Category: Reviews – Concerts

Paul Rosoman at two organs in St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Jesu meine Freude (Krebs); Passacaglia (Kerll); Voluntary IX from Op 7 (John Stanley); Improvisation in A minor, Op 150 No 7 (Saint-Saens); Dir, dir, Jehova, will ich singen (Karg-Elert); Elegy for 7th April 1913 (Parry); Postlude in D, Op 105 No 6 (Stanford)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 15 February, 12.15pm

Paul Rosoman began his recital, the first for 2012, using the chamber organ located on the right of the sanctuary, an instrument which gives the church something of the character of European churches and cathedrals in which a smaller organ existed to accompany the choir. Few in the audience would have recognised any of the music and many would not have heard of half of the composers; that would have been no bad thing except that few of the pieces would fall into the class of neglected masterpieces.

The opening piece was by a pupil of J S Bach, Johann Ludwig Krebs who was contemporary with Bach’s oldest sons. Based on the chorale ‘Jesu meine Freude’, on which Bach himself based his great motet, it could hardly have suggested a less likely kinship. It followed a routine pattern which performance on the chamber organ did little to enhance, seeming to draw attention to its slender character.

The Passacaglia by Kerll, of a century earlier, offered evidence of considerable musical imagination, employing a chromatic, downward motif that retained interest through the variety of its contours and ornamentation. Its performance on the baroque organ proved a more satisfactory than had the piece by Krebs.

John Stanley was a contemporary of Krebs; this Voluntary opened on piccolo stops that seemed to need more support, but the following fugal section became more interesting, employing the organ’s resources more fully.

Rosoman now moved upstairs to the main organ for the rest of the programme, of 19th and early 20th century music. Much of Saint-Saëns’s music is chameleon-like as the composer hardly developed a recognisable style, melodically, harmonically, or in instrumental colouring; so he’s often difficult to identify and this was the case with this Improvisation, one of seven written in 1916/17. In this, Rosoman seemed determined to dramatise the contrast with the lightly voiced chamber organ, using registrations that for me were too heavy, too brazen.

Sigfrid Karg-Elert, as the programme notes pointed out, was more popular in his life-time than after his death in 1933, though I have to claim that I encountered him in my teens through the adventurous musical interests of a school friend. In one of his Choral Improvisations (Op 65) Rosoman succeeded with a thoroughly convincing performance that displayed both the composer’s imaginative invention and the organist’s command of the organ’s resources; its character seemed to owe more to the composer’s French contemporaries like Vierne and Tournemire than to Rheinberger or Reger, or the English organists of the time.

Pieces by the two major English composers followed. A calm, unassertive Elegy by Hubert Parry was written for the funeral of a brother-in-law. It used a melody with widely spaced intervals, alternating between open and closed ranks, avoiding any false piety or sentimentality.

The last piece was by Parry’s contemporary (and rival) Charles Villiers Stanford (Parry wound up as professor at Oxford, Stanford at Cambridge). An appropriate Postlude, to conclude the recital: a bold rhythmic piece in stately triple time, sombre and emphatic, that could not possibly dispel Stanford’s reputation as apostle of Victorian grandeur and self-confidence. It was a good choice to conclude, strong structure, interestingly evolving ideas even if unadventurous harmonically. Like so many neglected and denigrated composers, both these Englishmen are seeing their reputations dusted off and found far more worthy of attention than was the opinion 50 years ago.

Though there was nothing familiar in the programme, Rosoman had given us food for thought, and for the musically curious, places to begin fruitful explorations.

 

Michael Houstoun’s musical journeyings at Waikanae

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Waikanae Music Society Inc.

MICHAEL HOUSTOUN plays music by Jenny McLeod and JS Bach

McLEOD – Six Tone Clock Pieces Nos.19-24 (world premiere)

JS BACH – Goldberg Variations

Memorial Hall, Waikanae

Sunday 12th February 2012

In her notes for the program composer Jenny McLeod pays a heartfelt tribute to the occasion and to those taking part, reserving special thanks for Michael Houstoun. Her words “a musician of such immense gifts, high reputation and tireless dedication” would have surely been echoed by those present at the recital, as we were able to sense in Houstoun’s playing something of McLeod’s “pleasure and privilege” in writing music for him to perform.

This music was “Six Tone Clock Pieces”, and was the culmination for the composer of over twenty years of work, this set completing a larger collection of twenty-four pieces. McLeod tells us that “Tone Clock” refers to a chromatic harmonic theory pioneered by Dutch composer Peter Schat, one which she adapted for her own purposes.

Having explained in her notes that composers such as Bach, Chopin and Debussy also wrote pieces in groups or multiples of 12, based on the subdivision of the keyboard into twelve semitones, McLeod dismissed further theoretical explanation of the music’s organization as “essentially of interest only to composers”, adding that she believed “structural coherence can be sensed intuitively by the listener”. Well stated.

The individual movements are evocatively titled, though McLeod admitted that these “names for things” arrived sometimes months after the music had been completed. She talked about precedents for such descriptions set by people like Debussy and Messiaen, and obviously regards her own music as similarly able to stand and be appreciated on its own unadorned merits. I did, I confess, find each of the titles a helpful starting-point for my listening fancies.

The first piece, Moon, Night Birds, Dark Pools, mixed evocation and delineation with great skill (Houstoun an ideal interpreter for such a blend of opposing sound-impulses), our sensibilities taken to the edges of a world of chromatic nocturnal fancies but keeping our status intact as spectators rather than participants in the scenario. Set against these stillnesses was the bustling energy-in-miniature of Te Kapowai (Dragonfly), which then gave way to deeper-voiced portents of oncoming day (Early Dawn to Sunrise-Earthfall), a primeval chorus of impulses gradually awakening the earth’s light, the piano tones suffusing the listener with richly golden energies, Messiaen-like in their insistence.

Haka opened darkly, the music thrustful and threatening at first, before the jazzy off-beat rhythms began rubbing shoulders with more playful figurations. Houstoun skillfully controlled the vacillating light-and-dark moods of the music, then allowed the silences of the disturbed land to creep slowly backwards. The next piece, Pyramids, Symmetries, Crevices of Sleep reminded me on paper of Debussy’s Canope, a composer’s parallel meditation upon an object honouring the dead. Of the pieces, I found this the most abstracted and self-contained, appropriately enigmatic, even more so than the final Dream Waves, with its “surfing the planet” subtitle, whose angularities and contrasts were more readily engaging on a visceral level for this listener.

At a first hearing I was fascinated by the variety of the piano-writing, the titles of the individual pieces giving me some intriguing contexts in which to place the sounds. I thought the music in general terms intensified in abstraction as piece followed piece, the last two of the set very determinedly stating their independence of any kind of glib representation whatever. Incidentally, the first eleven from the complete set of Tone Clock Pieces can be heard on a Waiteata Music Press disc (WTA 005)  available from either The Centre For New Zealand Music (SOUNZ) or the New Zealand School of Music. I haven’t yet gone back to these earlier pieces to listen, but it will be fascinating to compare them with these latest sounds of the composer’s.

