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Orchestra Wellington – heroically fulfilling the need for music

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Orchestra Wellington presents:
A MODERN HERO

EVE de CASTRO-ROBINSON – Hour of Lead
BENJAMIN BRITTEN – War Requiem

Morag Atchison (soprano)
Daniel Szesiong Todd (tenor)
Benson Wilson (baritone)

Orpheus Choir, Wellington
Wellington Young Voices

Orchestra Wellington
Marc Taddei (music director)

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday 7th December, 2024

What could possibly preface in concert a work such as Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem?  Here, on Saturday, at Orchestra Wellington’s epic presentation “A Modern Hero”, that challenge was taken up by Auckland composer Eve de Castro Robinson with her brief but searingly concentrated orchestral composition “Hour of Lead”, a sonorous meditation on a similarly-titled poem by Emily Dickinson.

The poet’s words explore the consciousness of pain in a variety of forms and processings, its progressions variously rapier-like, systematic and torpid, with responses paralleling thought, reflex and movement, as do the different characters of the four movements of de Castro Robinson’s work, with each outwardly signing inner turmoil. The first, Searing, takes just milliseconds to live up to its name, with an opening ostinato suddenly pierced by screams. The rhythms trundle jazzily onwards, set upon by punch-drunk szforzandi, whose assaults bring forth raucous clamourings, and building to a tutti for the tumultuous ages. After this comes music of the air, Bittersweet, a vertiginous scenario whose incessant movement quixotically dissolves into a juicily-flavoured hymnal, and reaching zany volume levels with a single, tumultuously constituted chord that eventually self-destructs!

Next is Leaden, with its “quartz contentment”, deeply-wrought sounds with richly-purposeful rumblings, its darkness countering the previous movement’s scintillations. A flowing viola/cello melody sings above the rhythms as winds and brass emit birdlike sighs and cries, which brass turn into gargantuan earth-groans – how wonderful to hear the  strings playing an Orpheus-like role here, their sounds taming the beasts’ convulsions, raising their spirits, and suggesting an ecstasy on the other side of the darkness which reclaims the last few bars.

“Remembered, if outlived” says the poem; and the beginning of the final Chilling scintillates on percussion, winds and high-register-strings before becoming almost extra-terrestrial, freed from gravity and atmosphere! –  all impulses are drawn towards a super-galactic kind of rendition of “Abide with Me”, a kind of invitation for sensibilities frozen in the manner of “centuries before” . Perhaps the “stupor – then the letting go” is the reawakening of human consciousness via the bringing into being a gloriously aleatoric-like pitchless chord which grows to fullness before being “taken up” by the same players’ stamping,, clattering, and then gradually receding footsteps – whether “taken up”, or “being taken”, one is not quite sure, but what an enigmatically human way to end the piece! After such colourful coruscations, the appearance of the piece’s composer, Eve de Castro Robinson, called to the platform at the end, seemed like some kind of angelic or otherwise blessed visitant, come to lift the spell by which her work had held us all in thrall.

And so, to the Britten – after the extra players and singers and their conductor had all made their entrances and set themselves up to begin, conductor Marc Taddei raised his baton and the first sounds of the War Requiem were made by the strings, awkwardly-pulsating figures gradually brought to life. For some reason I felt a proper sense of “atmosphere” lacking, without being able to put my finger on just what was missing – and only right at the work’s ending did I experience what could have made an enormous difference at the beginning. Accompanying the final exchanges between the children’s choir at the words Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis, and the main chorus’s Requiescant in pace, Amen  was the stunning effect of gradual dimming  the stage lighting to near-darkness, the voices’ diminuendo contriving the sounds to disappear as if by magic. How wonderful, I thought, if the work had begun this way, and the lights gradually brought up as the music threaded its way towards its first climax at the choir’s first full-blooded Et lux perpetua luceat eis joined by full-throated bells and percussion!

Britten’s use of the tritone, the interval C-F-sharp, in medieval times known as “diabolus in musica” (the devil in music) dominates these opening exchanges, here brought off tellingly by both voices and orchestra, the composer seeking to suitably “haunt” the text’s idea of “eternal rest”,  usually, in conventional requiems, given the most consoling music possible.  Increased tensions crackled and blistered with the tenor’s first solo entry intoning the first of poet Wilfred Owen’s bitterly challenging verses “What passing bells for these who die as cattle?” – though I found Daniel Szesiong Todd’s enunciation of the words less than clear, he still conveyed the words’ terrible ironies, along with the sounds depicting the battlefield slaughter and the “tenderness of silent minds”. All of the forebodings were then given full vent in the brutal contrasts which followed, the rapt “Kyrie/Christe eleisons” and the great onslaught of instrumental and vocal sounds of “Dies Irae”. Just as awe-inspiring and pitying were the poet’s words in the at once tranquil and fearful, “Bugles sang” which followed,  redolent with echoes of the “Dies Irae” in baritone Benson Wilson ’s hushed but growingly apprehensive conveyance of the bugles’ tones, sounding their sorrowful calls and catching the portentous mood.

Though Morag Atchison’s soprano tones “spread” when put under pressure in the “Liber Scriptus”, she effectively and sonorously “nailed” the text’s message that nothing would remain unjudged or unavenged, sentiments echoed by the chorus’s troubled utterances at “Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?” and by the soprano’s stentorian “Rex tremendae majestatis!” Then, the poet’s supremely ironic “Out there” verses came bounding in, the two soldiers teasing death as a playfellow, an “old chum” , and never as an “enemy of ours”. (we could have done with surtitles for the poetry as the auditorium was too dark to be able to properly follow the words in the programme)!

The chorus splendidly contrasted the women’s prayerful “Recordare Jesu pie” with the men’s later, jagged-edged “Confutatis maledictis”, halted by the timpani’s introduction to the baritone’s saluting of the great gun – “thou long black arm” – ironically addressing its malevolence before uttering a curse upon its being (though the words were not clear the tone of voice was unmistakeable! – great timpani and brass playing, here!). Its brazen function then became clear as the music burst once again into ”Dies Irae”, again magnificently  delivered, but then dramatically slowing, and holding everything in cosmic thrall for the “Lacrimosa” to make its heart-wrenching appearance  – Morag Atchison’s singing was to die for, here!  Britten brilliantly uses the “Lacrimosa” in tandem with what are perhaps Wilfred Owen’s most moving verses in the entire work – “Move him gently into the sun” – no matter that the words were not entirely clear in places, as the overall sense of grief was here palpable beyond description. I think we needed to have been told, somewhere, that there was an interval at this point, because we were uncertain as to what to do at first, after the choir had breathed its concluding “Dona eis requiem” – still, our somewhat mesmerised state wasn’t inappropriate!

As with every note these angelic voices sang this evening, the Wellington Young Voices’ Choir covered itself in glory  with the Offertorium that began the work’s second half – and, not to be outdone, the Orpheus voices then launched into the text with sterling orchestral support, firstly at Sed signifier sanctus Michael, and then giving us a deliciously-crafted fugal romp through Quam olim Abrahae promisisti, one whose conclusion then tossed the momentums into the introduction to another of  Owen’s poems. This one was a setting based on part of the composer’s earlier canticle, “Abraham and Isaac”, but this time with a different and brutal ending to the story. Both soloists here projected their texts more clearly, combining their voices particularly beautifully when describing the “Ram of Pride” sent by God for sacrifice –  glorious singing again from the Young Voices here, in heart-breaking response to the story’s murderous end, in which we were told Abraham “slew his son, and half the seed of Europe, one by one!”, the soloists obsessively repeating the final phrase of the poem. Afterwards, the choir and orchestra then returned to the “Quam olim Abrahae” fugal passage to complete the savage irony of the tale.

Came the Sanctus, resplendent in its glory and especially so in the wake of the Parable’s bitterness – a plethora of shimmering instrumental tintinnabulations and with ecstatic acclamations from the soprano, after which the choir divided into eight parts for Pleni sunt Caeli in terra (the choir stood up section by section, which created great visual excitement!), using the rapidly-repeated words to create an excitable babble of ever-burgeoning voices to the accompaniment of a great instrumental crescendo!  A pause, and then brasses and voices began firstly, the Hosanna in excelsis and then, led by the soprano, the gentler, more processional  Benedictus, the interactive flow here kept alive with great presence by Morag Atchison interacting with voices and orchestra under Marc Taddei’s expert control.

A final Hosanna from chorus and orchestra produced a concluding flourish, and the baritone began Owen’s thoughtful meditation, The End, the poem questioning  the Earth’s capacities for forgiveness of humankind for the carnage, with the beautiful instrumental colourings accorded the words’ images emphasising the bleakness of  the previous music’s religious exaltation. Again, the solo singer’s words were difficult to make out, but the sense of desolation held fast.  The tenor’s rendition of the following verses from At a Calvary Near the Ancre intersected here with the choir’s sing of “Agnus Dei” from the Requiem Mass, the words again highlighting the poet’s angst and anger with war – here, Owen castigates the institutionalisation of  Christian faith and patriotism  by clergy and polilticians. with Britten’s own pacifism never more unequivocally articulated than in this part of the work.

The Libera me, as with Verdi’s setting in his famous Requiem Mass, contains some of the most searing and heartfelt writing, with again, in Britten’s work the universal plea for deliverance and mercy extended to include the “pity of war”.  The opening here was as portentous as anything by Berlioz or Verdi, with the writing filled with vertiginously fearsome chromatic shifts of harmony and colour, gathering momentum and fervour, and brought into sharp focus for us by the soprano’s sudden entry (“Tremens! – Factus sum ergo!”) when she spits out her words, bring the choir’s voices with her, and realising with the orchestra a cataclysmic ferment of energies and strengths –  a truly apocalyptic threshold through which we were taken and left gasping as the sounds gradually died away, leaving the  two soldiers about whom this work has told us such a lot, and, of course, very much on our behalf!

Which left the poet’s last text, a poem called “Strange Meeting”, bringing to us a dream-like sequence  in which Owen describes an encounter involving two soldiers who had been on opposing sides in a battle, one of whom had killed the other in combat – “I am the enemy you killed, my friend”…. exchanging as well “the undone years, the hopelessness” along with “the pity of war, the pity war distilled”, and bringing to bear the desire to cleanse the human spirit with water from the “sweet wells we sunk too deep for war”. And it was difficult to remain dry-eyed throughout the music of reconciliation, with the two men sharing the line “Let us sleep now” in a sequence magically wrought all about its perimeters by the choir’s intoning the Latin hymn In Paradisum – “Into Paradise may the Angels lead thee”, but with Britten again disturbing the conventional idea of “eternal rest” of such commemorations by using the tri-tone interval for the Children’s Chorus’s final utterances of “Requiem Aeternam….” as a kind of “warning” for mankind.

