Benefit for organist Thomas Gaynor, studying in United States, covers satisfying range of organ masterworks

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Thomas Gaynor, organ

Louis Vierne: Allegro, 2nd movement from Deuxième Symphonie, Op.20
J.S. Bach: ‘Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr’, BWV 676 (from Clavierübung III)
Mendelssoh : Organ Sonata, Op.65 no.6
Mozart: Andante for mechanical organ in F, K.616
Liszt: Fantasie und Fuge über das Thema B-A-C-H, S.260iii

Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul

Friday 8 May 2015, 6pm

Approximately 50 people were there to hear Thomas Gaynor on a welcome return to his home city, from study in the USA

The opening  item was full-on organ music, from one of the masters of the French organ school (Vierne’s dates: 1870-1937), but there were subtle contrasts in texture and volume, and melodies interwove the more dogmatic passages.  The audience heard some magnificent sounds, demonstrating that the organ is a spatial instrument, producing sounds from different quarters; the acoustic of the building amplifies them and resonates with them, distributing them to all corners.

There was much fast foot and finger work required of the performer.  It was a grand, if portentous, composition, amply well played.

Bach followed, with a chorale prelude.  Here a gorgeous flute registration accompanied a light reed stop playing the melody clearly.  The registration added to the lovely flowing lines and the glowing, peaceful quality of the music.

Mendelssohn’s sonata in three movements was full of interest.  The first movement consisted of variations on a German chorale.  Grove says of the composer’s organ sonatas: “[in] the noteworthy organ sonatas op.65 (1844-5) he reverted to the contrapuntal style of Bach…”.   Wikipedia expands the description in Gaynor’s printed programme somewhat, to: “No. 6 in D minor (based on the Lutheran Bach chorale Vater unser im Himmelreich [Our Father in heaven], BWV 416) (Chorale and variations: Andante sostenuto – Allegro molto – Fuga – Finale: Andante)”.

The first variation was quiet, with running quavers beneath the melody; the next was chordal with running pedals below.  Then there was an oboe solo with flutes accompanying, followed by a very fast and much louder rendition on diapasons.  The melody line, with variations, was finally on the pedals.

The grand fugue featured counterpoint between the pedals and the inner parts.  A big, thick organ sound gave way to the fugal complexity.

A quieter, hymn-like passage followed, with singing tones.  This andante was most appealing in a typically Romantic genre, unknown to Bach (despite Grove’s writer).

The short work by Mozart was a complete change.  The mechanical organ, or musical clock, had limitations with only slight appeal to the composer.  Searching on the Internet turned up this comment: “Less solemn and complex than its two companions, K616 possibly reflects Mozart’s increasing irritation with a commission that obviously bored him from the outset (Letter to his wife of October 1790)”.

While charming, it was reminiscent of his writing for glass harmonica, and in its tones.  The latter was also an instrument also limited in its range and opportunities for Mozart’s inventive skill.  The piece was for manuals only.  The cast of Thomas Gaynor’s head while playing this music indicated that this and perhaps other parts of the programme were played from memory. 

Despite the limitations, there was complexity and much modulation in the piece.  Rhythm and timing were nicely nuanced.  The music was pretty, but it was not a substantial work and became overly repetitive.

Liszt’s work was, as usual, full-on.  The organ got a good pedal work-out both near the beginning and again later.  Bach would not have approved of such shifting tonalities employed in the celebration of his name!  Rippling arpeggios made a grand effect in the fantasia.  The fugue left little doubt as to the theme.  It started quietly, with spooky notes on the pedals followed by the exciting stuff.  Much virtuoso playing was required, not least on the pedals.  Towards the end the music blazed out, Liszt being really carried away.  After a short quiet passage, Liszt let ‘em have it!

For an encore, Thomas Gaynor played one of Bach’s beautiful chorale preludes on the chorale ‘Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier’.  In a couple of places, I would have liked a little more of a break at the end of the text’s phrases.  However, the ornaments were beautifully managed and the whole effect was supremely musical and delightful.

There is no doubt that Thomas Gaynor is a talented young organist on the way up.  A varied, interesting and inspiring recital made good use of the splendid organ under his hands and feet.  The recital was  fundraiser for Thomas’s continuing studies in the US, in which all will wish him both pleasure and success.

 

Cantoris tackles imaginative programme exploring Hungarian influence in Brahms’s music and related musical phenomena

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Zigeunerlieder

Cantoris, conducted by Bruce Cash with pianist Thomas Nikora

Zoltan Nagy: from 25 Hungarian love songs
Beethoven: Songs – Elegischer Gesang and Meeresstille und GlücklicheFahrt
Rossini: Péchés de vieillesse (Sins of Old Age) – La passagiata and I gondolieri
Brahms: ‘Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen‘ from the German Requiem, Op 45; and Geistliches Lied, Op 30
Brahms: Prelude and Fugue in G minor (organ)
Brahms: Zigeunerlieder,Op 103 (Gypsy Songs)

St John’s church, Willis Street

Wednesday 6 May, 7:30 pm

Some musical programmes cry out to be heard and experienced because the music is famous and/or promises emotional excitement: expect a big audience; others offer little-known music that rings no emotional bells: expect a thin house.
This was a concert of the latter kind.

Yet the theme of this concert was interesting – the exploration of Brahms’s handling of Gypsy or Hungary-influenced music, and the concert reflected intriguingly on its origins and presented other music that might have tapped a comparable vein, perhaps tenuous, such as music touched by nature, with notions of liberty, freedom of the human spirit, some of Beethoven’s that touched the grand aspirations of the Congress of Vienna of 1815; but the connection of some, such as Beethoven’s Elegischer Gesang and the two spiritual items by Brahms was harder to divine.

Bruce Cash, Cantoris’s current music director, talked interestingly about the music and its contexts, especially about Brahms’s personality, the Vienna of his times and his relationships with patrons. To introduce the theme of Hungary he spoke about Brahms’s two important Hungarian musician friends Eduard Reményi and Joseph Joachim, and his lasting affection for Hungarian music. So they began with a couple of real Hungarian songs collected by Zoltan Nagy, difficult to capture idiomatically as they sang a cappella, and then their arrangements by Brahms in his Zigeunerlieder which they sang in its entirety in the second half of the concert, accompanied by pianist Thomas Nikora.

The two songs by Beethoven were from around the time of the post-Napoleonic Congress of Vienna in 1815, when he no doubt shared Europe’s general feeling that Eureope was free to revert to the old forms of more or less absolute monarchy, freed from Napoleon’s imposition of French Imperial hegemony combined with enlightened governmental and administrative reform.

There was no mention of the Mendelssohn overture, Meeresstille und Glückliche Fahrt, of around 1828 which was probably inspired by the Beethoven cantata. Here, in particular, the problem that tended to affect most of the choir’s performances became clear: the rather too small body of singers that could both lend important support to each other and consequently sing with adequate confidence.

Two Rossini songs from his retirement years in Paris were nicely accompanied though a solo soprano had an unenviable, lonely task.

