Superb New Zealand premiere of Donizetti masterpiece in the Catholic Cathedral

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Opera in a Days Bay Garden – Opera in the Basilica

Donizetti: Maria Stuarda

Lisa Harper-Brown (Elizabeth I); Paul Whelan (Talbot); Benjamin Fifita Makisi (Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester); Matt Landreth (Lord Cecil); Clarissa Dunn (Anna Kennedy); Rhona Fraser (Mary, Queen of Scots)
Producer: Rhona Fraser; Michael Vinten (conductor); Sara  Brodie (director)
Chapman Tripp NBR New Zealand Opera Chorus; orchestra

Cathedral of the Sacred Heart

Friday, 10 August 2012, 6.00pm

This was New Zealand’s first performance of Donizetti’s great opera, one of seven (I’m open to correction) that he wrote based on English and Scottish history and stories.  This one had a turbulent early history of censorship and numerous revisions because of its theme of battling royals and the execution of a crowned monarch.

Days Bay Opera was not in a garden this time, but appropriately in a Catholic church bearing the inscription ‘Sub Maria Nomine’.  It was virtually full of people; they witnessed an absolute triumph!  Days Bay Opera, principally the work of Rhona Fraser, producer and soprano soloist), gave us a performance of a very high standard and fully professional in all its elements, while conductor Michael Vinten and director Sara Brodie allowed their experience and their imaginations to invest Donizetti’s great opera with musical and acting delights.  It is worth noting that the sponsor of this enterprise was none other than Jeremy Commons, world expert on the operas of Donizetti.

In 1992 I attended this opera performed by Australian Opera in the Sydney Opera House.  It was notable that not only was the essay in the lavish printed programme written by Jeremy Commons, but three of the six principals (though not Elizabeth or Mary) were New Zealanders: Rodney Macann as Talbot, Anson Austin as Leicester (who was indisposed the night I attended) and Heather Begg as Anna.  A brief quotation from the essay sets the scene: “A beautiful and rewarding opera in itself – a fascinating study of two queens held apart by politics – a sensitive and moving representation of the final hours of one of the most unfortunate figures in British history – an intriguing window upon the theatrical world of its day – Maria Stuarda is all of these things.”

This choice constituted a departure for Days Bay Opera, whose previous productions have been of a lighter cast: The Marriage of Figaro, Journey to Rheims, and Alcina (which is not as light as the other two, but has a happy ending).

The change to an indoor venue in winter from a beautiful garden and watery view in summer is also major.  Sara Brodie used the building to great effect, its architectural features enhanced by lovely lighting, with action taking place in various parts, although predominantly at the sanctuary end, where the small orchestra was placed.  Action further back could not readily be seen by those near to the front; however, the acoustics are so fine that the sound could be heard anywhere.  The action in the central aisle and side aisles enabled other parts of the audience to see and hear well at different times.  The use made of the many points of entry into the church was imaginative; the coup de grace (coup de l’église?) was at the end, when Mary and her retinue walked the length of the nave and out the west door (to her execution).

There were no weak links in this production; the cast was very thoroughly rehearsed, knew their words well, and projected them more than adequately. I noticed that the soloists seldom looked at the conductor, yet they were spot on in entries and timing.  The English version used was that of Amanda Holden, who created it for English National Opera in 1998.  It was described by the Sunday Telegraph as ‘Amanda Holden’s racy new translation’.

The orchestra comprised eight players, plus a pair of trumpets that appear only in one short scene, ‘off-stage’ (out the side door, in fact), when Elizabeth arrives to meet Mary.  Vinten’s reduction of the score was masterly, with sufficient of both volume and content to render the music with enough variety of timbre and dynamics.  The five strings, flute, clarinet and piano all worked hard and played extremely well, with many wonderful moments.  Early on, I especially noticed beautiful playing from the clarinet.  The piano never intruded, but gave a firm base for the other players.  Later in the first Act there was winsome flute playing accompanying Mary and Anna.  A lovely prelude preceded Act II (Act III in most 20th century performances), full of foreboding and anticipation.

Costuming a period production can be an expensive business.  The solution here was to dress the characters mainly in modern dress, including lounge suits and ties for the men (although Elizabeth’s queenly robe, and her hunting costume deviated from the modern), apart from Mary Queen of Scots and her attendant Anna, who wore period costume.  Director Sara Brodie explained to me in the interval (which was deliciously lubricated with mulled wine) that this was to convey the idea that Mary and her court were in a ‘time-lock’, while the court of Elizabeth had moved on in time.

The cast was uniformly good. What a coup to have Paul Whelan as Talbot – a bass-baritone who sings in opera houses around the world!  While he was the principal singer in that register, he was not the leading soloist.

Lisa Harper-Brown played Queen Elizabeth I with great dignity and hauteur, her vocal coloration and facial expression always apt for the moment.  Her voice was rich and expressive.  Donizetti took her to both the top and the bottom of her range in quick time, but this seemed to present no problem.

In the first Act, she had a delightful lilting solo with pizzicato accompaniment.  Her Scene Two solo in the presence of Mary was delivered with a sense of foreboding, as Mary and Talbot intoned their reactions against the floating notes of Elizabeth; Anna joined in to make a gorgeous ensemble.  There was a slight lack of co-ordination, but considering the distance the singers were from each other, ensemble was very good, featuring masterly, controlled tone, while Mary’s soliloquy that followed was dramatic and agitated.

Ben Makisi sang Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, with passion and to great dramatic effect.  His voice had full, ringing tones, producing (as always) lovely soft top notes; in the case of his duet with Elizabeth, these were unaccompanied.  The men’s duet that followed was full of drama, as was Elizabeth’s anger with Leicester. Makisi, of all the performers, managed to get a look in his eye that expressed his emotions and his objections to Elizabeth’s wishes (since his greater affection was for Mary).

Rhona Fraser’s singing as Mary Queen of Scots was magnificent.  I have heard her sing in each of the operas.  Here, her role was much larger, more dramatic and more difficult than those she had previously essayed, and she rose to the occasion superbly.  Her intonation was perfect, her runs thrilling, and her acting thoroughly in keeping with the role, as indeed was the acting of all the cast.  Her tirade against Elizabeth in the second Scene of Act I incorporated coloratura runs, +and was impressive, the voice ringing out strongly, but with no hint of forcing.  Again at the end of Act II there were superb coloratura passages, while Fraser’s low notes were dramatic and mellow, helping to bring the audience into the passion and drama.

