Violin and piano duo in interesting 20th century recital at Old Saint Paul’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Vaughan Williams: Pastorale in E minor; Janáček: Violin Sonata in A flat minor; Prokofiev: Violin Sonata in D, Op 94 bis   

 

Olya Curtis (violin) and David Vine (piano)

 

Old Saint Paul’s

 

Tuesday 21 September 12.15pm

 

Last year I heard these two musicians play the Elgar and Franck sonatas in this place. This year they stepped firmly into the 20th century, even though, ironically, Janáček was born before Elgar.

 

The Vaughan Williams Pastorale was not the typical English pastoral music that came to be rather scorned a generation or so ago; perhaps it was the fact that the violinist was Russian and it was warm and gentle, somewhat modal in its flavour. But just as much, the tone was set by pianist David Vine who, though English-born, plays idiomatically in whatever style is in front of him. 

 

The Janáček sonata was written during the First World War years and premiered in 1922. Though it’s ostensibly Slavic music, and Janáček was rather passionately pro-Russian, he found such a unique manner that a musician’s nationality can have no bearing. In any case, Curtis seemed less at home with the irregular tempi and diverse character of its first movement than did Vine; it went fairly slowly, not as Con moto as I expected from that marking. The players produced a more lyrical second movement, marked Ballada, with long melodies, though elsewhere the characteristic isolated and sharply contrasted motifs did not integrate so persuasively. They brought off the Allegretto well, with energy and conviction and, in spite of minor intonation flaws, captured a real Janáček feeling in the Finale, a sound that is unique in all music.

 

(Janáček is reported saying that the tremolo piano chords in the finale represented the Russian army entering Moravia, liberating it from Austria-Hungary. The Russian army may have penetrated as far as Moravia in the early stage of World War I, but was quickly driven back by the German army. It was the Treaty of Versailles that later gave the Czech and Slovak lands independence from Austria-Hungary.)

 

Prokofiev’s second sonata was in fact completed before his first (Op 80), which was not completed till 1946. David Oistrakh to whom Prokofiev had promised it before the war, had become impatient as the composer was heavily committed to other things such as the ballet Cinderella, and so he made a careful transcription of his flute sonata of 1942 which Oistrakh premiered in 1944.

 

The easy lyricism of the first movement of this sonata seemed to suit Olya Curtis rather more than the Janáček, and even in the scampering passages of the second movement, in spite of a few smudges, both players caught its spirit well. But she might have taken better advantage of opportunities to dig into its emphatic notes more strongly. In Prokofiev’s Andante, I could hear most clearly the ghost of the flute, in its most warm and open mood, as she moved her bow as far as possible from the bridge. Finally, in the Allegro con brio, there were a few rough edges and I was haunted by the sounds of certain great violinists whose miraculous renderings somewhat intruded. Nevertheless, the duo succeeded in bringing one of the liveliest and most approachable violin sonatas of the mid-century vividly to life.

 

 

Flute and string quartet wide-ranging end to Wellington’s Sunday afternoon series

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Boccherini: Quintet in C for flute and strings; Max Reger: Serenade for flute, violin and viola in G, Op.141a; Turina: The Bullfighter’s Prayer; Mozart: Quartet for flute and strings in D, K 285; Copland: Two Threnodies; Ginastera: Impressiones de la Puna for flute and string quartet

 

The Elios Ensemble: Martin Jaenecke and Konstanze Artmann (violins), Victoria Jaenecke (viola), Paul Mitchell (cello), Karen Batten (flute)

 

Ilott Theatre, Town Hall

 

Sunday 19 September, 3pm  

 

The last in the Sunday 3pm concert series from Wellington Chamber Music was a relatively new ensemble of musicians of varying backgrounds, who presumably do not play together as often as does a professional ensemble. Yet they sounded in command of the music, totally familiar with each other, and comfortable with the disparate programme they had so imaginatively put together.

 

The addition of Karen Batten’s flute both added to the variety of the concert, and brought about a certain lightening of the tone; even though fundamentally the ensemble is a string quartet, the inclusion of a flute limits the range of music available. On the other hand, the most striking thing about the programme was the seriousness of more than one of the pieces.

 

The first movement of Boccherini’s flute quintet in C (two in that key are listed in the Gérard catalogue, G 420 and 427) had an unusual robustness, heavily built that seemed out of character with the usual tone of the flute. Its first theme, pithy and abrupt, which was dominated by the flute, could hardly less have reflected the soubriquet ‘Haydn’s Wife’ that was attached to Boccherini in the 19th century on account of the perceived feminine character of his music. The second movement, Minuet, in a slow ländler-like rhythm, allowed first violin more attention, while the Finale offered the first hints of the Boccherini that is familiar through the recent exploration of his hundreds of string quartets and quintets.

