Category: Reviews – Concerts

NZSM students give insightful performances of New Zealand music and pieces by Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms and Barber

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Lunchtime concert at Old St Paul’s

Piano students and a violinist from the New Zealand School of Music
Amanda Bunting, Matthew Oliver, Claudia Tarrant-Matthews (also, violin) and Sophie Tarrant-Matthews

Music by Beethoven, Barber, Psathas, Haydn, Brahms, Lilburn

Old St Paul’s

Tuesday 12 September 12:15 pm

We’ve been neglecting Old St Paul’s lunchtime concerts this year, and so I was glad to find a good audience for this varied exhibition of NZSM piano talent.

It began with Amanda Bunting who played two pieces: the first movement of Beethoven’s Tempest sonata (Op 31 No 2) and Samuel Barber’s Excursions, first movement. Though the Tempest is obviously still a work in progress, with quite a lot of slips, there remained an underlying understanding of its vigorous, shall we say, masculine character, both in its expostulatory and its equally masculine quality of sensitivity.

Then her playing of the first movement, Un poco allegro, of Samuel Barber’s Excursions, one of his best known piano pieces. It’s in four movements and might well be called a suite or even a sonata. Here was a better prepared and executed performance, dealing carefully with the sharp dynamic shifts and capturing the mid-century mood and moderate modernism of composers who had not succumbed to the pressures of serialism.  Its character reminds me, curiously, of one of John Psathas’s early pieces, Waiting for the Aeroplane which of course is quite irrelevant to one’s impressions of this performance.

The next pianist was Matthew Oliver who did, in fact play a couple of pieces by Psathas; the first and third movements from his Songs for Simon for piano and tape. There were problems with the tape, with both the apparent source and quality of the sound, and its intended relationship with the piano. I could detect little connection between what the piano was doing and what seemed to be unrelated sounds from the tape. The tape was hardly audible in the first section, His Second Time; but it was clearly intended to be more dominant in Demonic Thesis. Right at its beginning, the tape problem was again obvious and simply became a distraction; Oliver might better have settled for the piano part alone which was attractive, energetic and repetitive, in a jazz-influenced sense; and he played with energy, intelligence and insight.

While its accompaniment occasionally gave hints of what Psathas had intended, a process of mentally isolating of the piano part yielded music that was inventive and enjoyable. As one does these days, I listened to a YouTube recording by Donald Nicolson in order to get a proper impression of the piece that I regret that I hadn’t heard before: particularly the way the taped percussion sounds were integrated as intended with the piano. It deserves to be better known, and I look forward to a more technically successful performance.

Two sisters, Claudia and Sophie Tarrant-Matthews completed the recital. Claudia played first, the Presto, first movement of Haydn’s Sonata in E minor, Hob XVI/34. Her handling of the sonata was most accomplished, its tempo swift and fluent, the dynamic variety and subtleties understood and vividly expressed; the quiet wit that lies within most of Haydn’s music was conspicuous.

Then she played the first two of Brahms’s four Ballades Op 10. I have always found these strangely enigmatic in terms of their rhythmic and melodic intentions, and it’s never a good idea to attempt to give such characteristics certainty; she didn’t, and it was a satisfying performance. The second Ballade is more sunny and limpid in tone, and the performance again suggested that Claudia wasn’t seeking to solve its problems, to produce a definitive performance; as with so much Brahms, this is the way his music makes its impact and holds the attention. Technically, her playing was highly competent.

Lilburn’s third sonata for violin and piano
I have followed the careers of the two sisters with interest over the years: both have achieved distinction in both piano and violin. Sophie Tarrant-Matthews then introduced Lilburn’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in B minor, composed in 1950. I was sitting a few rows back and could not hear much of what she said, which might have included some of the following background.

This Lilburn violin sonata in B minor was actually his third, and so should be listed either as No 3, or defined by its key. Though the two sonatas, in E flat and C, of 1943 are relatively youthful works (well, he was 27 or 28), they are not insignificant; in fact, they are both around ten minutes longer than the B minor one. The ‘date’ test doesn’t consign to ‘insignificance’, other much played pieces such as the Drysdale, Aotearoa and Festival overtures, Landfall in Unknown Seas and the Canzonetta for violin and viola, all written before 1943.

There have been many recordings of the B minor sonata, perhaps most recently, together with the two 1943 sonatas, by Justine Cormack and Michael Houstoun. (see the list of earlier recordings in Peter Mechen’s review of 14 September 2011, of the recording by Elizabeth Holowell and Dean Sky-Lucas). The 1943 sonatas were first performed, respectively, by, Vivien Dixon (violin) and Anthea Harley Slack (piano), and Maurice Clare (violin) and Noel Newson (piano). The B minor sonata was written in 1950 for Frederick Page (pianist and head of the music department of Victoria University College) and violinist Ruth Pearl, after Lilburn had become a lecturer at the university; they premiered it at the university and then played it again three months later in Wigmore Hall in London.

As Sophie spoke, Claudia dispensed with her piano hands and reached for her violin, and her sister sat at the piano, which of course contributes much more than mere accompaniment to the work. To hear playing of such a finely integrated work by two sisters with years of experience playing together, was very interesting. The affinity between two who obviously enjoy a close musical rapport has developed over many years, to the point where they almost think and feel as one: with an intimately shared view of the character and shape of the music, and grasp of its melodic characteristics.

It’s in one movement, consisting of several contrasting phases, which are not distinct enough to be considered ‘movements’. For the record, the sections are marked: Molto moderato; Allegro; Tempo primo, largamente; Allegro; Allargando and Tempo I, tranquillamente; which returns the music to the home key of B minor.  The parts are conspicuous enough on the page, but the shifts in both tempo and tonality are so organically natural, and handled with such finesse that they clearly form parts of a carefully composed whole. Not only were the slow parts invested with a mature contemplative quality, but the Allegro sections were executed with strength and real conviction. The typical Lilburn spirit lies in the way the energetic B flat Allegro section subsides towards the end to return to the calm of the opening Molto moderato.

 

New Zealand Youth Choir delivers excellent concert, though absence of a major work regretted

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Anthems, spirituals and songs
New Zealand Youth Choir, conducted by David Squire and Michael Stewart; soloists and narrators from the choir

Sacred Heart Cathedral

Sunday, 10 September 2017, 4pm

The cover of the programme appeared to be the poster advertising the choir, but I did not see it anywhere earlier as a poster, and a friend in the audience to whom I spoke after the concert had not seen any publicity either.  Both of us found few people we knew in the audience, which also pointed to a lack of publicity.

The Youth Choir comprises 50 voices.  A delightful feature of the concert was that members of the choir read, prior to each song, the text of the poems, or other texts relevant to the message of the song.  This helped the audience to follow the songs,  since neither the words nor any explanatory notes were printed.  There appeared to be a microphone where the speakers stood, but if it was such (and not solely for broadcast purposes), it was not switched on.  However, most of the speakers spoke sufficiently loudly and clearly for the majority of the words to be heard.  Likewise with the singing, the words were projected with clarity, on the whole.

Blend, balance and intonation were virtually impeccable throughout the programme, and attention to dynamics was salutary.

The first item was ‘Flame’ by Englishman Ben Parry, who is director of the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain, and has visited New Zealand.  The choir was spread around the four walls to sing this demanding piece, unaccompanied – as were all except for one item on the programme.  The music included clashing semi-tones, all perfectly in tune.  Gradually the piece built up to a rich, multi-strand tapestry; the fortissimo filled the church with sound.  When it ended, the choristers moved to the front of the church, intoning a chant.

Next was an old favourite of the choir, right from its early days: ‘Kyrie’ and ‘Heilig’ by Mendelssohn.  The rich tone produced by the choir made it sound a more mature choir (in years) than it is.   Incidentally, I found it curious that a timeline of the choir printed in the programme did not mention Guy Jansen (the choir’s founder, and first conductor, who was present) nor Professor Godfrey, who conducted it for a number of years.

