Nicola Benedetti and the NZSO show their class

Posted on by Peter Mechen

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents                                                                                               FORBIDDEN LOVE

YOUNG – Dance / BERNSTEIN – Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story”

TCHAIKOVSKY – Violin Concerto / Francesca da Rimini

Nicola Benedetti (violin)

Miguel Harth-Bedoya (conductor)

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday 13th October 2012

This NZSO concert was a show made up of various classy acts – perhaps the sum of its parts were greater than the whole, but those classy parts alone made it all memorable, if not perfect.

One of these classy acts was violinist Nicola Benedetti’s – she gave a beautifully warm and richly-toned performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. Another was conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya’s inspired music-making with the orchestra throughout almost every moment of the evening. The latter were perfect partners for Benedetti in the concerto, and readily captured the warm nostalgia and heady exuberance of Kenneth Young’s Dance at the concert’s beginning. As for Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, the energy and brilliance of the playing was staggering, sounding as if the NZSO had been a pit orchestra for years in one of the Broadway music-theatres.

Only Tchaikovsky’s Francesca da Rimini didn’t for me exert its usual grip, though the winds and strings played their hearts out to wondrous effect throughout the work’s lyrical middle section, describing the awakening of attraction and deepening of love between the ill-fated, adulterous couple. I thought that, immediately after the Bernstein work, with its wonderful “instant-wow” quality, its tremendous exuberance, colour and visceral engagement, most nineteenth-century romantic music would sound terribly old-fashioned (as here), rhetorical and bombastic. We were being asked to suddenly take our sensibilities back a century, and to my ears the juxtaposition didn’t work, and especially in the case of poor old Francesca.

Had the order of the pieces been reversed, things would have been quite different – without the very twentieth-century jazzy excitement and cool sophistication of the West Side Story music in our ears, we could have more readily gone back to Tchaikovsky’s (and further back to Dante’s) worlds of sensibility and been more properly and deeply moved by the horror and pity of Francesca’s and her lover’s plight. The darkness of Tchaikovsky’s opening sequence, an evocation in music of the inscription over the Gates of Hell – “Abandon hope all ye who enter here”, and the ceaseless buffeting of the roaring tempests which engulf the damned souls who sinned adulterously, would have had sufficient ambient room for the music to establish itself on its own ground and properly take us there. The work is, I believe, a masterpiece of nineteenth-century romantic tone-painting – but it needed to be played in a more appropriate context than here, where it seemed a bit like a “tack-on”.

I would have had an all-Tchaikovsky first half had I been programming the concert (what better context than that for a composer’s music?), and in the second half would have ended the evening with Ken Young’s beautiful and brilliant work. I did wonder to what extent the orchestra management might have been influenced in their choice of program order by having extra players involved in the Bernstein work (extra percussion and brass players), not wanting them to be sitting around waiting for their turn to play. Interestingly, I thought the brass and percussion players who did remain for Francesca, after playing so brilliantly and with such wonderful energy during the Bernstein, came across as a bit flat and lacklustre in the vigorous parts of the Tchaikovsky – there were a couple of wrong percussion entries in the latter work, which suggested that the musicians had, in fact, given their all during the “West Side Story” Dances.

I don’t think any change in order would have impaired the “Forbidden Love” idea of the program’s theme. As to that, such promotions I think tend not to be taken too seriously by people with a real interest in music, and therefore don’t really “impinge” deeply – I do recognize their value in attracting people who might be new to or unfamiliar with classical music and who like the feeling of having some kind of unifying idea to go with a single concert. Having said that, immediately after the concert I bumped into a friend (who would readily align with the “not really familiar with classical music” description) who asked me first up what the event’s title “Forbidden Love” had to do with the music that was played! – “res ipsa loquitur” (the thing speaks for itself), as my Latin teacher used to say.

As I’ve already indicated, apart from the order of saying the music and its performance were pretty wonderful – Ken Young’s Dance began with beautiful wind solos (what a gorgeous tone Michael Austin’s cor anglais has!) and the most luscious of violin solos played by concertmaster Donald Armstrong with just the right strain of nostalgic feeling  flecked here and there with astringent impulses. These awakened the music’s rhythmic undercurrents, which rose up to throw back the floodgates of joyous abandonment, suffusing our sensibilities with crackling energies. I always think of Messiaen in places in this music, and wonder to what extent Young’s own conducting of performances of that composer’s Turangalila Symphony influenced the outcomes of this piece. It’s by no means a carbon copy, but the uninhibited spirit of it all reminds me of both Joie du sang des etoiles and the finale from Messiaen’s wonderfully outlandish work.

Nicola Benedetti came, saw and conquered – from her very first note there was a beautiful and distinctive tone served up for us, rich and supple, and able to be fined down when required and still be heard. She played the work very sweetly and romantically, preferring to keep the line smooth rather than really point the dotted rhythms – her articulation was seamless in places, but always characterful and filled with nuancing, never bland and all-purpose – and she also had this quicksilver ability with the faster music, which really energized those passages that needed a higher voltage. Her performance of the finale wasn’t of the kind which evoked some sort of peasant folk-fiddle with all of the wild abandonment and raw, rough-edged excitement of that kind of playing; but it was exciting in a more aristocratic, finely-honed sort of way. You would be hard put to equate critic Eduard Hanslick’s famous put-down of the music after its Vienna premiere with what we heard Nicola Benedetti do – Hanslick complained that “the violin is not played, it is yanked, torn, beaten black and blue – we see savage, vulgar faces, we hear violent curses, we smell bad brandy – for the first time we are able to image music that stinks to the ear!” I somehow think Hanslick wasn’t terribly sympathetic to Tchaikovsky’s music.

Another thing that Benedetti did was open up the cuts which have plagued this work over the years and especially on record – they’re mostly in the finale, and they’re pretty pointless, a remnant of an age of cavalier treatment of music by violinists who actually thought they were “improving” the composer’s work. All these cuts did was make the music slightly shorter and throw the balance out between the orchestra and soloist during the finale’s opening – I think Tchaikovsky knew what he was doing in the first place (though like many composers, anxious for people to like their work, he possibly agreed to the incisions made by those first performers at the time). Anyway, Benedetti, as do most modern virtuosi (but not all!) restored these several passages of figurations for the soloist, and played them brilliantly.