The following duet between Leicester and Mary, in waltz time, revealed a wonderful bloom to Fraser’s voice, and how splendidly both singers used their resonators.

At the beginning of Act II there was a stunning duet between Makisi and Whelan, as they discuss plots against Elizabeth, their double lives, of service to Elizabeth, but their love for Mary, and in Talbot’s case, the fact that he was a clandestine Catholic. Whelan was at his best in the scene with Mary, his voice fully resonant in the sanctuary of the church.  Here, Mary had yet more beautiful period clothing.  Her solo with chorus, Talbot and Anna was mellifluous, enhanced by the acoustic.

Mary’s prayer was exquisitely sung, and Fraser’s facial expression conveyed tragic feeling.  The lighting contrasted the light and space of Elizabeth’s court of the first scene with the confined, darker castle at Fotheringay where Mary was imprisoned.  Presumably for this reason also, there was less movement in those scenes.

In the final scene, leading to the execution, the crew erected barriers to keep back the crowd.  The chorus began here rather weakly, but improved as they went on, though facial expressions were mostly too dead-pan.  Their placards read “Shame on England”, “We love you Mary” and other 21st century phrases; very telling.  Makisi was very strong here, and the chorus became more involved.

Clarissa Dunn was effective as Anna, Mary’s companion.  Her acting as the calm, comforting, dutiful servant was just right; her relatively small amount of singing revealed a very attractive voice, and good enunciation.  She acquitted herself well in the ensemble in the first Act with Mary and the soldiers, and again in the final scene.

The chorus was first heard behind the audience, in the gallery, making a great impact and their work, vocally, was consistently good.  Paul Whelan also first sang from behind where I was seated; he produced a magnificent sound, powerful and intense and projecting the words strongly. The brass and off-stage chorus were sonorously splendid as they announced Elizabeth’s arrival at Fotheringay Castle to visit Mary (historically, this never happened).

This opera features many duets and ensembles.  Early on, Elizabeth and Leicester  sing a tender duet that soon turns to fire; this was splendidly done – but so were all the ensembles.

Some aspects of the production were less convincing than others.  Both Elizabeth and Mary used the pulpit on occasion; the first time, it was Elizabeth, holding a dog, which she hands to Cecil (Matt Landreth, a cynical courtier who sang expressively, though with sometimes insufficient volume though at others, strongly) while she sings her first aria; this was excellent.  But the photographers doing a photo-shoot of Elizabeth in the first scene (complete with make-up brush) was perhaps a little OTT, especially the distracting flashes.  Elsewhere in the production had Elizabeth using a laptop, Cecil using a cellphone, but these features were not overdone.

The only slightly negative note was the appearance of the chorus.  Most had not memorised their music, which was perhaps understandable, but their scores were held at sundry angles, and in the last scene some of the chorus held protest placards as well, which added to the problem. More uniform handling of the scores would have improved the look. Nevertheless, the chorus shone vocally.

Here we had a team of individuals performing impeccably, both dramatically and vocally, conveying expertly Donizetti’s music and drama at his melodic, harmonic and rhythmic best.  Congratulations to all concerned with this stunning production – not forgetting the effective lighting.  Particular praise must go to the two female leads, who were outstanding, and to Rhona Fraser for producing a performance of such quality, with tension, drama and momentum maintained throughout the performance, with no dead spots.

The second and final performance is on Saturday, 18 August at 8pm.  Go if you possibly can!

 

 

Well-presented concert from NZSM’s Young Musicians’ Programme

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Young Musicians’ Programme of the New Zealand School of Music

Students of voice, piano, flute, violin, clarinet and guitar

St Andrew’s on the Terrace

Wednesday 8 August, 12.15pm

Pre-university music students can seek to study in the Young Musicians’ Programme of the New Zealand School of Music, in preparation for tackling the real thing when they matriculate later.

There are various opportunities to hear music students at the secondary stage of their education, such as at concerts by the New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir, the Wellington and the National Youth Choirs and Orchestras (the Wellington Youth Orchestra plays this Sunday, 12 August at the Town Hall), and at events like the ‘Big Sing’ of the National Choral Festival, the Final stage of which can be heard at the Town Hall on Saturday 18 August, and the Schools Chamber Music Contest.

For a decade, a very special concert was staged annually by the Michael Monaghan Trust at which young instrumental players played concerto movements with an orchestra of players from the NZSO; that was wound up last year with the promise that the NZSO itself would pick it up and run something similar: what has happened?

At all these events, it is normal to hear performances that are astonishingly skilled and musically insightful.

The lunchtime audience at St Andrew’s enjoyed such an experience on Wednesday.

Eight young students played and sang, each introduced clearly by the programme director Shannon Digby. One of the most talented opened the concert with a short bracket of piano pieces: by 17th century Italian composer Bernardo Pasquini and Brahms. Nicole Ting played two movements of the Pasquini suite with a rare sensitivity and a surprisingly developed instinct for the music’s style and spirit, her ornaments were tasteful and charming, and her playing fluent and accurate. Though she had a wee lapse at the start of Brahms’s Intermezzo (in F minor, Op 118 No 4) here too she showed a maturity of understanding that took me by surprise.

Rosalie Willis on the flute may not have demonstrated quite that level of technical polish or fluency but her playing of a Fantasie in E minor by Telemann, showed care with phrasing and dynamics; the rhythmically testing last movement, Allegro, she managed very nicely.

Sophie Smyth has an as-yet softish soprano voice. She sang Der Lindenbaum from Winterreise, capturing its heart-broken mood with singing that was charming and accurate, and with accompaniment from Buz Bryant-Greene that gave sensitive support, though it’s not always easy to hold the voice and piano together, and he rarely overtopped her quiet delivery. Her second song was Jenny McLeod’s ‘I have no name’, from her collection Through the World, a small masterpiece that I’m humbled to say I hadn’t heard before. Sophie did it real justice.

Amber Madriaga is a guitarist already exhibiting surprising facility; her playing of Roland Dyens Tango en Skai gave off an air of confidence and considerable accomplishment in the repeated whirlwind flourishes, and occasionally almost too much dynamic subtlety.

There followed the Romance movement from Poulenc’s Clarinet Sonata from the already well advanced player Emily Evers, moving through its big range smoothly though her top was given to some shrillness. Emily later joined with tutor Karlo Margetic and oboist Ashley Mowbray in a fellow student’s composition, Subversion by Sean Pearless. It was musically interesting and treated each instrument with considerable understanding.

