Category: Live performance

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.

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.

 

Further excellent exploratory concert into delightful quasi-juvenile symphonies

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Camerata – chamber orchestra led by Anna Loeser with soloists Michael Kirgan and Mark Carter (trumpets)

Mendelssohn: String Symphony No 10 in B minor
Vivaldi: Concerto for two trumpets in C, RV 537
Haydn: Symphony No 4 in D

St Peter’s church, Willis Street

Friday 28 April, 6 pm

My colleagues, Rosemary Collier and Peter Mechen, have reviewed earlier concerts by Camerata – in May 2015 and November 2016. I’m sorry to have missed them. They included Haydn’s first and third symphonies; I wondered whether we’d missed a concert that had included the second symphony.

It also made me wonder, with considerable anticipation, whether they plan to survive long enough to get through all 104 (or is it 108?) of his symphonies. At the rate of, say, two or three concerts a year, I’ll need to live till at least 2050…

Mendelssohn
Youthful masterpieces were a feature of this concert, as this one began with one of Mendelssohn’s youthful string symphonies, written around the age of 12 to 14. It’s interesting that they remained unknown till the 1960s when they were first published. I remember the first book I encountered on Mendelssohn, by Stephen Stratton in the Master Musician series (I dated my purchase of it as 1954), which merely referred to these early works in about four words, suggesting that they were certainly not worth attention; but then, the author had probably not had access to the manuscripts.

This ironically had been the fate of some music by a comparably gifted composer – Schubert – whose ‘Great’ symphony was first performed by Mendelssohn 15 years or so after it was written.

The thirteen symphonies vary in length and number of movements. This, No 10, is in one movement, beginning with an Adagio introduction and moving to Allegro. (The first six and number 12, have three movements while the rest have either four or five, apart from this, the tenth, and number 13 which is also in a single movement – perhaps it was unfinished.)

I had not remembered the reviews by my colleagues as I began to listen to this concert, and thus had the delightful experience of being immediately and unexpectedly enchanted and filled with admiration for both the prodigious Mendelssohn and the performances as a whole under the enterprising Anna Loeser and her fellow musicians from the NZSO, Orchestra Wellington, other ensembles as well as students. One of the immediate impressions of this, one of the symphonies less familiar to me, was of music of singular accomplishment and maturity, interestingly chromatic in places and formally sophisticated. It was not just the liveliness and boldness of the playing that Loeser achieved, but the intrinsic strength of the music itself. The ear caught characterful emphasis on the first note of each short phrase, and the careful dynamic contrasts between phrases, as if there were shifts from minor to major tonality. In a small orchestra more of the character of individual instruments is audible (though there was no evident cost in that) and as well as the leading violins, I was particularly arrested by a long, rich phrase from the Victoria Jaenecke’s viola, and the featherweight quality of fleeting accelerations by the full string body as the end approached.

Vivaldi
The Vivaldi concerto played was one of the most familiar, and therefore strongest in melodic character. I wasn’t sure that the two solo instruments were not actually soprano trumpets as the pitch was unusually high, keen and penetrating. But I settled for the view that this was simply the impact of two fairly brilliant trumpeters, in a high register. Their duetting was impeccable, and their subtle alternating dynamics from phrase to phase a delight. Vivaldi still attracts a number of sceptics wedded to the notion (which also sustains elements of the contemporary avant-garde school of composers) that anyone who writes memorable tunes or immediately attractive music is either a charlatan or without talent, or both.

Both these outer movements are dominated by plain C major triads, in the finale, going alternately in both directions. Just plain fun. So this was a performance that was filled with rhythmic energy, of well-fitted ornamentation and adroit accompanying strings that simply supported the trumpets in the most buoyant and sympathetic manner.

Haydn
The fourth Haydn symphony is believed to have been written between 1757 and 1761; that is, before his appointment to the Esterhazy court, which was in 1761. How refreshing and bold to refrain from treading the too-frequented path of playing just the Morning Noon and Night Symphonies – Nos 6, 7 and 8.

Here pairs of oboes and horns joined the strings and the impact of the scoring made the piece sound much more accomplished and genuinely Haydnesque than one might believe as a result of the almost total neglect of most of the early symphonies. (In recent years of course, there have been many recordings of the complete Haydn symphonies).

At the beginning the handling of the strings together with the four wind instruments suggest a sort of concerto grosso, but eventually, all became a homogeneous unity. The orchestra’s comprehensive command allowed no sense that one was hearing any kind of journeyman exercise. The slow movement was characterised by a beguiling separation of strings: the violins weaving a beautiful limpid melody over ostinato figures from the cellos and basses. The third and last movement was a Minuet whose lively melody demonstrated Haydn’s already distinctive melodic and compositional gifts, plenty clear enough to commend him to Prince Paul Anton Esterhazy as his Vice-Kapellmeister (in a few years, full Kapellmeister).

It was really good to be able to share the experience and the opinion of the Prince whose decision to hire Haydn might well have been based on his hearing this and other very early, pre-Esterhaza symphonies.

