Category: Reviews – Concerts

Keyboard magic from Jun Bouterey-Ishido

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Jun Bouterey-Ishido (piano)

Chamber Music Hutt Valley

JS BACH – English Suite No.1 in A BWV 806 / RAVEL – Le Tombeau de Couperin

BARTOK – Out Of Doors Suite (1926) / BRAHMS – Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel Op.24

St.Mark’s Church, Woburn, Lower Hutt

Sunday 24th July 2011

If you haven’t already done so, find a space on which to write down the name Jun Bouterey-Ishido, a space you’ll remember and can refer back to when the rest of the world catches up with this young pianist’s remarkable talent. Evidence was amply provided by this recital, filled with good things, and even more praiseworthy in that the pianist was able to make a fairly inertly-voiced instrument “sound” with plenty of the different music’s varied characters.

Jun Bouterey-Ishido sprang to pianistic prominence in 2008 when he won the Kerikeri National Piano Competition, impressing the judge, Australian virtuoso pianist and composer Ian Munro, with artistic maturity and potential far beyond his years. Born in Christchurch, Jun had studied previously with Diedre Irons, and then Peter Nagy, Gao Ping and Judith Clark, before being admitted to the Masters Programme at the Liszt Academy in Budapest, where he’s presently continuing his studies with Peter Nagy.

I was fortunate enough to have heard him play in the final round at Kerikeri, remembering in particular an exciting rendition of Ravel’s Alborado del Gracioso, and a powerfully taut reading of Schubert’s A minor Sonata D.784. Experiencing his playing again almost three years later, what freshly struck me was his engaging physical fluidity at the keyboard – if anything, even freer than before, the gestural choreography more expressive, but still in a way that focused entirely on what the music was doing. And although his aspect and mien remained remarkably boyish (most evident when acknowledging applause, his slight diffidence with that process at odds with his ease and command at the keyboard), there was a deeper, more profound effect about his playing that immediately linked his listeners’ sensibilities with the world of the music, transcending time and place, youth and experience.

It was this immediate connection which I found particularly memorable, especially throughout the recital’s first half – the pianist had evidently been thinking over his program, because he announced a change of order before he began, reversing the positions of Bartok’s Suite Out of Doors, and Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, more a case of relating these works to their other companions, I think, than to each other, and with better results. So, after a richly-hued Bach English Suite we were able to enjoy a twentieth-century refraction of further classical elegance in the form of Ravel’s parallel tributes to friends killed in the Great War, as well as to his illustrious countryman, Couperin. I couldn’t imagine a more winning amalgam of freedom and elegance, clarity and colour as we got from Bouterey-Ishido in the  Bach work. Right from the beginning the playing had that timeless quality of sculptured marble, but with the life within awakened and activated. Perhaps for some tastes his playing might have been thought too plastic, too freely-conceived (but I would urge the doubters to consider the word “Baroque” with all of its connotations!) – for me he had the gift of being able to express the “inner life” of his phrasing with, in places, the liquidity of something by Debussy, yet convert the whole into a solid, enduring structure.

Playing like Bouterey-Ishido’s I find hard to “explain”, except to use generic phrases like “infectious” and “spontaneous” – his command of rhythmic gait seemed to have an entirely natural kind of impulsive motivation, a symbiotic process of music and performer creatively interacting. In fact this Bach-playing  gave me so much pleasure, i now find it hard to tear myself away from thinking and writing about it. Fortunately, Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin inhabits a world of similar poise and elegance, partly through its ostensible connections with earlier times, and partly due to the fastidiousness of the work’s creator. Here I noticed from the outset how, more than with his Bach-playing, the pianist’s decorative impulses were somehow tighter, their “filigree whiplashings” reminding me of the playing of Rachmaninov’s in his recordings – the notes are all there, but they’re delivered with the swiftest and deftest of touches! Bouterey-Ishido has the technique to generate larger-scaled vortices of impulse, whirlpools of sound that can clear like torrents of water cascading over rocks and turning to spray, an exhilarating effect at the conclusion of the Prelude to the Suite. A beautifully-modulated Fugue was followed by the perennially bitter-sweet Forlane, the rhythms kept beautifully steady, allowing the sounds to “flesh out” the available spaces and suggest plenty of orchestral colour in places.  And the Rigadoun was, here, a joyous irruption of energies set against moments of introspection, different states of being rubbing shoulders with one another.

But the emotional heart of this suite is the Menuet, delicately begun by Bouterey-Ishido with finely-poised tones, inexorably moved along in processional mode and expanded into a grand archway of feeling – from these big, rolling sounds the emotion was nicely gathered in, the mask of feeling re-adjusted and the delicacy of the opening re-established, concluding with a wistful, almost other-worldly tremolando figure. By contrast the brilliant Toccata carried both rhythmic drive and rhapsodic asymmetry along its exuberant course, well captured by the pianist, revelling in the opportunities for orchestral weight and brilliance.

After this, the “earthiness” of Bartok’s Out of Doors Suite came as a bit of an aural shock, albeit an exhilarating one. No aural quarter was given by Bouterey-Ishido throughout the opening “With Drums and Pipes”, the succeeding “Barcarolla” seeming almost to creep out from behind the shelters after the opening onslaught, establishing uneasy undulations and dark-browed, short-breathed melodies. The pianist resolutely took to the insistent patterning of the “Musettes” – a strangely claustrophobic evocation for an out-of-doors piece. By contrast the dark of night’s spaces was all-enveloping in Bouterey-Ishido’s hands throughout “Musiques nocturnes”, the loneliness exacerbated by snatches of folk-melody wandering throughout the dark. All the stops were pulled out for the concluding “Chase”, the pianist’s reserves of strength and energy put to overwhelming, almost cataclysmic use.

The interval gave us all a chance to properly digest the already meaty substance of the first half’s fare, before tackling what had seemed on paper like the recital’s main course, Brahms’ magnificent Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel. If not the Everest of the romantic piano literature, the work belongs among the highest of the pianistic Alps; and it requires a robust amalgam of virtuoso bravura, visionary zeal and poetic sensibility to bring off. One of the work’s difficulties for the performer is judging the extent to which each variation ought to be characterized according to its own intrinsic nature while making certain of the overall continuity, the inexorable progress towards the imposing fugue that snow-caps the structure’s magnificence. How much virtuoso bravura, classical clarity, or poetic feeling is needed at any given point, and with watt effect upon the overall structure? Happily for the performer, the “greater than ever can be played” rule applies to this work with a vengeance – its possibilities and potentialities for different expression are immense.

