Category: Reviews – Concerts

A musical machine plus Bartók and Sibelius from NZSM Orchestra

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand School of Music Orchestra, conducted by Kenneth Young with Vivian Stephens (violin)

Johannes Contag: Starting the Robot; Sibelius: Violin Concerto, Op 47; Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra

Cathedral of the Sacred Heart

Friday 8 October, 7.30pm

From now and into the fourth term, concerts by performance students at the New Zealand School of Music crop up in a variety of venues across the city. They are in part to fulfil the course requirements and in part to make the city aware of gifted young musicians being schooled there.

The orchestra itself consists of most of the students of orchestral instruments; they numbered about 55 of the members of the orchestra, though it is appropriate to note that there are several sections with few or no students and that have to be filled by guests, mainly from the NZSO. Lacking are any oboes – a surprise, and there are insufficient violists, cellists and double bassists, and horn players.

But accepting that those sections were equipped with professionals, the splendid playing by the great majority of sections was the work of students, driven in the most colourful and lively way by Kenneth Young.

The concert opened with a new piece by a student composer, Johannes Contag, that took its character from the sounds and the metaphysical nature of the machine – the thing created by man and whose operation is controlled less and less by man. I found it entertaining, as it was very effectively driven by rhythmic pulses suggesting an accelerating and then slowing of a piston-driven machine.  Melodic ideas were less significant but the structure, imposed from the outside, created a satisfying entity. The performance gave it an excellent presentation.

Sibelius’s Violin Concerto has such attractive qualities, and offers such rewarding work for the soloist that it’s hard not to delight in it. The soloist, Vivian Stephens, had played it to win the School of Music’s concerto competition a few months ago. His performance on a fine, warm instrument, was most impressive, exhibiting a mature command, at least in the first two movements, of both technicalities and musical texture and phrasing that created beautiful and varied sounds that were very satisfying: he negotiated the first movement cadenza with great skill.

In the third movement there were early signs of slightly less confidence, and a memory lapse later on, But he recovered admirably and conductor and violinist brought it, overbearing acoustic and all, to an splendid finish.

Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra is a big challenge for a non-professional orchestra, exposing all instruments very deliberately. The first movement is the most substantial, a complex pattern that makes ever-changing demands on many sections, slowly building from tentative flute passages through beguiling bluesy brass chords to a state of exhilaration.

The ‘game of pairs’ that is the second movement, predominantly light of texture, offered evidence of the orchestra’s quality without too much overweight bass: muted trumpets, clarinets… The quality of string playing was clear in the Elegia, from the notable double basses, through piccolo and timpani. 

In the Intermezzo I am usually puzzled by Bartók’s mocking of the tune in Shostakovich’s 7th symphony, failing to recognise the Russian’s purpose in that work. Far from belittling Shostakovich, I feel it diminishes Bartók’s own work, once one is aware of the connection. However, the orchestra followed the movement’s curious pathway unerringly. The last movement is an extended dance-driven Presto, though not really so fast till the accelerating, attacking tutti passages towards the end.  

It was a brilliant performance that deserved to be in a more accommodating acoustic space.

NZSM showcase for viola and violin students

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Bartók: Viola Concerto – movements II and III; Rebecca Clarke: Viola
Sonata – movements I and II; Glinka: Viola Sonata – first movement; Reger: Solo
Viola Suite No 3 in E minor – fourth movement; Khachaturian: Violin Concerto –
first movement

Gillian Ansell and Douglas Mews and students from the New Zealand School
of Music

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 6 October 12.15pm

There was a relatively large audience at this concert that featured two
violists and a violinist and they were rewarded both with some out-of-the-way
music and by hearing some talented players.

Though it was advertised as a concert of violists, it was, rather, a
showcase for three students of Gillian Ansell, violist in the New Zealand
String Quartet, at the New Zealand School of Music, one of whom, Karla Norton,
was a violinist. She, with the buoyant support of Douglas Mews at the piano,
made Khachaturian’s splendid violin concerto sound almost as if he’d written it
as a sonata for violin and piano: she played the brilliantly tuneful first
movement with accurate intonation, its phrases confidently shaped and polished.
Though a violinist, she is a pupil of Gillian Ansell’s; as a third year
student, her performance stood out as a little more accomplished than her two
violist colleagues who were in their second year.

The pieces
played by Leoni Wittchou and Megan Ward were, like so much of the viola
repertoire, unfamiliar. Leoni played two movements from Rebecca Clarke’s Viola
Sonata, a most rewarding piece by this British violist and composer, written in
1919. Though not tainted by serialism, it sounded absolutely of its age,
speaking in a voice that sounded authentic and individual. Leoni had absorbed
its idiom and managed to unravel its dense harmonies and rather complex
rhythmic character, conveying a confidence and assurance that was rather
impressive. After playing the first movement, Impetuoso, (it alone was
scheduled) she played the short allegro second movement, which was playful and
demanding.

Megan Ward was the second violist: she chose the first movement of an
unfinished, early viola sonata by Glinka that bore hardly any of the Russian characteristics
for which he was later renowned. It had little to recommend it: sentimental in
tone, uncertain in the handling of its themes, like a struggling pupil of
someone like John Field. Megan made a sterling effort with it, but her playing
was marred by intonation flaws and the insecurities of a student at her stage
of development.

She followed the Glinka piece with the fourth movement of a solo viola
suite (No 3) by Max Reger, and she succeeded in creating from this Bach-like
piece, musical shapes that could easily have remained sterile strings of notes.

Behind all the performances, save the Reger, was the piano support from
Douglas Mews which provided interesting textures and sustained interest where
the viola might have sagged. Nowhere
was his part more arresting than in the first piece in the programme: the
second and third movements of Bartok’s Viola Concerto (in the completion by
Csaba Erdelyi). Here was the chance for the teacher, Gillian Ansell, to be
heard in a role not normally available to her. Viola and piano were in
wonderful accord: the piano providing almost all the harmonic interest that one
would expect of an orchestra, and the viola demonstrating a mastery of this
difficult work that one would expect only from a seasoned solo musician. It was
a simply splendid performance, making me wonder when an orchestra
might engage her to play the entire concerto.

