Category: Reviews – Concerts

St Andrew’s: a Tuesday of New Zealand music

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s on The Terrace concert series

Tuesday 16 March 2010, concerts at midday and early evening

Lunchtime: New Zealand Music for Woodwind. Music by Anthony Ritchie, Pieta Hextall, Jack Spiers, Gillian Whitehead, Ben Hoadley and David Farquhar

This proved to be a wholly New Zealand day. At lunchtime, a group of mainly contemporary pieces for solo winds or groups and in the 6.30 slot, three string quartets by New Zealand’s first real composer, Alfred Hill.

The lunchtime concert comprised mostly solo pieces for flute, clarinet and bassoon, with only two for several players. Luca Manghi was the busiest player with solo pieces by Anthony Ritchie and Ben Hoadley. Hoadley was also the bassoon player and he founded the group; he teaches at both the Auckland University and the New Zealand schools of music.

Ritchie’s piece, Tui, was typical of much of his music: descriptive, arising from the natural world. The music began to sound from somewhere behind us, probably in the choir gallery, simulating the bird, with staccato notes soon coalescing into broad melodic patterns. The tui gives a composer permission to use almost any sound that the instrument can produce, such is its versatility and imitative powers, allowing the bending of the pitch of the notes occasionally.

Ben Hoadley’s piece was called ‘…after a while only the green of the grass is left’, the last line of a poem that his grandmother wrote, about sparrows. Again the flute plays  bird role, starting with fluttering, then subsiding to into a diatonic melody, a peaceful sequence, livened briefly with fast arpeggios. Again, a virtuosic performance from this Italian who lives in Auckland and freelances between the New Zealand Symphony, Auckland Philharmonia and Christchurch Symphony orchestras. 

The second piece on the programme was 7.0, no clue to the meaning, apart from being a response to the Haïti earthquake – it certainly wasn’t the Richter reading. Composer Pieta Hextall is Wellington-based, playing in several groups including Improv Noise Band, and the RNZAF Band. She studies at the New Zealand School of Music and you might find her helpful in Parson’s Books and CDs.

7.0 is for flute, clarinet (Anna McGregor) and bassoon, starting very quietly with clarinet, then flute and then the bassoon in its highest register; all played in unison or at the octave, briefly; sombre and evolving to coherent harmonies with careful dissonances. The first section ended after intense screaming from the flute. The second section contained more panicky sounds and the last section returned to calm, broken by though lamenting bass notes.

Jack Spiers – late professor of music at Otago University – wrote a piece for solo bassoon in five short movements, as a birthday gift for a friend. Her name, Sheila, provides the material for the Prelude, said the programme note  (I didn’t work it out). It’s a positive, sanguine piece that entices the listener with a sense of discovery; Hoadley was an excellent advocate and bearer of gifts.

The piece for solo clarinet was by Gillian Whitehead: Mata-au, the Maori name for the Clutha River which her Alexandra house overlooks during her Henderson Arts Trust residence. It uses the sounds of Maori flutes such as the koauau and Anne McGregor succeeded brilliantly in simulating these beguiling sounds that were inspired by the movement of the river, its whirlpools and currents.

Finally, a most attractive find in the SOUNZ (Centre for New Zealand Music) archives: a wind quartet by David Farquhar, written as a student in London. His note, giving it to SOUNZ, referred to its character, modeled on Bartok’s Sixth Quartet, and commented on the dismissive remarks by his London teacher, Benjamin Frankel. It was clearly the victim of the anti-tonal, anti-audience Gestapo that emerged after WWII and blighted the careers of so many composers.

A series of six movements, a slow introduction to each of three fast movements, there was thematic interest, and plenty of resourceful manipulation of the material throughout. The players, the oboe, clarinet and bassoon previously heard plus second clarinet Tui Clark, gave it a splendid, convincing and affectionate performance, exploring all its virtues and finding no vices of any consequence.

The work was not an ‘exploration’ of some bizarre playing technique or an intellectual concept, or even of a landscape or animal or human being. The music, with no props or narratives, such as Mozart and Brahms were content with, was plenty interesting and enjoyable.

Tuesday evening: Three string quartets by Alfred Hill (Nos 8, 10 and 11) played by the Dominion String Quartet – Yuri Gezentsvey, Rosemary Harris, Donald Maurice, David Chickering

Donald Maurice opened the concert with a short account of Hill’s life and the project to record all 17 string quartets, some of which may have never even been played. All three were written after his retirement in 1934 as Professor of Composition at the Sydney Conservatorium. Only one of the three has been recorded – No 11, and it did emerge as the most interesting and imaginative.

It might be cynical to say that his talk was the most interesting part of the concert, and I wouldn’t do so. It was indeed interesting and by no means misjudged in reflecting Donald Maurice’s enthusiasm for bringing these works to performance in excellent recordings; I did find parts of the quartets less than engrossing.

In each case, the opening phrases of movements portended a work of more substance than in fact emerged as the music developed. Yet there was always the feel of a composer of great accomplishment at work, with a ready source of melody, even if not particularly striking. The Dominion Quartet gave them each well-planned and -considered performances, taking pains over dynamics and investing the music with a rhythmic ebb and flow, attempting to make the development of the ideas as interesting as possible, even when one felt that what was to happen next was ever so predictable.

There were bluesy sounds in No 8, that gave them, not so much a jazz air, but the feel of the palm court. The second movement, an Intermezzo, actually maintained its short life with the feel of a journey commencing, purposeful and filled with anticipation. The later movements were English romantic rather than impressionist in the Debussy sense.

No 10, again, began propitiously and there was a serious cello passage, but the spirit fell away with the appearance of the first phrase of Gershwin’s ‘I got rhythm’; it seemed to prejudice the chance of the recovery of any sort of first-movement solidity. The Scherzo third movement however was rhythmically effective, had a more distinctive character,.

