Category: Reviews – Concerts

Aroha String Quartet’s tenth anniversary concert offers excellent, varied, exquisite programme

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Aroha String Quartet: Haihong Liu and Blythe Press (violins), Zhongxian Jin (viola), Robert Ibell (cello)

Tenth Anniversary Concert

String Quartets:
Beethoven: in A, Op 18 No 5
Shostakovich: No 1 in C, Op 49
Ravel: in F major
Chinese pieces:
Hua Yan-Jun: Er Quan Ying Yue
Traditional: Fan Shen Dao Qing

Old Saint Paul’s

Sunday 7 December, 3 pm

The first performance by Wellington’s Aroha String Quartet took place in this venue at this time on 5 December, just 10 years ago. I wrote a review of it in The Dominion Post, ending “This is one of the finest ensembles to emerge from the NZSO ranks. I hope they can find the time to give many more concerts”. I’ve always felt pleased to have been there. This time, too, their concert clashed with another, the same, by the Wellington Chamber Orchestra, which again had the result of smaller audiences at both.

Membership has changed from that at the first concert, then entirely of Chinese-born players. The original second violinist, Beiyi Xue, and cellist, Jiaxin Cheng, have departed and their places taken by several others: Robert Ibell now as permanent cellist and Blythe Press as interim (before heading overseas) second violin. This afternoon there was no hint of any absence of homogeneity in their ensemble, lack of stylistic command in their approach to the music’s character.

Old Saint Paul’s is a lovely venue for chamber music, though sight-lines can be a bit obscured by posts. But the players are now on a new platform making them generally visible.

The fifth of Beethoven’s Op 18 quartets is in A major and the happiest and most extravert of the six. It began with some slight diffidence. But its energising speed, driven by the fast, darting lines of the first violin quickly generated assurance in all the players, and the first movement became a simple delight. And, come to think of it, so did the other three.

There was charming swing in the minuet (what a huge range of tempi, rhythms and moods seem to be encompassed in the old dance called the ‘minuet’). The Trio in its middle was in marked contrast, a bit blowsy perhaps, a strong triple beat with emphasis on the third note.

The another facet of the happy A major spirit (though this starts in D major) came with the almost swooning opening of the Andante Cantabile, though each of the following variations was expressed with delightful individuality (the programme note called them ‘variants’ – a form of the word that I’m only familiar with in Vaughan Williams). There’s the bustling third variation and the dreamy beauty of the fourth and then the extended fifth variation that recovers the determination and spirit, as well as the calm of the other movements.

The last movement also shifts moods quixotically, carrying us along with a strong current: all so compelling even to the teasing final bars.

What a change to be offered other than No 8 out of Shostakovich’s 15 string quartets! No 1, written just before the second world war, and in the shadow of Stalin’s devastating attack on Shostakovich and others, opens in a somewhat secretive manner, with no big tunes or distinct mood till Ibell’s sunny, peaceful cello pronouncement arrives. Jin’s viola soon picks it up and the viola also opens the second movement with a tune that grows on you, with a certain unease as the cello weighs in heavily. Lots of fast scales characterise the Allegro Molto, with little decorative flourishes that don’t actually decorate anything other than themselves. It seems to avoid certainties, mutes giving a feeling of indirection.

But the last movement, violin-led, turns on the light and pushes up the speed, and this splendid revelatory performance leads me to hope that this could be the group to pursue a complete Shostakovich series over the next year or so (one of the most memorable highlights at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland a few years ago was a complete late-night series of them all from the Aviv Quartet from Israel).

After the interval came a couple of engaging Chinese pieces: one by an early 19th century composer, Er Quan Ying Yue by Hua Yan-Jun, for the erhu (which you will hear being played by a singularly musical player in the subway to the Wellington Railway Station every Friday). It lay very high on the violin with the other instruments playing tremolo before the others took turns with the tune.

The following piece was an arrangement of a traditional folk tune called Fan Shen Dao Qing; from the early communist period in the 40s, it energetically reflected the optimism, hopes of the dawning of the new age, then a slow, more pensive middle section and finally a virtuosic fast-fingered finish with a short bluesy episode before the return of the upbeat character.

The two pieces were an ideal return from the pause: an introduction to the highly individual sound of Ravel’s string quartet. The quartet approached it in a spirit of huge familiarity and musical intimacy, smooth and suffused with magic light: the performance was bewitching. The second movement is much dominated by pizzicato not written to be played by beginners and the ensemble and general execution suggested high talent and scrupulous, detailed rehearsal of Ravel’s demand: Assez vif, très rythmé; the muted middle section is languorous, allowing the players a short respite (though no less demanding) from the brittle outer parts.

The breathtaking changeability continues through the Très lent third and Vif et agité last movement. The third emerged pensive though not sad, opening with the viola; then a creepy, growling cello in the middle. Though it’s slow and outwardly uneventful, the exquisite playing sustained rapt attention, saying rather beautiful things quietly.

The energetic rhythm of the last movement, with tremolo and pizzicato and little exclamations, continued to throw up hints of earlier phrases in new ways and in new contexts. The entire performance was beautifully executed, warm-hearted, perfectly attuned to Ravel’s intentions. How sad that Ravel left us so little music, particularly chamber music!

Though there was not a huge audience – a few more than 100? – the enthusiasm of the applause might have suggested several hundred.

 

Wellington Chamber Orchestra – a wonderful concert and a promising conducting debut

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Chamber Orchestra presents:

BEETHOVEN – Overture “The Creatures of Prometheus”
BRUCH – Kol Nidrei with Andrew Joyce (‘cello)
VIVALDI – Concerto for 2 ‘cellos
with Ken Ichinose and Andrew Joyce (‘cellos)
MENDELSSOHN – Symphony No.3 in A Minor “Scottish”

Wellington Chamber Orchestra
conducted by Andrew Joyce

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

Sunday, 7th December, 2014

This was a programme whose contents promised delight at every turn – although one listener’s favorite can be another’s aversion, there are surely pieces which have such a wide range of appeal, that even the most hardened, narrowed-down listener would find it difficult to resist their blandishments. Such was this happy assemblage – in fact I haven’t been able to find a single person who attended and DIDN’T say “What a programme!”.

Having scored with the raw materials, the Wellington Chamber Orchestra furthered its cause by engaging none other than Andrew Joyce, principal ‘cellist of the NZSO, to conduct. As this was (so he afterwards told me) Joyce’s actual public debut as a conductor, the prospect of hearing him direct the orchestra was one fuelled entirely by expectation built upon people’s awareness of his stature as a soloist, chamber player and NZSO section principal.

While orchestral players (or pianists, not to mention singers) do not necessarily great conductors make, most notable exponents of the baton have had some experience “in the ranks” as it were. As well, the “born not made” adage is trotted out fairly regularly whenever the conductor’s art comes under scrutiny of discussion. Because of the conductor’s persuasive function, there certainly has to be some kind of force of personality, however expressed, intertwined with the musical skills, one which carries (sometimes recalcitrant) orchestral players along, and achieves the necessary unanimity.

By the end of the concert’s first half, I was wanting to hail Andrew Joyce as a “natural” in the job, based on the results of the splendid orchestral playing and the focused, characterful interpretations. Because amateur orchestras play together far less often than do professional ones, there’s a Janus-faced frisson of excitement and tension surrounding every public performance – on the one side, the thrill of bringing wonderful music to life, and on the other, the precariousness of technically keeping “on the rails” both individually and as part of the ensemble.

