Varied and various concert from National Boys Choir of Australia

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Bach: Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring
Fauré: Messe basse
Songs by Ennio Morricone, Bruno Coulais, Lionel Bart, Todd McNeal, Peter Allen, John Rutter
Pokarekare ana; Waltzing Matilda

National Boys Choir of Australia, directed by Peter Casey and Philip Carmody, accompanied by Robyn Cochrane (piano) and (in the Fauré) Richard Apperley (organ)

Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul

Monday, 10 July 2012, 5.30 pm

The visiting choir of 42 trebles is the cream of a much bigger enterprise, based in Melbourne, that trains 200 boys in choral singing.  It was founded back in 1964, but this was the choir’s first visit ‘across the ditch’, despite its having visited many northern hemisphere countries, on no fewer than 14 tours.

In addition to producing a fine choral sound and singing all items from memory, the choir had excellent soloists performing in quite a number of the items.

The choir began by singing ‘Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring’ from the ambulatory, and processed in to take their positions on the chancel steps.  The music was taken at a very fast pace, but the boys produced a gorgeous, unified sound that was well projected.

Unfortunately the same couldn’t be said for the considerable amount of talking to the audience that the two conductors did, as they alternated in the role.  Neither used a microphone, and the second of the two spoke far too quickly than is audible in this size of auditorium, with its very resonant acoustic.  They may have thought that with a small audience (approx. 50), most of whom were near the front, a mike was not necessary.  But it is.  There was considerable interaction with the audience, especially with the few children present, including quiz questions (most of which were too difficult for the children, but fun for the adults).  All of this gave the boys a rest.

The Fauré Messe Basse, or Low Mass, consisted of four of the usual movements, but without Gloria or Credo.  The Sanctus was notable for delicious echo effects.  The cathedral acoustics were not a problem here; the music was written for this kind of building.  The music was quite simple in style, but potent.  Latin pronunciation was absolutely uniform, making for a clean, open sound.

The song River by Morricone (famous for film music, notably that for Chariots of Fire) was accompanied by a drum as well as piano.  The music was quite percussive, the clear enunciation of the Italian words enhancing the effect of the music.

Next were settings of three poems by Walter de la Mare, by Todd McNeal, a contemporary Australian composer.  ‘Five Eyes’ I knew in another composer’s setting, but this was a most effective one.  The boys sang it in a sturdy and clear manner, and conveyed a picture of cats capturing ‘the thieving rats’.  ‘Silver’ was once well-known to primary school pupils (maybe it still is): ‘Slowly silently, now the moon/Walks the night in her silver shoon’.  The setting had a serene, calm feeling, as did I, listening.  These boys know their music and words very well.

The third song, ‘Tartary’, had a grand character, although the setting didn’t allow all the words to be heard.  These were, however, three skilful settings, sung well.

Three songs by Bruno Coulais from the film Les Choristes (two of them sung in English translation) followed.  They were a very pleasing reminder of a heart-warming film.

Six songs from Lionel Bart’s Oliver: ‘Food, glorious food’, ‘Where is love’, ‘Oom-pah-pah’ (sung very heartily), ‘I’d do anything for you’, ‘Who will buy’ and ‘Consider yourself at home’ were performed with feeling, and character appropriate to each song.  Soloists featured in several numbers; most were assured and communicated both music and words extremely well.

Although it was hard to hear all that was being said, I thought I heard New Zealand’s most famous Maori song, ‘Pokarekare ana’ attributed to Te Rangi Pai (or Fanny Rose Porter, Fanny Howie; a woman, not a man!).  However, her famous song was ‘Hine, e Hine’.  Wikipedia says ‘East Coast Māori song-writer Paraire Tomoana, who polished up the song [Pokarekare] in 1917 and published the words in 1921, wrote that “it emanated from the North of Auckland” and was popularised by Māori soldiers who were training near Auckland before embarking for the war in Europe.’

The choir’s Maori pronunciation was beautiful; the arrangement delightful.

This was followed by ‘Waltzing Matilda’, in an arrangement by Philip Carmody, featuring four soloists in harmony, blending their voices with superb tone.  The choir used an appropriate accent, and incorporated whistling.

The choir then moved to the sides of the cathedral, around the audience, to sing Peter Allen’s popular ‘I still call Australia home – this featured a gorgeous pure note a the end – and finally Rutter’s beautiful setting of ‘The Lord bless you and keep you’.  Suddenly, the acoustics no longer got in the way.  The sound was quite lovely and everything was easily heard.  For me, it was the high point of the concert.

 

Varied, attractive 25th anniversary concert from Kapiti Chamber Choir

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

‘Full Circle’:
Byrd: Mass for Four Voices
Choral music by Katherine Dienes, Felicity Williams, David Hamilton, Rossini, and folk songs
Piano music by Janáĉek and Lilburn
Violin music by Tchaikovsky

Kapiti Chamber conducted by Stuart Douglas, with Carolyn Rait (piano) and Ken Dougall (organ); solos by Helen Ridley (piano) and Richard Taylor (violin, with accompanist Judith Wheeler)

St. Paul’s Church Waikanae

Sunday, 8 July 2012, 2.30pm

The ‘Full Circle’ of the title of the concert was due to the fact that this was the 20th anniversary concert of the choir, and the programme being performed was virtually the same as that performed at the initial concert.

The choir was founded by Professor Peter Godfrey at the request of two local singers: Paddy Nash and Pat Barry.  Peter Godfrey was present at the concert, as was his successor, Dr Guy Jansen.  Stuart Douglas took over last year.

The printed programme provided a list of works sung in each year of the 20. I appreciated having all the words and translations printed.

The singing of the Byrd Mass was very fine – full of beautiful chording and purity of tone, especially from the sopranos.  The quiet opening set the scene for contemplation and plangent melismas (though these were not quite so good as the chords).

The opening was a little uneven, as were the beginnings of some of the other movements.  Latin pronunciation was excellent, and beautiful vowels were to be heard throughout the work.

This was unaccompanied singing of a high standard.  Dynamics provided variety of expression; for example in the Gloria, at ‘propter magnam gloriam tuam’(‘according to your great glory’).

The decision to modernise the translated words in the printed programme rather than use the English words of the period, or of the Anglican Prayer Book of 1662, led to a few infelicities: despite “You alone are holy, You alone are the Lord”, we had “You who removes the sins of the world…You who sits on the right hand…”

In the ‘Domine Deus’ section of the Gloria the basses were particularly admirable, while at the ‘Qui tollis’, the parts were particularly well balanced, and all produced a lovely sound; this continued in the ‘Quoniam’.

The Mass was divided, so that the Kyrie, Gloria and Credo were heard together, then after the interval, the Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei.  This was a great idea; a sung mass is interspersed throughout a church service, not all sung at once.  The attention is more focused by interspersing it in this way.

Between the longer movements, Stuart Douglas used his pitch pipe; in this first part of the mass the intonation held up well.

The ‘Et incarnatus est’ in the Credo had a limpid quality.  I thought that if I shut my eyes, I could imagine I was listening to an all-male choir in the Chapel Royal in London, for which the work was composed.  (Ladies, this is meant as a compliment!)

The crescendo at ‘Et resurrexit’ was splendidly achieved without loss of tone.  The counterpoint at ‘Et iterum venturus est’ was a fit vehicle for the words ‘And he will come again with glory…’; sublime in both its conception and rendition.  From here to the end of the Credo, there was tricky music to sing, but this choir knew its stuff very well.