Marking Holy Week through Biblical Lamentations and music inspired by 20th century atrocities

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Tudor Consort conducted by Michael Stewart

Music for Holy Week: The Desolate City

Music by Antoine Brumel, Philippe de Monte, Palestrina, Byrd, John Mundy, Rudolf Mauersberger, Douglas Mews and Jack Body

Wellington Cathedral of Saint Paul

Good Friday, 14 April, 7:30 pm

The theme of this concert, The Desolate City, was a reason to look at two cities that have suffered terrible, war-driven destruction in living memory (Dresden and Hiroshima), and to associate physical destruction with social and moral destruction as described in Biblical accounts of cities considered to have been desolated by sin or perhaps merely by adoption of a rival religious faith.

The Book of Lamentations and Psalm 137 provided the main source of music: various Renaissance motets based on the words that can be read as mourning God’s desertion of Jerusalem and thus his complicity in the city’s destruction by the Babylonians in the 6th century BC. The words of Lamentations are traditionally recited during Tenebrae, in Holy Week.

The concert was preceded by a revelatory talk by Michael Stewart and, as well as words printed in both English and other languages in the programme, a large screen behind the choir displayed the words progressively – surtitle-like throughout. An excellent innovation.

Dresden
Rudolf Mauersberger’s motet Wie liegt die Stadt so wüst, was one of the three non-Renaissance works in the programme. It applied some of the words from Lamentations to the Allied bombing of Dresden in 1945, less than three months before Germany’s defeat. Mauersberger was director of Dresden’s Kreuzchor through World War II and this motet is perhaps his best-known work. The Kreuzkirche was destroyed in the bombing, and was rebuilt around 2005.

The motet expresses a deep feeling of grief, in dense harmonies that are punctuated with pauses that allowed the sounds to fill and re-echo through the large space of St Paul’s. Where I was sitting some voices, probably the soloists, Phoebe Sparrow, Rebecca Howan, Phillip Collins and Matthew Painter, seemed to emerge from deep within the choir and sanctuary, as if they were physically removed. Whether or not that was a calculated effect, the performance created a quite transcendental spirit, giving the impression of a rather more splendid composition than perhaps it is.

Byrd
To follow that by Byrd’s powerful Ne irascaris, Domine (from Isaiah), 370 years earlier, was to dramatise its contemporary relevance: in a totally different way. Through its message of spiritual rather than physical desolation, the Catholic Byrd expressed his anguish, living in a dangerous, Protestant England. The performance was exquisitely solemn, each short stanza quite extended musically, with each vocal section deliberate and perfectly in place so that at times certain voices could emerge distinctly.

Palestrina
Then came Palestrina’s Super flumina Babylonis (the first verses of Psalm 137), the generation before Byrd’s. Though a ritual lament for the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem, it paints a much more peaceful atmosphere in less complex and tortured musical syntax than Byrd’s. The choir’s superbly subtle and expressive capacities were impressively revealed.

Body
Another setting of Psalm 137 came from the pen of Jack Body, this time a setting of the original Hebrew text. The succession of pleas was handled by dividing verses between men and women, dramatically and colourfully, as if to emphasise the varying ways in which the anguish of the people could be expressed. At one point (my Hebrew is not up to identifying the precise section) women’s voices rose to an almost terrifying pitch. For me, it revealed musical dimensions in Body’s music that I may have rather underestimated: sophistication, choral virtuosity, confidence.

Philippe de Monte is another rather unfamiliar name from the mid-16th century – shameful in the light of his prolific output: Flemish but, like many Flemish composers, multi-national; a few years older than Palestrina. As Michael Stewart explained, he too was touched by Reformation controversies/persecutions. On account of Queen Mary’s Catholicism, her brief reign (1553-58) gave Catholics a short respite between the Protestant extremes of Edward VI and Elizabeth I. De Monte served at her court in 1554-55 in the entourage of Philip II of Spain who was her husband.

In the 1580s he sent to the embattled Byrd a copy of this setting for double choir of some verses of Psalm 137, Super flumina Babylonis, “as a show of solidarity”, as Stewart wrote: Jewish exiles in Babylon = Catholics in England.

To one whose mid-16th century polyphonic sensibilities are not highly cultivated, it sounded not too dissimilar from Palestrina, Lassus, Vittoria or Byrd for that matter. It was slow moving and beautifully articulated.

Byrd’s Quomodo cantabimus
A year later, Byrd replied to De Monte, sending a copy of his setting of different verses of the same Psalm, Quomodo cantabimus and the choir sang it after the interval. Here there was an unexpected feeling of delight somewhat at odds with the words, as Stewart’s graceful sweeping arm movements delineated scoring that was more complex, dense, interesting (I thought) than De Monte’s. After all, Byrd was a survivor in a hostile climate.

Antoine Brumel was the earliest of the composers featured in the concert (born c. 1460); another of the French-Flemish school. The notes reminded us that he was the composer of the Earthquake Mass performed by The Tudor Consort in 2012. Unlike that important work, for twelve parts, this motet, Lamentatio Heremiae Prophete, was for men’s voices in four parts, which created a very homogeneous, tranquil, constant feeling, a chance to pay attention to the excellence of tenors and basses. I had even jotted the word ‘stately’ in my notebook.