Then came a stunningly evocative ambient withdrawal from the work’s world, achieved by the slowest of diminuendi throughout the work’s final chord sequence, allowing the performers and their sounds to magically and memorably dissolve into the darkness. It was only then I found myself wishing that the musicians had brought the work’s beginning out of the same darkness at its beginning – a work that everybody had so brilliantly recreated for our on behalf of the genius who wrote this music…..

Luu Hong Quang’s Liszt recording proclaims its lustre on Rattle Records

Posted on by Peter Mechen

FRANZ LISZT –  Etudes d’execution transcendante S.139 (Transcendental Etudes)

Luu Hong Quang (piano)

Rattle Records RAT-D152 2024

Reviewed  “Middle C” November 2024

Vietnamese pianist Luu Hong Quang is currently (2024) in Wellington while studying for his Doctorate of Music with Professor Jian Liu at Victoria University’s School of Music. It’s a far-flung location from which to throw down the gauntlet to the wider world of pianism at large – but Quang has done this with a new release from Rattle Records which presents one of the piano repertoire’s most formidably challenging works, Franz Liszt’s “Etudes d’execution transcendante”. The recording was actually one that Quang made, appropriately enough, in the concert hall built next to Liszt’s actual birthplace in Raiding, Austria (formerly known as Doborján when part of Hungary at the time of the composer’s birth). No precise recording dates are given, though the pianist recounts in a booklet note a sense of the pilgrimage undertaken over a period of eighteen months to learn and master the work, which culminated in his first public performance in December 2022 at the Vietnam National Academy of Music in Hanoi. (I have since contacted Luu Hong Quang and learned that the recording took place in July, 2023.)

The genesis of Liszt’s Etudes is well-known, having their origins in twelve studies (Étude en douze exercices) he first wrote in 1826 when barely sixteen, then majorly elaborating on them in 1837 (Douze Grandes Études), after having fallen under the performing spell of Paganini and determined to emulate on the piano what the already legendary fiddler was achieving on the violin. By the 1850s, and having long given up the life of the virtuoso, Liszt then resolved to bring some of his youthful technical excesses to heel and “simplify” the studies (only one, “Mazeppa”, is considered even more difficult in its 1852 revision), emphasising the pieces’ poetry and grandeur and generally “playing down” their overtly prestidigitatorial qualities. And while the lighter Erard pianos of the 1830s made those earlier versions less awkward to manage, the heavier “action” of the newer pianos from Russia and Vienna which were gaining in popularity made passages from the 1837 Etudes impossible for all but the fingers of a Liszt!

Even so, for years these works were regarded as the preserve of “super-virtuosi”, having to wait until February 1903 to received their first documented premiere performance as a complete set from the legendary Ferruccio Busoni at the Berlin Beethoven-Saal. Traversals of the entire set remained rare both in concert and on record in the intervening years up to the 1960s – notables such as Egon Petri (1927), Jose Iturbi (1930), Jean Doyen (1943) and Earl Wild (1957) gave concert performances – but the first complete recording wasn’t set down until 1956, when Russian/American pianist Alexander Borovsky recorded the work for Vox, followed then by Gyorgy Cziffra in 1958 and Lazar Berman in 1959. Incidentally (and surprisingly), I can find only a single concert performance of the cycle thus far documented in New Zealand, that by visiting American pianist Kyrill Gerstein performed in Auckland in 2015.

Flash forward to 2024 and it seems as if a “virtuoso revolution” has taken place in world pianism since the Millenium, with almost fifty versions of the Transcendental Etudes I counted as currently available on recordings listed on the prestigious “Presto Classical” website. And now adding to that number will be Luu Hong Quang’s brilliantly-played disc, produced and sonorously recorded and mixed by Paul Carasco, and elegantly presented by Steve Garden’s Rattle Records in association with the support of Professor Jack Richards.

I decided I wouldn’t here set Quang’s recording against any other of today’s “super-virtuosi” for direct comparison, but rather allow my responses to resonate within my own sound-world of accumulated memory and feeling from experiences of first getting to know these works well. This took place through what have since become classic recordings of the complete 1852 set made by Louis Kentner, Lazar Berman and Claudio Arrau (I also heard a recital disc of Vladimir Ashkenazy’s at this time, though, sadly, only of excerpts).  These were the performances which I’d first encountered and which had, from my first hearing of “Harmonies du soir” on that single Ashkenazy disc, drawn me irretrievably into the sound-world of what I came to regard as one of the composer’s most astounding creative achievements. In the light of those three stellar, though vastly different performances quoted above, Quang’s performances are as much redolent of my youthful impressions of this music as they seem freshly-minted to my ears – on a superficial level they most resemble Louis Kentner’s in that they seem primarily concerned with each piece’s “inner being” rather than its external display of whatever. Which is not to say that Lazar Berman, Claudio Arrau or Vladimir Ashkenazy all put virtuoso display ahead of poetic feeling in their readings, but rather that Quang, like Kentner, seemed to unselfconsciously intertwine the music’s “wow” element inextricably with its poetry, so as to constantly draw attention to the view rather than merely to an interpreter’s presentation of it.

Thus the opening “Preludio”, intended to arrest the listener’s attention right from the outset, does so with a true Lisztian combination of brilliance, quixotic wit and suggestive harmonic sleight-of-hand, Quang announcing the composer’s and his music’s credentials in an action-packed nutshell. Though most of the studies have descriptive titles, we’re then plunged straight into one of the two for whom Liszt named merely by their key, in this case A Minor, whose opening rhythmically resembles Beethoven’s famous C Minor Symphony’s opening, but whose restless, quixotic character suggests a more compulsively whimsical spirit – Quang’s playing brings to mind his own reference in the notes to Paganini himself.

Things settle down with the beautiful “Paysage”, a landscape conceived here, it seems from “out of the air’, such is the spontaneity of phrasing and colour that Quang conjures from the notes, with the wonderfully dramatic midway modulation taking us into a differently-hued world for a few precious moments before the tranquility returns. This is all precipitately detonated by the opening drama of “Mazeppa”, with its arresting opening chords and portentous stirrings of agitation leading to the remorseless drama of a wild and torturous captive horseback ride, Quang’s strength and agility ably suggesting by turns the hero’s desperate plight, his longing for release, and eventually, his triumphal redemption. And, in the wake of these heady heroics comes the alchemic magic of the following “Feux Follets” (Will-o’the Wisps), one of Liszt’s absolute masterpieces, famous for its demands on the player regarding velocity, tonal shading, finger-control and poetic evocation, all of which Quang achieves with meticulous differentiation and bewildering evanescent manifestation.

How different is the dark, mysteriously-voiced “Vision” which follows, a grim and black-toned G minor presence whose aspect takes on a proud glow from within under Quang’s fingers as the music’s heroic spirit is awakened and enlivened. Perhaps he isn’t as intensely visionary as Kentner or as granite-toned as Arrau in this music but, as in the following “Eroica”, he conveys in places as telling an awareness of the music’s poetry as its physical forcefulness – he grows the latter piece through its strong-willed opening flourishes, treating us to an intrepid journey from whimsical beginnings through a vainglorious display of valour, before circumspection proclaims that honour is satisfied. No such hint of heedfulness attends the next piece, however – the tumultuous “Wilde Jagd” beloved of German folklore as “Wild Hunt”, here given a tremendous, frenetic opening by Quang before settling to the chase in an almost carnival spirit, complete with a “hunting song”! The subsequent building-up of the music’s sheer physicality and strenuous vigour reaches cataclysmic levels in the pianist’s hands before it all seems to collapse in sheer exhaustion!

All of this leads to what seem to me the disc’s most remarkable performances, beginning with the heart-warming poetry of Quang’s playing of “Ricordanza” (Memories), a piece haunted by ghosts of memory depicted in the music’s piquant figurations and flourishes, shades of the past “filled out” with exquisitely-wrought manifestations – Busoni’s famous and incomparable “discovery of old love-letters” description of the piece is referred to by the pianist in his notes. As befits one of the great musical love-poems, Quang’s playing touches the heart of this listener for one, with its spontaneous-sounding evocations of remembrances couched in terms of a slow-moving, emotion-laden “dance” framed by frequent impulses denoting poignantly-suggestive things whose nature remains indefinite.

The following F Minor Study follows on its predecessor’s heels almost attacca – as well might a piece marked allegro agitato molto!  Quang gives the oft-repeated opening figure more urgency than does Kentner, who keeps the figurations in trajectorial step with their overall context (by contrast Lazar Berman almost eviscerates the figures’ notes themselves with his rapid-fire delivery!). But how deftly Quang manages the midway transition back to the piece’s beginning, splendidly reiterating both the angst-laden declamatory theme and the return to the opening agitations, with those exciting  running syncopations leading to the piece’s coup de grace!

I’ve written of the indelible impression made on me by this work as one wrought by “Harmonies du soir” – and so it’s fitting that Quang here brings the listener to a kind of apex of achievement with this study and its “mirror image” that follows, the equally remarkable “Chasse Neige”. But even now, fifty years after first hearing those opening notes of “Harmonies” sound their opening embrace that enfolds those impulses they give rise to, I still find myself wreathed in that same wonderment as nature’s bells are softly set ringing and then enjoined by a second theme to give full tongue in praise of creation’s beauteous manifestations – and here, nothing is forced or strained but wholeheartedly ‘’released” through the pianist’s obvious love of his subject and his palpable skills and sensibilities.

How prescient of Liszt to give the cycle’s last word to nature, leaving the listener with a sense of worldly impermanence, almost a “Sic transit gloria mundi” observation as the remorseless snows of “Chasse Neige” cover over all trace of the lives made so manifest throughout the rest of the pieces – Quang is totally at one with the composer, here, revelling in the overlapping surges of tone in the piece’s middle section and bringing off the concluding “claw-like” gesture of farewell at the end with suitable gravitas and finality.

Luu Hong Quang would do well to be proud of his response to this “marathon” challenge  with, in his own words  – “a true milestone in (an) artistic journey” – may we hope he might, before too long, undertake to put a proper girdle about the earth by enabling this astonishing work to live and breathe in concert for only a second time within these far-flung spaces of our own hemisphere!

 

Orchestra Wellington’s “The Jazz Age” – innovative, big-boned and fulsome!