Had I been blindfolded and taken to this recital I might not have guessed the pianist’s age throughout the first half of the concert; but throughout the Brahms piece I found myself thinking, “A young man’s performance….” Everything was very direct, presented surely and unequivocally, an approach which brought out a certain purposeful unity to the variations, even if it sacrificed some of the subtleties and depth of expression of some of the pieces. The very opening, played with bright, forthright insouciance, had an extrovert quality that reflects a youthful view of the world, and the variations were entered upon with that same spirit of joie de vivre, knitting the theme and variation together, and completely eschewing the “motorcycle kick-start” launching of that first variation (a flash of virtuoso delight in rhetorical gesture which bubbles to the surface now and then in some performances). Bouterey-Ishido commanded the big guns necessary to deal commandingly with the octaves of Variation 4, though I thought he rushed No.7, smudging and losing a bit of detail. Here, and in the delicious Variation 10 a touch of impatience indicated that perhaps not every note of this work has quite gotten under his “skin”. The second of two deep bell-tolling variations was splendid, however, with the pianist again “snapping” his decorative figurations excitedly and urgently.

Against the occasional moments where I felt the music propelled a shade over-impetuously (the “hunting horn” Variation (No.14) had an almost manic, rather than an heroic, aspect) were the episodes, such as the Sicilienne-like No.18, Mediterranean in impulse, but with a lovely warm Germanic feeling brought to the playing; and the beautifully elusive, rather Schumannesque No.21, whose performances inhabited the music’s spaces with the conviction of complete ownership. Bouterey-Ishido fearlessly plunged into the waters of the final three variations, taking them in a single breath, perhaps sacrificing some of the music’s cumulative power to momentary excitement, but certainly with exhilarating results, the occasional splashiness part of the process. And his playing of the fugue was splendid, nicely arched towards the moment when the cascading bells break forth and flood the sound-vistas with a wonderful sense of arrival and fulfillment.

There’ll come a time when Jun Bouterey-Ishido’s playing of this work will fuse even more deeply with the music – but equally to be cherished is the here-and-now of his youthful whole-heartedness and remarkable physical and technical ease at the keyboard – I know of no other pianist who looks more “at home” with himself and his world when playing. The recital was rounded, in Shakespeare-like fashion, by “a little sleep” – a short but beautiful and dreamy piece by Kodaly whose title I missed hearing, thanks to rain which had begun to fall heavily onto the church’s roof.

The 16th century fashion for the 40-part motet: Tudor Consort sing Striggio and Tallis

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

 

The 40-part motets of Striggio and Tallis and other liturgical music by Tallis

The Tudor Consort conducted by Michael Stewart, with Peter Maunder (sackbut) and Douglas Mews (chamber organ)

Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Hill Street

Saturday 23 July, 7.30pm

Tallis imitates Striggio
On Saturday’s Classical Chart, broadcast on Radio New Zealand Concert, presenter David Morriss took special pains to introduce the CD sitting at No 1; it was a 16th century motet by Italian composer Alessandro Striggio. The piece, sung on the top-ranked CD by I Fagiolini, was written to be sung by 40 distinct voices, each with his and her own part: ‘Ecce beatam lucem’.Striggio was court composer to the Medicis in Florence and the motet was written for the wedding of a Medici to the daughter of an Austrian noble family, so the music was appropriately composed by an Italian to words by a Viennese court poet (in Latin, naturally).

Morriss departed from custom by telling us that he was a member of The Tudor Consort which was to sing the piece in Wellington’s Catholic Cathedral that very evening, and suggesting that this live performance would be even better than that of I Fagiolini. Enough Wellingtonians (and perhaps others) heard the message to pour into the city on a cold, wet evening, making parking difficult in all the Thorndon streets in the neighbourhood of the Cathedral.

The basilica was packed and the unusual step was taken of opening the organ gallery for the overflowing crowd.

The Consort’s history with the Tallis motet
Now this was a special occasion for The Tudor Consort: 2011 is the choir’s 25th anniversary; at their 20th anniversary, for which founding director Simon Ravens had came out from Britain to conduct one of the concerts that celebrated the occasion. It was the one that included the 40-part motet, ‘Spem in alium’, by one Thomas Tallis; it was in St Mary of the Angel’s church (the first and rather spectacular concert of the mini-festival had been in The Great Hall of the former National Museum – now the school of arts of Massey University).

The Tallis motet had been among the works sung by the choir in its early years – it was conducted during a return visit by Simon Ravens in the International Festival of the Arts in March 1992 – when their concerts routinely filled whatever space they inhabited. I was at that performance, the first ever in Wellington and perhaps in New Zealand. Even more astonishing was the encore – a repetition of the whole motet.

Even without Ravens’ electrifying pre-concert talks, which were similarly packed out, the Tudor Consort’s renown was making a widespread impact.

A peak in Wellington’s musical life
 It was just one of several things, however, that generated a high level of activity and excitement that pervaded Wellington’s musical scene at that time, which was bringing large numbers into choral and other concerts.

There were several contributing developments in the mid-1980s: the inauguration of the marvellous (at least in its first decade) international arts festival; the emergence of a vigorous Wellington opera company; the proliferation of chamber music; the increasing contribution to the city’s music by the two separate tertiary music schools through concerts and an annual opera production by each school; the determined growth and energizing of the Wellington orchestra; and the blossoming of new and the reinvigoration of many existing choirs, stimulated in part by Simon Ravens’s brilliant success with The Tudor Consort.

I might also add that the fact that The Evening Post allowed me, from 1987 to the end, and several assistant reviewers, to cover a great deal of the music, is likely to have been of real importance. Typically we contributed around a dozen music reviews each month.

The 40-part motets
Recent research has shown that it was probably the visit of Striggio to London in 1566/67 to sparked Tallis’s interest in writing something comparable.

At this concert the two motets were sung: the Striggio at the beginning and the Tallis at the end.The Striggio was accompanied by sackbut (Peter Maunder on the trombone) and organ (Douglas Mews); it began interestingly, with certain men’s voices penetrating over others, and it was this character that made the experience rather unique in choral performance. I suspect that conductor Michael Stewart’s concerns were with individual detail and not with a conductor’s normal concern: the blending of voices, and it was the very variety of timbres and voice qualities that were audible throughout both the 40-part motets. So the varying size and grain of voices were free from the usual discipline of uniformity. It added enormously to the delight of the whole performances.

During the Striggio all forty singers were arrayed across the front of the sanctuary, but for the Tallis, only 10 were in the front and the rest were spread along the side aisles so that the conductor spent his time turning from front to rear, from side to side, signaling the bewildering entries accurately.

Stewart in the front of his choir presents a lively image. Not given to overly fussy gestures, it is the raised arms that seem to be carry the music to the place where the composers may have imagined their music was directed. His demeanour reminded me of cartoons of Berlioz on the podium, clearly drawn by an artist filled with admiration for the music he was inspiring. Stewart’s gestures seemed to have a similar inspiring effect on his singers.