‘In the mists’ by Janáçek, a work in four movements, was played by Helen Ridley, who had played at that concert 20 years earlier.  This was difficult music, and as described in the short programme note, ‘enigmatic and often melancholy’.  The pianist in her introduction described the music as expressing the composer’s mental state, his isolation as a musician, seeing what he saw as a nationalist, as tragedy occurring in his country, and to him personally.  She said that he employed folk music, and the inflections of speech, and this was obvious in the andante first movement, which built from a quiet opening to turbulent passages followed by soft cascades.

The second movement, molto adagio also contained folksy sounds, but was more contemplative to begin with, followed by stormy passages that nevertheless used the same theme.  A quiet ending finished the movement.  The third, andantino was again folksy, but also one could imagine a conversation going on between higher and deeper voices.  The tonality was modal

The final presto was not very fast, and there were many hesitant figures (and in earlier movements also).  Faster passages followed, with numerous different figures, having a dance-like feeling.  This was very skilled playing of a seldom-heard work.

The choir turned now to unaccompanied New Zealand music, the first being ‘Jesu, dulcis memoria’ by Katherine Dienes.  I remember singing this in a church service at the Cathedral in Dunedin, as part of an early New Zealand Choral Federation conference.  It is a very fine piece.  The only difficulty here was that because women tenors are used as well as men, the tone is changed, since they are singing at the bottom of their voices, whereas the male tenors are often at the top of theirs, so the effect is quite different.  It was more noticeable in this work than in some of the others.

Next came ‘Exultate jubilate’ by Felicity Williams, accompanied on the piano by Carolyn Rait.  The Christchurch composer has created a piece that is truly joyous, and also thoughtful.

Lastly, David Hamilton’s ‘Nunc dimittis’, a very effective piece with lovely harmonies and a quiet ending.

After the interval, we had the remaining movements of the Byrd Mass.  The opening tonality of the ‘Sanctus’ seemed a little difficult to begin on, and was not quite together.  However, what followed demonstrated wonderful purity in the upper parts.

The start of the Benedictus also seemed also to provide some difficulty, though the pitch at the end was fine.  However, then the Agnus Dei started slightly flat.  The work lost a bit of life at the end, but I think Byrd would have been impressed overall, as was the audience.

Richard Taylor, violin, played with Judith Wheeler two parts of Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir d’un lieu cher, Op.42 ( ‘Mélodie’ and ‘Scherzo’), the composer remembering his stay at his benefactor’s Ukrainian estate.  This young violinist (12 years of age??) performed with confidence, excellent control, a warm tone, and technical mastery.  Having long fingers is obviously an advantage.  He used dynamics well in the well-known and very lyrical first part, and performed demanding runs and double-stopping in the second.  This was quite a tour de force for a young fellow, and, along with Judith Wheeler’s exemplary playing, received a great reception.

Three sacred works of Rossini were sung by the choir with the singers mixed up in their positions, rather than being together according to voice part.  I thought this improved the blend of the choir. ‘O salutaris hostia’ featured splendid dynamic variation, while ‘Ave Maria’ (again the start not quite together), and ‘Salve O Vergine Maria’ were well-performed, with organ.  The last (in Italian, not Latin) was more rollicking in nature and romantic in style.

Helen Ridley returned to play Sonatina no.2 by Douglas Lilburn.

This piece, which the composer had dedicated to his colleague and supreme interpreter, Margaret Neilsen, was also given a spoken introduction.  There was considerable use of the sustaining pedal, which had been clearly prescribed by Lilburn.

The piece had very spare scoring, and featured typical Lilburn rhythms.  The atmosphere of the bush was created with bird song.  The three short movements were mainly slow and dreamy, the ending fading away.  They were played with empathy and clarity.

To end this rather long concert the choir sang in English three unaccompanied folk song arrangements: ‘Early one morning’, ‘O come you from Newcastle’ (both English) and the American ‘Shenandoah’.  While they were all fine, the last was the most telling, with appealing harmonies and a real feeling of longing conveyed in the voices.  The last verse was split into many parts; a most effective arrangement and a lovely ending to the concert.

The choir, through a wide repertoire, proved itself most versatile and capable.

 

Ben Morrison and friends at St.Andrew’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Two Great Piano Trios

BEETHOVEN – Piano Trio in B-flat Op.97 “Archduke”

SCHUBERT – PIano Trio in B-flat D.898

Benjamin Morrison (violin) /  Jane Young (‘cello) / David Vine (piano)

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

Sunday 8th July 2012

It was really Christchurch-born violinist Benjamin Morrison’s show, though, of course he couldn’t have played the “two great piano trios” on his own. So, joining him for this concert and making up what one might call an “ad hoc” group,  were ‘cellist Jane Young, currently principal ‘cello in the Vector Wellington Orchestra, and David Vine, well known Wellington-based pianist, conductor and scholar.  The ensemble had come together primarily for Ben Morrison’s benefit – he’s on a visit “home” from his current studies in Graz, Austria, where he’s completing a Masters degree in Solo Violin and Chamber Music. He’s played a good deal of chamber music while in Europe (and it shows), as well as competing and winning prizes in several competitions – for example, the National Chamber Music of Austria Competition,”Gradus ad Parnassum”.

Throughout the afternoon the three musicians played as their lives depended upon the outcome, with all the attendant thrills and spills one might expect from the circumstances. Of course, given the popularity of each of these wonderful trios, one can too easily take for granted their ever-present difficulties – while the music , in each case, can survive less-than-capable performances and still make an impression, everything properly blossoms and beguiles when, as here, the playing demonstrates a certain level of skill and understanding. There were moments which brought certain individual insecurities, but the ensemble rarely, if ever, faltered, and the essential strength and lyricism of each of the works was conveyed with enthusiasm and commitment.

While St. Andrew’s Church wasn’t filled to bursting, there was a sufficient number present to generate a keen listening atmosphere, with tingling lines connecting the sounds made by the players to their listeners’ ears. In this respect I thought Morrison’s playing in particular outstanding, his tone having a vibrancy at all times that, whether loud or soft, conveyed to us exactly what degree of feeling or colour was required of each phrase. I write this somewhat guiltily, as I’m realizing the extent to which I focused my attentions upon him throughout the concert, probably to the detriment of my registering what the others were doing. But I thought his playing most deservedly compelled such attention throughout.

First up was the Beethoven, marked here by restrained, very “reined-in” playing from pianist David Vine at the outset, obviously taking some time to settle, but nevertheless establishing a pulse which enabled the string players to fill out their lines amply with plenty of inflection and subtle colorings that suggested a conversation of equals. It was good to get the exposition repeat in that respect – twice the pleasure, and filled with interest registering the effects of “experience” upon the music, the interaction between Morrison and ‘cellist Jane Young a particular delight. The players enjoyed the “misterioso” elements of the development’s beginning, as well as relishing the exchanges of pizzicati notes, managing a proper surge of energy taking the music to the reprise of the “big tune”. In other words, the music’s ebb and flow was shaped most satisfyingly throughout.

The scherzo was distinguished by fine rhythmic pointing, apart from a slight hiccup at the top of one of the fugal-like phrases early on. The players made something terrific of the more trenchant passages, burgeoning their tones excitingly during each crescendo, and leaving us expectantly awaiting each subsequent wave of energy. Again, Ben Morrison’s playing projected a real sense of relishing both strivings and outcomes, giving plenty of musical substance to both his colleagues and to the audience. And the slow movement grew from the hymn-like opening throughout its variation movements as flowers gently and gloriously open in the sun, the players giving all the time in the world to the process of integrating a sense of arrival with a feeling of further exploration, thus preparing the way for the finale.

Here, the trajectories were delightfully bucolic, the performance surviving a bumpy patch amidst the tremolando-like pianistic figurations, and keeping its poise right through to the coda, which was excitingly done, the “schwung” of the of the music kept to the fore despite the occasional spills. What was particularly thrilling was the élan with which Ben Morrison threw off those concluding figurations, serving notice of an artistic coming-of-age which we all anticipate enjoying on occasions in the years to come.