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Orchestra Wellington presents:
“The Jazz Age”

KEITH MOSS – A Kalahari Eclogue
Arohanui Strings and Orchestra Wellington

GEORGE GERSHWIN (arr. RUSS GARCIA) – Porgy and Bess
Deborah Wai Kapohe (soprano)
Eddie Muliaumaseali’i (bass)
Siliga Sani Muliaumaseali’i (tenor)
Signature Choir,
Orchestra Wellington
Marc Taddei – Music Director

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington
Saturday, 9th November 2024

Orchestra Wellington, under the directorship of Marc Taddei, continues to bring off presentations whose initiative, innovation and execution continue to engage, astonish and delight audiences, as with the band’s latest endeavour “The Jazz Age”. This concert’s showpiece was obviously George Gershwin’s groundbreaking 1935 folk-opera “Porgy and Bess”, but here done with a difference – a shortened concert performance featuring iconic Hollywood arranger Russell Garcia’s innovative reorchestration of the work for jazz performers, and served up within a framework of a “live” 1930s radio broadcast, complete with announcer, and commercial breaks!

Arohanui Strings perform with Orchestra Wellington and Music Director Marc Taddei at the Orchestra’s latest concert “The Jazz Age”

Included on the programme as an introduction were two other items whose performances featured the recent activities of the Sistema-inspired “Arohanui Strings” trainee pupils, with the older students taking part in the concert’s opening work “A Kalahari Eclogue” by South African composer Keith Moss (currently resident in New Zealand), and then being more-or-less “upstaged” by what music director Marc Taddei aptly called “cuteness” in the form of the Strings’ youngest members coming onto the performing platform, to the audience’s delight!

Taddei’s introduction for the Arohanui Ensemble included a comment concerning the SECOND instance I’ve recently learned of a music educational group in Aotearoa having its funding cut for 2025 by Creative New Zealand (the other being the Wellington Youth Orchestra), continuing what another commentator described as a “baffling” withdrawal of investment in the region’s future artistic development. Not, of course, a priority for our present Government to investigate, one would expect……but on an administrative and supportive level it’s a particularly unhelpful response to the Arohanui Strings Trust’s recent extension of activities in adding brass and woodwind classes for children.

Keith Moss’s “A Kalahari Eclogue” (commissioned by SOUNZ for Orchestra Wellington and Arohanui Strings) suitably evoked a “landscape” here, with the lower strings right at the beginning setting the scene and awakening consciousness from other parts of the orchestra, with ruminatory themes provoking impulses of colour from winds and percussion before developing and voicing their own intensities. A string “chant” was answered by a horn solo, joined by brass ostinato whose insistence brought forth song-like string textures and colourful washes of brass. The figures then interplayed and built to a tremendous climax, capped off and silenced by percussion – having thus encompassed the vastness of the territories, the piece allowed the winds a kind of “and so it goes” comment, an appropriate conclusion to this engaging and evocative piece, and most suitably given a warm reception.

By way of further encouragement for the youthful “Arohanui Strings” players, the orchestra launched into an unnamed Astor Piazzola Tango, before bringing onto the platform the aforementioned junior members of the group – undaunted, they gave us, by turns, spirited and lyrical renditions of “Frere Jacques’ and the classic Maori melody “Hine, e Hine”, before bringing the house down with Offenbach’s famous “Can-can”, firstly at a moderate tempi, and then at Taddei’s insistence, at a far more exhilarating clip! What an experience for those youngsters and for their tutors, to be thus involved in Orchestra Wellington’s inspired presentation!

Came the interval, and while the audience enjoyed its customary walkabout interlude the performing platform was a fascinating hive of activity, with the various groups of musicians’ and technicians’ coming-and-going, accompanied by snatches of jazz-like music, simulating a kind of event set-up and building a kind of anticipatory excitement. It soon became clear that this was a kind of radio-station-broadcast scenario featuring Gershwin’s famous folk-opera – and, being radio, the emphasis was firmly on the music rather than any kind of stage production.

The programme notes told us that we were to hear an award-winning “jazz arrangement” of the work first conceived in 1956 by the legendary composer and arranger Russell Garcia, and made famous world-wide in a recording the following year featuring performers Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong in the opera’s title roles, and conducted by Garcia. It was one of a number of varying presentations of Gershwin’s original folk-opera at that time, which would have been many people’s first experience of hearing those famous “numbers” as belonging to a “whole”, however far removed from the composer’s original.

Clearly, tonight’s performance was a “knockout”, with singing and playing and overall presentation that completely “owned” the idea and its execution – that this was a period-style radio broadcast, all atmospherically set-up with a compere introducing the show and singers who even performed commercials on behalf of a sponsor, along the way! Though there was no “stage action” as such, the show’s compere, tenor Siliga Sani Muliaumaseali’i, adroitly “telescoped” parts of the story’s unfolding with quick-fire narrations in places, and the other singers, soprano Deborah Wai Kapohe and bass Eddie Muliaumaseali’i, took various parts besides the title-roles, all of which they brought off with considerable aplomb. The resourceful “Signature Choir” plotted its course sonorously through various functions, among them a gorgeous vocal quartet’s delightful “commercial breaks”, and several well-focused solo voices contributing to the opera’s roles (the “Honey Man”, the “Strawberry Woman” and the “Devil Crab Man”) besides the group’s heartfelt “Doctor Jesus” prayers, pleas and laments during the storm and its sequel.

Right with the singers all the way was the magnificent Orchestra Wellington, whose playing was, in a number of ways, incredible! The energy, the enthusiasm, the deftness, the timing, the accuracy, and the sheer sound of the orchestra in all its parts was a tribute to the skills of each player, to the ensemble at large and to its indefatigable maestro, Marc Taddei. Shut your eyes and you could have been in any great concert-hall in the world, or so it seemed, in terms of the sound of a crack orchestra seeming to play its insides out. My reaction is, I must admit, tempered by my familiarity with Gershwin’s original “folk-opera” score via recordings I’ve been listening to a lot, lately, and which has left me somewhat disconcerted by the fabled Russ Garcia’s “arrangements” of Gershwin, much of which, to my ears, seemed excessively heavy and in places contrary to the spirit of the original (alternatively, I can’t recall ever having heard any of the “jazz versions” of Gershwin’s work on record, which, I suppose, accounts for my reaction to these things).

So, while I thought what the singers, players and their conductor achieved was stupendous on one level, I came away from the experience with less of the great “love” that I was expecting for some of what I heard – I thought all of the singers suffered in places from accompaniments that were too loud, “laden” in places by brass and percussion sonorities unnecessarily “piled up” by the arranger – as, for example, with Porgy’s touching “When God made cripple he mean him to be lonely” which wasn’t allowed to convey the pathos that I was accustomed to – fortunately Eddie Muliaumaseali’i’s impressively sonorous voice saw him through, as it did with the famous “I got plenty o’ nuttin”. Deborah Wai Kapohe, who was absolutely splendid in the equally well-known “Summertime” had to struggle against the orchestra in places in the great duet with Porgy, “Bess, yo’ is my woman now”, and to my disappointment that wonderful sequence with the words “mornin’ time and evenin’ time”  lost some of its beauty and poignancy, with both singers having to “push” their tones through the orchestral opaqueness that the arranger couldn’t seem to resist. And I can’t imagine why Garcia watered-down what should have been one of tenor Siliga Sani Muliaumaseali’i’s great moments in the work as the rapscallion Sportin’ Life, in removing all of those deliciously zany interpolations (“Wah, doo! – zim bam boodle-oo!” etc…) echoed by the chorus, from the song “It Ain’t Necessarily So”……..

I’m straying into superfluity, now, by highlighting things the performance didn’t do, which for a critic should be beside the point – getting back to what was done, my critical incredulity returns, reflecting upon an achievement of evocation which, if not entirely Gershwin’s, impressed on so many counts, to the point where singers, players and conductor seemed transfixed by their own efforts as the work leapt from the page and into the spaces where we sat, mesmerised by it all – that in itself made for an experience which will resound in the memory for a long time to come.

Wellington City Orchestra’s mix of enchantment and exoticism at St.Andrew’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington City Orchestra presents:
MOZART – Overture “Cosi fan tutte” K.588
MOZART – Concerto for Flute and Harp in C Major K.299
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV – Symphony No. 3 in C Major Op.32

Karen Batten (flute)
Michelle Velvin (harp)

Wellington City Orchestra
Andrew Atkins (conductor)

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington
Sunday, 22nd September. 2024

To the title of this review I was tempted to add the word “enterprising”, in referring to the inclusion in Wellington City Orchestra’s programme of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s little-known and until recently rarely locally-performed Third Symphony (“You mean there are two others?” someone quipped to me at the concert during the interval!). I was therefore amazed when a search of on-line recording catalogues revealed no less than five recordings featuring the work, and in most cases as part of a set of all three symphonies – until recently only “Antar”, the Second Symphony, had any kind of recorded history. So, while not exactly a neglected and forgotten work per se, the Third Symphony had been something of a rarity in Aotearoa’s concert halls up to the present, and certainly deserved its airing on this occasion, thanks to the advocacy of conductor Andrew Atkins.

The concert’s other two works needed no such special pleading, though of Mozart’s instrumental concertos perhaps K.299, the Flute and Harp Concerto has a special place because of its attractive instrumental combination. It obviously needs a harp, an instrument less prolific than others in the composer’s “concerti canon”, but somehow its “specialness” seems an extra drawcard, adding to the beauty of the sounds generated by both the instrumental combination and the composer’s music.

As for the concert’s opening item, another work by Mozart, the Overture to “Cosi fan tutte” perhaps is the least “known” in concert-hall performance of the composer’s “big four” operatic overtures (it was the one of the four that didn’t make the “cut” in a recent Classic FM list of “Ten greatest Opera Overtures”) though it’s still a work of immense distinction, and one that has its own challenges. I liked conductor Andrew Atkins’ overall projection of the music, the introductory fanfare chords snappy and alert and the flowing oboe solo characterfully shaped (both gestures are repeated), before the whole orchestra stated the opera’s “signature phrase” emphatically sung by the male principals at a later stage in the opera – “Co-si-fan-tu-tte!” – and the mischievous allegro theme skips in, alternating with emphatic syncopated chordings and repeated perky phrases from the various solo woodwinds, which continue throughout the overture until the return of the “signature phrase” and a coda whose ending signals the “opera proper” to begin. While keeping the trajectories alive and bubbling, Atkins still gave the strings plenty of space in which to articulate their phrases with those tricky, syncopated opening entries, something that was less troublesome for the wind-players, whose chattering solos invariably began ON the beat!  It all set the ambiences tingling for the delightful Flute and Harp concerto to follow.

A bright, freshly-voiced opening paved the way for the soloists’ unison entry, scintillations of colour and energy whose interplay gave as much active stimulation as more passive enjoyment, thanks to both the composer’s inexhaustible invention and his soloists’ spontaneous-sounding relishing of so many details, whether in individual exchange, or in tandem with the orchestra – the sense of delight at times over-rode my duties as a reviewer, so that I had to often break the spell and remember to write a comment regarding this and that felicity! I particularly enjoyed the first-movement cadenza which began slowly an almost suggestively and teasingly wrought between the players – Karen Batten’s flute was well-nigh vocal at times with her turns of phrase, and Michelle Velvin’s harp sparkled and glistened in response, her concluding flourish before the orchestra re-entered a wonderful irruption of tongue-in-cheek temperament!

