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Quang Hong Luu (piano) – brilliantly personifying composer and music and their times

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Quang Hong Luu, with Phan Hồng Châu,  at Old St.Paul’s, Wellington

FRANZ  LISZT –  Anneés de pelerinage – Troisieme (Third Year of Pilgrimage) S.163

Angelus – “Prayer to the Guardian Angels”
Aux Cyprès de la Villa d’Este No.1 & 2
Les jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este
Sunt Lachrymae Rerum E mode Hongroise
Marche Funebre
Sursum Corda

Quang Hong Luu (piano)

Cathedral of St. Paul (“Old St. Paul’s”), Mulgrave St., Thorndon, Wellington
Thursday, 10th September, 2026

Vietnamese-born pianist Quang Hong Luu made a welcome “return to life” on behalf of Wellington’s concert-goers in an Old St.Paul’s “lunchtime concert” presentation, after an earlier indisposition prevented him from giving a promised recital for Wellington Chamber Music’s Sunday concert series on August 16th. Quang had originally intended to present music by Chopin, Beethoven and Liszt, including in the recital the last-named composer’s rarely-performed set of pieces from his later years, written while in residence in Tivoli, Rome, at the Villa d’Este, famous for its spectacular gardens and fountains. These seven pieces were published as the third book of an extensive collection of works which the composer collectively called “Annees de Pelerinage” (Years of Pilgrimage).

Three of these pieces draw their direct inspiration from the Villa d’Este, two of them meditations evoking feelings concerning the magnificent cypress trees in the villa’s gardens, and one inspired by the inspirational fountains, the latter work resonating in various other composers’ music in the years to come. Liszt’s sojourns at these Tivoli gardens provided solace to a composer feeling himself increasingly at odds with existence in general, and beset by occasional depression and sadness, much of which is expressed in the darker moments of some of these pieces.

The “lunchtime concert” format of this occasion perfectly suited the detachment of these pieces by Liszt from the original recital intended by the pianist, the music’s markedly spiritual, and in places esoteric character finding a fitting ambience in the Old St.Paul’s outstandingly beautiful “old-world” environment. The piano, too, in this case a hundred-plus year-old instrument, seemed to unashamedly proclaim its venerable experience in a way that felt and sounded entirely appropriate to the music and to Quang’s playing. Only the dismal weather outside refused to take note of the significance of the occasion, the rain probably accounting for a smaller-than-usual lunchtime audience.

Opening the collection was Angelus (Prayer to the Guardian Angels), its opening tintinnabulations suggesting the traditional bells – as befitted this piece’s dedication (to Liszt’s grand-daughter Daniela) the music at first seemed innocently child-like in tone and aspect, though gradually taking on deeper, grander tones before again returning to the child-like simplicities of the opening. The ballade-like melody pressed forward with engaging youthful vigour, “playing” inquisitively with the three-note staccato figure and its modulations, and with the melody itself, before gathering itself for a grand presentation of the theme, the pianist raising his hands high as if symbolising the blessings of the return to the repeated figuration passage with which the work began, and  blissfully intoning an “uplifted” meditative repetition of those same notes whose gentle earthward descent returned us to a fleeting reminiscence of the ballade-like melody’s opening strains.

By comparison, the first of the two  Aux Cyprès de la Villa d’Este  made a big, black-browed, imposing, even  fearful impression – the repeated tolling bells in the bass amplify and brutalise the opening tintinnabulations of the first piece, the music moving forward deliberately and majestically, then reinforcing the music’s forward movement, plunging us headlong into a kind of maelstrom of agitated sound whose tones lift us up and plunge us downwards in the manner of some oceanic wave, leaving us at the mercy of the ambiences surrounding the places to which the music has delivered us – as if we are in awed dialogue with the cypress trees, a kind of confrontation with nature, with creation in a larger sense and with our place in it, one of awed humility at their symbolic permanence and essential “character” (these trees being symbols of death in classical  tradition…..)

Again, the music at the outset of the second Cyprès de la Villa d’Este was gaunt, black-browed and imposing, though not as unremittingly fearful or threatening in aspect as in the previous piece – a repeated downward-leaping fifth rose partially upwards in a gesture of part defiance, part despair, followed by several tersely muttered chords. The exchange wass repeated, and a new theme, determined and rising appeared, followed by a fanfare-like passage that rose and fell with some certainty – the downward-leaping fifth and its partly-upward “balance” reappeared, followed by, firstly, a forward-looking chromatically-harmonised passage, and a luminous-sounding chorale-like major-key section, suddenly sounding like the Liszt of a previous time, as if a melodic resurgence of a idea from  the composer’s 1850 Consolations or from his 1852 Harmonies Poetiques et religieuses had come to mind. It seemed almost as if the composer had penetrated the outwardly forbidding aspect of the cypresses to express deeper, more ambivalent existential truths suggested by their customary associations – working towards a more transcendent expression that shed light upon darkness in unforeseen ways. Certainly, there was as much peaceful resignation in the repetitions of the luminous- sounding chorale as there was an occasional  indication of a troubled spirit elsewhere.

Les jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este, the most famous of the set, came next, introduced by an upwardly-thrusting impulse of light and energy and substance whose joyous outpourings symbolisd what its composer described via his quote from the Gospel of John (4:14) as “a well of water springing up into eternal life”, and which was to prove inspirational for a whole new generation of Impressionist composers such as Debussy and Ravel. I wanted Quang Hong Luu to savour for a few more resonant milliseconds the truly transcendental moments of Liszt’s quoting of Wagner from the opera “Das Rheingold” – here, the alluring Rhinemaidens’ twice-voiced lament was, for me, dispatched a shade too quickly – fortunately, the rest, under Quang’s fingers was sheer magic through his playing’s crystalline brilliance, and, towards the end, his complete and exhilarating physical realisation of the flow of water’s all-engulfing cumulative effect, leaving at the end a deep, richly-intoned summation in the piano tones of  something sacramental and life-changing!

The next piece, Sunt lacrymae rerum – en mode hongrois,  returned to the darkness of the first “Cypress” piece. The title “Sunt lacrymae rerum” means “There are tears for things”, and is a quote from Virgil’s “Aeneid” made in reference to the fall of Troy, though Liszt would have been referring here to the Hungarian War of Independence of 1848-49, a theme he had already explored in his piano piece Funerailles, and the symphonic poem “Hungaria”.  The air of mourning was apparent, expressed on both a personal and a national level, Liszt employing all kinds of sonorities to express different levels of sorrow, the piano writing unique in terms of its vision and inventiveness.

No let-up was possible with the following Marche funebre (the earliest piece in the collection, written in 1867), written to mark the death by execution of the unfortunate Maximilian I, the Emperor of Mexico, and containing the inscription on the score “To have wished for great things is an accomplishment in itself “. Perhaps the introduction to this work contained the set’s darkest music – Wagner called this music “an old man’s delirium” – the central section was bleak and ruminative, while the final section was extraordinary, a huge crescendo, atonal harmonies amid tremolandi passages, before a final section which paid homage to the unfortunate monarch in the most fulsome pianistic “clarion call” terms!

Finally came the pianist’s ultimate act of faith, the chorale-like Sursum Corda (Lift up your hearts!) an irresistible and heartfelt statement of faith which the pianist here threw himself into with amazing gusto, at times lifting his whole body from the piano seat in aid of putting every fibre of his being behind the delivery of this music’s message, a performance which fulfilled to a unique, overwhelming degree a “blood-sweat-and-tears” kind of fervour on the part of the composer, so that here, it was as if performer and composer had become one.

We made up for lack of audience numbers at the end with what we hoped were sounds and gesturings of enthusiastic appreciation of the pianist’s superhuman efforts! Quang assured me he would be in Wellington next year for another concert, as yet undisclosed as to content. At such an interpretative level as we had been privileged to experience on this occasion I felt inclined to happily and eagerly undertake with him whatever musical journey he might propose! What a treat to have such an experience to look forward to!

 

The Dolfin-Lin Duo – positively tingling with spontaneous re-discovery!

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Chamber Music presents:
Dolfin-Lin Duo – Balazs Dolfin (‘cello) / Tony Chen Lin (piano)

ZOLTÁN KODÁLY  –  Magyar Rondo (Hungarian Rondo) (1917)
ANTON WEBERN  –  Sonata for ‘Cello and Piano (1914)
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH  –  Sonata for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord in D Major  BWV 1028
GAO PING  –  Sonata No. 2 for ‘Cello and Piano “Departure” (2001)
BÉLA BARTÓK – Rhapsody No. 1 for ‘Cello and Piano (1928-9)
NATHANAEL DEJONG – Abandoned Voices (2021)
JOHANNES BRAHMS – Sonata No.1 for ‘Cello and Piano in E Minor Op.38

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington
Sunday,, 30th August 2026

Review for “Middle C” by Peter Mechen

This partnership of ‘cello and piano made a profound impression with the Duo’s strongly-projected, in places “larger-than-life” realisations of the works chosen, with those I’d heard before (the Bartok and Brahms pieces) giving a remarkably singular impression to my ears of hearing the music for the first time! I’d heard Tony Chen Lin’s playing on several occasions previously as well as on recordings, and found myself often remarking upon his boldly-characterised view of both detailings and overall trajectorial and colouristic character, playing which unhesitatingly “addresses” more than merely “coaxes out” the music’s manifold moods. On this occasion, of course, his partner was Hungarian cellist Balazs Dolfin ( their Duo was formed in Italy in 2021) whose similarly arresting and whole-hearted approach to his instrument and its sound-world in general seemed to me to fit like a glove with the pianist’s aforementioned qualities  – so that the music-making throughout the concert positively tingled with spontaneously-generated re-discovery!

