Category: Reviews – Concerts

Leonard Bernstein’s CANDIDE – the best of all possible whirls?

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Leonard Bernstein – CANDIDE

Cast: Cameron Barclay (Candide) / Barbara Graham (Cunegonde) / Bianca Andrew (Paquette) / Kieran Rayner (Maximilian / Nick Dunbar (Pangloss/Martin) / Helen Medlyn (Old Lady) / Richard Greager (Grand Inquisitor et al.) / Thomas Atkins (Archbishop et al.)

Narrator: Ray Henwood

The Orpheus Choir of Wellington

The Vector Wellington Orchestra

Conducted by Mark W.Dorrell

Directed by Sara Brodie

Wellington Town Hall

Saturday, 28th July 2012

Pity the poor music-theatre historian charged with the task of drawing together the different strands of creative impulse that have, at various times, produced successive versions of Leonard Bernstein’s amazingly durable stage-work Candide. To read of the different productions and seemingly endless revisions, complete revampings included, is to be made to feel as though one’s head has been spun in a kind of Voltairesque whirl. Forget the fraught operatic gestations and accompanying thrills and spills of works such as Bizet’s Carmen, Verdi’s Don Carlos or Britten’s Gloriana – Lenny’s Candide beats them all!

Basically, the work began its public life in 1956 with Lilian Hellman’s adaptation of Voltaire’s classic novella/satire, and with additional lyrics by luminaries such as Dorothy Parker, all set to music by Bernstein. When the show didn’t last past seventy-odd performances, Hellman’s book bore most of the blame – too serious and weighty, said the critics. It wasn’t until 1973 that another attempt was made with Hal Prince’s idea of a stripped-down, racier version, with an entirely new book written by Hugh Wheeler. A lot of the original music was cut and the orchestration drastically reduced. Though clocking up over seven hundred performances, it just wasn’t the Candide that its composer had originally envisaged, and really wanted to see.

Rehabilitation of the original’s style and spirit came with conductor John Mauceri’s reconstruction (with the composer’s imprimatur) for a 1988 staging in Glasgow, and also with Bernstein’s own 1989 recording, largely of what Mauceri and writer John Wells (of “Yes Minister” fame) had achieved (incidentally, this evening’s conductor Mark Dorrell remembers being involved as repetiteur of the 1988 production at Scottish Opera to which Bernstein came and actually conducted a rehearsal – a treasurable experience!).

So, what we got on Saturday evening was largely this latter version that Bernstein himself recorded, but with further reworkings based on an even later London production, as “authorized” an edition as could be gleaned from the work’s history of comings and goings – the best of all possible solutions, of course! And what a riot, what a firecracker, what a sizzler of a performance we got from conductor, choir and orchestra, and with Ray Henwood’s wonderfully mordant delivery as narrator illuminating every twist and turn of the fantastical array of improbable events.

I thought the Orpheus Choir astonishing wonderful – its members were the out-and-out heroes of the evening, with Mark Dorrell as their inspirational general. Sara Brodie’s direction all but completely transcended any sense of “chorus convention” by treating the choir as a “character” in its own right, one all too willing to express its views of the proceedings by whatever means at its disposal – gesture and movement as well as voices (including a “Mexican wave” at one point, and some wonderfully nonchalant bottom-swaying accompanying the insouciant “What’s the Use” Waltz in Act Two!). It all worked brilliantly, inestimably aided by the choir’s superb diction, delivering the words with focus and energy throughout.

The orchestra was almost as good, strings, winds and percussion particularly nimble-fingered, and with only an occasional sluggishness from the brass in places during Act One to pick up their cues (a bit more spunk needed from them in the overture for example) detracting from an otherwise brilliant evening’s playing. Conductor and players “caught” so well the atmosphere and rhythmic character of episodes like the “Paris Waltz” and the “I Am Easily Assimilated” Tango, even if during the latter Helen Medlyn, like the other soloists most of the time, sounded inexplicably underpowered, leaving the chorus to supply the necessary vocal fabric of the sinuous melody.

Enjoying as we did these instrumental and vocal splendors from orchestra and chorus, it was disappointing to find that almost all the solo singers were hard to hear at various times, rendering the all-important words mostly inaudible – or at least from where I was sitting in the hall. I wasn’t the only “hard-of-hearing” audience member, as a number of people I spoke with both at the interval and subsequent to the show confirmed my impression. What seemed to be needed was either subtitles, or (wash my mouth out with soap and water!) discreet microphonic assistance, perhaps? Considering that the voice of the narrator, Ray Henwood, was resplendently and sonorously miked, it may well have been appropriate for other solo voices to have been thus augmented.

Of the soloists, Richard Greager (as The Grand Inquisitor and a number of other cameo roles) consistently gave much pleasure, putting his words across with the expected verve and focus, something I was also anticipating from Helen Medlyn (whose work I’ve always greatly admired), only to find myself straining to catch what she was singing a lot of the time. Before people start to accuse me of making a meal out of this, I ought to point out that, if ever music-theatre words ought to be heard and savored, those of “Candide” ought to be – and the loss is considerable if they’re not coming across. I should also add that I thought the acting of every one of the singers characterful and engaging, thanks to both their individual talents and director Sara Brodie’s skills at using the semi-staged environment to its best advantage.

As Candide, Cameron Barclay caught the essential sweetness and naivety of the character, his voice clearer in the more lyrical numbers such as “It Must Be So”, beautiful and touching in the “It must be Me” reprise, introduced by the full orchestra. His partnership with the appealing Cunegonde of Barbara Graham brought similar lovely moments, culminating in the almost Mahlerian “Make Our Garden Grow” at the very end of the work. Projecting similar innocence, with touches of characterful pizzazz, Barbara Graham’s much-violated but remarkably enduring heroine displayed plenty of beauty and spunk throughout, her words perhaps not consistently projected with the required focus, but her voice making the most of those displays of coloratura in “Glitter and Be Gay”.