The Striggio motet was quite short, perhaps six or seven minutes (I didn’t time it) and, compared with the Tallis, with fewer extended passages in which one could sense the full complexity of all those individual voices. The earlier piece seemed to allow more concessions to the style of the usual polyphonic choral setting with far fewer parts apparent.

While the longer more confident lines of interweaving counterpoint of Tallis create an air of greater permanence and moment because there is a denser feeling in his writing.

The other Tallis pieces
Only about half of the 40-strong choir remained to perform the shorter ecclesiastical pieces by Tallis that occupied the rest of the concert.

One could have thought the various short liturgical pieces were merely fillers between the two motets that had surely attracted the crowd. But all those who came because they genuinely loved Renaissance polyphonic choral music would have enjoyed the variety of music that this one composer could bend his talent to: the more complex music for the Catholic ritual compared with the more straight-forward, vertical harmonies, of the pieces for the Anglican rite. The English words of the ‘Magnificat’ and ‘Nunc dimittis’, are set to music that is conscious of the congregation’s comprehension of the words. The organ accompaniment was significant, even in tempo, though not constant as with a traditional hymn; the ‘Nunc dimittis’ ended with a curiously unusual final cadence.

Being conscious of the difference between the Anglican and Catholic (and both Tallis and Byrd had to tread carefully through the switch-back, lethal, religious ferocity that punctuated their lives) threw a new light on the Latin settings of responsories and antiphons where the spiritual impact was sought more through purely musical characteristics – sonority, flowing contrapuntal lines, the pitting of high voices against a bed of men’s more earthbound voices. The two settings of ‘Salvator mundi’, offered an interesting contrast within the traditions of the Catholic liturgy, the second appearing more sonorous and enjoying the warmth of its polyphony, with perhaps a little more attention to the blending of voices – just to show they could do it.

The ‘Loquebantur variis linguis’ caught the attention through its carefully discordant setting of those words, suggesting the polyglot talents of the apostles. ‘Candidi facti sunt’ seemed to play with the listener by starting successively in three different manners, eventually giving space for the tenors’ central plainchant performance.

‘O sacrum convivium’ used the current styles of polyphony in more orthodox manner, and it allowed the audience to enjoy, if it had escaped them before, the chance to hear harmonies involving more sustained contrapuntal passages.

The last motet, ‘Te lucis ante terminum’, more like a hymn in three distinct stanzas, was set as plainsong in the outer two stanzas and polyphony in the second. These examples of Tallis’s music demonstrated further, both the composer’s versatility as he navigated the reefs in religious storms, and the continued, constantly renewal of the choir’s talented singers and their series of imaginative and enterprising directors.

We await a performance of Striggio’s ‘Ecco si beato giorno’, reported to be the mass for 40 to 60 voices from which motet was evidently drawn.


Wellington Orchestra’s unfinished business

Posted on by Peter Mechen

UNFINISHED SYMPHONIES – Schubert, Mozart, Berio

SCHUBERT – Symphony No.8 in B Minor D.759 “Unfinished”

MOZART – Piano Concerto No.24 in C Minor K.491

MOZART – Concert Aria “Ch’io mi scordi di te….Non temer, amato bene” K.505

BERIO – Rendering (1989)

Vector Wellington Orchestra / Marc Taddei (conductor)

with: Diedre Irons (piano) and Margaret Medlyn (soprano)

Wellington Town Hall

Saturday 23rd July 2011

This concert both played the game and bended the rules in the most interesting possible way – we had what’s become a common orchestral concert format of introductory work, concerto and symphony, but most interestingly constituted and creatively “placed”, so that the feeling of “the same old formula” was nicely avoided.

Basically, it was a Schubert/Mozart evening, but with a major contribution from a more-or-less contemporary voice. This was the Italian composer Luciano Berio, who in 1989 produced an orchestral work, Rendering, one which took the fragments of Schubert’s uncompleted work on a Tenth Symphony as the basis for a three-movement work. “Not a completion or a reconstruction” of the Symphony, declared Berio, but a “restoration” – and the work gave an uncanny feeling of two intensely creative impulses separated by two hundred years coming together for a kind of reawakening.

Instead of an overture beginning the concert we had an intensely dramatic performance of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony, which, together with Mozart’s C Minor Piano Concerto K.491, suggested a preponderance of seriousness throughout the concert’s first half, a state of things which didn’t eventuate to the expected degree, I thought, more of which anon. The second half was similarly innovative, beginning with Mozart’s best-known Concert Aria for soprano, Ch’io mi scordi di te…Non temer, amato bene K.505, and concluding with Berio’s Rendering.

So, our expectations were nicely-tempered by these prospects; and the concert got off to the best possible beginning with a performance of the eponymous “Unfinished” Symphony which seemed akin to giving an old masterpiece a restoration job of its own – Marc Taddei encouraged his orchestra to play out in all departments, less of a rounded “Germanic” sound and more a thrustful, characterfully Viennese texture, lean and detailed, the brass occasionally risking obtrusiveness but generally making their presence refreshingly felt. With several on-the-spot contributions from timpanist Stephen Bremner, and wonderfully soulful playing from the winds (magnificent individually and as a group throughout the concert), the work here “spoke” with a directness and candour which too many routine performances over the years in concert and on record have sadly blunted. I ought to mention the strings, too, characteristically playing well above their weight (those “slashing” off-beat chords just before the second subject had such ear-catching focus and determination), pulsating the first movement with energy and life throughout. And I’ve never experienced a sense of the abyss opening up so ominously at the beginning of the development section as in this performance – those lower strings evoked such darkly disturbing realms as to bring home in no uncertain terms the tragic subtext beneath the music’s surface energies.

Those energies enabled the musicians to make more of the contrasts between the movements, with the opening of the Andante measured, mellow and easeful. Apart from a slight hiccup with the final note of her “big tune”, Moira Hurst’s clarinet playing sounded as beautifully heartfelt as we’d come to expect, the phrases echoed as memorably by the other winds, before being savagely pirated by baleful brass,whose forceful chordings over the string figurations were a striking feature of this performance. Near the end of the movement Taddei conjured from his players some gorgeously-coloured modulations (what Schumann called “other realms”) before the music resignedly returned to its destiny. If a couple of pairs of applauding hands in the auditorium broke the spell at the work’s end somewhat abruptly, the impulses were sound and their intrusion forgivable – I thought this was, through-and-through, a magnificent performance.