The only contribution from a jazz student was from Alex Ware, singing Butterfly, with a vibrato that might need watching later, though with confidence and an ease of delivery essential to the idiom; and then a scat-style concoction based on Summertime which perhaps suffered a little on account of her striving for innovation; yet there was no mistaking her fluency and an attractive vocal quality. Both were accompanied idiomatically by Daniel Millward.

Buz Bryant-Greene returned to accompany Allanah Avalon in He Moemoe (‘A Dream’), a rather beguiling song by Anthony Ritchie. Here there were moments when the two seemed not to be in perfect balance; her voice is attractive though a bit more attention is perhaps needed on projecting her lines.

Such was the pleasure of the concert that I was surprised my watch showed 12.50pm when I felt it was only half way through.

These young musicians will be interesting to watch.

 

Janet Gibbs delightful organ recital at Old St Paul’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

J.S. Bach: Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565
Chorale Prelude ‘Nun Komm, der Heiden Heiland’, BWV 659
Chorale and two variations ‘Sei Gegrüsset, Jesu Gütig’, BWV 768
Fantasia in G, BWV 572
Mendelssohn: Sonata no.6 – Chorale, Fugue, Finale
Christopher Tambling: Trumpet Tune
Ceremonial March

Janet Gibbs, organ

Old St. Paul’s

Tuesday, 7 August 2012, 12.15pm

Janet Gibbs chose a delightful programme that was a mix of the well-known, the lesser-known and the unknown.

Sitting quite close to the organ, I was aware of its quite strident sound, facing directly out to the auditorium as it does, rather than into the choir, or from a gallery, or from a side alcove as in most churches.  However, I soon became accustomed to this.  The great advantage in Old St. Paul’s is that one can see the organist at work, albeit necessarily a back view, whereas in so many cathedrals, Town Halls etc. the audience is remote from the performer and can see little or nothing.

Wellington City Council’s free winter Sunday afternoon recitals, begun for the hundredth birthday of the organ and continued for a number of years, sadly are no more.  There, they had the great idea of removing the rear panel from behind the organist, and relaying onto two large screens live video of the movements of hands and feet, interspersed with views of the inside of the organ.

The famous Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor (shown as G minor in the printed programme) was taken at quite a fast pace compared with that of most renditions of this familiar work that I have heard.  However, this did not prove to be a problem either to the organist or to the hearers.  The fact that Janet Gibbs turned her own pages of music and changed her registrations herself made her performance even more impressive than it already was from the fine playing.

I thoroughly enjoyed hearing so much of Bach’s organ music.  The next piece ‘Nun Komm der Heiden Heiland’ was quite gorgeous in the way it developed from a quiet beginning, and opened out.  I found myself transported by the music in a manner different from that effected by any other composer.  I thought the lines of the chorale could do with just a little more phrasing to separate them from each other.  The registrations used was very appealing.

‘Sei Gegrüsset, Jesu Gütig’ is part of a much larger work, with 11 variations in total.

Janet Gibbs had a most pleasing choice of stops for the first variation; she showed this organ off well.  The second variation was much more full-bodied, with registration being closer to full organ, including more reed stops.  The varying moods were conveyed tellingly.

The wonderful Fantasia in G is in three distinct parts.  The lively opening section’s arpeggios could sound like a five-finger exercise, but with the right tempo and registration, as here, it is more like a spirited dance.  The second section I found a little too fast (it is marked ‘Grave’ in my Novello edition), but was very satisfying nonetheless.  The third section is difficult, but was brilliantly executed.

Mendelssohn wrote a number of fairly large-scale organ works, not all of which I find appealing.  But this Sonata, in the hands of Janet Gibbs, and on this organ, was different, and enjoyable.  She introduced it by saying that ‘You can’t get better than Bach’.  No-one knew that better than Mendelssohn, Bach’s great nineteenth-century rediscoverer.

Bach would surely have approved of his treatment of the Chorale.  Here, the separated notes in the pedal part were very skilfully managed.  The brilliant fugue was totally controlled, and enthralling, with the melody in the pedals while the hands performed scintillating arpeggios on the manuals.  The quiet final section sounded rather like the worst of nineteenth-century sentimentality by comparison with what had gone before.  A few pipes slightly out of tune did not help.  The change in tonality and ambience was not the fault of the registration; I’m sure Mendelssohn would have approved of that.

Christopher Tambling is an Englishman, Director of Music at Downside College in England.  Trumpet Tune was a delightful little piece, reminiscent of Jeremiah Clarke, and of the well-known Tuba Tune by New Zealand-born C.S. Lang who spent his career in England.  The second piece was a robust march in a traditional style.  The use of a 2-foot stop added piquancy, as did reeds, to a very effective piece of music, appropriate for finishing the recital.

Throughout the recital, Janet Gibbs’s foot-work was impeccable, and the use of the swell pedal was always judicious, never showy.  A few fluffs elsewhere did not spoil the enjoyment of a memorable recital. This was organ-playing of a very high standard indeed, and there was a good-sized audience to hear it, which is often not the case at organ recitals.

 

Australian Piano Trio delights Waikanae

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

The Streeton Piano Trio (Benjamin Kopp, piano; Emma Jardine, violin; Martin Smith, cello)
(Waikanae Music Society)

Schubert: Piano trio no.2 in E flat, D.929
Haydn: Piano trio in D, Hob XV/27
Ravel: Trio for piano, violin and cello

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday, 5 August 2012, 2.30pm

Sunday’s programme was a good one; though all the works were familiar, they were contrasting in period of composition and in character.  The Streeton Trio (made up of Australians based in Berlin) gave the audience a broad spectrum of great works for piano trio.

Schubert’s glorious trio is always a delight to hear.  The Streeton Trio made a wonderful build-up of tension and played beautifully, apart from some low cello notes being off-pitch near the beginning.  However, things improved, to render the lyrical quality of the first movement in tender fashion. Worrisome bottom-string notes returned briefly – was the C string slightly out-of-tune?  I noticed that the cellist tuned it slightly after the second movement.  As the programme note states, the first movement is ‘in turn energetic and uplifting, restless and troubled’.  It was always interesting.

Between the first and second movements there was a surprise: the pianist spoke to the audience introducing the Swedish folk song on which the initial melody in the andante con moto second movement was based.  He and the violinist then played the song.  In the movement itself, the melody was played beautifully on the cello, and then decorated by the piano.

