Category: Live performance

NZSO and Madeleine Pierard with Ross Harris’s anguished Second Symphony to mark ANZAC Day

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hamish McKeich with Madeleine Pierard (soprano)
‘Spirit of ANZAC’

Frederick Septimus Kelly: In Memoriam Rupert Brooke
George Butterworth: A Shropshire Lad, Rhapsody for Orchestra
Ross Harris: Symphony No 2

Michael Fowler Centre

Thursday 21 April, 6:30 pm

I have been heard to utter unpatriotic feelings about the seeming endless attention paid in New Zealand to war and in particular the First World War and Gallipoli, which took place around 100 years ago. I have no problem with the stimulus the centenary has given to serious re-examination of the political background to the war, its pursuit and the catastrophic results of the Treaty of Versailles that sought to fix the world afterwards. But I wish more attention was given to those other aspects, involving other parts of Europe and the Middle East, for it is the outcome of the war in those spheres, and the self-seeking, diplomatic manoeuvering, the persistent imperial ambitions of all the main players that have created today’s ever-more insoluble crises, particularly in the Middle East. We are still led to believe, at least in much of the English-speaking world, that the war was all about Gallipoli and parts of the Western Front.

However, this evening’s music was concerned mainly with the war’s impact on individual people – soldiers and their families.  Not just with an amorphous ‘loss of life’ and ‘national tragedy’.

In Memoriam Rupert Brooke
It began with a string composition by one Frederick Septimus Kelly, an Australian, who was with his friend Rupert Brooke when he died and was buried on the Greek Island of Skyros. It was rather a moving piece, echoing some of the music of the early 20th century, Vaughan Williams, perhaps Elgar: pastoral, warm and reflective. An elegiac viola melody in the middle lent it a certain strength. It achieved its purpose very well, as McKeich led the orchestra through a sympathetic, unaffected though expressive performance.

Butterworth
George Butterworth, who was killed, with Kelly, at the Somme in 1916, has become a more famous name and his better-known A Shropshire Lad, for full orchestra, demonstrated a gift that might have had him rated with Bantock, Ireland, Moeran or York Bowen, perhaps even in the class of Holst, Howells or Vaughan Williams if he’d lived.

It begins in the character of Butterworth’s lovely The Banks of Green Willow, with strings and solo entries from clarinet, bassoon and cor anglais and follows an emotional path that reflects much of the pervasive emotion of Housman’s poems. In the middle section it expands notably with heavier brass and its pastoral charm is lost. This rather vivid section might have felt a little at odds with the character of many of the poems, though, admittedly, many in the big collection extend far beyond nostalgia and the English countryside, and are primarily reflections on mortality, on the loss of young lives in war (though of course they were published 20 years before the First World War): nevertheless, the rather extravert brass felt a shade too literal and specific.

Harris: Second Symphony
The major work was Ross Harris’s 2nd symphony. Like all his symphonies, this was commissioned and premiered by the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, in 2006. It has rather surprised me that neither Wellington-based orchestra has commissioned a symphony from this major Wellington composer, as one after another has been written for Auckland; this one has even had a second playing in Auckland. (His sixth is scheduled for APO performance later this year). And I don’t think any have even been performed here; if so, this was a momentous occasion – the first Harris symphony to be played in Wellington.

This was one of the earlier collaborations between poet Vincent O’Sullivan and Ross Harris. Though cast in four movements, and obviously with an important orchestral element, it could as well be described as a song-cycle, as a symphony. There are eight stanzas, distributed through the four movements.

It tells a story, based on a newspaper report, of a young soldier in France, falling in love with a local girl, deserting, having a brief love, and coming to a sad, predictable end. I suppose it’s superfluous to say it reminds me of M K Joseph’s poignant novel, A Soldier’s Tale.

On stage was a large orchestra including large percussion, with tubular bells, though just double winds, under conductor Hamish McKeich who confirmed quickly his commanding grasp of the score and delivered a taut, dramatic and very moving performance.

Also on stage is Madeleine Pierard who sings the poetry through all the movements, taking first the soldier’s, then the French girl’s roles. It’s vividly descriptive music, starting in hushed strings, cor anglais, interrupted shockingly with mighty bass drum, violent brass, with military sounds, ironic marches; while the poem speaks soon of dreamy advances through poppy fields, with flashes of soldiers’ graves and snow and the sudden awakenings to reality. Pierard’s earthy, penetrating soprano kept the story anchored to real people and their emotional crisis, and even to their brief ecstasy.

The second movement deals with the love story, and the music opens in spell-binding unreality, in dread presentiment of its brief span, employing a limited tonal range, a momentary, almost subliminal echo of one of the Sings Harry songs. There were moments when the music seemed to strive too hard to reflect the words, though it was still the music that made the deepest impact, sometimes heart-stoppingly awful; so it was in the third movement where the violence of the soldier’s capture and killing are dealt with swiftly, violently, and the orchestral tumult is all that’s needed to understand.

In the fourth movement, poem 7, tubular bells, clarinet, strings, express the tragedy and the girl’s grief, perhaps better than the clarity of words can ever do. Though the last stanza, “Who, who is this young man…” with a cello solo accompanying the girl’s stricken loss, and her slow walking from the stage, to the fading music, was inevitably the most affecting part of the composition. The last lines are sung from back stage, as if from the grave.

Predictably, there were many empty seats, though the audience responded enthusiastically to soprano, conductor and orchestra, as well as to poet and composer who filed onto the stage.