First up was Zoltan Kodaly’s Magyar Rondo, written in 1917, and drawn from incidental music the composer had written for a play by Zsigmond Móricz called Pacsirtaszó (Lark’s Song), a folk-style drama but  with “social realism” themes – this version for ‘cello and piano brought out the piece’s soulful folk-character at the outset, before breaking into a dance variation, angular and quixotic! A deeper, more baritonal tone came with the next, slower variation, the piano contrasting the cello’s sombre voice with full, assertive treatment accorded the melody’s refrain, though the music returned to more intimate realms for a wistful, harmonics-like cello passage, almost ghostly in effect! A far more helter-skelter mood overtook the next variation’s minor-key mood-change, the music abandoning itself to a burst of high-spirited display before the cello took us suddenly along a pizzicato-strewn pathway, the piano playing bagpipelike figurations as the dance swirled and swayed up and down – but how wistful and redolent were the dream-like moments of remembrance, compared with the wildness of the duo’s concluding high-spiurited flourishes!

Nothing further from the opening could have been devised than what we next experienced, Anton Webern’s ‘Cello Sonata, a work written in 1914, and intended as a present for his father, who loved the ‘cello! For whatever reason the composer broke off working on the piece and decided he would give his father the “Three Little Pieces for ‘Cello and Piano” Op.11 instead, abandoning the Sonata, which wasn’t rediscovered until 1965, twenty years after t3he composer’s death. Though roughly contemporaneous with the Kodaly piece we heard  at the concert’s beginning, the Sonata seemed to inhabit an entirely different creative sphere,  Though not twelve-tone music. Webern’s Sonata features fractured phrases and angularly-pointed rhythms whose contrasts are often explosive and even disturbing, with “sehr bewegt” (very animated) suddenly giving way to (“zart bewegt”) gently animated, before reverting without warning to the original marking for the piece’s final gesturings.

Not inappropriately, the players then took up, after a moments’s pause, the programme’s next item Johann Sebastian Bach’s  Sonata for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord in D Minor, with the first-movement Adagio in our minds seeming almost to “sort out” the still-resonating strains of the Webern piece, almost as if giving credence to Webern’s teacher Schoenberg’s dictum that “there are no dissonances in music, just more remote consonances…”. I thought the playing so very exquisitely dovetailed, bringing out as much the character as well as the beauty of the lines’ interactions during the following Allegro. The soulfulness of the minor-key Siciliano rhythm throughout the Andante brought out the expressiveness, the depth of feeling, the grief inherent in this music that awaited release in a finale that danced like thistledown in the wind, joyously freed from earthly constraint as the composer evoked the prospect of life’s fulfilment in expectation of heavenly reward.

Sixth-generation Chinese composer Gao Ping’s music is well-known to New Zealand audiences due to his significant working associations with various educational institutions in this country, such as Christchurch’s University of Canterbury and Te Koki New Zealand School of Music in Wellington. He’s developed long-term relationships with local musicians such as Michael Houstoun  and  the New Zealand String Quartet – the fifteen year-old association with Houstoun has resulted in a recent recording “Outside the Window” of Gao Ping;s music, released on the Rattle label. By way of acknowledging a New Zealand influence upon his own music he is currently planning an opera set in this country, one whose setting (Central Otago) will draw from storytelling traditions present in classic stories from both Chinese and Western cultures. This has been, he has said

Gao Ping’s Cello Sonata No. 2 was written on 2001 – its title, “Departure” was taken from the subject of a Chinese poet of the “Song Dynasty” one writing in times parallel to western medieval times (10TH-13TH century), the Song Dynbasty poet Su Dongpo. The poet relates the work’s title to the cyclical meaning of the Chinese  word shi meaning “departure” which incorporates both an end and a beginning, an idea elaborated upon by Geo Ping’s music which ends the piece with the notes of its beginning. Its sounds also give voice to the composer’s inclination to blend Western and Chinese music, reminding the listener in places of the inclinations of Janacek, Kodaly and Bartok in their similar “seedings” of various pieces with folk-inspired impulses and gestures.

There are five sections to the work  which play continuously, and whose flow emphasise that same “end is my beginning” concept. The cello underlines traditional colours and timbres of traditional Chisese instruments such as the Guqin and Erhu, as well as having recourse to vocal inflections of traditional speech-styles, stemming from an era of personal expression and introspective inclinations. The ‘cello emphasised these associations at the beginning, now and then “bending’ the notes, and employing freely ranging dynamic levels, with eerie, other-worldly harmonics that invited the piano’s first entry. A sustained note slowly developed more elaborate configurations which grew to  allowing ever-increasing freedom of expression – the instrumental sounds could be described as reaching for speech inflections, suggesting the full human range of tones, timbres, colours and dynamics.  Whole episodes then gave themselves over to contrasting depictions of emotion and purpose, often alarmingly confrontational, then reverting to introspective moods, the tones becoming increasingly disembodied as a sense of overriding timelessness crept into the sound-worlds and gradually silenced the remaining impulses and counter-impulses in spell-binding fashion!

An interval of discussion made the time pass quickly before we were off again with the dauntless duo, this time a folk-flavoured work by Bartok, the Rhapsody No.1, originally composed for violin and piano but arranged by the composer for ‘cello and piano – here, ‘cellist and pianist gave a remarkable display, giving full measure to both the physical and lyrical aspects of the Rhapsody, tearing into the well-known contrasted pairing of the traditional Lassú (slow) and Friss  (fast) sections of the Hungarian verbunkos (recruiting) dance with tremendous physicality, precision and plaintive lyricism, the soft-playing as arresting as the excitement generated by the more brilliant sections.

An entirely new name to me was New Zealand composer Nathanael Dejong (b.1988) whose work reflects his training as both a pianist and violinist as well as composition, but directly focuses on his interest as a parent in childhood development relating to teaching and learning in an age he considers overshadowed  by electronic media devices –  the “Abandoned Voices” title reflected this dominance of digital media at the expense of human interaction. Consequently the work we heard presented sombre exchanges between the instruments, deep, serious and heartfelt utterances punctuated by long silences and wide dynamic ranges, both piano and cello employing delicate, winsome sets of gestures representing a plethora of sounds to make sense of, both of their own volition and in responsive contexts to one another – the cello playing unworldly harmonics and the pianist reaching into the body of the piano to dampen notes and chordings. It all makes for a variety of impulse and intent awaiting definition and associated meaning, the “small voices, waiting to be heard” presence embodied in newly-emergent human form.

Though there was nothing “small voiced” about Johannes Brahms, the young composer’s rabid perfectionist nature resulted in his destroying many youthful compositions before allowing his innermost creative thoughts to remain, an inclination which for some years dogged his compositional efforts – indeed, some scholars suggest that probably only one-third of Brahms’s entire compositional input has survived. The earliest “official” works were for solo piano and song collections, the young composer’s meetings with the violinist Joseph Joachim and Robert and Clara Schumann gained him invaluable advice, example and confidence, though he maintained his rigorous self-critical attitudes to his work throughout his compositional career. His two ‘cello sonatas interestingly “reverse” their composer’s expected compositional trajectories, with the earlier First (played today) very much connected to the past, the deep-throated melody that opens the work frequently “changing places” with the piano, so that the harmonic structure of the work is richly varied in texture and tone. The “fusing” of the two leads strengthened the discourse between the two voices, both performers here scarcely holding back in terms of full-blooded expressiveness – I simply loved it!

For whatever reason, Brahms removed an Adagio movement originally composed, leaving the “Allegretto quasi Menuetto”  to fend for itself as a foil to the outer movements, a charming theme, sharing the opening section with a sinuous second theme, also in a minor key – the trio was even more suggestive in intent, with both instruments tying the melodic strands closely together, before returning to the opening dance. The finale  plunged into a whirling dervish-like opening, (commentators cite Bachian influences here relating to “the Art of the Fugue” at the beginning, which took on a more playful aspect in places, and with Brahms broadening the trajectories into momentary illusions of adventurous impulse (shades of the D Minor Piano Concerto’s great “questing” theme at one point!) and disarmingly charming dance-like manoeuverings, all swept away by the return of the opening “whirling” figures, concluding with a furious, cataclysmic stretto leaving us all deliciously dishevelled by the music’s wonderfully conclusive sound and fury!

 

SPACE JUMP – An exhilarating listening leap from NZTrio into firmament-like territories

Posted on by Peter Mechen

FAZIL SAY – Space Jump for Piano Trio (2013)
REENA ESMAIL – Piano Trio (2019)
KEITH MOSS – Field Notes in Autumn (2026 – NZ Trio commisssion)
ROBERT SCHUMANN – Piano Trio No 2 in F Major

NZTrio  (He taonga wairere)
Amalia Hall (violin), Matthias Balzat (cello), Somi Kim (piano)
Wellington Central Library – Te Matapihi te Ao Nui
Sunday 23rd August, 2026

Composers over the course of time have often demonstrated a fondness, and, indeed, a facility, for writing descriptive music representing people, animals, objects or events. As early as the Renaissance, there was a penchant for imitating the sounds and movements of wildlife, with voices mimicking birds and animals, as well as human activity involving both warfare and daily life in large cities. Throughout the Baroque and Classical periods composers such as Vivaldi, Biber, Haydn and Couperin enthusiastically wrote music to tell stories or imitate different sound-worlds in nature and in human society. The Romantic period which followed saw the rise of “programme music” and sparked both debate and conflict between the conservative and progressive elements, each advancing the respective merits of “absolute” and “descriptive” music right into the twentieth century, where modernist techniques further advanced and diversified the music that described all kinds of life-forms and mechanised objects, blurring the absolute/descriptive classifications of music.

With this potted history in mind, it was interesting to encounter in this concert a number of  works by contemporary composers that had been inspired by both modernist and traditional trends and conceived from different physical, national and cultural standpoints, and representing a kind of global interest in and acceptance of regional perspectives of the individual pieces and their respective preoccupations. And binding the whole exploratory process of performing and experiencing these different works was one central to the essences of the instrumental medium – Robert Schumann’s iconic Second Piano Trio of 1847, one representing a kind of apex of joyous expression and fulfilment, and to which each of the preceding works in the concert had aspired in their own ways.

The NZTrio boldly began these intriguing presentations with a remarkably tactile work “Space Jump” written by the Turkish composer/pianist Fazil Say, the result of the composer’s fascination with the daredevil exploits of Felix Baumgartner, the Austrian extreme sports pioneer famed for a record-breaking 2012 skydive from the edge of space after being lifted by a helium balloon to a height of almost 40 km, before free-falling for most of his descent, and breaking the sound barrier in the process! Fazil Say was among the 8 million viewers who watched the Jump on You Tube, his music depicting every aspect of the jump including the safe landing on earth. (Baumgartner, incidentally, was killed last year in a paragliding accident in Italy – he was 56 years old.)

