Category: Reviews – Concerts

Big audience for the first NZSO Shed series avoiding the mainstream classics

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Shed Series: Symmetries

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hamish McKeich

Brahms: Hungarian Dances No 1 and 3 (orchestrated by the composer)
Lissa Meridan: Tuning the head of a pin
Mozart: Divertimento No 11 in D, K 251 – Rondo
Birtwistle: Bach Measures from eight Chorale Preludes from the Orgelbüchlein:
Russell Peck: Drastic Measures, II. Allegro
John Adams: Fearful Symmetries

Shed 6, Wellington Waterfront

Friday 31 January, 7:30 pm

The idea of using the first of its Shed concerts to open the NZSO’s 2020 series proved a winner, as there was a bigger audience than I’ve seen at these before and the result was an endorsement of the idea of a less than formal affair to attract a different audience. Everyone I spoke to agreed that it had attracted people you wouldn’t see in the Michael Fowler Centre which has – mistakenly of course – the reputation of hosting forbidding, heavy-weight music.

It followed the same pattern as other Shed concerts: a mixture of light classical pieces, easy to grasp, some as the composer wrote them, some as a composer of today had arranged or transformed them. No ‘pop’ music but music influenced by jazz and pop styles, as well as a couple of contemporary pieces by a New Zealander and others.

Two of Brahms’s Hungarian Dances put the audience at rest, played in a genial manner, without too much finesse, but plenty of energy and rhythm.

Tuning the head of a pin
Though Lissa Meriden graduated from Auckland University she spent a few years as leader of the Sonic Arts Progamme at Victoria University from 2000, and is now based in Paris. Tuning the head of a pin was written in 2002, but according to McKeich it had not been performed here. As well as the usual chamber orchestra, it demands a huge and fascinating range of percussion. Such scoring sometimes seems merely a way of showing off a composer’s versatility without making the music more interesting or exciting. But I soon found myself more than a little absorbed by a sense evolution, in which the musical ideas did actually make use of exotic instrumental sounds inevitable. The spectacular scoring slowly played itself out and strings and winds introduced some comfortably diatonic sounds. Strong, highly varied rhythms continued but an agreeable character sustained it, holding the attention and I found myself rather delighted by the whole composition. Not least, it made clear that its successful performance demanded a versatile and well resourced orchestra.

Mozart Divertimento
The fifth movement from Mozart’s Divertimento in D, K 251 followed: a nice illustration of one of the clearest classical forms – the Rondo. It happily involved charming tunes that would, I hope, have been enjoyed by a not especially knowledgeable audience, though that is a dangerous observation as I had the feeling that many of the audience were musically very aware if not erudite. It was an excellent piece to end the first bracket.

Birtwistle on Bach
The second set of pieces, after the first interval as the orchestra moved to the south end of the space, opened with the arrangements by Harrison Birtwistle of five of Bach’s 45 Chorale Preludes (variously, between BWV 599 and 639). They were orchestrated with an eye (ear) to the unusual, perhaps even the eccentric. But in spite of such a first impression, one maintains an open mind and I found myself oddly intrigued by them; which is not to say I thought Bach emerged very intact or prominent at times. But that’s irrelevant as there would be little point in a major composer devoting time to such an exercise if the original work was still very audible and he hadn’t contributed something significant.

It was another opportunity for the reduced NZSO to exibit its brilliant versatility with unusual scoring.

Drastic Measures
A saxophone quartet (soprano, alto, tenor and baritone) then appeared on a low platform in the middle of the shed, to play the second movement, Allegro, of Drastic Measures, a jazz-style piece by Russell Peck. Spiky, witty, immediately attractive, and played with panache, it struck me as a particularly successful case of cross fertilisation by a fertile composer, at home with jazz but not tempted into hyper-intellectual, avant-garde idioms. It ended with a sudden calm and a gentle smile. I was drawn to explore Peck’s music on YouTube and was even more attracted to the first movement of the piece, Cantabile e molto rubato.

After a second interval the orchestra returned to the north end. I hadn’t fully grasped McKeich’s first rather sketchy programme announcements, and it took a few moments to realise that here were the last three of Birtwistle’s eight Chorale Preludes. Having had an hour to acclimatise to the earlier pieces I found this second group kind-of familiar. Each piece expressed a distinct idea or emotion and I suspect someone who studied the words of the chorales themselves, would be able to recognise their musical interpretation.

Adams’s Fearful Symmetries
Then came the piece that was probably most looked-forward-to: John Adams’s Fearful Symmetries.  (Do you notice the fashion for music titles using two-word, abstract notions?) It arrests the listener from the first moment, though I confess that I’d never heard it before. But I recognised close relatives such as Adams’s Chairman Dances and Reich’s Three Movements. It’s driven by an incessant, heavy rhythmic pulse, that easily conjures the sounds of high speed trains such as exists in a YouTube recording of the Reich music, perhaps with the wonderful throb of a steam locomotive. Though there are long stretches with little variation, the changes are actually very marked over its 25 minutes and it holds the listener transfixed. Like most minimalist music, the changes, a single chordal shift or the arrival of different instrument, though no instrument had special attention. Those subtle changes of timbre and dynamics removed any risk of tedium, and the acoustic, lighting and general atmosphere suited the performance admirably.

If I’ve had reservations about programmes of earlier Shed concerts, and can think of many delightful dance-like pieces I’d prefer to the Brahms dances, this scored very high and might have proven the Shed project beyond doubt.

Poulenc’s “La Vox Humaine” given a stunning performance

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Francis POULENC – The Human Voice (“La voix humaine”)
Words by Jean Cocteau (English translation by Johana Arnold and Barbara Paterson)

Barbara Paterson (soprano)
Gabriela Glapska (piano)

Tabitha Arthur (director)
Meredith Dooley (costumier)
Isadora Lao (lighting designer and operator)

{Suite} Gallery, 241 Cuba St., Te Aro, Wellington

Friday 31st January 2020

As we took our seats in the confined spaces of Cuba St.’s Suite gallery, pianist Gabriela Glapska was playing the music of Satie, beautifully coalescing the sounds of the composer’s Gymnopedies, the dance figurations wrought by the pianist almost as “held” as if depicted on a Grecian urn and the tones as “imagined” as they were real – “heard melodies are sweet, but…..” – here, time seemed to be slowed down, every note taking on a suspenseful, becalmed feeling, so much so that I thought Debussy’s Clair de lune which followed broke the spell that had been created (perhaps one of the Gnossiennes may have carried us further along, and into the ensuing silence more appropriately) …………. however, after the piano fell silent I was drawn into  the breathless poise of the stage setting’s opening, with singer Barbara Paterson (as “Elle”, the show’s only on-stage performer) having entered, the character tremulously waiting for what must have been a prearranged telephone call, the silences deliciously redolent with expectation and anxiety, impatience and foreboding.

Our viewing space’s angular intimacy was augmented by asymmetrically-placed ladders and a structural pillar for a centrepiece to boot, besides the art displayed on the gallery walls, Megan Archer’s depictions of what looked like entwined, almost convoluted limbs in various “clinches” underpinning the claustrophobia of the surroundings. The lighting seemed at first impersonal a la a hotel suite or utilitarian meeting-space, but as the interactive play between Elle and her telephone began to take shape, the hues and intensities of the lights responded to certain influences, reflecting the passing of time, the changing of the day and Elle’s state of mind as she struggled to make sense of her interaction with the person (her ex-lover) who had called her.

This was the scenario for a performance of Francis Poulenc’s setting of fellow-countryman Jean Cocteau’s monodrama, La vox humaine, the opera following the original play after a gap of 30 years. In each case a woman is onstage alone throughout, speaking on a telephone with her “ex” from whom she has not long parted. Poulenc worked with the role’s creator, soprano Denise Duval, in adapting Jean Cocteau’s work to operatic form, the composer reducing the original to a more malleable length, and writing for an orchestra as the accompaniment, and, in fact stating at one point that “the work should bathe in the greatest orchestral sensuality”. Duval was the composer’s favourite singer, and the pair seemed ideally matched to tackle what Poulenc described as “a musical confession” – in fact the composer was to describe later how the pair wept together “page-by-page, bar-by-bar” in what he called “a diary of our suffering” – both composer and singer had recently undergone emotional crises, obviously bringing their experiences to bear on these outpourings. Despite Poulenc’s remark concerning orchestral sensuality (I have listened to several performances with orchestral accompaniment) I thought Gabriela Glapska’s piano-playing here beautifully abstracted the colour in the orchestral score and gave us an immediacy of interaction between Elle and her “ex” whose direct quality had a definite and focused impact of their own – and singer and piano could and did, in those intimate spaces of Cuba St’s Suite venue, run a gamut of radiant, searing, euphoric and despairing emotion which made a proper foil for the myriads of more lyrical and intimate moments.