Piano and violin were lovely to hear, the pianist playing in a manner appropriate for the period.  The third movement, a sprightly scherzando, was many miles removed from the soulful music that preceded it.  There was delicacy, but muscular energy also; the mood was light and lovely.

I noted that the acoustic was not the best for Schubert’s music: the jolly opening of the fourth movement (allegro molto) brought forth a lively tone, but there were times when I wanted rather more mellowness.  The gorgeous melody from the second movement returned on the cello against pizzicato violin, and sublime passages followed.

Speaking of mellowness – the tweaking of programmes in the audience could be an irritant in quiet passages; a change to a better quality of paper might help to lessen this small problem.

An elegant, quick opening to the Haydn trio revealed the pianist’s ability to make the grand piano almost sound like a fortepiano.  His playing was always delightful and utterly sympathetic.

Sitting nearer to the front of the hall in the second half made, I found, a considerable difference to what I heard.  In the graceful introduction to the slow movement, played with rubato at the ends of the phrases, I could imagine myself in a late eighteenth- century drawing room, such was the intimacy conveyed.  The sparing use of the sustaining pedal, and of vibrato on the strings were part of this effect – but these features did not mean that there was any lack of warmth in the playing.

The fast dance that was the presto final movement had its jauntiness exploited to the full, yet it still had grace as well as jollity.

The Ravel Trio is often performed; when all the subtleties are brought out as in this performance, it is a pleasure to hear.  The sonorous opening was beautifully varied.  The tempi were well-managed, and we heard some superb playing here.  Again, the piano was outstanding.  The Streeton Trio has recorded both the Haydn and the Ravel works, so they know obviously them well.

The delightful grasshopper of the second movement, marked Pantoum (a form of Malay verse) assez vif, jumped, was at rest, and then flew.  The music was very well delineated, whether soft or loud.

The passacaglia third movement was, by contrast, solemn, almost liturgical and elegiac.  There was a steady conversation between the parts.  In the latter part of the movement, the use of mutes on the strings gave an ethereal effect, especially where the strings played without piano.  A sombre song on the cello followed; the piano ended the movement.

In the Finale (animé) the strings trilled harmonics while the piano played a quick passage, followed by solo violin with pizzicato on the cello.  Glissandi and grand chords for the piano were examples of the Spanish influences in Ravel’s music.  Plenty of contrast in dynamics featured, but overall there was a lightness of touch before the thrilling ending.

A musical treat was had by all who attended.

 

 

 

Exemplary concert by NZSM woodwind students at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Pieces by Reinecke, Demersseman, Rachmaninov, John Elmsly, Mozart, Marlcolm Arnold, Poulenc and Jindřich Feld

NZSM Woodwind students: Lena Taylor (flute), Emma Hayes-Smith (alto saxophone), David McGregor (clarinet), Andreea Junc (flute), Hannah Sellars (clarinet), Reuben Chin (soprano saxophone) and NZSM Saxophone Quartet (Chin, Hayes-Smith, Katherine Macieszac (tenor sax)and Sam Jones(baritone sax))

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 1 August 2012, 12.15pm

From one point of view, this was the best presentation yet by NZSM at St. Andrew’s: they made their introductions to the pieces to be played using the microphone, so every word could be heard – hooray!

It was a pity not to have any oboe or bassoon students performing, but those who played had secure techniques and obvious musical sensibilities.  All the accompanied pieces had Kirsten Simpson as piano accompanist; she performed her role impeccably, playing with appropriate refinement and panache as required, and never drowning her colleagues.

Most of the pieces were written for the instruments that played them, the exceptions being Rachmaninov’s famous Vocalise (written for voice) and the Poulenc work, which was an extract from a sonata for oboe and piano, played here on the soprano saxophone.  The Mozart work had piano substituting for orchestra.

Carl Reinecke(1824-1910) is heard quite often on radio, but I seldom hear his work played live.  His Ballade for flute and piano performed by Lena Taylor was quite enchanting in both the flute and the piano parts. The playing was very competent, and the players produced lovely variety of tone.

The Fantaisie for alto saxophone and piano by Jules Demersseman was introduced rather too rapidly (for a large venue) by Emma Hayes-Smith.  From Wikipedia I learn that the Belgian composer lived from 1833 to 1866; Emma informed us that the piece was one of the first to be written for saxophone.  The playing demonstrated how much more dynamic variation can be achieved on the saxophone than on the flute.  The very flexible performance brought out all the elements in what was quite a show piece.

The famous Vocalise sounded fine on the clarinet.  No name of an arranger was given.  David McGregor played well, and gave a very musical rendering of the popular piece, though his breathing was a little noisy.

Andreea Junc played a New Zealand composition: ‘Light and Shade’ from Three Doubles for solo flute, by John Elmsly.  This short piece used various modern techniques of flute-playing, and was very well played, following a very good spoken introduction.

A Mozart Andante for flute and piano was introduced by Natasha Taler as an alternative movement for the composer’s flute concerto in G; it appears(with orchestra)on my recording of the two flute concertos.  The soloist produced a lovely sound, and employed fine phrasing.  Perhaps the performance was a little pedantic and strict, and the piano did not make all the trills that are in the orchestral version I have.  Nevertheless, it was an admirable realisation.

Back to clarinet, with Hannah Sellars playing a movement by Malcolm Arnold.  This was a lively and spiky piece for both performers, with strong rhythm.  Its quirky ending finished an excellent performance.

Poulenc’s writing for winds is always delightful.  Reuben Chin’s somewhat quiet introduction to ‘Trés Calme’ from his Sonata for oboe and piano was very informative; apparently the sonata was commissioned by Prokofiev.  Just as Chin described it, the work was sombre and eloquent.  The contrast between the upper and lower registers was strong, and the range of dynamics large.  The playing was beautifully smooth.  There was a winsome tone in the high register, while the soft passages were most attractively played.

The last piece was a saxophone quartet by Jindřich Feld (the only composer honoured with a first name in the printed programme).  He was a Czech composer who was born in 1925 and died in 2007.  The final movement from his Quatuor de Saxophones was modern and unpredictable in style, yet melodic too.  There was always a lot going on, at considerable speed.  There were jazzy passages, plenty of light and shade, different moods, and variable dynamics.  Beautiful quiet chords at the end contributed to this being an excellent work with which to finish the concert.

