27 May, 7:30 pm

Brahms’s Requiem is known well enough by name and reputation to all tolerably interested in Music, but fewer would be familiar with it or have actually heard it live. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it in live performance, and have, somewhat to my embarrassment only become familiar with it on recordings in the last twenty years or so. The Orpheus Choir, naturally, has been its main advocate in Wellington over the years; my colleague Rosemary Collier, a long-time singer in the choir, looked up its history in the choir’s archive. They sang it in October 1968, October 1976, April 1988, September 1996, and November 2008. And it was sung by the New Zealand Choral Federation Choral Workshop a few years ago, too. The only record I can find of the NZSO’s participation was in the 1996 performance; I do not have a programme or any record of my reviewing either the 1988 or 1996 performances, both during my years at The Evening Post.

First, this was an extremely fine performance, spirited, colourful, scrupulously studied and rehearsed; the accompaniment was by duet pianists instead of orchestra, and their performances were pianistically admirable, if obviously not really a match for Brahms’s important and beautiful orchestral score.

Brahms had arranged the alternative accompaniment for piano duet for its first London performance in the home of a prominent surgeon where a small choir (about the size of the Tudor Consort, according to Michael Stewart’s notes) without an orchestra, could perform it. The piano duo of Emma Sayers and Richard Mapp excelled themselves in their formidable task of emulating Brahms’s emotionally charged orchestra.

Interestingly, Brahms incorporated into the piano score the choral and solo parts so that it could be played simply as a piano work. And indeed, whenever I turned my attention to the piano, it certainly seemed to invite admiration as a rather gorgeous piano work in its own right, as some kind of Strauss-length symphonic poem for the piano, or a suite ‘inspired by elegiac Biblical readings’.

The piano introduction was propitious, with most of the weight in the lower register, setting a suitably elegiac tone. At least the first few minutes suggested that the piano would offer a reasonably satisfactory substitute for the richness of an orchestra. And the choir begins in a similar spirit, uttering slow phrases that filled the space, with congenial, uncluttered echoing effects. And there were moments of illumination as the choir sang words like ‘mit Freuden ernten’.

The choir was arrayed in two sections, left and right at the front of the sanctuary: sopranos and tenors on the left, basses and altos on the right. It was aurally interesting to hear the parts distinctly.

The lovely, sombre piano introduction to the second part, ‘Denn alles Fleisch…’, also caught my ear. Though I read German adequately, I don’t know the words well, and had difficulty following the text, partly as Brahms moves the text about, and the cathedral acoustic doesn’t exactly clarify words; it also matters where you sit. I wasn’t in the first ten or so rows. Nevertheless, given that this was a smallish and superbly schooled choir, I’m sure that singers’ diction was pretty good.

The second is the longest section of the work, and though it’s taken from four different Biblical sources, the first (1 Peter) is finding solace in the evolving natural world, and in the second, from James, celebrating the joys to be found. The heart of this movement is with the splendidly triumphant ‘Die Erlöseten des Herrn…’, in which one might have enjoyed a bigger choir. But they captured its spirit admirably, powerful at its climaxes.

The baritone soloist arrives in ‘Herr, lehre mich doch   ’. Simon Christie’s lines somewhat resemble a particularly expressive recitative interspersed by choral passages, and he met the challenge of conveying the declamatory verses from Psalm 39, capturing the sharp contrast in tone with the words ‘Ach, wie gar nichts…’. Its splendid climax, involving a rise from hushed silence to a triumphant affirmation of faith, pretty well overcame the limitations of choral volume and lack of the orchestra.

A consoling change of tone in the gentle fourth movement, ‘Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen’; and on to the soprano’s movement, ‘Ich habe nun Traurigkeit’, with Katherine McIndoe. Her lines were even in tone, legato, well projected; in short capturing the beautiful, flowing and peaceful spirit of the three excerpts that comprise the seven minutes or so of this poignant episode with subtle contributions from the choir.

Simon Christie returns to a vigorous episode where Brahms uses the same verses from Corinthians as in Messiah, ‘Behold, I tell you a mystery’: always a curious experience to hear a different setting of words indelibly fixed in the mind by the likes of Handel. (Why do I remark this, with the hundreds of settings of standard liturgical texts that bother no one?). But Brahms’s view fitted the context, especially the powerful performance by the choir reinforcing the baritone.  The fugal passage and formidable climax towards its end brought the spirit of the work back to its Baroque antecedents.

The last section sets a short verse from Revelation, simply confirming that we are listening to a requiem. Calm and peace are restored; there are no words of a hereafter, merely that the dead may rest from their labours: Brahms a spiritual figure, but not an orthodox believer.

This was a fine performance, a singular credit to conductor Michael Stewart, generally overcoming the obvious shortcomings imposed by the choir’s size, the acoustic and the stringencies of Wellington – New Zealand – cultural circumstances.

 

Woodwind students present entertaining, varied music at St Andrew’s lunchtime concert

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Wind Ensembles of the New Zealand School of Music

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 24 May 2017, 12.15 pm

To hear young performers is always a pleasure; here we had seven young woodwind players, along with three pianists.  The first piece used  a student pianist, and the Bach work was unaccompanied.  Hugh McMillan and Kirsten Robertson were authoritative pianists for the other items.

