Category: Live performance

Woodwind students deliver a delightful variety of lunchtime music at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Works by New Zealand composers (mainly)

Woodwind students of Te Koki New Zealand School of Music; accompaniments by Hugh McMillan (piano)

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 27 July 2016, 12.15pm

Head of Woodwind at NZSM, Deborah Rawson, introduced the students taking part in the concert, and said she had asked them to find suitable works by New Zealanders.  However, the unavoidable absence of a few students meant that several played more than one piece, the latter ones in each case being by other composers.

Perhaps the cause was the rather more esoteric nature of the programme, but there was a smaller audience than is often the case at these lunchtime concerts.  First up was Winter for saxophone and piano, by Natalie Hunt.  It was performed by Kim Hunter.  The saxophone part was interesting, employing the full range of the instrument, but I found the piano part rather tum-te-tum; the overall effect of the piece was somewhat dreary – perhaps the composer’s view of winter.

Next came one of the several clarinet players: Laura Brown, playing Sonatina for clarinet and piano, by Douglas Lilburn.  Laura explained that the piece was not played frequently, and that Lilburn himself had decided that he did not like it, and put it aside.  Here again, the accompaniment was not very interesting, though it livened up in the second movement.  However, the composer exploited most of the considerable range of the woodwind instrument and its capabilities.  After a quiet opening, the sonatina developed into a tuneful and expressive work.  There were gorgeous effects and fresh-sounding melodies. The sudden ending was a surprise.  Laura Brown played with excellent phrasing.

After Lilburn, we had a performer-composer; in fact, we witnessed a world premiere: Peter Liley’s ‘Trees’, for solo saxophone.  Peter was the only male among the day’s performers.  The piece was unaccompanied, and moved through several short episodes, which the composer explained to the audience.  (It was good to see all the players using the microphone, so that their descriptions could be clearly heard).  The episodes were to do with birds, insects, the fantastic woods, and a great beast.  Peter’s sound was bigger and more brassy than that of the other sax player.

He introduced into his piece extended techniques such as over-blowing, thus producing different and multiple tones.  However, I found that the practice of starting each phrase of the melodies on the same lower note became a little tedious.  Very loud sounds were followed by high chirping bird-like tones.  Considerable musical gymnastics were performed as part of the piece.

Next up was clarinettist Leah Thomas, playing Gareth Farr’s Waipoua, a contemplation of the great kauri forest, and especially of the giant Tane Mahuta.  It was an attractive piece, played in a controlled but evocative manner.  There was good interplay between clarinet and piano.  Dynamics were handled very well.

The only bassoon on show was played by Breanna Abbot. She gave us ‘Three Pieces’ by Edwin Carr.  The first was contemplative, the second bouncy and impetuous, but rather like an exploratory journey, while the third had features of both the other movements.  They were played with clarity, and pleasing tone.

Kim Hunter returned to play ‘A flower who never fully bloomed’ by Michelle Scullion, a New Zealand flautist (or flutist, if you prefer), composer, and multi-tasker in the arts.  Although Kim’s instrument was again the alto saxophone, this piece began with the lower register of the instrument, giving quite a different effect.  The unaccompanied piece again demonstrated the player’s excellent control of dynamics and lovely tone.  Suiting the title, the piece had a mournful character.

We then turned to the classics: firstly, the appassionata movement from Brahms’s Sonata Op.120 no.2, played by Laura Brown.  It has to be said that the confidence and experience of this great composer was most obvious in this gorgeous piece.  Rippling passages on both instruments were a notable part of the movement.  The piano was in no way left in the background; it was essential.  There was an attractive variety of tonal colours and dynamics from both players; a thoroughly satisfying performance.

Last was Poulenc; like so many French composers, he was a lover of woodwind.  His allegro con fuoco was the last movement of his Sonata for clarinet and piano, which was one of the last works he wrote, in 1962, the year before he died.  Leah Thomas treated it as typically spiky Poulenc, fast and jolly and one could imagine Poulenc playing this in a Paris night club.  There was plenty of variety in the piano part as well as in that for the clarinet:  lots of fun and the players gave it life.  It made an excellent ending to an interesting and varied concert.

Beguiling concert of French chanson, torch songs, café and cabaret songs by Magdalena Darby and friends

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Lunchtime concerts at St Marks, Lower Hutt
Café Européen – Songs of Passion

Magdalena Darby (cabaret singer, chansonneuse) with Ian Logan (piano), Gary Stratton (accordion), Alistair Isdale (bass)

Torch songs, chansons, café music; French and derivative styles

St Marks church, Lower Hutt

Wednesday 27 July, 12:15 pm

Magdalena Darby’s bio begins with her studies at the Conservatorium of Music in Utrecht, but shies away from dates, early education, or when she came to New Zealand; one assumes she was born in the Netherlands. Before coming to New Zealand she lived in Mexico and presumably Paris. Her bio refers to performing in Paris as well as London and elsewhere in Europe (can we still assume that ‘Europe’ includes Britain?).

Throughout, her career has been a combination of teaching and cabaret-style singing. Her publicity refers to ‘torch songs’, perhaps not very familiar to the musical generalist, but it describes songs of broken love affairs, of lost love (which tends, I suppose, to be a major element in music of all kinds). The expression to ‘carry a torch for’ someone relates to the word in this context.

Paris was the biggest element in her repertoire, even if there were songs from several other parts of the world. That tone was set as the instrumentalists played Michel Legrand’s theme song from the much-loved film Les Parapluies de Cherbourg featuring Catherine Deneuve (which you can find in the Wellington Public Library). The three instrumentalists were clearly very comfortable in music of this style and era (mostly the 50s to 70s) and lent sensitive support to the singer.

