Category: Reviews – Concerts

Dazzling Diabelli Variations from pianist Ya-Ting Liou at St.Andrew’s make an indelible impression

Posted on by Peter Mechen

St Andrew’s Lunchtime Concert Series presents:
BEETHOVEN – Thirty-three Variations on a Waltz by Anton Diabelli in C Major, Op.120
Ya Ting Liou (piano)

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

Wednesday, 14th October, 2020

The Diabelli Variations, or to give the pieces their proper collective name, “Thirty-three Variations on a Waltz by Anton Diabelli in C Major, Op.120” represent in their entirety Beethoven’s final and loftiest thoughts concerning the piano and its expressive capabilities.  It’s both characteristic and appropriate that such sublimity of invention on Beethoven’s part should have emanated from such an unprepossessing source.

Thanks to Beethoven’s somewhat free-wheeling biographer, Anton Schindler, the circumstances surrounding the composer’s involvement with this work became over the years interlaced with fanciful legend – that Beethoven scornfully dismissed Diabelli’s Waltz as “a cobbler’s patch” until the latter offered him a considerable fee for a set of variations,  that the composer was so offended at having been given such a poor theme he wrote the 33 Variations on it to rub the insult in, and that he completed the work in no less than three months.

Leaving aside Schindler’s account, we know that in 1819, the publisher, Anton Diabelli, aware of a musical public craving some escapist amusement in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, approached a wide range of composers that included Beethoven and Schubert with the idea of presenting them all with a waltz-theme of his own invention and requesting from each a variation on the theme. This was to be published as a kind of anthology,  one called Vaterländischer Künstlerverein  (The Patriotic Artist’s Club). At the end of the same year over fifty composers had completed their efforts and sent them back to Diabelli. The exception was Beethoven, who had accepted Diabelli’s invitation, and responded with not just one but a number of variations, quickly completing twenty-three, but then setting aside the work for the Missa Solemnis (he had interrupted work on this for the Variations!) and the late piano sonatas.

Early In 1823, Beethoven finished the set, completing thirty-three variations all told, possibly to advance his own efforts with the previously-published 32 Variations in C Minor, or perhaps even having in mind JS Bach’s Goldberg Variations, with its thirty-two pieces. Whatever the case, the work was published by Diabelli in June of that same year, the publisher actually drawing attention to Bach’s work thus:  –  “……indeed all these variations, through the novelty of their ideas, care in working-out, and beauty in the most artful of their transitions, will entitle the work to a place beside Sebastian Bach’s famous masterpiece in the same form.”

To deal with a work of such proportions, both performers and commentators have proposed various kinds of “signpostings” which give some kind of direction to the adventurous listener, ears awash with the sheer extent of the composer’s inventiveness. Today’s performer, Ya-Ting Liou, suggested in her programme note that the work might be thought of as in two parts, the division marked by the cataclysmic Variation 17 (the renowned pianist Alfred Brendel, famous for his performances of the work, called both this and the previous Variation “Triumph”), a sequence characterised by great energy, physicality and exuberance, and one whose aftermath certainly appeared as though the music had suddenly set its sights elsewhere, the following Variation a dialogue or game perhaps between friends or lovers or philosophers, with the exchanges opening up for us enticing realms of equivocal possibility.

But the work responds to a myriad of listening approaches for both listener and performer, whether “large-scale” or “of the moment” – and from the very beginning Ya Ting’s unhurried, detailed and intensely cumulative approach had the effect for me of “gathering in” both broad brush-strokes and detail, so that while one was aware of the contrasts being wrought between each of the variations, one’s concentration on the overall flow was never unduly disturbed. I thought her abilities as a storyteller were outstanding in this respect – whatever the felicitation of the detail, or the sharpness of the contrasts, we never lost the sense of an inexorable forward movement, from realm to wondrous realm glorying in Beethoven’s invention! If one was occasionally tempted to dwell on the particular character of a fragment or a sequence, one was then “taken” in thrall to the next felicitation, at times almost by osmotic means, completely without self-consciousness!

To speak of “highlights” in such a performance of such a work would be to denigrate Ya Ting’s achievement as a whole – rather I prefer to cite certain moments as enjoyable for reasons tailored to each moment’s particular “character”……thus the first of the Variations, the Alla Marcia Maestoso was rightly made more of a “beginning” than the theme at the work’s opening, spacious, processional and attention-grabbing, with orchestral-like contrasting dynamics in places, an almost Musorgsky-like “Promenade” moment with which to commence the journey proper. By contrast, the dreamy, poetic, very “vocal” line of the third L’istesso Tempo Variation made for a piquantly quixotic commentary, with its discursive bass notes trailing off into thoughtful silences, a discourse which the next variation Un poco piu vivace turned into a lovely series of arched “overthrowings” of festooning detail.

One of the abiding qualities of the playing seemed to me to be the pianist’s quality of taking the music “with her” in those variations requiring an abundance of tone rather than merely “driving” it all forwards – thus in Variation 14’s  Grave e maestoso we all were made to “feel” the tread of those broad, resonant steps which seemed to resemble a large ship’s progress through water, a process that seemed like the unfolding of a vision, the piece’s second half delivered with infinite patience and long-breathed surety – quite a journey! By contrast, Ya-Ting was fully engaged in an entirely different way in the “virtuoso roar” of those two Variations, Nos 16 and 17, which for her signalled a “halfway-point” in the work, the strength of each of the hands by turns given a workout in the two pieces, the results an exhilarating engagement with some strong and scintillating music-making.

The work’s second half contained the music the composer penned after returning to his work to write ten more variations to add to the twenty-three he had written in 1819. No.20’s sudden deep bass, following as it does immediately after the excitingly  festive Presto of No.19 was a solemn Andante, one of the most profound of the set, and which commentator Donald Francis Tovey described as “awe-inspiring”. Here, La-Ting seemed to lose herself in thought, the music taking our sensibilities to “different realms” in a wondrously spontaneous-sounding recreation of remarkable stillness. Of course, Beethoven was “setting us up” for the explosion which followed with Variation 21’s Allegro con brio, sudden, incisive trills in the right hand set against tub-thumping chords in the left hand, interspersed with slower triple time sequences. The hand-passing-over jumps produced some inaccurate landings which merely added to the excitement – who dares, wins!

Drollery took over from rumbustiousness in the next Variation, No. 22, none other than a setting of part of  Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Leoporello’s opening aria “Notte e giorno faticar” (Night and Day I work), music which shared the same two opening notes with Diabelli’s theme. Another explosive contrast then took place with the following Assai allegro, Variation 23, the pianist’s fingers all over the keyboard, generating incredible momentum, while again, maintaining a coherence of inspiration amid the music’s startling contrasts. Obviously I don’t have the space in the course of a single review to do full justice to this artist’s treatment of so many profoundly insightful moments of through-line amid contrast throughout this work – suffice to say that by some alchemic means she took us with her on what seemed like a seamlessly-flowing journey to the apex of the music’s realms of expression, the concluding variations inspired firstly by Bach, then Handel and finally Mozart, the last of which seemed, in  Tovey’s words, like “a peaceful return home”.

To have such an exposition of genius laid out for us so beautifully and far-reachingly in the course of an otherwise ordinary lunch-hour’s duration seemed to me like a miracle – a gift from life’s variety and inexhaustible capacity to inspire and bring joy, brought to us through the sensibilities and skills of a remarkable pianist.

 

THe NZSO’s “Monumental” concert…..counting the ways

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents:
MONUMENTAL

RICHARD STRAUSS – Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings TrV 290
Four Last Songs for soprano and orchestra TrV 296
TCHAIKOVSKY – Symphony No. 5 in E Minor Op.62

Emma Pearson (soprano)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Hamish McKeich (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Friday 9th October, 2020

As much as I’m not a great fan of the use of “catchwords” to describe the content of concerts, such as both the NZSO and the NZSQ have been using to characterise specific events over the past year, I must admit that occasionally the description “hits the spot”, as with the use of the word “Monumental” to describe the orchestra’s most recent concert in Wellington. Though a somewhat “loose” definition, and reining in three otherwise very different pieces of music on this occasion, there was definitely a “monumental” aspect to each of the works played – in fact, it was probably the only commonality the three works shared, certainly sufficient to “bond” our otherwise disparate listening experiences.

Each of the pieces enacted a kind of ritual of human universality, something profound and moving in every case – the tragedy of the opening piece, composer Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings, a lament for the destruction of aspects of his homeland’s culture and heritage through warfare, was as profound on both a public and private level as his final composition, “Four Last Songs”, a gorgeously valedictory paean to earthly fulfilment and resignation to the unknown mercies of death. And in the case of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, written in the throes of its composer’s somewhat congenital self-doubt, the music represented a large-scale, self-revelatory quest towards the distant light, the opening “darkness” of the motto theme which was to bear the brunt of the work’s remarkable journey as intense, terse and tightly-woven as anything its composer had previously written, and here confronted with remarkable directness and resolution which won through in the end.

First up was the wholly remarkable Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings, a veritable cri de coeur from the pen of Germany’s foremost composer of the age, Richard Strauss. For much of the first part of the twentieth century the darling of those wishing to uphold and glory in the idea of German pre-eminence in musical composition, Strauss’s fortunes under Hitler’s Third Reich seemed confirmed after the composer was made President of the Reichsmusikkammer, the State Music Bureau, in 1933. Disillusionment for the composer soon set in with the authorities’ disapproval of his collaboration with a Jewish writer as librettist for his newest opera, and of his refusal to enact discriminatory policies against Jewish musicians – he was forced to resign from his post, and his Jewish daughter-in-law and grandchildren were threatened with incarceration, as were a number of his daughter-in-law’s relatives, many of whom were to be eventually exterminated.

