Ya-Ting Liou – delight and triumph amid near-empty spaces

Posted on by Peter Mechen

St.Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace presents PIANO +
A week of concerts in support of the proposed new Welcome Centre

Concert No.5 – Ya-Ting Liou (piano)

BEETHOVEN – 6 Bagatelles Op.126
BERG – Piano Sonata Op.1
LISZT – Années de Pèlerinage – Première année: Suisse

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

Saturday 16th November 2013

I had thought at first that last night’s poor attendance at pianist Melanie Lina’s St.Andrew’s recital was the fault of a kind of “Friday night” syndrome. As it transpired, I had singled out Friday most unfairly, because this evening (Saturday) less than half last night’s already meagre number turned out to hear pianist Ya-Ting Liou. It’s true that neither of  the pianists were “names” to conjure with as far as the public was concerned, but each of their programmes as listed spoke volumes in terms of interest and musical pleasure.

Fortunately for those of us who had gone to these concerts, each of the pianists seemed completely unfazed by the lack of audience numbers, assuring we who were there that the important thing was to be able to play, and that SOMEBODY was there to listen. And judging by the programme that Ya-Ting Liou had put together this evening, it was obvious that here was potentially a most interesting and questing spirit wanting to play for us.

Taiwanese-born Ya-Ting Liou came to New Zealand in 2009 to live, and has since concertized both as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the country. I’ve seen and heard her play only once before, in a 2011 Wellington concert with her husband Blas Gonzales, as part of a duo called the “Pangea Piano Project”, playing works by New Zealand composers (https://middle-c.org/2011/05/pangea-piano-project-the-art-of/). On that occasion I was impressed by her artistry, but my appreciation was somewhat decentralized both by the excellence of her musical partnership, and the interest generated by the home-grown repertoire. In short, I wasn’t really prepared for the overwhelming experience of encountering her work as a recitalist.

And what music she offered! – Beethoven’s final set of Bagatelles for piano, the richly-wrought Op.1 Sonata by Berg, and Liszt’s first youthful Year of Pilgrimage, inspired by Switzerland. Each of these works tends to be talked about more than played, though interestingly enough it was the third occasion I’d heard the Berg Sonata in concert in relatively recent times. The Beethoven however, took me all the way back to my first and only experience of Alfred Brendel playing “live”, in Wellington in 1975, while Liszt’s Première année I’d never before heard in recital complete (I fancy there may have been a Vallée d’Obermann or two at some stage along the way…..).

The first Beethoven Bagatelle elicited warm, rich sounds from player and instrument, but without smoothing over the piece’s rhythmic and melodic angularities – and to follow, what a contrast Liou got with the impulsiveness of the following allegro! Her engagement with the music was at all times apparent, demonstrating a spontaneity and volatility surprisingly at odds with her diminutive appearance and seemingly tiny hands! After a richly contemplative Andante she again released great surges of energy for the rumbustious Presto, in full command of the dynamic contrasts in the music, and creating a gorgeous liquid flow throughout the “trio” section, one whose gossamer finish had a slightly “other-worldly” quality.

As for the final Bagatelle’s remarkable fusion of grand serenity and dismissive volatility (one commentator described the explosions of energy which introduce and dismiss the piece as “the composer delivering to his instrument a kick down the stairs”), Liou brought out the kinship of the music’s visionary explorations with the slow movement of the Hammerklavier, allowing free play between both immediacies and the mysteries of the sounds – at the end, only a slight mis-hit took away some of the finality of the payoff that its composer perhaps intended.

What to make of Alban Berg’s enigmatic one-movement piano sonata? Berg was simply thinking along the lines of Debussy who famously remarked that “after Beethoven, sonata form was no longer valid for composition”. Here, after a brief exposition, the music takes its cue from the piece’s opening phrase, and develops accordingly and organically.

Interestingly enough, some of Berg’s sequential passages reminded me of Rachmaninov’s keyboard writing in his First Sonata – what’s common to both, I feel, is the emotional drive at the bottom of the sequences, however much in thrall each composer is to a prevalent ideology of composition. Ya-Ting Liou expressed this yearning and striving towards these “remote consonances” with real feeling, as wholeheartedly as she delineated the piece’s haunting downward intervals towards even more remote regions. She brought to life the rhapsodic surface of the music throughout, while keeping the underlying strands of the music’s journeyings unbroken.

In the minds of many people, Franz Liszt’s fame is based upon his flashy, virtuoso instrumental pieces, and the greatly exaggerated tales of his “frequent” amours (which, if true, would have left him precious little time for his better-documented activities and achievements). He was, of course, reputed to be the greatest pianist of his age, and a good deal of his music reflects that extraordinary keyboard facility. However at least as much again shows the composer in a more serious and purposeful mood, and many of these less overtly spectacular works have, until recent times, been seriously neglected, known only to scholars and connoisseurs.

Perhaps it would be unfair to class Liszt’s three collections of music inspired by his travels – he called them Années de Pèlerinage (Years of Pilgrimage) – as neglected in toto, because certain pieces from each of the three volumes have been regularly featured in pianist’s recital programs. From the opening Swiss Year comes Vallée d’Obermann, and from the Italian (Second) Year there are the Petrarch Sonnets and the concise but powerful Dante Sonata. Finally, from the Third Year collection there’s the justly famous Les jeux d’eaux a la Villa d’Este (The fountains of the Villa d’Este). However, performances of any of the books as complete entities have, until recent times, been rare.

Most welcome, then, was Ya-Ting Liou’s presentation of the first of these collections, the Première année: Suisse. Liszt and his mistress Marie d”Agoult travelled extensively in Switzerland during the 1830s, the composer recording his reflections in a collection of pieces titled Album d’un voyageur, published in 1842. He later revised the cycle of pieces, adding two further ones and rechristening the collection Première année: Suisse (“First Year: Switzerland”) republishing the set in 1855.

If I go on to describe Liou’s performances in detail it will take people longer to read the review than it would to listen to a recording of the cycle! – tempted as I am by the impact of witnessing her achievement, by the totality of her conception, the brilliance of her playing and her conveyance of a great love for and understanding of the music, I’ll reluctantly content myself with a few brief descriptions of certain “moments”, hoping that readers will glean from these something of my excitement and thankfulness at “being there”.

Grand, rich chordings opened the first piece Chapelle de Giuillaume Tell, giving the music eons of resonance and space – bold, colorful playing! – I liked the touch of “diavolo” in places, with mischievous and sometimes menacing snake-slithers of sound, one that gave way to the grandest, most orchestral of conceptions of the music, which we revelled in like great lords and ladies! From this, the change to the tranquil waters of the Lake Wallenstadt was almost surreal, producing a magical effect, the playing “embracing” the music’s textures and colours, and painting a “landscape of emotion”.