Though the opera was given in English on this occasion, I’m going to briefly revert to the work’s original language in describing this performance by singer and pianist as a veritable tour de force! (incidentally, this was a translation made, and previously performed, by an American soprano, Johana Arnold, who is in fact the mother of THIS performance’s “Elle”!) The opening “charged” silences during which Barbara Paterson compellingly held our attention while waiting for her telephone to ring were nothing short of riveting, her aspect conveying to us both her vulnerability and her determination, with movements affecting a measure of command and confidence but all too readily revealing tension and uncertainty when put under pressure, responding with bird-like rapidity to the telephone’s ringing and various unwanted external interruptions.  Both her face and form displayed remarkable aspects of grace and fluidity throughout (such as her almost coquettish teasing of her “ex” in places, as if either forgetting or choosing to ignore their actual disfunctionality) when contrasted with her rapid, almost furtive reactions to moments of shock or conflict, often succeeded by sequences of deflation and despair as if she suddenly felt drained of energy and will. Incidentally, I was pleased there was a “proper” telephone, and thought the interactions of the singer with the medium totally in keeping with telephonic use at the time – the interruptions of the singer’s conversation with her “ex” by somebody using a “party line”, though outside present-day telephonic experience, are nevertheless significant here, as they underline and indeed symbolise the overall breakdown of the relationship and its presently fraught concourse.

Always Paterson’s movements and expressions synchronised beautifully with both the words and the unheard voices of the people who talked with her, the telephone operator at the very beginning, the party-line neighbour, and, of course, her “ex”, whose status as such we didn’t really “pick up” on until that lump-in-the-throat moment where Elle plaintively responded to a request from him for a “bag” of what she called “your letters and mine” with the submissive words “You can send for it when you like”, conveying the “hurt” of the request all the more poignantly with the phrase “I had no idea you wanted them so quickly” , and of course when contrasted with the playful sensuality and kittenish aspect that entered her description for him (all a fabrication) of what she was wearing at that time.

The singer’s own arresting looks and engaging stage personality couldn’t help but sharpen the focus of our conjecture generated by her character’s relationship’s obvious dissolution – and throughout all of the possible scenarios were adroitly “brushed into” the opera’s action by the production, momentarily reflecting the attitudes and behaviours of both characters and as quickly superseded by other possibilities. Volatilities were suggested on both sides, with Elle in places abruptly and passionately responding to both her own realisations of her conflicted state and her ex’s “anger” in places as a result of things she had said, her more agitated irruptions sometimes ending in tears.  She’s shown as a romantic dreamer, whether by nature or by artifice or both – at one point the mood created by some exquisite pianissimo singing was broken by her own realisation that she was in a dream of denial, while the world pursued its own course, leaving her stranded. Her attempts to preserve the vestiges of an old intimacy was given a wonderful sensuality in places, no more so when she used the piano as if it were her lover’s body, stretching out upon it at one point as if reimagining her words “when we were in bed and I had my head in that small place against your chest”, making the intrusion of the loud music from the ‘phone all the more symptomatic. The subsequent “confession” to him that “what is really hard to bear is the second night, and the third….” is the most enduring impression of all, the mood evoked by singer and pianist readily bringing pathos as we empathise with her predicament, the empty despair of “and getting up and going out, and to go – where?” unequivocally laying all of our emotions bare…….

Very great credit to all concerned regarding this production, the performers’ sterling efforts backed up steadfastedly by Tabitha Arthur’s fluid, naturalistic and unobtrusive direction and Isadora Lao’s sensitively-wrought illuminations. Such finely-crafted and deeply-committed presentations deserve the widest possible currency, as well as the heartfelt thanks of those of us fortunate enough to enjoy what was, for this audience member, a profoundly moving experience

Further performances –
NZ Academy of Fine Arts, 1 Queens Wharf, Wellington
27 – 29 February 2020
6pm
BUY TICKETS

 

Large audience for a delightful concert by Camerata chamber orchestra

Posted on by Steven Sedley

Haydn in the Church

Camerata chamber orchestra
Concertmaster:  Anne Loeser
Soloists: Robert Orr and Anne Loeser

Corelli: Concerto grosso in G minor Op. 6 No. 8 (Christmas Concerto)
J. S. Bach: Concerto for Oboe and Violin in D minor after BMW 1060
Haydn: Symphony No. 10 in C, Hob. 1:10

St Peter’s Church, Willis Street

Thursday 12 December 2019, 6 pm  

Camerata’s vision is to ‘perform high quality joyful chamber music accessible alike to newcomers and classical aficionados’. The small chamber orchestra includes members of Wellington’s professional orchestras as well as students and graduates of the NZ School of Music. It is a very accomplished ensemble.

Corelli: Christmas Concerto
Anne Loeser and Ursula Evans violins, Robert Ibell, cello

This is probably Corelli’s most popular work, often featured in anthologies of Christmas music. It is now hard to appreciate how revolutionary such music was in its time, a purely instrumental piece not written to compliment or accompany vocal music but to showcase purely instrumental and above all, string music. One is taken by the sheer beauty of the sound of strings on top of a bass continuo. It is not difficult or challenging music, it is just gorgeous. The work is made up of six short movements that alternate between fast and slow. They are built on contrasting repeated phrases, miniatures of devotional music. The playing requires a light touch and precision. It culminates in the beautiful Pastorale.

This is one of the 12 Concerti Grossi commissioned by Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, a notable patron of arts, and was performed, very likely, in 1690 at one of the Cardinal’s Monday “academies”,  his concerts. The commission was a mark of Corelli’s success and recognition. He was acknowledged as the finest  violinist of his generation. Corelli’s music and musical form had a great influence on younger and later composers, Vivaldi, Handel, Bach and others.

Bach: Concerto for Oboe and Violin
Robert Orr, oboe and Anne Loeser, violin

Perhaps it doesn’t matter whether the original version of this concerto, transcribed from Bach’s Concerto for Two Harpsichords in C minor was lost or never existed, this arrangement of the keyboard parts that correspond to the individual range of the oboe and violin parts is one of Bach’s most attractive instrumental pieces. In the 1970s Nikolaus Harnoncourt transposed the concerto one tone up to D minor and this is the arrangement that was played. From the very opening bars of the work, the lively sound of the oboe lifts the music. Robert Orr, principal oboist of the NZSO is an exquisite musician who engages instantly with audience and orchestra alike. There was a lovely interplay between violin and oboe, though it was hard for the violin not to be overwhelmed by the penetrating sound of the oboe. The final movement was just exuberant joyous music. It was wonderful to hear this work.

Haydn: Symphony No. 10
Haydn was in his mid 20s when Count Morzin engaged him as music director and chamber composer for his orchestra of about 16 musicians, a steady job for a young man who until then had  lived precariously as an occasional violinist and music teacher. Haydn wrote some 17 symphonies while in the employ of Count Morzin for the Count’s weekly entertainments. These were expected to be light works, easy to listen to, nothing challenging, nothing to cloud the mood of the guests. Haydn learned composition by studying the works of Carl Philip Emanuel Bach, with help from the Italian composer and singing teacher, Nicola Porpora for whom he worked as an accompanist. Thus his first symphonies were based on tradition. But they, as evident in No. 10 that we heard, had signs of the future Haydn. This was refreshingly different from the previous works in the concert, revealing a sense of humour, and, particularly in the last movement, a suggestion of an earthy, peasant dance. The horn, oboe and bassoon that joined the orchestra added a richer variety of tone.

The concert was a delightful journey from Corelli though Bach to early Haydn. It was all thoroughly enjoyable music, ideal for anyone approaching classical music with some trepidation. The gratifyingly large audience appreciated it all and was rewarded with a repeat of the Pastorale movement of the Christmas Concerto, this time with the addition of winds, adding a richness to the work.