As for the orchestra under Miguel Harth-Bedoya, the playing was exciting, committed and brilliant, beautifully sounded and nobly proportioned, finding that balance between elegance and excitement that makes the music work. It was no wonder that, at the first movement’s exciting conclusion, the audience simply couldn’t help itself and burst into spontaneous applause, all seeming very natural and emotion-driven, so that no-one could possibly make a fuss of the “Oh, no, you don’t do that sort of thing at a concert!” variety. It would have seemed very unnatural to have sat there and done nothing in response to such fabulous music-making.

So, immediately after the interval we were taken to the world of the Jets and the Sharks and the hopeless love of two people torn apart by racial strife, all realized brilliantly and colourfully in Leonard Bernstein’s music – a set of Symphonic Dances from his 1957 Broadway show West Side Story. Right from the beginning Miguel Harth-Bedoya’s direction of the music had what sounded to my ears like an authentic rhythmic swagger, a mixture of “cool” and intensely physical, which underlined every moment of the score, even the quieter, lyrical moments. The original show has, of course a strong dance-drama aspect anyway, enabling some sequences to be lifted straight from the stage action – though some of the dances were complete “makeovers” by the original orchestrators, Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal, of famous tunes like “Somewhere” and “Maria”.

Harth-Bedoya and his players produced veritable oceans of galvanic energy, here, which caught all of us up in its excitement. It demonstrated what musicians such as those in the NZSO could produce when encouraged, or when avenues  slightly outside the paradigm of classical performance were explored, to everybody’s advantage – with, of course, the proviso that one needed to be careful how one arranged programs with entirely different types of music in them. I loved the energy and exuberance the players brought to the Mambo, complete with finger-clicking and shouts of “Mambo” – so exhilarating.

Despite my reservations concerning the concert’s last item, Tchaikovsky’s Francesca, already discussed above, the performance generated enough visceral excitement right at the end to provoke enthusiastic shouts and plenty of applause – incidentally, I’ve always felt a bit ashamed regarding my enjoyment of the all-too-obvious orchestral thrills at the end of this work in the concert-hall, considering the pity and horror of the subject-matter (Dante, in his Divine Comedy writes, at the conclusion of Francesca’s tale of adulterous love, murder and eternal torment, “While the one spirit thus spoke the other’s crying / wailed on me with a sound so lamentable / I swooned for pity like as I were dying / and, as a dead man falling, down I fell.”). Shouldn’t one perhaps feel similarly horror-struck by it all at the end, instead of leaping to one’s feet cheering and applauding virtuoso orchestral playing?  But let’s be reasonable about this – if somebody’s at fault here, it’s probably Tchaikovsky!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Four ensembles help in fund-raising concert for St Andrew’s restoration completion phase

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Haydn: String Quartet in C major, Op.20 no.2 (New Zealand String Quartet);  String Quartet in B flat major, Op.76 no.4 ‘Sunrise’ (Aroha String Quartet)
Dvořàk: Piano Trio no.4 in E minor, Op.90 ‘Dumky’ (Poneke Trio)
Alfred Hill: String Quartet no.11 in D minor (Dominion String Quartet)

New Zealand String Quartet (Helene Phol and Douglas Beilman, violins; Gillian Ansell, viola; Rolf Gjelsten, cello);
Poneke Trio (Anna van der Zee, violin; Paul Mitchell, cello; Richard Mapp, piano);
Aroha String Quartet (Haihong Liu and Blythe Press, violins; Zhongxian Jin, viola; Robert Ibell, cello);
Dominion String Quartet (Yury Gezentsvey and Rosemary Harris, violins; Donald Maurice, viola; David Chickering, cello)

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Thursday 11 October 2012, 6.30pm

The concert was arranged to help St. Andrew’s to raise funds for the completion of the church’s restoration project.  As the church is a major venue for chamber music in Wellington, it was appropriate to put on a concert such as this, to which the musicians all donated their services.

Therefore, this is not so much a review as a report.  It was remarkable to have all these musicians in one place at one time!  While the major achievement of the Dominion Quartet as a group has been their project to record all of Alfred Hill’s quartets, the other groups all tour for Chamber Music New Zealand, and the majority of the members of three of the four groups are also members of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

It was highly successful concert.  The fine acoustics and the smaller size of the church, compared to other venues in Wellington, meant for very lively, intimate performances of the chosen works.  The New Zealand String Quartet played the first Haydn quartet with their customary verve, communication and commitment, immersing the audience in its beautiful sound and structure.

The Dvořàk Trio has been heard quite a lot lately (including from this group) – were we all Dumky’d (or Dumkied?) out?  I think not, hearing this very spirited performance.  I found the sound when the strings were muted particularly intriguing in this acoustic.  At times, the tone was almost that of a woodwind instrument.  The great variety of Dvořàk’s writing had real impact, and the performers’ rapport was very apparent.

The much later Haydn quartet chosen by the Aroha Quartet compared with that played by the New Zealand String Quartet was full of delights.  Only the finale went a little awry, due probably to its rather over-fast tempo (it is annotated allegro ma non troppo).  It became rather troppo, and lost some of its cohesion and melody lines in the process, making it sound less distinguished than it should have.

The Dominion Quartet played one of Hill’s shorter quartets, revealing its beauties amply.

Spoken introductions to a couple of the works, and several short speeches, including one from the minister, Rev. Dr. Margaret Mayman and one from Kerry Prendergast, chair of the International Arts Festival Board, made up the rest of the evening.  Ms Prendergast’s remarks were of particular interest to avid concert-goers, as she suggested that with the improvements already made and about to be made to the buildings at St. Andrew’s, the Festival might reinstate holding concerts in this venue, which were very successful (as lunch-time concerts) in the early International Festivals, and which have been continued since by two different groups of music enthusiasts.

This was a superb evening of music, the variety of performers adding greatly to the enjoyment.  We can only hope that St. Andrew’s is successful in its final building project, and that the renewed venue will encourage many to use the facilities, not least the International Arts Festival.  Its fine acoustics and excellent piano deserve even greater use for fine music performances than it already receives.

 

Stroma’s beautifully “luminous horizons” at Ilott

Posted on by Peter Mechen

STROMA – LUMINOUS HORIZONS

Music by SCIARRINO, PESSON, CLEMENTI, TAÏRA, SAARIAHO, CAVALLONE

Roberto Fabbriciani (flute)

Hamish McKeich (conductor)

Stroma

Ilott Theatre, Town Hall, Wellington

Thursday, 11th October 2012

Five of the six works in this Stroma concert were New Zealand premieres, and one of these was a world premiere (Paolo Cavallone – Hóros). The odd one out was Yoshihisa Taïra’s highly theatrical and dramatic Synchronie, a kind of “Duelling banjos” for two flutes, which one imagines being readily enjoyed by all but the most conservative listeners. For that reason, I wasn’t surprised to find that it’s already been heard here.