Bridget Douglas, principal flute with the NZSO is acting Head of Winds, and she introduced the concert.  After that, the players introduced their items, and it was pleasing that all used the microphone, so their words could be heard clearly.

A trio opened the programme: Leah Thomas and Laura Brown (clarinets) and Tasman Richards (piano), playing Mendelssohn’s 2nd Concert Piece.  Grove tells me that this was written in 1833, for basset horn (a close relative of the clarinet) and piano.  The excellent introduction from Leah Thomas explained that the players decided to use two clarinets.  They alternated the music between them, and this worked well.  The presto opening movement was lively and played with flair, with a good variety of dynamics.

The following andante included passages for clarinet alone; these were played with gorgeous subtlety.  The allegro grazioso last movement again had beautiful parts for the clarinets, but the piano was rather ‘rum-te-tum’.   The clarinettists produced wonderful tone, and were accurate and confident.

A Bach Cello Suite on saxophone!!?   Peter Liley explained that the range of pitch of the baritone saxophone he was using was the same as that of the cello.  But I have to say that I found the tone in his ‘Allemande’ from the Suite no.1 a bit weird, so different is the timbre from that of a stringed instrument.  There is not the variety of tone colours as are attainable on a cello.  Nevertheless the higher notes can be very sweet, and the player was well in command of his instrument.

Telemann followed; his Sonata for Oboe and Continuo in A minor  began with a lovely andante from oboist Finn Bodkin-Olen.  Kirsten Robertson’s was a very busy part, played judiciously and producing a fine tone, as indeed did Bodkin-Olen’s oboe.  The vivace second movement was clear and joyful.  This was a splendid performance.

For something completely different, Billie Kiel played on clarinet Malcolm Arnold’s Sonatina for clarinet and piano, Op.29.  This was a challenging selection, with snappy melodies and delightful quirky passages and techniques, all of which Kiel played with the competence of a professional.  The piece’s two movements were both fast.

However, the reliance of the accompanist on reading his music on an iPad or similar had an obvious disadvantage when it seemed that his foot-pedal for the device didn’t work, and he could not continue, making an unwritten break in the piece.  From there he had to rely on a finger to stab the screen in order to turn the pages.

I was not familiar with the name Gaubert (and nor is Grove), but Google is.  Philippe Gaubert lived from 1879 to 1941.  Like many French composers, he was obviously keen on the flute.  His Madrigal for flute and piano was a complete change of mood from the Arnold work, being calm and pastoral.  The flowing accompaniment had its own charm.  It was a thoroughly enchanting performance by Samantha McSweeney and Kirsten Robertson.

The concert ended with the Rondo: allegretto from Weber’s Clarinet Concerto no.1 in F minor, Op.73.   As Frank Talbot, the performer, explained in his introduction, Weber was using the concerto to demonstrate the latest improvements to the clarinet. This third movement was a spirited piece, full of interest and liveliness, and played with assurance and technical mastery.  While the soloist had pauses, Hugh McMillan was kept busy substituting for a symphony orchestra.  It was a good work with which to end the concert.

 

Wellington Youth Orchestra in winning performances, especially Brahms No 1

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wellington Youth Orchestra conducted by Mark Carter

Rimsky-Korsakov: Russian Easter Festival Overture
Carl Stamitz: Viola Concerto in D (soloist Grant Baker)
Brahms: Symphony No 1 in C minor, Op 68

St Andrew’s on the Terrace

Tuesday 23 May. 7:30 pm

Looking back over Middle C’s reviews of the Wellington Youth Orchestra, one sees a couple of repeated themes. One that through them we sometimes hear unfamiliar but great and enjoyable music, and that the citizens of Wellington turn up in such sparse numbers that one wonders what can justify boasts of our being the cultural capital.

This evening’s concert ticked both those notions.

It began with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter Festival Overture: another of those pieces that used to be familiar on the old 2YC programme – their Early Evening Concerts at 5pm and Dinner Music at 6pm which provided an excellent music education system (not the peripheral, miscellaneous, often inauthentic stuff we now get), complementing a then sensible diet of good music in once-a-week music classes at college. But it didn’t become my favourite Rimsky, though I’ve come to enjoy it very much since then; at that stage the rhythms and the heavy brass didn’t appeal. When I was young my favourite Rimsky music would have been the Capriccio espagnol (I’ve still got my two-disc set of 78s).

Incidentally, given as I am to looking at earlier performances, it was last played by the NZSO in 2006, and before that in 1986 and 1958 (Nikolai Malko). Not exactly  a pop number, so it was a brave choice and it offered quite a challenge in the hard (for a full orchestra) acoustic and as the first piece in the programme.

I promised myself not to mention the slightly out-spoken trombones in that space, so I will desist; but the horns, both here and in the Brahms, were admirable – their timbre seemed comfortable in the space and they, at least the two given most exposure, avoided the usual horn pitfalls. Trumpets too contributed comfortably to the sound picture.

