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Organist Richard Apperley celebrates Advent and Christmas

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Modern organ music for Advent and Christmas, by Andrew Baldwin, Marcel Dupré, Flor Peeters, Charles Ives, David Farquhar, Wilbur Held, Maughan Barnett.

Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul

Friday, 10 December 2010, 12.45pm

A fine organ recital from Richard Apperley consisted of mainly short seasonal pieces. All the composers were either born in the twentieth century, or did most of their composing in that century. Three New Zealand composers featured.

Andrew Baldwin was Composer in Residence at the Cathedral from 2006-2008, and wrote An Advent Prelude for Apperley in 2009; this was its first public performance. Charming chord progressions, alternation between manuals and much use of the swell pedal, allowing for gradual build-up from pianissimo passages were features, as were key changes. Not a profound work, it nevertheless made pleasant listening.

Dupré was one of the great French organist-composers. His ‘Ecce Dominus veniet’ (Behold the Lord cometh) from his Six Antiphons for the Christmas Season was short and sweet: attractive, but not diverse in style or key.

Another organist-composer, this time Belgian, was Flor Peeters. His music for organ is varied and imaginative, as was ‘Hirten, er ist geboren’ (Shepherds, he is born). At the beginning there was delightful use of a 2-foot stop in running passages for the right hand, with the chorale melody below. The music reminded me of flights of birds, or music as droplets of sound.

Charles Ives, the American composer, had studied the organ in his youth. His Prelude ‘Adeste Fidelis’ began with a sustained high note, which changed to dissonant chords, followed by the melody in the lower part, against ever more dissonant chords and pedal before the return of the high note. It was a thoroughly innovative treatment of the well-known tune.

Another well-known Christmas melody was the subject of David Farquhar’s piece: ‘“…From Heaven I come” with Song and Dance and Dance’; variations on ‘Vom Himmel Hoch’. While I found a few parts of this setting a bit dull, at least in the Cathedral’s acoustic, overall it was interesting. The trumpet declaimed the melody, with intermittent chords below it, then flutes varied it discursively. They were followed by variations interspersed between the manuals in a variety of registrations, the pedals not being consistently employed. A declamation on reeds was followed by frisky flute runs. This was quite a demanding piece, that ended in a great roar. We would not think of Farquhar as a composer for organ, but he obviously knew his way around it. The programme note states that Apperley worked with David Farquhar to prepare registrations for a performance of the work on Christmas Day in 2002.

American Wilbur Held (b.1914) was represented by a setting of the Christmas hymn ‘Of the Father’s love begotten’. The high-pitched opening was an unusual and appealing treatment of the theme. The variation introduced chords in a variety of harmonies. A most enchanting setting ended calmly.

Maughan Barnett was English, but moved to New Zealand in 1893, and to the position of organist and choirmaster at Wellington’s St. John’s Presbyterian Church two years later. He became the first city organist in 1908. He wrote music for a variety of important occasions, and was a notable figure in the city’s musical scene until his death in 1938. His ‘Introduction and Variations on the Christmas Hymn ‘Mendelssohn’’ (alias ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’) was quite a lengthy piece. It began loudly and robustly, in good Victorian or Edwardian style (its date of composition is not known).

There was plenty of decoration, full organ contrasting with more straightforward playing of the hymn tune. The first variation featured broken chords on two manuals. I must admit I was reminded of someone slurping porridge, interspersed with doing the same with their cup of tea (i.e. the higher pitched registrations).

The second variation had a background of rapidly running notes, while the melody itself was subject to some variation. The third began with bombastic chords, and put the tune into a minor key, while the fourth had the tune rendered more or less straight, on a reed stop over a quiet accompaniment. The next one had a bland registration of the melody with harmony on the pedals, but above that, lovely runs on a 2-foot registration.

The sixth and final variation began with quiet chords on reeds, the melody having varied harmonisations and decorations, moving into a full harmony treatment on diapasons with some upper variations, and finally a grand ending.

Apperley’s playing was impeccable and tasteful throughout the varied programme of considerable interest.

Festival Singers delight with Rossini’s “Little, Solemn Mass”

Posted on by Peter Mechen

ROSSINI – Petite Messe solennelle (for soloists, choir, harmonium and two pianos)

Lesley Graham, soprano / Linden Loader, alto / Jonathan Abernethy, tenor / Roger Wilson, bass

Jonathan Berkhan, Louisa Joblin (pianos) / Thomas Gaynor (harmonium)

Rosemary Russell, musical director

Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Hill St., Wellington

Saturday 20th November 2010

“Good God—behold completed this poor little Mass—is it indeed sacred music [la musique sacrée] that I have just written, or merely some damned music [la sacré musique]? You know well, I was born for comic opera. Little science, a little heart, that is all. So may you be blessed, and grant me Paradise!”

With these words Gioachino Rossini prefaced his Petite Messe Solennelle, written in 1863, and called elsewhere by the composer the last of his “pêchés de vieillesse” (sins of old age). Characteristically, the music is neither “petite” nor particularly “solemn” – but there’s little doubt as to the work’s sincerity – an expression of faith and piety from one, in his own words, “born for comic opera”.