A great moment for both Cunegonde and The Old Lady was their Act Two duet “We Are Women”, Graham and Medlyn both relishing their words, “We’ve necks like swans, and, oh, such sexily legs / We’re so light-footed we could dance on eggs”, and putting across all the sex appeal one could want in the process. Plenty of libidinous impulse was generated also by Bianca Andrew’s sultry servant-girl Paquette, who didn’t have a great deal to sing solo, but whose voice and provocative deportment added inestimably to sequences such as Act One’s “The Best of All Possible Worlds”, and the glorious “What’s the Use?” in Act Two’s casino scene. As with Bianca Andrew, Thomas Atkins, singing the Archbishop and other cameo characters, also had enough vocal heft to make his few solo lines properly tell.

Both Kieran Raynor’s Maximilian (the King’s son) and Nick Dunbar’s Dr.Pangloss were characterizations fleshed-out with confident, physically well-projected stage-presence. Kieran Rayner’s words I could hear most of the time (a pity that his “Life Is Happiness Indeed” verse was pushed along a notch or so too speedily for the words to really make their point), but I had the utmost difficulty with Nick Dunbar’s ennunciations – most of his utterances as the Royal Tutor in “The Best of All Possible Worlds” seemed as if too low for him, so that the voice lacked sufficient girth to properly project the words. Again (I hate myself for suggesting this!), in the interests of getting across the message, perhaps microphones (discreetly employed) would have helped?

So, that caveat registered, the rest I thought a marvellous achievement from all concerned – I loved watching Mark Dorrell sitting down at the end on the conductor’s podium, obviously exhausted, having given his all! Above all, very great credit to the Orpheus Choir, its energy and commitment to the presentation surpassing all expectations and producing a truly memorable result.

 

 

 

 

A fine piano trio at St Mark’s, Lower Hutt, for lunch

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Anna van der Zee (violin), Paul Mitchell (cello) and Richard Mapp (piano)

Kodály: Duo for violin and cello, Op 7 – first movement; Dvořák: Piano Trio No 4 in E minor, Op 90 (‘Dumky’ )

St Mark’s Uniting Church, Lower Hutt

Wednesday 25 July, 12.15pm

A common perception of a free lunchtime concert might be of amateurs of moderate skills and talents playing in a cold church.

None of the aforesaid is remotely true, and in the present case, such a perception borders on the ridiculous, if not libellous. The church was reasonably warm and enjoys a congenial acoustic that is kind to musicians both amateur and professional. Its only flaw is in the church’s design: the entrance, at the east end, alongside of the sanctuary means that the audience is very aware of people entering late or leaving early.

Kodály wrote a solo cello sonata and this duo, at the beginning of World War I.  Neither is  particularly easy to penetrate on first hearing (I have been rather slow to begin hearing its beauties, after a number of exposures), as the composer drew his inspiration from the genuine, somewhat savage folk music of the Hungarian people, rather than the gypsy music that was more easily assimilated and had been taken to the hearts of music lovers of the 19th century.  As with Bartók, Kodály had priorities other than writing beguiling tunes in the West European mould.

Nor did the players here make any attempt to sugar the pill. The cellist in particular dug into his strings with a bite and determination that rather dominated the Duo, though the violin, more lyrical, lacked nothing in comparable intensity. One has however heard performances on record that are more persuasive in terms of warmth and emotional appeal.  They played only the first movement (Allegro serioso, non troppo), which was presumably seen by Van der Zee and Mitchell as an interesting filler, which indeed it was, to provide a sharp contrast with the gorgeous trio that followed.

It was no doubt the second work that had attracted this much larger than usual audience on this wet, cold day. Dvořák’s Trio Op 90, is called the Dumky (plural of ‘dumka’), meaning meditation or lament, though it is punctuated by brighter, quite rapturous episodes; the word is related to the Russian word, Duma – thought, council – which is the name of the Russian parliament.

Dvořák used the Dumka in several other works such as the second Slavonic Dance and the Piano Quintet, Op 81.

The difference in nature from the Kodály was most conspicuous in the sound of the cello, now warm and lyrical. In fact, the writing for both violin and cello is among the most rewarding in all the composer’s chamber music. And as the earlier piece had been without the piano, its sparkling presence here contributed greatly in civilising the music. The second movement, Poco adagio, expressed the essential ‘Dumka’ spirit, achingly elegiac, beautifully sustained by all three instruments, the muted violin contributing importantly to its emotional character.

The third section, Andante, begins with slow, airy piano chords which were quickly taken up by the violin; Richard Mapp’s playing was not only in full command of the many swift extrovert passages, but such moments as his picking out, in the Andante, a spare, single line theme was quite moving.

The fifth movement, Allegro, opens with a big rhetorical theme from the cello, and it moves towards a spirited end. In the final Lento maestoso last movement the trio moved carefully from the dark opening to its exciting climax.

Here was a performance of great accomplishment by three professional musicians that one would rather have expected at a professional concert in a conventional chamber music venue. It seems sad that so relatively few of Lower Hutt’s 100,000 humans are sufficiently interested in or aware of the excellence of these lunchtime concerts; a line from Gray’s great poem: ‘Full many a flower is born to blush unseen/And waste its sweetness on the desert air’.