Michael Houstoun gave us rather more familiar fare after the interval, a work that’s recognized as one of the cornerstones of Western keyboard literature, JS Bach’s Goldberg Variations.  This was a performance which I thought was taken in a single great breath, one whose flow of substance never let up, right to the point where Houstoun allowed the final restatement of the simple “Goldberg” theme to steal in even before the jollity of the concluding Quodlibet had finished resounding in our ears – a magical moment.

Of course, this s a work that demands a considerable amount of ebb and flow of mood and motion from the player; and Houstoun’s achievement was to encompass the enormity of variety between these moods, while keeping the audience’s interest riveted (on the face of things, an ironic circumstance with a work whose original purpose was popularly supposed to be that of putting a nobleman to sleep!). The evidence actually suggests that the Count Von Keyserlingk wanted not “a sleeping draught” as is popularly supposed, but music “soothing and cheerful in character” for his young chamber harpsichordist, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, to play. This would account for the good-humored, even robust nature of the final Quodlibet, with its menage of well-known, characterful melodies, more suitable for a kind of cheerful sing-a-long than a cure for insomnia.

Throughout I thought Houstoun’s different emphases of rhythm, touch and tone-colour illuminated each of the variations. One would hardly expect a note-perfect performance of such a colossal undertaking, but the very few inaccuracies and the one-or-two rhythmic uncertainties that sounded had that “spots on the sun” quality with which commentators used to characterized wrong notes played by Alfred Cortot. Basically, Houstoun made every note sound as though it mattered – there was nothing of the mechanus about his playing, but always a strong undertow of something organic – a varied terrain, but one with a living spinal chord.

To mention highlights of the playing might seem to be placing trees in the way of the forest – nevertheless, I found the buoyancy of Houstoun’s delivery in the energetic variations created a real sense of “schwung” – the very first variation had strut and poise, No.15 had marvellously energetic orchestral dialogues and rapid-fire triplets, terrific scampering momentum was generated in No.18, and the whirl of further triplets made No.27 an exhilarating and vertiginous experience. As for some of the slower, grander, or more meditative pieces, these were delivered with a focus and concentration which played their part in ennobling the whole work. Longest and slowest of these was No.25, in which the music takes performer and listener to depths of feeling and self-awareness that give the “return to higher ground” an unforgettable, life-changing poignancy. The aria itself was strong and confident at the outset, then other-worldly and meditative at the very end, as if spent from having finished recounting a lifetime’s experience.

Michael Houstoun is repeating this program at Upper Hutt’s Expressions Theatre on Monday 16th April. For those who couldn’t get to this Waikanae concert, I would say that going to Upper Hutt to hear two very different, but equally thought-provoking works marvellously played would be, on many different levels, a very worthwhile journey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few hours of sun as the annual concert at Government House garden returns

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Vector Wellingon Orchestra Summer Concert in the Government House Garden

Conductor: Marc Taddei; soloists: Julia Booth (soprano), Helen Medlyn (mezzo soprano), Benjamin Makisi (tenor).
The Footnote Dance Company

Government House Garden

Saturday 11 February, 2pm

There was more than the usual amount of nervousness about the weather which has disrupted things at least once before, but by dawn, no doubt after a sleepless night by the management and performers, the matter seemed to be under control, and the afternoon turned into the very special Wellington musical adventure that it has become over the past decade. This was the first concert in the grounds since the house was closed for refurbishment.

I was relieved to find it hard to find a good spot to sit on the slopes when I arrived at about a quarter to one: big adverts on the day were clearly not needed and perhaps suggested over-exuberance on the part of the sponsors, The Dominion Post.

Appropriately, Ian Fraser (replacing Kate Mead who’d been host in previous years) referred to the death two days before of notable Wellingtonian, Lloyd Morrison, who supported the arts, especially music, through recordings of much New Zealand music on his label, Trust Records; as well he demonstrated a rare determination to retain business in Wellington against pressures to relocate to the north, a loyalty few others in business bother to display.

The concert was dedicated to Lloyd Morrison

Ian Fraser’s style was different.  His carefully dissembled erudition might not have had Kate’s smile-inducing recklessness, but we learned a few relevant facts and a few opinions.

One of his better quips came as he introduced the first piece, Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio Italien (that odd mix of Italian and French). He noted that so many composers and others (Tchaikovsky was one of many) from the cold north of Europe yearned for the warmth of southern Europe; ‘rather like’, said Fraser, ‘Wellingtonians who in mid-summer, yearn for sultry climes’.

But Marc and the orchestra had decided that the gods should not be provoked by playing that was too lively and sun-drenched. As always with music that I heard when young and have retained a perhaps undue love of; so a far more exuberant performance raced ahead of what I was hearing (my landmark first performance was at a school concert by the then National Orchestra in the Town Hall, probably about 1950. By the way, how many times a year does the NZSO or the Wellington Orchestra these days fill the Town Hall or MFC with secondary school pupils?).

A Frenchman’s impression of Spain – Chabrier’s España – was livelier but, even though one doesn’t get an honest sound picture through heavy amplification in the open air, it sounded a little ragged.

It should have been enlivened by the dancing of six members of the Footnote Dance Company. They danced in front of the stage, in dark costumes and in the shade so that their efforts were largely lost, I imagine, to a great part of the audience. It was the same with their accompanying Strauss’s Pizzicato Polka and the 1812 Overture.

Earlier concerts had focussed on the music of particular countries; this time the orchestral pieces were simply from the more exotic parts of Europe. Well: Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No 4 is exotic for an Iranian; the overture to The Bartered Bride served as a great introduction to NBR New Zealand Opera’s second production in its 2012 season.

The solo orchestral offerings, indeed, were not the principal ornaments and opera arias (and duets and a trio) filled the rest of the programme. All three singers were in top form. The first bracket showcased each with a solo aria: Julia Booth opened with a lovely, unhurried and carefully enunciated Song to the Moon (in Czech) from Dvořák’s Rusalka. Ben Makisi, his voice quite without signs of strain that have sometimes been there in the past, seemed perfectly poised in the Flower Song from Carmen, urgent, lyrical. And Helen Medlyn, who was the first (and only) performer to wear colour – a beautiful, ground-trailing turquoise dress – could hardly have chosen better than Rosina’s confident ‘Una voce poco fa’ from The Barber of Seville. She leapt dangerously but successfully across wide intervals to the remote top notes.

Ben Makisi next sang ‘Where’er you walk’ from Handel’s only English opera, Semele, again with simple rhetorical sincerity. Later, with Julia, he sang the love duet from Madama Butterfly; though the blend was not perfect as each voice seemed to inhabit a separate space, they evoked the contrast between her naïve faith and his cynical sexual wants.

In the second half Makisi made a splendid impact in his singing of the favourite of every tenor, Granada; and in complete contrast, the aria from The Magic Flute in which Tamino looks on the tiny portrait of Pamina, ‘Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön’, in ringing, fairy-tale, love-at-first-sight style.

Julia’s other solo aria was from Manon – ‘Adieu, notre petite table’ – in which the coquettish, fickle Manon says goodbye to the little table which represents what she and her now-to-be-abandoned lover had for a while. This year is the centenary of Massenet’s death, a matter being commemorated in more musical-aware parts of the world. (Fraser remarked that while successful, Manon was never accepted as family entertainment in Paris. That may have been some parents’ inclination, but the Opéra-Comique where it had its first triumphant run, was essentially a family theatre. It premiered only nine years after the slightly controversial opening season at the Opéra-Comique of Carmen). Julia sang it with warm feeling, again displaying a voice of charm and beauty.

