John Chen’s highly rewarding detour for piano recital at Waikanae

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

(Waikanae Music Society)

Mozart: Piano Sonata No 15 in F, K 533 and K 494; Enescu: Piano Sonata No 1 in F sharp minor, Op 24 No 1; Dorothy Buchanan: From the Mountain to the River; Schumann: Fantasie in C, Op 17

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Sunday 2 September, 2.30pm

John Chen paid a flying visit from Auckland to play this one concert for the Waikanae Music Society after which he returned to Auckland to pick up his flight the same evening, to Hamburg. The good citizens of Kapiti could well feel privileged.

The Waikanae hall which is basically an indoor sports arena has not been an ideal music venue, particularly for chamber music, has been cleverly adapted so that sound projects more strongly and cleanly. A recessed stage was created a few years ago which acts as a kind of amplifier, and this has recently been improved with a hard-surfaced ceiling at 45 degrees which further enhances the sound.

Chen cultivates a reputation for looking out for unusual music, and it is music that generally rewards his risk-taking. That was certainly the case here with two rather unfamiliar pieces. Mozart’s Sonata No 15 is not unfamiliar, but it is just not so often played as half a dozen other sonatas that are more popular.

It was composed in two separate parts. In June 1786 he had written a Rondo (or Rondeau in one account), to which Köchel gave the number 494, and some months later he wrote an Allegro and Andante.  At his publisher Hoffmeister’s request, he joined those two movements with the earlier Rondo, adding a twenty-seven measure cadenza to it, to form a three-movement sonata.`

Chen’s playing introduced it unpretentiously, light and confident, yet betraying its sophisticated, contrapuntal character and the interesting inner voices seemed to gain particular point.  His articulation was precise, with lively staccato, all of which commanded attention.

Each movement contains musical ideas that are both attractive and arresting and which lend themselves to imaginative development; the themes are not especially catchy, but they soon take on the nature of a thinking person’s sonata. The meaningful pauses in the Andante movement are not characteristic of a late 17th century work; : each note, in Chen’s hands, seemed to be in the inevitably right place, and it was as if Mozart was responding to an instinct that was taking him rather wide of the conventions of his day.

It was the next piece that was the real discovery: Enescu’s first piano sonata. He wrote three, but the second has been lost; in the light of this one, that is very sad. Everyone has expectations of Enescu through the two wonderful Romanian Rhapsodies (the second, much less played, is quieter but just as infectious); the reality of the other music that he’s written is quite different however, and his opera Oedipe is ranked by many among the great operas of the 20th century. I have long regretted having to opt out of booked seats to see it in Bucharest about eight years ago.

The opening is very plain, single notes, but slowly complexity gathers, rhythms and tonalities shift to create an air of unease or instability; it place in the march of music history is defined by an occasional subtle bluesy harmony, but its ancestry can only be heard as coming from the eastern side of the Atlantic. If there are traces of Romanian folk music, they merely go to show that my acquaintance with that music is uncultivated. The general impression is of a work rich in melody of a fleeting kind, that makes its points obliquely and modestly. I Googled the work (as one does almost routinely these days – my set of the New Grove Dictionary of Music gets consulted much less) and found a review of a performance which made excellent general remarks about the music:

“Perhaps one reason why not a lot of pianists have paid attention to Enescu is because, while it is fiendishly difficult to play, the music rarely offers virtuosic thrills that bring concert audiences to their feet. To be sure, playing Enescu is just as difficult as playing Bartok, Ravel, Prokofiev or Rachmaninov, but Enescu requires a selfless kind of virtuosity, one that goes far beyond absolute control of the instrument.”

I thought there were weaknesses, not in the playing, but in passages that struck me as prolonged by needless passagework or repetition of mere decoration; and, particularly in the second movement, the promise of an interesting development that was tantalisingly unfulfilled. However, Chen’s achievement was to invest such moments with interest and liveliness, and the last movement slowly created a ravishing and magical landscape by which all minor misgivings were forgotten.

A short impressionistic piece by Wellington composer Dorothy Buchanan opened the second half, imaginative, unpretentious, and Chen gave it a gentle, careful reading.

The big draw-card was of course Schumann’s Fantaisie in C, widely loved even by those poor souls who don’t love Schumann’s music unreservedly.  Though it is allowable to regret that he did not quite find this glorious vein of composition again. Chen revealed a real affection for it through playing that was both hugely capable (it’s not for amateurs, I say sadly), but poetic and restrained, and in the powerful central movement giving full vent to all of the composer’s wonderful impulsiveness, never mind a couple of unimportant smudges, and expressed so rapturously, the composer’s ecstatic hopes for a future with his beloved Clara.

And so, after rather clamorous applause, he played the Prelude to Bach’s 4th English Suite in F, BWV 809.

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Gendall’s Triple Concerto perplexing highlight of Wellington Orchestra concert

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

‘The Toy Box’

Vector Wellington Orchestra conducted by Marc Taddei

Haydn: Symphony No 60 in C (Il distratto); Triple Concerto by Chris Gendall with the NZ Trio (Justine Cormack – violin, Ashley Brown – cello, Sarah Watkins – piano); Debussy: ballet score – La boîte à joujoux – narrator: Jackie Clarke

Wellington Town Hall

Saturday 1 September, 7.30pm

This concert was performed in the Masterton Town Hall on the previous night.

In Wellington, there was a rather smaller audience than in the past, and one can only surmise the reasons;  perhaps, the absence of a thematic link that has been so successful in the past?

Il Distratto
Haydn’s 60th symphony, (Il distratto, or the absent-minded man) was in part a satire on the incompetent composer whose command of form and taste is deficient, which was a not uncommon procedure in the classical era when matters of form were very important.

