Category: Reviews – Concerts

Delightful, witty Così fan tutte from Wanderlust Opera

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Così fan tutte (Mozart) in concert
Wanderlust Opera: produced by Georgia Jamieson Emms

Musical director: Bruce Greenfield (piano)
Narrator: Kate Mead
Georgia Jamieson Emms (Fiordiligi); Bianca Andrew (Dorabella); Imogen Thirlwall (Despina); Cameron Barclay (Ferrando); Robert Tucker (Guglielmo); Matthew Landreth (Don Alfonso)

English translation by John Drummond, Ruth and Thomas Martin and Georgia Jamieson Emms

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Saturday 15 August, 7:30 pm

It’s best to start with comment about the somewhat unfortunate timing of this wonderful enterprise. A clash with the university school of music’s double bill, running four performances from Thursday to Sunday. On top of that, many vocal enthusiasts would also have been torn by having to choose between the last day of the Big Sing, the choral competition/jamboree/gala of secondary school choirs, held this year in Wellington.

Because of conflicting commitments among the cast, no alternative date could be found however, and the audience (around 100) was a bit smaller than I’d expected: it certainly deserved a full house.

Though it was not a fully staged performance, there were many other features that contributed to a sparking, highly entertaining show; the mere absence of sets and costumes of the era didn’t deny the singers plenty of histrionic scope. Recitatives were replaced by a ‘performance’ by Kate Mead, named ‘narrator’. She was much more than that; in a flamboyant black and silver costume, she entered arm-in-arm with Bruce Greenfield, took her place on a platform on the right while Greenfield went to the piano, which served very well as orchestra.

He launched impulsively into the overture, hitting the keys with staccato ferocity. But after only a minute the overture was cut short and Kate took over to set the scene, with detail rich in witty hyperbole, insight, oxymoron, cynicism and meticulous Neapolitan geography. (If you’re interested, Piazza Carolina is close to the great San Carlo Theatre; their five-storey house is on the corner of Via Gennaro Serra – check it out next time you’re in Naples).

Kate’s dramatic elan ran the risk of upstaging more than one of the real performers. Like the singers, she spoke in English, which, in theory, negated the need for surtitles; but as usual, they’d often have been a help, as voices vary in clarity and carrying ability. (I have to confess a very strong preference, always, for the original language, with surtitles of course). So the scene was promptly set for a comedy in which there was no hope of rational intelligibility.

The other most important actor was the one-man-orchestra, the piano, which did get in the way sometimes, and made it hard to catch some of the Italian-inflected English. But it was always worth paying attention to the sheer brilliance of Greenfield’s playing of the delicious score.

However, the more important thing is the singing.

The three men, in dinner suits, established their characters at once, voices very distinct, though Cameron Barclay’s self-confident Ferrando was at first a little better projected than the Guglielmo of Robert Tucker whose well-grounded baritone slowly distinguished itself. The sisters’ several duets were nicely differentiated in timbre, and models of emotional excess. Bianca Andrew as Dorabella, the more susceptible of the sisters, used her fine penetrating mezzo wonderfully; Georgia Jamieson Emms benefitted as a result of the different character of her voice and personality, easily capturing the nature of Fiordiligi. They both wore glamorous, timeless, ball dresses.

Matthew Landreth as Don Alfonso did not, early on, quite command the nonchalant, Figaro-factotum character that Da Ponte and Mozart envisaged, but by the advent of the quintet, ‘Sento, o dio’, he was fitting comfortably into the texture of the performance.

It’s true that quite a lot was left out (there were 17 numbers listed in the programme from a total of 31 usually numbered in the score), though none of the well-known arias and ensembles was missing, like the divine trio ‘Soave sia il vento’, Fiordiligi’s ‘Come scoglio’ with a conspicuously splendid piano accompaniment; or tenor Ferrando’s touching ‘Un’ aura amorosa’. As an opera without a chorus, it is famous for its beautiful duets, trios and quintets, and they were often more beguiling than the solo arias.

With Alfonso’s pecuniary persuasion, Despina (Imogen Thirlwall) has entered the fray; her performance is vivacious and her initial hesitation to be complicit in Alfonso’s scheme quickly falls away.

The implementation of Alfonso’s plot is followed by a big sextet, as the two Albanians are introduced, and offer the most taxing of all suspensions of disbelief with the most improbable of disguises in all theatre, sporting moustaches and with unstable fezes (plural?), still wearing dinner suits, but with loosened ties.

Despina assumes great importance in Act II, starting with her perky ‘Una donna a quindici anni’, in her attempt to modify the girls’ self-denying virtue. With a few cuts in the score, we miss the agonising vicissitudes of the four as Despina’s principled counsel slowly takes root, especially in the Fiordiligi, the more virtuous of the two, leading precipitately to a double wedding officiated by Despina the notary.

To be sure, one missed the often hilarious, accelerating marital climax that a well-staged performance can offer, but the combination of fine singing and nearly believable acting was not a bad substitute. The outcome from the collapse of earlier assumptions about human behaviour is often left obscure; though I feel that an enigmatic outcome makes better dramatic, psychological sense, here the return to the original pairing was clear (perhaps it would be more acceptable in the provinces).

This splendid, entertaining, Wanderlust Opera enterprise is a serious attempt to find a way to bring opera to wider audiences. Georgia Jamieson Emms and her co-conspirators are to be congratulated on their courage and success which, given some financial support, has the potential to relieve operatic starvation in parts of the country.

The plan is for this performance to become fully staged under director Jacqui Coats and to travel next year to Wanganui, the Kapiti Coast, New Plymouth and Carterton. What is clearly needed is a change of attitude by Creative New Zealand which has a wretched history over many decades of rejecting applications for assistance by admirable, small opera groups.

 

The Big Sing Finale Gala Concert at the Michael Fowler Centre

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

(New Zealand Choral Federation Secondary Schools’ Choir Festival)

Twenty-four choirs competing in the Final Gala

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday, 15 August 2015, 6.30pm

It is marvellous to find so many young people taking part in choirs and obviously enjoying it.  The fact that all the choirs learn all their pieces by heart is staggering to us mere adults who sing in choirs, to whom this is an almost overwhelming difficulty.  An excellent effect of memorisation is that for the most part, words come over clearly – not always the case when singers are constantly glancing down at printed copies.   Every eye here was on the conductors – except for those few choirs who were able to perform without anyone standing in front of them to direct things.  Overall, the performances were of a high standard.

This year, nearly 10,000 school students from 150 schools participated in local performances, and for the first time, there were three regional finales, so that the national Finale did not become unmanageable.  24 choirs participated in this Gala concert.  As always, the excitement in the hall and the large, enthusiastic audience made for a memorable occasion.  There is no other buzz like that at the Gala concert of The Big Sing Finale! I observed with interest that, whereas Finale choirs from the North Island were exclusively from Auckland (10) and Wellington (6), those from the South Island were much more spread in their representation.  Christchurch produced four choirs, but in addition, Blenheim, Nelson, Timaru and Dunedin all had one representative choir.