 

Student guitar talents offer entertaining replacement concert at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s Lunchtime concert

Guitar students from the New Zealand School of Music
Jake Church, Emma Sandford, Joel Baldwin, Amber Madriaga, Dylan Solomon, three of whom comprised the NZSM Guitar Trio: Madriaga, Sandford and Baldwin

St Andrew’s on The Terrace
(This review was posted late because of the replacement of one of the guitarists, whose name and the title of his choice of music I had asked for, but failed to follow up. My apologies to the players.)

Wednesday 20 April, 12:15 pm

This programme was a last-minute replacement for the scheduled performance by guitarist Owen Moriarty who will now play on 11 May. These students were to have played on that day.

There was another alteration, with the first player, Royden Smith, replaced by Jake Church who played a pot-pourri of tunes from La Traviata arranged by Julian Arcas. It made an engaging start to the concert.

Emma Sanders chose what might be Albéniz’s best-known piece, Asturias. It’s a piece I used to think was one of the big collection of piano pieces entitled Iberia. But Wikipedia says it was originally the Prelude to the early set, Chants d’Espagne, and later included, after Albeniz’s death, in an unauthorised ‘complete version’ of the Suite Española by the publisher Hofmeister. There it was entitled Asturias (Leyenda = legend).

The title had always puzzled me though, as the music is clearly Andalusian in spirit and rhythm, and not from Asturias, which is on the north coast of Spain where the folk music is quite different. Like Tarrega’s Recuerdos de la Alhambra, it’s one of the most popular pieces of Spanish guitar-style music. Though a bit much weight was given to big chords at the beginning of the repeated main phrase, Emma played with admirable fluency.

Joel Baldwin and Amber Madriaga both played parts of suites by Bach. Joel, the Prelude and Sarabande, from the E minor lute suite, BWV 996; Amber, the two minuets from the E major solo violin suite, BWV 1006a. Both demanded arrangements for performance on the guitar, but both players gave them most persuasive accounts, interpreting them as if conceived originally for the guitar, as if Bach himself was a master of the instrument.

An important contemporary of Bach’s, Sylvius Leopold Weiss, was one of the most famous lute players of the time and his music translates easily for the guitar. Dylan Solomon’s choice was Weiss’s Suite in F – three movements, the last of which demanded the bottom string being re-tuned down a tone to match the lute’s tuning. The Prelude, confident, the Allemande with moments of uncertainty, though I may have misinterpreted deliberate hesitations; and the final Gigue, probably not as complex a composition as say one of the gigues in Bach’s the cello suites, but thoroughly enjoyable.

Finally the New Zealand School of Music Guitar Trio (Madriaga, Sandford and Baldwin) came together to play Klaus Wüsthoff’s Concierto de Samba. Born in 1922 and evidently still alive, he is an extraordinarily versatile composer, working in a myriad of styles. Though I didn’t catch much of Baldwin’s introduction, the music presented itself buoyantly through an engaging performance.

 

New Zealand String Quartet, minus 2nd violin, avoids any string quartets in different combinations with pianist Jian Liu

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand String Quartet (Helene Pohl, violin; Gillian Ansell, viola; Rolf Gjelsten, cello) with Jian Liu (piano)

Schubert: String trio in B flat, D.471
Beethoven: Cello sonata no.4 in C, Op.102/1
Fauré: Piano quartet no.1 in C minor, Op.15

Hunter Council Chamber, Victoria University of Wellington

Wednesday, 20 April 2016, 7.30pm

This time, there was a different disposition of the quartet and the audience in the room; the players had their backs to one of the sections of raised seating and the audience sat either in the other section or at floor level, the latter with their backs to the raised seating, rather than being between the two upper levels.  The musicians usually have their backs to the large memorial window in the Council Chamber.  Initially, I thought this arrangement made for a little more echo in the sound, but this impression soon wore off.

After a spoken introduction from Gillian Ansell, Schubert presented us with a most mellifluous opening, full of rising cadences.  The trio, written when the composer was 19, was never completed, and consists of an allegro movement, plus fragments of an andante – the latter were not played.  The allegro is playful, and proved to be a splendid vehicle for demonstrating the unanimity of the players, who for their next concert in Wellington will return to being a complete quartet, with the commencement of their new second violinist.

I believe the players’ practice of standing to perform (with the cellist on a low platform, bringing him to a height equivalent to that of the standing players) projects the music better to the audience, especially in a room like the Council Chamber, which has a carpeted floor.

Soon, the warm sounds of the viola struck me, and the not-so-deep but gutsy, supporting tone of the cello.  Above was the light, airy and tuneful violin.  This was a beautiful, lyrical short trio.

Beethoven’s cello sonata was quite experimental, Rolf Gjelsten said in his introduction.  It was a late work by the composer, and not easy for his contemporaries to comprehend, but one later said that Beethoven was preparing his listeners for the great works to come.

Wikipedia says: “This short, almost enigmatic work demonstrates in concentrated form how Beethoven was becoming ready to challenge and even subvert the sonata structures he inherited from composers such as Haydn and Mozart.”  It consists of two movements, but with much variety within them: 1. Andante – Allegro vivace; 2. Adagio – Tempo d’andante – Allegro vivace.

Its opening was mellow and benign, with the piano echoing the cello’s phrases, as well having gorgeous ripples of its own.  Then came the more excited allegro vivace, and the swift, quixotic moves from soft to loud and apparently sudden changes of direction.  A certain amount of nasal accompaniment from the cellist was distracting at times, given the closeness of the instrumentalists to the audience.  A movement that was lively overall was followed by the calm, slow commencement of the second.  Here, the piano initially had more of the interesting material, but the cello soon took over, and in no time the conversation was going back and forth. The music became more excited and complex in the interchange between the instruments.