In the informative programme note for the Metamorphosen, a 1945 diary entry by the composer was quoted, revealing Strauss’s long-term feelings towards the Nazi regime – “Twelve years of the rule of bestiality, ignorance and illiteracy under the greatest criminals”. But even more heartfelt was the anguish of the composer at one of the immediate legacies of Nazi rule, the destruction by Allied bombing of some of the most significant German opera houses and concert halls – Strauss is further quoted regarding a particular instance of this tragic loss, that of the Munich Court Theatre – “…..where Tristan and Die Meistersinger received their first performances…… (and) where my father sat at the first horn desk for forty-nine years – it was the greatest catastrophe of my life….”

The most tangible result of the composer’s grieving for the loss of German culture was his writing of Metamorphosen, a work that links to Bach in its contrapuntal mastery, and to Beethoven in its direct quotation of the latter’s Funeral March from the “Eroica” Symphony (in the score Strauss inserts the comment “In Memoriam!” next to this quotation). One commentator whose thoughts on these references I found described critical conjecture regarding their significance as “a can of worms”, leading to a comparison of Strauss’s murky early relationship with Hitler and the Nazis with Beethoven’s initial admiration for Napoleon, with both composers coming to express their disillusionment in musical terms. Others have pointed to Strauss’s copied references to a poem of Goethe’s in the former’s sketches for Metamorphosen, a poem that expresses the elusiveness of self-knowledge, a finding of “the true being within”, and one which perhaps found a sombre realisation in the music. The truth of it all remains a mystery.

I was shocked when checking previous Middle C reviews of the NZSO’s playing of this work to find that I’d last reviewed a performance no less than TEN (!) years ago, one conducted by the orchestra’s Music Director Pietari Inkinen. On that occasion I remembered the stunning “choreographic” effect of the performance highlighted by the musicians (apart from the cellists) standing up to play, the actual placement of the players underpinning the multi-strandedness of the work by ensuring their visibility. In other words it was a feast for the eye as well as for the ear to “watch” as well as “hear” the interactions of the separate lines, the group resembling a “monumental” piece of clockwork in irrevocable motion.

If the visual element was rather less-pronounced in this performance (the players more tightly-grouped around their conductor), the actual musical texture by way of what I remembered of the earlier performance seemed tighter, something probably accentuated by the players’ closer grouping. It should be mentioned that there aren’t twenty-three solo strings “going at it” for the whole time, nor are each of the strands entirely independent – the ninth and tenth violins, the fifth viola, the fifth ‘cello and all three double basses spend much of their time “doubling” with other instruments, in places to add volume to particular melodic phrases – but even so, the work is still a staggering contrapuntal achievement on the part of the composer, and a real test of an interpreter’s ability to make almost half-an-hour’s worth of luscious-sounding string-playing cohere with sufficient variety.

Here we were treated to gorgeously rapt opening sounds from the lower strings, the violas then introducing the oft-to-be-repeated fragment from the Eroica’s slow movement, and the violins joining in with the work’s gradual and dignified “terracing”, the full complement of players eventually engaged as the music intensified into a richly-upholstered sound-texture. As the work progressed, the mood seemed almost celebratory, the lines swaying and soaring as if in the grip of some kind of ecstatic memory – but Hamish McKeich’s direction allowed for plenty of ebb-and-flow of tone and texture with numerous solo and concerted detailings – a series of paired-note exhortations led to a full-blooded outburst, the playing florid and impassioned, when suddenly, the music plunged into minor-key darkness, long sostenuto lines, and with the “Eroica” quotation dominating the heartfelt and deeply-wrought a sense of desolation at the piece’s end.

One might have thought it was piling Pelion upon Ossa in programming the composer’s final composition Vier Letzte Lieder “Four Last Songs” immediately after the equally valedictory Metamorphosen – but though three of the four songs have death as their abiding theme, the music and texts display a calm, accepting, even welcoming character in response to the words’ “end-of-life” scenarios. Composed in 1948 at the age of 84, Strauss never intended these songs to be his “last” works (the title by which they’re known collectively today was bestowed on them by a publisher), though he was undoubtedly aware that his end was near – he had actually wanted to write five songs altogether, but only managed four, the first with words by Joseph von Eichendorff, Im Abendrot
(At Sunset), and the remainder with texts by Hermann Hesse. Together they make a near-perfect sequence, with the first-composed Im Abendrot placed last, as Strauss intended, though he left no instructions regarding the order of the others, which was chosen by the publisher also responsible for their collective title.

My previous encounter with the voice of Emma Pearson, the soprano soloist for these songs this evening, was the New Zealand Opera Company’s 2017 Carmen, in which she played a sweet-voiced, engaging Micaela – but even more memorable was her earlier (2012) astonishing portrayal of Gilda in the Company’s 2012 Rigoletto, which prompted me to comment at the time on her winning combination of “silvery tones, physical beauty and add-water vulnerability”. So I was looking forward to reacquainting myself with her voice and presence, and, happily, wasn’t disappointed.

After a properly dark and turbulent opening to the music, the singer’s opening phrases of the first song, Frühling, rose clearly and confidently aloft, easily penetrating the orchestral fabric and demonstrating a ready responsiveness to the musical ebb-and-flow with an ear-catching variation of tone – a voice which could both soar and float, expressing by turns the text’s exhilaration and tranquility at the onset of Spring. Some exquisite detailing by the orchestral winds marked the opening of the second song, September, with Pearson’s focused direct tones delineating the garden in mourning and the chill of the dying summer – her vocal control allowed her to “resonate” with the instrumental strands in places, and then transfix us with a phrase of great beauty. Singer and conductor shaped the song’s final paragraph, voice and instruments dovetailing sublimely to create at the end a kind of floating strand of sound taken up with lump-in-the-throat poignancy by Sam Jacobs’ noble horn tones.

Another dark beginning to a song came with the third Beim Schlafengehen (Going to Sleep), one which gently roused itself to greet the singer’s entry, a perfect marriage of tones and impulses, Pearson’s voice sounding like a devout prayer with the phrase “Nun der Tag mich müd gemacht” (Now the day has wearied me) before gloriously conveying the “yearning” quality of the following “Soll mein sehnliches Verlangen” (Shall my ardent longing…), her attack on the high exposed notes of the purest quality. There were great exchanges between the singer and solo instrumental lines, including a sequence for solo violin which Vesa-Matti Leppanen delivered gloriously, and to which Pearson replied with almost Wagnerian sweep and grandeur at her re-entry, the music flowing unstoppably, with a gorgeous concluding vocal phrase, “TIef und tausendfach zu leben” (It may live deeply and a thousandfold), and a cherishable coda, horn, strings and wind distilling moments of rapt beauty.

After this, the final song Im Abendrot was a kind of release, a “letting go” (as suggested by the text, with its final line “Is this perhaps death?”), Pearson responding to the great orchestra outburst at the beginning, and to the horns’ brief but radiant salute with calm surety, her voice working with rather than against the orchestral tapestries in replicating the text’s description of a world going to sleep, the flutes’ song of the larks rising like fireflies from out of the darkness. From the rapture emerged the big vocal line at “So rief im Abendrot” (So profound in the Sunset), Pearson’s tones not as clean in the taking of the highest note as she might have liked, but still glorious, after which the solo horn gently underpinned the singer’s final, almost murmured words, leaving conductor and orchestra to suggest the light and spaces beyond the concluding birdsong and the fading light – a marvellous achievement!

As with all performances of a certain “quality”, having some time immediately afterwards to savour a particular listening experience is a joy in itself, which the interval at this concert duly provided. And then it was back to our seats afterwards for our third “monumental” journey of the evening, with both the terrain and the means of traversal fascinatingly different, the piece being the Tchaikovsky Fifth Symphony, to my way of thinking the most “classical” of the Russian composer’s works in this genre while being imbued with just as much “Russian” spirit, colour and atmosphere as any. It was the first Tchaikovsky symphony I got to know, and I can still hear the “sidebreaks” in the 78rpm acetate discs recording I’d got from my grandmother’s “Vinnie’s” shop when a student!

Absolutely superb clarinet playing from Patrick Barry began the symphony with the “motto” theme that dominated the work, here keeping the phrases moving rather than dwelling on their brooding, intensely Russian character. A bassoon joined the clarinet as a kind of “middle voice”, creating an ear-catching flavour as the hushed, but sturdily-sprung march began, the winds “shading” rather than accenting their phrases in rising to the crescendo. The strings joined the march, energised by the rushing, gurgling wind-detailings, preparing for the brass entry, the sounds excitingly layered to cumulative effect. Hamish McKeich didn’t pull the contrasting string phrase around too much, letting it naturally expand at first, but giving it more emotional juice a bit later, the climax slightly anticipated, I thought, by the brass, but still nicely controlled, the horns surviving a “blip” with their very first of a set of fanfares, the music developing some exciting exchanges between sections, until the bassoon led the music’s way back to its recapitulation – some lovely augmented decoration of the theme by winds this time round!

Next, my favourite Tchaikovsky symphonic slow movement got a superb reading, begun in grand style with Sam Jacob’s playing of the opening horn theme, drawing the sounds, it seemed, from out of the air as the music proceeded, the oboe drawing away in a different direction with another theme, followed by the horn and supported by the other winds and the lower strings – out of this came the somewhat Elgarian THIRD melody from the strings, the “phrase-point” of the melody not QUITE achieved at its climax, but the intention was manifestly there! What a movement this is! – and was, here, with the winds instigating a FOURTH theme, supported by the strings and turned into a tremendous “statement of entry” for the motto theme from the work’s beginning! A few poised pizzicato steadyings, and the music set off , revisiting most of the material presented thus far and joining in with an even more impassioned repetition of the “Elgar-but-not-Elgar” theme (so very exciting and this time PROPERLY snow-capped when it eventually descended!!), and a sudden, dramatic return of the motto on vehement brasses and roaring timpani! Thank goodness for the music’s solicitous return to a more elegiac mood, beautifully finished by the clarinet.