Mozart’s C Minor Concerto K.491 promised more storms and stresses, though it was largely the orchestra that agitated the musical argument, Diedre Irons’ piano playing taking a more stoic, in places relatively circumspect manner and aspect. Though the tensions weren’t repeatedly screwed to their utmost by such an approach, there were compensations in Irons’ detailed and rhapsodic exposition of the music, alive to every nuance of sensitive expression, apart from a measure or two towards the end of the movement where a brief moment of piano-and-orchestra hesitancy seemed to slightly blur the lines of the argument for a couple of seconds. In certain places, Irons, Taddei and the players superbly realized the music’s power, those dark coruscations of interchange at the heart of the development dug into with a will, while elsewhere, such as in the orchestral lead-up to the first movement cadenza, there was drama and thrust aplenty, soloist and orchestra each taking it in turns to galvanize the other.

Pianist and conductor played each of the concerto’s movements more-or-less attacca, which worked well, and emphasized the symphonic character of the work’s overall mood. The slow movement stole upon us almost out of nowhere, Irons’s playing allowing the melody to speak directly and simply to the heart, adding the occasional decoration to phrase-ends when the melody is repeated. The orchestral winds really showed their mettle in this movement, Taddei encouraging plenty of urgency and dynamic variation from the players to contrast with the piano’s simplicity, making for some glorious, chamber-music-like moments of lyrical interaction. After this, the “coiled spring” opening of the finale was like an awakening from a dream, the urgencies taking different shapes and forms, until the winds adroitly turned the argument towards open spaces and festive activity for a few measures, valiantly but vainly attempting to elude the demons that continued to stalk the music right to the end, through the piano’s chromatic scamperings and the orchestra’s desperate concluding flourish. I could have imagined sterner, bigger-boned piano playing in this work, but Irons’ approach brought a degree of vulnerability to the musical discourse, one that could be readily applied to human experience.

After the interval more Mozart, but with a difference – the adorable Concert Aria written for one of the composer’s favorite singers, Nancy Storace (there’s conjecture as to whether she and Mozart were lovers for a brief period, though the supposition is based on conjecture rather than proof – Mozart wrote in his dedication of the work, “…for Mme Storace and me…”). The Aria, Ch’io mi scordi di te…Non temer, amato bene K.505 is notable not only for its intense operatic expression, but for its beautiful piano obbligato, which, in a real sense, is a “second voice”. Margaret Medlyn told us in a program note of her early involvement with the work, an experience which she says has never left her. There was no doubt as to her intense involvement with the emotional range and depth of the aria – Medlyn is always extremely satisfying as a performer on that score – and if the tessitura at the very end sounded a bit of an ungainly stretch (rather like an ocean liner trying to negotiate a treacherous piece of water) the visceral effect of the singer’s total involvement was thrilling. Diedre Irons, Marc Taddei and the players gave Medlyn all the support she needed, making for an uncommonly involving vignette of intense listening and feeling.

And so to Luciano Berio’s Rendering, which would, I think, have been an intriguing prospect for most listeners, myself included. I liked the concept (explained by Marc Taddei before the work began, using the analogy of paint that had fallen off an original work) of a “restoration” of Schubert’s original sketches for an unfinished – yes, ANOTHER one! – symphony (there are also piano sonatas…..but we won’t go into that). Berio himself explained that his work was like modern restorations of medieval paintings, such as frescoes, which aim at reviving the old colours within, but without trying to disguise the wear-and-tear of time – meaning that gaps would inevitably be left in the original (as with the famous Giotto frescoes in Assisi). Berio, however, interpolated other material into these gaps (bits of “other” Schubert and bits of Berio himself), colouring the sounds with that of a celeste (of the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” fame), the delicate, rather disembodied effect imparting a somewhat “other-worldly” ambience to these passages, as if the composer’s shade was sifting through the assembled material, muttering his thoughts to himself.

The original material is very recognizably Schubert – the composer left a considerable amount of material (which was, for whatever reason, made public as recently as 1978 in Vienna, the date being the 150th anniversary of Schubert’s death). I scribbled down many impressions of the music, noting the reminiscences of works I knew – after the fanfare-like opening, near the beginning, there’s a lovely clarinet solo, reminiscent of the Third Symphony, for example – a bit later, the ‘cellos have a melody like that in the “other” Unfinished, to quote another example. But interspersed with these things, and the ghostly, celeste-led interludes, the music was quite forthright, even swashbuckling in places, and hardly, one would think, the utterances of somebody preparing for an early death.

The second movement, Andante, made a more sober impression, the oboe and bassoon playing adding plangent tones to the argument, the mood ennobled by a theme on the full orchestra, then suddenly taken to that “other world”, in this movement the sequences seeming to me in places to combine Schubert’s actual melodies with a counterpoint of Berio’s “renderings”, more so than in other parts of the work. A pizzicato chord sparking off furious activity suggested the finale’s beginning, featuring a tune with what sounded like a Scottish snap, and orchestral energies building up to the kind of joyous rhythmic repetition found in the finale of the Ninth Symphony. The “ghost music” and the composer’s more forthright original material vie for attention throughout, before the work ends with a big, muscular forte orchestral statement – emotional health in the midst of worldly privation!

What can one say to all of this, except Bravo! to Marc Taddei and the Vector Wellington Orchestra!

NZSM’s Baroque Workshop at St Andrew’s lunchtime concert

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Music by Monteverdi, Jacob van Eyck, Dario Castello, Georg Böhm, Telemann, Bach

Amelia Ryman (soprano), Brendan O’Donnell (recorder), Oscar Laven (bassoon), Tom Gaynor (harpsichord and organ)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 20 July, 12.15pm

The Baroque Workshop took over, at relatively short notice I imagine, from other advertised performers; they revealed no evidence of being caught with little preparation time.

Baroque here stretched as far back as Monteverdi to as recent as Bach.

The Monteverdi was a quite short song written for one voice with harpsichord accompaniment from a set called Scherzi Musicali, of 1632. Amelia Ryman, with Thomas Gaynor at the harpsichord, tackled it with a pretty extensive array of ornaments which tended to tax her at times, affecting her ability to control dynamics and articulation; and she needs to watch her vibrato. But the general delivery was most attractive.

The concert opened with a solo piece for recorder by Jacob van Eyck who was born in 1590. It was played in a most accomplished way with careful and subtle dynamics and admirable agility by Brendan O’Donnell. It was so attractive that it struck me as a piece that might well be taken up by flute players looking for an alternative solo piece to Syrinx.

The variations from a Chorale Partita by Georg Böhm, an important early influence on Bach, was played on the church’s chamber organ by Gaynor. Though it proved a typically formal set of variations (only some of them), the varied registrations, shifts between common and triple time and enough flexibility of rhythm, lent them considerable interest. The distinct tempi of each variation indeed suggested the dance movements of a suite: hence the title ‘Partita’ seemed justified.