A short section with sforzandi at the ends of phrases underlined what Rolf Gjelsten had said about the work being experimental.  There were great flourishes from both instruments at the end.

The other musicians returned for Fauré’s piano quartet; they were seated, to be on the same level as the pianist.  Helene Pohl introduced the piece, and described the music as swirling, and noted that two of the movements were unusually in three beats in the bar.  She said that the work demanding virtuoso playing, especially from the piano; we had this amply demonstrated in the sensitivity and beauty of Jian Liu’s playing. The sound seemed to me to be more mellow when all players were sitting, but in this space it is not swallowed up, because of the high, wooden ceiling.

A grand but very satisfying beginning to the work led to impassioned expression, and motifs passed around from instrument to instrument.  There was, as we have come to expect over many years, highly skilled playing from all four musicians.

This urbane, sophisticated yet passionate work was engaging, enlightening and life-enhancing.  It is full of delicacy but also strength.  The first movement ended in a glowing calm.  The second movement’s pizzicato opening was echoed in the sprightly piano part, where there were also lots of running passages.  Mutes were then employed; Jian Liu produced a similarly muted tone on the piano. A kind of perpetuum mobile followed, with constant activity from all instruments.

The funereal music of the third movement was sombre and slow, with interesting harmonies and clashes.  There were emotional peaks and troughs, and cascades from the piano, while the strings returned to the sombre.

The final movement was quick, even skittish on all instruments.  A momentum built up which seemed unstoppable, but there was a sequence of solo phrases from each instruments, leading to renewed excitement for all.  A section of resigned hopefulness reminded me of passages in Schumann’s piano quintet.

Virtuosity was certainly required, and supplied, by all the players here, but especially the pianist.  What a master Fauré was!  And so are these players, demonstrated by their playing the second movement again as an encore.

 

David Guerin celebrates the new Hutt Little Theatre piano with the Goldberg Variations

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Chamber Music Hutt Valley

David Guerin (piano) with Bach’s Goldberg Variations

Lower Hutt Little Theatre

Sunday 17 April, 3:30 pm

This special, extra concert was presented to mark the unveiling of a plaque recording the names of donors to the Little Theatre Piano Fund. It would have been hard to think of a more monumental piece of music for the occasion than the Goldberg Variations.

The last time I heard David Guerin playing was in an ensemble of four at the Adam Chamber Music Festival in Nelson last February. Alone he played a piece from Messiaen’s Vingt regards sur l’enfant Jésus, and with others, pieces by New Zealand composers.

This concert was a bit different: devoted to one great work alone.

It is a work that lends itself to almost endless performance and stylistic approaches. Some pianists get through the Goldberg’s in about 40 minutes; others can take round 90 minutes and there’s lots in between. Guerin was nearer the upper end. To me, each performance seems perfectly right after a couple of minutes. Though there are many piano aficionados who make a production of writing off one or another for reasons of tempo and many other displays of their erudition and refined taste, such as treatment of ornaments or performance on a modern piano instead of a harpsichord.

I don’t really remember David Guerin’s earlier playing of this work, for the Wellington Chamber Music Society, perhaps 20 years ago. Only that it was, I think, my first live hearing, and therefore a momentous occasion.

On Sunday I found myself in a totally accepting frame of mind, enjoying the extended playing time of the initial Aria, after which nothing else in this performance seemed too slow. When it’s played at such a deliberate pace, there’s room to hear every note individually, and they are exposed to the curious ear rather than caught up in great rushes of sound or electrifying cascades of decorative figuration. Very fast performances can create the impression for listeners that the piece is easy to play.

But I suspect that to play slowly and deliberately is more risky as the exact weight given to every note and the spaces between each, invites more awareness of any minor unevenness. So there can be a degree or two more anxiety or awareness by both player and listener of very minor blemishes that would simply not be perceived at speed. And so I was conscious of such things a great deal, and it brought me, someone with extremely modest keyboard accomplishments, to an even greater admiration for Guerin’s handling of the exposed technical demands of the music and of empathy with the suppressed nervousness that no doubt accompanied him.

And so it didn’t surprise me that the most virtuosic variations, some uncharacteristically fast, were among the most outwardly confident, for example, many of the so-called Arabesques, the second variation in each triplet: Nos 11, 17, 20, 26, 29 – this last particularly masterly. Several of these were specified by Bach to be played on a two-manual harpsichord, thus emphasising the importance he placed on achieving variations in colour and articulation.

Especially striking in Guerin’s performance were the last variations, which were variously, more bravura than most of the earlier ones, and some even slower. He seemed to spin out the Quodlibet endlessly, even to the point when I thought that he could be repeating certain phrases to create the sense of an endless experience. After all that, and after a Mahlerian length, seated almost motionless for an hour and a quarter, the return to the Aria was remarkable in its emotional impact, on the audience, and perhaps on the pianist; though as he slowly stood, he displayed neither relief nor exhaustion; not even exultation, which would have been justified.

The audience reaction left no doubt that they shared the latter emotion.

 

J

 

 

Full house for Edo de Waart and the NZSO in magnificent Eroica and an epic Double Concerto by Brahms

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Edo de Waart’s Masterworks: Brahms & Beethoven

Lilburn: Festival Overture
Brahms: Concerto for violin and cello in A minor, Op.102 (Double Concerto)
Beethoven: Symphony no.3 in E flat, Op.55 (‘Eroica’)

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Edo de Waart (conductor), Nicola Benedetti (violin) and Leonard Elschenbroich (cello)

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday, 16 April 2016, 7.30pm

In a review of the NZSO just over a year ago, I said “You can’t beat Beethoven on a good day – and this was a very good day”. That was one hundred percent true of this concert, with new Music Director Edo de Waart. I thought it was brilliant planning to get an audience in to hear a programme that was at least in part familiar. They would then be so delighted with what they heard that they would want to hear de Waart’s other programmes through the year (he returns in August and October). It was gratifying to see the Michael Fowler Centre completely sold out.