A significant feature was the number of languages in which the choirs performed.  In this concert there were, in addition to English, songs in French Spanish, Latin, Maori and German, plus more unusual languages: Hebrew, Finnish, Bulgarian, Hungarian and a language new to me; Visayan, from the Philippines.  These were only those used in the Gala concert; there were many other foreign-language songs performed throughout the Finale sessions.  It was a pity that without translations in front of them, the audience couldn’t get the import of the songs beyond a brief introductory description from Christine Argyle, the compère.

Judges were Carl Crossin, Professor of Music and Head of Vocal, Choral and Conducting Studies at the University of Adelaide, Judy Bellingham, soprano soloist and Associate Professor in Voice at the University of Otago, and Michael Fulcher, former Director of Music at the Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul, and currently involved in church and community choral music-making in Melbourne.

A slightly disturbing element this year was that a couple of choirs used adult professional string players to accompany them.  This seems inappropriate for such a festival as this, when many choirs had student piano accompanists. The repertoire chosen for this concert from what the choirs sang over the previous two-and-a-half days was extremely varied and musically interesting. The awards are based on performances on those days, not on Gala concert performances.  I did not envy the judges their task.

Another important feature is the scale of the organisation, whereby choirs at this concert are ready to move onto the platform the moment the last choir moves off, and all take their places without a hitch.  Christine Argyle has her introduction at the ready, and stage crew have unobtrusively done what was required in no time at all.  Elizabeth Crayford and her team from New Zealand Choral Federation Wellington Region are to be congratulated on their management and organisation skills.  Not least of their accomplishments is producing a handsome programme for the three days, with the names of all choirs, all choir directors and accompanists, items to be sung and names of all choristers printed.

For the final concert, a sheet is produced with the order, choirs and items listed – this can only be done, presumably, after the last choirs have sung on Saturday morning.

Euphony, an all-girls choir from Kristin School in Auckland began the programme with a song in Maori, by David Hamilton, ‘A Charm for Rain: He Tua I Te Rangi’. While it was difficult to pick up the words, though this did improve, the piece was delightful, with a lovely accompaniment of rain sounds, and a charming section sung by a small group.  Euphony won a gold award, and also sponsor Tour Time’s award for the best performance of a classical item.

Gold was the award also for Burnside High School’s Senior Chorale, a large mixed choir, who sang ‘Kalá Kallá’ from Five Hebrew Love Songs by American choral composer Eric Whitacre, who proved to be the most popular composer in the concert, with four items.  This choir also won the ultimate award, the platinum.  The male singers had a distinctive tone, while the accompanying violin solo added interest, as did tambourine.  A joyful piece, full of variety of moods, made for a classy performance.  Appearance was also classy; all the girls had their hair up, making for a very neat turn-out.

Sings Hilda, the choir from St. Hilda’s Collegiate School in Dunedin, chose a work by New Zealand choral composer David Hamilton (another popular composer throughout the festival): ‘Läksin mina kesäyönä käymään’.  This item was in the Finnish language.  How does a New Zealand composer become sufficiently conversant with that language to be able to set it so well, presumably with correct emphasis and stress?  It is about a girl siting on the shore for her loved one to return.  It began with a solo voice and accompanying wordless vocalisations. and was unaccompanied.  The choir appeared to have mastered the words; and the tricky music was sung well, without music score, of course. There were lovely nuances, phrasing and dynamics.  The choir won bronze.

Stella Nova, the choir from Nelson College for Girls, performed a Bulgarian traditional song, ‘Kafal sviri’.  In smart red dresses, the singers formed into groups of three.  Their singing was startling – they used no vibrato, but a deliberate, strong, forward tone for this folk music.  This voice production was strikingly different from that used by all the other choirs.  Although my Bulgarian is a little rusty, I found the choir had superb enunciation. For their pains, they won a silver award, and the award as Youth Ambassadors: the NZCF prize for the choir ‘that in the opinion of the organisers demonstrated outstanding engagement with all elements of the Finale’.

A change now, to a choir with the ominous, punning name ‘Menasing’: boys from St. Kentigern College.  Like many of the lighter music items in the concert, ‘Leaning on a lamp-post involved well-executed movement.  A very stylish performance with piano accompaniment, clear words and splendid singing in both unison and harmony were features, as was playing on numbers of toy instruments, not to mention air guitars and violins.  The choir produced gorgeous pianissimos, and its presentation was easy and precise.  Their efforts won them a gold award.

Teal Voices from Wellington Girls College was notable for singing without a conductor; teacher Nicola Sutherland played the piano.  Words were clear in their performance of ‘I say a little prayer’ by Burt Bacharach, and the singing was in appropriate style.  However, I felt more dynamic variation was required.  They gained a silver award.

At this point I had to leave the hall to attend another function, so the remainder of the programme I heard either on radio, or on tapes from the radio broadcast.

Macleans College Choir sang unaccompanied a fast song, ‘Rosas Pandan’ very proficiently. It was in the Visayan language (of which I had never heard) of the Philippines.  Clarity of words was notable, and very bright tone.  A bronze was their reward.

Resolutions is the choir from Rangi Ruru Girls School.  They sang unaccompanied and in the Hungarian language ‘Táncnóta’, arranged by Kodály. This song about dancing revealed a good dynamic range, although there was some strain on higher notes.  The pace sped up towards the end, and the choir was rewarded with silver.

Dilworth School in Auckland contributed its choir Fortissimo, who sang (accompanied) ‘Taku Kahurangi’ by Joby and Otene Hopa.  It opened with splendid deep tone, and continued with excellent enunciation of the Maori words and wonderful subtlety of phrasing and changes in tone. It earned them bronze, plus the award for the best performance of a work using Maori text.

Altissime is the choir from Samuel Marsden Collegiate School.  Their contribution was a Mexican song ‘Les amarillas’, which incorporated the sound of an egg shaker, plus clapped rhythms, some of them (deliberately) off-beat.  The piece had unusual tonality, and sounded quite difficult, especially the high singing.  It was lively, but the sound was not well blended.  A silver award was the result.

The St. Cecilia Singers from Auckland Diocesan School for Girls gave us ‘Ain’t misbehavin’’ a Fats Waller favourite at The Big Sing over the years.  This was accompanied, and sung brightly and confidently, with an excellent solo part.   The choir achieved a gold award.

Wellington College Chorale performed ‘Audition Day’ by student Joshua Hopton-Stewart, without a conductor.  I found the melody and harmony rather limited, but it was sung well, including a short section in falsetto.  The conception and the words were fun, and along with actions, all was executed well.  A silver was earned, and the Hutt City Trophy for best performance of a New Zealand or Pacifica composition.

Paradisum from Epsom Girls Grammar School chose Eric Whitacre’s ‘She weeps over Rahoon’ a setting of a poem by James Joyce.  It was performed with a cor anglais lending its plangent tone, along with piano.  It was a difficult work with tricky harmonies, but the singing was excellent, and justified the gold award.