Such a high proportion of unfamiliar music in a concert might be an an enticing prospect for some listeners, and a somewhat daunting outlook for others. Still, it would be fair to say that audiences who attend contemporary classical music concerts are generally pretty dauntless, being well used to having their ears pinned back by the originality of the sounds.

This concert would have thrilled the regularly adventurous ones, but on a number of counts had qualities which would have readily furthered the cause of contemporary music for people who might not have been “regulars” but in this case were attracted to its novelties. While one could have questioned the absence of a New Zealand work, the presentation’s title “Luminous Horizons” suggested an attractively exotic, far-from-here quality about the content which worked throughout superbly well.

A drawcard for aficionados was the presence of legendary flute-player Roberto Fabbriciani, whose virtuoso playing and interest in “new” sounds inspired various European composers from the 1970s onwards to explore what was initially a radical world of microscopic sonorities and nuances in music – what Stroma director Michael Norris called in his illuminating program note “this fragile, transient world”.  At least two of the evening’s works had direct connections to Fabbriciani, with the most recent, Paolo Cavallone’s  Hóros, including in its reference of dedication the Stroma players and artistic directors.

Straightaway Roberti Fabbriciani showed his credentials by opening the concert with a performance for solo flute of Salvatore Sciarrino’s eponymously titled L’orizzonte luminoso di Aton. Aton (sometimes spelt “Aten”) is a manifestation of the sun in Egyptian mythology. This was music born “on the breath” as it were, the sounds eschewing normal tones and pitch and concentrating instead on their edges and undersides, their parameters and foundations. The program note drew a parallel between sound and light in the respect that the latter suggests, defines and obscures its own shadow, the two states indivisible.

Sciarrino’s work created a world of suggested light, activating our imaginations with those aforementioned parameters, and setting in motion what Tennyson described in a different context in his poetry: – “our echoes roll from soul to soul / and grow forever and forever….” Fabbriciani’s evocation of Sciarrino’s world was, for this listener, spellbinding, with player and instrument seeming firstly to fuse before our very eyes and ears, breathing as one. But then sprang up what seemed like in places a fiercely intense dynamic between musician, flute, music and listener, with sounds and gestures constantly varying the focus of attention.

Gerard Pesson’s Nebenstücke was a kind of rumination by the composer on musical memory, focusing in particular on Brahms’ B Minor Ballade Op.10. I liked the composer’s description (reproduced in the programme) of his memory of the piece having “gradually corroded like an object that had fallen into the sea”, but augmented by the same process as well, “encrusted with elements that my own musical works had added to it”. Pesson’s work established a skeletal rhythm at the start, with muffled timbres sounding either waterlogged, or decrepit with age, the piece’s movement causing bits here and there to fall off. Perhaps I was influenced by the composer’s programme-notes, but I did tune into what sounded throughout this opening section like the shades of a ghostly Viennese waltz.

A trio-like sequence desynchronized the music for a bit, a warm string chord coming to the rescue and inspiring the clarinet to breathe some life-blood into the proceedings, the violin accompanying and the ‘cello counterpointing. Ghostly memories paraded before our ears, strings swelling and receding, playing a combination of arco and pizzicato – while the strings consorted thus with the clarinet, the viola explored the stratospheres, until the concluding impulses left us with something of a shadow-world, toneless clarinet-breath and soundless string-bowings putting the dream to rest.

There was more than a whiff of theatricality about Aldo Clementi’s 1983 Duetto, featuring partnerships within partnerships – two clarinets and two flutes, everybody taking up antiphonal positions. Clementi’s “variation on a theme” scenario was begun by Bridget Douglas’s flute, with the others following canonically, but each sounding as if pursuing a kind of improvisatory course, a slightly “curdled hall-of-mirrors” prescription. I found the textures and juxtapositionings wonderfully claustrophobic in places, especially when the clarinets were closely intertwined – at one point they were playing in seconds, and their timbres seemed to completely crowd out the ambiences – by comparison the flute intertwinings had the opposite effect, opening the sound-vistas up and suggesting far-flung spaces.

Roberto Fabbriciani amusingly drew our attention to a squeaky floorboard on which he had to stand while playing Yoshihisa Taïra’s Symchronie opposite Bridget Douglas, armed with her own instrument – this highly combatative piece arose from its composer’s imaginings of Japanese warriors in battle, leaping across clouds in the sky (a scenario somewhat reminiscent of a particular Japanese computer-game my teenaged son went through a recent phase of playing, and which the music also reminded me of), and manifested itself here as a kind of confrontational show-down between two players and their instruments.

Throughout this extremely theatrical and volatile piece I was amazed as to how aggressively-toned the sounds made by a flute could be. Every sound it seemed possible to make on the instruments, and then more besides, seemed to be fetched up by these players, along with occasional normally-vocalised shouts and yelps. But the over-riding feeling at the end was that of some kind of ritualized conflict, with certain protocols observed, despite the unbridled nature of some of the utterances from both instruments.

A piece by Kaija Saariaho followed, Cloud Trio, a work for strings alone, played here by violinist Rebecca Struthers, Andrew Thomson (viola) and Rowan Prior (‘cello). The composer’s own note about the music evocatively described the different instruments’ pictorial and structural functions in the piece – the upper (violin) and lower (‘cello) instruments evoking reverberation and shadow respectively, in between which the viola created the substance related to these effects. Saariaho indicated she was inspired by cloud formations over the French Alps, and her writing during the opening section of the work had what seemed like an intensely “analogue” character, lines filled with curves, bends, stretches and dissolutions, which suggested constant, gradual evolution.

The players beautifully caught both the energies of the second part, with the process of formation and dissolution sped up to a frenetic pace, and the toccata-like asymmetric patternings of the brief third movement with its follkish-dance suggestions. And the instruments beautifully coalesced throughout the lazily unfolding final movement, its melodies and figurations beautifully dovetailed by the composer, everything drifting in a similar direction overall while maintaining a kind of impulsive independence.