 

Opera Scenes at New Zealand School of Music

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Opera Scenes: Passionate Choices: Love & Duty from Purcell to Britten via Mozart and Strauss (with a dash of Offenbach)

Fifteen Voice Students

Adam Concert Room, Victoria University

Saturday, 2 October, 7.30pm

While it is a pity that there was no university opera this year, after the brilliant Semele last year, the concert in which 10 opera scenes were performed was quite an ambitious undertaking.  There was considerable variety, but enough of each opera to give more than a taste, and to allow the singers to really get into the characters.  It is good news for music in this country that there are so many singers who are capable of performing these roles.

The audience were placed facing towards the southern end of the Adam Concert Room.  Behind the area used as a stage were two beautiful red and black shot- silk curtains of ample proportions; the performers entered through the space between them.

The evening began with the quintet from Act I of Così fan tutte, by Mozart.  This contains the famous and beautiful trio for Fiordiligi, Dorabella and Don Alfonso ‘Soave sia il vento’.  The singers were very assured and the men, particularly, were excellent – Norman Pati, who had a nice turn of comedy, and Joshua Kidd, who was not quite so confident.  Dorabella (Elitsa Kappatos) produced a more mellow tone than did Angelique MacDonald as Fiordiligi (perhaps to be expected since the former is a mezzo role), but both knew their parts and their movements well, and were able to enter into the story fully.  Indeed, this was true of all the performers throughout the concert.  The placing of Don Alfonso (Thomas Barker) behind the two women for most of the trio was a disadvantage for his projection, and the ensemble between the three singers.  Costumes of 1920s appearance were excellent, and fun.

The sextet from later in Act I followed.   Now Fiordiligi was sung by Bryony Williams, while the other parts were taken by the same singers as in the quintet.  All the singers were powerful, and the parts were well characterised. 

It is wonderful what can be done with minimal sets, minimal props, beautiful costumes and beautiful, well-trained voices.  Bruce Greenfield accompanied.  I did not think he was up to his usual very high standard – perhaps it was the piano?   I found the Mozart over-pedalled, and much of the accompanying too loud.  This is probably largely due to the polished wooden floor and wooden ceiling.  I have seen, both here and at St. Andrew’s on The Terrace, heavy fabric placed under the piano to achieve a quieter tone.

Two scenes from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and two from The Turn of the Screw by Britten, were directed by one of the performers, post-graduate student Laura Dawson.  She appeared first as the Sorceress in ‘Wayward Sisters’, that wonderfully chilling witches’ incantation.  The ensemble singing with her fellow witches (Emily Simcox, Amelia Ryman, Joshua Kidd and Isaac Stone) was superb.  I would have found a deeper voice better for the Sorceress; Dawson sang much better where the music was in the higher register.  Imaginative stage business was a tribute to her invention.

The famous Dido’s Lament scene followed, after Bruce Greenfield had played (as happened elsewhere in the programme) some of the orchestral music between the scenes, which not only gave more of the feeling of the operas, but gave time for the crew (the singers themselves) to change the props, while two cloaked characters walked through with large placards stating the names of the operas and the locations of the scenes.

Laura Dawson sang Dido, Thomas Barker, Aeneas, and Belinda was very well acted and sung by Emily Simcox, who was in fine voice.  The whole scene was very effectively done, including the use of props.  The famous Lament was beautiful, except for the pronunciation of the word ‘earth’, which cut off the sound quite unnecessarily, and overdone ‘t’s – there is no need for this in a small auditorium.

That brings me to another point: it is a pity that the students do not have a ‘proper’ auditorium in which to put on opera, or scenes from opera.  They have all learned to project their voices and their words well (although some singers needed more vocal support), but projecting as if in an opera house in the Adam Concert Room leads to quite unnecessarily loud volume.  It is to be hoped that the planned new School of Music on the Ilott Green will go ahead, and include a theatre.  In the meantime, is the Theatrette at Massey University (the former National Museum Theatrette) not suitable?

The scenes from the Britten opera were, of course, something completely different; Britten was a great admirer of Purcell, and is regarded as the best English opera composer since Purcell.

The spooky mood of the opera came over well, partly due to excellent projection of the words.  The performers made the scenes thoroughly involving.  Bridget Costello as the governess and Laura Dawson as Mrs Grose, the housekeeper, were very believable characters in ‘The Window’ from Act I, and again in Act II’s scene about the ghost of the former governess.  It was very well directed, and Costello was outstanding both vocally and in her acting.

After the interval the mood changed completely, with three excerpts from Offenbach’s La Vie Parisienne.  What was innovative here was that the libretto had been devised and written by the cast and director.  Therefore they gained experience in developing characters.  There were two tables at a café in Paris (presumably out-of-doors, since one man was wearing a hat – I’m always puzzled by New Zealand operas having men wearing hats indoors, a no-no in polite society of former times).  At one table sat an English family on holiday; at the other, two extravert young French women.

These were stereotypical characters: the English in tweeds and cardigan, the French in mini-skirts, smoking and chatting volubly and expressively.  Three scenes, ‘Paris c’est l’amour’, ‘Poor Fellow’ and Septet (not Sextet as in the printed programme) ‘And there will be a Lighted Candle’, involved seven singers in funny lyrics to Offenbach’s music, and amusing stage business, to make a thoroughly enjoyable little story. 

Particularly outstanding was Emily Simcox as Gertrude, the mother in the English family.  Her husband George was sung by Simon Harnden.  He opened proceedings speaking – and what a resonant speaking voice he has!   This little piece of theatre was so involving and so well done that it would be hard to isolate any one or two singers as outstanding over the others.  The emphasis was very much on clarity of words and acting, and all passed with flying colours.

The other characters were performed by Angelique MacDonald, Isaac Stone (whose acting was very amusing), Thomas O’Brien, Bridget Costello and Amelia Ryman.  The names of the two French girls were the French forms of the singers’ names – the last two in this list.

The final scene was more problematic.  Surely the final trio and duet from Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier are too demanding on the voices of singers as young as these?  Not only is Strauss opera generally a hard sing, this must be one of the most difficult. 