 

One of the characteristics that marked the piece was the more interesting cello part played by Paul Mitchell – the composer was one of the most famous cellists of his day. But in spite of the ingratiating flute part, and the attractive writing for the ensemble, the quintet hardly recommended itself as a singular musical discovery.

 

Max Reger’s Serenade for flute, violin and viola had qualities that were diverting, but in spite of a liveliness and lightness of spirit in the outer movements and a certain pensiveness in the Larghetto, it failed to make a great impression. This, in spite of a performance that made the most of its colour and the sprightliness of the flute playing, and which proved sympathetic with the idiom that Reger had developed: something between Bach, Schumann, Brahms, and perhaps less kindly, composers like Max Bruch or Carl Reinecke. Sadly, its undistinguished melodic quality left it without much reason to look for another hearing.

 

Turina’s La oración del Torero, for string quartet, lifted the first half with its unpretentiousness, and its feeling of genuine musical impulse. It is a modest piece which paints a feeling, emotional picture, using melodies that may not be striking but have a certain distinction, and a quiet drama that hardly suggests the bravado of the bull-ring, but rather the quasi-religious emotion that devotees of the art of the torero lay claim to.

 

Undoubtedly the best and most attractive piece in the concert was Mozart’s Flute Quartet in D – one of the two he wrote. Nothing in it suggests Mozart’s alleged indifference to the flute, and the performance captured all the charm of its three lively, imaginative movements. The second, Adagio, is largely a solo for flute with pizzicato strings, and was a delightful vehicle for Karen Batten’s melifluous playing.

 

Copland’s two late Threnodies, the first, highly compressed, for the death of Stravinsky and the second, rather more discursive and expressive, for that of arts patroness Beatrice Cunningham, launched the second half in a somber vein, Though these pieces would hardly seem natural territory for the flute, Batten turned her talents persuasively towards their elegiac mood and their interpretation; if the Copland of Appalachian Spring and El Salón Mexico was remote, a serious spirit was not unwelcome here,.

 

The choice of music suited to unusual instrumental combinations has become much easier with the facilities of the Internet, and an interesting programme such as this is more easily achieved, given the taste and idiomatic sensibility that this ensemble exhibits.

 

The final piece marked a different direction again, and though superficially in a vein culturally related to the Turina, much had happened in the 35 years between the two composers. Impressions of the Andean Uplands, rather than being visually inspired, reflected the flutes, songs and dances of the peoples in its three parts, though it seemed to me that human beings were not Ginastera’s main concern. The first part, Quena (a type of Andean flute), suggested a somewhat bleak landscape, its flutes bereft of those who might be playing them. The second, in triple rhythm, and third parts, were more lively, with writing that taxed the players and entertained the audience.

 

Wellington is fortunate to have yet another quartet and a solo flutist of this quality, drawn mainly from professional orchestral players of individual talent who have been together long enough to develop an impressive ensemble feeling in a very wide variety of musical styles.

 

 

Wellington Community Choir’s 5th Birthday Gala Concert

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Community Choir and Nota Bene Choir, Julian Raphael (director),  also featuring:
Carole Shortis (composer/conductor), John Rae (composer/drummer), Club Ukulele / Marimba Mojo / Djansa Djembe Drummers

Wellington Town Hall

Saturday 18th September, 2010

The printed programme accompanying this rousing and heart-warming event contained a number of enthusiastic testimonials from members of the Wellington Community Choir regarding the group and their activities, one of which I thought beautifully summed up the reason people get involved with music, be they music-makers or listeners:

“…The choir is a place where I found my inner voice. Not only my singing voice, but my real inner voice. When I sing, I feel I can sing my being – I can BE….”

I quote without permission; but though it expresses a kind of metaphysical idea, the sentiment readily puts into simple words the power of music to act upon people, be they performers or listeners – to connect with the spirit and move the deepest emotions, as well as warm towards and bond with others. All of these impulses were triumphantly on display in and throughout the Wellington Town Hall on Saturday night, through the auspices of the Wellington Community Choir and Nota Bene Choir, under the directorship of music educator and inspired conductor Julian Raphael. The Hall was as full as I think I’ve ever seen it, and at times the place simply shimmered with sounds and rocked with rhythms which seemed to engage one and all, musicians and audience.

Along with Julian Raphael and the two choirs, a number of various groups and individuals specifically contributed to the evening’s kaleidoscope of colourful music-making – composers Carole Shortis (Wellington) and John Rae (Scotland) both contributed pieces to the concert, and each took part in the performances, the first as conductor, and the second as the drummer. Instrumental groups such as Club Ukulele (players from within the Community Choir), Marimba Mojo (from Lower Hutt), and the Newtown-based percussion group Djnsa Djembie Drummers added their distinctive and ear-catching timbres to particular pieces, their participation underlining a community spirit pervading the whole, while maintaining a high level of performance expertise which marked the presentation throughout.

