Music for winds by Villa-Lobos, Doppler, Briccialdi, Chopin, Schumann, Arnold
Played by Rebecca Steel (flute), David McGregor (clarinet), Calvin Scott (piano and oboe)
St Andrew’s on The Terrace
Wednesday 12 November, 12:15 pm
To return from a nearly two-month trip in Europe to a Wellington rich with such plentiful and excellent live music has been a considerable consolation. Not that I ever underestimated the phenomenon of a fairly small city with such a wealth of practising musicians, plus their indispensable facilitating by enterprising impresarios and concert managers such as St Andrew’s enjoys.
In the Paris weeklies Officiel des spectacles or Pariscope, in a city 20 times Wellington’s size, you will find some 20 concerts on an average day, equivalent to Wellington’s one or two, on a good day. (I wasn’t in Paris this time though).
Wednesday was an average day, with the usual lunchtime concert at St Andrew’s.
Still a bit jet-lagged, the promise of some music for three wind instruments was just what I needed. It proved a beautifully measured programme, beautifully played.
And surprisingly, the three musicians had names that rang only vague bells. I recall oboist Calvin Scott as a member of the Aeolian Players in a Lower Hutt lunchtime concert in 2011 and see that Frances Robinson had heard clarinettist David McGregor in an NZSM concert at St Andrew’s last year and Peter Mechen mentioned him playing in a recent National Youth Orchestra concert.
But I can spot Rebecca Scott’s name in no Middle C review. This concert seemed to be led by her; she spoke before most of the pieces, though both other players spoke once. Rebecca is a highly experienced orchestral flautist, in London and Sydney as well as Wellington and Christchurch; and here she proved a versatile and engaging chamber musician, evidently returned permanently to Wellington.
The six pieces were perfect midday fare: a mix of the bright and the pensive, the classical and the modern. Rebecca and David opened playing Villa-Lobos’s Chôros No 2, not one of the more familiar ones (for me), but an engaging exercise in agility and wit in a performance that captured the native idiomatic character of Brazilian street music.
Franz Doppler was a contemporary of, let’s say, Franck, Johann Strauss II, Lalo, Vieuxtemps, Bruckner, Gounod, Offenbach … But he was Polish-Hungarian, born in Lwow, then in Austria-occupied Poland, now Lviv in Ukraine, from which the Polish population was expelled in 1945. He was primarily a flautist, and followed a style that owed much to Paganini and Schubert and melodically to Chopin and early 19th century opera. His Andante and Rondo for two flutes (the second flute part here by clarinet) and piano, Op 25, keeps his name alive, and this virtuoso performance demonstrated why, with its charming, melodies, swaying rhythms, turning to a brisk march later in the Andante section. There was brilliant, delicious twinning of the two parts – enhanced in colour, I thought, through a clarinet replacing the second flute.
Then came a version of Carnival of Venice, a folk song that’s been used by many composers including Paganini (his reused by Liszt) and Bottesini. This one for flute and orchestra by Briccialdi, another contemporary of Doppler, offered spine-tingling passages of brilliant ornamentation, triple-tonguing through the otherwise graceful triple-time tune. Obviously a popular party-piece for the flautist, and here a stimulating lunch spicing that Rebecca Steel tossed off effortlessly.
The favourite Chopin Nocturne, D flat, Op 27 no 2, came in an arrangement in which the right hand part was taken by flute and clarinet. Its character was altogether changed, I wasn’t entirely sure, for the better; though on its own terms it employed flute and clarinet in thoroughly idiomatic ways.
Rebecca retreated so that David McGregor and Calvin Scott might play an arrangement of Schumann’s ‘Stille Träne’, from the Twelve Songs by Justinus Kerner, Op 35. (Kerner was a close contemporary of Byron’s, though he far outlived Byron). This didn’t work so well without the words and their varied timbres and emotions, and the long notes rather cried out for verbal qualities. Yet the clarinet still captured much of the lyrical beauty of the song.
Finally, the most delightful piece of the afternoon: Malcolm Arnold’s Divertimento for flute, oboe and clarinet. Here pianist Scott abandoned the keyboard and took up his oboe which he played with comparable accomplishment. Though the piece is in six movements, Arnold has offered an admirable example of a work that is full of ideas that in other hands might encourage elaborate and extended treatment, but which makes its startling impact with such economy and brilliance.
Here, each movement lasted around two minutes; though it began about 12.55pm, the concert ended pretty much on schedule before five past one. In the space of this time, we had been subjected to a dizzying range of musical moods and rhythms, the three instruments rarely playing in ensemble fashion but contributing disparate elements in wild contrapuntal fashion that fused together in the most delightful way.
The applause seemed hard to stop. A great welcome home to Wellington!
Colours of Futuna presents:
Gale Force Gospel Choir (Small Ensembles)
The Yorkett Quartet – Carol Lough, Gunilla Jensen, Neil Pryor, Gina Coyle Bring Me Little Water Sylvie (H Ledbetter, arr. Max Maxwell) When I get Inside / Our Father Trad gospel, arr. Tony Backhouse Going Down to Jordan (Trad, arr. Soweto Gospel Choir)
Gracenotes Quintet – Juli Usmar, Leigh Talamaivao, Fiona Walker Richard Hale, Shelly Andrews There is a Balm in Gilead (W Dawson, arr. Tony Backhouse) Gotta do Right (Trad, after a version by the Heritage Singers)
Peter & Anne (Williams) I Had a Real Good Mother & Father / By the Mark (Trad, after Gillian Welch)
Vocalicious – Shona McNeil, Rachel MacLeod, Shelly Andrews Halleluyah (Leonard Cohen, arr Shona McNeil) Go to Sleep Little Baby (Harris/Kraus/Welch arr Vocalicious)
Indonesian Quartet – Mark Standeven, Carol Shortis,
Anne Manchester, Bill Shortis Betapa Baiknya (Freddy Ahuluheluw arrr. Carol Shortis)
Triceratops Trio – Ben Woods, Laura Durville, Amber Coyle Beams of Heaven (Charles A.Tindley, arr. Laura Durville) Wanting Memory (Ysaye M. Barnwell, after Cantus)
Rise Up Trio – Gina & Jim Coyle Cross Over to the Other Side of Jordan (from James & Martha Carson)
Pieces of Eight Octet – Liz King, Leigh Talamaivao, Bill Shortis, Gracie McGregor, Angela Torr, Ian Brewer, Andrew Thompson-David, Laura Durville One Mornin’ Soon (arr. Tony Backhouse, after Johnita and Joyce Collins) All Night, All Day (arr. Tony Backhouse, after The Caravans)
Futuna Chapel
Sunday 9th November 2014
Right from the word go this short concert had the feeling of a community event, rather than a formal recital, and I’m sure that’s how the organisers wanted it. Gale Force Gospel choir is a diverse bunch of singers from many different backgrounds, who obviously enjoy the idioms of Negro Spirituals, both the singing and the swinging. They put together a varied programme of small ensemble pieces, incorporating both traditional numbers handed down from the original slaves, and subsequent compositions in similar vein.
Their enthusiasm was infectious, and it captured the full-house audience from first to last. It carried the singers through the odd loss of memory, and the not infrequent dodgy intonation of their a cappella style, but nobody seemed to mind – everyone was clearly having a ball, both singers and listeners.
The Yorkett Quartet was the most polished of the groups, and their opening bracket of traditional numbers was beautifully controlled in phrasing, intonation and ensemble, with exemplary clear diction. This is not easy to achieve in the lively acoustic of Futuna Chapel, but they judged their dynamics most effectively to suit.
The Gracenotes Quintet followed with a sensitive rendering of Balm in Gilead, then a complete switch in mood to the swinging rhythms and clapping beat of Gotta Do Right that was particularly popular.
The Vocalicious group’s Go to Sleep Little Baby was likewise acted out with rhythmic and rocking motions that brought their gentle lullaby very warmly to life.
