Category: Reviews – Concerts

Taiwanese-American pianist marks the two pianist bi-centenaries at Old Saint Paul’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Ya-Ting Liou (piano)

The Chopin and Schumann bicentenaries: ‘Sheep May Safely Graze’ (Bach, arr Egon Petri), Ballade No 2 in F, Op 38 (Chopin), Kreisleriana, Op 16 (Schumann); Danza del gaucho matrero, from Danzas Argentinas, Op 2 (Ginastera)

Old St Paul’s, Mulgrave Street

Tuesday 6 July, 12.15pm

Schumann’s Kreisleriana was the centrepiece of this interesting concert by a pianist unknown to everyone there, I imagine. Of Taiwanese origin, Ya-Ting Liou’s abbreviated CV discloses connections with Canada, the United States, and Argentina; she currently teaches at the University of Missouri in Kansas City.

She opened with an arrangement of Bach’s ‘Sheep May Safely Graze’, sounding slightly ill-at-ease, and Chopin’s second Ballade was given to transitions in mood and tempo that did not convince me. Her intention may have been to illustrate her reading of whatever narrative is thought to have lain beneath the surface of the piece; marked by changes in spirit and tempo that did not altogether create an integrated work; I would have to be exposed to such an interpretation again for it to have a chance of persuading me that it was what Chopin had intended.

The concert ended with another non-anniversary piece: an aggressive, ferocious dance by Ginastera, a composer she has obviously made a particular study of in her relationship with Argentina. It was a spectacular, pretty flawless performance to send the audience away with.

So I was expecting to find a player who took naturally to the impulsiveness and extreme mood changes that Schumann is given to, and nowhere more than in the wild spontaneity of Kreisleriana (The name comes from an E T A Hoffmann story of a Kapellmeister named Kreisler). Its does not have quite the immediate ecstatic delight of Carnaval or the deeply emotional power of the Fantaisie in C, but it grows on one, to become one Schumann’s most beloved works.

Up to a point Ya-Ting Liou expressed the music’s romantic impetuousness and spontaneity, but what was somewhat lacking was finesse and an ability to express the fantastic in refined, colourful, entrancing terms.

There is a consensus however about the difficulty of interpreting Schumann, especially this piece. If the opening section – Agitatissimo (to use the Italian equivalent of Schumann’s German markings) – did not augur well, cluttered, rushes of arpeggios and scales not cleanly articulated, there was light and calm in the succeeding phase whose short rising and falling motif anchored the music.

Some of her most appealing playing was in the slow sections, starting with the second, ‘Sehr innig und nicht zu rasch’ (Con molto espressione, non troppo presto), and again in the fourth section, ‘Sehr langsam’. In the second, ‘Sehr innig’, hesitant chords became flowing melodies, and the two fast Intermezzi contained within that section where the impulsive Schumann is at his most typical, there was some entrancing playing. No section maintains a uniform mood or tempo, and it was one of the pianist’s virtues that she did more than simply lurch from one to the next without somehow finding a convincing connective spirit.

Clara did not find this work congenial in spite of Schumann’s embodying ‘Clara’ themes in it and it was for that reason, possibly, that he dedicated it to Chopin – an appropriate link for a recital in this year. Though this performance had its shortcomings, even for an all-forgiving Schumann groupie like me, it was a most welcome opportunity to hear one of his great piano works, played in one of Wellington’s most charming ambiences.

Špaček and Houstoun in delightful Wellington concert

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Josef Špaček (violin) and Michael Houstoun (piano)

Violin Sonatas by Martinů (No 1), Janáček and Beethoven (Op 30 No 2) and solo Violin Sonata in E, Op 27 No 6 (Ysaÿe)

Wellington Town Hall

Monday 5 July

This concert in Chamber Music New Zealand’s evening series was co-promoted with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra: part of the first prize in last year’s Michael Hill International Violin Competition.

One has to confess that, far from offering a brilliant young violinist – still only 23 – a platform for performance that he might still be struggling to establish, the benefits are surely entirely in the other direction. For winning the contest obliged a player already with an international career, to play in Motueka and Whakatane, Waikanae and New Plymouth: hardly necessary for one who has already played in many of the world’s famous halls and with many of the great orchestras and conductors.

Špaček is a fully-rounded and superbly schooled musician, a case where a more ordinary mortal wonders, on reading that he studies at the Juilliard School with Itzhak Perlman, what on earth even a Perlman might have to teach him. When he can bring forth music from the fantastic galaxy of cascading notes that litter Ysaÿe’s solo sonatas. For this was the first time I have heard one of these post-Paganini extravagances brought to life as a complete and beautifully formed musical gem.

His encore, Henri Vieuxtemps’s riotous handling of Yankee Doodle (Souvenir d’Amérique, variations burlesques sur ….) was another example of fireworks in which he turned a perhaps vapid show-piece into an exhilarating, thrilling farewell offering. . 

To follow the Isaÿe piece with Beethoven’s beautiful and somewhat melancholy Sonata in C minor was, first, the mark of a perceptive and original programme builder, but more significantly, a demonstration of an artistic maturity that the Isaÿe might not have proved. He moved through each of the four movements with such an unerring feeling for style and musical mood. In the Adagio cantabile, for example, there was his febrile, urgent thrust, with its dark Mephisto quality, against Michael Houstoun’s elegant piano which laid out restrained, sombre and immaculate textures that supported the violin’s subtle, long breaths. How nicely they handled the little fanfare-like cadences that punctuated the later phase, pretending to presage the close, with straight-faced, Haydnesque wit. But the real close, when it came, was disarming and gorgeous. Here in the finale was playing, again, of an essentially Beethoven melody that was quite without indulgence or pretention, the very essence of honest, insightful musical performance. 

The first half was a celebration of his own country. Janáček’s sonata, on the strength of this performance, is an under-exposed masterpiece, not of modernist complexity, but of richness and singularity; Špaček, together with Houstoun’s highly idiomatic contribution, understood and enhanced its unique beauties while relishing the characteristic intervals that make Janáček’s music distinctive.

For me the Martinů was the greatest delight however: if not quite the equal of the Janáček, it is a delightful example of Martinů in his French/ragtime/neo-classical phase. And Špaček gave full colouring to the contrasts between the meandering, somewhat angular solo violin, and the ragtime rhythm and the solid swing that the piano’s entry suddenly brought about. It is an interesting case of the two instruments representing sharply contrasting styles, which yet creating an entrancing whole.