One of the most engaging aspects of Rossini’s work is its complete lack of sanctimoniousness – nowhere does one sense a feeling, emotion or impulse that doesn’t spring straight from the composer’s essential nature. As with the Stabat Mater, written in 1842, the music unashamedly evokes the theatre in places, an example being the “Domine Deus” section of the Gloria, which featured a ringing, heroic tenor solo reminiscent of the famous “Cujus animam” aria in the earlier work. Tenor Jonathan Abernethy made an excellent fist of this, singing with flair, accuracy and plenty of dynamic and tonal variation – his work featured some lovely high notes in places such as the concluding “Filius Patris”.

Immediately afterwards, soprano Lesley Graham and alto Linden Loader took us to more sombre realms with “Qui tollis peccata mundi”, piano and harmonium setting the scene with piquant and dramatic utterances (great playing from the instrumentalists throughout) leading to further heartfelt sequences such as beautifully essayed chromatic ascents in thirds by the two singers, and a lovely blend by the two at the haunting “Miserere Nobis”, which developed into some positively theatrical Verdian duetting throughout those same words’ final repetitions.

Always one to relish his opportunities, bass Roger Wilson, in resplendent voice, splendidly delivered the “Quoniam”, at once finding the music’s lyricism and energising the sequences up to “Jesu Christe” with the help of Jonathan Berkahn’s vivid, very orchestral piano-playing. With Louisa Joblin on the second piano deliciously bringing extra “galumph” to the accompanying textures, the choral fugue “Cum Sancto Spiritu” sounded simply glorious, director Rosemary Russell characteristically finding a “tempo giusto” which brought out a polka-like “schwung” to the music that even Smetana might have envied.

I hope these descriptions of “flow” throughout just one of the work’s many sequences  will give a sense to readers of the music’s dramatic coursings from episode to episode, with  every impulse the seeming result of the composer’s instinct to speak in a language that comes naturally, with nothing contrived or laid on for a generalised effect. I loved the Britten-like energies of the Credo’s opening, vigorously ascending piano figurations answered by the choir, with the soloists’ contributions dancing in and out among the exchanges. Another treat was the almost Wagnerian “descendit de caelis”, outrageously visceral downwardly-rolling sequences for choir and piano, relished with splendid elan by the performers . By contrast, the “Crucifixus” featured Lesley Graham’s soprano movingly evoking with piano and harmonium something of the awe and pity at Christ’s own suffering in sacrificing his own life for all mankind. Although the second fugue, at “Et vitam” was initially less than tidy between voices and instruments, Rosemary Russell and her sopranos pulled things together, with the cries of “Amen” at the end a grand focal point, before a brief hiatus and final shout of “Credo” ended things triumphantly.

What the sleevenotes of my old LPs refer to as a Prélude réligieux followed, played as a piano solo by Jonathan Berkahn (my recording features the harmonium at this point) – a mesmeric fugal keyboard meditation, beginning and ending with imposing, Beethoven-like chords. In its way, it made a telling prelude to the Sanctus, whose interchanges between soloists and choir had a kinetic energy as well as drama, finely sung, with the men in the choir especially strong. Lesley Graham then made the most of O Salutaris, her equivalent operatic “scene” for soprano, a big-boned and lyrical outpouring, whose mirror image was the contralto solo at Agnus Dei, introduced by portentous piano and harmonium tones, and simply and gravely sung by Linden Loader, balancing dignity with moments of theatrical expression – her cries of “miserere”, supported by lovely chorus work, were truly supplicatory, leaving Jonathan Berkahn to complete Rossini’s piquant piano solo farewell at the end – a wry gesture, entirely characteristic of the composer.

Immense pleasure was to be had from all of this, completing a concert and a year the Festival Singers can, I’m certain, be proud of.

New Zealand String Quartet: Schumann put in the shade by Shostakovich……

Posted on by Peter Mechen

SCHUMANN AND SHOSTAKOVICH

The New Zealand String Quartet : Helene Pohl, Douglas Beilman (violins) / Gillian Ansell (viola) / Rolf Gjelsten (‘cello)

SCHUMANN – String Quartet in A Major Op.41 No.3

SHOSTAKOVICH – String Quartet No. 5 in B-flat Major Op.92 / String Quartet No.9 in E-flat Major Op.117

St.Mary of the Angels Church, Boulcott St., Wellington

Saturday 28th August, 2010

Poor old Schumann! Of course he had no way of seeing Shostakovich coming when he wrote his quartets, and therefore didn’t feel the need to overtly externalise the flamboyant, turbulent side of his nature in much of his music, especially in a medium which was generally regarded as a vehicle for expression of a reasonably circumspect provenance. True, he had Beethoven’s magnificently virile example as a writer of quartets to refer to as exemplars of a more cosmic and elemental style and effect – but Schumann was no Beethoven, being a split personality far more seriously troubled by the demands of his muse and the disorders and conflicts of his inner being. His quartets are therefore imbued with quixotic contrasts between exuberance and poetic feeling, marvellously inventive, yet touchingly fallible – music very much at the mercy of performance sensibility, and thus needing from performers a sympathetic and sensitive attitude to interpretation for it to blossom and reveal its particular strengths and beauties.