Having attended many “classical” concerts of all kinds in the Town Hall I couldn’t help but draw comparisons with some of these past experiences and the present concert, being as I was mightily impressed at the Community Choir’s level of support and the degree of involvement with and enjoyment of the performances by this near-capacity audience. Given that classical music organisations everywhere are concerned with trying to make ends meet, faced with the problems of aging audiences and decreasing numbers of attendees at concerts, I wondered whether there were things to be learned from the success of this present undertaking.

Of course, the “families and friends” factor would have provided a good deal of fuel for the occasion’s popularity, something that professional performing groups don’t generally rely upon to generate good houses. But quite apart from the numbers attending, I thought that what any classical concert organiser would envy here was the out-and-out identification and involvement of those present with what the performers were putting across – in short, those almost palpable lines of connectiveness between performers and listeners.

To be fair, I have to say that I’ve experienced several classical concerts this year which have demonstrated a similar frisson of inter-communication, in one or two cases at events which weren’t particularly well-attended. Sometimes it’s the music itself which generates the initial excitement, as with the recent presentations of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 at St.Mary of the Angels Church in Wellington. Sometimes particular musicians can themselves create in advance powerful and compelling expectations of involvement with what they present, as invariably happens whenever the charismatic New Zealand String Quartet performs (the group’s Schumann-and-Shostakovich concerts, for example). Also, anybody who’s experienced a song recital presented by soprano Margaret Medlyn would readily testify to her all-embracing identification with what she performs and her ability to get it out there in no uncertain terms (in a particular recent case before a resoundingly enthusiastic Hunter Council Chamber audience).

Finally, the Vector Wellington Orchestra regularly presents its concerts with wholehearted enthusiasm from conductor Marc Taddei and with total commitment from its players. In each of these instances, the experience for me was of something out of the ordinary – not a whiff of routine, of stuffiness, of blandness or tired convention. And so it was with this present concert – still, would that such mutual engagement could happen more regularly in the classical music world!

The items chosen by the Community Choir for the concert covered an enormous range of human emotion and activity – spiritual, political, cultural and environmental. They were grouped partly for variety’s sake, and partly to allow different performers opportunities to give of their best. The first bracket of songs featured the Choir itself, the singing testifying to both the arranging and conducting skills of the director, Julian Raphael, who unerringly guided his wholly-amateur voices through pieces featuring rich-toned unisons and complex contrapuntal lines alike. His arrangement, for example, of the Shaker melody “Simple Gifts” featured the unadorned tune as a prelude to increasingly complex and interesting variations; while the traditional (though not the commonly heard version of the song) “Amazing Grace” was launched by men’s voices in parts, and joined by women’s voices, the arrangement featuring haunting fourths and lovely, tightly-wrought harmonies.

I also liked the choir’s singing of the “traditional Sotho songs of struggle”, registering the voices’ change of timbre to a striking “ethnic” quality, as well as the muscularity and confidence of their rhythmic syncopations. The final song in the bracket was “Come by Here” from Liberia, performed in this case in memory of the well-known and much-respected Wellington ethnomusicologist Allan Thomas, who had died during the week.

A brief but entertaining trio of items featuring the instrumentalists of “Club Ukulele” featured two Lennon-McCartney songs, one of which prompted some startlingly-focused deliveries from the women’s voices of the phrase “I Wanna Hold Your Hand!”, the climactic interval as resonant as any period ensemble’s singing of a fourteenth-century motet! The Nota Bene Choir were then introduced; and the group rang the changes with a bracket of songs, including an arrangement of “Waltzing Matilda” (by Ruth McCall) that seemed to fuse traditional Aboriginal chant-ambiences with fragments of the well-known tune, concluding with echo effects and “overtone” resonances, the whole creating a properly haunting impression at the end.

I liked also Carol Shortis’s arrangement of “Khutso”, which was described as “a song for Soweto”, one which combined a native African dialect with the Latin words “Agnus Dei”, setting the rhythmic native chant against the more flowing Latin phrase, then alternating fragments of both at the end – extremely haunting and effective. Carol Shortis was both composer and conductor for “People Come and Sing”, written especially for the choir, with this evening’s performance of course a world premiere! A resonant opening, with overlapping lines of declamation led to a unison imperative to “Come and Sing”, the rhythm developing a swinging trajectory whose fervour evoked Gospel-like singing in places, the voices of the choir responding with proper “ownership” to the music.