The spoofs began with the opening Allegro, with the leading motif dying out as if the hero of the story was experiencing memory loss; not once but several times. The second movement involved the juxtaposition of alien tempos. And so it goes till the last movement when bad tuning causes the whole orchestra to stop in chaos and to re-tune laboriously.

My old LP of this symphony, under Vittorio Gui, explains that Haydn actually instructed the violins to tune the G string down a tone at the start of the Finale which creates the foreign harmony of D minor when the two bottom strings play together; it is that which brings about the chaos.

The effect on the night was funny nevertheless as the retuning process is a totally unprofessional procedure; the orchestra played it with a suppressed smile that was audible, staking out the music variously, in a vein that was mock serioso or absurd, and it brought the symphony to a end, promising perhaps that the rest of the concert might carry on in the same high spirits.

Chris Gendall’s premiere
There could have been nothing more different than the next work. My earlier experience of Chris Gendall’s music had led me to considerable curiosity about a work with a title suggesting a move into the Beethovenian heartland of symphonic music. It was not that; and there was no time to make any calm, spiritual preparation for what followed.

The last piece of Gendall’s I heard was Intaglio; it too was played by the NZ Trio, both at a Mulled Wine concert at Paekakariki and at Lower Hutt (I heard both, mainly in order better to grasp Intaglio).

The NZ Trio is a leading advocate of new New Zealand music, especially of the more adventurous kind, and their contribution in this performance was quite as prominent as such a soloist group would ordinarily be. But there was little familiar in the way they interacted or used their instruments.

The relationship between trio and orchestra bore no relationship to any Beethoven-born expectations: no conventional rivalry, but a completely integrated sensation, all contributing in the ways suggested primarily by the possibilities of the instruments themselves.

Gendall was a music graduate of Victoria University and has since completed doctoral studies at Cornell University. He has been celebrated at international festivals and conferences on contemporary music, and he has been a frequent prize winner, starting with the Lilburn composition prize at Victoria University. He was Composer-in-residence at the New Zealand School of Music and is now Composer-in-residence with the Vector Wellington Orchestra which has led to this performance.

You will find four other reviews of his music on this website by using ‘search’.

The Triple Concerto
Some of those reviews, though admiring, suggested a dense and difficult character. That was indeed the case with this concerto, which is probably one of the largest and most ambitious works Gendall has undertaken. I should have made an attempt to hear it in rehearsal; to read the score of such an extraordinarily multifaceted, complex work would have been no help at all (extracts are on the SOUNZ website).

The programme booklet did not have space for notes that appear on the SOUNZ website, recording Gendall’s description of it. It might have helped define beginnings and endings of the five sections of the music, let alone to get the hang of the musical ideas, and their evolution.

Here is the link: Chris Gendall’s Thumbnail Sketch of the Triple Concerto

Perhaps the music’s character will be suggested by a quote from Gendall’s programme notes, that explains the five movements as “traversing a variety of sonic terrain, … to explore the distinction between diffused sounds and those in close proximity in rhythmic, harmonic and physical space”.  The latter was demonstrated, among other things, by disposing a number of brass players around the perimeter of the gallery, hinting fleetingly at Gabrieli-style sounds, but that proved misleading. In the event I felt the opportunity to create some kind of major stereophonic effect was not fully exploited.

If the impact of the sounds, relentlessly produced and making formidable demands on players’ accuracy and skills of all kinds,  left many in the audience bemused or confused, the work nevertheless displayed an accomplishment and aural imagination that would probably gain it attention in international contemporary music circles. For it demonstrates a most impressive command of compositional techniques and command of orchestration that would amaze Berlioz or Rimsky-Korsakov, but which are the material of today’s version of the avant-garde.

But just as the old-fashioned virtuoso aimed to overwhelm his listeners by putting all his skills on show, so in a show-piece of avant-gardism, technical brilliance, the impulse to demonstrate a command of an astonishing array of composerly skills, leaves this listener feeling bewildered, first through the sheer multiplicity of sounds and their transformations, and secondly from an overwhelming sense of the music’s complex intellectual character; which can leave a feeling of dismay and frustration at one’s inability to grasp and hence enjoy the music. Does the music have a heart?  Are there human emotions at work there? Is there a soul? The answer may be, Yes, but there can be a problem if some glimmering of those things cannot be perceived.

Little music of this kind is actually performed in normal orchestral concerts for ordinary music-lovers, however. On the other hand, performance of new music in the exclusive environment of the contemporary music concert or festival is a defeatist response, for the ordinary music lover has not in the past found digestible material there, and they stay away.  One fruitful solution can be a ten minute exploration of some of the key elements of a new piece in the concert itself, before the piece is played.

One can say, as many listeners do, that composers would do themselves and their potential audiences a favour by refraining from employing all the extremely advanced notions, concepts and techniques they might command, for the sake of engaging with their listeners.

La boîte à joujoux
Debussy’s La boîte à joujoux is one of his least known extended pieces. I’d not heard it before. Though written in 1913 while Debussy was alive, it was not produced as a ballet till 1919, when he was dead, at the Théâtre lyrique du vaudeville in Paris.

It was written for his own daughter, nicknamed Chouchou (c.f. Joujoux), based on a scenario by painter André Hellé, but left in 1913 as a piano four-hands score, with only 93 measures orchestrated. The orchestration was completed by composer/conductor André Caplet, after its first performance as a ballet was delayed by the war.  This performance, without dancers, needed a means of telling the story and Dave Armstrong adapted a spoken narrative drawn from a scenario (was it the original by Hellé or something prepared later for a possible concert performance such as this one?).

But even though delivered vividly by actress Jackie Clarke, in a manner that was charming and entertaining (though her voice was often overwhelmed by passages of orchestral tutti), it didn’t really change it from a rather childish confection.