Deputy Music Director of the choir, Michael Stewart, conducted ‘Aurora Lucis rutilat’ by Orlande de Lassus (or Orlando di Lassus if you prefer). This was more restrained in tone than the previous pieces.  The various parts were eminently clear and the antiphonal singing was most effective.  It was useful to have the Latin words translated in the spoken introduction.

Chris Artley’s ‘Agnus Dei’ was the 3rd prize winner in the inaugural International

Choral Composition Competition Japan 2015, and it was the choir’s next item.  The composer, English-born but long-time New Zealand resident, set the words from the Mass.  It was striking both melodically and harmonically, and the composer had set the words beautifully.  It was gorgeously sung, following the opening, which was spoken in Emglish.

Bruckner has featured quite frequently in the choir’s repertoire over the years.  ‘Christus factus est’ was preceded by the appropriate reading of two verses in English from the Biblical letter to the Philippians.  Rich harmonies, typical of Bruckner’s choral music were a feature, including sustained chords.  Impressive.

For a change of mood and territory, we heard ‘How to survive Vesuvius’ by Matthew Recio, a young American composer. The brief preparatory reading about the piece was a little too quiet for me to hear.  The piece involved a variety of vocal effects, including many plosives and interesting harmonic shifts.  The piece rendered the atmosphere of a disaster very well.

After the interval, the pieces were all in the English language.  First was ‘Through coiled stillness’ by New Zealand composer Leonie Holmes.  It started with a spoken poem, in Maori and English.  Sounds of the sea were most impressively produced by members of the choir and a woman soloist sang strikingly along with the choir for much of the piece.  Towards the end there were chimes – bells?  Small Asian cymbals?

English composer Gustav Holst’s arrangement of the folk song ‘I love my love’ was prefaced by several members of the choir speaking as inmates of the infamous Bedlam, making a chilling introduction to the song.  Its spirited ending made an upbeat conclusion in contrast to the depressing opening.  Another Englishman followed: Pearsall, whose ‘Great God of Love’ featured his typical harmony, with many gorgeous suspensions.

Thence to the United States, with two spiritual arrangements by William Dawson: ‘Soon ah will be done’ and another old favourite of the choir, ‘There is a balm in Gilead’.  The first was particularly notable for the beautifully controlled dynamics falling from fortissimo to pianissimo.  The introduction to the latter was not the poem of the song, but a contemporary description of the cruel treatment of slaves.  The performance featured three excellent soloists from the choir.

The only work accompanied by piano (Michael Stewart) was ‘Those Others’, by Rosa Elliott from Burnside High School in Christchurch, who was the winner of SOUNZ Composition Competition in 2015.  It was a very fine piece with an enchanting accompaniment, and soloists.

The concert ended with Cole Porter’s ‘Ev’ry time we say goodbye’, a close harmony number, sung with appropriate style and pronunciation.

The concert was not long – about an hour and ten minutes, if the interval is not included.  While the choir sang extremely well, I felt a lack of something substantial; all the pieces were short, with little relationship between them, although they amply showed off the different styles and techniques the choir has mastered.  Perhaps the organisers were aware of the discomfort of sitting for long on the forms that pass for pews at Sacred Heart?

 

 

Playing with fire – music that sears and burns, from the New Zealand String Quartet

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The NZSQ’s Dangerous Liasions Tour 2017 – programme 2 (Wellington)
JANACEK – String Quartet No.2 “Intimate Letters”
JACK BODY – Saetas
MENDELSSOHN – String Quartet No.2 in A Minor Op.13

Helene Pohl, Monique Lapins (violins)
Gillian Ansell (viola), Rolf Gjelsten (‘cello)

Hunter Council Chamber, Victoria University of Wellington

Sunday, 10th September, 2017

The NZSQ’s 30th anniversary “Dangerous Liasons” national tour featured two programmes of works which encapsulated so much of what the ensemble has already achieved throughout its existence, including world-class presentations of some of the core string quartet repertoire, both in concert and on recordings, and an on-going committment to New Zealand music. Works by Beethoven, Bartok, Schumann and Mendelssohn have been given much-acclaimed performances in all parts of the country, and recordings of complete cycles of quartets by Bartok and Mendelssohn have internationally enhanced the group’s reputation. I would truly welcome a completed recorded cycle by the group of the Beethoven Quartets, to parallel Michael Houstoun’s already-completed recordings of the composer’s piano sonatas, for the sake of directly preserving the sheer quality of an achievement we’ve similarly acclaimed.

I thought that I’d previously encountered the first of Leos Janacek’s two string quartets as performed by the NZSQ at some stage – but a search of Middle C failed to turn up a review. Though I couldn’t specifically recall a previous hearing of either of the quartets I knew what to expect from the composer, having been variously excited and bewildered by my first encounters with his music (the Sinfonietta, plus a rhapsodic and volatile orchestral work called Taras Bulba), and sufficiently engaged by it all to explore further – piano pieces (Along an Overgrown Path, In the Mist), chamber works (Capriccio, Concertino) and opera (The Cunning Little Vixen).

Janacek (1854-1928), a native of Moravia, was one of music’s most remarkable “late bloomers”, producing in his 60s and 70s most of the works that would carry his name throughout the twentieth century and into the present day as one of the most original and innovative composers of his time. At an age when most people had long since sowed their wild oats and settled down to enjoy what has endured in their lives and would “see them out”, Janacek was experiencing a remarkable renaissance of activity and emotion normally associated with people in their twenties, through meeting a married woman, Kamila Stösslová, 37 years his junior, and falling deeply in love with her.

Both Janacek’s wife and Kamila’s husband “tolerated” the affair, largely because Kamila, though flattered by Janacek’s attentions, seemed outwardly unresponsive, as well as showing little interest in his music. But the composer was undeterred, writing hundreds of letters to her of a passionate and at times intimate nature. Kamila was obviously the driving force for his rejuvenated creativity, even if Janacek was to specifically enshrine his affair with her in just one particular work, his Second String Quartet “Intimate Letters”, writing to her and telling her that the music represented “all the dear things that we’ve experienced together”, and adding, “You stand behind every note, you, living, forceful, loving”.

The NZSQ’s ‘cellist, Rolf Gjelsten introduced the work for us at this afternoon’s concert, quoting another passage from Janacek’s writings to Stösslová, which referred to the Quartet’s music as having been “carved out of human flesh”. The words seemed to make for the composer the ultimate claim on the woman that he loved, to thus write her into his music.

Surely the music that followed was a portrait not of Stösslová per se, but of Janacek himself, and his projected emotions towards his paramour – everything that came after the striving, heartfelt opening declamation was sounded impulse, here whispered intensity, and there obsessive ostinati-like passages, the fulsomeness of the gestures heightened by extremities of dynamics and “unvarnished” string timbres. Lyrical sequences found themselves suddenly grappling with heightened, overbearing figurations, or with gradually sharpening focus, an extended solo for Monique Lapins’ violin arching at one point into intensely passionate exchanges which threatened to become orgasmic in places – a beautiful viola solo from Gillian Ansell similarly succumbed to the pull of the cataclysmic surges, swallowed and digested by the music’s ongoing default-setting intensities.

These descriptions, of course, stem directly from the NZSQ’s fiercely-committed playing as much as from the composer’s music – having heard and seen the ensemble perform many times over the years I’ve come to expect a kind of base-line intensity brought to whatever they play, which invariably makes for thrilling results – here, it seemed to me that Janacek’s creative spirit had been spontaneously re-ignited in performance, engulfing us in a veritable tide of raw emotion , which was surely what the composer intended! To similarly anatomise the way the NZSQ delivered the remaining movements of the Janacek would be to go overboard in terms of review space and reader time – enough to say that the second movement took us on a rhapsodically obsessive roller-coaster ride, Janacek subjecting the opening viola melody to all kinds of expressive extremes, rather like a manic lover reiterating the same words in endlessly inventive ways. The third movement, too, opened with melancholic declamations and easeful rhythmic trajectories which soon found themselves under siege from extremes of rhythm and timbral projection, Helene Pohl’s violin emoting almost to stratospheric breaking-point over several anguished sequences!