After the interval and before the Gypsy Songs, Cantoris retreated from the floor to the organ gallery above the sanctuary to sing a couple of Brahms’s religious choral pieces: ‘How lovely are thy dwellings’ from the German Requiem, and the Geistliches Lied (Spiritual Song), Op 30, both sung with appropriate piety. Bruce Cash took the opportunity to talk about Brahms and Hamburg where he was born. He mentioned St Michael’s Lutheran Church where Brahms was christened and which featured in some of his activities during his return to his birth place from 1856 to 1863; I missed what he said about St Michael’s other than that it was where his Frauenchor (women’s choir) often performed.  (In 2013 I spent a delightful week in Hamburg, at the last three parts of Simone Young’s performances of the Ring cycle, exploring all five principal churches including the wonderful St Michael’s, and both the Brahms and Telemann museums in Peterstrasse). Before leaving the organ gallery Cash played Brahms’s youthful Prelude and Fugue in G minor, chosen for its own sake as well as deriving from the same years as the two preceding choral pieces.  

Then came the eleven Gypsy Songs; though they may have derived from the much earlier relationship with the Hungarian violinist Reményi, much of a Hungarian or Gypsy character seemed to have faded from Brahms’s soul by the time of their composition, ten years before his death.  They were written for four voices, no doubt with four trained voices in mind. For an amateur choir, especially one without enough singers able to contribute in any section in a soloistic manner, it was a struggle to create any real Hungarian character or, to be honest, to make of these fairly slender songs anything very interesting. Sadly, their successful interpretation, including an injection of ethnic and stylistic character, colour, rhythmic fun, rubato, commitment, calls for performers with a certain flamboyance and distinguished musical gifts. These qualities showed themselves all too rarely in this performance. 

 

An unusual trio throws fresh, sometimes questionable light on a variety of chamber pieces

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Trio Amistad (Rebecca Steel – flute, Simon Brew – saxophones, Jane Curry – guitar)
(Wellington Chamber Music)

François de Fossa: Trio No 1 in A, Op 18
Piazzolla: Histoire du Tango – Café and Bordello
Sergio Assad: Winter impressions for Trio
Bach: Trio Sonata VI, BWV 530 (arranged Eric Dussault)
Debussy: Petite Suite (arr. Timothy Kain)
Falla: La vida breve – Danse espagnole (arr. Owen Moriarty)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 3 May, 2:30 pm

This, just incidentally, was the third recital involving a flute within a month – see Middle C of 1 and 29 April.

The Trio by the amateur and rather obscure 19th century French composer, François de Fossa, was written originally for violin, guitar and cello (reflecting the widespread interest in the guitar in the first half of the 19th century).

I had not heard of De Fossa and have been interested to find him, of course, through Google, significant in the guitar world, responsible for bringing Boccherini’s guitar quartets to notice, arranging Haydn quartets for guitar duo, translating a guitar method from Spanish.

Since Fossa himself had arranged for the guitar, music written for other instruments, I guess there can be little objection to musicians today arranging his. The thing that struck one at once however was the dramatically different sound produced by the tenor sax, and by the end of the concert the question remained; it was the most problematic of the six pieces they played.

The original would certainly have held together sonically and the flute substitutes easily enough for the violin, but the timbre of the saxophone seemed to contribute a quality that was rather too prominent. One can understand the hesitancy of classical composers, since the invention of the saxophones, to embrace them as fully legitimate members of the family. Even without knowing its history, one can sense that the saxophone is of another time; though I wonder whether, if it had not been taken up so completely by the world of big band jazz, it would sound more comfortable in classical music.
In its style the trio shows echoes of Haydn (the occasional amusing, deliberate miss-step) or Boccherini, or perhaps George Onslow; it was very agreeable, and it was played with charm.

In the two pieces they played from Piazzolla’s Histoire du tango, Simon Brew picked up his alto sax, again, not an instrument Piazzolla had envisaged, but here it fitted the sound world with a perfect authenticity (and it made me wonder whether the alto might have made all the difference to the Fossa piece). They began with the second piece, Café 1930, which is charming and gay; there was more evidence of the true roots of the tango in the first part of the suite, Bordello 1900, as you’d expect, and the players rejoiced in the syncopated rhythms and captivating melodic shapes.

Brazilian composer Sergio Assad (using the tenor sax again, in place of the as-scored, viola) wrote his Winter Impressions in 1996. I would have doubted the existence of much of a winter in the area around São Paulo, and Jane Curry’s guitar was the only one of the trio whose music hinted at The Frozen Garden – the first movement. The flute in the second movement contributed a dreamy tune, and the distinct lines for all three instruments created a most delightful musical pattern. The last movement, Fire Place, created an air of charming sociability, with animated talk punctuated by meditative pauses. Assad struck me as a natural, gifted composer with his own voice in music that had arisen because it had to be composed and not to fulfill academic assignments or important commissions.

The 6th of Bach’s Trio Sonatas, written for his oldest son Wilhelm Friedmann, was reportedly pieced together from parts of his other works, which is the reason for their sounding familiar, though I could not name or place them. Music long familiar has a habit of sounding more substantial and, of course, memorable, and so did this. The first movement was a successful wedding of flute and alto sax, each echoing the other. As I had with the Piazzolla, I found the alto a more comfortable companion with its colleagues here, and its soft, rather beautiful tones in the Lento, middle movement, held the music together in an organic manner. It was a most successful adaptation, colourfully played.

Debussy’s Petite Suite for piano duet has been much arranged, for orchestra and a variety of chamber ensembles, which would seem to give permission for virtually anything. Here Rebecca Steel’s flute seemed utterly natural, taking, as was explained, the piano primo part while the saxophone took the secondo (bass) part, much duetting in 6ths. The effect here was for the guitar to be placed rather inconspicuously, simply accompaniment; though there was a charming duet between flute and guitar in the Menuet. Nevertheless, though I am unhappy about most amplification, it’s often necessary for the guitar and might have been useful here.

The Spanish Dance from Manuel de Falla’s La vida breve ended the programme, and here again I felt the alto sax might have been a better choice than the tenor in the mix with two lighter instruments; in its top register however, it was fine; the guitar had more prominence which was most welcome; and the piece brought this charming concert a delightful finish.

 

NZSO with Lilburn’s Symphony No 2, his successor’s impressive piece plus striking Swedish composer and trombonist

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

NZSO Aotearoa Plus

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra; Christian Lindberg conductor and trombone, and David Bremner – trombone

Michael Norris: Claro
Jan Sandström: Echoes of Eternity
Lilburn: Symphony No 2

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 1 May, 6:30 pm

The title of this concert covered two-thirds of its music, though perhaps the most spectacular element was supplied by trombonist-plus, Christian Lindberg in a work by compatriot Sandström, Echoes of Eternity. The concert, in the two New Zealand works, spanned almost the entire post-war musical history of the orchestra and its home, Wellington. For the orchestra was founded in 1946 shortly before Lilburn moved from Christchurch to Wellington to become a lecturer at the newly established Music Department of Victoria University in 1949. There he finished his first symphony, played two years later by the then National Orchestra; the second followed quickly. Both Lilburn and the NZSO remained in Wellington, the orchestra rather slow to take seriously a responsibility for New Zealand music, but Lilburn and the school of music soon became the pre-eminent harbingers of New Zealand music. This year (2 November) is Lilburn’s centenary.  