The next piece drew all three instruments together: recorder, bassoon and organ, in a ‘Sonata seconda à sopran solo’ by Dario Castello, born the same year as Van Eyck. The combination of the organ’s lower register and the bassoon created a warm, rich sound, and subtle rubato helped enliven its interesting, occasionally contrapuntal character.

If there were moments in the Castello when Oscar Laven’s bassoon seemed to be struggling, the reality became clearer in the Telemann Sonatina in A minor (two movements); the baroque instrument, with limited recourse to the use of keys, is clearly difficult to play and to produce even and comfortably articulated sounds. Laven did well, but I had to ask myself whether there are some cases where the pleasure of hearing authentic sounds from a very challenging early instrument is really worth the trouble.

The rest of the concert was Bach. Three short items: two arias from cantatas and a Duet from the Third Clavierübung, which contains a large collection of organ pieces. The other three Clavierübungen are for harpsichord (the first for example contains the six Partitas BWV 825-30). The third volume is known sometimes as the German Organ Mass; it opens with the famous ‘Saint Anne’ Prelude and Triple Fugue, BWV 552 and contains many chorale preludes – all those between BWV 669 and 689; and then four duets (two-part inventions), two of which (BWV 802 and 804) Gaynor played here. His performance might not have been immaculate but on this small organ they emerged with admirable clarity, with all their ‘art that conceals art’ as evident as possible (without lapsing into oxymoron). It occurred to me that I don’t hear the chamber organ, purchased through the enterprise of the former minister John Murray and organist Roy Tankersley at least 20 years ago, often enough.

The cantata arias were ‘Höchster, mache deine Güte’ from No 51 and ‘Höchster, was ich habe’, from No 39. Amelia sounded more at ease in these than in Monteverdi; the flowing lines with less call for florid decoration.

Both were quite short, but expressive of a sanguine optimism not always the stuff of Bach’s sacred music, and they balanced the purely instrumental pieces very happily; and the second aria, with its charming recorder obbligato, brought the concert to its end and stimulated a particularly warm audience response.

A popular lunchtime miscellany from three sopranos at Old St Paul’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Janet van Polanen, Hannah Catrin Jones and Lydia McDonnell –
sopranos

Love Songs: traditional and popular, and opera arias

Old St Paul’s, Mulgrave Street

Tuesday 19 July 12.15pm

Three sopranos whose taste and dispositions span the song repertoire from classical through the musical and film hits to old-fashioned ballads and folk songs took their turn at Old St Paul’s regular Tuesday lunchtime concerts.

The early part of the concert included a few opera arias.
None of the three singers would lay claim to polished operatic voices that would meet the expectations of the professional world of opera, though all have studied professionally, but they were nicely placed in a concert of this kind.

Lydia McDonnell sang Cherubino’s aria, ‘Voi che sapete’ from The Marriage of Figaro, charming, though it might not quite have caught the tone of that randy adolescent boy; later she sang most agreeably, Schubert’s Serenade (from his final song cycle, Swan Song).

Hannah Catrin Jones also sang a Mozart aria, Zerlina’s comforting song to Masetto, ‘Vedrai carino’, from Don Giovanni, offering him balm for the injuries the Don has inflicted, with a degree of the coy suggestiveness that the words make plain. Hannah’s second aria was from La Bohème – Musetta’s ‘Waltz Song’ – ‘Quando me’n vo’ which she sang nicely though she took it rather slowly and it was arch rather than simply flighty and self-admiring.

Janet van Polanen’s classical song was the evergreen 18th century aria, ‘Se tu m’ami’ by Alessandro Parisotti (which was one of the many pieces published under the more famous name Giovanni Pergolesi). Though her brief précis of the song was delivered too quietly for most of the audience to hear (the church’s acoustic is not generous for most speaking voices) she caught its sentiment very well.

Janet had opened the recital with a song that was more the predominant style – a charming and still popular song ‘Where do I begin?’, from a classic film of its kind – Love Story – with its soundtrack composed by Francis Lai: it was slightly uneasy, as an opening piece often is, but idiomatic. Later, Janet sang other songs in similar vein: ‘Out of my dreams’ from Oklahoma and Max Steiner’s ‘My own true love’ that became and remains a favourite after appearing in Gone with the Wind.

Hannah Catrin Jones opened her own contributions with Vaughan Williams’s setting of D G Rossetti’s ‘Silent Noon’ from his song cycle The House of Life. She at once displayed an attractive voice, confidently, though the acoustic again made her words a bit indistinct and a mishap with a page of music would have unsettled her.

In a charming, unaffected way Hannah sang At Dawning (‘I love you’), a song by Charles Cadman that became famous in the 1920s; Cadman’s early reputation derived from his interest in and promotion of American Indian music. And later, reflecting her Welsh ancestry, Hannah sang Joseph Parry’s ‘Myfanwy’, with her father Conrad McDonnell accompanying on the guitar: well done. All the other songs were sympathetically accompanied by David Trott at the piano.

After her Mozart and Schubert songs Lydia McDonnell’s later songs included Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Love changes everything’, the best known number from his musical Aspects of Love, a sort of narrative song that she handled rather nicely. And then unaccompanied she sang with touching conviction her last solo – the traditional Irish song ‘My Lagan Love’ dating from the time of harsh English repression.

Together, the three gave the audience an agreeable, rather different experience, with the three voices blending interestingly: ‘Love can build a bridge’, a somewhat sentimental country ballad that had its hour of fame in the early 90s; then ‘Cockles and Mussels’ and finally ‘Pokarekare Ana’, which brought a well-planned and charmingly executed recital to an appropriate end.

Cello and piano at Jewish Community Centre

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Bach: Sonata in G, BWV 1027;
Kodaly: Sonatina for cello and piano;
Bloch: From Jewish Life and Méditation Hébraïque;
Debussy: Sonata for cello and piano;
Martinu: Sonata no.2 for cello and piano;
Piazzolla: Libertango

Paul Mitchell (cello), Richard Mapp (piano)

Myers Hall, Jewish Community Centre, Webb Street

Sunday, 17 July 2011, 3pm

Myers Hall was a new venue to many of us at the concert on Sunday; it proved to be of a good size for a chamber music concert, and with its wooden parquet floor and high ceiling, its acoustics were very satisfactory.

However, if it were to be used more regularly for concerts, a better piano would be required. At times I thought the elderly Marshall and Rose baby grand to be out of tune, but it may just have been its age that made it sound oddly at times, particularly in the Bach. Richard Mapp played with appropriate style and technique for the baroque music (the instrument often almost sounding like a harpsichord), in contrast to his full-bodied playing of the other works, but the former manner of playing seemed to emphasise the piano’s difficulties.