 

 

Martin Riseley and Diedre Irons – a partnership of substance

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Chamber Music Sunday Concerts Series

Martin Riseley (violin) / Diedre Irons (piano)

Music by SCHUBERT, STRAVINSKY, CORIGLIANO and KREISLER

Ilott Theatre, Town Hall, Wellington

Sunday 4th July 2010

I’d hoped initially that Martin Riseley and Diedre Irons would give us Schubert”s heartwarming C Major Fantasia for Violin and Piano – the one that liberally quotes from the composer’s song “Sei mir gegrüsst” – but instead we got something darker and leaner, the Rondo in B Minor, D.895, a work whose intensely-focused moods and organically-motivated transitions throughout present a highly-concentrated dialogue between equal partners, at once demanding and rewarding to play and to listen to. Right from the beginning the performers plunged into the fray – Martin Riseley and Diedre Irons are both “big” players, chamber musicians who can think orchestrally when the music requires a large-scale declamatory response, while keeping the overall picture in mind – so we enjoyed the opening’s stern, imposing piano chords, and the agitated string figurations, and how the tensions seemed to mould themselves most naturally (though not completely) into a more lyrical, somewhat introspective mood. Riseley and Irons kept an undertow of unease going, so that we sensed the inevitablilty of things returning to come to a head – strong exchanges, again, very “orchestral” and full-blooded, the moment of dancing liberation into the Allegro a treasurable frisson of hesitation overcome by impulsiveness (I would take issue with the writer of the otherwise excellent programme-notes using the expression “seamlessly” to characterise that gorgeously teasing transition!).

Throughout the Rondo section, Riseley and Irons never shirked the music’s dynamic contrasts, realising the work’s volatility, the violin writing in particular requiring repetitive figurations of almost obsessive intensity in places, and the piano part visited with its own demands involving rapid alternations of poise and vigour, lyricism and exhilaration. I loved the composer’s surprising “false ending” at one point, the music seeming to deliver penultimate cadences before dancing away on its voyage of recapitultion, with a few variables thrown in a second time round, pianist and violinist equally relishing the opportunities to revisit and revitalise the experience. The occasional strained intonation in Riseley’s playing served to define the interpretative limits to which he was prepared to push the music to get the message across, and certainly helped convey the work’s ever-burgeoning excitement and sense of ultimate arrival – thoroughly invigorating!

Stravinsky’s Divertimento for Violin and Piano comes largely from the music for his own ballet Le baiser de la fee (The Fairy’s Kiss), which is, in turn, a reworking of music by Tchaikovsky, mostly from his songs. Throughout, the music’s fragmentary, spiky character was given a no-holds barred response from both vioinist and pianist, the moments of lyricism and melancholy associated with some of the Tchaikovsky originals spiced with Stravinsky’s fondness for both pesante rhythms and accents and increasingly complex neo-classical metric changes and dynamic contrasts, the formula roughing up the music no end. What came across most strongly in this performance was a sense of story, of rich descriptive detail, of expression and narrative taking centre-stage, so that even if some of the music’s angularities produced a performance effect outside one’s listening-comfort zone, the end result was at the service of the composer and his music.

After the interval, the first movement of John Corigliano’s 1963 Violin Sonata seemed in fact to continue the ascerbities of the Stravinsky, though perhaps with a more tongue-in-cheek commedia dell’arte flavour – plenty of 5/4 rhythms, string harmonics and double-stopped octaves, and tricky syncopations between violinist and pianist, tough and angular, but approachable.

Relief came with the almost Cole-Porter-like Andantino, nostalgic and reflective, with both musicians controlling the tones and dynamics most expertly – passages of melting sweetness set off against more forthright episodes, a 7/4 rhythmic section suggesting nostalgic “road music”, the trajectories engendering a lovely, spacious ambience all around. Riseley and Irons then opened up the music operatically, everything romantic and big-boned, even becoming ritualistic in the manner of Mussorgsky’s “Great Gate at Kiev”, before the quieter 7/4 passages brought the music home once more, floating the violin cross-rhythmically against the piano, the string tone stratospheric and celestial. The Lento third movement brought big “grim reaper” chords from the piano, set against gypsy-style rhapsodisings from the violin –  Martin Riseley at full stretch here, first with fiendish Paganini-like double-stoppings, then launching into a cadenza-like recitative that finished with ghostly high notes over a forlorn piano accompaniment, and  some elfin pizzicati resolving into a somewhat bleak sostenuto for both instruments.

Finales can defuse tensions, or else find ways to break an impasse; and so it was with this one, the music playful and teasing between the instruments at the beginning, the violin in molto perpetuo mode against the piano’s spiky angularities (the composer asking for slashing violin chords amid the restless figurations), and a couple of interludes bringing respite from the energies. Amazingly, both musicians were right on top of the music’s incredible exuberance over the last few pages, abandoning all caution, and leaving their audience tingling with excitement at the end. After these almost Dionysian excesses it was a good thing for all concerned that Martin Riseley and Diedre Irons took us to the Vienna of Fritz Kreisler to finish the concert – the great violinist’s pastiche-like compositions inhabiting an old-fashioned charm-suffused world of sentiment, with every brilliant violinistic touch matched by a melting moment of lyricism (and some of the brilliant bowings in the second piece La Clochette having certain Paganini-like whiffs of sulphur about them). Beginning with a set grandly titled Variations on a theme of Corelli after Tartini, and concluding with one of Kreisler’s favourite encore pieces, Schön Rosemarin, the musicians were able to bring to a conclusion an engaging and somewhat tumultuous afternoon’s music with more relaxed tones and accents, very much appreciated.

Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Pergolesi Stabat Mater, with sacred music from the baroque

Felicity Smith (mezzo soprano)  with Richard Apperley (organ), Rowena Simpson (soprano), Claire Macfarlane (violin), Jenna Pascoe (violin), Michael Joel (viola) and Kat Thompson (cello)

St Peter’s Church, Willis Street

Friday, 2 July 2010

Over recent weeks Felicity Smith has demonstrated her expertise in several periods of music, in a lunch-hour concert in Lower Hutt and at the Concours de Chanson French-language song competition.  Her clear, flexible voice suited the baroque repertoire particularly well.

Accompaniment for the items in the first half was provided by a chamber organ, which made scrumptious sounds under the expert hands of Richard Apperley.  His playing was sublime, and musically supportive.

The opening hymn by Purcell, Lord, what is man? was quite lovely, and gave the audience a taste of what would be a treat throughout the concert: the splendid acoustics of the church.  The voices and instruments equally were able to achieve wonderful tone and resonance.

Schütz‘s two Kleine geistliche Konzerte were delivered with clarity and musicality.

An Evening Hymn by Purcell was given a thoroughly convincing performance by both musicians.  Words were clear and well articulated.

An instrumental interlude followed, with the four string players performing Corelli’s ‘Christmas Concerto’, his concerto grosso in G minor, Op.6 no.8.  This is quite a familiar piece, but normally played by a chamber orchestra.  Here, the use of only four instruments gave great clarity, and the acoustics enhanced the sound so that one did not miss the additional instruments.

Although the players were not using baroque instruments or bows, they played in a baroque style, with not too much vibrato, and bright, strong rhythms.

The work features movements of varying tempi and dynamics, concluding with a lovely, lilting pastorale. This was a very enjoyable performance.

