Category: Reviews – Concerts

Sharon Yearsley and friends in Mozart, Schubert, Britten and early Italians

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Early Italian Arias (Caccini, Giordani, Parisotti); Three Cabaret Songs (Britten); Three songs by Schubert; Aria: ‘Porgi Amor’ (Mozart); Two songs by Sondheim

Sharon Yearsley (soprano)

Malinda Di Leva (soprano)

Chris Berentson (tenor)

Jonathan Berkahn (accompanist)

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 20 October, 12.15pm

First on the programme were three Italian arias, which unfortunately I missed, which was a pity if only because apparently Sharon Yearsley accompanied herself on the piano – an unusual practice, which it would have been interesting to observe. I’m told that it gave the performance an intimate character, and that the arias were beautifully sung.

Two of the performers are members of the NBR New Zealand Opera Chorus in Wellington, and so have just been singing in Verdi’s Macbeth, which would have put them in good voice, after all the rehearsals and performances.

I noticed that the piano lid was not raised, but the sound levels and balance were appropriate for all the singers.

Two of Britten’s Cabaret Songs were sung by Malinda Di Leva, accompanied (as was the remainder of the programme) by Jonathan Berkahn. Di Leva has a good voice, especially in the lower register, but I found the top too shrill, and the timbre unpleasant at times. She sang these songs too ‘straight’, as though they were lieder; neither singer nor accompanist seemed to regard them as amusing. The tempi were too regular, there was little facial expression from the singer. They needed more of a humorous, ‘show-off’ style. This was particularly true in the first two songs: ‘Tell me the truth about love’ and ‘Funeral Blues’. The former is often performed by those able to give it the ironic vocal manner required. The third song, ‘Calypso’ had more expression. In all the songs, the words were enunciated well.

Chris Berentson followed with three of Schubert’s best-known songs. He introduced these, and recited Shakespeare’s sonnet ‘To Sylvia’. The Schubert setting followed. Berentson has a very attractive tenor voice, though there was some strain evident on the top notes. Pitch wavered from time to time, and ‘t’ and ‘s’ sounds were overdone for this acoustic. But in the main, the singing of ‘To Sylvia’, ‘Serenade’ and ‘Die Forelle’ was very good. A little more expression conveying the meaning of the words in the second and third songs would have been desirable. Both Berentson and Di Leva used the scores to sing from. Berkahn was an exemplary accompanist, though at times there was too much sustaining pedal for my taste, especially after chords at the ends of verses and items. But it was always tasteful, rhythmic and supportive of the singers.

Sharon Yearsley returned to sing Mozart’s ‘Porgi Amor’ and two songs by Sondheim: ‘Losing my Mind’ from Follies and ‘No One is Alone’ from Into the Woods. She introduced these songs briefly. Her voice is of even quality throughout her range, with more than a little vibrato. Sometimes her breathing was noisy. The Mozart aria had the appropriate touching quality; the Countess was well served.

In the Sondheim songs the words were excellent, and the style and accent appropriate to the pieces, though a little more swing from the accompanist would have helped the mood. The last song particularly featured warm tone and excellent words.

This was overall, an enjoyable recital by singers we do not regularly hear as soloists – they are to be congratulated for tackling a recital such as this.

Polish organist musically excellent but with distracting flamboyance

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Organ works (and arrangements) by Buxtehude, Böhm, Bach, Sweelinck, Mendelssohn, Vivaldi, Chopin, Handel, Stanley and Zipoli

Gedymin Grubba (Poland)

St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Mount Cook

Sunday, 17 October, 5pm

Gedymin Grubba, a Polish organist in his late twenties making his only appearance in New Zealand following his tour of Australia, played a programme well-suited to the delightful baroque-style organ at the Lutheran Church. There was no work later than those of Mendelssohn and Chopin, but the organ is not built for the resources required for most 19th to 21st century organ music, though there are some composers whose works would be suitable, e.g. some of Flor Peeters’ output.

Buxtehude’s Praeludium in F sharp began the largely baroque programme. Grubba (pronounced the same as Gruber) proved to play with an appropriately detached technique for this period of music. This piece began on the flutes and continued on reeds; throughout this quite lengthy piece in several sections, the range of registrations on the organ was explored.

The piece demonstrated Grubba’s fast footwork, and I could not fault the results. However, his style on both manuals and pedals was flamboyant and distracting. Any tendency towards pianistic technique (swinging elbows, rolling the fingers on the keys, much movement of the body) was quickly pounced on and eliminated by my organ teacher, Maxwell Fernie, at the first or second lesson. He explained that these movements did nothing to alter or improve the sound from the organ, unlike with the piano, where they can add weight to the sounding of the notes. The organ being mechanical rather than percussive, does not respond to these efforts.

Grubba’s pedal technique I also found unusual. He seemed to step on the pedals from a height rather than glide using the inner or outer sides of the feet. This may have contributed to a certain amount of mechanical noise from the pedals – or this may have been inherent in the style of the organ – and also sounds from the player’s shoes. Nevertheless, the detached style thus produced was suited to most of the music; in the Mendelssohn the pedal technique was more as I was taught. For all I know, the authentic school may favour Grubba’s style. There was no question of the organist’s accuracy or athleticism in this department.

Perhaps this effort was the reason for Grubba not wearing a jacket, on what was a rather cool Wellington spring day. His wife unobtrusively pulled the stops when required, and as he played entirely from photocopied music, she moved the pages across slowly as needed. The printed programme listed the composers (with dates) and the titles and other details of the works, but gave no notes for this hour-and-a-half long recital.

Staying in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, we were treated to a manuals-only chorale partita Christe, der du bist Tag und Licht by Georg Böhm. The music was grateful, and beautifully articulated.

It was followed by two of J.S. Bach’s works: the lovely short chorale prelude Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein. The melody was played using a mellifluous flute stop, but the line of the chorale melody was not always maintained, and the rhythm was jerky at times. The grace notes should lead onto the related melody notes, just as they would be if the chorale were sung, and not be broken from them, unless they are repeated notes.

The Prelude and Fugue in G major BWV 541, involved more fancy footwork. This relatively early work certainly demonstrated the skills of both composer and organist.

After the elaborate Bach, Sweelinck’s Psalm 23 was nice and simple, played on one manual only.

It was followed by the longest work in the programme, the fourth organ sonata of Mendelssohn, in B flat, Opus 65. What a different sound this was! Grubba managed to make the organ sound like a smaller version of the large nineteenth century organs the composer would have known. There was more mixing of ranks and use of couplers.