The music itself was rather slight, though tuneful and pleasant, especially that for the Pretty Doll, but it’s clearly not a neglected masterpiece which explains, I suppose, why it has not become familiar, and has not even inspired the extraction of a suite.

However, Marc Taddei had inspired the orchestra to play as if it was a delightful, undervalued treasure; what more can you ask?

So here was a programme that had some hurdles to clear, some of which were just a little too high to achieve a uniformly polished, flawless concert. Nevertheless, though this was not an unmixed triumph in terms of the box office and audience response, its exotic and eclectic character made its impact, and reflecting on it over the next two days was to recall it all with increasing satisfaction, and certainly a sense of discovery.

 

A fine recital of Fauré mélodies at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Songs by Fauré sung by The VoxBox:  Megan Corby (soprano) and Craig Beardsworth (baritone)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 29 August, 12.15pm

I last heard these two accomplished singers at a lunchtime concert at St Mark’s church, Lower Hutt, a few months ago, when  they sang an amusing variety of American songs. For Wellington City they chose a slightly more rigorous programme, though only in the sense that all the songs were by one composer, and a classical composer whom many would not rank among the top ten.

But this little recital went some way to establish Fauré as a composer who can easily sustain interest in a programme dedicated solely to him.

The two took turns. Megan Corby sang the first two songs: Au bord de l’eau, a charming barcarolle, which served to get piano and voice in balance with each other; dynamics were a little uneven, but her French was carefully delivered; then Ici bas, in which her attractive voice found a comfortable level; it’s a lament on the shortcomings of life on earth compared with another life elsewhere. Both were songs to poems by Sully-Prudhomme. (He was associated with the group known as Parnassiens, who advanced the notion of l’art pour l’art – ‘art for art’s sake’).

Craig Beardsworth sang a third song to a Sully-Prudhomme poem, Les berceaux. It was good to hear his voice in such good shape, in a song that called for subtlety where his velvety baritone seemed sleepily suited; the idea is unusual, with a rocking motion that relates both to a cradle, and to a boat whose shape also suggests a cradle: the words reflect on the roles of men and women,

Megan returned for Aurore by an obscure poet, Armand Silvestre, and her voice flowed comfortably over its long lines. (Silvestre, incidentally, was more noted as a playwright; he wrote the play HenryVIII that Saint-Saëns set as an opera). She followed with the languorous Les roses d’Ispahan by Leconte de Lisle, the leader of the Parnassiens, capturing a fitting sensuous quality.

Craig offered a few comments before some of his songs. He explained the origin of Nell (also Leconte de Lisle), as derived from a poem by Burns and his singing was enriched by its varied timbres. Craig’s remarks before several of the songs were apt and well-informed: I am not one who has an objection to performers speaking.

Megan next sang one of Fauré’s best-known songs, Après un rêve. Her delivery was a little more declamatory than its lines seemed to suggest to me: rather whispered.

Craig, without the score in front of him, sang a trilogy of songs, Poème du jour (by another obscure poet, Charles Grandmougin). Though minor poems, Fauré has created a set of expressive songs telling a predictable little love story, in which Craig’s voice rose comfortably, occasionally, into the tenor register.

Megan’s final songs were Chanson d’amour, Clair de lune and Mandoline – the last two to poems by Verlaine. Chanson d’amour was slight enough, repeating unvaried the words ‘Je t’aime’ at the start of each stanza, but she created an air of superficial contentment. Both Clair de lune and Mandoline are settings of good poems in some of Fauré’s loveliest music, and Megan explored their individual character most affectingly, leaving a convincing impression of a singer with the secrets of the French mélodie in her soul.

Craig’s last songs were Le secret (about which he told an anecdote: Fauré who was never a confident composer, had played it to Duparc who exclaimed: ‘Bête sauvage’ which reassured Fauré that he’d been successful); and En sourdine, also by Verlaine. Over an accompaniment of broken arpeggios, it refers to a muted stringed instrument, though it’s a song of wide-ranging character that would hardly call for a mute if played on a violin, and was a fine way to confirm Beardsworth’s accomplishments as a sensitive singer of French mélodies.

The whole programme was very well conceived and, given the outdoor attractions of nice weather, well received by a quite large audience.

 

 

Brahms the Second? – perhaps Herzogenberg the First?

Posted on by Peter Mechen

St Mark’s Lower Hutt Concert Series

BEETHOVEN and HERZOGENBERG

Jane Young (‘cello) / Hugh McMillan (piano)

BEETHOVEN- ‘Cello Sonata No.4 in C Op.102 No.1

HERZOGENBERG – ‘Cello Sonata No.3 in E-flat Op.94

St.Mark’s Church, Woburn, Lower Hutt

Wednesday, 29th August 20

What a lovely concert! – a wonderful idea by Jane Young and Hugh McMillan to present something of a “standard classic” in tandem with something else rather less known, to the advantage of both!

In a sense, each of the pieces represented an adventure, albeit of a different kind. Beethoven’s Op.102 ‘Cello Sonatas completed the process already begun by the composer with his Op.69 Sonata, of inventing something new – an “equal partnership” between ‘cello and piano for such an instrumental combination.

By comparison, Herzonberg’s work seemed to bravely and steadfastly explore paths already trodden by giants such as Brahms, managing, in places, to convey his own late-Romantic slant to the familiar terrain, with attractive and absorbing results.

The Beethoven Sonata opened beautifully and tremulously, as if the composer was depicting the unfurling of a flower in the sunlight – the phrasing between both players properly resonated, their full accord expressed through a sense of hand-in-glove phrasing and beautifully-modulated tones. Beethoven seemed here to be anticipating Schumann’s poetical musings, his themes at once spontaneously expressive and contained, hinting at darker feelings.

The Allegro vivace alternated freely between playfulness and purpose, only the ‘cello’s highest notes giving any suggestion of strain for the player. It all made a telling contrast with the Adagio’s relative darkness and gradual lightening of mood.