After the Beethoven, the Schubert seemed more relaxed, the opening having a “Frei, aber froh” feeling about its forthright energies, not epic, heroic statements here, but still very Schubertian, very “gemächlich” or relaxed, a feeling further underlined by the lyrical second subject. I got the feeling throughout this movement, rightly or wrongly, with Ben Morrison’s playing, that he “sees” the music as if from a great height, and so is able to shape each paragraph of the symphonic argument with great surety, ably supported here by ‘cello and piano. The trio caught the music’s physicality in places, coming through not exactly unbloodied, but definitely triumphant.

The gem of this Trio is, of course, the slow movement, containing one of the composer’s loveliest melodies, and here sung to great effect by all concerned, especially by the violin. Ironically, it was in this movement, during the violin’s chromatic ascent from the central agitations back to the melody’s reprise, and again, briefly with the ascent to the final note, that the player’s intonation uncharacteristically wasn’t spot-on; but the ‘cello’s heavenly accompanying of the violin throughout this section, underpinned by the murmuring piano, banished all thoughts of human fallibility for just a short, treasurable moment in time.

Though I thought the Scherzo took time to settle rhythmically, the players managed the trickily-stressed dovetailing in places with great nimbleness, then relished the “cradle-song” aspect of the Trio for their own and for our pleasure. The cheekily-played opening of the finale had the theme passing from player to player, then adding to the insouciance with a strutting “Hungarian-like” episode, and further flavoring the experience with some ghostly shimmering from the strings – all very discursive, but held together with fine concentration, and a flair for characterization, the violinist demonstrating by turns his accompanying as well as his “leading” skills throughout.

At the piece’s conclusion, the audience was quick to show its appreciation of the performances, and in particular of Ben Morrison’s remarkable talent as a musician.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Revelatory playing from Takács Quartet in music spanning a mere thirty years

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Takács Quartet (Edward Dusinberre, Károly Schranz, Geraldine Walther, András Fejér)

Janáček’s String Quartet No 1 ‘Kreutzer Sonata’; Bartók’s No 2; Quartet in G minor (Debussy)

Wellington Town Hall

Saturday 7 July, 7.30pm

Two original members of the Takács Quartet remain – second violin and cello; the present leader replaced Gabor Takács-Nagy, the founding leader, in 1995; and the violist Roger Tapping was replaced by Geraldine Walther in 2005.

Their reputation among the most celebrated quartets attracted a big though not overflowing audience to the Town Hall. All three works in this admirable programme, written over a span of only thirty years, must be seen as core repertoire now.

The concert opened with the Janáček, with an introduction spoken by leader Dusinberre who proved as effective a communicator with his voice as with his bow. It was a model of such things. Without a microphone he used his voice with clarity and such excellent projection that I’m sure he was audible in the back stalls; and he spoke with a certain droll wit about the serious matter of Tolstoi’s famous story, and the role of the Beethoven violin sonata, and of Janáček’s treatment of it, along with a few musical examples and Dusinberre’s own gloss on aspects of it.

Many will recall the most effective theatre piece from Bats Theatre in November 2007, entitled The Kreutzer, built on the Tolstoi story, inspired by NZSO violist Peter Barber and stage directed by Sara Brodie. It used parts of the Janáček quartet played by the Nevine Quartet and parts of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata played by pianist Catherine McKay and violinist Donald Armstrong.

This performance was alive with vivid colours and sharply contrasted emotions,  the warm relationship between wife and musical partner – honeyed tones from the strings, blunted by the husband’s enraged reaction to the couple’s conspicuous relationship – displayed by frenzied bowings from the second violin.

Whether made more graphic by having the essentials of the story sketched to us or, for others, no doubt, impatient with performers talking about music (I am not one), the episodes could never have been more full of musical meaning, more richly painted in often less than orthodox technical devices. And the whole played in an accord that is achieved only as a result of living and breathing the music they play as if for all their lives; accord does not imply ’sounding as one’ but that four distinct musical personalities are working in perfect collaboration.

In his second string quartet Bartók (written five years before the Janáček) follows his own path in terms of the character of each movement and use of tonalities; there is no need to dwell on the originality of breaking away from traditions; other composers too were departing, in their own ways, from traditional musical patterns and so risking audiences’ alienation.

In this quartet, the composer can readily be seen as taking serious liberties with audience tolerance, with its absence of melody and in the first and third movements a mood of dispiriting bleakness, and the absence of any assistance through some kind of narrative such as Janáček offers.

In spite of the music’s darkness and the challenge to the audience which, in such music, might be seeking some kind of metaphysical meaning, these players held us in awe and rapt attention; if there was an underlying message about the horrors of the First World War which was ending as Bartók wrote, it was not explicit, though it would have been easy, then and now, to hear that as an underlying awareness. The intensity and passion of the performance could have lent itself to a great many other horrendous events in the century since it was written. There was relief however in middle movement, titled Allegro molto capriccioso, folk-inflected from Bartók’s folk music collecting in the Balkans and eastern Algeria, which the quartet captured dazzlingly in all its semi-barbaric energy.

The second half of the concert was devoted to Debussy’s quartet, which ardent chamber music lovers would have travelled to Paekakariki to hear only two weeks ago from the fine Aroha Quartet.  Twenty years older than the Bartók, it certainly inhabits a very different world, but one that lent itself to playing that was as scrupulous and entrancingly coloured in ways that suggested the most detailed observation of the natural world (though Debussy refrained from offering overt hints by conjuring visual images, to distract listeners from the actual music).  And even though much of the music called for a high degree of homogeneity in articulation and dynamics, that very quality threw into relief the parts where individual instruments made themselves heard dramatically.

The hints of dappled skies generated through dynamic fluctuations and ever-varying tone colourings, the sharing of motifs between instruments, all created a sound world the equivalent of impressionism in painting. Placed at the end of the concert, after later quartets that were very radical at their time, the impact of this music, in an idiom that had aspects that were also new in its day, and certainly pointed to the ways music would change over the next few decades, was to draw attention to characteristics that were essentially of the Romantic 19th century, conventionally beautiful, classics, able to bear repeated hearings.

And in response to long and rapturous applause, the quartet played the quite long Notturno from Borodin’s second string quartet which released us transported, into the cold night.

Lunchtime organ recital of Bach and his north German predecessors from Richard Apperley

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Great Music 2012, at the Cathedral of St Paul

Richard Apperley, Assistant Director of Music (organ)

Praeludium in E minor, No 2 (Nicolaus Bruhns); Chorale Prelude – ‘Freu dich sehr o meine Seele’ (Georg Böhm); Canzona in E minor, BuxWV 169 (Buxtehude); Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C, BWV 564 (Bach)

Cathedral of Saint Paul, Wellington

Friday 6 July, 12.45pm

Apperley is a Buxtehude specialist, having recently recorded a CD of his organ music, and this recital took examples of music that was written by Buxtehude and composers of the generation following him: that included J S Bach (well, two generations in Bach’s case).

He began with a Paeludium by the short-lived Nicolaus Bruhns (in the IMSLP website two are listed: I assume this is the one entitled “Grosses”; Wikipedia writes that it is ‘cited as one of the greatest works of the North German organ tradition’). Seated as we were in the choir stalls, directly beneath the organ, with Apperley playing the movable console on the floor of the choir, offered a more than usually vivid experience of the contrasts between the different manuals and registrations. It fell into several parts: after the rather arresting introduction came more lively sections which seemed about to develop as fugues, but simply remained delightful, allegro, dance-inspired pieces. Apperley’s playing gave it substance.