John Mundy’s Lamentations
The last Renaissance piece was John Mundy’s De Lamentatione: a setting of a Latin poem by Jean de Bruges (about whom I can find references to only an engraver and illuminator). After their absence for a few minutes, the high sopranos here particularly pleased me, though the choir’s unvarying evenness, refinement as well as endlessly delightful dynamic and articulation variety again maintained rapt attention through the seamless contrapuntal score.

Finally Douglas Mews’s Ghosts, Fire, Water which I heard sung by Nota Bene in September 2009, and in November 2011 a performance by Voices New Zealand was reviewed in Middle C by Peter Mechen.

This was sung by alto soloist Michelle Harrison in a sort of responsory pattern with the choir. It’s a powerful work set to a poem by James Kirkup, which is an impressively persuasive and vivid evocation of the human catastrophe; yet it almost burdens itself too much with unrelieved anguish and anger (on the other hand, can Hiroshima be considered otherwise than as an utterly unjustifiable atrocity?).

So I concluded that music is the better vehicle for the expression of horror at a crime that words simply lose their ability to handle. The performance was a model of expressiveness and profound emotion while at the same time, of restraint and unambiguity. In this context, the use of spoken words towards the end, instead of music, made the greater impact.

So this was a brilliantly conceived programme, employing examples of traditional Christian music for the major sacrament of the Christian year, book-ended by two of the worst horrors of the 20th century; in wonderfully prepared and executed performances.

 

 

Capable and well-considered performances of Arensky, Rachmaninov and Cherubini by Cantoris and their pianist conductor

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Cantoris Choir conducted by Thomas Nikora
Piano Trio: Thomas Nikora (piano), Vivian Stephens (violin), Lucy Gijsbers (cello)

Rachmaninov: Vespers (‘The All-Night Vigil’), Op 37 – ‘Bogoroditse Devo’
Arensky: Piano Trio No 1 in D minor, Op 32
Cherubini: Requiem in C minor (1816), accompanied by Mark Dorrell (piano)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Saturday 8 April, 7:30 pm

In addition to the advertised Requiem by Cherubini, the programme was fleshed out with the most popular movement from Rachmaninov’s Vespers (‘All Night Vigil’), Op 37, and Arensky’s first piano trio.

The Rachmaninov piece is the sixth movement in the 15-movement, hour-long Vespers setting, rather inaccurately called the ‘All-night Vigil’. Bogorovitse Devo (pronounced ‘djevo’) means ‘Rejoice, O Virgin’. It’s a short, gentle piece that introduced the choir in a beautifully quiet, religious spirit, an ideal way to gauge the choir’s ability to control subtle dynamics; the singers were mixed so that the harmonies emerged in a blended manner rather than in distinct blocks according to their registers.

I haven’t heard Rachmaninov’s Vespers in performance for a long time; the last may have been back in 1987 from Maxwell Fernie’s Schola Polyphonica. Perhaps Cantoris could put it on the ‘must do sometime’ list.

(NOTE: I have been reminded that the Orpheus Choir has sung the Vespers twice (at least): in 1997 under Philip Walsh and in 2003 under Andrew Cantrill. I may or may not have heard and reviewed those performances in The Evening Post – my archive is not quite exhaustive enough to be certain.)

Arensky’s Piano Trio became known to Wellingtonians of my generation through performances by the remarkable Turnovsky Trio in the 1990s. (Sam Konise, Christopher Kane and Eugene Albulescu: Konise gave up a highly promising career; cellist Kane died and Albulescu went to the United States, taking up a career as pianist-cum-inspiring-educator).

Arensky was born in 1861, twenty years Tchaikovsky’s junior, four years older than Glazunov and twelve years older than Rachmaninov.

At once these three players (Thomas Nikora – piano, Vivian Stephens – violin, Lucy Gijsbers – cello) captured the essence of this music, rather Tchaikovsky in character, yet strikingly individual. All three found a subdued unanimity quickly, in voices that were warm and legato in the enchanting opening melody, until a somewhat unduly assertive chordal attack by Nikora which disturbed its affinity with violin and cello. Elsewhere however the original balance was maintained, though in the Scherzo Nikora again produced contrasts with his colleagues, particularly in the boisterous runs. In this venue, certain pains need to be taken with the piano’s response.

In all however, this was a most rewarding performance of a gorgeous piece that deserves to be played more than occasionally.

The main work was probably the real attraction: it was for me, as I’d never heard it performed live though I was familiar through my recordings of both this Requiem and Cherubini’s later one for male chorus in D minor.

The choir’s discipline and scrupulousness with balance, tempi and dynamics, demonstrated earlier, bore fruit here. From the start, the choir produced a sound that was not only liturgical in character, but imposing as a somewhat sombre choral work – without solo voices, though sections of the choir were often used in a way that simulated the participation of solo voices. Cherubini was conscious that his commission by the French Restoration Monarch Louis XVIII to mark the anniversary of the deaths of his predecessor Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, was a serious opportunity. (They were guillotined during the short period of The Reign of Terror (1793-94) during the French Revolution). Beethoven famously thought he was the greatest of his contemporaries and this Requiem was played at Beethoven’s funeral. Though Cherubini, rather a conservative figure (read Berlioz’s Memoirs!), a supporter of the monarchy, had navigated his way safely through the Napoleonic years, life blossomed for him at the Restoration, and this Requiem was an opportunity to make an important gesture: his career blossomed from then on, becoming director of the Paris Conservatoire in 1822.