Throughout much of this concert these excitements and tensions brought out the musicians’ best. At the very beginning we enjoyed the conductor’s  sharply-etched focus, a snappy, attention-grabbing opening to the Beethoven “Prometheus” Overture, followed by a lovely, warm cantabile from the winds, the tones and textures beautifully filled out by the strings and the horns golden-sounding. The allegro which followed used nicely-pointed rhythms rather than just speed to get the music’s character across, with everything given a real sense of shape and form. Again, the winds distinguished themselves in the perky second subject, the whole orchestra gathering up the various threads and driving the music through the composer’s varied treatment of his material with real élan.

Having impressed with his conducting, Joyce then turned to his ‘cello for the next item, Max Bruch’s adorable Kol Nidrei, whose full title includes the description Adagio on 2 Hebrew Melodies for ‘Cello and Orchestra with Harp. As ‘cellists normally sit directly facing the audience, I wondered how the performance would fare, as Joyce would ostensibly be directing the orchestra as well as delivering the not inconsiderable solo part, all with his back to most of the players! From where I was sitting I couldn’t see the concertmaster giving any “cues” to the band, as often happens in these circumstances. Still, whatever alchemic means was used to direct the musicians’ playing certainly worked, as, a touch of dodgy wind-tuning apart, the orchestra was able to deliver a well-nigh impeccable accompaniment to Joyce’s performance of this beautiful work, throughout.

It was touching to read in the programme notes of Joyce’s grandfather’s association with this piece, the latter a keen amateur ‘cellist himself, whose desire to take up music as a career was thwarted by the onset of World War II and his conscripted service as a soldier. At his grandfather’s funeral, sixteen years ago, Joyce played this piece in his memory, a circumstance that would naturally give any subsequent performance by him a special significance. Thus it was with the playing, here, though there was no excessive heart-on-sleeve emotion wrung from the music – everything seemed to flow naturally and inevitably, and with a real sense of ensemble (I need to mention the lovely harp-playing), the exchanges between the solo instrument and the orchestral strings drawing the threads of melody beautifully together.

In the past the orchestra’s enjoyed partnerships with an impressive array of soloists, and this concert was no exception – one of Joyce’s colleagues from the NZSO cello section, Ken Ichinose, joined his section-leader to play a Double-‘Cello Concerto by Antonio Vivaldi. As Ken Ichinose’s pedigree as a player includes experience with both the Philharmonia Orchestra of London and the renowned Academy of St.Martin-in-the-Fields, it was luxury-casting with a vengeance for this music! What gave even more pleasure was Vivaldi’s writing for a “trio” of ‘cellists at various parts of the work, giving a third player almost as much of the spotlight as the “soloists” – the WCO’s principal ‘cellist Ian Lyons held his own throughout in fine style.

But what energies this music has! – Vivaldi’s motoric impulses gave every member of the ensemble a fine old workout in the outer movements’ tutti sections – the Largo movement by comparison was almost lullabic in its effect, augmented by a harp towards the end. As one would expect in this company, the exchanges between the two soloists were spectacular in places, with the third ‘cello an impressive back-up when needed, which was often. The work’s concluding tutti threw sparks in all directions, creating plenty of edge-of-seat excitement amongst the audience, which burst out as applause at the end most enthusiastically.

Our vistas were thrown open even further after the interval by Mendelssohn’s evocative “Scottish” Symphony – its “teething troubles” (it took Mendelsson ten years, on-and-off, to complete this work – though numbered as the Third, it was the last of his five full-scale symphonies to be completed) belie what seems like its ready fluency and energy of utterance – only the somewhat “tacked-on” coda to the final movement suggests that its composer might have had certain difficulties “placing” his material in a convincing and organic manner. Certainly the composer’s “Italian” Symphony (No.4) is a tauter, more obviously “focused” work, though the “Scottish” has its own expansive and treasurably unique epic character.

Conductor and players seemed to relish the symphony’s first movement with playing by turns freshly-wrought, finely-crafted and vigorous (and, to my surprise and pleasure, even giving us the repeat!) Those distinctive, plangent wind-tones at the symphony’s beginning sang with such flavour, getting a real “out-of-doors” feeling to the sounds; and the tricky opening of the allegro was negotiated without undue mishap by strings and winds alike, the later “martial” moments splendidly ringing out. With the repeat, one felt there was more confidence among the strings as they launched into the allegro once again, though every section – winds, brass, timpani – hove to with focused, on-the-spot playing.

For instance, the cellos did well with their beautiful development-recapitulation-transition melody, singing their descant-like line over the top as if their lives depended on the outcome. When it came to the storms of the coda, the strings, though sounding undernourished of tone, launched into things with everything they had, wind and brass shouting out their support and pushing the music on as energetically as they dared. As for the winding down of the coda, the winds did a lovely job bringing us quietly and surely to those final pizzicato chords, concluding what I thought was a sterling orchestral effort from all concerned.

Alas, the tricky scherzo took its toll – the opening solos, though fluently-phrased, had difficulty keeping up with the pace set by the conductor, and the strings came adrift with some of their entries. For a while the music’s pulse was confused until the winds, with their “Midsummer Night’s Dream”-like figurations managed to pull everything back together with the conductor’s guidance – the horns also did well with their distant calls at the end. A happier impression was made with the slow movement, the strings enjoying the lusciousness of the opening, and their “tune to die for” (rather like an extended version of the famous melody in “The Hebrides” Overture) – the playing was beautifully nuanced, throughout. The dark-browed interludes made a powerful impression each time, with climaxes wonderfully capped by the brasses.

But oh! – that tune! – Though not particularly suited to “symphonic” treatment, it must still be one of the world’s great ones. As well, I learned for the first time that when the cellos’ repeat it, they’re supported by a single horn, with the others harmonizing in places. Gorgeous, as here! And the clarinets in thirds (again there are parallels with the “Hebrides” work) held up well at the end, as did the rest of the winds.

The finale’s dotted rhythms were always going to be hard to keep buoyant, and so it proved, though the very opening produced a terrific snap! Brass and wind produced a great effect with their two-note snarls, though those rhythms tended to lumber rather than dance, throughout, as well as come adrift at times. Better was the coming-together of the two-note motifs of various kinds, both repeated-note and octave-leap calls, dying away to allow the clarinet and bassoon to mellifluously return us to the symphony’s opening mood, in preparation for the aforementioned coda.

One of the horn-players had told me he was looking forward to this moment in the work – and it certainly proved a real blast for the brass, here! Though blipping a little with their calls, they certainly let ‘er rip to great effect, joined by the winds and then by the strings – a grand apotheosis, which the performance certainly made the most of, to everybody’s delight.  So, a fine way for an orchestra to finish a year, and a wonderful public debut for Andrew Joyce as a conductor – we would welcome any opportunities to see and hear him do more, though we definitely don’t want to lose him as a ‘cellist!

Bach Choir’s Stephen Rowley bows out in style

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Bach Choir of Wellington presents:
CANTATAS AND CAROLS

JS BACH – Cantata No.140 “Wachet auf, ruft die Stimme”
– Cantata No.191 “Gloria in excelsis Deo”
Traditional Carols for choir and audience

Nicola Holt (soprano)
Adrian Lowe (tenor)
Simon Christie (baritone)
The Bach Choir of Wellington
The Chiesa Ensemble (Rebecca Struthers – leader)
Douglas Mews (organ)
Stephen Rowley (conductor)

St.Joseph’s Church, Mt.Victoria, Wellington

Saturday 6th December 2014

This concert marked the conclusion of conductor Stephen Rowley’s tenure as music director of the Bach Choir of Wellington, a position he took over from Nigel Williams in 2008. A glance at the repertoire performed by the choir during this time attests to the rich variety of music experienced by the group under Rowley’s expert direction. Appropriately, his final collaboration with the choir featured the music of Bach, as well as appropriately involving the audience via a selection of well-known carols.