It was No 11 that impressed me most. The harmony was more dense and less given to cliché; there were sequences that, while not particularly original, evolved interestingly. Bluesy strains reappeared but they did not sentimentalise the piece as they had done earlier, and were not so predictable in their handling.

The Allegretto last movement was light in spirit, inhabited by catchy groups of staccato semi-quavers and ideas that were developed more naturally, less predictably than in the other two quartets,

It was an interesting exposure to a significant composer, indeed significant in New Zealand music, both for the large body of music he left and for his serious interest in Maori music, though not in a way that might meet the demands of a later generation of musicologists or ethnologists, who tend to judge not by the standards of the relevant age, but by their own: a serious failing in most spheres of scholarship. 

Three CDs of Hill’s quartets have now appeared on Naxos and the rest of the 17, including those we heard, are in preparation.

Figaro’s marvellous marriage in Day’s Bay garden

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

The Marriage of Figaro
Produced by Rhona Fraser; Conducted by Michael Vinten, directed by Sara Brodie.
The Count – Matt Landreth, The Countess – Rhona Fraser, Susanna – Barbara Graham, Figaro – Daniel O’Connor, Cherubino – Bianca Andrew, Marcellina – Annabelle Cheetham, Don Basilio – John Beaglehole, Dr Bartolo – Roger Wilson, Barbarina – Sophie Mackie; village girls – Olivia Martin and Rose Blake

Canna House, Moana Road, Day’s Bay

Monday 15 March 2010

I was at the third of the three performances of this startling and brilliant staging of Mozart’s great comedy.

It was at the initiative of Rhona Fraser who was both producer and the Countess, as well as owner of the property in a natural amphitheatre against the beech forest behind Day’s Bay.

Her own background, as a singer of some enterprise, made this project look inevitable.
Music graduate of Victoria University, studies in England and several years performing small roles at English National Opera and big roles in small companies such as theatre designer and impresario Adam Pollock’s. Every summer for 30 years from 1974 he brought his English opera company to perform in an abandoned convent at his famous Batignano Festival in Tuscany. It was that that persuaded Rhona of the special fruitfulness of such intimate productions, not in the conventional opera house. Since returning to New Zealand and buying the property, she has organized charity concerts and now for the first time, an opera.
No opera could have been more right.

Rhona had met opera director Sara Brodie, when she too worked at Batignano; she was the natural choice as stage director. Her hand was alive to all the possibilities offered by the house and garden and she would have encouraged and offered creative ideas to the cast, most of whom seemed overflowing with theatrical instinct.

The weather intrudes
The Friday (first) performance was the victim of the extraordinary storm that struck that evening; those who arrived were greeted, nevertheless, with a glass of wine and an aria before turning back into the storm; and most were able to come on the ‘rain day’ on Monday. There was enough interest to have mounted another performance.

Monday was, reportedly, the best evening for the weather, with the lightest of breezes, warm temperatures, and a western sky seen through the proscenium of trees that slope down to the bay and the harbour beyond, streaked with light clouds in a beautiful sunset.

It started at 5pm, with a dinner break at 6.15 after Act II, and resumed about 7.20 so darkness fell about the start of the garden cavortings in Act IV, when charming lighting made the natural setting even more entrancing.

Setting and preparation
There’s a lot of preparation involved with a production of this kind. A major task was the preparation of an orchestral score for a much reduced instrumental ensemble. That was the task of music director Michael Vinten who has had much experience. There was a piano, played by Richard Mapp, to flesh out the sound, especially the bass, sometimes even suggesting an orchestra; Mapp also played an electronic harpsichord for the recitatives. There were one each of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn but no strings apart from a double bass. The result was musically admirable and entirely adequate to the task.

And there was no chorus apart from the principals themselves, including the two nubile Village Girls.

The way the house and garden are disposed on the property allowed the ‘stage’ and the audience to change places between the first two and the last two acts. Thus the terrace in front of the house served as Figaro’s and Susanna’s room and then the Countess’s chamber while, after the dinner hour, alterations to seating moved the performance space to the lower lawn terrace while the audience was on the upper terraces, facing west toward the harbour and the setting sun. Visibility was excellent, and the sound even more so, every word clear. For while in Acts I and II the performers had the house behind them to reflect the sound, in Acts III and IV, they sang with nothing but the view at their backs; the natural amphitheatre did the rest.

The different levels allowed for stunts like Figaro leaping over the little hedge of the top level to land on the one below; and Cherubino’s escape, not into the garden, but into the adjacent swimming pool, wet tee-shirt and all.

Then there was the libretto, in Shirmer’s English translation, apart from one of Cherubino’s arias, ‘Voi che sapete’, which Bianca Andrew sang in Italian. It was witty at times, a bit laboured at others, but helped by occasional up-dating with local, contemporary references such as Seatoun as the generalized ‘elsewhere’ and where the Count goes surfing.

My only quarrel with the translation was with Figaro’s threat, after Susanna makes him understand the Count’s intentions, that ‘he may go dancing but I’ll play my guitar’; in my head, ‘…I’ll call the tune’, has always seemed the perfect English equivalent.

The performance
Let me comment at this point about the absence of a review in Wellington’s daily paper. If this were London, one might forgive The Times or The Independent for overlooking it, but for the only daily in a small city that boasts of being a ‘cultural capital’ to ignore such a large-scale, elaborate and brilliant enterprise is lamentable. In total over 600 people saw it, far more than most Fringe Festival events that the paper has been covering.

The overture began with the accompaniment of comings and goings of those who would be identified later, ending with the two who we could assume were about to become Figaro and Susanna, kissing. As their scene was about to begin, with them preoccupied, Vinten tapped his baton on the desk to call them to order. It set the tone.