A little information about the composers would have enhanced the printed programme, but it was good to see some notes from the Head of Woodwind, Deborah Rawson.

 

 

Interesting recital from first and second year voice students at New Zealand School of Music

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

William McElwee (tenor); Carl Anderson (bass baritone); Rebecca Howan (mezzo-soprano); Olivia Marshall (soprano); Tess Robinson (soprano); Rory Sweeney (baritone); Jamie Henare (bass)
Accompanied by Julie Coulson

St Mark’s Church, Lower Hutt

Wednesday 1 August, 12.15pm

This concert featured seven voice students from the New Zealand School of Music who were either first or second year students and it was a first public performance for four of them. I had noticed only a couple of the names in lesser roles of last year’s wonderful production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream: William McElwee and Tess Robinson.

Rory Sweeney had sung three Brahms Lieder a week before with the Bach Choir. He sang one of them again here: Feldeinsamkeit. In this context, with virtually no preceding German songs, it felt a bit naked and unsubtle; so it was interesting to hear his Donizetti aria, ‘Bella siccome un angelo’ (Don Pasquale) which preceded it, a good opera voice in the making, though still some way to go in command of vocal  character and agility.

Tess Robinson is a soprano who sang a familiar opera aria and then a couple of more adventurous songs. She introduced the first of them, Alleluia by American composer Ned Rorem in a literate manner, and sang its tricky, syncopated rhythms with spirit; and she spoke admiringly of New Zealand composer Anthony Ritchie’s work to introduce ‘Song’ – to a poem by Baxter. She sang it with real feeling, demonstrating  good control of her vocal resources.

Tess’s opera aria was ‘Batti, batti o bel Masetto’ from Don Giovanni in which she somehow expressed the duplicitous character of Zerlina’s plea.

Jamie Henare also sang an opera aria,’Vi ravviso. O luoghi ameni’ from La Sonnambula, with careful handling of the cadenza. There followed a Lied, his voice most imposing in Schubert song – ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’ – sung as if without effort. With his natural bass voice he later sang ‘Deep River’ with marked ease from the very first notes.

And Rebecca Howan sang the first of Schumann’s Frauenliebe und -Leben: ‘Seit ich ihn gesehen’, with an appropriate simplicity of expression. Her first song had been a setting by Thomas Linley, of an 18th century family of composers; he composed an opera from Sheridan’s The Duenna (which, if you need to know, has had modern operatic settings by Prokofiev and Roberto Gerhardt). There were some florid passages that taxed her in ‘O bid your faithful Ariel fly’ from his incidental music for The Tempest, but her voice and demeanour are attractive.

The recital had started with tenor William McElwee singing two folk-song arrangements by Britten. They may have been placed first because it was felt that his later offering from Lehár’s 1928 operetta Friederike (about a love of the young Goethe – c. 1770: his role was sung famously by Richard Tauber) would leave the stronger impression. It was a shrewd move, for intonation was a problem with Britten’s songs, perhaps not helped by the accompaniment which is clever but, to my ears, needlessly thick and tonally obscure. In contrast he introduced ‘O Mädchen mein Mädchen’ with confidence and humour and sang far more accurately and with a certain aplomb.

Carl Anderson followed, with ‘Shenandoah’, singing guilelessly, with simplicity if not investing it with much magic. His second song was also an old favourite: John Ireland’s Sea Fever, again, he needed to take more pains with phrasing and to capture the poet’s powerful longing for the sea with more conviction.

Each singer introduced the songs with well-chosen, often amusing remarks, generally well projected, and acknowledged graciously the support of pianist Julie Coulson whose playing contributed greatly to the general self-possession they exhibited.

That doesn’t prevent human mishaps. First year student Olivia Marshall tackled a pair of arias: she suffered a memory lapse in Alessandro Parisotti’s ‘Se tu m’ami’ (from a collection called arie antiche purportedly by baroque and classical composers; but this one was by himself) which she sang otherwise with a charming voice, sensitive phrasing and a natural rhythm. Then she sang the aria ‘Let me wander not unseen’ from Handel’s L’allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato. An attractive timbre and handling of jolly dotted rhythms carried her through.

There will be further recitals in other venues from more advanced voice students. They are always very much worth looking out for.

Strings and winds – New Zealand School of Music Lunchtime Concerts

Posted on by Peter Mechen

New Zealand School of Music Lunchtime Concerts

NZSM String Ensemble (Martin Riseley, conductor)

MENDELSSOHN – String Symphony in C Minor

DVORAK – Serenade for Strings in E Major

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

Wednesday 18th July 2012

NZSM Woodwind Soloists  (Emma Sayers, piano)

Music by Vivaldi, Arnold, Creston, Sancan, Milhaud, Cockcroft

Old St.Paul’s Church

Tuesday 31st July 2012

It’s always a pleasure to attend and write about concerts of music featuring student performers. Somehow, there’s a unique dimension of expression involved, a kind of tremulousness which at different ends of the performance spectrum can either set things a-tingle with wholehearted enthusiasm or else undermine efforts with nervousness.

There are, of course, plenty of nooks and crannies in-between these extremes, into which inexperienced performers can slot themselves – it’s always a fascinating process to observe and experience, but essentially a heart-warming one, listening to youngsters pouring their feelings into sound-vistas suggested by great music and opened up by the performers’ own skills.

I’ve been to two July concerts recently at which students from the NZ School of Music were performing – one on Wednesday 18th, at St.Andrew’s Church, involving a string ensemble playing music by Mendelssohn and Dvorak, and the other on Tuesday 31st, at Old St.Paul’s Church, which featured individual wind instrumentalists making plenty of variety of sounds in music from different composers.

At St.Andrew’s on-the-Terrace, Martin Riseley, violinist extraordinaire, and a tutor at the School of Music, directed the string ensemble. He got a terrific response from the young players right throughout the Mendelssohn work, the String Symphony in C Minor – at the outset the players’ precise attack and focused tones gave us a foretaste of the whole performance’s strength and clarity. Throughout the whole ensemble there seemed a similar full-blooded commitment to giving the music resplendent tones and clear articulation – the lower strings sang their lines and figurations with as much eloquence and finesse as their lighter-toned cousins opposite.