Bel Canto from Burnside High School sang two items – a traditional Ecuadorean song in Spanish ‘Cancion de los tsáchilas’, played with drum accompaniment and some wonderful whistled bird-song.  This mixed choir was very skilled, and revealed a great range of dynamics. They also sang ‘Requiem’, the prize-winning composition, by Rosa Elliott of their school.  The accompanied piece seemed very singable.  It was based on the well-known poem by Robert Louis Stevenson that begins ‘Under the wide and starry sky…’; perhaps appropriate in the year in which we recall the many graves on Gallipoli.  The choir earned a gold award.

After the interval, Saints Alive from St. Cuthbert’s College performed a traditional French song, ‘La Maumariée’.  Fast and lively, with an oboe accompaniment, it was rendered in very good French.  A silver award resulted.

Voicemale is from Westlake Boys High School, and is a 50-strong choir of accomplished choristers.  They sang Eric Whitacre’s ‘Lux aurumque’.  They lived up to the great reputation that this school (and its girls’ equivalent) has built over the years.  When I heard them on Thursday, they performed a humorous item, with actions. Their Latin item wasn’t quite up to that standard, but was nevertheless well sung and effective, and they earned a gold.

Cantala from Wellington East Girls College sang in appropriate pop style ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ by Alan Menken, but I couldn’t tell what language they were singing in till part-way through, when I picked up a few English words.  They gained a silver award.

Christchurch’s Collegium is formed from Christ’s College and St. Margaret’s College. ‘Beati quorum via’ by Charles Stanford is a beautiful unaccompanied piece, but here the tone was variable, the males’ sound unattractive, and intonation was sometimes suspect.  A bronze was awarded.

Craighead Chorale followed, with ‘Salmo 150’ by Ernani Aguiar.  A Spanish piece, it was unaccompanied, revealing some very good voices.  Tuning, rhythm and enunciation of words were all very good, and a silver award was earned.

St. Patrick’s College Wellington has often ‘produced the goods’ at the Finale, and its choir Con Anima did so on this occasion, with ‘Hol’ you han’’, a Jamaican traditional song, in Jamaican English.  It was given an idiomatic rendering with marvellous enunciation. The boys accompanied with various sound effects; they sang as one in a very professional manner.  A silver was awarded.

Blue Notes from Tawa College followed, with ‘Richte mich, Gott’ by Mendelssohn. This mixed choir made a good beginning, the voices clear and well-produced.  The German was rendered well, but there was not much expression in this unaccompanied performance, and intonation was astray occasionally.  However, they made a full-bodied sound.   They received a bronze award.

Cantare from Westlake Girls sang a Debussy anti-war song, Debussy’s last.  Fine French pronunciation  and a very good performance were let down by top notes just missing the mark a little.  A silver award was made.

All the King’s Men from King’s College in Auckland chose a work by another prominent American choral composer, Morten Lauridsen: ‘Dirait-on’, from Les Chansons des Roses.  There was splendid gradation of dynamics in this French song; the choir gained a silver.

The concert ended with Whitacre; Marlborough Girls College’s Ovation sang ‘The Seal Lullaby’ with smooth, blended tone.  It would indeed send a baby to sleep – especially at the end of a long programme!  It was awarded bronze.

The presentation of awards followed, after some remarks from Carl Crossin on behalf of all three judges.  He emphasised the importance of well-chosen repertoire that suits the individual choir’s strengths and weaknesses.  He stressed also the necessity to adapt to the acoustics of the venue, and congratulated the choirs on doing so at the Michael Fowler Centre.  He said all choirs had been successful, but praised the artistry of the most successful.

In addition to the awards mentioned above, there was the composition award, to Rosa Elliott of Burnside High School for her ‘Requiem’.

The massed choirs, comprising 730 singers, then sang ‘Ride the chariot’, a spiritual, conducted by Rowan Johnston.  With singers dispersed throughout the downstairs, the stage, and part of the upstairs of the hall, it was not a particularly cohesive sound, but the following national anthem, in Maori and English, achieved a fine sonority, to finish a remarkable evening of great singing, special effects, use of percussion, wind instruments and strings as well as piano, in diverse and interesting repertoire.

 

Gallic musical entertainment chez L’Alliance Française

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wellington Trio d’Anches (Calvin Scott – oboe, Mary Scott – clarinet, Penny Miles – bassoon)

Helga Warner-Buhlmann: Tango
Marin Marais: Deux danses françaises
Mozart: Divertimento No 2, K 439b
Auric: Trio d’anches (1948)
Milhaud: Suite d’après Corrette
Schulhoff: Divertissement für oboe, klarinette und fagot
Michael Burns: E toru nga hau
Auric: Moulin Rouge
Jules Oudot – trad.: ‘Auprès de ma blonde’/‘La ronde des microbes de la Seine’
Piaf: La vie en rose
Offenbach: Galop infernal (from Orphée aux enfers)

Alliance Française, 78 Victoria Street, Wellington

Friday 14 August, 6pm

From time to time the various foreign embassies and their affiliates present concerts of their music and/or by their musicians. There was a musically inclined Italian ambassador a few years ago who arranged for special recitals by visiting musicians from her country; for a few years the Japanese Embassy presented recitals by fine Japanese musicians; a variety of interesting musical and other arts presentations have been staged by the Brazilian Embassy; and there have been a number of others. Both the Alliance Française and the Goethe Institute invest considerable resources in the promotion of the cultures of their countries.

This small recital, small in the sense of comprising mainly small-scale and lightish music, was played by three Wellington musicians, familiar in other contexts. They called themselves Trio d’anches (trio of reed instruments), after a famous 1920s group, also oboe, clarinet and bassoon, of that name in Paris. Not all of it French: it began with a Tango by a German bassoonist, Helga Warner-Buhlmann, which acted as a sort of warm-up and was perhaps the least-well integrated piece, sonically, in the programme.

And one of Mozart’s Divertimentos, originally for three basset horns (low clarinets). They appear in the Köchel catalogue as “Five Divertimentos (25 pieces) for three basset horns in B-flat major, K. 439b (Anh. 229) (1783)”. The basset horn has a slightly lower extension than the basset clarinet (which itself is a major third lower than the normal clarinet) which was the instrument for which Mozart, inspired by Anton Stadler, wrote his Clarinet Trio, Quintet and Concerto. Not to be confused with the bass clarinet which is a full octave lower than the normal B flat clarinet.

Mary Scott managed the clarinet part well enough on the normal B flat clarinet (she must have been relieved at not having to play three instruments at once).

The divertimento was of course an arrangement for these three instruments and sounded happy enough as a result, even though the oboe, in particular, had some very high notes. It had five short, and fairly slight, movements, and was an engaging occasional piece.

Marin Marais, of the film Tous les matins du monde fame, was represented in a couple of good-humoured dances, the first in swinging, triple time, the second a sort of horn-pipe in which all three players sounded greatly at ease.

Two members of the non-group Les Six (after all they never really established a manifesto or common aesthetic or set of musical principles and went their separate ways soon after being christened Les Six by Henri Collet) were present in spirit. They and others were often found in groupings of various kinds during the following years. The two this evening were Milhaud (the most prolific and perhaps most important) and Auric (who became a significant film music composer).