It is of course a quite splendid work and nothing is more impressive, even exciting, than the Dies Irae; considering the absence of the full orchestra for which Cherubini scored it, with important timpani and gong, this performance did pretty well. Mark Dorrell, a bit of a magician in the task of transforming the sounds of a piano into those of absent instruments, now like a fine string ensemble, now mimicking woodwinds; and in the Dies Irae, even offering something approaching timpani and gong. Though the lack of orchestra is usually a serious matter for any music scored for orchestra, since the majority of an audience is likely to have the sounds of a recording or an earlier full-scale live performance in their ears (even, I like to think, a less familiar work like this), a skilled and imaginative pianist together with an arresting performance by the choir can distract attention from a missing orchestra.

There is great variety in the work: the lively interweaving and the increasing excitement of voices through Hostias was splendid, reminding us, if his large gestures were not visible proof, that Nikora is proving a very capable conductor.   Sobriety was restored in the following Sanctus: staccato, accented and well projected, leading to the end of the Benedictus for the choir to build to a powerful dramatic declamation. Then the gentle melody of the Pie Jesu, passed around the various sections of the choir, might almost have been heard as a pre-echo of Fauré’s.

The Agnus Dei accounted for the last five minutes or so and here the choir moved calmly from arresting passages to those that were deeply elegiac.

If I understood correctly, the choir , following their 2014 trip to New York to sing at Karl Jenkins 70th birthday celebrations in Carnegie Hall, will travel there again later this year, with this Requiem by Cherubini.

There is every sign that the choir will make a fine impression.

Adams and Mozart (and Martin Fröst) inspire de Waart and the NZSO

Posted on by Peter Mechen

JOHN ADAMS – Shaker Loops
MOZART – Clarinet Concerto in A Major K.622
BEETHOVEN – Symphony No.6 in F Major Op.58 “Pastoral”
Martin Fröst (clarinet)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Edo de Waart (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington,

Friday 7th April, 2016

John Adams (b.1947) has for some time been popularly regarded as one of the “big three” of minimalist music composition, along with Philip Glass and Steve Reich. The term “minimalist” was used to describe a specific creative aesthetic involving the reduction to the bare essentials of whatever medium the creative artist worked with – in music this involved using repetition of melodic and rhythmic ideas to express minute gradations and subtle alterations of the original material, in order to “grow” something new.

Adams’ work “Shaker Loops”, first on the programme in tonight’s concert, was originally conceived as a string quartet, before the composer decided, after a less-than-satisfactory first performance, that he needed “a larger, thicker ensemble”, and so re-scored the piece for a string septet, completing the work in 1978. Whether it was through further dissatisfaction, or merely a desire to extend the performance possibilities of the piece, Adams then reworked the septet for string orchestra in 1982, in which form it has become one of the composer’s most well-known works.

The title of the piece draws from the name “Shakers” given to an American Puritan sect whose intense ecstasy of worship resulted in their physically “shaking” while at prayer – while the term “Loops” refers to the minimalist technique of splicing and repeating segments of pre-recorded tape, to give a sense of endless repetition. The composer described his intention as summoning up an “ecstatic frenzy of a dance that culminates in an epiphany of physical and spiritual transcendence”.

Edo de Waart has previously recorded Adams’ piece in its string orchestra version with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, one of a much-acclaimed series of recordings of the composer’s works by the conductor, made while Adams was composer-in-residence with the orchestra. Little wonder, then, that the performance by the NZSO strings in Wellington shimmered and crackled with a sure focus and intensity at the outset, a “knowing what was what”. De Waart’s leadership inspired a living, breathing realisation of the music’s closely-knit moods over four continuous movements, bringing out both continuums and contrasts, which led the ear on right to the work’s spacious, reflective conclusion.

That was the culmination of a journey which began with “classic” minimalist gesturings in the opening “Shaking and Trembling”, the patternings and texturings undergoing modifications of a sort that suggested different kinds of motoric response to traversals of varied terrain. As these scurrying notes gradually retreated and became the “ambient background” of the second movement’s “Hymning Slews”, some beautifully wind-blown Aeolian-like harmonies created an eerie, almost ritualistic atmosphere, with chord-clusters glowing through the textures like soft lights, certain figures lazily slurred, while others sounded harmonics which led to bewitching bird-song-like trills, the vistas thrown open and the silences enlivened, an almost Copland-esque feel imparted to the proceedings.

A stealthy, new harmony brought on an awakening of the lower strings, with Berlioz-like irruptions from the basses, and ascending ‘cello motifs, the playing “digging in”, bringing out a glowing intensity and enlivening energy, the “Loops and Verses” of the music’s third part, the ensemble patiently blowing smoke-rings around the persona of a great engine, whose powerhouse was driving its rods and pistons faster and faster, desirous of achieving a result. But almost as quickly, these motoric energies seemed to peak and flag, as if the impulses seemed to catch a whiff of something greater and more lasting overhead, pinpricks of distant light contrasting with the occasional rumbling of the basses – we were left at the end with the firmament overhead, and the earth below, in worshipful and luminous accord. As a realisation of a journey’s full circle, this seemed to me a great performance of a great work!