The next work was Première leçon de Tenebres pour le Mercredi Saint by François Couperin.  The singers alternated in singing the verses, the translations for which, as for the Schütz, were printed in the programme.  Again, clarity and sonority were characteristics of the performance.  Trills and runs were expertly executed by both singers, who brought out the word-painting of the composer, and sang appropriately in French Latin rather than the Italianate version to which we are more accustomed.  The string players were always in touch with the nuances and timing of the singers.

The major work, the Pergolesi, occupied the second half of the concert.  A most attractive work which is heard reasonably frequently, it is an astonishing composition for someone who died at 26 years of age.  The organ and strings were superb, both on their own and as accompaniment to the singers, while the latter blended beautifully and took their cues carefully, as did the players.  This was performance of a very high calibre.

The words and their translations were printed, and were marked as to which verses were for soprano, alto, or duo.  Some of the duo movements were quite complex, but appeared to hold no fears for the performers.  The last alto solo revealed good contralto tone from Felicity Smith.  Rowena Simpson’s voice was glorious; she uses her facial resonators well, and one hopes to hear more of her singing.

Throughout, pronunciation and enunciation were excellent.  It was a solemn yet appealing work, with a joyful Amen to finish with.

There was rather a small audience present, which was a great pity; this was  concert of professional standard, in a church with a wonderfully alive sound – but cold!

Felicity should do well in her study at the Royal College of Music in London, for the associated costs this concert was a fund-raiser.  All will wish her well for her future career.

A Good Time Not A Long Time – SMP Ensemble

Posted on by Peter Mechen

A Good Time Not A Long Time

New short piano and solo works by New Zealand composers

Music by LILBURN, WHITEHEAD, RITCHIE, PSATHAS, ROZEMOND, ELLIS, SHORTIS, KILLIN, NOWICKI, HEXTALL, BECKER, HOADLEY, SQUIRE, TAYLOR, MARGETIC, AUDAIN, CARTER

Sam Jury (piano)

The SMP Ensemble

Adam Concert Room,

New Zealand School of Music

Sunday June 27th 2010

The SMP Ensemble, a Wellington-based contemporary music performing group, has gradually become a welcome “presence” upon the local music-making scene. Formed by clarinettist Andrzej Nowicki, the group draws upon the skills of various freelance and New Zealand School of Music performers. Like its longer-established  “big brother” equivalent Stroma, it has a wondrous flexibility in terms of performance, both in playing existing music and in commissioning new works, being able to call upon the services of so many talented musicians. Although this recent concert “A Good Time Not a Long Time” was advertised as featuring mainly solo piano, there were other instrumentalists involved at various times, making for a few diverting surprises throughout the evening.

The bulk of the performance responsibility was borne by pianist Sam Jury, an extremely capable and talented player, who was able to encompass the diverse worlds of the compositions for solo keyboard with quiet, undemonstrative confidence, and (very importantly) what seemed like considerable enjoyment. His programme included a number of established contemporary piano classics by Douglas Lilburn, Anthony Ritchie, Gillian Whitehead and John Psathas, a recently-composed work by Pieta Hextall, and some highly diverting miniatures by various composers, written as submissions for a concert performed at the 2010 ISCM World New Music Day Festival in Sydney.  So, the solo piano component of the concert alone was diverting enough, but the occasional alternatives served to refresh eyes and ears – french horn, strings and contrabassoon all played their part in this process of bringing to audience ears new and thought-provoking sounds.

The concert actually began with a work for French horn, Deux Grand Fanfares by Karlo Margetic, a composer whose work I find constantly stimulating and often surprising, not least of all for his droll sense of humour which occasionally makes a telling appearance. After Alex Morton had gurgled, breathed and grunted his way through an opening fanfare notable for its player’s physical gesturings and the sense of antiphonal spaces created by the contrasting timbres and “exit-points” of the sounds, the composer appeared with a bucket, presumably suggesting either that the musician either was or would shortly be in need of a receptacle of some kind! The second fanfare was delivered with the mouthpiece removed from the instrument, creating what might be thought of in some quarters as an uncanny visual reminiscence of the cartoonist Hoffnung’s depiction of an oboe player. The “plumbing” sounds took us past such visual and aural conventions into a different cosmos of chain reaction involving impulse, player, instrument and listener, a cobweb-cleaning process for our receptivities if ever there was one.

Sam Jury’s first appearance was to give us some Lilburn, beginning with the Four Preludes from the years 1942-4, ritualistic pieces with characteristic rhythms drawn from melodic impulses. A lovely Grieg-like descending sequence marked the first piece, while the second was a sombre and subtly-inflected processional. The third Prelude alternated repeated-note patterns with deep, rich shifting chords, while the fourth was more energetic, a Toccata-like energy driving the music through darkly rich realms, with a lovely, treble-voiced throwaway ending. Two Christmas Pieces for L.B. from 1949 followed, the first singing a gentle, wistful song, and the other depicting distant carollers and resounding bells floating in an ambience of nostalgic harmony. These pieces were dedicated to the composer’s friend, the artist Leo Bensemann, and reflect a shared perception of ritual and natural order in the world. The last piece, Rondino, has the composer’s characteristic repeating note-patterned melodies, the obsessive treble set against a shifting bass to winsome effect.

A number of shortish pieces followed, written by various composers for the 2010 ISCM “Momentary Pleasures” concert in Sydney, works that had to be written in one day. Justus Rozemond’s Humoresque had a quirky, accelerando character, using a triplet rhythm to generate momentum, before contrasting the mood with a nocturnal-like melody, and returning to a skittery scherzando before finishing with a fortissimo chord. Carol Shortis called her piece Momentary Pleasures, creating wistful spaces between treble and bass at the start, the sounds agglomerating into a sphere of rolling triplets, before the energies dissipated once again, a final whimsical phrase suggesting a poem’s words “a caress of momentary pleasures”. Anton Killin’s After Clive Bell evoked a great stillness, into which was hewn a great resounding forte, the music moving and tolling like an earth-clock – very evocative! By contrast, Andrzej Nowicki’s Resonate seemed to reverse the previous piece’s process, massive chords resonating, whispering fragments of melody building up to monumental blocks of sound, saturating the ambiences and gradually dying away, the music for me strangely evocative of dreams. The final ISCM piece was Drying Music by Robbie Ellis, a piece that achieved the distinction of being selected for the actual concert in Sydney – a brief and instantly memorable evocation of a laundrette dryer, a bass ostinato driving a motif that petered out along with the money.