The Rise Up Trio enacted the story of the Jews’ escape from captivity in Egypt very graphically with their swinging number Cross Over to the Other Side of Jordan despite some highly variable intonation. They invited the audience to join in the choruses, which was done with considerable enthusiasm.
This left the final bracket to the largest ensemble, the Pieces of Eight Octet, who closed the concert with two numbers full of the immediacy of angels. One Mornin’ Soon was propelled along by lively vocal “percussion” from the basses, and the vivid imagery of angels surrounding an ecstatic supplicant kneeling at prayer.
By contrast, All Night, All Day was a gentle, rocking number that rounded off the programme by committing the singers to the loving care of their guardian angels as sleep took over. It was an apposite finish to a well balanced and highly popular concert that epitomised community music making in the very best tradition.
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents:
OPULENCE – Music by Tchaikovsky, Ravel and R.Strauss
Eldar Nebolsin (piano)
Michael Stern (conductor)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
TCHAIKOVSKY – Piano Concerto No.2 in G Major Op.44
RAVEL – Ballet Suite from “Ma Mère l’Oye” (Mother Goose)
R.STRAUSS (arr. Rodzinski) – Orchestral Suite from “Der Rosenkavalier”
Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington
Saturday, 8th November, 2014
Happily, the days of accepting “as Tchaikovsky’s work” the long-established truncated version made by Alexander Siloti of the G Major Piano Concerto – such grievous cuts in the second movement! – seem to be at an end. Here, at the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s “Opulence” concert at the Michael Fowler Centre on Saturday evening last, we had, in all of its undiluted glory, the original work as Tchaikovsky conceived it. Those extended solo string lines of the Andante were allowed their full expressive voice, maximizing the movement’s dramatic contrast with the energy and vigour of the outer sections of the concerto.
This done, the rest was up to the musicians – and we got a performance from pianist, conductor and orchestra that, to my ears, simply got better and better as it progressed – perhaps a shade four-square and pompous throughout the opening exchanges (partly the fault of Tchaikovsky’s writing), but with every entry made by pianist Eldar Nebolsin creating sparks and flashes of impulse which eventually built up to the point of open conflagration. Here was, I thought, a demonstration of keyboard virtuosity which seemed to grow from right out of the music’s heart – it possessed a kind of compulsive playfulness that exuded total involvement, far removed from brilliance for its own sake.
Nebolsin seemed to take nothing he played for granted, voicing his lines exquisitely in quieter places, in dialogue with the orchestral winds, then just as spontaneously bubbling his textures up and over with delight in his more rapid passagework. Yes, that odd-sounding “ready-steady-GO!” orchestral entry (not terribly convincing at the best of times!) at about nine or ten minutes into the first movement didn’t “come off” here with any great conviction, but the orchestral winds then played like souls possessed with their concerted triplet figurations that buoyed along the string lines which followed. From then on I thought the playing really took wing, with a grandly-sprung orchestral entry immediately after the pianist’s astonishingly volatile first-movement cadenza, and some riotous exchanges leading up to the movement’s end.
It seems tiresomely cliched to say so, but the Andante’s opening conjured up an entirely different world of sensibility – firstly Vesa-Matti Leppänen’s violin, and then Andrew Joyce’s ‘cello gave us moments of aching lyrical beauty, the players’ lines mingling ease with intensity in a way that might well have caused the pianist to exclaim in rehearsal “What a pity to come in and spoil that!”…….however, Nebolsin’s real-time response was to add to the melody’s beauty with phrasings that actually brought to my mind in places the Brahms of some of the latter’s Intermezzi – Tchaikovsky, who was ambivalent about the German composer and his music, would possibly be spinning in his grave at the audacity of such a comparison!
But there was more to it than lyrical expression – the exchanges took on a passionately operatic air in places, the piano building “Swan-Lake” climaxes with the orchestral strings, and violin and ‘cello “crossing bows” with a vengeance, before returning things to a state of equilibrium, save for that uneasy sequence shared by the lower strings and brass over tremolando violins – some remnant of a painful and poignant memory of its composer’s, perhaps?
How we all delighted at the whiplash crack of the finale’s opening! – again, Nebolsoin’s playing had such a sense of fun accompanying the brilliance! We got a superb horn-solo as a counterpoint to the second theme, and an exciting, soaring, conflagration of strings in their brief but telling flourish which followed. I thought, in fact, the whole performance seemed to be alight, with plenty of “sting” in the exchanges between soloist and strings – an example was that tricky-run-up to yet another whiplash chord at the beginning of the coda – real panache, a wonderful amalgam of impetuosity and confidence!
Had the Michael Fowler Centre been more generously peopled that evening (was that reprobate Guy Fawkes to blame on this occasion?), the response at the concerto’s end would have been simply overwhelming! We did our best, calling the pianist back for more and richly-deserved acclaim, until we could put hands together no more – Eldar Nebolsin’s was playing which made me long for the days when such a soloist’s appearance with the orchestra would usually be followed up by a solo recital – alas, as civilizations progress, so, it seems, do they also decline……..
We had been told in an announcement before the concert that the interval would be spaced so as to allow patrons the opportunity to observe the Wellington City Council’s annual fireworks display – so, at 9pm most of us had arrayed ourselves either at a convenient window or vantage-point just alongside the building, ready for the visual scintillations and batteries of percussive retorts accompanying such happenings. It all seemed in perfect accord with what we had just heard, actually – so everybody was in a high old humour when the concert’s second half began.
Certainly, after the “double-whammy” effect of Tchaikovsky at his most extroverted and brilliant, and the full-on battery of fireworks over the harbour, we were all ready for something a shade more subtle and delicate – and Ravel’s music for his Ballet Suite “Ma Mère l’Oye” (Mother Goose) was just what the doctor ordered. A pity the whole ballet is seldom played in the concert-hall, as there’s more to enjoy – an enchanting introduction plus a series of wonderful linking episodes (rather like the “Promenades” used by Musorgsky in his “Pictures at an Exhibition”). Still, the Suite is the next-best thing, and it brought out ravishing sounds from conductor and players in all instances.
The Suite preserves the work’s original inspiration – five pieces written for piano-duet for the children of friends, each piece characterizing a favourite fairy-tale. Ravel, too kept the structure intact when he first orchestrated the pieces in 1911 – the following year he added the “extras” which introduce and then link the movements. Tonight we began with the “Pavane of the Sleeping Beauty”, the sounds like the play of vapours around the head of a sleeping child, as if guardian spirits were in attendance. The orchestral winds had a great deal of solo work throughout, and the players performed their own and the more concerted lines with requisite beauty and character, especially in this opening piece.
Next came another delicate evocation, “Petit Poucet” (Tom Thumb), whose principal melody, played on the cor anglais, had such an aching, nostalgic quality, one could readily identify with the composer’s longing to somehow re-enter the world of childhood. The forest birds made an appearance in this tale as well, a solo violin joining various winds to emulate their wild, plaintive voices. What a change of ambience with “Laideronette, Empress of the Pagodas”, the pentatonic figurations creating bustling, excitable movement before a gong evoked the splendour of an Oriental Monarch! How the composer must have loved writing this!
One of the most famous of all fairy-tales, “Beauty and the Beast”, got truly graphic treatment from the orchestral instruments, the story’s two characters clearly demarcated at the beginning, bright-eyed, almost questing wind-playing depicting Beauty’s attractiveness and open, enquiring mind, and then louring percussion supporting the hideous tones of the contrabassoon to portray the unfortunate Beast – a wonderful noise! Then when the lighter winds and the deep-throated Beast got together, the synthesis was breathtaking in its audacity and clarity – a kind of “vive la difference” to savour and remember.