The lunchtime concert time-schedules wouldn’t permit the whole of the work which followed, Dvorak’s Serenade for Strings, so that we had to do without the gorgeous slow movement. For the Dvorak the violin sections “swopped around”, bringing some different faces to the fore for the concert’s second part. Though a lovely work, the Serenade contains many pitfalls of articulation and rhythm, to the despair of amateur orchestras I’ve heard attempt it; and so I was interested as to how these young players would fare.

It began well, the serene opening nicely floated and counterpointed between upper and lower strings, the lines relaxed in flight and with plenty of elbow-room. The second subject I found a bit beefily-played, wanting, I thought, a lighter, more quixotic touch, so as to make a telling contrast with the crescendo, and render that top note in each phrase a bit more wide-eyed with wonderment. But the divisi ‘cellos were lovely, the players able to fill out their tones and fine them down in places most sensitively, as with the movement’s end. The following Waltz-movement was beautifully done, with violas making their presence felt in those all-important middle textures – and the music’s trio-section brought out the dynamic contests with plenty of heartfelt expression.

Dvorak’s wonderfully out-of-doors manner throughout the third movement was nicely captured, the excitement built up in the opening measures as the melody spread throughout the orchestra, and the melting romance of the music’s descending theme expressed beautifully, especially by the ‘cellos. However, I wanted a bit more emphasis given to those wonderful downwardly leaping intervals at the phrase-ends during the middle section (I think they’re fifths and sevenths) – here they were all “snapped shut” too readily for me, without being properly savoured! But then there was nice work from the violins leading back to the opening “running” section, a real sense of the music riding the crest of a wave in places, even if the string-tone was a bit dogged and scrappy here and there.

Maybe the ensemble ought to have finished with the slow movement instead of the finale, the latter being such a tricky beast to bring off. The rhythms really have to be “felt” rather than “counted” (as Ken Young would have said!) – and the lines are so cruelly exposed. There’s also a lot of near “sotto voce” work which I thought the players found it hard to make into part of a coherent line – I felt we got “going through the motions” playing rather than something with sweep, drive and purpose. Better, surely for these young musicians to have been encouraged to throw themselves into things like the ferment of that famous crescendo, and make something rough but exciting and abandoned of it, rather than produce the somewhat dogged get-the-notes-right impression that we got in places here.

However, we did get a lovely transition back into the return of the work’s very opening (a heart-warming touch from the composer!), and the energetic plunge back into the allegro vivace rounded it all off with honour satisfied. Still, it was the group’s playing of the Mendelssohn which I enjoyed, nay, really took to heart on this occasion – so very engaging and exciting to experience.

 

My second NZSM reviewing assignment was just under a fortnight later at Old St.Paul’s, where a number of wind students presented their “pieces”, the exercise being part of their course requirements, to, I might say, the audience’s pleasure and delight. This concert also brought added value with the wonderful accompaniments (some of them more out-and-out partnerships than accompaniments!) by the School of Music’s Emma Sayers, whose playing invariably adds a new dimension to whatever music she takes part in presenting.

Beginning the program (with a Vivaldi concerto, rather than the Handel the program was suggesting) was Oscar Laven, playing the bassoon. Here was the instrument relishing the role of singer and romancer as well as being a “character”. Oscar Laven’s phrasing of the lyrical episodes was of bel canto quality, to which was added a strong but flexible rhythmic sense, and plenty of virtuoso verve, as withness the rapid runs towards the end of the work. This was followed by Jeewon Um’s performance of Malcolm Arnold’s Fantasy for Solo Flute, the lyrical opening enchanting and the dance-like episodes spectacularly virtuosic.

Saxophonist Sam Jones very “correctly” introduced the Paul Creston Sonata for Alto Saxophone and Piano, wanting to emphasize for the audience the difficulty of the Sonata’s piano part, and properly acknowledge Emma Sayers’ contribution to the performance. He played brilliantly, with a stunning command of colour and technical agility, crucial in music with as much rhythmic energy as this! As absorbing to listen to was the piano part, the two musicians triumphantly realizing the piece’s tonal variety and underlying dynamism – a great listen!

An almost complete contrast was afforded by flutist Monique Vossen’s choice of Pierre Sancan’s Sonatine, the composer’s best-known work – the opening sequences impressionistic-sounding, rather in the style of Ravel, and with corresponding fairy-tale ambiences and textures. I thought the tuning between instruments wasn’t right in places, here (no tuning of the flute  was done beforehand that we could see), but though it didn’t mask the player’s artistry the pitch discrepancy was occasionally a distraction. In other respects rapport between flute and piano was exemplary, each taking rhythmic and melodic cues from one another, everything done with an enviably light touch and expressive purpose.

Another saxophonist, Reuben Chin, played an exerpt from Milhaud’s Scaramouche, a work whose popularity had resulted in all kinds of arrangements being made of the original piano duo for various instruments, not all of them by the composer. Here, the player exhibited a lovely singing tone as the music moved from dreamscape to graceful dance, the musicians relishing the expressive possibilities of lyrical saxophone and gently rhythmic piano accompaniment. Nothing could have been further from the style of Patrick Hayes’ performance for solo clarinet of Barry Cockcroft’s “Blue Tongue” (the composer simply HAD to be an Australian to write a piece with such a title!). More decomposition than anything else, the piece involved the player gradually dismantling the instrument, while trying to keep the piece going, and unifying the music with an reiterated rhythmic note. In putting it all across, Patrick Hayes demonstrated an entertainer’s gift as well as a musician’s skills in keeping the proceedings alive and buoyant throughout.

Yet another saxophonist, Katherine Macieszac, finished the concert in fine style with the third movement of the same work that Sam Jones had earlier played part of, Paul Creston’s Sonata for Alto Sax and Piano. Bustling 5/4 beginnings and an engaging garrulity swept the opening argument along between the musicians – first we heard the sax singing songs over the piano’s toccata-like drive, then listened to the instruments swap places, the saxophone rolling the rapid-fire notes into a blur agains the piano’s melodic progressions. For respite there were a few lyrical sequences before the 5/4 rhythm reawakened, and the piece drove to its energetic, breathless conclusion.

Fine, virtuosic playing from all concerned throughout the concert, communicating in almost all the items we heard, a real sense of enjoyment in the music-making.