Both players timed their respective “not ready yet” figurations at the finale’s beginning to perfection, the ‘cello’s wonderful drone-notes creating whole worlds of mystery, which the piano then gently mocked with “Well,are you coming along?” phrases.

I thought Jane Young’s and Hugh McMillan’s playing gave the episode a wonderful “boys’ and girls’ own” freshness of utterance and movement. But their playing of the whole sonata was as good, at practically every point presenting their listeners with opportunities in the music for engagement and participation. I felt the musicians made practically every note of the work eloquent and distinctive.

Hugh McMillan talked briefly about our “mystery” composer, Heinrich von Herzogenberg, one whose name I knew in connection with Brahms, via correspondence between the latter and Elisabet von Herzogenberg. Brahms was on good terms with both husband and wife, though he may have harboured a secret passion for Elisabet, whom he wrote to frequently. Towards the end of his life he paid a kind of belated homage to Herzogenberg’s music, acknowledging its quality.

Herzogenberg’s ‘Cello Sonata No.3 does show the influence of his great contemporary in places, especially in the piano writing throughout the opening movement, while in other places I detected vestiges of the Mendelssohn of the Octet. The last few pages of the movement achieved a swing and flow amid a grandeur of utterance that seemed the composer’s own, as did much of the slow movement, though again the piano writing had a big-boned Brahmsian feel to it. The players readily enjoyed the contrast between the lyrical opening and the running middle section of the music, with gaily tripping piano and cello pizzicati.

The work has a kind of ‘grand finale’, a theme and variations movement which, in some circumstances might be thought a trifle long, though Jane Young and Hugh McMillan kept our interest simmering with both their interchanges and occasional “solo” sequences. An occasional moment of strain regarding the cello’s intonation mattered far less than the player’s feeling for phrases and their integration into the flow of things, which satisfied greatly. My feeling at the work’s conclusion was less of a “Brahms the Second” response to the music , and more along the lines of “Herzogenberg the First” – thanks in part to these two musicians’ whole-hearted advocacy.

Young Leonari Trio produces elegiac joie de vivre at Lower hutt

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Leonari Trio (Hilary Hayes – violin, Edward King – cello, Maria Mo – piano)

Beethoven: Piano Trio in D, Op 70 no 1 (‘Ghost’); Rachmaninov: Trio élégiaque No 1 in G minor; Arensky: Piano Trio No 1  in D minor, Op 32

Lower Hutt Little Theatre

Tuesday 28 August, 7.30pm

This young trio which came together at the University of Waikato in 2009 has had a charmed life, after winning the Pettman Royal Overseas League scholarship and touring Britain with singular success, visiting some fairly notable concert venues. Individually, they have gained some prestigious awards: both string players were in the NZSO National Youth Orchestra while pianist Maria Mo has played concertos with the Opus Chamber Orchestra and the Waikato Symphony Orchestra.

This concert fell in the middle of a nationwide tour for Chamber Music New Zealand; a second, very attractive programme called Viennese Tales, has been played in other centres, sadly not in the Greater Wellington region (you could catch it in Cromwell on 2 September).

Though it was unfortunate that I arrived a little late, the boisterous sounds of their playing met me as I opened the outside doors of the theatre and I could well have stayed there with no loss of clarity or excitement from their playing.

I could at once understand how their gusto and an almost reckless abandon that exposed an occasional fluff, would have won audiences over in their UK tour, and since.  Perfect accuracy becomes irrelevant when music is attacked with such open enthusiasm and delight in a rapport that was so attractive and immediately obvious.

Fortunately my colleague Rosemary Collier was there too and she left me with a few remarks about the first two movements of the Beethoven, generally admiring their individual accomplishment, that combined so strikingly in ensemble. Their slow movement was most expressive, and technically interesting, another friend remarked about the impression that certain of Hilary Hayes’ violin sounds had, resonating with those in the piano, evidencing excellent intonation.

The choice of pieces brought to mind the music that was played by the wonderful Turnovsky Trio more than a decade ago. Both Rachmaninov’s first Trio élégiaque and the Arensky Trio were in their repertoire, as I recall.  It’s worth noting the fact that Rachmaninov also wrote a second Trio élégiaque, this one in D minor, and given Opus No 9: a full-scale, three movement work modelled on Tchaikovsky’s and written in his memory; he had died shortly before, in 1893.

These players tackled the music with an approach that was similar in spirit, virtuosity and youthful joie de vivre to the Turnovsky Trio.  The Leonari Trio began the Rachmaninov with a hushed, magical, cross-string motif that becomes the accompaniment to the piano’s first romantic theme; the playing was full of drama and refinement, even though it rose to quite an extrovert and energetic character before long.

The provenance of the violin and cello which I heard about at the interval, helped explain the special beauty of tone they produced, with timbres that were so closely related that they almost sounded as if emanating from one instrument. The violin was formerly that of the late NZSO violinist Stephen Managh, and the cello was a loan from Allan Chisholm who is retiring as assistant principal cello of the NZSO later this year.

Never needing to play loudly to compete with the piano, their sound projected vividly in the theatre, which is often claimed to present a dry, difficult acoustic. Perhaps, but it just demands players capable of listening to the effect they are having, and adapting to the situation. Cellist Edward King created warm and opulent passages in its later phases.

For its part, the piano, also criticised by some (and now sought to be replaced by a shiny new Steinway), usually surprises me by its range of colour and sonority. Maria Mo seemed to have its measure, as well as the measure of the theatre, also found difficult by some. Though her playing was full-blooded, she had the lid on the short stick and her sound was vigorously lyrical rather than simply loud.

Certainly, together they made a good deal of noise but it was musical noise, and it didn’t prevent their playing of the subsiding, élégique coda with a serene peacefulness.