The first movement, allegro con brio, was grand; the second (andante religioso) somewhat sentimental to modern ears; the allegretto third, a charming movement played initially on flutes, and in the latter part, the melody was carried by the left hand on the upper manual. The allegro maestoso e vivace finale was possibly on full organ. It opened with a chorale rather reminiscent of ‘God save the Queen’. The ending was bright, employing a two-foot stop. The varied tempi and registration of this work held my attention in a way that others of Mendelssohn’s organ sonatas have not – or perhaps those were in less competent hands than Grubba’s.

The second half of the recital commenced with a transcription of ‘Spring’ from The Four Seasons by Vivaldi. I had never heard such an arrangement before (this one was by the organist himself). It was certainly lively and entertaining, but I found it too heavy, particularly at the opening, compared with its original orchestra setting.

Another transcription by Grubba followed: the well-known ‘Raindrop’ Prelude (in D flat major Op.28 no.15) by his fellow countryman, Chopin. This I also found too heavy compared with its piano original, and not really compatible with the organ. Repeated notes were not always separated sufficiently; the notes (raindrops) needed to be more detached, as they would be on the piano. The middle section with the melody on the pedals sounded dull; perhaps use of the 8-foot pipes would have carried the mood better. Or perhaps it was meant to be humorous?

As a complete contrast, next was Handel’s Arrival of the Queen of Sheba. This transfers to the organ very successfully. Apart from a couple of fluffed notes, this was a very bright performance, the 2-foot stop really suiting the music. Here, the articulation was just right.

The only Englishman in the recital was John Stanley (unless you count Handel as English, especially since the final item was from an oratorio with English words). His Voluntary in E was a slow piece, on manuals. The sparkly second section on flutes included the 2-foot on the upper manual, and was quite delightful.

Domenico Zipoli I had heard of; he was an Italian composer (1688—1726) who died in Argentina. His ‘All’ Offertorio’ was a vivid piece. Both it and the following ‘Pastorale’ were for manuals only, with a drone pedal. The second was slower; a rather characterless section was followed by a brief lively one for manuals only. Then a ponderous section with drone pedal through part of it followed, with interesting key changes. This was repeated, and – did I hear a cuckoo? Nice articulation was a feature of this performance.

The programme wound up in triumphal style with the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ from Messiah by a composer now spelt Haendel. This rousing end gave the organ a good work-out, with manuals coupled, and I think I detected the Mixture stop.

Grubba’s rhythm was always spot on, though I think he could have used a little more rubato at times. There was good variety in the programme, and it made for an enjoyable recital by this skilful player.

Bow – New string ensemble’s first concert

Posted on by Peter Mechen

BOW – The Inaugural Concert

GRIEG – Holberg Suite / VAUGHAN WILLIAMS – Five Variants of “Dives and Lazarus” / DVORAK – Serenade for Strings

Rachel Hyde (conductor)

Kathryn Maloney (concertmaster)

Bow String Ensemble

St.Andrew’s on-the-Terrace

Sunday 17th October 2010

An enterprising venture – a new string ensemble, no less! – this came about thanks to the enthusiasm and efforts of conductor Rachel Hyde, which brought together a goodly number of the capital’s amateur string players to make music, an ensemble, according to an introductory note in the program, “dedicated to the joy of string playing”. As newly-formed orchestras the world over have found, it takes a while for any ensemble to properly “jell”, there being no substitute for actual concert experience as part of that process of putting things together and making them work. The encouraging thing about the concert given by this new group, aptly calling itself “Bow”, was that so much of the playing gave a good deal of pleasure, even if one of the works on the program was, I thought, beyond the group’s grasp at this stage of its existence, brave though the attempt to tackle the music’s difficulties was.

Adding to the concert’s enterprise was the unconventional placement of the orchestra – in the middle of St.Andrew’s Church’s congregation, rather than, as normally is the case, at the chancel end of the interior, with seating for the audience entirely enclosing the players. The intention was to “involve” the orchestra with the audience to a greater degree, and I thought the experiment worked really well for half of the concert – I think the players’ positioning brought out more markedly the sounds of what they were doing, which was, naturally, something of a double-edged sword, highlighting both the felicities and difficulties in the playing throughout.

This degree of immediacy gave the concert’s first half a particular pleasure, with two of the best-loved works for string ensemble chosen. First up was Grieg’s Suite Op.40 From Holberg’s Time, and I thought, upon re-reading my notes, scribbled as the ensemble played the opening Praeludium, that the words described the best of what Bow achieved that afternoon, for the most part throughout the concert’s first half: – “Full, rich sound! – plenty of dynamic range, with strong accents in the right places. Inner parts brought out nicely…..very powerful mid- and lower strings – ensemble good, but just one or two shaky dovetailings in those scherzando-like passages…”. The playing of the subsequent Holberg movements confirmed most of these impressions, a beautiful massed violin sound in the Sarabande movement, a charming “country dance” ambience in the Gavotte and Musette, setting delicacy next to girth, and (best of all) a beautifully-phrased Air whose performance gave the music all the time in the world to express its melancholic character. Only in the concluding Rigaudon did I feel some caution on the part of the players inhibiting their expression, though the first viola’s support of the solo violin’s “dance-tune” episodes was admirable. I would have liked concertmaster Kathryn Maloney to have taken risks here, put aside her “admirable leader’s” example for a few moments, and played her solos a bit more roughly and gutsily, which would have allowed the folkdance element in the music a fuller, rustic flavor.

If Grieg’s music gave the ensemble the chance to revel in festive, out-of-doors goings-on, the following work in the program brought a deeper, more introspective vein of feeling to the proceedings – Vaughan Williams, who spent a lifetime acquainting himself with the beauties of English folk-song, wrote this work in 1939 for strings and harp, taking a tune he first encountered in 1893, the folk-song Dives and Lazarus, as a starting-point, and composing a set of variations of astonishing beauty. Rachel Hyde asked the players (apart from the ‘cellos) to stand while performing this work, which may have been a factor in the degree of intensity and warmth of tone produced by the ensemble. I very much liked the performance, particularly the waltz-like variation, with its limpid harp-tones nicely integrated with the ensemble, and the strong, chordal variant with answering triplet phrases – full and forthright tones, with only some of the more circumspect phrases occasionally making a less confident impression. Both the penultimate folk-dance variation, with its lively step and spring, and the full-throated final variation’s opening, dying away on cello and upper strings, inspired playing that caught the character of the composer’s different views of the lovely tune.