 

 

School of Music string ensemble brings lovely music to Upper Hutt

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Mendelssohn: Symphony in C minor (two movements)
Dvořák: Serenade for Strings Op.22 (four movements)

New Zealand School of Music String Ensemble, conducted by Martin Riseley

Expressions, Upper Hutt

Tuesday, 24 July 2012, 1pm

This was a good-looking ensemble, all players were smartly dressed in black, hair just so, and all standing to play (except for the cellos), and an attractive programme had been chosen.  The ensemble comprised four first violins, four second violins, three violas, three cellos and one double bass; 12 women and three men.  Some of the audience seats were close to the players; people sensibly steered clear of the danger of sitting in those seats that might have resulted in their becoming bow-legged (aren’t cellists anyway?) from having a cello bow thrust into their legs.

The Mendelssohn work was written for strings alone, when the composer was only 12 years old, one of a number of works written in his childhood to which he never gave opus numbers.  Two movements were played: the short slow movement marked grave, and the allegro finale.

The players were all highly competent, and played well together.  There was a strong sound from them in this happy piece; an astonishing composition for a 12-year-old.

The violinists rearranged themselves for the second work.   The first movement, moderato, I thought was a little pedantic, and could have done with more phrasing – not to say that there was none.  However, things improved as the movement went along.  Like so much of  Dvořák’s output, this work is wonderfully cheerful and tuneful.  A serenade was originally a work played out-of-doors; one could imagine having this played while strolling in a garden, or while eating a meal outdoors on a warm evening.

The wooden floor and mainly wooden walls and ceiling in the large foyer space at Expressions made for a good sound on the whole, but sometimes it was somewhat harsh or shrill.  This effect may have depended on where one was sitting.

In the second and third movements, tempo di valse and scherzo, the slower passages were played with a rich timbre; the faster ones suffered from rather too frequent intonation discrepancies.  The lively, dry acoustic may have shown these up more than would be the case in some venues.  Nevertheless, I was surprised at their number.

However, there are some very fine players here, notably the leaders of each of the four main sections of the ensemble.

The final movement played (the fifth, allegro vivace) featured delightful cello and double bass pizzicato, which I’m not sure I had been sufficiently aware of before.  Sitting close to the cellos revealed how enchanting this part of the music was.

The last quiet section began rather out of kilter – no-one appeared to be watching the conductor.  The return of the robust main theme terminated the work happily.

The concert was well-attended; over 100 people came to hear the young musicians.

 

 

 

Duo Tapas appetizing at Old St.Paul’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Old St.Paul’s Lunchtime Concert Series

Duo Tapas

Rupa Maitra (violin) / Owen Moriarty (guitar)

Music by PAGANINI, VIVALDI, SENENCA, SARATATE, GRANADOS and IMAMOVIC,

Old St.Paul’s Church, Thorndon

Tuesday July 24th 2012

Every now and then one hear something played at a concert which startles the sensibilities into momentary confusion. As when one turns on the radio and encounters something familiar mid-stream, the thought starts to drum away with the music: – “Now, just what is this?”

The Paganini work, Centone di Sonata No.1 which opened this duo recital sounded at first like a transcription of the beginning of the Mahler Fifth Symphony, played on a solo violin – a one-note “call to arms” dominating the opening. The attractive allegro maestoso which followed featured some fine flourishes and an exciting dynamic range -a more lyrical central section brought some major-key sunshine to the A-minor opening of the work.

Interestingly,  Paganini knew a lot about the guitar, partly perhaps because of having earned to play the mandolin before the violin. He once declared that “The violin is my mistress, but the guitar is my master”, and wrote a lot for the guitar in a chamber-music context, not just accompaniments, but with a virtuosity in places which was admired by his fellow-musicians at the time.

One wonders whether the composer’s interest in the guitar was due to its association with romance – Paganini did have a liaison with a “mystery woman” who played the guitar herself, one who possibly was the composer’s “muse” for a time, considering the number of works he wrote involving the instrument.

This work , and the Vivaldi D Minor Sonata from 1709 that followed, brought out lovely tones from the violinist, Rupa Maitra, and sensitive, perfectly-judged partnering lines from guitarist Owen Moriarty. The violinist’s very focused sound served Vivaldi particularly well, bright, Italianate tones lightening the textures and the wood-grainy, muted surrounding of the church’s interior. The character of both the slow, grave Minuet and the more vigorous finale with its different bowing and dynamic contrasts was nicely presented.

Giovanni Seneca (mis-spelled as”Senenca” in the programme) a Neapolitean guitarist and composer, born in 1967, contributed two works to the recital, Balkan Fantasy and Mazel Tov. I liked the second piece better – the first I thought somewhat filmic, a bit all-purpose, like something one might hear in a bar or restaurant – though some of the double-stopping seemed quite demanding, in places, parts of which sounded a bit strained. More interesting, I thought, was Mazel Tov, a work beginning as a slow dance, the notes “bent” for expressive purposes, with very soft playing at first from both musicians, but fuelling up as the music’s catchiness and energy increasingly took hold, the players bringing off a triumphant finish.

Some indigenous Spanish music followed, by Sarasate and Granados. I enjoyed reading George Bernard Shaw’s comment regarding Sarasate, to the effect that though there were many composers  of music for the violin, there were few of “violin music”, and that Sarasate’s playing (he was a virtuoso violinist as well as a composer) for Shaw “left criticism gasping miles behind him”. His Spanish Dances are popular encore pieces for virtuosi, intended to show off what the performer could do. Rupa Maitra captured the sinuous, haunting quality of “Playera”, the first of the composer’s set of Op.23 Dances. Though intonation wasn’t flawless what mattered as much was the atmosphere and the tonal flavourings of the piece, brought out here strongly.