It’s not an easy work to re-create, given the highly coloured and quite virtuosic demands from pretty-well all parts of the orchestra, not only the heavy demands of the brass. (Just listen to any top professional performance). Thus this performance, in spite of its shortcomings, was a highly commendable undertaking.

Stamitz viola concerto
Utterly different was the next piece, a viola concerto by Carl Stamitz. He was one of two musician sons of Johann Stamitz who is regarded as the founder of the Mannheim school (for much of the 18th century Mannheim was the seat of the Electoral Palatinate court which supported one of the finest orchestras in Europe). It influenced Mozart during his visit in 1777. One of its major innovations was the introduction of the clarinet as an orchestral instrument, and in this concerto, two clarinets and two horns were the only winds. It’s great to hear examples of composers such as Stamitz family who not long ago, would have been just names in a music history book.

There was a long orchestral introduction before the viola’s entry. Violist Grant Baker, who is a second year student at Victoria University’s School of Music (tutored by Gillian Ansell) both looked and sounded comfortable in the role, laying out the themes coherently and musically and handling passage-work in easy rapport with the orchestral strings, particularly when he was accompanied by a concertino group (of section leaders), as in a concerto grosso. His tone was full and warm, rhythms alive and interesting, and though the cadenzas in the first two movements presented nothing terrifying, they demonstrated how well his playing integrated itself into the flow of the music. I particularly enjoyed the calm and thoughtful playing of the Andante movement. The viola had a conspicuously solo role in the last movement too, often with minimal accompaniment; there were several opportunities in its theme and variations shape, particularly in the fast second (or third?) variation. In all, a fine demonstration of musicianship.

Brahms No 1
Though I awaited the playing of Brahms first symphony with certain misgivings, why should I have done? In the past they’ve played big Tchaikovskys, Rachmaninovs, Beethovens, Respighi’s Pines of Rome, Ravel, as well as Brahms’s fourth – and even that other Rimsky – the Capriccio espagnol.

It’s a tutti opening and as the portentous throb of the timpani took charge of things I reflected that in less astute hands timpani might have been a difficult bed-fellow. Horns were distinct and assured above the dense strings and woodwinds that fell into a state of congenial accord. One felt at once the weight of responsibility that the composer felt in launching his first symphony onto a Viennese audience steeped in the great works of Mozart and Beethoven, Schumann and Mendelssohn.

I soon relaxed as the impact of this imposing introduction took command.

The spirit of the main body – Allegro – of the first movement finally assured me that the orchestra was being guided by someone who orchestral life had been spent, fruitfully, just a little outside the orchestra’s core, in the brass, where a more dispassionate view of performances and perhaps a better understanding of the conductor’s game is possible than from the back of the second violins.

The woodwinds which had an entirely different role in Rimsky-Korsakov, here took their turns briefly and amiably: flute, oboe, bassoon, clarinet alternating with horns. Unlike some listeners (or critics), visual imagery rarely arises as I listen to music, nor do I seek it: Brahms’s music is intensely emotional of course, but not sentimental, maudlin or saccharine. And this orchestra simply grasped its huge integrity, grandeur, and its powerful musical inventiveness.

Each movement had its distinct musical character: the second, with its lovely oboe solos, picked up by the clarinet, and then the dotted crotchets from violas under the poignant melody from first violins, was followed by a beautiful but disturbing clarinet passage. And soon concertmaster Grace Stainthorpe has a short, almost passionate sustained solo turn.

The third movement is no formulaic scherzo, even though it becomes animated at times. At this stage many symphonies lose something of their hold on the emotions as the idea is to lighten the burden on listeners who might tire of music that’s just profoundly beautiful. Not Brahms. There was no doubt about the players’ enjoyment of this delightful movement. They just got it right.

The special energy and delight is reserved for the last movement. But even here Brahms insists that our mood is not trivialised, beginning Adagio and pausing to ensure there’s full attention as the curious tentativeness prepares the way through an Andante section for the real experience, with its gorgeous, horn-led, grand and unforgettable theme. More lovely solos, from flute, trombones, horns, later the solo oboe. And though my ears didn’t especially pick it out, there was a striking example of a contrabassoon (a 1940s, American model I’m told) that towered above Paul Ewbank, looking more like a factory chimney than a musical instrument; it’s certainly in Brahms’s score and would have lent the texture some delicious, extra sonority.

The music slowly builds in excitement, working through several more related themes, lessening intensity several times before the end. Of course it was no flawless performance, but the sense of delight that reached its pinnacle in the last movement, made me very pleased my attention was drawn to the concert just in time to clear my diary of a dozen other important commitments. Mark Carter achieved splendid results through his obviously happy relationship with this young bunch of talented musicians.

 

Splendid NZSO concert with a greatly gifted cellist and young conductor prodigy

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Darrell Ang with Narek Hakhnazaryan – cello

David Grahame Taylor: Embiosis
Dvořák: Cello Concerto in B minor
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No 6 in B minor (‘Pathétique’)

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 20 May 7:30 pm

This was the second of three concerts in the NZSO’s main series to feature a solo cello: a fortnight ago, a new work by Gareth Farr, and in a month’s time, Schumann’s cello concerto played by Daniel Müller-Schott. Interesting: that Müller-Schott was here in 2013 playing the Dvořák concerto which was the concerto tonight, played by alarmingly talented Armenian cellist, Narek Hakhnazaryan.

