Category: Reviews – Concerts

Wellington Chamber Music’s fine, imaginative violin and piano recital from Beer and Watkins

Posted on by Steven Sedley

Wellington Chamber Music
Andrew Beer (violin) and Sarah Watkins (piano)

Ravel: Sonata No. 1 in A minor
Leonie Holmes: Dance of the Wintersmith
Gareth Farr’s Unforeseen Evolution
Franck: Violin Sonata

St Andrews on the Terrace, Wellington

Sunday 7 July, 2019, 3 pm

Andrew Beer, Concert Master of the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and Sarah Watkins, highly regarded chamber musician played an interesting recital in the Wellington Chamber music Sunday Concerts series. Two new New Zealand works were sandwiched in between a rarely heard sonata by Ravel and one of the most popular pieces of the violin repertoire, César Franck’s violin sonata.

Leonie Holmes is a prolific and versatile composer, teaching composition at the University of Auckland. Sarah Watkins and Andrew Beer commissioned her to write a piece for them. She happened to be reading Terry Pratchett’s Wintersmith at the time and decided to take that as a subject of her composition. She found the book funny, but meaningful. She had not written program music before, but this challenge appealed to her. Her Dance of the Wintersmith opens with a long violin solo, soulful, meditative, that explores the singing quality of the instrument. The piano enters with a dialogue that seems to question the violin. In Pratchett’s story the young witch girl joins the dance of otherworldly men in the forest. In the music this is depicted with a quirky dance section that leads to the gentle melodious epilogue in which the violinist joins in humming and later whistling a tune, a huge surprise to listeners. Does one need to know the story that inspired the music or does the music stand on its own? Even if those who have not read the program notes and know nothing about Terry Pratchett would find the music haunting and beautiful. The work was one of the finalists of the SOUNZ Contemporary Awards for 2018.

The Dance of the Wintersmith was followed by Gareth Farr’s Unforeseen Evolution. This is a very different piece. Farr’s music is coloured by his studies as a percussionist and an immersion in the sounds, textures and rhythms of the Indonesian gamelan ensemble. For him the violin is not a melodic but a percussive instrument. He aimed to pit two wildly contrasting ideas against each other without transition, everything abrupt and unforeseen. The piece has rhythmic drum like elements contrasting the ethereal mysterious violin harmonics and delicate arpeggios on the piano in the first section, then violent rhythms around the entire range of the two instruments. It is a work in which rhythm and beat prevail over melody.

The concert had opened with the relatively seldom heard, Ravel’s Sonata No. 1 in A minor. It is an early student composition discovered long after the composer’s death. Written in 1897 it already has the hallmarks of impressionism. It has an aerie, mysterious quality, some of which is very difficult to bring off. This performance was a sound rendition of the work, but for this listener a touch of the inexpressible magic was missing.

The final work on the program was César Franck’s much loved Violin Sonata. It was played with passion, appropriate for this heartfelt piece. The performance was notable at times for its beautifully phrased singing quality. It had had some real magic moments.

The audience was rewarded at the end of the concert on the program with an encore, the second of Prokofiev’s Five Melodies for violin and piano.

Perhaps it was the cold weather, or the unknown New Zealand compositions that kept people away, but it is regrettable that this fine concert didn’t attract a larger audience. The Wellington Chamber Music Society is to be complemented on their imaginative programming for their concerts on Sunday afternoons.

Worlds within worlds brought to us by the Wellington Chamber Orchestra, with The Tasman Trio and Kenneth Young

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Chamber Orchestra presents:
MOZART – Overture to “Don Giovanni”
BEETHOVEN – Triple Concerto for Violin, ‘Cello and Piano Op.56
DELIUS – The Walk to the Paradise Garden
SCHUBERT – Symphony No. 8 in B Minor “Unfinished” D.759

The Tasman Trio:
Laura Barton (violin) / Daniel Smith (cello) / Liam Wooding (piano)

Wellington Chamber Orchestra
Kenneth Young (conductor)

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

Sunday 30th June, 2019

On paper, a programme for the prospective listener to savour – and this was an expectation I would guess was largely fulfilled, judging from the reception accorded the musicians’ efforts by the audience, and the feelings of satisfaction gleaned from the performers’ general aspect at the end! There was certainly a variety of colour, texture, mood and emotion to be had, with the pieces offering sufficient challenges to ensure the playing  maintained an ‘edge-of seat” quality, often something that can give amateur performance a “head-start” in terms of excitement and surprise for listeners’ edification. While too much tension can of course mar the ambience of some music, here only the Delius work seemed “vulnerable” in that respect – and it was in this music that the players created sounds of a beauty and sensitivity that for me captured the piece’s essence in a way that I’d not heard previously surpassed by this orchestra in any repertoire.

First things first, however; and this was Mozart’s Overture to his “dramma giocoso” Don Giovanni (“dramma giocoso” means, literally, “drama with jokes”). This was perfectly expressed by the music we heard, the opening taken from the work’s final act, featuring the entrance of the famous and unearthly “Stone Guest”, come to dinner ostensibly at the Don’s own invitation, but determined to secure Giovanni’s repentance for his iniquitous behaviour. The music’s “nightmarish” aspect at the Overture’s outset must have galvanised the sensibilities of those first audiences, who were plunged without warning into a “preview” of the events leading to the hero’s downfall and removal to the infernal regions, but were then whisked suddenly into the world of the work’s more comic sequences and situations. While no actual melodies from the opera itself were used, the dramatic opening chords, and eerie scale passages do recur in the final scene, accompanying the “Stone Guest’s” entrance.

Ken Young got a splendidly incisive opening to the work from his players, including some portentously “held” lower notes, supported by baleful brass – a few tuning discrepancies amongst the winds at the outset were properly sorted by the time the “infernal scales” of the opening were sounded. Then, the allegro mischievously activated the rhythms, the strings stirred, and the winds and timpani properly banished the gloom-laden textures with their sparking, forthright replies. Mozart kept hinting at the underlying darkness with the leading note of each phrase of the allegro – a heavily accented chord – but with each of these followed by impish, fleet-footed downward scamperings, and light-as-feather string phrases (a bit “squishy” at first, until the string players’ fingers warmed up!). Basically, there was great work from all concerned, throughout, even with the “cobbled-on” concert ending to the piece – in the theatre, the music slows down and goes straight into the stage action, but here, it was the conventional bang, crash and wallop, so as to make the music seem “rounded off”! (I prefer the music to just stop where the opera’s action begins, the imagination doing the rest……..)

It was then time to welcome the Tasman Trio, an Australasian ensemble formed just last year by two New Zealanders (Laura Barton and Liam Wooding) and an Australian (Daniel Smith), all of whom had been studying at ANAM (the Australian National Academy of Music) in Melbourne. Having heard, in living memory, a performance of this delicious work in St.Andrew’s from Te Koki Trio and the NZSM Orchestra (also with Kenneth Young conducting), I was anxious to re-enjoy the work at similarly close quarters, and interested in hearing a different group playing it – the soloists entered, there was a bit of “folkish-sounding” tuning, and then we were off!

The first low orchestral sounds filled us with expectation, the strings and horns doing well in their first sforzando-like entry, Young keeping the tempi steady, and allowing the triplet rhythms plenty of room. The first solo ‘cello entry was lyrical, poetic and inviting, joined by the other soloists just as sweetly, the piano adding a perkiness to the rhythm, taken up by the others in reply. The work’s frequent “running” passages were excitingly managed by all the players, and the orchestra responded with equal dexterity – the only problems (just one-or-two instances) were soloist-and-orchestra ensemble ones, the occasional rhythm either too hastily or too slowly ‘taken up” – but within a few bars all had come together again. As an ensemble the soloists dovetailed their passages perfectly, the occasional single-line moment of strain made up for with a correspondingly beautiful piece of phrasing from the same player. And I loved the beautiful “turn” by the players towards that moment of lyricism just before the first movement’s coda.

