Category: Reviews – Concerts

“Kristallnacht” at the Wellington Jewish Community Centre – brilliant and deeply-felt performances of significant music

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Beth El Synagogue (the Wellington Jewish Community Centre), in partnership with
Te Kōki New Zealand School of Music (Victoria University of Wellington) presents:
KRISTALLNACHT – Unity Concert, 2019

This concert was a commemoration of the anti-Jewish events of 9/10 November, 1938, (“Kristallnacht”) which took place throughout the Third Reich

Music by Schulhoff, Weinberg, Farr, Korngold and Pigovat, along with jazz and cabaret selections

Erwin SCHULHOFF (1894-1942) – Five Pieces for String Quartet
Sixteen Strings: – Toloa Faraimo/Shanita Sungsuwan (violins)/Peter Gjelsten (viola)/ Emma Ravens (’cello)

Miecyzslaw WEINBERG (1919-1996) – Piano Trio Op.24
Te Kōki Trio: Martin Riseley (violin)/Inbal Megiddo (‘cello)/Jian Liu (piano)

Gareth FARR (b.1968) – He Poroporoaki (A Farewell)
New Zealand String Quartet (Helene Pohl/Monique Lapins (violins)/Gillian Ansell (viola)/Rolf Gjelsten (‘cello), withy Ruby Solly (taonga puoro)

Erich KORNGOLD (1897-1957) – Marietta’s Song, from the opera Die Tote Stadt (arr. for voice and piano quintet)
Margaret Medlyn (mezzo-soprano)/New Zealand String Quartet/Jian Liu (piano)

Boris PIGOVAT (b.1953) – Nigun, for viola quartet
Lucy Liu, Grant Baker, Sophia Acheson, Donald Maurice (violas)

Selection of jazz and cabaret music from the camps
Barbara Graham (soprano)/David Barnard (piano)/Ben van Leuven (clarinet)
Te Kōki Trio

Beth El Synagogue (Wellington Jewish Community Centre)
Mt.Cook, Wellington

Sunday, 10th November, 2019

We were welcomed to the Beth El Synagogue (the Wellington Jewish Community Centre) by Rabbi Ariel Tal, our host for the evening, who talked about the words of the Torah as having a similar “song of life” quality to that of the concert we were about to hear; and then by Deborah Hart, the Chair of the Holocaust Centre, who drew a poignant and powerful comparison with the events of Kristellnacht (“The Night of Broken Glass”) throughout Hitler’s Reich in 1938, and the recent attack on the mosques in Christchurch, contrasting the sounds of glass shattering with the comforting and restorative strains of the music programmed for tonight’s concert.

Other speakers were Adam Awad from Somalia, now a resident of New Zealand and an advocate for refugees through organisations he helped to found such as the Changemakers Refugee Forum and the National Refugee Network, and Professor Donald Maurice, presently the Acting Head of Te Koki New Zealand School of Music, who talked of the collaborations that have taken place between the NZSM and The Holocaust Centre since the historic concert of 2008 at which Boris Pigovat’s Holocaust Requiem was premiered.

Introductions completed, the first performers were welcomed to the platform to begin the evening’s music, which was for the most part written by composers of Jewish ancestry, though included in the programme was a piece by one of New Zealand’s leading composers, Gareth Farr. First to be performed was a work by the Czech-born Erwin Schulhoff, whose career as a composer and pianist brought him considerable acclaim at its outset, his radical, forward-looking music influenced by jazz and contemporary trends such as Dadaism. All of this was effectively ended by the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939 – too late, Schulhoff applied for and was granted Soviet citizenship, but he was arrested and imprisoned by the Nazis before he could leave the country. He died in a concentration camp in Wülzburg in 1942.

His Five Pieces for String Quartet from almost twenty years previously proclaimed happier times – dedicated to the French composer Darius Mihaud, the sections of the music commanded instant attention with their invention and variety. They were splendidly performed by a group of young musicians called Sixteen Strings – Toloa Faraimo and Shanita Sungsuwan (violins), Peter Gjelsten (viola) and Emma Ravens (‘cello), a group that, having formed in March of this year, had then actually carried off the top award at the 2019 NZCT Secondary Schools Chamber Music Competition.

Right from the opening Viennese Waltz the players “owned” both the music’s “point” and “line”, characterising its angular aspects with both wit and insouciance. The Serenade sang its droll swagman’s song, its brief “circus act” in the middle section as deftly managed as the subtle gradations towards the end; while the Czech Folk Music was a wild ride whose energies contrasted beautifully with the sultriness of the Tango, the musicians beautifully and instinctively “feeling” when to hold, and when to let go. Finally the Tarantella displayed ear-catching dynamics, the trajectories by turns ‘weighted” and “whispered”, here beguiling and there dangerous-sounding! – and all done with razor-sharp ensemble that left us all breathless with exhilaration! Well done!

Better-known, perhaps, though with a name suffering under a confusing plethora of different renditions and translations (variously Weinberg/Wajnberg/Vainberg and Vajnberg, with the former emerging as the most frequently-used in recent times), Mieczyslaw Weinberg, born in Poland in 1919 to Jewish parents, came from an artistic family, his father a conductor and composer, his mother an actress, both in Warsaw’s Yiddish theatre. The year he graduated from the Warsaw Conservatory (1939) he had to flee Poland for the Soviet Union, leaving his parents and younger sister in Poland, all of whom eventually perished at the hands of the Nazis. Weinberg’s meeting and subsequent association with Dmitri Shostakovich changed his life, the older composer regarding him as an artistic “brother” and supporting him through various conflicts with the authorities, at least one of them a potential death-sentence.

Though strongly influenced by Shostakovich’s work, Weinberg’s music has its own unique personality and qualities – native Polish, Jewish and Moldavian elements are common, as is a fondness for humour and satire, balanced against a feeling for epic structure. His output was enormous, comprising 156 opus numbers (and still remaining for most concert-goers largely undiscovered territory). Te Koki Trio, comprising Martin Riseley (violin), Inbal Megiddo (cello) and Jian Liu (piano) threw themselves onto the canvas of the composer’s epic Op.24 Piano Trio, launching the opening Prelude and Aria of the work with the kind of gusto one imagined would be inspired by a masterwork, the violin and ‘cello declamatory, even joyful, the strings swapping themes and the piano hammering out an accompaniment – gradually the intensities melt into the Larghetto, the piano joining the duetting strings with a bird-song-like obbligato, as the music alternated violin pizz. with ‘cello arco, and vice-versa, finishing sotto voce.

The Toccata:Allegro movement which followed had a Shostakovich-like insistence, the triplets hammered out by the piano and reiterated by violin and cello with nightmarish intensity, mingling sounds of war (air-raid siren-like modulations and the clamour of frightened voices  and running feet), each instrument intense and frenetic, expressing something all-pervasive and overwhelming, right to the concluding moment of silence. A Moderato which followed was subtitled “Poem”, allowing pianist Jian Liu whole moments of poetic musing before the string instruments’ pizzicati exchanges led to interactions whose intensities built up into a grotesque march, the energies of engagement remarkable and harrowing, and their gradual dissipation no less so. There came into view a different, though no less challenging world, a single violin note held plaintively and tragically as its strains were overcome by the resonances from piano and ‘cello…….

Into the void drifted the piano’s artless carefree theme, switching its mode to an accompanying one as first the volatile violin, then the carefree cello took the argument forward. The violin skirmished and the cello danced a circus dance, which the piano couldn’t resist, joining her in fugal style, the violin doing the same – the energy generated fired up the performers even more, the strings launching into a kind of danse macabre, building up the intensities until the performers seemed to plateau almost stratospherically, the air beneath pushing up the sounds, and trying to liberate some kind of grand statement! To the music’s near-impasse came the violin to the rescue, a wistful waltz-tune, one to which the other instruments seemed to want to align with, the ‘cello musing richly and almost contentedly, the piano suddenly intoning a hymn-like melody, restraining its own portentous reply, and giving way to the violin and ‘cello’s single, stratospheric concluding notes – (apologies for the long-winded description, but I found this music so gripping I couldn’t help myself!)

Gareth Farr’s “He Poroporoaki” (A Farewell) came afterwards like a kind of benediction following a soul’s torturous journey, the taonga puoro ambiences emanating from Kai Tahu musician Ruby Solly’s playing (assisted at the outset by quartet leader Helene Pohl’s activating of a gong-like instrument) imbuing the sounds and textures wrought by the New Zealand String Quartet players with a palpable sense of valediction relating to our time and place, the universality of lament given a home-grown identity, as it were. While the strings throughout remained largely elegiac in manner, the taonga puoro realised a range of emotions and evocations from anger and grandeur to tenderness and sorrow, the “Now is the Hour” refrain worked into the lines with a bitter-sweet sense of loss and grief, the poignancy of it all underlined by the sounds of breath accompanying the final strains.