I had not been in the venue, St.Joseph’s Church in Mt.Victoria, since the old church was demolished in 2003 and the completely new building constructed. I must confess that the updated result feels to my antediluvian sensibilities less like a church than a concert hall, and, in fact  the acoustic amply justifies its use as such. Being a last-minute arrival at the concert I had to be content with seats that were so far to one side of the centre that I thought the performing balances would seem somewhat awry – but I was instead charmed by the clarity and warmth of the sound from my ostensibly unfavourable position.

Centrally-placed and to the back of the altar-area was the choir, with the soloists in the front row, immediately behind the orchestra, the Chiesa Ensemble (a period-performance ensemble made up of a group of NZSO players), and with the organist over to one side at the console, the conductor standing midships in front of the audience.Though the soloists and instrumentalists weren’t facing me, their tones were given sufficient ambient warmth to carry throughout the venue.

Cantata 140 began the concert, a gorgeous work, though one with the initial misfortune to have been written for the 27th Sunday after Trinity, a liturgical date which occurs only when Easter is more than usually early. Fortunately, present-day performances of these works rely far less on prompting by actual dates, even if the occasional co-incidence brings extra festivity and feeling for the occasion.

Some extraordinarily difficult part-writing in the opening “Wachet auf” for chorus in places tested but didn’t defeat the choir, and the instrumental support was glorious. The following tenor recitative, “Er kommt, er kommt, der Brautigam kommt” brought out both clarion tones and sweetly-turned lines in other places from the soloist, Adrian Lowe, after which Nicola Holt and Simon Christie undertook their aria duet “Wenn kommst du, mein Heil?” to my ears taking a few measures to get the “pitch’ of the lines, before settling down with some lovely “floated” notes.

Then came the famous “Zion hört die Wächter singen” with its much-loved melody dancing in tandem with the chorale-like step-wise utterances of the tenor soloist, the juxtaposition of the two making for a fine edge of contrasted separation which kept the contact-points open. This was a lovely, buoyant performance, giving the lie to the famous conductor Sir Thomas Beecham’s amusing but gratuitous remark about the dreariness of Bach’s “Protestant counterpoint”.

From here on the performance really fired, with the deeply-felt bass recitative “So geh herein zu mir” galvanized by another duet from Nicola Holt and Simon Christie “Mein Freund ist mein”, during which the pair really sparkled, aided and abetted by lovely oboe playing and strong continuo support from Eleanor Carter’s cello, with Douglas Mews, as always, a tower of strength at the organ. Stephen Rowley’s direction produced a full-throated response from the choir throughout the final chorale “Gloria sei dir gesungen”.

A warm sense of audience involvement was established through interspersing a performance-bracket of carols with some traditional favorites. We all enjoyed ourselves no end, being entertained in between times by the choir’s performances of Terence Maskell’s arrangements of various medieval carols. The men introduced Alleluya, a new work is come on hand in great style and with terrific verve, contrasting this with a gentler treatment of In dulci jubilee. A trio of women’s voices nicely projected There is a flower over wordless accompaniments, with well-controlled variants (some nervous “alleluias” notwithstanding), and finishing with the original threesome over gentle wordless harmonies once again.

Though these weren’t the Maori words I taught my school choirs back in the days of yore, I nevertheless enjoyed the colour-tones of the Maori-English sounds in Silent Night. I loved the choral writing for A spotless rose, all wind-blown and out-of-doors, giving the choir plenty of vertiginous lines to hold onto, though the descents into quiet concluding cadences obviously brought some relief. Everybody sounded more at home with Tomorrow shall be my dancing day, the women energetic and true, and the men’s off-beat entries nicely managed. I didn’t know the concluding Wexford Carol but it was a joy to hear the piece open up and knit together, the writing allowing men and women a varied and satisfying interaction of dynamics and colours.

Cantata 191 was one I didn’t know – or so I thought! – how wonderful, therefore, to be presented with the opening of the B Minor Mass’s “Gloria” right at the outset! This, the only cantata that uses Latin, is based on an even earlier work written by JSB in 1733, one which, in true Baroque fashion, he used in his B Minor Mass fifteen years later – but three years earlier he had put together this cantata for a Christmas Day service in Leipzig from much the same music. What a guy!

As with the opening of other “festive” works by Bach – the Christmas Oratorio, and the Magnificat come immediately to mind – this music instantly galvanizes the spirit, the thrill of those opening brass calls punctuated by timpani giving one goosebumps (especially when, as here, the pleasure was an unexpected one!). And the choir held its own up splendidly in the midst of these festive sounds, all of the voices matching the instrumentalists in exuberance at the beginning, and the women doing well with their lines at “bonae voluntatis”, the different sections handling the ensuing contrapuntal lines with aplomb.

The work’s second part is a shortened setting of the beautiful duet “Domine Deus” from the same “Gloria”, here, using a different text – this was an enchanting sequence, beautiful flute-playing at the beginning, and soprano and tenor completely at ease together, filling out their lines with winsome grace, and intertwining their voices most beguilingly, as did the flutes with and around the string accompaniments.

The choir’s vigorous attack at the finale’s beginning “Sicut erat in principio” was echoed by brass and timpani, the performers relishing both words and musical phrases, keeping the momentum buoyant and the tones festive and bright. The voices kept their trajectories on task throughout the demanding “et nun et semper” sections – Bach’s writing is characteristically challenging, and at times the ensemble lost its poise for a measure or three, though never for too long, strings, flutes, oboes and brass made bright, pungent tonal combinations, underpinned by the timpani, the music joyously driving to a heartwarming conclusion.

A presentation to Stephen Rowley from the Choir itself followed immediately after the concert – the occasion made for a happy and successful conclusion to what seems to have been an interesting and colourful era in the Bach Choir’s history.

 

Entertaining Christmas concert from the Northern Chorale

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Northern Chorale: Waits, Wassailers and Star Singers

Rutter: Brother Heinrich’s Christmas

Music by Mendelssohn and arrangements of traditional carols

Conducted by Monika Smith, with Jonathan Berkahn (piano and organ), Elizabeth Warren (oboe) and Penny Miles (bassoon)

St. Barnabas Church, Khandallah

Sunday, 30 November 2014, 2.30pm

It was a new take on Christmas music to present a selection of songs that were traditionally sung by carollers in their neighbourhoods, expecting to be rewarded with food and drink.  Monika Smith’s brief, entertaining introductions to the songs made it clear that it was often the reward that was the focus, rather than the music.

The concert opened with a traditional carol, ‘Resonet in laudibus’ sung as a processional.  This was followed by the well-known ‘Sleepers Wake’, but in Mendelssohn’s version rather than the more familiar Bach setting.  Here I found the piano rather too loud, and thought the organ would have been a more appropriate accompanying instrument, given that the version was from the oratorio St. Paul, in which there would have been orchestra.

The carol ‘Up!  Good Christen folk and listen’ I found too slow compared with other performances I have heard.  It made the carol seem rather dull, and the choir lacking in energy.  However, this aspect improved during the concert, not least in Stainer’s version of ‘God rest you merry, gentlemen’ and ‘Here we come a-wassailing’.  This last featured some solos from choir members – not of an even standard.  After another wait carol, arranged by David Willcocks, we came to some German Sternsingerlied, or Star Singers Songs.

Die Heilige Königen, from Bavaria, is traditionallysung by children carrying a large star on a pole – it was duly held by a choir member.  The singing in these folksy songs was more cohesive.  The next one was quite humorous, with complaints about having an ox in the stable with the baby.  It was sung in a characteristic folksy manner, with especially pleasing singing from the women of the choir.  What followed was a folksong from Silesia, in which the women sing, representing Mary who asks her husband for assistance, as you would if rocking a cradle on a cold, windy mountain-top.  However, his fingers are too frozen to help.  The women began well, but the singing became rather dull, and the attacks at the beginning of phrases were not good.