Songful rapture at the slow movement’s beginning! – lovely soft playing from ‘cello and then violin, though with the piano just a tad too heavy in response at first, I thought. Some nice support came from the horns as the soloists began their expectant arpeggiated figures leading to the finale. Having so well created a “mood”, the soloists then seemed to take a while to comfortably “settle” into the finale’s polonaise rhythm, but they grasped their concerted scampering lines firmly (tremendous triplet- playing by the trio) and set the scene for the orchestral tutti, which conductor and players seemed to relish wholeheartedly. Again the running canonic triplet passages were thrown off most excitingly – a real, visceral thrill to experience!

The characterful minor-key “dance” passages that followed wanted, I thought, just a shade more “schwung”, more naughtiness and suggestiveness from all concerned, here sounding to my ears expertly played, but a bit too regimented (I love it when in performances of this people seem to let their hair down, and really “savour” those polonaise rhythms) – still the players brought our beautifully that subsequent “Appassionata” moment (begun by the piano with portentous trills over which the others “reassembled” the main theme with growing excitement), and “dissolved” the subsequent canonic triplet rushings so teasingly, that all was forgiven in the ensuing excitements – the “running water” flow of the coda’s beginning, the more ritualised triplet lines, and the final “stately dance” of the music’s last paragraph. So – while perhaps not as majestically realised as with last year’s Te Koki Trio/NZSM performance of the work, the performance here put its own, equally spontaneous mark on the presentation, giving much pleasure and receiving well-deserved acclaim.

After the interval came a work I desperately wanted to hear “live” – Delius’s orchestral interlude “The Walk to the Paradise Garden” from his opera “A Village Romeo and Juliet”, one I’d previously only heard on record. And at the outset I should say that, even given my pleasure at being “treated” to Beethoven’s adorable Triple Concerto so expertly during the first half, this item was the concert’s highlight for me, with conducting and playing from Young and the orchestra members that utterly captivated me with its beauty and sensitivity. Every phrase, every solo, every surge of emotion, every hushed realisation of beauty was given its due, if not perhaps with quite the tonal splendour and individual  sheen commanded by professional players, certainly with sufficient loveliness of tone, confidence of phrasing and surety of ensemble so as to make Delius’s evocation of beauty laced with tragedy a truly heart-rending concert experience.

From the opening phrases, shared by bassoons, horns and cor anglais, we were immediately taken to a sound-word of enchantment, furthered by oboe, clarinet, flute and tenderly-phrased strings, each sound, whether solo or concerted, imbued with a real sense of the music’s power of evocation, a lovely overall sense of “drifting stillness” informing the quieter reflective moments, and a thrilling pulsation of feeling given full rein at the music’s climactic moments of bitter-sweet irruption. I thought it very, very powerful conducting by Ken Young and suitably no-holds-barred responses from his players, whether full-throated or finely-honed, the harp adding its singularly romantic voice to the plethora of instrumental response, everything superbly shaped and graded in aid of the music’s dying fall at the end. Delius’s first real champion, the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, once remarked on the need for the performer to interpret music such as this with “the maximum virility allied to the maximum sensitivity” – which is what sounded like was happening here (local syntax!).

No let-up in intensity was allowed us at this juncture, with what was to follow – Schubert’s much-loved “Unfinished” Symphony, two movements’ worth of pure drama and poetry, whether by accident or design wrought within two perfectly-tailored and -complementary episodes by its composer! Many have been the attempts to “finish” the work, ignoring the fact that Schubert himself completed a further symphony instead of going back and “dealing to it” himself. Might something have told him that what he’d done was enough?

The contrast with Delius’s music was profound in effect, those exquisitely-tailored lines and subtle textures of the former here replaced by sinister bass mutterings, fraught woodwind strains, and weighty, oppressive blocks of string or brass sounds. It was music which seemed haunted by its own substance; and the performance certainly conveyed a threatening, baleful quality in the first of the two movements, almost to the point of rawness from the brass in places, Young encouraging his forces, it seemed, to pull no punches! The exposition repeat sounded a shade less raw, and more rounded in those same territories, as if the players were hearing more acutely the “pitch of the hall” (as comedian Michael Flanders used to say in his and Donald Swann’s “At the Drop of a Hat” revue).

Whatever solace the music had managed to give its listeners thus far seemed then to be put to the sword by the development and its black-as-night scenarios, haunted by wraith-like figures, consoling winds beaten back by shattering brass chords, not dissimilar in effect to those in a similar place in Tchaikovsky’s ”Pathetique” Symphony– remorseless and unforgiving! The return to the opening brought some relief, but the movement’s coda again provided little consolation! Throughout this performance we got from Young and his brave players the full force of this music’s astounding emotional journey!

The second movement was, thankfully, less harrowing, its tones sunnier, and its melodic shapes more song-like, the players beautifully-dovetailing the exchanges between the strings’ striding steps and the winds’ lyrical replies. We heard some lovely wind solos, clarinet, oboe, and flute, contrasted with some sterling, black-browed sounds from trombones and timpani, but then a heart-easing “playing-out” of the tensions towards the end, lullabic phrases from strings and winds alike (including the horns) assuring us that the sounds had brought us, finally, to a safe haven…..

 

From murderous to beguiling – a concert of life and art from the Tudor Consort and Aurora IV

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Tudor Consort presents:
MAD, BAD, AND DANGEROUS TO KNOW
(with Aurora IV)

CARLO GESUALDO DA VENOSA (1565-1613) – Moro lasso (from Sesto libro di madrigali)
ANDREW SMITH (b.1970) – Salme 55
THOMAS WEELKES (1576-1623) – Come sirrah jack ho / Lo, country sports / Strike it up, tabor (madrigals)
WILLIAM BYRD (1543-1623) – Domine quis habitabit
ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810-56) – Talismane Op.141 No.4
HENRY PURCELL (1659-95) – Rejoice in the Lord Alway
WILLIAM BYRD – Kyrie / Agnus Dei (from Mass for 4 Voices)
PAUL HINDEMITH (1895-1963) – Six Chansons (1939)
NICOLAS GOMBERT (c.1495- c.1560) – Magnificat Tertii et Octavi Toni

The Tudor Consort
Michael Stewart (director)
Aurora IV
Toby Gee (countertenor), Julian Chu-Tan, Richard Taylor (tenors), Simon Christie (bass)

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

Saturday, 22nd June 2019

Michael Stewart and the Tudor Consort certainly got their presentation “Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know” off to a properly gruesome start with the music of a composer who’s now generally known to have been a murderer, Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa – in fact, we in the audience were firstly “treated” to a fairly “no holds barred” description by Michael Stewart of the circumstances and salient details of the composer’s central role in the deadly occurrence, one which some people might have thought of as “too much information”! However, it certainly “prepared” us for the composer’s uniquely intense and agitated music in his madrigal “Moro lasso al mio duolo”, whose tones, intervals and harmonies seemed themselves to suffer in situ with the texts’ extreme angsts and tensions.

Commentators have, in relation to the composer, endlessly discussed the “association” between life and art, and the paradox exemplified by people who were creative geniuses but of dubious personal character – of particular interest in Gesualdo’s case is the extent to which one’s interest in his music is fuelled by knowledge of his life and character, and vice-versa (a 2011 New Yorker article by Alex Ross, who wrote “The Rest is Noise” is particularly thought-provoking in this respect https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/12/19/prince-of-darkness  –  The Tudor Consort’s finely-graded performance of “Moro lasso” certainly conveyed its composer’s free-wheeling flamboyance of dynamics, harmony and modulation, making for an entirely spontaneous, unpredictable and ungratified outpouring of sounds, something “rich and strange”.