Georg Böhm was Bruhns’s close contemporary and about ten choral partitas are recorded by him. This one began with the statement of a sunny melody and proceeded to a series of variations that more or less echoed the original chorale which moved from one manual to another, and widely from treble to bass. The variety of tempos and rhythms as well as the attractive combinations of stops ensured that interest didn’t flag.

It was Buxtehude, organist at the Marienkirche in Lübeck, that Bach walked from Arnstadt to study with in 1705; of the three organ composers represented at this recital, only Buxtehude seems to have had direct influence on Bach.

The Canzona in E minor was quite short, starting with low register flute and other open stops, and later moving to more sombre registrations, to end, conventionally, in the major key.

Finally he played one of the most familiar and well-loved Bach organ works – the Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C – which crops up in many Bach organ compilations; it was probably composed during his years at Weimar.  This was a performance that had both integrity in its faithfulness to what we feel to be Bach’s essential music character, and a liveliness, clarity and variety that was deeply impressive in the reverberant acoustic of St Paul’s. Apperley gauged well the pauses between the short, arresting, opening chords; he skilfully decorated later phrases, and dwelt affectionately on the beauties of the Adagio which has an Italianate character.

The Fugue is a very virtuosic affair, from both the composer’s point of view, and the performer’s, time and again piling up sonorities as the fugal textures evolved with increasing complexity. The whole work seems to suggest being written for a rather grand occasion at which Bach hoped to make an impression that was both exciting and learned, and Apperley responded to all his opportunities, and finally made the most of the repeated feints towards a peroration as the end approached.

Fine touring youth orchestra from California victim of certain difficulties

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Ravel: La Valse
Copland: Clarinet Concerto
Billy the Kid Ballet Suite
Richard Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier Suite

California Youth Symphony conducted by Leo Eylar, with Jeffrey Liu (clarinet)

Wellington Cathedral of St. Paul

Wednesday, 4 July 2012

There were a number of unfortunate features to this concert: it was not well advertised, and I suspect that thus, the audience was mainly made up of members of the Cathedral congregation, and parents and supporters travelling with the orchestra.

Secondly, the leaflet about the Cathedral’s Winter Festival of Music gave the starting time as 7.30pm.  When I got there at 7.20pm the concert had already started; in fact the Ravel item had finished.  It began at 7pm.  Yet most of the audience was already in place, which confirmed to me that they were mainly people ‘in the know’.  The Cathedral was less than half-full.

Finally, there is the difficulty with the Cathedral’s acoustics (once described by a Wellington singer as ‘bathroom acoustics’!)   The sound was surprisingly good in softer passages, but once this large orchestra hit forte, let alone double-forte, the noise was almost deafening, with no definition of sound; the various parts of the orchestra could seldom be heard distinctly.

While a chamber orchestra, particularly if playing baroque music, can be heard tolerably well here, it is no place for a very large orchestra, especially if they have little time to adjust to the acoustic.

It was generous of the orchestra to donate proceeds of the concert to the Christchurch Earthquake Relief Fund; they know about earthquakes in California.  This was an orchestra of 111 players; surprisingly, over three-quarters of the members were of Chinese or Korean ethnicity.

Given the date, it was understandable that Copland featured twice on the programme.  The clarinet concerto is a very effective work, with many virtuoso passages for the soloist, who was an outstanding performer.  The reverberation was a bit of a problem in fast solo passages, but otherwise was not as much of a concern as had I expected.  The orchestra sounded very fine, and lush in places.  The piano is used quite extensively, and, as part of the orchestra, spoke clearly enough (which is not the case with solo piano in this building).

The music was jazzy in places; it was an absorbing and enjoyable work, given an accomplished performance, especially by the soloist.

The conductor spoke to the audience in the interval about Aaron Copland (1900-1990), but much of it was inaudible, except perhaps to the people in the front few rows.

The story of the Copland ballet follows the life of the infamous outlaw Billy the Kid. The suite takes music of the ballet.  It begins by depicting pioneers trekking westward. The action shifts to a small frontier town, where young Billy and his mother are present. Billy’s mother is killed by an outlaw; Billy kills the murderer, and goes on the run.

The scene then shifts to Billy living as an outlaw in the desert. He is captured (the gun battle is featured in the music by percussion effects) and taken to jail, but manages to escape after stealing a gun from the warden during a game of cards. Returning to his hideout, Billy thinks he is safe, but eventually he is caught and killed. The music ends with the opening prairie theme, with pioneers once again travelling west.

The playing was always exciting, especially that of the brass section, but they particularly were rather mangled by the acoustic, especially when joined by the percussion; the timpani reverberated on the floor and from the pillars to an excessive degree. The strings gave a marvellously smooth and projected timbre.

The Strauss work (one played far too frequently on RNZ Concert) acquired very little precision, and became a jumble – not the players’ fault.  Wind solos got lost.  Nevertheless, when one could hear them separately, all the sections played well.  As far as I could tell, they were accurate, and phrased well.

At times it became an endurance test in the loud passages.  The famous waltz fared better, being for strings alone, with a modicum only of brass and woodwind in places.  The violin solo for the concertmaster was very fine.  However, the final iteration of the waltz came over as far too loud.

As an encore, the orchestra let it rip with Sousa’s famous march Stars and Stripes for Ever.

This is a splendid orchestra, but it needs to be heard in the acoustics of a normal concert hall to be fully enjoyed.

(Details on Billy the Kid from Wikipedia).

 

 

Adventurous and rewarding recital by Richard Mapp and Donald Maurice

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Boris Pigovat: Prayer and Botticelli’s Magnificat (world premiere)
Georges Enescu: Sonata in the Romanian Folk Character (transcription by Donald Maurice)

Donald Maurice (viola) and Richard Mapp (piano)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday 4 July, 12.15pm

Students at New Zealand schools of music, and those at the school in Wellington in particular are fortunate in working in an environment that both encourages original composition and its performance, and encourages the exploration of not so new music.

Obviously, that is not at the expense of furnishing students’ memories with the great music of the past, though many will have come from secondary schools where exposure to very much of the wealth of music of earlier times has been patchy.

Certain of the teachers at the school have developed a reputation for unearthing music of unfamiliar composers as well as unfamiliar music of quite famous composers.

Donald Maurice has been prominent among them. Apart from being a leading figure in the international viola scene – he inspired the hosting of the International Viola Congress in Wellington a decade or so ago, for example – he has done very significant work in promoting the work of certain composers.

He published his own completion of Bartók’s unfinished viola concerto. With his colleagues in the New Zealand String Quartet he has committed to CD all 17 of Alfred Hill’s string quartets. And a couple of years ago, Maurice conducted the Wellington Chamber Orchestra in a concert of music by Bartók, Gary Goldschneider (a Romanian-inspired piece), Alfred Hill (one of his symphonies), Enescu and Pigovat (In Arentinian Style).

Mapp’s career has followed a more traditional, pianist’s path in terms of repertoire, returning to New Zealand after a lengthy career around Europe; and now lending his talents generously to accompany a great variety of musicians, students as well as distinguished professionals, in wide-ranging repertory; his much praised CD of piano music by Granados also indicates an exploratory disposition.

So this was another case of discovery. Maurice made a mark in 2011 with his recording with the Vector Wellington Orchestra, under Marc Taddei, of The Holocaust Requiem by Boris Pigovat; that followed the orchestra’s concert in 2008, with the first performance of Requiem outside Europe, as well as Prayer (which was played at the present recital), a piece for viola and harp, and a string quartet.

The Requiem was performed again, in September 2011, by Kenneth Young conducting the New Zealand School of Music Orchestra with Maurice playing viola.

Clearly he is attracted to the Israeli composer whose Prayer and Botticelli’s Magnificat he played at this concert.