These were the thoughts that coursed through my mind immediately after the concert given by the New Zealand String Quartet at which we heard Schumann’s Third String Quartet in A Minor Op.41, followed by two searing, dynamically-presented twentieth-century quartet masterpieces by Dmitri Shostakovich. On a certain level it was a case between the composers of “vive la difference!” (and the Schumann is, I admit, gradually “coming back” for me as a remembered concert listening experience), but at the time the Shostakovich works seemed to literally blow the Schumann Quartet out of the water. The group of people among which I sat were stunned at the end of the concert, by both the music and its realisation, our applause fitful to a fault, not because we didn’t appreciate the performances, but because we were more-or-less flattened by them, and wanted to sit in silence for a bit and let our sensibilities recover. Perhaps people who had heard ensembles like the Borodin Quartet play these works might have been more used to this feeling of being overwhelmed; but these were first-time concert hearings of these works for me, and I couldn’t imagine them being done more brilliantly than by this ensemble.

Some more information regarding the concert: this was one of two presentations designed to play homage to Robert Schumann during his two hundredth birth anniversary year, at which all three of the Op.41 Quartets would be presented. This being Programme One, our portion tonight was the third, and perhaps most elusive of the three, in A Major. Shostakovich was chosen by the NZSQ as a “foil” for Schumann as a quartet-writer, as there were several parallels between the two composers, which quartet-leader Helene Pohl talked eloquently about in between the two works presented in the concert’s first half. Pohl equated Schumann’s psychological duality as a personality with Shostakovich’s politically-enforced double-life, pointing out that both composers strove to reconcile these opposites in their music, while clearly and unequivocally acknowledging and characterising the differences, and the divide between them. I was intrigued at the choice of venue for this concert, wondering whether the ample acoustic of a sizeable church would tell against the characteristic intimacies of the string quartet medium, regardless of the beauty of the surroundings and the atmosphere engendered by the numerous candles placed around and about the sanctuary (this was advertised as a “quartets by candlelight” concert). I need not have worried unduly – after registering a certain “halo of warmth” around and about the sound when the performance started, I found I could discern the lines of the individual instruments quite clearly; and, in fact, I thought the Schumann quartet benefitted immeasurably from its textures being suffused with more glowing warmth than is usual.

Of Schumann’s three quartets, the Third has until now been a kind of “Cinderella” for me, one which seemed more than usually imbued by the composer’s rhythmic obsessiveness, to the work’s overall detriment. This being a judgement I made a good many years previously, I hadn’t sought out this particular work for listening to for some time; and was therefore charmed by my reacquaintance in this performance with the work’s ready lyricism and freely inventive juxtaposing of themes, skilfully realised by the players. They were able to balance most beautifully the tender lyricism of the themes’ expositions with their more forthright working-out, bringing considerable intensity and physicality to the development, but leavening the mood with their flexible and sensitive phrasings. I loved the “sigh” with which the group brought back the opening motto theme – a near-perfect encapsulation of a romantic composer’s world.

This time round I coped better with the scherzo rhythms, which were as obsessive as I remembered, but without being dry (the acoustic probably helping, here). I loved the triplets that came to the rescue of the music’s opening trajectories, and the frenetic contrapuntal energisings which threw more wistful and melancholic moments into relief. Altogether, the two middle movements I found surprisingly compelling, the slow movement quite gorgeously passionate at the outset, the viola leading the opening statements towards even more intense utterances of poetic feeling. The ghostly pulsatings that followed led to darkly-expressed agitations, so richly-coloured by the players, the acoustic imparting an almost “orchestral” ambience to the music argument, though perspectives such as the ‘cello’s wonderfully varied rhythmic pizzicati beneath the soaring lyrical lines remained in an overall “chamber” context. Perhaps the finale’s repetitive opening rhythmic motto runs the risk of becoming too much of a good thing, though Schumann contrasts the mood with tripping figures and a ritualistic round-dance, energetically characterised by the players here, who revelled in the alternations before dashing into a “last hurrah” with the motto rhythm, cranking up both its detailing and its energies for an exhilarating finish to the work.

What can one say about the performance of the Shostakovich works? – except that they were as committed and wholehearted performances of anything I’ve ever seen and heard the NZSQ do. The Fifth Quartet, completed in 1952, was one of a number of works written by Shostakovich over a number of years that had not been offered for performance until after the death of Stalin in 1953, due to the savagery of a previous attack on the composer’s music by the Soviet authorities. The Tenth Symphony was written at around the same time as the quartet, and the two works share a similar breadth and orchestral way of thinking, Shostakovich’s writing in the quartet in places creating a massive, orchestrally-conceived sound. Another link between symphony and quartet is the composer’s use of his motto, the notes DSCH (D/E-flat/C/B) which the viola plays repeatedly in the quartet’s first 12 bars.