The Arensky trio also found the players in full sympathy with the music, starting in a lovely lyrical mood, phrased beautifully, assertive in later staccato piano episodes over tremolo violin, though becoming a little blurred in fast piano passages. They particularly relished the blousy piano tune in the Scherzo, and the piano produced delightful bell-like treble notes at the top of little flourishes in the Trio.

Flawless tone in the slow Elegia movement, all three players in remarkable accord, which was still more striking in the finale, particularly in the soft passages nearing the end.

Audiences, including several young people, have been looking better this year than in the past few years, and their warm applause won them an encore, of the third of John Psathas’s Three Island Songs, also played brilliantly.

 

Enterprising flute repertoire – Ingrid Culliford, with Kris Zuelicke

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Old St.Paul’s Lunchtime Concert Series

Ingrid Culliford (flute) / Kris Zuelicke (piano)

J.S.BACH – Sonata for Flute and Keyboard BWV 1020

MIRIAM HYDE – 3 Solos for Flute and Piano

ERNST BLOCH – Suite Modale

ROBERT MUCZYNSKI – Sonata for Flute and Piano Op.14

Old St.Paul’s Church, Thorndon

Tuesday August 28th, 2012

It was a pleasure to encounter Ingrid Culliford’s flute-playing in repertoire different to that which I’ve heard her perform in the past, nearly always with the Auckland contemporary music ensemble 175 East. And double the pleasure was had from hearing the instrument played with such a variety of tones and timbres, the four very different pieces on the program requiring and getting properly individualized responses from both musicians.

Old Johann Sebastian’s lovely G Minor Flute Sonata (licence-plate number BWV 1020), has apparently been appropriated by certain scholars on behalf of the great man’s son, Carl Philipp Emmanuel, appearing in its Doppelgänger guise as H.542.5 – does the decimal point indicate a somewhat equivocal scholarly stance? Whoever was responsible, the work itself was a delight as presented here, the performers giving us a winning mixture of momentum and suspended beauty. This was characterized in part by the instrumental combination – the piano tripping gaily along, and the flute a more liberated spirit, choosing occasionally to mirror the piano’s busy figurations, but in other places soar untrammelled above them.

Throughout the sonata, I couldn’t help admiring Ingrid Culliford’s refusal to be victimized by the composer’s almost total disregard for his soloist’s lungs. This wasn’t such an issue in the slow movement, both players having sufficient “lebensraum” to negotiate both long-breathed lyrical lines and other-worldly, ambient accompanying modulations. There was also a hint here and there of the “echo” element between the instruments, most beautifully realized. Perhaps the finale, more than the other movements, leaned towards the rather more volatile spirit of the son as opposed to the father – occasional spurts of energy either (depending upon one’s point of view) invigorated or destabilized the music’s flow, with the performance certainly bringing out the essential character of those impulses.

Next was a work by Australian composer Miriam Hyde (1913-2005), someone whose work sounds as if it’s worth getting to know more of – Hyde was primarily a pianist, and one who had something of a performing career upon that instrument, both in Australia and overseas. She composed in all genres, except for opera, her style finding certain affinities with that of English composers of the time, subject to the same kinds of influences and inclinations. She had little in common with avant-garde trends, writing about her music at one point, “I feel my music can be a refuge for what beauty and peace can still be omnipresent…the triumph of good over evil. I make no apologies for writing from the heart”.

We heard three pieces from her work 5 Solos for Flute and Piano, a collection which the composer put together from pieces composed over a number of years, from 1949 to 1968. The earliest, Marsh Birds, was included here, as were The Little Juggler (1956) and Wedding Morn (1957). First was Wedding Morn, the opening piano chords beautifully played by Kris Zuelicke, the stuff of dreams, the flute introducing a rather more earthy aspect, as if rousing the spirit from the dreams and insisting upon some engagement. The piano evoked church bells, their figurations becoming somewhat Lisztian in places, to which the flute responded with lyrical wonderment.

Playful and gigue-like, The Little Juggler readily evoked the mesmeric nature of the activity, as well as plenty of tumbling warmth and an abrupt (perhaps unscheduled!) ending. Finally, the warmly-nostalgic Marsh Birds seemed to take one’s sensibilities back to simpler times at the outset, the middle section suggesting the extent of distances travelled in both time and space, and the birds’ dialogues striking a piquant, “song for the ages” note, the music ending wistfully. Enchanting.

To different worlds, next, with Ernest Bloch’s Suite Modale – with this, as with the Miriam Hyde work, Ingrid Culliford told us a little about the composer and the music’s circumstances. If one was expecting intensities of the order of the same composer’s Schelomo for ‘Cello and Orchestra, one would perhaps be disappointed; but what one got instead was an attractively ritualistic set of meditations, the composer refracting a lifetime’s experiences (Bloch wrote this in 1956, three years before his death) in this gently-conceived journey filled with bygone impressions. Bloch touchingly dedicated this work to the flautist Elaine Schaffer, whose playing he knew and admired from recordings, though he never actually met her.

Each of the four movements reflect a specific mood, which I thought the performers drew we listeners into. First, there was a kind of meditation expressed in polyphonic terms between flute and piano, rhapsodic in feeling, but elegant in style. Then, the players dug into the second movement, bringing out contrapuntal textures, and heightening a sense of ritual and order. The Allegro giocoso evoked youthful energies, both immediate and more nostalgically-conceived, while the finale contrasted a melancholic opening sequence with an exhilarating contrapuntal whirl of activity, one which wound down through attractively melodic piano-and-flute interactions to a strongly-poised, inwardly peaceful ending.