Many composers wrote music for the group’s famous predecessor Trio d’anches de Paris. Among them were participants in this recital, Auric, Milhaud and Erwin Schulhoff. Auric’s two pieces were the first part of his Trio d’anches and an arrangement of the music for the much later film, Moulin Rouge. The first was a jaunty piece aptly entitled décidé; the second, the popular tune from the film. Milhaud’s was inspired by music of Michel Corrette, a prolific 18th century composer: six short, witty movements played with such vivacité. Schulhoff, a Czech Jew who died in a concentration camp in 1942 (of tuberculosis) contributed a Divertissement for these instruments. These were among the most interesting pieces in the concert: danceable, original, full of character. Michael Burns is a Manawatu musician, Victoria University educated, who now teaches bassoon at the University of North Carolina. They played his little weather sketch called E toru nga hau (The three winds).

Calvin Scott then introduced us to a satirical version of the well-known folk song, Auprès de ma blonde, which originated during France’s war with the Netherlands: the alternative title is Le prisonnier de
Hollande which afforded Scott a pungent current political aside (Socialist Hollande in bed with Right-wing Merkel, ou à l’envers?). The tour de siècle version is called Ronde des Microbes de la Seine
deploring the filthy state of the river in the 19th century.

Downhill from there: Michel Legrand’s Les parapluies de Cherbourg, Edith Piaf’s (without the essential
Piaf) La vie en rose and the Galop, or cancan, from Orpheus in the Underworld.  With French cheese and wines, an hour and a half profitably frittered away.

 

 

Fine cello and piano lunchtime recital at St Mark’s, Lower Hutt

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Haydn: Cello concerto no. 1 in C Hob. VIIb:1 (1st movement)
Haydn: Piano sonata Hob. XVI: 48 (1st  movement; Andante con espressione)
Prokofiev: Sonata for cello & piano

Lucy Gijsbers, cello, Andrew Atkins (piano)

St. Mark’s Church, Lower Hutt

Wednesday, 12 August 2015, 12.15pm

The concert was dedicated by the performers to the memory of noted Wellington luthier Ian Lyons, who died suddenly, recently.

These are two first-class musicians who play so well in combination.  Pianist Atkins did well trying to be an orchestra in the opening work, while Lucy Gijsbers’s playing was quite lovely and of professional standard.  She gained a most warm and attractive tone from her instrument in all parts of its wide range.  Those flying, flexible fingers made the most of every note.

Her cello almost talked to the audience.  It is to be hoped that Lucy Gijsbers gets a chance to play this work with an orchestra.  Her variety of tone was impressive, and the double-stopping in various places through the work was expertly executed; the cadenza was brilliant.

The piano could have done with more tonal and dynamic variation, and more careful phrasing.  A few wrong notes were excusable in the context.

Next was a movement from one of the same composer’s piano sonatas.  Now we had variation of touch and tone, subtlety and variety of dynamics.  Andrew Atkins gave full expression to a delightful work.  He reminded me in appearance of a young pianist I heard years ago in Turku, Finland.  However, he did not repeat that gentleman’s extravagant gestures, but the quality of his playing was equivalent.

Of course, Haydn would probably be surprised to hear the modern piano, with its greater variety of tonal colours.

The cello returned for the Prokofiev sonata.  It opens with gorgeous deep notes on the cello, then the piano follows with dramatic chords, after which the mood lightens somewhat: strumming on the cello, and lighter piano writing; the instruments balanced well.  Musical ideas were worked out in a most satisfying way, with the two players in great accord.  Lucy Gijsbers seldom looked at the music score in front of her, such was her mastery of the music.  There were impressive pianissimos, along with tenderness of expression.

The second movement opened with simple piano chords, and pizzicato on the cello. Spiky rhythms featured, with notes darting here and there.  Then the music became lyrical; the warmth of cello tone conveyed the lyrical character well.  The music turned playful again, the cello played harmonics, then there was a pizzicato final flourish.

The third movement opened in dance-like character, then became more dramatic – surely a Russian dance.  A return to flowing lines on the cello followed, and illustrated Lucy Gijsbers’s command of her instrument, in all its wondrous variety of charm and drama.  Prokofiev certainly gave full rein to all the possibilities of the cello, possibilities which this player fully rose to.  The piano part was also very demanding, and Atkins met those demands.

I see that, under the name Duo Cecilia, these two musicians played in a lunchtime concert at St. Andrew’s on The Terrace in March this year.  My colleague Frances Robinson had some words to say about the piano swamping the cello in parts of the Prokofiev work (the only one to appear in both programmes), and the need to be sure of the acoustics in which one is playing.  I was surprised at the piano lid being on the long stick at St. Mark’s, but for the most part this was not a problem in this
less resonant venue – and perhaps the earlier experience has caused the players to judge more carefully the acoustics in which they are performing.

This was a highly skilled recital from two fine musicians.  They gave full measure, and the audience heartily appreciated what they had heard.

 

20th century music from charming flute duo: Bridget Douglas and Rachel Thomson

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Bridget Douglas (flute) and Rachel Thomson (piano)

Messiaen: Le merle noir
John Ritchie: The Snow Goose
Jack Body: Rainforest (2006) – Movement 2 – ‘Returning from a hunt’, and movement 3 – ‘Lullaby’
Gaubert: Sonata No 1 for flute and piano

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 12 August, 12:15 pm

According to Bridget Douglas’s programme note, Le merle noir was the only piece that Messiaen wrote for the solo flute, which seems extraordinary in the light of his passion for bird song for which the uninitiated would imagine the flute to be the commonest, closest instrument to the sounds of many birds. I know I’ve heard it played live before but had only a sketchy recollection of it.

It starts in a fairly raucous manner, suggesting our tui more than any other bird with which I’m familiar in New Zealand, though the music quickly becomes more calm. It was a careful and beautiful performance by both instruments.

Next was a small narrative piece by Christchurch composer John Ritchie, The Snow Goose, a once very popular story by Paul Gallico, about the loyalty of the bird that escorted one of the thousands of small boats that helped in the evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk in 1940.

The piece, originally written with orchestral accompaniment, is an uneasy, thoughtful piece that was suggestive rather than explicit about the story, using the flute, naturally, to depict the bird. The piece was played at a St Andrew’s concert on 29 April by Ingrid Culliford and Kris Zuelicke.

I rather expected the piano to describe other elements of the story such as the war and the sea, but the piano is little more than a sensitive accompaniment, often echoing the flute’s melodic hints. The two, as always, formed a particularly charming partnership. You will find on You-Tube, surprisingly I thought, a performance of the piece by Carol Hohauser and pianist Barbara Lee, made in a concert in New Jersey; it expressed its simply beauties, but just quietly, I think we heard a more persuasive account at St Andrew’s.