Rather incongruously “salon-like” when it first began, the third-movement waltz’s whirling figurations generated ever-increasing clout as the music tirelessly spun its ensnaring lines around and about our sensibilities, the wind-playing an absolute joy to experience, and the strings tireless in their evocations of diaphanous enchantment. The finale, too, exerted its own rumbustious kind of ebb and flow, the motto theme opening rich and proud at first but soon finding itself under siege and taken on a whirlwind journey, brasses declaiming, timpani roaring and strings suddenly goaded into action! I wasn’t sure that the first of the two cataclysmic crescendi in the Allegro vivace hit the spot exactly, but the brass gave a good account of the motto theme amid the rest of the orchestra’s “Francesca da Rimini-like” agitations, and the  orchestral ferment held up brilliantly here until the Maestoso opening returned with its by-now triumphant theme, a whirlwind coda rounding off the jubilant mood. Bravo!

Footnote: Despite some almost Hanslick-like reactions from various contemporary commentators, the work was enthusiastically received in Europe, less so in America – in some ways we are in my opinion somewhat the poorer in our time through invoking blanket “politically correct” disapproval of any comment characterising any ethnic group as indulging in almost any sort of behaviour, as witness what the music correspondent for New York’s “Musical Courier” wrote in 1889 “……One vainly sought for coherency and homgeneousness…in the last movement the composer’s Calmuck blood got the better of him, and slaughter, dire and bloody, swept across the storm-drive score!” Sir Thomas Beecham might have exclaimed approvingly (as he did once, in an entirely different context) – “Gad! – what a critic!”

 

 

A programme of brilliantly scored Romantic era music from Wellington Youth Orchestra

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wellington Youth Orchestra conducted by Mark Carter

Saint-Saëns: Danse macabre, Op 40
Weber: Clarinet Concerto No 2 in E flat, Op 74 (clarinet: Ben van Leuven)
Rimsky-Korsakov: Capriccio espagnol, Op 34
Mussorgsky, orchestrated by Ravel: Pictures at an Exhibition

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 4 October, 3 pm

The listing in Middle C’s Coming Events had misread details about this concert; the conductor was identified as Miguel Harth-Bedoya. In fact, he had conducted a rehearsal of the orchestra  a few weeks before.

But there would be no need to attribute the splendid performances on Sunday directed by Mark Carter to anyone but Mark Carter. To begin, it was a colourful programme of music that would have excited any young players (and plenty of old ones, speaking for myself) to which they responded vigorously.

The only one of the four works in the programme likely to have been played recently might have been the Mussorgsky; though the Weber clarinet concerto may be somewhat unfamiliar, both the Saint-Saëns and the Rimsky-Korsakov would surely have been known. I’m not at all sure however, being aware of the declining condition of the Concert Programme and the domination of young people by pops. All four works on the programme deserve to be played by major orchestras to today’s audiences.

Danse macabre 
Both were familiar to any 2YC listener when I was young; the symphonic poem, Danse macabre, though it was not always in its authentic orchestral version (1874); nor is it today. It was an excellent choice for the Youth Orchestra since it’s full of gripping melody and convincing mood music. Here there was no introductory harp but a bold solo violin (Lukas Baker), a nice flute solo (Samantha Sweeney), proceeding with macabre triple time that portrayed the spirit of the Victor Hugo poem so well. The brass might have been a bit overly exuberant, but the whole worked as an excellent, overture-length piece.

Weber Clarinet concerto 
Weber’s second clarinet concerto is one of his not-much-played works. These days Weber is represented mainly by excerpts from Der Freischütz and The Invitation to the Dance (though it’s Berlioz’s orchestration that’s mostly heard). Weber was a friend of notable clarinettist, Heinrich Baermann, and he wrote two concertos, a concertino and a clarinet quintet for him. Among Weber’s other music that should be familiar are two symphonies, two piano concertos and a Konzertstück in F minor (which I have recordings of), a lot of other attractive orchestral and chamber music and several operas other than Freischütz that made Weber an important inspiration for Wagner twenty years later.

The second clarinet concerto is colourful and attractive, and there were successful instrumental episodes before Benedict van Leuven’s delightful clarinet part entered, with a number of challenging leaps from top to bottom of its range. Though there are nice passages for bassoons, oboe, horns as well as the strings, it was the clarinet that led the way with confidence and distinction. It was the second movement however, A Romanze, Andante con moto, where the clarinet demonstrated not merely his dexterity, but also in the pensive episodes, his feeling for the warm, emotional and subtle colours of Weber’s orchestration.

The last movement, Alla Polacca, revived the joyousness of the first movement, with its bars-full of virtuosic semi-quavers, with amusing chirpy phrases that all too soon brought it to the end.

Capriccio Espagnol 
Another once familiar symphonic poem was Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol (my early love of is evidenced by a set of 78 rpm shellac discs by the Liverpool Philharmonic under Sir Malcolm Sargent, bought in the mid 1950s!). The opening was rowdy with dominant timpani, that offered little room for discretion, but plenty of opportunities for displays of orchestral skill. Rimsky was one of the most celebrated orchestrators (his Principles of Orchestration is, along with Berlioz’s Grand Treatise on Instrumentation, among the classic texts on the subject), offering many opportunities for individual talent and prowess to be admired: a flute solo, oboes, the five horns and three trombones, as well as general orchestral colour.

Pictures at an Exhibition
Finally, yet another masterpiece of orchestration – Ravel’s translation of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. He wrote it for piano (an overwhelmingly challenging composition it is), and as with several of Mussorgsky’s other works, it was subjected to editing and ‘refinement’ by his friends, particularly Rimsky-Korsakov.

It wasn’t long after Mussorgsky’s early death in 1881 that orchestrations of Pictures began to appear. There have been several orchestral versions, some taking liberties with the music and omitting certain sections. Ravel’s, in 1922, has become universally admired.

The orchestration is wonderfully rich and though not all of the instruments that Ravel called for were employed (harps were missing for example), there were tubular bells, celeste, alto saxophone and (I think) glockenspiel and euphonium. And the lively, high spirited way Mark Carter guided the orchestra was distinguished by its clarity and ebullience.

The performance of such exuberant, noisy orchestration in St Andrew’s has in the past been rather overwhelming, especially from brass and percussion. However, the fact that I was sitting near the back of the gallery may have helped the balance between the more discreet and the noisier instruments. In any case, orchestral balance was successfully managed throughout, and both players and audience (there was virtually a full house) would have had a great time.

 

Riveting performances by the Orpheus Choir and Orchestra Wellington of works by Faure and Rachmaninoff

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Orchestra Wellington and the Orpheus Choir of Wellington present:
RACHMANINOFF – The Bells

FAURE – Requiem in D Minor Op.48
RACHMANINOFF – The Bells  Op.35

Margaret Medlyn (soprano), Jared Holt (tenor), Wade Kernot (bass)
Orpheus Choir of Wellington (Brent Stewart, director)
Orchestra Wellington
Marc Taddei (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday, 3rd October, 2020

Under the circumstances of Covid-19 and its world-wide strictures, I’m truly grateful, along with so many others, to be living in a place where activities such as concerts of the quality of that which I attended in the Michael Fowler Centre on Saturday evening could even happen, let alone be enjoyed so freely and readily. Given in the same week as the NZSO’s inspiring “Eroica” concert conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Orchestra Wellington’s equally uplifting collaboration with a sonorous and versatile Orpheus Choir made for a week’s fascinating and rewarding diversity of orchestral activity. I admit to being tempted into writing an all-out notice of lament that this particular concert in the Orchestra’s “Rachmaninoff season” didn’t “go for broke” here in presenting a couple more of the composer’s choral works instead of Gabriel Faure’s beautiful but oft-played Requiem – has Wellington ever heard the Russian composer’s achingly lovely “Spring” Cantata for baritone, choir and orchestra, or his enchanting “Three Russian Folksongs”?  What a programme, together with “The Bells” that would have made! But one must be grateful at the chance to hear “The Bells” in concert at all, and especially in such a vibrant and idiomatic performance as here. Perhaps on a future occasion………

Here was, in any case, a fascinating contrast of compositional styles and idioms presented via a pair of masterworks from composers whose music, though not exactly contemporary, emanated from the same late-Romantic Age (Faure’s Requiem in its final form dates from 1900, Rachmaninoff’s “The Bells“ from 1913), even though each couldn’t be more different in its expression! Though the Faure Requiem’s performance here was never going to give the impression of a church ambience in such surroundings as the Michael Fowler Centre and with a choir of the Orpheus’s size, there was in fact a historical precedent for the numbers involved, with the final, augmented version of the composer’s work receiving its premiere in 1900 at the famed Palais Trocadéro in Paris, fellow-composer Paul Taffenel conducting forces numbering 250 performers.

Conductor Marc Taddei most thrillingly took the course of utilising the choir’s tonal resources for intensely dramatic effect, with the group’s music director Brent Stewart’s expert training and leadership evident in the singing’s control of dynamics and overall shaping of the sounds throughout.  Right from the intensely focused opening Requiem aeternam we relished the controlled honing of the words’ purpose, the “et lux perpetua” thrilling in its outpouring of light and strength, the “luceat eis” a more prayerful supplication. Everything was here underpinned by finely-wrought orchestral playing, with the opening largo becoming andante, and the strings’ counterpointing the tenors’ fervent repetition of the words “Requiem aeternam” – I liked also the almost fiery cries of “exaudi” immediately after the loveliness of the sopranos’ “Te decet hymnus”, emphasising once again the drama of the text’s contrasts, which continued throughout the invocations of the Kyrie and Christe sequences.

A smaller number of voices in a more intimate setting would perhaps have found even more flavoursome nuances in the Offetoire with the repetitions of “O Domine Jesu Christe”, but the “terracing” of these supplications was finely placed, aided by the delicacy and sensitivity of the orchestral playing, the string harmonies reminding me in places (just before the “Hostias”) of some of Vaughan Williams music, Faure’s evocation of “the insubstantiality of lost souls wandering among the abysses”. After these exhortations, how beautiful was the entry of the bass with his “Hostias”, Wade Kernot a touch hesitant here and there, not inappropriate in such a context, but managing to convey enough of the music’s major-key optimism to ease the burden of suffering so tellingly engendered by the music.