An interval separated these larger-scale works from what seemed a more “relaxed” second-half, though with no lessening of focus or musical quality. Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s opera 1920 “Die Tote Stadt”, a work banned by the Nazis, was represented with “Marietta’s Song”, here sung by mezzo-soprano Margaret Medlyn, and accompanied by string quartet and piano (the last-named instrument omitted in the programme). No-one could deny the distinctive “Viennese” quality of this music, with the vocal line so beautifully partnered instrumentally in places – real, lump-in-the-throat stuff! Medlyn’s phrasing and shaping of the vocal line  “placed” the emotion of the moment as exquisitely and easefully as did the instrumental-only central part of the music, with first the ‘cello and then the viola taking up the melody with the piano. Everything seemed to simply “float” on a sea of intense emotion, the violin harmonics before the voice’s re-entry and at the song’s end capturing the beautiful and bitter-sweet essence of the work with the most acute delicacy and sensitivity.

Boris Pigovat, the Israeli composer whose “Holocaust Requiem” began  in 2008 the  “Kristellnacht” series of concerts in Wellington, was represented here by Nigun, a work written to express the “tragic spirit” the composer felt informed Jewish traditional music without quoting any such specific themes. Originally written for string orchestra in 1996, this version for viola quartet was made by the composer earlier this year (2019), and was premiered in Poland by an ensemble led by Lucy Liu, the leader of the “consort of violas” performing the work in this concert.

Beginning with a solo played by the leader – a recitative-like opening, reminiscent in parts of Ernest Bloch’s “Schelomo” – the piece’s different voices cleverly explore contrasting registers to diversify the textures and intensities of the music, not unlike a Baroque concerto would do. The piece’s structure – an introduction, followed by an intense building-up to a central climax, followed by a partly valedictory, partly tragic conclusion – was vividly realised, with energies properly spent and feeling seemingly exhausted at the piece’s end.

The concert concluded with a “selection of jazz and cabaret music from the camps” – beginning with a tango number put across with tremendous flair and a good deal of power of presence and voice by soprano Barbara Graham, realising the song’s ever-agglomerating intensity and focus towards a terrific climax – it sounded like Kurt Weill and it was! – a work called “Youkali” a “tango-habanera”, written in 1934 for an opera “Marie Galante”, the song a plea for peace and love in an imagined land “Youkali” of hope and desire. Graham was accompanied by pianist David Barnard and clarinettist Ben van Leuven.

For Graham’s final three songs, David Barnard took up the piano-accordion – the first of these was called “When a small package arrives”. Sung in Dutch, Graham delivered the wistful opening with pent-up longing, which broke into a polka-rhythm for the song’s main body, the singer charmingly translating the words for us during the music’s middle instrumental section.  Then came the “Westerbork Serenade”, famously and bizarrely recorded by two of the transit camp’s inmates, a popular singing duo ”Johnny and Jones”, in 1944, and here sung by both Graham and Barnard with fervour and energy. The Te Kōki Trio joined the duo for the final “Auschwitz Tango”, the words of the song, incredibly, written by a twelve year-old girl in Auschwitz, and translated by Graham at the song’s beginning – the music was dark, tragic and incredibly defiant, and the performance by the singer exemplary. It was all put across with almost unbearably laden strength of feeling, and so very movingly strong and resistant-sounding at the end, a veritable ballade of courage in the face of adversity and persecution – which, of course, was what the concert and its context was all about. An extraordinary experience!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cantoris steps up to two of the great choral masterpieces, successfully in the face of difficulties

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Cantoris Choir conducted by Mark Stamper, with Thomas Nikora (organ)
Soloists: Olivia Stewart, Lizzie Summers (sopranos), Sinéad Louise Keane (alto), Jeffrey Dick (tenor), Morgan-Andrew King (bass)

Handel: Dixit Dominus
Mozart: Vesperae solennes de confessore, K 339

Wellington Cathedral of ​St Paul

Saturday 9 November 2019, 7:30 pm

Handel’s Dixit Dominus was written in 1707 for the church of Santa Maria in Montesanto in Rome. He was in Italy between 1706 and 1710 and composed operas for Florence and Venice, but because the Vatican in Rome forbade opera, Handel wrote dramatic works in concert form, the most famous of which is the Dixit Dominus which is drawn from Psalm 110, part of the Catholic Vespers service, and thus related to the other work in the concert by Mozart.

It’s no secret that the Anglican Cathedral doesn’t offer an easy acoustic for many sorts of music, particularly large orchestral and choral works that, like most post-Renaissance music, is harmonically more complex and fast in tempo in many parts. This was the case here, particularly in brisker movements of both works with dense orchestral or choral passages. But it would be very hard to generalise as there were many, especially quieter parts, where the sounds were reasonably clear.

The concert encountered some problems during rehearsals. Richard Apperley withdrew from the organist’s role shortly before the concert and was replaced by Thomas Nikora who was to have conducted. He had not played the Cathedral’s organ and so had the challenge of mastering its manuals and registrations in a few days. A replacement had to be found for the podium, and Mark Stamper agreed to be ‘guest conductor’. There had been time for only two rehearsals and he admitted it had been a busy week!

There was also a late change to the soloists. Soprano soloist Jessie Rosewarne pulled out and Lizzie Summers, a soprano from the choir itself, stepped in and learned her solo parts in four days. It would have been hard to detect these problems, if we hadn’t been told.

Handel’s Dixit Dominus
Though I confess I miss an orchestra in both works, the lively, staccato opening of the first movement, the ‘Dixit Dominus’ itself, with Thomas Nikora at the digital organ was as good as one could expect; even if not quite what an ideal world would have given us, either from the now absent pipe organ let alone an orchestra. Solo voices were recruited from the New Zealand School of Music and though one could detect varying levels of skill and musicality, all performed their parts intelligently and in the appropriate spirit. The choir itself, though detail was sometimes clouded, had a brightness and warmth in all parts, but particularly the sopranos.

In the second part, ‘Virgam virtutis’, alto Sinéad Louise Keane sang attractively, her voice well projected in the upper register, while the organ rarely covered her.  The third section, ‘Tecum principium’, in brisk triple time, introduced the first of the two sopranos, Lizzie Summers (who I assumed took over the role of the first solo soprano), though physically slight, had a fine ringing voice, particularly in the upper register, and her intonation was good. The fourth section, ‘Juravit Dominus’, with a rather heavy organ introduction, returned the music to the choir alone, the next chorus singing in exclamatory spirit, singing again with clarity and energy. The choir again sang the next chorus, ‘Tu es sacerdos’, a lively movement with dense textures that were a bit troubled by the reverberant space.

All soloists, for the first time, and the choir sang the brisk, triple-time ‘Dominus a dextris tuis’. First, the two soprano soloists (Olivia Stewart and Lizzie Summers), and the alto, rising alternately in pitch, were joined by tenor Jeffrey Dick, and bass Morgan-Andrew King – both male singers present for the first time and making very good contributions. Next, Handel wrote music for ‘Judicabit in nationibus’, for chorus without soloists. But this was omitted, as I suspect the ‘conquasabits’ with which it ends might have seemed a bit barbaric and challenging. So the eight part became the seventh: ‘De torrente in via bibet’ (‘He shall drink of the brook’). It is a slow, penetential, rather beautiful chorus that opened with soprano at the top of the stave and alto, soon joined by chorus, women first and then men, in an affecting episode.

The last movement, ‘Gloria Patri, et Filio’, is predictably joyous and quite long with a staccato, incessant pulse and the usual protracted Amen.

Mozart’s Vesperae solennes
Mozart’s Vespers, the last work he wrote for the Salzburg Cathedral before he went to Vienna, was a great choice. It’s rare to have a concert that consists of two undisputed masterpieces, instead of the more common habit of attempting to get audiences to listen to undistinguished, uninteresting minor works along with just one great composition.

It struck me as strange and surprising to find, after the splendid Handel work, Mozart’s comparable setting of the Vespers service, that begins with Dixit Dominus, just a little less dramatic and, well, exciting than Handel’s. Yet its flowing lines with the full choir, sounded coherent and beautiful. The music of the ‘Confitebor’ struck me again as such an individual and imaginative setting, first with the full choir, then at ‘Memoriam fecit…’, with four soloists – the same as in the Handel (if I have them right, Stewart, Keane, Dick and King): there were some taxing ornaments in the alto part.