Bridget Douglas picked up her big alto flute to play Jack Body’s 2006 composition, Rainforest – the second and third movements. Rachel talked about Jack Body’s requirement to place a chain across the piano strings, finding the effect unattractive, and settled in the end for a very delicate necklace. I could not detect anything of its effect on the sound. The music was based on recordings of music from the Central African Republic and was originally scored for flute and harp, for Flight, comprising this flutist and harpist Carolyn Mills.

The second movement, ‘Returning from a hunt’, began with a jaunty motif, flute and piano taking different paths, though the one was clearly necessary to the other. The third movement, ‘Lullaby 1’, according to the notes, ‘sounds unexpectedly restless to western ears’; not conducive to sleep, I thought, but sounding more like a complex dance.

Philippe Gaubert followed in the footsteps of the great flutist Paul Taffanel, became professor of flute at the Paris Conservatoire and later, conductor of the Paris Opera. His sonata was a charming, lyrical piece, probably difficult enough technically; though structurally conventional, with lively outer movements and a slow, Lent, middle movement, there was nothing bland or commonplace in the music, and it was given the sort of serious, committed performance that would be appropriate for a much more heavy-weight piece.

We noted back in May the frequency of recitals involving the flute. And having missed reviewing a recital by Karen Batten and Rachel Thomson on 24 June, here was another very fine exhibition of the instrument’s versatility and charm.

 

Schumann a winner but Sibelius and Mendelssohn unconvincing in fine Bach Choir performances

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Romantic Fairytales from the Bach Choir of Wellington, conducted by Michael Vinten

Sibelius: The Captive Queen
Mendelssohn: Loreley
Schumann: The Pilgrimage of the Rose

Douglas Mews – piano
Soloists: Bianca Andrew, Marian Hawke, Maaike Christie-Beekman, Oliver Sewell, Christian Thurston, Roger Wilson

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Saturday 8 August, 3 pm

Michael Vinten and his Bach Choir had decided to explore some pretty unexpected choral repertoire with this concert of mid-nineteenth century, plus a rather out-of-season, comparable work from half a century later.

I have to praise that initiative.
However, much of the choral music composed during that era has not stood the test of time. The problem can be ascribed to Romanticism, which encouraged composers to find new modes of expression, focusing on their own natures, and on stories that could be interpreted through non-theatrical music.

Traditional opera subjects drawn from Classical Antiquity and the Bible and the Middle Ages were rejected. At the same time, large middle classes arose, developing a taste for pubic orchestral and choral concerts, with ever-increasing numbers of players and singers. These could attract the new audiences which felt out of place in the expensive splendour of opera houses, and who were without the classical education necessary to follow many operas.

Some German composers tended to scorn opera, especially the Italian and French – Rossini, Donizetti, Auber, Boieldieu, Meyerbeer. Some tried to reinvent opera in the Romantic-German manner, like Weber, Spohr, Marschner; but it took the genius of Wagner to make it work.

The fashion for orchestral music telling a story in symphonic poems, and large-scale, theatrical-type choral compositions became the Romantic oratorio.

The Schumann work was an example of the folk-tale oratorio; Mendelssohn’s unfinished opera an example of the failed Romantic folk-tale opera.

Sibelius’s The Captive Queen is a late example of the secular cantata/oratorio; it served a political purpose, the Queen symbolizing the Finns, and her captors, the Russian Empire. I imagine its disappearance after its first performances is explained by the same reasons that left me unimpressed. Finlandia was a much more successful idea.

It seemed a pedestrian work, in a kind of pious, Victorian, English manner, with the composer struggling to find a convincing vein or melodic inspiration that would lift its lame poetry above a level of embarrassment. It would have been a blessing, though a harder learn, to have sung it in Finnish.

However, the choir sang with energy and conviction, though the men sounded thin in their introductory verses, before being buoyed up by the women. The other handicap was the absence of an orchestra which would at least have lent the music colour. I guess my feelings about the music (not the performance) are summed up by my scribbled question: “Was Sibelius’s heart really in it?  At least the choir makes the most of it”.

Mendelssohn’s Loreley was his operatic attempt at the end of his life, probably inspired by the wonderful soprano Jenny Lind. He’d written singspiels in his teens, but only one was produced: Die Hochzeit des Comacho. Its reception did not encourage him to persist.

But I couldn’t help wishing that he’d devoted his last year to something in which his gifts were real, like another string quartet, in the spirit of the one in F minor, Op 80. Again, understanding the words was embarrassing; onomatopoeic effects sounded childish; the cries for vengeance half-hearted. I could detect no theatrical instinct in the composer.

The soloist who sang the role of Leonora was the accomplished Marian Hawke, who lent it genuine feeling, and the choir sang with energy, though perhaps rather too driven, without sufficient rhythmic and dynamic variety and liveliness.

Happily, Schumann’s Der Rose Pilgerfahrt (The Pilgrimage of the Rose) was quite a different story. We are usually encouraged to believe that Schumann’s last years saw a decline in his musical creativity. As a serious Schumann lover, I’ve always been reluctant to take that without a fight, and here, for me, was pretty persuasive evidence of his non-declining musical powers.

The programme note seeks to deflect criticism of the character and worth of the oratorio (if that’s what it is), by mentioning its “slight narrative”, “little drama”, the numbers only “loosely joined”. That may be, but even if the words themselves, again unfortunately, in English, are naïve and straining for effect, the music has a persuasively genuine feel, creating a situation and narrative that in the context of fairy-story, becomes listenable on account of the beguiling music.  It’s the same case as quite a few operas with feeble libretti which succeed because of the music.

Michael Vinten and the chorus seemed to have been inspired by the lyrical and varied music, varied in tempi, with triple-time numbers here and there, and changes of mood and feeling that respond to the sense. The women of the choir became fairies with sprightly singing.

Bianca Andrew was affecting as The Rose and other soloists performed engagingly: their individual as well as ensemble numbers contributed eloquently to the telling of the story. It was a pleasure again to hear Marian Hawke whom I had not heard for a long time, before she reappeared in Days Bay’s Rosenkavalier last year. Both she and Maaike Christie-Beekman contributed in a lively and committed way. Occasionally, soloists moved to sing together, as a trio (Maaike, Marian and Oliver Sewell) or quartet, and this lent the performance greater dramatic life.

Tenor Oliver Sewell sang the big role of Max, the young lover of the Rose, not attempting an operatic style, but handling the rather narrative part seriously, with sensitively shaded dynamics.  Roger Wilson was a well-cast Gravedigger drawing, as usual, on what one feels is to some extent his own personality; and Christian Thurston found the sturdy role of The Miller and a narrator’s bass aria near the end, ‘This Sunday morn…’, well suited to the character of his voice.

In all, conductor, chorus and soloists, as well as Douglas Mews accompanying at the piano (and I wasn’t so conscious here of the need of an orchestra to provide colour and variety) brought this neglected work to life in a surprisingly attractive way.

It was of course, by far the largest work on the programme (just over an hour) and made the concert as a whole quite rewarding. Schumann and the performers involved in his work made the journey very worthwhile.