The orchestra’s early dilatoriness can of course be understood, for its first task, obviously, was to establish its importance to the community at large which had, in a very short time, first to become familiar with the huge central body of classical orchestral music in live performance. Only having ingested the basic repertoire was there any real hope of audiences coming to grips with the music that our few composers were then writing.

The other New Zealand work in the programme was by a young composer, inheritor of that Lilburn-Victoria University Music School tradition: Michael Norris, 2003 winner of the Lilburn composition prize at Victoria, now senior lecturer in composition, as was Lilburn. As well as composing for orthodox instruments and orchestra forces, he engages with avant-garde techniques – sonic arts, electro-acoustic music, which he studied with fellow-New Zealander Denis Smalley at City University London.

Lindberg appeared as both conductor and trombonist. He ran on to the stage, bounded on to the podium, in a tight, glistening black jacket hinting at his self-image as some kind of bad-boy – at least a bit unorthodox – of music.

Norris’s piece, newly commissioned by the orchestra, reportedly composed for the same orchestral forces as Lilburn’s second symphony was, apart from anything else, a remarkable exercise in imaginative orchestration and harmonic ingenuity; with a more precise musical memory, I could have figured out whether its initial outlaying of pitches constituted a tone row. Even if it did, and in spite of its hardly throwing out any melodies that would persist in the mind long into the night, it was by no means music of the jagged kind that one longs to be finished. There was a recognisable recurrence of certain intervals that rose several times to a state of near resolution; a rising quasi-arpeggio passage with shimmering violin solo and harp; there were interesting passages for tuned percussion – xylophone and marimba. It was all propelled, somewhat miraculously, and mesmerizingly, by the man on the podium given to far-flung, angular arm gestures, commonly both arms mirroring in opposite directions.

The composer’s words in the programme suggested the title of the work, Claro, implied a “state of transparency, lightness and clarity”, and it would be hard to find more specifically descriptive language to characterise it.

That we are now in an era that has turned aside from the alienating styles of composition that drove audiences away, was clear through hearing admiring, if sometimes a bit bemused audience comments, broadly appreciative of all they’d heard.

Lindberg’s showpiece was a sort of concerto for two trombones and orchestra by the 61-year-old Swedish composer, Jan Sandström, written for the Extremadura Symphony Orchestra, the region west of Madrid, adjacent to Portugal. Its major city, Cáceres, has UNESCO World Heritage status, with important Roman, Islamic, Gothic and Renaissance architecture and these features, says the composer, inspire the music.

An off-stage trombone sounds as the orchestra awaits the conductor’s arrival, a long legato melody rising and falling. Now he enters, in a close-fitting white jacket brandishing trombone, continuing to play, accompanied by wood-blocks (virtually the only percussion on hand) and a bed of strings. Nothing could have been a greater contrast with the previous impressionist/virtuosic, multi-tonal Norris than this forthright, quasi-conventional orchestral tutti, big opulent melody verging, for some ears, no doubt, on blowsy. Later there are near-percussive throbbing passages from cellos and basses.  

We’d had a long wait for the other trombonist who eventually entered from the right: NZSO principal trombone David Bremner, and the two were soon involved in battle even as Lindberg continued, as best he could, throwing his right arm towards the orchestra behind him, which seemed enough to keep the players alongside. 

Prominent in the orchestral melee was the tuba, as the two trombones, occasionally inserting mutes, became increasingly frenzied, doing things at a speed one might have thought impossible. There was a calm point in the middle when Lindberg recited a poem that described Cáceres, which did not have quite the impact that a reading by a George Henare (recalling the ANZAC concert last week) might have had. Among later diversions was the winding of a air-raid siren driven by a sort of wind-machine that lent a note of terror – was the city attacked by murderous Falangist rebels in the Civil War?

Music that is conspicuously tonal, though now reinforced by some of the more expressive, perhaps aggressive, features of the difficult music of the past era, has returned, and is no longer scorned. Audiences can now feel welcome in the concert halls again.

Conductor Lindberg appeared in the second half in a plum-coloured jacket (I exercised myself conjecturing synesthestic implications) to conduct Lilburn’s second symphony, written in 1951 but not performed till 1959. Opening with vivid trumpet over firm strokes by strings, this symphony has now signalled Lilburn’s escape from some of the slightly repetitious decorative gestures that constituted an unneeded trade mark in earlier music, and a total maturity and self-confidence. I soon felt that I was hearing a fresh and unhesitant, thoroughly thought-out performance as proved by a conductor who’d committed the score to memory.

It was energetic, assertive in its handling long phrases, its breathing of dynamics, the contours studied and explored with care and traversed with confidence. Again Lindberg was a conductor whose gestures were compelling, for the audience at least (I haven’t asked players whether they were valuable or something else). My only pause came with the feeling that the main theme and the signature motifs in the last movement were overstated.

Never mind: this was a very fine performance, and it was great to have a committed and serious view taken by a non-Anglo conductor capable of grasping its character and inspiring a pretty electrifying performance.

Though the MFC was not full, the audience was no disgrace considering the absence of an acknowledged masterpiece. And the applause was generous. 

 

Memorable choral singing from Copenhagen Royal Chapel Choir

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Copenhagen Royal Chapel Choir conducted by Ebbe Munk, with Hanne Kuhlmann, organ

Music by Niels la Cour, Palestrina, Patrick Gowers, Nielsen, Lauridsen

Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul, Hill Street

Thursday 30 April 2015, 7 pm

While it was always my intention to attend this concert, an email from a Dunedin friend that urged me to go said the following: “They filled the cathedral here, got a standing ovation and a rave review.”  Indeed, Wellington Cathedral was very nearly full, also.  I’m told this means around 600 people attended.

The opening item, Evening Prayer was by a contemporary Danish composer, Niels la Cour.  It was sung unaccompanied and without scores, the 45 (approx.) members standing in the central aisle, facing in alternate directions.  Most could not see the conductor, but nevertheless their timing was perfect, as was the balance.  What struck me most was the lovely resonant sound, without any forcing.  The men and boys (some of the latter quite small; 7 or 8 years old?) continued the music by humming as they walked to the steps of the sanctuary.

The conductor, Ebbe Munk, made short remarks about the works.  I was told that they could not be heard clearly from further back in the cathedral.

The complexity of most of the remaining music on the programme demanded the choir use scores.  Their singing of Palestrina’s Stabat Mater, Nunc dimittis and Viri Galilaei  (a motet for Ascension Day in Rome) was indeed complex, but the polyphony was very apparent, especially in the first two works, in which the singers were split into two choirs.  Though there was not the space for them to sing antiphonally, the character of the works was clear, not least through beautifully graded dynamics.  Small groups from within the choir came over less well, some tones sounding brittle.