It always surprises me that the title ‘Beatus vir’ always brings to mind my teen-age encounter with the famous setting by Monteverdi on a 78 record that I’d unknowingly picked up. Since then I’ve heard many other settings, naturally, and Mozart’s is right up there! – a mixture of the solemn and the discursive in triple time, with voices seeming to speak to each other. Again the full choir sings the first couple of minutes and then, variously, solo voices took turns effectively.

‘Laudate pueri’ begins with an imposing and carefully articulated fugue which the choir handled well; followed by the well-known ‘Laudate Dominum’ sung with a sense of joy, but also consolatory expressiveness by both choir and soprano (Olivia Stewart).

The ‘Magnificat’ was ‘grand’ according to my notes. The choir not only coped well with the acoustic, but I thought they actually exploited the echo interestingly as the music rose and fell, and though I’m reluctant to single out individuals, the soprano was brilliant.

In spite of the comment where I rated the Handel a little ahead of the Mozart, I had now come to feel after these two adjacent performances that any such comparison was foolish, for I had again fallen in love with Mozart’s marvellous work.

To have programmed both in one concert was both brave and successful, and in spite of all the last-minute problems and the short rehearsal time, I felt at the end that the choir, organist and conductor had overcome them and had given the audience, especially those hearing them for the first time, a bit of a revelation.

NZSO: Salonen’s Violin Concerto points in a fruitful, inspiring direction; Schubert’s Greatness persists through 200 years

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Edo de Waart with Jennifer Koh (violin)

Esa-Pekka Salonen: Violin Concerto
Schubert: Symphony No 9 in C, D 944 (‘Great’)

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 8 November, 6:30 pm

Here was another NZSO concert that merited a bigger audience. Again, as at the 24 October concert, the gallery was well inhabited but the stalls rather sparse. A concert that is dominated by a very long work, unless by Mahler or perhaps Bruckner, suffers from a lack of variety and there needs to be a smaller, first-half piece that will overcome it, probably a familiar and well-loved concerto.

Finnish conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen is well-known as a conductor, but few would have heard any of the compositions he has been writing in an effort to establish a different career, and to contribute to a repertoire of more accessible music. But he may not yet be widely known, and it was unlikely that a much admired, and even popular violin concerto by him would thus get the kind of reception accorded to Beethoven, Tchaikovsky or Sibelius. Predictably, a couple of acquaintances remarked adversely about it at the interval.

Salonen’s Violin Concerto was written on the eve of his departure from 17 years as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in 2009. It was commissioned by The Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, among others, as a collaboration between Salonen and Canadian violinist Leila Josefowicz, who played the first performance. United States violinist Jennifer Koh, comparably alive to and inspired by the music’s character, played here. The programme notes quote his remarks at the time, writing that his move to the United States caused him to question the assumptions that his experiences in Europe had taught him: inter alia, to “avoid melody, clear harmonic centres and clear sense of pulse … over here I was able to think about this rule that forbids melody. It’s madness!”

So the concerto avoids most of the forbidding characteristics of a lot of music written in the past half century; yet it could never be heard as other than very ‘contemporary’. The first movement, Mirage, is far from what that word suggests; it’s hectic and energetic, a “razor-sharp violin toccata in constant motion”, Alex Ross called it. The solo violin opens as if in mid-flight and it’s soon joined by, first, subtle celeste sounds, then glockenspiel and vibraphone and some ringing chords from the harp.

Flutes and clarinets were added and then brass, along with prolonged string chords (noticing that Concert Master Vesa-Matti Leppänen’s place was taken by associate concert master Donald Armstrong while his place was taken by Martin Riseley). However, it’s the woodwinds and celeste that are the soloist’s main companions in the semiquaver department, though Koh was vividly centre stage, playing constantly through the near ten minutes of the first movement for all but a dozen or so measures.

The sound was uniquely Salonen, and I came to feel delight as the music of the first movement stormed along, steadily gaining familiarity, helped by the changes of tempo from time to time.

Two Pulses and Adieu
The next two movements are entitled Pulse I and II, driven in turn by an astonishing refinement in the singular orchestration, and then in Pulse II by an utterly different impulse, a sort of concerto grosso for violin and drum kit. It employed the log drum and other percussion again, acquiring the character of rock music by engaging with the jazz or rock percussion, including cymbals, tom-toms and occasionally vibraphone and marimba. And at the end the drum set is told to ‘go crazy’.

The finale, Adieu, is the longest movement, beginning with a quiet, dreamy solo violin, accompanied tellingly by solo viola, soon joined by bassoon, harp and quite prominently, cor anglais. Finally we heard from the battery of tuned gongs suspended behind the horns. As elsewhere in the concerto there were sounds, especially combinations of instruments, whose source eluded me, individually or in ensemble: from the gongs, vibraphone, harp, celeste…: their spirit was no less haunting than those in the elusive Pulse I. Edo de Waart knew how to exploit and enhance these beauties and managed it all with full attention to clarity, balance and expressiveness.

For me, this enchanting, energetic work epitomised the feelings I’ve long had, winning lively disapproval from avant-garde quarters, lamenting the prolonged dominance of music over the past century by determinedly difficult, academic, melody-free music. For this was a happy combination of the refined, deeply felt, sophisticated music from Europe, and some of the music of America which has been closer to popular roots and a better awareness of the likely death of classical music through intellectual, esoteric, universities-driven ideas. And it was played by a stunning young violinist evidently steeped in the idiom, with impressive conviction and a deep belief in the music’s worth and importance.

The Great Symphony
Schubert’s ninth symphony is one of music’s great masterpieces, and though I love Schubert’s music, there are features of this last symphony that give me a bit of trouble. The numbering of the symphonies is one interesting topic (there are perhaps three incomplete or perhaps non-existent ‘symphonies’ which would make The Great No 12 if they were counted); but of more musical concern is a matter the programme note ventured to discuss: the many repeats of melodies, without interesting development. Ever since the work’s discovery by Schumann in 1838, there have been questions about Schubert’s repetitive melodies that lacked change and variety. A common defence has been that Schubert was more interested in variety through tonal modulation, which scholars have pointed out was not common in the 19th century.

The first movement makes its claim to greatness right at the start with horns opening the 4-minute-long Andante: warm, legato sounds conjured a wonderful sense of peace. The brass section as a whole, that is the trumpets, trombones as well as horns, sounded unusually rapturous, building expectations of something portentous in the main body of the movement, Allegro ma non troppo. The pace, the dotted rhythms and the magnificent balance maintained by De Waart throughout, quickly created an expectation of a near hour of musical fulfilment and inspiration.

The Andante con moto marches at a steady pace gaining interest, as usual, through modulations that were not a common feature at the time, but making a profound impression: particularly the lengthy preparation for the stunning, dissonant climax in the middle of the movement, dramatically delivered. After that, the remaining half of the movement generated a sense of peace and beauty that never seemed too long.

Each movement is around a quarter of an hour, and after the slow movement, the formally repetitive Scherzo and Trio can sound too mechanical. Yet there are constant modulations, and one’s response depends on one’s openness to them; after all, the shift from C to A major at the Trio might hardly sound very exciting.

The repetition affair has, for me, been a noticeable matter in only some performances; and this was not one of them. There’s never any problem with the first ten minutes or so of a Schubert movement, and in the finale, Allegro vivace, audiences can read some kind of message in the famous Beethoven quote early in the second part of the movement. Beethoven is also there with Schubert’s use of trombones which had only just been used by Beethoven for the first time. The splendidly calm pace added to the sense of grandeur and contentment.

At a certain point the last movement might seem to repeat its main themes too often, but if you are presented with a performance from a conductor like De Waart who grasps the entire structure and is capable of investing it with grandeur and spiritual conviction, those repetitions actually help sustain it. And they speak to any listener with open ears and capable of perceiving genius in a work of art. Even a self-effacing composer like Schubert surely knew that his symphony was a masterpiece and an imposing sequel to Beethoven’s. That’s certainly what I experienced, and I felt exhilarated, deeply moved and at peace at the end.