The music was nothing if not vertiginous in places, though the life-threatening nature of the exercise was, for much of the music’s length masked by the situation’s “suspended unrealities” as the adventurer seemed almost to “float” for a lot of the downward journey in relative solitude and loneliness. However, in places towards the end the hazardous nature of the undertaking became more and more apparent in the music, leaving behind the initial violin ostinati (which had been borne along by the ‘cello’s counterpointing figures and the ambient piano chordings) and plunging into a sudden jazzy piano irruption of energies  –  the driving trajectories of the stuntman’s “fall”!  Violin and piano ”hewed” at syncopations attempting to turn the trajectories different ways, the instrumental swirlings and impassioned tones conveying the out-and-out physicalities of the free-faller holding his course steady. Then, a sudden cessation of trenchant movement was ”filled in” by more settled and lyrical figures, with occasional scintillating “swirls” augmented by piano glistenings, and a couple of strange, discordant harmonies which sounded and then drifted into silence. Whew! – exhausting stuff!

Then came a work by Indian-American composer Reena Esmail, her 2019 Piano Trio, sounds which thankfully kept its trajectories a good deal closer to terra firma, though covering vast distances of a different kind. Here, the composer’s music took us to a world of vibrant fusion between Eastern and Western composition, in which European tonal and harmonic systems could interact with her own heritage’s rather more ancient North Indian (Hindustani) traditions. Esmail had studied as a student at the Juilliard and Yale Schools of Music, but then won a scholarship through a Fulbright/Nehru grant to enable her to undertake explorations of Hindustani (north Indian) classical music.

As a student pianist she had become enamoured of the piano trio tradition begun by Josef Haydn and further advanced by figures such as Mendelssohn, Shostakovich and Ravel, the latter having a particular influence upon her penchant for colour and texture in her own music. Thus her own 2019 Piano Trio reflects such early Western music influences as well as drawing from the storehouse of musical tradition found in the complex patterns and pitches organised around the ancient patterns and constructions known as raga, or raags found in traditional Hindustani music.

Straightaway, in the Trio’s opening movement, a shimmering, repeated-note pattern appeared, led by the piano and echoed by the violin and ‘cello, echoing the spirit of Ravel in the evocative piano figurations,  the strings later quoting an ancient Monsoon season raag Megh, violin and ‘cello harmonising the melodic lines, then decorating the piano’s reiteration of the melody,  and building the melody’s intensities in canonic fashion. The second movement opened with the strings repeating single-note and slow-trilled gestures against a beautiful choral-like piano melody, violin and ‘cello exchanging dialogue-like phrases, evocatively “bending” the occasional note in sitar-like fashion, as the piano gently and softly voiced a shimmering accompaniment, incorporating a raag Des (the latter word meaning “country” or “land”). For the listener this sounded like a retold or shared reminiscence or description of a particular place, one whose reiterations brought forth a surge of intensity, a deeply-felt sequence of expressive emotion.

The third, Scherzo-movement was all nervous intensity, the strings’s rapidly-exchanged tremolandi passages dancing to an ostinato  piano accompaniment, then building in excitement, with spectacular piano glissandi shooting across the soundscapes like meteorities, before the trio returns to the opening dance, repeating those electrifying piano glissandi to scintillating effect before the energies died down, brought to a droll conclusion by a single piano note!

Beseeching piano chords and lament-like cries from the strings began the finale, the music seeming to be ensnared in its own trance-like evocations, tremolando strings and rhapsodic arpeggiations from the piano leading to a heartfelt, song-like section with a filigree piano accompaniment – beautiful and almost tragic-sounding! The music became almost Rachmaninov-like, with passionate piano chordings and full-voiced string unisons reaching a point where some great thought, emotion or realisation was uncovered or confronted and squared up to – the mood was savoured and elevated to a point of great release and resolution, so that all that were left were haunting piano chords and ever-diminishing string harmonics, fading away to silence. At the end, the departing tones remained an indelible, lingering memory…….

In the wake of such high-impact presentations, South African-born, Wellington-based Keith Moss’s Field Notes in Autumn provided some welcome relief! – we were charmed to find the composer was actually present, and spoke briefly about his work, a piece which was derived from an earlier work for flugelhorn and piano, one presumably written almost exactly a year previously, if the title was to be taken literally!

A fresh, open piano sound began the work, establishing a “New World” kind of ambience, with the ensuing violin solo (repeated by the ‘cello) richly-wrought and nostalgic. The music’s ongoing, almost supercharged nostalgic quality put me in mind of those English pastoral works by Vaughan Williams and Butterworth in feeling, with, as the composer put it, “explorations of place, people and memory”. I sat listening and thinking how gratifying such music would be for performers, giving back such beauties to their efforts, and enjoying, as here, the appreciative audience response both during and at the end of the piece.

In concluding this delightfully singular foray into piano-trio possibilities this gifted ensemble gave us what surely counted as a cornerstone of the repertoire – Robert Schumann’s Second Piano Trio in F Major, for once a work by this composer whose opening would have kept the listener guessing as to its provenance for a few more bars longer than usual, as so much of his output almost immediately does! Here, in contrast to his G Minor Trio whose opening straightway proclaimed its “time of gloomy moods”, was, in the NZTrio’s hands music of joyous and energetic vigour right from the outset, inspired as Schumann was by his love for Clara, and the feelings her devotion to him awakened. It was actually the tenth anniversary of the couple’s secret engagement, which accounts for the music’s frequent allusions to Clara – the first two movements of the work here quoted the song “in the depths of my heart I keep a radiant image of you” from Schumann’s own song-cycle Liederkreis, and the third movement contains a quote from another song-cycle Frauenliebe und Leben, a work influenced by  Schumann’s courtship of Clara at the time.

A sinuous melody shared between the strings began the second movement, which coursed between this and various impulse-driven episodes – soulful recitative-like exchanges given all the room needed for the players to fill out the phrase-turns, and wistful minor-key asides which surprise with impulsive, spontaneous-sounding irruptions that just as suddenly fall back to treasurable moments of exquisite dovetailing of detail – memorable music-making! The third movement was a piquant waltz, violin and piano in canon with the melody, with the cello a dark-browed accompanist, the three players elaborating their lines in the graceful Trio, then returning to the dance, and nudging the harmonies into and out of the major key during the coda.

Nowhere is Schumann more beguiling in this work than in the finale – energetic, whimsical and good-humoured, the music and its performance readily teased and delighted us, building towards the end to what seemed like a near-euphoric state of elation, enabling us all to share in the effervescent-sounding exclamations of pleasure in the playing.  Small wonder that Clara Schumann’s verdict on the work – “(it) delights and warms the depths of my soul from beginning to end” resonated in our responses at the concert’s conclusion!

 

Beethoven in Kelburn resounding in St. Michael’s beautiful church

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Koru Trio
Rachel Thomson (piano), Anne Loeser (violin) Sally Isaac (‘cello)

BEETHOVEN – Romance No. 2  in F Major Op.50 (arrangement for violin and piano (published; Simrock)
BEETHOVEN – Piano Trio No. 6 in B-flat Major Op. 97 “Archduke”

St.Michael’s Church, St.Michael’s Crescent, Kelburn, Wellington
Saturday 8th August, 2026

Review for “Middle C” by Peter Mechen

A chance to revisit the ineffable beauties of the ambience and atmosphere of St. Michael’s Church in Kelburn, a place I’d actually discovered for myself earlier this year as a venue for music-making,  came with the announcement of a concert to be presented by the Koru Trio.

I was somewhat taken aback when I “looked up” the Middle C website to ascertain just when it was I’d last heard this ensemble play, and found the occasion was no less than six years ago at a St.Andrew’s Lunchtime Concert! – https://middle-c.org/2020/07/koru-trio-giving-the-st-andrewss-audience-its-kohas-worth-and-more/ – what was more, it reviewed performances whose excellences should have been set in stone in my memory, so effusive were the terms with which I’d expressed my pleasure at the playing’s qualities!

As the performers in practically all the concerts I attend obviously bring so much more in terms of skill, involvement and understanding of the music that I do as a mere listener, it’s only fair that I confess on occasions such as these to my failings of proper and lasting “connection” with the music I hear, and especially so when the -performances deserve to be better remembered!

Having gotten that sin of omission “off my chest” as it were, I felt I could revisit with a clear conscience my feelings regarding the efforts of tonight’s performers  It wasn’t a long and involved concert, the fewer-than-usual items arguably allowing our responses ample space for appreciating the content more deeply and thoughtfully, a kind of “quality set against quantity” dynamic which I thought worked to the experience’s advantage.

Tonight’s composer was Ludwig van Beethoven, presented in a more than usually mellow mood with his serenely melodic Op.50 Romance in F Major, here in an arrangement for violin and piano  (published by Simrock) as opposed to the composer’s original version for soloist and orchestra. Both instruments sounded to my ears beautifully voiced in relation to one another – Anne Loeser’s violin sounded rich in her lower registers and silvery at the top, while her partnership with pianist Rachel Thomson was straightaway marked with a sense of “give and take”, the piano’s liquid tones readily finding the points of exchange with the violin in bringing out the veracity of the music’s “Romance” title.  And the performance didn’t hesitate to venture briefly into the music’s darker side as well, though the nuances from both players seemed in agreement in their gradual return to the opening’s serenity, allowing  the ‘whimsy’ that was enjoyed by both in the  concluding  exchanges to surrender to the music’s dying fall with acceptance and grace aplenty.

One of Beethoven’s most famed compositions, the “Archduke” Piano Trio, completed by the composer in 1811 has the somewhat sad distinction of being the last keyboard work Beethoven played in public, due to his ever-increasing deafness which by then was seriously undermining his ability as a performer. Contemporaries such as Louis Spohr and Ignaz Mosecheles have left accounts of their illustrious contemporary’s pitiable state as a pianist by this stage, throwing into greater relief the increasing transcendence of his creative efforts as time went on.