At the outset, the NZSQ caught the droll, march-like sense of a long-breathed story about to be told. Episodes of furious activity which followed had an almost visceral, full-blooded quality, matched by the growing sense of unease and rising anxiety, like an approaching firestorm or imminent terror, relieved only by the lyrical waltz-like second subject. The conflicts and intermittent episodes of bleak calm were stunningly delineated by the players, whose focused concentration exerted a kind of surreal hypnotic trance over the auditorium’s listening body, a spell maintained without a discernable break throughout the work’s three continuous movements. Of particular note was the middle Andante movement, whose intensities were coloured by Shostakovich’s use of a melody by a student and fellow-composer, Galina Ustvolskya, with whom it was said he was “emotionally involved” – the NZSQ players demonstrated enormous physical and emotional resources energising these long-breathed intensities before hurling themselves into the final movement’s maelstrom of thematic interaction, and finally sustaining the violin-and-viola-led exhalations of bitter-sweet release that floated uneasily through and around the becalmed vistas.

The Ninth Quartet, has its own peculiar engimatic character, not least because the composer had actually written an earlier version of the work, which he destroyed in what he called “an attack of healthy self-criticism” three years earlier. Where the Fifth Quartet had come across as a brooding work punctuated with powerful, uncompromising outbursts, the Ninth sounded rather more exotic throughout many of its episodes, and certainly in the opening movement. The players gave themselves wholly to a parallel sense of ritual and unease, with sinuous melodies and oscillations at the very beginning criss-crossing over the top of spacious pedal-points. That same intense concentration carried the music unswervingly through the somewhat charged pizzicato jogtrot rhythms, and into the long-breathed elegiac utterances of the second movement than followed. The composer’s penchant for near-manic energies was given full rein by the players in the polka-like dance that sprang from the music’s hesitant pulsings, before some superbly-projected pizzicati declamations (startlingly and effectively repeated at certain cadence-points) redirected our sensibilities into the strange and somewhat grotesque territories of the final movement. The NZSQ players seemed to take us into the heart of each phrase, each succeeding episode, each abrupt change of mood, colour and pace, before throwing everything into the wild concluding dance, with its abruptly sardonic concluding gesture.

The resulting audience acclamations were as much release of pent-up feeling as deep appreciation concerning the music and its performance. It seemed to me hard on Schumann at the time, but such was the visceral and emotional impact of the Shostakovich performances that it took this listener some time to work backwards through the whole worlds of intense feeling wrought by the Russian composer’s  sharply-focused and deeply-weighted evocations towards retrieving the erstwhile beauties of the Schumann quartet’s performance. One could, fatuously at this stage, suggest that Britten’s quartets might have provided a different, and more equally-weighted set of twentieth-century parallels with those of Schumann – but such metaphysical speculation shouldn’t get in the way of acknowledging the NZSQ’s stellar achievement in realising all the music in this concert so very completely and compellingly.

Grant Tilly at the Southcoast Gallery, Cuba St.

Posted on by admin

GRANT TILLY ‘S MAGIC

by Peter Coates

June 25th 2010

Cuba Street in Wellington is developing its own special character when it comes to galleries.Amongst my favourites are Cameron Drawbridge’s South Coast Gallery the Fibre Art “Minerva” Gallery and the” Thistle” with its enterprising youthful exhibitions. All are worth visiting, all bring something special to the Wellington Art Scene. Is Cuba Street doing what our Wellington Gallery should be doing ?

Although very small,  the Southcoast Gallery hosts a delightful exhibtion by the Wellington icon Grant Tilly. I have known Grant for ages – since our times at Wellington Teachers College, and illustrating children’s stories for David Crewes’  “Merry-Go-Round” children’s television programme. Later he played the good soldier Schweyk in my first stage production and fronted and voiced many of my television programmes. Grant is always a delight to work with  and his wonderful sculptural pieces (I will avoid boxes) are a permanent reminder  of  his art and friendship in my home.

Grant’s greatest gifts to his Wellington home have been the seemingly endless brilliant displays of character acting with the professional theatres of Wellington, and his legacy of beautiful drawing of the older parts of Wellington, a legacy that constantly reminds us of what we have lost and warns us of what we must not lose in the future. One of the strong features of his current exhibition are two dimensional  street scenes that take you on walks around some of our lovely old streets. Included in this exhibition also are abstract paintings developed from segments of these unusually perspectived works.

Just to keep us up with his recent artistic developments there are examples of his colourful parrot series and the circus exhibition he had at Pataka. The ingenius is evident in everything he does, and Grant like every good artist moves steadily into new challenges.

Keep it up Grant. Everyone who calls himself/herself a Wellingtonian should have one of his works in their home.


Warmth amid the cold – Song Recital at Old St.Paul’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Music by A.Scarlatti, Pergolesi, Marcello, Durante, Vaughan Williams, Poulenc and Copland

Janey MacKenzie (soprano)

Robin Jaquiery (piano)

Old St.Paul’s Church, Thorndon

Tuesday 8th June 2010

Despite the rain and cold doing its best to dampen people’s concert-going inclinations, soprano Janey MacKenzie got a heartening and enthusiastic attendance of determined music-lovers at her lunchtime recital with pianist Robyn Jaquiery at Old St.Paul’s Church.