 

Diverting and varied concert in The Queen’s Closet, devoted to all the pleasures at the Prefab

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Queen’s Closet period instrument ensemble

All the Pleasures:
Music by Henry and Daniel Purcell, John Barrett, William Topham, Godfrey Keller. a Holy Roman Emperor, Vincenzo Albrici, Johann Schmelzer, John Eccles, and Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber

Instrumentalists: Gordon Lehany (trumpet, recorder), Peter Reid (trumpet, cornetto), Sharon Lehany (hoboy), Rebecca Struthers (violin), Hyewon Kim (violin), Anne Loeser (violin), Peter Maunder (sackbut, recorder, trumpet), Jane Young (cello), Craig Bradfield (bassoon), Lachlan Radford (double bass), Kris Zuelicke (harpsichord), Laurence Reese (percussion)

Prefab Hall, 14 Jessie Street

Sunday 3 November, 5 pm

The lively atmosphere of the Prefab on Jessie Street provides a happy environment for all kinds of music, not least for classical music of all kinds. It facilitates experimental and early music, instrumental and choral, serious and whatever the opposite might be.

The Queen’s Closet consists partly of NZSO and Orchestra Wellington players as well as some whose provenance I don’t know.

The English Restoration
They devote themselves to the Restoration, the permissive, perhaps degenerate period from the return of the monarchy in 1660, Charles II, till, well, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when William of Orange and Mary took the throne, after which the more boisterously licentious plays and poetry faded away. The term is used most commonly about drama and Restoration Comedy is one of the liveliest, and indeed most licentious periods of the English theatre, with playwrights, Congreve, Dryden, Wycherley, Vanbrugh and Aphra Behn (a rare woman playwright). As well as poets, the most sexually frank being Rochester whose poems got quietly circulated around my English literature classes at university.  Please excuse the side-tracking; one became familiar with a lot of this in the 6th form in the days when English (and other) literatures were basic in the curriculum. Though at college, Congreve’s Way of the World was more acceptable than Wycherley’s The Country Wife …

None of the licentiousness could be detected in the music however.

The first item, the ‘symphony’ and ‘aria’ from Come ye Sons of Arts by Henry Purcell (1659-1695). (His younger brother Daniel, was represented later in this concert), exposed sackbuts, trumpet, the hoboy (early oboe), recorders, bassoon, strings, and the only appearance of the cornetto. The splendid introductory ‘Symphony’ exposed some of the technical challenges of the early wind instruments. Nevertheless, it left a lively impression of the emotional character as well as the fun that inspired music of the late 17th century.

Cornettos and sackbuts
For that’s what the concert was devoted to. Genial remarks by Gordon Lehany (I think) followed the Purcell, drawing attention to the less familiar instruments which included the cornetto played by Peter Reid. It’s an early, hybrid trumpet-recorder sub-species whose curious characteristics I sorted out many years ago, but I have no recollection of hearing it played live before this. But my efforts to record what was said and by whom was unreliable as some faces were unfamiliar and not all voices were loud or clear enough; and at times I could not see all players or the instruments they were playing. (I’m grateful to Sharon Lehany for help in clarifying things).

Though I am reasonably familiar with the early instruments used, it was interesting to hear Peter Maunder speak about the sackbut and its descendant, the trombone, and Peter Reid’s remarks about the cornetto. Reid and Gordon Lehany also played natural trumpets (without valves) impressively in John Barrett’s (1676-1719) music for the comedy, The Yeoman of Kent. (Looking it up: “Tunbridge-Walks, or, The yeoman of Kent : a comedy, as it is acted at the Theatre Royal by Her Majesty’s Servants”, was written by one Thomas Baker and printed in 1703.

The range of music chosen was highly diverting, and its performance sparkling and lively, at the small price of a (very) few fluffs from the fine replica instruments played.

An Imperial composer
The John Barrett piece was followed by a piece by ‘Emperor Joseph I of Austria’ (1678-1711) actually, I think, he was Archduke of Austria and at his father’s death became Holy Roman Emperor, a curious, elected imperial position involving weak hegemony over much of Europe). Anyway, he was a musician and the ensemble played a piece called Alma Ingrate, in which Maunder’s sackbut, supported by harpsichordist Kris Zuelicke, played its smooth, warm melody that required some fancy ornamentation towards the end.

There were 12 pieces in the programme; half were works entitled ‘sonatas’. The first of them was by one William Topham (1669-1709), ‘compos’d in imitation of Archangelo Corelli’, didn’t remind me of Corelli, involving two natural trumpets (Gordon Lehany and Peter Reid), as well as two violins.

The next sonata, by Godfrey Keller (??, died 1704), was for two flutes (actually two recorders played by Gordon Lehany and Peter Maunder) and two violins (Rebecca Struthers and HyeWon Kim?), Sharon Lehany’s hoboy and double bass (Lachlan Radford).

The third successive sonata was by Vincenzo Albrici (1631-1687): simply Sonata a 5 (spoken in Italian, ‘a cinque’). It involved two violins and double bass, then two trumpets and bassoon: rhythmic and quite short.

Daniel Purcell, Schmelzer. Biber and Eccles
The second half began with a Symphony to an Ode for Saint Cecilia’s Day by Daniel Purcell (1664-1717). Heavy timpani (Laurence Reese) introduced it; all three violins took part, first lamenting and later in fast triple time where the trumpets took charge.

There were three further sonatas, by Johann Heinrich Schmelzer (??1620-1680). He worked in the Habsburg court in Vienna under Emperor Leopold I (the father of the earlier mentioned Joseph I). The first of them, Per camera “al giorno delle Correggie”, employing sequences of rising then falling motifs, where I was attracted to Craig Bradford’s comic, perhaps rude, bassoon and HyeWon Kim’s violin.

I came across John Eccles (1668-1735), first as composer of a cello sonata and later in the music theatre context. He was perhaps, after Henry Purcell, the most famous English composer in the concert. He famously set Semele, an English ‘all-sung’ opera libretto by Congreve, in 1607, in the face of the domination of London by Italian opera; but it was not performed till 1972. Handel however set the libretto in 1744 – his only English language opera. Many believe that had Eccles’s opera been performed it might well have put an end to Italian domination, have led Handel to compose opera in English and profoundly changed the face of opera in England over the next two centuries.

More successful at the time was Eccles’s setting of Congreve’s masque The Judgement of Paris. They performed the ‘Symphony for Mercury’, the music distinctly more interesting and elaborate than much that had gone before: high trumpets echoing , then outshining violins; then a slow lament and a return to brisk dancing music led by Reese’s hand-held tambourine. It gave real life to the concert.

There were two further Schmelzer sonatas: the first – a sonata a tre – featuring a sort of competition between trumpet and Rebecca Struthers’ violin and Jane Young’s cello. And a multi-lingual ‘sonata con arie zu der kaiserlichen Serenade’, switching abruptly from noisy timpani to a calm adagio, brisk common time and then a sort of gigue, and marching, hard-hit timpani again.

The penultimate piece was by another important German composer Heinrich Ignaz Biber (1644-1704): a passacaglia using just four descending notes, repeatedly, with increasing decoration, as well as slowly becoming more complex and difficult, with growing emotional involvement. It ended as a much more interesting piece than its opening had suggested.

At the end a sort of encore emerged from the cello, and the sackbut: maintaining the spirit of the unexpected and unorthodox with always a quiet humour that kept the audience surprised, mocked, enlivened, puzzled, but overall, satisfyingly entertained.

Exceptional recital from Alexander Gavrylyuk gets tumultuous applause at Waikanae

Posted on by Steven Sedley

Alexander Gavrylyuk – piano

Waikanae Music Society

Mozart: Rondo in D, K485
Brahms: Rhapsody in G minor, Op 79 No. 2
               Intermezzo in B flat minor, Op 117 No. 2
               Intermezzo in C sharp minor, Op. 117 No. 3
Liszt: Paganini Étude No 6
Saint-Saëns: Danse-Macabre (Liszt / Horowitz)
Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition  

Memorial Hall, Waikanae

Sunday 3 November 2019, 2:30 pm

Alexander Gavrylyuk, the internationally celebrated Ukranian/Australian pianist, has become a regular visitor to Waikanae. He played there in 2017 and 2016, so I knew that we would be in for an exceptional concert. Peter Mechen, my colleague at Middle C, had written about the pianist’s ability to enchant his listeners with every note and in doing so, display a Sviatoslav Richter-like capacity to invest each sound with a kind of ‘centre of being’. Reviews of his concerts from all over the world attest to his brilliance. Engaging him for Waikanae after New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Russia, France, the Netherlands and the Wigmore Hall in London is a great coup for the Waikanae Music Society.