Figaro, Daniel O’Connor,  is suitably young, perhaps a little too young – for this is the man-of-the-world who, in The Barber, was the engineer of the Count’s winning of Rosina against extraordinary odds. He can afford to be more mature than his master. Never mind.

Bianca Andrew, the Cherubino, was no less vivid; she will be remembered as Ino in last year’s Semele from the New Zealand School of Music, as one of Wendy Dawn Thompson’s companions in her recital and in January at the New Zealand Opera School at Wanganui. Her delivery was stylish and coloured with nice emphases on some words.

The Count’s other obsession is surfing; his (Matt Landreth’s) arrival in wetsuit and surfboard at two points titillated as he stripped to a body stocking. He displayed a stage confidence, looks and vocal style that fitted the role splendidly, though it might be unlikely that a surfie would be named as ambassador to London; there was little outward dignitas  of which even less remained after the succession of shameful revelations starting in the first act with Cherubino’s overhearing the Count’s plans involving Susanna, a scene alive with adroit movement and timing.

Costumes were ‘period’ apart from the Count.

Susanna was sung by Barbara Graham who has been attracting attention in the past couple of years. With a well-formed, excellently trained soprano and vivid stage presence, she was a model Susanna: pretty, bright, daring. She’s shortly on her way to Paris for coaching and for auditions.

To get a performance of little over two hours many cuts were needed. One I particularly missed was the spunky duet between Susanna and Marcellina; we had only the preliminary foretaste. Marcellina was far from being a Katisha. Annabelle Cheetham, her voice full of character, created a woman of uncertain years, lively, prickly, but not ultimately uncharitable; thus her role in the first act was not inconsistent with the reconciliation in the third.

Rhona Fraser as the Countess gave an exemplary performance; a voice in good shape, the right demeanour, sad disillusionment born with dignity, yet the ability to see through the last act with a warm sense of humour and spirit. She had cast herself very well and her two big arias were serious, impressive singing.

The two roles of Dr Bartolo and the gardener, Antonio were distinctly delineated by baritone Roger Wilson, voice splendid, and costumes outlandish. Tenor John Beaglehole was a very well cast Don Basilio, at once weasely and sympathetic, his voice now of good operatic proportions.

Sophie Mackie sang Barbarina pertly, and intentionally, no doubt, without too much polish.

It all ended as darkness enveloped the garden, and the always chaotic disguises, dissemblings, revenges, misunderstandings, umbrages, and the final exposure and irredeemable humiliation of the count, enacted in a real garden, with people emerging from bushes and escaping down gravel paths, had the audience entranced as they could not possibly have been in any ordinary opera theatre.

I’m sure there are other Rhona Frasers and Sara Brodies around New Zealand who could help transform the starved, struggling opera scene in New Zealand, given some resources. It’s time Creative New Zealand woke up to its real responsibilities towards the real arts and got behind initiatives such as this in a serious way.

For this was the sort of performance that contributes, not merely to the great pleasure of the audience, but also to the process of training talented singers in the business of opera. It did all these things superbly well.

Cornucopia in big ensembles at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Cornucopia:

Ed Allen (1,3), Heather Thompson (1,3) horns
Rachel Vernon (3) clarinet
Lyndon Taylor (1,2,3), Ursula Evans (1,2) violins
Brian Shillito (1,2,3), Belinda Prentice (3), violas
Sally Pollard (1,2,3), cello
Vicky Jones (3), double bass

1  Beethoven: Sextet in E flat, Op 81b
2  Schubert: Quartettsatz in C minor, D.703
3  Louis Spohr: Octet in E flat, Op 32

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Monday 15 March 2010 12.15pm

Can you cope with all these horns? the name of the group seems to ask.  Yes, when they are played as expertly as Ed Allen and Heather Thompson play them.

The Beethoven sextet proved to be enchanting music, and being an early work, was rather unlike what we think of when we hear the composer’s name.  The playing was very expert, as one would expect from NZSO musicians.  There was warm tone from the strings; Lyndon Taylor, who led the group, impressed particularly as a very accomplished violinist.

Four of the string players gave a lively yet sensitive performance of Schubert’s lovely one-movement string quartet.  This was a gorgeous sound, with every nuance in place.

Spohr’s Octet is a work full of character, with delightful solos as well as superb tuttis.  The first movement featured a charming clarinet solo, notably vibrant violin and viola tone, and the support of Vicky Jones’s five-stringed bass.

The third movement consists of variations based on Handel-known Harmonious Blacksmith theme.  After a very smooth, slow introduction of the the theme, the variations follow, with very different treatment from that accorded by Handel in his E major harpsichord suite.

The horns never overwhelmed the other instruments, but indeed sounded to their best advantage in the acoustic of the church.

The allegretto finale of this work was a jolly affair, showing off each of the instruments.

The concert was a very satisfying experience; one hopes to hear more of this ensemble.

Benefit concert for James Rodgers

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

James Rodgers, tenor, with Jillian Zack, piano

Songs by Tosti, Duparc, Rachmaninov; Winter Words cycle by Benjamin Britten; Arias from Don Giovanni by Mozart and Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky; ‘Sings Harry’ cycle by Douglas Lilburn

Adam Concert Room, Victoria University

Sunday 14 March 2010 7pm

It was good to hear James Rodgers again, after his years studying in the United States.  He provided a generous recital of an interesting variety of works, accompanies by his girlfriend, an excellent pianist.  His spoken introductions were informal and succinct.

The Tosti songs proved that Rodgers has become an very accomplished singer.  But both he and the accompanist had not taken sufficiently into account the size and acoustics of the room they were performing in.  One was reminded of the phrase ‘Never sing louder than lovely’.  Unfortunately, he did – frequently.

I began to wonder if the singer had lost some of the lyrical tenderness his voice formerly had.  I found that he had not, in quiet passages. 