Roberto Fabbriciani returned with the ensemble to finish the concert with Paolo Cavallone’s Hóros, written this year for Fabbriciani and the Stroma ensemble, and here given its world premiere. This work was practically a flute concerto, and, like Aldo Clementi’s work earlier in the evening, took an existing piece of music as its starting-point, in this case, Chopin’s E Minor Prelude. This time, though, we actually heard a recording of the Chopin, played in the darkness immediately after the reading of a poem by Cavallone, the text of which was printed in the program – a meditation concerning spaces, distances, and boundaries.

From the darkness of this extremely theatrical opening came light and the sounds of instruments being activated by breath and bow, and developing a rich spectrum of colour and texture. Confrontations and re-inventings followed, the solo flute playing Mercutio to the ensemble’s Romeo, leading and teasing, light-fingeredly suggestive and gently mocking, the music opening and narrowing spaces between lines and timbres as did the Chopin Prelude. Over the last few pages the composer took us to different realms, the ensemble “reinventing” the ambient space of the opening, and making peace with the soloist.

So many notes, all of them unfamiliar ones! – but thanks to some judicious programming and excellent playing, and bags of individual and ensemble personality from flutist Roberto Fabbriciani and the Stroma players, I found this concert a stimulating and warmly intense listening experience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Students explore viola repertoire at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Viola Students of the NZSM

Hindemith: Sonata for viola and piano in F major, Op.11 no.4, movements 1 & 2
Schumann: Märchenbilder (Fairytale Pictures) for viola and piano, Op.113, movements 3 & 4
Bloch: Suite for viola and piano, movements 2 & 3
Walton: Viola Concerto in A minor, movement 1

Vincent Hardaker, Alice McIvor, Megan Ward (violas), Rafaelle Garlick-Grice (piano)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 10 October 2012, 12.15pm

These major twentieth-century viola works (excluding the Schumann) made an impressive muster.  The latest composition was Bloch’s, dating from 1958 (and the most modern-sounding it was); 1928-29 was the period of Walton’s concerto, though it was revised in 1961, and Hindemith’s was the earliest, composed in 1919.

The Hindemith was the first work played, by Vincent Hardaker.  The composer was himself a violist.   The work opened with low-pitched notes for the viola; this was a gorgeous sound, but there were a few hiccups soon after, and some coarse tone, particularly in the middle register.  A challenging and interesting piano part was very able played.  Excellent programme notes assisted the audience’s appreciation of the music, particularly the second movement, with its theme and variations.

Schumann wrote a considerable amount of programme music, that is, music telling a story or illustrating an extra-musical theme.  The third and fourth movements of the Märchenbilder were played by Alice McIvor.  ‘Rasch’, the third movement, depicted Rumpelstiltskin; like the character, it was tricky music!  The ‘Langsam’ final movement was in complete contrast.  It brought out all the richness of the instrument; serene and nostalgic, it was a true Romantic piece.

The pianist handled her material in a most sensitive fashion, her gentle rubati emphasising subtly the romantic nature of the music.  Alice McIvor proved to be a very competent performer, and together with Rafaelle Garlick-Grice, provided a consummate, very accomplished performance of both movements.

Megan Ward impressed by playing the second and fourth movements of the difficult Bloch Suite from memory – the only one of the performers to abandon use of the score.  How different this music was idiomatically from the previous item!  Megan Ward proved to be a very proficient player.  She and the pianist both handled a considerable amount of rapid gymnastics with aplomb, although the sound from the viola was rather more abrasive than that of the preceding violist – but that probably suited this music quite well.

The music had considerable interest, because Bloch sub-titled the movements: the second, “Grotesques: Simian Stage”, making it, as the programme note said, “one of extremely few pieces of classical music to be indisputably about monkeys”; the fourth movement, “Land of the Sun”, depicting, according to the programme note, “early society in China… described by the composer as ‘probably the most cheerful thing I ever wrote’”.

One could almost see the monkeys leaping around – probably those I saw on TV the previous night, in David Attenborough’s programme made in India.  The latter movement was bright, but rather more conventional.  Again, there was much complexity in the piano part, which was brilliantly played.

William Walton was a viola player, like Hindemith.  Alice McIvor returned to play the first movement of his Viola Concerto.  Of the three viola performers she had the most consistently good tone throughout the range.  She made a very fine performance of the movement, double-stopped melodies and all.  It was unified playing that interpreted the music coherently and gave the audience the good grasp of it that Alice obviously had.  Rafaelle produced beautiful tones from the piano.  It was a pity that the printed programme contained no biographical notes for her.

Perhaps a smile or two from the players at the end of the concert would have conveyed a feeling of pleasure in performing, and also would have recognised the audience’s applause.

 

School of Music guitar students delight Lower Hutt lunchtime audience

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand School of Music Guitar Ensemble, conducted by Jane Curry

Music by Gibbons, Dowland, Bach, Andrew York, Piazzolla, Brouwer, Carulli

Church of St Mark, Woburn Road, Lower Hutt

Wednesday 10 October, 12.15pm

Two distinct ensembles took part in this delightful recital, some of which was to contribute to the final semester assessments of senior students. Eight players formed the ‘ensemble’ while four of them – the more senior students – formed the quartet. The Ensemble started and finished the programme.

Two pieces by Elizabethan/Jacobean composers opened it. Orlando Gibbons Fantasie for keyboard was very short but demonstrated, in this most accomplished arrangement by one of the guitarists, how effective it could be made to sound in another medium that involved the creation of far more notes.

John Dowland’s The Frog Galliard was written for the lute and arranged for an ensemble by his contemporary Thomas Morley; a more elaborate, courtly affair, in slow ¾ rhythm, it was played fluently with only a few missed notes, leaving an excellent impression of the musical talent within the ensemble.

The fourth of the Preludes and Fugues (in F major) from Bach’s Eight Preludes and Fugues, BWV 553-560, followed (it is now believed they were written for pedal clavichord, not organ); I don’t think that, knowing of the earlier doubts about its being by Bach, affected my impression that it did not display a very typically Bachian character. The Prelude moved along fluently and interestingly with its nods at different keys while the Fugue made use of rocking series of thirds that did rather call for a bit more elaboration.

These three pieces and the later ones played by the Ensemble were conducted by Jane Curry.

The next two pieces were played by the Quartet (Nick Price, Jamie Garrick and Cameron Sloan and Mike Stoop). Andrew York is a prominent American composer for guitar, and his Quiccam sounded a very formidable challenge for the players, required to produce a considerable variety of awkward effects that were rather better than mere devices for idle bravura display, and they handled its complex, varied parts with skill and a good sense of where the music was going.