After the interval the Djansa Djembe Drummers got things away to a stirring restart with rhythms and resonances that reminded me of the last Phoenix football game I attended at the Westpac Stadium (it might well have been the same group performing on that occasion!). Changes of stage lighting added plenty of atmosphere and colour, ambiences that continued throughout the bracket of African songs, with their rhythmic pulsings, in places having a pronounced “protest movement” feel, especially Julian Raphael’s arrangement of “Woyaya”, a song from Ghana.

As colourful and ear-catching was the work of the group Marimba Mojo, whose instruments, besides looking fantastic, produced a great sound, the players performing dance music from Zimbabwe, and inviting audience participation in the dance (a number obliged,and were then invited onto the stage!). Of course the nature of marimba performance itself suggests a specific gestural choreography, with which the group delighted us throughout its bracket of items.

The other major commission for the concert, beside that of Carol Shortis’, came from Scottish composer and jazz drummer John Rae, in this country of late as composer-in-residence at the New Zealand School of Music. His work Ricky, a setting of words by a choir member, Sarah Hughes, was a tribute to his father-in-law, and featured a lovely, leaping choral melody line, the tune’s trajectories mingling a second time round with instrumental colourings creating folkish ambiences, strings, guitar and marimbas contributing to the resonant glowing of the whole, the chorale punctuated with drumming rhythms, and coloured by what sounded like Gaelic chanting. I loved the rhythmic ambiguities of the voices’ interactions with the instruments, creating a “Music from the Spheres” kind of effect, an endless paean of life’s celebration.

To conclude, Nota Bene’s voices took the stage again for an entertaining “dialogue” song from Mexico (arranged by Mike Brewer), the choir establishing the music’s infectious rhythmic carriage, and with soloists from the choir interlacing their conversational/confrontational singing lines with wonderful elan. Some heartfelt tributes paid by choir members to Julian Raphael, and a couple of audience-participation songs later, the Choir’s Fifth Birthday Gala Concert was over – on the face of things quite a haul, but with energies from performers and enthusiasm from the audience seemingly undimmed to the end, a tribute to all concerned!

Donald Nicolson at the Maxwell Fernie organ

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Winter Recital Series on the Maxwell Fernie Organ

 

Recital on a Plainsong Theme: ‘Ave Maris Stella’ (i.e. works based on this plainsong)

 

Marchand: Grand Dialogue

Anon: Ave Maris Stella – Plainchant on haute contre; Recit. de Nazard ou de Pierce; Tierce en Taille; Fugues sur Ave Maris Stella

Frescobaldi: Mass for Organ from Fiori Musicali – Toccata; Kyrie La missa della Madonna (‘Cum Jubilo’); Canzon doppo L’Epsitola; Recercar dopo Il Credo; Toccata Avanti Il Ricercar; Recercar

Anon: Ave Maris Stella – Plein Jeu; Petite Fugue sur la Cromorne; Trio

Dandrieu: Offertoire pour le Jour de Pâques

(Spelling inconsistencies are on the original Frescobaldi manuscript, a photocopy of which Nicolson was using.)

 

Donald Nicolson

 

St Mary of the Angels

 

Saturday 18 September

 

A small audience heard a fine recital on this splendid pipe organ.  Unfortunately the printed programme, which did not bear the date, had some of the items in the wrong order, and movements did not all appear printed.   The corrected version appears above.

 

In the past week alone, Donald Nicolson has appeared in concerts playing the piano, the harpsichord and now the organ.  His versatility and musicality are, sadly, to be lost to New Zealand as he travels to greater opportunities in Australia.  He has been playing the organ at St Mary of the Angels since the beginning of 2008 and has, I am sure, been a great asset here, as he has elsewhere in Wellington’s lively musical scene.

 

His group ‘Latitude 37’, in which the other two instrumentalists are Australian, played for the Wellington Chamber Music Society’s Sunday afternoon series in May last year.

 

The first work in this recital was grand in several senses: in design, in registration and in execution, although I thought the pedal rather too loud for the manuals in the opening passages.  The work revealed some out-of-tune reeds on the organ, which recurred in later parts of the programme – probably due to the amount of wet weather recently.  It’s amazing how this slight tuning aberration can make a fine organ like this one sound like a fair organ!

 

Members of the choir of St Mary of the Angels sang the Ave Maris Stella plainsong on which the movements were based, in the two anonymous works: before the several movements and at the end, and also between the sections of the Kyrie in the Frescobaldi work.  This was, in the main, very effective, though the male voices were not so pleasing as were the females’.   Each organ movement then began with the plainchant.

 

The first anonymous Ave Maris Stella featured a quite lovely third movement: Tierce en Taille, and a bold set of fugues to finish.

 

The Frescobaldi certainly demonstrated the versatility of Maxwell Fernie’s organ, but was much weightier, louder and more varied in registration than the composer himself would have had at his disposal.