The work got its name from its dedication to one of Beethoven’s most constant supporters and patrons among the aristocracy, the Archduke Rudolf of Austria, who was an amateur pianist and a sometimes pupil of the composer – among the other most famous compositions Beethoven dedicated to Rudolf are the “Emperor” Piano Concerto, the “Hammerklavier” Piano Sonata and the ”Missa Solemnis – it could be said that we have a lot to thank His Imperial and Royal Highness for!

With ‘cellist Sally Isaac having joined the ensemble on the platform, we were ready, the piano obviously chafing at the bit to begin, the strings in waiting, and the audience expectant – what more could be required of a performance to excite with its prospects? Rachel Thomson’s confident and assertive opening invitation drew both her colleagues and her audience into the composer’s world of self-assured statement and ready reply – there was straightaway a kind of eagerness to explore in the exchanges an atmosphere of going places as opposed to any thoughts of self-satisfaction and contentment with a status quo – if it sounded to me just a trifle rushed at first, it conveyed a youthful vigour, which the opening’s repeat was then content to pull back and allow a touch of almost Olympian grandeur, the intent duly expressed and the means and expectations confident.

The development unravelled the opening theme, the players here savouring the individual phrases from the whole, the strings having bowed their different impulses with the piano’s encouragement, then turned to pizzicato phrases, firstly in dialogue and then intertwining their lines and dancing with the piano’s equally playful responses. The return of the reconstituted theme gave the cello a chance to sing before the piano led the ensemble daintily through a dancing world, the strings following canonically behind up to the cello’s thematic variation that always sounds to me so much like the opening of one of the Rasumovsky Quartets (No.7) – even if NOT in that work’s key of F major! Here it all sounded so joyous, with a magnificently-voiced return of the great opening theme, before the players grandly and decorously delivered the final chords.

The scherzo delighted with its “question-and-answer” opening, the players’ enjoyment of the exchanges palpable, as Sally Isaac’s ‘cello teased a concerted response from Anne Loeser’s violin, whose instrument then repaid the gesture in kind, and with Rachel Thomson’a piano delivering a “wait-for-me” catch-up repetition of the melody, bolstered  by string pizzicato and augmented by an extension of the opening phrase which the players drew out and varied in turns with ease and fluency. After this bright-eyed and bushy-tailed opening, how mysterious and “inner world-like” seemed the Trio’s first utterances, the instruments “musing” among themselves in chromatic, canonic-like meanderings whose sequences then occasionally thrust their tones upwards from the miasmal mists with “Eureka-like” exclamations from all of the players together worthy of Archimedes of antique legend!!
These diverting irruptions completed, we were returned to the Scherzo’s sprightly dance as before. A brief revisitation of the chromatic musing sequences at the end produced no further “Eurekas” but a vigorously conclusive instrumental  “Amen!”.

The heart of the work – and this performance – was the slow movement, whose every note seemed like a meditative commentary regarding human existence and its potentialities, which state of things Beethoven saw and felt despite his infirmities, and was able to realise in his music, increasingly so as time passed. Begun by the piano a hymn-like melody arched gracefully  forwards and upwards as the strings joined in, echoing both “sections” of the melody introduced by the piano. Then followed the most exquisite set of variations in various guises and combinations, the composer’s invention seeming to take wing, whether meditative or playful, solemn or skitterish, every sequence calling to mind a mood or character whose source springs from the same life-force, and casting a spell over the music-making.

It was one which a sudden, abrupt interruption swept away in what seemed like the twinkle of a cosmic eye, an impulse that straightaway set all existence dancing with nary a backward glance, an effervescent gushing of energies in which we found ourselves caught up and relishing! The jauntily-paced rhythms developed real schwung in places with fanfare-like flourishes tossed between the instruments, before a reprise of the dancing tune restored some order, exuding as much charm and  gaiety as before – when just as whimsically, a mischievous will-o’-the-wisp spirit set our sensibilities on a madcap, near-vertiginous dance which left us tingling with feelings of joy and good humour. What a delightful experience! – an intoxicating combination of music, venue and presentation, special and treasurable!

 

 

 

 

NSZO’S Let There Be Light illuminates Saariaho, Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Shan Liu (piano) with Jaime Martín and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra – photo, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

KALJA SAARIAHO (1952-2023) – Lumiere et Pesanteur
SERGE PROKOFIEV (1891-1953 – Piano Concerto No. 3 In C Major Op.26
PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893 – Symphony No. 4 in F Minor Op.36

Shan Liu (piano)
Jaime Martín (conductor)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington (Te Whanganui-a-Tara)
Friday, 24th July 2026

Review by Peter Mechen (Middle C / Seen and Heard International)

This concert by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra was given the title “Let There Be Light”, a quotation from Genesis 1:3 in the Bible, depicting the creation of light upon the earth and its division from darkness – a theme which took different manifestations in the three works given in this evening’s concert by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and its guest conductor Jaime Martín, along with a major contribution in one of the items from the remarkable sixteen year-old New Zealand pianist Shan Liu, here making his mainstage debut with the orchestra.

Beginning the concert was a piece by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho. Lumière et Pesanteur  (Light and Gravity) – the composer’s own notes regarding this work referred to it as a ”gift” from her to fellow Finnish composer and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen to honour his advocacy as an interpreter of an earlier work by Saariaho, the oratorio La Passion de Simone, which was inspired by the works of 20th Century philosopher Simone Weil (1909-1943). The music of Lumière et Pesanteur  was reworked by the composer from part of that same oratorio, the “Eighth Station”, described by one commentator as the piece’s “most orchestral and least-defined“ section.

Saariaho’s work here  began with the merest murmur of a percussion twinkle from celeste and strings, an evocation of space into which joined a lone trumpeter, sounding a fantastical line with the utmost freedom – this gave way to various wind instruments whose floating tones spontaneously interacted, forming delightfully speculative colouristic and textural ambiences, with brasses playing ever so softly! Over the top of these iridescences piped a piccolo, a foil for the occasional subterranean growlings welling up from beneath, but countered by the continued effusions of wind tone supported by the harp and the softest and most mysterious of brass sonorities.

One could have supposed some kind of narrative at work – my feeling, being new to this music,  was a fairytale-like scenario, one in what seemed in a constant state of sublime and seamless coalescence.  It felt for me as if existence itself here was portrayed in the act of emitting hugely all-embracing sighs of pleasure from the various instrumental groups, occasionally led or spearheaded by specific lines.

Throughout, these tones seemed poly-harmonic, giving us hardly any consciousness of specific keys or modes – instead, opening our imaginations to scenarios of sonorities, textures and timbres engaged in some kind of cosmic interaction, and at which we were spectators mesmerised by the phenomenon’s inception, its growing to various stages of fruition and its equally enigmatic departure! – one in which the sounds didn’t cease as such but seemed to play on at the end beyond what we could actually hear……

After this came the Prokofiev Concerto, a different kind of journey, with its volatility and “take-it-as-it-comes” attitudes towards darkness and light, bestowing insights upon both players and listeners via an experience akin to something of a roller-coaster ride! Such a process seemed all the more Herculean a scenario here through the work in question being undertaken in our presence by such a youthful soloist! Of course Shan Liu had by this time demonstrated his exceptional qualities as a pianist on both the home and international pianistic arenas, even though he was here tackling repertoire that one would think was the preserve of the super-virtuosi (I had, for instance, seen none other than Martha Argerich play this concerto – so I was hedging my bets as to how this young man would in my mind fare against that memory!)…..

Anyway, what a concerto! The opening Andante featured  firstly a clarinet, and a second soon joining in, with the strings then sounding that characteristic sweet-and-sour quality of Prokofiev’s in the opening melody – then in came the strings again with the Allegro – such terrific energy and momentum announcing the pianist’s first entry – could Shan Liu do it? My goodness, could he what! – straightaway, such sparkling, clear and brilliantly fluent fingerwork – and then he really opened up the pianistic throttle for the toccata-like exchanges with swirling winds and slashing strings and tremendous orchestral support in general!  And so it went on – the military-like dotted march rhythms shared between the piano and mischievous instrumental detailing brought out humour aplenty – the march rhythms turned to scampering ones, with each upward-thrusting  gesture eliciting cataclysmic cries from the orchestra, the last of which featured  a return of the opening theme as a full-throated kind of “hymn-tune” – Shan Liu took up the cantabile mood, interacting with the waves of orchestral sound and producing a kind of ethereal, almost mystical sea-change in the music, until the return of the urgent allegro rhythms which recommenced the argument.  And so it went on, through various succeeding episodes too numerous to describe, except to say that the last sortie set the seal on the movement, with the pianist’s running two handed unisons gathering up the orchestral forces in the tremendous and excitingly irresistible propulsions that took the music to a triumphal final chord – at which point the Michael Fowler audience simply exploded with delight and pent-up exhilaration, deservedly giving the musicians their due!

The slow movement was all wistfulness and charm at the outset, the soloist completely at one with conductor and orchestra in the music’s bitter-sweet lyricism, until a sudden outburst brought a wild dance, which the cellos and basses helped along, giving plenty of “hoof to the swing” – as they also did with the succeeding triplet rhythms. By contrast a sequence of pure magic then meandered into and over the sound-vistas, everybody in a kind of drifting dream -a moment of fantastic, other-worldly music-making!  And how spontaneously the rhythmic impulses seemed to come to life again, with dancing impulses sprouting from all about the orchestra – those amazingly jaunty passages then fused their energies with the return of the wistful melody that began the movement – what seemed like opposites enjoying a perfect partnership!

The winds had done a superb job of introducing most of this work’s themes thus far – and the finale was no exception, with the bassoon setting a wry, insouciant opening tone for the movement’s beginning, the piano joining in the fun with big-boned dance measures and playful competition with the orchestra via several glissandi-like skirling phrases added to the “quick-march” exchanges.  There was so much to enjoy, with the winds (again) initiating a plaintive, bitter-sweet melody,  the piano nonchalantly replying with a “walking” theme, taken up by the winds, and a full-blooded return to the bitter-sweet theme on the strings – this was both voiced and embellished until the theme here got the gloriously “full Rachmaninov” treatment from soloist and orchestra (though I’m certain that neither composer would thank me for THAT heartfelt observation!). Those ubiquitous winds then bumptiously reintroduced the opening theme – by now sounding positively turbo-charged! – and with soloist, conductor and players working up to full stretch in alternating the music’s heightened momentums, the concerto by the end had simply overwhelmed us with its power and brilliance!