The next piece sounded like Liszt’s homage to Beethoven via the latter’s “Pastoral” Sonata, while the lively and volatile Au bord dune source seemed to gather both momentum and girth to the point where the music became a rushing torrent – very “organic” thinking by the pianist, in view of the onslaught of the following Orage, with its terrific physical attack and ferocious, incisive aspect. As with Melanie Lina’s playing of Ravel’s Alborado the previous evening, I was astonished at the incredible “glint” in the pianist’s tones, and wondered if that was helped by what appeared to be Liou’s sparing use of the sustaining pedal – nothing, no sound, colour or texture, was indefinite or muddled, the pianist’s fingers doing all or most of the work so brilliantly.

Vallée d’Obermann was next, a veritable tone-poem in itself, and a touchstone of romanticism in music. Liou’s performance had a positively psycho-analytical ring, the music delving into the Byronic character’s growing crisis of confidence and faith, and overwhelmingly coming to terms with the world at the end, amid Musorgsky-like sonorities, with the traveller having the last word when nearly all was said and done. Much-needed relief from these full-on outpourings was provided by the Grieg-like delicacies of the following Èglogue, Liou’s wide-ranging capabilities of touch producing all kinds of easeful sonorities here.

How affecting, then, was Le mal du pays, its emotion fetched up from the depths and striking at the heart of the weary and comfortless traveller. In Ya-Ting Liou’s hands the feelings grew from out of the sounds, remembrances of home overlaid by world-weariness and anxiety, and seeking some kind of equilibrium and solace in the rich ambient chords which quietly closed the work. More celebratory and ritualistic was the final Les cloches de Genève, Liou’s seemingly boundless tonal resources at the music’s service whole-heartedly, making for a resounding and celebratory conclusion to the journey.

So, by dint of the playing on both of these occasions at St.Andrew’s, our initial dismay seemed to morph into delight!  Very great honour is due to both pianists on all counts – but we Wellingtonians will have to look to our laurels in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Melanie Lina – great playing reaching all too few ears at St.Andrew’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

St.Andrew’s-on-the-Terrace presents PIANO +
A week of concerts in support of the proposed new Welcome Centre

Concert No.4 – Melanie Lina (piano)

SCARLATTI – Sonatas: E major K.380 / D Major K.29
BEETHOVEN – Sonata in E-flat Op.81a “Les Adieux”
PSATHAS – Waiting for the Aeroplane
BRITTEN – “Early Morning Bathe” / “Sailing” (from “Holiday Diary” Op.5)
ALBENIZ – El Puerto / Cordoba
RAVEL – Alborado del gracioso (from “Miroirs”)
CHOPIN – Waltzes: E Major (Op.Posth.) / A-flat Major Op.42 / Piano Sonata in B Minor Op.58

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

Friday, 15th November 2013

How unfortunate that, in the wake of Michael Houstoun’s extended weekend of Beethoven Sonata performances at the MFC, which was followed immediately by this present Piano+ series at St.Andrew’s in Wellington, the capital’s music-going public seemed to have “run out of steam” after three of the five nights of concerts.

It was probably a case of event overload, but each of the two remaining occasions, both of them notable piano recitals, were so poorly attended as to induce a degree of actual embarrassment on the part of those who were there. It left me with the not wholly comfortable feeling that the city’s reputation as an arts and cultural centre (which we Wellingtonians all keenly look to espouse) might not be such a “given” as presumed.

Whatever the case, Shakespeare’s immortal lines from Henry V “And gentlemen of England now abed…….”  applied in spadesful to both of these concerts, as the few who attended heartily agreed (we all readily bonded as a group on each of the evenings under these conditions!). There were chalk-and-cheese differences as regards repertoire, though each had a definite link with the aforementioned Houstoun/Beethoven series concluded a few days previously – Melanie Lina’s recital featured the composer’s “Les Adieux” Sonata, while Taiwanese-born pianist Ya-Ting Liou gave us the Op.126 set of Bagatelles the following evening.

The “Les Adieux” Sonata was given by Melanie Lina as part of a first half whose general theme expressed aspects of human dislocation/relocation in places away from homelands, both temporary and lifelong. So, along with Beethoven we had music by (Italian-born but Spanish-domiciled) Domenico Scarlatti, the much-travelled Catalan-born Isaac Albeniz, and the Basque-born Maurice Ravel, whose lifelong affair with Spain is well documented in his works.

Bringing the idea “closer to home” for listeners was John Psathas’s evocative Waiting for the Aeroplane, along with excerpts from Benjamin Britten’s rarely-played but highly entertaining Holiday Diary.  An all-Chopin second half seemed in accord with the dislocation/relocation theme, though the works presented here were more cosmopolitan than nationalistic in outlook.

I felt, perhaps, that the program was over-generous – a pianist friend with whom I attended the concert also thought the recital too long by a couple of items, though remarking that she herself had been “guilty” of a similar largesse of performing spirit in her younger concertizing days. Just one of the Albeniz/Ravel “Spanish” works would, I think, have sufficed, providing sufficient contrast with the rest, and leaving us pleasantly hungry for more…..

Beginning the recital, Melanie Lina gave us Scarlatti – two beautifully-crafted Baroque sonatas here exquisitely rendered by the pianist on a modern concert grand. Throughout the opening E Major (K.380) I loved Lina’s “imaging” – that sense of fantasy with which she so readily infused the music, her tempi and phrasing allowing the music to blossom and live within each bar. I could hear throughout the “twang” of the guitar resonating within a vividly-wrought ambience, one infused with her rich command of keyboard colour.  She revelled also in the more extrovert D Major (K.29), the great toccata-like whirls of sound at the opening conjuring up something very pictorial and dramatic, followed by fingerwork which propelled the music’s thrust with Horowitz-like crystalline clarity.

The pianist very properly alerted us to the correlation between the German word “Lebe-wohl” and the opening of Beethoven’s popularly-styled “Les Adieux” Sonata – the heartfelt three-note motif led to a full-blooded exposition of grief at a friend’s departure, both vigorous and reflective (both elements superbly delivered by Lina – some brilliant toccata-like chording in places, as well as a brief development hiatus which she quickly recovered from), while at the movement’s conclusion the farewell motif (also evoking a posthorn-like ambience) reinforced the sense of loss most vividly.