On the whole his words were clear, but less so when the tone was too loud.  Singing in five different languages, Rodgers demonstrated mastery in all of them.

Benjamin Britten’s fine cycle drawn from poems of Thomas Hardy conveyed humour, pathos, and gave scope for variety, which the singer portrayed well.

Three lovely songs of Duparc needed more caressing than they received, especially ‘Chanson Triste’.  I could not help but contrast the performance with the way Gerard Souzay sang these masterpieces.  While Rodgers cannot be expected to be at the level of the mature Souzay, the latter’s is a model worth aspiring to.

‘Il mio tesoro’ from Mozart’s Don Giovanni suited Rodgers well; both that aria and ‘Kuda, Kuda’ from Eugene Onegin were rendered in excellent fashion, with subtlety and variety of timbre and volume.

Martin Riseley – consorting with the Devil’s Fiddler

Posted on by Peter Mechen

PAGANINI – 24 Caprices for Solo Violin

Martin Riseley (violin)

St.Andrew’s-on-theTerrace 2010 Series of Concerts

Sunday 14th March

Niccolo Paganini’s Op.1, the set of 24 Caprices for solo violin, remains the ultimate test of virtuosity for a violinist – these pieces explore almost every aspect of violin technique, and remain a unique example of performance art which has subsequently continued to inspire both composers and performers. Robert Schumann described Paganini’s effect upon the musical world as “the turning point in the history of virtuosity”, and  the greatest composers of the succeeding age, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms and Schumann himself were suitably inspired by the Genoese master’s brilliance to use his themes as the basis for some of their own compositions.

The Caprices are wonderfully varied in mood, and by no means stress virtuosity at the expense of melody or poetry – in general the earlier twelve are more “technical’ in that they use the idea or innovation as the basis for the work’s substance, whereas the later twelve tend to focus more on the musical, rather than technical ideas in each of the pieces, using the latter as a means rather than an end in itself. Having said that, the degree of technical difficulty exerted by the pieces throughout remains fairly much on the transcendental level, requiring a response from any performer that encompasses both mechanical and musical brilliance.

Violinist Martin Riseley exuded an attractively boyish confidence upon taking the platform, and with little ado launched himself and his instrument into a fearsomely bristling tumblewhirl of notes, most of which were in tune! The hit-and-miss count flashed and flickered throughout, but in fact, it was generally the high-lying stand-out notes, usually at the stratospheric ends of phrases that were most at risk, the player’s energy and determination taking the attack to the rapid-fire arpeggiations, and tossing the scintillations of melismatic flourishes everywhere. Whether it was the player or this listener I’m not entirely sure, but the degree of approximation regarding intonation seemed more pronounced in the first half-dozen caprices than in the remainder – either it was increased ear-tolerance on my part as the recital went on, or the player had “warmed up” during the first quarter and was now hitting his notes more truly. Probably it was a little of both – the “baptism by fire” of those first half-dozen pieces I thought at once scarifying, exhilarating and somewhat coruscating; so much so that, when the recital’s second quarter began I’d “settled into” the composer’s sound-world and the kind of sound that the violinist was making, and was feeling more in tune with what I was hearing.

Martin Riseley began his second “quarter” with the untitled piece marked “staccato”, a piece whose initial melody is legato with staccato phrase-ends, before fiendish staccato work is capped off by glissandi at the ends of each statement. Even more fiendish was the Maestoso No.8, with double-stopping at the outset leading to a kind of “reverse-pitching”, playing higher notes on lower strings! No.9 was a hunting-horn Rondo, in which the thematic content took precedence over the virtuosic display, even with the “ricochet” (throwing of the bow) displays; while No.10 featured a devilish trill that “spikes” the music, brilliantly thrown off. The Romance and Tarantella No.11 was great fun, the latter played with a lot of energy and clean intonation, flashes of brilliance alternating with juicy-sounding tones. At this point the violinist expressed the wish for an extra finger, checking his pockets for the freak of nature that would make his task easier – as well he might when faced with the demanding Allegro No.12, which called upon the player to use two strings, one the “pedal” note, the result seeming of an order of difficulty that would defeat all but the deftest technicians, the music sounding ungratefully atonal in places.

Ample compensation was provided after the interval by the attractively sardonic No.12 Allegro, the “Devil’s Laugh”, a descending passage in thirds after each melodic statement engendering a feeling of mocking irony. The following Moderato’s “Hunting-horn” calls and rhythmic trajectories were nicely evocative, while the Pesato No.16 readily brought to mind Liszt’s keyboard pyrotechnics, with its octaves, thirds and sixths. Liszt would have responded strongly to the following Presto No.16 as well – a dark, agitated and pungent expression of troubled feeling – but instead chose to transcribe the following Sostenuto-Andante, which appears in his “Paganini Etudes” set, the middle section of which here was a breakneck whirl of octaves, returning to the theme, but with rapid fingerings and bowings in the concluding flourishes – impressively played! Just as commanding was Martin Riseley’s realisation of the “Corrente Allegro” No.18, with its relentless descending scales in thirds, capturing the daring of it all, even if not absolutely note-perfect.

The last selection of six began with a veritable circus act, the Lento-Allegro assai No.19 featuring a kind of “high-wire” performance on a single string, followed by a veritable grounding of sombre tones in the Allegretto No.20, whose drone bass note gave an eerie effect when set against the opening hymn-like tune, and whose vigorous central dance brought strong, forthright playing to bear on the music. I would have called the romanticism of No.21 tongue-in-cheek rather than the programme note’s “cynical”, as evidenced by the rapid scampering dissolutions of agitation at the end of each “stanza” – a piece more difficult than at first apparent, judging by the intonation difficulties in places. Just as demanding sounded the next piece, with its rolling tenths beginning and rounding off the music with a skitterish middle section. No.23 presented a call-to-arms presented in octaves, with a passionate gypsy-fiddle section demanding rapid scale-like passages jump from octave to octave, frenzied energies that dissipate and finish the music on a wistful, almost dying note, brilliantly realised.