Following this was the Mozart Clarinet Concerto, which brought Swedish clarinettist Martin Fröst before us, a musician acclaimed world-wide for his peerless instrumental skills and his thoughtful, soul-enriching interpretations. By way of welcoming their distinguished soloist, Edo de Waart and the orchestra began the concerto with a finely-wrought introduction, imbued with both strength and delicacy, one whose warmth and fullness of tone seemed happily removed from any didactic stylistic mode which might have proclaimed any kind of “authenticity” (oh, dear! – that just slipped out! – sorry!)….

Martin Fröst instantly took up and furthered these utterances with exquisitely-turned phrases expressed in tones that, true to the composer’s dictum, “flowed like oil”, but also seemed to value each and every note as something with its own distinction. At first I found his playing stance unduly distracting, with its somewhat “praying mantis-like” aspect (at times he appearing to be almost “stalking” his conductor as a likely victim!) – but once I’d gotten used to these quasi-choreographic poses, I began to relish the endless variety of his playing, suggesting a wealth of human experience and sensibility.

I read somewhere (not in the programme notes) that Fröst used for another concert performance of the work a modern replica of a “basset clarinet”, an instrument which was in vogue in Mozart’s time and which the work’s original dedicatee, Anton Stadler, probably used – the basset enables the player to use lower notes than are found on a conventional instrument. To me it sounded as if certain passages of Fröst’s playing were lower than usual, indicating that the basset replica was being used here. It extended the expressive range of the performance, having extra depths in the instrument’s lower register.

What a distillation of pure beauty was the opening of the slow movement! – the orchestral response matched the soloist’s rapt tones at the outset with a heartfeltness of its own. Fröst played some gorgeous flourishes at a couple of the cadences, moments which held fast for a few precious seconds the beauty of the discourse between clarinet and orchestra – a very slight earthquake during the latter stages of the movement failed to garner much attention, such was the spell cast by the performers with this music.

Mozart concerto finales often play “cat-and-mouse” between the soloist and the orchestra – this one, though more poised and genteel than in a lot of the piano concertos, still provides a sense of fun – the ensemble’s forthrightness contrasted beautifully with the clarinet’s moments of introspection, though the discourse wasn’t all one way, with the soloist’s lines occasionally rich and strong, and the orchestral phrases in more sober, supporting roles. While the applause at the end was primarily for Fröst, conductor and orchestra deserved much of the credit with their well-rounded and ever-alert contributions to the ebb and flow of one of the composer’s most sublime creations.

Predictably, the extended (and well-deserved) audience applause brought Fröst back out for an encore, though by no means a conventional or predictable one – this was a work called Klezmer Dance No.3, written by Goran Fröst (Martin Fröst’s brother) for clarinet and ensemble (the NZSO players were obviously well-prepared!). The music’s freewheeling energies were brilliantly delivered by all concerned, leaving the status quo of clarinettists being the most spectacular solo performers with the NZSO in recent times (Finnish virtuoso Kari Kriikku being another recent candidate for this award) undisturbed, even if last year’s star ‘cellist Johannes Moser ran these two close in his NZSO concert.

After this, further delight awaited, in the form of Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony – but whether it was because the performance of the Mozart had left my sensibilities little room for additional wonderment and rapture, or because conductor and orchestra were at the end of “playing out” after an arduous tour (since March 30th, from Hamilton to Dunedin), I felt the performance didn’t quite “go on” from the first movement’s beautifully-sprung rhythms and lyrical outpourings. A pity – because De Waart and the players here caught the music’s many currents and eddies, finding, I thought, sufficient balance between incidental delight and on-going purpose to make Beethoven’s paean of praise work both as a kind of tone-poem and a symphonic journey – the conductor didn’t particularly “point” the minimalist-like repetitions of the first movement’s development, but they still made their impact, resonating all the more in the wake of the Adams work we’d heard earlier.

Though the orchestral playing, especially that of the winds, made for some beautiful sequences in the “Scene by the Brook” I missed here a sense of true rapture, of “giving over” to the music’s spell to the point where I felt uplifted and entranced by it all – I wanted to experience those murmuring water-currents, and to sing with the lullabic melody-lines, but it all somehow remained earthbound for me – and a momentary lapse of ensemble between strings and winds at one point didn’t help the music’s cause. Unlike with the first movement’s beauties, I coudn’t find a proper “way in” to the evocations, despite the sterling work done by the winds – and why the cuckoo-calls at the end of the movement were played in so perfunctory a manner to my ears, I couldn’t fathom (usually such a magical moment).

But again, the orchestral detailing in the third movement’s “Peasants’ Merrymaking” was superb, with horn-playing to die for, and droll interactions between oboe and bassoon which properly caught the music’s rusticity, though I felt the strings could have been encouraged to roughen up the textures just a little, during their “knees-up” sequence, which for me was a shade too “polished” in effect. As was the introduction to the storm, which (sensationalist that I am) I wanted to spit and rumble and moan more pointedly, just before the first great outburst – still, there were marvellous roarings from the timpani and, later, some anguished cries from the piccolo, answered with unequivocal elemental force from brass and timps in the time-honoured manner.