The finale’s near-manic folk-dance opening had an almost nightmarish gaiety, the atmosphere to all and intents and purposes “spooked” by what had gone before and its still-to-come possibilities. What incredible energy and focus these players seemed to draw on, to put across what seemed like a barrage of unsolicited chunks of reconstituted emotion! Whatever dancings that were left were punctuated with feral, animal-like scamperings and frighteningly vicious tremolandi – T.S.Eliot wrote somewhere that “human kind cannot bear very much reality”, and it seemed to me that these musicians had taken us perilously near to something like those realms of disturbance and disintegration via this extraordinary music.

After cheek-by-jowling with these full frontal intensities one wanted something removed from such hot-house emotions – Jack Body’s Saetas, while no less focused and involved with its subject matter, seemed to signal a throwing open of windows to let in air and light, following on as it did from Janacek’s somewhat claustrophobic series of confessional outpourings.

Gillian Ansell introduced us to Body’s work, which was commissioned by the Quartet as long ago as 2002, and which had come from the composer’s explorations of music associated with the Spanish flamenco tradition. Body had been researching material for a work, Carmen Dances, whose central character was the then iconic Wellington-based figure of Carmen Rupe, a transexual strip-club owner, who had also run as a mayoral candidate. Saetas (a word meaning “arrow” or “dart”) was composed as a separate project, with Body focusing particularly on music associated with religious feasts held in Spain during Holy Week – saeta are semi-improvised, highly ornamented flamenco songs, many of which were transcribed from different sources by the composer for his material.

Gillian Ansell talked about the quejío, or lament, aspect of these songs, sung by penitents as statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary are carried through the streets in the processionals. The first and last pieces featured the musicians exclaiming such a cry of lament at the very beginning. As well, in the opening bars of the first piece the composer quoted excerpts from both Tchaikovsky’s “Pathetique” Symphony, and a Hugo Wolf song from his work “The Spanish Songbook”, which, together with the quejío constituted a kind of effervescing “cocktail mix” of diverse but still intensely-focused emotion in line with the fervour normally generated by the occasion.

Body’s transcriptions also featured strong drum pulses, which were here represented by additional instruments in the performance, a drum and an accordion, played by Rolf Gjelsten, who demonstrated to us aspects of what these instruments would sound like before the group began the work. After playing the ‘cello during the first piece, he swopped instruments, taking up the accordion for the remaining three pieces.

The upward-rushing figurations at the music’s beginning actually made me think of Wagner as much as Tchaikovsky! The lyrical declamations were played “folkishly”, the instruments readily exploring timbres associated with raw, direct emotion, characterful and unvarnished. Most of the music moved slowly and processionally, a dirge of tightly-knit intensities (the violins directed to play as if their notes were “searing beams of light”), both focused and atmospheric!

Rolf Gjelsten having swapped his instruments, the second saeta began, with single jabbed staccato notes to which the viola replied with a sombre melodic line, the accordion adding its harmonium-like tones besides contributing a rhythmic “crunching” accompaniment, viola and violins repeating the mournful thematic material in different registers. The third movement’s source material is not strictly a saeta (rather, a fourteenth century song “O sad life of the flesh!”) but the subject and general mood of the piece certainly accorded with the rest, and began with a quejio which linked it to the tradition. We heard dense clusters of accordion notes at the outset vying with flurrying string rhythms, which begin to alternate gypsy-like running figures and searing single held notes – gradually the piece’s agitations and divergent threads were bound together, the strings playing in unison at the end over a long-breathed accordion figure.

The fourth and last Saeta opened with another vocalisation (marked “with anguished fervour”) from the quartet players, reinforced by drum-and footbeats in a great “Bolero-like” crescendo to the final thunderous thump immediately after the strings finished their lines and reached their cadence. Leading up to this cataclysm were swirling maelstroms of sound from the instruments, creating an overwhelming effect of a specific, yet universally human kind of life-force.

In my mind arose the question – was Mendelssohn’s music going to make any impression upon us in cheek-by-jowl company with such raw extrusions of attention-grabbing emotion? Ought his contribution to the evening’s music have been put in a less assailable comparative position in relation to the rest? Well, in a concert of surprises this music’s ability to hold its ground and create its own culture of intense feeling was among my afternoon’s most noteworthy discoveries.

The NZSQ has, of course not long since completed a recording project for Naxos involving the composer’s complete works in this genre, a venture I’ve yet to catch up with – but on the basis of what I heard the players do with this particular quartet (No.2 in A Minor, Op.13), I would be very keen to seek their recordings out, and get to know the music better, especially so when, as here at this concert, it’s presented in what seems to me the best possible light. Having encountered such playing and interpretation of this order “live”, I would want to encourage as many people as possible to explore more of Mendelssohn via the efforts of the NZSQ on their recordings.

Monique Lapins, the ensemble’s second violinist, introduced the work, which was actually Mendelssohn’s first “mature” string quartet (composed in 1827) despite its later Opus number than the so-called String Quartet No.1 in E-flat Major, Op.12 (written two years AFTER No.2! – classical music would, of course, be the poorer without such mind-tickling anomalies!). She quoted the words of a song “Frage”, written and composed by the precocious 18-year-old during the same year as the “second” quartet, a song whose opening words “Is it true?” appear throughout the quartet as a three-note motif (incidentally, both Liszt and Brahms used a similar 3-note phrase, each in a solo piano work).

A slow, richly-voiced introduction began the Quartet’s performance of the work, the three-note motif derived from the song occurring at the end of the opening paragraph, just prior to the players’ precipitous plunge into the movement’s allegro, during which I readily took in the playing’s strength and gutsiness, imbuing the music with a greater and more satisfying degree of those qualities than I would have expected. After some intense duetting between the first and second violins in the development, the reprise brought back those first urgencies, engaging our sensibilites at a white-heat rate which again I found exhilarating.

The slow movement’s rich, hymn-like melody, so very characteristic of the composer, came with surety and strength in performance. The mid-movement fugue, modelled after Beethoven’s example in the latter’s Op.95 (despite his father’s disapproval, the young Felix idolised Beethoven’s quartets), was put through its somewhat volatile, though always characterful, paces by the players before the lovely return of the hymn-like opening music, at the movement’s end.

I loved the limpid poise and gossamer grace of the third-movement Intermezzo, a dance that was a kind of antique gavotte at the outset, replete with lovely instrumental interchanges and dovetailed melodic figures. A scherzo-like change which came over the music brought deft, rhythmically ambiguous gossamer scamperings in a kind of “hide-and-seek” scenario, almost Schumannesque in its “merry pranks” aspect, before the music returned to the opening solemnities – a coda glanced fleetingly and mischievously back at the “merry pranks” episode before smiling, and disappearing!

Not unlike what Schubert does at the beginning of his Octet’s finale, Mendelssohn presented us with chaos and disorder in a tempestuous opening, the first violin beating its breast over agitations wrought by the tremolo accompaniments . However, Mendelssohn’s ensuing allegro wasn’t as genial as Schubert’s, the NZSQ players here pushing expectantly towards points of intensity with exciting unisons and horse-galloping sequences. Gillian Ansell’s viola called for clear-headedness by revoicing the fugato of the second movement, but soon became caught up with the ensemble’s rebuilding of the lines towards a return of the allegro and thence to the movement’s tremulous opening. Keeping us on the seat’s edge, the composer fetched up a disconsolate solo, sung with oceans of feeling by Helene Pohl’s volin, quoting the fugato before taking final refuge with the others in the quartet’s opening – and the requoting of Mendelsson’s three-note figure was like balm for the soul! – it was caressed and embraced by the players, to the point where we in the audience were made to feel as if we ourselves were young lovers all over again! – a treasurable experience!

Pleasure of a “return to our lives” kind was then afforded by the players doing a “swop-around of instruments for a klezmer encore, written, I think, by Ross Harris, Rolf Gjelsten back on the accordion, and Helene Pohl in the ‘cellist’s seat for a change, while Gillian Ansell and Monique Lapins also did an exchange – wot larks! No more madcap scenario was evoked, and no enjoyment was more relished than by these talented musicians sharing their fun and games with us, and afterwards, sending us home replete!