A rather gruesome piece by Argentinian tango exponent Piazzolla was La muerte del Angel, about the death of an angel in a typical Buenos Aires knife fight. The slashing of the knives was audible as were various unusual effects and articulations. Again, this was a credit to the accomplishment of the students and the adventurous guidance by their teachers.

In Cuban Landscape with Rain the full ensemble took over again. By Cuban composer Leo Brouwer, it was accompanied by a sudden rain squall that descended on the church, to general wonderment. The piece featured impressionistic effects such as very fast repeated notes simulating tremolo, and chaotic, percussive effects that rattled like the rain.

There were two famous guitarists at the turn of the 19th century: Ferdinando Carulli and Mauro Giuliani. Carulli was born in the same year as Beethoven (and Wordsworth); he settled in Paris and it may well have been his playing that prompted Chopin, who was also in Paris during the last decade of Carulli’s life there, to remark that there was no more beautiful instrument in the world than the guitar, save perhaps two guitars.

This Quartett, Op 22, would readily support that opinion, with its formal opening, as if for a concerto, and its tuneful, operatic style that sounded very much of its time, the opéras-comiques of Grétry or Boïeldieu. So ended a concert before a moderate sized audience who would have been unlikely to have been very familiar either with the classical guitar or with its repertoire. The School of Music is doing an admirable job with its sustained policy of getting talented students out into the community, with great mutual benefits.

 

‘Close encounters’: NZSO’s admirable enterprise to get good music on to the street

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Peter Walls

A free lunchtime concert

The Waltz from Farquhar’s Ring Round the Moon; Overture to Il Seraglio (Die Entfürhrung aus dem Serail) by Mozart; ‘Le bal’ from the Symphonie fantastique (Berlioz); Liebestod (orchestra alone) from Tristan und Isolde (Wagner); Enigma Variations (Elgar) – Theme (the  opening Andante), and Variation No XIII (***); Ravel’s Bolero – conclusion.

Michael Fowler Centre

Tuesday 9 October at 12.30pm (repeated at 6.30pm)

The aim of a concert of this sort is not to prove to a highly discriminating audience that it is in the presence of one of the world’s finest orchestras (though, of course it is), but to seduce both that class of listener and any others who have strayed in, because there was nothing better to do this particular Tuesday midday, with some highly entertaining, non-challenging music.

A fine orchestra like this plays itself, but an expressive conductor’s arms and hands and body can vividly illuminate the music for the audience, in the same way that choreography does with ballet music.

It used to be common for critics to remark on the physical style of a conductor, the nature of his gestures, the expressiveness of hands or of the entire body; there’s almost an unwritten convention now about what a critic should comment on and what is hors de combat; most of that is pretentious and silly.  I found Peter Walls’s movements most engaging, suggestive of emotions and the spirit of the music, varied in character, never falling into the sort of repetitive movements that can became tedious, or employing both hands in the same circular manner: he uses each arm to delineate distinct aspects of the music.

The programme at this concert was well-chosen, reflecting much of the music I am personally most deeply attached to – Mozart, Berlioz, Wagner and French music in general.

And it began with one of the few pieces of New Zealand music that has made it into the international repertoire – David Farquhar’s incidental music to Christopher Fry’s play, Ring Round the Moon (adaptation of Jean Anouilh’s L’invitation au château). The lilting strains of the Waltz created the most beguiling atmosphere, and I’d have loved the rest of the suite to have followed.

Peter Walls then spoke, a little about that music, more about Mozart and the opera and his first years in Vienna, and the Turks and Viennese fascination with that cruel, romantic people who had nearly captured Vienna less than a century before… Whether others are as ready as I am to listen to interesting, well-informed people speaking from the stage, I don’t know, but I suspect the sterility of what now passes for education, in history, literature, languages and the arts leaves too many baffled and bored as soon as such things are spoken of.  The performance gave striking prominence to cymbals and drums to support Walls’s remarks.

Then came the second movement from Berlioz’s Fantastic Symphony – The Ball, which Walls noted was linked to the Romeo and Juliet story which the composer had already discovered through the famous visit of an English theatre group, and which he later turned into his sprawling Romeo and Juliet dramatic symphony.  The orchestra played it with perhaps too much ease where greater tension might have etched the phantasm of the Harriet Smithson theme, the Idée fixe, more eerily, but its spectral quality was not lost, beautifully played by clarinettist Patrick Barry.

Walls developed the relationship between Berlioz and Wagner interestingly, with little-known anecdotes, striving in few words to bring to life the Tristan story.

In passing he said that the concert doubled as a taster for the 2013 season which will shortly be announced, and the thought that we could get a concert performance of Tristan made me so excited that I scarcely took in anything else.

But this orchestral version, without the soprano, recalled my first hearing of the Liebestod, as a young teenager who listened avidly to ‘Early Evening Concert’ which opened 2YC’s daily transmission at 5pm every day (in the early 1950s).

The exquisite opening, again on clarinet, was followed by a lovely performance.

Walls then talked interestingly about the New Zealand connection of Elgar’s Enigma Variations. He didn’t say whether he subscribed to Professor Heath Lees’s theory about the underlying theme that the whole work is enigmatically based on (you will find the problem well summarised in Wikipedia); the opening Andante was played and the audience invited to submit ideas about the basic theme (prize: phial of Tristan’s love potion). But he did deal with the arguable matter of the *** at the head of Variation XIII, evoking his early love, Helen Weaver, who broke off the relationship and went to New Zealand for her health. The rattling low C on timpani, played with side drum sticks, perhaps evoke the sound of the engines of a 1900-era steamship crossing the Atlantic.

But this variation has more commonly been connected with a friend of Elgar’s, Lady Mary Lygon, who had just departed with her husband who had been appointed Governor of New South Wales, with a reference to Mendelssohn’s Overture: Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, played on the clarinet. The latter seems to be the more persuasive story, but the New Zealand connection has its appeal.

The last few minutes of Ravel’s Bolero ended the concert, starting from the point where strings pick up the mesmerising, ostinato theme, raising the temperature several degrees. Fittingly for a concert like this, all its colour and underlying rhythms and exoticisms were played for all they were worth.

Admittedly, most of these pieces are to be expected in the programming of any symphony orchestra: it’s the Tristan that has the blood racing. Nevertheless, the concert was an excellent experiment which deserves to be tried in other centres, perhaps with slightly less erudition and more drollerie.