I thought the famous Dance No.5 from Sarasate’s countryman Granados’s own set of Danzas Españolas which followed took a while to find its “point” here, in the wake of the Sarasate. It seemed to me that the playing could have done with a bit less legato throughout the opening (my ears perhaps too attuned to hearing the piece as a work for solo guitar) and the intonation was again a bit edgy on one or two violin notes – but when it came to the middle section, there was suddenly more distinction, like a lover’s musing upon a memory, the violinist making nice distinctions between registers. And where the guitar takes over the theme and the violin decorates was quite enchanting – lovely, soft arpeggiations. I thought Owen Moriarty mis-hit a chord during the reprise, but the playing recovered its poise to deliver a beautiful concluding note to the piece, a “was it all a dream?” kind of impulse…..

The concert finished with Jovano, Jovanke, a work by Bosnian guitarist and composer Almer Imamovic, an arrangement of an old Macedonian song about two young lovers in a “Romeo and Juliet” scenario. The music reflects the emotional turmoil of the two young people in their situation, soulful at the beginning, angular and rhythmically syncopated , with very Middle-Eastern kind of melodic contourings and flavorings, the music building up to great excitement by the end. Bravo!

 

 

 

 

Harp students of Caroline Mills in recital

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Carolyn Mills – Harp Students

The music and the players:
Germaine Tailleferre: Sonata for harp, movements 2 and 1 (Michelle Velvin)
Vincent Persichetti: Serenade no.10 for flute and harp, movements 2, 4, 6, 7 and 8 (Michelle Velvin and Monique Vossen, flute)
Domenico Scarlatti: Sonata in C major K.159, and Carlos Salzedo: Bolero and Rumba (Madeleine Griffiths, harp)
Maurice Ravel: Five Greek Folksongs and Habanera (Anita Huang and Je-won, harp and flute)
Jongen: Danse Lente and Gareth Farr: Taheke, movement 3 (Jennifer Newth and Andreea Junc, harp and flute)

Old St. Paul’s

Tuesday, 17 July 2012, 12.15 pm

An attractive concert was detracted from by the lack of a printed programme; the introduction by Carolyn Mills was eminently audible; not all her university student pupils emulated her in this respect, despite the use of a microphone.

The opening work was quiet and impressionistic, consisting of melody and accompaniment.  There were some brilliant effects in these two movements, and a range of dynamics; it was skilfully played.

The Serenade, by an American composer I had not heard of, encompassed a variety of moods and techniques.  The slow second movement played (4th movement)  was particularly attractive, the instruments blending beautifully, yet maintaining their distinctive timbres.  Perhaps because the French have written for the harp more than have composers of other nationalities, the work seemed to me to have a French quality about it.

The third movement played (6th movement) featured complicated cross-rhythms between the two instruments, and harmonic clashes, while the fourth (7th movement) had figures like birds in conversation, reminding me of Messiaen, with whom Persichetti was contemporary.

The final movement was of quite a different character; slashing glissandi on the harp against melodies on the flute made it often seem that the players were quite at variance with each other.  The players were, however, totally in command of their performances, which were of a very high standard.

Madeleine Griffiths played her pieces from memory – a considerable accomplishment on the harp.  The Scarlatti sonata is well-known in its original keyboard form, and I did not find it as effective on the harp, but it was very competently played, and there were more contrasts in dynamics than would be popssible on a harpsichord.  Here, it had a delicious sound.

The Bolero’s lovely lilting quality conjured up charming evocations of Spain.  Its confident, assured player then had us immediately into a fast, energetic dance, in the Rumba.  A variety of techniques were employed.

The next harp and flute duo gave us the fourth and fifth of Ravel’s Five Greek Folksongs, then our second Cuban dance, the Habanera.  The first song was very slow and plaintive, but beautifully played, especially the flute part.  The second song had a brighter mood, yet a piquant quality, and there was more here for the harp to do.  Grove tells me that the title of this song was ‘Tout gai’, and so it was.  (Apparently some of this set of songs have been lost; including one appropriately titled ‘Mon mouchoir, hélas, est perdu’.)

The Habanera is well-known.  These instruments seemed to me a little too refined for this relatively boisterous dance.  Nevertheless, it was very competently played and the players produced pleasing tone; the flutist (or flautist if you prefer) had rather noisy breathing, but great control of dynamics and technique.

Jennifer Newth is, I think, a little older and more experienced than the other harpists.  It was most enjoyable to watch her flowing and graceful technique.  Her playing and that of her flute partner featured exquisite soft sounds; these were very musicianly performances.

The Farr work was lively and quirky, but very idiomatic for these instruments.  It included some unusual writing for the harp solo passage.  Some of it made me think of the American folk-song where each verse ends ‘The cat said fiddle-i-fee’.  The piece was a fun way to end an interesting and enjoyable concert.  I found, thanks to Google, that this last part refers to the Whangarei Falls (Taheke is Maori for waterfall), while the first describes Huka Falls, and the middle section a waterfall on the Farr family land in the Marlborough Sounds.

It was a pleasure to hear such wonderful playing and superb sounds from such young performers.

 

 

The Full Monte – music of love’s distraction, from Baroque Voices

Posted on by Peter Mechen

BAROQUE VOICES PRESENTS THE FULL MONTE (Concert Three)

Claudio Monteverdi – Madrigals : Books 3 (complete) and 7 (excerpts)

Baroque Voices, directed by Pepe Becker

Pepe Becker, Jayne Tankersley (sopranos) / Andrea Cochrane (alto)

Oliver Sewell, Geoffrey Chang (tenors) / David Morriss (bass)

Continuo: Robert Oliver (bass viol) / Stephen Pickett (theorbo and chitarrino)

Sacred Heart Cathedral, Wellington

Monday, 16th July, 2012

The third instalment of Wellington vocal group Baroque Voices’ stupendous traversal of “The Full Monte”, or the complete Madrigals of Claudio Monteverdi, drew forth a vein of riches and delights similar in broad-brush stroke terms to the first two concerts. Artistic director Pepe Becker’s idea of combining books of madrigals from different ends of the spectrum of the composer’s output has made for startling contrasts in performance style and emphasis within single concerts.