With Andrew Smith’s Salme 55, performed for us by the vocal quartet Aurora IV, we found ourselves still in “Gesualdo country”, as this work was inspired by the latter’s music as well as those same events which had been outlined for us by Michael Stewart. Smith had composed a set of a capella pieces for a work called Notes for a Requiem which also included some of Gesualdo’s own motets, various spoken texts relating to events in Gesualdo’s life, and a dance, reinforcing those dramatic and tragic happenings. Tonight we got the verse sequences from that work, settings of Psalm 55, the well-known “prayer for deliverance” from both enemy and treacherous friend – the relative “sparseness” of the vocal textures following the Gesualdo work almost like the result of an archaeological exhumation of something whose bones made up in strength and purpose for what else had been pared away by the ravages of time.

While the Gesualdo work had an almost indecent freedom from inhibition of feeling, these settings by Andrew Smith used simpler, starker, more direct modes of expression, albeit framing the different sequences in almost ritualistic ways – in the opening Exaudi, (LIsten!) for example, the tenor expounded the text against evocative, echoing repetitions from the other three singers, firstly of the word “exaudi”, and then in the next section “Cor meum” (My heart), and all finally bursting out with “Timor et tremor” (Fear and trembling) in the final paragraph. The second sequence, Columba, with its famous line “Oh, for the wings of a dove!”, extended this technique to interchanging voices, the singers taking turns to deliver phrases from the text against a backdrop of repetitions of the word “Columba” (dove), and later “Festinabo” (In a hurry), the alternating voices expertly and evocatively imprinting both meaning and manner to the treatment of the text.

The lament’s full force was unleashed at Non enim inimicus (For it is not an enemy), with stinging focus, alternated by phrases voiced with great tenderness – the words’ sorrow and drama were made manifest here by the voices at places such as Veniat super eos mors (Let death take them). I was reminded of Britten’s “Rejoice in the lamb” in parts of the bass-led Extendit manum suam (He extended his hand), with its portentous outlining of treachery, a mood which was dispelled by the tenor with Tu autem Deus (But Thou, God…), the singer’s upwardly-leaping phrases conveying a frisson of faith and hope, and intoning a movingly simple habeo tui (I trust in you).

A world with a difference was evoked by three madrigals from Thomas Weelkes, whose character as outlined by Stewart, was more bad than mad, and perhaps more frustrating than “dangerous” to know! Previously I’d known only the richly-moving work “Death hath deprived me”, which Weelkes wrote at Thomas Morley’s death – by contrast these were earthy, self-indulgent tributes to simple pleasures, perhaps symptomatic of the composer’s unfortunate penchant for alcohol (although not mentioned in any of these works) which caused strife between Weelkes and his employers!

Come, Sirrah Jack, ho, dwelt on the pleasures of a pipe of tobacco (“for the blood, it is very good”), made from lovely, tumbling lines, delightfully calibrated to evoke a throng of unrepentant users making fun of the moralists at “Then those that do condemn it” with relish. Lo, Country Sports was something of a dance ritual, the group sounding the out-of-doors pleasures with ever-increasing delight as the music rolled merrily on; while Strike it up, tabor brought together the earthiness of the first madrigal with the dance-like energies of the second one. These voices properly “danced” throughout the first verse, until things ended somewhat querulously, with the comment “Fie, you dance false!”

How different again was the music we next heard, that of William Byrd, whose claim to inclusion in the programme stemmed from his ability to survive the sometimes murderous goings-on of opposing (Catholic and Protestant) regimes in English history, writing music under both kinds of strictures! Byrd maintained his position in the Chapel Royal under Elizabeth I, though his Domine , quis habitabit dates from an earlier period, a setting of the first half of Psalm 15 (Vulgate 14), set also by his near-contemporaries Thomas Tallis, William Mundy, Robert White and Robert Parsons. The text is concerned with living according to God’s commandments, and could easily have been applied to Protestants as well as Catholics, avoiding the political to-and-fro of the times.

Here the music immediately generated a sense of magnificence and purpose, something equally of its time and timeless, in effect. Stewart and the Consort’s richly-wrought voices brought out the almost celestial, music-of-the-spheres aspects of the work, the sounds describing vistas of timeless, weightless beauty, the soprano line particularly ethereal and radiant. The contrast at “Contemptus est in oculis ejus” (Contemptible in his sight….) was almost tsunami-like it its impact, before the final “Qui facet haec” returned us surely and gratefully to the eternities of the opening. Later in the programme we heard two movements of Byrd’s Mass for Four Voices, a sombre, serious “Kyrie” beautifully voiced by the vocal quartet, and a more “exposed” sound at the beginning of “Agnus Dei”, more contrapuntal than harmonic at first, with all four voices involved the second time through, and increasingly “concerted” for the final repetition, the voices gaining in presence and resonance during the “Dona nobis pacem”.

A “find” for me was Robert Schumann’s Talismane, whose text, by Goethe, is a paean of praise to God as a life-giving force, sentiments that the composer exuberantly responded to at the start, the music hurling its message East and West, then more gently and resonantly encompassing “northern and southern lands” as similarly under his sway, Schumann compellingly setting exultation alongside poetic rumination. The “double choir” employed by the composer created ear-catching antiphonal exchanges and resonant echoings throughout, pushing the St.Andrews’ acoustic to extremes in places – however the poet’s “breathing” imagery of constant renewal brought forth in conclusion a moving sense of turbulent spirits “at peace” in Schumann’s writing. As tenor Richard Taylor informed us during the course of his valuable introduction to the work, whatever such “peace of mind” was enjoyed by Schumann became in later years tragically undermined by mental illness, and resulted in the composer’s confinement to an institution.

I would never have counted Henry Purcell as amongst the “carousers” in any line-up of well-known composers, before attending this concert – an indication, no doubt, of my lack of biographical knowledge regarding the composer – but legend has it that Purcell liked his ale, and was reputedly locked out of the family house by his wife for coming home late after an extended session at the “local”, at which point he caught a chill, leading to his death (the other, rather more romantic story is that he succumbed to tuberculosis)! For the concert’s purposes, conjecture ruled for the moment, the composer’s place in this concert’s lineup secured with some “bad” behaviour! – Purcell’s “Rejoice in the Lord always” was originally called “The Bell Anthem” because of the bell-imitations in the instrumental opening (played here most deliciously by Michael Stewart on the characterful St.Andrew’s chamber organ, the conducting of this piece in the capable hands of Richard Taylor). Begun by a vocal trio, the charming contrast between the single voices and the whole ensemble was one of the piece’s most engaging features, along with the bell-like organ tones.

Far more apposite regarding the programme’s intent was the contribution of Paul Hindemith, a set of “Six Chansons” that I’d never heard, and would never have guessed the composer had I encountered them unnamed! Hindemith, of course, became persona non grata to the Nazis during the 1930s (his music was officially proclaimed as “entartete” (degenerate),  Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels calling him an “atonal noisemaker”!), and left Germany to live temporarily in Turkey, before officially emigrating to Switzerland in 1938, and then to the USA in 1940.

Hindemith wrote this a capella work while in Switzerland, settings of some of the French poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, who usually wrote in German. Less rigorous and more lyrical than a good deal of Hindemith’s other music, the settings are delightful and attractive, as if the composer had been able to, in a chameleon-like way, take on a Gallic kind of voice in his music – the first song, La biche (The doe), having a Ravel-like delicacy. I don’t know Hindemith’s other vocal works, apart from parts of his opera, Mathis der Maler – but it seemed, in the second song Un cygne (A swan)  the composer had the gift of word-painting in his music, the sounds expressing the imagery of the text, the actual movement of the swan upon the water. Even more amazement was conjured up with my reaction to the third song, Puisque tout passe (Since all is passing) which was, here, light, rapid and evanescent – what I would previously had said was very “un-Hindemith”! Printemps (Spring) was a hymn-like seasonal tribute, touchingly characterising the words “Quand il faudra nous taire” (When it comes time for us to fall silent) in a simple, almost parlando fashion. A severe unison began En hiver (In winter) but, despite the almost grisly aspect of the words, evoking the presence of death, the sounds had a light, lyrical character, throughout, “placing” both darkness and light in a balanced way. The final poem, Verger (Orchard) a meditation on the earth’s sustenance of the body and the spirit, interwove melody and rhythmic trajectory with the lightest of touches between upper and lower voices in the first and final verses, while intensifying their exchanges throughout the middle verse, again, the music mirroring the words, strong at ce que pese, et ce qui nourrit (sustains and nourishes us), and light and wind-blown at presque dormant en son ancient rond (almost asleep in the fountain’s circle). Everywhere the conductor’s and singers’ deftness of touch lightly and surely brought out the music’s surprisingly un-Teutonic character.