But first, to follow the Gareth Farr premiere last concert, came another New Zealand piece, quite short, by young (27) composer David Grahame Taylor. It opened the concert. Bearing in mind the old-fashioned programme shape of overture, concerto, then symphony in the second half, this was both traditional and gently novel.

Entitled Embiosis, presumably a near relation of ‘symbiosis’, an interaction between two bodies or forces. Taylor’s definition of his coinage is ‘Within a lifeform’. It’s one of those cases where an enigmatic neologism offers more difficulty for the serious listener than the music itself.

For Embiosis, while probably something of a challenge for a musical analyst, was indeed an attractive listen. Whatever the secrets within the music, it kept the listener alert, to its judicious, fastidious scoring, demanding a conventional orchestra, as far as I could observe.

It opened with quiet strings being subjected to very conspicuous vibrato, to the point where it might have warranted being notated. Notes from the tuba, then tubular bells, caught the ear, but a title such as this is a constant worry, as one strives to find ‘programmatic’ significance at every turn.

While its textures could not be described as discordant (a word that has pretty well lost all meaning), the dense palette produced a kind of self-reflecting, introverted impulse. There were little downward, weeping glissandi on strings that led to a crescendo and then a sudden halt. And then it ended, just like that.

It had a unity, leaving the impression of something like a perfect little gem.

I’m sure the composer was pleased with the performance which Singapore conductor Darrell Ang drew from the players with clarity and coherence. Taylor came on stage to thank orchestra and conductor and acknowledge the warm applause.

Dvořák
I don’t think I heard Müller-Schott’s performance of Dvořák’s cello concerto in 2013, so Gautier Capuçon’s 2007 performance might have been my last live hearing. But there were a few years, during the much lamented Adam International Cello Competition in Christchurch, driven by the late Alexander Ivashkin, which I attended regularly, that I heard it often: one year, three of the four finalists chose it as their concerto: three times in one evening taxed even a Dvořák-lover like me.

This one was especially impressive. First it was the chance to confirm my admiration for conductor Ang in mainstream repertoire: not only were his movements vivid, economical and attractively balletic, but they clearly inspired the orchestra to playing of commitment and animation.

I suppose one cannot be altogether uninfluenced by a musician’s record of performances with top orchestras and conductors and the kind of plaudits he has attracted. One tried with Hakhnazaryan, but really failed.

Nevertheless, I could not stop impressions flicking through my head like ‘intensity’, ‘clear, flawless tone’, ‘lovely subdued pianissimi’, ‘every note precise yet creating fluid expressiveness’. The sounds he drew from his Guarnieri cello were always in balance with the orchestra, never covered, and that of course is as much the conductor’s achievement as the soloist’s. His bowing was never less than immaculate whether producing high drama or the gentlest meditative phrases.

Surely I will detect some flaws here and there, I thought: some tiny lapse in technique that interrupts the perfection of a passage; but I failed to detect anything at all that I could find fault with. In a belligerent spirit I started from the other end, contemplating whether there was a price to pay for this perfection: perhaps the loss of a sense of spontaneity, a hint that he was playing it for the first time, producing an improvisatory feeling which can be so delightful. No, nothing of the kind. All was carefully studied and conceived, and technically mastered.

Well, perhaps that was about the only shortcoming.

The last movement offers a relatively unusual opportunity for gentle, meditative playing, quiet and intimate; here, I felt, was the true test where both cello and orchestra were in accord, where he allowed Dvořák the main role, with exquisite playing expressing thoughtfulness and emotional calm. So the cellist’s silence through the last dozen bars was like a dramatic musical contribution to the final orchestral peroration. An ending that was mature, thoroughly mastered and interpreted, a conclusion reflecting the entire performance.

An Armenian folk-song arrangement was his discreet and touching encore.

Tchaikovsky
I think the last performance in Wellington of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony was from Pietari Inkinen in 2010. In my review then I notice an absence of much comment on the performance while it dwelt mainly on the music itself; not sure what that implies. One can certainly meditate about the never-revealed ‘programme’ that Tchaikovsky admitted to. But emphatically, it’s not a suicide note; there’s plenty written about all that.

This work offered a chance to hear a full-scale, orchestra-alone performance from this conductor prodigy. With the orchestra now at full strength, in contrast to slightly smaller string numbers earlier, the work began its big opening viola melody with heart-warming opulence; all the solo voices such as the clarinet, first horn, flute were as immaculate as usual. Ang exploited dramatic moments like the sudden fortissimo in the first movement, as well as clarifying textures and melodic strands that can get blurred in less disciplined performances. Of all the movements, it was the 5/4 time of the Allegro con grazia, working like a scherzo and trio, that for all the very comfortable rhythmic control came to feel in this playing, just a bit mechanical, missing a little in flexible breaths, dynamics and tempi, the stuff of a living, organic piece of music.