Re-reading my notes returns me more readily to the performance’s incidental beauties and delights, especially so with the finale – clarinet and horn exchanging calls so beautifully at the finale’s beginning, strings and brass building up the hymn-like song of thanksgiving to the point of fervour, and, after the nature-gods have received their dues, the sound of the horn solo at the very end, sealing up the music’s magic, and evoking Tennyson’s words, “answer, echoes, answer – dying, dying….” These were treasurable sequences, though I was still left at the end wondering why I didn’t feel (as I DID during the Mozart concerto performance in the first half), that continued presence of something “casting a glow over the proceedings”, which de Waart and the orchestra also achieved in their Mahler and Elgar performances last year. Modified rapture, then, but certainly enough to eagerly await what lies in store for us throughout the orchestral year’s remainder, here in Wellington.

Strauss’s final tone poem a mighty opening for the NZSO’s 2017 season

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Edo de Waart with Michelle DeYoung (mezzo soprano)

Mendelssohn: Hebrides Overture
Elgar: Sea Pictures
Strauss: An Alpine Symphony

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 25 March, 7:30 pm

Here was a concert designed to attract various classes of music lovers: those attached to the classical heartland, discreetly coloured by a pictorial Romanticism; lovers of the voice in melodious, conventional guise with music composed at the turn of the 20th century; and finally, for those susceptible to musical expressionism on a vast scale, an evocation of vast natural phenomena and secular voluptuousness.

Though the orchestra had its first major appearance this year celebrating its 70th anniversary a couple of weeks ago, this was the first subscription concert. It drew a virtually full house.

There was a common theme: the depiction of various aspects of nature in music.

Hebrides
As the years pass I find myself more and more aware of my first hearings of music, and Mendelssohn’s Hebrides (or as I first knew it, ‘Fingal’s Cave’) goes back to the third form when the once-a-week, ‘core’ music class, was presented with it, on two sides of a 78 recording; and I just fell in love.  I’m sure it remains the ideal way in to classical music if teachers were prepared to defy their pupils’ compulsive attachment to fashion and junk.

I would like to think that the loving performance guided by Edo de Waart was a sign that it might have had a similar impact on him at a like age.

This was graced by both elegant. sumptuous strings and sequences of richly consonant playing by bassoons and limpid clarinets, of singular purity. The scoring might be conservative, but the orchestra, from very first, displayed an easy confidence painting the shimmering seas as well as the splendidly dramatised storm scene.

Sea Pictures
Elgar’s five Sea Pictures are set to poetry by five relatively obscure poets, including one by his wife (‘In Haven’). The best-known would be Elizabeth Barrett Browning and, to us, the Australian poet, Adam Lindsay Gordon, but Roden Noel and Richard Garnett would be unknown even to English literature honours graduates knowledgeable in nineteenth century poetry.

That is no handicap of course for a composer, most of whom have been on record somewhere saying that it’s poetry of the second class that tends to be the more rewarding to set; beautiful poetry cannot be improved by music.

The songs are amiable, but apart from the last, ‘The Swimmer’, have inspired music that is not particularly varied, and needs a naturally coloured voice to exploit the tepid emotions and situations of words and music. Furthermore, it’s strange that Elgar used the same or closely related keys throughout (G in the first and C in the next two), and common time, adding to a feeling of tonal monotony.

Michelle DeYoung has a rich, strong mezzo voice, that is on the alto side of the mezzo range. She had no difficulty projecting alongside, and at times over, the orchestra. What detracted rather was her pronounced vibrato that even tended to obscure the melodic character of the setting of the first, ‘Sea Slumber Song’, and though I’d hoped it might be under better control in the later songs, it really wasn’t. Until, that is, ‘The Swimmer’ where Elgar allowed himself to inject energy and DeYoung invested her voice with a touch of risk and excitement that Gordon’s rhythmically explicit lines express. So the short phrases of the last song gave the cycle a more spirited and satisfying conclusion.

I suspect that in the theatre her voice could make a more impressive impact – not least in Wagner.

An Alpine Symphony
Strauss’s Alpine Symphony was written in the same era as the Elgar songs, but the two could hardly be more different in intention, spirit, ambition and sheer musical magnificence. It was not finished till after the First World War had started, but nothing of that can be detected in it; Strauss allowed neither war to influence his music. He seemed able to ignore most of the horrors of the age he lived through, until that final elegiac utterance, Metamorphosen.

The orchestra’s last performance of An Alpine Symphony in Wellington was as recent as 2012, under David Zinman, which I heard but for some reason no review appears in Middle C.

In many ways, Strauss’s last symphonic poem can be seen as the summit of late romantic extravagance, for the scale and variety of its composition, the huge array of instruments employed (though the 20th century saw a greater flourishing of mainly percussion instruments and, of course, the questionable involvement of electronic devices). Strings were at full strength, 16 first violins (though Strauss stipulated 18 firsts and 16 seconds), and then 12 violas, with conventional decreasing numbers of others; quadruple woodwinds (and a heckelphone), nine horns, four of them doubling on Wagner tubas, the normal percussion with double timpani, plus glockenspiel, xylophone, wind and thunder machines, cowbells; two harps, piano, organ and celeste.