 

Rarities and a classic of Russian music from Orchestra Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

MUSORGSKY (arr. Rimsky-Korsakov) – Night on a Bare Mountain
SCRIABIN – Piano Concerto
TCHAIKOVSKY – Symphony No.3 in D Major “Polish” Op.29

Michael Houstoun (piano)
Marc Taddei (conductor)
Orchestra Wellington

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday 8th August 2015

This concert presented the third in Orchestra Wellington’s inspirational series featuring the numbered Tchaikovsky Symphonies in tandem with well-known Russian piano concertos. I was unlucky to miss the second one, in which both the gorgeous “Little Russian” Symphony and the epic Prokofiev Third Piano Concerto were played – what a “buzz” that presentation must have been!

But amends were handsomely made by this latest concert, even though two of the three works, by Scriabin and Tchaikovsky respectively, couldn’t by any imagination’s stretch be called “popular”. It didn’t matter a whit, as each of the pieces got a performance that brought everything to life, the kind of response we’ve come to expect from this particular ensemble in recent times.

By way of righting the popularity balance, the concert actually began with one of the most famous pieces of Russian music ever to be written – Musorgsky’s Night on a Bare Mountain, an orchestral description of a Witches’ Sabbath. It would perhaps have caused bemusement had the orchestra’s assistant conductor Vincent Hardaker chosen to present the composer’s seldom-performed “original” version of this score, instead of the usually-heard Rimsky-Korsakov “edition”. In fact Musorgsky himself never heard his work played, partly the result of his composing colleagues’ reactions to what they considered “flaws” in the composer’s work, and their desire to “correct” their comrade’s creative miscalculations.

Despite the moderating influence of Rimsky’s editorial hand, the piece still comes across with plenty of power and atmosphere, and especially if, as here, it’s played full-bloodedly and with sharply-focused attention to detail. So, the percussion made its presence felt in the opening paragraph, the various irruptions underlining the spookiness and grotesquerie of the scenario. I liked Vincent Hardaker’s shaping of the whole, with the various crescendi nicely judged and their pay-offs expertly delivered. And the players’ ability to “point” and colour their individual phrases was exemplary, emphasizing rhythmic detailing rather than merely speed to generate excitement (for which, full marks to the conductor!).

I wondered whether the Scriabin Piano Concerto which followed would be “right” for Michael Houstoun, whose strong, focused playing might seem on the face of things perhaps too abrupt or sharply-etched for this composer’s inimitable mix of mystical hues  and diaphanous textures. In the event, both Houstoun’s playing and the composer’s music confounded my expectations, the pianist at his most responsive, tempering his strength with sequences of yielding grace and romantic feeling, going “with” the music’s freshly and directly-expressed turns of manner and mood.

This wasn’t the Scriabin of the Poem of Ecstasy, all flickering, shimmering hues and laden with intensely-pulsating mystical impulses – it was, instead a relatively uncomplicated, beautifully-crafted, in places somewhat Chopinesque work, but with something of its own free-wheeling spirit, less “structural” than improvisatory and in places impulsive in its unfoldings. Some harsh things have been written about the work over the years, but I found it a delight to listen to in concert, and particularly in this instance. Michael Houstoun’s playing seemed to me very much “from the inside out”, following the music’s contourings and filling out the composer’s sound world with romantic tones and pliant rhythmic gestures, delighting in the work’s wide-eyed innocence.

The work’s slow movement made a particularly lovely impression, the strings alone setting the scene with gorgeously rapt tones, to which piano and winds then added their distinctive touches. Then, how we so enjoyed, by way of contrast, the piano’s exuberant dancings throughout the next section, with the high-jinks abetted by shrieks of mock alarm from the winds! – perhaps these squawks of alarm were meant to alert our sensibilities to an abrupt submergence into a few “dark moments of the soul”, before our spirits re-emerging, glittering and sparking on the music’s surface to the piece’s end. It would take a hard heart indeed to resist such blandishments and mutter things about “faded romanticism” – I loved it, but, as the saying goes, to each one’s own………

The main interest of the evening for me, however, was the rarely-heard “Polish” Symphony of Tchaikovsky, numbered as the Third, and dating from 1875. In a number of ways it’s an unusual work for the composer , the only one firstly, in a major key, and secondly, in five movements. On most recordings I’ve encountered, I’ve thought the principal melody of the first movement rather tiresome in places because of its rhythmic squareness, the dotted note at the end of each phrase seeming to “nail the music down” rather than give it some much-needed “bounce”. Conductors seem mostly to get their players to “sit” on the dotted-note phrase heavily, instead of encouraging them to touch the figuration lightly and swiftly in passing, keeping the music pulsating and alive.

On an elderly Decca mono LP I had recently picked up from somewhere, the remarkable maestro Sir Adrian Boult and his London Philharmonic players do the latter, and the music thus takes on more of an irresistible forward surge. I’m happy to report that this is just what Marc Taddei and his musicians did, with brilliant results, creating a frisson of excitement with each ascending progression towards the final pair of notes – incidentally, this effect anticipates both the “polonaise” rhythm in the work’s finale and THAT melody’s even more exciting series of surging “ascents”, which Taddei and the orchestra literally sent into orbit with some spectacular playing.

The middle movements of the work are a complete contrast to all of this, as they are to one another – and in each case the “character” of the music was vividly conveyed. The excitement and sheer noise of the first movement’s coda done with, the second movement here seemed to gracefully float into the soundscape, as if quietly singing “Après le déluge, moi!” – with delicious counterpoints between the winds and soaring romantic feeling from the strings. More folk-like was the following, bassoon-led movement, the mournful, quintessentially Russian melody beautifully delivered by the winds and the solo horn, the strings then taking us to the world of the young girl Tatyana in Eugen Onegin, at her window composing a letter to her lover – gorgeously but also sensitively delivered.

Then, completing the trio of movements, came the elfin, Ariel-like Scherzo, the sounds mischievous and magical, but kept nicely grounded by the “Volga Boatmen-like” melody which eventually answers the alluring call of faery. We enjoyed superb, diaphanously-wrought playing from all concerned, and great control from the horns maintaining their ambient “held” note throughout the trio right up to the brief reminiscence by the composer of Berlioz’s Harold in Italy before the reprise of the scherzo.

After this, the finale’s dance whirled our sensibilities through both exhilarations and refurbishments to the work’s exuberant conclusion. Marc Taddei kept the contrasting sequences nicely on their toes, the first one’s syncopations dancing rather than dogged, as was also the case here with the fugue (Tchaikovsky so much more assured of touch than in the First Symphony’s finale). The return of those snowballing dance-reprise episodes finally led up to an astonishing peroration (such a great, air-piercing moment for a piccolo player!) with real abandonment and visceral excitement in the work’s coda.

Afterwards, all I could think of to say to friends was, “What a performance!”