There remained the Flute Sonata of a composer unknown to me, Robert Muczynski, born in Chicago in 1929, who trained as a pianist, and whose works mostly involve chamber ensembles and piano. This four-movement Sonata, neoclassical in spirit, had bags of personality, which the performers obviously relished throughout – a lively, even volatile opening movement with plenty of rhythmic syncopation and dynamic contrast, followed by a Scherzo whose L’Apprenti Sorcier-like galumphings alternated with gentler, more pastoral gaieties. The musicians then gave us, by way of contrast, some rapt, almost mesmeric textures of enchantment at the Andante’s beginning, which the piano then darkened with suggestions of the abyss beneath, indicating that not all is sweetness and light in this world of ours. These were sobering thoughts which the gaiety of the finale’s Allegro con moto thankfully put aside. True, some of the music’s edges were angular and elbow-sharp, but the ride was nevertheless an exhilarating one. Both musicians brought to these things loads of spirit and sensibility, expressed by turns with unerring judgement and fine feeling. A lovely concert.

 

 

 

 

 

NZSM Orchestra cover themsleves with glory in Debussy and Mahler

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Debussy: Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune;  Fantaisie for Piano and Orchestra (andante-allegro; lento e molto  espressivo; allegro molto)
Mahler:   Symphony no. 1 in D major (Introduction and allegro comodo; scherzo; à la pompes funèbres; molto appassionato)

New Zealand School of Music Orchestra, Kenneth Young (conductor); Jian Liu  (piano)

Wellington Town Hall

Wednesday, 22 August 2012 at 7.30pm,

It was a pity that a larger audience was not present to hear this brilliant and satisfying concert.  Aside from quite a number of guest players, especially for the Mahler symphony, the orchestra was made up of students (plus a few staff) of the New Zealand School of Music.  The use of the Town Hall was sponsored by the Wellington City Council, i.e. it was free – a splendid gesture, to encourage music-making by young people.

The first impression was of the beautifully designed flier and programme, reproducing art from the Viennese Secession, notably Gustav Klimt (though not acknowledged); art from the time and place of Mahler.  However, I’m not so keen on the fashion for printing white on black – it’s harder to read, especially in the subdued lighting of a concert hall.  Programme notes by Kenneth Young were excellent, describing music in a way that gives the audience a little background, and then points to listen for, rather than exhibiting erudition.

It being Debussy’s 150th birthday, the choice of the first two works was apt – and they were broadcast on Radio New Zealand Concert (though for some reason not the equally apt Mahler) for its special day for Debussy, the theme of which was ‘La Belle Epoch’.  They must have been exciting times, the late 19th century and early 20th century – the art, literature and music were all forging new pathways.

The evocative opening of the first work by a single flute was magical.  The NZSM orchestra is well supplied with players of this instrument and also of the next to enter – the harps.  How many orchestras can boast four harpists?  Horns were next to introduce this delectable work, which I have not heard live for a very long time.  The wonderful, dreamy textures were played with great attention to dynamics.  The whole three works would have been challenging and worthwhile for students to play, since there are so many solo passages.  The pizzicato ending finished off a wonderful performance.  The first flute, Andreea Junc, received a special acknowledgement.

The second Debussy work was not a familiar one, but replete with the distinctive sounds of the composer’s unique writing.  Liquid sounds emanated from the piano; rich ones from the orchestra.  Here, there was full brass, whereas Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune used only horns.  Despite the strength of this section, balance was good throughout the work; the brass came into its own with vigour at the end of the first movement, especially the trumpets.

The calm and dreamy second movement owed some of its character to the use of mutes on the strings.  Tutti passages were quite romantic, and a prominent oboe part gave piquancy.  Jian Liu’s style on the piano was exactly right.  The allegro third movement introduced rumbustiousness in places., though in the main the music was lilting and dance-like,  Contrasts were ethereal, even ecstatic.  The piano for most of  the time was part of the texture of the music, not having concerto-style solo passages or distinctive themes.  But it was always played with beautiful tone – never louder than lovely.  The work ended with a rousing flourish.

A big orchestra assembled for the Mahler, and the leadership changed from Kate Oswin to Arna Morton. Mahler rarely uses the whole orchestra in tutti, but varies the textures superbly.  The symphony’s spine-tingling opening dawn with its sustained eight-octave note from all the instruments, followed by the birds awakening and the sun rising through the light mist, against off-stage trumpet calls was very effective.  The main melody that emerges from the Introduction is a typical Mahler melody, from his Songs of a Wayfarer cycle, blissful in mood.  This jubilant theme involves the entire orchestra.  All the delightful little solo interjections were in place; the lower strings were nuanced beautifully in their miniature phrases, below the sustained notes from a few second violins.  Bird calls abounded, and then horn-calls seemed to announce a hunt, while the cellos played another folksong; with a crash, we’re into the lively ending section of the movement, with its frenetic jollity.

The Scherzo appears to be a high spirited dance, but perhaps it has a macabre sub-text, despite some beautiful melodies in its middle section, which featured fine playing, especially from the woodwind section, notably cor anglais.   There was excellent playing from percussion, too – and tuba.

The funeral march based on a slow and minor key setting of the well-known French song ‘Frère Jacques’ begins as a double bass solo (for which the section leader, Louis van der Mespel received his own acknowledgement at the end), bizarre and gloomy, unlike anything else in ‘serious’ music.  On my record cover (yes, LP) David Hall says “the juxtaposition (as in the early T.S. Eliot poems) of the magically ideal with the crassly vulgar”.

After the double bass, the bassoon joins in, then the cellos, then tuba, creating a spooky gradual build-up, with gong and timpani (two sets) under-girding the whole  most effectively.   Oboes play their other-worldly theme against pizzicato strings; a gorgeous tapestry is created, accompanied by muted first violins, assisted by flutes.