The lengthy Vaughan Williams arrangement of the Gloucestershire Wassail had unison singing of considerable gusto.  Despite some slight intonation wobbles, the carol was sung well, and the performance was enlivened by large cardboard animals, drawn with great accuracy, parading at the back of the choir at appropriate moments.

John Rutter’s Brother Heinrich’s Christmas is delightful, but does not contain a lot of singing for the choir, though their contribution was good.   The story, capably narrated by several choir members is full of delight, as are Rutter’s piano accompaniment and especially the use of the oboe and the bassoon, the latter representing the donkey Sigismund, also  represented by a large stuffed donkey, who periodically took his place in the  choir.  His part in assisting Heinrich with the writing of ‘In dulci jubilo’ is amusingly rendered.

A couple of audience carols accompanied on organ presaged the last item ‘We wish you a merry Christmas’, which a false entry from the men managed to turn into somewhat of a shambles. But perhaps it was all part of the fun.

 

 

Tudor Consort with marvellous music: Motets by Bach and settings of the texts by others

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

“Singet dem Herrn”: The Tudor Consort, directed by Michael Stewart

Music by J S Bach, Sven-David Sandström, William Byrd, Hugo Distler

Sacred Heart Cathedral

Saturday, 29 November 2014, 7.30pm

The programme revolved around three of Bach’s motets: Singet dem Herrn, Lobet den Herrn alle Heiden, and the incomparable Jesu, meine Freude.  The other works were settings of the same or related texts by other composers, some with a conscious nod to Bach.

One notable characteristic of the superb Tudor Consort is the involvement of the singers in what they are presenting.  This is shown by accuracy, attention to detail, fine vocal production, variation of expression through word stress and dynamics, and clarity of words.  The singers’ faces reflect this involvement; singers in some choirs look as though mentally they are somewhere else.  This must be the only choir with more men than women members (13 to12).

The opening motet by Bach, Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied (‘Sing to the Lord a new song’, not ‘Sing to the Lord no new song’, as the German title as printed had it) was lively, the performance emphasising the sprightly rhythm.  The well-balanced choir gave punch to the joyful nature of the words, from Psalm 149.

For the Bach items Michael Stewart played the continuo on a small (or box) positive pipe organ, which many in the audience, including me, could hear but not see.  This in no way dominated, but provided the continuo basis such as the composer would have employed. The intricacy of Bach’s counterpoint was all there, but was never an end in itself.

The choir’s tone was very fine, and enhanced by the venue.  There was interesting dynamic variation, and only one aberration that I heard.  However, it was disappointing to see so many of the choir, especially the men, stuck in their scores.  Even though there may not have been the same need to watch the conductor, since he was limited by his playing in the conducting gestures he could give, looking up enhances a choir’s communication with its audience.

As a contrast to the bright mood of the motet’s opening Psalm, the following Chorale sung by half the choir, ‘Wie sich ein Vater erbarmet’ (As a father is merciful) was beautifully peaceful and smooth.  Choir 2’s aria was a plea to God for his care, interspersed with the Chorale. Finally, all sang words from Psalm 150.

After the motet, Michael Stewart addressed some remarks to the audience concerning the work, and the work to follow, by contemporary Swedish composer Sven-David Sandström.  It was based on words from Psalm 117: Lobet den Herrn alle Heiden (Praise the Lord, all nations).  The brief programme
note informed us that the composer ‘wrote his own set of six motets using the same texts as J S Bach.  Indeed, much of his choral music since the 1990s has been written “in the footsteps of Bach”’.

His unaccompanied work proved to be complex, with many cross-rhythms. However, it was very much choral music, with effective use of the words, and giving plenty of opportunity for the choir to exhibit its splendid tone colours.  As the interlocking interjections sped up, words were no longer distinguishable.  A passage of smooth harmony, followed, a passage of great beauty, its multiple parts shifting the harmony in unexpected ways to wonderful effect.  The concluding ‘Alleluia’ began sounding really angelic, but became quite impassioned.

The Bach version of the same motet saw the choir regroup, and Michael Stewart return to the organ.  Again the complexity of the writing did not obscure the beauty of the music nor of the words, which were delivered in impeccable German.

Praise our Lord all ye Gentiles by William Byrd brought forth a lovely sound from the choir, featuring the altos and the men only.  This 6-part motet was unaccompanied, and notable for much decoration of the words, and long melismatic passages.  The Renaissance idiom and style was a refreshing change from the complexities of the Baroque.

Hugo Distler’s Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied (again put in the negative in the heading!) was not written to the same words as the opening Bach work, despite the opening lines; in this case the words are from Psalm 98.   Distler, too, was a follower of Bach and the Baroque style.  Like the Byrd piece, this was sung unaccompanied.

The work opened with a strong sound from the men.  Despite being neo-baroque, there were harmonies that would have astonished Bach – some were stark and angular.  However, the cadences were almost uniformly delicious, and the work was of considerable rhythmic variety.  As with the Sandström work, this was unfamiliar music that was well worth hearing.

To end the programme, the Tudor Consort performed Bach’s lengthy motet Jesu, Meine Freude.  Its eleven movements alternate quotations from Romans, chapter 8, with chorales meditating upon the Biblical words, written by Johann Frank in 1650.  To my mind this is one of the most beautiful and most satisfying choral works.  It is wonderfully varied in its expression of words, and of faith.  It is one of the supreme works of Bach, performed all too seldom – but making such an occasion as this to be all the
more treasured.

The choir, accompanied on the organ, sang the opening chorale with commitment and expressiveness.  The following chorus, the first of the quotations from Romans, was sung with subtlety and great attention to expression and varying the dynamics.  The chorale commenting on the Biblical passage provides a feast of word-painting, with its talk of storms, of Satan, and particularly of thunder and lightning.

The next passage from Romans was sung by trebles only, the writing being utterly delicate.  Despite a few wonky notes, the effect was pleasing indeed.  Its chorale speaks of defiance to death and the strength of God.  Its positive mood was rendered by the harmony, sequences and cadences.

The passage about being of the spirit rather than the flesh began with men only, and was full of complex counterpoint.  The florid passages were certainly not easy to sing, and a few notes came out flat.  After the next chorale, the following chorus’s opening (‘However, if Christ is in you…’) is tranquil and peaceful, but gives way to counterpoint of great complexity for all parts, only for all to come together for a glorious ending.

The chorale ‘Gute Nacht’ is utterly magical, moving from simple soprano and alto parts to contrasting ornate parts for the men.  The treble parts come into their own complexity briefly, before the chorale melody weaves between all parts.  A spirit of contemplation is paramount in this movement.

A jubilant chorus celebrating the resurrection of Christ and of believers leads to the final chorale, which restates the motet’s opening chorale melody and harmony for its contemplation that ends with Jesu, meine Freude (‘Jesus, my joy’).  Strongly sung, this revealed again excellent balance and mellifluous tone.

The audience enthusiasm proved, if proof were necessary, that all had enjoyed an evening of rewarding and uplifting music-making.  I felt honoured to have heard this marvellous music.  It was a musical and spiritual treat.