The hall was full. The gorgeous Fazioli piano, perhaps the best piano in New Zealand, was on the stage, and the artist, a slight modest young man, appeared from behind the screen, sat down and started to play.

Mozart Rondo in D K485
The notes, flew like butterflies, effortlessly. This was a magician conjuring up music with cascading notes, the music reflecting different shades with each repeat of the theme; an understated humour distinguished the piece. Gavrylyuk played it fast with a light, ethereal air. This is a joyful piece. The main theme was borrowed from Johann Christian Bach and it appears in various transformations, modulating into distant keys and transposed from treble to bass, making this a fairly complex but delightful Rondo.

Brahms Rhapsody and Intermezzi
The Mozart Rondo was followed by a bracket of Brahms works calling for a very different musical vision. Though the Rhapsody was written in 1879, the two Intermezzi are late Brahms, when he came back to writing short works for the piano, creating new genres for these pieces. The Rhapsody in G minor is built around a grand theme, which Gavrylyuk played broadly with a rich, mellow sound. The piece gradually increased in intensity, yet within this intensity he brought out the full flowering of the lyrical passages.

The two Intermezzi were of contrasting character. The music critic, Eduard Hanslick, described them as thoroughly subjective, personal monologues. The B flat minor Intermezzo is gentle, singing, with themes which evolve and transform one into another. The C sharp minor Intermezzo is a profoundly sad work which Brahms described as the lullaby of all his griefs. It is like a song, a prayer.

Gavrylyuk brought out its dark yet resigned depth.

Liszt Paganini Étude No 6
Paganini gave new meaning to the idea of the virtuoso. He produced sounds and effects on the violin that were previously unimaginable. He had the personality of the virtuoso showman. Liszt, with his incredible technique on the grand piano set about cultivating an image of the virtuoso like Paganini’s and wrote these studies on themes by Paganini and as a homage to him, arranging them after Paganini’s death. Of these No. 6, based on Paganini’s 24th Caprice is the best known. It is spectacular and fiendishly difficult, showing off the potential of the instrument and the skills of the artist.

Danse-Macabre
My father, when he was a young man, had heard Horowitz in concert, and for him there was no pianist like him, he was indisputably No. 1. I grew up with a 78 rpm record of Horowitz playing this piece. It is brilliant and hair-raising. Liszt transcribed Saint-Saëns’ orchestral tone-poem for piano and Horowitz added further embellishment and technical difficulties to Liszt’s version. It did not, however, daunt Gavrylyuk. He played effortlessly, showing off what a fine pianist can do. The performance was fun and his mastery of the technical challenges was prodigious.

Pictures at an Exhibition
Mussorgsky’s ten colourful piano pieces were composed in memory of his friend, the painter, Victor Hartmann. Each piece captures in sound one of Hartmann’s 400 paintings. They range from the comic, Gnomus, the nostalgic The Old Castle, the playful Tuilleries, the frentic Ballet of the Unhatched Chickens, the ponderous turning of the heavy wheels in Bydlo, the pompous and satirical Goldberg and Schmuyle, the busy Marketplace at Limoges, the ghostly Catacombs: Roman Sepulchre, the absurd and bizarre Little Hut on Chicken Legs, and finally the majestic Great Gate of Kiev. They are connected with Promenades, each Promenade different, suggesting a spectator walking, in anticipation, from picture to picture. There is mystery, melancholy and humour in the work and a measure of the Russian spirit of national identity reflected in the Great Gate of Kiev with its Russian Orthodox chants. A spectacular and memorable performance.

This was an amazing concert and the tumultuous applause of the large audience reflected their enjoyment and appreciation; it was a privilege to hear one of the great pianists of the younger generation. His playing was stunning, and the memory of it will be cherished by all who heard it. The nagging question, however, is why we had to travel to Waikanae, a small seaside town, to hear one of the finest pianists to visit New Zealand. Alexander Gavrylyuk plays in some of the greatest concert halls of the world, but those responsible for providing the best in music for the New Zealand public can’t organize a concert for him in the Michael Fowler Centre: neither a solo recital nor a concerto appearance in Wellington with the NZSO. Before the New Zealand Broadcasting Service and the then National Orchestra were restructured such a concert would have been held in the Town Hall and would have been broadcast for a wide audience to enjoy. Much has been lost in the restructuring.

Post scriptum
It is unusual for a reviewer to comment on his own review, but I regret that although I consider that I wrote a fair and accurate review of Alexander Gavrylyuk’s concert I failed to capture its essence.
It was not a concert like any other. It was an experience that would stay with those who were there. The music seemed to just sprout from the artist, like someone musical utterance in a trance. Perhaps it was an idiosyncratic performance. Some of the pieces might have seemed a little faster or slower than usually played, but they all seemed to be the expression of the inner of the soul of the artist. There was a spontaneity and fluidity about Gavrylyuk’s playing that is impossible to capture in words. He just created music there in front of us, totally absorbed in the music. The music spoke directly to the listeners’ inner beings. It was magic.
Steven Sedley 

Triumph tempered by sadness – Hutt Valley Chamber Music faces dissolution despite a sensational 40th anniversary season capped off by the remarkable Diedre Irons

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Hutt Valley Chamber Music presents:
HVCM’s final 40th anniversary concert with Diedre Irons (piano)

Music by JS Bach, Beethoven, Liszt and Schumann

JS BACH – Concerto in the Italian Style BWV 971
BEETHOVEN – Piano Sonata No.23 in F Minor Op.57 “Appassionata”
LISZT – Piano Sonata in B Minor S.178

Diedre Irons (piano)

St.Mark’s Church, Lower Hutt

Thursday 31st October 2019

The evening was earmarked as a celebration, a culmination of the 40th year of presenting chamber music in Lower Hutt by the Hutt Valley Chamber Music Society. And the choice of pianist Diedre Irons to give the concert this evening couldn’t have been more appropriate, as back in October 1980 she and the then-concertmaster of the NZSO, Peter Schaeffer performed a recital as one of the Society’s concerts during that opening season. However, by contrast with the joy and optimism of that inaugural year of music-making, this latest occasion gave cause for great sadness, being the Society’s swan-song of concert-giving, until further notice – for a number of reasons, there are no plans for a 2020 Hutt Valley Chamber Music series.

Diedre herself reminded her audience of that long-standing connection she had with the Society’s concerts after she was invited to cut the “Celebration cake” at the concert’s end, expressing the hope in doing so that the Society would rise again, “like a phoenix from the ashes”. The Society’s problem is similar to that of a decade ago, when it seemed that there were not enough volunteers to form a committee with sufficient numbers to run the concerts in 2010 – on that occasion help was forthcoming – but now, ten years on, after retirements at the end of this year, only four committee-members will be left, with no immediate prospect of new and interested people available to offer their services. This has been in spite of frequent verbal pleas to audiences at concerts and statements made in newsletters, as well as through general networking.

We at Middle C have already expressed our alarm at the prospect, my colleague, Lindis Taylor having reflected at the “catchment” of the HVCM Society being approximately 35% of Greater Wellington’s population, and describing the loss as “a very regrettable hole in the region’s musical scene”. Considering the quality and richness of the 2019 concerts, the removal of the series is nothing less than a tragedy for music-lovers in the region, and must surely be similarly viewed by those authorities concerned with maintaining the range and scope of Hutt Valley’s overall pool of cultural activities.

This particular concert, by dint of its outstanding quality, served to further underline the tragedy of any such impending loss. It also reinforced the fact of our having been so fortunate that Diedre Irons chose all those years ago to make New Zealand her home,  bringing with her, as she has done, such an all-encompassing range of skills relating to her piano-playing, to the delight and enrichment of thousands of people throughout her adopted country. For here was a kind of apogee of the pianist’s art laid out for our gratification and pleasure, via her playing of three of the greatest works for the keyboard ever composed.

Though written for performance on a two-manual harpsichord, and designed to employ the contrast in the music between “solo” and “orchestral” writing for the player between the hands, JS Bach’s “Italian Concerto” has become a favourite of pianists everywhere, all relishing the challenge of realising these contrasting passages on a single keyboard. The work’s three movements provide the fast-slow-fast framework of a concerto, while different voicings inflect both the single lines and the contrasting two-handed, “orchestral” aspects of the music.

From the beginning, Irons’ playing had strength and vigour, the opening paragraph a veritable  irruption of joyful energies, everything having a “schwung” kind of quality that seemed to give the music all the elbow-room it needed. Further into the movement I found myself beguiled by the waxing and waning of so many hues and colours from out of the pianist’s different  phrasings, Bach refracting and reimagining his material before our very ears, until the opening flourish returned almost laughingly, bringing us to a full, deliciously burgeoning circle!