Whether it was done to give the impression of an older woman I do not know, but I thought Bryony Williams as the Marschallin had too much vibrato for a young singer.  Bianca Andrew as Octavian was in great voice, and thoroughly convincing.  Imogen Thirwall was a very competent but somewhat anxious Sophie.  The duet was quite lovely.  Nevertheless, the volume was overpowering in the trio; singers should moderate their dynamics to suit the resonance and size of the venue.  The small role of Faninal was sung by Isaac Stone.

Set changes were very well done, and the whole production was achieved in a professional manner.  Everyone knew their parts thoroughly, and musically, the performances were enjoyable, aside from my reservation about the level of sound in some items.

How fortunate we are to have so many promising singers – and so many experienced, competent teachers at the School of Music!

NZSO Soloists in interesting but problematic programme

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Sibelius: Impromptu
Ibert: Pièce
Arthur Foote: A Night Piece
Grieg: Two Norwegian Airs
Aulis Sallinen: Aspects of Peltoniemi Hintrik’s Funeral March
Telemann: Don Quixote Overture no.10 in G major (Burlesque de Don Quixote)
Mendelssohn: Symphony for Strings no.10 in B minor

NZSO String section, Bridget Douglas (flute), Vesa-Matti Leppänen (director)

Michael Fowler Centre

Thursday 30 September, 7.30pm

It is an interesting innovation to have sections of the NZSO featured in their own concerts; this year, the string players (or 18 of them) and next year it will be the turns of the woodwind players and the brass players. Vessa-Matti Leppänen has chosen the music for all these concerts.

Since the sad demise of the NZSO Chamber Orchestra (co-founded, and directed, by Donald Armstrong), we have not heard regular string orchestra playing, apart from baroque groups.  I would say that with this group there is not yet the warm timbre of a string orchestra that has played together for years, but nevertheless the players made a fine sound, and played almost impeccably.

There were 18 players, and they stood to play (which they will not be used to), except, of course, the three cellists.  There were as well ten violinists, three viola players and two double bassists.  The personnel of the group provided additional interest, since it was the first concert for the new principal cellist, Andrew Joyce.  Not only was the new cellist having his first outing, but trialling the position of principal viola was his wife Julia, who is none other than Julia McCarthy who only a few years ago, was a talented violin student at Victoria University’s School of Music, and member of the National Youth Orchestra.  Studying overseas has seen her switch to viola as her chief instrument, and also acquire a musician husband.

Vessa-Matti told us that this concert should be relaxing, but not send us to sleep.  I  began to have my doubts, despite the excellence of the playing.  Certainly there was much music of a muted, even dreamy quality.  While it was very good to hear unfamiliar music for strings, I found rather an over-emphasis on dark Scandinavian music, which some described as gloomy, and others as lugubrious.

The poor attendance at the concert probably showed that a lot of people enjoy the big sound and the variety of a symphony orchestra, and a much smaller string group like this doesn’t ‘do it’ for them.

The opening work was described by the director as ‘happy Sibelius’, but despite the still, calm opening, bouncy use of spiccato, and a lively waltz in the middle section, it was mainly melancholy, as the programme note described the final section.  Originally written for piano, early in his career, the work was soon arranged for string orchestra by the composer.  The instruments played with mutes, giving a lovely sustained, mellow tone. 

After this came a surprise item: a short work of Ibert’s from 1936, named simply Pièce.  This was introduced and played by principal flutist Bridget Douglas, who wore a beautiful silver dress, matching her instrument well.  As she said, this work was reminiscent of Debussy’s well-know Prélude à l’après midi d’un faune.   A slow and meditative opening was followed by a livelier section, reminiscent of birds, and then it was back to a slower, more contemplative mood.

Arthur Foote, who died in 1937, wrote A Night Piece in 1918.  It was written of it that it ‘has no concern to shake the world…’ but that the composer had ‘a sensitive response to beauty which has enabled him to capture a distillation of sheer sensuous delight.’  Here again, the word ‘melancholic’ is used in the programme note, along with ‘a fresh and exotic elegance’.  It was not in any sense avant-garde music, but a charming, subtle, beautifully played piece for flute and string orchestra.

Both the Ibert work and this one were played by the soloist without score, and with quite ravishing tone and technique.  True to title, the piece was certainly nocturnal in mode and character, being dreamy and lyrical.

Continuing in Scandinavian vein we had Grieg’s Two Norwegian Airs; firstly, ‘In Folk Style’ and next ‘Cow Call and Peasant Dance’.  Following the opening there was a long viola and cello section, the two instruments conversing with each other in a mellow way.  Then the violins joined in, initially on the lower strings.  Parts of this piece were quite dreamy and melancholy; this meant that all the three pieces so far heard (apart from the Ibert solo) were rather similar in mood.

The second of the two Airs featured very musical cow calls (without any lowing response from the animals) followed by a lively dance.

Aulis Sallinen, composer and conductor visited New Zealand a number of years ago, on a conducting exchange with Sir William Southgate, who conducted in Finland.  As a result, Sallinen (as reported by Leppänen in a radio interview a couple of days before the concert) has written a New Zealand Symphony.

His piece was based on a traditional folk funeral melody, which had been voted in Finland as the most depressing and dark tune ever!  Whether Peltoniemi Hintrik was a real person, I have been unable to discover.  Perhaps he was a figure of folk tradition, like Peer Gynt in Norway.

The first statement of this theme was extremely bare, played by solo violin and solo cello, in octaves.  This gave a steely cold sound.  Then one viola and viola and one second violin joined in, playing pizzicato, before the other players entered, at which point all appeared to be at cross-purposes.  The techniques included strumming, and pizzicato deliberately played with the finger-nails, to produce a hard sound.

Later, in a more dynamic mood, sections of the music involved discords resolving, interspersed with unison playing, i.e. discord then concord.  The ending of the work was quite folksy.  Despite the ‘funeral’ title, there was humour in the music.

Now for something completely different.  The Telemann work was fun, and quite dissonant in places.  This performance included harpsichordist Donald Nicolson; there were three fewer violinists.

Its seven movements were thoroughly descriptive of their titles, based on the famous knight’s adventures.  It was good to hear the NZSO players, despite their use of modern instruments, performing this music so well in baroque style, with little vibrato but strong accents, especially on the first beat of every bar.