As if Gesualdo’s bloodsoaked crimes and Weelkes’ penchant for excessive drinking hadn’t sufficiently besmirched the somewhat rarefied “aura” of creativity normally associated with composers. Michael Stewart had one more subject for scrutiny almost certainly to be found wanting, in the person of Nicolas Gombert, a native of Flanders who became court composer to Emperor Charles V and music director of the Royal Chapel, and, as a priest, was the official “Master of the Boys” (Magister Pueorum) at the Chapel, but who, in 1540, was then convicted of sexual congress with a boy in his care, and sentenced to hard labour in the galleys. Freed after a number of years, Gombert never returned to the court, and indeed, faded into obscurity, his actual death date unknown, but probably occurring around 1560. Nonetheless, he was one of the most famous and influential composers in his day, his music exemplifying the fully-developed polyphonic style. Succeeding composers were to write in a more simplified manner, however, as Gombert had pushed his extremely complex  idioms as far as they could go – he influenced instrumental writing in this respect as well.

It’s possible Gombert composed the Magnificat we heard this evening as one of his “Swan Songs”, written by way of seeking a pardon for his crimes from the Emperor (he was eventually released by Charles V, on account of these efforts). One of eight Magnificat composed in each of the “Tones”, this work follows the same pattern as all the others, the odd-numbered verses in “chant” and the even -numbered ones given polyphonic treatment. The chant/polyphonic alternations as a whole gave the work we heard a contrasting vigour, and a theatricality, further exemplified by a certain agglomeration of forces as the music proceeded, as if the music’s influence was spreading throughout the world. By the time the concluding “Gloria Patri” was reached, we in the audience felt the composer had included us in the “Sicut erat” response, and part of each of us seemed to be resonating with the music!

Of course, none of the effects described above could have been achieved without the seemingly inexhaustible voices, skills, and communication capacities throughout an entire evening of the singers The Tudor Consort and their director, Michael Stewart, and the singers of Aurora IV.

NZSO marks Blake’s retirement with his haunting ‘Angel at Ahipara’, plus splendid Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky

Posted on by Steven Sedley

Winter Daydreams

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Fawzi Haimor, conductor and Carolin Widman, violin

Christopher Blake: Angel at Ahipara
Stravinsky: Violin Concerto in D Major
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 1 in G minor, Op.13, ‘Winter Daydreams’

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Thursday, 20 June, 2019

Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, and a piece by a significant contemporary composer, Christopher Blake, might seem like popular programming, but as was evident by the large number of empty seats, the programme lacked wide appeal. Tchaikovsky’s First Symphony is seldom performed, Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto is very different from other more popular twentieth century violin concertos and Christopher Blake’s music is unknown territory. Yet it is important both for the orchestra and the audience to be confronted from time to time with the little known or unknown.

The theme common to all of these three works is the idea of exploration. Blake and Tchaikovsky attempted to give voice to a national identity, New Zealand and Russian, while Stravinsky looked for the bare bones of a violin concerto outside the lush romanticism of his contemporaries.

The inspiration for Blake’s Angel at Ahipara came from a black and white photo of a sculpture on a grave at a remote settlement of Ahipara, as well as from Colin McCahon’s colourful Northland Panels. Blake attempted to represent in music the idea of the Angel that Morrison expressed in photography and McCahon in painting. It is written for a string orchestra and describes seven aspects of the Angel in continuous development of largely minimalist themes, ranging from, peaceful, gentle, meditative, to the turbulent, reflecting the Angel giving hope, the soaring of his spirit, his vigil, the joy he brings and the storm that he calms. It is haunting, beautiful music that stays with you.

Stravinsky had misgivings about writing a violin concerto, but encouraged by Samuel Dushkin, for whom the concerto was commissioned and by Paul Hindemith, he produced a stripped down neo-Baroque work with chamber music texture. The concerto avoids virtuoso display and focuses on the dialogue between the solo violin and the orchestra. The four movements reflect Stravinsky’s interest in the Baroque. The sparkling Toccata has changes of meter, pulsating repeated notes and joyous violin acrobatics. The middle movements, the two Arias are lyrical, while the final movement, Capriccio is full of dazzling demonic energy. Carolin Widman played these with great authority and energy. It was a fine, insightful performance.

Tchaikovsky was just 25 when he embarked on his First Symphony. His teachers didn’t like it. It was different, it didn’t fit the German symphonic tradition. Tchaikovsky wrote a Russian work within the symphonic framework, using Russian folk song themes and strong dance rhythms. Unlike his teachers, Tchaikovsky liked the work and kept revising it. It is a long symphony, over 40 minutes long, but to the credit of the performance and Fawzi Haimor’s direction, it never flagged. An early work, it has its weaknesses. At times the flow of the music seems to stand still while another theme, another ideas is introduced, but these hiatuses lead to glorious, rich passages; and the second movement is one of the Tchaikovsky’s most enthralling pieces. The symphony required superb playing by brass and wind, and a luscious string tone from the strings.

At the end of the concert one came away with the feeling that your musical experiences had been greatly enriched, a testament to the playing by the orchestra under the direction of a fine conductor and with the contribution of a dazzling soloist.

 

 

Accomplished though unusual Donizetti Trio assembles a mixed bag programme: some very successful

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Chamber Music Hutt Valley
Donizetti Trio (Luca Manghi – flute, Ben Hoadley – bassoon, David Kelly – piano)

Music by Vivaldi, Donizetti, Chris Adams, Respighi, Ben Hoadley, Bellini (via Eugene Jancourt) and Bizet (via Peter Simpson)

Little Theatre, Lower Hutt

Wednesday 19 June, 7:30 pm

The Donizetti Trio is a fairly rare beast; it rather looks as if three musician friends had the idea of playing as an ensemble, but were faced with the problem that hardly any music existed for their combination, and so they set about forcing other material to fit their needs.

That can work well, and to a degree, it did.

To start with, Vivaldi looks a good idea as he wrote hundreds of concertos including many for flute and orchestra; and this one, which exists in two versions. The first version, RV 104, is the more richly scored, for flute or violin and chamber orchestra, including bassoon as a bass component of the continuo. That’s the one we heard. Later he re-scored it to include (RV 439) in his Opus 10, stripping the orchestration, including the bassoon part.

The playing by both flute and bassoon was very convincing, quite virtuosic here and there, particularly in the Largo movement; though at times the bassoon was confined to its more elementary, accompanying function. Given that this version rather relied on its chamber ensemble backing, it left the piano with a burden that it could scarcely discharge. Nevertheless, the pianist revealed a sensitivity to music that was written neither for harpsichord (as it might have been in Vivaldi’s day) nor for piano.

Then came the piece that inspired the trio’s name, a Trio in F (for these instruments), one of Donizetti’s quite numerous chamber pieces which included a number of string quartets and many pieces for various other combinations. As one might expect, the writing is rather conventional, yet attractive and very listenable. And the affectionate performance could well have been felt to endow it with a significance that the even composer had not imagined.

Visual inspiration for Chris Adams and Ben Hoadley 
Chris Adams is an Auckland musician and composer. His Contemporary Triptych employs these three instruments in a singularly original and vivid way. The first, ‘Melancholic Aggression’, beginning with repeated chords (rooted I’d guess, about bottom C), that was eventually joined by the bassoon at the bottom and then flute at the top, moved slowly, without changing tonality, gradually becoming more varied and intense. The second, ‘Beautiful Machine’ was musically more lyrical (by now we get the idea of pictures embodying fundamentally contradictory emotions; in fact, though inspired by the art in Sir James Wallace’s collection). Though if the idea was to create something visual, it didn’t; nor did I need it. ‘Integrated Disconnect’: flute and bassoon duetting, as we’re told, in a disconnected way, while the piano drifted about, seemingly unconcerned. The limitations of the three disparate instruments were somehow exploited successfully to create a piece of music that succeeded in its intentions.