A performance highlight for me was the Sanctus, for a number of familiar reasons at first, the celestial tones of the harp, the purity of the women’s and the sonority of the men’s voices, the ethereal playing of the orchestra, all contributed to a sense of ever-burgeoning bliss and radiance, but which then burst forth with unprecedented glory at the introduction to the words “Hosanna in excelsis”, the horns  here for once casting aside all inhibitions and filling the spaces with golden-toned exhortations and resonances, the like of which I’d never before experienced in a live performance, the voices matching the full-bloodedness of the exultation – this was always a moment I’d considered special, but on this occasion one that infused me with incredible joy and excitement at having experienced a kind of long-awaited fulfilment of the music’s promise! – unforgettable!

Normally the Pie Jesu which follows straight on works for me as a kind of corrective to such excess as I’ve described – a cleansing, even a purifying kind of experience which straightaway takes me elsewhere, far from any festive or revelric scenario. I was therefore not a little dismayed at hearing Margaret Medlyn’s voice making such heavy weather of the music’s stratospheric lines, though I had thought it odd that she would be performing it anyway, as her voice has always seemed to me more suited to dramatic roles far removed from the ethereal delicacies of Faure’s music in this instance – something of an evocation of, in William Blake’s words, “a world in a grain of sand”. As it proved she appeared far more at home in the Rachmaninoff which followed after the interval – she was obviously going to always be the choice for the soprano soloist in this work (I still remember a stunning recital featuring some Rachmaninoff songs she and pianist Bruce Greenfield gave on a celebrated occasion – https://middle-c.org/2010/07/from-garden-to-grave-margaret-medlyn-and-bruce-greenfield/) – but surely it’s a voice that would always have been unsuited to Faure’s Pie Jesu? I’m only sad to find myself less than enthusiastic about a performance by a singer whose work I’ve deeply admired in the past, but in vastly different music…..

The serene opening of the Agnus Dei was but the beginning of a journey which took us through contrasting episodes of lyrical beauty (orchestra and tenor voices at the beginning), rapt communion  (those “Wotan’s Farewell”-like chromatic soprano descents at “Lux aeterna”) and blazing fervour (the “quia pius est” pleading from choir and orchestra just before the reprise of the very opening of the work, the choir positively incendiary at “et lux perpetua”!). Then, with the dark, throbbing “Libera Me” we seemed back in the underworld, Wade Kernot’s suitably dark tones secure with the music’s gravitas and direct focus, and the choir creating real frisson with the cries of “Dies illa, dies irae” over throbbing timpani, pulsating organ and louring brass, the horns again superb! The bass’s awe-struck but tender return to the final moments of  the “Libera Me” beautifully signalled a “coming through”, with the organ pedal at the end suggesting something of the abyss over which we had just been taken.

In a sense, the journey’s end came with the “In Paradisum”, the organ positively seraphic at the outset (though nothing I’ve heard anywhere matches the instrument on Andre Cluytens’ EMI recording at this point for sheer beauty!), the voices similarly angelic, the overall atmosphere quietly ecstatic, as befits where we’d been taken to. And yes, I remembered finding myself thinking at this point that it would have been nice to have heard those other Rachmaninoff works I mentioned, but this in nearly all of its parts certainly “did it” for me, thanks to all concerned. Nevertheless, I was glad of the interval’s “quantum leap” therapy, in preparation for what we were about to hear.

A pity we couldn’t have somehow had texts and translations on hand for the Rachmaninoff work, delivered as it was in a Russian translation by symbolist poet Konstantin Balmont of Edgar Allan Poe’s original poem, more of a transliteration, really, which gave an unsurprisingly “Russian” view of Poe’s imagery, dispensing with some of the repetitions and adding peculiarly Russian contextual images and ambiences – Balmont himself called it “an adaptation, more an imitation than a translation”. Besides Rachmaninoff’s own native pessimism of outlook, it all reflected a kind of prophetic sense of impending doom at the failure of the ruling Romanov dynasty to address the life-threatening issues facing many of the Russian people at that time, a situation that was to catastrophically resolve itself in 1917 with the Revolution. Though I’m hardly conversant with the language, I found its peculiar version of Slavic exoticism certainly made a visceral effect, thanks to sterling efforts by the soloists and the chorus, the SOUNDS of the words mirroring the characteristic textures of Rachmaninoff’s music throughout.

The work as a whole could be characterised as a journey from light to darkness over the four movements, and also a life’s journey from carefree youth to impending death. Equally it’s a compendium of human experience refracted through several peoples’ creative processes, with the composer tying the threads together in his music. So the opening “Silver Sleigh Bells” was a kind of magical awakening to a bright, crystalline Russian winter’s day, an instrumental sequence depicting something of a “Jingle Bells” scenario, the music’s scintillating progress halted by the tenor’s arresting “Slyshish!” (Listen!) and then (in a moment which equalled the frisson of the horns’ playing in the “Sanctus” of Faure’s Requiem) the choir broke the poised silence with a tumultuous repetition of the tenor’s single word! – nothing could go wrong from that moment on in the performance, such was its brilliance, depth and resonance of conviction! Tenor soloist Jared Holt I thought did an absolutely splendid job, timing the delicacies of his word-painting with great skill, while conveying terrific energy in his more declamatory utterances.The celebratory mood gradually evolved to one of reflections of “sweet oblivion” as the chorus atmospherically hummed its lines, with string harmonics glistening and eerily whispering, until, roused by the tenor at “Sani mchatsya”, chorus and orchestra built the excitement and volume towards a veritable tsunami of sound which broadened magnificently into a peroration of utter splendour, and then gradually dying to the merest whisper.

Ironically the first few measures of the second movement “Mellow Wedding Bells” featured the first four notes of Rachmaninoff’s “signature motif” the medieval plainchat “Dies irae”, one that grew in intensity before being augmented by the yearning choral voices, counterpointed by a dying fall line from the strings, one which evolved into a romantic meditation upon a pair of eyes gazing at the moon. Margaret Medlyn plunged into her lush lines with total involvement as the orchestral strings and winds conjured up an “Isle of the Dead”-like web of intensities, together with different bells adding their voices to the panoply of interlocking lines and single notes that characterised this movement – the soprano line rose to ecstatic heights when describing the “fairy-tale joy” of the bells pouring their holy blessing on the future. The “Dies irae” chant returned to inform the choral lines with thoughts of “a future where sleeps a tender peace” as the bells continued their blessings, leaving the last word to a descending pair of clarinets.

Following this was the “Loud Alarum Bells” chorus-and-orchestra scherzo, here another performance tour de force, right from the beginning – instrumental warning signals came in a crescendo of panic, before the voices’ conflagration of terror and confusion raged and roared, a “tale of horror, hurling cries into the night” in a frenzy of fear. The music’s sudden downward plunge into a brief trough of despair seemed as frightening and harrowing as the confrontational ferment which reared up again, the Orpheus Choir members displaying incredible energy and committed engagement towards realising the volatility of the composer’s writing. The sheer clamour enlivened even the Michael Fowler Centre, normally not renowned for its immediacy of sound, building up towards the movement’s end to a visceral assault on our listening sensibilities, but one which we wouldn’t have missed for worlds! A gloomily introspective lull towards the end was savagely interrupted by a brief but abruptly decisive payoff, the ensuing bruised-and-battered silence as devastating as was the music itself!

Completing the life-cycle, the survey, the picture, was the final movement “Mournful Iron Bells”, characterised by the poet as “the sound of bitter sorrow, ending the dream of a bitter life”. Here, Rachmaninoff used the mournful strains of the cor anglais to characterise the opening mood, creating an incredibly “laden” sound-picture, the singer (Wade Kernot) intoning his solo supported by an overwhelmingly fatalistic orchestral backdrop, the detailing here almost unnervingly vivid and impactful. Together, singer, choir, conductor and players brought about a heartfelt climax with the words “Vyrastayet v dolgiy gul” (It grows into an endless cry!), before the brasses hinted once again at the “Dies Irae” chant then brutally helped energise the music at “Someone shrieks from the belfry!”, hammering home the bass’s words, allowing for no hope – only terror, pity and hopelessness. After the singer’s final bitter pronouncement of  “…i pratyazhno vazveshchayet a pakoye grabavom” (slowly proclaiming the stillness of the grave), the music suddenly lightened, drifting into the major key and offering a concluding glimmer of consolation.

Together with his “All Night Vigil” Op.37, written in 1915, “The Bells” can be said to be one of the composer’s self-avowed favourite works, worthy of a regular place in the choral repertoire. The work, heard “live” was a revelation for me, and must have been for many others who attended. Grateful thanks are due to both Marc Taddei and Brent Stewart, the respective Music Directors of Orchestra Wellington and the Orpheus Choir of Wellington, for enabling a performance that will, I’m certain, stay in the memory of those who heard it as marking a precious occasion.

An exhilarating piano duet concert from Duo Harmonics at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Steven Sedley

Duo Harmonics: Nicole Chao and Beth Chen – piano duo

Mozart: Sonata for four hands in D Major, KV 381
Rachmaninov: Six Morceaux Op. 11
Ravel: La Valse  (transcription for piano four hands)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 30 September, 12:15 pm

Duo Enharmonics, the Nicole Chao and Beth Chen piano duo team, have become regular performers at the St Andrew’s lunch time concerts. This year they offered a journey from a graceful Mozart Sonata of 1765 through Rachmaninov’s nostalgic Russian group of six pieces of 1894, to the grand spectacular duo piano arrangement of Ravel’s La Valse of 1920.