The choir reorganised for the Viri Galilaei, which provided some very complex and florid polyphony, which sounded splendid in this building.  The singers really seemed to have the measure of these works.  However, some tenors were too prominent.

The choristers had a rest while Hanne Kuhlmann played An Occasional Trumpet Voluntary by English composer Patrick Gowers, who died at the end of last year, and was noted as a composer for film and television.  I found its repetitive rhythm rather tedious, but there were interesting tonal shifts, and a gradual crescendo by means of added stops led to an exciting finish, with the melody played on the pedals; my neighbour remarked ‘That should clean out the pipes!’

Nielsen’s Three Motets followed.  Immediately, the choir had a rich sound, but again some forcing of tone by the tenors spoilt the mellow tone of the majority of the choir.  Attacks were clean and clear.  The counterpoint in ‘Dominus regit me’, the second of the three, was most effective; this movement featured gorgeous finishing cadences. The following ‘Benedictus’ was even more complex, with intriguing modulations.  This was difficult music, making considerable demands on young voices.  Yet there was plenty of volume when required.

After the interval came Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna, in five sections.  (Wikipedia doesn’t tell me, but I speculate that Lauridsen is of Danish ancestry).  This was performed with organ, although much of the time it was not accompanying, but playing quiet interludes between the unaccompanied sung passages.  The boys had changed from their sailor suits (à la Vienna Boys’ Choir) into white shirts and ties.

It was instantly striking how good is Lauridsen’s writing for choirs.  Perhaps this was one reason why I did not now hear any stridency in the tenor voices.  This was a stunning work.

In the ‘O nata lux’ movement there was the soaring quality of great beauty that one hopes to hear in a choir of boys.  However, the strident tenors were back, on the high notes, and slightly flat in intonation.  Here, the composer had written in some marvellous discords – most effective.

‘Veni, sancte Spiritus’ followed, and was sung loudly and joyfully, with conviction, whereas the final ‘Agnus Dei’ wasquiet and contemplative, unaccompanied apart from dreamy organ interludes that revealed Lauridsen’s inventive writing for the instrument.  The movement provided a mood of joyful peace.  The final ‘Alleluia’ of acclamation brought this splendid work to a close.

The final section of the programme was entitled Songs of Northern Light, and comprised four items, featuring variously words by Hans Christian Andersen and music by Carl Nielsen, and following the seasons of winter through to summer.  These songs were sung
unaccompanied, and sung from memory.

The boys opened ‘The Bird in the Snow’, and were joined by tenors, then basses.  Some of the members of the choir sang from behind the main body, from in front of the altar.  Later, they slowly moved forward to join the rest.  This was very effective – and reflective.  It was followed by ‘Spring in Denmark’, a lively folk tune that was fast, with cross-rhythms.  ‘Summer’ was chorale-like, and thus more harmonic in nature than most of the music we heard.

‘Bend your Head, oh Flower’ (which surely should be the ‘o’ of invocation, not the mild exclamation ‘oh’) revealed excellent sustained tone.  An incantation from the back of the church was followed by humming. Then this group sang in counterpoint to the main choir.

Finally, ‘Homage to New Zealand; my prediction that it would be ‘Pokarekare ana’ proved correct.  It was a superb Danish arrangement  with beautiful harmony, and soprano, bass and tenor soloists.  Following a standing ovation, the choir sang as an encore ‘Evensong – summer night’, which was a delightful and remarkable way to finish an evening of memorable choral singing.

 

Delightful, varied recital by Ingrid Culliford and Kris Zuelicke at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s Lunchtime concerts

Ingrid Culliford (flute), Kris Zuelicke (piano)

Ernest Bloch: Suite modale for flute and piano
John Ritchie: The Snow Goose
Miriam Hyde: The Little Juggler and The Evening under the Hill 
Anne Boyd:  Goldfish through Summer Rain
Carl Vine: Sonata for Flute and Piano

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 29 April, 12:15 pm

A flute recital that contained no big composer names might not have seemed particularly enticing. And in some ways it wasn’t, there was nothing that really demanded being embedded in the memory or prompted a visit to Parsons (whoops!) to look for a CD of a particular piece.

What made it interesting (for me at least) was the theme of Australia, no doubt bearing in mind a centenary that is absorbing a lot of media space just now. In the 1980s and 90s when I used to make frequent trips to Sydney and Melbourne I used to browse the CD bins at the Australian Music Centre in The Rocks, Sydney and all the well-stocked music stores that proliferated in those civilised times. And I became familiar with the music of most of the leading Australian composers. I was often disconcerted to find so much new music across the Tasman that was interesting and engaging, still able to withstand the pressures of the avant-garde that many composers in New Zealand were striving to emulate.

Then there was the presence of women composers who emerged much earlier in Australia than here; significant women composers began to appear in Australia by the 1920s, starting with Margaret Sutherland, and then Miriam Hyde (born two years before Lilburn), Peggy Glanville-Hicks …

Miriam Hyde’s The Little Juggler, of 1956, and Evening under the Hill were played at this concert. The first, a happy, uncomplicated piece in fairly traditional style, seemed to reflect an English character, brushed by the influence of French flute composers like Françaix or Pierné. The second, from a set of five pieces of 1936, did not especially evoke evening, but was a charming impressionistic piece nevertheless.

However, the recital began with Ernest Bloch’s Suite modale, in four movements, mainly contemplative in character; even the last two movements marked Allegro giocoso – a subdued joy perhaps – and Allegro deciso maintained a meditative and slightly sombre spirit in spite of fluttering scalic passages that rose and fell. Its fine performance by a gifted, versatile flutist and a pianist whose role was both distinctive and accommodating of the characteristics of the flute promised a recital of considerable interest and pleasure.

It was good to be reminded that the flute need not be restricted to music that’s light and airy but that it can express more pensive moods, allowing more basic musical qualities to emerge from music of substance.

That was followed by an attractive narrative piece by John Ritchie, The Snow Goose, which was a  sentimental and hugely popular post-WW2 children’s and young person’s story of bravery involving a goose repaying its rescue and nursing by the hero in helping evacuate thousands of British troops from Dunkirk in 1940. Sensitive playing of melodic shapes and occasional sunlit flights suggested elements of the story.

An Australian composer of the next generation after Hyde, Anne Boyd, wrote a piece inspired by a poem in the form of a haiku, Goldfish through Summer Rain, in which the flute could well be heard adopting the character of the Japanese shakuhachi, and unsurprisingly, reminded me of Takemitsu.

The recital ended with a flute sonata by Carl Vine, born in 1954, one of Australia’s leading male composers. He has described himself as ‘radically tonal’ and that is indeed a way to describe his energetic, melodic, muscular first piano concerto and his Choral Symphony which I have on CD and have just been refreshing my memory with. As I listened to this flute sonata I scribbled words about the first movement, Fast, like ‘not afraid to write big attractive tunes’ and ‘accessible music’, not words that quite a few younger New Zealand composers would feel comfortable with.