After this I wanted a shade more stillness from the second movement, a more “stricken” feeling – though Beethoven writes “andante”, he intensifies the feeling with “expressivo” – but Lina’s playing I thought a shade dry-eyed, perhaps registering the impatience of one who awaits the return of a friend more than the sorrow of that person’s absence. Theoretically, a classicist would approve of her structural organization of the whole, whereas a romantic might bemoan the lessening of feeling and atmosphere.

The finale very properly burst upon us with a mighty flourish, and though the pianist didn’t always carry a kind of underlying momentum across some of the sequences there were some thrilling moments. I particularly relished Lina’s repeated right-hand upward triple-flourishes (again, crystalline fingerwork) and, following the reprise of the opening, the hair-raising juxtaposition of left-hand octaves and right-hand dancings which when done, as here, with confidence and élan, produced an exhilaration of physical excitement! And though it was a case of thrills and spills at another point, the pianist prevailed in the face of some Haydnesque “dead-ends” and wrestled back the musical argument, to the great relief of all concerned.

A different kind of ambience informed John Psathas’ bitter-sweet Waiting for the Aeroplane, by turns nostalgic, visionary and jazzy, and here evoked with great surety. It made the perfect foil for two movements from a work I didn’t know, Britten’s piano suite Holiday Diary, written in 1934 and dedicated to his piano teacher, Arthur Benjamin. The first piece, entitled “Early Morning Bathe” nicely delineated the energies required to set the process in motion, the angularities of the opening giving way to the swimmer’s strokes and the water’s undulations.Had I not known the music’s title I would have plumped for a horse-ride of some description, complete with the feel of the wind on the rider’s face!

In the second piece, “Sailing” the playing caught a warmly sostenuto singing mood over gently shifting chords, the line’s water-mark shifting the sonorities to brighter realms in places, when suddenly the music energized and danced in a quasi-Musorgsky mood, the phrases spiky and fragmentary. Then, as quickly, the opening mood returned, this time with a deep tolling bass line underpinning the lyricism – a gorgeous performance of some lovely music.

As for the three “Spanish” pieces, I enjoyed most of all Melanie Lina’s astounding playing of Ravel’s Alborado del gracioso – when she began, I thought her tempo was too fast and that everything would degenerate into a garble of smudged notes – but she made it work with such tremendous zest, buoyancy and clarity, the repeated notes both clear and resonant, and the flourishes full-bodied and properly theatrical. Then, the recitative took us into the ambience’s heart, with pliant yet focused rhythmic impulses, the storyteller’s art coming to the fore, here – Lina was able to throw off the flourishes with such amazing “glint” while still making the melodies sing, spreading the chords as if she was strumming a giant guitar, and launching into the dance-rhythm of the opening once again with exquisite timing – those glissandi completed their mesmeric spell and helped whirl our sensibilities into paroxysms of delight at the end.

Neither of the Albeniz pieces was quite on this exalted level – El Puerto was given plenty of zest and physicality, and Lina did as well as any I’ve heard to keep the piece coherent and varied amid the composer’s veritable torrent of notes. And Cordoba started well, the pianist capturing during the introductory bars the ambivalence of the Spanish night, with its luminosity and fragrance set against darker rituals of purpose, but later, I thought relinquishing too much of the depth and mystery in rhythms which never really dug in – for me, a bit too picture-postcard a response to this soulful music.

The remained of the program was given over to Chopin – firstly, two waltzes stylishly and charmingly performed, the first the Op.Posth. E Major beautifully gauged as regards an appropriate mix of strength and poetry, and the second, the Op. 42 A-flat “Grand Waltz” variously whirling us around the ballroom and encouraging us to snap our heels to attention with the music’s engaging “strut” – all delightful and invigorating stuff.

Then came the “grand finale” – the Op.58 B Minor Sonata – a difficult assignment for any pianist, but especially at the conclusion of a demanding program. Despite some “crowding in” of detail in places, making for a slightly rushed and breathless intermittent effect, I thought Lina’s delivery of the first movement of the work very fine, wanting only in some light and shade here and there, which would have given Chopin’s classically-oriented piano writing a touch more air and space. And I admired her gossamer delivery of the Scherzo’s fleet-fingered opening, and the on-going “tingling” effect of the intermezzo-like passages which followed, more agitato in places than I expected, but nevertheless effective.

But it was the slow movement which truly captured my imagination, here – after emphatically delivering the opening’s dramatic and rhetorical gesture, Lina brought both of the movement’s contrasting lyrical episodes to warm-hearted fruition, with whole vistas of contrasting feeling and colour deftly applied to a poised, easeful change from B major to E Major. I thought the pianist’s tone was”centered” in a way that focused sensibilities on the here-and-now qualities of the music’s emotion – a treasurable sense of something unique to the moment that would never be recaptured.

Impressive, too, in some ways was Lina’s playing of the turbulent finale – except that I thought in places she pushed the “presto” so fiercely that the “ma non tanto” dropped off!  I couldn’t help feeling in her phrasing and articulation a degree of anxiety driving the music ever onwards – as though she didn’t trust the music’s own in-built momentum – which gave the performance as much a sense of breathlessness as of motivation and purpose. I found it all a bit unsettling – perhaps in accord with its composer’s state of mind at the time.

However, these few points aside, this was a splendid and enjoyable recital by a pianist whose musical and communicative skills deserved oceans more than our few hands and voices could give her. I do hope she gives Wellington another chance, before too long.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Delights from Emma Sayers and NZSO principal violin and horn, in ‘Piano Plus’

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Piano Plus at St Andrew’s: Concert No 3

Mozart: Violin Sonata in G, K 379
Brahms: Horn Trio in E flat, Op 40

Vesa-Mati Leppänen – violin; Samuel Jacobs – horn; Emma Sayers – piano

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Thursday 14 November, 5:30 pm

The third of these enterprising concerts which have been mounted to help in the church’s rebuilding programme: the project is in its third stage which involves new public facilities to make the church a more attractive place for all kinds of social and cultural activities: a green room, reception area, toilets, meeting space, disability access and other amenities.

This evening was the centre-piece of the series in some ways: it fell in the middle of the five concerts and it involved three players; and it was the longest concert so far, containing a Mozart violin sonata and Brahms’s horn trio.

Mozart’s violin sonata in G major has somehow escaped me till now. To refresh my memory, I listened to the only CD recording I had of it but it hardly came to life or overflowed with charm.