The leap from a triptych based on a non-existent visual source to Ben Hoadley’s arrangement of the Adoration of the Magi, the second of Respighi’s Botticelli Triptych, proved to be rather to the advantage of Adam’s piece. Hoadley was attracted to it as Respighi’s scoring of the medieval hymn ‘Veni, veni Emanuel’, quoted in it, is conspicuously for flute and bassoon. In spite of that, the task of compressing Respighi’s largescale orchestration into a piano part was a bit too hard.

The first piece in the second half was by Hoadley himself: Three poems by Gregory O’Brien, for alto flute and piano, but without a singer (and of course, without the composer’s bassoon), but the voice was hinted at by hard breathing sounds. There was a cool jazz interlude, a series of rolling figures at the bottom of the piano and some beguiling, soft lyrical passages from the flute. Only with the last poem, ‘Winter I was’, did a human voice appear as Hoadley emerged to speak the poem. It was one of those occasions in which more questions and not-understood sequences arose than clarifications.

Opera arrangements 
Finally, two fantasies, potpourris, from opera. Inevitably they got the biggest response from a fairly large audience. One of many arrangements of tunes from Bellini’s Norma: this one was by 19th century Paris Conservatoire bassoon professor, Eugene Jancourt, and suited the trio admirably; it suited the audience too, with the string of familiar arias from ‘Casta Diva’ onwards. The settings were attractive and they were played evocatively, almost as if real singers had materialised.  (It’s sad that the opera has hardly been seen in New Zealand in modern times apart from a Canterbury Opera production in 2002. That was the first professional production in New Zealand since the 1928 tour by the Fuller-Gonsalez Italian Grand Opera Company. Yet Norma was one of the operas brought by the very first touring company in 1864/65 and it was among the productions by many of the touring companies through the 1870s and 80s).

Even more familiar for today’s audiences is Carmen. One Peter Simpson (about whom I can find nothing on the Internet) arranged four pieces most effectively for these instruments. The combination here seemed to energise the three players to create sounds that evoked the character of the opera and its music remarkably.

The audience response at the end proved that my feelings were not isolated.

 

 

Inspirare as singular performers of Brahms choral pieces and part songs

Posted on by Steven Sedley

Inspirare
Mark L. Stamper, artistic director

An Evening of Brahms: Resolution to Love

Vocal soloists: Alex Gandionco (soprano), Eleanor McGeechie (alto), Richard Taylor (tenor) and Joe Haddow (bass)
Rachel Thomson and Emma Sayers (piano) and Donald Armstrong (violin)

Central Baptist Church, 46 Boulcott Street

Saturday, 15 June 2019, 7:30 pm

This was a concert of music by one composer only, Brahms, and does not stray from traditional classical repertoire. Yet, apart from the piano solo, Rhapsody in G minor, Op 79, No 2, and the first movement of the Violin Sonata No 3 in D minor, Op. 108, the vocal works in the programme are seldom heard.

The concert opened with Vier Quartette, Op.92, sung by Alex Gandionco, soprano, Eleanor McGeechie, alto, Richard Taylor, tenor and Joe Haddow, bass. This is comparatively late Brahms, rich in texture. The four songs are settings of poems by four different poets, Daumier, Allmers, Hebbel, and Goethe. The first, ‘O schöne Nacht’ celebrates a lovely night, sweet comradeship and the young man who steals quietly to his sweetheart. The second, ‘Spätherbst’, is melancholy, the grey mist drops down silently, the flowers will bloom no more. The third, ‘Abendlied’, is about joy and anguish, life is like a lullaby. The final song, ‘Warum?’ asks the question: why do songs resound heavenwards and invoke warm blissful days. The four voices harmonized to beautiful effect.

Zigeunerlieder was sung by a group of eight, two sopranos, two altos, two tenors and two basses. These songs are not authentic gypsy songs, but they present an exotic quality through the use of Hungarian intervals, irregular rhythms and syncopation. They are a reflection of Brahms’s interest in what was considered at the time, exotic gypsy music, as in his better known Hungarian Dances. These songs are set to the text by the Hungarian folk poet Hugo Conrat. The performance by the small group of singers required great discipline, highlighted by the solo singing of tenor Theo Moolenaar. The ten songs are about love, longing, homesickness, disappointment, exile.

Liebeslieder Waltzer is a collection of eighteen short love songs in popular Ländler style, influenced by Schubert, whose Ländler he edited, but these also contain reference to Johann Strauss, who was at the height of his popularity. These were songs by the rest of the choir of sixteen voices, notably accompanied by two pianists, Emma Sayers and Rachel Thomson on one keyboard.

Inspirare is a vocal group like no other in Wellington. They are all individually, highly trained singers; they sing with precision, yet with appropriate lyricism and the concert reflected a sheer love of singing. The two instrumental interludes added to the enjoyment of the evening. Mark Stamper, the musical director of the group played the Brahms’s G minor Rhapsody with sensitivity, Donald Armstrong, associate concert master of the NZSO and Rachel Thomson of the New Zealand School of Music performed the first movement of Brahms’s third violin sonata with deep understanding and a beautiful tone. This greatly enhanced the concert of vocal music.

At the end of the concert, in response to the warm applause, the choir walked off the stage and came forward to stand alongside the audience and sang the beautiful Irish Blessing, arranged by Graeme Langare. This was a lovely conclusion to a memorable concert.

Inspirare are noted for their innovative, interesting programming. Their concerts are not to be missed.

The NZSO “reclaims the night” for Baroque composers at St.Andrew’s on-The-Terrace, Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents:
THE NIGHT  – music by Corelli, Telemann, Vivaldi and Fux

Bridget Douglas (flute)
Vesa-Matti Leppänen (director/violin)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

CORELLI – Concerto Grosso in D Major Op.6 No.1
TELEMANN – Overture/Suite in D Major TWV 55:D.21
VIVALDI – Flute Concerto in G Minor Op.10 No.2
FUX – Overture in D Minor E109
TELEMANN – Overture/Suite in D Major TWV55:D.22

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

Saturday, 8th June, 2019

To my great relief the NZSO abandoned the idea of presenting this, the second concert of their Baroque Series, in Wellington Cathedral, the first concert there having been a mixed blessing of an affair, with the building’s cavernous acoustic the main impediment to enjoyment of the music. The strictures of the Capital’s current “earthquake-risk” regulations regarding many of its buildings has made finding a venue for concerts involving either large ensembles and/or vocal groups such as choirs, something of a near-intractable “business”. The continued unavailability of the Town Hall is the chief disruption, affecting chamber music as well as both orchestral and choral events; and the council’s spending priorities have now of course been torpedoed by the unexpected closure of the Public Library, whose restoration in whatever shape or form would almost inevitably take priority.

My apologies, at this point of my discourse, for not sufficiently “cautioning” the readership about the non-musical content of the above paragraph, which should have been earmarked with some kind of Government Health Warning regarding its sub-normal percentage of “cultural well-being” content. Anyway, I shall hereby “rescue” the remainder of this article for music, with a description of the concert whose heading “The Night” also graces this review! Most helpfully for all concerned, except for, perhaps, the hard-working players, this presentation was played twice in one evening here at St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, presumably to cater for the audience numbers expected in the concert’s original, and much larger venue. I attended the evening’s later performance, and can report that the playing in no way sounded either “fatigued” or “over-cooked” through repetition, everything wrought freshly and immediately.