Prayer is a slow, elegiac piece written during the composition of the Requiem, and breathing the same air; it too seems perfectly conceived for the viola which took charge of the emotional flavour of the piece, even though the piano’s role, when I could turn my attention away from the beauty and intensity of Maurice’s playing, was an essential participant, and handled with the utmost sensitivity by Mapp. Inevitably, I suppose, I also detected the accents of Ernest Bloch, particularly in the piece’s later phases.

Botticelli’s Magnificat was almost the work of another composer entirely, inspired by the famous painting in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, placing the Medici family in a religious context. It is coloured in light tones, treating the two instruments in somewhat unusual ways, in which the piano is accorded greater prominence much of the time; it carried an open, clear melody while the viola played a sustained single note, a pedal, though in the treble register; however, the viola soon picked it up and elaborated it.

If our experience of Pigovat had been moulded so far by that Requiem and the Prayer, here was a more gracious, gregarious and peaceful fellow, though no less able to express emotion. It was a spirit that both players had no difficulty in communicating.

The sonata by Enescu was an even more interesting discovery (for me). An arrangement by Maurice of Enescu’s third violin sonata in A minor (Op 25), titled ‘dans le caractère populaire roumain’, as is the transcription. He has played it in the United States and Australia, as well as previously in New Zealand.

It struck me that one could approach it from one of two quite different standpoints: one, as a misalliance between generally lively folk music and its enforced conformity with formal classical composition styles; two, as offering a useful and imaginative model for the reassertion of the most common source of inspiration for serious composers over the centuries – popular music which is assimilated into interesting formal structures, as with the last movements of the third Razumovsky Quartet or Brahms’s Piano Quartet Op 25, or Smetana’s Ma Vlast.

I incline to the latter view, hearing it as arising from the same source as his two wonderful Romanian Rhapsodies, only here employing more refined resources. It starts with themes that are distinctly gypsyish in both instruments, with the piano often assuming a rather more important role to begin with, divertingly decorative against the viola which is confined for a while to sustained bowings that are in the nature of pedals.

The note about the second movement suggested a sinister mood, darkness, but I did not sense nocturnal terrors or the presence of anything supernatural, though the piano was given to darting about unpredictably. The third movement too was characterised in the notes in highly fanciful terms, and again my fears were not realised, but the character of the music and the highly accomplished playing convinced me that their pains with its performance had been justified and that more of Enescu’s music deserves a regular place in concert programmes.

Mostly musical anniversaries of 2012

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Earlier in the year we threatened to publish a list of significant musical anniversaries that deserved to be celebrated in 2012. It’s not too late.

This has obviously been a work in progress, constantly being added to, and it will never be exhaustive; we would welcome being told of omissions or corrections from others whose minds are bent in a similar way.

In addition to musical references are some to writers with (or without) musical connections.

1512

Supposed birth of Jacob Clemens non Papa, Flemish Renaissance polyphonist. Died c. 1555.

 

1562

John Bull and Jan Sweelinck were born this year.

Adriaan Willaert (Flemish composer) died in Venice in 1562, where Giovanni Gabrieli lived and died in the same year.

 

1612

Poet Richard Crashaw was born in 1612. He was one of the religious poets of the 17th century, so-called metaphysical poets.

 

1662

Francesco Cavalli (born 1602) was invited to Paris by Cardinal Mazarin where, in 1662, he produced Ercole amante at the Théâtre des Tuileries in Paris with Louis XIV taking part, dressed as the Sun King.  Cavalli’s opera career began in 1639, near the end of Monteverdi’s.

 

1712

John Stanley was born; a blind English organist and composer.

Corelli’s 12 concerti grossi were published in 1712

Handel’s first opera in London was Rinaldo in February 1711. In 1712 he composed Il pastor fido.

Alessandro Scarlatti’s Il Ciro was premiered in 1712.

Frederick the Great, the enlightened Prussian monarch, was born in 1712. He was both a brilliant leader, military strategist, arts and music lover. He was a flutist and employed Bach’s son Carl Philip Emmanuel who perhaps, in 1747, encouraged the king to invite his father to Potsdam. For father Bach it was an often discomfitting experience.

 

1762

Two Italian instrumental composers, Francesco Manfredini and Francesco Geminiani died.

André Chénier, the French poet, was born; though a supporter of the Revolution, he wound up on the wrong side of the leaders of The Terror and was guillotined just two days before the fall of Robespierre. Librettist, Luigi Illica, used the facts of Chénier’s life to write a libretto that inspired Umberto Giordano to write his best, or at least his most famous, opera, Andrea Chénier.

Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, premeired in 1762 One of the most important operas in the sense of changing the idea of what opera was.

And Thomas Arne’s best-known surviving opera, Artaxerxes was produced in 1762 at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. It used a Metastasio libretto which had been set by J C Bach the year before, for Turin.

1812

Friedrich von Flotow was born (Martha, of 1847, whose most famous aria is the lovely ‘Ach, so fromm’, better known in the Italian version, ‘M’appari’; it’s also famous for its version of ‘The last rose of summer’).

Pianist, Liszt’s rival, Thalberg born

And these died:

Franz Hoffmeister. Music publisher and prolific composer, contemporary of Mozart in Vienna (see Mozart’s Hoffmeister Quartet, K 499)

Jan Ladislav Dussek: Bohemian-born composer and pianist, peripatetic: Netherlands, Germany, Russia, Lithuania, France, England.

The 1812 Overture was not, of course, written in 1812, but in 1880.

In 1812 Rossini’s career had just begun. His first opera was La cambuiale di matrimonio in 1810, not a success. But by 1812 he was turning 20 and getting into his stride; he premiered four operas in 1812:

L’inganno felcie, in January
Ciro in Babilonia in March
La scala di seta in April
La pietra del paragone on my birthday 26 September

First performance by Carl Czerny of Beethoven’s 5th piano concerto in Vienna

 

Literature in 1812:

Byron’s Childe Harold published in 1812

Russian novelist Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov was born in 1812. Famous mainly for Oblomov, whose chief character is a paragon of sloth.

Two of the greatest literary figures in 19th century Britain were born just 200 years ago: Charles Dickens and poet Robert Browning. I don’t know whether Dickens was particularly interested in music, but Browning was. A poem I came across at school has continued to fascinate me: A Toccata of Galuppi’s. in which Browning’s familiarity with music and its technical elements is clear.

Pertinent lines:

“Oh Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find!
I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind;
But although I take your meaning, ‘tis with such a heavy mind!

“Here you come with your old music, and here’s all the good it brings.…

“…
While you sat and played toccatas, stately at the clavichord?

“What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, sigh on sigh,
Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions – ‘must we die?’
Those commiserating sevenths – ‘Life might last! We can but try!’

“…
Hark, the dominant’s persistence till it must be answered to!

“So an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare say!
‘Brave Galuppi! That was music! good alike at grave and gay!
‘I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play!’”
…

When I read it in the 1950s, the name Galuppi (1706 – 1785) meant nothing to me and 30 years later it still meant very little, till the arrival of the CD and the desire for new music that was, in general, not satisfied by most contemporary music, stimulated the exploration of early music, including a lot of Galuppi’s music – operas, concertos, chamber and organ music.

And now we find Galuppi, just one of a host of Italian composers who flourished through the 18th century, filling the previously empty years between the death of Vivaldi and the arrival of Rossini and Paganini who heralded a revival of Italian music. Some of the reappearing composers of the 18th century: Sammartini, Tartini, Locatelli, Geminiani, Salieri, Piccinni, Sacchini, Paisiello, Martini, Cimarosa, Jommelli, Traetta, Sarti…

1862

Delius and Debussy born

As well as: Edward German – composer of English operetta, Merrie England

Alphons Diepenbrock, one of the rare race of Dutch composers

Léon Boëllmann, organist and composer: his best known work is Suite Gothique.