Nearly half of her songs were French, by French singers or sung in French: names that appear in my ‘other self’s’ collection of LPs and CDs, like Serge Gainsbourg, Sidney Bechet (the jazz, soprano saxophonist), and Jacques Brel, but also Piazzolla’s Rosa Rio which she sang in French.

What has always attracted me to the French chanson has been the intellectual, heterodox, often politically dissident, even anarchic quality of their subjects, in addition of course to the edgy, rebellious or pathetic character of the love-songs.

Darby’s voice, exploiting the microphone with finesse, didn’t express just the pain of lost love in Gainsbourg’s songs (Les amours perdues, Les yeux pour pleurer and Indifférente), but an awareness of a fractured, lonely world, with a warmth and seductiveness that seems unique to French singers. Though Indifférente was deceptively upbeat and Les yeux pour pleurer an unusual story of cruel loss and the sudden appearance of a new love.

So one enjoyed hearing echoes and tones of voices like Piaf, even Josephine Baker, Françoise Hardy and males like Yves Montant, Jean Sablon, Charles Trenet…

Bechet’s Petite fleur was of course written for himself and his soprano sax, but lyrics were put to it later, giving it a perfectly Gallic chanson character. Here and throughout, one was seduced by a voice and a control of that voice that captured the idiom of the languages and utterly belied her years.

Darby’s clarity of diction and ability to capture the style of other cultures became clear in Spanish songs such as Carlos Almaron’s Un historia de un amor and Nino Rota’s Theme from The Godfather (the love theme with words by Larry Kusik); she sang the latter in its English version, with some in Italian (if I wasn’t fooling myself).

Her singing of the Second World War song Can’t get out of this mood (words by Loesser, set by Jimmy McHugh) succeeded in demonstrating how deeply a European style of lyric and music affected American popular music: Nina Simone was one of the most famous interpreters of that song in the late 50s, and later, Darby sang her But remember me which displayed her warm, low register, that so perfectly leapt into a high head voice in dealing with the spread of the song’s melody.

There was a break for accordionist Stratton to take front stage with a Piazzolla song, Fiebre, where I suppose the idea was an approximation of the bandoneon; but nothing quite matches that unique Buenos Aires instrument.

The song by Cy Coleman, A moment of madness seemed to step aside from the Gallic spirit that ruled in most of the recital; a song in which the singer tries to persuade herself that she doesn’t care about the moment of madness that ended badly, expressed with its series of short, almost sobbing phrases; but the singer succeeded in planting it convincingly in Paris.

Then there was Jacques Brel, a really tough singer to impersonate with any success; happily she didn’t attempt things like La valse a mille temps, or Marieke, or Ne me quitte pas. But in English, If we only have love, (Quand on n’a que l’amour) was a classic Brel melody the spirit of which, even without that inimitable voice, Magdalena Darby caught with integrity and conviction.

And the three-quarter hour ended with a surprising step to the east, into Yiddish song, which she sang in English, with a short excursion into German (Yiddish is very close to German – derived from Middle High German). At her hands, and with the impeccably idiomatic backing of (especially) pianist Ian Logan, and Gary Stratton and Alastair Isdale, the words and music took root firmly at L’Olympia, Paris, to bring this most beguiling little concert to an end.

A good case for Mendelssohn’s (complete) organ music in cathedral series

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Organ recitals at St Paul’s
The Mendelssohn Project, first recital

Michael Stewart, Cathedral Director of Music

The complete organ works of Felix Mendelssohn
Sonatas, in F minor and C minor, Op 65 Nos 1 and 2
Andante – Sanft; Passacaglia – Volles Werk; Fugue in D minor; Andante con moto in G minor

Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Friday 22 July, 12:45 pm

On top of last year’s Bach Project from Michael Stewart and Richard Apperley and the latter’s Buxtehude Project that’s running now, cathedral director of music, Michael Stewart, has now invited us to pay attention to and hopefully change our minds about Mendelssohn. In his introductory notes for the first of the series of recitals he claimed that Mendelssohn had “made an incredibly profound contribution to the organ and its repertoire”, and that he stood alongside Bach and Messiaen as an organ composer whose influence is felt across all genres.

Quite a statement, though very defensible in the musical environment of the first half of the 19th century.

Stewart went on to say that the three preludes and fugues and the six sonatas were fundamental to the repertoire of any serious organist. And he noted that Mendelssohn had achieved this place in spite of the fact that he never held a post as an organist; he had, however, begun organ lesson aged eleven and started to composer for the organ at once. Though his formal lessons lasted only 18 months, after which time he was self-taught, and confessed to not really mastering pedal technique.

This first recital included the first two of his sonatas whose provenance was unusual – really cobbled together from a variety of smaller pieces – in response to an English publisher’s request for some organ ‘voluntaries’. Mendelssohn claimed he didn’t really know what this peculiarly English liturgical form was and asked that they be called sonatas so they could be published recognizably in Germany. France and Italy.

Sonata No 1 is in four movements; it starts in conventionally grand manner using big diapason stops with what might have been a rudimentary melody on the pedals; it then changes abruptly to a calm, chorale-like phase which is interrupted by returns of the style of the opening. From then the two moods alternated, the heavier seeming to oppress the lighter passages.

The Adagio movement seemed constructed in a similar way, with alternating passages in widely separated registers, jumping from one manual to another. And the Andante recitativo presented a thin little tune that was suddenly overwhelmed by dominating chords, rather similar to the behavior in the second movement, and the two elements continued to alternate, with increasingly complex harmonies. With no pause and almost without a change of tone, the fourth, Vivace, movement took over and brought it to a rather exciting close.

Apart from the second Sonata, the rest of the programme consisted of slighter pieces, without opus numbers. Three from his early teens: first, an Andante which was tuneful and pleasant, seeming very conscious of the sort of music for which the organ was traditionally associated.