In fact, the only, very slight criticism I could find to make of the playing was of places in the final movement, “The Enchanted Garden”, whose episodes I thought unfolded beautifully, but a shade (just a shade, mind you!) too glibly – the sequences could have done with a touch more breathless wonderment at some of the phrase-ends and harmonic turns, as a child might experience when exploring some kind of wonderland – places where the music’s hymn-like progressions could have caught and held the flow for split-seconds of poised, ecstatic delight, a “registering” of certain moments, one might say. Still, the final peroration very satisfyingly gathered all together and opened up the vistas to the oncoming sunshine, a triumph of light and good and happiness over the dark, the orchestral harps properly drenching our sensibilities with warmth and excitement.
I hadn’t read the titles of the items as carefully as I should have, thinking that we were going to get the “Rosenkavalier Waltzes” at the concert’s end – which I do love! But instead I found myself enjoying the opera’s notoriously orgasmic Prelude – perhaps there’s something about an unexpected pleasure! – before the music went on to explore various episodes of the drama. A quick look at the item’s listing clarified what was happening – this was a proper “Suite” from the opera, with an opus number, no less!
The programme note implied that the Suite had been made by the composer together with the Polish conductor Artur Rodzinski, in 1944. But the conductor was in New York at the time while Strauss was in war-besieged Germany, suggesting that the Suite was actually Rodzinski’s work, as he gave its premiere with the New York Philharmonic that same year. Strauss must have eventually approved the work, because it was published in 1945 with its present Opus number.
I thoroughly enjoyed Michael Stern’s conducting and the playing of the orchestra throughout this exercise – I wondered in places whether the work was a couple of sequences too long, but the reaction of the audience at the end certainly dispelled that impression! Parts of it I thought were particularly magical, notably the moments which featured the haunting wind-chord figurations that accompany Octavian’s presentation of the Silver Rose to Sophie at the beginning of Act Two; though I thought some of the opera’s vocal lines lost some of their intensity and focus when played by groups of instruments instead of a single instrumental voice – Sophie’s ecstatically soaring response to Octavian’s presentation here somehow didn’t “tug” the heartstrings as it always does on stage, the impact a bit too generalized from a body of strings or doubled wind lines.
What worked superbly well were the waltzes, particularly the gold-digging Baron Ochs’ lascivious “With me, no night for you too long” tune, which Strauss presents, as here, using, first of all a solo violin (gorgeously played by Vesa-Matti Leppanen) and then, with the orchestral throttle fully open – great moments! But one doesn’t really blame either Rodzinski or Strauss for favouring a kind of good old whizz-bang concert-ending to the suite, instead of going with the prevailing emotions of the opera’s conclusion, and replicating that ambience at the finish.
So, after some heartfelt and beautifully-phrased playing by gorgeous strings (plus some lovely high trumpet work) of the opera’s final “eternal triangle with a difference” Trio, we got the haunting wind arabesques once again along with Octavian’s and Sophie’s final duet – and then the music roared into Ochs’ “Leopold! We’re leaving!” orchestral riot, with great horn whoops sounding above the exuberant rhythms, and a properly-gradated payoff at the end. Everybody seemed to love it! – and as an orchestral showpiece it certainly demonstrated what conductor and players could do, in spadefuls!
St.Andrews-on-The-Terrace Lunchtime Concert Series:
Alfred Hill on Guy Fawkes Day
ALFRED HILL (1869-1960)
Quartet No.3 in A minor “The Carnival” 1912 (orchestral version)
Movements: In the Streets / Andantino / Scherzo / Finale
The Dominion Strings, conducted by Donald Maurice
St. Andrews-on-The-Terrace, Wellington
Wednesday 5th November 2014
This work was the earliest of Alfred Hill’s string quartets to be expanded later into an orchestral version, and is better known as Symphony No.5 “The Carnival”. He frequently “recycled” existing works into new formats, and this transcription benefitted from the larger forces which could very successfully convey the bustling, crowded atmosphere of a fiesta.
The opening street scene was graphically depicted with vigorous, sunlit writing and attractive melodies, propelled along by dancing triplet rhythms. Closing gently, as though the fading light of evening were approaching, it could easily have been an evocative film score, no less effective for the absence of visual effects.
The Andantino was full of gentle melody passing from voice to voice, supported by rich harmonies that conjured up the balmy night air, and the pleasures of wandering hand in hand, somewhat apart from the noisy revellers. The languid, surging phrases eventually subsided into a pianissimo close, as though the moon were sinking, heavy with sleep, below the horizon.
The Scherzo woke to a new, sunlit morning, a bright breezy romp full of the new day’s energy, evoking colourful stalls selling wild flowers and sweet treats. It led quite naturally into the energetic Finale which opened with the vigour of almost flamenco rhythms and colour, then moved into a central contrasting section of lilting melodies, with almost a hint of pathos, before returning to the opening mood. There was a dramatic accelerando coda to round off the work with brilliant, festive flair.
This was a thoroughly attractive, almost programmatic work, from a composer who understood the appeal and art of skilful melody writing. The familiar tonal structure made it easy listening, while never sounding tired, but always fresh and creative. The players were clearly enjoying themselves, and their enthusiastic and lively engagement in the work spilled over easily to the appreciative audience.
This concert marked the release of Vol.5 of Hill’s string quartets from Naxos, recorded on CD by the Dominion String Quartet. The last recordings are just complete, with the final Vol.6 due next year. Before the concert, Donald Maurice spoke of the genesis and development of this project over a number of years, then Chris Blake (NZSO CEO) gave some background to Hill’s life and work.
The latter’s prolific output included ten operas (some on Maori themes), thirteen symphonies, seventeen string quartets, many choral works, concertos, chamber music, sonatas, songs and short works for a variety of instruments. Researcher and publisher Allan Stiles has noted that there are over 2,000 titles attributable to Alfred Hill and of those, many have never been published and relatively few commercially recorded. (Programme notes.)
Chris Blake spoke of Hill as “the only significant Australasian composer representing the Late Romantic era”, but I would put Richard Fuchs (1887-1947) very firmly in that category too, although he was a naturalised New Zealander who lived here only from 1939 to 1947. Like Hill he was prolific in many genres, and all his surviving works have been published by the Richard Fuchs Archive, though as yet only a handful of his beautiful songs are available on CD (see www.richardfuchs.org.nz).
Both these composers have been too little heard and enjoyed by New Zealand audiences, but those who attended today’s concert obviously appreciated this opportunity, judging by the turnout and their most enthusiastic applause.
If there’s anybody reading this who hasn’t made the mini-pilgrimage to the exquisite Futuna Chapel in Karori, Wellington, I would strongly recommend to whomever that action be urgently taken. The building alone is worth the visit – an award-winning architectural design by Hawkes Bay architect John Scott, commissioned in 1958 by the Catholic Society of Mary, and built by the brothers of the Society themselves as a place of spiritual retreat and contemplation.
Alas, the chapel’s original setting amid native bush stretching back to the hillsides has been besmirched by development, a process which threatened to gobble up not only the land and the bush, but the chapel itself, until a Trust was formed to negotiate with the developers to save the original building, at the very least.
Part of the Trust’s fund-raising efforts to maintain the chapel is the establishment of this concert series, something that happens to be both worthwhile and instantly rewarding for all contributors to the enterprise. While virtually nothing of the original setting remains, it’s possible, once inside the chapel, to shut out the ironies of the cultural despoilations around and about, and experience something of the place’s original purpose – John Scott’s design continues to resonate and overwhelm, simply and quietly utilising light and space in a timeless and unforgettable manner.
So, Futuna Chapel has been, thanks to sterling efforts on the part of people for whom such things have a transcendence beyond material gain, more fortunate in its preservation than, say, another historic Wellington venue, Island Bay’s Erskine College, much older, but as beautiful and distinctive and as worthy of preservation. Alas, efforts to instigate restoration of Erskine have encountered attendant problems which come with ownership, age and costs that I suspect may well require the attentions of some arts-loving, community-minded millionaire for anything lasting to be achieved.