 

After the opening Toccata and Kyrie came a Canzon with beautiful registrations.  The variations in this movement were very appealing.  

 

The second Ave Maris Stella setting was characterised by a delightful interplay of parts in the Fugue, utilising gedackts; the Trio used contrasting registration.

 

Dandrieu’s attractive Offertoire was for the greater part jolly in mood, appropriately for Easter.  It was preceded by a plainchant from the choir on the word ‘Alleluia’.  A charming work, it was made up of interesting variations.  They alternated in the main between loud and soft registrations.  I counted 26 renditions of the plainsong in its various guises, with registrations of reeds, full organ, flutes, diapasons, gedackt, a low reed, chimney flute, high flutes.  There were numerous uses of full organ, or near-full organ to make the louder contrast between softer sections.

 

This work made an enjoyable ending to a satisfying recital.   Nicolson’s playing could hardly be faulted; just an occasional rushing of the short notes was all that caught my ear in a first-class technique.

 

Further recitals in the series are by Michael Stewart on 3 October, and Thomas Gaynor on 7 November, both at 2.30pm.  The plainsong theme for the former is Veni Creator Spiritus.

 

From darkness to light – soundscapes of the mind from the NZSO

Posted on by Peter Mechen

BRITTEN – Four Sea Interludes from “Peter Grimes”

MacMILLAN – Veni, Veni, Emmanuel

RAVEL – Pavane for a Dead Princess

R.STRAUSS – Death and Transfiguration

Colin Currie (percussion)

Alexander Shelley (conductor)

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday 18th September

I liked this programme because it broke the mould – it didn’t follow the concert format which the NZSO seems to visit more often than not, to the detriment of pieces such as Ravel’s enchanting Pavane pour une Infanta défunte (or, Pavane for a Dead Princess). The common concert layout (overture, concerto, interval,  symphonic-type work) is obviously favoured by orchestral managements because it provides variety over the course of an evening, and enables the appearance of a prominent soloist in the concerto, who will hopefully bring in the crowds. But to repeat this formula almost ad nauseam is counter-productive, as it negates in the longer term the variety that a single concert seeks to provide, as well as reducing the opportunity for concertgoers to hear “live” many delectable orchestral pieces of only moderate length. The present concert, perhaps due to its matinee status certainly had its “star soloist” in the first half, but then featured two shorter works after the interval, the aforementioned Ravel and a tone-poem by Richard Strauss, Tod und Verklarung (Death and Transfiguration).  Ravel and Strauss certainly provided a contrast, though I wonder how many people would agree with me that some music “feels” better if heard in the evening, as opposed to the morning or afternoon? – somehow, Strauss’s Death and Transfiguration seemed diminished by the daytime ambience, whereas the Ravel was perfect – perhaps more of the same composer’s music would have been preferable, the gorgeous ballet Ma Mere L’Oye (Mother Goose) immediately coming to mind as a different kind of darkness-to-light experience.

I was interested to hear Alexander Shelley conduct, being the son of one of my favourite pianists, Howard Shelley (such connections, made helpfully or otherwise, always add interest to a performer’s aura and music-making abilities). An extremely elegant-looking young man, he brought a brisk, certain focus to his music-making throughout, beginning with the first of Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, a Dawn whose streaks of light across the sky and answering shimmers of reflection from the water were clearly and bracingly articulated in this performance, precise rather than long-breathed and atmospheric. Surprisingly, I fancied the strings’ off-beat syncopations weren’t as clear as I thought they might be at the outset of Sunday Morning, the rhythms taking a while to “settle”; but amends were made with the next piece Moonlight, the playing catching the piece’s deep-toned “hymn to the night” aspect splendidly and sonorously. The concluding Storm’s fury burst upon us vehemently, with properly baleful brass and wonderful tuba notes, though I felt the side-drum a bit glib-sounding (not enough “flail” to really sting); and though the “running frightened” scherzandi passages towards the end had plenty of energy, I wanted more tension in the build-up towards the apocalyptic downward cascade that concludes the piece. So, a good performance, but I thought a trifle wanting more of the knife-edge in places (perhaps more difficult to achieve during the afternoon!).

James MacMillan’s Veni, Veni, Emmanuel is, in effect, a percussion concerto, able to stand as an abstract piece of music in its own right, but illuminated from within by the composer’s intention for the work to represent “the human presence of Christ” and the accompanying liberation of humankind “from fear, anguish and oppression”. Its title forms a direct link with the 15th Century French plainchant of the same name, regularly sung by choirs during the Christian season of Advent. In fact, the composer apparently began working on the piece on the first Sunday of Advent, and completed it on Easter Sunday of the following year, dedicating the work to his parents.