Lilburn’s overture is one of his most appealing orchestral compositions. After a splendid attack, a cello theme introduces an exchange of ideas, with delightful interplay between sections of the large orchestra, though in themselves the various themes are quite spare. Already in this early work (1939, while he was still a student in London), Lilburn’s characteristic dotted rhythm motif appears. The piece is bombastic and contemplative by turns, the big brass line-up contributing to the former characteristic. It was a good opener for a concert of grand music.

Violinist Nicola Benedetti is on her second visit to New Zealand; it is a first for her partner, Leonard Elschenbroich. The violinist wore a bright red-orange fitting dress; the cellist did not wear a tail-coat, but a simple jacket. Neither was de Waart in tails – is it time the NZSO itself phased out this anachronistic dress?

The Brahms required a slightly smaller orchestra: there were no trombones, and some sections were down-sized; the cellos were brought forward nearer to the centre of the stage, with violas behind them.

The work opened in typical Brahms style with a brief tutti, then immediately the cellist gave passionate utterance in a solo passage. What marvellous tone he produced! Then the woodwind gave us a lovely pastoral section before the violin entry.

Playing from music scores, the soloists were in absolute unanimity. It was very lyrical playing from Benedetti, but from my seat, her sound was not particularly strong. As a colleague pointed out, we do get used to hearing recorded music, where the technician or producer can twiddle the knobs to bring the solos out more. Later, the violin sound penetrated more, when the orchestra was not so full or loud.

Elschenbroich produced subtly gorgeous nuances. Of course, the cello is in touch with the floor of the platform, and so can gain more resonance than the violin is able to. His playing reminded me of a singer who reported that his teacher said “Do something with every note.” I could not help thinking that it would be great to hear this work in the acoustic of the Wellington Town Hall – bring it on! All the elements made up to an epic first movement. The horns were very important, and their parts were beautifully played.

The slow movement featured a warm string melody with many mellow asides for winds, and an exquisite ending for soloists and orchestra alike. The third movement began bouncily for the soloists, cello first. Elschenbroich was the more flamboyant of the two performers (some would say this is a characteristic of the players of that instrument), but not to an excessive degree. There was precision and attention to detail from both – and indeed from the orchestra also. The work demonstrated the power and the pathos of Brahms. Technique was always subservient to the music as art for these two outstanding soloists.

The large audience was very attentive, and besides lengthy, enthusiastic applause from the audience to the soloists there was applause also from orchestra members. A nice feature was that the two soloists played in the orchestra for the Beethoven symphony that followed the interval.

The Eroica symphony is familiar, but like all great works of art, one can always find new insights, new elements, in every good performance. And this was a very good performance indeed. The orchestra was reduced again from that used for the Brahms work, and the playing, particularly in the first movement, was more detached and precise than is often heard in Beethoven. The delicate passages were delicious. Despite the symphony being so well-known, the playing had a spontaneous feel, brisk and energetic.

The sombre theme of the funeral march of the second movement was a contrast after the cheerful first movement. Its piquancy was brought out in the minor key version of the initial theme. Oboe and bassoon underlined the mood. How astonishing this symphony, the longest so far written, must have sounded to audiences accustomed to Haydn, Mozart and their contemporaries! The theme passed magisterially from section to section of the orchestra. Basses had a wonderful statement all their own.

The scherzo third movement was exciting; how amazing it is that one who was already considerably affected by deafness (in 1803, the year of the Eroica’s composition) could write such music, with all its subtleties and variety. The tricky horn calls in this movement came off perfectly.

The finale is notable for the extensive use of syncopation. These passages and the clarion call responses are such unexpected features of a classical symphony. If we were not so familiar with it, we might find these quite comical. They are certainly warm-hearted and entertaining, as are the dance-like passages that follow. But Beethoven never lets us wallow for long. Soon, more aggressive themes interrupt, and the dance passages change their modality to the minor. The development of the themes is quite astonishing. More off-beat music from oboe followed, the orchestra taking up the theme in a heavy, almost parody fashion. After lots of magic of all kinds, the triumphant conclusion arrived, again syncopated.

Edo de Waart and the orchestra gave us a magnificent rendition of this ground-breaking symphony. Not only did the audience afford the conductor prolonged and enthusiastic applause, orchestra members did the same.

 

 

 

 

Chamber Music New Zealand season opens with exquisite French baroque concert by Les Talens Lyriques

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Chamber Music New Zealand
Les Talens Lyriques (Christophe Rousset – harpsichord, Gilone Gaubert-Jacques and Gabriel Grosbard – violins, Atsushi Sakaï – viola da gamba)

Marin Marais: Suite No 5
Antoine Forqueray: Première Suite
François Couperin: Les nations: ‘La Piemontaise’
Jean-Marie Leclair: Deuxième récréation de musique, Opus 8
Jean-Philippe Rameau: Pièces de clavecin – Troisième concert
Couperin: Le Parnasse ou l’Apothéose de Corelli

Michael Fowler Centre

Wednesday 13 April, 7:30 pm

As a rather excessive Francophile, I was more than delighted at the prospect of hearing the distinguished French baroque ensemble, Les Talens Lyriques, live in my home town. Knowing the strange and sometimes narrow musical tastes of some chamber music lovers whose horizons are often limited to the German and Italian lands, I rather feared that the unfamiliar music of the French baroque might have drawn a rather small audience. But I have misjudged my compatriots: there was a very decent-sized audience in the stalls of the Michael Fowler Centre.