Conductor Atkins got a most charmingly poised and gracious opening tutti from the players at the slow movement’s beginning, to which the soloists brought episode after episode of enchantment, after which the finale danced in, the sprightly opening getting even livelier as the figurations took on even greater excitement! The harp took the lead, showing the flute the way, with both soloists then relishing Mozart’s unfailingly ear-catching invention in their exchanges. A lovely “where have we got to?” shared cadenza concluded with another spectacular harp flourish and the final tutti an “all-in” affair with the soloists at the forefront of the “payoff” chords – splendid! I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it so much!

An interval allowed time and space for the resplendent harp to be spirited over to one side, and for musicians and audience alike to prepare for the second half, and the eagerly-anticipated Rimsky-Korsakov Symphony. The work got off to an atmospheric start with horns calling across the orchestra soundscape to firstly winds and then strings, everything lovely and rhapsodic, with Atkins then encouraging plenty of momentum and muscle for a well-managed accelerando into the allegro  – this was classic “Russian festival” stuff with the reprise of the big, prancing tune especially invigorating. Some beautiful wind-playing then introduced a second subject, begun by the clarinet and forwarded by the oboe and strings, then a solo violin and flute, all poignantly sounded before Atkins danced everybody into the  development section, with firstly the strings and then the winds having a lot of fun with all kind of variants of both of the themes we’d so far heard. The brass and timpani then  called things together resplendently for a massive return of the allegro’s main tune – stirring stuff, here! – after which the winds, led by the clarinet, brought back (for our pleasure) the lovely second subject, commented on by various other winds and the solo violin. And then, Instead of the “great peroration” method of finishing a movement, conductor and players wound it all down quietly and poetically, concluding with gentle, po-faced pizzicato-and-wind notes.

Something of a challenge was posed by the composer’s 5/4 rhythms in the quixotic scherzo (marked “vivo”) which followed – unlike the stately step-wise processional of Tchaikovsky’s Allegro con grazia 5/4 movement in his “Pathetique” Symphony, these rhythms conjured up a positively mercurial momentum, whose trajectories I thought the players did a fantastic job of maintaining. I did wonder while listening whether it was out of mischievous intent towards or something akin to dislike of  orchestral players that led Rimsky-Korsakov to set them such a task, but on this occasion, to the WCO’s credit (and their conductor’s), the players kept those handfuls of semiquavers simmering for our delight – and at least the Trio’s contrastingly languorous melody gave all and sundry a bit of a rhythmic breather!

I thought the Andante  movement lovely, with horns and winds creating a gorgeous introduction here, from which the strings elaborated the melody, repeating its opening in different keys (a “soaring aloft” set of phrases made a particularly fetching impression) – the theme continued to draw in responses from all sides, alternating more excitable moments with the previous “soaring” mode – though largely monothematic, the mood had an enchantment of its own which held one’s interest to the point where the pulse quickened more purposefully and drove the sounds into a celebratory finale. Though the opening martial melody was perhaps over-worked, it all certainly demonstrated the composer’s skill as an orchestrator, and managed to weave in fragments of counter-themes by way of contrast, with playing sufficiently committed and colourful from all sections of the band keeping us mightily entertained right to the end. In all, I felt it was definitely worth a listen, and may well even be tempted into further symphonic investigations, having been reminded earlier that “there are two others!” So, definite kudos to Andrew Atkins, his soloists and supporting players for an absorbing and rewarding afternoon’s listening!

Where Fairburn Walked – worlds of home-grown sounds

Posted on by Peter Mechen

WHERE FAIRBURN WALKED
– an exploration of New Zealand Piano Music

Jian Liu (piano)

Rattle RAT – D149 2024 (3 CD set)

In 1987 Kiwi songwriter Ross Mullins wrote a song “Where Fairburn Walked” for an album “Passing Shots”, a song subsequently taken up by singer Caitlin Smith in her 2004 album “Aurere”. Various commentators whose opinions I’ve read have since expressed regret that the song never quite achieved what was deemed “classic status”, though the appearance of its title on a new set of recordings on the Rattle label suggests that It hasn’t entirely been forgotten – in fact I was able to ”connect the dots” in making the discovery that the Steve Garden who currently runs Rattle Records was also the producer of Ross Mullins’ “Passing Shots” album on which the “Fairburn” song itself first appeared.

The “Fairburn” of the song is of course poet A.R.D. Fairburn (1904-57), who, at the time of his premature death was considered one of the country’s most important poets – his work has since survived a something of a post-mortem dip in status and regard, with his contribution continuing to undergo a revitalised appraisal. So, when I first saw this new Rattle compilation of twentieth (and twenty-first) century New Zealand piano music bearing the title “Where Fairburn walked” my first thoughts were of some of the poet’s laconic verses from “Walking on my Feet” (Fairburn was an inveterate walker for practically all of his life) –

I know where I’m going
where I’ll lie down
nice quiet place
Long way from town

long way to go
I’ll sleep all alone
fingers round the earth
earth round the bone…

The simple directness of such writing is disarming, though not characteristic, as readers of Fairburn’s other poetry will know – but the willingness to engage with the isolation and earthiness of the land heightens the appropriateness of the new recording’s use of the poet’s name, as it does with much of the music we hear.


                                                                                                                                                            A.R.D (Rex) Fairburn

Rather more poetically evocative in terms of imagery and feeling (and according more readily with some of the music found on these recordings) are these lines from a later poem “Estuary” –

The wind has died, no motion now
in the summer’s sleepy breath. Silver the sea-grass
the shells and the driftwood,
fixed in the moon’s vast crystal.

The lynch-pin of this latest undertaking has been pianist Dr. Jian Liu who’s currently both the Head of Piano Studies at Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music, Victoria University of Wellington, and the Acting Head of School at the NZSM, and is widely celebrated both as a performer and music educator. The recording was in fact produced by Dr.Liu in conjunction with sound engineer Graham Kennedy at the New Zealand School of Music’s Adam Concert Room, with help from the New Zealand Music Trust and Rattle Records. Funding for the project came from Creative New Zealand in conjunction with Victoria University of Wellington and SOUNZ Centre for New Zealand Music, and from the New Zealand Music Trust itself. The recordings complement an earlier undertaking involving the publication in China of two volumes containing these same piano works by the Shanghai Music Publishing House, the largest classical music publisher in Asia.

                                                                                                  Dr. Jian Liu

I did express some surprise to Jian Liu at the omission of any of Douglas Lilburn’s piano music from the set – however, because of difficulties in securing copyright from the Lilburn Estate to publish any of the composer’s pieces in China, it was decided to maintain the accord between the publication of the music and these recordings. Of course Lilburn’s spirit is still a “presence” far beyond the single actual reference to him found in Jenny McLeod’s Tone Clock Piece X – “for Douglas on his 80th birthday”. It’s Interesting that Fairburn himself was well aware of Lilburn as a composer, and in fact they corresponded regarding the possibility of Lilburn setting some of Fairburn’s poetry, with the composer suggesting that the “shorter, simpler poems” (such as the aforementioned “Walking on my Feet”) would be best for such a purpose (Denys Trussell “Fairburn” Auckland University Press 1984 Pg.212) – alas that it was an idea that never bore fruit.

Still, these might-have-been conjectures have their own separate life; and Lilburn’s piano music has certainly received its due on disc already through the stellar efforts of interpreters like Margaret Nielsen, Dan Poynton and Michael Houstoun over the years. It’s entirely appropriate that this new set of recordings should be a world unto itself, one in which the compelling uniqueness of the music’s character is honed by the incredibly-focused commitment towards and identification with the music on the part of Jian Liu. And completing the picture is the brilliance, clarity and atmosphere of sound engineer Graham Kennedy’s recording. The three discs together constitute an overall programme whose structure sustains listening interest through both consistency and contrast. Jian Liu himself indicates in the booklet notes that each disc represents “increasing levels of technical difficulty and musical complexity”, providing new and interesting repertoire choices for pianists in different spheres of activity.

Disc One reflects the possibilities for pianists wishing to begin such a journey – and there ‘s a kind of chronology present as well in the process which adds to the flavour of things with names like Warwick Braithwaite, Thomas Haig, Gordon McBeth, Harry Hiscocks, Ernest Jenner, and Paul Schramm, all of whom were born in the nineteenth century. There’s a definite period charm about Warwick Braithwaite’s Fragment, Gordon McBeth’s An Idyll,  Harry Hiscocks’ Nocturne, and Ernest Jenner’s Foxglove Bells – and both Thomas Haigh’s deliciously glutinous-sounding Rotorua (Boiling Mud Pools) with its accompanying touches of gothic atmosphere, and Paul Schramm’s What a Silly Joke with its knockabout comedy routine are all evocatively presented by Liu’s ever-prevailing sense of time, place and character in the music.

On the same disc one finds contemporary composers exploring these same charming, fragrant, atmospheric, and pictorial evocations – though there’s insufficient space to comment on every individual piece one still responds to Ronald Tremain’s artlessly attractive Sleigh Ride, and Claire Cowan’s more exploratory Paper Dragonfly, and with extension of the rich variety of keyboard textures provided by David Hamilton’s Clouds over Aoraki and Gillian Whitehead’s Outlines Through Rising Mists. Gareth Farr’s Love Songs and Anthony Ritchie’s Caroline Bay Suite set simple but satisfying rhythmic challenges of ostinato and syncopation.

The remainder of pieces on the disc take the player to more demanding levels of achievement both technically and interpretatively with Jenny McLeod’s Mysterious Whirly Square Dance providing a stimulating test for any beginning player, and Paul Schramm’s already-mentioned What a Silly Joke even more so.  Gillian Whitehead’s Lullaby for Matthew and Craig Utting’s Covenant have more reachable notes but inhabit worlds which require an advanced synthesis of hands head and heart. And so to John Elmsly’s Six Little Preludes which conclude the first disc and which in Jian Liu’s hands definitely represents a kind of technical and aesthetic gateway through which a player needs to pass to tackle the demands of the “next level” of keyboard accomplishment.