The middle movement, entitled Slow, showed the gentle Vine, rhapsodic in character. Predictably, the last movement is ‘Very Fast’ (Real composers of course would have applied proper musical terms in an appropriate foreign language like Vivace, Lento and Molto vivace). I was amused at the composer’s teasing, long-anticipated closing cadences, sort of mocking the common, endless perorations of some of the great 19th century composers.

Anyway, it proved a splendidly unconventional way to end a flute recital, a complete turn away from flutish composition of the classical era, of the French school founded by Taffanel, or of misty dreaminess of early 20th century English music.  The Vine was a bit special, but the earlier music in the programme, some of which might have been characterized by my last sentence, was varied, expanding our flute horizons, and highly enjoyable in the context devised by the players.

 

NZSO and Sydney Symphony Orchestra in moving shared ANZAC concert of new works by composers of both countries

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Benjamin Northey

Spirit of ANZAC
Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man
Michael Williams: Symphony No 1 Letters from the Front (with Madeleine Pierard – soprano and George Henare – narrator)
James Ledger: War Music (with the New Zealand Youth Choir)
Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis

Michael Fowler Centre

Wednesday 22 April, 6:30 pm

Note that this review is for the most part what I wrote and posted on this website two days later on Friday 24 April, but now modified in various ways in the light of listening to its broadcast by Radio New Zealand Concert on Saturday evening.
I delayed further, to listen to the broadcast on Monday afternoon of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s performance (presumably also performed on the Wednesday).

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra has joined forces with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra to present the same programme, to mark the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings. The SSO’s two performances of the concert take place on the same evenings as this concert in Wellington and, on Friday, in Auckland. Dominating the programme were the two principal works, commissioned by the two orchestras from prominent composers in each country.

A further link with Australia was through Australian conductor Benjamin Northey who has been seen here before, conducting both the National Youth Orchestra, in February 2014 and the NZSO in November last; and he takes over as Principal Conductor of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra this year.

Fanfare for the Common Man
The concert began with a shattering performance of Copland’s brief Fanfare for the Common Man, a title that reflects his humane, left-wing sympathies. (He was classed as subversive by the House of Representatives committee on Un-American Activities in the early 1950s and black-listed by the FBI, one of the 150 American artists so classified during those paranoid years).

It opened with a frightening seismic thunder-clap on timpani and bass drum, and continued with brilliant, spacious brass playing: a monumental performance.

Symphony No 1 by Michael Williams
Michael Williams has composed this, his first symphony, ‘Letters from the Front’, on commission by the orchestra. The commission may well have been prompted by the success of his opera, The Juniper Passion, about the Battle of Monte Cassino in the second World War. My first knowing contact with him had been a moving performance, featuring Paul Whelan, Joanne Cole and Stephanie Acraman, in his earlier chamber opera, The Prodigal Child, at the Taranaki Arts Festival in 2003.

His symphony opens with the rattle of a side drum, and the orchestra expands to create a trembling, fearful, chaotic environment which was much more than heterogeneous noise: it was music. There were snatches of melody, barking brass, rippling flute, poignant cor anglais; and short breaks of calm where beautiful strains of music emerged.

In the second and third movements, the orchestra was joined by soprano Madeleine Pierard who sang lines of Wilfred Owen’s poem, Arms and the Boy, interspersed with extracts from letters from New Zealand soldiers in the first World War read by narrator George Henare; one of the letters was from Williams’s great-grandfather who was killed at Passchendaele in 1917.

Henare’s delivery was carefully paced, reflected the grim pathos of the poem, without succumbing to any exaggerated or false sentiment. Pierard’s voice was perfect for the Owen poem, lyrical in a thin, penetrating way; I couldn’t help being reminded of the quality of voice and orchestra in Gorecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs; in addition, Pierard injected an unearthly, intense vibrato that lifted it to a spiritual realm.

The third movement starts with a sort of excitable mockery of a bugle call; oboe and cor anglais feature again, but their human dimension is obliterated by a depiction of a terrifying artillery bombardment, as Pierard resumes the poem accompanied by a trembling flute. There were moments, as it moved on, when a less penetrating voice might have been obscured by the orchestra. The relationship between soprano and the various instruments was tested throughout, somehow dramatising the pathos of the fates of the men whose lives were taken.

James Ledger’s War Music
It was Australia’s turn after the interval, with James Ledger’s War Music.

But here I am revising what I wrote following the concert and posted on Friday morning. These remarks follow my hearing the broadcast of the concert’s recording by RNZ Concert on Saturday evening. Though I usually argue that it is much more rewarding to listen to live music than via the radio or from recordings, I had to concede that I was getting a clearer impression and rather more purely musical enjoyment on the small radio at our bach at Waikawa Beach than at the concert.

First, the following is part of my original review:
The first movement was entirely orchestral, portraying the subject through a multitude of instrumental devices, some familiar, some unusual, such as patting the mouthpiece of the brass instruments to produce soft, muffled tones, passages of pulsating, throbbing sounds evoking fusillades, screaming glissandi by strings, the rattle of tom-toms. Though the composer’s note states that he recognised the difficulty of attempting a realistic picture of war, and concentrated on ‘the broader aspects of war’.

I had written that the use of so many unusual articulations and ‘extended’ instrumental techniques seemed to draw attention away from the subject to focus too much on unusual instrumental articulations and combinations, perhaps too much striving for the literal sounds of battle and so on. Nevertheless it was an interesting, colourful adventure in contemporary orchestral writing, brilliantly executed by winds and percussion in particular and handled spiritedly, with precision by Benjamin Northey.

And of the second part I wrote:
The second part depicted the horror and grief of war: the choral element called up music of a very different character from that in Part I; it had an impact that was moving and awakened a real emotional response. The youth choir’s participation and its music turned the work in a direction in which music can be more successful than words, the setting of a poem by Paul Kelly, of admirable simplicity and directness: its last two lines, poignant and unaffected: “Remember us, we died in smoke / We died in noise, we died alone”. The words, unless one was reading the words in the programme, rather escaped attention for they were not very clear but their force emerged through the music they inspired from the composer. The choir’s performance was extremely beautiful, suggesting the most careful and sensitive rehearsal under David
Squire and the evening’s conductor.

After hearing the broadcast, however, I found myself with considerably more admiration for both the commissioned works.

Michael Williams’s symphony was a thing of more vivid reality and immediacy, and I was paying more attention to the expressive orchestral writing and the way it supported, commented on what the voices were doing. Henare’s readings had more heart-wrenching impact, while my impression of the force of Madeleine Pierard’s singing was strongly confirmed.

But it was hearing Ledger’s music for a second time, through a different medium, and without the ‘distraction’ of watching the orchestra to see how some of the unusual sounds were created, that enhanced my appreciation. Rather than feeling that the highly sophisticated orchestral effects detracted from the emotional power of the music, I was moved simply by the resultant music, its coherence,and what is called (a little pretentiously I always feel) the ‘architecture’ of the music quite engrossed and enchanted me.