 

Wellington Chamber Orchestra succeeds with Šinkovec Burstin in Grieg piano concerto, and other Nordic classics

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wellington Chamber Orchestra conducted by Samuel Burstin with Ana Šinkovec Burstin (piano)

Nielsen: Helios Overture, Op 17
Grieg: Piano concerto in A, Op 16
Sibelius: Symphony No 5 in E flat, Op 82

Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 8 December, 2:30 pm

In my review of Jian Liu’s performance two years ago of Grieg’s Piano Concerto I remarked that I was mystified that it continued to be considered a popular, even hackneyed work when, for many years, it’s been so little performed. That lovely performance with Jian Liu may have prompted the Wellington Chamber Orchestra to take a look at it. If so they served themselves and Edvard Grieg very well.

Helios 
Nielsen’s Helios Overture is a relative rarity too, perhaps more understandably, though I remember the surprise I felt when I first hear it perhaps 30 years ago, that such an engaging and imaginative piece had eluded me so long. My last record of hearing it live was in 2007 from the NZSO.  I don’t think I’ve heard it from RNZ Concert for a long time and given the current limited range of music played, I don’t expect it.

There’s no problem with Sibelius of course, though it would be nice to hear the 4th or 6th instead of the ubiquitous 2 or 5 or perhaps 7.

The Helios Overture is a concert overture – not evidence of an unperformed opera. Helios was a small-time god in the ancient Greek cosmos. I was a minute late arriving and it had reached the beginning of the enchanting ‘dawn’ theme, first from strings, then woodwinds, depicting the sun rising over the Aegean (a bit difficult as Athens faces south-west across the Saronic Gulf; however, the sun rises from the sea in other parts of Attika peninsula). Nevertheless, Burstin was successful in drawing evocative sounds from the orchestra, the four horns acquitting themselves well, but no better than the perhaps less prominent playing from trumpets and trombones and the woodwinds. Nielsen didn’t seek to create a visual impression, and though I can’t say that I experienced anything approaching a Mediterranean sunrise, the nature of the themes and their orchestration certainly generated an emotional response that one might compare with looking out to sea from Cape Sounion; deeply nostalgic and enchanting – but then I’ve long been a lover of Nielsen, as well as Greece (how about Nielsen as featured composer for Orchestra Wellington in 2021; six symphonies and all?).

Grieg Piano Concerto 
This second hearing of the Grieg concerto in two years hasn’t dulled my affection for it. In spite of a somewhat too emphatic opening (which I should try to refrain from likening to the thunderous cataclysm of early that morning), it quickly settled into a well-balanced performance. The pianist, Ana Šinkovec Burstin, was born in Slovenia and is a recent arrival in New Zealand after a varied musical career in Europe and the United States in the past decade. Though there were moments in the first and last movements where I felt her playing was a little guileless, overall, and especially in the Adagio slow movement, she captured Grieg’s happy mingling of innocent charm and bravura, sensitively, exploiting that unexpected subsiding to silence in the middle of the Finale, creating as magical an effect as I’ve ever experienced. It highlighted the sudden revival of the music’s abandoned, folk-dance character through to the end, under the generally splendid partnership between piano and orchestra.

Sibelius 5 
The presence of the most popular of Sibelius’s symphonies was undoubtedly as good an explanation for the big audience as the concerto might have been. In the past the WCO’s percussion and brass have tended to sound unruly in the generous though recalcitrant acoustic of St Andrew’s; this time, perhaps my position at the back of the gallery calmed things. The result, in any case, was attractive. Though competing themes sometimes risk confusing harmonies, here was clarity, and carefully paced crescendi were always under control, producing the effect that the composer clearly sought. Strings whispered secretively with the support of bassoons, and rich brass choruses expanded to achieve impressive climaxes; flutes and oboes varied the colours nicely.  The first movement ends with an exciting crescendo which the orchestra managed rather splendidly (according to what I scribbled in my note-book).

The Andante Mosso (second movement) uses a lot of pizzicato strings and the playing was fine. Against underlying support of a lovely wind chorale, strings handled the very typically Sibelius episode of throbbing strings carefully, even movingly.

After the peaceful, pastoral Andante the finale opened with lively throbbing strings, and undulating horns created a near-professional impression. The movement is enriched with a deeply moving melody that arrives later, created mainly by horns. The orchestral sound was fairly dense, moving between hushed passages; then slowly evolving crescendi led by flutes and clarinet and eventually, quite elegant brass harmonies.

By the end, there was a very satisfying feeling of a convincing interpretation through a carefully studied pulse that had evolved through the repetition of the almost hypnotic theme, till those last widely spaced chords that always come as a slight surprise.

This was a particularly successful and enjoyable concert, with some of the most beautiful classics from three Nordic countries; perhaps a tribute in particular to conductor Burstin, it has consolidated my respect for the orchestra.

Lightning, thunder and Orpheus Choir’s and the NZSO’s “Messiah” – never a dull moment!

Posted on by Peter Mechen

HANDEL – Messiah HWV 56 (complete)

Celeste Lazarenko (soprano)
Anna Pierard (mezzo-soprano)
Andrew Goodwin (tenor)
Hadleigh Adams (bass)
Orpheus Choir of Wellington (director Brent Stewart)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Graham Abbott (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday, 7th December, 2019

There would probably have been a number of people at this “Messiah” performance, both performers and audience members, who had shared something of my own experience a couple of hours before the concert’s starting-time, of the onslaught of an unexpectedly vicious single lightning strike during a storm over the Mt.Victoria area of the city, one whose particular impact on the house I was inside could have been likened to that of a blow from a gigantic iron-clad fist. Perhaps it was rather more in sheer visceral accord with parts of Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony which both the choir and orchestra took part in several weeks ago! – still, the “force of nature” aspect to my mind tied in well with some of the more elemental parts of Handel’s score, put across here by the musical forces assembled with properly-focused strength and conviction.

This was Graham Abbott’s third Wellington appearance as conductor of a “Messiah” (previously in 2012 and 2016), and, as in his two previous outings, featured a “complete” performance of the work, the projected length of such an experience countered, as before, by the conductor’s more-than-usually quick tempi. Even so, the “2 hrs” duration suggested by the evening’s programme booklet seemed firstly alarming, and then, as good sense prevailed, unlikely! As it was, the performance by my reckoning took at least half-an-hour longer, but, thanks to the compelling quality of both singing and playing, kept our interest throughout.

Besides the conductor, and, of course, Brent Stewart’s Orpheus Choir, other “old friends” included the soprano, Celeste Lazarenko, last here in 2017, and mezzo-soprano Anna Pierard, who sang the alto part with the conductor here in 2012. New chums were the two male soloists, both, I thought, making a splendid job of their music, handling the more technical aspects of their parts with great aplomb and bringing distinctive character to the words and their meanings.

The orchestra began proceedings, the band a tightly-knit, chamber-sized ensemble, reflecting the conductor’s desire to keep to the kind of sound he imagined the composer would have heard, the playing throughout confident, supple and spontaneous-sounding, able to surprise with an emphasis or phrasing even in a work as oft-heard as this one, and otherwise delivering all the anticipated “moments” with a fresh distinction. Though it seems odious to “single out” players, one couldn’t help but register the skills of trumpeter Michael KIrgan (resplendently note-perfect throughout “The trumpet shall sound”), and with his partner Mark Carter, adding lustre to both the “Glory to God” sequences of Part One, and the magnificence of the concluding sections of both “Halleluiah” and the final choruses. Unfailingly steadfast, too, was the continuo of harpsichordist Douglas Mews and organist Jonathan Berkahn, while the string and wind lines were a delight to register in both their complementing and counterpointing of Handel’s choral writing.

The first voice we heard was that of tenor Andrew Goodwin, who, in his opening ”Comfort ye” solo encompassed solace, comfort, hope and strength by getting his words to “speak” as well as make music (the word “cry”, for example). His tones had plenty of forthright “ring” and accompanying resonance, enabling him to beautifully “shape” his coloratura passages. In Part Two of the work, Goodwin related superbly with the chorus via his declamatory “All they that see Him” and the following incisive and mocking “He trusted in God”, the tenor’s reply full of pathos, and then carrying this intensity through to the insistent, more defiant,  “Thou shalt break them”, which tingled and stung with focused energy. Goodwin also teamed up tellingly with mezzo Anna Pierard for “O death, where is thy sting” the two fitting their lines together to exhilarating effect!