 

 

Jian Liu – pianist in full flight at the Ilott

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Chamber Music presents

Jian Liu –  a “Fantasia” recital

CPE BACH – Fantasia in C Major W 59/6  / BEETHOVEN – Fantasia in G Minor Op.77

LISZT – Apres une lecture de Dante; fantasia quasi sonata  / MOZART – Fantasia in D Minor K.397

SCHUBERT – Fantasie in C Major “Wanderer” D.760

Jian Liu (piano)

Ilott Theatre, Wellington Town Hall

Sunday 29th July 2012

At the interval, after pianist Jian Liu’s blistering traversal of the Liszt Dante Sonata, I was approached by a piano-fancier friend, whose aspect was one of great excitement and agitation: transfixing me with an intense, fire-flashing gaze, he exclaimed, “I hope you’re going to write up this recital as the greatest Wellington has heard for years!”. Being in a somewhat euphoric state myself, after the Liszt, I nevertheless managed to remember the farmer in one of Carl Sandburg’s dialogue poems, who, in response to the question, “Lived here all your life?” replied with a laconic “Not yit!”. But I still added my two cents’ worth regarding what I’d heard so far to the paeans of praise from others who joined us, to my friend’s momentary, if not complete, satisfaction.

Certainly, Jian Liu’s performance of Liszt’s visionary exploration of the spirit of Dante’s Divine Comedy seemed like an all-encompassing display of both technical brilliance and poetic identification with the music. I had heard Liu relatively recently in recital, playing the same composer’s B Minor Sonata, and thought at the time that his Lisztian credentials were pretty impressive (the review of that concert is also on Middle C). However, in terms of overall effect, Liu’s playing here for me surpassed that earlier performance in almost every aspect. And while my allegiance to Diedre Irons’ Liszt-playing remains unshaken in terms of her incomparable variety of touch and poetry of phrasing, Liu’s more austere way with the pianistic textures was allied to a tremendous intellectual grip of the music’s overall shape and form which at the time swept all before it. It was no wonder my friend was thus transported by it all.

The overall idea of the recital – that of exploring difference composers’ treatment of the idea of “fantasia” – brought forth fascinating results, especially in the first half. In a sense, what threw the Liszt work into bold relief was the relative emptiness of the piece that preceded it, a work by Beethoven, no less, though not one of the master’s greatest compositional efforts. In fact, this Fantasia in G Minor has never seemed to me to bear out the contention that Beethoven was one of the greatest improvisers of his age, one capable of putting every other virtuoso of the time to flight in those “contests” that pianists of the early Romantic era  (and before, remembering Mozart and Clementi) seemed to occasionally take part in. It’s pretty thin stuff, really, with occasional flashes of the “Ludwig Van” of the great sonatas, placed cheek-by-jowl with handfuls of somewhat tiresome show-off stock pianistic figurations.

My feeling is that the “real” Beethoven would have improvised with much greater freedom and contrast than this piece exhibits – perhaps the “writing down” of what was meant, after all, to be a spontaneous recreation of musical thought has spoiled it. One thinks of Lady Bracknell’s description of natural ignorance in “The Importance of Being Earnest” – “Ignorance is like a delicate, exotic fruit. Touch it, and the bloom is gone.” I thought also that the contrast with Mozart’s famous D MInor Fantasia K.397, which Liu played to open the recital’s second half was instructive regarding the compositional methods of each of the composers – Mozart, we are told, tended to “compose in his head” and then write down what he’d worked out, whereas Beethoven’s processes were far more visible in the form of scraps of motifs, figurations and sequences which filled his sketch-books, like a sculptor hewing at an ever-present shape or form, and bringing it into being. In this respect, Mozart’s work seemed finished, whereas Beethoven’s had the feel of a work very much in progress.

The recital opened with a Fantasia by another stormy petrel, CPE Bach, whose music I particularly love for its volatility and its juxtaposition of beauty with angularity. Jian Liu brough out this Fantasia’s capricious spirit with a will – here was a sense of fun at work expressed in delightfully unpredictable ways, even if the composer somewhat over-milked the repeated two-note figure which served as an omni-present watcher on all the other goings-on. Liu showed excellent “evocation” instincts in his playing of this piece, characterizing the different moods strongly and bringing to bear an enviable command of dynamic and keyboard colours. What CPE’s father, the great Johann Sebastien, would have thought of it all, I couldn’t begin to think, though, of course one remembers he was no mean fantasia-writer himself.

So, after these two somewhat frivolous explorations of keyboard capriciousness, the Liszt work hit us like a thunderbolt, and especially in Jian Liu’s hands. While I couldn’t, in the wake of hearing those two Russian women pianists, Sofia Gulyak and Halida Dinova, earlier in the year, award the palm for “the greatest recital in years” to Jian, his playing of the Liszt placed his pianism fully on their level, if from a vastly different tradition. It would be outside the scope of this review to analyze just why Liu’s playing made the impression on me that it did. But in one important respect it had what I felt was slightly lacking in the same pianist’s  earlier recital also featuring Liszt’s music – an all-pervading resonance, a sustenance of tone which here opened up whole vistas of expression, ranging from the blackest oblivion to the most shimmering and scintillating light. In terms of energy and impulse it was playing I’ve rarely heard surpassed by anybody in recital, in places. It was art which largely concealed art, to Jian Liu’s credit – throughout, one felt the presence of both Liszt and of Dante, ahead of that of a pianist making these evocations possible.

Having gotten our sensibilities properly calmed down during the interval, we felt able to return to our seats for some more music – first up was the delicious D Minor Fantasia by Mozart. I was interested in what Jian Liu would do with this work, as Mozart never finished it, and posthumous editions have “rounded off” the allegro section with a concluding flourish and cadence which I’m afraid sounds worthy but somewhat glib. A recording of this work by the Japanese pianist Mitsuko Uchida adopted what to my ears seemed like a wonderful solution – i.e. to return to the opening arpeggios of the work, modulate in the same way, and then conclude with a final major-key archway which ends quietly in the bass. However, Jian Liu preferred to follow the Breitkopf Gesamtausgabe’s aforementioned “completion” – and his dignified, sensitive playing made the conclusion sound of a piece with the rest. But what a charming and beautiful work it is, the ideas given plenty of “air” by Liu, preserving something of the piece’s spontaneity despite its finished aspect.