Ludovic Halévy (La Juive) died in 1862.

Two major operas were premiered in 1862:

Béatrice et Bénédict (Berlioz) at Baden-Baden

La forza del destino (Verdi) at St Petersburg

 

Two German poets died in 1862:

Ludwig Uhland and Justinius Kerner

And Gerhart Hauptmann was born, a playwright, best known for Die Weber (The weavers). He was Silesian and his end was poignant and barbaric. He was among the millions of Germans forcibly expelled at the end of World War II from the countries of Eastern Europe and the former eastern provinces of the pre-war Germany, such as East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia. The fact of being a great writer, a Nobel Prize winner (1912), now 84 years of age, made no difference to the orders of the Soviet colonel charged with the task of expelling all Germans from Hauptmann’s town. Faced with the finality of the order, Hauptmann fell ill and died and was buried, not according to his wishes, but on an island in the Soviet occupied zone of Germany, near Stralsund in the North Sea.

Maurice Maeterlinck, playwright, was born in 1862; in my childhood I remember being taken to a play called The Bluebird in the Opera House in Wellington. But he’s most famous for writing a play that inspired a composer born in the same year as he was – Debussy, who set Pelléas et Mélisande as an opera which led to considerable animosity between poet and composer.

 

1912

The following composers born :

Xavier Montsalvatge, many singers are attracted to his Cinco canciones negras

Carlos Guastavino, the fourth best-known Argentinian composer after Ginastera, Piazzolla and Golijov.

Jean Françaix 

José Moncayo –he wrote the exciting ‘Huapango’

Igor Markevitch – conductor/composer

Two radical American composers: John Cage and Conrad Nancarrow

Hugo Weisgall: Moravia-Jewish-born American composer, of mainly vocal music and opera.

Peggy Glanville-Hicks, Australian woman composer, much earlier than any comparable New Zealand woman composer.

Deaths:

Jules Massenet and

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

Franz Schreker wrote Der ferner Klang in 1912, the best known of his operas, several of which have regained popularity recently.

Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé first performed by Ballet Russes at Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris

Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire first performed, in Berlin

In Stuttgart, Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, initially just a 30minute opera, libretto by Hugo von Hofmansthal, was given as double bill with Molière’s Le bourgeois gentilhomme: a thank-you to the great stage director Max Reinhardt who had directed Der Rosenkavalier. Hofmannsthal reworked the two elements, opera and play, into a new, integrated opera which Strauss set in 1916.

Mahler‘s Ninth Symphony was premiered in Vienna in June 1912, a year after his death.

Laurence Durrell was born in 1912: His Alexandria Quartet was a sensation when it appeared in the late 1950s, among students of literature anyway. (I re-read copies which are to be found both at home in Wellington and our beach bach). I wonder what its reputation is today.

 

1962

Britten’s War Requiem first performed at Coventry Cathedral

These composers died in 1962:

Fritz Kreisler – a number of works written ‘in the style of’, and initially published as by those mainly 18th century composers.

Jacques Ibert – his most popular pieces are Divertissement, based on his incidental music for the play Le chapeau de paille d’Italie, later a film by René Clair; and Escales (Ports of Call).

John Ireland, who, long after his death has been favourably re-assessed after decades of neglect.

Eugene Goosens. Best known as conductor but regarded himself more as a composer.

Hanns Eisler. He was a refugee from Nazi Germany to the United States, but after being accused of Communist connections by the McCarthy committee (look at Wikipedia: ‘Hollywood Blacklist’) returned to East Germany in 1948. Berlin’s principal music academy is named for him: Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler”

 

 

Triple the pleasure and more at St.Andrew’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Chamber Orchestra presents:

BEETHOVEN – Triple Concerto, for violin, ‘cello, piano and orchestra Op.56

KENNETH YOUNG – Douce Tristesse

HINDEMITH – Trauermusik for viola and string orchestra

BIZET – L’Arlesienne (Suite No.2)

with Vesa-Matti Leppänen (violin), Andrew Joyce (‘cello), Diedre Irons (piano) and Julia Joyce (viola)

Wellington Chamber Orchestra (leader: Liz Pritchett)

Conducted by Peter van Drimmelen

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

Sunday, 1st July, 2012

Some people know how to celebrate in style, and the Wellington Chamber Orchestra, by way of marking their fortieth year of giving concerts certainly popped a goodly number of musical champagne corks on this truly heartwarming occasion.

Even before conductor Peter van Drimmelen made his delightfully tangental entrance (from the side door of the church) to ascend the podium and begin the concert, there was a sense of something slightly “charged” hovering about the auditorium and amongst the audience – a buzz of excitement and expectation, undoubtedly in view of the programme and the starry line-up of musicians brought together to play some of it with the orchestra.

I was surprised at the number of concerts the conductor told us he had taken with the orchestra over the years, as it was the first occasion on which I had seen him conduct. He told us about his first concert with the orchestra, during which he played Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante K.364, with his wife as the other soloist, and then, surprisingly, after a few other brief reminiscences announced his intention to make the present concert his final one with the ensemble.

So, for a couple of good reasons the concert was something of a milestone event – interestingly, though the programme proclaimed on the cover “WCO in 2012: celebrating 40 years”, nothing was made of this during the actual course of the afternoon. Perhaps the first and/or last concerts of such an anniversary year are the most appropriate occasions to mark such anniversaries, though reminders in between times (such as on the front of the programme) help keep up a sense of something special.

Thus it was that, in truly festive style, the concert began with a kind of birthday present for the orchestra, a work commissioned by Peter van Drimmelen from one of the country’s finest contemporary composers, Kenneth Young. Himself a fine conductor (occasionally of this orchestra, along with a number of others), Young has produced a number of brilliant and energetic orchestral works over the years. For this commission, however, he came up with a beautifully and lyrically-wrought piece, called Douce Tristesse (Sweet Sadness).

The composer’s brief note about his work suggested the piece was something of a valediction – his words “…..like looking at a familiar and fond vista for the last time….” reflected the music’s intense beauty and nostalgic longing, wrought by his adroit use of orchestral colour and texture. I would think that the players loved performing this work as it gave so many of them significant things to do, the wind players particularly in evidence throughout.

The whole orchestra responded to Peter van Drimmelen’s direction with, I thought, considerable sensitivity, the strings especially giving us some lovely soft playing in places. In fact the string-writing had a lovely “wind-blown” ambience during these moments, contrasting appropriately with more juicy lyrical moments such as their exchanges with the harp – the latter instrument was heard also in tandem with winds to beguiling effect.

I couldn’t see the player responsible for the firmly-toned horn solo (a forest of music-stands obscured a whole row of brass-playing faces!), but I could clearly appreciate the work of the orchestral leader, Liz Pritchett, with her solos, which incorporated a sweetly-floated harmonic at one stage of the piece, a lovely effect, as well as her delivering of the piece’s final few notes. At the music’s end, the composer was called to the front to acknowledge some well-earned applause for an attractive orchestral evocation.

The delicacy of Young’s sound-world was thrown into abrupt relief by the opening strains of Bizet’s second L’Arlesienne Suite, with its grandly processional-like opening, weighty and brassy, giving way to some wind interludes featuring the strains of a saxophone, to my delight. Later, the wind playing brought out all the folkish strains of the writing with great gusto.

Saxophone and clarinet gave the second movement an attractive rustic melancholy, while the flute-playing in the following Minuet, was outstanding, first in tandem with the harp and saxophone variously, and then in a beautiful concluding solo, which rightly earned the player the conductor’s and the audience’s special acknowledgement.