Although her “big moment” was undoubtedly the aria “He was despised”, whose slower, more meditative sections mezzo Anna Pierard delivered with breath-catching presence and feeling, she also coped as well as any I’ve heard with writing that was often low for the voice while requiring some “heft”, as with the “refiner’s fire” sections of “But who may abide”. Her voice gained in presence to arresting effect when the vocal line rose, as at the ending of “Oh thou that tellest”, and throughout “Then shall the eyes of the blind” – and her hand-in-glove teamwork with the tenor throughout “O Death” already noted, was a joy.

Of course the soprano’s entry is exquisitely timed by Handel for maximum effect at “There were shepherds”, and Celeste Lazarenko didn’t disappoint, a fractional “bump” during one of her “Rejoice Greatly” runs aside. But I thought she really came into her own later with “I know that my Redeemer liveth”, which was beautifully shaped and inflected throughout, movingly so in places, not the least of which was the raptness of “the first fruits of them that sleep”. Then, she further enchanted with her “If God be for us”, floating her lines so sweetly, and confidently essaying the coloratura, with  both her ease and energy giving such pleasure and delight!

I can’t recall ever before hearing Palmerston North-born Hadleigh Adams sing, and thought his performance terrific! As if he, as well, had been assailed by that late afternoon‘s thunderbolt from the skies, he proceeded to bring out something of the same drama in “Thus Saith the Lord”, with a terrific cosmic “shake” and powerful upper notes, before delivering his message of the Lord’s “coming” with true theatrical presence. Dramatic, too, was his “haunted” tone at the beginning of “For, behold”, though he didn’t make as much of the crescendo at “the Lord shall rise upon thee” as I wea expecting – nevertheless, his was a properly visceral “The people that walked in darkness”, throwing his voice up and over great archways of tone throughout. Both in “Why do the nations” and “Behold I tell you a mystery” his storytelling gifts came out strongly, carrying us along with his energies and descriptive detailings – a most engaging performance!

Thus, too, was the Orpheus Choir’s contribution to the proceedings, beginning with a truly resplendent “And the glory of the Lord”, though one which then made the sopranos’ momentary ensemble “hiccup” at the beginning of “And He shall purify” all the more unexpected! Things were fortunately restored with “For unto us” apart from a tendency for the tenors to hurry slightly with their running figurations – and thereafter it all grew in stature and magnificence right to the end. The sequence which truly caught up my responses was that beginning with “Surely He hath borne our griefs”, the sheer attack of both voices and instruments most arresting, followed by an amazingly contrasted “And with his stripes”, taken more slowly and intensely that usual, to be followed by “All we like sheep” the burst of energy awakening us from our reverie of having been “healed”, and the dovetailings between the voices themselves and the orchestra so very delicious to experience!

The response of the audience both to the conclusion of the “Halleluia” chorus and the final “Amen” was overwhelming, though I was sorry that the previously-mentioned work of the solo trumpeter, Michael Kirgan, didn’t seem to be specifically acknowledged at the end (or perhaps I missed that bit of the proceedings!). But all in all, very great credit to conductor Graham Abbott for his overall direction, as well as to the Orpheus’s director, Brent Stewart for the truly sonorous preparation of his forces for the concert.

In the wake of yet another expertly-delivered performance of “Messiah” sounded for us “as Handel would have heard it”, I was interested to be reminded, in another reviewer’s report of the concert, of the Mozart version of Messiah, performed here in 2013 (https://middle-c.org/2013/06/mozart-s-take-on-handel-warmth-more-than-refiners-fire/)  – but I’ve also been thinking equally of late about the “Messiahs” that many of us would have grown up with in the 1950s and 60s, and wondering what people would think of a “retrospective” presentation of the work (in other words, “one for old times’ sakes”).

Two famous interpreters of the work from these (and earlier) times were Sir Malcolm Sargent (with his famed Huddersfield Chorus of about five thousand people! – or so it seemed!) and SIr Thomas Beecham with his equally outlandish but splendiferous re-orchestrations which (despite his estate’s claims to the contrary after his death) he had commissioned from another musical knight, Sir Eugene Goossens). My inclination would go towards the Beecham/Goossens version with its splendid array of nineteenth-century instruments accompanying the singers (“Handel would have loved it!” declared the ever imperturbable Sir Thomas!) The authenticists will throw their hands up in horror – but my feeling is that the rest of us will love it too! And what hearing it will probably do is enhance our appreciation of “period-practice” music-making even more. What might the NZSO and Orpheus forces think of THAT prospect, I wonder?

 

 

 

Haydn, Brahms and Brigid Bisley in superb recital from Diedre Irons and the Aroha Quartet

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Aroha String Quartet with Diedre Irons (piano)

Haydn: String Quartet in C, Op 33 No 3 ‘The Bird’
Brigid Ursula Bisley: Unbound
Brahms: Piano Quintet in F minor, Op 34

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 1 December, 3 pm

Haydn’s The Bird
The last 2019 concert from the Aroha Quartet opened with Haydn’s quartet, The Bird, creating sounds that were quite stunning: not in the normal sense of fortissimo, exciting or cacophonous, but with sounds that were hardly of a string quartet at all. They were of such refinement and purity that they really did evoke the subtlest of bird calls that were pure and secretive, unearthly. The marking allegro moderato meant little as speed seemed quite irrelevant given that the music’s character was determined by the rare sound and unique spiritual quality the players generated.

Whether or not Haydn was seeking the greatest possible tonal contrasts between each of the instruments, that is what they produced; and the differences between the instruments so beautifully evoked, not just ‘a bird’, but a wonderful variety of birds.

And the second movement marked, unusually, Scherzo, as all six of the Op 33 are (the brisk middle movement was not generally called Scherzo till Beethoven took it up); indeed, it is a curious, sombre Scherzo, till the brighter middle section. The only bird-like character here was the continued refinement of sound, with exquisitely subtle dynamics. In the third movement the players continued delicacy found its most pensive aspect, again with the individual voices lending a rare quality; and the finale returned to summarise the bird-like character of the first movement with a cautious brightness, ending with a typically Haydnesque surprise.

Brigid Bisley’s Unbound
The central work in the programme was the nine-year-old Unbound by Brigid Ursula Bisley, though this was a revision; how extensive that was, I wondered. I heard its premiere at the 2011 Adam Chamber Music Festival in Nelson.

It opened with a strange dissonance from the two violins, dealing with a calm musical idea; there followed a fluttering episode with trilling second violin and/or viola. The programme note described its division into three parts, structure around two melodic ideas, that were elaborated, in particular, quoting a phrase from Bach’s Musical Offering . Her note refers to a melody in Part II which grounded the music in tradition, at the same time as offering a spring-board for a return to more unorthodox idioms. And she refers to an atonal three-part fugue in Part III, but I hardly registered it as an atonal element since the absence of ‘tonal’ thematic ideas need not be alienating, or even recognisable, and nothing here was that.

As the music emerged from that episode, offering interesting motifs for each instrument, each prominent in turn, a feeling of integrity grew and my notes included the passing from a grieving cello to evolve into a genuinely imaginative, unpretentious and coherent work.

I refrained from looking at the review I wrote of its premiere at the 2011 Nelson Chamber Music Festival till I’d written the above, and was pleased to find that my feelings eight years ago were pretty much the same as now.

(https://middle-c.org/2011/02/ensembles-combine-in-magnificent-nelson-concert/
“It opened quietly, each instrument contributing intriguingly to a pattern of disharmony till a melody emerged and after a while viola and cello laid down some bass support. Influences? Yes, Bartók quite distinctly, but more important was an impression of music that was beholden to no school or musical ideology, but simply sounded alive to today’s environment, whatever that means, and aimed at engaging with the listener. Lots happened; there was a beguiling, dreamy phase, a yearning spirit as Doug Beilman’s second violin cried while Helene Pohl’s first violin sang a high descant over the cello’s pedal support. There were so many elements that appeared distinct but ultimately created a coherent musical story; and it ended without flourish or rhetoric.”)