Back in Karori, the “Colours of Futuna” concert series provides the Sunday afternoon visitor to the chapel with added value, a fusion of light, space and sound for which the building might seem to have been purpose-built. Of course music has always been part-and-parcel of most expressions of spiritual faith, and the venues constructed for this purpose have usually enhanced this propensity for supporting “voices raised in worship” – though hardly cathedral-like in size, Futuna Chapel certainly supports and fulfills this state of things according with and in addition to the building’s original purpose.
For the latest Sunday concert we were delighted by a programme that could have been called “ballades, songs and snatches”, given by soprano Rowena Simpson and recorder-player Kamala Bain. Spanning centuries and continents, the two musicians moved easily between different musical forms and styles, sounds and languages, observations and emotions, enough variety without neglecting deeper feelings, and including both familiar strains and in places, newer, ear-catching sounds.
I’ve encountered both of these musicians revelling in presentations with more than a whiff of the theatre about them – so it seemed entirely natural that each should comfortably utilize the performing platform as a kind of “stage”, especially such one as this, whose light and space would suggest any kind of naturalistic or dramatic vista – Rowen Simpson began the concert with an unaccompanied setting by English composer Michael Head of poet Bronnie Taylor’s “The Singer”, a piece with some haunting major/minor key alternating, and some beautiful vocal ascents, such as at the words “and the sound of fairy laughter” right at the end.
Right at the song’s end Kamala Bain’s recorder took up the melodic threads, the player remaining at the back of the chapel for an antiphonal effect, one which further opened up our vistas appropriate to such an out-of-doors song, bringing a touch of ritual to it all with an anonymous 14th Century Italian ballata “Lucente Stelle’ – even more distant antiquities were shaken and stirred by the next settings, two exerpts from the Exeter Book of Riddles, the work of contemporary English composer Nicola LeFanu.
The soprano read us the riddles first, not to spoil the game, but to clarify the texts – the first, Siren, had a lament-like aspect, a wide-ranging vocal line, part ecstatic, part tragic, in places almost “Queen-of-the-Night”-like in its melismatic demands – complementing the singer, the recorder sounded a kind of birdsong obbligato, underlining the ‘nature-piece’ aspect of the music. The second riddle “Swan” not unexpectedly proved smoother-toned, calmer of movement, the recorder dulcetly reflecting the waters, the vocal line again soaring, but very gracefully, briefly trilling ecstatically with the recorder, before the latter returns to those long watery lines.
One could have been excused for imagining we had been transported to an aviary for the next item, Australian John Rodgers’ “Three Short Pieces”, featuring the movement of the recorder-player to a different location for three different birdsongs, very effective and naturalistic. From evocation we were taken to invocation, with Lyell Creswell’s “Prayer to appease the Spirit of the Land”, a work dedicated to Tracy Chadwick, a New Zealand soprano who died young, from leukemia. This was original a Maori text rendered into English, sung gently, with floated lines over a very “earthy” recorder accompaniment, with breathy tones and pitch-bending suggesting wind-notes – altogether a moving tribute to a young singer.
Another New Zealand work, by Dorothy Ker, was a setting of a poem by Ruth Dallas, “On the Bridge” for soprano solo, a folkish setting, sounding in effect like a spontaneously-conceived improvisation from the singer, the impulses at first high-flying, then trailing off gently. And then came the next item, a work by the Dutch composer Karel van Steenhoven, one called “Nachtzang” (Night Song). Recorder-player Kamala Bain “warned” us about this piece beforehand, stressing the necessity for we listeners to “use our imaginations” – it was a bit like the musical equivalent of a “Government Health Warning”, but at least we were prepared!
The soprano’s wordless line floated long-breathed notes over the top of an agitated molto perpetuum figure, before singer and recorder wove their lines around one another in bird-songish fashion, producing some extraordinary unison and intervalled passages. In places the singer “vocalized” the lines, occasionally breathing agitatedly, at other places crying out like a baby – the recorder contributed ghosty tremolandi to various episodes, with the outside wind occasionally contributing a naturalistic counterpoint! The sounds certainly took us “out of ourselves” and into more uncertain worlds somewhat removed from our comfort-zones.
Such were the contrasts and drastic changes of sounds and moods wrought by the performers throughout the afternoon that we were beginning to expect almost anything could happen at this stage – and it did, with the presentation of several Scottish Songs from the eighteenth-century “Orpheus Caledonius” collection made by the singer and folk-song enthusiast William Thomson. Kamala Bain brilliantly caught the “snap” of the rhythms of Auld Rob Morris, and was then joined by Rowena Simpson for the second song, Lady Ann Bothwel’s Lament, which had a lovely high vocal tessitura in places and a droll drone recorder accompaniment. The music of the third song, Sleepy Body, seemed to belie its title, the soprano turning instrumentalist and playing a glockenspiel to assist with the delightful recorder-tones.
“This brand new work” began the sentence introducing the programme’s next item, “Night Countdown” by Wellington composer Philip Brownlee (present at the performance). Setting the words of a poem by Peggy Dunstan, the music explores the state of being that exists “in the space between wakefulness and sleep”. to quote the composer’s own words. The sounds weren’t necessarily literal reproductions of the poem’s images, but were used in an attempt to encourage different interpretations of the words’ meanings. The singer read the poem before the music began, to give us an idea of the word-terrain to follow. Rowena played the glockenspiel and Kamala the largest of the recorders, the latter encouraging some amazing timbal variation from the instrument, including a kind of simultaneously-produced array of harmonic/overtone sounds.
The vocal line moved lazily and sensuously at first, but arched confidently towards more ecstatic regions as the night’s multifarious elements were “banked up” in an impressive catalogue. Singer and recorder-player enjoyed the “chorus of barking”, before joining voices for the last few phrases of the poem – the climactic “one me” was sung and spoken together as if by a chorus. A lovely work, the words and music having more than a whiff of the power of those “A Child’s Garden of Verses” poems by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Jacopo da Bologna’s 14th Century madrigal Non al su’amante featured the story of the Goddess Diana bathing in a mountain stream and being observed by a passing hunter – what beautiful singing and playing lines, here! Especially telling was the blend of lyrical voice and excitable recorder figurations. The story didn’t appear to have a happy ending, judging by the melancholia that seemed to grip the piece over its last minute or so’s duration! A happier, more energetic outing for all concerned was provided by an anonymous 14th Century French ballade, “Constantia”, a dancing, tintinabulating expression of joy from voice and instrument that makes one wish one could be a time-traveller!
This was a great concert for home-grown music, as next was Helen Fisher’s setting of Lauris Edmond’s poem I name this place, one of the verses from a collection “Scenes from a Small City”. As befitted the occasion for which the piece was written (the wedding of friends) the music has a renaissance-like feel, a ritualistic elegance to its lines and counterpoints, flavoured also in places by a “folkish” quality – the concluding flourishes by singer and player towards the end underlined the celebratory nature of the occasion. And to bring things to a close on a further optimistic note, we heard “Sumer is icumen in”, an appropriately cheerful and sonorous farewell to the afternoon’s evocations.
Justine Cormack (violin)
Ashley Brown (‘cello)
Sarah Watkins (piano)
Salvatore Sciarrino – Piano Trio No.2
John Zorn – Amour Fou
Leonie Holmes – ….when expectation ends (premiere)
Arnold Schoenberg (arr. Steuermann) – Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night)
City Gallery, Wellington
29th October 2014
I did like the NZTrio’s characterizing of its most recent Wellington concert at the City Gallery as “an edgy international exploration” – though further linking the concert to the Gallery’s October exhibition of the work of William Kentridge, a multi-media presentation called “The Refusal of Time” was frustrating, as I hadn’t had the chance to see the latter – apparently a truly “immersive” amalgam of cinematic methodology – animation, live action and pixelated motion. After listening to the NZTrio’s playing in the concert I wished even more that I’d seen the exhibition as well!