The performers very quickly made up for the inclement weather through their communicative warmth and whole-hearted enjoyment of what they were presenting for their audience’s grateful pleasure, an interchange evident from the response to the very first item, one of four early Italian songs by various composers. Janey MacKenzie had instantly disarmed our reserve at the beginning by brandishing what she called “the dreaded book” of Italian art-songs, a volume which she contended every vocal coach had worked their students mercilessly through for good or for ill. Whatever associated traumas were suggested by her reference to the tome were nicely dispelled by her performances of the songs, all sung in attractively-nuanced Italian. To begin with, we were given an evocation of an exotic land by Alessandro Scarlatti, “Già il sole dal Gange” (The sun above the Ganges), filled with delight and wonderment of the scene’s romance and colour, followed by a love-song “Se tu m’ami, se sospiri” (If you love me, if you sigh) by Pergolesi, one in which the singer used the occasionally florid passagework to great expressive effect, elsewhere catching the song’s melancholy.  Doubt exists regarding whether Benedetto Marcello actually wrote “Il mio bel foco” (My joyful ardour), but the song is a great one, tricky to negotiate, with plenty of judicious breath-control needed. Both singer and pianist realised the work’s “minor-key” feeling with impressive poise, and gave us finely-controlled upward surges of feeling at the song’s climactic points. Durante’s “Danza, danza, fanciulla gentile” (Dance gentle girl) scampered this way and that in an attractively elfin manner, the musicians working hard to compensate for the church’s rather unresonant acoustic, a true, but dry-ish sound.

The three Vaughan Williams songs which followed included “Linden Lea”, whose melody, although the composer’s own, is probably his most well-known tribute to English folk-song after his orchestral setting of “Greensleeves”. Described as a “Dorset song” by the composer, the setting is of verses by William Barnes, from a collection “Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset dialect”. Janey MacKenzie’s singing gave a “fresh-as-paint” feeling to the work from the outset, though I felt the words of the second verse needed a touch more “point”. The singer’s focus was resharpened with the third verse’s declamatory, almost operatic utterances, melting touchingly into a final remembrance of the low-leaning apple tree at the end – a nice performance. The second song “Silent Noon” brought out long, strong lines, singer and pianist filling out their tones nicely, and the ensuing flowing movement transporting us briefly to realms of rapt enchantment, before pitilessly moving things on once again. And I thought the beautiful backward-looking high note from the singer near the end at the word “song” very affecting. Gorgeously gurgly piano-playing from Robyn Jaquiery set “The Water Mill” on its way, the singer having to negotiate some treacherous rhythmic eddyings and sudden becalmings in the vocal line throughout, perhaps needing, I thought, to give a little bit more juice to the lyrical episodes in places for more of a”storytelling” effect. Otherwise singer and pianist deftly captured much of the subservience of the lives of the miller and his family to the “time-turning” motions of the water-mill, the song’s chief protagonist.

As a prelude to the Poulenc song-cycle “La courte paille” (The short straw), Janey MacKenzie entertained us briefly with an account of the student experiences in Paris of her sometimes vocal-coach Donald Munro, who would turn pages for the composer Francis Poulenc at the piano accompanying Munro’s teacher, baritone Pierre Bernac. The Poulenc cycle is a setting of children’s nonsense poems by Maurice Carême, the music entirely characteristic of this belovedly characterful composer, and vividly brought to life by both musicians. From the opening “Le sommeil” (The Sleep), with its languid sweetness, through the mischievous “Quelle aventure!” (What an adventure!), whose antics brought laughter to our lips, the salon-like “La reine de coeur” (The Queen of Hearts), and the nervy energies of “Ba, Be, Bi, Bo, Bu”, both singer and pianist brought a wealth of characterisations to life, leading our pleasurable expectations ever onward to the next vignette. The musical distillations of the angel musicians seemed straightforward compared to the occasional chromatic venturings of both “Le cafaron” (The baby carafe), and “Lune d’Avril” (April Moon), the latter’s declamatory homage to the moon fearlessly brought off by the singer, and nicely rounded by a beautiful piano postlude.

For a lunchtime concert, the fare was richly satisfying, concluding with some of Aaron Copland’s “Old American Songs”. Beginning with the Shaker song “Simple Gifts”,  Janey MacKenzie nicely differentiated between the slightly held-back first stanza, and the richly-wrought progression towards the certainty of attaining “true simplicity”. After a less-than-certain start, “The Little Horses” got into its stride, both musicians enjoying the “riding into the dark” episodes, and back to the reprise of the lullaby with nary a further mishap. The good humour of “Ching-a-ring Chaw” and the hymn-like American dream-time “At the River” made a good contrast, the restraint of the latter a perfect foil for the final item, a children’s nonsense song “I Bought Me a Cat”, the singer’s deliciously-characterised animal voices capped off by her newly-purchased man’s honeyed tones at the beginning of the final verse – though, of course, the cat still gets the last word!

A St Patrick’s Day ensemble: clarinet, piano and strings

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Leprechaun Ensemble: Philip Green (clarinet), Tom McGrath (piano), Anne Loesser and Cristina Vaszilcsin (violins), Peter Garrity (viola), Rowan Prior (cello)

Clarinet Quintet, K 581 (Mozart), Sextet: Overture on Hebrew Themes (Prokofiev), Piano Quintet, Op 34 (Brahms)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 17 March 2010, 6.30pm

This early evening concert may have been one of the most looked forward to though its audience may have been reduced by the clash with the first of the two concerts by the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra. Those present were richly rewarded.