The Mozart Sonata in D Major, KV.381 is a very early work, written by Mozart to perform with his sister Nanerl  on their tour in London. He was nine years old, and the piece is the earliest known piece for four hands. It was written to display the technical virtuosity of the children, with cascading fast passages. It is not a profound work, but it has its charm. Chao and Chen tackled it with great energy and brilliance, probably exactly what is required. They didn’t try to make the work sound deeper than it is. This is a charming, youthful composition, showy and easy on the ear.

Rachmaninov’s Six Morceaux Op 11 is also a youthful work. It is a collection of six pieces in different genre. The opening, Barcarolle is dark and mysterious with a dazzling climax and powerful chords. The Scherzo that follows is sprightly and brilliant with a relentless rhythmic drive. The Russian theme is a set of variations on a folk-song like theme, beautiful and haunting. The Waltz is very much in the Rachmaninov idiom, a waltz indeed, but very different from those of Chopin and the fashionable Viennese waltzes.  The fifth piece, Romance, is a passionate  work with a poignant principal theme. The final piece, Slava (Glory), is a dramatic set of variations on a Russian chant that Moussorgsky also used in Boris Godunov and in the Pictures at an Exhibition. We are here on true Russian soil. These were played with charm, sensitivity, and depth.

Ravel’s La Valse was originally conceived as a ballet, but it is better known as an orchestral concert work, which was transcribed for a piano duet and later for four hands. It is a powerful work. Capturing the rich sound of a symphony orchestra puts great demands on the pianists. Ravel wrote this music in the wake of the First World War. Although he denied that there was any deeper meaning in the work then what the music itself revealed, it is tempting to hear in the deconstructed waltz theme, in the occasional harsh chords, a tragic allusion to the destruction of the Second Empire, or the gemütlich charming era of pre-war Vienna, or indeed, of the lost pre-war world. There are also riotous cynical passages. Nicole Chao and Beth Chen played with great energy and force, without losing sight of the coherence of the work.

This was a long journey from the seemingly orderly world of the young Mozart that the concert started with to the ruins of a whole epoch at the end of the Great War. Not only was the concert thoroughly enjoyable, it was also a musical tour of the musical world of a century and a half.  Nicole Chao and Beth Chen piano proved to be an outstanding team coping very ably with the  difficult medium of four hands on one keyboard. They played with unanimity as well as virtuosity.

 

NZ Trio with accessible and illuminating music for Wellington Chamber Music

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wellington Chamber Music Trust

NZ Trio: Amalia Hall (violin), Ashley Brown (cello), Somi Kim (piano)

Beethoven: Piano Trio in C minor, Op 1 No 3
Christos Hatzis: ‘Old Photographs’ from Constantinople (2000)
Salina Fisher: Kintsugi (NZ Trio commission, 2020)
Dinuk Wijeratne: Love Triangle
Ravel: Piano Trio

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 27 September, 3 pm

Perhaps because of Auckland’s continued restrictions, and limits on audience size, Wellington, and no doubt other cities, seem to benefit from more concerts. This was the first of three concerts by the NZ Trio, the others at Lower Hutt and Waikanae, with the same programme.

Beethoven 
It began with Beethoven’s third piano trio in C minor: sombre, restrained with the violin sounding cautious, but a crescendo slowly prevailed, subtly enough: the cello played with a light bow; the piano gave itself to sensitive rhythmic patterns in the second movement, Andante cantabile; in fact throughout the performance. The third movement might not have been a Scherzo, which was the kind of spirited third movement that Beethoven wrote increasingly; but it’s a brisk Menuetto quasi allegro, which had scherzo-like aspects in which the piano has a leading role; in fact the piano was rather prominent throughout the whole work.

It was a highly rewarding, early example of one of Beethoven’s compositions that showed marked individuality; that Haydn famously had misgivings about, as the programme notes remark. The performance exploited that originality and energy most successfully.

Three recent compositions occupied the central part of the programme.

Christos Hatzis is a Greek/Canadian composer : ‘Old Photographs’ is the seventh movement of Constantinople, an eight movement work, most of which involves a mezzo soprano part; ‘Old Photographs’ is one of only three purely instrumental movements. It is described as the most exuberant piece, “mixing solemn parlour music with the raunchiest of tangos”.

It opened slowly and meditatively, its style and era difficult to identify. It presented no alienating avant-garde characteristics, nor does it claim stylistic originality. Its only recognisable image was pronounced tango rhythms, Piazzolla style rather than the popular Argentinian character, with piano in the lead.

Salina Fisher 
Then a rather delightful piece by young New Zealand composer Salina Fisher who seems to have become one of the most accessible young composers as well as winning important composition awards in New Zealand and a major post-graduate award in New York. She is composer-in-residence at the New Zealand School of Music, Victoria University.

Salina describes the sense of the title Kintsugi: “musical fragmentation, fragility, mending and finding beauty in cracks…  the embracing of ‘brokenness’ and imperfection as a source of strength.” Its musical substance rests in flighty trills, meditative crescendos, fluttering violin and piano phrases, a lazy string of notes that are gently melodic. I wasn’t sure that I captured the specific evocation of brokenness and imperfection… finding beauty in cracks; but the experience was engaging and surprisingly comfortable in musical terms.

Dinuk Wijeratne’s Love Triangle began as if the instruments were hesitantly tuning up, which added to the curiosity that was inspired by conspicuous changes of clothes by the three musicians in the interval. The music slowly took shape, emerging as a comfortable example of non-European music: eastern Mediterranean, Arabic, Indian, it was not easy to identify; it became increasingly vigorous, with just occasional dissonance. Curiously, that offered some kind of recognisable musical source. It was longer than the two previous works, which I persuaded myself was justified by its lively sense of originality.

Ravel’s Piano Trio 
The last piece was a return to familiarity; one of the finest piano trios of the 20th century: Ravel’s.  Though I could catch little of Amalia Hall’s comments about it, little persuasion was needed to hold the attention; and the varied tempi and dynamics highlighted the first movement’s mood changes, from the disturbing to the excitable.   It’s easy to mention the Malay origin of the rhythm of the second movement, but more difficult actually to understand how Ravel deals with it: the key changes, and the energy and exuberance.

The third movement, Passacaille: Très large, invites attention to the ancient passacaglia rhythm which steadies the movement, with long passages for violin and cello, and the cello and piano in succession, alone. as bass passages are prominent.  The Finale, animé, acknowledges the traditional classical form of a four-movement work, but its unorthodox rhythms and musical invention offered distinction even though they didn’t arouse any sense of the avant-garde. The players fulfilled the unusual characteristics and the taxing demands of its interpretation admirably.

The worthwhile combination of two major trios, two centuries apart, together with three varied but perfectly accessible pieces of the past 20 years, all splendidly performed, created a highly enjoyable recital.

 

NZSO’s “Eroica” programme title lives up to its name at Wellington’s MFC

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents:
EROICA – Music by Anthony Ritchie, Jean Sibelius and Ludwig van Beethoven

RITCHIE – Remembering Parihaka (1994)
SIBELIUS – Violin Concerto Op.47
BEETHOVEN – Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Op. 55 “Eroica”

Vesa-Matti Leppänen (violin)
Miguel Harth-Bedoya (conductor)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellingto

Sunday 27th September 2020

CEO of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Peter Biggs, summed it up in his foreword in the printed programme for the orchestra’s most recent presentation initiative – named after one of the three works presented, Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony – when he referred to 2020 as “what continues to be a challenging year for us all.” Biggs and his staff rose to that challenge admirably in enabling  Peruvian-born conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya, presently resident in the United States where he is Music Director of the Forth Worth Symphony Orchestra, to travel to New Zealand and isolate for two weeks, so he could conduct the NZSO in this series.

One would perhaps expect that, in the case of every professional orchestra of quality, its concertmaster could, at short notice, assume the responsibility of performing as a soloist in a repertory violin concerto, as has the orchestra’s current leader, Vesa-Matti Leppänen, in the same series. I’m not able to say whether the violinist Augustin Hadelich who was unable to come to this country to take up his original engagement had intended to programme the same concerto, or whether Vesa-Matti had chosen a different work to play; but the Sibelius Violin Concerto seemed, not surprisingly, a natural fit for its performer, and proved a great success.

Repertory-wise, conductor Harth-Bedoya’s tenure as Music Director of the Auckland Philharmonia from 1998 to 2005 would presumably have given him exposure to a range of New Zealand-composed works, among them, perhaps, the work presented today,  Anthony Ritchie’s Remember Parihaka, which was the first item of the concert. Before the music began, however, one of the orchestra players, Andrew Thomson (principal second violinist) in welcoming the audience to the Michael Fowler, made mention of the impending retirement from the orchestra at the concert’s end, of a long-serving member of the second violins, Lucien Rizos, in response to which announcement the player was warmly acknowledged by both his colleagues and this evening’s audience – a nice touch!

And so we began our listening with the aforementioned work by Anthony Ritchie, Remember Parihaka, one which I had heard on a recording some time ago without remembering too much about it, except that it was atmospheric and impactful, and seemed in accord with what I already knew about the disgraceful and brutal happenings associated with the “armed takeover” by Government forces of the Taranaki village where the Maori spiritual leader Te Whiti o Rongomai lived with his followers, implementing their policy of non-aggressive resistance to the white settlers’ push to acquire Maori land. I had read author Dick Scott’s book “Ask that Mountain” some years ago, and was interested to learn of Te Whiti’s methods being known and adopted by Mohandas Ghandi in later years, both in South Africa and in India.