 

 

Large audience hear unfamiliar Christmas music in enthusiastic performance by Festival Singers

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Festival Singers. Director: Jonathan Berkhan

Feliz Navidid – A South American Christmas
Music from the 16th to 21st centuries

Accompanist: Thomas Nikora; tenor solo: Joe Fecteau; guitar: Bernard Wells; percussion: Ingrid Schoenfeld, Monika Smith; bass: Samuel Berkahn

Jonathan Berkahn: Gloria
Pedro de Cristo: Es nasçido
Pedro Bermúdez: Christus natus est nobis
Gaspar Fernandes: Xicochi xicochi
Domenico Zipoli: Organ pieces from his Sonate d’intavolatura
José Maurício Nunes Garcia: Two responsories from Matinas do Natal. (no 2: Hodie nobis de coelo pax and No 4: O magnum mysterium
Ariel Ramírez: Misa Criolla (Kyrie, Gloria, Agnus Dei)
Jonathan Berkahn: Gloria

Bravo Ensemble: accordion: Emilio Bertrand; piano: Thomas Nikora; violin: Slava Fainitski; violin: Sarah Martin; viola: David Daniela; cello: Brenton Veitch; contrabass: Louis van der Mespel

Astor Piazzolla: Five Tangos

Island Bay Presbyterian Church

Friday 28 November 2014

This festive concert programme drew a large audience to the Island Bay Presbyterian Church, and it was apparent from the first bar that the choristers hugely enjoyed singing it. The opening Gloria by the choir’s director Jonathan Berkahn immediately set the scene with its vigorous, bouncy rhythms and easy harmonies, cleverly offset by a central section of more stately and peaceful mood. The following three items formed a most interesting bracket of contrasted works from three of many Baroque missionary priest-musicians who moved out from Europe, taking their musical and ecclesiastical traditions with them, and developed these in the fresh environment of the New World.

Es nasçido is a Portuguese nativity hymn of full-bodied harmonies and traditional Baroque chorale tonalities, which was given a warm and enthusiastic delivery. Christus natus est nobis was more subdued, and displayed clear part singing from the various interweaving choral voices. And the third item, the lullaby Xicochi xicochi sung for the baby Jesus in the Aztec language, was a beautifully crafted piece, using solo guitar accompaniment. It opened with women’s voices only, and was marked by gently lilting melodies, later offset by busier syncopated rhythms from the men. It was a remarkably liberal fusion of Old and New World elements resulting in a composition that had moved a very considerable way from contemporary European practice.

We were treated next to two organ pieces from Domenico Zipoli’s Sonate d’intavolatura, very masterfully played by Jonathan Berkahn. The first was a Pastorale, in structure and style very reminiscent of the Pastoral Symphony in Handel’s Messiah. Gentle triplet figures wove attractively over the top of a rich bass pedal note, with a brief and lively episode providing contrast in the centre. The following number was an Offertory, where busy contrapuntal development unfolded once again over a bass pedal, culminating in a closing coda of rich, full throated chords. Jonathan Berkahn had voiced both pieces to show off the very best of the electronic organ, and they provided a very successful contrast to the other works in the programme.

José Garcia apparently wrote a huge amount of both choral and instrumental music, from which Berkahn had selected two responsories from Christmas Matins. Their full, warm harmonies, warmly delivered, closed off most satisfactorily this selection of works that gave the audience a fascinating glimpse into Baroque music making in the New World.

Bravo Ensemble was given a free hand by the director, and they chose five tangos by the well known 20th century composer Astor Piazzolla. Though born in Argentina, he spent most of his life in the USA, and these pieces displayed a very wide range of stylistic influences including the traditional dance tango, jazz, Joplin-esque ragtime, modern music, you name it. All were rooted in the fundamental tango idioms, but the first piece was a wild celebratory dance, while the second oozed slow, sultry rhythms, and lazy melodies full of veiled innuendo, where you could almost smell the smoke rings wafting on the warm night air.

The central number was composed on the day Piazzolla’s father died, and it captured so vividly the violently conflicting emotions of grief and loss. Episodes of deep contemplative sadness, marked by exquisite melodic writing and rich harmonies, were contrasted with others which raged, raged against the dying of the light, recalling Dylan Thomas’ extraordinary poem written as his father too approached death.

The Bravo Ensemble marked every phrase and mood with a passion and dedication that elevated this particular number to an artistic level I had never associated with traditional tango music. But likewise the next piece was a work of art in a very special way – an exquisite accordion melody floated over swaying tango rhythms and rich harmonies from the strings, underpinned by a pizzicato bass line beautifully crafted by Louis van der Mespel, which swelled from the whisper of the opening bars, through the rich sonorities of the central section, and faded finally into a breathless pianissimo close.

The last number was called Ave Maria, a title which had me wondering how this hallowed Catholic prayer might sit with tango. In Piazzolla’s creative hands, however, it proved to be an extraordinary marriage. No arbitrary boundaries here between sacred and profane –  even the term “sacred dance” seemed artificial. The depths of tango sensuality were somehow in complete harmony with the profundities of religious experience. It was a piece that rounded off a truly eye-opening selection of compositions in tango form. I don’t know whether any of them has ever been set to dance, but it would be fascinating to see how creative choreographers/dancers would express the huge range of emotions and idioms they encapsulate. Thank you Jonathan Berkahn for the inspired inclusion of this bracket in the programme.

The choral programme was rounded off by three movements from Ariel Ramírez’ Misa Criolla. The director explained that the decision in 1963 by Vatican II to allow mass in the vernacular had led the creative flood gates to burst wide open in South America. This 1964 work used a tenor soloist, choristers and instrumental accompaniment to achieve a very creative and different setting for the mass. A lyrical tenor solo above muted humming voices marked the Kyrie setting, then a colourful instrumental introduction led into the vigorous jazzy dance rhythms of the Gloria. A calm central episode had the tenor declaiming the text above quiet choral writing before a repeat of the opening section.

The audience loved this enthusiastic movement, which was followed by the calm of the Agnus Dei. Here the tenor voice again floated above the humming choristers, to bring the number to a beautifully serene close. Joe Fecteau handled the solo tenor role very ably with a voice that has some attractive timbres, yet is crying out to be trained. There is real potential there that would merit some skilled teaching and development.

The evening closed very aptly with a repeat performance of Jonathan Berkahn’s vigorous Gloria.

It rounded off a thoroughly enjoyable evening’s music making, where the director had very skilfully put together a programme offering a glimpse into a whole world of South American musical tradition that most of the audience would, I imagine, have been previously quite unaware of. The concert was built around the central theme of Christmas, yet it spanned an astonishing breadth of styles, all of which the musicians took easily in their stride.

The enthusiasm of both singers and players was infectious, and it caught up everyone in an evening that was a refreshing celebration of this great Christian festival. No matter that modern scholarship has revealed more myth making than history in the gospel stories – their musical traditions are clearly still alive and well-loved in a world now full of plastic commercialism.

Feliz Navidad!

 

 

A divided NZSO with a breathtaking cellist in a sparkling touring programme for the South Island

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New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Benjamin Northey; Narek Hakhnazaryan (cello)

“In the Hall of the Mountain King”

Mozart: Symphony No. 31 ‘Paris’
Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme
Grieg: Holberg Suite
Peer Gynt Suite No. 1

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 21 November. 6:30 pm

From the first downbeat of Mozart’s ‘Paris’ Symphony, Australian conductor Ben Northey galvanised the orchestra into a sparkling and vivacious performance, and set the tone for an authoritative, yet electrifying evening’s music making. His engagement with the players was almost tangible, epitomised in the initial Allegro assai where he drew out real magic from the contrabasses, in episodes that can often pass almost unnoticed. In the following Andante he fashioned the delicate melodies with gossamer lightness before bursting into the Allegro finale at breakneck speed. His two silent upbeats established a total control that achieved crystal clarity in high speed runs that never felt hectic or hurried. It was an electric, riveting finale that harnessed the extraordinary talent of the players with complete unity of vision between conductor and orchestra.

Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme  gave New Zealand audiences their first opportunity to appreciate the breathtaking talent and musicianship of Armenian cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan. All of 26 years old, he nevertheless exhibits a total technical mastery that is completely at the command of his extraordinary musical depth and vision. At the pre-concert talk, Northey remarked that no two readings of the Variations were ever the same from Hakhnazaryan, a comment that I recall Barenboim making about the performances of Du Pré. In my mind this newly emerging cellist certainly sits in the same pantheon, and like Du Pré, he held the audience totally spellbound with his interpretation.