I enjoyed the programme hugely, featuring as it did music by composers whose work often falls into the “heard about but seldom heard” category – even Vivaldi, for all the popularity of his “The Four Seasons” concerti can be more often named than his music “sounded” for concert-goers these days. Telemann, too, though receiving a recent fillip in the NZSO’s previous “Baroque” Concert with his wonderful “Water Music”, isn’t played as often as his music warrants the attention – though as part of his spoken introduction to the items played tonight, leader Vesa-Matti Leppänen went out on a limb for the composer by confessing that Telemann’s was “his favourite” baroque music!

As for Corelli and Fux, the first-named, Arcangelo Corelli, has enjoyed some “added-value” renown with his use of the well-known Portuguese “La Folia” melody in parts of both his Violin Sonatas and his Op.6 Concerti Grossi, his borrowing “picked up” by none other than Rachmaninov who wrote a set of piano variations “after a theme by Corelli”, of course, none other than the “La Folia” theme!  Johann Joseph Fux (1660-1741) achieved fame throughout his lifetime not only as a composer but as a theorist, with his treatise on counterpoint “Gradus ad Parnassum” becoming perhaps the single most influential book on Renaissance polyphony ever written, influencing practically all the important composers of the classical era. Earlier he had been Court Composer to the Austrian Emperor Leopold I, Kapellemeister at St.Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, and Music Director at the Imperial Court, the highest position of any composer in Europe. He composed operas and oratorios besides instrumental works, but then confined himself to sacred works for the final ten years of his life, after his wife’s death. It was left to Ludwig Ritter von Köchel, also Mozart’s cataloguer, to bring out a biography, and a catalogue of Fux’s work, and thus help reinstate his importance as a composer, midway through the nineteenth century – though his reputation as a dry-as-dust theorist and relatively insignificant composer still needs more pro-active campaign work!

Corelli’s first Op.6 Concerto Grosso began the concert, with rich, warmly-bowed playing throughout a graceful introduction, the voices varied and mellifluous – the first of a number of surges of allegro-energy brought out virtuoso playing from cellist Ken Ichinose, ably supported by his colleagues, the opening movement’s music switching spontaneously between a kind of poised pre-excitement, and exuberantly-released running energies, extremely theatrical and dramatic in effect. The following episodes featured beguiling exchanges between the concertino (solo instruments) and ripieno (accompanying forces), the former involving sweet, sinuous playing from solo violinists Vesa-Matti Leppänen and Janet Armstrong, the music constantly on the move, here suggesting a stillness created by the murmur of continuo instruments only, and there joyously alternating the sweetness of solo string-lines with the richness and grandeur of the full band.

The first of Telemann’s two Overtures (alternatively called “Suites”) in D Major (TWV 55:D.21) covered a lot of musical ground in its quarter-of-an-hour of glory, bringing winds and horns to the platform to diversify the range and scope of the piece’s sonic territories. After a proudly vigorous dotted-rhythm opening, with fabulous oboe and horn exchanges flavouring “civilised” strings with bracing “out-of-door” ambiences, we got a warmly relaxed  “plainte” (complaint), followed by the “madcap dance” (which Vesa-Matti warned us we were in for!) a Réjouissance like no other! Like a sane moment amid mad outbursts, the Carillon charmed our sensibilities, a liquid pizzicato setting off the pair of oboes’ graceful and delicious lines. Back to tumult we were taken with the “Tintamarre”, a piece setting out to “make a din”, the lines garrulous and unrelieved, mercifully brief! The following Loure seemed to me somewhat tipsy of gait, well-intentioned in its fulsome insistence, but making as if to wobble at speed! The concluding Menuet would have none of these foibles, marshalling the strings in the direction of “a good show” though the quirky trio brought smiles with the winds almost garrulously echoing the oboes’ phrases…..

At the other end of the concert stood, sentinel-like, another Telemann Suite, also in D Major TWV 55:D.22), and just as “characterful” a work as its concert companion, this one sporting its own subtitle – Ouverture jointe d’une suite tragi-comique – and taking further the idea of linking music of a specific character to people and situations, an idea that had become very popular in France at the time, especially in keyboard music. In this music Telemann portrayed various human ailments, proffering as well, by way of compensation, a number of quirky remedies.

A sprightly introduction was punctuated by timpani and drums, the music energised further by a jig-like figure, presumably depicting rude health. Not so the laboured, pain-ridden walking gait of “Le Podagre” (according to Vesa-Matti, depicting somebody afflicted with gout!) – two remedies followed, a mail-coach, the trumpets sounding its arrival amid measures of energetic dancing (the characterisations amusing in their brisk, unequivocal application!). Next was L’Hypochondre (Hypochondria) which  gave no rest or relaxation, the melancholy punctured by fevered anxieties. Here, the remedy, Souffrance héroïque (heroic suffering) marched in on the full ensemble (broad grins all round!). There remained the sin of Pride, sounds of overweening self-importance filling the vistas with grand contrivance in the form of resounding drum and trumpet-led cadences of ostentation! All was then blown away by fast and furious figurations from strings and winds, madhouse characterisations underpinned gloriously by brasses and timpani, the deadly sin delivered its come-uppance in grand style!

Though more overtly “serious” in intent, an Overture by the intriguing Johann Joseph Fux gave notice as to our loss with his relative neglect – a confident, bright-toned introduction strutted its stuff, the strings double by oboes bright and assertive throughout, the allegro leaping eagerly forwards, marshalling its varied lines, both concertino and ripeno, oboes to the upper strings what the bassoon was to the lower lines, giving the tones edge and colour, and contributing to the “schwung” of the music’s trajectories.

Fux’s melodies demonstrated a leaping, athletic quality in sequences like the Menuet, equally exploring a different vein of expression in the Aria, the oboes long-breathed and lyrical, singing in tandem with the strings until being moved along by the Fuga’s urgently-propelled lines, the themes tossed about most energetically, the string lines occasionally pulsating with shivers of excitement before joining in the solemn stepwise Lentenment transitions towards a warm-hearted Gigue, strings and winds echoing the dancing figures, a final Aria section restoring the occasion’s dignity, winds and strings bringing the dance to a somewhat wistful strings-only conclusion.

Captivated as I was by all these delights, the evening had already delivered its coup de grace for me immediately after the interval, with the appearance of flutist Bridget Douglas to play the concert’s most overtly spectacular item, Vivaldi’s “La Notte” Flute Concerto, one of a set of six which comprised the composer’s Op.10 – it was certainly the most visually arresting of the evening’s performances, the figure of the soloist taking on a kind of alluring sorceress-like aspect in her red dress, putting all of us in thrall with the spell cast by her playing and the evocative choreography of her movements, along with that of the other players, a scenario whose potency was enhanced by the use of imaginative backdrop lighting.

In terms of the musical language it was probably the concert’s most accessible item, owing to the music’s kinship to the well-known “The Four Seasons” set of concerti in places – in fact part of one of the slower sequences of the music seemed almost like a direct crib by the composer of his own music from  the “Autumn” concerto out of that work. The rest, however, was of a piece with the work’s title – a kind of foreboding generated at the beginning, then impulses of the most volatile and unpredictable kind, tremendous playing from the soloist herself and split-second support from her instrumental cohorts, before the opening mood returned, giving way to another quick section called “Phantasms” – then came the Largo movement reminiscent of “The Four Seasons” before a final Presto skitterishly completed the music’s nightmare, the work concluding on an extraordinarily portentous, minor-key trill.  Phantasmagorical stuff! – all part of a presentation that would have enlarged the average listener’s appreciation of the fantastic array of depth and variety to be found in Baroque music.

Martin Riseley in the second splendid recital of Bach solo violin sonatas and partitas, benefit for St Andrew’s organ restoration

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Martin Riseley (violin)
Bach solo violin partitas and sonatas plus New Zealand composers

Bach: Partita No 3 in E major; Sonata No 3 in C major; Partita No. 2 in D minor
Gareth Farr: Wakatipu
Psathas: Gyftiko

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Friday 7 June, 6:30 pm

At one of last year’s lunchtime concerts at St Andrew’s Martin Riseley played one each of Bach’s solo partitas and sonatas, and it led to the suggestion that he might play all six of them. And so he did: he played the first three last month and here were the last three.