I agree with the programme note’s hint that the third movement suggested ‘an unambiguous moment of triumph’, but I share others’ feeling that Tchaikovsky intended its triumph to be superficial; its emptiness is actually demonstrated (and I mean the music itself, not just this performance) both by a mechanical rhythm and the ‘thrilling’ end, belied at once by the last movement’s immediate descent to inevitable despair and death.

As others tend these days to do, Ang swept with scarcely a pause into the Adagio lamentoso, silencing the start of that inevitable clapping. And that Finale dealt with the activities of fate with as much pathos as was necessary, avoiding excessive emotional extravagance.

It was a fine, intelligent end to a splendid concert.

Peter Walls steps in to conduct Bach Choir in Vivaldi and the Bach family

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Bach Choir of Wellington, conducted by Peter Walls, with The Chiesa Ensemble, Douglas Mews (organ) and vocal soloists

Vivaldi’s Gloria, RV 589
Johann Christoph Bach: Fürchte dich nicht.
Johann Ludwig Bach: Das ist meine Freude.
J.S. Bach’s Kyrie-Gloria Mass in B minor of 1733

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday, 13 May 2017, 3.30pm

Great praise is due to Peter Walls for the success of this concert; previous conductor Peter de Blois had departed overseas leaving rather short notice for the preparation of the music.  Without this explanation, the audience would hardly be aware that ample time was not available for rehearsal, such was the high standard of most of the music presented.  One item originally scheduled, by J. Christian Bach, was dropped.  This was no bad thing; the concert was of a more than adequate length with the remaining items.  The church was almost full.

It was good to see (for the first time in New Zealand, in my experience) reproduced in the printed programme, words from the programmes at the Royal Festival Hall in London, regarding the decibels produce by an uncovered cough.  Indeed, I noticed no coughs during this concert.  Notes in the programme were informative, and the words were printed, along with English translations.

First up was Vivaldi’s well-known Gloria, RV 589.  This was taken at a slick pace, but The Chiesa Ensemble, notably the trumpets, were up to it.  The attack from the choir was excellent, as were the gradations of dynamics.  The choir threw themselves into this lively work with vigour, and communication was good, with most singers watching the conductor well.

There were some rough sounds from basses, but generally, balance and blend were admirable.  The quieter second sentence ‘Et in terra pax’ was a beautifully calm contrast to the lively opening ‘Gloria’.  The women soloists (Nicola Holt, soprano, and Megan Hurnard, mezzo-soprano) were animated and well-matched in their ‘Laudamus’ duet.  The soprano solo ‘Domine Deus’ was delightful, not least for the wonderful oboe solo.  The staccato bassoons below the vocal part added clearly articulated character.

The instrumental ensemble, of 22 players, was made up to a large extent of professional musicians from both Wellington-domiciled orchestras, and along with Douglas Mews on the baroque organ, contributed very largely to the success of the performances.  As did the acoustic of St. Andrew’s Church, aiding the choir in achieving a big sound when required.

The bouncy and jubilant ‘Domine Fili’ chorus was for the most part carefully articulated as well as being lively.  The contralto solo (sung here by mezzo-soprano) opened with a  sombre cello solo, accompanied by the organ’s flutes.  Megan Hurnard’s voice was beautifully produced, and her tone appropriate to the sense of ‘Misere nobis’.  The choir’s uniform pronunciation of the words was an exemplary feature of their interjections.

It was strange not to find the soloists’ names listed in the programme, but there were biographies at the back.

The final sections of the piece where sung and played with verve – though a little strain showed in the tenor parts.  Again here, the trumpets excelled.

A complete contrast followed, with an unaccompanied motet by Johann Christoph Bach (1642-1703): Fürchte dich nicht.  It began rather hesitantly but warmed up, and ended well; not an easy piece.

Then it was the turn of Johann Ludwig Bach (1677-1731); the motet Das ist meine Freude.  I have heard this fine choral work for double chorus sung by the New Zealand Youth Choir.  It was sung with vigour, but some of the many runs were not executed convincingly.  However, the German words were well enunciated.

Following the interval, we heard J.S. Bach’s Missa from 1733, better known as the ‘Kyrie’ and ‘Gloria’ from his Mass in B minor, where they were reused.  The opening ‘Kyrie’ had the choir faltering a little.  The Chiesa Ensemble again were in superb form, led by Rebecca Struthers.

For the choir’s part, it cannot be said that intonation never wavered, but by and large they did splendidly, and communicated the majesty and drama of this great work.   The duet ‘Christe eleison’ by the two women soloists was sung with absolute unity and concord, strings and organ accompanying.

The second ‘Kyrie’ began, and continued, confidently.  The complex fugal setting of ‘Et in terra pax’ likewise was accurate, the choir displaying pleasing tone and attention to dynamics.  Here, the brass were in their element, well supported by the other players.  The highly decorated ‘Laudamus te’ was handled with aplomb by Megan Hurnard.  ‘Gratias’ from the choir was very fine.  The timpanist was able to let fly.  ‘Domine Deus’ with the tenor soloist, Ken Trass followed.  He was not as strong as the soprano with whom he shared the duet, but nevertheless, his singing was accurate and he made a pleasing sound.  A lovely flute obbligato embellished the singing.