Julia also sang in duet with Helen Medlyn, the Barcarolle from The Tales of Hoffmann, in which initially there seemed a slight imbalance between the two voices, as Helen’s voice emerged with a little more fullness than Julia’s.

Helen’s other solo aria was from little-known French composer Ambroise Thomas whose bicentenary (his birth) was marked in many quarters last year. Like Gounod, his two most famous operas were drawn respectively from Shakespeare and Goethe: Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet and Faust; Thomas’s Hamlet and Mignon (a small part of Goethe’s sprawling Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre). Here was one of the couple of well-known pieces from the latter: ‘Connais-tu le pays’, one of the poems Goethe embellished his novel with, much set by many composers (the other once-popular piece is the Gavotte). Helen’s rendering was a little more worldly than one might expect from the simple Mignon, but full of character.

Finally, the sparkling (of course) Champagne chorus from Die Fledermaus was sung by all three, vividly, with plenty of gusto, with Helen taking something of a lead in pushing the tempo to its brilliant finish.

Perhaps a repeat of that might have done instead of the statutory 1812 (nothing was made of this year being the bicentenary of Napoleon’s terrible campaign) which ended the afternoon with alarming cannons that had us blocking our ears as the earth shook, making us fear that Christchurch had suddenly arrived under us.

 

 

Perry So and John Chen illuminate NZSO’s Chinese New Year

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Floating Bride, the Crimson Village (Ross Harris); Yellow River Piano Concerto (Xian Xinghai and arranged by others); Symphony No 6 ‘Pastoral’ (Beethoven)

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Perry So; with John Chen (piano)

Michael Fowler Centre

Wednesday 1 February, 7.30pm

I missed the equivalent concert last year, marking the Chinese New Year, but heard it broadcast a couple of weeks ago by RNZ Concert (on Monday 23 January). The splendid performances obtained by conductor Perry So persuaded me that I should go to this year’s concert that he was also to conduct. While last year’s concert included, as Chinese content, the suite by Bright Sheng, Postcards, and arias from Jack Body’s opera Alley performed at the 1998 New Zealand International Arts Festival, this year it was the problematic Yellow River Concerto.

It had a curious provenance, starting in 1939 as a cantata by Xian Xinghai (old orthography: Hsien Hsing-hai) based on a Chinese poem urging the people to defend the country against the Japanese invasion. Though it was at first championed by the Communists, it was banned in the Cultural Revolution (1966 – 1976) along with all Western culture. (You will find excerpts of a performance of the Cantata on You-Tube, which strike me as suggesting something rather more authentic, with greater integrity than the concerto concoction; there is also an interesting performance by young Chinese pianist Harvest Zhang of part of his solo piano version).

Xian died in 1945; but Chinese musicians were anxious to preserve Xian’s work as well as to legitimize the piano as an acceptable instrument in the face of the mindless rejection of all things from the West. Six musicians, including the pianist Yin Chengzong, worked on an arrangement of the cantata as a piano concerto and it was premiered in 1970 (the Cultural Revolution encouraged collective artistic endeavour as opposed to focus on the individual). The concerto was immediately popular, but it again fell foul of political correctness for a decade after Mao’s death in 1976.

Even though China had acquired significant familiarity with Western music before the Communists gained power in 1949, and that continued, though with its main influence through the Soviet Union from then on, the traditions were ruthlessly destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.

Xian had studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Dukas and D’Indy and his cantata had clear Western fingerprints; but following the Cultural Revolution, China’s view of the West remained clouded for a considerable time and this collective transformation of the piece in 1968 produced music that had the superficial technical, virtuosic aspects of some Western music pasted on to pseudo-traditional Chinese music that sounds simply trite and purposeless, failing to generate any sense of evolution or continuity.

So the success of the performance rested entirely on the splendid vigour of Perry So’s leadership and the whole-hearted and brilliant advocacy of John Chen’s playing: not only the dazzling speed and accuracy, but his irresistible gift of persuading us that perhaps it was better music than all the other evidence suggested. So it was understandable that an unsophisticated audience, uncultivated in the aesthetics and patterns of Western classical music (in China in the 70s, and perhaps here?), would have been moved by its sentimentality, its triumphalism, its naïve gaiety, by the sort of compulsory celebration demanded at the fulfilment of the goals of a five year plan. I suspect that Xian might have found rather embarrassing what his posthumous colleagues had done to the bones of his music.

The rest of the concert was non-Chinese.

It had begun with another performance of Ross Harris’s dazzling settings of Chagall-inspired poems by Vincent O’Sullivan, The Floating Bride, the Crimson Village. Perhaps it was not such an inappropriate offering if one sees oriental qualities in Chagall and thus in the exquisite realisations by Harris.

I heard the first performance of them at the 2009 Adam Chamber Music Festival in Nelson where they were accompanied by Piers Lane at the piano. Harris then provided orchestral settings for them which I heard in the NZSO’s May 2010 New Zealand music concert. Here they were given the clothing that they cried out for: orchestrations that were extraordinarily subtle and imaginative, and which I am sure gave soprano Jenny Wollerman a support and comfort that seemed from the beginning to be implicit in the compositions. Harris’s scoring (the brass limited to two horns, a trumpet and a trombone) is beautifully adapted to the sense and sounds of the poems and evoke with remarkable vividness the colours and fancies of the many Chagall paintings that are familiar. The orchestral writing is also so discreet, and the playing was so sensitive, that Wollerman’s voice was never troubled by undue weight or density. One tries to be aware of influences in new compositions, and of course they can be heard, ranging from Berg in ‘Tu es ma belle’ or Ligeti, Shostakovich, Stravinsky perhaps in ‘The Rabbi’ or Poulenc in ‘Give me a green horse’.

If O’Sullivan has created these poems almost, one felt, in a state of dream-induced, spiritual rapture, Harris’s music gave them a substance that seemed to takes us back to Chagall’s world in which the insubstantial becomes tangible in sound as well as in images.

The second half of the concert was devoted to the Pastoral Symphony; even though from a different era, and working in quite a different aesthetic, it seemed a far better companion for the songs than the Yellow River Concerto.  One often approaches such a well-known work as if another hearing is superfluous, it’s so completely in your head that you can hardly imagine being awakened to anything new or unexpected.

But Perry So’s performance had an immediacy and a sense of being heard totally afresh that I found it both illuminating and inspiring. Without indulging in excessive dynamic oscillation or rhythmic elasticity, he brought a sense of delight to the performance that is rare.

The first movement arrested with its finely judged dynamics and rallentandi, speed that never seemed hurried. Perry So lit each of the distinct motifs of the second movement with clarity while creating a sense of continuity and architectural integrity: again I was enchanted by the way he so visibly sculpted each phrase and used the dynamic palette so enchantingly. The speeds were brisk without sacrificing definition, individual instruments had their moments of stardom – oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon, and the dancing third movement, the storm, the gaiety, the pensive moments, created an ecstatic expression of fulfilment.