Having just heard a radio talk about recorded Bach works, that made a comparison between performances that were ‘straight’ and those where the performer(s) introduced some individuality to the interpretation, I was delighted to hear the nuances, especially of dynamics, that these musicians brought to their performance of the Bach composition. It was a very satisfying performance; after the third movement’s logical, peaceful nature, the allegro finale was played with great panache. In my head I hear my pianist/organist mother saying (as she does on a private recording I have) ‘The piano does not bring out the notes of the tune as does the organ or the clavichord’. Mapp defied this dictum pretty successfully.

Apart from the Debussy sonata, the remaining works on the programme were not familiar to me. It was a pleasure and interesting to hear so much music that is seldom played, not least the Kodaly sonatina. After a lovely piano introduction, there was much lyrical music, and strong playing from both musicians, providing a complete contrast with the Bach work.

Bloch’s From Jewish Life is in three sections. The first, ‘Prayer’, was very beautiful. The piano starts by just playing chords while the cello plays melody, then a different piano theme that echoes and balances the cello one enters. In the second part, ‘Supplication’, one could almost hear the cello uttering words, since the melody followed very much the inflections and rhythms of language. Finally, ‘Jewish Song’ had a very spare and Middle-Eastern-sounding tonality. There was a plaintive quality to it, and it was very sensitively played. Again, it was a great contrast with the Bach sonata. This was passionate music. The full tone from the cello was very fine.

Paul Mitchell gave spoken introductions some of the items. He said that he thought that the Debussy sonata was more Spanish than French in character. Certainly the first movement has a very rhythmic piano part, which is dominant, then the cello reasserts itself. Then there are passages of great delicacy, played with feeling and finesse.

The second movement (Serenade) features lots of pizzicato on the cello and staccato on piano. It is full of character – and it was given characterful playing. The finale, which follows without a break, had the instruments swapping notes and dynamics with each other, followed by a strong, assertive ending. As the programme notes stated, it was more spirited, and had elements of folk-song. This was a thoroughly convincing performance.

The Méditation Hébraïque of Ernest Bloch starts quietly and lyrically, with a repeated bass note on the piano. The central section, especially passionate on the cello, embroiders a pentatonic theme, and then the music dies away quite dramatically.

The most substantial work on the programme was Martinu’s sonata. A fiery allegro with difficult passage work admirably executed by both performers began this 1941 composition. There was a long section for piano only, as there was in the second movement (largo) also. This movement ended very calmly, with a sad undertone.

The allegro commodo (comfortable) finale was very fast, with repetitive figures on the piano which would have pleased the minimalists. Both cello and piano parts were very energetic and spirited. A cello cadenza was complex and demanding, to end this dynamic and exciting work.

The Piazzolla ‘free tango’ was fast, but good-tempered. There was much upper fingerboard work for the cellist, and off-beat rhythms abounded.

A good-sized audience heard two performers who played with superb technique and musical sensitivity – and Mapp was blessed with a skilful page-turner.

Schubert from Houstoun at Paekakariki – Matching Poesies

Posted on by Peter Mechen

SCHUBERT – Piano Sonata in G Major D.894 / Piano Sonata in B-flat D.960

Michael Houstoun (piano)

Mulled Wine Concert Series / Memorial Hall, Paekakariki

Sunday, July 17th, 2011

Waiting outside the Memorial Hall in a July afternoon’s wintry sunshine at Paekakariki was for me a kind of poetry in itself, colored partly by the expectation of hearing live performances of two of Schubert’s greatest piano sonatas, but also by the ambience of the open spaces, rugged hills to the east, and the beach and distantly lovely Kapiti Island to the west. I’ll doubtless be accused of “event-dropping” here, but I was reminded by all of this of my visit to the Aldeburgh Festival in Suffolk (too many years previously that I care to number!), where one finds a similar “homely” aspect to many of the concert venues, and the same rural outdoor “far-from-the-big-city” atmosphere that gives to the whole enterprise such distinction.

Inside the hall at Paekakariki, the excitement-buzz was palpable, the sense of an occasion somehow made more manifest by the community-hall nature of the venue – a kind of “music is where you find it” spirit that, as I’ve said, heightens the special nature of the event. I was not aware of Michael Houstoun having any previous significant association with the solo piano music of Schubert, and so this for me seemed to add to the concert’s specialness. Naturally, I knew Houstoun had recently performed with tenor Keith Lewis the great “Winterreise” song-cycle, as well as the “Trout” Quintet as part of Chamber Music New Zealand’s “Schubertiade” – so I found myself keenly anticipating the pianist bringing his own unique qualities as a performer to music I’ve loved for much of my listening life.

First up, and I think rightly so, was the G Major Sonata D.894. Like its recital companion, the B-flat Sonata, it’s a work whose first movement alone, when played with the repeat can dwarf in sheer size and scope the movements which follow, especially in the hands of an interpreter who emphasizes the music’s potential for what Robert Schumann famously called its “heavenly length”. Perhaps taking its cue from Schumann’s observation, there’s a school of interpretation that advocates the most spacious of tempi over certain of Schubert’s movements, more pronounced, I think, than with any other classical composer. But as with all great music, there are diametrically opposed notions regarding how it should be played, ranging from those rooted in abstraction and severity of symphonic form, to ideas which advance the feeling that Schubert’s work should all be thought of as subservient to song, since (following this line of thinking) he was a lyricist, and not symphonic in outlook, and that his structures should be regarded as little more than somewhat naively-extended melodies.

Michael Houstoun’s playing of the sonata’s opening suggested a course that took into account both structural awareness and lyrical impulse on the composer’s part. We heard at the outset phrases given plenty of air and space, richly-toned and with leading lines sung out, along with strong, well-focused chordings and clearly-etched melodic patterns, suggesting that the pianist took the idea of Schubert the long-term symphonic thinker seriously, though without, it must be said, going to the extremes of profundity attempted by the likes of pianist Sviatoslav Richter. Houstoun, to my ears, sought from within the movement a judicious balance between profundity and momentum that found the best of both the intellectual and emotional worlds of the music. Throughout the introductory paragraphs he differentiated the different voices with considerable sensitivity, withdrawing his tone for the minor-key utterance, and warming it with slightly more body for its repetition in the major mode – as well, he beautifully energized the music at the point where it consciously begins to pulsate, the melody subtly detailed (a slight finger-slip in the filigree right-handed runs possibly the result of the phrasing being, I felt, a shade too “stiff”, more an etched pattern than a dance), the rhythm given sufficient girth to remain relatively light upon its feet. I thought Houstoun’s observation of the repeat just that wee bit more exploratory and expansive – if, this time round, the filigree runs in the right hand seemed freer and more dance-like, there was also an added hymn-like quality to some of the more chordal utterances, very much a feeling, one could say, of a “song of the earth”.