The afternoon’s concluding “fantasia” was the renowned “Wanderer Fantasy” by Schubert. Pianists themselves seem divided regarding the legendary technical difficulties accompanying this work – Schubert himself was reputed to have said, upon leaping from the piano after an abortive attempt to play the work in public, “The devil may play it, for I cannot!”. As regards Schubert’s oeuvre for solo piano, it is clearly the most technically demanding, though whether it challenges the executant difficulties of some of the other virtuoso pieces of the Romantic repertoire seems to be a matter of opinion. Called the “Wanderer” Fantasy because of the work’s direct quotation from the theme of Schubert’s own Lied “Der Wanderer” of 1816, the piece has four distinct sections, though is played without a break. It was a favorite of Liszt’s who made a transcription of the piece for piano and orchestra, and who was also inspired by Schubert’s technique of “thematic transformation” to produce works like his own B Minor Sonata.

Straightaway, Jian Liu engaged us physically with the music, making wonderful use of dynamic terracings to give the sounds  plenty of organically-conceived variation – thanks to Liu’s unfailing sense of the music’s direction, the argument always seems to be going somewhere, and never put in a rhythmic or colouristic straitjacket. Though the physical effort of engaging with those notes was made apparent, and one or two of the arpeggiated figurations sounded a bit blurred around the edges, the playing’s essential energy and liveliness carried us joyfully along, eventually bringing us to the edges of a deep, richly-layered region of dark stillness and mystery. Here, the music became all of a sudden hymn-like and entranced, almost religious in feeling (no wonder Liszt couldn’t keep his hands off it!), the initial simplicity of the lied-melody then fragmenting into a hundred eager voices, creating a ferment of activity growing from the textures of the music. Here Liu’s ear for detail meant that the dappled strands of sound impulse were kept flowing and undulating – marvellous playing.

The presto episode again had that sense of boundless energy, some elemental life-force expressing a kind of cosmic joy and high spirits, one whose voltage increased and crackled as the concluding fugue hove into view. So, the pianist might have dropped a few notes here and there! – what was far more important was that the music’s momentum was gloriously maintained, everybody, pianist and listeners caught up in a kind of trajectoried trance whose culminating wave of energy occasioned great scenes of appreciation from an excited audience. Wisely, Jian Liu brought us all back from fever pitch with a transcription of a Richard Strauss song, very Schubert-like, rapt and beautiful, a fitting conclusion to a memorable afternoon of music.

 

 

 

Bach Choir recovers its earlier renown with fine concert of Mendelssohn and Brahms

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Bach Choir of Wellington conducted by Stephen Rowley, accompanied by pianists Douglas Mews and Diedre Irons

Mendelssohn: Six songs to sing in the open air (Sechs Lieder im Freien zu singer), Op 41 and Six duets for voice and piano, Op 63 (with Rebekah Giesbers – mezzo soprano and Ailsa Lipscombe – soprano)
Brahms: Die Mainacht, No 2 from Op 43; Feldeinsamkeit, No 2 from Op 86; Botschaft, No 1 from Op 47 (with Rory Sweeney – baritone)
Hungarian Dances Nos 1, 3, 6
Liebeslieder Walzer, Op 52

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Saturday 28 July, 5pm

This concert had been originally scheduled for the evening, but was moved to 5pm when it was realised that it clashed with the Orpheus Choir’s major performance of Bernstein’s Candide in the Town Hall.

The clash would probably have been more damaging to the Bach Choir than to its big cousin. As a result (I suppose), quite a large audience came to this concert. A good programme was available giving words in both German and English with informative notes about the composers and the works.

The choir was on very good form. The balance and ensemble were admirable and the choir held audience attention through their sensitive variations in dynamics and articulation. Though probably with too few tenors, and perhaps as a whole, not presenting quite the level of vocal polish of the women, the men’s contribution was more than adequate.

Mendelssohn composed the set of open air songs to be sung on a summer evening in a forest near Frankfurt and a letter to his mother described their delightful effect in words that could, with a few modifications, describe this performance. They were, naturally, set for unaccompanied singing, and the choir generally avoided the problem of slipping intonation.  The texts included three poems by Heine, together entitled Tragödie, first published in 1837 in a collection called ‘Salon’, and later collected in Neue Gedichte of 1844. They tell a typical tale of ill-fated love, but in the last poem the lovers’ common grave is the tryst of blissful lovers of a later time,  oblivious of the earlier event. The musical settings did not perhaps capture the tone of fatalism though it was hinted through understated musical figures and moods. The sixth poem, Auf dem See by Goethe, expresses in words and music an optimism in the superiority of present life and love over the longings of a dream world, and the choir captured it in fast, joyous triple time.

Mendelssohn’s six open air songs are hardly masterpieces; the settings follow a conventional strophic pattern, in which the last two lines of the text are usually repeated; melodies are pleasant if not especially memorable.

The other Mendelssohn songs were four of his Six Duets, Op 63, and they were scattered through the rest of the programme. They were sung, with Douglas Mews at the piano, by Rebekah Giesbers, mezzo soprano and Ailsa Lipscombe, soprano; the two voices blended very agreeably and the guileless spirit of words and music emerged happily from them. Again, however, the somewhat formulaic pattern of the settings and their avoidance of anything in the nature of tragedy or fatefulness lent them an air of blandness.

So it was a good idea to intersperse them with the three somewhat more profound and complex Brahms songs, taken from different collections, between the late 1860s and 1877, all sung by baritone Rory Sweeney.  The first, Die Mainacht by Hölty, was a bit of a warm-up for the singer, but he dealt very capably with the second and third songs, Feldeinsamkeit and Botschaft, minor poems but both intrinsically more interesting songs than Mendelssohn’s, capturing a more enigmatic mood and Brahms’s gift for illuminating the words. He managed to highlight the quoted words of the message (Botschaft), creating an effective little dramatic scene.

Diedre Irons joined Mews to play three of Brahms’s Hungarian Dances, in the original piano duet form. With the piano lid off, the sound, at least at the start, was rather coarse, and while Nos 3 and 6 were more refined there was an air of spontaneity about the performances.

Finally, the original version of Brahms’s Liebeslieder waltzes, Op 52, with both pianists, and the chorus (the original was envisaged for vocal quartet). Initially it sounded slightly loose in ensemble and articulation but by the third song things were going very well and the whole half-hour sequence was carried off with a panache and delight, an ever-changing spirit as Brahms was inspired by the light-hearted folk-based words with their little dramas and tableaux, that was hardly to have been expected.

With this concert of not altogether great and profound music, as well as other recent outings, the Bach Choir has recovered its position as one of Wellington’s important choirs, which causes one to look forward to their November concert of Handel’s Dixit Dominus and Vivaldi’s Beatus Vir.

 

 

 

 

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.