Now I would not mention Bartók as a particular influence. Its character was its own and I felt that the composer would rather be heard as writing in an idiom that simply reflected our era, in its general, heterogeneous nature with nothing other than familiarity with a wide range of contemporary and earlier musical impulses: above all, a compulsion to create music that was not in an idiom that left listeners perplexed or annoyed, but was interesting and engaging. That it was.

Brahms: Piano Quintet
Brahms wonderful Piano Quintet may well have been the main attraction for the quite large audience; particularly since it involved Diedre Irons, along with the Aroha Quartet! The acoustic of St Andrew’s can be a problem, not just for orchestras and large ensembles, but sometimes for groups as small as a piano quintet. These players acute sensitivity and sensibility eliminated any chance of that.

In the first movement they were in perfect control, with Diedre Irons’s piano, which has been known to be fairly forthright, in comfortable balance, and more surprisingly, matching some of the strings’ exquisite subtlety. They produced sounds that were not only remarkably unified but also as if each was in a solo spotlight, contributing to a thoughtful drama of near orchestral intensity.

The piano leads for a while in the second movement, warm and gentle in spirit, a marked contrast to the first movement. Musicologists note the interesting shifts of key from movement to movement and within movements, but most of the audience, not burdened with perfect pitch, merely senses mood shifts, and things that enliven and maintain involvement with the music.

The Scherzo movement is orthodox, an ABA form, but in the minor key, though the Trio is in C major; it is a serious and weighty structure that in these hands acquired an almost symphonic character which was striking and arresting.

Some of this colour is probably attributed to the curious provenance of the piece, starting as a string quintet, then a sonata for two pianos before being published in its present form; and it’s recently been arranged for both full orchestra and for piano and orchestra: I can imagine both being successful.

It’s something of a surprise for the weighty Scherzo to be followed by the mysterious opening of the Finale, very subdued, till a few heavy piano chords hint at something more – I used the word ‘masculine’ in my notes, probably unlawfully.

The Finale becomes ever more powerful and emphatic, moving from Poco sostenuto through Allegro non troppo to Presto, non troppo in the Hungarian flavoured peroration. In some hands the Finale could be found a bit protracted, but in the hands of the Aroha and Irons that would have been unimaginable: this was a wonderful performance that maintained its serious and dramatic character to the end, flawlessly, passionately and with enormous conviction.

 

Enthusiastic reception by big audience for Orchestra Wellington’s final 2019 concert of remarkable but unfamiliar music

Posted on by Steven Sedley

Orchestra Wellington, conducted by Marc Taddei

Tristan Dingemans, Neil Phillips, Constantine Karlis, and Rob Thorne (orchestrated by Thomas Goss): Ko Tō Manawa, Ko Tōku: Purita. Your Hears is My Heart: Take Hold
Samuel Barber: Piano Concerto (Michael Houstoun – piano)
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 8  

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 30 November, 7:30 pm

This was the last of this year’s subscription concerts by Orchestra Wellington. The Michael Fowler Centre was filled almost to capacity, despite the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra playing another concert at the same time in Shed 6. Orchestra Wellington played a difficult programme, made no concession to popular taste, yet it had the largest audience of any orchestra in New Zealand. There is something remarkable about this. I believe the secret of the success of the orchestra is relationship, the relationship the conductor, Mark Taddei, has with the orchestra and with the audience. The good prices for season tickets helps, but essentially this is Mark Taddei’s orchestra and players and musicians trust his judgement. Other ensembles can learn from this.

Dingemans, Phillips, Karlis and Thorne: Ko Tō Manawa, Ko Tōku: Purita. Your Hears is My Heart: Take Hold
The names of these composers might not have been familiar to some in the audience. They were all part of a group of rock musicians who made award-winning recordings in the early 2000s. Rob Thorne, in his programme notes, said that working with Tristan, the guitar player, he was excited by the simplicity, beauty and power of the words of ‘Hold On’ and by the idea of introducing a whole audience of music lovers to a synergistic musical realm, using taonga puoro, early Maori musical instruments, for initial experiences of journeying through music. The arrangement by Thomas Goss of the collaborative work uses a range of Maori wind instruments and electric guitar with a large symphony orchestra including an expanded percussion section.

The work starts with very soft whistling sounds produced by Rob Thorne on the taonga puoro instruments and gradually the orchestra joins in, the music expands, the loud percussion emphasizes the rhythmic elements and the piece, and the music, come to an overwhelming climax reminiscent of great Shostakovich climaxes, foreshadowing the rest of the programme. The guitar, which in a rock music context is loud and dominant was somehow overshadowed by the symphony orchestra, but this was an exciting piece of music and the large audience appeared to have been stimulated by it and enjoyed it. Rob Thorne, the composer, wrote that every performance is a highly concentrated conversation between past and present, identity and connection.

Barber: Piano Concerto
This is a major work, a substantial concerto, yet somehow it is seldom heard. Samuel Barber was on the fringe of the twentieth century musical trends. He was a thorough craftsman, yet only a few of his works stood the test of time, though to the credit of Orchestra Wellington his cello and his violin concertos were both featured during this season. The piano concerto is a challenging virtuoso piece. It starts with a long piano solo which introduces the three themes. These are taken up by the flute and then the orchestra in a lush, tuneful, romantic passage. The second movement is in contrast to the stormy first movement serene with gentle dialogue between piano and orchestra. The Finale returns to the turbulent mood of the first movement.

The concerto dates from 1962. It was the era of Boulez, Messiaen, Ligeti, Elliott Carter, late Stravinsky, Xenakis, and indeed, Shostakovich, but listening to Barber’s concerto with its scintillating piano passages and lush romantic orchestral responses you would hardly know this. Although this concerto won a Pulitzer Prize for Barber and was well received in its time, it has largely dropped out of the repertoire. Michael Houstoun, the thoroughly professional pianist that he is, was prepared learn this difficult work for possibly a single performance. He played with total control and assurance. The audience appreciated his always reliable artistry with warm applause and was rewarded with an encore, the lovely, charming Prokofiev Prelude in C (the Harp).

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 8
This symphony takes over an hour. It is a deeply moving work, written in the middle of the war and was first performed in 1943, a year after Shostakovich’s Seventh, the ‘Leningrad’ Symphony.

But whereas the earlier work is one of Shostakovich’s most often played symphonies, No. 8 languished for many years, and was virtually suppressed in the Soviet Union. It is a very demanding work for players and listeners alike. It is gloomy, melancholic, with little to lift the spirit. Yet it is beautiful, haunting music from beginning to end. Shostakovich considered that his triumphant Seventh Symphony, and his mournful Eighth, to be his Requiem. Shostakovich’s use of the orchestra is unlike anyone else’s.

The symphony opens with a long passage for strings, much of it dominated by the basses and cellos, while the rest of the orchestra is silent, then out of the long sombre string introduction the rest of the instruments join in. There are wonderful solo passages for the oboe, the flutes, unusually, long solos for the piccolo, the horns and the trombones with the tuba. It is like a gigantic chamber music ensemble with dialogues among sections of the orchestra. The first movement takes over half hour and is longer than the other movements together. There is ’emptiness in the pain’, ‘screams in the desert’. This gigantic first movement is followed by two scherzos, a danse macabre, and a short sarcastic section. The fourth movement is a dark Largo leading to the finale of hope of sorts, but not the celebration of Soviet victory that people expected after the Stalingrad victory.

Tragedy was the background to the symphony. Shostakovich’s student, Veniamin Fleishman died in the battle for Leningrad. Shostakovich also became aware of the fate of Jews in the German occupied parts of the country, while huge numbers of people were killed in the Battle of Stalingrad. All this is reflected in this symphony, which reached a whirlwind climax with six percussionists hammering at their instruments with full force. The symphony ends with a sombre quiet Adagio and for special, but appropriate effect, the lights were gradually dimmed until the podium was in complete darkness, a chance for a few moments of reflection.

This epic symphony will stand out as a memorable landmark in the orchestra’s performances.

Mark Taddei gave a brief preview of next year’s season, titled “The great Romantic” and will feature Rachmaninov’s three symphonies and his major orchestral works. He also gave the audience credit for its strong support for often difficult, challenging programmes.