Buoyed by the pleasures of the concert’s first half, I perhaps expected too much from the ensemble in tackling the Dvorak Serenade after the interval. It’s a work whose difficulties lie in the degree of exposure of melodic lines (unlike the far more “supported” harmonic lyricism of both the Grieg and the Vaughan Williams works), and the often treacherous rhythmic syncopations in the accompanying figures. Those long-breathed first-movement lyrical phrases gave the musicians frequent tuning problems, the melodic lines mercilessly “out on their own” in this music, though the players managed the second movement Tempo di Valse rather more securely, especially at the outset. Best of all was probably the third movement Scherzo, attacked confidently, and with plenty of energy, especially in the lower strings’ accompaniments in the trio section. The opening phrases of the Larghetto sounded well, though the rapid tempo of the contrasting episodes seemed to un-nerve the players and undermine their poise; while the finale, again beginning well, came to grief over the running figurations and frequent syncopations and angularities of the music.

I would expect that, once Bow “gets used” to itself as an ensemble by playing a few more concerts and tackling slightly less ambitious and extended repertoire in the interim, it will produce far more confident and polished playing, and be well able to tackle more of those wonderful, if perennially demanding, pieces from the string ensemble repertoire that concertgoers know and love. I wish the group well.

Sweet Dreams from The Song Company

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Song Company – Chamber Music New Zealand

English and Italian Madrigals: William Byrd, John Wilbye, Thomas Weelkes,

Thomas Vautour, Claudio Monteverdi

Horatio Vecchi – A Night in Siena

Peter Sculthorpe – Maranoa Lullaby

Jack Body – Five Lullabies/Three Dreams and A Nightmare

Anon. – Israeli Lullaby

The Song Company, directed by Roland Peelman

Anna Fraser, Louise Prickett – sopranos / Lanneke Wallace-Wells – mezzo-soprano / Richard Black – tenor / Mark Donnelly – baritone / Clive Birch – bass

Town Hall, Wellington

Saturday 16th October, 2010

I spent the first part of this concert luxuriating in some glorious madrigal singing from the talented Australian vocal ensemble The Song Company, touring the country under the auspices of Chamber Music New Zealand. The ensemble’s programming enabling me to enjoy and marvel at both the similarities and differences between the English and Italian schools of renaissance vocal composition. The English group, which began the programme, contained some exquisite gems, from the heartfelt immediacy and world-within-a-flower simplicity of John Wilbye’s Draw On, Sweet Night, to the virtuoso inventiveness of Thomas Weelkes’ Thule, the period of cosmography, the group encompassing and beautifully expressing both kinds of intensities and fluidities. Wilbye’s major-minor colourings and antiphonal dynamic variations were most sensitively given, readily evoking the chiaroscuro of both outer and inner worlds commented on in the excellent programme notes. By contrast, Thomas Weelkes’ writing suffused the soundscape with intricate dovetailings and overlappings of tones and rhythms, beguiling one’s ear with echo and contrast, the unbridled mock-satire of Ha!Ha!This world doth pass a kind of Dionysian jest on the opposite end of the see-saw from the idiosyncratic philosophy of Thule. And I loved the sharp-etched character of Sweet Suffolk Owl, with its “te whit, te whoo-ings”, the group’s articulation and dynamism making the most of Thomas Vautour’s vivid portraiture of an iconic bird.

It’s probably too simplistic to declare that the main difference between the two madrigal schools seems to be the actual sound of each language; but the liquidity and sonority of those Italian vowels seemed straightaway to add a whole tonal dimension to the music – a different kind of intensity, rather less subtle, but richer and darker-toned seemed to me to come across almost straight away. The gloriously declamatory Sfogava con le stelle, with its evocation of the beauties of the night sky, milks the rhetoric to stunning effect, the singers full-toned and committed throughout. No less heartfelt was the following Si, ch’io vorei morire (the text’s erotic suggestiveness adding to the emotional charge), ascending sequences and repetitions in thirds heightening the expressive power of it all. Momentary relief was at hand from the weather and its interplay with the rest of Creation, with Zefiro torna, though the initial gaiety and playfulness of the nature-descriptions suddenly gave way to darkness and despair as poet and composer bemoaned the loss of the beloved amid Springtime’s felicities – the setting’s final line stretched the music’s expressivity almost to its limit before the heart-stopping final resolution. Mercifully, Oimè, se tanto amate and Amorosa pupilletta were better-humoured, the first giving rise to amusement with its repeated mock-serious “Oh my!”s, and the second featuring a drum accompaniment and wordless Swingle Singers-like “do-do-do-dos” providing a rhythmic carriage for a sombre dance of longing, beginning with a solo, then a duet, and then the ensemble, the singing keeping the impulses of feeling nicely ebbing and flowing throughout.

The group’s director Roland Peelman introduced Horatio Vecchi’s entertainment A Night in Siena, composed in 1604, a kind of musical catalogue of instructions for people to follow a game of mimicry – as the programme note puts it, “a 16th-Century version of musical theatre-sports”. I found the spoken introduction difficult to properly hear, so the programme note and texts of the songs were life-savers. The sequences were most entertaining, poking gentle (and, topically, probably not-so-gentle) fun at different types of people, be they travellers from other lands or simple girls from the country. One didn’t have to “read between the lines” to glean prevailing native attitudes towards these people, the German imitation taking us remarkably close to Basil Fawlty’s “Don’t Mention the War!” by the end, and the introduction to the exotic Spaniard persona making naughty reference to his abilities “as a very cunning linguist”. It was all tremendously good-humoured fun, the quasi-Spanish “effects” to finish rousing the participants (and their audience) to great enthusiasm, and a warm reception at the end.

After the interval the focus shifted from nocturnal entertainments both amatory and theatrical to the earnest business of sleep itself, by way of lullabies, dreams and nightmares. Peter Sculthorpe’s arresting Maranoa Lullaby fully exploited the spacious ambiences of the Town Hall, with the singers stationed at various points around the gallery. Dramatic lighting heightened the impact of each voice, the opening single-voiced bell-accompanied lullaby (originally an indigenous melody collected in Queensland during the 1930s) counterpointed by the other voices, all taking turns to add their melodic strands to the tapestry. A plaintive, strident episode caught up these strands and pulled them tightly together, focusing and hardening the harmonies, before bringing the work back to the unison theme once again. The whole sequence created a dream-like inner world which, despite its short duration, cast a powerful and evocative spell.

More complex and discursive, but with comparable subconscious explorations in places was the clever fusion of two works by Jack Body, the older (1989) Five Lullabies now interspersed with the freshly-commissioned Three Dreams and a Nightmare. The “invented” word-sounds of each of the lullabies demonstrated the composer’s interest in different folk-idioms and traditions relating to chant, while the dream/nightmare sequences explored the subconscious realms of sleep itself, using poetry by authors such as Shakespeare and ee cummings set with marvellously-wrought accompaniments, both vocal and instrumental – I loved the wordless exhilaration of the first Dream, Flying, with its vertiginous lurching and gong-like tintinnabulations, the singers occasionally sounding warning sirens in close proximity to reefs on treacherous sea-coasts. This was followed by the impulsive and volatile Brain worm, involving endlessly inventive vocalisings, layered, multi-harmonied and seemingly tireless. Throughout, the Lullabies gave a continuing “fled is that music?” ambience to the work’s progressions, rather like arias between recitatives, so that the saucy eroticism of ee cummings’ poem may I feel had an extra element of fantasy which for me gave those somewhat outrageous Rochester-like physicalities a more poignant, escapist connection (then again, perhaps I was simply feeling my age!)….still, those glass harmonica-like sounds, together with the volatile seduction-vocalisings made the whole Erotique episode properly suggestive and delightful.