With music from the USA, Europe and New Zealand packed into an eventful eighty minutes, the Trio certainly gave value for money. The musicians have played in this venue before, though against the wall behind this audience, last time round that I remember. On that occasion I remembered being partly enchanted, partly distracted by the floor-to-ceiling artwork on the said wall behind the Trio – but this time the art gave out a rather more circumspect aspect, both in itself and its presentation!
But what musicians these people are! Chamber groups vary enormously in terms of what and how they “give out” to their audiences – an obvious example to hand would be a comparison between the present group and the Borodin Quartet, who visited Wellington earlier in the month. While the latter group remained physically undemonstrative while transfixing us with its sounds, the players’ aspect and posture as a group magnificently “contained” as they regaled us with the most superbly-focused tones, the NZTrio musicians compelled as much as by their body language as their sound. There’s something to be said for marrying musical efforts to appropriately organic gestures – within reason, a kind of performance choreography – and the NZTrio thus engaged our attentions on a visceral as well as musical level.
For this reason I never tire of watching the group perform, in particular pianist Sarah Watkins, who throws herself into whatever she’s doing, metaphorical boots and all! A far more connective comparison than with the Borodins, in terms of performance style, would be with the Austrian ensemble, the Eggner Trio, a group that’s frequently visited New Zealand, and which has a similarly engaging concert platform manner.
So, onto the “edgy international exploration”! First up we encountered Italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino’s Piano Trio No.2, music by a composer who’s known for his music’s evocations of silence and transparency of texture, with occasional irruptions of loud sounds – contrasts which demonstrate that a state or condition can be defined as much by its antithesis as by itself.
The hushed, almost ghostly whoops and descents of the communing strings at the outset contained to my ears a number of impressions, amongst them acts of impulse defying darkness, in space, or in the near-impenetrable gloom of great forests or vast oceans – at one point I imagined nascent reminiscences of the Latin plainchant “Dies Irae”; while the violin’s ascents towards stratospheric harmonics again evoked a similar kind of scalic chanting (what else had I been listening to of late?)…..Every now and then the ghostly voices’ mix was “stirred and shaken” by piano interpolations, which led to galvanic descents from the strings, “silvering” the ambience, into which the piano again intruded, with ever-increasing dynamism and coruscation. But the strings kept their energies in check, conversing in glissando-like mode, rather like spent meteorites falling from the sky – it was afterwards that I read the programme annotations which mentioned “ancient whale song and crystal meteors” wondering whether or not the words were the composer’s own……
Whatever suggestions of “bumt-out energy” might have been gleaned from these ambiences were belied by the piano’s “this is it!” reaction to the Dali-like suspensions of energy in time – great shooting-star glissandi and scintillations poured our of the instrument, with the sustaining pedal throwing open the cosmos, rather like a Black Hole operating in reverse! As for the strings, each instrument was transported by frenzied ecstacies/agonies, the work’s concluding exchanges hearkening back to those opening silences by default, the sounds appearing to “blister” from within the very beings of those far-away beginnings, a realization the listener is usually able to savour rather more tellingly via the silence at the end of a recording, than in a concert, with its intrusive(!) applause – now there’s a performance conundrum! – but it’s one that frequently comes to mind, as, of course, we all have our lists of pieces of music which we think really shouldn’t be applauded when they finish……..
Interestingly, both Ashley Brown and Sarah Watkins provided us with some “byplay” at the end of the Sciarrino piece, Ashley Brown explaining that he had to make some “unbeautiful” sounds, i.e., activate his bow to remove excess resin accumulated during the Sciarrino, in order to be able to then make further beautiful sounds. But because I was sitting in a “last-minute-arrival” seat I wasn’t ideally placed to ascertain whether Sarah Watkins was putting on or removing from over her hands protective glove-like covers, “to stop blood from going all over the piano keys” as she put it – certainly the intensity with which she addressed Sciarrino’s keyboard writing towards the end of the Trio suggested that something might well have suffered some attrition as a result!
The Trio reversed the printed program order of the next two pieces, putting John Zorn’s Amour Fou ahead of, rather than following, Leonie Holmes’ …when expectation ends. In retrospect I felt it was to spare our sensibilities rather than the composers’ – instead of having two shortish pieces together, followed by two relatively lengthy ones, the dimensions were alternated. Stylistically, too, Zorn’s discursive explorations of the abysses between impulsive attraction and reflective confusion in love was more appropriate as a counterweight to the abstract brilliances of Sciarrino, than as an equally weighty cheek-by-jowl partner to Schoenberg’s “dark night of two souls”.
Away from the piece’s name and the programme’s suggestion of a universal discourse on love’s nature, I would have given Zorn’s music a dream-like title upon first hearing and characterized the sounds accordingly – it seemed to me that the sounds were presenting realities formulated in spontaneously-occurring ways, viewed in many instances through different lenses of perception or chartered on grids which showed different interpretations, like maps of the same area in an atlas showing different characteristics. But of course the title pushed my receptive sensibilities in a certain direction, and, as the composer probably intended, allowed me some traction in “interpreting” the sounds.
What a beautifully poised, expressionist opening! – plaintive piano chords sounded beneath a shimmering dream-like violin line, whose figures were then acted upon in surreal ways, accelerating, caught in ostinati, haunted by eerie tremolandi – everything seemed dream-like, not of this world. The piano for a while seemed to maintain the line, as the string-characters came and went, piquantly, quixotically, mysteriously, like the sultans in Omar Khayyam’s “batter’d-caravansarai”. The music frequently used repeated notes, chords and figurations in a hypnotic way, simultaneously creating moving and frozen imagery, indicative of the overall ambivalence of perception/reality. And there were startling contrasts, both of dynamics and of movement – like a world of first impressions and immediate, rather than considered responses, as if consciousness was utterly at the mercy of involuntary impulse. If, as the title suggested, the piece was about love, then the sounds were clearly giving tongue to philosopher and cynic H.L.Mencken’s maxim that it was all “a triumph of imagination over intelligence”.
As the music continued its fascinating peregrinations the piece seemed to me to increasingly cohere – it felt as though the figurations were extending their impulses and trying to form partnerships, reach out tendrils and forge bonds between groups of material, however disparate. I thought it an endlessly fascinating web of sounds, in places clearly demarcated, while in others characterized by fierce, intense interactions, even if the repetitive nature of a lot of the material still suggested that impulse and spontaneity rather than sense and intellect were driving the responses. And, interestingly, almost right up to the end there was that ambivalence of those disparate forces, presenting alternative states of reality – the cross-rhythms between piano and cello pizzicati hardly displayed a sense of hearts beating together. And was the violin’s final flourish some kind of “cri de coeur”? – John Zorn wasn’t telling!
Earlier this year I had greatly enjoyed reviewing an Atoll CD of Leonie Holmes’ orchestral music for radio, and as a result was looking forward to her new work (a world premiere performance, in fact), called “…when expectation ends”. As with her orchestral writing, Leonie Holmes here demonstrated a feeling for the instruments’ characteristic ambient voices – firstly, a plaintive violin solo, which was answered by widely-spaced piano figurations followed by ‘ethereal ‘cello harmonics – some lovely “cluster-chords” for piano further enabled a “floating” kind of atmosphere – one could imagine the sequence as a state wrought by the mind, which then began to unravel in the face of sterner realities – the instrumental lines started to pursue their own individual ends, occasionally clashing and creating discordant combinations. With the piano as peacemaker, order was momentarily restored, and a second lovely episode sounded out for our pleasure – even if the music’s inherent impulsiveness couldn’t be subdued for long. A string unison led to vigorous and even volatile points of instrumental contact, swirling colourings and textures, in fact excitingly orchestral in effect – marvellous, stirring stuff!