Nothing showed the orchestra’s involvement in the community more than the opportunity it gave to Virtuoso Strings, a student community orchestra from Porirua to perform in the foyer of the Michael Fowler Centre before the concert and then attend the concert, a real experience for these young musicians.

 

“Cello for Africa” at Porirua City a spectacular and moving multi-cultural collaborative event

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Sinfonia for Hope presents:
CELLO FOR AFRICA – a multi-institutional and multi-cultural collaboration
Director – Donald Maurice

Performing Individuals and Groups:
Te Kura Māori o Porirua (kapa haka and waiata)
Inbal Megiddo, Rolf Gjelsten, Jane Young (cellos) Stringendo (director: Donald Maurice)
Linkwood Guitar Duo (Jane Curry and Owen Moriarty)
Sam Manzana (Congo drum)
Virtuoso Strings (directors – Craig Utting and Elizabeth Sneyd)
Cellophonia (director – Inbal Meggido)
Amalia Hall (violin), Tinashe Chidanyika and Sarah Hoskyns (mbira)
Ruby Solly (taonga puoro), Hannah Neman (percussion)
Lyrica Choir, Kelburn Normal School (director – Nicola Holt)
Sinfonia for Hope  (conductor: Hans Huyssen)
Heleen du Plessis (‘cello)

Music by Antonio Vivaldi, Jack Body, Craig Utting, Anthony Ritchie, Hans Huyssen

Guest Speakers:
Dr.Taku Parai (Chairman, Kaumātua, Ngāti Toa)
Her Worship Anita Baker, Mayor of Porirua
Associate Professor Hon. Luamanuvao Dame Winnie Laban
Professor Sunny Collings, Dean and Head of Wellington Campus, University of Otago
Professor Donald Maurice, director of Sinfonia for Hope

Te Rauparaha Arena, Porirua City

Sunday, 24th November, 2019

“Cello for Africa” was, in the words of co-organisers Heleen du Plessis and Donald Maurice, an event designed “to bring people from different cultures together using music, and specifically, ‘cellos, to help create a platform for cultural interaction and human connection in support of causes in Africa”. The concert’s specific target was to raise funds for a school established in Nairobi five years ago, the Tamariki Education Centre, by New Zealander Denise Carnihan (who was present at the concert).

The event brought together four youth performance groups augmented by a goodly number of professional performers to perform, among other things, at least one world and one New Zealand performance premiere (not a Venn diagram in words – I meant TWO separate pieces!). New Zealand composer Anthony Ritchie contributed the world “first” with his piece “Kia Kaha Tamariki”, and South African composer Hans Huyssen the New Zealand premiere of his “Concerto for an African ‘Cellist”. There was a Vivaldi concerto for two ’cellos, a work for two guitars by Jack Body, and a piece for strings called “Goodnight Kiwi” by Craig Utting. And extending the diversity of the occasion were various haka and waiata performed by Te Kura Māori o Porirua Kapa Haka, a colourful sequence of Congo drumming by master percussionist Sam Manzanza, and a bracket of songs performed by Kelburn Normal School’s Lyrica Choir, directed by Nicola Holt.

We were welcomed at the outset by Dr Taku Parai, the Ngāti Toa Chairman and Kaumātua, accompanied by Ranei Parai and the splendid Te Kura Māori o Porirua Kapa Haka group. I was struck by the similarities in places between the sound of the Maori chant and some of the Gregorian chant I’d heard, with similar nuances and impulses in places, and underlined by the plangency of the young women’s tones – by contrast the haka passages were incisive and striking for different reasons! After the group had moved off to the side in the time-honoured manner, the Mayor of Porirua, Her Worship Anita Baker spoke to us, most impressively, drawing resonant parallels between Ntairobi in Kenya, and Porirua, here in New Zealand, and welcoming our support for the “Cello in Africa” venture. At this point I felt it would have been good for the event to have had a properly-appointed MC, merely to provide a kind of ongoing flow during the transitions between the numbers – the members of the Stringendo group simply “appeared” with the continuo ‘celllist, Jane Young, after whom came the two soloists for the next item, ‘cellists Inbal Megiddo and Rolf Gjelsten, together with conductor, Donald Maurice.

The two soloists began the work vigorously and adroitly, Megiddo taking the more assertive lead with Gjelsten seeming somewhat “laid back” of projection in reply, both in this way most effectively “terracing” the exchanges, while Jane Young’s continuo kept a watching brief over the exchanges. The tutti passages had great effect, with the extra weight of numbers producing a real “What does the crowd think?” kind of response in the sound’s impact – I’m certain the spontaneous applause at the first movement’s end would have underlined for the players our enjoyment. The slow movement featured the soloists and continuo only, the players again differentiating their lines via a fetching minor-key melody, with Megiddo’s sumptuous tones stimulating a thoughtful, more circumspect response from her companion. Some of the younger players weren’t expecting or had forgotten about a repeat in the music, as several moved to make a grand tutti entry at one point, but lowered their bows again when the music turned on its tracks and repeated a second-half section – very sweet! The younger players got their chance at the “true” beginning of the finale, playing the repeated theme as the soloists overlaid the  music with decorative passages, then intensifying the repetitions with a couple of modulations – all sounding very daring on their part, and garnering considerable applause at the end!

Next was a transcription for two guitars by Jack Body, made from recordings of the Madagascan “vahila”, a kind of “zither” made from a bamboo tube, and regarded by many as the country’s “national” musical instrument. A tumbling, rhythmically teasing piece called “Ramandriana”, it kept shifting its emphasis and thus varying its gait, the players, Jane Curry and Owen Moriarty, finding a wealth of variation of tone and timbre, which would have stemmed from the original instrument recording. (The duo should, I think, have been at least introduced to the audience as “The Linkwood Guitar Duo”, but, again, there was no “MC”.There were names and  information in the programme to be sure, but again, a welcoming voice would have, I think, made a more easeful difference.

We were delighted to welcome Sam Manzanza, the Congloese drummer, resident in New Zealand since the 1980s, where he’s been popularising traditional African music for a number of years with his AfroBeat Band – here he was performing solo with a single drum, and producing an amazing variety of sounds , accompanying his rhythmic patternings with various chants, and encouraging audience participation most successfully! Continuing on an African “wave”, we responded warmly to the next speaker, Associate Professor Hon. Luamanuvao Dame Winnie Laban’s congratulations to South Africa for winning the World Rugby Cup! Her acknowledgement of the work of the organisers of this evening’s concert also elicited an enthusiastic response, as did her confirmation of the Te Ata Festival Project for 2020.

Composer, and co-director of Virtuoso Strings, Craig Utting introduced his ensemble in preparation for the nest item, a version of TV NZ’s famous shutting-down-transmission piece, “Goodnight Kiwi”. Accompanied by the lowering of lights for the music’s beginning, the piece established an all-energies-spent feeling, the string figurations drowsy and  droopy at the phrase-ends, the fragments of one phrase answering another across the vistas created by the ensemble standing in a wide half-circle to perform. The music suddenly energised into angular waltz-like movement, the rhythms and themes lazily dovetailing, its bitter-sweet ambience underlined by a “wilting” kind of inclination, until finally a driving, toccatalike 7/4 rhythm awoke a voice singing the famous Hine e hine words, with heartfelt feeling – the singer beautifully maintained her line and steadiness of tone , right until darkness overtook the music and the players on the stage………

After an interval, and a welcome and brief address from the Dean and Head of Otago University’s Wellington Campus, Professor Sunny Collings, we were treated to composer Anthony Ritchie’s Kia Kaha Tamariki, a musical tribute to the Kenyan School whose founding five years ago in Nairobi has changed the lives of so many African children. The work (a world premiere) was performed here by Cellophonia (40+ cellists!) along with violinist Amalia Hall, cellist Inbal Megiddo, mbira players Tinashe Chidanyika and Sarah Hoskyns, taonga puoro player Ruby Solly, and percussionist Hannah Neman.