Straight away one senses a more elevated world of expression with the beginning of Disc Two, and one to which the pianist instantly responds, firstly with Kenneth Young’s Elusive Dream, a series of spontaneously-wrought roulades becoming increasingly interactive as their explorations flirt with both expectation and illusion – a kind of “growing-up” metaphor, an awakening to a new reality. Liu adroitly enables David Farquar’s Three Inventions to playfully lock horns with one another before coming to a kind of “rubbed-off-edges” terms with themselves, while Ross Harris’s utterly charming Nga Manu delineates by numbers the birth processes of birds from incubation, through hatching and feeding and pushing out fledglings, including a somewhat pitiful “runt of the litter”.  Leonie Holmes’s Nocturne comes with a poem describing the flight of a moth, the sounds, Liu perfectly realising Holmes’s fine detailing expressing the creature’s “Midnight Empress” status and her “unchallenged” sweep into and through her “hushed domain”. And just as majestic in a different, “other time and place” manner is Michael Williams’s Arteria Meridionali, whose ritualistic, almost Respighi-like gestures seem to evoke something of their European origins.

It was simply my way of thinking about things, but Anthony Ritchie’s grandly-conceived Olveston Suite, a tribute to an historic Dunedin stately home, seems to mark the end of the set’s “coming of age” evocations, the “grand gesture-like” sounds nostalgically reawakening my youthful impressions of such places with their faded glories and echoes of old times. Everything here seemed like a newly-minted dream with lots of rumbustion (The Kitchen and Scullery – as well as, surprisingly, the Billiard Room!), proper old-world etiquette (the Dining Room) and some genteel tranquility (the Writing Room), all part of the fairy-tale-like fantasy of a lost age.

After this, I felt the remaining works on the disc, Jenny McLeod’s Four Tone Clock pieces and Anthony Ritchie’s selection of PIano Preludes, possessed a gravitas which lifted them away from the other pieces, more akin to the collection of works on Disc Three. All of the pieces had that depth of content, either focused or discursive, which required the kind of responses to technical difficulty and/or musical complexity as outlined by Jian Liu in his introduction to the set.

McLeod’s Tone Clock pieces were inspired by Dutch composer Peter Schat’s theories regarding equal-temperament tonal and chromatic approaches, expanding Schat’s basic idea to incorporate what she called a “Grand Unified Theory” far beyond the idea’s original source. Liu plays four of McLeod’s twenty-four pieces, two of which are each dedicated to previous composer-colleagues of Mcleod – Douglas Lilburn and David Farquhar – both of whom had preceded her as Professors of Music Studies at Victoria University. I imagined I could “hear” certain characteristics of each of the older composers in the pieces McLeod had inscribed to them.

While more conventionally named as “Preludes”, Anthony Ritchie’s survey for solo piano encompasses the accepted spectrum of all twenty-four keys from the chromatic scale. Jian Liu recorded five of these for this recording, covering a wide range of differing “character” pieces, influenced to some extent by other composers’ efforts in this form but remaining true to the composer’s own “sound and musical expression”. Each has a particular distinctive character which Liu brings out with splendid-sounding surety – I particularly enjoyed the contrasts in his playing of No. 15, with its agitated, excitingly “dangerous-sounding” figurations vying with bell-like treble sounds, dismissed mockingly and derisively, when compared with No. 24 (subtitled “For my Mother”), a time-aged memory of mother and child at the keyboard perhaps? – something at first charming and nostalgic, though at the end, sounding a strangely forlorn note…..

True to Jian Liu’s previously-quoted overview, the two previous pieces and those occupying Disc Three all seemed ineluctably “ingrained” in terms of conveying a character, environment, situation, emotion or any other such viewpoint relating to this part of the world with requisite skill and conviction. Two of the third disc’s pieces were by composers whose music was appearing for the first time in this set – interestingly one was the oldest in the group (Edwin Carr 1928-2003) and the other was the youngest (Selina Fisher (b.1993) – beside which we heard further works by David Hamilton, John Psathas, Gareth Farr, Gillian Whitehead, Claire Cowan and John Elmsly.

Whether it was the juxtaposition of youth and age, or the “newness” of the two composers’ music on this disc, I found myself unexpectedly, but more resoundingly, drawn to both Edwin Carr’s and Salina Fisher’s very different sounding works. Carr composed prolifically in most forms, including a number of works for solo piano, among them this attractively-varied set of four sharply-characterised pieces requiring from the player, by turns, both a lyrical touch and brilliant virtuosity. By contrast Selina Fisher’s world is more readily ambient and impressionistic, though capable of sharply-etched incident and irruption, however micro-cosmic. Both of these pieces would certainly encourage me to seek out further explorations and expressions of the world of sound, light and ambience through which we all move and deign to share with others. It‘s a kind of overall unifying quality which all of the pieces on these three discs so brilliantly and evocatively presented here by Jian Liu have a share in defining and characterising as our very own distinctive living-space.

A Cornucopia of musical delights and pianistic thrills from Duo Enharmonics

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Chamber Music  – Sunday Afternoon Concert Series 2024 Duo Enharmonics – Beth Chen and Nicole Chao (piano duo)

J S BACH – “Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit” (from Cantata BWV 106 – arr. György Kurtág)
FRANZ SCHUBERT – Fantasy in F Minor D.940
MAURICE RAVEL – La Valse (arr. Lucien Garban)
JOHN PSATHAS – Fragment (2001)
SERGEI RACHMANINOV – Six Morceaux Op.11
J.STRAUSS Jnr. – Blue Danube Fantasy (arr. Greg Anderson)

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

Sunday, 7th July, 2024

This concert was a further instalment in the wondrous evolution of my exposure to the astonishing talents of Duo Enharmonics, the piano duo team of Nicole Chao and Beth Chen, the most recent of Wellington Chamber Music’s Sunday Concert Series. Until that sensational presentation I attended almost two years ago, featuring the duo’s performance of Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring”, I’d been something of a voyeur regarding the talents of these musicians, relying upon enthusiastic reports from other reviewers of things such as the “energy and force” of their “outstanding teamwork” (Steven Sedley, Middle C, September 2020), and especially in regard to music I myself dearly loved, such as Mozart’s KV 381 Duo Sonata, or Ravel’s “La Valse” in a four-hands transcription. Here, now, was a second chance for the word to become flesh for me in musical terms, and especially with the delectable Ravel work on today’s programme!

What struck me with increasing force and intensity as today’s programme unfolded was the sheer depth of musicality of what we heard in both compositional content and its presentation. Any sense  of the four-handed piano repertoire being a “lesser” or even somewhat “contrived” art-form was properly negated by the purity of focus and the surety of vision displayed by the performers in each of the pieces presented. Even in instances such as the transcription of “La Valse”, which one might regard as a lesser entity compared with the orchestral version, I felt the spirit of the latter evoked as surely as if I had been listening to Ravel’s original sound-world.

With the exception of the last piece on the programme, a fantastical four-handed arrangement of Johann Strauss Jnr’s famous “Blue Danube” Waltz by Greg Anderson (of its kind, a stunningly colourful demonstration of the range of sonorities possible on a keyboard played by four hands), the pieces presented today by Nicole Chao and Beth Chen needed no further augmentation as sound for their essential messages to reach out to and enfold our sensibilities – in other words, I found it hard to imagine any of the performances today done better, revelling as I did in the enchantment of each and every recreated moment throughout.

The concert was a model of its kind in terms of the range and scope of the pieces – and it couldn’t have begun more enticingly than with György Kurtág’s arrangement of the beautiful introductory music to JS Bach’s funeral cantata “Gottes Zeit is die allerbeste Zeit” (God’s time is the very best time). Begun by the secondo player, Beth Chen, the opening textures were augmented by an intertwined combination of secondo and primo hands, the end result interesting to watch, but absolutely enchanting to listen to – a brief but ravishing introduction to the afternoon’s music-making.

Has anybody composed a more poignant amalgam of conflicting emotions than in the Fantasy in F Minor of Franz Schubert’s? The work’s rolling, undulating Allegro molto moderato opening suggested a vast interior landscape of quiet despair, Nicole Chao and Beth Chen finding a proper “Schubertian pulse” in the music – a brief major-key flirtation prompted more agitated sequences, before the opening returned. The players threw down the gauntlet for the dramatic, almost operatic Largo with its declamatory utterances, double-dotted phrasings and long trills – there was but momentary relief from a more conciliatory episode before the music lurched into an allegro vivace Scherzo, the players performing miracles of varied touch and phrasing by way of conveying the music’s multifaceted mood, bringing out the piquancy of the Trio’s music as a contrast to the almost grim determination of the Allegro vivace. And the dramatic return of the work’s opening music here generated feelings both of reprieve and inexorable futility, the players generating a torment of fugal-like conflict and variance, but all to no avail in the face of the theme’s grim final triumph.

After this, Ravel’s “La Valse” was almost a relief at first for the individual spirit, suggesting, as it did a different, more societal kind of fatalism and dissolution – interesting, though, that, despite the plethora of commentary in the interim suggesting the music as representing the decline of the “old” pre-First World War era of European civilisation, Ravel himself categorically denied any such scheme in his music, stating that the work expresses nothing more than his “intense attraction to these wonderful (waltz) rhythms”….still, this having been said the composer was seriously affected by the horrors of warfare, gleaned from his own personal experiences as a soldier (he was a truck driver and often near the front) as well as the deaths of numerous friends in combat, though stoically managing his grief and despair in works like “Le Tombeau de Couperin” and “La Valse”.

I’d gotten to know this music well in its orchestral guise, ever since hearing the piece at the very first orchestral concert I attended, back in the 1960s! – what a thrill that memory still evokes!  Though unfamiliar with the piano duo version, I felt Nicole Chao’s and Beth Chen’s all-embracing touch uncannily breathed life into those ghostly, inchoate scenarios at the work’s beginning, gradually liberating both form and movement from the “whirling clouds” of the composer’s own description, and bringing various dancing couples into view – and what dancers gradually emerged! – all of them seemingly refracting themselves into “an immense hall, peopled with a whirling crowd”, with every detail of the composer’s recaptured by Lucien Garben’s faithful transcription.

As well as Ravel’s score glitter and glamour we heard its darker, more sinister and grotesque aspects, evident in a couple of the dance’s more disruptive sequences, and calling for some spectacularly-essayed keyboard figurations from both ends of the sound-spectrum before order was restored and the music continued. From beneath the seemingly tireless and supercharged fingers of the duo the waltz displayed all of its glamour, allure, charm and coquettishness, recovering anew from whatever irruption bubbled up from beneath the music’s surfaces – but suddenly  reaching the point at which it realised its moments of glory were numbered and the game was up! The music gathered itself from within and transformed its hitherto lilting rhythms into thrusting, flailing gestures signifying death-and-glory oblivion. Our pianists seemed transfigured at this point, imbued with this same all-or-nothing spirit and with flailing arms and fingers pushing and thrusting themselves, the music and us into a vortex of chaos and confused silence, hammered home by those apocalyptic final chords! Sensational stuff!