The rest of the movement was as fine in Houstoun’s hands, with only a touch of “bluntness” at some of the phrase-ends suggesting that there were still a couple of corners of the work he hadn’t yet negotiated with complete ease. Largely his approach to the darker, stormier development was lean and forward-looking, more agitated than tragic in feeling, building up the chordal sequences impressively, but playing with translucent tones that never threatened to crush the music under its own weight. The lead-back to the opening was nicely “breathed”, as was the coda, the music’s “homecoming” aspect given plenty of songful feeling. The slow movement’s first few phrases energized the stasis of the first movement’s conclusion, almost too much so, I thought at first, thinking that those wonderful phrases weren’t being encouraged to “flower” with sufficient poetry – but as the music progressed, so did I warm more to the playing, thanks to the flexibility and subtlety of the pianist’s rubato. The music’s key-change brought a big-boned contrast, but also some beautifully pliant phrasings in the gentler responses – Houstoun actually surprised me with his readiness to yield in places, getting a lot out of the music with his beautifully nuanced contourings.

I liked the Scherzo’s characterful dancings, the pianist bringing out the music’s lilting qualities and playing the grace-notes that punctuate the line with great “point” and care. He illuminated the melodic line of the Trio with nicely-stressed harmonies and counter-lines, enjoying the music’s contrasts as the scherzo’s chords lurched back into the soundscape. As for the finale, the playing had all the rhythmic buoyancy one could have wished for (was there a touch of hesitancy over the transition into the “running” sequence?), with everything nicely pointed and dovetailed; and then, during the stormier minor-key sequences, plenty of invigorating “schwung” to muscle up the interplay and keep the momentum going right through to the opening’s return. After these exertions, the coda was like balm for the senses, a hugely satisfied exhalation which Schubert (and Houstoun) seemed to invite all of us to join in with. At the end of all of this there was general pleasure in demonstrating our appreciation of the performance, though I have to say that Houstoun’s playing of the sonata divided opinion in my party, a situation which always invigorates discussion and sharpens all kinds of critical evaluations, both in the process and its conclusions. A friend whose opinion I respect thought the playing up to this point “all head and no heart”. But I couldn’t agree, as witness what I’ve written so far; and, for myself, I thought it was a truly praiseworthy performance.

Having said this, I had to admit, at the conclusion of the concert’s second half, that the B-flat Sonata demonstrated Houstoun’s interpretative depth and identification with the music to an extent that the G Major’s performance, good though it was, didn’t quite achieve. From first note to last, Schubert’s final and greatest piano sonata brought out what I felt was a powerful and comprehensive understanding on the pianist’s part. Even when I wanted parts of the music played a slightly different way (softer, more yielding paragraphs in one or two places), Houstoun’s conviction regarding what he was doing was such at the time that his interpretation carried all before it, the result being an entirely convincing and marvellously played performance.

Right from the beginning, the music seemed to carry whole worlds of inward feeling, Houstoun’s treatment of the chordal melody sounding and feeling almost Brucknerian in its weighty expansiveness, the vistas opening up to accommodate the tones generated by those big repeated chords which grow beneath the melody’s repetition. Not as nuanced as, and much more insistent than the music for the G major Sonata, these were more direct and forthright sounds, dealing, as Houstoun himself would probably say, in fundamental material – and no more so than at the repeat, where it might seem to the uninitiated listener as though the basic fabric of the music is being threatened by some kind of “horror from the deep” – a critical episode in the work’s discourse, here brought off by the pianist with suitably awe-inspiring power and concentration. The development brought layer upon layer of intensification, leading to what I’ve always regarded as the “stricken” passage, repeated chords sounded underneath a minor-key melody, before the opening theme returns, stalked by its trill ominously rumbling away in the bass. By the time the opening was properly reconstituted, the work had truly become “road music”, the vistas opened right out in Houstoun’s hands, the momentum kept up, the soul inexorably continuing upon its journey, bequeathing us those richly voiced chords at the movement’s end.

What a lovely colour Houstoun gave the opening of the slow movement! – its tolling bell aspect was beautifully and sensitively weighted, equivocally poised between worlds of foreboding and resignation. The music carried easefully into the major-key episode, the pianist’s rhythmic trajectories both focused and flexible throughout. Contrasting with this was the scherzo’s lightness of touch, set around and about an angular trio with Houstoun bringing out some startlingly effective bass-line accents. The playful and propulsive finale also harboured contrasting energies, the explosive mid-stream outbursts very much in keeping with the movement’s volatile character, as were the angular polyphonics leading up to the final energy-gathering pauses, and the torrents of abandonment which concluded the work. And my friend’s reaction to Houstoun’s playing of the B-flat Sonata? – words to the effect of “Well, he really nailed that one!”…..and when all’s said and done, I can’t really sum it up better than that!

Rewarding recital of 20th century British organ music Friday at St Paul’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Great Music 2011:  Music by William Mathias, Britten, MacMillan, Lennox
Berkeley, Kenneth Leighton and Howells

Richard Apperley (organ)

Cathedral of St Paul

Friday 15 July, 12.45pm

A programme of entirely British organ music comes as a bit of a surprise for it is normal to think of the repertoire as dominated by Germany and France.

The second surprise was how attractive and interesting the recital was, especially as it was entirely from the 20th century (though coming from one with no special familiarity with a great deal of British organ music of earlier periods, I suppose that might be a provocative remark).

That was due as much to the organist Richard Apperley who is assistant organist at the cathedral and whose familiarity with and command of this organ must be near unparalleled.

William Mathias’s Processional had already begun when I arrived and I was sorry not to hear it all; it was enlivened by the use of bright, sparkling stops, some with a tight reed quality; the impact was fresh, inoffensively diatonic, non-portentous, welcoming, speaking of a lively musical mind that was concerned to arrest and entertain the listener, and the last few bars did that with its surprising shift of tone. The skill and buoyancy of Apperley’s playing persuaded my organ-diffident companion that he should stay the course.

I’m not familiar with Britten’s organ music at all; yet, as with almost everything that composer wrote, this impressed. However, my unfamiliarity felt forgiven after I’d searched in the usual places to find out about this piece. An article in the Musical Times in 2004 remarks that Britten’s only organ piece known till recently was the Prelude and Fugue on a Theme of Vittoria, which Apperley played later. But then in 2003 three pieces were discovered, two of them incidental music for a 1938 play by Max Catto called They Walk Alone which ran for six months in the West End and later on Broadway. Britten had taken the score with him to New York in 1939 and left it there when he and Pears returned to Britain in 1942. It and other organ pieces were presumably left in the hands of Elizabeth Mayer, the German émigré in New York who maintained an artistic salon for émigré writers and with whom Britten and Pears stayed. Her collection was given after the war to the Britten-Pears Library at Aldeburgh, and evidently not thoroughly examined. The author of the Musical Times article, Timothy Bond, prompted the search for it and helped get the pieces published.