This distinguished ensemble was born in 1991, inspired by its present leader, Christophe Rousset, and their name is mentioned in the company of the English Baroque Soloists, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, Academy of Ancient Music, Musica Antiqua Köln, Concentus Musicus Wien, the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century or their compatriots, Les musiciens du Louvre. Though, being just a quartet on this tour, their repertoire is different from that of larger ensembles.

The programme was somewhat chronologically arranged, starting with Marin Marais, a Suite that reflected one extreme of the French style, melody that was so subtle and unassertive as to be hard to apprehend; its beauty lay in its elusiveness and the finesse and taste (words of Leclair quoted in the programme notes) of its embellishments. Though the dance-derived movements were stronger and of course rhythmic, and melody was of great refinement. It was the remarkable deftness and elegance of the performance however, that was the overwhelming impact of the music. The harpsichord is by nature almost excessively reclusive (we should have been in a more suitable venue, such as the Town Hall, its fixing disgracefully stalled, to capture its sound better) but its important support was audible if you really turned your attention there. The two violins, both in sublime duetting and alone, and above all, the astonishing virtuosity and beauty of Atsushi Sakaï’s viola da gamba held between them the essence of the style.

Most of Antoine Forqueray’s music has been lost but his Suite in D minor, for harpsichord and gamba, one of the five surviving, provided a vehicle for Sakaï’s almost supernatural command of his magnificent instrument which could sound in its upper register, more like a violin than either a cello or a viola ever does. Not only that, but this endlessly complex, fantastically embellished composition was played without the score.

Then we came to Couperin (next time you’re in Paris, visit the church of Saint-Gervais where the family dynasty reigned for generations; behind the Hôtel de Ville in the 4th arrondissement). The first of the two Couperin works was one of the four suites or, as Couperin wrote, Ordres, entitled Les Nations, each celebrating one of the Catholic powers: France, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire and the Savoy dynasty of Piedmont. This was the fourth, La Piémontaise. ‘Each is a combination of an Italianate trio sonata with its free-form virtuosity and a large-scale and elaborate French dance suite’ (quote from a Naxos recording). The first movement dominated the piece, with numerous switches back and forth from pensive to meditative phases, from the French to the Italian style, though the Piedmontese, or Italian, character rather dominated the suite. Again, the performance spoke of a deep-rooted idiomatic understanding of the essential Couperin on the part of Les Talens.

Leclair was the most nearly ‘classical’ of the five composers in the programme: he lived from 1697-1764; the notes refrained from retelling the tale of his death, murdered in a Paris street, believed to be related to his separation from his wife a few years before. (If you’re curious, read Gérard Géfen, L’Assassinat de Jean-Marie Leclair, Belfond, 1990, which offers a solution to the mystery). But there’s nothing shady about the music, the Second Récréation de musique, its full title adding ‘for easy performance by two flutes or two violins’. Bearing clear marks of his country, it is easily placed in its era and nationality, along with other composers of the early 18th century, not excluding Couperin; it contains occasional operatic gestures. The second movement, Forlane, in triple time, was quite an extended piece that carried echoes of German and Italian music of his period. And then came an un-Bach-like Chaconne – danceable, lively. And here was one of the places where I felt the harpsichord was a bit disadvantaged in this space.

Rameau is probably the French composer most familiar with the general musical public through the revival of all his operas, mainly by French companies, in the past 20 years. And indeed the tune in the last movement, Tambourines, reminded me of a tune in one of them. Almost a contemporary of Bach, Handel and D Scarlatti, Rameau’s life before opera, which began aged 50, consisted of theoretical treatises and harpsichord and chamber music. In fact the five ‘concerts’ or suites of the Pièces de clavecin en concerts, published well after the three books of Pièces de clavecin, were the only real chamber music he wrote. They played the third ‘concert’, which called for one violin (Gilone Gaubert-Jacques), gamba and harpsichord, with the latter playing an altogether more involved role than as merely a continuo instrument, and the result was three quite vividly characterized movements, brilliantly played. Particularly touching was the enchanting sotto voce ending of the second movement, La Timide.

And the concert ended with a second Couperin suite, Le Parnasse ou l’apothéose de Corelli, a famous musical excursion which speaks of his admiration for Corelli, the great Italian born fifteen years before Couperin. Here, all four players returned, and it was more entertaining as Rousset read (in French) the little introductory phrases before each short movement, describing Corelli’s reception by the muses as he arrives at Parnassus and he is introduced to Apollo. It seemed to reaffirm the return of French music to the mainstream, after the diversion to a somewhat contrived ‘French’ style cultivated by Lully and his followers.

All one’s hopes and expectations were fulfilled by these superb performers, admirable ambassadors for the revelatory music that they played.

 

 

 

Talented young pianist impresses at St Andrew’s lunchtime concert

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s lunchtime concerts

Nick Kovacev – piano

Haydn: Sonata in B minor, Hob XVI/32
Bach: The Toccata from Partita No 6 in E minor, BWV 830
Schubert: Impromptu in B flat, D 935, no 3
Ginastera: Danzas Argentinas (1937)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 13 April, 12:15 pm

The New Zealand School of Music is a major supplier of talent to the year-long series of lunchtime concerts at St Andrew’s on The Terrace. Most of those who play are at somewhat advanced degree levels, but this time it’s pianist Nick Kovacev who is in his first year at the school. I had not read the brief note about him in the programme at the start of the recital and had imagined that he was probably about a third year student, such was the polish and confidence of his playing. Even though there were occasional slips, which of course reassures us that we are listening to a live performer and not a highly enhanced recording playing behind an animated papier-mâché model of a pianist seated at the piano.