So I was delighted to discover how an affectionate and committed performance, and of course a live performance compared with a mere recording, could so transform it. Its shape is a little unusual: an introductory Adagio leading to an Allegro in the minor key and then an extended Theme and Variations. The opening Adagio could in some ways have been a separate movement: it lasts about 5 minutes. The piano opens with four rolling, broken chords holding the floor for nearly a minute; before the violin had sounded a note I was quite enchanted, but the violin’s entry completed my delight to find what utterly charming and gracious piece it promised to be.

There was an urgency and a certain emphatic quality about the following Allegro, which moves to G minor, a sombre key for Mozart. In spite of the remark in the programme about Mozart moving away from the character of violin sonatas at the time, which was basically a piano sonata with violin accompaniment. That may have been so, but the piano still seemed to have the more interesting things to do, and Emma Sayers knew how to enrich her part, certainly every bit the equal of the violin in lending the music its allure.

The second, and last, movement is a Theme and Variations, basically orthodox yet original on account of their speaking from a lively imagination rather than a perfunctory set of predictable variations. Here again the piano tended to lead; in fact the first variation was for the piano alone. Later variations were delicate, decorated, the one instrument echoing the other; the fourth variation shifted again to G minor, very quietly, becoming imaginative and elaborate, and in the fifth the piano again led as the violin accompanied with pizzicato. And then the main theme returned, exposing both players again to more balanced musical contributions.

To provide an entrée to another era of music, Emma sought our indulgence by anticipating the expected demand for an encore at the end by playing it here, before Brahms’s horn trio. It was his Intermezzo in A, Op 118, No 2.

Brahms’s Horn Trio is rightly accorded an honoured place in the chamber music repertoire. It was chosen, as Emma explained, both because of its stature but also because Samuel Jacobs’s predecessor as the NZSO’s principal horn was Edward Allen who had loved and played the piece many times.

Its success as a composition lies in the balance and harmonic compatibility achieved between, in particular, the violin and horn, and in this performance it rested on the accord and beauty of tone that those two instruments achieved. The programme notes remarked on Brahms’s preference that it be played on a natural horn – without valves – though here Jacobs used a modern instrument.

Perhaps the most interesting sounds emerged in the Scherzo where after the emphatic staccato from the piano, which Emma Sayers produced with velvety tone rather than mere loudness, the vitality of the outer sections offer the horn its chance to return to its origins as hunting horn, though there’s still more lyrical music than brassy hunting calls. The Trio of the Scherzo follows a full close, and offers a striking contrast to the encompassing boisterousness, with charming melody that gave each player scope to explore rhapsodically.

The loveliest duetting by violin and horn is in the Adagio mesto, which we are invited to hear as sad. Here it was simply thoughtful or contemplative rather than an elegy for Brahms’s recently dead mother; the playing was expressive and lovingly spun out. It is possible to find the finale, Allegro con brio, a bit predictable with the horn running along with its sequences of rising fourths; piano and violin seem to be in control of the melodic ideas, but after a while my ear was being caught mainly by horn and piano. Nevertheless, for all the superb playing by Leppänen and Jacobs I found increasing pleasure in Sayers’s performance which was endlessly arresting and delightful.

 

Paul Rosoman gives St Andrew’s two organs a work-out

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Pachelbel: Chaconne in F minor
Johann Fischer: Chaconne in F major, de la Suite Euterpe
Mendelssohn: Andante with Variations in D
Joseph Bonnet: Romance sans Paroles
Parry: Elegy for 7th April 1913
J.S. Bach: Prelude and Fugue in B minor

Paul Rosoman, organ

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 13 November 2013, 12.15pm

One of the pleasures of hearing an organ recital at St. Andrew’s is the fact that here are two organs; on this occasion both were played – firstly the small baroque organ downstairs, then the main organ, in the upstairs gallery.

Informed by excellent programme notes, the audience heard a variety of works from late seventeenth century to early twentieth century.  One of the most delightful was the first, the Chaconne by Pachelbel.  It was so good to hear the baroque organ used
(it seems to be but sparsely used these days), and the changes in registrations that Rosoman employed from one variation to another.  Particularly lovely was the sound of the flutes.

Fischer’s composition was probably more diverse and imaginative than the Pachelbel, and very rhythmic.  However, it was without that spark of genius that Pachelbel had.

The remaining pieces were played on the main organ.  Mendelssohn’s organ music is very much of the nineteenth century.  As the programme note said, the composer was ‘a romantic whose music was rooted in classicism’.  Repeated notes could have
done with just a little more separation, otherwise this was a good performance of what I found to be a rather syrupy, hymn-like piece.  Having been taught by the late Maxwell Fernie almost entirely on baroque organ music, I do not find Mendelssohn’s (or
Liszt’s) organ music to my taste.

Joseph Bonnet was the most recent of the composers we heard (1884-1944).  Despite the title, I did not find the piece particularly Romantic, but very charming, simple, and tuneful.  It received plenty of variety of registration, to make for a pleasing recital work.

Parry’s Elegy written for the funeral of his brother-in-law, the Earl of Pembroke, did not have the spirit of his choral music, but was pleasant, and certainly elegiac, but not especially distinguished.

The Bach Prelude and Fugue is not among the great composer’s well-known organ works, nor did I find it one of his more
appealing or interesting, though one could appreciate the counterpoint, and the intricacy of the finger and foot work required from the performer.  There was a bright mixture of stops chosen for the Prelude, but little change for the Fugue – maybe another reed was added.  Nevertheless, it received a fine performance, and gave a rousing end to a thoughtfully chosen and well-played recital.

Both organs sounded in fine form – and that is in large part a tribute to the organist.

 

A partnership going places – Inbal Megiddo and Jian Liu

Posted on by admin

St. Andrews on the Terrace, Wellington, presents
Piano Plus – A Week of Concerts

Beethoven: Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 4 in C major, Op.102, no.1
Ross Harris: ‘Sunt lacrimae rerum’
Manuel de Falla: Suite Populaire Espagnole, arr. Maurice Marechal
Serge Rachmaninoff: Melody in E from Morceaux de fantaisies, Op.3 No.3
Rossini-Castelnuovo Tedesco, arr. Piatigorsky: Figaro from “The Barber of Seville”

Jian Liu, piano
Inbal Megiddo, cello

Wednesday 13 November

Wellington music lovers are very much the beneficiaries of the recent appointments of artists Inbal Megiddo and Jian Liu to teaching positions at the New Zealand School of Music. Each is an exceptional musician and instrumentalist, and this varied programme offered an opportunity to share their command of a wide range of musical and national styles.