You could have heard a pin drop in his magical pianissimo moments, for which Northey fashioned the orchestral support in perfect balance – no small feat for a low register solo in an auditorium seating 2500. The opening theme was offered with loving delicacy in a silken tone that immediately set his playing apart. And likewise the second theme was delivered with deep affection, indeed reverence for every note. Throughout the whole performance he engaged in a mutual conversation with the orchestra that was completely devoid of soloistic bravura; rather they were fellow players making music together with just the lightest touch from Northey at the helm. All shared a common, deeply romantic concept of the work that drew in the audience completely, and led to rapturous applause at the end.

We were treated to two solo encores: first Giovanni Sollima’s Lamentatio that opened with stark, spare harmonies, and dirge-like vocalisations from the cellist. This idiom alternated with episodes of frenzied despair as though the bereaved were tearing his hair out, interrupted by the recurring, and eventually terminal exhaustion of the dirges. It was a deeply moving performance, and left the audience hungering for still more. Hakhnazaryan obliged with a final offering: first he enquired for any fellow Armenians in the audience, of which there were a few (I understand that there are about 50 such living in Wellington). Then he announced that he would play a setting of an Armenian folk song by a “suffering, lonely person far from their homeland”. It was a soulful, almost anguished piece, exquisitely performed, and obviously very personal to him.

It is a rare and very real pleasure to hear the NZSO strings alone, and what better choice of work than Grieg’s much loved Holberg Suite. Ben Northey’s  sure touch again opened the piece with real lightness and grace, but the super fast tempo he chose sometimes put at risk the clarity of that very distinctive rhythmic motif which drives the whole Praeludium. However, his dynamic control was brilliant, as he built the sound from a feathery piano to a rich full throated climax. He made the most of the contrasting three central movements, Sarabande, Gavotte and Air, which were marked by graceful lilting melodies and lovingly wistful phrasing. He skilfully set their moods of pathos against episodes of warmth and fullness where every string player seemed to relish the chance to draw the maximum richness from their instrument.

The final Rigaudon is a hectic celebratory folk dance gallop distinguished by fiery roles for two soloists – violin and viola – here Donald Armstrong and Peter Barber. So often the lower pitch of the viola comes off second best in this movement, but Peter was not having a bar of that. With vigorous competition from Donald, he made brilliant, spirited play for the attention of the prettiest girl in the troupe, and I’d put my money on his winning out. A great romp!

The full NZSO is currently divided for two separate tours, with this programme being played in Wellington and the South Island. The lesser string resources of this particular ensemble proved, however, that they were more than equal to working with the full blown line-up of wind, brass and percussion needed for Grieg’s Peer Gynt. This suite again showcased Ben Northey’s skill in creating huge contrasts in mood and dynamics: there was the wonderful fresh transparency of the opening Morning Mood; the incredible build-up from pianissimo to fortissimo in The Death of Aase; the beautifully fashioned and puckish pizzicato sections of Anitra’s Dance; and the lovely murky bassoons at the opening of the Mountain King finale, that Northey built on inexorably in tempo and dynamics to create a monumental climax.

The audience was hugely appreciative of this evening of sparkling music making, turning out a virtually full house to hear works they knew and loved. The pedants may speak of hackneyed familiarity, but the listeners voted very clearly with their feet when offered the best of classical and romantic works performed by the outstanding talents of the NZSO and Ben Northey. They worked together in such obvious empathy and produced outstanding results. I very much hope we will see more of Northey on the rostrum in future, and more of this sort of programming.

Tingling strings at Futuna – Dean Major and Robert Ibell

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Colours of Futuna Concert Series

Music for Violin and ‘Cello

by JOSEF HAYDN, REINHOLD GLIÈRE and MAURICE RAVEL

Dean Major – violin

Robert Ibell – ‘cello

Futuna Chapel, Friend St., Karori

Sunday 16th November, 2012

Josef Haydn, whom previous generations knew as “Papa”, was one of music’s great humorists. Of course, everybody knows the slow movement of the “Surprise” Symphony with its sudden fortissimo chord right at the end of a piano phrase – but most of his jokes are far more subtle. They’re more in the realms of the “musically unexpected” than in the “things-that-go-bump-in-the-night” kind of way – Haydn treats his listeners to unexpected pauses, outlandish key modulations, deliberately uncertain rhythmic figurations, and false endings to movements. Often they’re things that straightaway sound quirky or eccentric, but to audiences it’s sometimes not immediately apparent why.

This penchant for humour has probably worked against Haydn in some quarters – it’s said that the Emperor, Joseph II, among others was displeased at some instances of the “holy art” of music being debased by Haydn’s quirkiness, and that this attitude carried over to the composer being thought less highly of than either his friend Mozart or his pupil, Beethoven. Obviously, it’s a case where posterity has deemed cheerful irreverence a “lesser” sign of genius than either premature death or deafness.

I’m not sure how far the composer might have gone in terms of giving similarly quirky instructions to his performers, or whether, in some instances, editors or publishers “interpolated” tempo markings, based on what the music “looked like” on the page. At a recent Futuna Chapel concert given by violinist Dean Major and ‘cellist Robert Ibell, a Haydn Duo began the program – for Violin and ‘Cello in D, Hob.VI – the opening movement bearing the indication Adagio non molto.

The playing was immediate and engaging – not absolutely bang-on in intonation at the outset, but once the players (and our ears) got “the pitch of the hall” the sounds found their centres more readily and mellifluously. I thought the tempi as performed beautifully suited the music and its character, as we heard it. But was this flowing, walking-pace opening really an “adagio” – as Oscar Wilde would have said, of any kind whatever? It certainly was “non molto” – in fact so “non” as to be “not at all”! Was this the mischievous spirit of the composer at work, once again?

Whatever the tempo indications, we found ourselves thoroughly at one with what the players did throughout all three movements of the work – a robust, bucolic Allegro second movement featured many felicitous touches, including writing for the cello that brought out a very viola-ish voice (as happened also in the opening movement, where some of the lines rose above the violin’s). Then, the final movement’s Menuetto was a “theme-and variations”, with a wealth of inventive interplay between the instruments, the players again impressing with plenty of tonal and dynamic variation amid the bravura passages.

The first music I ever heard of Reinhold Glière’s was NOT the much-played “Russian Sailors’ Dance” from the composer’s ballet The Red Poppy,  but (via an elderly DGG mono LP from the Palmerston North Public Library – those were the days!), the epic Third Symphony, entitled “Ilya Muromets”, a symphonic celebration of a legendary Russian warrior, said to have lived around the twelfth century. ‘Cellist Robert Ibell described Glière as a composer who was able to work both in Tsarist and post-revolutionary Russia, writing music almost exclusively concerned with folk-lore at the outset of his career, and subsequently becoming a “People’s Artist”, producing works like the aforementioned “Red Poppy” ballet.

His “Eight Duets for Violin and ‘Cello Op.39” presented the pre-revolutionary composer in a more abstract mode, attractive character pieces bent on conveying a collection of moods and impressions, rather like a Baroque suite. Violinist and ‘cellist played five of the set’s eight pieces, beginning with a deep-throated, somewhat Schumannesque Prelude, in which the ‘cello took the melodic lead. A Haydn-ish Gavotte followed, elegant, but with a pesante-like Trio, the ‘cello’s drone-bass almost Bartokian, and emphasizing the more contrapuntal nature of the opening section when it returned – it received playing by turns cultured and rustic, as required!