The concluding Farandole, taken at a terrific lick once the return of the opening march-tune had done its thing, brought out incredibly exciting playing, one of the players I spoke with afterwards confessing that the orchestra had never done it “that fast” in rehearsal!  There was great work from all concerned, with the percussion having a riotous time towards the end, and the counterpointed tunes roaring out uninhibitedly – I couldn’t help thinking that that devoted Francophile Sir Thomas Beecham would have heartily approved!

It was a concert of contrasts, with these heady festivities followed immediately afterwards by Paul Hindemith’s Trauermusic for solo viola and strings. There was actually a welcome luftpause after the Bizet while players not involved with the Hindemith got themselves off the stage, and a space for the viola soloist was configured. This was Julia Joyce, principal violist of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, a striking platform presence as well as a fine player, transfixing listeners’ ears with tones of intense focus and infinite nuance over the space of her first few notes, following a brief orchestra introduction.

Hindemith wrote the music while visiting London to play the British premiere of his Viola Concerto – after hearing of the death of King George V the composer produced within a day the Trauermusik, a piece for viola and string orchestra, and played this instead of his concerto at the concert. As well as quoting fragments of his own Mathis der Maler Symphony and the temporarily discarded concerto, Hindemith incorporated into the work the melody from a Bach chorale “Here I stand before Thy throne”, which was better-known in England as “The Old 100th”.

Julia Joyce took us unerringly into the work’s intensely lyrical sound-world (at the outset, to my ears not unlike that created by English composers – Tippett, for example, in places in his “Corelli” Fantasia”), moving from the first part’s sorrowing sounds into a brief folkish dance-like interlude, before plunging with the orchestra into another intense, more tightly-wrought, vigorous section, solo instrument and ensemble exchanging strongly-figured lines. These descended into silence, from which grew the chorale, Joyce’s heartfelt viola declamations speaking as an individual soul reaching out towards a kind of ambiently murmuring peace – well-controlled by all, and very moving.

So, onto the Beethoven Triple Concerto, with three more star soloists, two more section leaders (one actually the concertmaster) from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, plus one of New Zealand’s finest pianists. I had heard violinist Vesa Matti Leppänen and ‘cellist Andrew Joyce play together in a concerto during last year’s Brahms Festival, when they played the Double Concerto; and of course our third soloist Diedre Irons had, during the same concert series, given us the titanic B-flat Piano Concerto. With these full-scale, no-holds-barred traversals by the same musicians in mind, I was eagerly awaiting their combination in the Beethoven.

As was often the case in a classical concerto the orchestra set the scene, the playing here bright-toned, lively and spare, the light textures allowing some nice detailing  through, with noticeable ebb and flow, though the violins had an uncharacteristically scrappy moment just before the ‘cello’s first entry. What delight there was here in the discourse, firstly between the stringed instruments, and then including the piano, the orchestra all the while “playing to them” and stimulating even wider discoursings on the part of the three soloists.

From the very first ‘cello entry I loved the solo instruments’ different interactive voicings, with hardly a note, it seemed, taken for granted. Given the lead by the composer in most of the instrumental exchanges Andrew Joyce’s ‘cello set the tone, his eloquent phrasing by turns forthright and yielding, constantly “leading into” what his violinist colleague Vesa-Matti Leppänen was doing. In places the latter seemed like Horatio to the ‘cellist’s Hamlet, the violin-playing rather more upright and straightforward (a couple of awry end-of-phrase notes apart), and less inclined to expressive flights of fancy. But both players shared with pianist Diedre Irons a real sense of listening to what was going on both between them and with the orchestra. Diedre Irons’ piano-playing was a joy – bright-toned, and with plenty of tumbling warmth in her phrasing, bringing to the interactions that vital spark of energy which often sets performances alight. Thanks to these different expressions of give-and-take, the performance of the first movement sparkled with interest throughout, leading up to a coda that crackled with honest-to-goodness excitement.

Poetry and song filled the air with the slow movement’s performance – all three soloists responded to the orchestra’s rapt introduction with playing of great beauty – again, we experienced a sense of those musicians playing each others’ as well as their own music, in heart-warming accord.

The introduction to the finale felt like a gathering-up of tiny wisps of energy, each of the soloists adding his or her strand to the line, intensifying the mixture, and then spontaneously allowing the ‘cellist to impulsively take hold of the tendrils and swing into the open. At that point the performance became even more interesting, because the soloists and conductor seemed not to quite agree on a common pulse for the music. We heard the rhythmic strut of the polonaise-like gait richly pointed by the three soloists, but things were then moved along more resolutely, a shade impatiently, I thought in places, by conductor and orchestra.

Consequently, the ensemble had its not-quite-together moments, such as the strings accompanying of the ‘cello’s opening phrases – their droll chuggings were pushed along not quite in accordance with what Andrew Joyce was playing. As well, Peter van Drimmelen seemed not to want to give the loud orchestral chord that capped off a rush of concerted soloistic triplets any rhetorical space, but instead have it played “in tempo”, so that it too in the overall context had a sense of slightly undue haste. Of course, more sensation-mongering commentators would be glorying in the “creative tensions” that these discrepancies set up – but for me the orchestral tuttis didn’t quite have the sense of rhythmic enjoyment that the soloists had very obviously engendered. It was also (and more prosaically) true that any variations of pulse which either stretched out or squeezed the bar-or phrase-spaces were easily dealt with by the musicians.

An interesting hiatus occurred mid-movement when, after the three soloists had been musing on an amalgam of two-note phrases, tossing them back and forward with what seemed like great relish, and relaxing the pulse in doing so, the conductor, waiting to bring the orchestra in, actually turned around on the podium to look at them as if to say, “Well, have you three quite finished? – and can we get on, now?” All very professionally done, of course; and the music continued unabated.

Of course there was no great battle of wills, here, but it did seem that certain musical ideas weren’t quite in accord between those performing this work. I thought the big, A-minor “Polacca” episode didn’t “gell” sufficiently for those rhythms to have the proper “schwung”  Still, Beethoven survived! – and there were things which gave great delight, such as Diedre Irons’ sudden pianistic plunge into the vortex of C Minor, everything black-browed and threatening for a few moments before a reprise of the opening brought things back on an even keel.

Interestingly enough, after giving almost all the important leads to the ‘cello throughout the work, Beethoven used the violin to introduce the finale’s coda (well, perhaps “Stage One” of the coda! – as things go back to “Tempo 1” right at the end!). Here, Vesa-Matti Leppänen threw caution to the proverbial winds and his violin skipped away, leaving the orchestral strings trailing (fortunately, Andrew Joyce allowed them to catch up!) . What a wonderfully “busy” and mischievously garrulous Allegro the three soloists made of it, Diedre Irons keeping an eagle eye on the conductor and orchestra to keep things rhythmically ship-shape at the return of the polonaise-rhythm, and Peter van Drimmelen getting a splendidly buoyant orchestral response right at the end. Those final ascending figurations and pay-off chords were despatched with real élan from all concerned.

Sheer delight at the end, and plaudits for all – in sum, a wonderful concert.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Triumphant anniversary concert for Dame Malvina Major Foundation

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

The Dame Malvina Major Foundation 21st Anniversary Celebration Concert

Excerpts from operas by Mozart, Donizetti, Verdi, Gounod, Humperdinck and Johann Strauss; items by Vaughan Williams, Richard Strauss, Sibelius and Saint-Saëns

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Wyn Davies, with Teddy Tahu Rhodes (bass-baritone), Ben Morrison (violin), Phillip Rhodes, Kieran Rayner (baritones), Aivale Cole, Carleen Ebbs (sopranos), Kristin Darragh, Bianca Andrew (mezzo-sopranos), Andrew Grenon, Darren Pene Pati (tenors)

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday, 30 June 2012, 7.30pm

A wonderful concert of superb singing and playing celebrated the milestone in the life of Dame Malvina’s Foundation, which has assisted literally hundreds of young performers, and distributed tens of thousands of dollars.  Much training in the operatic arts has been provided in co-operation with New Zealand Opera, and mentoring given to young aspirants by Dame Malvina herself, and others.