The ‘Overture’ (yes, the Overture had an overture) was peaceful and happy, then very fast.  The ‘Awakening of Don Quixote’ had a quiet a sleepy mood, followed by ‘His Attack on the Windmills’ which indeed was quite a battle, vigorous and fast.  The ‘Sighs of Love for Princess Dulcinae’ were just that.  ‘Sancho Panza Swindled’ was a very jolly movement, but simple (perhaps to show the squire as simple?), and featured upwards-swooping phrases, presumably depicting the swindling.

The movement of minuet-trio-minuet describing ‘Rosinante Galloping’ and ‘The Gallop of Sancho Panza’s Mule’ had appropriate rhythm (though the galloping seemed a bit slow to me – perhaps in Spain in the Don’s day horses galloped at a more leisurely pace than now?).   The mule was quieter and slower, the trio being set for a quartet of the four section leaders, before the return to the minuet.

‘Don Quixote at Rest’ seemed to belie its title; more straight-forward music, but at a fast pace becoming ever faster.  This was a humorous finale, with spiccato from violas, cellos and basses.

The final work on the programme was Mendelssohn’s tenth String Symphony, written when he was only 14 years old.  It is a delightful, relatively uncomplicated piece, well crafted and well played here.  It is not brilliant, but astonishing for someone of the composer’s age at the time. 

There was a good weighty sound despite the relatively small group of players.  It was not as delicate as the Scandinavian music, but nonetheless, there were some lovely pianissimos, and some fine themes.  Brian Shillito’s solo viola passage was beautifully played.

There was an enthusiastic response from the audience.  Leppänen had done a good job of preparation of the musicians; I am not so sure about his programme choices.  It is good to have a varied and different programme, and this was an interesting exercise, but not one I would want to take in too often.

Michael Fulcher demonstrates virtues of Congregational Church organ

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

National Organ Month: Michael Fulcher

Music by Samuel Sebastian Wesley, Thomas Dunhill, Mendelssohn, Stanford and Elgar

Congregational Church, Cambridge Terrace

Thursday 30 September 12.45pm

The pages of Middle C have been unusually filled by reviews of organ recitals over the past month on account of National Organ Month, which is one of the more useful special celebrations in the musical calendar.

Interest in the organ lies rather outside the field of vision for many music lovers and, I suppose, particularly as a result of religious belief and church-going seeming to be in permantent decline.

Though I was perhaps disadvantaged by being brought up in an agnostic family, I was lucky through my secondary school years to have a best friend whose family were musicians, and in particular, church musicians. After they moved to Christchurch, and he became, aged 16 or so, organist at St Paul’s church, Papanui, I could experiment on its two manual pipe organ: Finlandia, I remember, sounded especially wonderful. .  Agnosticism has never got in the way of loving the music that religion has given the world; so I have never been able to walk past a church where an organ was being played.

Michael Fulcher brought Organ Month to a close in Wellington, on the organ that he’d confessed the week before, was one of his favourites in the city.

I was a couple of minutes late and he was already charging through the Fugal section of a Choral Song and Fugue by Samuel Sebastian Wesley (born 200 years ago, along with Schumann and Chopin and Nicolai and Lumbye…).

Fulcher had chosen stops that fitted the space on the church admirably so that the effect was grand, vivid and exciting, with a clarity that allowed each register to be heard; the accumulations in the climactic fugue, complementing the Song very sympathetically, depended rather on exploiting more of the organ’s full resources.

Rather less grand, the Air and Gavotte from the same composer’s Twelve Short Pieces, demonstrated the more refined aspects of the organ’s character, each phrase played on different flute or reed stops; the staccato rhythms of the Gavotte were accompanied by adroit manipulation of the stops.

Dunhill’s name is more familiar to young piano students, though hardly to the average listener. His Cantilena Romantica is a charming, far from merely sentimental, piece that offered another opportunity to hear the range of the organ’s colours, in a performance that gave life to a piece that might not sound so interesting on a recording.

The centre piece of the concert was Mendelssohn’s Sonata No 6 in D minor. Though it’s not very orthodox in the pattern of its movements, it is a more interesting piece than might have been expected from a request from an English publisher.

Fulcher’s registrations were at once, in the opening Chorale and variations, in striking contrast with the preceding English pieces: sombre, in a serious Bach vein (the tune is from Bach’s chorale ‘Vater unser im Himmelreich’, BWV 416). Even though its rhythm was more lively, the following Allegro molto maintained the diapason character of the Chorale movement. The third movement, Fugue, proved the most spectacular display of the concert, highly decorated passages with rushing scales and the use of the heaviest stops. It was a movement, among others, that one can hardly imagine coming off in either the Town Hall or the Anglican Cathedral because of the avalanche of notes. Apparently these sonatas were not much played in England for many years; in fact, the character of the Fugal movement struck me as presaging the French toccata style that emerged a half century later. The last movement is a deceptive Andante, meditative, not the least flamboyant; and Fulcher’s performance gave it the best possible recommendation.

The rest of the programme was much less significant, though both pieces were well chosen for their particular qualities. Stanford’s Voluntary No 1, modest in substance and in performance, evolved very engagingly; and Elgar’s Imperial March (Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee) was another opportunity for virtuoso display, not merely by the player but of this little-appreciated organ’s singular strengths and brilliant colours.

 

 

 

 

NZSM voice students on show at Lower Hutt

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Selections from Mozart operas, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, and Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Gondoliers; and songs by Bernstein, Brahms, Vaughan Williams, Wolf, Warlock, Keel, Franchi, Schumann and Mussorgsky

New Zealand School of Music Voice Students: Isaac Stone, Laura Dawson, Fredi Jones, Daniela Young, Simon Harnden, Awhina Waimotu, Christina Orgias; accompanied by Claire Harris, Douglas Mews, Emma Sayers

St. Mark’s Church, Lower Hutt

Wednesday, 29 September, 12.15pm

A wide-ranging programme gave opportunity for NZSM students of Richard Greager, Margaret Medlyn, Flora Edwards and Jenny Wollerman to demonstrate their skills. The printed programme did not state, but I suspect some of these students are at an early stage of their study. However, all acquitted themselves well in front of an audience, and did not exhibit obvious signs of nervousness.