A generation or so ago I suspect a concert like this would have filled the hall. The reason for the empty seats had nothing to do with the reputation of the orchestra, the quality of the music or its performance; but everything to with the decay of education in the arts and the widespread resulting idea that most pop and rock music is as valid and as good as anything in the ‘elitist’ classical repertoire. One can expect that opinion from the youth, but when it is shared by ‘educated’ adults, it’s a worry.

 

NZSM singers entertain in Upper Hutt arts centre foyer

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Arias from opera; songs

New Zealand School of Music: Vocal students of Richard Greager, Jenny Wollerman, Margaret Medlyn and Lisa Harper-Brown, with Mark Dorrell (piano)

Rotary Foyer, Expressions Arts and Entertainment Centre, Upper Hutt

Tuesday 9 October 2012, 1pm

This was the last of a monthly series of free concerts given by performance students from the New Zealand School of Music.  It attracted a full house, there being over 100 people present.  It was the same last year; obviously hearing singers is particularly attractive to the music-lovers of Upper Hutt.  All the singers presented their items with poise and confidence.  There was a mixture of arias from opera, and songs.

The foyer has a fine acoustic, and both pianist and singers did well there.  There is a café sharing the space, and this meant a certain amount of noise.  However, it was seldom very loud, nor was it constant, so it made a pleasant, informal venue .

Baritone Christian Thurston opened the programme with ‘Alla vita che t’arride’ from Un Ballo in Maschera by Verdi.  Just over a week ago, Thurston made a very fine Figaro in a concert of opera excerpts by NZSM students, at the Adam Concert Room.  He has a wonderfully rich voice, very Verdian, well controlled and produced with good support.  After a spoken introduction, he sang confidently and clearly; his runs were particularly good.

Next we heard from soprano Christina Orgias.  Her introductions her three songs were among the best for fluency and meaningful presentation – and these characteristics were true of her singing also.  Her mature voice has a natural resonance, quite a lot of vibrato, and plenty of volume.  ‘Before my window’ by Rachmaninov was gorgeous.

Amelia Ryman (soprano) sang firstly ‘The Trees on the Mountains’, from Carlisle Floyd’s 1955 opera, Susannah (not the Liszt song shown in the programme).  This singer has a powerful voice, but it was beautifully controlled.  She gave a very pleasing performance of the aria, with subtlety, and the appropriate American accent.

Jamie Henare (bass) sang perhaps the saddest song in Schubert’s song cycle Der Winterreise: ‘Der Leiermann’ (The organ-grinder).  His German language was good, but the song was not sufficiently well projected in the quiet passages.  However, his voice has a very pleasing quality.

Excellent German articulation was heard from Christina Orgias in her second song: ‘O wüsst’ ich doch den Weg zurück’ by Brahms.  She conveyed the mood of homesickness, the theme of this song, very well.

Soprano Elita McDonald followed, with a Richard Strauss song, ‘Die Nacht’.  Her voice has a lovely quality, and seemed just right for Strauss, though the lower notes were a bit out of her range; however, her high notes were pure and delightful.  Hers, too, was a very good spoken introduction.

Strauss returned, this time with Christian Thurston singing ‘Zueignung’.  I enjoyed neither his rather unclear introduction nor the song so well.  I would rather hear it sung by a mezzo or a soprano.  A low voice simply cannot demonstrate that marvellous ecstatic lift that the composer has given to this wonderful song.

Jamie Henare’s first aria was from La Bohème: ‘Vecchia zimarra’, in which Colline sings about having to sell his old coat in order to have money to buy medicine for the ailing Mimi.  This suited him better than the Schubert song – and speaking of suits, he had an old coat with him as a prop.

Then came the undoubted star of the show, Isabella Moore.  The three items she sang were certainly longer than those performed by her fellow-students, and done to a greater level of proficiency.  First, also from Puccini’s La Bohème, ‘Si, mi chiamano Mimi’.  This well-loved aria was sang with a naturalness, confidence and assurance presaged by her introduction.  She used gesture well, but it was her voice that drew the attention.  She has a great voice, which she uses with intelligence and subtlety.  With it, she could grace the operatic stage right now.  This was a wonderfully moving performance, with superb tone and excellent projection.

Amelia Ryman followed up with ‘Daphne’, one of William Walton’s setting of Edith Sitwell texts.  This was a bright performance, but the voice was rather shrill at the top.

Elita McDonald returned to sing Vaughan Williams’s very lovely song ‘Silent Noon’.  This was beautifully and expressively sung, but could have done with a little more delicacy in places.

Now for something completely different: Isabella Moore sang Benjamin Britten’s witty cabaret song ‘Johnny’; the words by W.H. Auden.  This is heard not infrequently, but a rendition that was memorable for me, over 20 years ago, was by Sarah Walker, the English mezzo, when she visited New Zealand.  Moore’s performance was well up with this high standard, her facial expressions and use of the words making it fully characterised.

Jamie Henare completed his trilogy with ‘Ho capito, Signor si!’ from Mozart’s Don Giovanni.  This received a better introduction than did his previous two items.  The voice quality was fine, but there was not enough projection of the character.  The Don is being addressed by the hapless country lad Masetto, who is fearful for his girlfriend Zerlina’s virtue, with the Don about to be alone with her.   This all came over as too pat, too glib.  Yes, many of us know the aria, but it must appear to be freshly minted for each performance.

Mozart was the composer of the next aria also: ‘Come scoglio’ from Così fan Tutte, sung by Christina Orgias.  This aria incorporates a lot of florid singing which the singer executed well, with a commendable variety of dynamics.  She varied the words intelligently, and gave a completely characterised Fiordiligi.

Christian Thurston’s last aria was ‘Questo amor, vergogna mia’ from Edgar by Puccini.  He gave a very fine performance.

The recital ended appropriately with Isabella Moore, who sang from Massenet’s Herodiade Salome’s aria ‘Il est doux, il est bon’, about her infatuation with John the Baptist.  Moore’s language was again immaculate.  She gave a very expressive and brilliant performance; in fact, she was the compleat singer.

It was noticeable that this singer was the only one to mention accompanist Mark Dorrell as a fellow performer, and to gesture her thanks to him at the end of each of her items.  The audience rewarded singers and pianist with hearty applause.

Music hath charms…  and the audience was certainly charmed by this recital by promising singing students, accompanied throughout by the incomparable, or should we say unashamed, accompanist.