The music began spaciously and ambiently, lower strings and air-borne wind figures conveying both peace and foreboding. The string lines rose like the morning sun, the sounds punctuated by louring chords from horns and winds, violins sounding a tense affirmation of the oncoming day, with the violas singing a more tender, caring line as the flutes repeated their birdsong. Pizzicati and scampering string movement joined with winds in suggested people running and gathering, as a field drum conveyed a kind of march-like purpose, energising the rest of the orchestra and giving rise to repeated warnings from the birdsong. As the tensions mounted and the warning cries became more frequent the bass drum gave voice to purpose, brutal and direct at first, then with deeper, more menacing ostinato underpinning the strings and winds, leading to a cataclysmic cymbal scintillation, signalling a culmination, a general violation, a triumph of might, leaving desolation in its wake – all that remained were sounds of deep lamentation. It was all rather less graphic a musical experience than I’d remembered, somewhat subtler in effect – and perhaps more enduring for that.

We then turned our attentions to the Sibelius Violin Concerto, performed by the orchestra’s regular concertmaster, Vesa-Matti Leppänen (whose place today in the leader’s seat was ably filled by his deputy, Donald Armstrong). I’d heard Vesa-Matti perform in a solo capacity before (most memorably, Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending) but he surpassed even that achingly lovely performance with this one in terms of sweetness of tone and clarity of texture. At first I thought his tone a tad small to do full justice to the heroic gestures which flex their muscles and soar aloft in various places, but as the music proceeded it became obvious that the focused intensity of his playing was actually carrying every note to our ears, if in a way that didn’t rely so much on grand gesturing as absolute clarity of articulation. Conductor and orchestra seemed to understand this implicitly, in places such as where the solo viola richly “counterpointed” the violin or the clarinets murmured an ambient backdrop. There were places where orchestral muscle was flexed most excitingly, a tutti leading up to brass and timpani “letting rip” sounding overwhelming in such a context. Vesa-Matti was disinclined to “attack” the notes in an obviously virtuosic way, but instead play them simply and expressively – his fingerwork in passages which called for extreme dexterity was astonishing, as towards the conclusion of the first movement cadenza.

Harth-Bedoya got some beautiful wind-playing at the slow-movement’s beginning, the clarinets pure and liquid, the oboes pastoral and engaging, and the flutes and timpani defining in the space of a few notes touches of open-air brilliance contrasted with deep shadow – a memorable piece of tone-painting. The soloist then took up his rich, glowing line, matching the horns in the playing’s warmth, and with hushed tones echoed by the orchestral strings setting in dramatic contrast the following orchestral tutti, big and black-browed, the brass and winds particularly arresting! But what magically sotto voce octave passagework from Vesa-Matti we heard, with everybody else in accord, building the tones in a dignified way towards the movement’s big concerted statement, leading to more enchantingly soft playing from everybody, the mood reminding me suddenly of the end of the first movement of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, no less – a similar sense of “coming through”…..

The programme notes quoted most aptly the famous description of the work’s finale as “a polonaise for polar bears” (from writer and musicologist Sir Donald Francis Tovey – 1875-1940), summing up both the strength and weight of the music’s rhythms, though Vesa-Matti’s violin seemed to lightly skip across the snowy vistas in comparison to the accompaniments. I particularly liked his lightness of touch in the passages where Sibelius seems to “crowd in” the notes to the extent of distorting the rhythms, except that here the soloist’s nimble-fingered momentums seemed  easily to encompass the figurations, avoiding the trenchant angularities of some performances at this point. I relished the waspish buzzings of the muted horns and the bouncing accompaniments from the double basses, especially in tandem with the soloist during the latter’s high violin harmonics, which were thrillingly, eerily played! I hadn’t previously seen passages in the work where the soloist was accompanied by first-desk strings alone, which here added to the variety of textural incident. In the work’s coda the intensities were screwed tightly up, the soloist singing high, bright and breezy, and the orchestra gathering its forces to match the violin’s outpourings – a totally exhilarating experience!

It seemed as if, at the music’s conclusion, the audience didn’t want to let their concertmaster-turned-concerto-soloist go, calling him back repeatedly, along with the conductor, for further ovations. A nice touch was Vesa-Matti’s presenting of his bouquet to the retiring violinist Lucien Rizos before leaving the stage for the last time. Then it was the interval; and after we’d waxed lyrical concerning the concerto and its performance in every which way to anybody else who would listen, it was time to return to the auditorium for the “Eroica”.

Two extremely smartish E-flat chords, and we were off! With brisk, driven passagework, bright and eager detailings, and the phrasing sharply and urgently delivered, with that slightly “clipped”, authentic-performance manner, it seemed we were in for a thrillingly front-on Beethoven experience from the beginning (complete with the first-movement repeat!) – I thought here of the legendary conductor Arturo Toscanini’s words when asked to describe what he thought of the “Eroica’s” first movement, his reply being, “Is not “Eroica”! – is not Napoleon! – is Allegro con brio!”. Here, conductor Harth-Bedoya seemed to encourage his wind-players (and who wouldn’t, with such talent, here?) to “play out” so that, not only in their solos, but in the “middle voices” of the orchestral texture, it all seemed uncommonly rich and detailed. Together with the energies of the playing, this made for a real sense of something vibrant and living, the strings digging into their syncopated accents when building up to the massive central-movement climax underpinned excitingly by the timpani and capped off gloriously by the brass!

Harth-Bedoya brought out the work’s dramatic and exhilarating qualities as much as a sense of something epic – and there were two moments in particular which I thought so brilliantly illustrated these qualities in turn, aided by superb playing in each case. First was the drama of the horn’s wonderful “false entry” just before the music’s recapitulation, a moment that reputedly took some listeners at the work’s first performance by surprise, to the composer’s annoyance! – here sounded to perfection before the rest of the band “crashed in”! Then, as the music surged towards the end, and the theme was played by horns, then strings, then winds and finally the brass, with ever-growing intensities, Beethoven unaccountably allows the brass only a few notes of the theme before getting his trumpet to break off in favour of letting stuttering winds finish the phrase! However, many older recordings (including the one I was “raised” on) allowed the trumpet line to continue playing the theme right through, as Harth-Bedoya did here, to my admittedly guilty satisfaction (I still prefer it, and on first hearing the “authentic” version on record had to be convinced by someone whose knowledge I respected that the trumpet hadn’t been removed through a tape-edit error, or something!)

The renowned “Funeral March” was just that, a loaded, purple-and-black experience, the beautiful string-playing capped off by Robert Orr’s glorious oboe solo. Harth-Bedoya again brought out the music’s drama, getting sharply-delivered contrasts in dynamics and textures from his players, the more military major-key sections blazing with momentary triumph before succumbing to the grief and anger of the episodes which followed, Bridget Douglas’s sonorous flute-playing as pivotal to the range of emotions as the oboe’s at the beginning. The strings here simply “nailed” the fugal sections of the movement, giving the music’s trajectories incredible power, picked up by the winds and brasses (and Laurence Reese’s timpani speaking volumes as always), with the double basses attacking their post-fugue “moment” with spine-tingling weight and edge. And the “ticking away” of life and breath towards the end made for a kind of sublimity in the silence that followed the music’s brief but telling final exhalation.

“Is not “Eroica”! – Is not Napoleon! – is Allegro vivace!“ Toscanini might also have exclaimed at this life-enhancing point in the Symphony – for here, indeed, was a scherzo, a quicker, more dynamic replacement for the classical symphony’s usual minuet, a change Beethoven had already made in each of his first two symphonies. Beginning with feathery playing from the strings and perkily-delivered themes  from the winds, the music then seemed to explode in joyful energy, the verve and physicality of the playing a heady delight! The NZSO horns also delighted with their playing of the Trio, Harth-Bedoya getting the players to begin the final rendition of their fanfare in startlingly assertive fashion, a gesture that I’m willing to bet Beethoven would have loved!

As he would have the attacca, which here plunged us into the ferment of the Finale’s opening before we had time to draw breath at the scherzo’s end! – Harth-Bedoya and the players made much of the dynamic contrasts between Beethoven’s use of the seemingly innocuous bass-line tune from the “Prometheus” music and several violent “knocking at the door” irruptions at the end of each of the measures. And the conductor would have none of the reversion to solo string lines which had so entranced us on a previous occasion when Orchestra Wellington performed the symphony for the following string passages, up to the appearance of the actual “”Prometheus” theme on the oboe. But what playfulness, what spirit and what character was engendered by the players in their treatment of Beethoven’s fugal explorations – the lines by turns sang, teased, shouted and giggled, and Harth-Bedoya got everybody to pull out all the stops for the “Russian Dance” variation, which was almost a show-stopper!

These and other episodes were silenced by the oboe and accompanying winds, giving the “tune” a decorative warmth and fullness of heart which the horns and other instruments acclaimed most heartily – some residue angst (hopes and dreams dashed?) from the struggles and tribulations of the journey was given its respectful due, before all such was swept away, Harth-Bedoya and his players going with and contributing to the flow, a veritable tidal wave of joyful release which filled the Michael Fowler Centre’s precincts to bursting, and gladdened the hearts of all present – great stuff!

Orchestra Wellington delivers spectacular concert of two great classics and a major New Zealand work

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Orchestra Wellington conducted by Marc Taddei, with Michael Houstoun (piano)

Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings, Op 48
John Psathas: Three Psalms
Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances, Op 45

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 26 September, 7:30 pm 

This was not the first concert by Orchestra Wellington: that was on 27 July and featured Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony and Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto, played by Michael Houstoun.

This also featured Houstoun, playing what would be called a concerto in some contexts, but here, it was a three movement work by John Psathas called Three Psalms, with an important piano part, but also drawing on various musical and other artistic sources.

The other two works were, strangely, less familiar pieces by famous composers.

A long time ago, Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings was a work that I came to know quite well through broadcasts by the then 2YC station (now Radio New Zealand Concert).