A second entitled ‘Volles Werk’, German for ‘full organ’. It was a stately Passacaglia, the theme subjected to a number of variations which became repetitive rather than interestingly contrasted or developed in an organic way (?pun intended).  Eventually brighter variations arrived and one had to credit the organist with providing more diverting registrations here with lively quaver accompaniment. It ended with a return to the portentous style, which was employed to build effectively to a satisfying climax. It did indeed strike me as pretty clever for a 13 or 14-year-old.

An 11-year-old’s Fugue in D minor followed, a counterpoint exercise originally for violin and piano.

Then a piece by a mature 24-year-old: Andante con moto in G minor. Though it set off purposefully on quiet stops, it was only a page long.

The second Sonata was rather shorter than the first (dating from 1844/45). The first movement, Grave – Adagio, could have been described as ‘meditative’ but I wasn’t drawn into any spirit of mature contemplation, founded on any deeply-felt philosophical reflection. It didn’t sound of its era at all and I found myself thinking how it compared with music being written around the same time – especially Schumann’s piano and chamber music (though I don’t know the few bits of organ music that Schumann wrote). I also read that the ever-generous Schumann played Mendelssohn’s sonatas over on the piano and wrote warmly to him, describing them as ‘intensely poetical’; ‘what a perfect picture they form’, he wrote.

It’s not as if Mendelssohn was not as influenced as his contemporaries were by the prevailing ‘Romantic’ ethos of the 1830s and 40s, in his piano and chamber music, his two best symphonies and several concert overtures. Perhaps his awareness of the overpowering impact of Bach inhibited a freedom of spirit that is found in those other genres.

The second and third movements – Allegro maestoso e vivace and  Fugue: Allegro moderato – contained some imposing music, contrapuntal, harmonically formidable and in the Fugue, plenty of evidence of the composer’s study and assimilation of the techniques and meaning of Bach. Nevertheless, even in the absence of the kind of response I have to the organ music of Bach and Buxtehude and to the French school of the later 19th century, I heard an authentic, instinctive organ composer  whose music had genuine interest and vitality, played with as much imaginative use of the cathedral organ’s resources as could have been expected.

All this might well be influenced by my youthful brush with the sonatas. I had a good friend at secondary school whose family moved to Christchurch in the fifth form. There he took up the organ, and during my visits during holidays, we often shared the manuals and pedals in the organ loft of St Paul’s church, Papanui; among other stuff, there was a volume of these sonatas, bits of which we, or rather, he, found his way through. But I fear they made little impression on me.

This time, Mendelssohn certainly made more impact on me, but not quite to the degree urged by Michael Stewart.

 

Enthusiasm for Orchestra Wellington, with Anna Leese, in war-time masterpieces by Strauss

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Last Words: Capriccio

Richard Strauss: Festmusik der Stadt Wien for brass and timpani (arr. Maunder)
Metamorphosen: Study for 23 solo strings
Capriccio Op.85: Prelude and Final Scene

Orchestra Wellington conducted by Marc Taddei, with Anna Leese (soprano)

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 16 July 2016, 7.30pm

The latest in Orchestra Wellington’s innovative ‘Last Words’ series of subscription concerts featured a variety of music, despite being all from one composer.  The works were all written late in the composer’s life.  Marc Taddei made it apparent in his pre-concert talk (with young composer Tabea Squire) that he held Strauss in high regard.  The composer had considered the opera Capriccio to be his last work.  However, the other two works on the programme were written later, as were the well-loved Four Last Songs (programmed for performance later this year by the NZSO with soloist German soprano Christiane Libor).

Doing things a little differently, Orchestra Wellington had the announcements to the audience before the players came on.  Then the brass only (plus timpani) came onto the platform, where they stood at the rear, on low tiers.  This looked very effective.  Only the tuba-player and the timpanist sat. Festmusik der Stadt Wien, “composed in 1943 as thanks for having been awarded the Beethoven Prize – and also as thanks to the city of Vienna…[for] personal protection from Nazi harassment…”, featured characterful themes.  One would not have imagined, hearing this music, that a war was raging and that people were being killed.

The music became more military with a joyful fanfare towards the end, and then a slower, more lyrical passage intervened.  A final militaristic outburst ended the work.  It must have suited its occasion well, but has not been standard symphony orchestra fare.

Now the string players came on, for Metamorphosen.  They also stood to play (though not, of course, the cellos and double basses).  Concertmaster Vesa-Matti Leppänen was borrowed from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and a fine job he made of his role.  As a friend remarked in the interval, there’s a difference between the NZSO and this orchestra.  Nevertheless they play well, and it was good to hear them with an inspiring concertmaster and their usual energetic and talented conductor.

The magical opening on cellos alone wove a spell that typified the entire work.  Taddei had alluded in his talk to the ambiguity around the keys employed in the piece.  He said that it is ostensibly in C major, but metmorphoses into other keys, but eventually arriving at C minor passing through E flat on the way.  Indeed, one could not have said what the key was in these opening passages.  Leppänen led the violins in their gradual entry into the music; finally they take over.

The piece’s slowly shifting, writhing tonality seems to express sorrow and mourning.  By 1944-45 when it was composed, the situation in Germany and Austria had changed for the worse.  Taddei, in his introduction to the audience, called it one of the most profound works ever written.  It was written with a Goethe poem in mind, a choral setting of which Strauss rejected in favour of the setting for strings.  It could not help but be a commentary on Germany’s position at the time.

The violin of Vesa-Matti Leppänen struggled to rise in hope above the deeper-toned instruments and their despondent contortions.  There was splendid playing from all, but especially from their leader.   However, there was no let-up in the course the music was taking.  Towards the end, a section of minor chords and solemn homophonic music took over, and there were echoes of the composer’s much earlier Death and Transfiguration (1899).