It was good to have no break between the sections; it made sense to carry straight on, and this heightened the contrasts in tempi, orchestration and dynamics.  After singing ‘Qui tollis’ the choir at last got to sit down for the first time since the interval, during the delicious contralto solo ‘Qui sedes’, accompanied by gorgeous oboe, and the following bass aria (David Morriss): ‘Quoniam tu solus sanctus’, accompanied by a magnificent solo horn.  The bass voice did not come through the orchestral texture as well as the other soloists did, though there were fine notes and passages.  The intricacies of the horn part did not have difficulty in communicating.

The final ‘Cum Sancto Spiritu’ was magnificent.

It seemed odd to me that the male soloists wore open-necked shirts, when the men of the choir wore bow-ties.  Women soloists take care with their dress, which could not in any way be called informal.  True, the orchestra men had open-necked shirts also, but these being black were not so obvious.  The previous evening I attended Orchestra Wellington’s fine concert.  They dress in much less formal fashion than does the NZSO, but nevertheless, the men all wore ties.  I believe it is a matter of respect to the music as well as to the audience.

Once again, St. Andrew’s proved itself an ideal venue for this type of concert.  And once again Bach proved to be the superbly inventive composer of choral music. No-one in the audience could be anything but satisfied with what they heard.  Much credit must go to Peter Walls for his direction of his forces in this dynamic and musically alive concert, that was nevertheless taxing for the choir.  Bravo, all!

 

 

Piano and string quartet in unexpectedly contrasting scene

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Kathryn Stott (piano) and the New Zealand String Quartet (Helene Pohl and Monique Lapins – violins, Gillian Ansell – viola and Rolf Gjelsten – cello)
(Chamber Music New Zealand)

Gillian Whitehead: still, echoing
Dutilleux: Piano Sonata
Dvořák: Piano quintet in A, Op 81

Michael Fowler Centre

Monday 8 May, 7:30 pm

A radical change has occurred in programming over the past year or three. Instead of programmes of carefully related music, set in a coherent sequence, either chronological, stylistic or thematic, disjunction and daring contrast have come to be the fashion.

To seek the traditional common theme, one might suggest ‘composers starting with ‘D’’, or that, instead of a chronological sequence starting ancient and ending modern, you turn it around: a living New Zealander to begin and a long-dead Czech to end. Or that the two composers whose piano quintets were played were born a hundred years apart – 1841 and 1941. Leaving the lonely composer of a solo piano piece, who lived to almost one hundred, to create a cryptic connection between Romantic formality and contemporary tonalities.

Old-fashioned double-declutching was called for in the scene shifts.

This was however, a greatly looked-forward-to concert, as I’d heard Stott and her NZSQ friends at the wonderful Nelson chamber music festival in 2015.

Gillian Whitehead’s intriguing, understated piece, evocative of a bleak lagoon in the Chatham Islands, began life as a quintet for piano and winds. I haven’t heard that, but I slowly came to be won over by Whitehead’s enigmatic score, which first violin Helene Pohl suggested we might be free ‘to hear what you could hear’. That wasn’t as arcane or metaphysical as it sounded, for with ears extended and prejudices eliminated, all kinds of impressions, specific or inscrutable, came to mind.

For me, it was enough to experience the sheer, meandering variety of the score, from tremolo strings and subdued piano chords, lovely passages for viola and piano and then viola alone; a peaceful landscape suddenly invaded by tumbling irruptions from the piano. There were some attractive sections that called for two or three instruments, giving hints of something grander beyond that hill or those trees on the Chathams, but which came to nothing. There was a robust passage involving all five which found expression again later, hinting at influences that one suppressed (Bartók is so powerfully present in so much later music). And you could hear birds (what birds?) and small, burbling streams. But its chief delights were just the music.

Dutilleux
I’ve long been intrigued by Dutilleux but his piano sonata had eluded me till I picked up John Chen’s recording for Naxos a few years ago. I had come to know several of Dutilleux’s orchestral works over the years and found them elusive, if not challenging, but intriguing and inviting to revisit. I was won over at once: it is of course the first piece from this reticent, self-critical (like Brahms or Dukas) composer, thought publishable. It’s hard to pigeonhole: not atonal, but full of tonal ambiguity nevertheless, but ambiguity that somehow befriends the listener. The opening is arresting at once with its arresting repeated motifs and its marked rhythms, and occasional syncopated moments.

Stott’s playing began in a gentle, friendly spirit, somehow seducing us into accepting and enjoying the less-than-orthodox shapes and harmonies. One of its virtues is its variety of moods, of tempi, of shifts from the insistent to the introverted, heavy chordal passages switching to fluttering pleasure. What were its antecedents? Ravel, but hardly Debussy, rather the Russians like Scriabin or Medtner.

The second movement, labelled ‘Lied’, introduced more definable emotions – touches of sadness, of a near-conventional tune, hints of more extended treatment of ideas, unfulfilled usually.