Gillian Whitehead’s Lullaby for Matthew, dating from 1981, and dedicated to the composer’s nephew, worked its well-known enchantments, from the opening’s dynamic contrasts through the lull of the ever-diminishing repetitions, and to the point of sleep. Something completely different was provided by composer Tabea Squire, a work for violin and viola called Reto Doble, a Spanish expression meaning “double challenge”, the piece played by the composer on violin and Greg, her father, on the viola, the work suggesting an interaction not unlike that of bull and bullfighter. The two instruments began by musing on a single note, violin holding the note and viola decorating around and about it, before generating rhythmic repetitions with a Spanish flavour, the players taking turns with the melodic and accompaniment roles of the music’s advancement. What developed was a musical dance of confrontation between combatants, the intensities screwed up ever-tightly to the point where the “coup de grace” was held and savoured, and then delivered. Most enjoyable and compelling!

More “Momentary Pleasures” followed the interval (wonderful refreshments! – prospective SMP concert-goers, please note!), pianist Sam Jury returning to do each composer’s brief but telling conception proud with sensitive, well-focused responses. I loved Pepe Becker’s Snoozing, the sounds having all the colour, ambience and feeling of my own doze-dreams, with the awakening depicted as a couple of involuntary, regretful murmurings. Ben Hoadley’s Ben and T at the Puriri Trees together with Shirin’s Music began as another meditative, Debussy-like soundscape, with sensibilities shaken and stirred by violent irruptions and exotic-sounding declamations, the music crowding around and about the centre with clusters of melismatic figuration. I wasn’t too sure regarding the division-point between the two named sections, but I guessed that Shirin’s Music was more ritualistic and processional, the music’s progress decorated by exotic-sounding ornament and irrupted by flashes of temperament and agitation. Cascades of figurations allowed these energies to run their course, the music returning to the opening processional aspect, the ending wide-eyed and widely-spaced.

Alex Taylor’s somewhat elliptically-titled work alt. generated, like Ben Hoadley’s piece, a world of wonderment at the outset, gathering increasing weight as the widely-spaced arpeggiations vied increasingly with what its composer called “glacial phrases”, the effect dramatic and visceral, and in almost complete contrast with Yvette Audain’s Upon attending a performance of “The Wizard Of Oz” , which readily brought to mind a child’s wonderment at the magic of a theatrical experience, the music infused with treblish brighness and enthusiasm. To achieve true closure of the ISCM bracket of piano pieces, Hayley Roud brought out her wondrously large contra-bassoon to play a piece by Tristan Carter entitled Lilith. Such demonic associations were suggested more by default than by the serpentine sounds conjured from what seemed like a sleeping being, a monster slowly aroused from slumber, the player viscerally choreographing the soundscape with breathiness and impulsive vocalised exhalations, the instrument’s voice abstracted through gesture as it were.

Three piano pieces remained, one a new work by Pieta Hextall, and two other, more established pieces by Anthony Ritchie and John Psathas. Pieta Hextell’s 2010 piano piece Planet Vandal was described by its composer as “a musical impression of a confrontation between whalers and activists on the Pacific Ocean”. The writing has both pictorial and narrative elements, the opening redolent of the vast spaces of a seascape, with tones clustering and reforming, and fragments of a song sounding. As the music’s manner becomes more dynamic, first figurations and then chordal passages begin to generate agitations, leading to syncopations, hammerings and downward cascades of notes, a mood which runs its course and returns the music to the mood of the opening, the song taking the character of a lament, as the sounds gradually disappear. This was the work’s second performance in public, and one hopes it will be heard again before too long (via William Green in Auckland, perhaps?) – in Sam Jury’s capable hands I found it a moving listening experience.

Anthony Ritchie’s attractive Birds and a Steam Train in the Caitlins was written for Ann Saslav for performance in schools, but surely deserves wider currency, perhaps as New Zealand’s answer to Heitor Villa Lobos’s world-famous steam-train evocation. The composer gets it right throughout, taking the listener to the heart of the native bush via rich and verdant harmonies and insistent birdsong, before stimulating gentle locomotions, generating less steam and smoke than atmosphere and nostalgia. Of course, John Psathas’s well-known work Waiting for the Aeroplane is a quintessential nostalgia-trip, having what pianist Dan Poynton once described vividly as a “goosebump-sick” quality, the drifting resonances generating powerful equivocations of presence and distance which never fail to touch deep places within. Sam Jury kept the ambiences together, moving the arpeggiated melismas along, and knitting more closely the agitations of the central section with the overall rhythmic pulsings of the piece, rather than going for maximum contrast – more Stravinsky-like than Schumannesque in his approach. His playing of the piece made an appropriately resonant conclusion to the evening’s music, a sense of something ongoing, despite the immediate sounds dying away…

Twentieth-Century fare from the Wellington Chamber Orchestra

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Wellington Chamber Orchestra

Shostakovich: Symphony no.9 in E flat, Op.70 / Poulenc: 8 Chansons Gaillardes on anonymous 17th century texts

Beethoven: Overture ‘Egmont’, Op.84 / de Falla: El amor brujo

Linden Loader (mezzo soprano) and Roger Wilson (baritone)

Justin Pearce (conductor)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday, 27 June 2010

A well-filled church enjoyed an adventurous programme from this amateur orchestra.  It would be unusual for an amateur orchestra to play an almost entirely twentieth century programme.

The Shostakovich was a difficult and challenging work with which to open the concert.  It is not one of his longest compositions, and makes good use of the orchestra – there is plenty of exciting playing for the winds to do, and the description in the programme note ‘A short witty work full of light and bite’ is apt.  There are hints of Prokofiev-like wit here and there.

The orchestra mostly made a good sound, but uniformity of rhythm and even intonation were uneven at times.  Precise rhythm is especially required for pizzicato playing.  Perhaps this work was a mite too difficult for the orchestra. However, after a slightly shaky start, the players settled.

The second movement, Moderato, featured dramatic and forceful playing from the woodwind band.  Most noticeable throughout, but especially in her extended solo, was the excellent bassoon playing of Kylie Nesbit.  She had lots to do, and always her playing was sonorous and beautiful.  In fact, her playing was a recommendation for the value of this instrument.

While the programme notes were very good, they were somewhat doctrinaire, and some phrases did not make comprehensible English, while some of  the statements did not really apply in 1943-1945, when the symphony was written.  It was good to hear this work played.

Poulenc’s songs to words of both dubious provenance and dubious morals were sung well by Roger Wilson, who was in fine voice and produced the words with clarity.  However, the orchestra did not always display good ensemble, and Justin Pearce, resplendent in red shirt and a silver-backed waistcoat kept everything going.  But frequently the winds were too loud for the voice, the vocal lines in some of the songs (e.g. ‘Chanson à boire’) being in the lower register of the singer’s voice.

The conductor cannot always go by the composer’s markings; balance depends on the size of the auditorium, its acoustic qualities, the size of the orchestra and as well, the size of the audience.  Therefore to achieve it, sometimes the orchestra needs to play more quietly than the composer directs, especially when he calls for full orchestra, or considerable use of brass.

The balance was better in the fourth song, ‘Invocation aux parques’.  It was a succinct song of typical French brevity.  In the following song, ‘Couplets bachiques’, there were again threats of swallowing up the singer.  Poulenc’s typical wit and insouciance were evident.  Next was ‘Loffrande’.  This setting was without brass, so it was possible to hear the words.  It featured another humorous, piquant ending.