Orchestra Wellington with scintillating programme: Grieg piano concerto midst spectacular orchestral waltzes

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Orchestra Wellington conducted by Marc Taddei
Pianist: Jian Liu

Ravel: Valses nobles et sentimentales
Grieg: Piano Concerto in A minor
Weber: Invitation to the Dance (orchestrated by Berlioz)
Ravel: La valse

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 9 September, 7:30 pm

Orchestra Wellington’s 2017 series has followed the theme of music inspired or commissioned by the great impresario Serge Diaghilev. The two pieces with Diaghilev connections at this concert were Weber’s Invitation to the Dance and Ravel’s La valse, though there was also a ballet connection with the first Ravel music in the programme which was originally a set of waltzes for piano which Ravel orchestrated at the request, not of Diaghilev, but of ballerina Natasha Trouhanova.

Ravel based his set of eight waltzes on the many that Schubert had written for the piano: a set of 34 dances entitled Valses sentimentales, in 1823 and a set of 12 entitled Valses nobles, in 1826. Ravel originally called his orchestrated waltzes Adélaïde, ou le langage des fleurs.

A programme note by pianist Richard Dowling describes the original ballet performance: “It was orchestrated in two weeks in March 1912 and the ballet was performed in April 22, 1912 at the Théatre du Chatelet with Ravel conducting the Lamoreux Orchestra. Mme. Trouhanova danced the part of Adelaide. The premiere was an outstanding event, as four ballets were conducted by their respective composers, Vincent d’Indy, Florent Schmitt, Paul Dukas, and Ravel.”

Ravel composed, not just a set of individual dances, but a sensitively composed, unified work. That’s not to say it has a formal structure like a sonata movement, but a sequence that finds unity in melodic, rhythmic, emotional contrast in a way similar to the pattern of a suite or set of character pieces such as Schumann composed for the piano. The variety ensures that the listener is constantly stimulated by something fresh, but a creatively composed suite also creates a coherent, integrated group, each supporting or offering a connection with the next.

The problem with music that has been first conceived for a certain instrument or instruments, and later arranged for others, is the feeling, hard to dislodge, that the second version is something of a compromise or trade-off with the original. Here the big orchestra dramatized the waltzes, perhaps burdening the piano score with unnecessary colour and tonal variety; Taddei was careful to invest them with appropriate charm, energy, calm, delicacy, a touch of mystery or melancholy, the unexpected or enigmatic.

Grieg’s piano concerto is allegedly one of the most popular, but I’m mystified as to how it gains familiarity these days when there are so few live performances (that I have recent memory of); nor does it get played by RNZ Concert (which is surprising in light of their obsession with certain categories of the very popular classics). So what emerged as a lovely performance of a, to me, thoroughly familiar and well-loved concerto might not have been that for many of the audience. In addition, it used commonly to be belittled as a youthful, immature work, and evidence that Grieg was merely a miniaturist and couldn’t handle big forms. I’ve never agreed at all.

I used to love the Schumann concerto (which we heard played by Stephen de Pledge a month ago) more than Grieg’s, but the effect of this performance re-awoke my affection for Grieg, with Jian Liu’s luminous, calm, deeply felt performance and demeanour, and with very similar characteristics emerging from the orchestra.

New-comers to it could scarcely have had a more persuasive introduction. All its important features were in place: the big opening timpani statement preceding the arresting piano double octaves that at once subsides as the orchestra quietly runs through the opening themes long before the piano re-enters to elaborate on what we’ve heard. Jian Liu at once established his tone of poetic graciousness that really characterised the whole piece, even in the more flamboyant parts of the last movement, though I note that it’s marked ‘Allegro moderato molto e marcato’ rather that ‘molto vivace’ or ‘presto’, or ‘con fuoco’, etc. Though the long cadenza is a poetic rather than a virtuoso exercise, which Liu made no attempt to impose, all the brilliance necessary was there, and he seemed always driven by the view of the cadenza as an integral part of movement. Each phrase was given charming breathing space, and such things as slightly prolonged gaps between certain big chords at its climax were beautifully judged.

The second movement expresses a gentle calm that Liu approached almost diffidently, though the deft keyboard flutterings, at one point duetting with Ed Allen’s perfectly sympathetic solo horn and with Mark Cookson’s clarinet also distinctive. But the charms of the slow-movement don’t end, as the last movement too, passes through contrasting meditative and calm episodes between its excitable and challenging bravura passages.

Weber’s Invitation
I was ready to consider the Grieg the concert’s highlight (and really, it was), but to get a rare live hearing of Berlioz’s sensitive and felicitous orchestration of Weber’s Invitation to the Dance was a treat, and attention was rightly focused on Brenton Veitch’s beautiful cello ‘invitation’ and courteous ‘escorting of his partner back to her seat’ after the waltz ends. Marc Taddei’s own introduction, discreetly reminding those unfamiliar with it not to clap at the end of the waltz itself, did the trick. It was a lovely way to awaken those who had not already discovered it, to Berlioz’s genius in finding extraordinarily sensitive orchestral interpretations of tales, moods and visual scenes.

La valse
If I’d felt that the Ravellian orchestra weighed a bit heavily on the Valses nobles…,  La valse itself was rather different, conceived and designed by Ravel as an orchestral tour-de-force. This performance, employing very large wind and percussion sections, and two harps, emphasised the traditional character of ‘the waltz’ and for about two-thirds of its length it may have been formally modelled on the concert waltzes of Johann or Richard Strauss. But it becomes increasingly clear that the composer wanted to dramatise the potentially frenzied and chaotic characteristics that he felt impacted 19th century society, and the orchestra successfully navigated its path to the almost stupefying climax with increasing intensity, yet there was little loss of detail in the performance that was truly a credit to Taddei and the orchestra.

 

Dangerous liaisons investigated by New Zealand String Quartet in restored St Mary’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand String Quartet (Helene Pohl and Monique Lapins violins; Gillian Ansell, viola; Rolf Gjelsten, cello)

Beethoven: String Quartet no.1 in F, Op.18 no.1
Bartók: String Quartet no.1 in A minor, Sz.40
Schumann: String Quartet in A, Op.41 no.3

St. Mary of the Angels Church

Thursday, 7 September 2017, 7.30pm

This year, the Quartet’s tour was entitled ‘Dangerous Liaisons’, and introductory remarks explained how this epithet applied to each of the three composers whose early compositions in the genre the items were.

It was a robust and demanding programme heard by a rather modest audience.  Two little deficiencies for me: the lights were switched off entirely, save for the spotlights on the players (more of that later), and thus one could not refer to the programme during the concert; secondly, the printed programme did not carry the tempo designations of the movements.  The latter are always useful to know.  However, the spoken introductions were valuable, especially the longer one, with many musical examples, given by Helene Pohl for the Bartók..

The acoustic of the beautifully refurbished St. Mary of the Angels church is eminently suitable for chamber music, and it was good to hear all the subtleties; these can be lost in a bigger venue.  Every nuance was present in the Beethoven quartet; there was nothing mechanical about this playing.  The grand gestures of the first movement (allegro con brio) were interrupted by gentler passages.

The second movement adagio affetuoso ed appassionato, was influenced, the composer said, by the final, tragic scene in Romeo and Juliet – the ‘dangerous liaison’.  The solemn opening set the scene; towards the end the music had hints of yearning.  The beautifully expressive playing could be heard so well in the church,  Gorgeous lilting passages were followed by highly dramatic ones.

The scherzo third movement was a great contrast, being quite jolly in nature, driving ever onward.  The allegro final movement began in similar mood to the third, though it was a little more serious.  Counterpoint abounded.  Despite this quartet being one of the composer’s first, it was very assured.  Its close was flourishing and satisfying.

From early Beethoven (despite his quartet being numbered as no.1, apparently it was not the first, the numbering not being strictly chronological) to Bartók’s first composition in this genre.   The quartet is in three movements, played without breaks between.

A doleful introduction to the lento first movement evolved into more dramatic music, reflecting the composer’s unrequited love for the violinist Stefi Geyer, who broke off their relationship (another ‘dangerous liaison’).  Many different elements are present, but all the music was played in the same committed, unified way.  There are numerous passages where the violins play together, then the lower strings follow.  Concerted episodes abound also, including impassioned ones.