This second recital was a generous benefit concert to assist with the restoration of the pipe organ; and Susan Jones spoke about its necessity while organist Peter Franklin gave pithy demonstrations of the character of the organ and examples of its deficiencies.

I should also remark at my surprise that this splendid recital didn’t attract a full house, as I think there are no greater works in the violin repertoire, and Riseley is among the finest violinists in the country.

Though Martin’s notes printed in the programme leaflet are admirable and revelatory (and worth asking St Andrew’s whether they can be emailed), I cannot resist the temptation to share some other particularly illuminating remarks. Here’s what Hilary Hahn wrote to accompany her performances recorded on YouTube: Alongside Paganini’s 24 Caprices for solo violin and Bach’s six cello suites, his Partitas and Sonatas (three apiece) for solo violin stand out among their comparatively few siblings as magnificent music written for an unaccompanied stringed instrument. And while they also represent the zenith of polyphonic writing for a non-keyboard instrument, Bach’s sonatas and partitas were also crucially important in the development of violin technique. With their colossal scope, huge technical demands, and musical complexity, and notwithstanding their awesome intellectual intensity, these creations greatly transcended anything that had preceded them…’

Partita No 3 in E
Riseley began with the third partita and worked in the reverse of the order in which they appear in the Bach catalogue; so that he could end with the second Partita and its great Chaconne. 

The Preludio of the E major Partita is a cheerful, energetic movement to which Riseley contributed the warmth of his fine violin and his own expansive and generous playing. But it’s the Loure that strikes one as contributing something rather special. Forgive me for commenting on this unusual musical dances: best described, from an Internet site: ‘A slow, dignified, French dance of the 17th and 18th centuries usually in 3/4 or 6/4 time. The name derived from a bagpipe used in Normandy; the dance is usually in 6/4 time and has been described as a slow gigue. Examples are found in Bach’s E major partita and in the fifth of his French suites’ (musicterms.artopium.com).  It’s a reticent, meditative piece whose spirit seems to remain throughout the whole partita.

The Gavotte is one of the more familiar pieces, fresh and spontaneous, while the obligatory menuets are more subdued, the second one takes a more subdued character, almost sounding as if it’s moved to the minor key, though it hasn’t.

Psathas: Gyftiko 
Then came the first of the New Zealand interludes: Psathas’s Gyftiko (or γυφτικο; though not in my Greek dictionary, ‘daddy’ according to ‘Google translate’). Though a test-piece for the Michael Hill Violin Competition, it’s quite an elaborate and substantial piece: melodic, frenzied, unpredictable, and Riseley would presumably have impressed the judges if he had been a competitor.

Bach Sonata No 3 in C 
The third sonata is an imposing piece too: sombre, polyphonic in its Adagio, but its extended Fuga is its core and Riseley allowed its rather near spiritual affinity with the Chaconne of the last partita into view; its imposing fugal structure was its most impressive feature, often sounding as if two or more instruments were involved. Its tone was often so mellow and rich that I looked for a mute on the bridge, but it wasn’t there. The subdued Largo offered no foretaste of the splendid, well-known finale – an Allegro assai with which Riseley brought the first half to a joyous and brilliant conclusion.

Wakatipu 
Gareth Farr’s piece for the Michael Hill competition, Wakatipu, provided the filling before the second partita, and its Chaconne. Competition pieces have historically been little more than hair-raising technical exploits, but both Psathas and Farr offered much more significant and interesting works and I enjoyed the chance to hear both, so seriously and brilliantly played.

Partita No 2 in D minor 
The second Partita is about half an hour in length. Its movements were omitted from the programme: Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gigue, Chaconne. Riseley noted that it should really be heard in the order that Bach prescribed – after the A minor Sonata (unlike other sets of pieces, the first four sonatas and partitas are in minor keys; only the third of each is in the major). Its D minor key takes charge of its spirit: sombre and serious and profound. The Allemande opened with a sense of wonder, with long, even passages that anchored it through its long piano episodes. The Courante can hardly be called jocular; neither is it spectacular technically, simply preparing us for the first of the two slow, triple-time movements: the Sarabande, which in turn offers in mood, a hint of the spirit and complexity of the Chaconne, though we pass through the humane, cheerful Gigue that’s not really a great technical feat, unlike the great Chaconne to come.

To be present for this performance was a wonderful experience: no hearing from even the greatest violinist on air or an excellent recording can match the live experience; certainly not one as excellent and as satisfying as we heard from Martin Riseley. All the complex emotional, technical and interpretative demands that Bach presents were so beautifully executed and revealed. Here was a performance that made me quite forget Busoni (whose famous piano version I do love), as I became enchanted and overcome by the music’s endless invention and the dynamic and rhythmic variety that the player must deal with. As a long-time lover of the cello suites, this made me realise that none of them contains a movement that approaches this Chaconne.

The audience response at the end was immediate, noisy, even rapturous, and they all knew they has made an infinitely better choice for a Friday evening than the unfortunates who weren’t at this unique recital.

Restorative music from the Restoration, performed by “The Queen’s Closet”

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Queen’s Closet presents –

Music by William Corbett, Matthew Locke, Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, William Croft, Henry Purcell, Godfrey Finger, Godfrey Keller, Phillipp Jakob Rittler

The Queen’s Closet – ensemble
Peter Reid (trumpet and cornetto)
Gordon Lehany (trumpet and recorder)
Peter Maunder (sackbut and recorder)
Sharon Lehany (hoboy)
Hyewon Kim (violin)
Jane Young (‘cello)
Lachlan Radford (d-bass)
Laurence Reese (percussion)
Kris Suelicke (harpsichord)

City Gallery, Civic Square, Wellington

Saturday, June 1st 2019

A well-ordered programme, a cornucopia of colourful-sounding instruments, a group of skilled, expressive players and a relaxed, spontaneous-sounding presentation whose varied amalgam of fascinating and engaging sounds ensured a most attractive and resounding early evening’s music-making were the sure-fire ingredients of this concert from the early music group “The Queen’s Closet”. The ensemble’s name is derived from an eponymously-titled room found in a National Trust house located in Richmond, London, the room regarded as representing the most lavishly-detailed preservation of 17th Century fashion and style of décor in existence.

Considering the historical and cultural importance of such a place, one might expect any group aligning themselves to it by name to be somewhat rigorous in recreating authenticity of voice and perfection of detail, perhaps even to an inhibiting or stultifying degree. However, such potentially museum-like responses in performance seem unequivocally NOT to be the group’s raison d’etre, according to an open, freshly-expressed note in the concert’s written programme, which I’d like to quote:  – “What we aim to do is make the historic modern, rather than aiming to conduct historical enactments of the past. When this music was first heard it was fresh and modern – we seek to make the music new and contemporary for audiences in our time and place, recreating the joyous spirit of the Restoration”.

It seems to me a well-thought-out attitude to music-making in general, imbuing the sounds through skill, focus and enthusiasm with an immediacy of reaction, a living, breathing set of responses. Thus we in the audience were engaged by these ancient sounds through the music-making’s “living value”, one that easily transcended time and space, and imbued us with that same “new and contemporary” spirit, the sounds both joyous and captivating!

Kicking off this resoundingly festive event was an Overture in D major from an English composer William Corbett (b.1680) who played in and composed for both theatre and instrumental concert ensembles – he led theatre orchestras in London such as that at the Haymarket, and later became the Director of the King’s Band. His D major Overture made a bright, stirring initial impression, with percussion adding weight and brilliance to the brasses during the music’s introduction, before an allegro daintily danced in on the strings, soon being joined by the rest of the ensemble, everything then beautifully and variedly detailed over a number of movements.