The two movements of Beethoven’s sonata punctuate deeply expressive slow periods with vigorous Allegri interventions. In the poetic Andante and Adagio sections the cello had a wonderfully rich, sweet tone and beautiful phrasing, supported most sympathetically by the piano. The contrasting Allegri  were wonderfully spirited and dramatic, and fully exploited the wide dynamic range of the score. But during impassioned forte periods there were, unfortunately, times when the piano was simply too loud, obscuring the equally important cello role. The use of the long, rather than short stick on the concert grand piano made this an almost predictable hazard, but for most of the time Jian Liu kept the situation firmly under control.

Ross Harris’s brief ‘Sunt lacrimae rerum’ was composed for Inbal and Jian in 2013. Its title derives from Aenaes’ lament on the Trojan War “There are tears in things, and mortality touches the mind”. The outer parts of the score are a moving meditation on the frailty of human existence, with spare, atonal idioms that proved surprisingly effective in expressing this musical stream of consciousness. They encompass a central scherzo-like section of agitated, angry sentiment that was, however, less convincing. But that was certainly not the case in the arresting pianissimo harmonics from the cello that closed this affecting work, beautifully realised by the duo.

Falla’s Suite Populaire Espagnole comprises six movements based on popular songs from all over Spain. They alternate moods of vigorous, spirited excitement, at times almost wild, with sombre meditative tunes like the central Nana lullaby with its Moorish overtones in the cadences. The final Polo is full of the anger and resentment of the scorned lover, and the full range of all these contrasting sentiments was most convincingly explored by the duo.

The tiny Rachmaninoff Morceau  is a beautiful Melody where the cellist gave full voice to her wonderful, rich cantabile and expressive phrasing, and was most sympathetically supported by the piano.

The final arrangement of Rossini’s Figaro aria from “The Barber of Seville” was an unashamed show-off piece for the cellist. While not particularly successful as a piece of music, as an astute act of programming it ended the recital with great enthusiasm and gusto at a breathless gallop, and the audience was rightly thrilled.

 

Beethoven’s and Michael Houstoun’s “Les Adieux” – for now…….

Posted on by admin

Chamber Music New Zealand presents:
Michael Houstoun – Beethoven reCYCLE 2013
Programme Seven “Les Adieux”

BEETHOVEN – Sonata in F minor, Op 2 No 1 / Sonata in G, Op 79
Sonata in E flat, Op 81a ‘Les Adieux’
Interval
Sonata in E minor, Op 90   / Sonata in C minor, Op 111

Michael Houstoun (piano)

Michael Fowler Centre,Wellington

Monday 11th November 2013

This was the final concert in Michael Houstoun’s Beethoven reCYCLE 2013 project, which has encompassed the composer’s entire output of 32 piano sonatas, presented in forty concerts, spread across ten centres. The atmosphere of eager anticipation in the Fowler Centre was almost palpable from an audience of some 600 listeners who were clearly devotees not only of Beethoven, but of the artist too.

The concert opened with the first published piano sonata and ended with the final one, written nearly 30 years later. Despite being an early opus, the F minor work is nevertheless full of the drama, beauty, and individualism that we associate with Beethoven’s mature output, and he was indeed already a highly successful pianist and composer in Vienna when he wrote it. Michael Houstoun’s reading was fresh and vigorous, and immediately engaged the audience for the journey through this ambitious programme.

The G major work is a captivating gem, its three brief movements more in the scale of a sonatina than sonata. Houstoun fashioned a wonderful balance between the poetic central Andante and its encompassing outer movements, in an interpretation that offered a lightness and transparency to the ear.

The E flat sonata “Les Adieux” was dedicated to a friend and pupil of Beethoven’s, the Archduke Rudolph. When this patron left Vienna in 1809 to avoid the French advance and bombardment, Beethoven wrote this very personal work with movements entitled The Farewell, The Absence, and The Return. No other Beethoven sonata has an explicit programme like this, and the work has a sense of acute personal involvement, intimately and richly expressed. Houstoun embraced this with moving artistry, particularly in the central Andante expressivo.

The E minor sonata, with only two movements, is reputedly a love story for Count Moritz Lichnowsky, to whom it is dedicated. He had successfully wooed an opera singer, and wedding bells were in the offing, but the first movement seems to capture the moods of  early courtship – the passion, hopes, doubts, even despair, of initial discovery and tentative advancement…….. Conversely, the second movement conveys a sense of profound relief, and the serenity of a rich, mutual understanding finally established.  Houstoun explored all these aspects with a sensitivity that conveyed a particularly special and personal affinity with this work.

The C minor sonata Opus 111 sits within the works usually labelled “late Beethoven”, yet to me it is much more immediately engaging and accessible than, say, some of the late string quartets. The first of its two movements opens with a Maestoso section that then moves into Allegro con brio ed appassionato. The following Arietta is marked Adagio molto semplice e cantabile, and it finally fades away with a beautifully crafted coda resolution. Houstoun’s artistry captured every mood, and conveyed throughout a telling sense of profound fulfilment– as though aligning a deep satisfaction derived from the mammoth reCYCLE undertaking with similar sentiments encapsulated as Beethoven penned his final sonata work.

It seems churlish to harbour even a single reservation about this wonderful concert, but there were a few things I would have liked to hear done differently. Throughout these sonatas there are the characteristic extended periods of high speed, sometimes frenetic, finger passagework, often at a forte dynamic, which Houstoun presents in unbroken sweeps of uniform sound. My preference is for a much more rigorous rhythmic articulation of individual figures and motifs within these passages – which can enable the listener to hang onto the phrasing structure while never losing sight of the overall architecture which always underpins them. Also, these works offer an incredible dynamic range, and I would have appreciated more exploration of the pianissimo region, which the Steinway used here has well within its capacity.

But perhaps the single element I most missed was silence – encapsulated in Debussy’s telling comment “Music is the silence between the notes.” After each statement of a new phrase or subject I craved that infinitesimal spacing that enhances absorption by the senses. And even more so between movements, where a moment’s breath would enable the listener to comprehend fully the artistry of Houstoun’s playing just past, before embarking with him on his journey forward.

Houstoun’s extraordinary achievement and musicianship in presenting the entire reCYCLE project was acknowledged with huge appreciation by a unanimous standing ovation at the end of the concert, where he stood showered in clouds of glittering ticker tape spewed from two confetti cannons overhead, and was presented with a gigantic rich red bouquet. It was a brilliant and memorable moment in Wellington’s music making scene, and an inspired way to celebrate an extraordinary partnership between the artist, the supporters, and Chamber Music New Zealand.

Bravo all!