‘La belle jeunesse’ achieved a better balance, mainly because most of the phrases were in the higher register.  Here, there was some great brass playing.

The final song, ‘Sérénade’ was the most lyrical of the songs, in a traditional sense.  It was enchanting.  Robyn Jaquiery provided a vital part of the texture, with her inconspicuous piano.

The brass problem affected the Beethoven overture also, at least where I was sitting, in the gallery.  With four horns and two trumpets, the brass accompanying notes were too loud to enable the melodies in the strings and woodwind to be heard clearly.   When the brass was not playing, the balance was good.  It was a stirring performance (apart from a few renegade notes) of the finest of Beethoven’s overtures.

El amor brujo must be one of the favourite works of Spanish composer Manuel de Falla.   Soloist Linden Loader looked the part of a Carmen-like gypsy for this gypsy music, in a red dress and black shawl, matching the red hangings in the church and Justin Pearce’s red shirt.

In the first movement the orchestra generally, and especially the brass, were too loud for the singer, but the second and third movements’ muted string tone with piano was most attractive.  Here, the trumpets too were muted, and made a wonderful sound, particularly in the trumpet solo.  The oboe solo was also excellent.

Unfortunately the programme notes titled only the movements with voice, and not the orchestral ones in between.  The second song, ‘Will-o’-the-wisp’ had better balance, but I felt  that Linden Loader was not singing as well as usual.

In the dreamy movement that followed the strings evoked the mood superbly.  The final song ‘Dance of the game of love’ featured more tone from the soloist, and the lilting and mellow quality we know and love in her singing.  The joyful and cheerful ending of this song brought the concert to a fine close.

Witchcraft, Romance and Nostalgia from the NZSO

Posted on by Peter Mechen

DVORAK – The Noonday Witch Op.108

TCHAIKOVSKY – Piano Concerto No.1 in B-flat Minor Op.23

PROKOFIEV – Symphony No.7 in C-sharp Minor Op.131

Freddy Kempf (piano)

Alexander Lazarev (conductor)

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Friday 25th June 2010

Each of conductor Alexander Lazarev’s two recent concerts with the NZSO has featured repertoire which, although not obscure, doesn’t often appear in our orchestral programmes. Both Glazunov’s ballet The Seasons and Dvorak’s spooky tone-poem The Noon-Day Witch are in what I would call the “somewhat neglected” category of orchestral works – I was therefore interested to read NZSO CEO Peter Walls’ description in the programme’s welcoming foreword of the Dvorak tone-poem as “ever-popular”. I would have thought that, for most people, it simply wouldn’t rate in the popularity stakes next to works like the Carnival Overture and the Scherzo Capriccioso. And as for calling the concert series “Russian” – well, I feel the good Antonin would have had something to say about that, Slav or no Slav.

Nonetheless, the second of the “Russian Romantics” presentations by the NZSO was as resounding a success as the first (Glinka, Rachmaninov, Glazunov) with all credit due to the musicians involved. I compared the NZSO’s performance of the Dvorak piece with a recording I own featuring the redoubtable Czech Philharmonic under the directorship of the worthy but relatively lack-lustre maestro Vaclav Neumann. Even allowing for the extra frisson generated by a live performance, conductor Alexander Lazarev and the NZSO’s players brought to the music whole oceans more colour, atmosphere and energy, so that the macabre story of the disobedient child whose life is taken by the pitiless witch at the unthinking invitation of the child’s mother really came to life. Every phrase counted as part of either atmosphere or narrative, the story’s unfolding episodes so very vividly characterised – the opening’s rustic folk-dance, the oboe’s depiction of the disobedient child, and the mother’s anger and frustration leading to her unwitting invocation of the witch were all brought unerringly into focus in varying ways. What incredibly sinister pianissimi Lazarev conjured out of his string players, for example (the conductor involuntarily shooting an accusing glance out into the auditorium at a hapless cougher, at one point), by way of depicting the arrival of the witch and the fear and horror of the mother at her impulsive threat’s nightmarish realisation. Then, how baleful the brass, how wonderfully angular the string-playing, and how brutal and whip-lash the final orchestral payoff!  Despite such full-blooded advocacy, I still didn’t feel as though the work hung terribly well together – it somehow lacked the surety and focus of some of the composer’s other shorter orchestral pieces, such as the two mentioned earlier.

Concertgoers who had heard pianist Freddy Kempf’s poetic Rachmaninov Third a fortnight ago in Wellington would have revelled in the chance to hear him tackle another of the most famous concert war-horses of all time, the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto. I may sound perverse, but after having remarked in a review of the previous concert that the pianist seemed never to completely COMMAND the Rachmaninov Concerto despite the moments of great poetry and depth of feeling, I thought on this later occasion that it was the orchestra which in places wasn’t quite (literally) up to speed in relation to the playing of its star soloist. Conductor Lazarev adopted an expansive approach to the famous opening tune, one which I thought didn’t quite “knit” with the more forthright playing of the pianist. Kempf in fact seemed determined to prove that he could make the most of the biggest virtuoso moments, though to be fair, his playing of the more lyrical and limpid passages as well never missed the chance to generate washes of poetic feeling. But two of the most exciting pieces of interplay between orchestra and soloist in the first movement didn’t quite come off for me because of the conductor’s reluctance to match the pianist’s terrific head of steam, resulting each time in a kind of sudden upward gear-change as the music spurted forward in the soloist’s hands – I was surprised, considering what I’d witnessed of Lazarev’s energy and volatility on the podium and the exciting results he got from his players elsewhere.

What did emerge (as it did during the Rachmaninov concerto performance a fortnight previously) was the music’s narrative aspect – one felt that a story was being told, both by the orchestra (a gritty, dogged build-up to a flailing piano entry reminiscent of similar orchestral textures in the same composer’s Fourth Symphony) and the pianist (a lovely dialogue between the hands, the same phrase tossed back and forward with different emphases and textural qualities, before dialoguing (so operatic at this point) similarly with the orchestra. The cadenza was played with a volatile mixture of poetry and bravura, even if the pianist seemed to momentarily tire towards the movement’s end. Somebody’s rogue hearing-aid interrupted the beginning of the slow movement, which, when conductor and pianist agreed that they would press on anyway, featured the most delicately-voiced string-playing I’ve heard for a long time, allowing Kirstin Eade’s flute to shine through untramelled. Freddy Kempf’s elfin playing suited the central section’s scamperings to perfection, though in the finale (played “attacca”) I felt he could have “roughed up” the music’s textures a bit more, in keeping with the roisterous energies of the orchestral tutti. Still, his scherzando-like playing wove wonderful arabesques of energy, and he certainly unleashed a jaw-dropping torrent of octaves by way of announcing the final “all-together” statement of the finale’s big tune – thunderbolts and whirlwinds indeed! – earning him a momentous ovation at the end. Some people I spoke to thought the encore (Vladimir Horowitz’s amazing transcription of Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever March) inappropriate after the concerto, but I didn’t think so – I loved its outrageous excess, and thought Kempf’s performance was positively Horowitz-like in its power and brilliance (I’m SURE I counted only two hands at that keyboard!).