If I had wondered whether I would be much delighted by this concert, right at the start and certainly in the second half, I found myself in a state of high contentment and serenity. And so I look forward to another year of great music from this splendid orchestra.

Standard continues to rise at New Zealand Opera School at Whanganui

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Great Opera Moments 2012

New Zealand Opera School, Final concert

Royal Wanganui Opera House

Friday 13 January, 7.30pm

The 18th New Zealand Opera School at Whanganui has most of the things going for it that make some of the great music festival of Europe such lasting attractions: all it needs is a real festival to give it context.  Excellent music is performed by many talented and some highly polished musicians, in an old theatre that has been taken care of over the decades, in a city that was one of the earliest to be settled by Europeans, which has been spared too much latter-day growth that is usually accompanied by philistine destruction of what previous generations created; and yet it has developed an attractive, traditional main commercial street with plenty of cafes and restaurants, even at least one excellent little book shop.

And there are things to do during the day: one of the best provincial art galleries in New Zealand and an excellent museum; the river that till recently supplied minor shipping facilities, with a real paddle steamer that runs regular trips upstream or offers a river road with interesting Maori sites including the village of Jerusalem. A few miles north-west is the well-preserved homestead at Bushy Park with its fine native forest reserve.

This concert is almost always the first event of the year in my calendar, and it has always been a highlight for me – I think I have been to every one since it started.

In recent years the final concert has taken the form of a series of scenes cobbled together by finding linking elements in the various arias and ensembles that participants have sung.

Once again, Sara Brodie was on hand to make as much theatrical sense as possible out of hugely disparate operatic elements.  This time the theme was the opera school itself: with most of the 24 singers on stage, watching, being coached, dealing with the odd misunderstanding or dispute, as comedy elements in which the school’s director, Donald Trott, played an occasional role.

Recent schools have also succeeded in making their presence felt in the city through the work of the local volunteers and sponsors of Wanganui Opera Week (WOW), which present many concerts and recitals during the ten days, at Wanganui Collegiate School (where the school takes place) and elsewhere in the city.

After the traditional karakia, the ensemble took the stage with the Westphalia Chorale from Bernstein’s Candide. This itself presented an impressive display of the way a disparate collection of voices can be assembled in a chorus that could grace many a professional opera performance, individual voices audible, but in a way that heightened the impact and attractiveness. All the work of chorus master Michael Vinten.

Candide supplied the first solo item – Dr Pangloss’s sanguine assurance, ‘Best of all possible worlds’, sung by the one singer in suit and tie, Kieran Rayner: his assurance, clear diction and stylishness matched his attire.

Rayner returned in the second half to sing another aria from the English language repertoire: Billy Budd’s tragic acceptance of his fate in Britten’s opera, that gained its pathos with a voice of great naturalness and expressiveness; there is particular quality in his upper register.

The first of two numbers from Mozart’s Der Schauspieldirektor (The Impresario) was the trio between the two vying divas (Amina Edris and Imogen Thirlwall) and their impresario, Oliver Sewell. It’s a piece that seems to presage the flamboyant later style of Rossini and Donizetti, and they carried it off with real conviction.

Amina and Imogen returned later for two arias from the later era: ‘Ah, non credea…’ and ‘Ah! Non giunge’ from La Sonnambula. The first lacked a little of the brilliance that was more evident in the more familiar show-piece, ‘Ah! Non giunge’.

After the Mozart trio came two arias by Handel. The first, ‘Tornami a vagheggiar’ from Alcina (shortly to be produced by Opera in a Days Bay Garden in Wellington), became famous in Sutherland’s performance, and soprano Ella Smith showed a good understanding of the Handelian style. Baritone Anthony Schneider then sang from Orlando, ‘Sorge infausta’, with a sturdy, attractive voice; my ear was caught in this by the delightfully fluent playing of his accompanist, Somi Kim.

The highlight among the three Handel offerings however was from the remarkable counter-tenor, Stephen Diaz, who made such an impact in 2011. Now he sang, towards the end of the concert, from Serse (one of New Zealand Opera’s last year), ‘Se bramate d’amar’, His performance was again commanding in its presentation and overwhelming in the sheer beauty of the voice and the artistry that he has developed; no little contribution came from David Kelly’s accompaniment that was always agile, alert and tasteful.

Claire Filer moved the scene forward by round 130 years to Gounod’s Faust, in the trouser role of Siébel: ‘Faites-lui les aveux’, making play with the flowers that have been the victim of Méphistophélès’s curse.

Bellini’s I Puritani provided a splendid vehicle for what proved to be one of the most imposing voices of the evening – Moses Mackay. His performance of ‘Ah! Per sempre’ was arresting and his Italian had both real flair and clarity.

Amelia Ryman came on stage to sing Elvira’s great aria, ‘Mi tradi’ from Don Giovanni, swinging crutches. It was not till later that I could relax my efforts to ascribe them to some arcane interpretation, being told that she had suffered an accident, yet was determined to carry on. That proved thoroughly justified; her intonation is precise and she sings with great assurance.

Emma Newman also sang Mozart – the Countess’s ‘Porgi amor’ from The Marriage of Figaro. Here, her props – a bed roll and orange kit bag – did not really explain themselves to me; if her dynamics were not very interesting, her singing was well projected, accurate and emotionally involved.

Other Mozart offerings came from Isabella Moore, Elizabeth Mandeno,  and Emma Fraser. Isabella’s aria was from the other principal soprano in Don Giovanni, Donna Anna’s ‘Or sai chi l’onore’ which she got inside emphatically, if without great subtlety.

Elizabeth Mandeno opened the second part – Act II – with the one well-known (and ‘startlingly beautiful’ in the words of one writer) aria from the unfinished opera Zaïde: ‘Ruhe sanft mein holdes Leben’, given its modern popularity by Kiri Te Kanawa. It is Zaide’s first aria, sung to the sleeping Gomatz, the newly captured slave of a sultan. Elizabeth’s voice captured (ha ha) the rapturous emotion with a ringing, rather beautiful voice, and her light turquoise chiffon dress suggested the sensuality of a sultan’s harem.

Emma Fraser sang the last solo item in the concert, ‘Ach, ich liebte’ from Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Her striking, insistent delivery captured Constanze’s determination to remain true to her betrothed most persuasively.

There were several Verdi pieces too.

The first, from Tavis Gravatt was Fiesco’s lament for his dead daughter in the Prologue to Simon Boccanegra, ‘Il lacerato spirito’. Tavis, in a dark cloak, presented it dramatically, capturing rather well the complex character of Simon’s antagonist.

Act I ended with the famous chorus from Nabucco, ‘Va, pensiero’, another chance to relish the emotional punch that the 24 voices delivered.

Amitai Pati’s baritonal tenor, rich and polished, invested Alfredo’s Act II aria, ‘Dei miei bollenti spiriti’, from La Traviata, with a mixture of the untroubled rapture he feels with a touch of unease; his Italian sounded like a native, both distinct and unaffected.

Another sample of less familiar Verdi came from Bryony Williams, singing ‘Ernani, Ernani, involami’ (from the eponymous opera) the recitative is followed by a charming waltz-rhythm aria, which was both emphatic and pretty; although her voice projects almost too strongly, her diction was not as clear as it might have been.