My view of Bach’s slow movements has never been the same since listening to ‘cellist Raeul Pierard’s “masterclass” performances of the ‘Cello Suites about a year ago, a saga whose guided journey “opened up” the composer’s emotional world for me to a hitherto unrealised extent – https://middle-c.org/2018/11/baching-at-the-moon-cellist-raeul-pierard-at-st-peters-on-willis-wellington/ Here in the Concerto’s middle movement murmured depths of emotion, out of which, under Irons’ fingers, both the stoically-repeated accompaniment and the exposed melodic line created arabesques of feeling through which we drifted in wonderment, a deeper, richer accompaniment intensifying the sequence’s repetition, its sighing conclusion framed by two deeply-felt trills.

Irons’ touch throughout the work’s finale seemed to me to enable us to leave the world of keys and hammers behind, the instrument transformed into something magical admitting to no age or era, merely a “transport of delight” whose tones sing, chatter, whisper and chuckle in all registers, maintaining that sense of captivation by the music which the pianist seems to me to bring to whatever she plays – a joyous experience for all!

I last heard Irons play the mighty “Appassionata” Sonata of Beethoven’s at Wellington Cathedral, of all places, something of a surreal sonic experience in that fearsome reverberation. Partly to her credit and partly due to our sitting as close to the pianist as we could, she seemed to me to make as much musical sense as was possible of the work amid the haloed ambiences of resonance that threatened to swamp much of the fine detail. It was a truly “enhanced” musical event, the sound-picture akin to, in sonic terms, “a mighty Polypheme”, at once fascinating and grotesque to experience.

By comparison, here in the relatively modest confines of Woburn’s St.Mark’s Church, one could appreciate in an almost completely untrammelled way the pianist’s mastery of the music, the portentous opening gestures disturbingly reaching upwards and into the light, before conflagrating and, avalanche-like, rolling thunderously down into the music’s brooding folds, glint-eyed gestures of defiance having their say before giving way to an opening-up of rich, warmly-laden utterances, the defiant opening theme turned on its head and transformed here into something almost Prospero-like in its wisdom. Irons took us into the heart of each episode, relishing each of the work’s tumultuous arpeggiated episodes leading firstly to the appearance of the ominous Fifth-Symphony-like four-note motif, and then the latter’s even more portentous reappearance just before the movement’s tempestuous coda, the playing encompassing a climax and a dying fall whose force and focus left us stunned!

The middle movement’s theme-and-variations here unfolded simply and directly, with Irons giving the second-half of each of the sequences a crescendo-like flowering of warmth and strength, grown beautifully from the first half’s simplicity. She galvanised us with her rapier-like repetition of the questioning upward gesture at the movement‘s end, and the finale was upon us like the surge of a rapidly-burgeoning river in flood. Irons’ command of the music’s trajectories was total, conjuring up as many ghostly half-lights as there were full-blooded onrushings, the onslaught less a question of tempo and more of focused energy and momentum, the music here controlled, there unleashed, and everything balanced within the vistas of a tumultuous overview – to the point that, when Irons DIDN’T plunge into the movement’s (admittedly controversial) second-half repeat, and went straight on into the work’s coda, I found myself for the very first time in my experience not objecting, so taken-up was I with what she WAS doing instead with it all, to resoundingly satisfying effect! – an amazing performance!

In the wake of such an onslaught of focused musical impulse the Liszt B Minor Sonata held its head up proudly, the work’s unities and diversities finely-judged by the pianist, her playing underlining the shape and intent of the structure, while bringing out the music’s poetry and nobility. Liszt hides nothing in this work by artifice or false emotion – every gesture is whole-hearted and part of an overall integration of thought and feeling, as is the almost alchemic synthesis of the work’s different motifs – a remarkable achievement by the composer, and one which Irons enhanced with her acute instinct for proportion and varied emphasis throughout.

Right from the beginning of the work a kind of urgency informed the proceedings, of the kind which sought out essences rather than glossed over them, and honed them to their sharpest extent – the first few pages of the Sonata give the listener nearly all the material the composer is going to use throughout the whole, single-movement work,  Irons here displaying an almost alchemic flair with each fragment in its delineation and later development. At every turn I felt her playing triumphantly balanced the work’s virtuoso elements with the more inward, poetic content, in a way that left one in no doubt as to the logic of the composer’s thinking and the creative mastery of it all.

Faced with such a recreative achievement one hesitates to dwell on any single aspect of Irons’  performance – but I couldn’t help but be particularly moved on this occasion by the delicate poetry of the “Consolations-like” theme at the piece’s very heart, which all but held the music’s pulsings still for a few precious moments, just before the fugue’s darker purpose grew out of the still-to-be-negotiated journeyings – here, its evocation felt to me almost Dante-ish, life-journeying stuff, like a glimpse through a window into a pilgrim’s soul, and as such, a precious and profound moment.

Very great acclaim at the piece’s conclusion from us all for Diedre Irons, who then treated us to an encore in the form of Schumann’s well-known “Träumerei”, a performance which, to my surprise, I must confess to finding somewhat enigmatic from this pianist in its most uncharacteristic “matter-of-factness”, the notes to my ears expertly but somewhat plainly sounded – I reasoned that, at the conclusion of such a recital, a performer’s instinct may well be to return us to our lives, rather than weave further ongoing spells of enchantment. Whatever the case, and however unexpected, it still didn’t lessen the impact of a remarkable recital, one whose resonances will surely fuel our hopes for some kind of as-yet-unspecified “revival” of chamber music performance in the Hutt Valley for the future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Diverting recital by senior NZSM tutors Inbal Megiddo and Jian Liu at St Andrew’s lunchtime

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s lunchtime concerts

Inbal Megiddo (cello) and Jian Liu (piano)

Music by Boccherini, Manuel de Falla, Mendelssohn  and David Popper

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 30 October, 12:15 pm

A larger than usual audience came in from the sun to hear these two members of the music faculty of Victoria University (known as the New Zealand School of Music).

Boccherini
They began with one of Boccherini’s cello sonatas: one on A major. A look at the Boccherini catalogue shows 29 cello ‘sonatas, for cello solo (and basso)’, which is believed to mean probably a second cello; most were written when he was young. Of those, two are in A major, the second of which (No 13) was one of the few published in his life-time (unauthorised by the composer according to the programme notes).  However, there’s one in A major that is played by several cellists on YouTube: listed as G. 4 or No 6. Coming across these a few days after the recital, I doubt that this is what Megiddo played.

In any case it was clear at the start why this one has been found worthy of attention today. The music was distinctive and satisfyingly varied through its two movements, and Megiddo played authoritatively, nimbly and with a keen ear to its style and musical substance; this was an interesting, melodious piece that whets the appetite to hear more. As several writers have remarked, though Boccherini has attracted much more attention in the past couple of decades, his very large body of worthwhile music including a dozen cello concertos, is still seriously neglected.

De Falla
That was followed by Manuel de Falla’s Suite populaire espagnole which is an arrangement of Siete canciones populares españolas (‘seven Spanish popular songs’ – the second song, ‘Seguidilla murciana’, was left out of the arrangements that have been made for various instruments). They are widely different in character, a factor in their wide popularity; but they also offer very rewarding opportunity for other musicians, and Megiddo and Liu made flamboyant, colourful yet sensitive use of them.  Though my first impression was that the cello didn’t capture all the sparkle and dancing character of pieces like the ‘Jota’ and the ‘Canción’, it created a different, more mature character. Jian Liu’s piano made a bigger contribution in these pieces, particularly distinctive in the ‘Polo’.

A Song Without Words
One of Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words was written for cello and piano, not, like all the others, for piano alone. He published eight books of Songs Without Words for solo piano, six in each, plus some others not published in his lifetime: Decca has recorded a ‘complete’ edition totally 56 pieces. Op 109 was written two years before his early death aged 38. I was surprised to find this lovely piece quite familiar, though I had not been aware of its source; typically charming and played most expressively.

David Popper 
Liszt was not the only composer of Hungarian Rhapsodies; David Popper, Czech cellist, was a prolific composer, mainly for the cello. (I still have a relatively easy piece, Gavotte No 2, Op 23, that I played as a student). His Nocturne No 4 (Op 47) and Hungarian Rhapsody, Op 68 made a nice pair. The Nocturne was quite long with a prominent, interesting piano part, showing Popper as much more than merely a cello virtuoso. The Hungarian Rhapsody prompted the word ‘expostulation’ in my notes, and was a pretty spectacular piece, quite as bravura in style as Liszt’s pieces with the same name, and as startling to watch as to listen to.