The title of the third movement, Choral et variations, evoking Franck’s keyboard works like the Prélude choral et fugue or the Prélude, Aria et final, really led me astray, much as I’d have enjoyed the idea of Dutilleux paying respects to his great predecessor. (At Nelson, the five had played Franck’s gorgeous Piano Quintet as well as the solo piano Prélude choral et fugue). This was more strongly rhythmic and the variations were indeed distinct and proved a successful way to create lively interest in the last movement.

For me this sonata has been a real ‘find’ in the piano music of the post-war era, and Kathryn Stott’s truly insightful performance was my first and most insightful live experience of it.

Dvořák
The second half, even though separated by the interval, inhabited a very different world, obviously. I had rather expected the Dvořák quintet to provide a welcome move back to a well-loved composer who wrote music that’s at once easy to love. I’ve always rated it as among my best loved chamber works, so overflowing with warm and opulent melody. But I found myself in a listening space that had been more profoundly affected by Whitehead and Dutilleux that I expected. I surprised myself by wanting music here that was not so different in its rigour and modernity from the aesthetic of our own age.

The performance was gorgeous, with the cello’s opening against the rising triplets from the serene piano, and each instrument, in turn, revealed all the many heart-warming beauties that fill its pages. The viola often, especially at the second movement’s long, breathless, rhapsodic tentativeness; and later, there’s the melody’s curious handling by the cello with the violin accompanying.

Though I have somewhat unidentified impressions of performances that I suspect might have been invested with greater definitiveness or intellectual austerity, and which might have withstood the pre-interval competition, the playing by these fine musicians was pretty flawless and full of vitality and affection; there is no one, ideal kind of performance of this or any work of art, much as some severe critics might have you believe it.

I’d have expected the lively Dumka episode in that movement or the energetic Scherzo itself to have electrified the music and shaken me from my musical period strait-jacket, but that didn’t do it either. But the sparkling finale, intended to fill listeners with joy after the earlier rigours, was simply splendid, energetic, bringing this happiest, rich and least troubled chamber music masterpiece to its conclusion.

So I hardly need to say that, having been so affected by and involved in both works in the first half of the concert, this was a singular experience for me.

Kindred Spirits indeed – Nota Bene and Guests at Sacred Heart Cathedral

Posted on by Jennifer Shennan

Kindred Spirits: Nota Bene Chamber Choir and guests
Peter Walls (conductor)

Sacred Heart Cathedral, Hill St., Wellington

Sunday 7 May, 2017

The choral concert, ‘Kindred Spirits’, by Nota Bene Chamber Choir and guests, was a luminous and lovely affair. The themed programme juxtaposed compositions of Benjamin Britten and Jack Body, offering more substance than a ‘regular’ concert might, the sum more than its parts. The acoustic in this light-filled space is clear and clean, and enterprising use was made of different areas in the church. Good sightlines make it a most attractive and comfortable concert venue and the capacity audience could tell they were in for a good time.

Peter Walls in an interview with Eva Radich on Upbeat (worth listening to on RNZ archive) gave background to his idea that these two composers could indeed be seen as kindred spirits, sharing musical sensibilities, as well as similar concerns … including pacifism, an appreciation of the music in other cultures especially Indonesia, and an empathy for those struggling in different times and places for their society’s acceptance of homosexuality.

The opening work, a traditional Macapat sung by Budi Putra, director of the Gamelan Padhang Moncar of VUW, was delivered in the rich and astonishingly resonant voice that Putra has long been recognized for. The violin of Tristan Carter danced a bridge between music worlds.

Britten’s Hymn to the Virgin, with its ascetic clarity, was followed by Body’s Carol to St.Stephen. The voice of the itinerant soprano seems to arrive through stained glass windows around the church, and Jeltsje Keizer delivered that beautifully. (Some of us remember Marilyn Waring in the premiere of this work 1976, in St. Peters Church in Willis St. There is much in Wellington’s music history to hold dear).

Lesley Graham sang ‘S’un casto amor, s’una pieta superna’ an excerpt from Body’s Love Sonnets of Michelangelo ( from the 1976 season Between Two Fires, choreographed by Michael Parmenter, another work that has remained etched in the memory). This was followed by Britten’s setting of the same poetic text. Both composers had also written a Hymn to St. Cecilia – and in the Body work, Daisy Venables, newcomer to the choir, revealed a voice of heavenly quality.

During the interval many expressed regret at the absence of recording microphones from such an engaging concert which could surely have been broadcast to an appreciative national audience? Lucky we were to be there in person.

Wellington Young Voices, over 30 young singers directed by Christine Argyle (founding director of Nota Bene) sang Britten’s Psalm 150 with spirited and sweet sounds, and later This little babe from his A Ceremony of Carols. This choir is brimming with talent and enthusiasm to give us much to look forward to.

Gamelan Padhang Moncar played Jack Body’s So Short the life – a lively, lovely, poignant piece, being played close to the second anniversary of the death of this much loved composer. ‘Vita brevis’ indeed, but ‘ars longa’. The gamelan instruments produce familiar sounds yet are played without the intensity of interlocking patterns of the traditional gamelan music we are accustomed to hearing – as though voices from the past join the players, and a microphone involved as a musical instrument helps carry the sound towards the future. A remarkable composition.