And the final Verdi item was Azucena’s ‘Stride la vampa’ from Il Trovatore, sung by the impressive Elisha Fai-Hulton, with a voice that is firmly placed and true, making vivid dramatic sense of the extraordinary tale she tells.

Returning to items in the first part of the concert, two Puccini arias paved the way to one of the best known pieces from Menotti’s The Consul.

In Mimi’s aria in Act III of La Bohème, ‘Donde lieta’, Bernice Austin, her voice occasionally lacking control at the top, caught much of the pathos and anguish that Mimi expresses.

Angelique MacDonald’s aria was Liu’s simple, poignant declaration of her faithful love for Calaf, in Turandot; clothed in pure white, she displayed a voice that was polished and carefully managed, though it thinned a little at the top; her soft notes were particularly affecting.

Menotti is more often represented by Monica’s aria in The Medium; but here, Christina Orgias sang ‘To this we’ve come’ from The Consul, one of the crisis points in the chilling story of bureaucratic indifference. The demands in intensity and emotional extremity she handled well (even if Menotti extends the experience a little excessively), following the meaning with her intelligent variation of dynamics and colour.

Another American work, much less familiar, was chosen by Bridget Costello: the 1956 opera, The Ballad of Baby Doe, by Douglas Moore. Her voice is not large, but she delineated her complex emotions in the letter scene with mature  insight, rather successfully.

Nineteenth century opera occupied the rest of the programme.

The famous tenor aria, ‘Je crois entendre encore’, sung by Nadir in The Pearl Fishers was delivered by Oliver Sewell, lying on his back. That may have led to a slight nasal quality and to his voice thinning at the top, but it was an attractive and understanding performance.

Tom Atkins sang ‘Una furtiva lagrima’ from L’elisir d’amore; a promising tenor, though perhaps he didn’t quite capture its show-stopper character by overdoing the expressive intensity; for Nemorino, it represents a moment of wonderment, as he hardly dares to believe what he sees.

Also from the bel canto era was Rossini’s most famous female aria, ‘Una voce poco fa’ (The Barber of Seville), which Bianca Andrew sang with the help of a particularly witty accompaniment by Bruce Greenfield. (In addition to the pianists mentioned in the text, others contributed admirably: Iola Shelley, Greg Neil, Travis Baker, Grace Francis and Flavio Villani). Here was a very attractive mezzo voice that struck just the right balance between superb self-confidence and lovable charm. Hers is a voice that is even right across its range, and capable of varied colour, timbre and dynamics.

The concert ended as it had begun, with ensemble pieces from Candide: ‘Universal good’, and finally a further appearance by Amitai Pati and Emma Fraser as Candide and Cunegonde respectively, singing the classic cop-out finale, in ‘Make our garden grow’, instead of a more cynical and ethically realistic denouement.

In the circumstances, it was a heart-warming way to end a splendidly devised, produced and executed concert.

Tutors at the school were Professor Paul Farringdon (this was his seventh appearance), Margaret Medlyn, Barry Mora, Richard Greager, with Italian language tutor Luca Manghi and performance assistant Kararaina Walker.

Yet a tinge of sadness lingers, that so many gifted and accomplished singers (not to mention musicians in every other sphere) emerge from our universities and academies, to face such limited opportunities in professional music in their own country, let alone the rest of the world, faced with the utterly inadequate acknowledgement and support from the only realistic source of funding for the major performing arts – the Government.

 

Messiaen: La Nativité du Seigneur from Thomas Gaynor at St Paul’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul

Friday 16 December 2011, 12.45pm

While writing this review I was listening to the radio: choirs and audience were singing the New Zealand Anthem in the Wellington Town Hall, at the conclusion of this year’s ‘Big Sing’ Secondary Schools Choral Festival.  Accompanying the singing was – Thomas Gaynor, on the organ of the Town Hall.

It is great to see a young man of such talent take up the organ, and win numbers of scholarships, as Thomas Gaynor has.  Approximately 40 people were there to hear his playing, in this last of the year’s “Great Music” series a the Cathedral.

Olivier Messiaen’s work (The Nativity of Our Lord, in English) is quite enchanting, and full of huge contrasts.  It was pleasant to have a whole recital devoted to one composer, and one work, instead of the usual dodging from one style and musical language to another.

In addition to a descriptive phrase in the printed programme after the titles of each of the nine parts of the work, often quoted from the Bible, there was a lengthy quotation from the composer’s own writing about his composition.

The work could be described as an ecstatic utterance, but at the same time, controlled.  Much of the music is very quiet in this 1935 composition.  The composer says “Emotion and sincerity above all else”.  The note goes on to explain that there are three viewpoints: theology, instrumentation and music, and then describes which movements cover the several theological ideas.

This is followed by a description of the instrumentation, i.e. use of registrations of the ranks of pipes, after the statement “…each piece is laid out in large panels.  An economical use of timbre in tuttis of varying colours and densities…”.  Finally, he describes his means of expression, such as “the chord on the dominant”.

The first section is titled “The Virgin and the Child.   It is quietly contemplative, yet with rich harmonies, and some of Messiaen’s beloved bird-song.  Towards the end there is a wonderful ppp sequence.

“The Shepherds” come next.  The music appears simpler, with short, detached treble chords against continuous harmony in the left hand. The effect of hearing the shepherds from a distance, followed by a more vibrant passage which seems closer echoes the words: “…the shepherds returning home, glorifying and praising God.”

The third movement is entitled “Eternal Purposes”, which is appropriately slow and grand, with great clarity.  There was considerable use of the bass, with light treble accompaniment.

“The Word” featured more clustered chords, with strong pedal below, and lots of discords.

“The Children of God” was a very thoughtful section, like a continuous song in the treble, with sparse accompaniment of slow, modulating chords, including use of the pedals, which had mostly not been obvious in the previous movements.

The music became much more extraverted for “The Angels”, with thick chords perhaps conveying the celestial army.  After a brief time of flamboyance, the music died down and became angular, with sharp treble passages floating very fast into the high stratosphere of pipes, shimmering like heavenly beings.

“Jesus Accepts Suffering” featured rough, low chords, and a pedal solo interspersed between chords, leading to a loud ending.

Movement VII, “The Magi” used the pedals as the soprano solo line in a chorale-like melody with a very light treble accompaniment.  Towards the end, the treble line changed to flutes for a most attractive conclusion.

The final movement “God among us” begins with a stark, loud opening, followed by loud notes on the pedals. There is much contrast in registration and rhythms.  The texture thickens towards the end, before a magnificent, double forte concluding passage.

It goes without saying that Messiaen’s music is utterly individual, and his knowledge of and use of the organ is superbly idiosyncratic, hugely varied, and masterly.

It was a tour-de-force and a triumph for a young organist to play this hour-long work. with such sensitivity and accomplishment.  There was always lots going on for both hands and feet, never mind the changes of registration.

Messiaen, I’m sure, would have been pleased, and proud of this performance.