All sang in at least two languages, and some in three, the languages being Italian, German and English.

Unfortunately I missed the first item, and a large part of the second. The first singer, Isaac Stone, sang two further items. The second, Laura Dawson, sang three songs from I Hate Music, a cycle of ‘Five Kid Songs for soprano by Leonard Bernstein (both text and music), which is purportedly sung by a ten-year-old girl. What little I heard sounded very competently sung, if rather too powerfully for a ten-year-old.

Fredi Jones then sang the first of his three items: ‘Deh! Vieni alla finestra’ from Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Jones has a fine voice, at times making a beautiful sound, but he was not enough the seducing Don. He and others of the less experienced singers may well develop characterisation with time. Later in the programme, he sang ‘Widmung’ from the song cycle Myrthen by Schumann. This suited him better than the Don’s aria, and he used his voice to good advantage, although his tone was weaker in the quiet singing. Nevertheless, it was a good performance. His last item was ‘Take a pair of sparkling eyes’ from The Gondoliers. This was pleasantly performed, but again there was not enough character in voice or language for what is a comic opera aria. The singer needed to pretend that none of us knew it, and that what he was so clearly enunciating was new to us.

After Jones’s Mozart aria we had another from the same opera: ‘Batti, batti, o bel Masetto’, sung by Daniela Young. She presented this very skilfully; her clear lovely voice contained plenty of expression. Later, she gave us Vergebliches Ständchen by Brahms, with energy, and impeccable German. Perhaps she needed a little more contrast vocally between the imploring man wishing the young woman to open the door, and the young woman’s replies that she will not let him in.

The next singer was Simon Harnden. He sang first Sapphische Ode by Brahms, and then ‘The Vagabond’ from Songs of Travel by Vaughan Williams, the latter to Robert Louis Stevenson’s text. These songs are both quite lovely, and favourites of mine. Harnden has a good baritone, but his intonation was insecure at times. In the former he did not develop the long notes, and his German was indistinct. The latter featured clearer words, though I was not so keen on ‘Oi’ for ‘I’ or ‘loif’ for ‘life’. Again, he had difficulty in sustaining correct pitch.

However, he came into his own in the last item: Mussorgsky’s Song of the Flea. The tessitura of this song, employing his lower register, seemed to suit him much better. It made his singing more effective, his intonation was better, and he put more character into the performance. He did not do all the difficult runs fully, but made this a most enjoyable final item.

The next singer, following Harnden’s second song, was Awhina Waimotu. She sang first one of Wolf’s Mörike lieder, Verbogenheit. There is a very pleasant, full quality to her voice, but intonation was not always secure. She conveyed the character of the song well, and her high notes were beautifully pure. Her second performance was of ‘Amore è un ladroncello’ from Così fan tutte by Mozart. Tone was very good, and this is a voice that would carry well in an opera house. The sense of the aria was conveyed well, but it is a difficult aria, and it did not quite come off. Again, there were intonation problems.

Isaac Stone then sang Peter Warlock’s Lullaby. His voice is pleasant but not large. This suited a lullaby, but despite it being in English, I did not gain much of a feel for the meaning of this song. He followed this with Frederick Keel’s Trade Winds. This was a more enjoyable performance, of a song I remember singing at primary school. Keel’s evocative music for Masefield’s words communicate the meaning splendidly.

Christina Orgias began with a Wolf song that was left out of the printed programme: Anakerons Grab. This was a lyrical and expressive performance – yet this setting of Goethe perhaps needs a little more maturity to render the poem completely. It ws gratifying to see the second song, Treefall by New Zealand composer Dorothea Franchi, with text by Jean Hill, included. Franchi’s writing is delightful and renders the account of a special tree that had been felled in touching manner. Christina Orgias put the story over well, and showed excellent breath control.

Naturally, there was variation between the singers, but the audience was privileged to hear some fine singers and a number of very promising performances. There is no doubt that the university singers get more opportunities for public performance than they did a number of years ago, thanks to the number of lunchtime concerts occurring weekly in the capital and Lower Hutt, and the performances that the School of Music itself is mounting.

William Green (piano) on The Enchanted Island

Posted on by Peter Mechen

New Zealand and other solo piano music

The Enchanted Island: music by J S BACH, FRANK HUTCHENS, ERNEST JENNER, DOUGLAS LILBURN, ROBERT BURCH, ALFRED HILL, SAMUEL BARBER, WILLIAM GREEN, GEORGE GERSHWIN, JENNY McLEOD, JACK BODY, HELEN BOWATER, MICHAEL NORRIS, RICHARD WAGNER (arr.FRANZ LISZT)
(A Caprice Arts Trust Concert)

William Green (piano)

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

Friday, 24th September 2010

This was a recital that had more than a whiff of magic, mystery and atmosphere about it, thanks in part to a tempestuous Wellington spring wind that roared around and about St. Andrew’s Church throughout the evening, activating creaks, groans and occasional muffled bumpings and rumblings. It was as if an army of musical ghosts had congregated amid the rafters of the church and were making their presence felt none too silently (shades of the composers, perhaps, come to hear their music given an all too seldom public airing in many instances).

Other things contributed to the magic of the occasion, not the least of which was William Green’s playing. An Auckland-based musician who gives frequent recitals exploring the surprisingly rich legacy of New Zealand piano music, Green was here making his Wellington debut as a solo recitalist. He brought with him a programme whose substance and presentation deserved far greater support than the paltry numbers who did attend the concert were able to generate, appreciative though the audience was of the pianist’s efforts. Whether the sparse attendance (no more than thirty people) could be attributed to lack of advertising, the pianist’s and the repertoire’s largely “unfamiliar” status, the recital’s injudicious timing or the less-than-salubrious weather, the response remained disappointing and reflected less than positively on the capital’s reputation as a centre for arts and culture.

But what magic there was in the music as well! – in the Caprice Arts Trust’s advertising preamble, William Green referred to the programme as focused “on the small and the lyrical – often clothed in the unusual!”. Most of the works were written by New Zealand composers, many of which pieces were new to me; and the pianist’s own work, a set of three Rags Without Riches was given its world premiere performance (he also played an exerpt from another of his compositions, No.5 from Five Miniatures). The idea of including in the recital works by JS Bach, Samuel Barber, George Gershwin (three song arrangements, fascinatingly different treatments) and Richard Wagner (Liszt’s famed transcription of the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde) certainly “placed” the home-grown pieces in wider contexts of both time and space, and not at all to their detriment.