We couldn’t let Shan Liu go for a while after this! – not until conductor Jaime Martín visibly INSISTED the young pianist play an encore! – most appropriately we were given Schumann’s Traumerei from Kinderszenen, an appropriate antidote to the concerto performance’s intoxication in its simplicity and naturalness of utterance – even though it inhibited not a whit of animated discussion throughout the interval regarding what we’d heard!

Surprisingly, and as it turned out, delightfully, conductor Jaime Martín made a gracious and entertaining “guest’s speech” for us at the second half’s beginning, firstly praising Shan Liu’s remarkable performance, and then properly introducing himself, by way of amusingly recounting his first interactions upon his arrival with various New Zealanders who, upon learning that he was Spanish, acceded, to his utter amazement, fulsome congratulations upon him in relation to the recent Football World Cup Spanish victory!  –  “..almost as if” he said “I myself had played in the final!”. He then talked about his own impressions of the Tchaikovsky Symphony he and the orchestra were about to play,  actually getting the players to sound a few of the work’s themes and motifs by way of highlighting them for us – all this was done in a perfectly straightforward and unpatronising way – a further amusing moment was when the conductor mentioned the word “fate” in his description of the symphony’s main recurring motif, and paused for dramatic effect – in the silence one of the cellists dropped their bow on the floor!

All such byplays done with, Martín began the symphony, getting truly spine-tingling brass-playing and dramatic whiplash-chordings from the full orchestra in the work’s introduction. The strings expressively and plaintively took up their own “first subject”, handing over to the winds and helping to further build up the tensions which became a kind of “pitched battle’ between the “fate” theme and the orchestra’s lamentations! It was a properly dramatic and sonorous journey throughout, the eloquent orchestral detailing in every section by turns confronting (the “fate” music and its insistent accompanying theme) and consoling (the folksy second subject theme and its major-key variant) right to the tumultuous conclusion of the first movement.)

Martín had asked his strings beforehand to play the accompaniments alone to the long oboe solo that distinguishes the second movement, encouraging his audience to “register” the simplicity and loneliness of these pizzicato passages, adding to the beauty of oboist Robert Orr’s actual performance – listening to this movement I was freshly taken aback by the qppeql of Tchaikovsky’s orchestrations, especially the many interactions between strings and winds so gorgeously and heartfeltly realised in this performance. Likewise in the famous pizzicato-led third movement the impact of the instrumental contrasts between strings, winds and brass were positively flavoursome (Johanna Gruskin’s piccolo in particular picturing a superbly loquacious “beastie”!).

Martín then introduced the finale almost as attacca (not marked in the score), conveying the music’s tremendous urgency, the playing marked by fierce exchanges and great brilliance – similarly, the conductor brought the contrasting “Birch tree” melody in almost in tempo. maintaining the music’s delicacy but enhancing the excitement! Later in the movement this melody led with increasing intensity to the final, tumultuous statement of the “fate” motif, momentarily halting the music’s headlong flow, but leading to a quiet reiteration of the festive-like music which represented the composer’s words “If you cannot discover the reasons for happiness in yourself, look to others…” The orchestral frenzy unleashed for us at the conclusion of this movement tonight embodied that fatalism with the utmost euphoria and excitement. Since then, my memory has been wandering back to my first encounter with this work via the legendary Hungarian conductor Antal Dorati, whom I saw give what seemed like a cataclysmic-sounding performance with the then NZBC Symphony Orchestra here in Wellington in 1973 – his shade would, I think, have relished tonight’s equally memorable presentation.

 

 

 

At Last!  NZ Opera’s 2021 “take” on Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro makes it to Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

New Zealand Opera presents Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro”

Sophie Sparrow as Susanna and James Clayton as Figaro – Photo: Stephen A’Court

Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart / Librettist: Lorenzo da Ponte
Based on Pierre-Augustin de Beaumarchais’ 1778 play “Le Nozze di Figaro”

Cast: Figaro – James Clayton
Susanna – Sophie Sparrow
Count Almaviva – Julien Van Mellaerts
Countess Almaviva – Felicity Tomkins
Cherubino – Cecilia Zhang
Marcellina – Kristin Darragh
Bartolo – Andrew Collis
Don Basilio / Don Curzio – Andrew Grenon
Barbarina – Sarah Mileham
Antonio – Joel Amosa
Bridesmaids – Barbara Graham, Charlotte Secker

Freemason Foundation New Zealand Opera Chorus
Orchestra Wellington
Conductor – James Judd

Chorusmaster Laureate – Michael Vinten
Principal Repetiteur and Continuo – David Kelly
Chorus Repetiteur – Bruce Greenfield
Director – Lindy Hume
Assistant Director – Eleanor Bishop
Set and Costume Design – Tracy Grant Lord
Lighting Designer – Matthew Marshall
Choreographer – Taiaroa Royal

St James Theatre, Wellington
Wednesday 17th June 2026

This was an opera audience that bubbled with pleasurable satisfaction long after the bringing down of the curtain at Wellington’s St.James Theatre on Wednesday evening earlier this week. NZ Opera’s eagerly-awaited (and at that time glowingly-received) 2021 production of Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro” was meant to come on to Wellington following its season in Auckland that year – however, Covid intervened, forcing a last-minute Level 2 lockdown directive which put paid to Figaro’s performances in the capital ( Christchurch, which got three subsequent performances, was luckier than Wellington on that occasion).

Now, it was at last Wellington’s turn to enjoy director Lindy Hume’s and designer Tracy Grant Lord’s  much-acclaimed “take” of Mozart’s classic work, with the intervening years up to 2026 having inevitably “honed” 2021’s presentation, most obviously in terms of having a different cast bringing its own singular talents to the revival and recreating in the ever-grateful St James’ scenario a uniqueness of its own! I wasn’t able to see the 2021 “live-streamed” final Christchurch performance which NZ Opera had thoughtfully provided for its thwarted Wellington patrons, so (like many of the audience would have done) was able to come entirely freshly and all the more eagerly to this production!

I’d previously enjoyed a number of NZ Opera presentations directed by Lindy Hume, beginning with a stunningly visceral, almost “too-close-for-comfort” presentation of “Rigoletto”, as far back as 2012; and most recently – rather closer to the ethos of this evening’s subject – a “Cosi fan tutte” in 2023 which unsparingly brought out the ambiguities of human relationships between the leading characters with disconcertingly unease! So I was looking forward immensely to what insights Hume (and her inspirational designer for “Cosi”, Tracy Grant Lord) would uncover for us with this work – one that still resounds in my own memory as a precious “formative opera experience” from as long ago as 1971!

From the outset I was enchanted by the set and its all-encompassing “lit from within” qualities, the constant fluidity and variegation of both parameters and illumination taking us through as much a “journey of the imagination” as a series of spaces wrought with the work’s constant flux of both wilful interaction and judicious concealment in mind. Hume described the spaces created by readily moveable walls and doorways as suggestive of on-going change, as the opera’s action (a single day) unfolds its course from early morning until late at night and the characters move from scenario to scenario, firstly inside and later, outside the house, and in the garden. Tracy Grant Lord’s set and costume designs and Matthew Marshall’s lighting together simply enfolded us in a kind of timelessness about it all, recognisably as much a scenario from 200 years ago as in a large and modern country house, leaving us in the audience to “flesh out” whatever era from that time we could imagine through our own reactions.

What came across as forcefully here as in the 2023 “Cosi” production was the depiction of emotional disruption to societal order which both Mozart and his librettist Lorenzo da Ponte took pains to depict and examine – and while in both cases a semblance of that “order” was restored to the lives of the characters, much deeper undercurrents had been irreversibly plumbed by all the parties. And as Lindy Hume points out in her insightful notes in the programme, the women were the ones who instigated the changes in “Figaro”, presenting in no uncertain terms a new vision of a society being “remade”. Perhaps if Mozart had lived for longer, might he and da Ponte might have further pursued an operatic version of the original author Beaumarchais’s third play “La Mère coupable” (The Guilty Mother)? We will never know…..

Here in 2026 we were given everything envisaged by composer and librettist – there was comedy, intrigue, anger and pathos in this presentation, with all of the characters at one stage or another revealing or disporting strong and varied émotions, subject in places to rapid change, and instigating a kind of volatility associated with societal disturbance and disruption, either of authority or of deep feeling. Whether in a kind of soliloquy, or accompanied by interaction, these different expressions were wholeheartedly conveyed, in recitative or in set pieces, solo or concerted, with every character suitably “enlarging” her or his personality in the process.

Julien Van Mellaerts as the Count  – Photo: Stephen A’Court


Felicity Tomkins as the Countess – Photo: Stephen A’Court

In that sense, the work was a perfect “ensemble” piece, whose dramatic coherence rested upon upon teamwork, with timing and balance adroitly kept on the rails by conductor James Judd, with every portrayal, including the lesser characters, prospering in partnership with others.  As Figaro, James Clayton’s robust baritone, and Sophie Sparrow’s ever-mellifluous soprano as Susanna brilliantly encompassed their pairing’s ebb-and-flow dynamics besides keeping on the boil their various parallel relationships with co-conspirators and adversaries – everything had an inventiveness and volatility which kept the audience guessing as to “how”, regardless of knowing “what”. Figaro’s and Susanna’s upper-class equivalents, the lascivious Count Almaviva (Julien Van Mellaerts)  and his long-suffering Countess (Felicity Tomkins) were dynamic adversaries/eager collaborators in terms of their own relationship, Van Mellaerts with his quick, flexible baritone the perfect foil here for Tomkins’ sympathetic and warmly-appealing soprano.