The Nightmare pulsated and palpitated appropriately, the performance virtuoso in its control of detail and atmosphere, with drums and woodblocks beating out obsessive rhythms, threatening inescapable and intransient anarchic realms familiar to all who have experienced such disturbances – the poetry, well-known from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, evoked that wondrous imagery of “the cloud-capp’d towers” yoked with the stuff of dreams, the ensuing vocal writing suggesting a similar wonderment at the words’ fusion of the timeless and the ephemeral. Interesting that a composer would come back to an existing work and augment it thus – though there was a lot going on both in an immediate and a cumulative way, the contrasts had the effect of refocusing the listeners’ attentions and drawing them ever onwards.

Both the anonymous Israeli lullaby which followed, and the Eurythmics-inspired encore, brought us back from the labyrinth-passages of the subconscious sufficiently to enable us to properly and whole-heartedly register our approval at the end of the concert – the Song Company gave us “Sweet Dreams” which were entertaining, enchanting and inspirational.

Wellington Youth Choir enlivens Rossini’s great Petite Messe

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle – selections from, and pieces by Vaughan Williams, Rachmaninov, Rheinberger and others

The Wellington Youth Choir conducted by Isaac Stone

Church of St Mary of the Angels

Friday 15 October, 7.30pm  

It’s usually a mistake not to go to concerts by our youth choirs and orchestras, because any lack of individual maturity or technical skill is completely subordinated, given a reasonably inspiring conductor, to the energy, enthusiasm and readiness to respond that young people can deliver.

The concert was a varied one, ranging from this rather extraordinary work by Rossini, through traditional choral sounds from Rachmaninov and Rheinberger to spirituals and solo performances.

Rossini’s liturgical essay was composed in the 1860s within five years of his death, an unexpected example of his remarkable sense of humour, both verbal and musical. Famously, it is neither short nor solemn, except for occasional moments (the solemnity, not the shortness).

The whole work takes over an hour and quarter and only about 25 minutes of it were sung here. The choice of sections was well made, offering a representative range of moods and styles. It was written for accompaniment by two pianos and harmonium but is also performed with orchestral accompaniment. One piano and discreet interjections from the organ were the rule here.

My first hearing of the whole thing was in rather memorable circumstances. In 1992 I ran into New Zealand percussionist/conductor Gary Brain near Place Victor Hugo in Paris – a singular enough chance – and he told me that he was to conduct his first major concert in a couple of days at a small festival on the Loire – comprising this Rossini work. I didn’t need encouragement and was on the train to Saint-Florent-le-vieil, between Angers and Nantes, to arrive in time for the concert. Gary was conducting the chorus of the Opéra-comique with a couple of pianists, in a small church that held 300 – 400 people – it was full. Having no other performances to compare it with, I was very ready to be delighted by the whole experience, and I was. Next evening over the phone I dictated a review to The Evening Post (pre-email).

It’s hard to convey in words the character of this work, so unorthodox and studiedly other than what any other famous composer would have dreamed of writing; a masterpiece of provocativeness, irreverence, tongue-in-cheek sincerity, music-hall vulgarity, jocularity, sobriety and finally passages of what had to sound like genuine religious feeling.

This was 21-year-old Isaac Stone’s first public outing as a conductor, and there seemed to be no sign of diffidence or nerves, such was the impression of his rapport with his singers and his mastery of the music. The writing for the choir varies greatly in style and in mood, sometimes transparent and delicate at other times with the full weight of an 18th century choral work. But there was never a hint of its actual time, when Europe’s choirs had become very large and grandeur and insistent piety were expected.

What Rossini does demonstrate, without ado, are the fruits of his thorough early training in counterpoint and fugue and these, juxtaposed with rhetorical phrases or light-spirited solos maintain a level of enjoyment, variety and sheer musical inventiveness that rarely left him. There were solo roles in most of the sections which were varied in quality but generally attractive and vigorous. Haydn-like in the Kyrie, after its dance-hall piano introduction; a brass-style fanfare starts the Gloria retreating to a calm section for three solo voices.

Again in the ‘Qui Tollis’ a piano introduction that suggests attention to Beethoven, is followed by duet between soprano and alto making step-wise intervallic moves and then an operatic sequence in thirds. An allegro choral opening of the ‘Cum Sancto Spiritu’, becomes quite elaborate, weaving counterpoint that the choir managed admirably: there was skill and humour that led to a fine build-up of a typical Rossini crescendo that defied any categorisation of good or bad taste. 

The Credo for example alternated between sober polyphony and passages by a small ensemble; it was just one time for me to note the choir’s strong bass section (and the sometimes thin tenors).

In the Agnus Dei the piano makes dramatic play with bass figures before an alto solo enters with ‘Dona nobis pacem’, a long solo, leaving us with the enigma: how much of an agnostic was Rossini, as were most of the composers of great religious works in the 19th century.

The conductor and several choir members spoke about the music, but while they often conveyed engaging enthusiasm, they typically spoke so fast, with careless articulation, that I understood very little.

Given that, I rely on the names of accompanists as recorded in the programme, Evie Rainey and Louise Joblin – the first presumably at the piano, the second at the organ. The latter was a minor role, but the piano was well played, carefully adapted to the singing; it was both interesting and quite demanding.

The second half of the programme was a mixture: proof against boredom perhaps but not of even value or interest. They began with Vaughan Williams’s Antiphon from his Five Mystical Songs, a very powerful statement, involving a striking (and a bit too loud) piano introduction from Isaac Stone, to Aidan Gill’s singing.

Rheinberger’s Abendlied was a fine display of traditional late 19th century choral style, which prompted the thought that there’s hardly another Wellington choir that can produce such beautifully balanced, luminous, spirited singing and the same went for the more subdued Rachmaninov piece, ‘Bogoroditse devo’ (Rejoice O Virgin), from his Vespers, Op 37. 

Things went popular and variable thereafter, spirituals Elijah Rock and Deep River, both sung with total conviction; then an arrangement of ‘We shall not be moved’ by the conductor; though it seemed to engage the choir thoroughly, it sounded excessively varied in style and rhythm, modulated too much.