In fact, I was entranced now by the remarkably imaginative sounds that Ledger had created. The need to revise my views came as something unsettling, yet illuminating once I had removed myself personally from the process.

Tallis Variations
The choice of Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis to conclude the concert was inspired. Here, regardless of the meaning of the Latin text, we have a work, written well before the world descended into the catastrophe of the first World War, that seemed to capture a profound lamenting that could represent an emotional depiction of any horrendous, man-induced disaster such as the Great War which ended by killing millions of people. For strings alone, it demonstrated how a composer can produce the most powerful, deeply-felt response through the simplest and most economical means.

As a final comment, now able to compare the two performances, the Wellington performance seemed just a little more robust, vivid and fully realising the horror and tragedy of the subject the than the Sydney one.

Considering the absence of a big popular work, there was a large audience in the Michael Fowler Centre that responded with great enthusiasm at the end.

 

Halida Dinova – quintessentially romantic pianism

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Classical Expressions Upper Hutt presents:
Halida Dinova (piano)
A recital of words by Rachmaninov, Chopin, Beethoven, Scriabin and Liszt

RACHMANINOV – Morceaux de Fantasie Op.3 Nos.1,2,4
CHOPIN – Fantasie in F Minor Op.49
BEETHOVEN – Piano Sonata No.14 in C-sharp Minor Op.27 No.2 “Moonlight”
SCRIABIN – Etude Op.8 No.12 / Nocturne for the Left Hand Op.9 No.2
LISZT – Piano Sonata in B Minor

Halida Dinova (piano)

Genesis Energy Theatre, Upper Hutt

Monday 27th April, 2014

I was thrilled to learn that Russian-born Halida Dinova had returned to New Zealand to give more concerts, as I’d been bowled over by her playing on the occasion of her last visit two years ago. On that occasion she played in Lower Hutt at the Little Theatre on a piano that had been pronounced “past its expiry date” and made it sound like one of the world’s most mellifluous instruments, giving us, among other things, particularly memorable readings of Balakirev’s “Islamey” and the complete Chopin Preludes. (For further detailing regarding this previous recital, go to my review at  https://middle-c.org/2012/05/halida-dinova-russian-soul-from-tatarstan/)

One of the things that struck me so forcibly about her playing the previous time round was Dinova’s amazing conveyance of physical engagement with the music, and specifically with the composer’s sound-world in almost every instance – I think I may have felt that one of the Debussy pieces worked less well for me, though there was another from the same set of pieces which the pianist seemed completely to “own”. I remember how Dinova’s playing at the time gave me an insight into British pianist Peter Donohoe’s remark made when I interviewed him some years ago, regarding Debussy’s music, to the effect that he adored “every note”.

Here at Upper Hutt’s Classical Expressions, though having the use of a far superior instrument, Dinova’s playing didn’t grip my imagination quite so insistently as before – though there were still whole sequences of the magnificence that I remembered. The repertoire may have had a part to play, here, as I sensed a tad less involvement on the pianist’s part with parts of the Beethoven Sonata compared with the remainder of the programme; and Dinova herself told me afterwards that she was still “exploring” the Liszt Sonata, having begun working on it less than a year ago.

I did think that, for all its excellences as a concert-hall, the Upper Hutt venue “distanced” us from Dinova’s playing as the Lower Hutt Little Theatre didn’t do at all – my chief irritation was the canned piano music which was heard in the auditorium up to a few minutes before Dinova herself came on to play. Surely one goes to a “live” music event to hear only “live music”? – and ought there not to be at least SOME aural “space” before a concert by way of preparation for the music about to be played? I would want, at best, no pre-recorded music at all before a concert, and at the very least a fifteen-minute period before the beginning where one hears nothing else clamouring for attention. If this is an overseas trend being brought here, then in my opinion, it  ought to be strangled and quietly disposed of. For me it was simply “musak” and it had the effect of reducing the impact of the concert’s actual music and the pianist’s playing of it.

Fortunately, such was the “pull” of Dinova’s presence and focus upon the music that she was able to quickly dispel all such annoyances and take us, in this case, into the nineteenth-century world of the young Rachmaninov, with three of his Op.3 Morceau de Fantasie.  Beginning with the Elegie, her very first notes explored a depth of sound, a resonance which, underpinned by a ‘tolling bell” effect in the left hand, conjured up a kind of feeling for the effect that those particular sonorities evidently had on the impressionable composer. The more agitated central Lisztian sequences excitingly took over the entire keyboard, before Dinova’s exquisite sense of atmosphere and innate timing gradually allowed the silences to “surge softly backwards”, placing the piece’s pair of final notes with bitter-sweet resignation.

Then came THE Prelude, richly-wrought, varied in utterance (how can one play those three portentous notes? – let me count the ways….) and redolent with expectation, left hand anticipating the right at every possible opportunity (something else I noticed during her previous recital at Lower Hutt), a journey which seemed to unfold rather than fall into preconceived places – amazing, tumultuous central agitations, and a properly “awed” concluding series of chords, each a world of unpredictable sensibility. After this, what better way to philosophise than to introduce the figure of Polichinelle to the discourse? – based on the well-known Commedia dell’arte character (Pulcinella, in Italian), this knock-about comedian restored our stricken sensibilities with his antics, though taking time out to savour a few moments of romantic ardour in the piece’s middle section. Dinova’s enjoyment of the character was obvious, as much through her quicksilver fingerwork as from her wry smile at the throwaway ending.

Chopin’s F Minor Fantasie brought out the “no holds barred” aspects of Dinova’s pianism to thrilling effect – a deep, rich sonority at the beginning, posing a question to which came the lyrical reply, the drama and ceremony of interchange, the spin of the storyteller, the “strut” of the processional. Out of this grew those wonderful improvisatory flourishes building up the tensions towards action, everything played with wonderful fluidity, the triplets dancing along excitedly, turning in places to little “marches”, and in other places to more declamatory utterances. The piece’s “still heart” is the prayerful central interlude which Dinova more breathed than played, voiced so inwardly and beautifully. Afterwards, the reprise of the first section was fiercely tackled, Dinova’s playing plunging the music headlong into renewed conflict, with  thrills and spills adding to the excitement.  And just as compelling was the tenderness of the poetic reminiscence at the piece’s end, that final upward gossamer run and concluding chords the stuff of storytelling.

After this I thought the first two movement of the well-known Moonlight Sonata less remarkable – all darkly and solemnly played (here, with the right hand often anticipating the left!), but still, with the pianist seeming to be an observer rather than a participant in the drama. Dinova played the second movement in a completely unexaggerated way, bringing out some beautiful dynamic variation, and in places subtly emphasizing the left hand. But the finale was something else – incredible “attack”, a strong left hand driving the trajectories and the right hand creating great roulades of sound. Here nature took a hand in the proceedings, with torrential rain drumming an accompaniment on the concert hall roof throughout the last few tumultuous measures!