The noise was imposing, and the generally excellent precision and balance reminded those who needed it, that we were listening to one of the world’s best score or so of orchestras.

Behind the work’s conception, as the programme note made clear, quoting the same paragraph as appears in the Wikipedia entry, lay Strauss’s grief at the death of Mahler in 1911, linking with Nietsche’s pantheism/atheism which Strauss subscribed to. Those philosophical notions underlie, are more important than the overt characterisation of aspects of nature, and enable what might otherwise be a too-prolonged bit of landscape painting à la Caspar David Friedrich to engross the listener (this listener anyway) for nearly an hour.

The performance called on every section of the orchestra to excel itself, from the hushed expectancy of the opening led by basses, horns, then piccolos heralding the pre-dawn world. The programme listed the 22 ‘movements’, useful enough, but it can have the damaging effect of encouraging the literal listener to dwell pointlessly on these pictorial elements. That should be avoided of course, to allow the mere knowledge of the adventure, made vivid for example in off-stage phases (horns and other brass later), to be sufficient for one’s own imagination to conjure whatever images arise spontaneously.

What keeps the work afloat, one need hardly say, is the succession of contrasting, in themselves beguiling, evocative and richly melodic passages, that sound various but with which the composer, and the perceptive, energetic conductor never fails to bewitch the listener; an early, highly picturesque section ‘In den Wald’ – the woodland – ending with dappled sunlight from the full string body as the music transforms into the streamside – ‘neben den Bach’. (Yes, I confess I did pay attention to the ‘programme’ occasionally). On the mountain top comes the beautiful oboe solo from Robert Orr, and several other solos were of course arresting.

There is no need to attempt to follow all 22 linked ‘movements; it’s enough to say that such a flamboyant work calls for the resources and discipline of a first-rate orchestra; and Edo de Waart, a thoroughly engaged conductor, economical of gesture but able to persuade players and the audience that it’s a mighty work that far surpasses the beauties of its many entrancing individual sections.

 

Memorable Lower Hutt recital of the familiar and the unknown

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Amici Ensemble (Donald Armstrong, violin; Andrew Thomson, viola [1 only]; Julia Joyce, viola [1 & 3], Andrew Joyce, cello; Joan Perarnau Garriga, double bass [1 & 3]; Jian Liu, piano)
(Chamber Music Hutt Valley)

Mendelssohn: Piano Sextet in D, Op.110
Shostakovich: Piano Trio in E minor, Op.67
Schubert: Piano Quintet in A, D.667 (The Trout)

Little Theatre, Lower Hutt

Tuesday 14 March 2017, 7.30pm

Chamber music at its best.  Splendid performers, enthusiastic, receptive audience, good acoustics, masterworks of the repertoire.  One can’t ask for much more, whether the players are from overseas or are our locals – the latter the case this time, with strings all from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, with the added talents of pianist Jian Liu, from the New Zealand School of Music.  However, the concert deserved a larger audience, with a magnificent programme performed by quality players.

I am indebted to Lindis Taylor for notes on the first work; a previous engagement in Wellington that went on longer than expected meant I missed some of the first movement of the Mendelssohn.  This was, perhaps surprisingly, the least familiar work on the programme – not only to me, bur to others to whom I spoke.  It had a subdued, mellow opening, but an air of confidence, with the piano soon in the throes of a seriously accomplished piece.

The double bass contribution was marked, especially its pizzicato.  There were occasional marcato notes from the piano, but the instrument’s role seemed rather too busy for listeners to apprehend much melody.  A conventional crescendo ended the movement, which had been substantial and lively, made so from the good sound in the relatively intimate space of the Little Theatre.  The vigorous and totally committed playing of these performers was notable.

The second movement, adagio, contrasted with the earlier allegro vivace.  It was calm and melodious in places, but not the most interesting of the composer’s writing, yet there was some delicious piano writing in places.  Again, there was much for the piano to do, with muted strings accompanying.

The menuetto was far from a movement of that name in Mozart’s time; as the programme notes stated, Mendelssohn was influenced by Beethoven.  Its agitato even became frisky.  Liu’s playing was beautifully judged.  After this short movement came the longer finale, another allegro vivace, with the piano dominant again.  There was prestidigitation from all players in this bright and breezy movement. More sombre chords happened very briefly; soon we were back to dynamics and dynamism.  It was a movement of great variety.

Rather more familiar was the Shostakovich trio.  The work has a most unusual opening, with the cello playing unaccompanied harmonics, giving a very plaintive effect; then the violin joins in slowly at a much lower pitch, and finally the piano, in the bass.  All are pianissimo, the mood one of deep sadness.  The piano and cello then played, at normal pitch, a solemn theme, the piano in double octaves, to be followed by a violin melody, with the piano playing stark pizzicato.  This was all technically demanding and complex.  An agitated melody ensues; some little phrases  to be found in other of Shostakovich’s chamber music emerge.