A “Curtain Tune” (possibly one composed for a production of “the Tempest”) by Matthew Locke (b.1621) kept the “theatrical” aspect of things to the fore, with Larry Reece’s timpani making an exciting “opening-up” of the vistas towards the piece’s end. At first it made a marked contrast to the gentle stepwise opening of Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber’s Sonata VII, “Tam Aris Quam Aulis Servientes”, with the trumpets (Peter Reid and Gordon Lehany) answering one another across the platform, with violin and hoboy (oboe) adding their comments, the strings in a continuo kind of role throughout. The trumpets varied this with a dotted rhythm variation accompanied by a tambourine, after which the hoboy and violin had a charming, impish exchange, with the two trumpets joining in the discourse – a beautiful and graceful moment of solemnity! – following which the brasses called to one another to bring the work to its close. I was interested that Biber (b.1644), though not a “Restoration” composer as such through working in Salzburg, was said to have had a definite contemporaneous influence upon the English music of the time.

Throughout the evening the musicians took turns to demonstrate the efficacies of their particular instruments, a process that would have worked even better for me had I not been sitting in the very back row of the auditorium, as I found some of the voices difficult to properly hear. Peter Reid , the trumpet/cornetto player, presented no such problem, his voice happily emulating the instruments’ pleasing audibility, by way of demonstrating for us two kinds of cornetto (“little horn”, incidentally) including a larger “Cornetto Muto”. At the conclusion of a piece which followed, by an unknown composer (a jolly dance!) from a collection of music known as the Magdalene College Part-Books, percussionist Larry Reece talked about his timpani, built in 1830, brighter and sharper-toned than modern orchestral timpani. He also elaborated, most interestingly, upon the practical application of “kettledrums” (often mounted on horseback) in warfare, different sounds conveying different messages to troops on the battlefield.

Appropriately there followed an “Overture with Noise of Cannon” by William Croft (b.1678), very Handelian-sounding, trumpets and drums dominating, following which a fugue, instigated by Hyewon Kim’s nimble violin and Sharon Lehany’s hoboy, furthered the discourse most engagingly, the music’s energy further invigorated by Jane Young’s cello and Lachlan Radford’s double-bass! A beautiful and sombre processional followed, fraught with feeling and the players’ almost palpable engagement with the sounds, before violin and hoboy (again!) roused themselves and danced their way into and through the final movement – splendid!

Purcell’s Symphony from Act V of “King Arthur” here carried a dignity and quiet authority, with beautifully-voiced fanfares exchanged across vistas of imagination and recreation. However, Godfrey Finger (b.1660), I thought, provided one of the evening’s highlights with his Sonata for Trumpet and Hoboy – a heavenly discourse between the two instruments was beautifully supported by the continuo of Kris Zuelicke’s harpsichord and Jane Young’s ‘cello, morphing into a kind of running bass (reminiscent of that in Purcell’s “Sound the Trumpet”, from his “Birthday Ode for Queen Mary”). A stirring call to arms followed (great trumpet-playing from Peter Reid), was then overtaken by sudden melancholy! – the hoboy stricken with sorrow, solemn of movement, downcast of spirit – lovely, heartrending work from Sharon Lehany!  Eventually, he veil of angst was lifted by both instruments, and contentment restored.

Another Trumpet Sonata followed, this one by another Godfrey, with the surname of Keller. Beginning with a sprightly “statement and answer” sequence, the trumpet “played” with the endless permutations of this, before reversing the sequences in the next section, the ensemble “calling the tune” this time, as it were. A gentle 3/4 melancholy pervaded the next section, with lovely, delicately-moulded lines here for the sackbut, from Peter Maunder. A running bass, heroic trumpet and celebratory opening of the last movement brought out some lovely exchanges, the ensemble as a whole generating an almost alchemic “feel” for tempi and instrumental balances, producing mellifluous results – the timpani “rounded off” the festive ambience with suitably reinforced “effect”!

Sackbut player Peter Maunder talked briefly about his instrument, clarifying further for me its distinctiveness from a trombone, and telling us something I hadn’t before realised, that sackbuts and trombones were historically associated with church, as opposed to trumpets’ better-known martial connections and horns being always bracketed with hunting. In the next piece by Matthew Locke (Music for the play “Psyche”), Peter Maunder’s playing of his sackbut in a recitative-like passage during the introduction brought out the most beautiful tones, a lovely cantabile, followed by a stately dance movement.  The solo lines reminded me of the trombone solo in Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Russian Easter Overture”, the playing beautifully-phrased and sumptuously-toned.

Last on the programme was the music of Phillipp Jakob Rittler (b.1637), the piece being a Ciaconna, or Chaconne. At the outset the music was slow, stately, relaxed and quietly joyous, with various percussive bells and cymbals adding to the gradual agglommeration of texture and ambience, everything more and more animated and wide-ranging! Antiphonal trumpets had a fine old time as did other instrument “pairs”, such as the violin and hoboy. The music reached its apex, then gradually receded, leaving us with dying tones and “fled is that music?” echoes of mingled regret and pleasure. At the concert’s end the weather outside was even more frightful than when I came at the beginning – but the palpable enjoyment of both the music and its performance throughout the evening amply compensated for my twice-told soaking!

 

 

 

Mozart the wonderful vehicle for supporting an important charity from Karori Classics

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Karori Classics: Purely Mozart
Anna van der Zee and Emma Brewerton (violins), Christian van der Zee and Lyndsay Mountfort (violas), Alegria Solana Ramos (cello), Ignacio de Nicolas Gaya (flute)

Mozart: Flute Quartet in C, K 285b
Mozart: Quintet in G minor, K 526

St Mary’s Church, 176 Karori Road

Friday 31 May, 7 pm

This third concert in the 2019 series, Karori Classics was a benefit concert for Cystic Fibrosis New Zealand, for it’s a wretched condition that afflicts the child of two of the players, Emma Brewerton and Lyndsay Mountfort.

We were sorry to have missed the earlier two concerts; the first, on 1 March, by duet pianists Beth Chen and Nicole Chao, known as Duo Enharmonics; and the second on 22 March for an interesting mixture of pieces involving the flutes of Kirsten Eade and new NZSO flutist/piccolo player Ignacio de Nicolas Gaya in music by Reger, Karg-Elert, a Haydn quartet played by Baroque music group the Orion Quartet (and a composer referred to in the website as J W Bach – presumably a misprint for another Bach).

This, obviously, was a more orthodox programme, which naturally raises more serious expectations. Though there was also an extra-musical interest in that all six players formed three pairs, maritally or romantically speaking. Flutist Ignacio de Nicolas Gaya was here joined by his partner Alegria Solana Ramos, cellist, together with core players named above.

Mozart’s Flute quartet K 285b
They played the third of Mozart’s four flute quartets (the first three are curiously numbered K 285, K 285a and K 285b and the fourth is K 298 in the Köchel catalogue).

Even though the character of players and their instruments didn’t create an especially uniform sound, especially between violin and cello, such niceties are not very significant in a group containing a non-stringed instrument. It was a charming performance, with its sanguine and lyrical first movement, Allegro. The second is a theme and variations, a form that can be dull and predictable in the hands of an ordinary composer, but even though Mozart is on record as disliking the flute, he wrote a totally diverting movement here, with the penultimate variation a secretive, reclusive affair and a deliciously enlivened final variation, which they played with affection and conspicuous pleasure.

The string quintet K 516 is the fourth of the six that he wrote; the first was an early work, and the second, in C minor K 406, was a transcription of his wind serenade K 388. That leaves four great, mature works, and K 516 was alone among them in a minor key. Many a Mozart devotee regards it a one of his greatest works, and I sensed that even without being told that secret, the audience listened with rapt attention as its sombre, reflective spirit unfolded; that was particularly striking through the near quarter hour of the first movement (not a moment too long and the longest movement in any of the quintets). Even though, as with the flute quartet, the tonal ensemble between the instruments was not the main feature of their playing, and the warm beauty of Alegria Solana Ramos’s cello constantly caught the ear, the five players displayed a unanimity of affection and even a degree of awe that made it a singular, lovely experience.

These early evening Friday recitals are very much worth watching out for.