The most famous of these pieces (think of Liszt, Brahms and Rachmaninov) came last – first the plain theme, then rapid arpeggio decorations, followed by octave doublings, and a wonderful “Will-o’-the Wisp” dancing episode, with descending thirds and ascending sixths, as well as the notorious left-handed pizzicato (its only appearance in the whole work). Martin Riseley’s performance of all of this was, in a word, staggering, by this time hitting his straps consistently and, though obviously tired, maintaining what seemed like superhuman energy levels to realise the music’s different voices and underlying momentum.

Reading back over what I’ve written has made me realise the extent I’ve described the music, perhaps more than I’ve focused on the actual performance – I think that’s the outcome of playing that’s stressed the importance of the music at least as much as the actual execution of it – there may be even more brilliant violinists than Martin Riseley around, but certainly, on this showing none more musical.

St Andrew’s series features splendid Aroha Quartet

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

String Quartets by Haydn (in F, Op 77 No 2); Shostakovich (No 7 in F sharp, Op 108); Szymanowksi (No 2, Op 56); and Moon, Tides and Shoreline (Gillian Whitehead)

Aroha Quartet: Haihong Liu and Beiyi Xue (violins), Zhongxian Jin (viola), Robert Ibell (cello)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace 

Saturday 13 March 2010

Wellington is particularly well endowed with excellent string quartets; this one, consisting of permanent or occasional NZSO players and now in its sixth year, has achieved a polish and energy that deserves to be given full attention by Wellington’s musical community. Why so few there?

The last concert I heard from them, last September, also included quartets by Haydn (a different one) and Szymanowski (the same one). I was pleased to hear the latter again and another hearing increases my admiration for this enigmatic composer whose music I have pursued for many years, though I must say its somber character and the absence of memorable themes tend to prevent its taking root in my head.

It may not gain its strength through melodic richness, just as Bartok’s music, for example, does not, but in the avoidance of conventional sonorities Szymanowski goes even further than Bartok without actually rejecting tonality outright. He too uses, rather obliquely, folk tunes, this time from southern Poland – the Tatra Mountain region. In addition, there is a hypnotic feel that might be ascribed to the composer’s deep interest in Middle Eastern philosophy and spiritualism.

All this mystical, evanescent quality was brilliantly caught by the Aroha Quartet: the shimmering, muted sounds in the opening Moderato, that undulate with strange intensity. All the energy and passion is in the second movement, Vivace – scherzando, where a sort of tune emerges on the viola, alternating with pizzicato passages and bursts of high energy. The players were deeply impressive in their command of all the techniques demanded, and in their grasp of the musical and extra-musical elements that invest it.

The other fairly difficult piece was Gillian Whitehead’s Moon, Tides and Shoreline, dating from 1989.

There were interesting similarities in the sound worlds evoked by Szymanowski and Whitehead, with their combining strong spiritual as well as landscape elements.

Though the idiom Whitehead employs is not serial or particularly atonal, it is complex, not rich in recognizable melody, and not readily grasped or, I have to say, enjoyed at once. One hesitates to use a word like ‘jagged’ as it’s too often used as a gentle synonym for ugly or wildly dissonant. Such was far from the composer’s intention or, indeed, could credibly have been inspired by the Paekakariki shore, sky and seascape. Yet strangely, no visual images were conjured in my mind, though there was a variety of sounds that suggested the sea, ranging from violence to calm, and it was such a shimmering phase that drew the piece to a close; a performance that undoubtedly delved deeply into its spiritual world and had full command of the considerable technical demands.

The first work in the programme was Haydn’s last completed string quartet, Op 77 No 2. It’s not a much played piece, though that can’t be on account of any lack of melody. Its melody is not as beguiling as in his most popular works, but there is considerable rhythmic strength, vigorous dotted rhythms in the first movement and, in the second movement, a motif that recalls the famous theme in the Rider Quartet. There is a sudden, surprising modulation to the trio section and it ends in typical Haydn fashion, on the mediant. The players seemed to rejoice in the humour.

The second half of the concert began with a ‘different’ Shostakovich quartet: No 7. It’s fairly short, though in four movements, and of course not as dramatic or memorable as No 8, but any group is to be applauded for allowing us to hear something else. This one, written in 1960, was dedicated to the memory of his wife Nina who had died in 1954. It was here that I specially noticed individual players: the beautiful expressiveness of the second violin in the Lento and the strange, hollow tone of the viola as it lead the way into the frenzy of the third, Allegro, movement; and the cello which entered with its own version of the first theme of the first movement. They were unified by their common energy and discipline, and a singular understanding of Shostakovich’s music.  

It is about time we heard the entire cycle of Shostakovich quartets. What about a mini-festival? I heard them all at the Verbier Festival a couple of years ago, in a series of late night concerts, 11pm, in a tiny church where there were struggles for entry.  

 

 

Lunch with Nikau Trio at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Trio Sonata in C minor (Quantz); Petit Concert (Edwin Carr), Assobio a Jato (Villa Lobos); ‘London’ trio No 1 in C (Haydn); Trio (Graham Powning)

The Nikau Trio: Karen Batten (flute), Madeline Sakofsky (oboe), Margaret Goldberg (cello)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace 

Friday 10 March 2010

A series such as this of essentially small-scale music (i.e. chamber music) can afford to deviate from the more narrow field of chamber music – mainly the string quartet and the piano trio, with woodwind add-ons – that the main promoters of chamber music feel obliged to pursue.