 

A new piano trio presents two fine concerts, in Wellington and Upper Hutt

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Poneke Trio (Anna van der Zee – violin, Paul Mitchell – cello, Richard Mapp – piano)

Dvořák: Trio No 4 in E minor, Op 90 (Dumky); Kodály: Duo for violin and cello, Op 7; Shostakovich: Piano Trio No 2 in E minor, Op 67 (Wellington); Brahms: Piano Trio No 2 in C, Op 87 (Upper Hutt)

Two concerts: Ilott Theatre, Wellington Town Hall and Genesis Energy Theatre, Expressions Arts Centre, Upper Hutt

Sunday 30 September, 3pm and Monday 8 October, 7.30pm

All three members of the newly formed Poneke Trio have become familiar around Wellington: Richard Mapp over the course of many years; Anna van der Zee and Paul Mitchell more recently. It sounds like a group that has been waiting to happen, an event such as might tempt a believer to ascribe to the Almighty’s having a good day.

That was one reason for getting myself to both their concerts in Greater Wellington; the other was in order to hear both the Brahms and the Shostakovich trios, and because I had not been able to make the Wellington concert till part-way through the Dumky Trio.

One of the happiest pieces in all music opened the programme; the Dvořák trio is one of those creations that seems to have sprung fully formed into the mind of the composer, such as scarcely any composer in the century since has been inspired to write or perhaps been capable of writing.

So, I knew at once that I was in the best of hands, as the players began with a resolute tone from the cello and a gentler expression from the violin; then heartfelt chords from all three. The work consists of six movements, all between four and five minutes and in sharply varying tempi, in which Dvořák resists a temptation to elaborate too much his beguiling material, at least in a conspicuously sophisticated way; that induces the players to draw as much as possible from the music’s spirit while they have the chance.

This compression emphasises the music’s relatively informal character, that of a suite of dance-inspired pieces such as composers of the Baroque age used in their suites. Though each movement is cast in an A-B-A pattern the reprise of A is no mere repeat; and the programme note draws attention to further evidence of art concealing art in the pattern of keys from movement to movement, some clearly related while others a bit remote, such as that from D minor/major to E flat.

The well-conceived and idiomatic performance was rich in the Romantic spirit of the late 19th century.

Though written only 30 years later, the Kodály Duo for violin and cello seemed to come from an entirely different world and age. At first hearing many years ago I found it pretty alien, but it has slowly taken shape and its ‘melodies’ have become, at least, slightly familiar; though I would hardly echo the programme note’s description; after admitting that its slow acceptance was because of ‘Kodály’s idea of a tune’, it then asserts that ‘the work is rich in glorious melody’. For me, words like ‘harsh’ and ‘angular’ still come to mind, yet there is undeniably an absorbing character both in the music and certainly in this compulsive performance.

If one’s pleasure lies in finding flaws in a performance, one can almost always satisfy it by trying, and it’s not hard with such a demanding piece that calls for such persuasive advocacy. More important than perfection is evidence of sincerity and conviction on the part of the two players: that was there.

At the Sunday concert at the Ilott Theatre, Shostakovich’s Trio, Op 67, filled the second half. Perversely, an early thought was: why could Shostakovich write a piece like this piano trio, set in a time even more horrendous than that which Kodály lived through 30 years earlier, yet clothe it in sounds that touch the emotions so powerfully and involve the listener through an understandable language?

The trio played its famous opening with all the skill needed to create the foreboding atmosphere that lightens surprisingly quite soon, then continues sometimes animated, sometimes static. The second movement really showed what the trio was made of, switching from flashing energy with suppressed excitement while a sense of unease was always present, somehow at odds with the surface brilliance of the playing. I have heard the portentous piano chords that open the third movement played with just too much force, more than is needed to presage the plain dominant to tonic entry by the violin; here, Richard Mapp’s attack was just right and these players found an excellent balance. And in the clockwork rhythms that rule the last movement, the stiff-legged march theme alternating with pizzicato strings could have left its Soviet listeners in no doubt as to an underlying meaning; the strings bowed heavily, simulating shouting protest till things subsided into a more measured argument. All these nuances were captured expressively but not too emphatically to end a highly satisfying performance of a great work.

Brahms’s second piano trio was played at Upper Hutt. The opening phrase came with a warmth and unanimity of tone, at a pace that might be called languid; while I felt that Mapp was straining a little to lift the tempo at the start, I soon decided that the three were very much of one mind, not just about speeds but about the emotional colours of the piece as a whole. They were totally at home in the essentially Brahmsian, muscular and slightly sentimental first theme.

The steady pace of the Andante movement, with the almost heroic double octaves in the piano, made a memorable impression, punctuating the melody heard first on the violin; it’s a variations movement that forms the emotional heart of the whole work, and though there are always minor matters where one wonders about a balance or a phrasing detail, it was beautifully played. More taxing in a technical sense is the Scherzo, particularly for the piano and this was sparkling and pretty flawless; one of Brahms’s loveliest tunes adorns the Trio section and it was given careful, succulent exposure.  Through the finale, Giocoso, the sense of jollity seems clouded and the performers did nothing to conceal that it is foolish to expect happiness to last, and it is the movement’s nobility and seriousness that left the strongest impression from this performance.

It’s timely again to remark on the pleasure of simply attending concerts at the arts centre in Upper Hutt, with its spaciousness, its nice café and an appropriately sized auditorium with agreeable acoustics – and no parking problems, though the railway station, too, is close by.

 

 

A Clarinet Trio at St Mark’s lunchtime concert: great music making with minor flaws

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Bruch: Andante and Allegro con moto, from Eight Pieces, Op.83
Mozart: Trio in E flat, K.498
Schumann: Märchenerzählungen (Fairy Tales), Op.132
Divertimento (Tim Workman, clarinet; Victoria Jaenecke, viola; David Vine, piano)

St Mark’s Church, Lower Hutt

Wednesday 3 October, 12.15pm

An attractive programme of great music, highly competent performers, an acoustically pleasing venue, but they did not add up to a totally satisfying concert.  The first disappointment was the printed programme, which obviously had not been proof-read.  The violist was honoured with joining the family of the great Czech composer, Janacek (minus his diacritical marks); the Mozart trio was catalogued as K.000; there were spelling, punctuation and syntactical errors aplenty.

The first Max Bruch piece was introduced by the superbly mellow tone of Jaenecke’s viola, and the clarinet followed suit.  In contrast, the piano sounded rather muffled, dull and distant.  Perhaps against the sonorous, forward sound of the clarinet, it would have been better to raise the piano lid higher.

The Andante (the first of the Eight Pieces, and written in A minor) was a most attractive, though sombre, work, with splendid interweaving of the parts.  The second piece, in B minor, was faster, and stormy in nature compare with the first; this considerable contrast made them a good pair to perform together.