I’m sure others were misled too as he proceeded to dazzle the audience with one of Haydn’s more spectacular sonatas, Hoboken’s No 32 in B minor, from memory, as was the entire recital. It was not far removed from the more breathtaking of Scarlatti’s sonatas: staccato, animated, fluent, his playing displayed awareness of dynamic variety, produced through a well-applied palette of articulations. His posture suggested maturity with a flair for the pregnant pause and taste sufficiently cultivated to enrich the shapes of tunes which were never merely repetitious.

The Toccata from Bach’s 6th harpsichord partita provided Kovacev with a different idiom to explore. The improvisatory start and finish lent a sense of spontaneity, as if he was making it up as he went along; it compared strikingly with the sobering effect of a fugue which arrives a rather a surprise. His playing showed purpose and mastery, as he paid careful attention to the evolution of the fugue. The programme notes used the words ‘earnest simplicity’ to describe the next piece, by Schubert and it struck me that it applied to the Bach too.

Schubert’s big Impromptu in B flat (among the two longest of the eight) drew attention to yet another facet of Kovacev’s talent. His ability to sustain the musical line in a major piece of music was very evident; it is a set of variations on one of the rich, poignant melodies in his incidental music for the play Rosamund, and its structure can be compared with Beethoven’s sets of piano variations. The unexpected changes of mood though modulations sounded both inevitable and surprising and the performance proved a rewarding experience. Kovacev dealt skillfully with minor, understandable memory lapses.

If these pieces from memory were not impressive enough, Ginastera’s Danzas Argentinas was a sort of summary of his imposing technical and interpretive accomplishments at present. It begins with a dance by an old herdsman: bi-tonal, dissonant, heavy-footed and virtuosic, then lyrical, feminine and elusive in the second, and finally, to portray the arrogant gaucho: hectic, forceful and deliberately shapeless. It was a rather spectacular demonstration of a young pianist’s achievement and his ambitions for the future.

One will keep an eye on his progress.

 

 

Aroha Quartet revisits Waikanae Music Society with polished, well-balanced programme

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Waikanae Music Society

Aroha String Quartet (Haihong Liu and Simeon Broom, violins; Zhongxian Jin, viola; Robert Ibell, cello)

Haydn: String Quartet in G, Op.33 no.5
Piazzolla: Tango ballet suite
Anthony Ritchie: Whakatipua
Mendelssohn: String Quartet no.6 in F minor, Op.80

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday, 10 April 2016, 2.30pm

It is always a pleasure to hear the Aroha String Quartet and their varied programmes.

The Haydn quartet had a rather sotto voce commencement; the movement was described in the programme notes as a greeting, such as ‘how do you do’. All of Haydn’s jollity and wit were present.

The second movement was enchanting, with a chirpy ending that brought chuckles from the audience. The scherzo was full of changes and interruptions, while its trio was a graceful contrast, with an abrupt ending. The final movement featured a dotted rhythm, and appeared to be a slow dance with variations. It provided a good precursor to the dances to follow.

The sections of Piazzolla’s composition had movement titles, but it was not always apparent where one ended and another began. In a radio interview, Robert Ibell said that he was not aware of the work having been played in New Zealand before; they had difficulty because the supplier of the scores sent only a full score. The parts arrived only days before the performance. So in the meantime they had to cut, copy and paste the full score to create their individual scores.

Contrasting vigorous and dreamlike passages were features of Titulos (Introduction) and elsewhere. Throughout, there was a great variety of writing and of instrumental sounds, all having plenty of individual input. The other sections were: La calle (The Street), Encuentro/Olvido (Encounter/Forgetfulness), Cabaret, Soledad (Solitude), and La calle, again.

There were some great sounds from the viola. A review of a CD of the work found through Google states: ‘The work alternates between vibrant and forceful passages that recall ‘The Rite of Spring’ by Stravinsky and a passionate melancholy for the slower movements. … the “Cabaret” movement … comes closest to mirroring pure tango music.’ The work exemplified the composer’s fusion of tango music with that of the Western classical tradition. One could find echoes of Haydn here, although the music was written only 60 years ago.

Balmy passages quickly gave way to more turbulent ones. As noted by the website, some movements are more dance-like than others. It was remarked to me in the interval that the Aroha Quartet was a little too restrained for this music; bandoneóns would have been more spirited, abandoned and rambunctious.

Anthony Ritchie’s work opened with the most gorgeous sounds, followed by a lilting, dance-like section. Each instrument was distinctive in its part, but when blend was required, it was there. Some parts were modal in tonality, with hints of Douglas Lilburn’s music present.

Mendelssohn’s final string quartet has a spooky opening, the remainder of that movement alternating ‘between rage and lamentation’ as the programme note said, the whole quartet being influenced by his sorrow at the recent sudden death of his sister, Fanny. The melodic invention for which Mendelssohn is noted was ever-present, even lushness of expression, but also a new anger, anguish and tension brought out particularly in the second movement. Quiet passages served to point up this tension.

The adagio recalled some of Mendelssohn’s other slow movements, but its intensity was much greater. I detected Schumann-like elements. The first violinist in particular judged skilfully the rendering of the subtle nuances of this movement, but all played stunningly well. At times there were the most delicate touches; the movement had a peaceful end. Not so the finale last movement. There were solemn, even bitter chords, but also moments of calm contemplation, that soon changed to rapid declamation – perhaps even rejection – with an almost furious ending.

 

It was a most enjoyable concert, with a variety of interesting and approachable music, beautifully played.