Taddei’s conducting both works in the first half without the score before him was impressively conspicuous.

For the final work a full orchestra was employed, conventionally seated.  Marc Taddei again introduced the work; there was no separate presenter/interviewer this time, as at some of last year’s concerts.

Enchanting strings opened the Prelude to Capriccio, followed by more solo work for Leppänen.  The winding path of the music through chromatic byways was reminiscent of Metamorphosen, and much Strauss music.  Eventually the horn enters – and so does the soloist.  Sensibly, no break was made between the Prelude and the Final Scene, thus maintaining the mood, unbroken by applause.

The other horns join in, introducing the romantic music to accompany the countess’s thoughts on whether that music by one of her suitors is more important to the opera-within-an-opera than are the words of her other suitor, the poet.  Percussion and woodwind join in the delightful soundscape, then Anna Leese sings, varying her voice beautifully.  The harp adds to the romantic atmosphere; the music absolutely matches the meaning of the words.  Soaring phrases and high notes from Anna Leese were glorious, and appeared effortless.  She fitted the part beautifully.

The large body of strings were given lush orchestration, accompanied by intriguing woodwind flourishes.  Rising and falling cadences reminded me of the wonderful settings of words in the composer’s Four Last Songs, written a few years later and published posthumously.

The ending comes when, the countess having not made up her mind about music v. words, the majordomo (Roger Wilson) comes on to utter one line telling her ladyship that supper is served.  He goes off, and so does she, and a horn ends proceedings, just as it began them.  For his brief effort, Roger was rewarded with a bouquet, as of course was Anna Leese.

The hall was well filled, though not full.  The audience responded enthusiastically to a concert chiefly remarkable for the stunning singing of Anna Leese.  Someone remarked to me afterwards “This was Renée Fleming territory.”

 

Buxtehude’s credentials solidly confirmed at the 6th of the organ series at Saint Paul’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Buxtehude Project – Programme 6
Richard Apperley – organ

Buxtehude: Praeludium in C, BuxWV 136; ‘Nimm von uns, Herr…’ BuxWV 207; Fuga in B flat, Bux 176; Magnificat primi toni, BuxWV 203; Canzona in C, BuxWV 166; Praeludium in A minor, BuxWV 153

Wellington Cathedral of Saint Paul

Friday 15 July, 12:45 pm

On 17 June I covered some of the background to the formidable complete organ works of Dieterich Buxtehude, after the first four of the series had eluded me (read: Middle C, or I, had neglected them, a grave oversight).

Here was the 6th of the series.
The first work in the programme was fairly large, employing three fugues; optimistic in tone, as the key of C major seems to inspire in composers. It started with an imposing, somewhat rambling, rising scale – a kind of prelude to the Prelude. The middle fugue sounded more orthodox, in common time, coherent and interesting in its progress and it led to the third fugue cast in a gigue rhythm.

Next came a piece based on a chorale, a set of chorale variations which, to begin, employed much less formal registrations than the Praeludium: flutes and lighter reeds, suggesting bird-song. A second variation was more densely textured, and the subsequent variations continued to offer interesting forays in imaginative registers, often with quite bold counter-melodies underlying the main themes.

The Fuga in B flat was an elaborate exercise, as its several lines of counterpoint were punctuated by dense passages that were occasionally coloured by nasal sounding stops.

A Magnificat setting followed, in which the actual fugal passages alternated with more rhapsodic music, succeeding in exhibiting the fecundity of the composer’s melodic imagination and his ability to fuse grandeur and decorative passages.

Another Canzona (I heard one in the previous recital on 17 June) offered yet another vehicle for the composer’s ingenuity and mastery of the rich variety in styles of organ music that existed in the late 17th century: rippling meanderings; airy, whispering stops suggesting shimmering light; peaceful and lyrical phases; quite striking colour changes as hands moved from one manual to another.

And finally, a Praeludium that was even more imposing and engrossing than the opening one: this time in a minor key: Apperley’s note confessed to its being one of his favourites, and his virtuosic performance was convincing evidence of his opinion. It encompassed music of ever-changing mood, melodic and developmental richness and mastery. It moved through fugal phases and highly decorated scales and arpeggios, changing tempi and rhythms and abrupt changes of direction, all ending with a tumbling, highly complex and thrilling coda that must have left his congregation in the Marienkirche in Lübeck wide-eyed and stunned.

I confess to finding myself in a somewhat similar state after this second dose of the great Danish-German master. And this condition has to be very substantially attributed to the wonderful mastery of the cathedral’s organ by Richard Apperley.

You should look out for the next in the Buxtehude series: there’s nothing boring or pious about this music.

Coming up next Friday, the 22nd, is the first of the Mendelssohn series from Michael Stewart; then Buxtehude Episode 7 from Apperley on Friday 19 August.

 

Interesting variety of arias and songs from NZSM voice students

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Songs by various composers

Voice students of Te Koki New Zealand School of Music, accompanied by Mark W. Dorrell (piano)

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 13 July 2016, 12.15pm

A variety of voices was heard at today’s concert, and a great variety of songs from 18th, 19th and 20th century composers – interesting repertoire.

Stefano Donaudy (1879-1925) was a composer new to me; he was Italian-French, and a resident of Palermo in Sicily.  He composed mainly vocal music, including operas, and is known today for a number of songs, of which ‘O del mio amato ben’ is one.  It was sung to open this student recital by Olivia Sheat (soprano), a fourth year student.  She has admirable voice production and her tone was beautifully sustained.  Along with well enunciated words and inaudible breathing, she made great work of this aria, as indeed with the utterly different ‘I shall not live in vain’ by Jake Heggie (b. 1961), where she characterised the splendid words of Emily Dickinson aptly and mellifluously.  However, I found Mark Dorrell’s accompaniment in the first song, and elsewhere in the recital, rather too loud at times.