Before the second half began, an endearingly human touch to the proceedings came with Associate Concertmaster Donald Armstrong’s warmly-expressed farewell to one of the orchestra’s longest-serving violinists, Jane Freed, playing in her last concert. Then it was the Prokofiev Symphony’s turn (the composer’s seventh and last) beginning with an unusually forthright piano note, its resonances colouring the string-playing that followed with whole skyfuls of nostalgic feeling, floating like terraced banks of clouds. Alexander Lazarev was in his element with this work, encouraging great surges of string-sound within expansive orchestral paragraphings, but then keeping the percussion-led “other voices” dance-like reply strictly in tempo, ensuring a seamless flow of engagement from all concerned. He brought out the accompanying piano figurations to the big tune’s reprise at the movement’s end in a way that opened our vistas even further and dug more deeply into the terrain’s soil. In the second movement, begun gracefully, but then gathering momentum and pointed articulation, Lazarev galvanised his forces during the motoric percussive episode, cranking up the tempo most excitingly, then slowing again for the strings’ return. Throughout, the players’ instrumental detailing was a delight – I couldn’t see the trumpeter from where I was sitting, but his (her?) waltz-tune was played with just the right amount of delicious vulgarity, for example.

Conductor and players caught the crepuscular, lump-in-throat expanses of the third movement’s opening with great sensitivity – those tunes sung over the music’s dark abysses (Robert Orr’s oboe-playing a constant delight) engendered such a flavour, a bitter-sweet sense of remembrance and loss and resignation throughout. Of course, Lazarev is an “attacca” musician with a vengeance, and the symphony’s finale was no exception, its first note here searing through the ambiences of the previous music’s dying fall and creating a great stirring of blood and breath, ready for the propulsive urgencies that followed. The orchestra equally delighted in the fairy-tale gallop episodes and the gawky gavotte sequences, nicely playing up the music’s contrasts and angularities, the brass players covering themselves with glory along the way, especially during the lead-up to the reintroduction of the first movement’s “big tune”. Lazarev seemed occasionally to want to bring the audience in as an optional chorus during this section, turning his body towards the auditorium with some of his sweeping arm-gesturings, as though the entire space within the MFC had been given over to conductable music-making. I had thought that we were going to get both endings of the symphony, as written by the composer (the authorities objected to Prokofiev’s original elegiac ending to the work, requesting that he write an alternative coda with a happy, boisterous ending!) – but instead of setting this “clip-on” piece in motion at the end, the conductor brought the symphony to its conclusion with a single pizzicato chord as per the original. And that, as they say in the classics, was that! Rapturous responses from all sides at the end, with appreciative plaudits for Alexander Lazarev and more salutes to Jane Freed, bringing a memorable concert to a satisfying conclusion.

Violin Dances – Kurt Nikkanen and Rosemary Barnes at Expressions

Posted on by Peter Mechen

VIOLIN DANCES

STRAVINSKY- Suite Italienne  /  TCHAIKOVSKY – 2 Pieces from Swan Lake

KHACHATURIAN – 3 Pieces from Gayaneh  /  GLAZUNOV – 2 Pieces from Raymonda

SARASATE – Carmen Fantasy Op.25

Kurt Nikkanen (violin)

Rosemary Barnes (piano)

Genesis Energy Theatre

Classical Expressions, Upper Hutt

Tuesday 22nd June 2010

“Violin Dances” the concert was called, and “violin dances” was certainly the case throughout the evening –  and in the manner of true dancing, the violin was partnered by piano-playing whose music-making trod just as sprightly and gracefully a measure. Violinist Kurt Nikkanen and pianist Rosemary Barnes enlivened everything they played, bringing together melody, colour and rhythm in a winning amalgam of various dance music drawn from several well-known ballets. Their command of these basic elements was so assured, and their playing so vivid that we in the audience never once wished for the weight and colour of an orchestra, and were left fully satisfied with the music-making’s flavour and energy.

Beginning the recital with Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne was a particularly engaging piece of programming. This was a work that began as Pulcinella, a ballet score for a commedia dell’arte scenario proposed by the impresario Diaghilev, and based on music attributed to the 18th-century composer Giovanni Pergolesi. Stravinsky rearranged (and recomposed) the music for orchestra and solo voices for the original ballet, then dispensed with the voices for an instruments-only suite, before transcribing the music further for violin (or ‘cello) and piano. The original Pulcinella was one of the earliest examples of neo-classicism, and has retained its popularity in all forms to this day. Kurt Nikkanen and Rosemary Barnes danced into the world of the work with a flourish, varying the opening theme’s cheerful insouciance with lovely sotto voce episodes, bringing out the Russian melancholy of the Serenade, and tearing into the Tarantella with skin and hair flying, finishing with a nice touch of throw-away po-faced wit.

There was both elegance and theatricality on show during the Gavotte and Variations sequences and throughout the Menuet’s ever-growing pomposity, followed by a sudden dash into the helter-skelter finale. Nikkanen and Barnes demonstrated plenty of virtuosity and great teamwork, here, exchanging and countering irruptions of energy and exhilaration right to the end. Before beginning the next item, Nikkanen talked with his audience regarding his own early love of music that had plenty of rhythmic vitality – Stravinsky and Bartok, for example. Ironically, the first exerpt from Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake that followed demonstrated more the composer’s infinite capacity for melody than for rhythmic excitement. Still, the beautiful playing of both the violinist and pianist in the famous Act Two “Pas de Deux” was utterly captivating, with the piano taking the original ‘cello part, and duetting with the violin, to indescribably expressive effect. The Russian Dance, from Act Three of the ballet, brought out that indigenous folk-quality which Tchaikovsky exploited so fruitfully in his music, the performers responding to the deep melancholy of the opening before springing into the whirl of the concluding dance with great energy and physicality.

Kurt Nikkanen talked about being inspired as a young man by hearing the Russian violinist Leonid Kogan play music by Khachaturian on the radio, in particular a dance  from the ballet Gayaneh. We got a gritty, no-holds-barred rendering of Aysche’s Dance, Nikkanen and Barnes giving the effect of digging into something directly and deeply, playing with an intensity that also informed the Nocturne and the succeeding Sabre Dance, the piano adding to the music’s wild abandon with flailing note-repetitions alternating with the violin’s stinging pizzicati. The interval allowed a breather from such full-on engagements, as did the second-half’s opening bracket of items from Glazunov’s ballet Raymonda, firstly a waltz whose “teashop charm” evoked something of a bygone era, and a Grand Adagio which allowed the performers to dig a little deeper into the emotions, Nikkanen delighting us with some deft melismatic flourishes and even the occasional touch of elfin wickedness, admirably supported at all times by his pianist.