 

Peter Walls’s years as NZSO’s chief ends with excellent didactic performance

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in Close Encounters:of the symphonic kind

Conductor and commentator: Peter Walls

Schubert: first movement of the Unfinished Symphony; Wagner: Siegfried Idyll; Mendelssohn: Hebrides Overture

 Wellington Town Hall

Thursday 15 December, 6.30pm

The NZSO brought its year to an end (apart from a family-oriented appearance at Te Papa on Saturday) with two ‘outreach’ concerts which gave retiring chief executive Peter Walls the chance to demonstrate both his conducting prowess and his distinctive gifts as a musical communicator, with words.

The hall was almost full, with many family groups, and lots of faces unfamiliar at regular orchestral concerts. This second concert, running little over an hour, dwelt on the emergence of Romanticism in music, where Walls drew frequent contrasts with the music of the classical period which he had discussed on the previous evening. His starting point was the famous 1808 concert that Beethoven mounted of his own works including both his 5th and 6th symphonies.

His introductory scene-setting: ‘On a cold, windy and wet evening in December’ – and he paused before saying – ‘1808’, prompted the audience, laughing, to recall the conditions outside (That amazing, four-hour concert also included the 4th Piano Concerto, parts of the Mass in C major and the Choral Fantasy, Op 80!) .

Schubert’s luck was far worse than Beethoven’s of course. He abandoned his Symphony in B Minor and never heard the two completed movements at all. Walls’s lively characterisation of the changes that the Romantic movement made to composers’ aims and expectations in music would have alerted the audience, particularly those who’d been at the earlier concert, to the greater attention to the expression of feelings as formal classical shapes, still very important, were no longer music’s main preoccupation. And though the orchestra did not play anything of Schubert’s very Mozartian 5th Symphony, Walls pointed to the big step towards Romanticism that Schubert had taken in the very few years between it and the ‘Unfinished’.

Walls used the occasion to point interestingly to other shifts that were taking place during the Romantic era: one was the elevation of the composer to a position approaching stardom, no longer merely a servant of a court or cathedral, but an admired artist who could, by the 19th century, support himself, independent of patrons (Handel and others, especially in the field of opera, had done so at least a century earlier). The atmosphere of sanctity, silence during the performance, dimmed lighting, the slow move against clapping between and during movements: all these were signs of the changes in the view of ‘serious’ music, and of composer as ‘genius’ during the 19th century.

Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll took matters a great deal further – fifty years further in fact, far more than the distance between Beethoven’s and Schubert’s symphonies. Though he talked about the derivation of the Idyll from the music Wagner was writing for the Ring cycle at the time, he was also at pains to draw attention to the four parts of the work and to illustrate the ways in which the ideas evolved. It also served to remind the audience about the orchestra’s scheduled performances next year of Die Walküre, the biggest such undertaking since Parsifal in 2006.

The last piece in the concert moved back 40 years from Wagner’s piece. Even though Mendelssohn and Wagner hardly saw eye to eye on musical aesthetics, the Hebrides Overture also served to show how classical forms could be turned to the service of musical scene-painting or narrative. The orchestra was reduced in size for these concerts (strings numbering 12, 10, 8, 6, 4 and merely double winds); not even the Wagner piece was written for a full symphony orchestra – as a charming birthday present for his wife, Cosima, it was originally scored for 13 players. Yet in the Town Hall the sound was big and rich, and while skeptics might suggest that with an orchestra of such quality these pieces played themselves, there was no doubt that under Peter Walls, the players were investing the music with full commitment and a warm Romantic spirit.

The orchestral climate
Peter Walls’s nine years as CEO have seen the orchestra’s standing domestically and internationally greatly enhanced; but there is no room for complacency. Though it was the Vector Wellington Orchestra that was the focus of the most immediate concern over likely funding threats by Creative New Zealand, more serious collateral damage to the NZSO has to be considered in the longer term. The findings of a study by an overseas orchestral consultant of New Zealand’s professional orchestral sector is awaited with some trepidation. One of the orchestra’s difficulties, a result of its extensive touring demands, is that it actually presents fewer separate programmes as distinct from concerts, than for example does the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra.

Parochial pressures from two other major cities that have often argued for the dismemberment of the NZSO and distribution of the NZSO’s round $13 million of State funding to them may be quiescent at present but remain serious. The ambitions of misguided rivals ignore the fact that an orchestra with a 65-year history that is widely considered the best in the Southern Hemisphere, makes a vital contribution to New Zealand’s reputation as a civilized state that can demonstrate excellence in more spheres than (sporadically) in sport.

 

Adventurous and educational leaving-taking by NZSO’s conductor-chief executive

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Close Encounters of the Symphonic Kind 1: “Classical Drive:

Mozart: Symphony no.31 K.297 “Paris”; first movement
Beethoven: Symphony no.1 Op.21; first movement
Beethoven: Symphony no.7 Op.92; second movement
Mozart: Overture to The Magic Flute K.620

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Peter Walls (conductor and speaker)

Wellington Town Hall

Wednesday, 14 December 2011 at 6.30pm

The hour-long concert was devised, and proved to be, a good introduction to classical music for those who wanted a taste to see if they would like to plunge in.  The concert was free, and the hall almost full.

Surely not many CEOs of orchestras are also conductors; it is probably rare for a symphony orchestra Chief Executive officer to conduct the orchestra as a swan-song to his job.  Of course, Peter Walls is an experienced conductor, but mainly of smaller ensembles.

The orchestra, a smaller one than the full band, was led for these concerts by Lyndon Johnston Taylor, Assistant Concertmaster, soon to return to the United States.

The tasters to several major works by Mozart and Beethoven were introduced by Walls in amusing and informative fashion.  He avoided the use of technical terms, and held the attention of the appreciative audience, telling us the reasons for the works’ composition, as well as something of their content.

The playing of the Mozart symphony was vigorous, with plenty of contrast in the gentler sections.  Conductor and orchestra certainly brought out the detail, and the playing had rhythmic vitality.  I enjoyed the energy of the performance.

Peter Walls demonstrated how we instinctively know harmonic sequences – but in the stress of the moment he messed up his example, ‘Away in a manger’.  Nevertheless, the characters of tonic and dominant were explained well, with the image of taking off and landing a plane, cruising at altitude, encountering turbulence etc., a worthy vehicle for illustrating sonata form.  (In turn, I have used sonata form to describe to people knowing music, how to write an essay.)

Beethoven’s first symphony is obviously his nearest to the period of Mozart, and its first movement had a theatrical feel about it in this performance.  It was a lively performance that periodically swept me away, even though the work was very familiar.  As Beethoven’s contemporary critic said, it had ‘a wealth of ideas’.

At the end, the trumpet made a great sound, adding guts to the already thoroughly committed performance.

More Beethoven came next, in the form of the second movement of the seventh symphony, first performed 13 years after the first symphony.

This movement must have appeared novel at the first hearing, opening with no violins – cellos and basses alone giving a spooky sound which was very effective.  The violas enter with a theme counterpointed to that of the lower strings, then the second violins enter in like fashion, and finally the first violins do the same.  After this, the sumptuous clarinet comes in with a significant melody.

Both the programme note and Peter Walls mentioned the use of this movement as theme music for the film The King’s Speech, and the ‘fusion of poignancy and determination’ which attracted the film-makers.  It made me think of the vulnerability of both men, due to their handicaps: Beethoven’s deafness, and King George VI’s stammering.