Judicious programming gave us the interval to recover from the onslaught; and the two pianists themselves re-emerged differently garbed and with their primo and secondo roles reversed,  Nicole Chao as secondo beginning a piece by New Zealand-Greek composer John Psathas, called Fragment, originally written for two marimbas – beautifully-modulated repeated chords made a hypnotic effect, which the entry of the primo player, Beth Chen attenuated with birdsong-like notes, together creating a kind of “moment in time” stillness, a kind of aural metaphor of solitariness, but with awareness of a surrounding environment rather than mere emptiness – by the piece’s end the different elements seemed to have merged, with either the solitary individual subsumed by the surroundings or the ambience enhancing or elongating,  or even being redefined by the presence of the “new” element, perhaps a redefinition of sorts reading  “To be solitary is to………”.

Sergei Rachmaninov’s Six Morceaux Op.11 was new to me, but had especially excited my interest with its relatively early composition date, 1893 – two years before the completion of the composer’ First Symphony, which had its disastrous premiere in 1897. I’ve long believed that the failure of the first Symphony had an adverse long-term effect on the composer’s compositional abilities, and have accordingly been interested in hearing anything he wrote before the symphony’s first performance. For me, this work bore out that view, in that the pieces exuded the kind of confidence and originality of a young composer who hadn’t yet been told that his work was a failure (as Rachmaninov was to experience to a devastating degree in 1897 after the symphony’s first unfortunate performance).

In six movements, the Op.11 set began with a Barcarolle in G Minor, built simply from a rocking rhythm at the outset, with a melodic line that patiently builds an elongated and fruitful utterance whose central section spontaneously breaks into amazing filigree figurations which briefly return as a potent echo at the piece’s ending. The second piece, Scherzo, has a mischievous, almost devil-may-care insouciance, requiring incredible virtuosity as well as a quixotic, tongue-in-cheek sense of  fun – a great piece! The Theme Russe was simpler, more soulful and melancholic, its theme given various accompaniments, incorporating thunderous octave-scales, whirling figurations and grand and celebratory, imperial-like chordal passages. Next came a Valse, more salon-like than Chopin’s, with some cheeky descant counterpoints and some gorgeous AWOL harmonies, including a “wrong modulation” ending to boot!  A darkly passionate, somewhat obsessive Romance revealed a young composer unafraid to express his feelings – and the last of the pieces was Slava, which rather wonderfully used the well-known Russian “choral theme” from Musorgsky’s “Boris Godunov”, Rachmaninov indulging in his obvious love for church bells of all different kinds. These near-thunderous sonorities came to dominate the latter stages of the piece, the playing making the precincts of St. Andrews ring with more-than-usually-Slavic intensities!

Fittingly, the concert’s final item was the duo’s act of homage to the astounding Piano Duo team of Elizabeth Joy Roe and Greg Anderson which had toured New Zealand in 2018, and whose Wellington concert I had the good fortune to attend as well. Certainly, the choice by Nicola Chao and Beth Chen of one of the American duo’s “calling card” items as today’s concert finale indicated that the Duo Enharmonics pair had little to fear from any comparison, and the latter’s performance here in my mind put the seal on that viewpoint. The astonishing “Blue Danube Fantasy” obviously represented the ”display” aspect of a two-piano combination, of which Chao and Chen proved entertainingly more than capable; but the rest of the programme brought to the fore the pair’s musicianship of a deeper, and more satisfying kind, making their activities on our behalf something of an ongoing treasure to be cherished and deeply valued.

 

Andrew Joyce and Jian Liu – a masterclass in ‘Cello and Piano

Posted on by Maya Field

Wellington Chamber Music presents:
Andrew Joyce (‘cello) and Jian Liu (piano).

J.S. Bach – Sonata in G Minor for Cello and Piano (BWV1029)
Ralph Vaughan Williams – Six Studies in English Folk Song
Dorothy Buchannan – Soliloquy for Two
Fang Dongqing – Lin Chong
Paul Hindemith – Phantasiestuck in B Major, Op. 8 No. 2
Johannes Brahms – Sonata No. 2 in F Major
Sergei Rachmaninoff. Sonata for Cello and Piano in G Minor. Op 19. III. Andante

St.Andrew’s-on-The-Terrace, Wellington
Sunday, 9th June, 2024

There’s something reassuring about watching professionals at work. I’m not sure if “reassurance” is the right word, exactly, but I certainly felt some sense of content awe on Sunday, knowing that I was listening to an excellent performance of beautiful music. I adore watching performers of all levels, but there is something special about sitting back and letting the consummate professionals take care of everything.

It was a typical windy Wellington day, so I was very appreciative of the heating in St Andrews. Unfortunately, I sat behind a rather tall audience member, so my view of the cellist, Andrew Joyce, was a tad obscured. Andrew gave a comprehensive introduction to the programme, explaining the poetic background to Buchannan’s piece, the angular sounds of Hindemith and the Romantic ending with Brahms.

From the moment Jian and Andrew begin playing, you know you’re in for a treat of musical excellence. Starting off with Bach’s Sonata in G Minor, the Vivace was energetic and vibrant. It was nice to see the difference in how the two musicians actually moved. Andrew moved his head rhythmically, with a typical cellist intensity, while Jian sort of bobbed along to the piano. I don’t know what it is about a musician’s movement that fascinates me, but I can’t help but notice it. It’s genuinely enjoyable for me when performers actually move with the music. The adagio was rich and moving, with lovely use of vibrato, and gorgeous, even playing on piano. The trills brought a particular tension to the piece which I really enjoyed. The allegro was light and playful, with a great dialogue of call and response. The building of parts and dynamics was rich, and there was never a moment of stillness. The final note of the piece was accompanied by murmurs of awe from the audience.

The Six Studies in English Folk Song followed Bach. I didn’t realise that these studies would be so short, although I probably should’ve inferred that from the title. The adagio, ‘Lovely on the Water’, was very different from the Bach, but absolutely lovely, with a gorgeous, whole sound from the cello. The andante sostenuto, ‘Spurn Point’, felt very romantic: not the movement, but the lovey-dovey feeling, with really nice higher notes. The larghetto, ‘Van Diemen’s Land’, had a deep, almost mournful quality. It felt like the homeward journey of knights after a battle. The lento, ‘She Borrowed Some of her Mother’s Gold’, was lovely, a sort of deep honey. The andante tranquillo, ‘The Lady and the Dragon’, was elegant, gentle and genteel. There was a great moment where the cello faded and the piano took over. I wrote down “a lovely brocade” in my notes. I’m not entirely sure what I meant by that, but it sounds nice. The allegro vivace, ‘As I walked over London Bridge’, was playful and intense, with great ending dynamics.

As a slight devotee to literature, I was very intrigued by Buchannan’s Soliloquy for Two, as it’s based on Robert Frost’s poem, ‘The Road not Taken’. The melody felt philosophical, with a sort of pondering quality to it, while the piano walked along the road, steady but light. There was a lovely clarity of sound in this piece, with both parts balanced evenly in the church’s acoustics.

At the start of the concert, Andrew said some parts of Dongqing’s piece were almost “unplayable.” I was unsure what he meant at first, as it started smooth and lyrical, with some surprising moments of intensity from the piano. However, then there were suddenly lower strings and harmonics, along with pizzicatos, and I understood his starting comments. The speed of the runs were amazing, with intense double stops and pizzicatos. There was really great duo work from Jian as he looked over at Andrew for the right timing of angry chords, adding a real dynamism to the performance. It was not at all where I expected the piece to go. After this intensity, the piece went back to a lovely, quieter melody, and then finished with an attack. It was the piece I wrote down the most for because of how much was happening. It was incredible, I could barely keep up in my notebook.

After the interval, there was Hindemith’s Phantasiestuck. It was beautifully Romantic, a tad unexpectedly so from Hindemith. As mentioned at the start, there were moments with some “angular” sounds, particularly with the unexpected intervals next to an otherwise soaring melody.

The Brahms Sonata was a superb. The allegro vivace had beautiful swells of dynamics. So much was going in this movement, with intense double stopping, then feather-light bowing, then a deep and full melody. The adagio affettuoso had a lovely start with the pizzicato and piano. There was a real sense of movement from Jian on the piano, along with the lovely vibrato from Andrew at the end. The “schero-like” (as noted by the programme) intensity and vibrance of the allegro passionata was brilliant. The allegro molto had a quiet and joyful intensity that built as it continued. The technical skill of these musicians was just amazing. To be honest, I was too swept up by Brahms to write more.

After a rapturous applause, we got treated with the third movement from Rachmaninoff’s Sonata for Cello and Piano in G Minor, as a little excerpt from their other programme. It’s a classic piano and cello piece, and was lovely to hear live and done so superbly, especially after being on my playlist of favourite Cello pieces for a few years.

I really cannot stress enough how brilliant this concert was. Every note was perfect, the energy was palpable, and the audience was swept away. If you ever get the chance to see Andrew Joyce and Jian Liu perform, I strongly urge you to take full advantage of it.

Jane Austen’s “Mansfield Park” – an operatic transfiguration

Posted on by Peter Mechen

New Zealand Opera presents:
MANSFIELD PARK– an opera by Jonathan Dove (composer) and Alasdair Middleton (librettist)
Based on the novel “Mansfield Park” by Jane Austen (published 1814)
Director: Rebecca Meltzer
Wardrobe and Props: Sophie Ham
Piano Accompaniment: Soomin Kim and David Kelly
Stage Manager: Chanelle Muirhead
Production: courtesy Waterperry Opera Festival, UK
Cast: Fanny Price – Ashlyn Tymms
Lady Bertram – Kristin Darragh
Sir Thomas Bertram – Robert Tucker
Maria Bertram – Sarah Mileham
Julia Bertram – Michaela Cadwgan
Edmund Bertram – Joel Amosa
Aunt Norris – Andrea Creighton
Mary Crawford – Joanna Foote
Henry Crawford – Taylor Wallbank
Mr. Rushworth – Andrew Grenon

Wellington Public Trust Hall
Lambton Quay, Wellington

Thursday 18th April 2024

First staged in 2011, composer Jonathan Dove’s and librettist Alasdair Middleton’s adventurous adaptation of Jane Mansfield’s novel “Mansfield Park” has since achieved world-wide exposure, eventually finding its way to what author Adrienne Simpson once called “opera’s farthest frontier”, the shores of Aotearoa New Zealand, the work taking pride of place as the first 2024 production staged by New Zealand Opera.

It occupies territory close to the heart of the company’s recently-appointed general director, Brad Cohen, whose vision centres upon “getting a wider range of people to attend the opera” by diversifying the various presentation spaces and enlarging the scope of the repertoire in a “something for everybody” manner. It’s a philosophy straightaway borne out by the “outside-the-box” delivery that characterises this latest production, which is, of course, very much in line with the original story’s essentially domestic setting.