This concert featured percussionist Colin Currie, like his fellow-Scot Evelyn Glennie (who premiered this work) one of the world’s foremost instrumentalists, who’s helped to develop amongst both audiences and composers a new appreciation of percussion and its expressive potential. Very much on show throughout this piece, Currie revelled in the diversity of sounds which colour the opening sequences of exchange – amid orchestral fanfares all the percussion families were introduced, the soloist underlining the variety of texture, colour and spatial depth of sound by physical movement whose fluidity and energy defined the spaces between the instruments and suggested a journey paralleling the course of the music. Then there’s a “heartbeat” section, where pulses of varying metricality play, propelling and colouring the music, the soloist’s patternings punctuated with sharp, coruscating comments from the orchestra. After building towards frenetic rhythmic passages which suggested we’d reached the “Dance” section of the work, Colin Currie was able to show us a more deeply-felt, poetic aspect to his musicianship with the central “Gaude” section (the title taken from the refrain of the plainsong) – marimba figurations gently danced over prayer-like murmurings from the orchestra, as if revealing for listeners the spiritual calm at the centre of a believer’s universe.

There was more dancing, brilliantly characterised by a virtuoso stint from the soloist on the vibraphone, great chorale-like fanfares from the brass, and antiphonal percussion effects, with the timpanist matching the soloist and the orchestral musicians producing triangles, spreading the scintillations throughout the soundscape (a pity about the noisy children in the gallery!). And what wonderful resonances Currie achieved with the tubular bells at the end, the resonances seeming to last for an eternity (I didn’t think the sounds of burbling children at that point entirely inappropriate – wasn’t it Christ who said “Suffer the little children to come unto me, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven”, or words to that effect? – but some people who spoke to me during the interval were very angry about the disturbance!).

Fortunately, not one extraneous post-interval warble from the auditorium spoiled the limpid beauty of Ravel’s homage to the painter Velázquez, Pavane pour une Infante Défunte (in the printed programme both attempts at reproducing the French title came unstuck). The composer’s point about the music being an evocation of a dance rather than a funeral lament was nicely realised by conductor and players. Before the Strauss work, Death and Transfiguration, Alexander Shelley spoke to the audience concerning the programme of the music, explaining the composer’s intentions and tracing the music’s course throughout – so we were fully prepared for the fray, as it were, though some of the audience would have been at last year’s performance of the same work by the Wellington Orchestra, so it wouldn’t exactly have been an unknown quantity. On that occasion I thought the Wellington Orchestra surpassed themselves, with committed, full-toned and fiery playing under Marc Taddei’s direction; so I was interested to hear what the NZSO would make of it, albeit in a different venue and with another conductor.

Only with the first arrival of the “Transfigured” theme did I markedly prefer the earlier performance – somehow (and probably aided by a more ample and resonant acoustic in the Town Hall) Taddei and his orchestra managed to “fashion” the theme from those preparatory gesturings more convincingly and organically, as if it was all the time growing into the shape and form of its first appearance; whereas with Shelley and the NZSO the warmth and radiance of it all seemed like a new idea, fetched up from somewhere else. Perhaps it was that Taddei’s reading seemed longer-breathed than Shelley’s, just that bit more boldly and deeply conceived; though in other respects, the NZSO’s playing for Shelly sounded truly resplendent in all departments, the winds in particular covering themselves with glory. The performance certainly had a sheen and burnished splendour of its own, the NZSO’s greater weight and refinement of tone imparting, if not the whole truth, a Brucknerian radiance at the very end that was well worth the waiting for.

Dianne Halliday at Cambridge Terrace Congregational Church organ

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

‘Manual Labour’ – pieces without pedals by Sweelinck, Frescobaldi, Eberlin, C P E Bach and John Stanley

Dianne Halliday – organ

Congregational Church, Cambridge Terrace, Wellingtom

Thursday 16 September , 12 45pm

Though I have lived almost all my life in Wellington, I confess that I confirm a comment made at this recital, that this organ is Wellington’s best kept musical secret. I only discovered it at lunchtime recitals three or four years ago. In fact, Michael Fulcher, who came to listen, said it was one of his favourite Wellington instruments.

It was Dianne Halliday who prompted work on the Cambridge Terrace organ and its regular Thursday lunchtime recitals; she is also director of music at St Peter’s Willis Street and has been leading the work of restoring its organ (both are by English builder William Hill) after the 2008 fire.

It is indeed a lovely instrument, three manuals and pedal board, happily placed at the east end of the church, in what would be the chancel of an Anglican or Catholic church. Its size and voicing seems a perfect match with the size and shape of the church; the only disadvantage is traffic noise which indeed made its point.