Hearing just one movement of each symphony, preceded by Peter Walls’s introductions (along with short examples of motifs etc. from the orchestra) sharpened perception of Beethoven’s skill and invention more than sometimes happens when listening to a whole symphony.

The overture to The Magic Flute was a great choice for a concert such as this.  As Peter Walls explained very well in his introduction, it contains humorous characters, and themes to match, and also a more serious side, including Masonic symbolism; Mozart was a member of a lodge.

This serious side, Walls spelt out, was illustrated by the unusual use of trombones in the music; they were normally employed at this period only in religious music.  Here, they underlined the quasi-religious and serious aspect of Masonic tenets.

In this glorious music, the woodwind were especially notable.

The concert ended on a high note, and thanks were expressed to the Wellington Community Trust for their sponsorship of the series of two concerts (the next evening’s was to feature Schubert, Wagner and Mendelssohn in Close Encounter 2: “Romantic Longing”.

For those with a printed programme there was added value: a Glossary at the back of common Italian “Speed Words” (allegro etc.) and “Dynamics” (piano, fortissimo etc.), and a short essay “The Language of classical Music in 500 words”, by Milan Kundera.

 

 

A variety of carols in a variety of guises at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Joy to the world: a selection of Christmas music

Robyn Jaquiery (piano), Clarissa Dunn (soprano), Ryan Smith (accordion?), Paul Rosoman (organ), Andrew Weir (trumpet), Ariana Odermatt (piano), Karyn Andreassend (soprano), Tre-Belle (Karyn Andreassend, Jennifer Little, soprano, Jess Segal, mezzo soprano)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 14 December 2011, 12.15pm

Unfortunately, I missed the first item on the programme, hence the question mark above, which is based on the biographical information in the concert programme.  That item was a traditional French song, Le Sommeil de l’enfant Jesus.

Rhapsodie sur des Noëls, an organ piece by Eugene Gigout (1844-1925) was played by Paul Rosoman on the main organ, in the gallery.  The piece featured variations on the Christmas carol we know as O Come all ye Faithful (Adeste Fidelis); it was very effective.

The next item was given in the programme as Gloria in excelsis deo (the Latin words of the refrain) by Handel, but known to us as the traditional French carol; in English, ‘Angels from the realms of glory’.  It was performed in the gallery by Paul Rosoman and Andrew Weir.  I did not find the arrangement appealing; the complicated variations on trumpet and organ with percussion made me wish for the sung version.

Clarissa Dunn announced the items (many of which involved colleagues of hers at Radio New Zealand), but they needed to be made more loudly and slowly in a large and resonant building like this.  So often we have young musicians performing well in this splendid venue, but they have not taken the care to think how their speaking must be projected for everyone to hear.  It does not require shouting, but maintaining the voice at an appropriate level, and slowing down, rather than speaking to the front few rows only.  The printed programme thanked Clarissa for programme notes, and they may have been better in that form, rather than spoken.

Her singing of ‘He shall feed his flock’ from Handel’s Messiah was lovely; the piano accompaniment was not.  Ariana Odermatt is a harpsichord specialist, and I assume was intending to play in a style that would be appropriate for that instrument, without sustaining pedal.  But the accompaniment was written for small orchestra, not harpsichord alone.  Playing on the baroque chamber organ in the church might have been more appropriate.  The piano is not authentic for this music anyway, so why play it as if it is?  The result was ugly.

The same applied to the next item, also from Messiah: ‘Rejoice greatly’, sung with great clarity by Karyn Adnreassend.  It was a fine performance from the singer, with clarity, clear words, and florid passages executed admirably, though there were a few occasions of dubious intonation.

The piano accompaniment was better.  However, I consider that if one is playing the piano, surely it should be played in a way that is idiomatic for that instrument, not in a way that is idiomatic for another instrument.  Yes, use authentic style but not to the point where ugliness distracts from the music.

I was interested to note at the next evening’s Opera Society concert, that Amber Rainey accompanied Handel and Mozart using the pedal judiciously; the result was tasteful, musical, and appropriate to the grand piano.

Clarissa Dunn followed with a beautifully sung Maria Wiegenlied (lullaby) by Max Reger, accompanied on the piano by Paul Rosoman.  Here, the accompaniment was written for the piano; it matched the voice well.

Rosoman played the symphony from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, employing the gorgeous flute stops on the small organ.  It, too, was written for orchestra, but the versatility of the organ substituted well.  It was well played, and most enjoyable – what a delicious piece of music!  However, something needs to be done about the creaking organ stool!  Maybe it needs to be screwed up more tightly, or perhaps it requires oiling.  Certainly, it needs some attention.

This was followed by a traditional Catalan carol ‘El cant dels ocells (song of the birds; no note as to who arranged it), performed by Odermatt and Dunn.  Here the piano was played using the pedal.  It was an attractive song, sung with flair and expression.

Brahms’s organ music has never appealed to me particularly – perhaps the piano is more his forte.  Yet Rosoman made a good job of his chorale prelude ‘Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen’, on the main organ.  The piece was short and sweet.

Next came that saccharine number O Holy Night by Adolphe Adam, (1803-1856, famous also for the score of the ballet Giselle).  This was performed by the vocal trio Tre-Belle, with Ariana Odermatt on the piano.  The trio sang without scores, and their voices matched well.  However, one singer consistently turned her back on part of the audience, to face her colleagues.  Those people would not have heard her. The piano sounded wooden, with not enough change of emphasis or phrasing.  It might have sounded better, in accompanying three voices rather than just one, with the lid open.

The concert, which was rather long, ended in jolly fashion with the carol Joy to the World. The music is allegedly by Handel, but in this case it was sung (with audience joining in), in an arrangement by John Rutter, with Andrew Weir on trumpet in two of the three verses, and Paul Rosoman playing the main organ.

A Britten Christmas from Nota Bene

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

A Britten Christmas: Alla Marcia; A Hymn to the Virgin; Simple Symphony; Rosa Mystica; Sweet was the Song; The Sycamore Tree; Saint Nicolas cantata.

Nota Bene Chamber Choir, conducted by Michael Vinten, with soloists, and orchestra, Amber Rainey and Ken Ryan (piano) and Douglas Mews (organ) in Saint Nicolas.

Sacred Heart Mary Cathedral, Hill Street

Sunday, 11 December, 2.30pm

Hearing two programmes of Britten’s choral music in two days (less than 24 hours) may be some kind of record, apart from at Aldeburgh perhaps.   Saturday evening’s concert by the Tudor Consort in the same venue featured two major choral works; Sunday’s a third: Saint Nicolas, Op. 42.  Not as many people attended this concert as were at the previous evening’s, but for a sunny Sunday approaching Christmas it was a good-sized audience.

Sunday’s concert interspersed choral items with movements from the composer’s Simple Symphony in the first half, while the second half consisted of the cantata Saint Nicolas, written in 1948, to marvellously beautiful, musical and evocative words by Eric Crozier, who also wrote opera libretti for Britten.  It was written for the centennial celebrations of Lancing College in Sussex.   The saint is co-patron saint of the College, and of children, sailors and scholars.  He flourished in the fourth century, in what is now Turkey, being Bishop of Myra.

As I said in a review in April, Nota Bene’s performances are marked by accuracy, finesse and elegance.  One could add commitment, and dramatic qualities where required.