So far there’s been concerts by:

            a quartet playing Klezmer (Yiddish) music,

            a jazz piano trio,

            a piano quartet,

            a piano solo,

            a jazz guitar quartet,

            an octet of strings and winds,

            the SMP Ensemble playing 20th century music from New Zealand and elsewhere involving piano and other keyboards, string quartet and double bass, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, horn, percussion, plus a small vocal ensemble.

 

Still to come, through the weekend and the coming week:

            an early music of soprano Pepe Becker and ensemble (Friday evening),

            another string quartet

            a solo violin – Martin Riseley playing all 24 Paganini Caprices,

            another octet mixing stings and winds,

            a woodwind quartet,

            a string trio playing tangos,

            a clarinet quintet playing both the Mozart and Brahms quintets,

            Greg Squires’s early music group, Scaramuccia,

            two singers in a Mahler song cycle with piano,

            and a tenor singing a mixture of Vivaldi arias and art songs.

Friday’s concert may have been an unexpected delight for, while this lightish instrumental combination might have suggested small charming pieces, there was more to it than that.

It certainly opened with a predictably slight piece by the brilliant flutist, J J Quantz, who worked in the court of Frederick the Great, but it was played without the touch of daring or insouciance that can transform such music. Quantz wrote hundreds of flute sonatas, solo flute sonatas, trio sonatas and flute and other concertos: his music is agreeable. The opening Andante moderato lacked much spark, the following Allegro was more lively, with clean playing; the Larghetto, meditative but sober and the final Vivace was the expected quick piece: all played with excellent ensemble and attention to detail.

Edwin Carr’s Petit Concert (Concert, in French, means simply ‘concerto’, not necessarily featuring a solo instrument), was French in tone and demonstrated an affinity for the devices and patterns that French composers through the early 20th century cultivated. I enjoyed it; there was pleasing three-part harmony, an echoing of 18th century style by the solo cello in the second movement; each instrument carried its own distinct tune in the little Menuet, in skilled counterpoint, and finally a ‘Tarantelle’, with a gigue rather than a tarantella rhythm.

The Villa Lobos piece, Assobio a Jato, meaning ‘The Jet Whistle’ – for the composer likened the sound obtained to the scream of a jet aeroplane – for flute and cello, consisted of three very different movements, not too obviously Brazilian, the last including the whistle which Karen Battle carried off skilfully. On a website there’s a comment by the American composer, Persichetti, that the piece falls in the category of an artisan rather than an artist’s work. That may be, but it’s short and inoffensive.

Next, the Haydn Trio, written during the second of his prolonged visits to London in 1794/95, was rather more substantial than the Quantz of around a half century earlier. The two wind instruments had most of the fun while the cello part was little more than a basso continuo. But the players invested it all with considerable charm.

The most delightful piece in the programme was a Trio by Australian flutist Graham Prowning, revealed as a composer of real accomplishment, and musical imagination. Each movement had distinct individuality, handled tunes that seemed to spring from a real musical inspiration rather than effortful and forgettable. Most infections was the waltz which, while making flippant allusions to the great waltz composers, went its own way in rhythm and melody, evolving surreptitiously into the March finale.

It served to bring the concert to a particularly happy end, for the few dozen who were there.

 

Ravi Shankar – a living legend in Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

RAVI SHANKA (sitar)

(with Anoushka Shankar – sitar)

Accompanying Musicians:

Tanmoy Bose (tabla)

Ravichandra Kulur (flute and tanpura)

New Zealand International Festival of the Arts, Wellington

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday 12th March 2010

To convey something of the atmosphere and flavour of a remarkable concert at the Michael Fowler Centre, one of the New Zealand International Festival of the Arts series of concerts,  I can do no better than quote the words of the musician around whom this same concert was centred:

” Music can be a spiritual discipline on the path to self realisation, for we follow the traditional teaching that sound is GOD – Nada Brahma. By this process individual consciousness can be elevated to a realm of awareness where the revelation of the true meaning of the universe – its eternal and unchanging essence – can be joyfully experienced. Our ragas are the vehicles by which this essence can be perceived”.

The words are, of course, those of Ravi Shankar, 90 years young this year (2010) and performing in New Zealand for the first time, with his daughter Anoushka, with tabla-player Tanmoy Bose and flute-player Ravichandra Kulur. This was more than a concert occasion – it was an act of homage on the part of a receptive Western audience towards one of the acknowledged “great ones” of World Music. Even if he played for only half of the concert, Ravi Shankar made his presence felt through the wonderful playing of his daughter Anoushka,who gave us two ragas in the concert’s first half. Since the age of nine she had studied the sitar with her father, making her debut in public in 1994, at the age of thirteen. She’s obviously also become a powerful force in the world of Indian music, and in World music in general. Her playing made, to these untutored ears, an interesting contrast with that of her father’s, when he made his appearance after the interval – obviously she had inherited his focus and directness of expression, and had the physical means to apply that energy to her music-making more consistently and strongly than he was now able to do. Her tones were fuller, her rhythmic detailings more direct, and her passagework more even – manifestations of youthful strength and stamina which the elder Shankar could command no longer.

But in Ravi’s playing one constantly sensed the imagination going beyond the boundaries of the technique – there was nothing “contained” about what his very physical way with the sitar suggested. Rather like passages in the late Beethoven Quartets, whose ideas transcend their means of execution, the Indian master’s explorations of fancy took us right through and above the means of making the sounds, into realms whose relative frailty of physical manifestation seemed to further “charge” the experience. A player able to resound his or her instrument with far less apparent physical effort may produce a more beautiful, more even and well-rounded sound, but might be satisfied with what is produced and no more. What I sensed we took from Ravi’s playing was a feeling that there was always something beyond, something that his gestures often suggested even when there was little sound – his movements choreographed the act of reaching out towards those regions where sound is indeed God,  beyond reason and understanding, and into the realms of awareness and revelation.