But I can pay no greater compliment to Kurt Nikkanen and Rosemary Barnes regarding the concert by avowing that they managed to make even Pablo de Sarasate’s tiresome Carmen Fantasy work its magic (I must confess to an aversion to virtuoso violin arrangements, pot-pourris, medleys, etc. of this ilk). Even when content became thoroughly subservient to display, as with the second-movement Habanera, the playing had such style and panache that I was thoroughly absorbed by what they were doing and how it was being achieved. Rather more than the obvious pyrotechnics elsewhere, I liked the ghostly insinuations of the lento assai third movement, the music accompanying Carmen’s sexy taunting of Don Jose when being taken by him to prison.

By dint of audience appreciation we got two encores from the pair, firstly Moussorgsky’s Gopak from his unfinished opera Sorotchinsky Fair, a raunchy folk-fiddle-fest with brandy on the breath of the music (to paraphrase another far more famous and far less approbatory critical remark about Russian music), followed by what seemed like its antithesis, Elgar’s charmingly wistful Chanson de Matin, a piece which the violinist told us reminded him of his recent explorations of Wellington, walking around amid the beautiful sunny weather. It made for an elegant finish to a consistently stimulating concert.

French Songs definitely allowed – Alliance Française Wellington

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Alliance Française Concours de la Chanson

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday, 20 June 2010

A new venture by the Alliance Française Wellington, but intended to be annual, this was a competition for singers in two categories of French song: modern songs in the syles of Jacques Brel, Edith Piaf and others, and classical mélodie by nineteenth or twentieth century composers.  A prize of $1000 and two terms’ tuition at the Alliance Française was offered to the winner of each category.  Certificates were awarded to second and third place-getters in each.

Frenchman Franck Monnet, author, composer and performer judged the modern category, and experienced New Zealand singer Catherine Pierard judged the classical song section.  They were assisted by Jean-Georges Vendome from the French Embassy in Wellington. The organiser was Dan Tait-Jamieson, President of Alliance Française Wellington, who received considerable assistance from Jenny Wollerman, fine exponent of French song and singing lecturer at the New Zealand School of Music.

A preliminary round was held on Saturday, 19 June, and six finalists selected for the first category and nine for the second, out of a total of 29 entries. While the styles of singing for the two categories are very different, calling into question the wisdom of having a shared competition, nevertheless quite a number of the singers entered both classes.

The singers introduced their selections themselves – with varying success.  In the first class three singers sang without microphone (Edris, van Mellaerts and Smith) while the remaining three used amplification, and these seemed to score well with the judge, who in his remarks at the end said he thought the microphone gives an intimacy between singer and audience.  While we may question this view, it did allow the technician to increase the sound for one singer whose piano accompaniment was too loud.

Amina Edris opened with a Piaf classic: ‘L’Hymne à l’amour’.  She was accompanied by Catherine Norton.  Her style was good, though (thankfully?) she used less portamento than Piaf.  She was confident, projected well, and her language was good.

Next, Daniela-Rosa Young sang ‘Pour que tu m’aimes encore’ by J-J Goldman, a Céline Dion song.  This was not as affecting as the previous offering, but the French pronunciation was even better.  Her accompanist, Paul Carnegie-Johnson was competent, if a little restrained.

Julien van Mellaerts has a big voice, both speaking and singing.  It was pleasant but not distinguished.  His rendition of ‘Vous qui me passez sans me voir’ by J. Hess was cheerful but lacked variation and imagination.  Much repetition meant that not a lot of language was involved.  Julie Coulson expertly accompanied both him and the next singer.  Julien was awarded second place.

Bianca Andrew used the microphone, and impressed as having put a lot of thought into the way she sang ‘Nantes’ by Barbara, and she gave the best introduction so far.  I thought the song a little low for her, meaning that there was little tone on the lowest notes, but otherwise it was a very touching performance, making full use of the microphone to sing this sad song in an intimate way.  Her style was very French as was her little black dress.  Pronunciation and articulation were first class; my friend and I were pleased that she won, since we had picked her for the prize.

Felicity Smith sang without microphone, the bitter-sweet Piaf song ‘Padam, padam’ by N. Glanzberg, with Catherine Norton the fully supportive accompanist.  This was a good performance – intelligent, and with panache and emotion, despite some breathiness. Her French pronuncation was very good indeed.

The final performer, Wallace Gollan sang with the microphone and accompanist Daniel Hales.  Her language and style were thoroughly French, in ‘La jeune fille aux cheveux blancs by Camille.  She used the words with subtlety.  It was a pity that her accompanist, playing without printed music, was too loud.  The balance improved with some knob-twiddling by the technician.  She was awarded third place.

Other words from the judge of this class were to stress the importance of the lyrics, and to note that he thought the singers really made the songs theirs.

The larger category, Mélodie, began with Daniela-Rosa Young singing ‘Absence’ from Nuits d’Été by Hector Berlioz.  This lush song was sung attractively, but slight flat intonation on the top note, too much gesture, and a less than excellent accompanist spoiled the performance somewhat for me.  The words were well produced and the piece was sung with expression.

Julien van Mellaerts’ ‘Le Mendiant’ by Francis Poulenc was accompanied by Julie Coulson,and was sung in good style after a good spoken introduction, but I found the performance somewhat monotonous.  He was placed second in this class also.

Next was the diminutive Xing Xing, who with Julie Coulson sang ‘Il pleure dans mon coeur’ by Debussy (not Débussy as in the programme) most feelingly.  She has a lovely soprano voice and her French language was beautifully produced and accented.  Her interpretation had variety.

Bianca Andrew used her voice and her language skills well in ‘Sanglots’ by Poulenc.  With Julie Coulson she created a range of dynamics.  Bianca was the first to tell us who the poet was; in this case, Apollinaire.  She explained that he was one of the Symbolist poets, and that the words did not really make sense.

Amina Edris gave a rather inadequate introduction, but did say the Massenet’s ‘Elégie’ was originally written for cello and piano, and has had many arrangements.  It was therefore a pity not to learn who wrote the words used in this arrangement.  A confident, strong presentation and an attractive voice went into a very dramatic performance.  Catherine Norton accompanied.  She was placed third.

Elitsa Kappatos gave a very strong and confident performance of ‘Psyche’ by E. Paladilhe, accompanied by Catherine Norton.

Bryony Williams was the winner, singing the well-known Duparc song ‘L’invitation au voyage’. A cheerful and confident singer with quite a fruity voice with plenty of volume, she was supported by accompanist Julie Coulson who played for the next singer also.

Frances Moore sang Duparc also: ‘Au pays où se fait la guerre’, the poem being by Gautier.  Her voice production was very good, and she made a dramatic performance of this quite difficult, long song.