The decision to play pieces that did not use pedals was in part driven by practical considerations, but it leaves most pre-19th century music available. In any case there was plenty of rich bass sound in the swell division.

Dianne Halliday’s second recital during National Organ Month included music from an entirely different era from that in her earlier recital at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, reviewed by my colleague Rosemary Collier. This time, it was music from between early 17th and late 18th centuries.

The main characteristic of the recital was the organist’s colourful use of contrasting registrations. The two pieces by Sweelinck – Fantasia in the Manner of an Echo and the Variations on ‘Unter der Linde grüne’ were charming pieces, the latter particularly playful in the sharp contrasts between successive variations; the flute stops against the sturdy diapason ones.

Frescobaldi’s Toccata a l’elevazione, one from his ‘Secondo libro di toccate’ of 1627 that consisted of toccatas, ricercars, canzonas; ‘elevazione’ presumably refers to the fact that they are for manuals, and not pedals. It proved light in spirit but not trivial and Halliday realized it in a lively and unpretentious manner.

An unknown composer followed: Johann Ernst Eberlin who lived more than a century after Sweelinck and Frescobaldi. He worked as court organist to the Archbishop of Salzburg, was a friend of Leopold Mozart, and Wolfgang is likely to have heard his music there. He died when Mozart was 6. Dianne Halliday played his Suite on the Fifth Tone consisting of a Praeludium and six short variations (variants might be a better word), including pairs in which the tune was inverted. They were hardly weighty works, but enchanting, and especially rewarding on this organ, in this bright space (the church has no stained glass). A Finale summed it up, with references to the preceding pieces.

C P E Bach’s Sonata in A minor (perhaps H 85 – Wq 70:4), displayed the typical fingerprints of J S Bach’s second son – elaborate rhythmic figures, tuneful though not of the rich and memorable kind; it was probably Halliday’s keen stylistic sensibility that lent it colour. For me, the middle movement, Adagio, was very much the chief pleasure; not complex in a contrapuntal sense, but in its pure lines that were evidence of a considerable musical talent.

Finally, the only English piece in the programme, a Voluntary by John Stanley, which consisted of a series of short, varied sections from a prelude – whose full, rich palette was striking proof that pedals are hardly necessary, to a spirited dance, a meditation and a brisk courrante-style episode: a quite admirable piece that showed how English composers in the late 18th century were hardly inferior, once J S Bach was dead, to their Continental contemporaries at the organ. Perhaps, like several French composers of the past century, it helped that he was blind.

 

Douglas Mews organ recital before a Bach Cantata at Lutheran vespers

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Organ recital of pieces by Bach, Pachelbel, CPE Bach and Byrd and Bach Cantata BWV 161, ‘Komm du süsse Todesstunde’

 

Douglas Mews (organ) and Musica Lyrica – baroque voices and instruments  

 

St Paul’s Lutheran Church, King Street, Mount Cook, Wellington 

 

Sunday 12 September, 4pm

 

We are in the middle of National Organ Month. There have been a number of very fine recitals on many of the more important organs in the city, but one has been conspicuously silent.

The Wellington Town Hall organ.

 

It’s specially surprising when a CD of Douglas Mews, City Organist, playing that great organ has just been released by a British recording company, part of a series devoted to the great organs of Australasia.

 

So where has City Organist Douglas Mews been?

On Sunday he played the (rather fine) organ of the little Lutheran Church of St Paul in Mount Cook, off Adelaide Road. Not where you might expect to find the City Organist during the main organ festival of the year. But what do you do if they take away the key to your instrument?

 

I am told the reason is that the Wellington City Council had declined to support the event, and that furthermore, the council had postponed all routine maintenance on the organ this year. We haven’t spoken to Douglas Mews on the subject, but wonder whether his honorarium has likewise been suspended….

 

What’s the Council doing????

Might be worth asking Mayor Prendergast for her comment at an appropriate electoral meeting.

Wellington – Cultural Capital? Yeah, Right!

 

As well as his role as City Organist, Douglas Mews is keyboard specialist (particularly harpsichord, fortepiano and organ) at the New Zealand School of Music. He played an hour-long recital on the St Paul’s two-manual Dutch organ, before the church’s Vespers service; a service which customarily includes a performance of a Bach cantata within the liturgy. The organ recital consisted almost entirely of German music of around the Bach era.  

 

It began with one of Bach’s arrangements of other composers’ concertos – there are a lot, numbered from BWV 972 to 987. This one was from an oboe concerto by Alessandro Marcello, BWV 974 (there’s possibly another one, BWV 977, by Alessandro’s brother, the better known Benedetto). Its lack of any specially memorable tunes explains its neglect, but it offered an excellent vehicle for Mews’s decorative facility, his taste and his flair for investing this lovely little instrument, ideally suited to the size of the church, with tonal variety and musical humanity.