Mansfield Park has an ensemble of ten on-stage singers (an audience member makes a brief appearance as a non-singing “extra” at one point) accompanied by a piano duet, everybody occupying a shared space in the same room (the venue on this occasion Wellington’s Public Trust Hall), and with the performers making entrances and exits from and towards various directions including through the audience itself, creating a vibrantly inclusive ambience for all concerned to enjoy. Nothing more removed from the usual operatic scenario of stage, proscenium archway and auditorium, all clearly delineated, could have been imagined.

Composer Jonathan Dove has since recast the work with a chamber orchestra accompaniment, but I hugely enjoyed the omnipresent sound of the original piano duet (here superbly realised by Soomin Kim and David Kelly), the pair completely out of my view from where I was sitting mid-hall, but whose pianistic ambiences unfailingly conjured up the largely drawing-room atmosphere of most of the story’s action. The music might have occasionally seemed “vocally minimalist” or suggestive of “silent film” accompaniment – but the score’s different, more thoughtful or even grandly epic evocations in other places were etched in just as surely and atmospherically. I kept on thinking about the composer telling us that he recalled moments of “hearing music” when first reading parts of the novel, and how we might be hearing the results of those reimagined moments.

I was grateful for the production’s use of subtitles, despite the opera being in English – I’d found in various “opera in the vernacular” performances the text often suffering from a lack of clarity in places. Fortunately I found this cast particularly well-drilled in this respect, and especially in the case of singers such as Andrea Creighton as the voluble Aunt Norris, even when having a lot to say in a short time! Also exemplary in this respect were Robert Tucker and Kristin Darragh as the parents, Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram – and I must mention the special pleasure I derived from Andrew Grenon’s vivid word-characterisations as the bumbling Mr. Rushworth!

So, within the elegant frame of what would have otherwise been something like an original Gainsborough-like landscape oil painting on the drawing-room wall appeared the opera’s libretto, written by Alasdair Middleton. The action was divided into two acts containing altogether eighteen “chapters” (Austen’s original novel has over forty of the latter!). The cast itself announced the name and number of each chapter, with the setting, aside from a couple of al fresco forays into “wilderness”, “shrubbery” and “grottoes”, largely taking place in Mansfield Park’s stylish interior. It all had a surface charm “mirroring” the emphasis placed on social climbing and material expectation in society, to which young people’s affairs of the heart were constantly shaped and manipulated.

The heroine of the piece, Fanny Price, has a “back-story” in the novel that’s here hardly touched upon – and then in the most negative terms by her widowed Aunt Norris – she seems to be constantly berating Fanny for her lack of “ostensible” gratitude to her rich Aunt and Uncle, Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram, for taking her into the household at all to relieve the pressure on Fanny’s own family. There’s a lot going in in the Bertram household, with Sir Thomas having a business in Antigua which takes him away from his four children, all of whom are looking either for suitable careers (the boys, one of whom , Tom, doesn’t appear in the opera) or marriage-matches (the girls, one of whom, Maria, is already engaged to the wealthy but exceedingly boring Rushworth!).

Fanny’s covert interest is in the younger brother, Edmund, who, unlike his sisters, treats her kindly, but as he would a kid-sister for most of the time. Of course, the pair finally make good their largely unspoken deeper interest in one another, despite the various cajoleries of a neighbouring and outwardly attractive brother-and-sister pair, Mary and Henry Crawford who arrive on the scene early in the piece to disrupt things for their own ends. The production cleverly cuts through this and more besides of the elaborate and complex Austen original, thanks to some judiciously- focused textual distillations and sharply-characterised, forward-driving music.

Director Rebecca Meltzer originally created this production for Waterperry Opera in Oxford, UK in 2018, resulting in her being invited here to direct the production with NZ Opera. Her fondness for working with singers in intimate audience environments was readily evident in the detailed delivery given the texts by the cast. As well, her direction of the opera’s “outdoor” scenes (such as the hilariously-contrived journey of the company to the estate of Mr.Rushworth at Southerton in the “barouche”, and the deployment of people not in the scene as characters but instead as “stage-props”, such as trees and gateways!) caused plenty of merriment.

We also relished the sensitive treatment of the more lyrical chorus-like moments in the work, like the almost Mozartean farewell (one thought of Soave sia il vento in Cosi fan Tutte) accorded Sir Thomas from the ensemble on his departure to Antigua, and the lovely “Stargazing” music duetted between Fanny and Edmund in Chapter Six. At the other expressive end of the work’s range was the wonderful scene “A Newspaper Paragraph” in which the general ensemble seemed to revolve like a flywheel around the sensational newspaper publication of Henry’s elopement with Mrs Rushworth, the characters gradually splintering off in different directions and leaving Edmund at last able to come to his senses regarding Mary Crawford’s true character via HER reaction to the news – fabulous musical theatre! – (but more about the work’s final chorale in a minute……)

In the title role of Fanny, mezzo-soprano Ashlyn Tymms looked, moved and sang with ease, grace and decorum as befitted her character and station in the Bertram household (Sophie Ham’s costumes beautifully modulated across the entire cast), though she allowed her emotions to betray her feelings given the chance, as when steadfast in her refusing to comply with Sir Thomas’s wishes that she should accept Henry Crawford as a husband. Her and Edmund’s final vows of commitment to one another were all the more touching for their “surprised by joy” aspect and given all due warmth of tone by both singers. As Edmund, Joel Amosa looked and sounded all the while steadfast, straightforward and upright, even if his head had been turned by the all-too superficially engaging Mary, whose portrayal brought forth resplendent and characterful singing from Joanna Foote.

Mary’s rakish brother Henry received a confident, swashbuckling rendering from Taylor Wallbank even if I felt some of his higher notes evinced a degree of strain. In the pathetic and thankless role of Mr Rushworth, I thought Andrew Grenon’s characterisation brilliantly and almost painfully engaging, as was his singing. As for the remainder of the Bertrams, both Robert Tucker and Kristin Darragh brought an ease of vocal delivery to their roles that itself gave their characters a kind of status and authority as Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram, in stark contrast to Andrea Creighton’s waspish and petulant yet wonderfully sung Aunt Norris, a thorn in her niece’s side as of her own god-given right! And each of the two sisters, the “twelve thousand-a-year-obsessed” Maria, and the younger, impressionable and impetuous Julia were played with characterful spirit and sung with attractive tones and well-crafted “surface” by Sarah Mileham and Michaela Cadwgan respectively.

What brought home to me an enduring feeling of the production’s depth and resonance of quality and truth was the opera’s final scene – after all Fanny’s trials and tribulations, endured with the utmost steadfastness, she is rewarded by the love she has wanted for herself for some time, that of Edmund Bertram. Austen celebrates her Fanny’s ultimate triumph somewhat matter-of-factly in the novel, whereas the composer and librettist of the opera obviously felt the need for some kind of outward catharsis, at any rate on Fanny’s part, and by extrapolation, on Edmund’s as well. So, at the end is the most beautiful of the opera’s sequences, with all the characters of the story, family, friends, villains and monsters alike gathering in a group on the stage to intone these beautiful words – not Austen’s own, but the librettist’s, speaking, as it were, for all of us who have been through the experience afforded in all of its forms by this remarkable work:
“Too soon falls the dusk,
Too soon comes the dark;
Let us learn to love, laugh and live –
at Mansfield Park!”

Intermezzi for the Ages from Rattle Records – Michael Houstoun plays Brahms

Posted on by Peter Mechen

BRAHMS – Complete Intermezzi for solo piano
Michael Houstoun (piano)
RATTLE Records RAT-D131-2022
Producer : Kenneth Young
Recording Engineer : Steve Garden
Reviewed by Peter Mechen

This beautifully-appointed Rattle disc’s serial number finishes with the tell-tale date 2022, one which inspires a tale piquantly framed by yours truly as a poor excuse, but one nevertheless linked to positive outcomes. At the time this disc came into my possession I was in hospital recovering from heart surgery; and its frequent playing on my trusty disc-player during my convalescence would definitely have contributed greatly to the restoration of my well-being! Almost two years later, the only less-than-positive association I can think of linking my medical experience with these musical sounds is the time I’ve taken to get back to the disc and write this review!

The music on this recording consists solely of pieces from Brahms’ later piano music, cherry-picking those pieces known as “Intermezzi”. They’re typical examples of the composer’s ever-increasing disinclination towards “display” or “virtuosity” in his piano writing in these later works. On first hearing of the set as a whole I found myself wondering whether the pieces (all with this title which in a very Brahmsian way can be taken to mean “neither one thing nor the other”) would work together as a popular choice for all music-lovers. And then, upon playing the final bracket of those beautiful works taken from Brahms’s Op.119, I remembered all over again that my first-ever Brahms piano recording (a 21st Birthday present!) was of the legendary Richard Farrell playing the whole of the Op.119 set, with three out of the four pieces themselves having the title “Intermezzo”.

This time it was, of course, another New Zealand pianist, Michael Houstoun, bringing those Op.119 pieces to life for me once again, at the conclusion of this remarkable journey. Regarding qualities such as beauty of tone, range of expression, sense of character and depth of feeling I’ve not heard more remarkable or arresting playing from this pianist as here – under his fingers each of the pieces one encounters throughout the disc straightaway proclaims its individuality and sense of purpose to an absorbing degree, inspiring more thoughts and reactions to this music than on previous hearings I for one had bargained for.

On this disc the items are placed in compositional order, beginning with the Intermezzi from Op.79, then by turns Opp. 116, 117, 118 and 119. It’s a sequence that makes sense, particularly as the pieces themselves exhibit a degree of variety along the way that richly rewards the listener. Not all have pure and simple beauty as their raison d’etre – while some ravish, others engage for different reasons, in certain cases exhibiting a quixotic spirit, while others strike a more sombre, and even tragic note. A couple show the influence of Schumann, and one or two contain for this listener foreshadowings of sounds for a later time. In short, the collection as a whole gives up much more than the title of “Intermezzi” might lead one to expect.

The disc’s first item, No. 3 from Brahms’s Op.76, is an enchanting Gracioso (the sounds uncannily predating something as far removed from the composer’s world as Anatole Liadov’s 1893 piece “A Musical Snuff-Box!”), here bright and sparkling at the beginning, then deep and sonorous in the alternating passages. It’s followed by the Schumannesque No.4 from the same set, an Allegretto grazioso whose sombre melody reminded me of the earlier composer’s Fantasiestücke pieces. And with the second of the later Op.117 set pf pieces I was again put in mind of Brahms’ great mentor, Schumann, and his Kreisleriana by this quixotic amalgam of flowing melody and chordal elaboration.