Olivia Sheat’s third contribution was the wonderful ‘Mi tradi’ from Mozart’s Don Giovanni.  It was notable that the singer’s spoken introduction to the audience was very clear, and loud enough (without microphone!).  She did not drop her voice, after starting, as so many do.  The aria was sung very dramatically.  She will make a fine opera singer; presence, voice and interpretation were all in line.

Nicole Davey, another soprano (second-year), has a lighter voice, but she gave it plenty of variety.  A problem I find with a few quite noted singers is that although they have voices of fine quality, and sing accurately, they do not vary the timbre or even the dynamics very much.  A Pergolesi aria from his Stabat Mater suited Nicole well, and her ‘Vedrai carino’ from Don Giovanni was sung with very pleasing tone; she phrased Mozart’s lovely music splendidly.  Appropriately, the singer adopted a different vocal quality for ‘Bill’ from Jerome Kern’s Showboat.  In any case, it was set low in her voice.  Not all the English words were clear.

The opposite was the case with mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Harré’s singing of ‘The shearer’s wife’ by Dorothea Franchi, a New Zealand composer (and harpist), who died in 2003.  Here, the English words were clear and precise.  It was interesting to hear a voice so different from the previous singer’s.  Harré’s darker, deeper tone suited her first song: ‘Au cimetiére’ by Fauré.  This was very accomplished singing from a second-year student.  Her legato singing was superb, and her French pronunciation excellent.  It was a very touching performance.

Her final offering was ‘Smeton’s aria’ from Anna Bolena by Donizetti.  The lilting character of this aria was well portrayed.

Another soprano was Elyse Hemara, a third-year student.  She displayed a wide vocal range in her songs, with a rich tone throughout.  Her first song, the lovely ‘Lilacs’ by Rachmaninoff, started low in the voice, while the second, the same composer’s ‘How fair this spot’, was quite high.  Both were sung in Russian, and both, as befitted Rachmaninoff, the great pianist and composer for that instrument, had gorgeous accompaniments, beautifully played.  Her third aria was by Massenet, from his opera Herodiade: ‘Il est doux, il est bon’.  Hemara’s mature voice and good French pronunciation made a good job of it; one could imagine her singing it on an operatic stage, but she would need rather more facial expression and characterisation.

Here, as elsewhere, Mark Dorrell was required to play some complicated accompaniments when substituting for an orchestra, in the operatic arias.

The last singer was another third-year student, baritone Joseph Haddow.  His first song was ‘Die beiden grenadiere’ by Schumann, a setting of words by Heine that needs to display the irony in both poet’s and composer’s views of Napoleon and of war.  Haddow has a strong voice, and sang this song with suitable bravado and panache.  His habit of poking his head forward rather, needs to be overcome.  For ‘Ah! Per sempre io ti perdei’ from Bellini’s I Puritani he adopted a more dramatic tonal quality that suited the aria well.  This was fine singing: he has plenty of volume, but used subtlety as well.  There were one or two slight lapses of intonation – the only ones I heard throughout the recital.

It was a pleasure to hear fresh, new voices; I think that the opening singer was the only one I had heard before.  All were obviously well-taught, and gave intelligent and musical performances.  Naturally, their skill levels varied somewhat, but I think all present would feel pleased with what they heard.

 

Excellent performance by Nota Bene of Rossini’s marvellous Petite Messe solennelle

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Petite Messe solennelle by Rossini
Nota Bene conducted by Peter Walls

Soloists: Georgia Jamieson Emms, Maaike Christie-Beekman, Patrick Geddes, Simon Christie
Piano: Fiona McCabe; harmonium: Thomas Nikora

Wellington Cathedral of Saint Paul

Saturday 9 July, 8 pm

Rossini’s end-of-life setting of the Mass has a somewhat special place in the repertoire – secular or sacred? serious or ironic? Thus, some more humourless music lovers have difficulty in enjoying it as some of the music is a bit unusual in tone, remote from the way a ‘proper’ sacred or liturgical work should be.

I think it would be hard to perform it in a way that suggested any lack of sincerity or seriousness however. For a work on this scale and in the knowledge that it was his last composition, it would be a remarkably shallow, not to say stupid, composer who would have devoted so many of his last days to something that was not a little bit important to him. It was clearly important to him both as music and as an expression of his Christian faith.

In any case, Rossini’s well-known words in his last rites, asking God to bear in mind his Stabat Mater and this mass setting as evidence of his faith, are rather persuasive.

For the audience, seated in the front of the nave, the sound was uncluttered and diction clear. A spirit of delight reigned from the very first staccato motif on the piano which in this performance sounded distinctly more brilliant and life-affirming than some performances with orchestra I’ve heard. They might succeed in creating a more liturgical, more grand atmosphere, but not so special. As it progresses the tone does become more serious, as at the ‘Et Resurrexit’, for example, which climbs to a distinctly more triumphant tone in keeping with its subject.

One of the most distinctive, and perhaps unorthodox aspects, is the accompaniment by piano, and by a piano part in which one can easily hear Rossini himself playing (for he was a splendid pianist).

Rossini originally scored it for two pianos and a harmonium but a couple of years later, he orchestrated it, knowing that if he didn’t others would; that too shows how well he regarded his late masterpiece. Here we had only one piano and a harmonium though the harmonium, played by Thomas Nikora, on the right was generally not very audible to me, sitting on the left.