Not inappropriately, the recital’s “anchor-stone” whose opening tones readily suggested a sense of “something rich and strange” was a Busoni transcription of JS Bach’s Nun Komm der Heiland, the music’s deep-throated, solemn stride evoking at once the mystery of unfathomable being and the beauty of ritual, a recipe for gentle bewitchment if ever there was one. The piece which gave the recital its name followed, Frank Hutchens’ The Enchanted Isle, atmospheric, impressionistic music, figurations beneath which sang a sonorous melody, and awakenings of echoes and distant voicings, the pianist’s ultra-sensitivity presiding over a beguiling harmonic kaleidoscope of colour-change. Wilder and more energetic was the same composer’s Sea Music, a kind of pianistic “jeux de vagues”, rippling figurations concerned with playful, impulsive dialogue between melody and counter-melody, nothing too adventurous harmonically, but with the occasional guileful twist. And Ernest Jenner’s Foxglove Bells, though hinting at touches of the exotic with some of the opening harmonies, was a gentle, pictorial English pastorale, the bells at the mercy of the breezes across the meadow, their tones rising at the piece’s lovely, questioning ending.

Terser, more enigmatic fare was Douglas Lilburn’s Piece ’81, a piece whose soulful, upward-arching impulses gave themselves and their resonances plenty of air and light, contrast and distance generated by almost sepulchral bass notes that opened up the textures, the pianist allowing the music plenty of room for thought, then gently nudging a couple more upward impulses into the silences. A contemporary of Lilburn’s was Robert Burch, respected as a fine horn-player as well as a composer – William Green played the third of Burch’s set of Four Bagatelles, a piece redolent of tolling bells, with an inquiring, angular figure that walked backwards and forwards across the soundscape, leaving the bells to carry on with an ever-diminishing dialogue, the pianist beautifully controlling the resonantly receding ending. Rather more salon-like was Alfred Hill’s Come Again, Summer, a welcome song in the manner of Cecile Chaminade, though with some telling harmonic shifts in places, especially towards the end.

Green next figured as a transcriber of a bracket of Samuel Barber’s songs, including an aria from the composer’s opera Vanessa. A powerfully bleak, almost Messiaen-like The Crucifixion, complete with birdsong, was succeeded by the well-known, warmly resonant Sure on that Shining Night , rolling and romantic in style; and the group was concluded with the tightly-focused, theatrically interactive To Leave, to Break, the interchanges between bass and treble voices suggesting the piece’s stage origins. Another set of transcriptions, later in the programme, were of George Gershwin’s songs, this time by three different transcribers, each of which had something distinctive to offer, the first, Love walked In, featuring for instance Percy Grainger’s “woggle” (the composer’s irreverent name for a tremolando).

To conclude the recital’s first half, Green played us his new work, Rags Without Riches, three cleverly-written, almost pastiche-like dances paying homage to different New Zealand locations, the first, Starvation Bluff, beginning with what seemed like a pianistic cry of pain, the dying fall as pathetic in effect as the tortured opening. The music evoked hard times and bitter disillusionment, occasional bright-eyed utterances exposing their shadow side, the ghostly ascents taking us into tonal realms where warmth was stripped to the bone and feeling bleached to the point of numbness. Then came Poverty Bay Shuffle, music beginning with droll rumblings and upward rollings, the rhythmic energies projecting a laconic, weathered sensibility, again without warmth or illusion, a structure liable to disintegrate without warning, occasioning desperate gestures such as Grainger-like hand-clustered chords, hollowed-out exchanges of melodic fragments and a final, cursory downward slide. The final Poor Knight’s Rag took on a manic aspect, cluttered, insistent and claustrophobic, a “Singing Detective-like” musical hallucination which recklessly ran itself headlong into the waiting clutches of oblivion. And then it was, as Tom Lehrer would have remarked, more than forty years ago, time for a cancer!

Apart from the Gershwin transcriptions, and Liszt’s well-known keyboard traversal of Wagner’s Liebestod from Tristan, the rest was New Zealand music – William Green gave us two beautiful Tone Clock Pieces by Jenny McLeod, the first (No.2) tolling its notes and enjoying its own ambiences, then exploring antiphonal voices and various resonating reflections, ending with deep, rich soundings; while the second (No.4) rolled, spun and orbited its arpeggiated figures, registering fragments of echoings and chordal replies, rather like a meeting of two disparate elements. Jack Body’s classic Five Melodies was represented by the fifth piece of the set, the oscillation of the notes very beautiful and haunting, the figurations “travelling”, as does sunlight upon water-surfaces, spontaneously recreating the scenario’s basic patternings. Another “Piece No.5” was William’ Green’s own composition, from 5 Miniatures, a lovely, open-textured piece whose explorations of space and becalmed ambiences had to compete with a considerable amount of wind-noise from various parts of the building – the performance nevertheless beautifully sustained by the composer-pianist. By contrast, Helen Bowater’s rapid-fire, high-energy tribute to an Asian housemate’s attempts at communicable language No Problem From Little Bit bubbled with excitability and joy at the prospect of being understood. The pendulum swung back to circumspection for Michael Norris’s Amato, a Caprice Arts Trust commission, here receiving only its second public performance – music whose stillness suggested worlds of frozen time, repeated right-hand water-droplet notes a constant while the left hand tentatively explored middle and bass registers. Clustered etchings of sound began to fill up the piece’s spaces, the pauses defining the dimensions tellingly before being made to resonate with rich tones – some marvellous sounds from the pianist and his instrument! To finish, quiet,firm-voiced declamations, and gentle scintillations of light, everything judiciously controlled and beautifully-breathed.