 

Three Beethoven string quartets from brilliant Ébène Quartet: part of their world-wide project

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Ébène Quartet
Pierre Colombet, and Gabriel Le Magadure – violins; Marie Chilemme – viola, Raphaël Merlin – cello

Beethoven Live
String Quartet No 2 in G, Op 18 no 2
String Quartet No 11 in F minor, Op 95 (‘Serioso’)
String Quartet No 10 in E flat, Op 74 (‘Harp’)

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 25 October 7:30 pm

The concert by the Ébène Quartet was probably the most looked forward to concert of the 2019 Chamber Music New Zealand series, though Middle C this year is not really in a position to make a comprehensive comparison. We missed at least a couple of concerts, including that by the Brodsky Quartet in May.

Ébène is a quartet with far more strings to its bows than merely hard-core classical stuff. They are alleged to be equally at home in jazz and film music, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they ventured into heavy metal and hip-hop too.

One cannot shield oneself altogether from the influence of overseas critiques of prominent groups or from occasional hearings on RNZ Concert; and it was clear from the very first notes there was something remarkable here. The French quartet have, this and early next year, devoted themselves to celebrating Beethoven’s 250th birthday (December 2020) by performing all his string quartets around the world. And they are recording a 7 CD box for Erato Warner.

Opus 18 no 2 in G
They had the secret of making each of the three quartets chosen for New Zealand (one  other concert, in Auckland) sound like an extraordinary masterpiece, and furthermore, sound as if one had never heard the piece properly before. Op 18 no 2 opened in the most fragile and delicate way imaginable.  But nothing was so febrile that it didn’t emerge meaningfully, with clarity and wide-ranging emotional liveliness and depth, – particularly the interesting development section. The hesitant refinement of the Adagio cantabile seemed to be a matter of delicacy rather than lyricism, though the uniqueness of the second movement comes with the unexpected Allegro that bursts uninvited on the movement’s predominant spirit, and just as abruptly reverts to the character of the first section again.

In the sparkling Scherzo it struck me that in places there was a curious contrast between the melody line and the lower strings; and even though it’s one of the early instances of the Minuet movement being replaced by a Scherzo, Beethoven fills it with unexpected twists that the players exploited with taste and wit.

And the last movement sustains the spirit of what G major is thought to suggest: spirited, perhaps rustic, though such notions strike a cynic, without perfect pitch, as fanciful. Nevertheless, the Allegro molto finale met these expectations with special delight and imaginativeness.

No 11 in F minor – ‘Serioso’
The other two quartets were Nos 10 and 11, labelled as ‘late middle period’, and they are the last before the final five ‘Late Quartets’. This was probably written in 1811, first performed in 1814. If you’re paying attention to the spiritual nature of keys, this F minor quartet seems to fill the bill for F minor: grieving, melancholic; though the first movement is nevertheless full of energy, with abrupt dynamic changes, and the players highlighted these, emphasising the despair suggested by its quiet disappearance at the end. I’ve never heard the second movement, marked Allegretto ma non troppo, played with such hesitancy in spite of the second violin’s long staccato accompaniment that seemed to dominate the mood as others uttered quiet gestures that didn’t really consist of melody. The third movement is also entitled Allegretto, but ‘assai vivace ma serioso’, rather than Scherzo – which it emphatically is not. Its unchanging, intense disquiet was here expressed with more than usual subtlety and other-worldliness. The last movement opens with the most ‘serioso’ feeling of all – it’s marked Larghetto espressivo and even though it accelerates, a feeling of frenzied insecurity dominated the performance, and was alleviated by startling refinement. One is left uneasy even after the final frantic bars at high speed.

The Harp Quartet, Op 74
The title ‘Harp Quartet’ has always seemed to me an odd misnomer as the odd passages of pizzicato are hardly of critical significance in the score, in spite of the case made for them by the writer of the programme notes. The players began the Poco adagio introduction to the first movement with an infinite, remote subtlety that seemed to lie somewhere between the confidence of the Op 18 work and the sombre ‘Serioso’. But the Allegro itself departed at once from any hesitancy with an ebullient lyricism as well as, in this performance, almost a feeling of turmoil; though always with feet on the ground. The second movement, soberly labelled Adagio ma non troppo, has been variously characterised: it’s simply meditative and beautiful, and they played the long quiet passages with a dreamy unease.

Then the third movement, Presto, which Beethoven again avoids using the word Scherzo to describe, was strangely passionate, almost furious in its seriousness especially, after a couple of minutes, with the dynamic cello-led, chaotic sort of chase.  If it wasn’t for the tempo change from triple to common time, it’s easy to overlook the arrival of the last movement, which follows with hardly a pause, and which might be heard as something of an elaboration, emotionally, of the Presto.  It’s a protracted, complex movement, even though formally, it’s merely an old-fashioned theme and variations. The players invested it with a wonderful feeling of ease and ethereal richness; and the quirkiness of the final accelerated bars seemed to epitomise the wonderful range and expressive variety that this quartet could bring to performances of the greatest music.

 

Admirable NZSO concert touching several rewarding themes: all German apart from Ken Young’s new piece

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jun Märkel with Samuel Jacobs (French horn)

Kenneth Young: Te Māpouriki
Mozart: Symphony No 31 in D, K 297 ‘Paris’
Strauss: Horn Concerto No 1 in E flat, Op 11
Mendelssohn: Overture: Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, Op 27
Schumann: Symphony No 1 in B flat, Op 38 ‘Spring’

Michael Fowler Centre

Thursday 24 October, 7:30 pm

I had guessed perhaps a bit cynically, that this might not be a hugely well attended concert. The balcony was well populated but the stalls were rather thin. The absentees made a serious mistake.

Its programme looked unorthodox: a relatively brief concerto for horn, an overture at the beginning of the second half, and two symphonies. And a new composition by Ken Young to mark the 250th anniversary of Cook’s first visit to New Zealand.

Mozart: Paris Symphony
The earliest music was Mozart’s ‘Paris’ Symphony, No 31 in D major, written in the hope of pleasing Paris audiences on his 1778 visit to Paris with his mother who died there; his father, Leopold, held Wolfgang responsible. The symphony generally met with the approval of audiences at the Parisian Concert Spirituel where it had several performances. As the programme notes remarked, Mozart was pleased to have a larger orchestra than he was used to in Vienna and he scored this symphony accordingly, in particular, for clarinets for the first time. Apart from the absence of trombones which didn’t arrive in symphonies till Beethoven’s 5th symphony, we heard a wind section that was widespread well into the next century.

The result was music that sounded more ‘symphonic’ in a 19th century sense than anything Mozart had written before and Märkel drew luminous playing of great clarity, achieving distinct contrasts between instruments, though subtle and unpretentious. Charming, crisp themes in the first movement, a gently rhythmic, unpretentious second movement; no minuet third movement, but straight into the Allegro last movement, illuminated alternately with subtlety and energy.

I noted certain player absences: no Andrew Joyce leading the cellos; concertmaster Vesa-Matti Leppänen’s place taken by Associate Donald Armstrong whose place was taken in turn by one-time concert-master Wilma Smith.

Mendelssohn overture
Next in chronological order was the youthful Mendelssohn’s overture, Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage (1828), based on two poems by Goethe. The note pointed out that ‘calm sea’ misrepresents the poet’s meaning which really describes a ‘becalmed’ ship, a matter of serious concern in the days of sailing ships. However, the becalmed episode was breathlessly beautiful.

Fairly clearly, it was chosen as a possible allusion to Cook’s voyages, the subject of Kenneth Young’s piece, discussed later.

It’s a gorgeous, magically orchestrated work, and Märkel presided over a delightful performance, with a charming flute solo introducing the rising wind that enables the ship to make way again. Though written a couple of years after Mendelssohn’s even earlier (16) masterpiece, A Midsummer Night’s Dream overture, it’s no less inspired and masterful. And it reminded me of the former programming tradition of starting concerts with an overture; very rare these days.

This overture is among the many that need to be resurrected, as there’s nothing like of one the scores of beautiful, memorable, thrilling overtures to implant a love of music in young minds: in my youth, an overture almost invariably opened a concert opener, and overtures opened every evening’s 6pm ‘Dinner Music’ programme on RNZ Concert’s predecessor which was important in guiding my own musical explorations.