The second movement is marked allegretto (sometimes referred to as poco a poco accelerando all’allegretto). The quickening tempo between the three movements made its mark despite no more than the slightest breaks.  The third was allegro vivace.  Hungarian folk music features particularly in the latter two movements.  The music was often tense and highly strung and towards the end became frenetic.

It was a brilliant performance, and made me think how fortunate we are to have a resident quartet of such a high standard.

Monique Lapins introduced the final work, the Schumann.  Again, it was an early work, written in his ‘year of chamber music’, 1842, and composed in just three days.  Because of the enormous opposition from Clara Wieck’s father to her marrying Robert Schumann, and their recourse to the courts to gain permission, this too was a ‘dangerous liaison’.

Perhaps partly because Robert had by this time married Clara, the quartet is not as impassioned as the two quartets heard in the first half, and is considerably more lyrical than they.  However, it is not without passion, and the work’s many ascending sequences engender a positive mood.
(The movements are: 1. Andante espressivo – Allegro molto moderato, 2. Assai agitato, 3. Adagio molto, 4. Finale: Allegro molto vivace.)

Compared with the two works played earlier, this work was relatively straightforward; it was certainly more  Romantic, particularly the second movement, though the mood became gradually more disturbed, before the busy movement drew to a peaceful close.

Another disturbance intervened: the spotlights shining on the musicians went off, and there they were, playing just by the light of approximately 40 candles behind them.  As true professionals, not a note or a beat was missed, and they carried on.  The priest was able to go into an adjacent room and turn on the house lights, but the lighting for the players’ scores was not as good as the five spotlights had been.  It was easier for the reviewer to write notes, though!

The third movement was slow yet passionate in its opening phrases.  The music modulated and became more sombre.  The underpinning of the upper parts by pizzicato cello was most effective.  The melody here could be that of a song, something that Schumann excelled at, of course.

The final movement was quite jovial, like a lively dance, and brought the concert to a pleasing close.

There were some down-sides to this concert: the church was cold; the pews are very hard for sitting on for a concert-length period of time.  Then there was the lighting; at first, none for the audience, and then the failure.  As we exited the church, the priest remarked that the street lights were out.  All the CBD was without street lights, but traffic lights were working, as were lights in shop windows and some floors of office buildings.  This was noted in Friday’s news; it affected some suburbs as well as the central city.  Driving home, I was without street lights until coming to Molesworth Street.  But why should the temporary lights inside the church be affected??

 

St Andrew’s captures fascinating sample from the 44th International Viola Congress in Wellington

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Recital by leading Polish violist Marcin Murawski and pianist Gabriela Glapska

Music by Grażyna Bacewicz, Michael Kimber, Paweł Michałowski, Henryk Wieniawski, Władysław Żeleński, Fryderyk Chopin

St  Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 6 September, 12:15 pm

St Andrew’s managed to attract one of the visitors to the 44th International Viola Congress that was held in Wellington over the weekend. Polish violist Marcin Murawski together with pianist Gabriela Glapska (Polish doctoral student at Victoria University’s School of Music) played an interesting 45 minutes of Polish music. Apart from a couple of pieces by contemporary composers, most was by 19th century composers, and it was little surprise to find that two of Chopin’s Nocturnes ended the recital and that another was by one of the most brilliant composer/violinists of the 19th century, Henryk Wieniawski.

It was a programme that confirmed the impression that most would have, that the viola is an unostentatious instrument whose forte is meditative, calm, elegiac music, rather in line with at least some of the music that was played in the NZSO concert on Monday when three violists from the congress played evocative, pictorial, striking works written or arranged for the viola.

This concert consisted of pieces that were apparently composed for the viola, though the two Chopin Nocturnes were obviously and very successfully given a viola line.

The first piece, Polish Caprice, for solo viola, was written in 1949 by Grażyna Bacewicz (1909-1969) who, the Internet tells me, Paderewski enabled to attend an academy in Paris where she studied with Nadia Boulanger. She is regarded as the most outstanding 20th century Polish female composer. It presented the viola in its quintessential character, thoughtful, very quiet and slow, hovering around the bottom, C string. But it soon evolved into a short, brisk dance-like phase, individual in character and somewhat angular. It ended all of a sudden.

United States composer and violist Michael Kimber wrote Murovisation. He is clearly a close friend and colleague of Murawski who has released six CDs of Kimber’s music played by Murawski’s viola quartet; Murovisation, again for viola alone, is on the first of those discs, its title clearly acknowledging the relationship between composer and violist. It is one of those pieces that opens so tentatively that I thought for a moment he was just tuning up. It became a series of slow, rising, widely spaced notes, a sort of arpeggio, endlessly, slowly, modifying as if exploring for the listener’s sake, the secrets of the viola’s beauty with a sense of mystery. It gradually accelerated, tumultuously and then returned, slowing to the sounds with which it started.

Paweł Michałowski was born in Wrocław in 1982 and appears to be primarily a bass guitar player, but with many other musical and scholarly sidelines, including a PhD that sought to reconstruct John Lock’s philosophy of language. I found a reference to his Lullaby Passacaglia (Passacaglia kołysanka, if you’d like the Polish) on a CD of passacaglias by several composers from Biber onward, played by a quartet of two violas, violin and piano, one of the violas being Murawski, though he played it here as a solo viola piece. It was a lullaby in the sense of being slowly rhythmic, quiet, such as to send a child to sleep; not the least dissonant, but subject to a slowly increasing intensity of expression. It demanded considerable technical feats that did not aim to be flamboyant or virtuosic.

Then came composer and great violinist Wieniawski and, for the first time, pianist Gabriela Glapski. Wieniawski’s Reverie offered alternating piano and viola solo passages at the beginning, so we become aware that Murawski had a highly talented partner. The music matched its title, creating a mood suggesting the two reminiscing, and when they came together the reflective mood remained though each became more distinct.

Throughout the concert, Murawski’s instrument and his playing captured what I have always felt to be the essence of the viola’s character. What Wieniawski we usually hear are the violin concertos – splendid pieces – and so it was interesting to hear something different that confirmed his place as a real composer rather than one confined to the player’s own instrument.

Władysław Żeleński was a contemporary of Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, Grieg,… and his Lullaby (kołysanka again) sounded of that period. His melodies betrayed a distinct Romantic strain, which viola and piano captured in a subdued, rocking rhythm.

Two of Chopin’s Nocturnes (No 18 in E, Op 62/2 and No 13 in C minor, Op 48/1) were obvious candidates to continue the theme, with the addition of a viola line that seemed a perfectly integral part of the music and did not detract from the spirit of Chopin’s creations. Naturally, neither called for pyrotechnics, and the players’ approach was a combination of conviction and an unaffected aim to be faithful to the original; in fact Chopin’s long melodic lines almost suggested that it might have been Chopin who had reduced the score for viola and piano to piano alone.

So, though I was delighted to be at the Viola Congress’s concert with the NZSO on Monday, I rather regretted not getting to any of the events during the weekend (as I had at the 2001 congress that was similarly hosted by Donald Maurice and Massey University’s then Conservatorium of Music) and so I was very happy to hear this visitor’s playing, first of music of, for me, unknown Polish composers, and second, such quintessentially evocative and beautiful viola music.

 

Madrigals-a-go! defined, declared and delivered by Cantoris with director Thomas Nikora

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Madrigals – \ ˈma-dri-gəlz \ n. Poems set to music, sung a capella for two to eight voices

Cantoris, directed by Thomas Nikora

Music by Mozart, Tallis, Gibbons, Morley, Bruckner, Saint-Saens, Purcell, Rachmaninov, Chris Artley, Manning Sherwin, Billy Joel

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

Wednesday, 6th September, 2017

The programme note was right to describe the evening’s entertainment as “a delightful Spring programme”, even if Wellington hadn’t thus far (and hasn’t since yet) had a weather response worthy of the name! Still, none of this was through want of trying on the part of Cantoris, whose singing at least warmed our insides and gave as good a precursor of the winds of change as any recent general election poll!