Orchestra Wellington’s policy of using a presenter to introduce the concert continued with the charming and bubbly Clarissa Dunn of RNZ Concert firstly welcoming us to the event and then talking with conductor Marc Taddei – as with Nigel Collins’ completely different but equally personable approach to the task at the first of the orchestra’s 2015 concerts, the idea’s effect brings forth Tennyson-like responses from this reviewer-cum-ordinary-concert-goer, which will be discussed at greater length at the season’s end. Meanwhile, one is left waiting eagerly and impatiently for the next in the series, the “fateful” concert number four!

 

 

 

 

Opera Society revives its tradition of presenting promising young singers in tantalising song

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Songs and arias
(New Zealand Opera Society – Wellington Branch)

James Benjamin Rodgers (tenor); Georgia Jamieson Emms (soprano); Elisabeth Harris (soprano); Christian Thurston (baritone)
Piano accompaniment: Catherine Norton

Liszt: Three Petrarch sonnets
Songs by Georg Tintner, Mahler
Arias by Gounod, Leoncavallo, Massenet, Nicolai, Verdi, Britten, Douglas Moore, Weill, Richard Rodgers and Sondheim

Cathedral of the Sacred Heart

Thursday 6 August, 7:30 pm

Once upon a time, the Wellington Branch of the New Zealand Opera Society used to stage almost monthly recitals of mainly opera arias and ensembles. As performances of the real thing increased in the 80s and 90s, with the establishment of Wellington City Opera, annual productions by both Victoria University and Wellington Polytechnic schools of music as well as a variety of adventurous ad hoc amateur groups, the appeal of de-contextualised arias and excerpts diminished.

Now that the number and variety of staged performances has seriously declined, scope for aria recitals should again have developed. So we must welcome a venture of this sort: the audience was large enough to encourage the society to try again.

First thing to exclaim about was the enterprising range of items. Absent were almost all the standard arias from the top 20 operas, as well as the once common scattering of popular art songs by Schubert and Schumann.

James Rodgers
One of the most surprising was the first bracket – Liszt’s famous settings of three sonnets by Petrarch; they were also among the most challenging, and in the hands of tenor James Benjamin Rodgers, not flawless in execution.

My main concern was with his gauging of the church’s acoustic. It’s a fine space for the singer, but very easy in which to misjudge the amount of force required for projection. The expression of passionate and unrestrained emotions in the poems tempts the singer to deliver tempestuously, with too much force. The beginning of No 104 was much more promising as Rodgers captured better the calmer sense of puzzlement, but too often one wanted a little more subtlety, variety of mood, just a softer, less driven voice.

So I looked forward to his later pieces. The first of them was the third act duet between Violetta (Georgia Jamieson Emms) and Alfredo in La traviata; here his voice was beautifully modulated, capturing the confusion between his full awareness of Violetta’s imminent death and his need to support her delusionary dreams of happiness. The pair was excellently matched in tone and dramatic perception.

Unusually, Rodgers sang, from Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, the male chorus’s interlude describing Tarquinius’s ride to Rome to rape Lucretia, the wife of his general Collatinus. An absolutely splendid portrayal, with a peerless piano accompaniment from Catherine Norton.

Next morning Lucretia herself delivers an extraordinary, dignified lament, ‘Give him this orchid’, before killing herself before her husband: it was Elizabeth Harris’s triumph. Incidentally, one must record that the opera was done by the then Conservatorium of Music of Massey University a decade or more ago.

James Rodgers’s final group of pieces clinched his standing as a very fine singer, capable of grasping a wide variety of musical styles and emotional dilemmas. There were excerpts from two Kurt Weill works; the operetta The Firebrand of Florence and his ‘musical tragedy’ Lost in the Stars; and from Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods (here duetting with Emms). Rodgers caught the wit and variety of mood keenly, demonstrating a natural talent for ‘becoming’ the character in question both through vocal nuance as well as facial expression and gesture. The title song from Weill’s Lost in the Stars sat right in the middle of his voice. In ‘Finishing the hat’ from Sunday in the Park his pianissimo conveyed perfectly the tortured conflict that the painter Seurat faced.

James and Georgia ended the concert, together again, with ‘It takes Two’ from Into the Woods, sensitively revealing the nature of the relationship between the couple. The two singers were again beautifully matched in this touching duet.

I am one who has not found it easy to enjoy Sondheim’s musical theatre, perhaps through exposure in live performance only with amateur productions; but the two examples here rather captivated me. Nevertheless, professional productions, which is what these pieces demand, are very unlikely in New
Zealand.

Georgia Jamieson Emms
Georgia had first displayed her interpretative talent with three songs (two by Theodore Storm and one by Hesse) set by Georg Tintner who fled to New Zealand from the Nazis in Austria before WW2 and, typically, found it almost impossible to gain musical recognition here, though he eventually became conductor of the New Zealand Opera Company. I hadn’t come across any of his compositions before; in these three one could hear hints of inter-war Vienna, touches of Alban Berg, Schoenberg and influences from Mahler and even Liszt could be perceived; secure and confident in realisation though nothing strongly memorable. But the performances would have charmed the composer.

Later offerings from Georgia included an unfamiliar aria from Nicolai’s German take on The Merry Wives of Windsor. It’s often done still in Germany but here we know only the overture and perhaps the splendid Drinking Song. This ‘Nun heilt herbei’ was sprightly and expressive, with comic effects that Georgia delivered very well. (Nicolai was a strange case, dates exactly those of Chopin, but a much smaller talent; he wrote a few other operas none of which held the stage).

That was followed by the Traviata duet, in which she created a moving and lively simulation of dying.

Georgia’s last items were an aria from Weill’s Street Scene of 1946, entitled ‘An American opera’, and then the ‘letter scene’ from Douglas Moore’s famous (in America) The Ballad of Baby Doll. In
both she displayed a lovely timbre, with careful control of emotional expressiveness.

Christian Thurston
Thurston arrived on stage in the middle of the first half and sang two opera arias, both amorous yearnings after forbidden fruit: ‘E fra quest’ ansie’ – Silvio’s aria from Pagliacci, and the rather less known ‘Vision fugitive’ from Massenet’s Hérodiade. Unlike the Jokaanan in Strauss’s Salome, here John the Baptist is made to feel quite open lust for the seductive Salome.

In both arias I felt that Thurston was pushing his voice excessively. While it was disciplined and firm, his voice lacked colour and emotional variety and didn’t really convey the trembling, out-of-control emotion that one expects to find in, and to be touched by, the words and the music itself of these two arias.

His third song was addressed to a young lady who was accessible to the singer: Emile’s well-loved ‘Younger than Springtime’ from South Pacific. But here again he missed the gentleness and sentiment of the beguiling melody in spite of a voice of even quality and pleasant timbre. I could not decide whether the problem was his miscalculation of the nature of the acoustic, encouraging needless pressure on his voice, or simply the choice of pieces that suited neither his voice nor his histrionic talents.

Elizabeth Harris
Before her aria from Lucretia, mentioned above, Elizabeth Harris had sung one of Mahler’s songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Das irdische Leben. The subject echoes Schubert’s Der Erlkönig; and she sang it with tremulous intensity.