Finally, a sober, dark-browed ‘cello solo was duly comforted by violin and piano, the strings singing of times past, and the piano allowing the stillness to “surge softly backwards” at the end – these were gentle but hard-won tranquilities, stripped of illusion and enjoyed for what they were. Something of the same process in a deeper, darker, rather more fraught form was found in Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), which concluded the program. Written by the composer originally as a string sextet, the work has been more often performed by a string orchestra (the composer’s own arrangement), but there exists also a transcription for Piano Trio (which I had never heard) by the composer/pianist Eduard Steuermann, a pupil, and later a colleague of Schoenberg. Most enterprisingly, it was programmed by the NZTrio for this concert.
Two things above all others surprised and delight me regarding the transcription and its performance here – firstly, the effectiveness of the piano as a protagonist in the work, not only rendering the music of the four displaced strings with absolute surety, but using its own special resonance to bring additional interest to the scenarios. The instrument’s voice created a distinctive ambience in which the two main protagonists, the man and the woman of the original poem by Richard Dehmel, could clearly and unequivocally interact as ‘cello and violin respectively, their thoughts, feelings, words and actions given a unique focus instead of having to compete with additional string textures.
Secondly, though Brahms and Wagner have always been cited as Schoenberg’s major influences in the writing of this work, the transcription’s keyboard writing interestingly brought out the influence of Liszt on the work. Quite apart from Schoenberg’s tendency to put melodic phrases in repeated pairs and near-pairs (as Liszt does throughout most of his orchestral symphonic poems), the figurations assigned the piano bore the stamp of Liszt in a number of sequences. I thought I also detected some of Franck’s influence in Schoenberg’s chromatic leanings when delineating the woman’s confessing to begetting a child with a stranger (and never before have I heard the “theme of reconciliation” sounding so much like that beatific second theme in the opening movement of Franck’s Symphony!). As well, there are reminiscences of Chopin and his B Minor Piano Sonata’s slow movement, shortly afterwards, during the quietly ecstatic exchanges of accord between the couple.
For these reasons alone I simply loved this version of Verklärte Nacht that we were given – all of it presented with such an amalgam of varied feeling and intensity by the Trio. The work’s final paragraph, depicting the man and woman walking together through the transfigured dawning of their new life together, brought us textures suffused with love, joy and hope, those heartfelt strings floating upon ecstatic piano figurations, before all became as windblown wisps of sound at the end. We were left replete, aglow with warmth but also breath-bated at the fragility of the remaining silences…..
St. Andrews on the Terrace: Lunchtime Concert Series
Lili Boulanger (1893-1918): Nocturne for Violin and Piano
Haydn: Sonata No.47 in B minor for piano (Hob.XVI No.32)
Brahms: Sonata No.1 in G Opus 78 for Violin and Piano
Simeon Broom (violin) and Rachel Church (piano)
29th October 2014
This concert was a joy, definitely in the very top bracket of 2014 lunchtime offerings at St. Andrews on the Terrace. The committed musicianship and professionalism of the two artists was apparent from the first note, when one understood immediately that this was all about the music, not the players.
Lili Boulanger’s Nocturne is a gem. In this duo’s hands it opened as a gentle meditation, languid with the warm sultry air of Mediterranean nights, that blossomed into a passionate central section before fading beautifully into the closing pianissimo of eyelids too heavy for anything but sleep. Superb artistry from first to last.
Rachel Church’s Piano Sonata No.47 by Haydn was marked by that indefinable, unassuming confidence of a musician who is completely at one with a work – its stylistic, rhythmic, historical idioms all embodied in a reading that seems entirely appropriate and convincing.
The polished opening Allegro led into the Minuet whose Trio in the lower registers was rich with almost romantic warmth. The closing Presto was taken at a very lively clip that teetered on losing some clarity of line during fast runs, but just snuck through thanks to Rachel’s technical facility. It rounded off a most satisfying experience of this colourful and dramatic sonata.
Brahms’ first violin sonata opens with a familiar and much loved theme that was expressed in Simeon Broom’s silken tone with exquisite tenderness. It was the start of a wonderful journey through this work that explores such a huge range of emotions, from the most forceful passions to the most moving pathos.
The constantly shifting tonalities were subtely revealed as they appeared; and Brahms’ thematic complexites, which can become quite bewildering in less skillful and sympathetic hands, were fashioned into an ever evolving, but comprehensible stream of musical consciousness. There was total understanding between the players of their common vision and interpretation, which were allowed to take centre stage due to the total physical economy of their performance styles.
These two artists have toured in 2012 for Chamber Music NZ as part of the Akoka Quartet, but they undoubtedly merit a tour of their own in this duo format. They offer music making of the highest order that chamber music lovers throughout the country deserve to hear, so I very much hope to see them in future CMNZ programmes.
Colours of Futuna Concert Series presents: Two Harps
Music by Debussy, Britten, Young, Fauré, Scarlatti, Becker, Scott and Guard
Jennifer Newth and Michelle Velvin, harps
Futuna Chapel, Karori
Sunday, 26 October 2014
The Futuna chapel proved to be an ideal venue for harp music, being small and intimate, and very resonant, with its timber and concrete surfaces. There was no difficulty in hearing the quietest sounds, and the resonance of notes after they had ceased to be plucked, was sustained and beautiful. The occasional raw tone, upon a string being plucked again while still sounding, also stood out, but this happened rarely.
Unfortunately I missed the first item, Debussy’s Pour Invoquer Pan, transcribed for two harps. A pity, as I am sure in would have been magical.
Jennifer Newth played ‘Hymn’ from Suite for Harp, Op. 83 by Benjamin Britten. It was a wonderful piece of intricate music, beautifully played, featuring variations on the hymn tune ‘St. Denio’, most frequently sung to the words ‘Immortal invisible, God only wise’.
This was followed by Kenneth Young’s Autumn Arabesque, which revealed a great variety of dynamics. This was a brilliant performance, full of subtlety. Lovely timing and shimmering, ecstatic sounds were notable in this delightful work, demonstrating the skill of the composer as well as that of the performer. The programme note quoted Young as saying that the piece ‘has a bitter sweet nostalgic quality which I often associate with Autumn’. We were experiencing a chilly spring day, but the tones and gestures of the music were telling. The resonance of the final note was sustained for an amazing length of time in this acoustic, thanks to the stillness of the audience.
Fauré’s Impromptu had a much more rambunctious opening than did the previous pieces. This extended work demonstrated the skill of the composer in writing music absolutely apt for the instrument. Jennifer Newth played it without the score. The lush tones and varied dynamics meant the playing was always interesting and the sonorities were enchanting
Following Fauré, Michelle Velvin played her bracket, that began with Sonata in A minor, Kirkpatrick 148 of Domenico Scarlatti, which the performer had transcribed herself. It sounded so straight-forward after the delicacy of much of the Fauré! It was very apparent how much more light and shade the harp was able to express compared with the harpsichord. As with the piano or the harpsichord, notes once struck on the harp cannot be sustained except by resonance, unlike the case with the organ or wind instruments, on which sounds can be held by the fingers. Thus the magic of playing in a small, resonant venue gave a whole new life to this music on the harp.
However, this very feature meant that it was particularly unwelcome in the quiet music to hear the accompaniment of cellophane wrappers on cough sweets being undone. I have no shares in the manufacturing company, but I always use and advocate for “Fisherman’s Friend”, a cough lozenge that brings no additional auditory effects to a concert.
The next work was by Wellington singer and composer Pepe Becker: Capricorn 1: Pluto in Terra. I heard this work just over a year ago, played by Helen Webby. Its astrological significance was not detailed in the programme note this time, but rather the aspects of the Christchurch earthquakes that the composer was evoking. In her words that were quoted (though not here in quotation marks!) ‘… evoke both gravelly and murky qualities of slowly-shifting earth’. I enjoyed it even more on a second hearing. The use of a piece of paper between the strings early in the work, changing the tone; knocking on the soundboard and passages of low humming from the player all added to the other-worldly effects of the music. Intriguing off-beat rhythms were a feature. It was indeed evocative, and very effective.