The Wagner transcription became a “back to the world” undertaking, a piece whose quiet but rapidly burgeoning insistence can produce an overwhelming effect, even in keyboard guise, thanks to the genius of Liszt. William Green’s playing unlocked most of its its magic here, even if I wanted somewhat longer-breathed phrasings at the beginning and a touch more rhetoric at “the” climax, rabid sensationalist that I am! Our over-saturated sensibilities at the conclusion were then refurbished by a “cleansing” encore from the pianist, another of Frank Hutchens’ pieces, called “Two Little Birds”, one whose sounds and realisation expressed exactly what the title said the piece would do – in terms of the recital’s avowed pursuit of “the small and lyrical”, a perfect way to end. And hats off to William Green and Caprice Arts for their splendid enterprise!

Rigg and Olivier delight with Debussy and Prokofiev at Lower Hutt

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Valerie Rigg (violin) and Tessa Olivier (piano): Berceuse, Op 16 (Fauré), Violin Sonata in G minor (Debussy), Violin Sonata in D, Op 94 bis (Prokofiev)

 

St Mark’s Church, Lower Hutt

 

Wednesday 22 September, 12.15pm

 

There are days when Wellington is one of the best places in the world. When the sun’s shining after a southerly and you can see the trees on the Orongorongos and a midday concert at Lower Hutt calls for a drive (though better, a train ride) along the Wellington fault line. You see across the brilliant harbour to the snow-brushed Orongorongos and the Tararuas further north more thickly covered.

 

St Mark’s church on Woburn Road near the east end of the Ewen Bridge is easy to reach (the train from Wellington and the bus from Petone which stops nearby). Volunteers offer coffee for the audience before the concert; the front rows have padded seats and the church has a remarkably high vault which creates a generous acoustic.

 

Last year I heard Valerie Rigg, a former principal violinist with the NZSO, with pianist Tessa Olivier, playing Vitali’s (or who-ever’s) Chaconne and Prokofiev’s second violin sonata (I had not remembered that it was there that I had heard her play it). She was playing the same Prokofiev again, so I looked at what I’d written last year, and was delighted to find that I’d responded so well to it.

 

In this concert, a day after Olya Cutis and David Vine played it at Old Saint Paul’s, the Prokofiev was coupled with Debussy’s Violin Sonata; as a prelude, they played the charming Berceuse by Fauré. The latter was the perfect introduction, for the duo played it with great warmth and an obviously sympathetic musical rapport. I enjoyed its easy swaying rhythm.

 

Debussy’s sonata is as hard to play as it sounds, so that a performance that sounded as if the two musicians had lived with it for hundreds of hours was a real delight. Though I should have been prepared, from last year, to be totally beguiled by their playing, one does not always expect a player who’s spent most of her life in the ranks of an orchestra, to emerge as a comfortable and polished solo performer. Her intonation was as good as it gets, her command of Debussy’s quick-moving, glancing ideas was captivating.

 

Debussy’s piano demands more attention than the piano sometimes gets in a duo. Tessa Olivier was a most congenial companion, often catching the attention, but never obscuring the violin’s more outgoing lyrical contribution.

 

The church’s recently refurbished Bösendorfer is a lovely, and appropriate instrument for a recital like this: a mellow and somehow ready-made fit with the violin. It either refutes the common view (did it originate with Brahms?) that it is extremely difficult to achieve a blend of the two, or is a credit to both players and the way they use their instruments.

 

One of the most touching phases was in the last movement where fluttering trills and uncommon plunges to the open G string lead toward the beautifully crafted conclusion.

 

Prokofiev was the unusual hybrid who passed through his bad-boy phase, where it was more important to ‘épater le bourgeois’ than to make beautiful sounds; eventually, of course, like any really gifted composer, he found his way back to melody after his return to the Soviet Union in 1933 where, give or take the odd Stalinesque purge, there was an environment where his belief in the fundamental importance of melody was not a matter of scorn. There’s character, lyricism, attractive discord, rhythmic teasings, and tunes; yet this sonata, originally for flute, could have been written no earlier than about the 1930s (actually in the 1940s). Every movement has its individuality which the two players fully realized, relishing the gruff bowings in the middle of the Moderato first movement, the sort-of moto perpetuo that drives the Scherzo, with a slightly too hasty up-and-down motif.

 

What a sweet languid movement they made of the Andante! as the piano planted its even crotchets below the violin’s twisting and weaving. Only in the Finale, were there moments where the spirited, perhaps too confident violin might have been at the expense of perfect intonation and clean articulation. But always the combination of an agile left hand and a bowing arm that created both beautiful legato and the most full-blooded attack was exactly the recipe for this music.

 

The two awoke in me the odd sense that the music was not so much being performed, as simply being allowed, through the medium of the two musicians, to fill the space and follow an inevitable path into our souls.

 

Sadly, Tessa Olivier is about to return to her homeland, South Africa. May I suggest that wherever and whenever Valerie Rigg next appears, with whoever follows Ms Olivier, you make sure you’re there. 

 

 

Violin and piano duo in interesting 20th century recital at Old Saint Paul’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Vaughan Williams: Pastorale in E minor; Janáček: Violin Sonata in A flat minor; Prokofiev: Violin Sonata in D, Op 94 bis   

 

Olya Curtis (violin) and David Vine (piano)

 

Old Saint Paul’s

 

Tuesday 21 September 12.15pm

 

Last year I heard these two musicians play the Elgar and Franck sonatas in this place. This year they stepped firmly into the 20th century, even though, ironically, Janáček was born before Elgar.

 

The Vaughan Williams Pastorale was not the typical English pastoral music that came to be rather scorned a generation or so ago; perhaps it was the fact that the violinist was Russian and it was warm and gentle, somewhat modal in its flavour. But just as much, the tone was set by pianist David Vine who, though English-born, plays idiomatically in whatever style is in front of him. 

 

The Janáček sonata was written during the First World War years and premiered in 1922. Though it’s ostensibly Slavic music, and Janáček was rather passionately pro-Russian, he found such a unique manner that a musician’s nationality can have no bearing. In any case, Curtis seemed less at home with the irregular tempi and diverse character of its first movement than did Vine; it went fairly slowly, not as Con moto as I expected from that marking. The players produced a more lyrical second movement, marked Ballada, with long melodies, though elsewhere the characteristic isolated and sharply contrasted motifs did not integrate so persuasively. They brought off the Allegretto well, with energy and conviction and, in spite of minor intonation flaws, captured a real Janáček feeling in the Finale, a sound that is unique in all music.