One would have thought that, as the gap between the two divergent creative periods lessened, there would be more commonality in evidence – but to my ears, the gulf between the composer’s “Prima Practica” (traditional practice) and “Seconda Practica” (innovative practice) seemed throughout this concert as marked as throughout the first two concerts of the series. Of course, the instrumental accompaniments used by the later books (beginning with the Fifth Book of 1605) markedly change the entire sound-picture of the works, but the vocal writing is different as well – more spontaneous, dramatic and volatile than with many of the earlier works.

I confess to not knowing the music of Monteverdi’s contemporaries sufficiently well to comment on the individuality of his earlier works – still, these concerts do allow the unschooled listener to register differences between music written by the same composer at different stages of his life. And one can glean by association how the music of Monteverdi’s more conservative fellow-composers might have sounded.

I must say that, had Baroque Voices decided to proceed through the madrigals chronologically, I would have been just as enchanted, if less informed, by what I encountered. In context, even in the earlier Monteverdi pieces the music has what seems to my ears an enormous variety of expression. The present concert began with two madrigals from Book Three, works whose sounds represented for me a wonderful marriage of energy and delicacy, the contrasts of pure light and oscillating energies in the writing producing a totally enchanting effect throughout.

The second madrigal, “O come è gran martire” had its stratospheric opening marred by a banging door, but the singers continued undeterred, the music expanding like the light of dawn as the men’s voices joined the women’s at “O soave mio adore”. Pepe Becker’s and Jayne Tankersley’s soprano voices were able to spin their lines in thirds over vistas of great enchantment, to breathtaking effect.

True, the instrumental opening of the first of the Book Seven madrigals which followed immediately threw a startlingly-focused interval of a second at us, its instantaneous resolution heightening the passionate marriage of beauty with tension in a way that the earlier madrigals don’t often explore. This madrigal Romanesca for two soprano voices allowed us to savor the differences between two exceptional singers – Pepe Becker’s voice here sounding to my ears richer and mellower, and Jayne Tankersley’s sharper, more pungent and flavoursome.

Together the voices set one another off beautifully – both singers used the music’s figurations compellingly, their bodies expressing by movement and expression the agitations/excitements/ecstasies suggested by the heartfelt (anonymous) text. I especially liked the way the singers would push their voices past the “beautiful singing” threshold and into a world of expression that occasionally touched raw nerves but in doing so reached those intensities required by both poet and composer in each madrigal.

Monteverdi’s theatrical sense was never far away from these settings, the singers here relishing such interactions, as in Book 7’s Al lume dell stelle (mistakenly listed as from Book 3 in the program), where the men (tenor and bass) begin their invocation to the stars, the lines resembling tendrils of light floating upwards and falling back in a kind of spent ecstasy. Tenor Oliver Sewell and bass David Morriss together brought a fine, surging passion to “O celesti facelle…”, while in reply the two sopranos made something equally tremulous out of “Luci care e serene…” And there were stunning harmonic juxtapositionings with seconds grinding and being resolved to thirds, squeezing every drop of angst and sweet release from the situation.

In the beautiful Se per estremo, the alto voice of Andrea Cochrane led off, firm, sonorous and lovely – with the two tenors the middle voices were able to conjure up wondrous harmonic colorations throughout, the tenors, Oliver Sewell and Jeffrey Chang, essaying some finely-nuanced work in thirds, and judiciously pouring their tones into those ambient harmonies to beguiling effect. What a contrast with the vigorous and impassioned utterances of the following Tornate, the two tenors accompanied by Robert Oliver’s ever-reliable bass viol and Stephen Pickett’s perky chitarrino (renaissance guitar), and with the long-breathed sighings of “Voi de quel dolce” interrupted by hot-blooded exhortations – marvellous!

The evening was further enhanced by the spoken contribution of David Groves, responsible for the English translations of these madrigals, who made an appearance in each half of the concert. He explained briefly the context of the poetry (by Tasso) concerning the enchantress Armida, and her would-be-lover Rinaldo, who has abandoned her. One didn’t really have to understand Italian to catch the reader’s impassioned range of expression, and glean the depth and breadth of emotion in the poetry. So, each of a group of three madrigals had their texts read, and then sung by the Voices. The results were astonishing, especially in the first two of the three pieces. The singers vividly evoked the enchantress’s fury and despair at her abandonment – some of the lines stung and burnt with astonishing candor – and the dying fall of the music at “Hor qui manco lo spirto a la dolente” was almost Wagnerian in its impact.

In the third of these, Poi ch’ella (When she came to herself), both soprano voices sounded, I thought, a bit strained (not surprisingly, considering what and how they had sung throughout the first half of the concert) – this was music of resignation, though again impassioned at the end as Armida bemoans her abandonment. The alto and tenors kept the middle lines alive, and the sopranos overcame their vocal discomfiture to manage the final cadence convincingly.

As with the other concerts in the series there were in the programme so many delights to be had that it would take as long as the concert took to both mention and read about all of them! My notes contain exclamations written at the time such as “excellent teamwork between the two sopranos….making something amazingly expressive out of the final line” for the Book 7 O come sei gentile (How gracious you are), and in the following Book 3 Chi’o non t’ami (That I might not love you), “Hymn-like, beautifully modulated…..alto and tenor 2 beautifully amalgamate their tones at “Come poss’io lasciarti e non morire”…..”.