Fiona McCabe did a wonderful job in the composer’s possible role (we know that he only acted as page turner for the first piano at its first performance). It succeeded in being brilliant, witty, marvellously adapted to its role as support for the singers whether a solo or the full choir. The piano lent the entire work a singularity of tone and spirituality, an ever-present lightness and ebullience, bringing a remarkable immediacy to its spiritual qualities. In fact, I suspect for most listeners the piano is one of its most engaging and individual characteristics throughout, nowhere more conspicuously than in the ‘Credo’ where its colour and clarity gave it something that a big orchestra couldn’t really equal.

Rossini apparently intended it to be sung by just eight choir members and four soloists; there were 23 choristers at this performance, plus the four soloists, which was fully justified here, as the premiere was in a private mansion in Paris where small forces would have been enough.

A memorable hearing
It was certainly the piano sound that made an impact at my first live hearing which I will plead forgiveness for reminiscing on. In Paris in 1992, after I’d spent a week with the NZSO at the Seville EXPO, I ran into the late Gary Brain (former NZSO timpanist and after a wrist injury, an orchestral conductor in Europe) in a street near the New Zealand Embassy. He was full of excitement, about to go to his first professional conducting engagement after his studies in Paris; would I like to come? Where? At a small festival at St-Florent-le-Vieil on the Loire, between Angers and Nantes.

I took the train down there next morning, found at the first hotel out of the railway station and across the river, that Gary had booked me a room; then I found my way to the small church where the festival was held. The church was full (about 300) that evening for Gary’s performance of the Petite messe solennelle, with the choir and four soloists from the Opéra-Comique in Paris, with a piano and a harmonium (memory a little uncertain – maybe two pianos). I think it was a very good performance, in my memory very much like what I heard on Saturday evening.

Next evening, back in Paris, I dictated a purple-prosed review to the nice copy-taker in The Evening Post where it was printed next day.

In such a setting, and witnessing Gary’s professional debut, the music had a very special significance and excitement. Any new performance brings up enchanting memories of that one on the Loire.

Composers of mass settings often vary the divisions between the sections, and Rossini divides his into 14. There is no separate section for the ‘Benedictus’, for example, which simply flows as part of the ‘Sanctus’.

The mass has attracted composers over the centuries for the varied, dramatic possibilities offered by its summary of Christian ritual and stories, in its varied purposes; Rossini identified the possibilities for engaging with a secular audience as much as with a religious congregation. And Peter Walls inspired the choir to find as much entertainment and religious feeling too, from the words and from the character of the music at every stage.

The soloists
We heard all four in the ‘Kyrie’ and the ‘Gloria’, some a cappella moments in the ‘Kyrie’ offering a taste of their excellent balance and verbal clarity. The first soloist to stand out was Simon Christie, in the ‘Gloria’, wonderfully robust and strongly projecting as it was later in the ‘Quoniam’ where again he shone with his steady descents below the stave, with an operatic, dotted rhythm; elsewhere his voice had an imposing prominence that was never out of place.

Tenor Patrick Geddes had his solo turn in the ‘Domine Deus’, and on his own his pleasant voice created a feeling of enjoyment that quite overcame a touch of insecurity.

After a charming piano introduction, the two women sang unaccompanied in the ‘Qui tollis peccata mundi’, most excellently, as one after the other caught a penitential note; but not for long, as there is also a distinctly lyrical, operatic quality. Each also had her place in the sun elsewhere: Georgia in the ‘Crucifixus’ where her voice soared with a sort of happiness that might seem out of keeping with the marking of Christ’s crucifixion. Maaike had solo moments with two other soloists in the ‘Gratias’; the warmth and polish of her voice was most engaging. But her big solo came in the ‘Agnus Dei’ where she used her voice movingly, weaving around the voices of the choir.

Four soloists from the choir sang at certain points, notably in the ‘Credo’, where the ecstatic quality of ‘Cum spirit sanctu’ suddenly changes to something serious, a statement of belief. They reappeared in the ‘Sanctus’, where a more sombre tone is also required.

The centre point of the mass might well be the ‘Cum sancto spiritu’ and here I can be forgiven for thinking that its tremendous youthful verve and melodic glory, striking with piano, actually does sound even more impressive and thrilling with orchestral accompaniment. Nevertheless, Peter Walls’s vigorous gestures here helped create a rising excitement, ending with the ecstatic ‘Gloria in excelsis’.

Just about everything in this performance of a marvelous work was admirably judged and accomplished, once more demonstrating the choir’s musical gifts, as well as the apparently happy relationship with Peter Walls who took over the choir at the end of last year.

The audience, not quite as big as the performance deserved, was highly appreciative.

An intriguing anniversary concert from Jonathan Berkahn and Heather Easting at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

1816 on the piano
Jonathan Berkahn and Heather Easting solo and duet piano

Music by Clementi, John Field, Weber, Schubert, Diabelli and Beethoven

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 6 July, 12:15 pm

For me, there is a rather compulsive fascination with musical and other anniversaries, and with the fitting of events, of births and deaths, into a time-frame. Here I’d met a kindred spirit who introduced the programme by referring to some of the major events of around two hundred years ago. They had mainly to do with war – the Napoleonic Wars and most closely, the Battle of Waterloo, which took place six months before the year in question. The Congress of Vienna too, had run from the end of 1814 to the June in which Waterloo had taken place. The Congress was intended to and largely did dismantle everything that Napoleon had achieved, and effectively restored absolute monarchy wherever it had prevailed before. It was in the city where the waltz was becoming a craze and where someone responded to an enquiry how the Congress was faring, saying “il ne marche pas, il danse” (a play upon the dual senses of ‘marcher’, being both, literally, to march and to come along or to progress.

Jonathan Berkahn’s contribution to Congress lore was to remark that it experienced much but learned nothing, a variant on ‘Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it’ (how many egregious examples could we find today!).

There were one or two names we’d heard of, like Schubert and Beethoven, and others like Weber (no not Webern) known to the scholars, and others who might have become more famous if their names had started with B or S.