A salon-like Cradle Song received a sinuous, beguilingly-played violin line accompanied by gentle ‘cello undulations, while an Intermezzo again showed a Schumannesque inclination, like one of the composer’s “Jean-Paul” characters from a Masked Ball – the players’ characterful and quixotic responses enlivened both the melody and its accompaniment. But the Scherzo which concluded the selection was the highlight – a boisterous Vivace, replete with syncopations, rather like a vigorous waltz, imbued with the élan of both musicians’ playing. The more salon-like Trio further enhanced the scherzo’s brilliant, attention-grabbing effect, leaving we listeners properly exhilarated at the end.

The concert’s “main course” was undoubtedly the final item, Ravel’s 1922 Sonata for Violin and ‘Cello. The musicians demonstrated some of the piece’s aspects to us at the beginning, such as the major/minor motif that recurs throughout the work. Ravel wrote the work as one of a number of similar tributes to Debussy. It was originally a single movement, but the composer took it up again within a year of completion, and expanded the work to four movements.

Ravel himself regarded the work as important, and not just because of its dedication to an illustrious and recently-departed colleague.  The piece, however, gave him a good deal of trouble – he referred to it as “this rascal of a duo” – and at one point he threw out the entire scherzo and replaced it with a freshly written one. When told by the first performers that the work was so difficult that no-one would play it except virtuosos, the composer replied, “Good – I shan’t be assassinated by amateurs!”

Beginning with the alternating major/minor motif on violin, the piece was rhythmically undulated into life, the cello taking over the haunting, urgent oscillations before the violin’s return, the two instruments sometimes weaving their lines in synchronization, and sometimes counterpointing their voices, at one point tightening the tempo excitingly, but then returning to the more circumspect pace of the opening – here, precise, incisive, and at the end, very tender.

The pizzicato second movement also opened with the same major-minor oscillations, the players enjoying the “marching” sequences where each instrument alternated between robust goose-stepping, and a long-breathed, trenchant theme, the latter almost a mocking commentary. The figurations tightened their interaction, and after a brief “wind-blown” sequence, dug into an arco version of the goose-stepping before throwing away a final pizzicato chord – all very vividly projected by these two players!

The third movement, Lento, was begun by a long-breathed ‘cello solo, one which the violin emulated, with its efforts “counterpointed” by the ‘cello – such eloquent playing! Ghostly octaves from the violin and a lament-like melody from the ‘cello were sounded and exchanged – the music pressed forward urgently, until momentum was exhausted, and the lines quietly replenished their breath, the music spare, sombre and inward, and  played with incredible concentration.

Then it was the finale’s turn “Vif avec entrain” (bright with gusto) indeed! The ‘cello began a kind of irregular dance pattern, joined by the violin – the opening dance was repeated, and a “square-dance” variant took its turn, its stamping creating sparks. What games the two played! – it was “anything you can do, I can do, too!” country, each goading the other to the point of checkmate! And we in the audience were pinging and ponging with the excitement of the exchanges between the two players!

It was as if we were being rewarded for surrendering up a golden afternoon, missed through being indoors – we were blessed in our turn with skilled and committed performances of an inspired and absorbing programme.

Orchestra Wellington ends its year in blaze of irreverent glory

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Orff: Carmina Burana; Haydn: Symphony No 87 in A.

Arohanui Strings, an El Sistema-inspired programme providing string instruments and tuition to children from deprived areas: at Pomare and Taita Central schools

Orchestra Wellington, the Orpheus Choir and Wellington Young Voices, conducted by Marc Taddei

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 15 November, 7:30 pm

This last of Orchestra Wellington’s most successful 2014 subscription series not only delivered the last of the Haydn’s Paris symphonies, but brought together Wellington’s other major, locally-specific musical organization: the Orpheus Choir, to perform what is one of the most popular, large-scale compositions. Also called for in Carmina Burana is a children’s choir and Christine Argyle led Wellington Young Voices to contribute that element.

In the first half, Haydn’s No 87 was given a splendid, full-blooded performance, opening in four-square, positive spirit, staccato and emphatic. Only in the development section of the first movement does Haydn temper the joy, saying, ‘But look here! Life’s no bed of roses’. And Taddei lent emphasis to the caution by his exaggerated pauses between sections.

Several wind players had their place in the sun, particularly the oboe, in the Trio of the Minuet. And while the Finale resumes the optimism of the first movement, Haydn again makes us pause with his not uncommon phantom endings that can lead to untimely applause. Not here though; yet, after what I thought an utterly delightful and characterful performance, the applause petered out rather abruptly.

The concert also offered the opportunity for a high-profile appearance of Arohanui Strings, founded in the Hutt Valley by Orchestra Wellington violinist Alison Eldredge and inspired by the Venezuelan-originated El Sistema; the project involves children from less favoured areas learning instruments and playing in an orchestral setting. The performance began with a simplification of the opening of Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik, with many of the more experienced children sitting at the orchestral desks alongside members of the Orchestra: pretty good!

Then another group of younger children carrying violins emerged from both sides and took up their places across the front of the stage, ranged in size from left to a surprisingly small girl on the right (her evident feeling for rhythm, at least, must have drawn the audience’s attention particularly). They followed Alison’s gestures, all lifting their violins in unison, and placing them professionally under the chin. They played Pachelbel’s Canon and then a square dance by Brooker and an approximation of the tune known to Mozart as ‘Ah! Vous dirai-je Maman’, the English version known as Twinkle, twinkle, little star’.

The whole affair had the faces of the audience wreathed in smiles. It was a delightful episode.

But it’s not enough for such an important phenomenon to exist as a result of isolated initiatives in one or two places nationwide. These things should be funded and guided, though better not actually run, by the Ministry of Education.

As if that wasn’t enough of delightful diversion, one of the most astonishing pieces of music of any era filled the second half. Perhaps we should forget that Carmina Burana was written by a German composer, in Germany, just before the Second World War; at the time when the music of most classical composers, especially the Jews, was being classified as degenerate by the Hitler regime, this work was a success and was acclaimed by the cultural gestapo. It’s a wonder that Orff was not, like Wagner, condemned for being approved by a nasty political regime.

Though many of the poems, written in medieval Latin and various vernaculars, were the work of students and clerics, piety is hardly present; it is the secular, popular notion of Fortune that rules, and perhaps it was the rather irreligious, satirical, earthy, not to say occasionally bawdy character of the texts that allowed the Nazis, notably heathen, to feel comfortable with the work.

The Michael Fowler Centre was emphatically the right place for this performance. First, because contrary to much ‘informed opinion’, I like the place as a whole, including the acoustic, which does have varying sound characteristics in different areas of the auditorium; and Saturday’s  full house would have meant hundreds turned away from any other suitable city venue.

Timpani and brass launched the performance with a mighty, stunning attack which established a benchmark for the rest of the evening. There was no lack of fortissimo and sheer energy (a different thing) from the choir and orchestra; the staccato assertions from the men’s chorus, with chilling side drum, of the inevitability of Fate in ‘O Fortuna’, the medieval notion that underpins many of the miscellaneous poems and songs, also set a standard that never slackened. Nevertheless, the many rejoicing episodes were no less convincing as the Springtime songs proved, illustrated with choral and orchestral colours. One of the main delights of the work lies with the varied and pungent use of individual sections of the choir, sometimes small and sweet as in ‘Floret silva…’  which drew attention to the many younger voices in the choir.

The children’s choir becomes an important element in the third part, Cour d’amours, and though I wrote in my scribbled notes ‘not unduly perfect in ensemble’, the sheer innocence of their voices worked its magic.

Three very fine soloists were a major strength. First, Australian baritone James Clayton who entered with ‘Omnia sol temperat’ and grew in histrionic impact with every successive entry. He became a one-man theatrical performance with his combination of vocal and gestural energy.