The Mozart trio again suffered from the piano part not sounding out sufficiently, particularly the treble, except in solo passages for that instrument.  This was especially the case in the sunny allegretto finale, where I found over-pedalling affecting the character of the music.

This fabulous music lacked sparkle, principally because of the dullness of the piano sound.  Tone and expression from the viola and clarinet were very fine, along with excellent phrasing.

Schumann’s four characterful pieces found the balance better, and more piano tone came through, but it still sounded heavy, and stronger in the bass, especially in quicker sections.  Three of the four movements were marked ‘lebhaft’ (lively), while the third piece was slow and sad – and beautifully played.  The instructions of Schumann, implicit in the titles he gave to each piece, were expressed admirably by the performers.

The concert was over-long, due to unnecessarily lengthy spoken introductions to the music.

Classical concert “crowding-out” on Sunday afternoons

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Bach: Prelude and Fugue in E minor BWV 533

Partita divers sopra Ach, was soll ich Sünder machen BWV 770

Douglas Mews senior: Partita on the Ascension Hymn Salutis Humanae Sator

Bach: Chorale Prelude Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr BWV 662

Fantasia and Fugue in G minor BWV 542

Douglas Mews (organ)

St Mary of the Angels Church

30 September 2012, 2.30pm

Back when the Wellington Chamber Music Society proposed having a series of concerts on Sunday afternoons, nearly thirty years ago, a senior person within the Music Federation (as Chamber Music New Zealand was named then) predicted it wouldn’t work; Sunday concerts had been tried and weren’t well supported.  Now, not only is the WCMS series still going, but Sunday afternoons have become almost de rigeur for classical concerts.  Sunday 30 September boasted no fewer than six of them in Wellington and the Hutt Valley.

It is impossible for Middle-C to review all of these, but worse is the fact that to some extent they rely on the same audience.  Not only will audience numbers, and therefore income, be affected by this duplication (or sextuplication?), but would-be audience members are unable to derive enjoyment and pleasure from hearing all the music they would like to hear.   Some kind of collaboration needs to take place to ensure that such doubling up (I hesitate to put a six-related noun to that!) is kept to a minimum, and more use is made of week-nights – maybe early evening concerts.

It was great to hear the organ at St. Mary of the Angels, originally designed and played by the late Maxwell Fernie, my much-esteemed organ teacher.  Especially it was good to hear the great J.S. Bach, who was not only loved so well by Fernie, but the love of whose music he imparted to me and many others.  Douglas Mews is another master of the organ, and he gave the playing of Bach spirit and life.

The opening work featured a pedal part with coupling from the manuals, and a grand fugue.  The Partita that followed comprised ten variations on a choral melody.  As the programme note stated, this showed ‘a great variety in their treatment of the chorale melody’.  The simple chorale in Bach’s hands gave rise to extraordinary contrasts within as well as between variations.

The first was in two parts with some decoration, a positive mood and delicate treatment; it dealt with God’s compassion and mercy (the translated words of four chorale verses were printed in the programme, but it was not clear exactly which words related to which of the ten variations).  The second variation introduce mixture stops, giving a piquancy to the music. The third was a gorgeous piece, with a fairly fast tempo, a running rhythm and flute registration.

Number four introduced reed stops.  It gave a firm statement of the chorale, with a running lower part.  Five was another flute-dominated variation; six was in more of a grand organ style, somewhat portentous.    No. 7 featured flutes again, all in the treble, with little runs.  The next variation was in a different mood, beginning with a low flute introduction, and then a solemn diapason sound in the treble response.  There were some complex figures, including trills and mordents.

It was back to 8, 4 and 2 foot pipes for the penultimate variation, contrasted with sections on flutes; the tenth had flutes trilling on both manuals, perhaps illustrating the final words of the chorale “My salvation is assured for eternity.’  There were arpeggios and runs, with contrasts back and forth.  This was the longest of the variations and showed the greatest variety, appropriately for the ending one.

The performance was full of interest, and gave a marvellous demonstration of the abilities of the composer – and of the organist, and the instrument.

Douglas Mews’s father was an organist, composer, and Associate Professor of Music at the University of Auckland.  I well remember his radio broadcasts on matters musical, in which he spoke in his lovely Newfoundland accent on topics which he demonstrated at the piano, in a lively yet intimate style, almost as if he were sitting in one’s own room.

His Partita, written in 1987, takes a plainsong tune and varies and decorates it for the four separate verses of the hymn; the title translates ‘O Thou who man’s Redeemer art’.  The music began with high notes and chords, while subterranean pedals grumbled intermittently below.  Then there was a statement of the hymn on one manual, unaccompanied.   This was followed by a statement using reed stops, embellished with a simple, low accompaniment that featured interesting chords and again, a single line providing the decorated melody.  Unusual harmonies were created.

The second verse had an unexpectedly high treble variation, and delicious broken chords, followed by passages using reed stops.  Number three started with the melody at the octave, followed by strong chords using several ranks of pipes.  There were fast passages for both manuals and pedals, fading away to distant high notes.  The music for the fourth voice was played on diapasons, starting with a single unaccompanied line, then the melody was accompanied by dark, mysterious chords.  The work ended with a very high note together with a very low one.  The work featured very dramatic alternations between soft and loud passages.

Back to Bach, and one of his several settings of the chorale ‘Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr’.  Though not the longest of the composer’s chorale preludes on this theme, BWV 662 is perhaps the most complex.  The treatment of the melody, and its ornamentation, proved to be quite beautiful.  There was considerable use of coupled ranks in the melody line.  However, I felt that the registration employed did not allow the melody quite sufficient space of its own, i.e. the accompaniment was a little heavy, although there are important passages to be heard in the accompanying parts.

The final work was a real classic showpiece of Bach’s oevre.  It is grand and satisfying.  Douglas Mews produced a greater range of dynamic contrasts than some organists do in this Fantasia and Fugue.  The fast passages were really fast, and there were thundering pedals in the Fantasia, a movement whose counterpoint is worked out in quite an astonishing way.  Then the bright, fast fugue. Its theme, repeated in all parts, has been known to students as ‘O Ebenezer Prout [an English music scholar, analyst and theoretician of the nineteenth century] you are a funny man’.  Among the fugue’s many complications is the trilling in the right hand while the left hand and feet carry on with other material.  This made a sensational ending to the fugue, and to the recital.