Schumann’s ‘Spring’ Symphony
Putting a symphony by Schumann together with the Mendelssohn, who was only a year older, was an inspired little gesture, and not merely as our Spring might be arriving. Schumann wrote his first symphony a decade later, in 1841. Apart from Berlioz’s Fantastique, it was the first important and successful symphony since the deaths of Beethoven and Schubert.

Schumann’s orchestral works have long been rather neglected, smeared ritually with criticisms of his orchestration. But this was a performance that should have won the ‘Spring’ Symphony hundreds of new fans. It was revelatory, both for its inspired, lyrical music and its originality, and very importantly through the colourful, lively performance itself, with Märkel’s careful attention to dynamic and rhythmic subtleties that simply lifted the spirit. It’s a work that suffers if played too seriously, with rhythms that are too careful; but this, throughout, was simply beguiling and brilliant: alive with sudden tempo and dynamic changes.

Strauss: Horn concerto No 1
Forty years later the eighteen-year-old Richard Strauss wrote a horn concerto for his horn-playing father (he wrote another during the Second World War). This performance with the NZSO’s principal horn player, Samuel Jacobs, was marked by an authentic stateliness and polish from the first bars; it might have been formally akin to Mozart’s horn concertos, but not so high spirited. There was calm beauty in the playing of the slow movement, and the return to the Allegro of the last movement was something of a renewal of the character of the first. In all a splendid exhibition of precocious composition and brilliant horn playing.

Just to prove that he was not simply a good player of the valve horn, Jacobs returned after spirited applause with a dull bronze coloured natural horn and danced his way through a piece by Rossini: Rendez-vous de Chase (arranged by one Hamuera Makawhio); Wikipedia tells me it’s also known as Fanfare pour quatre trompes composée pour Monsieur le baron Schickler. It was flawless and the audience was transfixed.

Kenneth Young: Te Māpouriki
Ken Young’s piece, Te Māpouriki, opened the concert: an attempt to depict James Cook’s arrival in New Zealand – the actual 250th anniversary this month. It was immediately attractive, opening with a calm, luminous, beautifully orchestrated passage dominated by flutes and piccolo in gentle dancing music. That was soon disturbed by underlying, throbbing, uneasy bass sounds that led to an troubled alternation with the treble woodwinds. Then came the surprising arrival of the New Zealand National Anthem; I couldn’t decide whether it was intended as an ironic comment, suggesting the intrusion of Europeans on the peace-loving native peoples who’d lived in the country for about three hundred years, and had devoted much of their time to waging war with each other.

A touch of history
The dominant feeling of the piece settled around this contrast between gentle, peaceful lamentation, and dissonant, intrusive conquest by more barbaric forces. But I was reluctant to interpret the music in the manner of some of the historically ill-informed, distorted interpretations of Cook’s exploration and the enlightened intentions that guided him in his approach to native peoples with whom he made contact. But the programme notes gave me no comfort from such misrepresentation.

I was mystified by Young’s remarks quoted in the programme notes, “…and Cook, the man unable to divest himself of his background as a hegemonic absolutist…” and that he was “unable to deny the arrogant and imperialistic nature of his temperament and agenda”.

Cook’s brief was to explore, to observe planetary phenomena – the Transit of Venus in Tahiti and the Transit of Mercury at another location which turned out to the Coromandel Peninsula. It’s as if mankind’s urge to explore his planet had not been increasingly important at least from the Renaissance. He was emphatically NOT urged to claim territory, and did not do so.

Indeed, the programme notes seemed to turn away from the better-informed and historically objective views that make it clear that we cannot always apply today’s attitudes to historical events.

Cook, as well as other explorers in the Pacific at the time, such as De Surville who almost encountered Cook around North Cape and Marion du Fresne were creatures of the Enlightenment – in the case of the French, deeply affected by Rousseau’s views on ‘the noble savage’, and they made serious efforts to deal with indigenous people humanely. Du Fresne, after five weeks of exemplary relations with Maori at the Bay of Islands in 1772, was killed along with 24 of his crew, evidently for unknowingly breaching sacred rituals.

The British Royal Society’s advice to Cook embodied this Enlightenment spirit and it’s very clear that Cook and the scientists and artists accompanying him took these matters very seriously.

In the case of Cook at Turangnui-a-Kiwa (Gisborne), his men were attacked and their reprisals, not sanctioned in any way by Cook, were a matter of extreme regret to Cook and his companions.

Nor is anything to be gained from attributing blame for unfortunate events of the past to just one group, especially when the behaviour of the explorers was exemplary by any standards and certainly were, in the context of the late 18th century.

The wrongs between Maori and Europeans occurred not with Cook’s contacts, but with the arrival of whalers and sealers and other adventurers, and during the period of the murderous Musket Wars between Maori iwi in the decades before 1840. In those wars perhaps 10,000 Maori were killed without any involvement by Europeans whatsoever. Nor is there any argument about the unjust and exploitative dealings by land-hungry settlers during the period after the establishment of self-government in New Zealand, from around the 1860s – almost a century after Cook’s arrival here.

It might be useful for those parading these ill-informed views, to read the unimpeachable article by Graeme Lay in the Listener of 12 October.

None of this detracts from Young’s very engaging music and Jun Märkel’s sensitive and sympathetic performance. Whatever its inspiration, its musical and emotional characteristics were most interesting and the orchestra conjured a satisfying feeling of imaginative, descriptive music.

Intelligent programming of piano duets from markedly contrasted pianists at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Steven Sedley

St. Andrews lunchtime concert

Piano Duets by Debussy, Brahms and Rachmaninoff

Sunny Cheng and Kris Zuelicke, piano

St. Andrews on the Terrace.,Wellington

Wednesday 23 October 2019, 12:15 pm

Outside it is a bleak, stormy day, but step inside St. Andrews, get warm and listen to some beautiful music and you feel better. Sunny Cheng and Kris Zuelicke are both experienced, skilled pianists, active performers and piano teachers in Wellington. They make a formidable a piano duet team. Their senses of the piano are different; one hears the piano as more of a percussive, rhythmic instrument, while the other as lyrical and melodic. The two pianists complemented each other, in a conversation, a discussion, rather than a unanimous single voice. They presented a carefully constructed programme, four pieces or movements by three very different composers, Debussy, Brahms and Rachmaninoff.

Claude Debussy: Petite Suite for piano four hands, L.65

This is young Debussy, colourful music, perhaps better known in its orchestral version. It is fragile, meditative, other-worldly. This was a technically impressive performance, but some of the fragility, imaginative resonance was missing. The emphasis was on ‘captivating rhythms’ rather than on the ‘lyrical melodies’ alluded to in the programme notes. Still, it was a pleasure to hear these little works, a gentle boat ride, a parade full of colour, a nostalgic echo of the Menuet of an earlier era, and the final movement, the energetic Ballet.

Johannes Brahms: Souvenir de la Russie for piano four hand. Anh IV/6

Brahms was still a teenager, playing the piano in a Hamburg tavern when he was approached by a music publisher to arrange some of the Russian music he might have played or heard for piano duet. These charming little songs are based on Russian and Bohemian folk songs and some considered them to be misattributed to Brahms, but whoever arranged them they are melodious, easy listening. Sunny Cheng and Kris Zuelicke chose four pieces of the collection of six, Der Zweig (the Branch), In der Morgendämmerung wecke sie nicht (Don’t wake her at dawn), Die Nachtingall (The nightingale), and Ein Grosses Dorf liegt auf dem Weg (There is a big village by the road).

These were selected for their connection to the Russian themed duets of Rachmaninoff that followed. The two pianists changed sides, Zuelicke playing treble and Cheng the bass, and the music had a different feel, not just because young Brahms was different from Debussy, but also because the playing had a more mellow quality.

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Four selections from Six Duets, Op.11

Barcarolle is a theme linked to the opening of the concert, Debussy’s En Bateau. Both suggest gliding of oars over water. Scherzo is an energetic movement of highly contrasting sections, Valse suggests the air of a ball a frequent feature of Russian literature, while Slava (Celebration) is based on an old Russian liturgical chant used in the coronation scene in Boris Godunov. This final work was a rollicking conclusion to a fine recital.

This was intelligent programming and the programme notes were informative.

The St. Andrews Wednesday lunch time concerts provide a wonderful opportunity to hear some of the outstanding local talent. It also gives musicians a chance to shine in a public recital. These two pianists deserved to be heard in this delightful enjoyable concert.