Clementi, for example, opened and closed the show. Those who’d learned the piano for a couple of years knew his name on account of nice if somewhat unmemorable pieces, probably called sonatinas, that were regarded half a century ago as good for children. There were flashy bits that were not very hard but could, in the right hands, sound impressive; but Jonathan played a piece from a huge collection of exercises called Gradus ad Parnassum (Latin: ’steps to the home of the Muses’); No 18, comprising an Introduction and a Fugal allegro, first a series of arresting flourishes and then a not very fugal but confident and courtly number. He captured the spirit, serious and a little tongue-in-cheek.

The final piece, also by Clementi, was a Waltz in C, Op 38 No 9 which Berkahn characterized learnedly as cheeky and cheezy; indeed it gave one renewed respect for the composer as someone who could be flippant and playful, and excellent at writing ideal pieces to end concerts with.

One of Clementi’s students was Irishman John Field, famous for inventing the Nocturne, one of which Berkahn played, the second, in C minor: rolling arpeggios and a melody that might indeed have had a trace of the blarney.

The arrival on stage of Heather Easting to take her cosy place at the bass end of the piano, provided the occasion for some pertinent and amusing musico-political asides. Weber was not one of Clementi’s pupils but was nevertheless a brilliant pianist who wrote a lot of often showy music for his instrument (his most famous piano piece today might well be Invitation to the Dance which we know almost solely through Berlioz’s orchestration). His Rondo from a set of pieces for piano-four-hands, Op 60, was lively and entertaining, for both the players (evidently) and the audience.

Jonathan assumed in his audience a depth of musicological erudition when he said that Diabelli had written more than just the tune that Beethoven set to a massive and famous set of variations in his latter years. He was also a music publisher and a decent pianist who, remarked Jonathan, wrote music for four hands on an industrial scale, and he referred to blood and thunder as elements of his armory which we could discern in the spirited playing by both keyboardists, and which we could agree was all in good fun.

Schubert and Beethoven
Then came the composer who in 1816 was, i) only 19, and ii) probably considered during most of his life, inferior to all those whom we had already heard: Schubert. The piece Berkahn played (by himself now) was an Adagio from what seems to be a musicological conundrum; D 459 was earlier thought to be perhaps a five-movement sonata, but its third movement (this one), together with movements 4 and 5, was later amputated and then called ‘Three Piano Pieces’, D 459A. That left the first two movements as a putative two-movement sonata in E.

It was here that Berkahn engrossed his audience with an autobiographical snippet about a 17-year-old, grade 7 level piano player who discovered volumes of Schubert’s sonatas in the Wellington Public Library (probably still there: have a look), which included this. It was an immediate epiphany, a Road to Damascus, leaving the pianist with a permanent affliction with which to titillate his listeners ever after.

As with most of Schubert, every exposure is a fresh, profoundly musical discovery, and Jonathan’s playing supported his story.

It might be hard to insist that was on a par with the Beethoven sonata that followed and one would not try. This was one of the four that form a sort of inter-regnum between the ‘Middle’ and ‘Late’ periods, between the Appassionata and Op 101. In fact, he could have played the sonata Op 101 here as it was actually written in 1816, but Berkahn clearly wanted to make a case for the three or four somewhat wayward sonatas, Opp 78, 79, 81a and 90; it was the last, Op 90, in E that he played, and in the context of the other more or less contemporary music played, perhaps we listened through altered ears and musical associations. It also allowed Berkahn to quote Beethoven’s perhaps apocryphal remark that its two movements represented first, a battle between head and heart and second, a love-song between the two. It was a delightful image which the music seemed to be in accord with.

The entire programme delivered a liveliness and spirit of delight, perhaps not always note perfect but which had the far greater virtue, on the part of both pianists, of being contagiously persuasive and fun.

If you were to get the impression that I’d rather enjoyed myself, in both the head and the heart, throughout the concert, I would have to plead guilty.

 

 

 

Change of players leads to interesting programme nevertheless

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Hutt City Lunchtime Concert Series

Mike Curtis: Five Huapangos
Bréval: Two Airs for violin and cello
Schulhoff: Due for violin and cello

Konstanze Artmann (violin) and Margaret Goldborg (cello)

St. Mark’s Church, Lower Hutt

Wednesday, 6 July 2016, 12.15pm

Sadly, the change from the advertised programme, Maaike Christie-Beekman, mezzo-soprano, with Catherine Norton, piano, was caused by the singer’s illness.  We trust that she is making a speedy recovery.

In its place was an interesting instrumental programme – a different combo from what we usually experience: violin and cello.

Mike Curtis is a contemporary American composer and bassoonist, much influenced by Mexican rhythms, as here, in his suite of Huapangos.  The huapango is a Mexican dance that mixes different time signatures.  The first movements are all named after cities, towns or locations in Mexico. The first, “Santa Cruz” was fast, while the second, “Las Islitas” was slower and more graceful.  The third had a familiar ring to it: “Miramar”.  As well as being a suburb of Wellington, Miramar is a beach resort in south India, and a city in Mexico.  The solo cello played a large part of this movement, a faster one than the previous dance.

“Ofelia” followed, and was more doleful – whether because the location in Mexico City is sad, or due to the famous character in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, I do not know.  Again, there was an unaccompanied cello section.  Finally, we heard “El Llano” (the name of a municipality, i.e. county, in Mexico), a light and airy, strongly rhythmic piece.  The entire unfamiliar work was admirably well played, and enjoyable to listen to.

Jean-Baptiste Bréval (1753-1823) seems to be having a small local revival; his music is being performed by Robert Ibell and Douglas Mews in their current series of concerts around the country for Chamber Music New Zealand.  We were told that his writing for cello was in the viola da gamba style.