There was curiosity about the meaning of the name, and the best guess seemed to be the date of the concert, St Patrick’s Day.

Philip Green is co-principal clarinet in the NZSO and he has also made a big contribution to chamber music since coming to New Zealand from Australia in 2002. The sound he produces is very beautiful – steady, clear, capable of a very wide dynamic range and variety of colours, and he performs masterly glissandi and note-bending.

The sequences of up and down arpeggios in the first movement were not simply exercises; they were organic things with individuality, ravishing expressions of musical delight, sounding as if Mozart expected that nothing was likely to disturb the course of his life.    

The first movement is a masterpiece of structure, but also of rapturous melody; the second movement is no less, each instrument displaying the players’ gifts, often most attractive in duet. One of the effects that caught my ear was the alternating phrases between clarinet and the two superb violins where the violins’ tone seemed to merge with the clarinet. The ornaments in the Minuet and Trio were beautifully turned and the clarinet led the movement to a particularly glorious end. None of the repeats in this music were unwelcome; perhaps, even, there were too few! The variations of the Finale were the final source of wonder, the variety of mood and emotion, of colours and decorative effects and the prolonged phrases of the closing page were of unbelievable beauty.

Whether it was decided to play Prokofiev’s sextet first and then to look for a piano quintet to make full use of Tom McGrath; or whether the presence of a clarinet and a piano together with a string quartet led to a search for a piece using all six, who knows?  Prokofiev’s little piece is a charmer, usually heard in its orchestral clothes, but this is the real way. Right at the start I knew we were in for an exemplary performance, right inside the composer’s mind, Its sharp contrasts of mood and tempo make it an engaging piece and these players let no nuance go unexplored and enriched. Makes you wonder that its success did not inspire him to write more for such ensembles.

As if the most beautiful of clarinet quintets (well – what about the Brahms?) was not enough, I shall recklessly suggest that Brahms’s piano quintet, Op 34 made this an evening of absolute ecstasy. There are a couple of other piano quintets of surpassing beauty too, but this one did for, or rather undid, me. I listened to the lovely viola melody in the opening pages, and soon to the duetting by the two violinists (both exceptionally fine musicians and treasured imports from Europe in the past decade to join the NZSO’s first violins). Other charming little musical relationships of twos and three also emerged.

At first I thought the piano was not entirely at one with the quartet, but by the second movement I had completely changed my mind. Sure there was an occasional slip, but McGrath seemed to fall in naturally with the spirit of the string playing, the colour and rubato, their expressiveness.  His hesitant opening phrases in the second movement endeared the piano’s part to me and their sensitivity to moments of restraint or particular emphasis, seemed second nature.  The string players did well to invite McGrath back to Wellington to play with them.

Their instinct for the dramatic found full scope in the last movement, the withholding, and the releasing of tension, finally giving way to the galloping motif than plunges to the finish.  Brahms fecundity seems to know no end; till the very end you sense him, with difficulty, resisting the temptation to let his endless flow of fresh ideas and variants delay him.

I hardly need say this was a wonderful concert.

Cornucopia in big ensembles at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Cornucopia:

Ed Allen (1,3), Heather Thompson (1,3) horns
Rachel Vernon (3) clarinet
Lyndon Taylor (1,2,3), Ursula Evans (1,2) violins
Brian Shillito (1,2,3), Belinda Prentice (3), violas
Sally Pollard (1,2,3), cello
Vicky Jones (3), double bass

1  Beethoven: Sextet in E flat, Op 81b
2  Schubert: Quartettsatz in C minor, D.703
3  Louis Spohr: Octet in E flat, Op 32

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Monday 15 March 2010 12.15pm

Can you cope with all these horns? the name of the group seems to ask.  Yes, when they are played as expertly as Ed Allen and Heather Thompson play them.

The Beethoven sextet proved to be enchanting music, and being an early work, was rather unlike what we think of when we hear the composer’s name.  The playing was very expert, as one would expect from NZSO musicians.  There was warm tone from the strings; Lyndon Taylor, who led the group, impressed particularly as a very accomplished violinist.

Four of the string players gave a lively yet sensitive performance of Schubert’s lovely one-movement string quartet.  This was a gorgeous sound, with every nuance in place.

Spohr’s Octet is a work full of character, with delightful solos as well as superb tuttis.  The first movement featured a charming clarinet solo, notably vibrant violin and viola tone, and the support of Vicky Jones’s five-stringed bass.

The third movement consists of variations based on Handel-known Harmonious Blacksmith theme.  After a very smooth, slow introduction of the the theme, the variations follow, with very different treatment from that accorded by Handel in his E major harpsichord suite.

The horns never overwhelmed the other instruments, but indeed sounded to their best advantage in the acoustic of the church.

The allegretto finale of this work was a jolly affair, showing off each of the instruments.

The concert was a very satisfying experience; one hopes to hear more of this ensemble.