Kristin Darragh (Marcellina), Andrew Collis – front (Bartolo), and Andrew Grenon (Don Basilio/Don Curzio) – photo:  Stephen A’Court

Into this quartet of conflict came the vengeful pairing of Marcellina and Bartolo, each with an axe to grind regarding the luckless Figaro – Kristin Darragh was a gorgeous, fulsomely acquisitive Marcellina, here in tandem with the initially less dynamic Bartolo of Andrew Collis, whose decidedly oldish portrayal did, however, manage to gather some momentum during his “La vendetta” aria – and together the pair’s subsequent Act Three rediscovery of their own parentage of Figaro himself got the biggest laugh of the evening – in a production already replete with humour, a great moment!


Sophie Sparrow (Susanna) and Cecilia Zhang (Cherubino) – photo: Stephen A’Court

Diverting opposites were mezzo-soprano Cecilia Zhang’s quicksilverish, testosterone-ridden pageboy Cherubino, her voice and presence replete with pubescent urgings (in one instance graphically suggestive via an item of the countess’s clothing!), and Andrew Grenon’s delightfully first-up artless Don Basilio, whose drollery effectively (if only temporarily) masked his character’s true oily nature, bent on mischief and mayhem at whomever he’d been primed to target. Grenon here did an adroit double-act as Don Curzio, the Judge summonsed by Marcellina to formalise the intended marriage between her and Figaro. There was also Sarah Mileham’s Barbarina (a servant-girl) played innocently and sweetly in her defence of Cherubino against the Count, and adroitly-voiced in her “notepin” aria, alongside two effective cameos from bass-baritone Joel Amosa as the slightly drunken and suitably affronted gardner, Antonio.

The chorus’s brief but deftly-timed festive entrances overlaid the Count’s scheming with suitably rustic-sounding innocence and charm, besides providing an atmospheric backdrop of « daily task » activity just outside and around most of each acting area – an inspired production touch! All of this was buoyantly propelled by James Judd’s variegated direction of some superb orchestral playing by the Orchestra Wellington players – from the stirring strains of Cherubino’s “off to the battle” military pomp and vigour, through the gaiety of the rustic celebrations to the tenderness of the music for the Countess’s heart-rending moments of amatory sorrow, and, at the end, relishing and delivering wholeheartedly the opera’s rejuvenating message of hope for the human condition in the best universal sense via Mozart’s glorious music.

 

 

 

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Orchestra Wellington in full “swing” with escapist New York jazz

Posted on by Peter Mechen

ORCHESTRA WELLINGTON -2026 Collaborations
W:ELLINGTONMarc  Taddei with Orchestra Wellington  – Photo Credit : Andy Best

LEONARD BERNSTEIN – Chichester Psalms
– Tudor Consort / Joshua Derbyshire-Foale (boy soprano)
GEORGE GERSHWIN – Piano Concerto in F
– David Fung (piano)
ROLF LIEBERMANN – Concerto for Jazz Band and Orchestra
– Te Koki Jazz Band
DUKE ELLINGTON – Harlem

Orchestra Wellington
Marc Taddei (conductor)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington
Saturday 30th May 2026

Reviewed by Leila Lois
for MIddle C

What a treat to experience Roaring Twenties New York, replete with a jazz-inflected orchestra and virtuoso soloists, on an early winter evening in Wellington. This edition of Orchestra Wellington’s ‘Collaborations’ series transported audiences to the streets and speakeasies of a bygone Manhattan. The evening exuded classical jazz sophistication, with a pleasing
programme loosely fitted to the jazz era theme: Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin, Rolf Liebermann, and Duke Ellington.

The evening began with a gorgeous rendition of Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, featuring the Tudor Consort and boy soprano Joshua Derbyshire-Foale. The chorus roused the piece with “Behold how good”, the cello foreshadowing the beauty to come. The work sat perfectly within
the Michael Fowler Centre’s acoustics, maintaining its ecclesiastical air while finding warmth in the venue’s wooden architecture.

Next came Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F, with pianist David Fung bringing a syrupy fluidity to the keys. Honed by training with the Cleveland Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic, he proved a wonderful collaborator throughout. There was a playful call and response between trumpet, timpani, and piano, melting into the swoony strings under the expert direction of
conductor Marc Taddei. The helter-skelter rondo evoked Roaring Twenties Manhattan so vividly it could practically be felt — the muted trumpets a particular standout, alongside the desultory pizzicato violin and the balmy calm of flute and piano.

Liebermann’s Concerto for Jazz Band and Orchestra, accompanied by the Te Koki Jazz Band, delivered a vibrant dance-hall sound. The pacy cymbals and trombone (the latter led by Jakob Elijas) had the audience toe-tapping and shoulder-shimmying within moments. A playful turn into bossa nova, complete with cowbell and Afro-Cuban instrumentation, added a welcome frisson.

Winds, brass and percussion – Orchestra Wellington – Collaborations 2026 :  Photo Credit: Andy Best

The final piece, Duke Ellington’s much-admired Harlem, perhaps transported audiences furthest of all. Ellington once quipped that “you can’t write music right unless you know how the man who’ll play it plays poker” — and this work fully embodies that spirit, maximising the plush textures of the full orchestra to conjure a vivid, colour-drenched Harlem of the early-to-midtwentieth century.

A beautiful showcase of escapist New York jazz, this edition of Orchestra Wellington’s ‘Collaborations’ series was a real hit, and at the onset of winter, it brought welcome colour and delight.

Nota Bene brings people in for some mellifluous music-making at St.Andrew’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Four Hands, Two Grands and a Choir (striking a modern chord)

Gabriela Glapska / Catherine Norton (pianos)
Nota Bene Choir
directed by Maiike Christie-Beekman

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

Sunday 31st May, 2026

What an inspirational title for a concert! – words obviously intended to  quicken the interest and activate any curiosity! And it all seemed to have worked a treat, as St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace Church proceeded to fill up with people almost to bursting-point! What was more, all of us were told on entry by the organisers to “fill up the seating gaps” – in other words, to “bunch up” today and ignore that good old Kiwi inclination to “leave a space” if one is next to somebody one doesn’t know. We all did our best, and were able to start up many an unsolicited conversation with our neighbours as part of the acclimatisation experience! Naturally there were a number of “sisters , cousins and aunts” present, to support friends and relations among the Nota Bene performers, so that everybody soon jelled as a responsively homogenous audience.

For choir performers perhaps the name René Clausen (b.1953) is a familiar one, though this was my first encounter with the composer’s music. I found a note describing him as “one of America’s most popular choral composers, creating music suited to all levels of expertise”. His music, though obviously challenging for performers doesn’t ever startle or berate the listener with dissonant or over-angular tones. The opening Prayer, a setting of words by Mother Teresa of Calcutta, uses very open harmonies that give the work a lovely spaciousness. The individual lines successfully explore both freedom of individuality and a sense of belonging to something greater – lovely cluster-tones in places contrast with the sopranos’ free, stratospheric lines elsewhere, while conductor Maaike Christie-Beekman gets pleasing unanimity and gorgeous tones from her voices throughout.

A setting of Psalm 100’s “Make a joyful noise” certainly achieved the words’ desired effect, with catchy syncopations tossing varieties of tone, timbre and colour at us, while the accompanying pianists, Catherine Norton and  Gabriela Glapska brought out the dance-like qualities of the work to perfection with adroit, incisive playing, the antiphonal effect on two pianos nicely ear-catching! With the Song of Solomon setting of Verses 5-8, ”Set Me as a Seal” the choir regrouped as a kind of wisely-spaced “circle” around the church’s outer aisles, with Christie-Beekman in the centre aisle as conductor. The result was captivating, the flowing lines and resonating harmonies capturing the “strength from tragedy” context of the work, composed in the aftermath of the tragic death of the composer’s unborn child – a detail only vaguely hinted at in the programme, and which I discovered while researching material for this review, making the music’s response to such a devastating loss all the more poignant upon rehearing.

In the wake of such touching sounds we were treated to the completely different experience of hearing two pianos in a performance of a set of variations by Roumanian composer George Enescu (1881-1955). Amazingly the work was written when Enescu was just seventeen, at that stage as proficient a pianist as a violinist (the work is dedicated to fellow-pianists Édouard Risler and Alfred Cortot), and also undertaking composition studies at the Paris Conservatoire. Gabriela Glapska and Catherine Norton threw themselves into the fray with the music’s majesterial and ceremonial opening sparking off a series of imaginatively-wrought contrasts of mood and response, from the delicate and decorative first variation, through delights such as the triplet-rhythmed third variation, and the stylish “promenade” trajectories of the fifth“ episode – not unexpectedly the final variation was a fugue which grew out of some florid exchanges, resolutely intertwining the  lines towards a satisfyingly grand three-chord conclusion!

Another composer whose work is known to the few rather than the many was Josef Rheinberger (1839-1901), perhaps best known for his works for solo organ, which were highly regarded as “the most valuable addition to organ music since Mendelssohn”, though his choral music “pops up” every now and then – I have just one of his choral works on a lovely recording, a Christmas cantata “The Star of Bethlehem”, for soprano, chorus and orchestra), but didn’t know the beautiful six-part Abendlied which we heard next – a kind of “Abide with me” in effect, the voices achieving throughout under Maaike Christie-Beekman’s direction a gorgeously-sounded seamless flow.

We then had another work I didn’t know, Johannes Brahms’s Nänie, written in 1880-81 as a memorial tribute to a friend, the painter Anselm Beuerbach. The words are Friedrich Schiller’s, which draw from three well-known myths , Orpheus and Eurydice, Aphrodite and Adonis, and the death of Achilles,  each illustrating the transience of youth and beauty through death. Written originally for choir and orchestra, Brahms made a version for four-hands piano accompaniment to allow the work to be performed when an orchestra wasn’t available.

A longish piano introduction began the work before the voices entered, proclaiming the poet’s overall idea that “even beauty must die”, The intensities rose and fell as the singers described the efforts of Orpheus to win back Euridice, fatefully intoning the message that “only once did love melt the Lord of Shadows”, and how, at the last moment, all was lost. Then, rather than elaborating greatly on the tragic deaths of both the beautiful Adonis and the heroic Achilles, Brahms instead expressed an empathetically-controlled sense of the mourners’ bereavement, saving any great outpouring pf emotion for the description of Achilles’ mother Thetis, rising from the sea in the company of the sea-nymphs and weeping for her son, the voices conveying resounding tones of lament before the beatific conclusion  here expressing the idea of mourning transfiguring and truly celebrating a life.