So, it was very much a concert of two halves, each with its own specific kind of raison d’etre, as well as reflecting in the lustrous glow cast by the other. At the beginning, Anoushka Shankar introduced her fellow-musicians and told us that her father would appear for the concert’s second half. The group then played two ragas, the music in each case arising out of the ambient colour of the concert’s general atmosphere, the familiar “drone” sound and downward flourish of plucked strings introducing each of the works. In the first raga, the flute joined in with the opening recitative-like explorations, the cannily-placed microphones “catching” the sounds and their resonances and overtones, and bringing them out without seeming to interfere with the antiphonal relationships of the instruments. The entry of the tabla opens up the vistas, especially by means of the instrument’s deep bass notes, the rhythms at this stage teasing, going in surges and pulling back, but maintaining a mesmeric pulse. Heretical though this might sound, I actually found the flute a distraction whenever it entered, so mesmerised was I by the interaction of sitar and tabla, and the spectacularly complex rhythmic patternings made by the drummer. The second raga presented was written by Ravi Shankar for his daughter, the sounds at the outset giving the impression of being made upon impulse, as if something spiritual is using player and instrument as a conduit through which to pass whatever message. Whether or not I had penetrated several layers into a different kind of time-frame by this stage, I coudn’t be sure – but this work seemed to move more quickly towards the tabla’s entry, the music more forthright than in the previous raga, the drumming very lively and volatile-sounding, with scalp-prickling szforzandi matched by the sitar, indicating something of the framework of the piece beneath the surface configuration’s spontaneity.

After the interval Ravi Shankar’s arrival onstage was a great moment. Smiling, gracious, both frail-seeming and with bird-like resilience, he acknowledged the tribute before settling to the ritual of tuning. He then welcomed his audience “to Wellington” to great applause and some amusement, and told us about what he would be playing. The first piece he began dreamily and unhurriedly, as if reflecting on a great deal of experience. More so than his daughter Anoushka, he moved his instrument about, choreographing the shakes and swoops and crests of tone, occasionally shaking the sitar almost tonelessly, as if the notes were suggested rather than played. Anoushka joined in with the recitative, taking up the argument – her joining in underlined the very ‘tactile” feeling communicated by Ravi in his playing, perhaps partly due to age, and partly to the physical effort of realising those sounds. Together the sitars built up the mood’s momentum and amplitude almost imperceptibly, each exchange adding a kind of different level of energy, the result magnetic and compelling. No tabla was in this part of the piece – the sitars carried it all before them. It was unclear whether the tabla-accompanied episode which followed the audience’s applause was part of the same work or a different stand-alone work, but it involved exhilarating exchanges between the sitars, with remarkable agility displayed by both musicians.

The final work was a raga in classical form but with modern improvised interpolations – my Indian friend who accompanied me to the concert called it a “crowd-pleaser”! Again, one could experience and enjoy the contrast in styles between father’s and daughter’s playing, Ravi’s meditative, almost other-world fancies set alongside Anoushka’s more direct and cleanly-focused phrasings. The themes and accompaniments seemed quite Westernised in places, with a very quasi-Oriental theme brought out at one point (rather “cheesy” in effect), which was then blown away by a terrific accelerando, featuring some remarkable thematic invention expressed with a lot of energy from the sitars plus the tabla. The player of the last-named instrument, Tanmoy Bose, was able to show his mettle in a cadenza-like sequence whose volatile physicality was almost transcendental in effect, music-making visibly acknowledged by both Shankars, before they joined in with bringing the Sawal jabab, the exciting final section of the raga, to a close.

Not unexpectedly, the applause was rapturous at the end, especially so when Ravi himself came out to take the final bow – the acclaim was for many things at once, but set the seal on a rich and truly memorable occasion.

Octets from Amici Ensemble at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Amici Ensemble: Donald Armstrong, Andrew Thomson, Lyndsay Mountfort, Robert Ibell, Hiroshi Ikematsu, Gregory Hill, Philip Green, Robert Weeks.

Jean Françaix: Octet “A Huit” (1972)
Anthony Ritchie: Octet, Opus 129 “Octopus”
Schubert: Octet in F major, D.803

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace, Thursday, 11 March, 6.30pm

To hear ensembles of more than four players is unusual, and when an octet plays a delightful programme such as this, it justifies an audience larger than that which attended.  In the peaceful and acoustically excellent setting of St. Andrew’s on The Terrace, it is a great pity that more people have not so far availed themselves of the opportunity of hearing such wonderful music. 
However, one person told me that the brocuhre describing the concerts came out so much later than the Arts Festival programme that she was already fully committed to as many concerts as she could manage.

It is also a shame that the early evening concerts were not all timed to fit in with events starting at 8pm in the Festival that patrons might be attending.

The first item, verbally introduced, as were the others, by Donald Armstrong, was a wonderful piece of writing, with strong parts for woodwind.  These NZSO players are nearly all principals of their sections.  It showed in their assurance, impeccable playing and ensemble.

After the quirky opening Moderato, the Octet’s Scherzo was lively; it was followed by an effective Andante, featuring a muted opening section for strings only.  The Mouvement de Valse began in most un-waltz-like fashion.  The comic waltz that followed sounded as though it was written for an elephant and a humming-bird.  Light-hearted, witty and rhythmic, it was played with panache and skill.  Were we being treated to a palm court orchestra in Galeries Lafayette, or Samaritaine?

The first movement, ‘Octopus’, of Anthony Ritchie’s quartet was certainly descriptive of the creature, its tentacles incessantly moving through the water.  In the second movement, ‘Sacrifice’, it seemed that we could hear the little octopuses (octopii?) crying, while in the ‘Survival of the Small’ the final violin motif perhaps signified the plantive survivor of the little octopuses.