I was struck by the fact that a harpist is so graceful to watch – the movement is like an elegant dance. Michelle’s playing was a little less incisive than Jennifer’s; it was interesting to be aware of some difference in tonal quality, but the playing of both was skilled and enjoyable.
Crossing Waves by contemporary British composer Andy Scott was a stunningly beautiful piece and very descriptive of its subject matter. Amazing glissandi from forte to pianissimo were among its delights, depicting the ocean and its moods. These were followed by a serene section. The programme note described the work as reflecting ‘the many moods of such a journey [as that taken by solo rower across the Atlantic Ocean, Roz Savage]: apprehension and excitement at the start, isolation and beauty in the mid-ocean, and energy and optimism as the journey is almost over.’
Finally, for something completely different; three short pieces from the Isle of Man, arranged for two harps by Charles Guard, one of the top Celtic harpists – but played here on the orchestral harp, as was the entire programme. They were titled “Manannan Mac y Lir”, “Slumber Song” and “Flitter Dance”. The players demonstrated a variety of technical skills, exploiting the versatility of their instrument in these colourful pieces.
We are fortunate to have such skilled harpists in Wellington, thanks to the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s harpist, Carolyn Mills – obviously an outstanding teacher. And of course to the dedication and hard work of the soloists, whose musical accomplishment it was a pleasure to hear.
St Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace Lunchtime Concert Series
Undergraduate Strings of the NZSM
Caitlin Morris (cello), Laura Barton and Julian Baker (violins), accompanied by Rafaella Garlick-Grice (piano)
Music by SAINT-SAENS, JS BACH, MENDELSSOHN, SHOSTAKOVICH
St Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace
Wednesday, 22 October 2014
It was nothing short of astonishing to hear the level of musicianship and accomplishment on their instruments that these students demonstrated. As an undergraduate concert it was quite staggering.
The concert opened with the cello of Caitlin Morris, playing a section from Saint-Saëns’ Cello Concerto No.1, Op.33. Hers was dynamic and exciting playing. The tempo was quite fast, despite the ‘non troppo’marking of the opening. It was a little too fast, in my view, to bring to life some of the quick passages and figures in both the cello and the orchestral parts (the latter on piano, of course). Nevertheless, melodies were brought out well, and Caitlin’s playing produced excellent tone and subtlety of phrasing and shading of dynamics.
The double-stopping was executed seamlessly, while the accompaniment was at all times clear but never overwhelmed the soloist. The lyrical passages were very fine on both instruments, and Rafaella rendered the orchestra superbly – perhaps even Saint-Saëns would not have missed the full band if he had heard this excellent performance. The players were rewarded with warm applause from the audience.
Laura Barton played next – three items, all from memory. Bach’s unaccompanied Preludio in E from Partita no.3 BWV 1006 was first. This popular solo piece has its difficulties; there were some intonation inaccuracies, particularly at the beginning. Things improved as the piece proceeded. There was great clarity in Laura’s playing (and in her speaking voice introducing her programme, too); this was a very competent performance.
Saint-Saëns returned, in completely different mood, in the form of the well-known Havanaise, Op.83. It was played with panache and expressiveness. Technically demanding, it produced a few slight fluffs in pitch, but it was played with flair and musicality. Again, the sensitive accompaniment provided all the notes and moods that the orchestral score would have. As well as songs and dances, the music seems to have an element of bravado about it.
The third movement of Mendelssohn’s well-known Violin Concerto in E minor Op.64 followed. It was played with skill and flourish. While the Latin word ‘dexter’ means the right hand, Laura’s left hand was in no way sinister, and in fact was extremely dextrous. I would have liked a little more articulation and phrasing from both instruments at times. However, Laura’s tone was for the most part warm and radiant.
After this considerable contribution, came Julian Baker. He played from Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto no.1, Op.99, the third and fourth movements: Passacaglia: andante, and Burlesque: allegro con brio. The complex and demanding music was played from memory. This violinist makes a lovely sound. The contemplative, sombre mood at the commencement of the Passacaglia was a great contrast to the Mendelssohn we had just heard.The playing was strong and incisive when required; light and shade and a variety of tonal colours contributed to the satisfying interpretation.
Julian was secure technically, including in the extended sequences of double-stopping. The cadenza at the end of the Passacaglia and the solo first two-thirds of the Burlesque were played with consummate skill. Amazing glissando flourishes and the speed that became not merely allegro con brio but furioso seemed to hold no fears for the violinist.
This was an absolute tour de force, and the audience showed their appreciation by demanding that Julian Baker come on for a second bow.
Dong Fei - dancer | Gao Ping - piano | Wu Na - Qin | Evan Li - photographer
The Confucius Institute, Victoria University, Wellington, presents:
High Mountain Flowing Water (Gao Shan Liu Shui)
An ancient Chinese tale with guqin, piano and Kunqu opera
Music-drama settings of poetry ancient and modern
Gao Ping – piano
Dong Fei – actor/singer/dancer
Wu Na – guqin (qin)
Director: Sara Brodie
Visual design: Jon He
Text arrangement: Luo Hui
Production curated by Jack Body
Massey Concert Hall, Wellington
Wednesday, 22nd October, 2014
Encounters with exotic art-forms and performance-styles which are unfamiliar can have profound consequences – one thinks, for instance of the effect upon the composer Claude Debussy of the Paris International Exhibition of 1889 with its displays of art and music from places like Java, in particular the sounds made by the gamelan orchestra. Earlier the prints of Japanese artists such as Hokusai had reached Europe and inspired a whole generation of French and English painters to emulate the characteristics of Japanese art, an influence that extended to the art-nouveau movement of the early twentieth century. It was the sheer novelty and force of an encounter with a new tradition which both delighted creative people and caused simultaneous havoc with Euro-centrist sensibilities – and the process dealt a long-overdue body-blow to the hegemony of those over-familiar western traditions, a revitalization whose effects are still felt in artists’ work everywhere today.
Of course, even in the here-and-now one doesn’t have to be a creative artist to be shaken up by encounters with other cultures and their art-forms. In fact, such occasions can return the humblest of beholders to the tremulous realms of formative experience, no matter how seasoned or experienced a “normal” event-goer she or he might be. So it was with me at the Massey University Concert Hall on this particular evening, sitting amid the steeply-raked rows in darkness as if suspended mid-air, watching and listening to the work of the three on-stage performers, presenting an ancient Chinese tale “High Mountain Flowing Water”. The chiaroscuro of darkness and light powerfully focused my attentions upon the performers, and transformed my sensibilities at certain moments into those of a child’s, enabling the full force of delight and wonderment to flood through my opened doors and windows and set me awash with that precious excitement of reimagined reality, cut adrift from all expectation save for the unexpected.
For this was something quite out of the ordinary – a retelling of an ancient legend concerning a musician and a woodcutter, and what passes between them via the musician’s playing of the guqin (or, simply “qin”), an ancient Chinese 7-string zither-like instrument. It’s really an exploration of transference of understanding and empathy, using acts of music-making and -listening as metaphors for the process. Taking part in this theatrical retelling of a musical friendship, which the accompanying program note called “the shared spirit of understanding” was pianist Gao Ping, whose music is well-known to New Zealand audiences, having for a while been resident in this country, alongside Wu Na, an acknowledged “young master” of the qin, on which she was performing for the first time in New Zealand with this production.
With these two musicians was an actor/dancer/singer Dong Fei, an exponent of Chinese Kunqu opera, and who specializes in the traditional “Nan Dan” kind of operatic roles – those in which a male actor performs female characters. A sometimes collaborator with Wu Na in productions in China, he too was making his New Zealand debut with this presentation. His fully theatrical and exquisitely-appointed role, that of characterizing through speech, song and movement the full force of rapport between the cultured musician and the simple, intuitive woodcutter, made a profound impact of contrast with the austere, relatively neutral figures of both musicians, who spoke almost entirely through the sounds of their instruments.