The grotesque march dies away gently, which makes the noisy opening of the last movement all the more shocking.  Two sets of trumpets can make a lot of noise.  Outsize bangers for the bass drum and considerable use of the  gong all add to the shattering effect.  But there is wonderful melody, too, that flows out from the first violins against repeated pizzicato on cellos; trombones provided brilliant back-up. The moving effect is of reconciliation, exaltation, redemption.  There are hints of ‘Frère Jacques’ in the cello part, before a big climax from the brass.

Themes from the first movement return.  Lovely phrasing of a superbly played yearning, romantic melody featured dynamics to match.  There was real bite in the violas interruption of this soporific melody.  The exciting outburst at the end, in which the seven horns stood to play, was magnificent.  This orchestra and its conductor covered themselves with glory, and did Mahler’s great first symphony proud. Colour, rhythm, irony, beauty – they were all there, enhanced by Mahler’s singular orchestration. The use of the Town Hall added immeasurably to the quality of the performance.

 

Enchanting double bass recital with a little cello too, at Lower Hutt

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

J S Bach’s Sonata for Viola da gamba No 2 in D, BWV 1028;
Cello Concerto No 4, third movement (Goltermann);
Fauré: Elegie;
Bottesini: Fantasia on themes from La sonnambula

Alexander Gunchenko (double bass) and Kirsten Simpson (piano), and Daniel Gunchenko (cello)

St Mark’s Church, Lower Hutt

Wednesday 22 August, 12.15pm

The double bass is among the orchestral instruments that has struggled to find a respected place in the solo sphere; a bit like the bassoon, its role is sometimes regarded as that of musical comedian.

Yet it’s had at least one famous practitioner, both a virtuoso and a composer (also a conductor who premiered Verdi’s Aida in Cairo), Giovanni Bottesini.

Alexander Gunchenko is one of the contingent of musicians from Ukraine and Russia who were recruited by the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra in the 1990s, and helped raise its standard so dramatically.

Gunchenko, who had only recently left the Tchaikovsky Conservatorium (presumably the one in Kiev) and had a short spell with the Ukraine National Chamber Orchestra, came to New Zealand in 1999. There he continued his studies at Canterbury University; and in 2007 joined the NZSO.

I gather he has been appearing for the Hutt Valley lunchtime concerts annually over the last few years, but this was my first hearing.

Music for the cello and its earlier predecessors can readily be transcribed for the double bass, and the recital began with a sonata for viola da gamba by J S Bach (No 2 in D, BWV1028). Though the bass (which is in fact a descendant of the viola da gamba family, and not a member of the violin family) is not as strongly projecting as the cello which replaced the viola da gamba during the late 17th and early 18th century, it had its own quieter and more mellow sound which has come to be appreciated again in recent times.

That made playing by the bass particularly attractive, for its quietness, once the ears were accustomed to it, gave the music a beauty and refinement that is actually Bach would have had in mind in writing these sonatas. (Accompaniment by a harpsichord would of course have been more appropriate, though Kirsten Simpson’s partnership was always sensitive to the bass’s sound).

The opening Adagio movement was a lovely, if momentarily nervous in intonation, way to engage the mind and accustom the ear. True, the piano did tend to weigh a bit heavily on the bass in the second, Allegro, movement, but the playing was so fluent and genial, enveloping us in its long, nicely expressed phrases, that any dynamic imbalance didn’t matter.

And the next slow movement, now in a slow triple time, was a further demonstration of the bass’s lyrical character, no matter that it was mostly in the low baritone range. Where the notes do go higher, however, it was even more beautifully mellow than a cello could ever be (and I learned and love the cello).

The next item was something a bit special: The young Gunchenko, the 11-year-old Daniel, a cellist who has just completed Grade 5 with, I imagine, rather high marks; his appearance was unadvertised, but a very engaging idea. I too encountered Georg Goltermann’s fourth cello concerto (his dates 1824 – 1898, almost exact contemporary with Bruckner) when I was a student but, somewhat older, I certainly wasn’t getting around the music as fluently as young Daniel did. There are probably good reasons why the name isn’t on everyone’s lips, but this taste of one of his concertos would have made the audience wonder about that. The third movement – the last I imagine – was a tarantella, fast and very rhythmic; the two musicians maintained its pace and togetherness admirably.

Alexander returned to play another cello classic, Fauré’s Élégie. Here, one could easily have been seduced into never wanting to hear it on the cello again, so discreet and, well, elegiac was this performance. The oneness of the two was clearly evident when the piano took over the melody and the bass simply kept it company in warm,  supportive accompanying figures.

The party piece was Bottesini’s Fantasia on themes from La sonnambula, a typical 19th century show-piece that gave audiences the comfort of well-known tunes clothed in unbelievably virtuosic playing. If it looks hard for a violinist to race about the fingerboard in such music, the same behaviour on a much longer fingerboard, with greater difficulty in hitting the exact note, including a lot of high harmonics, was a somewhat breathtaking exhibition.

 

 

Douglas Mews and Broadwood give Haydn his dues

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Haydn: Sonata in C, Hob.XVI:50 (allegro, adagio, allegro molto)

Andante with variations, in F minor, Hob.XVII:6

Sonata in E flat, Hob.XVI:52 (allegro, adagio, presto)

Douglas Mews, 1843 square Broadwood piano

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 22 August 2012, 12.15pm

It was intriguing to hear such a different piano; this instrument sounded like a cross between a harpsichord and a modern piano.  The three works performed were composed during the early 1790s, when Haydn made two lengthy visits to London.  The programme note described the pianos Haydn would have encountered in London as ‘fundamentally different [in] character to the Viennese pianos he was familiar with.’  It has a rather uneven timbre from bass to the top of its shorter keyboard, but this may be, at least in part, due to its age.  It has quite a range of dynamics compared with that of the harpsichord, but it is not comparable with the range available on the grand piano or upright piano (which had not been developed at the time this piano was made).