Then came a much anthologised opera aria from an unknown opera: from Gounod’s first opera, Sapho: ‘O ma mère immortelle’. It’s a touching little piece which she handled with sweet sensitivity. She also sang one of Britten’s brilliant cabaret songs, Johnny, which she carried with sparkling acting and a zaney, daring self-confidence along with Catherine Norton’s dazzling piano.

The concert as a whole has to be rated a considerable success, both as highlighting one singer who has gained some international success and three others of great promise.  As I observed at the beginning, the decline in the amount and variety of live opera in performance should create a renewed thirst to explore opera, through excerpts, that look less and less likely to be performed here. And it is disturbing that such well-schooled and talented singers as these are unlikely ever to find full employment in this country.

 

 

Duo Tapas: violin and guitar play winning St Andrew’s lunchtime concert

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Duo Tapas (Rupa Maitra – violin, Owen Moriarty – guitar)

Vivaldi: Sonata in A minor, Op 2 No 12, RV 32
Mark O’Connor: pieces from Strings and Threads Suite
Arvo Pärt: Spiegel im Spiegel, arr, Moriarty
William Squire: Tarantella in D minor, Op 23, arr Moriarty

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 5 August, 12:15 pm

Duo Tapas is a fairly visible little ensemble on the Wellington music scene; but it pays not to take them for granted, as playing much the same repertoire, with minor variations in their frequent concerts. It could be because I haven’t heard a couple of their recent concerts that this programme was entirely new to me.

They began with Rudolph Buttman’s arrangement of one of Vivaldi’s violin sonatas, the last of the set published as Opus 2. The programme listed the movements as Preludio, Allemande, Grave and Capriccio. Other sources offer different movement titles: Preludio, Capriccio, Grave, Corrente; or Preludio – Largo, Capriccio – Presto, Grave, Allemanda – Allegro. Of course I did not discover these variations till I explored the internet later; no doubt they reflected the liberties publishers felt able to take in the 18th century.

I wondered during the performance about the appropriateness of the titles, and had jotted a puzzled note that the last movement hardly sounded ‘capricious’ – rather, just brisk.

Never mind.
The duo were absolutely justified in taking up this successful arrangement of one of Vivaldi’s many lovely pieces, more than usually melodious, sounding as if he had the guitar very much in mind when he cast the continuo lines (for cello and harpsichord).

Mark O’Connor is an American composer, now in his early 60s, who has devoted himself to listenable, rather infectious music. The title refers, obviously, to the stringed instrument and the threads connecting the thirteen little movements in the suite, a sort of history of United States popular music, offering examples of many styles of music from Irish reels and sailors’ songs of the 16th century to recent times. They played ten of them. I had counted only eight when they ended, which was probably the result of failing to notice a pause and change of style. There was a convincing sense of anticipation with Off to Sea, as the sails picked up the wind; the last piece, Sweet Suzanne was the longest, most bravura and arresting: a colourful and entertaining collection.

Arvo Part’s Spiegel im Spiegel is nearly as popular as his Fratres: hypnotic, a masterpiece of simplicity. The translation for violin and guitar involved retuning the bottom E string of the guitar to a low F, to deal with the repeated anchor. Rupa Maitra played it with just discreet vibrato and a riveting stillness. Again, a very convincing transformation.

Finally, there was a piece by William Squire, a name that was once, perhaps still, very familiar to cello students. He edited a series of albums of varying difficulty: I still have two of them, as well, to my surprise, as the Tarantella in D minor, played here. It didn’t make a deep impression on me sixty-odd years ago, but this version worked very well, though I could not argue that the duo had unearthed a masterpiece. Nevertheless, the character of the two instruments, the players’ rapport and the way in which their musical instincts combined might have brought the most unpromising composition to life.

Don’t hesitate to get along to their next concert, wherever it might be.

 

Just a half hour of St Andrew’s organ before you go home: Bach and Pärt

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

‘Way to Go (Home)’
Fourth Wellington Organists’ Association twilight concert

Heather Easting and Danielle van der Zwaag on the gallery pipe organ

Bach: Concerto in A minor (BWV 593) and Das alte Jahr vergangen ist 
Arvo Pärt’s Trivium

St Andrews on the Terrace

Tuesday 4 August, 5:15 pm

Middle C is a little red-faced on account of neglecting this interesting and unusual series of organ recitals at St Andrew’s. Though we’ve had them listed from the start, our reviewers have failed to find their way to the church at this after-work time-slot.

The first thing to note is that St Andrew’s is one of Wellington’s many churches that has a good pipe organ which presumably gets a work-out on Sundays, but rests untended during the rest of the week. Occasionally, the Wednesday lunchtime concerts feature an organist at either the main organ or the baroque organ in the nave of the church. The decision early this year to offer recitals that are intended to capture workers on their way home is enterprising and the three recitals before this one have drawn small but not discouraging audiences; this time the audience was bigger (I do not suggest that my arrival doubled the audience size) and programmes ran out.

The St Andrew’s organ has had restoration work done in recent times, and it sounds impressive: clear, robust, colourful. The programme demonstrated two very contrasted aspects of its range: as an instrument managing baroque music well, with stops well-adapted to the slender and not too powerful capacity of the pre-Romantic organ; as well as the very singular compositional manner of Arvo Pärt.

The first Bach work, played by Heather Easting, was his Concerto in A minor, (BWV 593) a transcription of No 8 of Vivaldi’s L’estro armonico. Op 3, originally for two violins.  It makes a
splendid organ work, and must surely help overcome a lingering Vivaldi-snobbery, driven by the same snobbery that tends to diminish a lot of music that has good tunes and an emotional pull. This performance was more than adequate, first because it seemed to demonstrate the strengths of the instrument itself and second, without indulging in registrations that were too thick and undifferentiated.

A short piece by Bach followed, played by young organist Danielle van der Zwaag: Bach’s Das alte Jahr vergangen ist, BWV 614, from the Orgelbuchlein (Little Organ Book). It has a somewhat meandering character which at first I mistook for a hesitancy in the playing, but its essential sophistication combined with unpretentiousness, as well as its thoughtful performance, made it a nice transition to the next, utterly different music.

Heather Easting returned then to play Pärt’s Trivium. The programme note explains: it means ‘where three roads meet’ (Latin); it has three voices: two manuals and pedals, the triad sonority, and a tripartite form. Some of the high reed sounds produced early on didn’t much appeal to me, and it seemed just a bit aimless, but all was explained with the fortissimo opening of the second part, which would have been meaningless without the earlier movement. But beyond that are considerations of Pärt’s spiritual intentions which the programme note discussed. The composer pitches two opposing voices: Part’s invention, tintinnabulation, and melody, suggesting the spiritual and the temporal; and I’m sure that the pursuit of the thoughts of musicologists on those matters would lead to a more enriching musical, if not metaphysical, experience.

At a first-hearing level, this was at once a careful and exuberant performance that may well be an excellent way to substitute the burdens of the working day with complexities of an altogether different sort.

The next ‘Way to go (Home)’ 5.15pm organ recital will not be till 6 October. A return visit is bound to be rewarding.