First up we were treated to a kind of “surround-sound” presentation of Mozart’s Cantate Domino, a piece of music I’ve not been able to find anything about, and certainly have never heard before – however, Cantoris’ treatment of the piece rendered such detail superfluous in situ, such was the impact of the group’s warm, open-hearted singing.

Beginning with a unison line, the sounds spread around the church’s interior, separating into parts and overlapping like an indoor version of “Forest Murmurs”, reaching a kind of saturation point at which the strands wound into a great unison statement of the opening – I found the effect of it all exhilarating!

Though the beautiful Thomas Tallis anthem/motet “If You Love Me” inevitably brought a reduction of ambient scale to the proceedings, following after such a spectacularly antiphonal opening, it also tightened up the vocal textures of the group to the point where we could register the balances and the different timbres of the voices, the women sounding a tad more secure than did the men, especially at the highest pitches. Towards the end, the overlapping effect of the voices produced a frisson of beauty which memorably coloured the music’s dying resonances of the music.

Orlando Gibbons’ “The Silver Swan” elicited properly silvery tones from the sopranos, with only the highest notes vulnerable to strain, while Thomas Morley’s rather less exposed lines in “Sing We and Chant It” allowed a more relaxed, rhythmically infectious mode, in which the lines found and balanced one another admirably.

Though I was far less familiar with Anton Bruckner’s choral music than with his majestic “symphonic boa constrictors” as Brahms unkindly called his symphonies (which, incidentally, I love!), I was charmed by “Locus Iste” a motet Bruckner wrote for the dedication of a new votive chapel at Linz – the words of the motet go on to translate as “This place was made by God”. Reminiscent of Wagner’s “Tannhauser” in places, the piece built impressively and characteristically, the voices fully relishing the piece’s dynamic range by appropriately “singing out”, while giving passages such as the concluding repetition of “a Deo factus est” a peaceful and serene aspect. I might have even guessed (well, maybe after two or three goes), had I listened “blind”, that the piece had been written by Bruckner.

The second Bruckner item, “Vexilla Regis” (The banners of the king) sounded quite a different kettle of fish – composed “out of a pure impulse of the heart” in 1892, it was the composer’s last completed motet, and demonstrated a markedly transformed style of writing compared to the earlier “Locus Iste”. Characterised by sudden unexpected shifts of harmony, the music recalled passages in the slow movements of Bruckner’s later symphonies (this time, I’m almost certain I would have guessed the composer first up!) How wonderful to hear the choir sing with such a confident sense of line, the voices taking all but the somewhat awkward concluding descent in their stride.

Asked to name composers of madrigals, I wouldn’t have thought to mention Camille Saint-Saens, though Cantoris would have you believe that he wrote at least one, “Calme des Nuits Op.68 No.1”, which we heard this evening (there also exists an Op.68 No.2, “Les fleurs et les arbres”, which one presumes would have been composed along the same lines…..). Anyway, due investigation suggested to me that Saint-Saens probably wrote the texts of both of these choruses himself, and invested them with a depth of feeling that isn’t usually accorded the composer’s music. Here, the “Calm of the Night” unfolded with long-breathed lines, the music freely modulating, the tones then burgeoning impressively for a few imposing measures before falling back again, and taking us to a concluding paragraph featuring some rapt, soulful soprano tones, most sensitively controlled.

Two madrigals of the “English” variety followed, each by Thomas Morley – the first was something of a workout for the soprano voices, having to sustain demanding exposed lines with support lower down from an answering group, a challenge the voices steadfastedly met, despite a “parched” sequence or two along the way. Rather less demanding was Morley’s “Now is the month of maying”, a jolly fa-la-la romp, with director Thomas Nikora on this occasion electing to sing as well as direct from within the ensemble’s ranks, making for plenty of fun and immediacy of dynamic differentiation!

The first of Purcell’s “madrigals” was, it seemed, a vocal arrangement of an instrumentally-accompanied solo, Fairest Isle, from a stage work “King Arthur”. The soprano solo was ripely-toned and gorgeous, with occasional bell-like qualities lightening the vocal ambiences. Then, with the second item “If Love’s a sweet passion” from “The Fairy Queen” the solo voice, joined in a reprise by the ensemble, brought strength and character to the words, qualities which underlined the music’s theatrical origins.

To finish the programme we were given an attractive bracket of performances with madrigal-like qualities across a spectrum of musical styles, beginning with Sergei Rachmaninov’s “Bogoroditse Devo” from his “All-Night Vigil”, a text known to English speakers as the “Hail Mary”, a gorgeous performance, filled with rapt fervour. New Zealand choral composer Chris Artley’s work “O Magnum Mysterium” resonated richly throughout its opening, towards some beautifully emphasised “Alleluias” and some echo effects between the men’s and women’s voices, before the piece finished with enriched clustered harmonies, beautifully shaped and resonated.

I knew “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” but not the concluding Billy Joel song. In Manning Sherwin’s pre World War Two hit, recorded by the “Forces’ Sweetheart, Vera Lynn”, a wordless vocalising sequence introduced a brief solo line before some flavoursome harmonic shifts tested the voices, who emerged with great credit from the sequences, nicely capturing the song’s atmosphere with plenty of nostalgic feeling.And so it was left to Billy Joel, with a song I thought worthy of the Beatles “And so it goes”, featuring a true-toned male solo voice briefly joined by a single woman’s voice, fetchingly harmonised and attractively resonated. It made a relaxed and good-humoured ending to the concert, one which I think the singers and their inspirational and energising conductor, Thomas Nikora, ought to be well pleased with.

“The Three Altos” – scenes of glory and achievement for the viola here in Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Three Altos – a Viola Spectacular with the NZSO
The 44th International Viola Congress, Wellington, NZ

ROBERT SCHUMANN (arr. Mclean – Marchenbilder Op.113 (world premiere)
Roger Myers (viola)
ROBERTO MOLINELLI – Lady Walton’s Garden (world premiere)
Anna Serova (viola)
BORIS PIGOVAT – Poem of Dawn (New Zealand premiere)
Anna Serova (viola)
WILLIAM WALTON – Concerto for Viola and Orchestra
Roger Benedict (viola)

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Hamish McKeich (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Monday, 4th September, 2017

This concert marked the conclusion of the 44th International Viola Congress, one which brought aficionados from everywhere in the world to Wellington for no less than five days of intense viola interaction. Co-hosts for the event were Professor Donald Maurice, and NZSQ violist Gillian Ansell, both distinguished teachers of the viola at the New Zealand School of Music, Victoria University of Wellington. It was no wonder that, with fifty-plus events scheduled for the five days, the prospect of the Congress was, for Gillian Ansell, “nothing short of viola heaven!”

The concert, featuring three internationally-acclaimed viola soloists performing individually with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, made a fitting conclusion to this five-day whirlwind of meetings, seminars, workshops and chamber concerts. Two of the presentations were world premiere performances – Michael McLean’s orchestral arrangement of Schumann’s Märchenbilder Op.113, and Roberto Molinelli’s Lady Walton’s Garden, a three-movement work whose individual sections are named after plants and flowers from Lady Susana Walton’s garden, La Mortella, on the island of Ishia, near Naples; while a third, Israeli composer Boris Pigovat’s 2013 work Poem of Dawn, here received its New Zealand premiere. Not unfittingly, the fourth work was a viola classic – Sir William Walton’s much acclaimed 1929 Viola Concerto.

We were fronted up to by a couple of speakers before the music got under way, the first being the Hon. Chris Finlayson, who, in introducing himself as a representative of the Government, told us quite categorically (besides welcoming us to the concert and paying tribute to those here in Wellington who had organised the Viola Congress) that one could still be a classical music-lover despite being the Attorney-General! We then were addressed briefly by the newly-appointed Director of the NZSM, Professor Sally Jane Norman, who similarly paid tribute to the organisers of the Congress and the evening’s concert, describing the event as “a strong cultural resonator for Wellington”, and causing wry amusement with her description of the city as “a world famous wind instrument” – a nice touch!