The concert’s second half began with another rarity, Igor Stravinsky’s 1926 work “Otche Nash” (Pater Noster) – with the setting in “Old Slavonic” – Stravinsky, whose years (1882-1975) traversed whole eras of musical expression, characterised this work as belonging to his “most earnest period of Christian Orthodoxy” – slow and atmospheric, I enjoyed its SOUND immensely, and partly because the words could only be Russian – they reminded me so much of my listening to Rachmaninov’s wonderful “Vespers” (and, naturally enough, I knew exactly what the words meant!) Incidentally, the singers took their places “around” the church for this item, similarly to the first half’s “Set Me as a Seal” performance, and just as effective as a surround-sound” experience! For the 4-part work by Arvo Part (b.1935), “Da Pacem Domine”, which followed, Maaike Christie-Beekman got her singers to move to a “front-and-back” antiphonal exchange position, each group the corner of a rectangle. This 2004 work came to be associated with a tragic train-bombing in the city of Madrid that same year, and is still often performed in Spain. Typically for the composer, the music is slow-moving, giving an impression of great stillness, absolutely mesmeric in effect, as if captured “out of the air” – we heard a kind of “declamation then echo” pattern of utterance which over time created an incredible timeless kind of effect – the “improvisatory” nature of the sounds meant that any slight imprecisions between the groups had a spontaneity which seemed entirely natural, making for a true sense of meditation and connection between sound and emotion.

For the second time that evening the two-piano ensemble came, in a sense, to our rescue from the music’s quiet sense of tragedy, and catapaulted us into a world of colour, movement and excitement. Composer Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) had written some incidental music for two separate productions which he had afterwards worked into a “suite” called “Scaramouche” for saxophone and piano. At that point (1937) the famous French pianist Marguerite Long requested of Milhaud a work for two pianos, which gave him the idea of using the “Scaramouche” music, and which quickly established itself as a concert item. And, along with the composer’s famous orchestral piece  “Le Boef sur le Toit” (The Bull on the Roof), the two-piano version of “Scaramouche” became his most well-known work.

Catherine Norton’s and Gabriela Glapska’s pianistic energies and scintillations were fully on display here, as the first of the three movements. “Vif” hit the ground running, with irrepressible movement and cheeky syncopations, before the players switched mode to a whimsical children’s chant section, reminding one of the old English count-down tune “Ten green bottles hanging on the wall” – after which the helter-skelter opening returned, unabated! The second movement sounded part lullaby, part reverie, with different voices echoing between the instruments, and with a nostalgic Ravel-like sense of children’s bedtime games capturing a child-like world. The last movement revitalised us once again, our pianists enticing the catchiest of rhythms from their instruments with a well-known rhumba-like dance whose vivacity, through various kaleidoscopic key-changes was exhilarating to keep up with – such great fun!

Nobody could complain of a lack of variety in this splendid concert, and especially as the Stravinsky work which concluded the afternoon was quite unlike anything else on the programme. Composed in 1930, the Symphony of Psalms was commissioned to mark the 50th anniversary of the formation of the Boston Symphony Orchestra by its famous then-conductor Serge Koussevitsky – however the conductor fell ill and the Boston performance had to be postponed, allowing the Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet to give the work’s premiere in Brussels early in December 1930, Koussevitsky in Boston following a week later.

The work has a four-part chorus and a large orchestra – Stravinsky, however, eschewed the usual large-scale orchestra sound, choosing to write in what became known as the composer’s “neoclassical” manner, and using Latin psalm texts. For this performance conductor Maiike Christie-Beekman had the use of a famous adaptation of the work’s orchestration for four hands /two pianos by Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who greatly admired Stravinsky’s work. There were three movements, the first a setting of the closing verses of Psalm 38, the second of the opening verses of Psalm 39, and the finale the whole of Psalm 150, all in the latin text of the Vulgate, the late 4thCentury translation of the Bible which used “vulgar” or “everyday” Latin, spoken by the common people.

Beginning with bare, uncoloured piano figurations the work’s vocal line followed suit with lines similarly bare and astringent – the opening “Exaudi orationam meam” (Hear my prayer) sung almost hypnotically, but with the emotion rising, beginning at “Quoniam advena ego sum” (for I am a stranger) and reaching desperation levels with “Sicut omnes patres mei” (as all my fathers were” and with the cries of “Remitte mihi” (Spare Me!  towards the end. The second movement was more agitated, the fugue beginning with angular piano lines, and carried on by the choir with “Expectans expectavi Dominum” (I waited patiently for the Lord)  growing in complexity as the music proceeded. A heartfelt outburst from the voices at “Et immisit in os meum canticum novrum” (And he hath put a  new song in my mouth) affirmed faith and trust, as the music died away into silence.

An impulse of joy lit up the church with the third movement’s opening “Alleluia” giving the music an austere beauty. At first  the voices sounded quietly-confident impulses of praise, initiated by piano chords, and with repeated murmurings of “Laudate Dominum” – when suddenly the pianos suddenly galvanised the ensemble with driving rhythmic trajectories, over which the voices floated their continued “Laudate” phrase. These broke off for a brief luftpause of praise with an “Alleluia”, before returning to the driving piano rhythms and floating choral phrases. We were spellbound as the choir and pianists brought the work to a close with a quiet but determined “Laudate Dominum” – these focused distillations of worship and awe from the singers and quietly steadfast support from the pianists, were all held tremulously in place through Maiike Christie-Beekman’s  beautifully-judged sense of culmination – finis pulchra!

NZSO reaches for Mahler’s “Titan” via Ades and Korngold

Posted on by Peter Mechen

James Ehnes (violin) and  Gemma New (conductor)  play Korngold’s Violin Concerto

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents “Titan”

THOMAS ADES –  The Origin of the Harp (NZ Premiere)
ERICH KORNGOLD – Violin Concerto in D Major
GUSTAV MAHLER – Symphony No. 1 “Titan”
James Ehnes (violin)
Gemma New (conductor)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington
Friday 22nd May 2026

Reviewed by Leila Lois
for Middle C

The evening opened with promise, with a bright and warm introduction from Gemma New, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s conductor and Artistic Advisor. As the first woman to hold the post of principal conductor at NZSO, New never fails to show charm and voracity. She beamingly announced the programme for the evening, which included the New Zealand premiere of Thomas Adès’ The Origin Of The Harp, Korngold’s Violin Concerto and Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, the “Titan”.

The night’s selection was delightfully whimsical, the first piece following the tale – a Celtic water nymph (of Ondine proportions) who falls in love with a mortal and tragically struggles to leave behind the ocean. One might have expected something dark and turgid but instead, the piece shimmered with phrases that at first lapped like gentle waves, then writhed and tumbled. In this tone-poem, composed in four short parts, the harp itself was not featured but suggested, appearing at the start of the fourth and final section, as a surprise, melting into the symphony as an epic denouement.

For this piece, the programme notes told us Adès implies the harp by damping the strings of a piano with BluTack, a perfectly innovative and slightly off-kilter complement to Mahler’s inventiveness in the symphony to come. A short, soothing piece that opened the evening perfectly.

Next came the Violin Concerto in D Major by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Famous for creating Romantic style film scores, Korngold fled Nazi Germany for the Hollywood Hills in1934. The concerto found the perfect receptor in soloist James Ehnes, who realised the piece with rare care and attention, such that it was mesmeric to watch and hear. He is truly virtuoso in violin, his tone regal yet sweet – honeyed yet clean. His playing is also remarkably expressive. Beyond this, the connection between New and Ehnes was so compelling that it felt like they were the only two in the concert hall. New’s whole frame was tenderly tilted towards Ehnes, almost lovingly leaning into the melody. A synergistic moment. The piece ended with an encore where Ehnes played with feverish brilliance.

The focal piece of the night came last in the billing, Mahler’s First Symphony, also known as the “Titan”. The piece famously starts in a flood-lit forest, and the woodwind section spiralled through this deliciously on the night. Allegedly the inspiration for this first movement in the symphony came from Gustav Mahler’s childhood memory, where his father took and left him in the forest, and he spent the whole day immersed in the woodland world, enraptured.

In the second part of the opening this really shone through in the gorgeous wooden structure of the inside of the Michael Fowler Centre and exuded a sense of warmth, and calm, despite the notorious volume of Mahler’s scores. The next movement was more energetic, with the rustic party and raucous feel of the cheerful ‘ländler’ (a kind of folkloric waltz), somersaulting through the hall. The warmth of the strings and heartiness of the percussion in this section was led well – special kudos to those string players and percussionists respectively!

Onto the third movement – the emotional heart and most unnerving part of the symphony. The famous distorted solo double bass solo led expertly by Joan Perarnau Garriga played “Frère Jacques” in a minor key, giving it a grotesque, dirge-like quality. My friend, who went in “cold” to the symphony quickly picked up the unsettling familiarity of the melody, and so Mahler’s way of playing with our expectations was evident. The sardonic funeral march quality was well executed, with the famed drunken-sounding trumpets guided by section
principal, Michael Kirgan.

The final movement broke the strangeness of this with an anguished stormy brass-heavy sound, that roiled over the audience like a tempest. Again, the percussion was precise and impassioned, full of the unmistakable spirit of Mahler.

Overall a wonderfully curated night that left audiences inspired, with the Mahlerian counterpoints, tinges of the unexpected and whimsical, folkloric shades.