This was imaginative writing, at times complex.  The playing included some of the best tones I’ve ever heard from a bassoon.

The woodwinds carried on their prowess in the Schubert octet.   In the first movement, sunny, bouncy and cheerful woodwind solos interrupted the strong string passages.

The andante second movement featured a beautiful clarinet solo, which gave way to the first violin’s mellow lower strings sometimes the upper strings were somewhat strident), and a return to the clarinet.

At that point I had to leave but Lindis Taylor, who was there, offered the following comments on the rest of the performance.

The ensemble’s vitality created an energetic Scherzo which contrasted strikingly with the slower pace of the Trio’s middle section. An octet that blends strings and winds provides such variety and clarity of sounds giving every player a share of the limelight and throughout the Scherzo, the clarinet of Philip Green was distinctive, giving special edge to the spirited, tripping rhythm.

The fourth movement, Andante, was taken quite quickly, but after a moment it seemed a perfectly natural pace. It’s a variations movement based on a tune from one of his operas, Die Freunde von Salamanca, in which several instruments take their turn in the lead. Greg Hill’s horn, an important contributor throughout, led in the third variation, mostly warm and polished though with occasional proof that ‘perfection’ and ‘horn’ is an oxymoron. And the playing of cellist Robert Ibell, supported vividly from below by Hiroshi Ikematsu on the bass, was particularly elegant.

In the Menuetto, the fifth movement, clarinet and bassoon had an entertaining alternating passage, in passages alternating between major and minor keys.
Then came the most magical opening, Andante molto, of the last movement. I have never heard it played with such tremulous apprehension, a premonition of the unknown, with cello tremolo and studied placing of wind chords: a splendid introduction to the spirited, remarkably optimistic Allegro which is a brilliant section that keeps producing new ideas and fresh angles on old ones, ending in a thrilling climax.

One of the virtues of the performance was the omission of several repeats; Schubert’s repeats are sometimes troublesome; they disrupt that tumbling flow of inspiration. Without them we are left simply to marvel at Schubert’s endless inventiveness.  Anyway, three-quarters of an hour is long enough for most compositions.

Buz Bryant-Greene at St Andrew’s Festival lunchtime concert

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Sonata in B minor, (Hob. XVI:32, Haydn), Sonata No 2, Op 35 (Chopin), Ballade No 2 in B minor (Lizst)

Buz Bryant-Greene (piano)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace 

Wednesday 10 March 2010

I last heard Buz Bryant-Greene in a masterclass conducted by Piers Lane at the 2009 Adam Chamber Music Festival in Nelson.

I suspect he was not very comfortable there even though no one could have been more genial and sympathetic than Lane. So I was pleased to have this chance to hear him again, a young pianist from Nelson who has clearly made something of an impression as a performer around New Zealand and internationally.

It was an interesting programme, though some would call it unadventurous; it is often nice to enjoy a concert that doesn’t include new or difficult music that might be good for us, but pleases few.

Life for 98% of the population of Austria in the 1780s was no bed of roses, but you’d never know it from the music of Haydn or Mozart. Thus it has lived for over two centuries and is bound to survive another two, if the world lasts that long.

The Sonata in B minor, one of the few in a minor key, suggests a serious mind but one intent on making beautiful things. Buz Bryant-Greene’s playing was a delight and his hands fairly danced over the keys, creating the liveliest rhythms, adorned with clean, accurate and spirited ornaments with little use of the pedal, and fluent runs that lifted the spirit. The changes of dynamics between the exposition and the development and elsewhere were particularly eloquent, as were the subtle changes from detached to more legato playing.

There was a limpid charm in the Menuet, with its surprising staccato centre, and a wee stumble; then flighty filigree and modestly fugal passages in the Finale which may well have altered many people’s view of Haydn’s piano sonatas.

The pianist’s note about Chopin’s second piano sonata (in B flat minor) referred to the musical pedants’ view of it as lacking coherence. It is only to the Marche funèbre to which that might perhaps apply. Perhaps through over-familiarty, it does seem to go on a bit.

It was a performance that was authoritative and carefully thought out, the spacious opening done lightly the first time, more physical when the ideas were repeated, with more marked rubato. He knew just how and when to effect gradual dynamic changes.

The following Scherzo certainly sounded as if from the same inspirational source as the first movement, rich in tonal and rhythmic variety; perhaps the Piu Lento section began with too emphatic a note, but it led to a trio-like section that suggested a full slow movement.

The slow movement is of course the funeral march. The march was on the brisk side which seemed to make it somewhat too casual, not a particularly deeply felt loss; perhaps the pianist saw it as a happy vision of the hereafter.

The whirlwind Finale was truly a marvel of speed and fluency, flawless.

I heard Liszt’s Second Ballade (also in B minor) played bravely by the young Sam Jury in a student recital last year at St Andrew’s and it appeared, just to stay with the New Zealand context, in the first volume of the CD remasterng of Richard Farrell’s complete recordings last year. I remark this because the piece has rather fallen out of favour; yet it was familiar half a century ago. I recently came across a notebook in which I used to record all the music I was discovering as a teenager, mostly on radio, and there it was.

Bryant-Greene created a huge bed of dense bass sounds lit suddenly by a couple of bars of sunny music. It is of course a narrative, to be compared with his orchestral symphonic poems and though its form might be criticized by pedants, it’s an absorbing, vibrant composition that holds the attention, especially in the hands of this pianist. Specially charming was the central love music (it tells the Hero and Leander story) where the hands constantly cross each other gracefully, a visual, as well as auditory, simulation of love-making.

There was virtuosity to spare, as well as a coherent musical view of the whole rambling piece. Another extremely satisfying concert in this rewarding series that doubles the amount of classical music in this festival.