Benefit concert for James Rodgers

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

James Rodgers, tenor, with Jillian Zack, piano

Songs by Tosti, Duparc, Rachmaninov; Winter Words cycle by Benjamin Britten; Arias from Don Giovanni by Mozart and Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky; ‘Sings Harry’ cycle by Douglas Lilburn

Adam Concert Room, Victoria University

Sunday 14 March 2010 7pm

It was good to hear James Rodgers again, after his years studying in the United States.  He provided a generous recital of an interesting variety of works, accompanies by his girlfriend, an excellent pianist.  His spoken introductions were informal and succinct.

The Tosti songs proved that Rodgers has become an very accomplished singer.  But both he and the accompanist had not taken sufficiently into account the size and acoustics of the room they were performing in.  One was reminded of the phrase ‘Never sing louder than lovely’.  Unfortunately, he did – frequently.

I began to wonder if the singer had lost some of the lyrical tenderness his voice formerly had.  I found that he had not, in quiet passages. 

On the whole his words were clear, but less so when the tone was too loud.  Singing in five different languages, Rodgers demonstrated mastery in all of them.

Benjamin Britten’s fine cycle drawn from poems of Thomas Hardy conveyed humour, pathos, and gave scope for variety, which the singer portrayed well.

Three lovely songs of Duparc needed more caressing than they received, especially ‘Chanson Triste’.  I could not help but contrast the performance with the way Gerard Souzay sang these masterpieces.  While Rodgers cannot be expected to be at the level of the mature Souzay, the latter’s is a model worth aspiring to.

‘Il mio tesoro’ from Mozart’s Don Giovanni suited Rodgers well; both that aria and ‘Kuda, Kuda’ from Eugene Onegin were rendered in excellent fashion, with subtlety and variety of timbre and volume.

The Tudor Consort sings Byrd

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Motets from the two volumes of William Byrd’s Gradualia; two organ fantasias; Motet: ‘Domine quis habitabit’

The Tudor Consort conducted by Michael Stewart, with Douglas Mews (organ)

Sopranos Jane McKinlay, Anna Sedcole, Erin King; alto Andrea Cochrane; counter-tenor Dimitrios Theodoridis; tenors Philip Roderick and Richard Taylor; basses Brian Hesketh, Matthew Painter, Richard Walley.

Cathedral of the Sacred Heart; Saturday 13 February 2010

The Tudor Consort’s first concert of 2010 was wholly devoted to vocal liturgical music by William Byrd, apart from the inclusion of two of his keyboard fantasias played by Douglas Mews.

The choir’s director, Michael Stewart, spoke before the concert about Byrd’s two volumes of Gradualia, a term used sometimes used for the settings of the ‘Proper’ of the Mass – the part that varies according to the festivals of the church calendar – as well as for one section within the ‘Proper’; and he distinguished the ‘Proper’ from the ‘Ordinary’ of the mass whose six parts are unvarying: the usual content of musical mass settings. He also spoke of Byrd’s difficult times as a Catholic in the reign of Protestant monarchs Elizabeth I and James I, and the effect it had on his musical settings; and touched on the textual difficulties of Byrd’s publications, particularly of the first Volume of Gradualia.

Though ten members of the choir were on hand, most of the pieces were sung one voice to a part, varying between four and six voices; the final motet, ‘Domine quis habitabit’, demanded nine voices.

Though this was undoubtedly authentic in terms of the forces Byrd was probably limited to in Protestant England, we have no way of knowing whether, if his Catholic liturgical music had been written in times when performances did not have to be very private and small scale, he would not have expected a larger choir. Does it really serve the music well to pursue authenticity in such a literal way?

One voice to a part is undoubtedly a more challenging matter than singing in a larger choir where a good blend is probably easier to achieve and the experience for each singer is no doubt less nerve-wracking; and where the enjoyment of the audience might just be increased.

For the most part rehearsals seemed to have produced reasonable confidence in the singers. These are talented and well-schooled singers, but throughout the concert I was never unaware that the very distinct voices did not blend particularly well to create an illusion of real homogeneity.

The voices that stood out tended to be the high ones: the three sopranos and counter-tenor Dimitrios Theodoridis. In the pieces from the first volume of Gradualia, the strong and penetrating voices of Theodoridis and Anna Sedcole were conspicuous while mezzo Andrea Cochrane’s warm voice seemed rather better adapted to creating a successful blend. She, and the lower men’s voices, created an attractive liturgical ambience.

The ten singers took turns singing in each group of motets, adhering strictly to one voice to a part. The concert took examples of the 109 motets that comprise the two books, for various feasts or festivals: for the Virgin Mary in Advent, for Corpus Christi, for Pentecost, for the Assumption and for Saints Peter and Paul.

Jane McKinlay took over the soprano role in the next group, for Corpus Christi, her voice a little more readily blending, in the calm Offertory and the following ‘Ave verum corpus‘ where hers was the only female voice, supported by the two tenors Philip Roderick and Richard Taylor and bass Matthew Painter; something of a real choral sound was produced. The singing succeeded in reflecting the gruesome nature of the words contemplating Christ’s mutilated body.