 

(Janáček is reported saying that the tremolo piano chords in the finale represented the Russian army entering Moravia, liberating it from Austria-Hungary. The Russian army may have penetrated as far as Moravia in the early stage of World War I, but was quickly driven back by the German army. It was the Treaty of Versailles that later gave the Czech and Slovak lands independence from Austria-Hungary.)

 

Prokofiev’s second sonata was in fact completed before his first (Op 80), which was not completed till 1946. David Oistrakh to whom Prokofiev had promised it before the war, had become impatient as the composer was heavily committed to other things such as the ballet Cinderella, and so he made a careful transcription of his flute sonata of 1942 which Oistrakh premiered in 1944.

 

The easy lyricism of the first movement of this sonata seemed to suit Olya Curtis rather more than the Janáček, and even in the scampering passages of the second movement, in spite of a few smudges, both players caught its spirit well. But she might have taken better advantage of opportunities to dig into its emphatic notes more strongly. In Prokofiev’s Andante, I could hear most clearly the ghost of the flute, in its most warm and open mood, as she moved her bow as far as possible from the bridge. Finally, in the Allegro con brio, there were a few rough edges and I was haunted by the sounds of certain great violinists whose miraculous renderings somewhat intruded. Nevertheless, the duo succeeded in bringing one of the liveliest and most approachable violin sonatas of the mid-century vividly to life.

 

 

Flute and string quartet wide-ranging end to Wellington’s Sunday afternoon series

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Boccherini: Quintet in C for flute and strings; Max Reger: Serenade for flute, violin and viola in G, Op.141a; Turina: The Bullfighter’s Prayer; Mozart: Quartet for flute and strings in D, K 285; Copland: Two Threnodies; Ginastera: Impressiones de la Puna for flute and string quartet

 

The Elios Ensemble: Martin Jaenecke and Konstanze Artmann (violins), Victoria Jaenecke (viola), Paul Mitchell (cello), Karen Batten (flute)

 

Ilott Theatre, Town Hall

 

Sunday 19 September, 3pm  

 

The last in the Sunday 3pm concert series from Wellington Chamber Music was a relatively new ensemble of musicians of varying backgrounds, who presumably do not play together as often as does a professional ensemble. Yet they sounded in command of the music, totally familiar with each other, and comfortable with the disparate programme they had so imaginatively put together.

 

The addition of Karen Batten’s flute both added to the variety of the concert, and brought about a certain lightening of the tone; even though fundamentally the ensemble is a string quartet, the inclusion of a flute limits the range of music available. On the other hand, the most striking thing about the programme was the seriousness of more than one of the pieces.

 

The first movement of Boccherini’s flute quintet in C (two in that key are listed in the Gérard catalogue, G 420 and 427) had an unusual robustness, heavily built that seemed out of character with the usual tone of the flute. Its first theme, pithy and abrupt, which was dominated by the flute, could hardly less have reflected the soubriquet ‘Haydn’s Wife’ that was attached to Boccherini in the 19th century on account of the perceived feminine character of his music. The second movement, Minuet, in a slow ländler-like rhythm, allowed first violin more attention, while the Finale offered the first hints of the Boccherini that is familiar through the recent exploration of his hundreds of string quartets and quintets.

 

One of the characteristics that marked the piece was the more interesting cello part played by Paul Mitchell – the composer was one of the most famous cellists of his day. But in spite of the ingratiating flute part, and the attractive writing for the ensemble, the quintet hardly recommended itself as a singular musical discovery.

 

Max Reger’s Serenade for flute, violin and viola had qualities that were diverting, but in spite of a liveliness and lightness of spirit in the outer movements and a certain pensiveness in the Larghetto, it failed to make a great impression. This, in spite of a performance that made the most of its colour and the sprightliness of the flute playing, and which proved sympathetic with the idiom that Reger had developed: something between Bach, Schumann, Brahms, and perhaps less kindly, composers like Max Bruch or Carl Reinecke. Sadly, its undistinguished melodic quality left it without much reason to look for another hearing.

 

Turina’s La oración del Torero, for string quartet, lifted the first half with its unpretentiousness, and its feeling of genuine musical impulse. It is a modest piece which paints a feeling, emotional picture, using melodies that may not be striking but have a certain distinction, and a quiet drama that hardly suggests the bravado of the bull-ring, but rather the quasi-religious emotion that devotees of the art of the torero lay claim to.

 

Undoubtedly the best and most attractive piece in the concert was Mozart’s Flute Quartet in D – one of the two he wrote. Nothing in it suggests Mozart’s alleged indifference to the flute, and the performance captured all the charm of its three lively, imaginative movements. The second, Adagio, is largely a solo for flute with pizzicato strings, and was a delightful vehicle for Karen Batten’s melifluous playing.

 

Copland’s two late Threnodies, the first, highly compressed, for the death of Stravinsky and the second, rather more discursive and expressive, for that of arts patroness Beatrice Cunningham, launched the second half in a somber vein, Though these pieces would hardly seem natural territory for the flute, Batten turned her talents persuasively towards their elegiac mood and their interpretation; if the Copland of Appalachian Spring and El Salón Mexico was remote, a serious spirit was not unwelcome here,.

 

The choice of music suited to unusual instrumental combinations has become much easier with the facilities of the Internet, and an interesting programme such as this is more easily achieved, given the taste and idiomatic sensibility that this ensemble exhibits.

 

The final piece marked a different direction again, and though superficially in a vein culturally related to the Turina, much had happened in the 35 years between the two composers. Impressions of the Andean Uplands, rather than being visually inspired, reflected the flutes, songs and dances of the peoples in its three parts, though it seemed to me that human beings were not Ginastera’s main concern. The first part, Quena (a type of Andean flute), suggested a somewhat bleak landscape, its flutes bereft of those who might be playing them. The second, in triple rhythm, and third parts, were more lively, with writing that taxed the players and entertained the audience.

 

Wellington is fortunate to have yet another quartet and a solo flutist of this quality, drawn mainly from professional orchestral players of individual talent who have been together long enough to develop an impressive ensemble feeling in a very wide variety of musical styles.