The final offering was ‘Let everything that hath breath’ which appeared to be a version of Psalm 96, ‘Sing unto the Lord a new song’,  whose jazzy character the choir tackled with the greatest gusto. And they sang ‘Ka Waiata’ beautifully as an encore in response to the warm applause from the audience.

English guitarist Cheryl Grice-Watterson at Lower Hutt

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Guitar solos: Malaguena (Jose de Azpiazu), Verde alma (Maximo Diego Pujol), Choros No 1 (Villa-Lobos), Sakura (Yukijiro Yocoh), Girl from Ipanema (Antonio Jobin), La catedral (Agustin Barrios), Tango en Skai (Roland Dyens)  

St Mark’s Church, Lower Hutt

Wednesday 13 October 12.15pm

The concert advertised for this Wednesday was to have been led by violinist Slava Fainitski, a first violinist in the Wellington Orchestra. He suffered a heart attack in the weekend and the place was filled by English guitarist Cheryl Grice-Watterson.

I knew nothing of her and so was extremely surprised as she launched into the Malaguena by José de Azpiazu, with such musicality, refinement and flexibility.

She was born in Yorkshire in 1953 and after study at the Royal Northern College of Music became a noted guitarist in Britain and the Continent, famously with Julian Bream on television. She emigrated with her family to New Zealand in 1997 and became head of guitar at the Nelson School of Music. She plays with Martin and Victoria Jaenecke in the Trio con Brio and I have succeeded in missing their performances in Wellington though my colleagues have reviewed both a performance by Cheryl and Martin Jaenecke and one by Trio con Brio for Middle C.

Verde Alma by Maximo Diego Pujol was a less danceable piece, atmospheric and quite entrancing. Villa-Lobos’s Choros No 1, the first really familiar piece, was played quite beautifully, with a touch that was soft and exquisitely sensitive, drawing attention to an instrument that spoke strongly and warmly in the church’s acoustic.

Sakura by Yakijiro Yocoh is a more extended work, an introduction, theme and variations: Ms Grice played the first two sections and three of the variations: there is spare writing, in a clearly Japanese character, using the pentatonic scale; it is refined in expression, much of it employing a single line of melody without very much harmony.

A somewhat jazz rendering of Antonio Jobim’s Girl from Ipanema followed, in a squarish 4/4 rhythm that seemed a little uncertain of itself.

Agustin Barrios was a Paraguayan guitarist and composer (1885-1944) who left one of the richest collections of guitar music. John Williams is recorded saying: “Barrios is the best of the lot, regardless of era. His music is better formed, it’s more poetic, it’s more everything!” La Catedral is a concert piece in three shortish movements, and is regarded as his masterpiece, and it was the centre-piece of the recital. My own notes, before reading this and other comments, remarked the Chopinesque artistry and subtlety of the first two movements. In the Andante, steady paced, mainly on the lower strings, Ms Grice created a sombre, dimly lit atmosphere while the final Allegro which she told us suggested emerging from within the cathedral into the busy street, actually continued to maintain a fairly serious spirit in spite of its virtuosic flights of scales and arpeggios. Her playing revealed very clearly the music’s unfailingly rich musical invention.

The recital ended with French composer born in 1955, Roland Dyens’s Tango en Skai, that combined great virtuosity with striking dynamic contrasts and subtle rhythms.

Heartfelt Russian Song from Joanna Heslop

Posted on by Peter Mechen

RUSSIAN SONG RECITAL

JOANNA HESLOP – soprano

RCHARD MAPP – piano

Songs Inspired by Nature

RIMSKY-KORSAKOV, TCHAIKOVSKY, RACHMANINOV

Settings of Poetry by Pushkin

CUI, RIMSKY-KORSAKOV, BALAKIREV

Satires

SHOSTAKOVICH

St.Andrew’s on-the-Terrace, Wellington

Wednesday 13th October 2010

I heard the lark’s song from afar as I dashed towards St.Andrew’s Church and eased myself through the doors, just as the singer was coming to the end of what sounded like a tiny Slavic frisson of avian abandonment – so, thanks to my lateness I had all but missed the first item, Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Sound of the Lark’s Singing. Which wouldn’t have been too much of a tragedy, were it not for the realisation which gradually overtook me that here at this somewhat humble lunchtime concert was something special and precious being enacted, a singer fully immersed in both sound and sense of what she was performing, and with sufficient vocal technique to bring out all the music’s beauty, emotion and excitement, working hand-in-glove with similarly-committed piano playing. Rather like with Margaret Medlyn’s and Bruce Greenfield’s July concert at Victoria University, soprano Joanna Heslop and pianist Richard Mapp triumphantly demonstrated the power of art-song to delight, to move and to thrill listeners who’ve been sadly unaccustomed of late to hearing such repertoire regularly performed by both local and visiting musicians.

As with piano recitals and their repertoire, neglect of song-recitals by promotors and organisations because of what might be thought of as a falling-away of interest is little short of tragic – it means that concertgoers will be deprived of hearing “live” some of the Western world’s greatest and most significant music. To take Rachmaninov as an example, people who know the often-played concertos but don’t get the chance to hear the songs, two of which were performed in this concert, can’t really claim to “know” the composer’s music in any great depth. Joanna Heslop’s performance of Lilacs, one of Rachmaninov’s most beautiful songs, gave her audience such rapt, breath-catching moments of heartfelt loveliness as to dispel for the moment all thoughts of glittering, gallery-pleasing piano concertos, and ask for more of what we had just heard. The following Daisies took us elsewhere, at a different, more profusely energetic and exuberant time of the day, the song’s melody able to soar, melt, burn and exult. Lilacs, by contrast, had inhabited more delicate, deeper-toned realms, the music’s emotion beautifully gradated towards the composer’s point of release, and with the same surety of touch dissolved into the silences at the end.

One had only to listen to the final song in the “Inspired by Nature” bracket, Tchaikovsky’s Why Do I Love You, Bright Night?, to make connections with Rachmaninov’s music, the two composers sharing a like melodic gift and “charged” emotional capacity, Joanna Heslop proving herself as a marvellous storyteller, with Richard Mapp strumming and arpeggiating his accompaniment in truly bardic fashion. Such lovely shaping of phrases! – with both musicians seeming instinctively to know how and when to build intensities and when to let them go. And though we were probably not an audience filled with fluent Russian speakers, the singer’s heartfelt articulations nevertheless allowed us to experience a powerful sense of the emotion conveyed by the texts throughout.