Two contrasting pieces by Scriabin followed the interval, the first a favourite of the great Vladimir Horowitz, the Etude Op.8 No.12, entitled Patetico (Pathetique).  Dinova took to the music in the manner born, allowing the piece’s build-in momentum to grow and the agitations to rise like a wind from the steppes, though allowing a lovely lyricism in the Rachmaninov-like gentler middle sequences, But with the return of the opening idea, Dinova opened her the floodgates, the left hand leaping dangerously across the keys, the repeated notes growing increasingly frenzied, and the deep bells more and more clangorous, until the whole suddenly whirled upwards to a heaven-storming climax – what a great virtuoso display! After this, the gentle lyricism of the Left-Hand Nocturne from a set of two pieces Op.9 was balm to the senses, the evening’s most poetic and melting playing,the pianist’s left hand brilliantly encompassing both virtuoso and lyrical elements in a breath-taking display.

I was fortunate enough to hear Dinova play some of the items on the evening’s program twice, among them Liszt’s B Minor Piano Sonata, the second time at a house concert on an upright piano, a couple of days afterwards! Inevitably, my reactions to her playing of the pieces have criss-crossed to some extent between the occasions – but the cumulative effect is the thing, and especially with a work as all-encompassing as the Liszt. Before proceeding, I must say that I was sorry that the concert’s programme-note-writer, one whose work I normally greatly admire, made a passing reference via the work to Liszt’s “deplorable” morals, thereby reinforcing the surely-by-now-discredited legend that the composer bedded almost every female who threw herself at him – anyone who’s read Alan Walker’s up-to-date and incredibly detailed biography of Liszt will be appalled at the extent (outlined by Walker) of the “hatchet-job” done on the composer’s reputation and integrity in the past by people such as Ernest Newman, with no real evidence to back up claims of unbridled licentious behaviour other than prejudicial heresay – as Walker remarks, a case of fame and success giving rise to intense jealousy, and resulting mischief on the part of others.

Let the music speak for the man on this occasion – and one remembers Wagner (no great supporter of other people’s creative efforts) equating the man with his music, writing to Liszt after hearing the sonata for the first time with the words, “the sonata is beautiful beyond compare, great, sweet, deep and noble, sublime as you are yourself…..” Dinova’s playing of the work, while not completely “under the fingers” (on each occasion she had to break off in the midst of a piece of tumultuous passagework – in a different place each time, incidentally – and re-align her trajectories) caught the piece’s multi-faceted character – a brilliantly-conceived structure, a vivid and theatrical recreation of the “Faust” legend, a deeply-moving expression of conflicting personal emotions, a pianistic tour-de-force. Structurally, she gave the piece all the time it needed to speak, and all the urgency its figurations required to create the work’s overall shape. And her characterization of the characters and episodes pertaining to the “Faust” legend were vividly-drawn and theatrically-contrasted.

Dinova’s playing seemed to me to demonstrate a kind of innate sense of what each section of the music required as the music advanced – a powerful bringing-together of spontaneity and inevitability. She seemed incapable of playing a routine or a mechanical phrase, as every note had its own kind of quality, its own particular strength of purpose and relationship with the others. One didn’t know what she was going to do next with the music, how she was going to “voice” a particular passage, or distribute the emphasis between the hands. Her conjuring up of the music’s central nocturnal scene (Faust in the garden with Marguerite?) was as entrancing as the succeeding fugue was tense and electric – despite a dropped note or two the cumulative excitement was palpable, and the climax of the sequence sent glinting figurations skyrocketing upwards between fusillades of repeated notes. In the house concert the fugue momentarily came adrift, whereas here it was during the amazingly orchestral writing leading to the big heroic theme’s final statement when things were momentarily derailed. Neither hiatus was a fatal error – the music was picked up and driven onwards as excitingly as before.

Perhaps when Halida Dinova comes back to this country once again she will bring the work with her as a fully-fledged falcon, soaring aloft while taking in the whole of the terrain at a single glance (as somebody said once of another great Russian pianist, Sviatoslav Richter). She did enough here to reaffirm her status as a romantic pianist of outstanding quality. I managed to get a CD she’d made for the Doremi label of Scriabin’s music, which I can’t wait to listen to and which I’ll look forward also to reviewing. Meanwhile I shall cherish the memory of playing whose immediacy and excitement continue to give pleasure long after the recital’s last notes have been sounded.

A brave Kapiti Chamber Choir gives good account of Bach’s Mass in B minor

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Kapiti Chamber Choir conducted by Eric Sidoti

Bach: Mass in B minor

Soloists: Katherine McIndoe – soprano, Elizabeth Harris – soprano, Ruth Reid – contralto, John Beaglehole – tenor, Roger Wilson – bass
And Orchestra

Paraparaumu College Auditorium

Sunday 26 April, 2:30 pm

The Kapiti Chamber Choir is the smaller of the two choirs in the district (the other, larger, choir is the Kapiti Chorale) established or taken over by Peter Godfrey after he came to Kapiti.

Some might have felt that it was singularly ambitious for an amateur choir to tackle one of the biggest and most demanding choral works. In their defence, however, their conductor Eric Sidoti reported that this was the runaway favourite when, after taking it over in 2013, he surveyed the choir on its wish-list. He minimised the challenge by suggesting that his main task had been to ensure that he had the forces to cope with the varying orchestral, choral and soloists requirements.

Middle C finds itself a bit stretched at present in terms of the availability of its small team of reviewers, and it fell to me (by no means reluctant) to make a southward trip from a retreat at Waikawa Beach, miscalculating travel times and traffic. I arrived about 15 minutes late as the reprise of the Kyrie began.

I sat on the nearest seat, right under the noses of the soloists, which gave me a feeling of intimacy and almost participation, but a somewhat unbalanced impression of the chorus, as well as having certain parts of the orchestra, for example, trumpets in the Gloria, and the soloists too close. Perhaps it allowed me to enjoy a certain amount of slightly disorganised playing occasionally, iffy intonation and approximate ensemble, such as the start of the ‘Laudamus te’. But it gave an unjust overall impression, as I found when I moved to the back of the hall after the interval.

I’m sure that the orchestral skills had not suddenly improved by the Credo, after the interval; and that whatever blemishes I heard at close quarters simply became rather unimportant when one heard the whole in proper, fairer perspective.

One thing that struck me throughout was the general strength of the men’s parts of the choir, and the curious impression that there were more weaknesses in sopranos and altos, though they too never amounted to real shortcomings.

Soloists were very able, ranging from experienced singers like alto Ruth Reid, tenor John Beaglehole and bass Roger Wilson (his solo in ‘Et in spiritum’ lay quite high, but there seemed no strain; his solo in ‘Quoniam’ on the other hand was lower), to new graduates who took the two soprano parts, Katherine McIndoe and Elizabeth Harris both of whom displayed bright, attractive voices that filled their roles with intelligence and accuracy.