The first Air was in theme-and-variations form.  There was much work for the cellist high on the fingerboard, and a great deal of double-stopping for the violinist.  A few intonation lapses in this piece did not spoil the delightfully simple melody line.  The complex variations added a lot of difficulty, however.

The second Air was in a minor key.  Again the air was stated, followed by increasingly complex variations.  The melody alternated between the instruments, which were very well balanced tonally.  The whole had a pleasing effect.

Jewish composer Erwin Schulhoff  (1894-1942) was born in Prague; he died in a concentration camp during World War II.   His duo, written in 1925, was full of interest.  The first movement, Moderato, incorporated left-hand pizzicato for the violinist and playing sequences of harmonics for both musicians.  Mutes were employed to great effect towards the end.  “Zingaresca” lived up to its gipsy name, being bouncy and highly rhythmic.  Left-hand pizzicato was required of both players, and glissandi added excitement.  The movement had a dynamic and jolly effect.

Andantino was the inscription for the third movement.  It began with a sombre theme, and employed lots of pizzicato.  Finally, the last movement was marked Moderato again,  followed by Presto fanatico.  The first part became quite impassioned, then returned to its opening serenity.  That was replaced by chords, followed by the fanatico.  The cello played spiccato, the bow bouncing on the strings while the violin played pizzicato chords.  These effects were interspersed with repeated anxious phrases.

The overall effect was intriguing and musically interesting.

The audience was most appreciative of a concert of unfamiliar but exciting works and of the excellent playing of the musicians, called on at short notice.

 

 

Fine concert from a three-nations piano trio in a three-nations choice of great music

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Waikanae Music Society

Ravel: Piano Trio in A minor
Gao Ping: Su Xie Si Ti / Four Sketches
Schubert: Piano Trio in B flat, D.898

Calvino Trio (Jun Bouterey-Ishido, piano; Sini Simonen, violin; Alexandre Foster, cello)

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday 3 July 2016, 2.30pm

A Canadian cellist, a Finnish violinist and a New Zealand pianist got together at Prussia Cove in England in 2013, and have made a very competent and successful trio.  We were honoured to hear such a fine group of young musicians.

The Ravel work is a much-loved and often performed trio.  It was one of the works performed by the former Canterbury Trio, the death of whose outstanding violinist and teacher, Jan Tawroszewicz, was sadly noted this past week.  There’s a link here: Jun Bouterey-Ishido studied with Diedre Irons when she was a member of the Trio.

The work is a gift for the pianist; the ethereal opening for that instrument is a wonderful start to the trio (first movement: modéré).  It does not end there; the strings enter and add to the magic.  All three instrumentalists are given the opportunity by Ravel to fully exploit the sonorous qualities of their instruments.  They produced vigorous playing when required.

Despite there being little eye contact between the performers compared with what happens in some chamber music groups, these players were obviously well aware of each other, and their ensemble lacked nothing.  The audience sat attentive and spell-bound.

The opening of the second movement (Pantoum: assez vif) was startling; so different from the first.  There was much diversity and liveliness: a vociferous mélange of different sounds and rhythms.  The third movement (Passacaille: très large) begins on the piano, then velvety sounds from the cello and violin emerge.  Noble passages for piano follow.  A muted section for strings was quietly intense.

The fourth movement (Final: animé) was always thoroughly alive; all of Ravel’s twists and turns were meticulously rendered.  One could imagine watching dancers on  a summer’s day, the bees buzzing as the dance became more and more agitated.  This quartet demands much of the players; the Calvino Trio had it in spades.

The Gao Ping work had been written for NZ Trio in 2009.  The first sketch was entitled Xiao (Boisterous), and indeed it was.  Each player was all over the place.  One could feel the bumpy motorcycle ride described in the programme notes.   The second (Cuo Diao; Split Melody) used an intriguing sequence of individual notes; charming. For the third (Dui Wei; Counterpoint), the violinist disappeared, and played her part from behind the screen that masked the door through which the players enter.  Piano and cello began solemnly – this movement refers to  funeral procession, but the violin plays ‘happy music’ while cello and piano continue with mournful music.  This sketch would be challenging to play, but it was both interesting and evocative to listen to.

The final movement (Shuo; Shining) had the violinist back in her place.  Pizzicato on all the instruments was very effective, the staccato continuing on the piano against chords and glissandi on the strings  All was excitement in ending the work.

After the interval came the glorious and familiar Schubert trio.  It opened with verve.  Jun Bouterey-Ishido appeared to be in his element.  He is a very sensitive pianist and colours his phrases beautifully.  All three players seemed well attuned to each other.

A delightfully sprightly passage with cello pizzicato was superbly played, as was the following section with the melody on the cello.  Schubert’s inventiveness was fully on display here.  Dynamics were observed with great panache.  Cellist Foster’s sotto voce pizzicato was delicious.  The pianist, too, had wonderful pianissimo passages that he played with an enviable lightness of touch.  The effervescence of this long movement could not fail to capture the audience.

The andante slow movement was very affecting in its solemnity.  Slight rubati were absolutely consistent between the players.  The many variations held each its own delights and profundities; in short, gorgeous. The scherzo revealed Schubert at his good-natured best.  The waltz trio features off-beat piano accompaniment – an enchanting touch.  The return of the scherzo was given depth as well as liveliness.

The rondo finale was dance-like, with quieter interludes; delicacy and robustness alternated.  It was a joyous performance.  Just a slight loss of intonation towards the end of this movement was the only lapse – otherwise, the playing was faultless.

The pianist always looked as if he was enjoying himself; the violinist often had a slight smile on her face, though the cellist was more impassive, expressing himself through his beautiful playing.

This was a fine concert indeed, and all would wish the Calvino Trio success and enjoyment on the rest of their tour for Chamber Music New Zealand, and in the future.