The settings of verses by Aleksandr Pushkin which followed had a similar communicative focus – simplest and most direct were the two songs by Cesar Cui, the second, I loved you and perhaps still do beginning almost disarmingly before briefly “opening up” to great effect in the second verse, then returning to a quieter manner most effectively at the end. Rimsky-Korsakov figured again with On the Hills of Georgia, a fervent recollection of delight and nostalgia, the ambience wonderfully evoked by singer and pianist; while Balakirev’s rather more self-consciously operatic setting of the variously titled Do Not Sing Your Sad Georgian Songs (Rachmaninov’s setting of the same text is usually translated as O Never Sing to Me Again) continued the Georgian theme, Joanna Heslop fearlessly tackling the opening high notes, and skilfully encompassing the song’s contrasts between lyrical and powerful, impassioned episodes.

The third and final section of this all-too-brief recital presented Dmitri Shostakovich’s Satires, a setting of five poems by Alekzandr Glikberg (1880-1932) who wrote satirical verses under the name of Sasha Chorny, and whose writings Shostakovich greatly admired. Satirically subtitled “Five Romances”, the cycle was premiered by Galina Vishnevskaya in 1961. Poet and composer set about savaging both literary and musical pretensions, the first one appositely titled To the critic, the mocking reference to beards causing this writer to quizzically scratch his chin! Spring Awakens presents a determinedly unromantic and non-sentimental catalogue of seasonal activity, while Descendants makes light of the demands of posterity. The two final songs were mirror-images, the first, Misunderstanding, an ill-advised attempt at seduction involving the gulf between fantasy and reality, and the last, Kreutzer Sonata, turns the Tolstoyan short-story drama on its ear via an unlikely and delightful liason between opposites! All of this was meat and drink to a singing actress of Joanna Heslop’s talents, both musicians able to vividly convey both writer’s and composer’s delight in lampooning the self-appointed, the pre-conceived and the sentimental, currents of impulse which, of course, continue to bedevil our lives to this day.

Bravo Joanna Heslop! – we hope to hear more of you!

Auckland’s entertaining V8 Ensemble at Waikanae

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Programme of arrangements of folk songs, Beatles’ songs, sacred choral pieces and popular songs (Waikanae Music Society)

V8 Vocal Ensemble (Judy Dale, Albert Mataafa, Virginia Le Cren, Stephen Rowe, Carolyn Medland, Brendon Shanks, Celia Aspey-Gordon, Rowan Johnston)

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday 10 October, 2.30pm

These Auckland musicians who form V8 are all former members of the New Zealand National Youth Choir and members or former members of Voices New Zealand chamber choir. Their years of working together show: their presentation is slick, blended and highly musical.  Half of the members have sung with the group since its formation; the other four are more recently acquired.  Their origins are in various parts of the country, and their individual choral experience is extensive.

The group sings without a conductor, Rowan Johnston simply starting the singers by eye contact, and cutting them off with the slightest movement of his music folder.  The selection of items showed skill in all fields of choral singing, but the most effective were perhaps the popular items.  The items were introduced by mezzo-soprano Carolyn Medland in a manner both informative and, at times, amusing. All the singing took place in front of the platform rather than on it.

A stunning start was made with ‘The Star of the County Down’ arranged by Goodall (presumably Reginald), in which the tenors sang the theme with enviable tone and character.

The spiritual ‘Deep River’ (arranged by the group’s undeclared leader, Rowan Johnston) displayed beautiful ensemble, and the outstanding men’s voices.  The women’s voice were very good, but the lack of real contraltos was a disadvantage in this piece.

The traditional Irish song ‘She Moved through the Fair’ (arranged by Daryl Runswick) proved to be an interesting version of the song, with unexpected harmonies.  The tenors performed the solo sections superbly, with lovely pianissimo accompanying parts.  Words were very clear.

One of two arrangements in the programme by Ward Swingle (though in this case he had reverted to Single status) was entitled ‘Country Dances’, and proved to be an amalgam of a number of American folksongs, very much in the Swingle Singers’ style.  It was good fun, and the enjoyment was assisted by precise words, with authentic accents being thrown in for the cowboy sections.

Two items from the classic repertoire followed: a very complex ‘Cantate Domino’ of Monteverdi, which featured a little too much vibrato for this music, and ‘Plorate Fili’ from Jephte, an oratorio by Carissimi. This was quite ravishing, the singers giving great attention to detail.  The use of the soft Italian ‘t’ rather than the hard English ‘t’ was most commendable.   The mood of the story was rendered most tellingly.  Here, and throughout the programme, endings were absolutely together.

The next items introduced a lighter tone, firstly with three arrangements of Beatles songs: ‘Blackbird’, complete with expert whistling, ‘Penny Lane’, and ‘Ob-la-di’, in which Albert Mataafa sang the solo, the others using various mouth techniques (not all were vocal) to accompany.  All very expertly done. Hearing these reminded me of the curious fact that all popular music appears to be in 4-4 time.

The other Swingle arrangement followed – a Chilean folksong ‘De Punta Y Taco’, meaning ‘Heel and Toe’.  Various vocal sounds were employed to accompany three male singers, who obtained an authentic Spanish folk sound to their singing.  The soloists changed to three women singing the tune, with the others accompanying.  It was very professional, sophisticated and skilful.

After the interval came the other two ‘classical’ items: an Ave Maria from recent composer Franz Biebl, and a Pater Noster of Jacob Händl, who lived in the 16th century.  The group divided to sing polyphonically in the Biebl item, with three singers to the left (mezzos, one tenor) and five to the right (soprano, one tenor, two basses).  There was a solo introduction from Johnston (bass) and a tenor solo in the second verse.  The balance was excellent, and the singers proved what agile voices (and lips) they have.

A different polyphonic arrangement was observed for the Händl work: women to the left and men to the right, but positioned closer to each other than in the previous item.  This produced attractive antiphonal singing, although with too much vibrato for my taste.  Balance was gain superb: in an ensemble of only eight singers each individual is very exposed.

Reverting to popular repertoire, V8 displayed their versatility in a perfect harmony arrangement of ‘Goodnight, My Angel’ by Billy Joel, followed by ‘Fever’ (John Davenport & Eddie Cooley) in which Medland sang the solo and the men provided good vocal percussion, and ‘Africa’ (Paich & Porcaro) where vocal doo-be-doos accompanied Johnston singing solo into a microphone, the while drumming on what appeared to be the amplifier.

New Zealand composition featured in the programme in the form of ‘Plumsong’ by Philip Norman (performed on record by the NZ Secondary Schools Choir).  In the V8 version the reading of the poems by A.K. Grant preceded the singing of the verses of the song.  The recitations were great fun: the poems had been written in the styles of various New Zealand poets, telling the story of Little Jack Horner in their very different ways.  The music then followed the styles of the words.

The first was in the style of Jenny Bornholdt, and was a very intricate piece.  A touching piece in Sam Hunt’s style followed – with tenor Brendon Shanks’s rendition of the poem being a hilarious imitation of the poet’s hoarse voice and reciting style.  Bill Manhire’s was a lament in formal style, as was the music, reminiscent of William Byrd.  Michelle Legat was represented by a kind of singing through the words.  The whole work was both clever and funny, and very well performed.