It has four movements (not named in the programme booklet):
Pezzo in forma di sonatina: Andante non troppo — Allegro moderato,
Valse: Moderato — Tempo di valse
Élégie: Larghetto elegiac
Finale (Tema russo): Andante — Allegro con spirito

When I first heard it, probably in my late teens, I found it richly melodic, simply gorgeous and moving. Even then, it made me wonder whether such a beautiful work could really be regarded as a proper, serious piece of classical music. The Waltz was the most popular movement and was often played on its own, a practice that I probably accepted then, not having heard the complete work. Though of course, I deplore that it’s now RNZ Concert’s standard practice to truncate most multi-movement works when even casual listeners today are surely familiar with far more classical music than was even recorded in the 1950s. Surely most grown-ups are now more responsive to and knowledgeable of classical music that I was in my teens!

This performance was so full of warmth and opulence that I asked myself why it was necessary to have other than string players in an orchestra at all. String groups numbered 12, 10, 8, 7, 6: very adequate.  The contrast between movements was vivid: the throbbing rhythms of the first movement, the rapturous waltz, the accurately named Elegy third movement, with its illuminating pizzicato. The multi-facetted finale might have opened with a beautiful calmness, but it launches into the Allegro that moved slowly to energetic passages that alternated with calm, towards a beautiful conclusion. A splendid performance.

Though Psathas’s Three Psalms could be regarded as some kind of piano concerto, neither its title nor its scoring pointed that way. And though I might have missed something, I didn’t understand how the three movements: Aria, Inferno and Sergei Bk.3 Ch.1, could been related to Psalms. Nevertheless, the role of the piano was prominent and important and it was very clear that Houstoun admired the work and his performance was arresting and illuminating.

Yet it was less prominent than incessant timpani and two marimbas which drove rhythms that characterised most of the first movement. The second movement began in near silence, with long slow figures by piano and strings; the piano sounds were translucent, while the emotion created by strings increased mysteriously, and tubular bells and marimbas again contributed a brief, distinct episode. I remained unsure about the alleged inspiration of the movement by the “disturbing images in James Nachtwey’s photographic elegy, Inferno”. Without pictorial examples of a rather obscure name the revelation seemed to contribute nothing to the appreciation of the movement. However, the sense of peace created a feeling of calm unease that generated an emotional force.

The title of the third movement refers to Prokofiev’s 3rd piano concerto which Psathas relates to his own musical character and aspirations. That source did not diminish the originality and individual inspiration as well as the hypnotic, incessant and energetic spirit of this typical Psathas movement.

After the two works of the first half which demanded only strings and, in the case of Psathas, timpani, marimbas, tubular bells, the stage was now filled with a large orchestra, totalling about 80. Though string numbers were slightly fewer than the NZSO would have employed for the Rachmaninov, the volume and splendid dynamism of the entire orchestra did a wonderful job with this final, spectacular composition by Rachmaninov, that he wrote in 1940 in the United States; he died in 1943.

I doubt that Orchestra Wellington has played it before. Nor can I remember my last hearing of a live performance (I didn’t hear the NZSO’s performance in 2017). A few years ago the NZSO used to record the dates of its last performance of each of the pieces being played. It’s a pity that has ceased.

Though I know it well, this live performance was utterly illuminating, creating a variety of passionate episodes that seemed to far outclass any performance that I’ve heard on recordings or on radio. All the wind players had conspicuous episodes, individually or in sometimes unusual ensemble, made more colourful by the presence of an alto saxophone (Simon Brew, who played it with the NZSO in 2017), bass clarinet along with other triple or quadruple winds, a piano and six percussionists.

All of which created highly colourful, stunning orchestral sound patterns. I was struck by the remarkable, ‘spectral’ sounds that emerged in the second movement that ends with such uncanny quiet. The programme notes commented that it shows signs of Prokofiev in its muscular and spiky orchestration: I agree. And there were numerous surprising and unusual fanfares the led in odd directions, as in the middle of the last movement, Allegro assai; and uncanny little fanfares led to the plain-song Dies Irae that Rachmaninov and others in the late Romantic era often quoted. Such unique orchestral characteristics however, were the distinguishing mark of the entire performance, that made it hard to recognise dance rhythms, or music that would have been very easy for a choreographer to be inspired by. Yet there have been a number of ballet performances, both in the United States and by the Royal Ballet in London.

Given the addition of extra players (about a dozen from the NZSO), partly as a result of the sudden busyness of many musicians being engaged in a variety of other musical groups and activities, the orchestra delivered a performance of the Symphonic Dances that was quite spectacular, both in it emotional variety and its sheer exuberance.

 

 

 

Prominent in the second movement was contributions by two marimbas but the rhythm with throbbing piano.

 

was vivid with a lot of fortissimo performance have been It really e three-movement Psathas work was   The size of the

 

 

NZSM Orchestra with conductor Hamish McKeich showcases achievements by 2020 award-winning composer and instrumentalist at St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music presents:
Music by Mica Thompson, Carl Reinecke and Johannes Brahms

THOMPSON  – Song
REINECKE – Flute Concerto In D Major Op.283
BRAHMS – Symphony No. 2 in D Major Op.73

Isabella Gregory (flute)
Hamish McKeich (conductor)
New Zealand School of Music Orchestra

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

Saturday, 26th September, 2020

Pandemic restrictions having been relaxed of late (though judiciously more “on hold” than entirely done away with), we were allowed more-or-less regularly-spaced seating at St. Andrew’s to hear the most recent of the NZSM Orchestra’s public concerts, one featuring the recent winner of the School’s Concerto Competition, flutist Isabella Gregory (see the review at https://middle-c.org/2020/07/nzsm-concerto-competition-an-evening-of-elegance-frisson-and-feeling/), playing the Reinecke concerto with which she won the prize, though on this occasion with a full and proper orchestral accompaniment! Flanking her polished, sparkling efforts were two other items, the concert beginning with a work for orchestra  entitled “Song” by Hawkes Bay-born composer Micah Thompson, and concluding with the well-known Second Symphony by Brahms.

Thanks to the aforementioned ravages of Covid-19 upon the present year in respect of public music-making and -presentation, this was, I think, the first 2020 NZSM orchestral concert I’d attended , though I had seen a few of the individual players in other orchestral and chamber presentations at various times. It was certainly one worth the wait for, and promised much beforehand, with the NZSO’s principal Conductor-in-Residence Hamish McKeich due to rehearse and direct the performances. Also, one of the NZSO’s recent Guest Conductors, Miguel Harth-Bedoya apparently worked with the orchestra during this period – though it’s not clear whether the latter had any direct involvement with the orchestra’s preparation for this concert.

The evening began with “thanks and praise” from the director of the School, Prof. Sally Jane Norman, thanks for the efforts of people in staging the concert in the face of near-insuperable difficulties, and praise for the efforts of the musicians and their tutors – mixed in with all of this was warm appreciation for people’s actual attendance at the concert, supporting the school’s activities in fostering the careers of young composers/musicians.

First we heard a work by composer Micah Thompson, called “Song”, and inspired in part by the poetry of British poet Ted Hughes (1930-1998), specifically in this case a 1957 poem “The Hawk in the Rain”. Thompson explained, both in a progamme note and by means of an internet post (https://www.facebook.com/NZSMusic/videos/1186964995018168) how the poet’s interest in the “identity, history and mythologies of particular animals” had informed his own approach to exploring musical instruments’ characteristics and their use – he used Hughes’s “wild, sometimes brutal, but always expressive and melancholic” verses as a kind of counterpoint to his own creative impulses. As the programme printed the text of Hughes’ verses, I couldn’t help comparing his earthier, more confrontational expressiveness to that of an earlier poet, Gerard Manly Hopkins, in the latter’s comparatively rarefied (but just as dramatic and musical) poem from 1877, “The Windhover”, describing the flight of another bird of prey, a falcon.

Thompson’s work also took a number of previously-composed solo pieces, for piano, clarinet and flute, and “collaged” them into what he called “an orchestral space”. This space coalesced into life, the ambient beginnings featuring slivers of percussion, mingled with taonga-puoro-like calls, creating an atmosphere of wildness and vast resonances of possibility – long string lines were punctuated with birdsong and wild gesturings, the sounds suggesting flight both with impulses of wing-beatings and the stillnesses of soaring. Long-held notes for cello, winds, brass and violins accentuated the spaces while various scintillations suggested light-changes, both osmotic and sharp-edged. The celeste brought an almost cow-bell nostalgia into play, contrasting with the increasing combatative-edged intrusions from both clarinet and horn solos, the implicit violence of the poem’s words here suggested abstractedly, one of a number of “perceptions” hinted at by the music. Returning to whisperings, the sounds took on a kind of “mystic” feeling, the flute playing a fanfare-like birdcall, a cadenza-like passage which seemed to awaken the surrounds more markedly, the strings rustling, the percussions tinkling, the basses gently rumbling, the piano chirruping, everything freely modulating before drifting into a silence coloured only by the flute’s gentle call. I like the “assuredness” of it all, its focus supporting tangible imagery and feeling amid all the ambient suggestiveness.

Carl Reinecke’s Flute Concert has long been regarded as the instrument’s principal Romantic flagbearer, given that the composer was of the Romantic persuasion  along the lines of Mendelssohn and Schumann, rather than of Liszt or Wagner – though befriended by Liszt and given introductions by the latter to contacts in Paris, Reinecke remained a firm adherent of the more conservative 19thCentury school. The work’s gentle, Brahmsian opening was essayed beautifully by the players, here, with some lovely horn playing, and beautiful phrasing from the flute at the player’s entrance. The soloist’s “big tune” was answered by the brasses the exchanges taking us into a melancholic, romantic world of feeling, rounded off by a stirring orchestral tutti. I thought Gregory’s playing even more astonishing than when encountering her in the competition’s final, the orchestral accompaniment perhaps giving the soloist more variety to react to and establish a personality very much her own.