Finally, Felicity Smith with Catherine Norton performed Debussy’s ‘Noël des enfants qui n’ont plus de maison’, the composer having also written the words.  The drama was presented well, and the singer made good use of her voice, and her facility in the language.  A slight slip and the breathing were minor factors to mar the performance.

The contest had a very high standard.  My conjecture about the awards in the classical section is that the judge went for carrying voices, which would do well on the operatic stage; there is sadly so little public performance of lieder/mélodie/art song these days that these promising singers cannot expect to base a career around such beautiful words and music.

The singers, especially the winners, are to be congratulated on their presentations and their teachers on the skills they have assisted their students to gain.

NZSQ and Richard Mapp – Wellington Chamber Music

Posted on by Peter Mechen

MOZART – String Quartet in D Major K.575 “Prussian”

CHINARY UNG – Spiral III for String Quartet

SCHUMANN – Piano Quintet in E-flat Op.44

The New Zealand String Quartet : Helene Pohl, Douglas Beilman (violins) / Gillian Ansell (viola) / Rolf Gjelsten (‘cello)

– with Richard Mapp (piano)

Ilott Theatre, Wellington Town Hall

Sunday 20th June 2010

The very opening of the Mozart quartet fooled me into thinking the NZSQ was for some reason playing the music in E-flat. I sadly fear that part of my confusion was due to my ever-declining ability to precisely recognise note-pitch; but in my defence I ought to state that the quartet’s playing of the opening paragraph of Mozart’s wonderful K.575 in (wait for it!) D Major was so warmly and richly expressed, the music SOUNDED momentarily as though it was in the higher, mellower key. I thought the players’ combination of warmth and focus quite captivating, with both the ensemble and the solo instruments drawing on a full range of tones that took Mozart’s music out of the drawing-room of taste and decorum and into the world of pulsating human interaction. Even if intonation wasn’t absolutely perfect at all times (more in the softer, throw-away phrasings than in any of the leading lines), the group’s interplayings of different strands, and ready command of colour and texture, ever led the ear onwards through a fascinating amalgam of narrative and interaction.

The players darkened the textures beautifully with the lead-in to the development, whose dynamic, almost confrontational mode was achieved by great attack, especially from the ‘cellist – playing which gave the music all of its emotional range and expressive force. All the more joie de vivre was generated, then, with the return to the opening, the quartet’s energy and brio culminating in final flourishes of great elan at the end. The slow movement’s full-throated tones fragment beautifully into individual voices, here characterised by each player with piquant expression, drawing the listener into the world of both sounds and gesturings, whose combination makes live music-making such a pleasure, as was the case this time round. The daintily tripping Minuet enjoyed its occasional angularities, the players again not hesitating to get “physical” with the music, their bodily movements frequently choreographing the sounds in a way that suggested their total involvement in the ebb and flow of things. The quartet made an adventure out of the finale as well, the viola-and-‘cello exchanges decorous and ritualistic at the beginning, but with poise occasionally giving way to high spirits, a dancing triplet theme dominating the middle section, and archways of dotted rhythm figurations and melismatic impulses adding to the festivities – the players here emphasised the energies of the music more, I think, than the moments of circumspection which every now and then glanced furtively outwards at the world.

In between two more-or-less “standard” classics the NZSQ presented a contemporary piece which they discovered through Jack Body. The composer, Chinary Ung, born in 1942, in Cambodia, went to the United States in 1964 to study at the Manhatten School of Music, winning a number of prizes and honours for his music, and teaching at various institutions – he’s currently the Professor of Composition at the University of California in San Diego. His music combines the worlds of South-east Asian music and western art-music, resulting in works such as Spiral III (as the name suggests, the third of a series), the one programmed for this concert.

Helpfully, the players, prompted by Quartet leader Helene Pohl, demonstrated some of the work’s most prominent features, a couple of distinctive themes (one sounding as though it could have been written by Gershwin), and a few examples of the music’s wide variety of texture (plenty of ponticello, or playing close to the bridge – and its antithesis, bowing at the other extreme, over the fingerboard). The work itself made a remarkable impression – a forthright opening, with the “traditional music” ambience quickly evident through those exotic sounds created by the ponticello technique, the bluesy pitch-slides and colours seamlessly fusing with the South-East Asian folk-sounds, the melodies lovely and the accompaniments spidery. More rhythmically volatile and rhapsodic episodes reminded me in places of Janacek’s music, the language in places almost disjointed and whimsical, but whose overall effect is something strong, vital and deeply-rooted. And as well as this ground-based folkish feeling, there’s also an other-worldliness whose beauties can curdle without warning – one is taken away and then suddenly re-confronted with more immediate and pressing realities as part of a continual process discovery and rediscovery. I look forward to the Quartet’s projected CD of this work, as part of a project featuring works by Asian composers, the others being by Toru Takemitsu,Tan Dun, Gao Ping, and Zhou Long, in a recording to be undertaken over the coming month.

After the interval Richard Mapp joined the quartet for a performance of Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet, a timely act of homage to a composer born, like his great contemporary Frederic Chopin, two hundred years ago this year. Right from the beginning the players caught the work’s “stride” with a resounding flourish, then moving easefully into those soulful lyrical utterances that could be by no other composer – ‘cello and viola introduced a beautifully-weighted second subject, as beautifully answered by the piano, the whole episode then “swung” back to the beginning with great relish for the repeat. The piano’s introduction to the ensemble showed up the distinctly unglamorous Ilott Theatre sound, very precise and focused, but with little warmth and resonance – thus the rather “Gothic” descent into the world of the development lacked the ultimate in romantic atmosphere, but through no fault of the performers. This also affected the opening of the slow movement, the sound having a curiously “dead” quality in between each muffled drumbeat, though the contrasting flow of the major-key sequence worked better, with lyrical, song-like playing from all concerned. The Sphinx-like transition to the agitato passages created a frisson of tension, from which burst forth terrific energies, before subsiding into a more troubled lyricism, Gillian Ansell’s viola tones conveying the retreating march theme’s sombre character in tones of grey and purple. A pity, then, that the quiet concluding chord’s treble voice sounded, to my ears, slightly under-the-note.

The Mendelssohnian energy of the scherzo danced and fizzed with plenty of spirit, the players capturing the darker-browed drive of the contrasting trio, piano and string pizzicati properly angular and prickly; while the finale, beginning gruffly, drives the argument forward with resolute purpose. One senses the composer looking for ways of resolving inner conflicts through music, those characteristically sombre themes being fought with and eventually conquered, here with great rhetorical gesturings by use of the work’s very opening theme, introduced by the piano, and developed fugally by all the instruments, against the counterpoint of the finale’s opening theme – as with the Fourth Symphony’s finale, a heart-warming “working out” is driven by tremendously buoyant rhythmic energies, the musicians here bringing out that sense of resolution and homecoming in the music that makes the work’s journey such an invigorating experience.