 

 

 

Concert No 6 of Michael Houstoun’s triumphant return to Beethoven

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas: Concert No 6
No 4 in E flat, Op 7
No 14 in C sharp minor, Op 27, No 2 ‘Moonlight’
No 15 in D, Op 28 ‘Pastoral’
No 31 in A flat, Op 110

Michael Fowler Centre

Sunday 10 November, 5pm

Let me go back three decades.

This series celebrates Michael Houstoun’s 60th birthday, and the 20th anniversary of his earlier cycle, in 1993.

It is also the 30th anniversary of a momentous step for music in Wellington. In 1983, as Charlotte Wilson quotes from the Introduction to the 1993 programme, the Wellington Chamber Music Society, inspired by its chairman Russell Armitage (and indeed the whole committee), took a bold step. With some opposition from the national federation of chamber music societies, the predecessor of Chamber Music New Zealand, the society inaugurated a series of Sunday afternoon concerts; in the first three years they were held in the Victoria University Memorial Theatre, attracting good crowds, enticed in part by free mulled wine in the interval.

The original impulse was to enable us to hear chamber music that a) demanded less familiar groups, such as sextets or nonets, and music for woodwind and brass instruments, and b) would give performance opportunities to local players – up-and-coming players – who were largely neglected by the then Music Federation of New Zealand.

In that first four-concert series, in June/July 1983, the Wellington society engaged Michael Houstoun for a Beethoven recital; he played the Op 10 no 3, along with the Pathétique and the Appassionata.  (The success of that series inspired a further short series in October; and an important new music series had been launched!) In 1984 Houstoun played Op 2 No 3, Op 78 and the Waldstein, and so on annually thereafter. In 1986, the year of the first International Festival of the Arts, the concerts moved from the university to the Concert Chamber – the original 600-seat chamber upstairs in the Town Hall.

The annual Beethoven recital from Michael Houstoun was a regular high point, and the goal was set to play all the sonatas. That goal was reached by the early 1990s.

Armitage then proposed a re-packaging of the entire sonata canon in a dedicated festival over the space of three weeks.  It would take place in the Ilott Concert Chamber in the newly strengthened and rebuilt Town Hall.  They ran from 3 to 24 November 1993, on Saturday and Wednesday evenings.  I was at all the concerts and reviewed five of them for The Evening Post; Gillian Bibby reviewed concerts four and five. For me the chance to hear Houstoun in this series was one of the most remarkable privileges in my reviewing career.

Houstoun took his series over the following months to Auckland, Napier, Christchurch and Dunedin.

But it was not the first complete Beethoven cycle in New Zealand. I had clipped a letter from The Listener of 19 March 1994 that recalled a series in Dunedin in 1968 by Hungarian pianist Istvan Nadas when he was artist-in-residence at Otago University.

However, to the matter in hand.
This time, it was Chamber Music New Zealand itself that took up the baton, with elegant and generous acknowledgement from Euan Murdoch of the many sponsors and other individuals as well as the staff of CMNZ who created these repeat performances, that attracted here an audience of more than 600.

Each recital was carefully constructed to balance early and late, famous and unfamiliar, to offer contrasted moods and, for those with perfect pitch, satisfying key relationships. The latter were hardly evident in a programme that had Op 7 in E flat next to the Moonlight in C sharp minor, and the Pastoral in D before Op 110 in A flat.

The E flat sonata is less familiar, without quite the emotional warmth or the electrifying drama of the famous ones.

I was slightly uncertain about the sound I was hearing on Sunday. Seated well to the left, the piano’s sound in the first sonata seemed a little unfocused, which I put down to the sometimes wayward acoustic in certain parts of the MFC, but could have been imperfections in the piano voicing.  Nevertheless, Houstoun’s impetuosity and rhythmic energy in the Allegro molto rapidly overwhelmed technical matters, and the fine subtlety of dynamics, the hint of rallentando towards the middle section and the ever-changing patterns of the music focused attention on the music’s essential grandeur and inventiveness.
In any case, moving to a central position after the interval I found the sound perfectly balanced and coherent.

No mood remains constant through any movement, portentousness and wit in the Largo, gaiety and moments of repose as the major-minor key switch enlivened the scherzo-like Allegro. Finally, the last movement breaks the predominant triplet rhythms of the first three movements, though the speed, now in duple time, seemed otherwise to change only slightly.

The Moonlight stands in dramatic contrast to the Op 7 as its moods, really in all three movements, remain constant, but it didn’t mean that the all-too-familiar first movement was monotonous; all manner of minuscule tempo changes, rubato, the teasing obscurity of rhythms in the vacillating triplets. The insouciance that Houstoun brought to the Allegretto was free and heart-easing and it made the reckless speed of the flawless last movement all the more astonishing.

The Pastoral sonata is far from ‘pastoral’ in the usual sense; none of the names bestowed on the sonatas had Beethoven’s sanction and it’s surprising that such an inappropriate name as this has continued to be used. In fact, not all editions use it: my Augener album does not. Written just after the Moonlight, it takes an entirely different path that for me creates a very strong and interesting musical character; Houstoun’s playing elevated its stature well above the merely picturesque, to a work that is purposeful, with impressive formal strengths as well the most engaging thematic inventions. The Andante created a cloistered feeling, 2/4, squarish in shape after the 3/4 rhythm of the Allegro, and hinting at some sort of mechanical movement. If you still seek something of the outdoors, it might be found in the last movement which opens in a fanciful mood but is laced with bravura passages of sweeping scales and arpeggios. Houstoun’s playing would have surprised any doubters of this sonata’s originality and enchantment, and it reinforced my own admiration and delight.

All three of the last sonatas have a place in music that has to be likened to religious revelation and for an increasingly secular society, it is music of this kind, as well as the most transcendental poetry, drama and prose fiction and visual arts that have come to be seen as a fully satisfying substitute for religion.
Though all three are uniquely different one from another, all are masterpieces.

The first movement of the Op 110 opens with a melody that is of quintessential beauty in the quite untroubled key of A flat major, calling up a unique spiritual state, reinforced by its repetition and elaboration that is comparable to the chanting of religious ritual. The ethereal atmosphere emerged from the stillness of Houstoun’s performance, a stillness mirrored by the sense of peace and repose that his demeanour at the keyboard expressed, utterly undemonstrative, without gestures, merely the medium for the music itself.