The slow movement took on the character of a kind of “Romantic legend”, a gift for a skilled storyteller, dramatic brass and timpani preparing the way for the flute’s narrative, which was here developed with a real sense of occasion and adventure, the ensemble seizing its chances to dramatize the music at every opportunity, an impulse somewhat tamed by the flute’s bringing the ending of the movement into the major key, as an antidote to the relative darkness! Horns and wind threw out a jaunty aspect at the finale’s opening, the flute taking up the polonaise rhythm with gusto, throughout the movement steadfastedly steering the music back to the dance whenever different episodes sought to diversify the expression – a charmingly winsome game of dominance, in which the flute was triumphant, the work’s coda featuring exciting exchanges between Gregory and the musicians, Hamish McKeich keeping the momentums simmering, right to the work’s festive conclusion.

Concluding the programme was a quintessential conservative-Romantic work, the Brahms Second Symphony, one which gave  the composer opportunity for some impish fun in describing the music beforehand to his friends – his tongue-in-cheek characterisations of parts of the work were reproduced in the excellent programme notes, comments such as the words “so melancholy that you will not be able to bear it – I have never written anything so sad, and the score itself will have to come out in mourning”. If at times gruffly expressed, Brahms certainly didn’t lack a sense of humour!

I enjoyed the performance enormously, in the first movement right from the near-perfect horn-playing at the work’s beginning, with its answering winds and floating string responses, through the “lilt” of the playing of the second subject theme by all concerned, and the stirring brass response to the increasing ferment of the development’s exchanges, to the lovely “spent” character of the climbing strings and the glowing wind replies when the opening was recapitulated (I loved the confidently-produced “zinging” quality of the strings’ playing of the dotted-rhythm fanfares shortly afterwards!). And though not absolutely note-perfect, the solo horn’s valedictory passage towards the movement’s end was so beautifully shaped and sounded, the string-playing that followed couldn’t help but sound ravishing (ravished, perhaps?) in reply.

The strings dug into the second movement’s opening as if the players really meant it, the top note of the succeeding upward phrase a bit shaky first time round, but more secure on its repetition – again the horn-playing shone, with the strings, and the winds following, and similarly shining   in succession. As the music floated over graceful pizzzicati both winds and strings sang full-throatedly, confidently leading from this into the music’s darker-browed sequences and holding their ground amid the storms and stresses, the winds eventually coming to the rescue, encouraging the strings to pick their way through the wreckage, putting the crooked straight and making the rough places plain as they went……the return of the opening sequence by strings and winds here made such a heart-warming  impression, even if  the horizons were again darkened and the brasses and timpani held sway for a few anxious moments – amid the uncertainties, winds and strings registered a further brief moment of apprehension with the timpani, before squaring up with a “let’s get on” gesture that brought the sounds to rest.

The third movement, an Allegretto grazioso featured a perky oboe supported by clarinets and followed by flutes  – lovely! The strings delicately danced into the picture, the tempi amazingly swift, the playing precise! – fabulous playing and skilful dovetailing when the oboe rejoined the mix with the opening theme – the lovely “flowering” of the wind textures was then matched  by the strings’ “darkening” of the same, after which the dancing resumed with earnest and energy – and I loved the re-delivery of the opening wind tune by the strings, the downward part of the phrase played with what sounded like a satisfied sigh! – very heartfelt!

The finale was, by contrast, all stealth and mystery at the start, creating great expectation before bursting forth, McKeich and his players creating an invigorating “togetherness” of ensemble, the winds gurgling with excitement when given their turn! The strings gave their all with their “big tune”, the tempo kept steady, the tutti blazing forth with excitement, the syncopations flying past at a tempo, and the sotto voce of the opening’s return maintained. Another excitable tutti was relished, before the triplet-led episode allowed a hint of melancholy to descend upon the textures before the movement’s opening sequence returned with a few ear-catching variants – a bit of scrawny playing here and there simply added to the excitement and abandonment, the brass heaving to with some elephantine comments, and the rest of the orchestra girding its loins for the work’s cataclysmic coda – noisy, but joyful and exuberant! It was a performance which got at the end a well-deserved accolade, doing the composer, as well as the conductor and players, proud!

Michael Stewart at TGIF, Wellington Cathedral of St Paul, celebrates Tournemire’s L’Orgue mystique

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Charles Tournemire’s L’Orgue mystique

The tenth recital
Le cycle après Pentecôte II: Suites XXXVII, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XL, (37, 38, 39, 40). The 11th, 12th, 13th and 14th Sunday after Pentecost

Michael Stewart, on the electronic organ

Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Friday 25 September, 12:45 pm

Charles Tournemire is probably one of the less familiar organ composers and performers in France. Though he certainly rates, in terms of his fame as both composer and performer, with some of them: Franck, Guilmant, Saint-Saëns, Widor, Gabriel Pierné, Vierne, Dupré… But bearing composition in mind, Tournemire must be regarded as more interesting and significant than half of those.

There is a singular divergence between this group of French organists, organ and choral composers, and the more famous and well-known composers of opera, chamber and orchestral music and songs. Saint-Saëns is about the only composer who straddled both spheres; César Franck did to a certain extent.

The well-known composers of opera, orchestral, keyboard and chamber music, and songs were almost all uninterested in the organ: Auber, Hérold, Berlioz, Adam, Thomas, Gounod, Offenbach, Franck, Lalo, Bizet, Delibes, Chabrier, Fauré, Massenet, D’Indy, Chausson, Debussy, Dukas, Roussel, Ravel…

Tournemire’s compositional career 
This recital was the tenth in the series that Michael Stewart is playing at St Paul’s Cathedral. Tournemire was born in Bordeaux in 1870 and studied at the Paris Conservatoire, becoming one of Franck’s youngest and most gifted students. In 1898 he succeeded Pierné who had succeeded César Frank as organist at St Clotilde basilica in 1890.

Michael Stewart’s notes on the music were very interesting, rather more that I find about Tournemire on the Internet. More useful is the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. It records that he studied first in Bordeaux and at age 11 became organist at the church of St Pierre and later at St Seurin in Bordeaux. Then he went to the Paris Conservatoire where, in 1891 he won the premier prix for organ in the class of Widor, whose teaching, along with Franck’s, had a lasting effect on him. And he became organist at St Clotilde in 1898, as mentioned above; and he was appointed professor at the Conservatoire in 1919.

Grove continued: “Tournemire was a mystic, horrified at the materialism of his time and proclaiming his faith through his works, of which the greatest is L’orgue mystique. Its duration equals that of the entire organ music of Bach, and in this cycle it was Tournemire’s aim to accomplish for the Catholic liturgy what Bach had achieved for the Lutheran church. L’orgue mystique consists of 51 Offices, each making use of the plainsong melodies appropriate to a particular Sunday…. His organ style left its mark on a generation of composers.”

He died in Arcachon, in the Department of Gironde on the Bay of Biscay in 1939.

Grove lists a large number of compositions in most forms: four operas, eight orchestral symphonies, several choral works and solo vocal works (mostly unpublished), many solo piano pieces, and other chamber pieces for between two and six instruments. And 22 opus numbers for organ. The total opus numbers amount to 76.

The organs of Paris 
I’ve caught organ performances over many years in various Paris churches. For example Gaston Litaize at St François-Xavier, on the organ restored by Cavaillé-Coll, not far from Les Invalides, (because I had an LP of him playing the organ part of Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony, on the organ of his Paris church, along with Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra).

Then there was St Eustache, a huge church close to the Forum des Halles; where I heard part of an organ concert by Jean Guillon: Variations on several carols by Daquin; a set of pieces by Marcel Dupré; and then an Introit by perhaps (?) Messiaen. On another occasion at St Eustache, Francesco Filidei played Widor’s Second Organ Symphony. Another time there I heard Liszt’s half-hour long Fantasy & Fugue on the chorale ‘Ad nos, ad salutarem undam’, a pretty spectacular affair.

A couple of times at Franck’s and Tournemire’s Basilica of St Clotilde (don’t remember the organist), and at Widor’s St Sulpice with Daniel Roth.  Both great Cavaillé-Coll instruments.

And of course Notre Dame in a typically dark Winter evening recital by Olivier Latry. And more recently a recital by Philippe Lefebvre: Franck’s Three Chorales, Duruflé’s Prélude, adagio et chorale varié sur le Veni Creator, Op 4 and an Improvisation by Lefebvre.

L’Orgue mystique: the 51 ‘offices’ of the Mass 
However, to return to Friday’s music at the cathedral… Tournemire wrote 51 organ ‘offices’, each one devoted to parts of the Mass where organ music is required, apart from Holy Saturday. It took him five years.

Each of the suites, and there were four, in this recital, has five sections. They are named: Prélude à l’introït, Offertoire, Élévation, Communion, Choral. The first four movements are soft and short while the last is lengthier and employs much more of the organ’s resources.

Unfortunately, I was not familiar with this music and soon lost track of the succession of the movements. However, even though the music was unfamiliar, the variety of moods and emotional, as well as religious significance, held the attention and I found myself absorbed. Some were short and fairly plain; there were endless changes of manual and registrations, meanderings and pensive episodes; loud, dense passages and strings of high notes, flutes, and passages that were limited to particular manuals, with or without pedals. I soon realised how sorry I was not to have got to more of the Friday Tournemire recitals this year.

I soon understood that Stewart’s remark that he had been a life-long devotee of Tournemire, was totally credible. Clearly, the only aspect that one might have been disappointed to miss was to have been moved by its performance on the cathedral’s pipe organ itself. One hopes that it will soon be possible to restore so that the opulence of pipe organ sound can return to the cathedral. Furthermore, it’s just as well that Wellington has more or less ceased its puerile claim to be the ‘cultural capital’, especially with a non-existing Central Library and Town Hall, and non-existing organs in both the Town Hall and the Anglican Cathedral.

P.S. After filing the review in which I suggested that there was little about Tournemire on the Internet, I have come across a website that writes quite extensively about L’orgue mystique. In a periodical, Vox Humana, an article by Douglas O’Neill entitled ‘Charles Tournemire’s L’orgue mystique and the Ordinary Form Mass’. 

The website address is http://www.voxhumanajournal.com/oneill2018.html