Finally Jack Body’s People Look East, based on the ecstatic poem and melody by Eleanor Farjeon, sent out a joyful clarion that made fitting finale to an inspired and inspiring concert.

Peter Walls had had a good idea, followed it through, and all the performers did the occasion proud. The chance we had to contemplate echoes, contrasts and parallels in works from two stunning composers is one that will not easily be forgotten.

 

Interesting organ recital ranging from 17th to mid-20th century from Paul Rosoman

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s Lunchtime concert
Paul Rosoman (organ)
On the baroque organ and the main organ in the gallery
Music by Jacob Lustig, Johann Fischer, Franz Tunder, Jan Zwart, Flor Peeters, Johann Rinck

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 3 May, 12:15 pm

The chamber organ which is normally on the right of the sanctuary was moved to the centre for this recital, allowing the audience to be more involved in the performance. It struck me as an excellent idea, one that others could well emulate when it is to be played on its own.

It was a programme entirely given over to composers of Germany and the Low Countries. The baroque organ was used for the three composers of the 17th and 18th centuries. Jacob Lustig was born in Hamburg, about 20 years after Bach. Handel, Telemann, and worked for much of his life, from 1728, in Groningen in the Netherlands and died there. Rosoman played an unpretentious Fantasie in A minor, sounding rather spare on the baroque organ; I felt that this piece, modest as it was might have been better on the larger organ, more of the character, I imagine, of the instruments of the 18th century such as in St Michael’s church in Hamburg where his father played and he had his early experience.

The Fantasie danced to light, dotted, staccato rhythms, the textures were uncluttered, and certainly, at the baroque organ there was clarity and a good feeling of elementary improvisation, the essence of something called a ‘Fantasie’.

Then came Johann (Caspar Ferdinand) Fischer; New Grove dates his birth at ?1670, rather than Paul Rosoman’s 1756 which is evidently taken from Wikipedia. The earlier date may be the result of new research. Naturally, Wikipedia reads like a precis of the quite full account in Grove.

Fischer’s habitat was Baden, in south-west Germany, much exposed to French musical influence and Grove dwells on that to characterise his music. Rosoman told us that his Chaconne in F was from one of nine suites, Musicalischer Parnassus, dedicated to the Nine Muses; don’t know which. (Test of a good classicist: name the nine and their portfolios).

But in spite of French influence, the Chaconne seemed more serious in tone and more mainstream in a German style than I’d have expected. It grew steadily in muscle as Rosoman employed richer, more weighty registrations, though remaining fairly unambitious in terms of contrapuntal character. Its sudden, lovely calm ending might have been its high point.

Each of the first three composers took us a generation back through the Baroque. Franz Tunder, born 1614, was of the generation before Buxtehude who followed him as organist at the Marienkirche in Lübeck where Tunder spent his life. His Praeludium in G minor was, unsurprisingly, not too remote from the sound of Buxtehude, who was celebrated last year at St Paul’s Cathedral in a multi-recital of all his organ pieces. It was an agreeable piece, inhabiting the lower registers for the most part which I felt the organ treated well. There was little of the more complex style that developed with Buxtehude and J S Bach, of course.

Rosoman then went upstairs to the main organ. Jan Zwart was a Dutch contemporary of composers like Ravel and Vaughan Williams, Reger and Rachmaninov. His music is regarded as French-influenced, and that was certainly the impression of his Three Dutch Folk Songs, entitled in Dutch, since you ask: Hymne: ‘Wilt heden nu treden voor God den Heere’; Bede (Prayer) (‘O Heer die daer des Hemels tente spreyt’); Aria: ‘Geluckig is het Land’.

I’m prejudiced in their favour as I love French music; they pleased me. I enjoyed the varied registrations that Rosoman used, exploring and highlighting their characteristics, somehow unifying the variety of related though different melodic ideas. The second piece consisted of a lively centre section framed by Adagio passages lower on the keyboards. The third had canon-like passages where Rosoman changed stops just enough to maintain interest.

Flor Peeters was born in Belgium in 1903, Making him of the era of – let’s say, Copland, Walton, Duruflé, Tippett, Gershwin, Rodrigo, Shostakovich, Poulenc, Khachaturian… , I noticed an interesting quote in an Internet file: that Peeters exemplified “the grandeur of modern organ music, [and] left a rich legacy of works whose spiritual depth and technical perfection continue to fascinate many listeners. Particularly captivating are his fluid, natural, finely wrought melodies.” I’ll borrow that, for my notes (that included Rosoman’s comments about the Aria’s origin in a sonata for trumpet and piano), remarked on about hints of a sort of neutral solemnity that could certainly have been nicely treated by a trumpet, but was given harmonic support to make it an idiomatic organ piece.

The last item was a set of variations, again by an unfamiliar composer, though one born the same year as Beethoven: Johann Rinck. Variations on a theme of Corelli. It was of the early 19th century, not especially memorable, but a very competent and traditional set of variations which Rosoman invested with considerable liveliness and variety.