And though the second movement, Allegro molto, is a startling change, with just a near modulation into D flat in the middle, it was in perfect accord with the nature of what went before. Then there was the remarkable recitative that leads to the lamenting Arioso which the programme notes explain, quoting Antony Hopkins, as suggesting that Beethoven here expresses frustration at the inadequacies of his musical resources: a theory that seems to me to belittle not just this sonata, but Beethoven in toto.

I think it’s allowed to express the composer’s profound grief at the entire human condition, at the inadequacy of the human spirit in dealing with the cruelties and evils of the world as well as the despair he faced through deafness and the ailments that would soon kill him. Yet that’s not Beethoven’s conclusion. The sonata ends with an extraordinary fugue that breaks off to return to the Arioso before accelerating to a final peroration, which Houstoun created in a spirit of almost overwhelming exultancy.

An exultancy that found voice in another clamorous, standing ovation. Thank you Michael Houstoun and Chamber Music New Zealand.

 

“Un spectacle fantastique” from orchestra and fireworks

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New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
“Fireworks and Fantasy”

Britten     The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra
Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1 in B flat minor, Op.23
Berlioz     Symphonie Fantastique Op.14

Piano : Plamena Mangova
Conductor : Julian Kuerti

Michael Fowler Centre,

9th November 2013

Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra received its first performance in 1946, when the LSO under Sargent also performed it on film for distribution to British schools. It became one of the best known British works of the C20th, and is certainly one of Britten’s most accessible and appealing compositions. It is based on a resounding theme from Purcell’s incidental music for the play Abdelazer, which Britten used as the basis for a fascinating set of variations. Conductor Kuerti and the entire orchestra launched into the imposing opening statement of the theme with an enthusiasm and breadth that immediately captured the audience, followed by each instrumental section in turn adding fresh richness and colour. The subsequent variations explore an astonishing variety of instrumental mood, timbre and techniques, and each section or soloist took up the baton with great relish for the task. The writing showcased the outstanding skills and musicianship of the NZSO players, and the sheer fun they had playing this brilliantly inventive music was infectious. The closing fugue and final tutti statement of the Purcell theme was awesome and it had the audience bringing the house down.

Tchaikovsky’s first Piano Concerto Op.23 is another well loved work, and the choice of gifted Bulgarian pianist Plamena Mangova was an inspired one. She was in total technical command of the very demanding score, and her musicianship explored an astonishing range of dynamics, moods, and sensitivities in a way that drew the audience into the wonderful intricate conversations that Tchaikovsky creates between pianist and orchestra. Under Kuerti’s unobtrusive baton they together moved seamlessly from contemplative passages of exquisite delicacy to the most dramatic full-bodied tuttis. The climaxes were full of richness, warmth, and riveting bravura while never straying into the overblown or bombastic. The woodwind principals were again a standout feature of the performance.

The following interval was timed to allow patrons to flock out and watch the annual Guy Fawkes’ fireworks display provided by the City Council in the nearby arm of the harbour. Wellington turned on a breathlessly calm, balmy spring evening and crystal clear skies for the event, which fittingly endorsed the festive atmosphere of the music making. An opinion reported earlier in the Dominion Post was that Guy Fawkes celebrations are now outdated baggage from our colonial past, and that the fireworks display would much more appropriately mark some indigenous festival like matariki, the Maori New Year. Quite apart from the difficulty that matariki falls in the depths of winter, when low cloud, drizzle, and freezing southerlies are the norm, it is not clear to me why the pakeha settlers of Aotearoa are expected to truncate their historical references, while the Maori are not. Surely, in another millennium we, and our many local ethnic groups, will seem like a bunch of settlers that stumbled ashore on almost the same day…….

Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique occupied the second half of the concert. Subtitled An episode in the life of an Artist, it is grounded in Berlioz own romantic experience. An intriguing programmatic work, it charts over the course of five movements the angst of a young musician desperately in love with a woman who embodies all he idealises and longs for. His early dreams and passions, and the disturbing images of his beloved that haunt him, are explored by Berlioz in the two initial movements with exquisite artistry, using a recurring idée fixe. Kuerti elicited a wonderfully sympathetic interpretation from the orchestra and again, standout beauty from woodwind principals. The third movement exchanges between first oboe and cor anglais were profoundly moving and breathtakingly accomplished, and set the tone for the dark unravelling of the plot in the last two movements. The expanded brass and percussion came wonderfully into their own, capturing ominous and brutal moods alike with equal intensity, and enriching the power of the maniacal tutti conclusion. The full house was blown away and, undeterred by a long evening’s listening, brought the conductor back repeatedly to express their appreciation.

This programme might be labelled by some as unashamedly populist, but in my view there is every good reason to provide such a chance to enjoy some of the great classics. It is an effective and rewarding  way to showcase the full resources of this wonderful symphony orchestra that our taxes provide, and to enjoy the outstanding musicians we are privileged to hear in our own home town.

 

 

Houstoun’s stupendous feat in first of the final trilogy of Beethoven sonata recitals

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Chamber Music New Zealand  Beethoven reCYCLE 2013: Programme Five

Sonata no.2 in A, Op.2 no.2
Sonata no.8 in C minor, Op.13 ‘Pathétique’
Sonata no.18 in E flat, Op.31 no.3 “La Chasse’
Sonata no.30 in E, Op.109

Michael Houstoun (piano)

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 8 November 2013, 7.30pm

How does one express in words the riches of hearing Beethoven’s incomparable piano sonatas superbly played?

The only real drawback to the performance was the fact of it having to be held in the Michael Fowler Centre due to the earthquake strengthening of the Town Hall, in which building is also located the Ilott
Theatre, where the first (April) concerts in this series were held.

Sensibly, much of the auditorium was roped off, so that the audience was concentrated in the central and left side sections of the downstairs seating.  In his introductory remarks, Euan Murdoch (Chief Executive, Chamber Music New Zealand) assured us that the audience of approximately 500 would fill the Wigmore Hall in London, venue for so many recitals and chamber music concerts.

However, there was some effect of such a cavernous space on the sound the audience received, despite a lower platform below the main stage being used, as it was for the Goldner Quartet in September, that  brought pianist and audience somewhat closer together.

Though the early sonata that opened the concert (1794-95) has the style and format of a classical sonata, the content is such that it could not have been written by Haydn (its dedicatee) or Mozart.  As
Charlotte Wilson said in her introductory talk, Beethoven’s distinctive contrasts between soft and loud, staccato and legato, were in full evidence, with moments of great delicacy contrasting with bravura passages.

The chorale-like opening of the second movement is satisfying and solemn, and develops through a delightful transition before the firm steps of the opening return.  Further variation in grimmer mode
follows, then a gentler, almost dance-like version.