Two of the Op.116 pieces give added voice to the composer’s “quixotic” side, the balladic No. 2 in A Minor, with its quasi-portentous opening, its agitated figurations which follow and its return to the seriousness of the opening; followed by a favourite of mine, a piece which refracts a lovely “improvisatory” feeling throughout, so beautifully and patiently caught by the pianist. Then, somewhat curiously, there’s the dotted-rhythmed No.5 in E Minor Andante con grazia ed intimissimo sentimento, (with grace and very intimate feeling) in which Houstoun at a brisker-than usual pace brings out the almost zany angularities of the harmonies rather than the “dreamy” feeling of the piece as described by Clara Schumann.

Then, there are the out-and-out beauties, amongst Brahms most-loved piano pieces, such as Op.117 No.1 in E-flat Major Andante Moderato, and Op.118 No. 2, the latter favoured by soloists as an “encore” to a concerto performance – here, Brahms remarkably uses a similar three note pattern at the outset to Liszt’s in the latter’s “Spozalizio” (from Book 2 of “Annees de Pelerinage”). Brahms of course builds a completely different kind of structure, at the piece’s heart working “backwards” from the original theme by inversion in a remarkably beautiful way. A middle minor-key section is almost a story in itself when the melody is changed most beguilingly to the major for a short while, then reiterates its feeling in the minor key once more – and almost without a break the three-note opening returns, beautifully “integrated “ by Houstoun, and allowed to express its voice with no undue emphasis – a truly fine performance!

And there’s the enigmatic Op.119 selection at the very end, of course, beginning with the group’s dream-like opening Adagio. Brahms here seems to allow his improvisatory instincts full voice, beginning the piece, for example with a single-strand idea filled with wonderment, and then “growing” its capacities so that they permeate throughout the keyboard’s expressive range. And how beautifully and almost artlessly that single idea blossoms and informs the line’s descent towards its destiny, leaving us with as much promise as fulfilment. Houstoun’s playing of this on first hearing sounded from memory to my ears on a par, as I’ve said, with Farrell’s similarly poetic and philosophical approach.

The second piece, Andante un poco agitato, is another wonderful piece, beginning with angst-ridden figurations whose energies grow and build to the point where they tumble over one another – I like Houstoun’s bringing out the almost bardic spreading of the chords at various “pointed” moments, quixotically blending a sense of emotion “felt” and “relayed”, and continuing this feeling right throughout the more agitato passages – and then, how meltingly beautiful he makes the more lyrical, major-key way with the same figurations! The opening is recapitulated, before the coda reintroduces the major-key transformation as a kind of “leave-taking” to the piece as a whole.

Then, with No.3 in C Major, Grazioso e giocoso – well, what a sunny, whimsical and totally ingratiating way to end the recital! – at the outset, Houstoun emphasises the higher chordal right- handed notes rather than the underlying melody, giving the piece more of a “chattering” quality! But like his great Kiwi compatriot before him, Houstoun brings out the piece’s delightfully “knowing” innocence, as if Brahms is here saying “Write symphonies? – who, me?” – an aspect which belies the mastery of the whole, and brings the musical journey to a most satisfying conclusion.

Musical and pianistic distinction from Michael Houstoun at Waikanae

Posted on by Peter Mechen

WAIKANAE MUSIC SOCIETY presents:
Michael Houstoun (piano)

BACH (transcr. LISZT) – Organ Fantasy and Fugue in G Minor BWV 542
LISZT – Two Concert Studies S.145 “Waldesrauschen” (Forest Murmurs) and “Gnomenreigen” (Dance of the Gnomes)
LISZT – Bénédiction de Dieu dans la Solitude (The Blessing of God in Solitude) – No. 3 from “Harmonies Poetiques et Religieuses”
GAO PING – Outside the Window (Four Pieces)
CHOPIN – Piano Sonata No. 3 Op.58

Waikanae Memorial Hall
Saturday, 23rd March 2024

Fresh from reviewing Michael Houstoun’s remarkable disc for Rattle Records of Brahms’s Intermezzi for solo piano, I was suitably primed for a live encounter with the pianist in more varied repertoire, which took place at Waikanae as the second of the Music Society’s 2024 concert series.

This presentation consisted firstly of the music of Liszt, featured here as both composer and transcriber, and succeeded by a second half contrasting a contemporary work by Chinese composer Gao Ping with a standard Romantic “classic’’ by Chopin. I thought the blurb accompanying the recital aptly described the afternoon’s programme with the description “appealing and well-crafted”.

Houstoun has always been a staunch advocate of Franz Liszt’s music, with playing whose direct honesty and steadfast inquiry readily brings out the deeper, more intellectual aspects of the composer as well as his undeniable (and often-maligned as superficial) brilliance. As a piece of advocacy of what Liszt was capable of achieving as an all-round musician, the pianist’s choice of the latter’s transcription of JS Bach’s magnificent organ work the Fantasy and Fugue in G Minor BWV 542 was truly inspired – here was the original composer’s grandeur and well-honed complexity sublimely rendered through a different medium, perhaps reflecting Liszt’s own mastery of the organ as much as his ability to reproduce different kinds of sonority on the piano.

I particularly enjoyed the expressive turns of Houstoun’s playing throughout the opening Fantasy, delivering for us all of the music’s arresting declamations, momentums, lyricisms and introversions – then came the Fugue (more familiar to me than the opening of the work), but whose progress was then unexpectedly halted by a malfunctioning of the player’s electronic screen! We were impressed as much as anything by Houstoun’s completely unflappable reaction in spontaneously describing to his agog audience, how it “had gone absolutely blank!”, before making the necessary technical adjustment and then beginning the Fugue again, the music running its course this time round through to that wonderful moment where Liszt’s writing evokes something of the extra sonorities of the organ pedals at the work’s majestic conclusion.

The two contrasting Concert Etudes S.145 followed, the first, Waldesrauschen (Forest Murmurs) notable for beautiful colourings at the beginning marked by the contrastings of the piece’s single sonorous melody line with filigree-like decorative colouristic and rhythmic impulses themselves borne on the melody’s trajectory through the piece’s soundscape. Houstoun worked the music up to a brilliant effervescence of interaction between melody and decoration before the elements seeme to dissolve into one another at the conclusion. The second Etude, Gnomenreigen (Dance of the Gnomes) brings out a mordant wit in the pianist’s characterisation of the dancers, as much rustic as elfin in their scampering movements.

Different realms next awaited the listener with one of Liszt’s masterpieces, the beatifically-named Bénédiction de Dieu dans la Solitude (The Blessing of God in Solitude), one of a set of ten pieces together called Harmonies poétiques et religieuses (S.173), written in 1847 after being inspired by verses written by the poet Alphonse de Lamartine. While its pre-eminence in the set has resulted in the other pieces being unjustly overshadowed, it’s nevertheless deserving of such an honour, as emphasised all over again by Houstoun’s breathtakingly luminous performance – from the outset every note seemed transcendentally certain of its place, every impulse of movement pre-ordained, every colouration of tone glowing from the sounds themselves, as the music proclaimed an ever-burgeoning expression of deepening spiritual ecstasy felt by a soul in communion with God. The music reached a climax, paused to contemplate the realms that had been opened – “Whence comes, O my God, this peace that floods over me?” were the words of de Lamartine that Liszt wrote at the head of the score – and then even more intensely and urgently reiterated the journey, repeating the climax with increased fervour and near-overwhelming surety. After this the sounds gently and peacefully returned us to our lives. Suffice to say that Houstoun’s playing fully enabled these impressions, conveying what seemed to be total commitment to the music’s “transportings of delight”, and the peace wrought by such a journey. We welcomed the interval at such a juncture!

The second half took a more divergent course at first, with music by the Chinese composer Gao Ping, whose career brought him to New Zealand as a performer and teacher, and whose music has been taken up enthusiastically by local performers such as Houstoun, the New Zealand String Quartet and the New Zealand Trio. Gao Ping’s work for solo piano Outside the Window was written for a talented 11 year-old Beijing pianist, Zhang Si-Yin, and dedicated, in the composer’s words, ‘to the people who remain a child at heart”.

Houstoun’s spoken Introduction to the piece established a strong link with the composer and his music, which was borne out by the playing – the opening “On the Way” gave us sounds of a suitably meandering character with stops and starts and different kinds of trajectories (and perhaps even a tumble at one point?), depending upon one’s fancies. The second piece “Chorus of Fire Worms” was even more fanciful, to the point of being schizoid, refrains interrupted by dexterous fingerworked passages. The third “Clouds” gave us more movement and figuration than I expected, with textures beset by decorative filigree passages and heavier, more monumental tones – a busy, crowded sky! Finally, the title “Tiao Pi Jin” referred to a girl’s game of “dancing on fixed rubber bands”, a perpetuum-mobile work in what sounded like 5/4 time, and not unlike NZ composer Philip Dadson’s “Sisters’ Dance” in places with its whirring, mouse-on-a-wheel figures – a momentary impasse late in the music briefly halted the flow, which picked up to deliver the piece’s final, insouciant moment!

Then came the piece to which all the pathways of the afternoon were leading – Chopin’s Third Piano Sonata in B Minor, a landmark of romantic piano composition from an era whose spell continues to exert its thrall to this day. Houstoun stayed not upon the order of his going, but plunged into the work’s opening flourishes with a will, making grand capital out of all the music’s opportune moments of declamation and energy, before a lyrical (and wonderfully extended) second subject seemed to say all that could be said – then, and unlike with most of the performances I have on record, we found ourselves here plunged excitingly into the exposition repeat, adding to the work’s truly heroic character!

With hardly a pause to draw breath at the movement’s conclusion, Houstoun then whirled our sensibilities into the vertiginous figurations of the scherzo, a most exhilarating ride which abruptly ceased with a shout of elation and a quixotic transformation into something resembling a kind of gondola-song whose elusive serenities had a suggestibility which was readily gathered in once again by the scherzo’s vigorously renewed freewheeling attentions.

I thought Houstoun forged the link between the scherzo and the succeeding Largo with tremendous conviction (somewhere in my youthful musical memory is a popular song or dance that uses those same eight declamatory notes that begin the movement, but I simply can’t recall any title or lyrics which would identify it for me!)…..giving the stately dance that grows out of the transition a natural tranquility, though I found myself wanting the subsequent flowing sostenuto passages to sound a shade more limpid and diaphanous, as if the sounds were coming from out of the air as it were – still, with the return of the stately dance passage the initial crepuscular beauties were restored and honour satisfied.

With the finale of course, the pianist was completely in his element, carrying his audience with him through the various reprised surgings of the principal theme and the dancing energies of the glittering running passages, and riding the crest of the music’s excitement right to the final keyboard flourishes and conclusive chordings, after which we applauded until our hands were tingling. To help us properly return to our lives, Houstoun gave us a further helping of the music of Gao Ping, a work called “Wandering”, a lovely, truly ambient Debussian/Ravelian piece of delight and wonderment. But what a recital it was! – music and piano-playing of lasting distinction!