Committed and successful concert of Russian classics from Wellington Chamber Orchestra

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wellington Chamber Orchestra conducted by Rachel Hyde with Helene Pohl (violin)

Khachaturian: Adagio from the ballet, Spartacus
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No 2 in G minor, Opus 63
Borodin: Symphony No 2 in B minor

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 10 April, 2:30 pm

I was prevented from getting to the first half of this concert, which, with the tough though splendid Prokofiev concerto with Helene Pohl, would obviously have been the highlight.

But Borodin is no stroll through the birch forest either.

The Prokofiev concerto had an interesting provenance, as the composer later recounted: “The number of places in which I wrote the concerto shows the kind of nomadic concert-tour life I led then. The main theme of the 1st movement was written in Paris, the first theme of the 2nd movement at Voronezh, the orchestration was finished in Baku and the premiere was given in Madrid.”

The second concerto is more attractive and lyrical than the first but there is much that is complex and difficult and it is brave and ambitious for an amateur orchestra to tackle; and no easy matter even for a soloist such as Helene Pohl, one of New Zealand’s most polished and cultivated violinists. It’s a fine, strong work, calling for a fastidious and brilliant violinist and I very much regret having missed it, especially in what I gather was such an emotionally committed performance.

Spies told me that, although there were inevitable glitches in the concerto – in the orchestral playing, it was considered a great success, very well received by the audience and certainly an achievement and rewarding experience for orchestra and conductor.

The concert had opened with the famous (‘Onedin Line’) Adagio from Khachaturian’s Spartacus which was well within the capacities of the orchestra; as someone said, it just played itself.

I was impressed at once by the richness of the string ensemble that opens Borodin’s best-known symphony; quickly followed by carefully articulated horns – four, as scored, and then more general wind entries. I gather that the four horn players are using new instruments, and their work, for an amateur orchestra, was surprisingly accomplished.

Rachel Hyde achieved a really characteristic Russian sound that lay somewhere between Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov; perhaps it occasionally lost its grip after the development phase got under way, but there was a clear feeling for the music’s shape. The second movement is a Scherzo of intriguing irregularity with a strikingly different Allegretto in the middle, and that was exploited satisfyingly.

The orchestra stopped to retune between second and third movements, breaking the flow a bit; but the reward was an Andante movement of considerable charm, opening with nice playing by clarinet and harp and soon a fine horn solo; and other wind players also had rewarding solo opportunities. The strings led the long, warm melody that rather dominates the movement which, at the end, merges curiously into the last movement without a break. The Allegro finale had striking energy, characterized by repeated short motifs of a pentatonic character that chased each other from one section to another.

Although Borodin thinned out the brass parts when he revised the symphony two years after its 1877 premiere, a performance like this in a limited acoustic, does not produce sounds from brass and percussion that are exactly refined or subtle. Nevertheless, listening between the notes, so to speak, the playing emerged as well-rehearsed, committed and energetic.

Though I had not heard what I guess was really the most interesting, even exciting, music in the concert, what I heard was admirable, and what I heard about, even more so.

Superb song tribute for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, from the resourceful Nota Bene

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

“The Cloud Capp’d Towers”: Shakespeare in the Land of the Long White Cloud

Nota Bene, directed by Peter Walls, with Nigel Collins (the Bard), Fiona McCabe (piano) and Joel Baldwin (guitar); vocal soloists from the choir

Salvation Army Citadel

Saturday, 9 April 2016, 7.30pm

Despite the title of the concert, the song referenced appeared in the printed programme as ‘The Cloud-clapped Towers’. Some of those in Christchurch certainly were, although the tall buildings on the cover of the programme represented Auckland and Wellington.

Joking aside, the programme presented was a marvellous conception by Peter Walls and Jacqueline Coats. Peter Walls has taken over as Nota Bene’s new musical director; he’s a busy man, having just at Easter directed the Tudor Consort in their Good Friday presentation, and travelling frequently to Hamilton to conduct the Opus Orchestra.

As a commemoration of 2016 being the 400th year since Shakespeare’s death, this was a superb tribute; the fanciful idea of Shakespeare dreaming of ‘Terra Australis incognita’ (including New Zealand) was perhaps a little too contrived, and unnecessary. New Zealand composers included in the programme needed no special pleading for their presence.

The many wonderful settings of Shakespeare’s inspiring words, plus dramatic speeches from some of the plays, made a satisfying and rewarding evening of words and music, in the acoustically alive Salvation Army Citadel. The disadvantage of this feature was that it picked up every sound and error.

Vaughan Williams’s marvellous Three Shakespeare Songs were interspersed through the programme: one at the beginning, one later on, and one at the end. The first, ‘Full fathom five’ from The Tempest, was sung from the gallery. There the men sounded rather sepulchral; the tone needed to be produced further forward and they needed the spontaneity of the women’s. The sound changed when the choir came downstairs to sing on the platform, where the men had their backs to the wall. The first speech was from the same play. Nigel Collins was costumed, and sat at first at a desk, complete with quill pen and inkwell; later he stood in various parts of the auditorium to deliver his lines, which he did with expression and understanding, revealing his skill in the actor’s art.

We moved to Othello, and the famous Elizabethan setting of ‘The Willow Song’, sung by Juliet Kennedy with Joel Baldwin accompanying on guitar. It was a pity not to have the originally-advertised Stephen Pickett playing ‘Renaissance lute, theorbo and guitar’, for greater verisimilitude. Juliet Kennedy sang the song attractively, but it was a little strange to have printed ‘Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee’ when the original is ‘his’, and that is what was sung. More words were printed than were actually sung.