An ample printed programme of biographies and notes was supplemented by an introductory speech and interspersed programme information from Dame Malvina.  The well-planned programme gave plenty of variety, and introduced numerous ensembles, which gave opportunity for a modicum of acting, and afforded the audience the pleasure of hearing numbers of these excellent voices together.  These were interspersed with solos.  All the items were of a high standard.

First up was Vaughan Williams’s beautiful Serenade to Music, written for the 50th anniversary of Sir Henry Wood’s conducting career, and so appropriate for this anniversary, and for the fact that it uses so many voices.  Written for 16 voices (and last heard live by me in 2002 at the 50th anniversary concert of The Orpheus Choir, with 16 voices), it was sung here by eight voices.

Throughout the evening, the performers stood forward of the conductor and orchestra; it was impressive how their ensemble and intonation were always immaculate despite this apparent disadvantage.  Aivale Cole was a little flat on a couple of notes early in her first solo passage, but soon got into her stride.

The work is a setting of the words from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice:
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! 
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.

What an amazing marriage of words and music this piece is!  The ethereal nature of much of the music and the delicious harmonies provided a very sweet start to the evening.  All the singers apart from Kieran Rayner and Dame Malvina herself took part in this opening item, as did Ben Morrison, playing the solo violin passages in captivating style, and also a fine duet with lead viola, Julia Joyce.  His tone in solo and ensembles was delicious.  The harp is most important in this work, adding to its serenade quality.

The first solos were from Teddy Tahu Rhodes: ‘Fin ch’han dal vino’ from Don Giovanni and ‘Non più andrai’ from Le Nozze di Figaro.  The first was taken quite fast; Rhodes’s fluency and rich timbre coped with this splendidly.  His gestures provided an additional element to the story-telling.  The second aria, being a little slower, conveyed the words better, and we got more of his rolling bass sound and the thrilling sustained notes.  The orchestra’s brass and woodwind created the mock military march superbly.  It was great to hear this internationally successful singer.

He has great stage presence, yet seemed very relaxed on stage.

Although the printed programme said that Darren Peni Pati would sing the Donizetti aria from Don Pasquale, it was actually Andrew Grenon who sang ‘Tornami a dir che m’ami’, with Carleen Ebbs.  The latter’s voice has developed remarkably since I last heard her, prior to her travelling to Cardiff to study.  The two voices matched very well, Ebbs producing a rich, contralto sound in the lower register, of which there was plenty in her Don Carlos solo that followed in Scene from Act IV of that opera.  She was marvellously robust and characterful.

Aivale Cole’s warm and lovely voice did not fail to excite in her part of that scene.  Her top was secure and dramatic, her low notes thrilling.  Teddy Tahu Rhodes’s contribution was deep and rich, while Phillip Rhodes was strong and noble.  Acting in  this scene saw Teddy Tahu Rhodes holding a jewel casket and showing the portrait of  his son therein to Aivale Cole, who faints, and Eboli, the jealous princess (Kristin Darragh) conveying emotion well through gesture and facial expression; Phillip Rhodes a little more wooden as he sympathises with Elisabeth (Aivale Cole).  Despite no set or costumes (though Cole’s outfit fitted the bill very well), the drama and emotion were portrayed sufficiently through voices, actions and faces.  Ensemble and balance were first-class.

Cole’s treatment of the words in Richard Strauss’s Zueignung (Dedication) was exemplary, while her tone was creamy and gorgeous.  This song always turns my ‘innards’ into jelly; Aivale did not disappoint, nor did the NZSO.  The Sibelius song Illale (To Evening) was new to me.  Cole sang it with plenty of power, horns and trumpets in the orchestration notwithstanding.

Two quintets from Act I of Così fan tutte gave more opportunity for acting, this time with Carleen Ebbs, Bianca Andres, Phillip Rhodes, Andrew Grenon and Kieran Rayner.  Again, the ensemble singing was near perfect.  All projected well, the orchestra was fabulous, and the whole was made into a very believable story with the use of gesture and movement.  Bianca Andrew’s voice does not have the richness of Darragh’s, but it is very clear and pleasing, and her performance was thoroughly confident and committed.

Darren Pene Pati sang from Gounod’s Faust ‘Salut, demeure chaste et pure’.   His voice has a beautiful operatic timbre.  His French language, phrasing and emphasis were ideal, and his voice production seemed easy and relaxed, not tight or forced in any way.  His top C was not only achieved, it had beautiful tone and a superbly controlled diminuendo – more than can be said for some famous singers who have recorded this aria.

It was pleasant to return to the violin for a break from the passions of opera.  Ben Morrison played the well-known Havanaise by Saint-Saëns with warm tone, precision, the technical skill needed for this show-piece, but very much in the spirit of the habanera.

Kristin Darragh had an advantage in the ensemble from Rigoletto, since she sung her role of Maddalena in the recent New Zealand Opera production.  Nevertheless, the entire quartet were all impressive in ‘Bella figlia dell’amore’: Cole, Pati and Phillip Rhodes were just as good.  Timing was spot on.  This quartet would grace any operatic stage, both individually and as an ensemble.

Again, the passion was cooled, this time by the beautiful ‘Children’s Prayer’ from Hänsel und Gretel by Humperdinck.  It was sung charmingly by Carleen Ebbs and Bianca Andrew.

We then heard from Dame Malvina herself, singing ‘Mercè, dilette amiche’ from Verdi’s I Vespri Siciliani.  While not having the volume it once would have, her voice is in fine shape.  She sang with flair and demonstrated more than most of the younger singers the use of the resonators in the face, and extraordinary breath control.  Trills, and all her singing, were abundantly accurate.  Although her voice has inevitably changed with time, she certainly has not lost her power to communicate with an audience or to put over an affecting performance of beauty and character.

The final item was an ensemble from Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus: an excerpt from Act II that included the famous ‘Champagne Chorus.  Seven singers (that is, all except Teddy Tahu Rhodes and Kieran Rayner) were sang in this.  Phillip Rhodes stood out for me as having a splendid voice and singing excellent German.  Bianca Andrew showed great stage presence, and entered into the spirit of the piece.  But so did all the others.

There were no ‘duds’ in this concert; every singer was very fine, and every item thoroughly prepared.  The singers were assured and confident, and vindicated the work of the Dame Malvina Major Foundation as funder and mentor.  It was gratifying to think that all these performers had been assisted by the Foundation.

The orchestra was in its usual splendid form.  Sponsorship seems, however, to have been taken beyond its usual limits, with the concertmaster’s name appearing at the head of the orchestra page (though not in the listings below) as ‘Visa-Matti Leppänen’!  At times, a full-sized symphony orchestra on the same level as the singers proved to be too much, but these fairly brief occasions were relatively infrequent.  An advantage of this arrangement was that one could hear (and see) orchestral solos, and the various parts of the orchestra very well, in a way that is almost impossible in an opera house.

The Michael Fowler Centre was not full; there were many empty seats at the back and sides downstairs, and scattered throughout the gallery.  I can’t help wondering if the ticket prices were too high, and that a lower price-tag would have actually produced greater returns.

But the entire concert sparkled with élan, and provided the audience with an evening of great singing and playing, the singers proving the value of The Dame Malvina Major Foundation on this, its 21st birthday.  It was indeed a happy birthday.