The allegro con brio second movement was brisk and brittle.  The following largo was in utter contrast, beginning with slow fortissimo chords on the piano, followed by a soulful solo from the violin, and then another on cello, the piano chords continuing.  Donald Armstrong again had much playing in the lower register; this was sonorous and mellow.

Expert pizzicato from all players introduced the final allegretto.  Then the Jewish melody arrived, followed by many different fragments, all in a state of high tension, repeated from this and the other movements.  This was hard work, but all magnificently realised.  After spiccato from the strings, the opening piano chords from the largo third movement returned, accompanied by high notes on the strings.  Phenomenal playing was exhibited from all three musicians.

After the interval, and the sombre mood of the Shostakovich, the lovely ‘Trout’ quintet of Schubert seemed almost light relief.  What a treat to hear this familiar, gorgeous work!  The intensity these players brought to the music gave it freshness anew.  The composer’s use of the double bass was interesting.  There was brilliance from the piano again; this concert was really a celebration of the piano in chamber music, and Liu’s wonderful playing of it.

In the second movement, andante, the brook becomes limpid.  The more solemn middle section gives the keyboard prominence.  The third movement, scherzo, demonstrated again the lovely tone from all the instruments, whether in rapid playing, as in this movement, or the slower, more resonant previous one.

Andantino to allegretto were the markings for the fourth movement.  Here we had the melody of the song Die Forelle.  It began with strings only, as a mellifluous quartet.  In the first variation, the piano has the tune while the strings accompany, but with lots of variety.  In the next, the situation is reversed.  The third featured the tune played by the double bass, with piano ripples; the others accompanied, but had a few melodies of their own.   Following that was a concerted variation, played with much vigour.  Then the cello had the solo, with variations on the melody; this trout was lively in Andrew Joyce’s hands.  The violin had its turn playing a solo of the song melody, then the cello took it up while the piano played the song’s accompaniment.  (Did Schubert not regard the viola highly enough to give it solo?)

The fifth (allegro giusto) movement contained strong rhythmic statements from all players, and plenty of contrasts.  New sections of the movement illustrated the plethora of ideas and innovations Schubert was able to create.

This was playing of precision and great beauty, making for a memorable concert.

 

Successful violin and viola duo reveal rare Mozart and well-known Halvorsen

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Carolyn van Leuven (violin) and Sharon Callaghan (viola)

Duos by Mozart and Halvorsen’s Passacaglia after Handel

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 8 March, 12:15 pm

The names of the two performers at this lunchtime concert should no doubt have been familiar to me, as they have been on the Wellington scene on and off for a long time; both had played in the NZSO. Both have lived and studied overseas and now work in other fields in Wellington, though music clearly remains an important part of their lives.

The programme note explained that Mozart wrote these two duos for violin and viola (K 423 and 424) in 1783 to help out his friend Michael Haydn (Joseph’s brother) in Salzburg, when illness prevented him finishing a commission for six duos for the Archbishop. So they were presumably composed quickly, but there’s no evidence of haste in the melodic warmth and their level of interest, in the attractive way in which the ideas developed and in the fairly complex contrapuntal writing for the two instruments.

As they began the G major duo I had the impression that Van Leuven was under some pressure as her runs seemed a bit perfunctory. I continued to sense from time to time that she had not given the music quite as much attention as she might have, and that perhaps the two players had not found themselves in a comfortable space together. Within a minute or so such impressions disappeared and it was quickly clear that their instincts and fundamental musicality were guiding them very well.

In abstract terms, one can wonder whether such a duo will inspire really satisfying music, but any such doubts soon vanished as the close relationship with a string trio or even a string quartet seemed to assert itself. The two created a warm and spirited sound that seemed well anchored to human emotions. And Mozart’s interesting counterpoint made me want to explore, in comparison, the four duos that Michael Haydn did compose.

While the first and last movements of the first duo were spirited and filled with geniality, the middle movement, Adagio, was calm, in delightful contrast, and with less technical challenge, I thoroughly enjoyed the sounds of the two instruments. The notes drew attention to the viola’s slightly larger size that increased its richness, and Callaghan’s playing really drew attention to itself in the Adagio.

The second duo, in B flat, opened with a slow, meditative introduction, unison chords that quickly enriched themselves. In the Allegro part, passages of double stopping really extended the richness of the music, almost creating the sense of playing by three or four instruments, and the players delivered it with great accomplishment.

The piece concluded with a fairly elaborate theme and variations, in a determined vein, but which changed radically in mood with each variation; the players captured them most vividly.

Johan Halvorsen was a Norwegian violinist and composer; his Passacaglia of 1894 was based on a theme in the last movement of Handel’s harpsichord suite No 7 in G minor.(HWV 432). I’ve heard it played by several pairs of players over the past few years, sometimes in an arrangement for violin and cello. It combines a serious-minded theme with wide-ranging variations that both reflect that character but also offer a variety of contrasting emotions. It also calls for considerable technical talents, while maintaining thematic clarity and listeners’ attention. It’s a well-made piece that these players had mastered very successfully, which was particularly demonstrated in the accelerating, virtuosic race to the finish.