The concert ended with ‘Humpty Dumpty Medley’, a medley of English nursery rhymes arranged by Hart, as sung by the King’s Singers, in which the rhymes were all related back to poor old Humpty. This was most entertaining.

As an encore, the group sang Kern & Fields’ ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ in a gorgeous arrangement, very expressively performed.  This made an appropriate conclusion to the Waikanae Music Society’s enterprising, artistically superb, interesting and thoroughly enjoyable 2010 concert series.

Macbeth triumphant in Wellington

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Verdi’s Macbeth: NBR New Zealand Opera, conducted by Guido Ajmone-Marsan, directed by Tim Albery. Vector Wellington Orchestra and the Wellington Opera Chorus (original production by Opera North in 2008)

St James Theatre, Wellington

Saturday 9 October, 7.30pm

There is an unwritten convention that critics don’t expose themselves to the professional comments of other critics till they have nailed their own thoughts to the hard-drive. I try to adhere to this but pollution of the pristine impressions are sometimes unavoidable.  I heard the remark that Antonia Cifrone’s voice was not beautiful, and another that it had been described as ‘serviceable’.  These kinds of remarks are usually the refuge of the over-confident or the critic with a limited view of acceptable musical styles.

From her opening lines I was struck by Cifrone’s vigour, and by the very qualities that Verdi had prescribed for the role. He’s on record saying he did NOT want a beautiful voice; he wanted a ‘harsh, strangled, grim’ voice that depicted a domineering and ruthless woman. No one could so describe Ms Cifrone, who had sung the role in Opera North’s original production in 2008, but her vocal attributes allowed gave her performance all the dramatic and musical power called for.

Her acting conveyed the essential features of Lady Macbeth; it was both commanding in gesture and movement, and surprisingly balletic (the ballet, as usual, was dropped) in scenes such as the Banquet, where she produced an impressive coloratura display in the brindisi; in the sleep-walking scene her voice was stretched like a taut wire by the power of her conscience and her subconscious, yet singularly beautiful.

As usual, the stage director employs the prelude to entertain us with the witches, perched on little ledges on a sloping back-drop, suggesting the opening scene of Rheingold; they are soon seen as midwives to Lady Macbeth in labour, delivering a still-born baby, that they neatly drop in the bin. Psychologist Tim Albery lighted on this embellishment, derived from a cryptic line in the play, though not in the libretto, to explain the childless lady’s nasty obsessions. I thought it contributed less than nothing.

The related, near omnipresence, of a bed in almost every scene was a close relative of the obstetric adornment. It came in handy as the bed on which Duncan was murdered, for the royal couple’s copulation scene, for a later multiple birth scene (six this time, tossed about by the attendant witches/nurses), and for Lady Macbeth’s eventual expiry.

I do not mean to suggest that these efflorescences got in the way of the story; they were just a slightly wearying example of the director’s (all directors’) compulsive intrusiveness.

Finally, I have to say how silly, even distasteful, I found the publicity images. It seems to be accepted, in spite of years of criticism, that you can present images purporting to be of opera principals that are actually of models. If they reflect the characters with a little integrity, it’s not quite so bad, but the couple used on posters and on the programme cover are simply ridiculous: nothing could be more at odds with anyone’s notion of what Macbeth and the Lady are like.

Otherwise, the dramatic glosses were unobtrusive, entertaining and usually acceptable.

The second immediate impact was of the splendidly prepared chorus, particularly the women – usually as witches. Their singing was swift, tautly rhythmic, excellently balanced and punchy; and their disposition and movement, as that of the cast as a whole, was conspicuously natural, meaningful with dramatic force, lively or static as appropriate; they sit in rows on either side, knitting – like the Norns in the Prologue of Götterdämmerung? Though Albery was in Auckland for four weeks and staged the performance in Auckland, the programme credits assistant director Maxine Braham as ‘movement director’, and I’m told that Steven Whiting directed the Wellington chorus*.

The first appearance of principals is of Macbeth and Banquo – baritone Michele Kalmandi and bass Jud Arthur – two excellent low voices, of well contrasted timbres, the former exhibiting a little more polish, but the latter with striking vocal colour and personality.

The arrival of Duncan, the king, is always dramatically odd for his role is negligible (acted by Barry Mawer); the ubiquitous bed is already there on stage, beset with screens as the King retires, soon to be killed by Macbeth whose subsequent anguish was well depicted. It all takes place as courtiers lie asleep on the floor in the same hall: no one wakes during the commotion. A propos of which Julian Budden’s great study of the operas quotes a letter from Verdi to the first Macbeth (Varesi) stressing the need to sing sotto voce, and pointing to the careful orchestration that would be very quiet beneath his voice.

Dinner jackets are de rigueur most of the time: everyone rises the morning after, black ties and dinner jackets intact; the assassins hired to kill Banquo, too, are properly dressed. And after that contract has been fulfilled, Banquo returns during the banquet scene, in the proper tenue de ville of any self-respecting ghost.

Macduff gets little exposure till the fourth act when he follows the Scottish exiles’ restrained but moving ‘Patria oppressa’ with his own lamenting, ‘O figli, o figli miei … Ah, la paterna mano’. Russian tenor Roman Shulackoff’s performance attracted the biggest ovation of the evening. But it’s a long way to travel for one aria….

Other comprimario roles were excellently filled. Morag Atchison used her large, attractive voice to excellent effect as Lady-in-waiting; Derek Hill sang Malcolm, whose presence is important in the last act, most convincingly and the Doctor’s part was strongly taken by Matthew Landreth.

Then came the oddest interpolation: we saw another unidentified woman on the bed, giving birth to a succession of six babies which the encircling witches joyfully tossed about like footballs. Who was she? Who was the father? Were they live or still-born? And what was that all about? One speculation was that they were Banquo’s children whom the witches prophesied as kings, as little crowns were held over them.  It’s not really satisfactory for a director to introduce people or events not in the libretto, without explaining himself in the programme book. That it misfired was shown by audience laughter.

Macbeth’s killing by Macduff takes place on stage, as in the 1847 version, and the two bodies laid side by side are conflagrated with petrol in best terrorist style.

The production as a whole however was continuously absorbing. The stage designs by Johan Engels were obviously far from medieval Scotland, vaguely of an east European dictatorship, but consistent and helpful to the singers. The music director, Guido Ajmone-Marsan, managed soloists, chorus (rehearsed by Michael Vinten) and orchestra with great energy, getting precision, dramatic colour and variety from the playing of the Wellington Orchestra.