David Groves returned to read us the poems (again by Tasso) describing the anguish of Tancredi, who has killed his disguised lover, Clorinda, in armed combat, and looks for her body in the darkness. (Monteverdi also set an account of the battle between the two, in the “Combattimento” , found in Book 8 of the madrigals.) My overriding on-the-spot comment regarding the performance of the trio of settings was that “the intensity simply keeps coming in waves from all of the singers”. Despite Pepe Becker obviously having some kind of cough, she was still able to deliver those astonishing stratospheric notes needed for “Ma dove o lasso?”, a sombre processional of growing grief, culminating in the cries of “Ahi, sfortunato!…” Certainly no-one would have felt emotionally short-changed in any way in the face of such knife-edged feeling throughout these performances.

One of my favorites from the many splendid things we heard throughout the concert’s second half was the Book 7 Ecco vicine, sung by the soprano 2, Jayne Tankersley and alto Andrea Cochrane. The playing of the continuo, especially Robert Oliver’s bass viol, beautifully underpinned this Book 7 madrigal’s somewhat hyper-expressive outpourings. The words, so important for the composer throughout his entire oeuvre, exotically describe the “beloved” as a “fair Tigress”, and entertain the conceit that wherever the beloved goes, through all kinds of different geographies and under foreign skies, the lover will follow her, with a “lover’s heart”.

Monteverdi boldly renders these words and ideas in his music, great urgency at “Fuggimi pur con sempiterno orrore”, and lovely, spare, al fresco writing about the valleys, rocks, and mountains where the beloved’s footprints are found – lots of air and space in the textures.Then comes music of great and certain devotion: “Ch’andrei la dove spire e dove passi…..bacciando l’aria e adorando i passi……” Wonderful performances by all of such characterful music!

Very great credit to Baroque Voices and their intrepid instrumentalists! We were an extremely appreciative audience on this occasion, but not a large one – whatever it takes to get more people interested in the splendors of this music and its performance here in Wellington, needs to be done before the next of these concerts (the date for “The Full Monte 4” is yet to be finalized). The music is searingly beautiful, the accompanying emotions and responses are eminently accessible, and the performances are often spellbinding. What more could one ask for?

New wind ensemble plays for mulled wine at Paekakariki

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Mulled Wine Concerts, Paekakariki

Category Five – wind quintet:
Peter Dykes (oboe), Moira Hurst (clarinet), Simon Brew (alto saxophone), Tui Clark (bass clarinet), Penny Miles (bassoon)

Music by Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Rameau, Bach, Byrd, Debussy

Paekakarikiki Memorial Hall

Sunday 15 July, 2.30pm

The famous Mulled Wine Concerts in the hall on The Parade, Paekakariki, staged the first performance by a new wind ensemble, to honour the stormy seas pounding the beach across the road. No ordinary wind ensemble, that usually includes flute and horn, but one comprising entirely reeds – single and double.

Moira Hurst introduced the players, explaining the name Category 5  as relating to the meteorological classification of wind strength, and noting that though something of a storm was visible outside only 50 metres from the hall, that was perhaps only a category 3½ (what was happening inside was something far more formidable!). (Ignorant of nautical weather scales, I looked it up through Google. The scale presumably referred to is not the Beaufort Wind Scale but the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale which uses the word ‘category’ and goes from 1 to 5. LT).

Each player, as the concert proceeded, added anecdotes to explain the special virtues or playing difficulties of his or her instrument, sometimes drawing unflattering comparisons with players of other instruments.

For example, Simon Brew noted that the demand for music for wind groups, particularly saxophone quartets, was met by arrangements, mainly of music out of copyright; and those arrangements were, accordingly, protected and yielded royalties to the arranger; it had become a lucrative secondary income for poor sax players.

An overture opened the concert: that to Tchaikovsky’s ballet, The Nutcracker (if only orchestral programmers could get over the deathly, over-used, popular suite of Nutcracker dances!) It proved an admirable candidate, in an arrangement that seemed to suit the quintet perfectly, even the saxophone whose sound, unsurprisingly, was here more in sympathy with its colleagues than it might be in a symphony orchestra.

Mozart’s Serenade, K 388, in C minor, is a wind octet – one of the three marvellous wind serenades, with K 361 and K 375, written in the early 1780s. Mozart rescored it for string quintet in 1787 (K 406), and it may have been largely the latter that was used for this latest version for five reed instruments. Again, the fit, and the tonal contrasts displayed in this arrangement were most attractive. Tui Clark’s bass clarinet tends to be confined, like the bassoon’s, to a bass line but here it was free to relish  some individuality.  Simon Brew’s saxophone made a remarkably authentic fit in Mozart’s texture; Peter Dykes’ fine, high oboe line was conspicuous though, by the second movement, it began to sound a bit insistent. They all played with great energy, if perhaps a little fast in the last two movements; and ensemble was excellent throughout.

La Poule is taken from Rameau’s second book of pieces for harpsichord, amusingly suggesting the squawk of a chicken, to which Moira Hurst offered an alarming simulation. The said squawks were passed, democratically, from one instrument to another.

Those who did not know the source of the oddly titled ‘Jesu joy of man’s desiring’ (for the original ‘Jesu bleibet meine Freunde’) by Bach, would again have been enchanted to find it as an aria in his cantata BWV 147, ‘Herz und Mund, Tat und Leben’ – one of the cantatas probably written in the early, Weimar years. Here the oboe took the rippling accompanying motif while the clarinet played the melody, as if Bach had scored it for these instruments.

The Browning was a medieval popular song, used for a set of variations for recorder consort by William Byrd. It may have been a controversial concession for the group to have succumbed to using music composed for scorned, reedless instruments; but they would have justified it by the tonal variety that was available to them and which they made full use of; they might also, perhaps, have introduced some greater dynamic variety in their playing, but their coping with the extremely difficult rhythms in the piece obscured the rather unvarying tempo.