Ritchie’s work emphasised the ideas of exchange and accessibility of different musical sounds – a pity the orchestral “platform” was so far away from its audience, across the vistas of what was another performing-space, as it reduced the visceral effects of the more exotic instruments, such as a view of “how they were being played” (the Huyssen Concerto which concluded the evening had a similar kind of “removed” aspect to it – we were, indeed, in the same “space” as the performers, but arguably with too much “air” between us all!). Still, the sounds made an impact, and the conventional and exotic instruments created wholly unique worlds,  even if I felt the music sounded more “Caribbean” than African (ethnomusicologists may well apply to have my travel visas revoked upon reading that statement, though it’s just my (admittedly uninformed) opinion!).

Moments of “Elgarian-sounding” string-writing for the ‘cellos rubbed shoulders with more exotic rhythms and timbres as the non-string-players took up their instruments, the whole given an additional ambient context by Ruby Solly’s taonga puoro sounds. After a colourful sequence featuring the more exotic instruments alone, the drums intensified the rhythms and the cellos intoned an eminently singable/danceable melody, immediately suggesting a ready response in kind from listeners – the work was rounded off by a brief irruption of percussive impulse and gesture – altogether a direct and approachable tribute to a worthwhile cause.

There were hurryings and scurryings from certain people in preparation for the next item, the outcome seeming a little Houdini-esque as it turned out, with everybody’s attention focused on a completely different entrance to that through which the members of Lyrica (Kelburn Normal School Choir) and its director, Nicola Holt, finally appeared! – the group sang three songs bringing out poignancies and sweet colourings in the first two and plenty of rhythmic energy in the third, all accompanied on an electric piano most adroitly played by Nicole Chao, though I thought the second song, a lullaby could have just as effectively been performed voices-only. The choir recently took part in the Orpheus Choir of Wellington’s performance of Orff’s Carmina Burana, which I attended, and remember enjoying the children’s singing a great deal.

I wondered whether programming a fully-fledged three movement instrumental concerto at the end of a tumultuous evening was the best course, as the attrition rate among the audience was certainly noticeable at that stage, despite people’s best efforts – still, the work was meant to be symbolic of a fusion of voices and languages and cultures, and therefore judiciously placed at the concert’s climax. It represented a herculean effort of technique, emotion and crossover sensibility on the part of the solo cellist, Heleen du Plessis, who gave what sounded like a totally committed performance, from the “Partida”, or exploratory opening movement in which she enabled her instrument to “speak its language”, through the exchanges with other instruments over the second and third sections (the latter movement including a vocalised section from mbira-player Tinashe Chidanyika), and into the final Mapfachapfacha (in the Zezuru language, “a sudden arrival of many”), which sounded like a celebration of the coming together of diverse voices.

Composer Hans Huyssen’s use of non-standardised instruments (and the human voice) as constituent parts of such a formalised composition as a “concerto” has plenty of precedent in Western music, as witness, for example, the various instances of use of such things in the Mahler symphonies. And there were precedents of all kinds for the use of voices in such works as well, from Beethoven onwards, giving the words intoned by the orchestra players at the end of this work, referring to the music’s journey in search of a commonality amid the diversity, and its discovery within, their own unique resonances – the whole occasion generated so much warm feeling it was difficult to be analytical or judgemental regarding what we had heard! Its task, as far as I could discern from everybody’s response at the evening’s conclusion, was completed most successfully.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gustav Mahler’s heartfelt expression of existentialist optimism given resplendent treatment by the NZSO and departing Music Director Edo de Waart

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents:
RESURRECTION

GUSTAV MAHLER – Symphony No. 2 (“Resurrection”)

Lauren Snouffer (soprano)
Anna Larsson (mezzo-soprano)
Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir (Music Director, Karen Grylls)
Orpheus Choir of Wellington (Music Director, Brent Stewart)

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Edo de Waart (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Friday, 22nd November 2019

“It opens as if on the brink of an abyss, and ends with an exhilarating rebirth”. With these words Edo de Waart, the conductor of this performance of Gustav Mahler’s monumental “Resurrection” Symphony, summed up in a programme foreword his reasoning for making the work his final assignment as the NZSO’s Music Director. According to the archive of that redoubtable critical periodical, “Middle C”, this was his seventh separate Mahler Symphony performance undertaken with the orchestra, the only ones missing from the canon being the Sixth and the Eighth – and with de Waart promising to return as “Conductor Laureate” in years to come, who can say whether or no he has either or both of those works in his sights as a “completion” of sorts?

It sometimes seems that the classical music world has become “cycle-mad” (an attitude in marked contrast to that of a number of great musicians of the past who expressly refused to perform (and record) certain works (even what many would regard as “great” ones) that they felt little affinity with). However, with all of the Mahler performances I’ve heard de Waart conduct over the years I’ve enjoyed his particular insights into and affinity with the Mahlerian ethos, albeit via a tightly-disciplined, straightforward and direct way with the music. I for one would be most interested in the idea of him completing his Mahler symphonic survey with the orchestra – something to consider, perhaps?

Over the period I’ve been attending NZSO concerts (since the late 1960s), the orchestra has been fortunate in having a number of music-directors seemingly well-versed in this composer’s once warily-regarded oeuvre – performances of the symphonies that stood out for me over the pre-de Waart years were those by Michi Inoue, Uri Segal, Victor Yampolsky, Franz-Paul Decker, James Judd and Pietari Inkinen, not to mention Vladimir Ashkenazy’s sensational presentation of the rarely-heard “Symphony of a Thousand” the massive Eighth, at an Arts Festival concert in Wellington in 2010  (regarding recent Festivals by comparison, those, unfortunately, were the days!)…..

All of those occasions referred to above have contributed to the orchestra’s building up a well-versed Mahler style, one shaped according to each maestro’s wishes, and evolving as a living, breathing and above all, flexible attitude, one able to readily encompass the demands of each of the composer’s symphonies along the interpretative lines of whomever is on the podium. This state of things was expressed in no uncertain terms this time round by the orchestra’s delivery of the Symphony’s first movement, marked Allegro Maestoso. Right at the  beginning, de Waart and his players gave the music arresting, sharp-edged focus and tremendous tonal weight, serving notice that everybody was here to mean business.

With an inexorable tread, allied to a dark, and ominous ambience, the movement’s opening firmly established the piece’s overall character, the funereal mood occasionally lightened by the tenderest of soundings from strings and winds, softly coloured by superbly-wrought horn-playing, but forever held under the sway of the all-pervading march rhythm, whether deep and insidious or sudden, volatile and alarming! The movement is replete with directions for the players, who, here, encompassed the composer’s demands for the widest possible dynamic and colouristic variations imaginable without faltering in their overall purpose – the final, lumbering funeral cortege-like sequence followed a heart-rending episode of the most bitter-sweet nostalgia for times past, pitilessly bearing away all such remembrances as part of life’s temporal baggage and reaching a remorseless point of near-despair, one reinforced by the startling penultimate major/minor cry of pain from the brass, and the cataclysmic orchestral collapse into complete darkness at the end – all superbly brought off!

The evening’s only performance aspect I might have questioned had I been asked was the tempo taken by de Waart for the second movement – after a lengthy pause (actually specified by the composer as five minutes, though nobody in concert dares take quite that long!) the Andante Moderato begins, marked by Mahler Sehr gemächlich. Nie eilen. (Very leisurely – never rushed.) Here, I wanted more poignancy, more heart-stopping nostalgia at the opening than de Waart was prepared to give us, with the result that, to my ears, the Ländler rhythm sounded a shade bland, or matter-of-fact. This affected the central, more agitated section of the music as well, the contrast between the two moods less marked than I expected – of course de Waart‘s players took it all in their stride, making the conductor’s more urgent conception work almost as fluently as if no other existed. And conductor and players did inject a strain of echt-Viennese sweetness into the opening’s reprise with the most delicate of pizzicati giving way to heartfelt counterpointed melody at the music’s conclusion.

Two rapid-fire attention-grabbing timpani thwacks at the scherzo’s beginning launched the movement in no uncertain terms, after which the music’s insistent lines wove their sinuous strands every which way, as the composer intended. De Waart and his players tirelessly reiterated the lines and motifs as if participating in some kind of relentless dance – the music quotes one of Mahler’s own songs, a setting of a text from “Das Knaben Wunderhorn” (a famous collection of German folk poetry) describing how the Saint, Anthony, preached a sermon to the fishes, who, after the sermon finished, swam away, as sinful as before! A lovely interlude, mid-movement, featured some beautiful trumpet playing (I couldn’t see the player), after which the same garrulous lines returned, provoking a sudden tumultuous upheaval leading to what the composer called a ”cry of disgust” from the full orchestra – de Waart and the players certainly pulled out all the stops for that one!