Though the range of vocal styles is limited, the subtle differences emerge as the ear and mind become acclimatized; the Sequence from the Pentacost Propers, ‘Veni sancta spiritus’ expressed through lively dotted rhythms, was an interesting case.

I detected some uncertainty in the next motet, ‘Factus est repente’ and raggedness in the Assumption Introit, ‘Gaudeamus omnes’. But the general precision and the scrupulous attention that had been paid to dynamics and intonation were far more noteworthy.

Douglas Mews played two fantasias on the chamber organ; the first, Byrd’s own arrangement of one of his fantasias for viol consort, the other an original organ fantasia. The first, in C, struck me as rather overcome by its subdued character, its interest lying in its slowly evolving textures; the second, in A minor, was probably an early piece, not very sophisticated though technically accomplished; the playing suggested some hesitancy.

The final motet, ‘Domine quis habitabit’, came as something of a welcome change, partly because it uses more voices and offered a wider sonic palette, with less tendency for individual voices to dominate. It too was an early work, as the programme note points out, thus closer in spirit and technique to Tallis, and perhaps not as representative of the mature Byrd as are the Gradualia. Nevertheless the constant, elaborate counterpoint was an impressive statement of the composer’s genius. It was a happy conclusion to the concert, allowing us finally to enjoy the essential strength and skill of the choir.

There is another question that I’m prompted to raise here.

In a time when Christian belief and practice are at a historic low, and familiarity with the terminology of the liturgy and church practice are only vaguely understood by the majority and probably not even very well by many Catholic adherents, is it time that the presumption of understanding of the arcane references to the liturgy and church ritual, without elucidation, was reconsidered? Short glossary notes should be routinely offered whenever such expressions are used.

While Stewart did explain the significance of the Ordinary and the Proper of the Mass, such pains were not routine. To take a few examples of terms for which no explanation was offered. First: the meaning and significance and place in the service of the Gradual, Antiphon, Introit, Offertory, Responsory, Eucharist; and what is ‘a votive mass’? And it should be routine to set down the dates and meanings of the various Christian feasts – Assumption, Pentecost, Advent, Annunciation, etc. There is a great deal more.

As with so much else in the realm of ‘classical’ music, the use of such terms, without simple explanation, is very likely one of the reasons this music is considered ‘elitist’, beyond the reach of the un-trained, the un-lettered: in fact, the great majority of people who are no longer exposed by their families, at any point in their school lives, or subsequently through the media, to religious liturgy or classical music of any kind.

 

Fulcher in Great music at St Paul’s lunchtime

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Ciacona in E minor, BuxWV 160 (Buxtehude); Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue (Healey Willan); Chaconne (Holst); Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582 (Bach)

Michael Fulcher (organ)

Cathedral of St Paul, Friday 6 November 2009

The second to last in the approximately monthly series of 12.45pm recitals was by the cathedral’s director of music, Michael Fulcher.

In his notes to the programme he remarked how his idea to focus on the passacaglia (and its cousin the chaconne) had awakened him to its scope, which he thinks can easily fill four full programmes. There will be more next year.

Nothing could better illustrate the depth and sheer intellectual potential of the organ repertoire than the many works over the centuries that have been built on the renaissance courtly dance in slow triple rhythm. It has not been confined to the organ of course; The most famous of all chaconnes is no doubt that in Bach’s D minor solo violin partita; and then there’s the great finale of Brahms’s Fourth Symphony.

A good recital seeks to awaken its listeners to music that they probably do not know, and this succeeded magnificently. Buxtehude specialists would have known his Ciaconna, a most engaging piece in which the undulating chaconne theme opens on both manuals and pedals. Though its performance, and that of the Bach later, on a large modern organ which emphasizes the weight and diapason opulence, would have surprised the composer, the music seemed to thrive in that climate; and it was further enriched in the cathedral’s long reverberation.

The second piece was new to me, its composer no more than a name. Healey Willan lived from 1880 till 1968, born in England but lived in Canada from the age of 33; his Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue was written for a Toronto organ in 1916. Its three sections are distinct, unlike Bach’s piece that followed, where the passacaglia rather merges into the fugue. The Introduction announced the character of the whole work, serious and noble, enlivened by varied registrations, the building of climaxes through the increasing complexity of interesting harmonies and the opening and closing of the swell box.

The fugue, at its start, served to clarify the dense emotional atmosphere that the Passacaglia had created; Fulcher’s dramatic skill then led the music towards a powerful final climax: his note had warned us to expect an exhilarating piece and that quality was vividly present in the fugue’s conclusion.

Before the Bach, Fulcher played an arrangement of the Chaconne from Holst’s First Suite for Military Band, so well disguised that its original as open air band music would hardly have been guessed. Spacious, grand, with its effective use of the slow triple time.

Fulcher invested Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue, BWV 582, with its elaborate structure and variety of rhythms and colourings, with such a sense of being of today that it might have been the most modern piece in the programme. Its emphatic pedal theme can start to be monotonous in the hands (and feet) of a lesser player, but here the combination of a colourful organ and an organist able to exploit varied registrations, embroidered with sensitive rhythmic patterns made it a splendid finale to the concert, which should induce the audience to watch out for further organ recitals from Fulcher – and indeed the several other excellent organists in the city.