Three Shakespeare Choruses by American composer Amy Beach (1867-1944) set words familiar from other composers’ settings. They were for women only and were inventive and very pleasing, involving complex interweaving parts. The third, ‘Through the house give glimmering light’ (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) featured lovely lilting rhythms. This time, more words were sung than were printed. It was good to have almost all the words printed in the programme, but Nota Bene could note well the recent Tudor Consort concert, for which the printed programme had been arranged so that it was unnecessary to turn the pages during the items, thus avoiding noisy rattling.

A speech from A Midsummer Night’s Dream was followed by the choir descending to sing from the platform; firstly three choruses from Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, a semi-opera derived from the afore-mentioned play, the first with soprano soloist Inese Berzina, and all accompanied by Fiona McCabe, stepping out from the choir to play the piano. Unfortunately, the piano was too loud for the soloist, though the choir’s singing was good. The second featured bass soloist John Chote.   His tone was sometimes on the raw side, and he was unable to produce effective tone from the low notes. The choral parts were very fine, and Purcell’s music bloomed beautifully.

The next, unaccompanied, section began with the second of Vaughan Williams’s songs: ‘Over hill, over dale’. It suffered from a poor start, the singers not being together, and appearing unconfident. After a bit, all was well. Following another stirring excerpt, this time from Henry IV, part II, music not setting Shakespeare’s words, but written by musicians who were the bard’s contemporaries, were performed: ‘Lord, make thy servant Elizabeth’, by Byrd and ‘What is our life’ by Gibbons. The former was an intricate piece, sung well, though the bass part was at times too dominant. In the latter, a small group was made up of good voices, but they did not always blend well. When they did, a fine sound was produced.

The men then disappeared, and after a splendid Caliban from Nigel Collins, the women sang Five Shakespeare Songs by David Farquhar. These characterful songs illustrated the bard’s words well, with music that evoked the moods. They were not easy, and very different in nature from the remainder of the concert. The final one, ‘Clown’s Song’ (“When that I was and a little tiny boy”) struck me as difficult to bring off unaccompanied, but it worked.

Following the interval, David Hamilton’s A Shakespeare Garland, set seven of Shakespeare’s texts on “botanical and/or seasonal” themes, six of them well-known. The composer’s 1999 composition set the words ‘in a variety of parody styles ranging from jazz to car-chase music.’ They differed markedly from their more familiar settings, especially ‘Hark, hark, the lark’ (Cymbeline) if compared with Schubert’s setting of the German translation. These songs were accompanied by guitar and piano, but I seldom heard the former due to the latter, despite sitting on the guitar’s side of the audience, and observing that the guitarist had a microphone and thus was being amplified.

‘It was a lover and his lass’ was sprightly, good fun. ‘Come buy of me’ (The Winter’s Tale) demonstrated Hamilton’s mastery of choral writing; a gorgeous song. The choir produced lovely resonance on the ‘m’ consonants. After a high-speed ‘Hark, hark, the lark’ came the much-loved Sonnet 18: ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’, sung by women only, with guitar; this was a delight. ‘I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows’ (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) was another delight, redolent with images from the bard’s wonderful words, most of which here and elsewhere could be heard clearly. This and the remaining two songs were accompanied.

‘When daisies pied’ (Love’s Labours Lost) was particularly jazzy, lively and fun – nothing like the well-known setting, which seems like a stroll in the park in comparison. The last song in the cycle, ‘Under the greenwood tree’ (As You Like It) was not the expected gentle pastoral setting. Again, I could not hear the guitar. Perhaps the men were tiring from so much standing; their tone was rather raw when singing loudly. They had their reprieve; after another oration from Nigel Collins (Lorenzo, The Merchant of Venice), the choir got to sit while two soloists gave us Shakespearean songs of quite different characters: Stephanie Gartrell (alto) sang with piano ‘Falling in love with love’ (Rogers and Hart’s 1938 The Boys from Syracuse) that again had only some of the words printed, but it was most effective, sung with clear diction.

Jeltsje Keizer sang with guitar ‘Take, O take those lips away’ (when will programme compilers realise the difference between the ‘O’ of invocation and the ‘oh’ of mild exclamation? I admit I have not consulted the First Folio! [I have, however, as proud owner of a facsimile edition; the learned Heminge – or Heming, Hemminge, or Hemmings – and Condell, the compilers and publishers of the First Folio, knew their ‘O’s from their ‘Oh’s, and it appears there as ‘Oh’ L.T.]). The programme gives it as ‘Anon.’, but both my Alfred Deller recording and Grove cite the composer John Wilson for this song from Measure for Measure. After a very moving speech by Lear on the death of Cordelia (King Lear), the choir sang ‘When David heard that Absalon was slain’ by Thomas Tomkins, continuing the theme of loss of a child. Some awkward harmonic clashes were negotiated with ease; this was complex contrapuntal writing, but sung exquisitely.

One of Prospero’s stirring speeches from Act V of The Tempest followed, and then a Latin motet by Byrd ‘O magnum misterium’ (usually spelt ‘mysterium’) made a glorious sound, though the basses again were a little too dominant at times. Nevertheless, it was a very fine performance. Douglas Lilburn’s setting of ‘The Willow Song’ followed, sung by Juliet Kennedy, accompanied on the piano. This song has received sundry arrangements; I have heard it on radio not infrequently, played on guitar. It was good to hear it with the words.

After a final oration from Prospero, we came to the wonderful song that named the concert. Although the choir was not quite together at the opening, the blend improved. This is surely one of the most gorgeous choral songs in the English language. The words are integral to the sound; obviously Vaughan Williams was much inspired by Shakespeare. It made an uplifting end to an evening’s entertainment of excellent quality.