The Prelude to They walk alone had a sombre character, meditative and somehow comforting though without the slightest hint of self-reflection. The opening and closing of the swell box seemed to lend it a feeling of humanity, of breathing, or of rising and falling level of attention. The organist managed to suggest that he was playing a piece written by a real organist who knew how to draw idiomatic and intriguing sounds from the instrument; just as Apperley did.

The second piece by Britten, Prelude and Fugue on theme of Vittoria (Victoria in English, the theme from the motet Ecce Sacerdos Magnus) was rather more robust, at least in the Prelude which was a vigorous call to attention after which the fugue began quietly and became, not only more and more complex, as fugues do, but more and more extrovert and arresting, and complex. I have to confess to an obscure feeling of dislike for Britten in an abstract sense, on account of the person perhaps, but invariably, once the music starts, I am fascinated, drawn in, and it was the case here.

I’m not aware that Britten was anything of an organist, though a brilliant pianist, but this piece suggested an ear keenly attuned to the organ’s capacities, sensitively exploited by the player here.

There were also two pieces from Scottish composer James MacMillan: again, I had not encountered him as an organ composer. The first piece was entitled White Note Paraphrase. My ears did not allow me to believe that the piece was confined to playing the white notes. A remotely suggested, uneasy Scottish motif existed in an entirely different sphere from the accompanying series of single notes from an attenuated stop. As with all MacMillan’s music, there was a strong feeling of individuality and musical sense-of-purpose MacMillan’s second piece was Gaudeamus in loci pace, which again made use of two very distinct lines of thought and sound; a murmuring bass line below a sequence of rising silvery notes which at the end simply descended into silence. Both pieces prompted me to explore this area of a composer whose political attitudes I am responsive to.

Hyperion’s website tells me that Gaudeamus was written in 1998 to celebrate the golden jubilee of the re-foundation of a Benedictine Abbey in the diocese of Aberdeen; that it’s based on a plainchant melody sung as the introit on the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Lennox Berkeley was ten years older than Britten (incidentally, he was William Mathias’s teacher at the Royal Academy of Music). His Aria is one of three pieces for organ of 1966-68, entirely approachable, quietly lyrical, with what’s been described as a ‘bitter-sweet tunefulness’.

The least familiar name to me was Kenneth Leighton’s; raised in Yorkshire, he spent most of his life teaching in Edinburgh. His Paean was not of a particularly strident or clamorous kind, opening with bright tone clusters (in an attractive vein) it seemed to be designed in some complexity, for a great cathedral lit with gorgeous, kaleidoscopic stained glass. It struck me as a particularly interesting piece, individual in character and of genuine musical inspiration that this performance did full justice to.

The recital ended with the oldest music, the First Rhapsody by Herbert Howells in 1915, opening with a chorale-like theme in a slow crescendo, hinting at the presence of a grand melody which failed to materialise, eventually being somewhat smothered in dense harmonies, perhaps suggesting the impact of the First World War on the composer . But things clarify and lighten and the work ends in a calm, meditative mood, rather beautifully, and an awareness of the circumstances of its composition seemed, in hindsight, to give it more meaning.

So this was a recital that introduced me to an area of music with which I was largely unfamiliar but which held my attention and at many stages delighted me; I’m sure that a great deal of that impact was on account of the skill and musical taste of Richard Apperley.

Nikau Trio: flute, oboe and cello, at Old St Paul’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Boismortier, Joseph Bodin de (1689-1755): Trio in A minor (allegro, adagio, allegro)
Schubert: Adagio from Octet in F major, Op. 166
Beethoven: Duo no. 2 in F major (allegro, larghetto, allegro moderato)
Bach: Trio sonata in G major (adagio, allegro ma non presto, adagio e piano, presto)
Haydn: Trio no.3 in G major (spiritoso, andante, allegro)

Nikau Trio: Karen Batten (flute), Madeline Sakofsky (oboe), Margaret Guldborg (cello)

Old St. Paul’s,Mulgrave Stree

Tuesday, 12 July, 12.15 pm

A well-attended lunchtime concert on Tuesday heard a surprisingly comprehensive programme for an unusual combination of instruments. It began with a composer I had never heard of, who, according to the programme note, ‘wrote mainly instrumental and vocal music deliberately in a style that would please the listener and ensure his own wealth and success.’

Certainly it was attractive music. The first movement commenced with the flute and oboe doubling parts. This led to a lively and tuneful allegro. The adagio was perhaps a typical baroque slow movement, featuring delicious chords and suspensions. The final movement was fast and quite demanding, especially on the flutist. This work proved the Nikau Trio to be a very pleasing combination, each player having beautiful tone.

Next came one of Schubert’s gorgeous slow movements. At first, it featured oboe, with the others playing sotto voce. But as it progressed, there was not a lot of dynamic variation. As in some of Schubert’s orchestral works, there were rather too many repeats, and the movement outstays its welcome. However, there was a lovely flute and oboe passage, the cello entering at the end, as a kind of fulfilment of promise.

What followed was a duo for oboe and cello ostensibly, yet doubtfully, by Beethoven. (No such duos appear in the list of works by Beethoven in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.) Nevertheless, it was a thoroughly delightful piece. There was more variation of dynamics and expression in this work. The larghetto, entitled Aria, was in a minor key, while the allegro moderato final movement, Rondo, contained a lovely rubato with all the players absolutely together; as elsewhere, ensemble was immaculate.

The trio sonata was Bach at his contrapuntal best, weaving the parts into and through each other. The solo oboe passages, with the other players accompanying, were particularly fine. The final presto movement was pretty exacting, such was its speed.

The final work by good ol’ cheerful Papa Haydn was a splendid way to end the concert, with a final allegro that demonstrated his humour and sense of fun. The master used the instruments imaginatively, producing a jolly result. I couldn’t help thinking, though, that the more mellow sound of the wooden flute would blend better with the other two instruments and with the admirable acoustic of the wooden church interior.

The fluidity of the flute, the piquancy of the oboe and the majestic smoothness of the cello made for great enjoyment of this rare admixture.

A programme of two baroque works, two classical and one early Romantic work was quite an achievement, but perhaps the introduction of one modern piece might have been good, as a contrast. The printed programme notes were brief but informative; it is a pity that those for both Beethoven and Bach were marred by misrelated clauses.

Presumably the building work going on in the grounds of Old St. Paul’s was being done for the historic church, so surely the intermittent hammering could have been stopped the for the duration of the concert?