Bright, Capricious and Colourful – Arohanui Strings’ Benefit Concert at Roseneath, Wellington ’s “Long Hall”

Posted on by Peter Mechen

MORITZ MOSZKOWSKI – Allegro Energico (from “Suite in C Minor Op. 71)
The Treble-Makers – Whitney Wu  and Izabela Ibanez, violins, (Arohanui Strings)
Amelia Liu, piano, (Queen Margaret College, Wellington)
JS BACH – Three Dances (Bouree – Loure – Courante) from French Suite in G Major BWV 816
(arr. Pohl/Gjelsten)
Helene Pohl, violin, Rolf Gjelsten, ’cello
ALBERT ROUSSEL – Trio for Flute, Viola and ‘Cello (1929)
Bridget Douglas, flute, NIcholas Hancox, viola, Rolf Gjelsten ‘cello
WOLFGANG MOZART – Quartet for Flute, Violin, Viola and ‘Cello K.298
Bridget Douglas, flute, Helene Pohl, violin, Nicholas Hancox, viola, Rolf Gjelsten, ‘cello

The Long Hall, Point Jerningham, Roseneath. Wellington
Saturday 25th April, 2026

One of the more delightful aspects of concert-going is the singular pleasure of encountering “new music” on the programme – by “new”, I mean in this instance music that one has never before encountered, rather than something “contemporary”. –  from this twenty-first century viewpoint the latter term has for many of us seen works thus described undergo the inevitable ageing process!

Not that I can remember the music of Polish/German pianist and composer Moritz Moszkowski (1854-1925) ever sounding “contemporary”, though what we heard today from the output of French composer Albert Roussel (1869-1937) was certainly rather more acerbic and  “modern-sounding ” than that of either Moszkowski or the music of Russian composer Reinhold Glière (1875-1956), the third of the trio of nineteenth/twentieth-century names accompanying that of JS Bach’s and Mozart’s on the programme I heard today at Roseneath’s “The Long Hall”.

Helene Pohl’s and Rolf Gjelsten’s continued espousal of their Pot-Pourri Chamber Ensemble activities brought together a brilliant and wholehearted array of talents for today’s concert, featuring flutist Bridget Douglas and violist Nicholas Hancox, as well as an inspiring trio of young musicians, two of whom, violinists  Whitney Wu and Izabella Ibanez play in the inspirational group Arohanui Strings, and a third, pianist Amelia Liu, a competition winner from Queen Margaret College in Wellington. The last-named occasioned the bringing out of an upright piano for the Moszkowski work, which was a “first” for this listener at the Long Hall – a rare treat! (I loved the name this Trio had concocted and made reference to in the programme, for our pleasure! – “The Treble-Makers”!)

I came to this concert largely uninitiated as far as the music by the three aforementioned era-spanning composers was concerned – in fact, the only music by Moszkowski I had previously heard was a set of “Spanish Dances Op.12” beloved by audiophiles due to a justly-famous early stereo (late 1950s) recording of the same, sporting the title “Espana”. (Elsewhere, as well, there’s definitely a highly-regarded piano concerto I’ve yet to catch up with!) Though only the first movement, Allegro  energico, of a “Suite in G Minor Op. 71” was played by the Trio, the group caught the “striving melancholy” of the violins’ firmly-centred descending phrases, in both minor and major keys, deftly supported by the piano when alternating heartfelt descending melodic lines with tumbling rhythmic surges, and creating infectious excitement by building the intensities leading to a spiritedly accelerated coda – what fun! – and what a joy to experience such youthful exuberance in triplicate!

Next came three dances taken from one of JS Bach’s keyboard works, a French Suite in G Major, and transcribed here for violin and ‘cello – Helene Pohl described the transcription of this music in the progrqmme as “working beautifully for string duo”, with counterpoints “to be savoured”! First came a spirited and joyous Boureé, the violin singing the melody and the ‘cello keeping things moving with a running counterpoint, the latter seemingly tempted at various cadences to follow the violin canonically, but after a few imitative notes skipping back into dance-mode! After this came the Loure (a languid, waltz-like dance) with its opening phrase imitative between the instruments before the ‘cello took up the rhythmic trajectories, enjoying, in the second sequence, some deliciously insouciant accompanying gestures. Finally, we heard the Courante, the music again imitative between the instruments at first, before the second part featured the ‘cello dancing in attendance of the violin, the latter picking up the cello’s figurations in response – gorgeously interactive!

We then got what was for me another rarity, four pieces from Reinhold Glière’s Eight Duets for Violin and ‘Cello, Op. 39. I’d actually heard more of Glière’s music than of Moszkowski’s or of Roussel’s, having encountered probably his most well-known piece from a Soviet-style ballet, “The Red Poppy”, a boisterous, crowd-pleasing romp called  the “Russian Sailors’ Dance”.  I’d also heard, more momentously, the most famous of his three symphonies –  an epic 80-minute work subtitled “Ilya Muromets” celebrating the adventures and death of a mythological Russian “Bogatyr” hero based on the lives of several such personae from different epochs of Russian history – strong stuff for a beginner-listener to encounter, back in my College years, but with startling sequences that still resonate in the memory, however dimly. Another notable claim to fame of Gliere’s was his tutorship of the youthful Serge Prokofiev, beginning lessons in 1902 when the latter was just ten years old and continuing until Prokofiev was accepted into the St.Petersburg Conservatory as a student at the age of thirteen.

Much of Glière’s output is unexplored, including a not inconsiderable amount of chamber and instrumental works (though he caused a posthumous ripple of interest in his music when soprano Joan Sutherland enterprisingly recorded in the 1970s a “Concerto for coloratura soprano and orchestra”). The Four Duets we heard were taken from his Op.39, written in 1909. The Prelude, beginning the set, was practically a “tuning-up” exercise, with the violin holding a single note and the ‘cello intoning a wistful, repeated phrase, before the instruments “swopped” roles – a simple, sombre, but resonantly effective piece. The Berceuse which followed featured a gorgeous violin melody in tandem with the cello’s  attendant repeated rising phrase – simply enchanting!   Then came the Intermezzo, a melancholy Schumannesque melody with a “rocking” motion, reminiscent of parts of Schumann’s Kinderscenen. Interestingly, the Gavotte that followed seemed to jump into a harmonically different dance-floor world altogether, with an engaging middle section, very “pesante” themes from the violin and drone-sounds from the ‘cello, then taking us back for something of an abrupt farewell to the dance and its mercurial world.

Our two aforementioned additional players joined the ensemble after a short break – one of them, violist Nicholas Hancox, was of course a stalwart of the ensemble at many of last year’s concerts at the hall and was thus welcomed like an old friend! But we felt especially honoured to have with us for the second half flutist Bridget Douglas, well-known for her participation in many memorable NZSO concerts as a principal section leader, and also in numerous chamber performances in the Wellington region. These players brought with them more (for me)  relatively unfamiliar music, a Trio for flute, viola and ‘cello by Albert Roussel, a name I knew only through a recording I’d purchased  long ago of a ballet of his with the name Le Festin de l’araignée (“The Spider’s Feast”), a work filled with gorgeous impressionistic sounds buoyed along by insinuating rhythms and extremely wry characterisations.

This Trio, written in 1929, I thought an extraordinary piece! – it promised something similar to the ballet at its outset, the Allegro featuring  buoyant rhythms dancing through open-air ambiences, and suggesting all nature at play, despite the occasional tinges of melancholy. The flute enjoined its companions more readily to share its bright-and-breezy manner, and viola and ‘cello did occasionally “buck themselves up”  with spirited surges of march-rhythm merriment and even a patch of  “triplet-flavoured bonhomie” towards the movement’s end that helped keep us all smiling!

But “O, mon Dieu!”  – the Andante was introduced by a sombre viola melody with an equally rueful arpeggiated ‘cello accompaniment, to which the flute added a kind of would-be-but-on-another-day-consoling melody – that done the viola and ‘cello had an exceedingly gloomy duet sequence (“those poor dears!”), one which the ‘cello tried next to “cheer up”, without success! The flute also persisted but without much joy (“What on earth could be the matter?” I wanted to ask the composer’s shade……). A sustained note seemed to be the only floating Pooh-stick the players could find to grasp and hold onto, and wait for the end!  Goodness! – the silence was golden!

And then, wonder of wonders, the music’s first-movement cheerfulness returned for the finale! The ‘cello had stepwise pizzicati, the viola a dancing figure and the flute a perky, bright-faced tune! Such was the camaraderie, the players sped up the trajectories as the blood started to flow more quickly, bringing our listeners’ hearts into our mouths with the relief of it all! – we even had a bit of unbridled stamping sailors’ dance excitement at one point! The movement’s opening returned with even more insouciance, bringing back the sailors for a bit more hi-jinks stamping – and then we heard an eerie passage featuring extraordinary harmonics-like texturings from the strings and near-lullabic tones from the flute.  However, the players seemed to then pick up on the composer’s “homeward bound” urgings, as they responded stepwise to the music’s ever-growing trajectories,  some helter-skelter, almost “silent movie’  soundtrack-scamperings with more “sailors’ dance” roisterings, leading to a concerted “knees-up-like” final flourish! Golly! – Did we dream him? –  or did Roussel dream us? – I ask myself as I write these wry remembrances of what we heard!

With the Mozart Flute Quartet K.298 (a later work than the K-number suggests) which followed, we were presented with a different kind of wryness, firstly in the form of the widespread supposition that the composer didn’t really CARE for the flute despite writing various works for the instrument, one set against a counter-argument that it was actually the person who COMMISSIONED the works for the instrument that Mozart really abhorred! This having been said, we then learned that Mozart had possibly written this particular work for himself, purely for pleasure!

Whatever the case, the music was simply divine – a lovely opening, half-hymn, half popular ditty, featured the flute carrying the melody. This was actually a ”theme and variations” movement, with Bridget Douglas “dancing”  her instrument through the ensuing moments of sheer contrapuntal enjoyment, and ringing the changes in the other variations, the second a running counterpoint for the violin against long-held flute notes, the third a florid version of the theme from the viola (just superb!) with “ambient” comments from the others, and the last a return by the flute to the theme with the ‘cello supplying the knowingly droll trajectories!

The second movement, Menuetto, jumped into D Major, with the flute leading a sprightly, upwardly  soaring opening harmonised phrase striding out confidently, then impishly dancing about in a single variation of the theme in a middle section. Back came the opening key for the last movement with gentle finality, the melody tossed about the instruments with an art-that-conceals-art kind of spontaneity, so that we got the composer’s intention of a group of friends making music for the sheer pleasure of doing so, a pleasure we in the audience felt, in such company, pleased and privileged to share and similarly enjoy.