After the music slunk darkly away a new mood suddenly materialised, in the form of mezzo-soprano Anna Larsson, beginning Mahler’s brief Urlicht movement – according to her “artist bio”, fresh from singing Erda (from Wagner’s Der Ring) at the Berlin Staatsoper, and here sounding as if she had brought the character along with her, her tones world-weary and worn, and eschewing any kind of radiance. Still, her obvious artistry in shaping the words was beautifully augmented by the brass who replied exquisitely to her “O Röschen rot”, and by the oboe who echoed her reference to Heaven at “im Himmel sein” so tenderly.

Straightaway at the song’s end, its shaft of heavenly light was torn into fragments by ground-heaving irruptions from the lower strings, as well as a nightmarish full-orchestra outburst which reiterated the previous movement’s “cry of disgust”, and, incidentally, containing the only slightly miscued instrumental note I heard all evening – all part of the excitement of the players’ pushing the music to its extremes. This was the work’s final movement, the introduction to what the composer called the “Great Summons”, and featured some magnificent off-stage brass-playing, judged to perfection by de Waart and his musicians – what an incredible sense of space was created therein by the distant brasses and the near-subterranean percussion instruments, evoking a void, a firmament’s emptiness needing to be filled! And how incredibly the musicians responded, firstly with a spectrally-delivered brass reiteration of the well-known “Dies Irae” theme, and then a full-orchestral vision of Heaven in all its imagined glory, the whole awaiting the moment of Judgement.

Mahler began this next sequence with a terrifying pair of crescendo whose force seemed here to shake the building – in his own words, written for a programme note at a performance in Dresden in 1901: “ The earth trembles, the graves burst open, the dead arise and march forth in endless procession. The great and the small of this earth, the kings and the beggars, the just and the godless all press forward!” – de Waart didn’t rush the company almost off its feet (as some conductors have done!) but built the excitement in layers towards the moment where the bells rang out amid the clamour, and consternation gripped the assemblage – one of the problems of performing this work are that there are so many “climaxes” along the way that there’s a danger of the excitement “peaking” too early, and undermining what is still to come, but de Waart seemed to keep enough in reserve for the entry of the “Eternal Judge”, heralded by offstage trumpets excitedly warning the company of “the moment” and marked by a final terrified cataclysm of turbulence from the whole orchestra!

Just as arresting was the sudden stillness, broken by distant, apocalyptic trumpets and, incredibly, the song of a nightingale, played by the flutes. Came the gentle, hitherto unsignalled sounds of voices (the choir remained seated throughout their opening verses, as did the soprano, Lauren Snouffer), intoning the words of the Ode that had originally given Mahler the idea for his finale, which the composer then added to, giving the movement its final shape and form. The sounds drew us in, held us in thrall in a completely ingratiating manner – here was no terror, no darkness, no on-going suffering, but a new radiance and fresh hope in existence, what Mahler himself had indicated in his own words of the text – Was du geschlagen – zu Gott wird es dich tragen! (That for which you suffered – to God shall it carry you!).

Singers, choir and orchestra under de Waart’s steadily-wrought direction ascended the heights of the symphony’s concluding moments with ever-increasing fervour and excitement, creating over the final pages a resoundingly memorable sense of both occasion and fulfilment. How appropriate for de Waart to conclude his NZSO Music Director tenureship with this composer’s work, having already given us so many splendid Mahler performances – here, this heartfelt, utterly committed music-making got a fully-deserved enthusiastic and extended response from a truly appreciative audience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Diverting St Andrew’s lunchtime concert of Baroque wind music

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s Lunchtime Concerts

Eighteenth Century music Vivaldi, JS Bach, Johann David Heinchen, Johann Friedrich Fasch

Konstanze Artmann – violin, Rebecca Steel – flute, Calvin Scott – oboe, Oscar Laven – double bass, Kristine Zuelicke – piano

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 20 November, 12:15 pm

If your local pub quiz threw a question at you: “Can you name a period when more great composers were born than any other?” The period 1835 – 1845 would be a good guess, or 1855 – 1865. But I’d lay the money on 1678 to 1688. Vivaldi, Rameau, JS Bach, Domenico Scarlatti, Zelenka, Weiss, Telemann, Handel, Porpora, Geminiani, just for starters; and that excludes two of the composers featured in this lunchtime recital:  Johann David Heinchen and Johann Friedrich Fasch. (you can actually find more composers born in the decades through the late 19th century, but I’m just drawing attention to the Bach-Handel decade when all four composers represented today were born).

Vivaldi
Mid-Baroque chamber pieces written for winds are not often heard today. This recital began with a Vivaldi Sonata in C for flute, oboe, bassoon and basso continuo which meant double bass and piano here. No catalogue number – RV (Ryom-Verzeichnis) – was mentioned in the programme and if you look at the ‘sonata’ category of the huge lists of Vivaldi’s compositions in Wikipedia, it will not help. Consisting of four movements (slow, fast, slow fast), it had all the delightful, melodic characteristics of Vivaldi. Rebecca Steel’s flute led the way, but the other two winds as well as the basso continuo (double bass and piano), created such a delightful musical experience that I allowed myself to remark ‘lovely’ in my compulsive notes. And to speculate that it must surely have been Vivaldi’s sheer melodic fecundity, hardly matched by any other composer of the era, that cost him a reputation equal to Handel and Bach that he should have retained over the following 300 years.

J S Bach
A piece by J S Bach followed: this time easily identifiable: BWV 1020, though that’s a flute sonata (for just flute and keyboard), outside the group of six listed as BWV 1030 – 1035, because, as Rebecca explained in her engaging way, some scholars believe that it’s by Bach’s son C P E Bach. Certainly, there was a touch of the Galant, a sub-class between Baroque and Classical, with charming tunefulness that presaged Haydn and Mozart. The first movement was driven by triplet quavers, with a piano tone that suggested the early fortepiano rather than harpsichord. There were comparable Galant features in the ?Adagio slow movement, particularly the long sustained notes on the flute. It was a delight.

Heinichen 
Johann David Heinichen was two years older than JS Bach and at one time was employed beside him at the court of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen. But before that he had, like Handel, worked in Italy to acquire familiarity with Italian opera which he put to good use when Prince Augustus, Elector of Saxony in Dresden, hired him; Dresden had a rich opera company and one of the best orchestras in Europe.

Heinichen’s piece was a duet in C minor for Calvin Scott’s oboe and Oscar Laven’s bassoon. It seemed to relish the comic potential of the bassoon in the long opening passage, rejoicing in the stark contrast between the two double reed instruments. The composition was fluent and seemed to reflect a highly gifted and fertile composer. The third, Andante, movement produced limpid, unusual sounds, that exhibited the fluency and eloquence of the two players. But a highly entertaining piece.

Heinichen is just one of the many 18th century composers who disappeared without trace for nearly 300 years; he was significantly resurrected by Reinhard Goebel, director of Musica Antiqua Köln which came to Wellington for the 1990 International Festival of the Arts (though they didn’t play Heinichen here).

Fasch 
The last of the four composers was a bit more familiar: Johann Friedrich Fasch, born three years after Bach. He too was from the same central German region (Thuringia and Sachsen-Anhalt) as the other two German composers, a small town a little north of Weimar, and he spent some years in Leipzig.

The quartet in B flat was for flute, oboe, violin and basso continuo (piano and double bass). This piece too proved delightful, seeming to suggest an environment that was particularly congenial, peaceful, providing fertile ground for the arts, especially music.

This piece , like the others in this recital, aroused admiration for the composer; the second movement (an Andante?) suggested something symphonic, a complexity and instrumental richness that seemed to go beyond the existence of a mere five instruments. And the last movement was a tumbling Allegro vivace (I’m just guessing about the titles of each movement), with a certain boisterous playing by bassoon and double bass.

So it was a very interesting, diverting recital that exposed unfamiliar music by famous composers and impressive compositions by two less well-known composers whose time might finally have come.