This is one of the most arresting and brilliantly performed opera productions seen in Wellington; I had not a moment’s inattention and must recommend it unreservedly.

*The details in this sentence contain clarifications provided by the company on Monday 1 October.

Aroha Quartet at St.Andrew’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

MOZART – String Quartet in D Major K.499 “Hoffmeister”

ZHU JIAN-ER & SHI YONGKANG – Bai-Mao-Nu (White haired Girl)

TCHAIKOVSKY  – String Quartet No.3 in E-flat Minor Op.30

Aroha String Quartet: Haihong Liu, Anne Loeser, violins / Zhongxian Jin, viola / Robert Ibell, ‘cello

St.Andrew’s on-the-Terrace, Wellington

Saturday 9th October 2010

Like New Yorkers have done with their numbered streets and avenues, one does get used to numberings in classical music, however bewildering and daunting it may seem for a beginner listener to register titles like Symphony No.97, String Quartet No.79, Piano Concerto No.27, or Piano Sonata No. 32. It’s probably one of the reasons that descriptive names, often nothing to do with the composer, have been so freely appended to pieces of music. These nicknames work invariably to the music’s advantage, however much the purist may scoff at the superficiality of the exercise. And especially if a composer has a reasonably sizeable body of work, such names can help people readily identify specific pieces otherwise buried anonymously in catalogues of numbers – for example, many of Haydn’s 100-plus symphonies owe their popularity to either individual titles or to names given to sets of works, such as the “Paris” or “London” Symphonies. One wonders at times whether these numbers really do register in peoples’ minds – as with the lovely story of the music student who was asked how many Beethoven symphonies there were, and who replied, “Three – the “Eroica”, the “Pastoral” – and the Ninth!”

Lest readers begin thinking that this reviewer has REALLY lost the plot on this occasion, I hasten to point out that the above remarks were prompted by my profound enjoyment of the Aroha Quartet’s playing of Mozart’s “Hoffmeister” String Quartet at St.Andrew’s Church on Saturday evening. I hadn’t heard this work for some time, but after experiencing this group’s warm, mellow playing and beautifully natural sense of ensembled give-and-take throughout, I’m certain that I’ll associate this “named” quartet for a long time to come with what was here an extremely pleasurable listening experience. It’s true that Haydn is regarded as the “father” of the string quartet, but on the evidence of works such as this one Mozart brought to the genre his own sublimity and distinction. From the outset, the Aroha Quartet brought a mellow warmth to the music, with a beautiful blend of distinctive tones, at once characterful and responsive in the interests of a larger expression, the players readily able to vary their dynamics as one with with plenty of energy and volatility, throughout the first movement.  A full-bodied, colourful and exuberant minuet followed, the players digging into the music and in places almost bursting the dance at its seams – the minor-key triplet variants of the theme, tossed around among the instruments, provided a more circumspect contrast.

I liked also the tender, eloquent opening of the adagio, the playing very “giving” and interactive, almost theatrical in its thematic and instrumental exchanges. And the finale also engaged for different reasons, the players generating a lot of excitement with spectacular runs from violin and ‘cello over stuttering accompanying figures, with energy levels dancing near the tops of their gauges, and elements of surprise and contrast very much to the fore. One imagines Herr Hoffmeister listening to the work’s first performance and beaming with delight at the thought of his name being carried forward in musical history by this marvellous piece.

The leader of the quartet, Haihong Liu, welcomed the modestly-sized audience to the concert before introducing the next piece, from China, an arrangement for string quartet of a ballet Baimao Nu (in English, White-Haired Girl) by the composers Zhu Jian-er and Shi Yongkang. The story is based on the documented life-histories of half-a-dozen women from different periods of Chinese history, from the late Qing Dynasty to the 1930s, and existed and was performed as an opera before the Communist takeover in China in 1949, which resulted in later adaptations for ballet and film having some political propaganda input, changing some aspects of the story, and becoming a “modern Chinese classic”. A strong unison statement, like the opening of a curtain, began the work, whose lyrical, flowing manner, flecked with little folk-touches of portamento, created an attractive, if somewhat filmic impression. The narrative style was emphasised by frequent changes of metre and contrasting episodes, alternating wistful single-instrument lines with concerted, orchestral-like crescendi culminating in dramatic minor-key plunges – attractive, colourful music, obviously intended to entertain and uplift rather than ponder any fundamental tenet of existence that could be called to question. The Aroha Quartet players delivered it all with the sort of commitment and level of skill one would expect the players to bring to much greater music, but without ever over-inflating the range and scope of the piece.

A work that certainly required full-blooded treatment was Tchaikovsky’s Third String Quartet from 1876, a work for too long overshadowed (like the Second Quartet) by the first of the composer’s essays in this medium five years previously, with its celebrated Andante Cantabile movement. I thought this deeply-felt performance took us right to the heart of the music, the first movement, after a beautifully-breathed opening and a deep, rocking melancholy underpinned by pizzicati, fixing on a working-out of the themes with energetic and persistent drive and focus – tense, tortured stuff. It was possible to think that, in places, the mood of the playing might perhaps have been even a little too dogged and unyielding, with no hint of pathos or rhetoric at cadence-points – but it was indeniably involving and exciting. The second movement’s elfin and energetic brilliance had a surety of touch that encompassed both the music’s playful aspect and the more explosive accents and emphases, also making the most of the trio section’s droll, droning bass, with snatches of the allegro re-energising the music – lovely playing!

Tchaikovsky wrote the quartet as a tribute to a violinist friend who had died the previous year, and the grief of his loss was made manifest with the slow movement’s andante funebre marking. Here, the Aroha’s compelling focus brought us right to the edge of the music’s well of deep emotion, giving those opening discords and dolorous chanting figurations plenty of weight and emphasis, before allowing the more rhapsodic second subject group some remembrance of happier times. However, darkness soon overtook the music once again, a sombre processional becoming trenchant and threatening, before the chanting sequences beautifully and hauntingly returned at the end. After this, the finale plunged into an energetic “life goes on” dance, the spirit of it all reminiscent of the composer’s Fourth Symphony, the quartet enjoying the music’s physicality as well as registering the more delicate, elfin-like aspects of the discourse. A brief reminiscence of the previous movement’s solemnities became the prelude to a dancing coda, thrown off here with plenty of excitement.

Our enthusiasm for and appreciation of the music-making was rewarded by the Quartet’s playing of an encore – a piece that, for all the world sounded Central European, with soulful folk-themes, czardas-like dance-rituals at the beginning and brilliant accelerandi to finish. But it was, according to Quartet leader Haihong Liu, a Saliha, from the Silk Road region of China, which might well account for what sounded like gypsy-like tunes, rhythms and structures. It made a rousing conclusion to a most enjoyable concert.