The production was directed by Sara Brodie, whose stage-work I had encountered a matter of days previously in an entirely different theatrical context, that of “Don Giovanni” at Wellington’s St.James Theatre. “High Mountain Flowing Water” was certainly a different world, more in scale with works I had seen her direct in similarly confined places (Britten’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Victoria University Memorial Theatre, and “Kreutzer Sonata” at Bats’ Theatre, for example), but still removed in a sense of style, gesture, language, music and overall ambience. Of course, the very human emotions displayed by the characters in the Chinese story had something of that universality with which one could readily connect, even if certain of the nuances remained, to an extent, behind a mask. As with learning a new language, literal meaning goes only so far – deeper currents of expression take longer to explore and even longer to understand.
What mattered most was that I was, along with others I spoke to afterwards, entranced by what I saw and heard. I’ve already mentioned the hypnotic effect of the lighting, which used simplicity and suggestiveness to direct our attention towards the significant places at which the drama unfolded, note by note, gesture by gesture, movement by movement, and silence by silence. From the very beginning a sense of ritual was all-pervading – a performer (Gao Ping) entering and making the motions of washing hands, after which came the sounding of a soft bell as a kind of summons or invocation, as much a sense of an unseen presence as anything else. Gao Ping the sat at the piano and played Ravel-like figurations which led beautifully into the first section of the work, Landscape, featuring three poems whose words described the scene and introduced its main players.
The English words of the poems were projected onto a screen as Gao Ping played – delicate and evocative at first, the music occasionally stepped outside its ritualistic mode, plunging for a short time into agitation and anxiety before recovering its poise and introducing a costumed figure turning around in the darkness as if free-falling in space, then transfixing us with his “Xiao Dan” (young female) falsetto voice, singing the poem’s words, which firstly describe the ambient world of the music-making and -listening rituals performed by the two friends – “Beyond the bamboo, the plane trees are dry….” the vocalizing haunting, with sharp timbres and a wide vibrato. This was Dong Fei, whose appearance was the stuff of dreams, a kind of exotic angel come down to earth, his arms fluttering like wings with the movements augmented by wondrously long sleeves, to almost hallucinatory effect.
Dong Fei spoke in his normal voice the words of the second poem (I confess, for me not as interestingly as with his “Xiao Dan” tones!), which characterized the stillness of the outside world and the tremulousness of the rapport between the seven strings of the gaqin, and the readiness of the ears and the heart of the player to explore the timeless quality of music-making – “The heart quiets the sound – in it, no difference between now and then….”. With the entry of the qin-player Wu Na, the dramatis personae lineup was completed – the words of the poem filled out the symbolism – “The qin player sits, resembling the qin: the listener the strings….” We sensed a moment of readiness, and it came with the first notes of the qin, making us even more aware of the concentrated focus of the player and the stillness of both singer/dancer and pianist/listener, as the instrument played its spacious, meditative music.
And so the stage was set for the extraordinary unfolding, via music from both qin and piano, and music with poetry from the singer/dancer, conveying the story – firstly the communion of playing and listening – “Not until today do I hear music….”, followed by the realization of the musician that his quintessential artistic partner has died – “My heart gone, without a trace / Tears pour down like rain….”, and most affectingly, the wordless (but still graphic) breaking of the qin and its strings, a gesture of existentialist despair, which an epilogue attempts to interpret in a more cosmic context of continuation.
My notes, scribbled in the dark, the phrases criss-crossed and overscored, tell me only of fragments of impressions along the way of this journey, frustrating to now try and decipher. What I remember are things like the gentle dance-like music from the qin in the “Not until today do I hear music” sequence, an ancient melody Liu Shui (Flowing Water) supposedly composed by the actual musician of the legend, Bo Ya himself. As a counterpoint to this the singer either turned dancer or vice versa, alternating the haunting “Xiao Dan” singing tones with sinuous movements sillhouetted against a screen. Gao Ping at the piano then joined with Wu Na’s conjuring of exquisite delicacies from her instrument, the intermingling sounds expressing that “famous first encounter” between musician and woodcutter.
I remember, too, the pianist doing different kinds of timbal adjustment to his instrument’s sounds, such as “dampening” his bass notes in conjunction with those of the qin, the tones resonating as much as initially sounding at first, but then changing character, as each instrument’s player allowed excitability to creep into the dialogue, exuberance growing from the communication in the most organic way. A more consciously symbolic act was that of dancer Dong Fei slowly, almost ceremonially “unwrapping” his body from a kind of winding sheet, beginning his circling peregrinations on one side of the stage and crossing to the other side, leaving behind a tremulously-quivering vertical wall of unwound fabric, a poised, beautifully-controlled sequence!
The instrumental combination really showed its range and mettle over the sequence “The One Who Knows My Name”, which described and delineated the growing joy and exuberance of both player and listener at their musical communion. With Dong Fei using his haunting “Xiao Dan” voice to recite the “Nothing, not this body, nor even the clouds” verses, the instrumentalists embarked on an extraordinarily varied exchange, beginning with soft, sitar-like slides from the qin and answering resonances from the piano, playing a measure behind (like a living echo – very effective!), then developing from these sounds a “walking” motif, underscored by more “doctored” bass notes from the piano. Slowly, the rhythms grew in strength and confidence, Wu Na’s playing becoming fiercely exultant, and Giao Ping’s response mirroring the fierce joy of the mood.
How dramatic and impulse-arresting a moment it was when everything stopped! – the piano sounded a few resonant notes, and the qin spoke in a disembodied kind of voice, with the use of a metallic stick applied to the strings, itself a kind of symbolic act of severing the human touch from the music-making. Dong Fei’s ordinary voice actually needed a bit more projection, here, more “quiet” emphasis, perhaps more gestural support for the hushed tones – but the projected on-screen words helped tell the story and convey the tragedy of the musician’s shock and despair – “My heart gone, without a trace – Tears pour down like rain…” – as did the desperate, grating sounds made by the metal on the strings of the instrument.
Portentous and agitated piano sounds summoned the dancer, moving like a disembodied spirit through the air, feet seemingly transformed into wings! The movements suggested to me a kind of injured bird coming to earth, accompanied by disoriented, aimless musical sounds, moving those long sleeves firstly as great feathered extensions, then as quivering, protective shields, displaying pitiful tremolandi of grief, all of which was caught and bound up in a frenzied whirling, as the music shouted and screamed aggressively, the instruments struck and beaten rather than played. This was the breaking of the qin, the silencing of the voice, the end of the perfect union, leaving only darkness.
Had we in the audience been left with nothing more at that point, our spirits would have taken some time to recover – however, from out of the gloom came the qin’s soft notes, echoing fragments of memory, reviving the fallen dancer/singer, who listened to the gently resounding qin notes and then, in a kind of Sprechgesang consisting almost entirely of glissandi, uttered the words of the final poem: – “Dressed in green silk, plucking in vain, I let my sorrow flow….” – the qin player continued to quietly “sound” the instrument strings as the singer’s “Xiao Dan” voice continued to the end – “….Never think that, after High Mountain Flowing Water, all bosom friends must part…” The darkness slowly enfolded the qin player, and, eventually, the music – here was closure, enough to cover and soothe the rawness of the life-wounds, both real and imagined.
It seemed to me that the spaces, the lighting, the screening of text translations, the placement of figures and of instruments, and the various movements were all used to work to the presentation’s best advantage. The overall pacing and ambience of the story drew us unerringly into a world wrought of both delicate sensibility and powerful emotion. I for one felt “captured” by what I saw and heard, right through to the story’s concluding silences.
I hope these poor, uninformed words can convey something to the reader of the unique character of my experience of “High Mountain Flowing Water”, as well as express my appreciation of the efforts of director Sara Brodie and the incredible “trio” of performers, Wu Na, Gao Ping and Dong Fei, who worked with her to produce something so distinctive and special.