Douglas Mews’s programme note states that ‘The English sound was typified by a romantic ‘haze’, which undoubtedly had an effect on Haydn’s writing style’.

The sonata in C was a charming work; the variety of the variations and the modulations in the final movement made it an interesting one as well.  The second work encompassed a great range of dynamics, from delicacy through to the coda’s stormy mood.

In the second sonata, in E flat, I heard the resonance of the instrument more, and also the ‘hazy’ sound of the English piano referred to.  The sonata, to my ears, had more ‘body’ than did the previous one played.  It featured an emphatic first subject in the first movement, and winsome melody in the slow movement, with lilting variations upon it.  The finale was light and very capricious.  The prestidigitation required from Douglas Mews was formidable.

This was something different in the way of a piano recital: skilled playing of delightful music on a different instrument from the species usually encountered.

 

Strumming and fretting en masse at Old St.Paul’s – the N.Z.Guitar Quartet

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Old St.Paul’s Church -Lunchtime Concerts

New Zealand Guitar Quartet

(Owen Moriarty, Tim Wanatabe, Jane Curry and Chris Hill)

Old St.Paul’s Church, Thorndon

Tuesday 21st August 2012

Perhaps it would have all been double the pleasure at Old St. Paul’s for Frederic Chopin, who was reputed to have said “Nothing is more beautiful than a guitar – save, perhaps two!” – no less than the New Zealand Guitar Quartet was here to put the aphorism to the test. A quartet’s worth of guitar players certainly makes a lovely, rich sound, with plenty of opportunities for all of those individual voices, both leading and in the middle, to interact with one another and create such richly-woven tapestries, in fact, small orchestras of sound.

The concert’s venue – Old St.Paul’s – exerted its customary spell over the proceedings, the beauty of the surroundings making up for the lack of adequate sight-lines for any audience member sitting more than a dozen pews back. Some elevation for the performers (as was constructed not so long ago in St.Andrew’s on-the-Terrace Church) would certainly help more people to SEE the musicians, and perhaps enhance the sound-projection (the latter, however, seems perfectly adequate for all but the most distant spectators). A few of the softer passages for solo guitar seemed very quiet, but the sound in tutti made, as I’ve already said, a pretty solid, if finely constituted, instrumental ensemble sound.

Attendance at these Old St.Paul’s lunchtime concerts of late (at least the ones I’ve been to) have been surprisingly good, considering (perhaps, because of! ) the inclement weather – and today’s concert was no exception (the attendance AND the weather!). There’s obviously a loyal following for the venture, for all the reasons I’ve mentioned, and in this case the music and the music-making would have contributed greatly to the delight of it all.

The ensemble describes itself in a program note bio as “exciting, dynamic and engaging” – and I’m happy to say that the concert certainly reflected these things. I’ve heard the group play before, and this time around found myself entirely caught up in what was going on, as if everybody’s focus was freshly sharpened and their energies centered right at the music’s heart. Take the opening item, for example, Luigi Boccherini’s Introduction et Fandango, a pleasant though fairly conventional evocation of Spain – or at least one might have previously thought so, until hearing the Quartet’s  full-blooded rendition of the Fandango, digging into the rhythms and accentuating the music’s light-and-dark contrasts. Boccherini? – really?

Jane Curry introduced the next item,a transcription by Owen Moriarty of Bach’s Third Brandenburg Concerto, drawing listeners’ attention to one of the players’ use of a 7-string guitar, the instrument making for a greater range and sonority. Whatever the difference, the reworking of the music (in true Baroque style) was a great success, the music’s bubbling energy carrying all before it in both the first and third movements (a pity the opportunity wasn’t taken in between these episodes for a bit of extempore “sounding” of things suggested both by what had just happened and what was to come, as sometimes happens in this music’s performance). But particularly in the last movement, the counterpoints joyously tumbled over one another in away that would probably have had old Sebastian Bach tapping his feet in approval.

New Zealand composer Craig Utting drew some of his inspiration from the Baroque world for part of a composition called Onslow Suite, using a kind of passacaglia-form underlining a kind of lyrical exchange. The music provides the contrast of a middle section that spontaneously modulates asymmetrically and somewhat remotely, before returning to the passagcaglia figurations with increased rapture, finishing with a final chord of benediction – a lovely work, originally written for two pianos, but here most satisfyingly reworked for guitars.

The group then turned its attention to a work by Andrew York, former player-member of the American Guitar Quartet, the group for whom the music was written. This was called Quiccan, a closely-knit etude for four guitars, allowing each player to explore melody, harmony, and accompaniment. The piece started jazzily, resembling the sounds of a distant festival, one redolent with Latin American rhythms and textures. A slower section allowed the players some breathing-space and a contrasted vantage-point, towards which the ensemble redirected its energies, with the help of some “percussive” effects -all very engaging and attractive. A sudden “break-off” point resulted in a chord whose single chime froze the gestural actions of the musicians and allowed the sounds to resonate briefly and depart – a kind of musical metaphor for human existence.

More familiar territories were the items by Manuel de Falla, to finish the program – two exerpts, arranged by Owen Moriarty, from Falla’s El amor brujo ballet, firstly, the Danza del Terror, plenty of repeated notes, driving rhythms and strutting flourishes, followed by the even better-known Danza ritual del fuego, a performance which brought out something of the music’s dark, primitive side at the beginning, and gave plenty of point to the cross-rhythmed accents in the piece’s middle section. Only at the end did I feel the need for a bit more abandonment on the part of the players, something slightly more animal and physical. I wonder, too, whether the emphasis on tuning the instruments is entirely appropriate during the course of these two pieces – to my way of thinking, far better to keep the impetus and atmosphere on-going between the two dances and let whatever pitch vagaries occur be part of the sweep and drive, of this primitive, elemental aspect of the music.

But, nevertheless, a great concert, nicely presented and vividly projected.