These pleasantries having been deftly expressed and duly registered, we settled down to the evening’s music, beginning with the first of the evening’s “premieres”, Robert Schumann’s Märchenbilder Op.113, arranged for viola and orchestra, with soloist Roger Myers, and with Hamish McKeich conducting the NZSO. No composer of my listening experience proclaims his character more readily in his music than does Schumann, the opening Nicht schnell expressing that curiously unique melancholic lyricism so characteristic of the composer which at once gives and conceals, emotes and holds in check, a scenario of unquiet impulses and counter-impulses which, allowed to get the upper hand, as in Schumann’s unfortunate case, can lead to undermining disturbance. Scored for an orchestra these impulses seemed rather less obsessive, if more discursive – but the general effect was attractive, more “comfortable” than the chamber version.

The vigour of the Lebhaft’s march was transformed midway into a skitterish galop, a twisting phrase thrown this way and that by soloist and orchestra, the music’s angularities given plenty of swagger by the players. Then, it was the turn of the following Rasch, which music expended comparable energies, Roger Myers’ finger-fleetness given a workout by the driving triplet rhythms set against a striding orchestral accompaniment.

After these vigorous expenditures, the benediction of the finale cast a dream-like spell over the hall, with Schumann come into his element here as a composer of “the soft note for he who listens secretly” – a quote normally associated with the Op.17 Fantasia for solo piano, but just as applicable to the hushed, inward musings of the viola and the accompanying strands and counterpoints – as if the music’s questing spirit has found its resting-place. In some moods the sounds might be thought of as religious, while in others the music’s lullabic trajectories might evoke deep nostalgia. Roger Myers’ playing and the orchestral support under Hamish McKeich winningly encompassed both possibilities.

In view of the ostensible subject-matter, I was expecting something far more Delian from Roberto Molinelli’s “Lady Walton’s Garden”, but was obviously out-of-synch with both the times and the context – this was no languid, heavily-scented “In a Summer Garden”-like evocation, but a lively, infectiously physical delineation of joyous energies, especially so during the work’s first movement, subtitled gincko biloba (the first of three such names). The new soloist was Anna Serova, and her poised, finely-crafted viola-playing here, suggested, perhaps, an agent provocateur, the conduit through which the garden and its verdant energies were expressed.

The second movement, Victoria Amazonica (the largest of the water-lilies) appropriately conjured up liquid, dreamy harp-coloured textures at the outset, but graduallly burgeoned into a full-blooded exploration, by turns romantic and acerbic, with passing gypsy caravans and angular, 7/4 dance rhythms, the soloist all the while registering and commenting on the order and passing of things. Breaking this exotic spell was the final movemento, a tango, subtitled palo borracho (‘drunken tree”), music with “driven” rhythms suggesting an exotically-set drama, with the soloist a kind of domesticated gypsy fiddler, or even a cafe violinist. Matters came to a head when Serova suddenly set down her violin and whirled into the arms of a tango-dancing partner who, it seemed, had appeared from nowhere! The only problem, review-wise, for me with the violinist exchanging her role of musician for that of dancer, was the ensuing unexpected distraction of having to surrender one’s attention to the sight of a beautiful woman dancing a tango – the music from that point on, was……er – well, it seemed OK!

After the interval had realigned the balance of my critical sensibilities, I was ready to re-encounter Anna Serova as a viola soloist once more, in this instance giving us the New Zealand premiere of a work by Boris Pigovat Poem of Dawn, a work dedicated to the violist. Already known to New Zealand audiences through his searing, no-holds-barred Requiem, performed in Wellington by Donald Maurice and the Vector Wellington Orchestra in 2008, here Russian-born Pigovat, to my surprise, gave us a glimpse of another, less confrontational side to his creative personality, in this radiantly-scored, rhapsodic work, the opening gathering up and engaging our sensibilities as it meant to go on, with raptly meditative solo instrumental lines, supported by touches of ambient magic in the orchestra all of which seemed to constantly evolve, moving us from realm to evocative realm, a tour de force of post-modern romantic orchestral writing! To my unprepared ears the music in places bordered on the schmaltzy in its directly emotional gesturings, albeit extremely high-class schmaltz! I’m certain that my reaction to the piece at the time was coloured by my having a different kind of expectation of what a previously unheard work from its composer would sound like!

I had no such problem with the Walton Viola Concerto that concluded the formal part of the concert. In this work, solo instrument and music deliver a near-perfect match of sound and emotion, the opening movement achieving miracles of a “gradual awakening” of things and their exploration, with both feeling and intellect brought into play. Roger Benedict’s performance with Hamish McKeich caught this tantalising interaction with plenty of whimsy allied to executive brilliance, even if some of the soloist’s energetic double-stopping came slighty adrift intonation-wise amidst the cut-and-thrust exchanges with the orchestra. But how beautifully the players ‘floated’ and then energised the movement’s lyrical main theme, song mingled with dance, as it were, the music leading one’s interest on while keeping up enigmatic appearances. Whether the middle-movement scherzo reveals or further conceals through diversion or entertainment depends on how one views its rumbustious character, as a Janus-faced mask or an ecstasy of brief abandonment! Whatever the case, the music was here given for all its character was worth, the soloist’s material jaunty and insoucient, and the orchestra’s brassily rumbustious episodes joyous and life-enhancing!

But it’s the finale which truly proclaims this music’s greatness, as it did, here – the opening bassoon’s jauntiness was carried along by the other winds and the soloist, the viola alternating rhapsodic inclination (as “English” as the work gets!) with an undertow of restlessness driven by the strings and augmented by the winds. Soloist and orchestra continued this volatile alternation between the two states, Roger Benedict’s viola here delving into the depths with long-breathed lines as readily as charging impulsively forward towards a kind of running skirmish with the orchestra, the music spectacularly expending its energies with a passionately-declaimed phrase capped off by a solo trumpet – splendid stuff! The soloist’s subsequent re-entry, with its gradual upward progression towards “the inverted bowl we call the sky” was lump-in-the-throat stuff, as was the return of the work’s very opening theme, with viola and orchestra each claiming the other as “belonging”, in a deeply satisfying, but still mysterious kind of fusion – we all sat spellbound at the end, in the embrace of the music’s enigmatic concluding silence. I’d always wanted to hear this work “live” and wasn’t disappointed!

Afterwards, the NZSO’s Principal Viola Julia Joyce joined the evening’s three soloists in an arrangement of a Piazzolla Tango, which, as the saying goes, brought the house down, thus, in a suitably festive manner, concluding a similarly festive occasion!

An engaging performance by a young Auckland piano trio

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Auckland Piano Trio (James Jin, violin; Xing Wang, piano; James sang-oh Yoo, cello)
(Waikanae Music Society)

Mozart: Piano Trio no.6 in G, K.564
Kodály: Duo for violin and cello, Op.7
Arensky: Piano Trio no.1 in D minor, Op.32

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday 3 September 2017, 2.30pm

This is a trio of young players.  The two string players are currently playing in the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra.  The pianist in 2015 won the NZ School of Music concerto competition.  All three have studied overseas; James Jin won the same competition in 2014 that his female colleague won the following year.  The cellist has spent most of his career in Australia so far.

Their engaging manner of performing was initiated by the violinist introducing the first work with interesting remarks and, along with his colleagues, playing themes from the music.  He explained, and demonstrated, that the string players are merely accompanying the piano most of the time.  This being the case, I was surprised not to have more sound from the piano.  The lid was on the short stick, and the piano simply did not speak through the sound of the strings; it was too reticent.

The second movement, andante: thema mit variationen (as shown in the programme, but more usually con variazioni) featured a theme beautifully played on the piano with lovely sustained notes – without use of the sustaining pedal.  The great clarity of Mozart’s writing was thus revealed.  Phrasing, too was impeccable.

This was not the most scintillating of Mozart’s chamber music, but it received light and airy playing.  The allegretto final movement included delightful rippling effects.  Perhaps I sat too close to the platform; I found the strings not the most mellow I’ve heard; this may also have been the result of playing Mozart on modern instruments but using minimal vibrato to emulate a classical style.

Originally the programme was to have included Shostakovich’s Sonata for cello and piano Op. 40.  However, substituted for it was the Kodály Duo.  Again, the violinist gave a commentary.  While this is helpful communication, I couldn’t help feeling it was partly a filler for a rather short concert programme.