It’s curious that the biographical note about James Clayton omited his earlier New Zealand connections. Middle C records his performances in Rigoletto (Count Ceprano) in 2012, in the bass part in the Mozart edition of The Messiah from Orchestra Wellington and Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir in June 2013 and this year the totally over-the-top Baron Ochs in Days Bay Opera’s Der Rosenkavalier. We’ve noticed before that the notes about visiting artists often omit mention of earlier New Zealand appearances, as if the person putting the programmes together does no more than copy the agent’s hand-out, which can very well omit appearances, such as those in New Zealand, that are deemed unimportant in building an artist’s profile for international consumption. I suppose it could be a commentary on our own often ill-based inclination to boast that we punch above our weight in many things, such as the arts.

We at Middle C would be happy to be consulted by New Zealand concert and opera promoters to help flesh out inadequate biographies. Or anyone can search our archive without any sort of barrier to check such things – the archive goes back to our beginning in 2008.

Australian tenor Henry Choo emerged from the left of the choir In the Tavern, as it were, in ‘Girat, regirat garcifer’, a clear and penetrating voice that did show a little strain at the top but made a truly musical and dramatic impact. Dunedin-educated Emma Fraser is well-known: here she waits for her first outing till the ‘Amor volat undique’ in the Cour d’amours part, but the wait was fully rewarded, and she handled her last florid, operatic peroration in the ‘Tempus est iocundum’ with a keen feel for the message and musical style. In that part, Clayton and the children’s choir also join, as the minor key reasserts the power of the Wheel of Fortune – of Fate; that all worldly pleasures are passing fancies and futilities.

There was a shouting and standing ovation at the end, that went on and on. It’s hard to imagine a more magnificent climax to what must have been, in every way, one of the orchestra’s most successful years. Marc Taddei has again proved to be a marvellous gift to Wellington’s musical culture.

In speaking to the audience, Taddei spoke about next year’s plans which will follow the pattern in 2014 with a series of six symphonies to be played in six concerts. Tchaikovksy was the obvious candidate and the Russian theme will lead to a lot of other Russian music, mainly 19th century, that will be explored most rewardingly. In addition, Michael Houstoun will be piano soloist throughout, again in a series of mainly Russian piano concertos, including less familiar but splendid examples like Scriabin’s in F sharp minor.

Good to stay alive for another year!

 

Diverting and wide-ranging concert from the SMP Ensemble

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

SMP Ensemble: Nachtmusik

Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht for string sextet, and other music by Salzedo, Britten, Biber, Brad Jenkins and Cilla McQueen

Jennifer Newth (harp); Gregory Squire and Tabea Squire (violins); Peter Barber and Megan Ward (violas); Jack Hobbs and Charley Davenport (cellos); Rebecca Steel (flute); Karlo Margetic (clarinet); Nick Walshe (bass clarinet); Chris Gendall (conductor)

St Peter’s church, Willis Street

Friday 14 November, 7:30 pm

The SMP Ensemble’s programmes, often devoted to experimental, New Zealand music, are not always particularly easy for the average classical music lover to enjoy. This one, advertising Schoenberg’s best-loved piece, Verklärte Nacht, guaranteed pleasure. But word of it had obviously not got out as the audience was sadly small.

The first half did include a couple of, shall we say, unusual pieces, but it began and ended with harp player Jennifer Newth performing two established harp compositions that were intrinsically beguiling, but also played with astonishing virtuosity and exquisite delicacy. Carlos Salzedo was born in Paris of Sephardic Spanish parents, and later came to find an affinity with the Basques. He took up the harp as a child and gained a world-wide reputation becoming a famous virtuoso as well as composer for his instrument. Read the interesting entry in Wikipedia which draws attention to his wide-ranging musical activities as composer (for music in many genres), conductor, teacher, and to his international reputation in the general musical world and around the world.

Salzedo’s playing is described in that article as characterized by clarity, facility, articulation, fluidity, and subtle phrasing. They were some of the words that came to mind as I listened to Jennifer Newth’s enchanting and breathtaking performance of Chanson dans la nuit.

Jennifer returned before the interval to play the Nocturne from Britten’s Suite for Harp which he wrote in 1969. I was not familiar with the piece and might have been hard pressed to identify its composer. After the preceding two New Zealand pieces, it emerged as main-stream, genuinely musical, exposing Britten’s idiomatic and imaginative writing for the instrument. Its nocturnal setting did not prevent
its becoming muscular and emphatic as it progressed through this incisive and insightful performance.

Brad Jenkins (notes in the programme leaflet about the composers and the music were rather limited; and, incidentally, the meaning of the acronym SMP seems to be ever concealed: I am told it stands for Summer Music Project) is a young Wellington composer who won the Douglas Lilburn prize at the New Zealand School of Music in 2012 for the piece played here, Nocturne No 1. It belongs to the long tradition of experiments in sound that seem to be an essential part of a student composer’s equipment in the ‘coming-of-age’ process. It involved ‘players’ positioned on all sides of the audience: piccolo/flute Rebecca Steel (her second appearance for me this week), cellist Charley Davenport, dismembered clarinet Karlo Margetic, bass clarinet Nick Walshe, viola Peter Barber, violin Tabea Squire, all conducted by Chris Gendall. Jenkins’s aim was to deconstruct the character of each instrument by removing all its essential tonal sounds so little more than breath or the swoosh of bow cutting through the air was audible. Slowly, hints of pitches emerged and the sounds became more abrasive, scrupulously unmusical ion the normal sense. I wondered as I listened whether this was what the world would be left with after its conquest and domination by ISIS or the Taliban.

Cilla McQueen is known to me, and I suppose most, as a poet; but here was another departure from the orthodox. Her ‘score’ of Rain Score 2 was reproduced on the back page of the programme: a spiral formed by faint, interlacing seaweed or elementary life patterns. The septet stood in a semi-circle in the front: the two violins, the two clarinets, Peter Barber, Charley Davenport and flute. Again, orthodox sounds were few as the players improvised, imitated, in a sort of aleatoric process, though there were sheets of paper on music stands visible to some players that presumably offered a bit of notated guidance. The performance even involved the mysterious effect of bowing the cello below, but not apparently touching, the strings.

The main draw for the concert was the original, string sextet version of Verklärte Nacht. Here, the string players already mentioned were joined by cellist Jack Hobbs.  I was immediately entranced by the performance, in an acoustic that was beautifully adapted to it. There was something in the sound that drew attention, as it hasn’t before for me, to the marvelous variety of the piece’s scoring in which each instrument has the most interesting individual lines, and there were entrancing utterances and delights in many short passages from, for example, Hobbs’s cello and Megan Ward’s viola.

The episodes of the poem’s story, depicted graphically enough in the score, were dramatized with particular clarity and with the emotional generosity that had obviously attracted Dehmel and Schoenberg to explore the lovers’ delicate situation. It’s interesting that Schoenberg later dismissed the poem as repulsive and sought to have the music heard as independent of it. Thus commentaries that relate the sections to episodes in the couple’s nocturnal experience are, like most attention to the ‘programmes’ of music, unhelpful and distracting.

But those thoughts do not detract from the delight one feels at the evolving shapes and emotions, key changes, acidulous harmonies that Schoenberg presented to the Vienna of Johann Strauss and the Secessionist movement. This performance captured the floaty, suggestive transfiguration; and it must have been a delight to be involved in such a beautifully integrated performance.

The concert ended with a couple of German lullabies, in which Tabea joined as gentle, subtle singer. And then Heinrich Biber’s The Nightwatchman had Greg Squire singing the words from the rear, coming forward in woollen jerkin and cloth cap for the second stanza. The light slowly dimmed as players left one by one to diminuendo staccato notes, to end a diverting and highly enjoyable concert. One regretted deeply that so few were there to enjoy it.