There were some fine moments: Elizabeth Harris with Jay Hancox’s violin obbligato in the ‘Laudamus te’ of the Gloria; the duet between Katherine McIndoe and Ruth Reid, ‘Et in unum’, went well. John Beaglehole had fine moments in ‘Domine Deus’ (with Katherine McIndoe) and with flutist Malu Jonas in the Benedictus; the duetting of Roger Wilson and trumpeter Andrew Weir in ‘Quoniam’ made an impact, and trumpets were again brilliant in the ‘Et resurrexit’ in the Credo. One of the trumpets (Mark Carter’s?) looked and sounded like a piccolo trumpet, lending an authentic baroque character.

The conductor chose to use soloists in place of the chorus in certain places, as is done quite often, affording better clarity as well giving them more welcome exposure.

I was very glad that we had an orchestra accompanying, with some nice oboes (one came close to sounding like an oboe d’amore) and flutes; I enjoyed the capable timpani contribution too.

The Mass, much of it drawn from earlier music written for other contexts, is remarkable for its aesthetic coherence, but its various origins also afford it a variety of style and emotion that is not only appropriate to the subject of each section, but also maintains the audience’s interest. And even from a smallish choir of non-specialist singers, the long work did indeed hold the attention, and gave the almost full house a very satisfying two hours of great music.

 

New Zealand String Quartet in challenging music including pieces by Ross Harris

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Wellington Chamber Music Trust in association with Chamber Music New Zealand

J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations BWV 988, Aria and Variations nos. 1, 2, 13
Ross Harris: Variation 25 (String Quartet no. 4)
Mozart: String Quartet no.22 in B flat, K.589
Ross Harris: Piano Quintet (2013)
Shostakovich: String Quartet no.9 in D flat Op.117

New Zealand String Quartet (Helene Pohl, Douglas Beilman, violins; Gillian Ansell, viola; Rolf Gjelsten, cello), Stephen de Pledge (piano)

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday, 26 April 2015, 3.00pm

The pre-concert talk from Ross Harris made it clear that this concert was something a little different: he was invited by Chamber Music New Zealand’s former Chief Executive, Euan Murdoch, to curate the concert.  That is, he got to choose the works, to include his own, and to give the pre-concert talk and introduce each item – and write some of the notes in the printed programme.  He has written a number of works now specifically for the New Zealand String Quartet (NZSQ); it is gratifying to see New Zealand composers writing in this genre.

He began by saying that he was not promoting Schoenberg and Stockhausen, as he fancied might be expected of him, but Mozart and Shostakovich, even though theirs were tonal compositions and his own were not.

The full church (though the gallery was not open) heard him explain that in 2007 he had heard the New Zealand String Quartet play a new quartet version of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, originally written for keyboard, and that inspired him to write his own variation on Variation 25, regarded as the heart of the entire work.

First, we heard the Aria and three of the variations played on piano.  The Aria was played in a very understated way – so much so that some notes almost disappeared.  However, it was an appropriate way to begin the performance.  The presence of a carpet square under the piano was gratefully observed; thus the sometimes over-loud and clattering sound of this piano on the varnished floor was absent, and there was no problem at any point with balance when later it was played with the strings.

Variation 1 sparkled, while the limpid, pastoral quality of Variation 2 made a gorgeous contrast.  Variation 13 was sublimely calm and peaceful.  A little judicious use of the sustaining pedal was observed, but it never obtruded.

The quartet came onto the platform quietly and without applause, to perform Ross Harris’s Variation.  It was good to see Douglas Beilman back in action; he had damaged a finger, and was replaced by Donald Armstrong at last Sunday’s chamber music concert in Waikanae.  The Harris work began with a wonderful evocation of Bach, the music being almost mesmerising, and containing striking counterpoint – but different from Bach’s.   Following this, the music worked up to a more agitated mood.  That ended, there was a return to the languid mood, but under it, the cello played pizzicato.  The music became less tonal, and the instruments appeared to go their own way.

Regarding the Mozart quartet, Ross Harris said that he had got to know this (and the Shostakovich quartet) through hearing the NZSQ playing them.  He stressed the complexity in Mozart’s writing and its modernity despite being written in the eighteenth century.  He urged the audience to ‘Listen as though you haven’t heard it before”.  It was a quartet with which I was largely unfamiliar, so it was not difficult to do that.

The allegro first movement had serene episodes, but also plenty of variety, while the larghetto that followed featured a very beautiful cello theme.  The first violin took it up, sounding absolutely sumptuous, but the cello continued to have much of interest to do; as the programme note explained, King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, who had commissioned the work, was a competent cellist.  The soulful slow movement was full of lovely melodies, harmonies and cadences.

The Minuet and Trio began in bright, even jolly fashion.  I was particularly aware of complex interweaving of the parts, all played with flair and unanimity.  The New Zealand String Quartet really is a national treasure.  The lively and energetic allegro assai last movement had the players putting over the spirited message clearly, as the cheerful themes were tossed from one instrument to another, giving a thoroughly enjoyable, integrated performance.  In this venue, or at least from my seat near the front, every note could be heard.

After the interval there was the première of Ross Harris’s Piano Quintet.  In his preliminary remarks, the composer told us that the opening was characterised by “Japanese opaqueness” followed by “bite” and then “gradual energy”.  He exhorted us to “listen to it as though it were written 200 years ago”!

The moods developed as he had said.  Since this was a piano quintet, the string players sat rather than standing as they do normally, so that they were on the same level as the pianist, Rolf Gjelsten eschewing his usual platform to raise his stool up.

There were some interesting passages from the piano, while at other times it seemed almost superfluous to the argument.  The strings made use of harmonics, which added to the Japanese flavour.  I found it hard to get into the appropriate listening mood; after the Mozart, the piece seemed inchoate.  The music became bleak for a long spell, then an energetic rhythm picked up, becoming briefly wild, with outbursts from the piano.  A soulful passage followed, then a high cello melody before the work ended in indecision.

Shostakovich’s ninth string quartet was prefaced by more remarks; Ross Harris said that it was the transformation of the Russian composer’s themes that he found interesting, and that it was this composer, along with Mozart, who had inspired him.

The five movements were played continuously, but had their own characters. The first, moderato con moto, had clear-cut motifs and strong harmonies.  The adagio was sombre, yet colours came to mind through its moving parts.  The use of mutes was part of this effect.  Next was an allegretto polka.  Despite the jollity, shifting tonalities gave an ominous tinge to the dance.

Although the quartet was written in 1962, I couldn’t help thinking, while listening to the solemn music of the second adagio, that the Second World War was still raging – and in a sense it still was in the Soviet Union, with its state totalitarianism in the name of communism.  The removal of mutes and the
introduction of pizzicato explosions in the second violin part and then on the viola led to agonising cries from the first violin, against a drone from violin two and viola.  Then there was total excitement for the fifth movement – or was it chaos?  This was followed by a slow dance, prior to a return to frenzy, with much vehemence from the cello.

These fine musicians put over as good account of this quartet as one could wish for – but I find the work dour and depressing despite the brilliance of both writing and execution.

It was satisfying to have such  varied programme, incorporating piano, quartet and piano quartet.