The programme commenced with the rather inconsequential Alla Marcia, an early work of Britten’s.  I found it rather dull, and poorly played by the scratch orchestra.  However, there were hints in Britten’s writing of greater felicities to come.

The choir, with semi-chorus behind the audience, under the gallery, performed A Hymn to the Virgin.  Especially for those of sitting towards the back of the church, this was very resonant.  The choir generally produced lovely tone; Sacred Heart is particularly good acoustically for voices, but perhaps not so fine for stringed instruments.  It is astonishing that Britten wrote this quite complex work, based on a medieval poem, when he was only 17 years of age.   The antiphonal words in Latin (the remainder being in English) were extremely effective.

The Simple Symphony Op. 4 is a joyous work, each movement having its own delightful character: Bourée; Pizzicato; Sarabande; Finale.  The movements were played separately between the short choral items.  The idea was, presumably, to divide up the latter from each other, thus giving both the singers and the audience breaks.  However, the performance lost both the continuity and the contrast of the symphony.  The start was ragged, but the playing improved as time wore on.

Rosa Mystica, written in 1939, was new to me.  To quote one of the choristers to whom I spoke later, “It’s like dabbing paint onto a canvas – a layered piece of different colours”.  The poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins is full of imagery – another illustration of Britten’s feeling for fine words.  Much of the work was quite monotone, yet with the parts in layers.  It was beautifully sung, but not as appealing to me as most of his other writing for choirs.

The pizzicato second movement of the symphony was played very well on the whole, and conveyed its charm, the emphases in the phrasing given due weight.

Following that, the choir sang Sweet was the song; short, and sweet indeed.  The evocative, floating music for choir over a fine, dramatic solo from choir alto Stephanie Gartrell offered an attractive contrast in timbres.  Much of the solo was quite low in the voice, but the soloist’s rich voice came through well.

The slow third movement of the symphony provided the best playing so far; the cello solo was very fine.

As with the previous choral item, The Sycamore Tree was an early piece of the composer’s choral writing from the 1930s that was revised for publication in the 1960s.  The words are better known (and set to music by other composers) as I saw three ships.  It is a very lively piece, with plenty of variety.  A wide range of dynamics gave energy to the wonderful writing for voices.

The Finale from the symphony ended the first half.  The contrasting moods were communicated well, but intonation was often suspect.  Nevertheless, the orchestra made a good showing overall, particularly later, in Saint Nicolas.

Having sung Saint Nicolas several times with the Orpheus Choir in the 1980s, I have a particular affection for the work.  By its nature it is a dramatic piece, so it was good to see Nota Bene branching out, with the help of one of its members, experienced opera producer Jacqueline Coats, into enacting scenes, moving around the auditorium, and singing parts of the cantata from memory.

While the orchestra played the short orchestral introduction, the choir came on in mufti, representing peasant people, singing.  Then St. Nicolas (Benjamin Makisi) appeared through the door from the foyer (i.e. amongst the audience) and sang with boldness, vigour and drama in his tenor voice.  His solo is filled with sensitive, imaginative settings of Crozier’s wonderful words.  The choir responds with a graceful yet forceful utterance, “Help us Lord! To find the hidden road…”

The second section is titled “The Birth of Nicolas”.  The women narrate details of the birth (which they sang from memory while performing movements that acted out the words), while young Nicolas (Mark Wigglesworth) sang, or perhaps intoned, on one note, the words “God be Glorified” after each little episode.  His voice was even, clear, and true.  The bouncy, even jolly nature of the writing for the women showed Nicolas to be a robust character, and contrasted with the plainsong-like nature of the boy’s part.

Section III, “Nicolas Devotes Himself to God” describes Nicolas’s life in more of Crozier’s elegant words (“The foolish toy of time, the darling of decay…”) until the fourth part: “He Journeys to Palestine”, in which a storm while Nicolas is on board ship is illustrated most graphically in the music, both for the men of the choir (who sang from memory) and for orchestra.  This was very well done for the most part, but one section was rather messy – I suspect the pitch there was too low for most of the men.  A women’s semi-chorus in the gallery added its onomatopoeic contributions most effectively, although the orchestra was a little too loud for the semi-chorus to be fully heard.

Makisi sang “O God!  We are weak, sinful, foolish men…” with feeling, while the following solo “The winds and waves lay down to rest…” echoes in the music the change of mood with the change of weather.

Part V, “Nicolas Comes to Myra and is Chosen Bishop” features the choir singing in harmony (as against much counterpoint and layered writing) with organ, in perhaps my favourite bit of the work: “Come, stranger sent from God!”  It did not disappoint – strong, warm singing and blazing organ tones. This section ends in complete contrast, with intricate counterpoint, including the exhilarating “Amen!  Serve the Faith and spurn His enemies!”

After the choir and congregation sang “All people that on earth do dwell”, came the sixth section: “Nicolas from prison”.  In places Ben Makisi seemed unrehearsed; incorrect words (there were a lot to sing) and poor diction marred his performance, also a lack of commitment to the character.  For example, he sings “Yet Christ is yours – yours!”  This brought forth no mood-change, no irradiation of the texture, no great evocation of heavenly love.  The following words concerning God’s mercy were reflected in a change of music to placid cadences, though that was less represented in Makisi’s singing.

“Nicolas and the Pickled Boys”, section VII, features brilliant writing for choir and orchestra.  The character of winter cold and famine is wonderfully evoked, as is the triumph of the boys springing back to life.  Mark Wigglesworth was joined by Roman Dunford and Marcus Millad to walk through the church hand-in-hand to sing their Alleluias.  This section was quite moving, the more so for being acted, and sung from memory.

The penultimate section is titled “His Piety and Marvellous Works”.  This is sung entirely by the choir (using scores), its broad sweep of sound encompassing the many years of Nicolas’s being Bishop of Myra and the events that marked them.  The benign tone from the choir was echoed in the orchestra.  The choir disposed itself on all four sides of the church, giving added emphasis to the breadth of Nicolas’s ministry, and the different manifestations of his influence and miracles.  The final phrases “Let the legends that we tell” were a marvel of both counterpoint and harmony.

Finally, we reached “The Death of Nicolas”.  This section was characterised by noble settings of Nicolas’s words in committing his life to God, while the choir sings the canticle “Nunc Dimittis”.  The choir and congregation sang “God moves in a mysterious way” to end a marvellous, thrilling performance.

Britten’s imaginative writing was always faithfully rendered by the choir – can one ask for more?  The contribution of the orchestra was very significant, and especial mention must be made of the organist (Douglas Mews), the pianists (Amber Rainey and Ken Ryan) and the percussion section (Grant Myhill and Ben Hunt) for their major parts in the cantata.  Britten’s writing for the piano is individual, and always crucial to the mood and importance of the overall sound and texture.

Throughout the concert Michael Vinten directed his diverse forces admirably.  They included the audience (“congregation” in the printed programme), who joined in the two hymns prescribed by Britten.

Jacqueline Coats justifiably took her bow with Michael Vinten and Ben Makisi; her efforts resulted in a more meaningful experience, and was in the tradition of Britten’s Noye’s Fludde – I’m sure he would have approved.