The concert ended with what was perhaps the most challenging adaptation, Debussy’s piano suite, Children’s Corner. It had been so transformed as to be almost unrecognisable, until the most familiar theme of the first section of Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum appeared. Peter Dykes replaced his oboe with a cor anglais (or ‘anglé’, as he explained, noting the still common misapprehension that there is something English about the alto version of the oboe; yet in my Larousse dictionary it is still ‘cor anglais’). The saxophone was prominent here, taking a high line.

In the next piece, Jumbo’s Lullaby, it was the turn of Penny Miles’s bassoon to take the opening solo phrases. In the fourth section, The Snow is Dancing, a slight weakness, often noticeable, was a lack of dynamic subtlety, of attention to the need for really quiet playing, both in response to the character of the particular movement, and merely for variety’s sake. The snow was very heavy.

However, in the final section, Golliwog’s Cake Walk, it was their strengths, the energy and their so conspicuous enjoyment of music making together that spoke most clearly, justifying the creation of a new and rather novel (for Wellington anyway) instrumental ensemble. Their encore, a piece called Hip-hop, by Ellington, was well placed and enhanced the enjoyment of the after-match mulled wine and snacks.

 

 

 

 

Consorting with harpsichords – Erin Helyard and Douglas Mews

Posted on by Peter Mechen

FOUR HANDS – TWO HARPSICHORDS

Erin Helyard and Douglas Mews (harpsichords)

Adam Concert Room

New Zealand School of Music

Victoria University of Wellington

Sunday, 15th July 2012

One of a series of concerts entitled “Musicke for Severall Friends”, this one featured a close-knit partnership of two harpsichordists, playing both together and singly for the delight of a small-ish but dedicated Adam Concert Room audience. The “two-for-the-price-of-one” package featured two tutor-performers from the New Zealand School of Music, plus two instruments from the NZSM collection of keyboard instruments, copies of French (1769) and German (1728) harpsichords respectively. Both were two-manual instruments, the former made in the UK, and the latter built by Aucklander Paul Downie.

I’ve heard Douglas Mews perform many times on various keyboard instruments in an enormous range of repertoire; but I had never heard Erin Helyard play before. He’s currently period performance tutor at the NZSM and brings a wealth of experience as a performer and scholar to that position – however, what I found enchanting was the energy and vigour that he radiated while at the keyboard, both in partnership with his colleague, and as a solo performer. The pair worked well together, obviously sharing considerable musicianship within contrasting playing styles.

Erin Helyard visibly interacted with both his instrument and with the music as he played, bringing an element of physical choreography to the performance. Rather than finding this distracting, I considered such apparent contouring and visual delineation an added dimension to the music, an integral part of the ritual of a specific performance. That this was very much an individual rather than a standardised baroque musical process could be seen from Douglas Mews’ far less demonstrative manner at the keyboard – here one listened to the sounds and allowed one’s imagination to put flesh on the bones of the music in abstract. Not that Mews’ playing was unemotional or lacking in warmth – but the qualities of the music were expressed far more aurally than visually.

“Vive la difference”, as certain Continentals say; and Mews and Helyard brought their individualized responses to a wonderful synthesis with the Sonata in F by Wilhelm Friedmann Bach, which began the program in a most resplendent way.  I’d always considered Carl Phillipp Emanuel Bach the “stormy petrel” among the great Johann Sebastian’s composer-children, but Wilhelm Friedmann certainly demonstrated in this sonata a similar penchant for contrast, cheekiness and drama. In fact I thought at the finale’s beginning the players were using a kind of “janissary stop”, such was the irruption of percussive-sounding tones generated by the opening figurations’ rapid upward rolls. Elsewhere, the unexpected became the norm in places, the composer delighting in keeping his listeners guessing as to the various possible trajectories of the music.

After this the aforementioned CPE Bach was brought into the action on a single harpsichord, played by Erin Helyard.  via his 12 Variations on the Spanish Follia, the famous tune which has inspired well over a hundred composers to use it in their works (its origin has, in fact been ascertained as Portugese). True to reputation, Phillipp Emanuel’s florid, widely-ranging variations whirled us through incident and contrast aplenty, the composer’s use of the extremities of the keyboard anticipating Beethoven, and calling upon great reserves of virtuosity from the player, who was,in this case, equal to the task. In places the “Follia” theme was completely obliterated (at such points someone like comedienne Anna Russell would have said, “You’re making this up, aren’t you?”), though Phillipp Emanuel would adroitly return to something more recognizably connected to the original dance-tune. A dignified processional was followed by a whirlwind finale, at the abrupt conclusion of which the player straightaway got to his feet, with what felt like a spontaneous impulse of showmanship, very much in accordance with the music.

Relative sobriety settled over the ensuing performance of JS Bach’s French Suite, given by Douglas Mews. The Allemande was gracefulness itself under his fingers, the rhythms extremely pliable. The lively Cpourante was followed by another grave dance, the Sarabande, the performance here emphasizing a certain timelessness, a world within the sound-equivalent of a grain of sand, or eternity within a flower. Ample contrast came from the Gavotte and the following Bouree, energetic and engaging dances, which again threw the next movement, a Loure, into bold relief – this was a slow, waltz-like piece, offering ample space for elaboration, but with a certain piquancy of mood, perhaps emphasized by the constant dotted rhythm. I thought the player’s delivery of the final Gigue was masterly, a confident, even racy performance!

The programme’s final item was the Concerto in C for two harpsichords BWV 1061, the players swapping instruments for this piece. By now the performance profiles of each instrumentalist were sharply-defined in our minds, enabling us to relish both similarities and differences of phrasing, emphasis and gestural incident which the music of Bach occasioned. Antiphonal episodes gave each player solo-turns, though there were concerted passages as well where the rapport between the parts was beautifully, and teasingly suggested.A deeply-felt Adagio ovvero Largo (“ovvero” means “or rather” – couldn’t Bach make up his mind, here? – or was he thinking of what performers might do and was cutting them off at the pass, so to speak?) was followed by a sparking, festive-like fugue that reaffirmed the great man’s incredibly “hot-wired” musical mind for all of us lesser mortals, and done full justice by Douglas Mews and Erin Helyard.