The first movement, allegro serioso non troppo, featured both pizzicato and spiccato techniques for the string players.  There were extravert, rapid Hungarian dances full of vitality, interspersed with soulful passages.   The movement quietly tailed off.

The second movement, adagio, carried  quiet melodies for each instrument.  There was great variation of dynamics, and some brilliant passages for violin, followed by some for cello; the cellist was required to play pizzicato with the left hand, while it was also making the notes, and the right hand bowing at the same time.  Harmonics were employed also, and high notes almost at the extremity of the fingerboard.

The third movement, maestoso e largamente, ma non troppo lento, opened strongly, with the violin playing an angular theme.  Then both strings played pizzicato, interspersed with declamatory chords.  Were these gongs of war we were hearing?  The work was written in 1914.  There was certainly quite a lot of discordant writing.  I found it ominous.  Featured was a pentatonic melody for violin.  After the slow introduction, a presto brought the work energetically to an end.  The work was a  vigorous contrast to the Mozart, but the aesthetic was not one with which I was comfortable.

Utterly contrasted was the final work.  Arensky’s Romantic trio was written only 20 years before the Kodály Duo, but seems worlds apart.  After another spoken introduction with played examples, we were straight into an opening theme on the violin which recurs, with some alteration, in later movements.  A conversation of flowing figures was between all three instruments.

I noticed that now the lid of the piano was on the long stick; it presumably was thought more appropriate for the late nineteenth century work – but after all, the piano was the principal instrument in the Mozart work, and deserved a little more prominence than it received.  Compared with the Mozart, the Arensky work was much more of an equal partnership between the performers.

There were a few moments here and there in the Arensky where intonation was not quite matching between the strings.

The key of D minor was appropriate, encapsulating the spirit of mourning; the trio was written in mourning for the passing a few years earlier of cello virtuoso and Conservatory director Karl Davidoff.

The scherzo movement was carefree, enchanting and scintillating, featuring much pizzicato.  The second section was more sombre, even lumbering, but quixotic  A return to the opening feather-light music came through a teasing, hesitant bridge passage.  The music ws always moving and driving forward, until the cheeky little ending.

The elegia: adagio slow movement, began with variations on the opening theme from the first movement on cello alone, then the violin joined in; both instruments were muted.  This was followed by meditative music, in which the piano took the melodic lead.  The violin had its turn before we were back to the solemn, romantic melody of the opening.

The finale, allegro non troppo, began in declamatory style, with plenty for each player to do.  Echoes of the main theme from the first movement returned as a second subject.  But here it was a much more robust statement.  Here again, the strings were not always absolutely together with either intonation or rhythm.

A return to the opening theme for firstly, violin and then cello was followed by a rapid conclusion.

This was an interesting programme performed by very competent young players.  The hall was not as well filled as usual; the price perhaps of unknown performers.

 

 

BEETHOVEN – Violin and Piano Sonata Series – a final frolic and a fury, to great acclaim!

Posted on by Peter Mechen

BEETHOVEN – The complete Sonatas for Violin-and-Piano
A Lunchtime Series of five concerts from Chamber Music New Zealand

Bella Hristova (violin)
Michael Houstoun (piano)

Concert No.5 – Friday, Ist September, 2017
Violin Sonata No.2 in A Major, Op.12 No.2
Violin Sonata No 7 in C Minor Op.30 No.2

Renouf Foyer, Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

The excellently-written programme notes accompanying this series of concerts made reference to the “frolicsome” mood of Beethoven’s A Major Violin Sonata Op.12 No.2, which opened this, the last of the lunchtime series of concerts given by Bella Hristova and Michael Houstoun. The very opening of the work’s Allegro vivace beginning was smile-inducing, the buoyantly-tripping rhythms shared by both instruments, the piano slightly more dominant in this environment (and more so from my seat on the “Town Hall” side of the space this time round, compared with my “other-side” sound picture for the opening concert) – Hristova’s silvery tones were occasionally masked in unison-like passages, though otherwise the discourse was teasingly assured, the po-faced conclusion to the movement particularly so, with its amusing throw-away manner!

Big-boned, seriously-declaimed piano chording opened the second movement, a mood to which the violin responded with silvery, vulnerable-sounding beseechment. After this hint of desolation, the exchanges between the instruments became more consolatory, in a flowing middle section, the piano again sounding more to the fore by dint of the ambience, its sostenuto tones more “supported” than those of the violin. The finale seemed to restore the balance between the two, thanks to some exchanges of wonderfully assertive upwardly-propelled arpeggiated phrases, here matched to perfection by violinist and pianist, Hristova again colouring the gesture by infusing a certain “unfettered” edge to the occasional note, which brought a certain excitement to the sounds.

Though the occasional violin phrase in the second subject group seemed to my ears masked by the piano’s more overbearing presence, both Hristova and Houstoun dug into the minor/major-key moment of angst with forthright tones, Houstoun then assertively putting the music back on track once again for the last “hurrah”, the rocket-like upward thrusts again splendidly launched by both musicians, each tumbling their notes downwards once again with great glee, the piano cheekily turning a kind of somersault on its own right at the end!

By the time he came to write his Op.30 Sonatas, Beethoven was all too aware of his encroaching deafness, as evidenced by letters written at the time to trusted friends in which he expresses feelings of despair mingled with growing defiance – his oft-quoted words, “I shall take fate by the throat, it shall not overcome me!” come from one of these letters, sentiments which are just as strongly expressed by the music of the C Minor Sonata, the second of the three Op.30 works.

The piano’s terse opening phrase set the scene, the violin taking up the theme over the accompanying keyboard rumblings and grumblings. A couple of brief sparrings between the two led to the second subject’s lighter, more congenial manner, though the rhythms’ initial playfulness soon sharpened its edge as the intensities flared up again at the cadences – both Hristova and Houstoun gave these contrasting episodes plenty of strength and lyricism, driving the music into the dark wood of the development, and bringing out the relentless questing spirit of the journey. After allowing the more lyrical moments some breathing-space, the players pulled out the instrumental stops for the movement’s end, building the textures to almost overwhelmingly orchestral effect.

What relief was afforded by the beautiful Adagio cantabile! – Houstoun’s tones gave it a calm simplicity, while Hristova’s violin was rich and warm in reply, both “breathing” the lines of the music beautifully. A central section arpeggiated the music in winsome archways, both musicians deftly touching the music in, even if some of Hristova’s phrase-ends were lost in places beneath the piano’s more fulsome projections. On a couple of occasions a gently persuasive rhythmic change of trajectory was violently interrupted by keyboard outbursts, which were short-lived as they were unexpected, a combination of gentle pizzicati and long-breathed bowed lines from Hristova over conciliatory gestures from Houstoun concluding the movement.

Deceptively simple at the outset, the scherzo tripped its way along, the instruments exchanging pleasantries until the violin suddenly fixated on a single note and exchanged some brief but stinging crossfire with the piano, before returning to the opening congenialities. The Trio section of the work reminded me a little of the “Russian” melody used by both Beethoven in his String Quartet Op.59 No.2 and Musorgsky in the Coronation Scene of Boris Godunov.

Hristova and Houstoun allowed these episodes a lighter, more relaxed tone than in the finale which followed – a dark, muttered opening called for all kinds of emphatic responses, from furtive scamperings to an engaging sense of “schwung”, with violinist and pianist in determined accord, pushing their instruments along a truly epic kind of musical spectrum! After one of the oft-repeated keyboard mutterings had suddenly led the music into hitherto unchartered modulatory realms, the players straightaway saw their chance for freedom, and “pounced”, driving the rhythms fiercely and determinedly towards a resolution of will that infused the music’s spirit with something indomitable.

It was playing which brought the house down, and earned Hristova and Houstoun a richly-deserved standing ovation, as much for what we had just enjoyed as for the musicians’ stunning achievement over a week’s solid concertising in bringing us the complete cycle of these works – certainly, a landmark musical event whose reception by the audiences indicated enjoyment of a rare order, as well as warm and enduring gratitude.