The third movement is a joy, and Houstoun’s lightness of touch made the most of every phrase, while in the extended rondo final movement Houstoun’s facility allowed Beethoven’s beauties to reveal themselves.

The well-known Pathétique sonata would have been demanding and even puzzling at its first hearing, though written only four years after the sonata we heard first.  Here we had no mechanical performance; there were rubati and slight variations of tempi in the first movement, which Beethoven would surely have approved.  After the opening (grave), the allegro molto was indeed fast, with just an occasional loss of clarity.  The vast majority of its magical characteristics were all there.

As is usual with Michael Houstoun’s playing, one was unaware of the sustaining pedal, so judiciously is it used.  The gorgeous slow movement displayed pianism at its finest.  Houstoun never succumbed to a romantic rendition, yet instilled the music with plenty of feeling.

The final movement, another rondo, was again pretty fast just a shade too much so for me.  I found that at this tempo the odd note clattered rather than sounded fully in the way that most of its fellows did.  But Beethoven’s effects were there for all to hear.

‘La Chasse’ (1802) is one of my favourite sonatas, especially the minuet, for which years ago in a youthful romantic phase I wrote words.  As with the first sonata, this being after the interval, it took a
little time to become accustomed to the sound in the Michael Fowler Centre acoustic, but again the strangeness soon wore off.

This was a cheerful chase.  Surely the prey would not want to be caught, so that it could continue to listen to this wonderful music!   The second movement’s running opening has the music always going somewhere, and the little strophes that interrupt don’t stop the genial progress for long.

The minuet and trio were as enchanting as ever  more so than in the hands of some pianists.  I don’t know when I last heard this sonata in a live concert; I found it a joyful and fulfilling experience. The skill in the modulations of the last movement were breathtaking.

Finally to late Beethoven  1820, to be precise. The opening probably suffered the most from the acoustic, but again, one’s ears adapted, and the ripple of calm yet lyrical notes soon found the right receptors.  Soon the driving, burning talent of Beethoven breaks through the calm, only to alternate with it in episodes.

The prestissimo second movement is short and also episodic.  Then comes the sublime slow opening of the final movement.  Its nostalgic and contemplative quality summons up thoughts of what might have been in Beethoven’s mind at this stage of his life.  This is one of the many treasures that the composer has given us; such expressive beauty!

The variations are a considerable tour de force, but several are of a slower pace, rather than increasing the
prestidigitation.  The return of the theme at the end made for an exquisite close to an evening of music that transported one; magical and peaceful.

To have all 32 sonatas under the fingers and in the brain, as Houstoun has, is a stupendous feat, and  much appreciated by the attentive audience.  The experience of hearing these sonatas in such
capable hands was elevating and joyous.

 

Schubert’s “Trout” engaging despite wayward balances

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Schubert: Quintet in A, Op.114 “The Trout”

Violin – Yid-ee Goh / Viola  –  Konstanze Artmann / Cello  – Jane Young
Bass   – Paul Altomari / Piano  – Rachel Thomson

St. Andrew’s on the Terrace

Wednesday, 6 November 2013

Schubert’s Trout Quintet is not often heard live in Wellington, yet it would have to be one of the best loved works of classical chamber music. The good turnout for this concert reflected that, which would have been rewarding for the ensemble, who were highly polished and technically well in command of the score. The work was written by the young Schubert, aged only 22, as a thank you gift to the wealthy amateur cellist Sylvester Paumgartner, who sponsored weekly summer musical salons at Steyr in the Austrian Alps. Schubert had soon become the centre of attention there in the summer of 1819, and the work was composed after his return to Vienna.

The score exudes the carefree delight of friends gathered to make music in a relaxed salon environment, and St. Andrew’s offers Wellington a very sympathetic setting for such a situation.

The opening Allegro vivace is announced with a dramatic tutti chord, followed by the first subject beautifully set for the violin. The movement was not far advanced however, before the imbalance between the instruments started to prove profoundly frustrating. From the balcony where I sat, the violin and piano were heavily dominating, the viola and cello recessive, and the bass at times barely discernable. The statement of the magical second subject seemed far too aggressive from the piano, and the inner voices simply did not provide the clarity of rhythmic locomotion with which Schubert underpinned and energized it. This quintet is largely an intricate conversation between equal voices, but the cello needed to be heard more, and the bass to provide a much more audible, secure foundation. The viola adopted all too effectively the Cinderella epithet sometimes applied to this instrument, when in fact its part, and that of the cello, are undoubtedly written to be heard and appreciated.

The same frustrations dogged the following Andante where the dominance of the violin and piano continued. Since this work was written for a salon situation in the early nineteenth century, the use of a modern concert grand can put the pianist on the back foot from bar one. So it requires careful adjustment if the sound is not to be overly bright, and risk overshadowing the deceptively simple but powerful inner rhythms and melodic lines. Closing the piano lid would have helped, as would some preliminary sound tests in the auditorium. The exuberant Presto and delicate Trio that follow were better balanced and came into their own much more successfully.

In the next Andantino Theme and Variations, Schubert invites each player to caress and elaborate the wonderful Trout theme from his lied, which was a particular favourite of his patron Paumgartner. The violin gave a loving opening statement of the beautiful melody, though he was not given the support from the lower strings that could have lifted it to another plane. Unfortunately the busy and energetic variation that followed was launched from the piano at a level that smothered the rich and throaty counter-statement of the theme given to the bass, and in the following viola variation one again struggled to make out its theme through the volume of piano and violin. The cellist played the final variation very poetically, but needed more sympathetic support from the other players. My distinct impression of this movement was that there had been far too little concentration on establishing how each player was to act out their role within the ensemble as a whole, and how each role could be most musically enhanced by the supporting textures. The simple but exquisite theme is developed by Schubert in extraordinarily complex and subtle ways, yet it felt as though the ensemble was walking across a carpet of fantastic autumn colours without noticing what was underfoot.

In the straightforward and vigorous Allegro giusto Finale the balance was much better, though the piano was still often far too loud in forte passages. But the movement was played with a convincing gusto, and it was clear from the final applause that the audience had really appreciated the opportunity to hear a live performance of this much-loved work. It was good to know that the group would play the work again at St. Ninian’s Church in Karori two days later..

My colleague Rosemary Collier comments: From my seat three rows from the front downstairs, the imbalance was not so marked – there was more of  a salon-like distance between me and the performers, and it was probably an advantage not to be above the level of the piano.  Nevertheless, I did find that cello, bass and viola seemed to be somewhat in the background aurally, especially the latter two instruments.