We got part of a Vivaldi Oboe Concerto transcription as an encore and a palate-cleanser, and then (perfectly possible in a venue such as the Adam Concert Room) a closer look at those two exquisitely-beautiful instruments before they were carefully put away – a perfect conclusion to our little baroque feast!

 

 

 

 

 

NZSO plays benefit concert for Anna van der Zee and her family

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Players of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hamish McKeich with Samuel Jacobs – French horn

Overture: The Magic Flute (Mozart); Horn Concerto No 4 in E flat (Mozart); Symphony No 5 in C minor (Beethoven)

Church of Saint Mary of the Angels

Saturday 14 July, 7.30pm

This benefit concert was presented to give a little help to Anna van der Zee, a first violinist in the NZSO, and her family (Christiaan, a violist, and their daughter) who had lost everything, including musical instruments, in a house fire two weeks before. It was hosted by the church, as explained by the parish priest, Father Barry Scannell, because of Anna’s contribution to the performance of live music there.

Anna has been much heard in chamber music concerts and as soloist with the Wellington Chamber Orchestra over recent years; both she and Christiaan played in the Tasman String Quartet.

The concert itself was introduced by principal cellist Andrew Joyce who described the immediate response by Anna’s colleagues to the tragedy, suggesting a benefit concert. The news had clearly moved large numbers of people and by 7.20 there were no seats left in the church and people were directed to the choir gallery above the west door; and scores stood along the side aisles.

Around sixty NZSO players were able to participate, including the recently appointed principal horn player, Samuel Jacobs, who took the spectacular solo part in Mozart’s Fourth Horn Concerto in E flat.

Nothing less than the greatest music would do to mark the occasion.
The concert began with the Overture to The Magic Flute, and ended with a triumphant performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

Psalm settings from Cantoris at St Paul’s Cathedral lunchtime

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Cantoris: a lunchtime concert: ‘Like as the hart’

Anthems based on Psalm texts, by Mendelssohn, Stanford, Howells, Franck and Elgar

Director: Richard Apperley with Janet Gibbs at the organ

Cathedral of Saint Paul, Wellington

Friday 13 July, 12.45pm

The choir of around 30 took an unusual position in the church, arrayed in a semi-circle at the front of the choir, facing the sanctuary, while the audience sat on the choir stalls on either side and on seats placed between the choir stalls, facing the singers and out to the nave.

Since the concert was opened with words from the (I assume) Canon The Revd Jenny Wilkens, and a prayer, I took it to be in the nature of a service about which it would be inappropriate to write a normal review.

What struck me was the manner in which Richard Apperley (assistant director of music at the cathedral) had succeeded in producing performances from what is essentially a secular choir that sounded perfectly apt in spirit, scale and musical understanding, as if from the cathedral choir itself. Seated very close to the singers, one could not tell what the sound would have been like in the nave, but my impression was of singing that was produced effortlessly, that expanded into the huge space with perfect clarity, while also exploiting, almost ecstatically, the long reverberation that can be such a wonderful experience, with the right music from voices handled properly.

The Mendelssohn anthem, ‘Hear My Prayer’, Psalm 55, is in two parts, each providing solos for a soprano. The first, Ailsa Lipscombe, sang with what one has come to think of as a perfectly pure, Anglican choir voice, most attractive, even and very adequately projected, and beautifully balanced with the subtle organ lines.

Apperley got singing from the choir that was crisp, almost staccato in nature, so leaving the job of sustaining the sounds to the body of air in the cathedral.

The second soprano who entered in the section, ‘O for the wings of a Dove’, was Asha Stewart, surprisingly similar in timbre to Lipscombe’s, though a slightly quieter voice. The balance between organ and choir in this, and throughout the recital, was very happy indeed, and the careful dynamic variations and phrasing was simply admirable.

The pieces were sung in pairs: the second pair opened with Stanford’s setting of Psalm 100, ‘Jubilate Deo’ – ‘O be joyful in the Lord’. Ailsa Lipscombe introduced this and the following anthem by Howells.

Stanford’s piece captured the joyous spirit suggested by the words, and the singing drew my attention to the quality of the men’s voices, particularly the basses.

Howells’s ‘Like as the Hart’, Psalm 42, involved alternating sections by men and women, the latter accompanied by high organ registrations. The effect was ethereal.

The next pair also began with Stanford – Psalm 23 – again with Lipscombe’s introduction which I thought a little too long. But here was another piece by Stanford, with an interesting organ accompaniment, reinforcing a process of revising my feeling about his music, as more and more of his orchestral and chamber, as well as choral music is being heard in good performances.

‘Lift thine eyes’ from Mendelssohn’s Elijah is a setting of Psalm 121. Here, the men of the choir left the semi-circle, allowing the women alone to reconfigure and sing this, now under assistant director Tessa Coppard: familiar Mendelssohn piety, though very nicely sung.

The last pair included Franck’s version of Psalm 150, ‘Laudate Dominum’ or ‘Alleluia! Praise the Lord’, and Elgar’s ‘Give unto the Lord’, Psalm 29.

I was pleased to hear something from outside the English tradition, though the Franck piece, with its almost martial rhythmic character, seems not especially French. The following Elgar anthem was more complex and elaborate, again with something of a martial air.

But whatever the character of the music, prayerful or proselytising, it was the choir’s singing and organ accompaniment, under Apperley that made this a rather unexpected pleasure to have listened to.