 

A piece by Pachelbel followed – an Aria Sebaldina from a collection called Hexachordum Apollinis, six arias published in 1699. According to Wikipedia it ‘is generally regarded as one of the pinnacles of Pachelbel’s oeuvre’. Not a complex contrapuntal piece, rather a set of colourful, mainly transparent variations that exercised the organ’s flute stops attractively.

 

The odd-piece-out was a Sonata by C P E Bach, conspicuously of a later era, filled with his irregular phrases, seeming pointedly to avoid the composing styles of his predecessors, chiefly of his father; rather intriguing.

 

An exhibition of the organ’s excellent flute and piccolo stops came with Byrd’s account of the medieval song, Carmen’s Whistle; before a return to Bach proper – the Fugue in G minor, BWV 578, known as the ‘Little Fugue’ – ‘Little’ to distinguish it from the ‘Great Fantasia and Fugue in G minor’, BWV 542, which is longer. Leopold Stokowski arranged BWV 578 for orchestra and it’s recently been recorded by the Bournmouth Symphony Orchestra. It gave us the chance to hear more of the reed stops of the organ. 

 

During the Vespers service which followed Mews’s recital, there is always the singular spectacle of the pastor, Mark Whitfield, who moves between priestly activities, vocal offerings as cantor, and occasionally organist.

 

The principal music attraction however, was Bach’s Cantata BWV 161, performed with the baroque ensemble Musica Lyrica and four voices – Rowena Simpson, Katherine Hodge, John Beaglehole and David Morriss.

 

The ensemble was the same as had played a fortnight earlier and reviewed on this website – 29 August. Plus Cellist Emma Goodbehere who, it will be recalled, had departed on that occasion after a minor accident with her cello, now returned with her cello repaired to provide a most welcome string texture to the bass lines.

 

Not a well-known cantata, the performance was charming, with fine solos from soprano Rowena Simpson, alto Katherine Hodge and tenor John Beaglehole. The voices together with recorders and baroque violins, viola and cello turned a morbid text – ‘Komm du süsse Todesstunde’ – into a good time, which was the way the church, naturally, would have it.

 

In all, an excellent place to bear in mind for an empty end of a Sunday afternoon.

 

Wellington Orchestra play Elgar with violinist Feng Ning under Taddei

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

  ‘1910’ – Firebird

 

Barber: Adagio for Strings

Stravinsky: Firebird Suite (1919 version)

Elgar: Violin Concerto, Op.61

 

The Vector Wellington Orchestra conducted by Marc Taddei with violinist Feng Ning

 

Wellington Town Hall

 

Saturday, 11 September, 7.30pm 

 

The concert ended, somewhat unusually, with the violin concerto – but as the longest work, it was sensibly placed after the interval.  The concert began unusually, too, with the orchestra playing itself ‘Happy Birthday’ in a short and amusing orchestration by Stravinsky, created for the conductor Pierre Monteux’s 80th birthday.  This was for the orchestra’s 60th birthday since its founding as the Alex Lindsay String Orchestra.  It has had several name changes since then, and become a full symphony orchestra.

 

In his pre-concert talk, Marc Taddei said that Barber’s famous elegy-like piece (originally written for string quartet) had at first been criticised as not very American.   While it has become widely used for public occasions of grief and mourning, it is surely always now thought of as American.  The work was first played in the orchestral version by the NBC Orchestra with Toscanini conducting, in 1938.

On Saturday it was particularly significant, being the ninth anniversary of 9/11. Marc Taddei dedicated the performance to the memory of Dr Allan Thomas, Wellington musician, musicologist, university lecturer, and broadcaster, who died a few days earlier.

 

The ‘1910’ theme was borne out by that being the birth-date of the composer; while the other two works were composed in that year, although in the case of the Stravinsky, it was the 1919 version that was being performed.

 

There is something about the cadences and falling lines of melody in this work which give a feeling of sadness and melancholy.  There is sustained tension through its long phrases  – one feels one can hardly breathe.  It was given a particularly slow performance, with wonderful controlled dynamics, especially the pianississimos, and splendid tone.

 

The Firebird was also the subject of a dedication – to Elsa Jensen, violinist, who was present and who had been a member of the Alex Lindsay String Orchestra.   This exciting and delightful work is always a joy to hear.   The vast amount of percussion used, and the use of particular techniques, such as the strings playing subtle and ethereal harmonics, make for constant interest.

 

The Introduction movement of this performance was rather slower than I’ve heard it before, but this enabled much detail to be heard, especially from the wind sections of the orchestra.

 

Among the many joys was the harp and piano playing (Jenny Newth and Donald Nicolson), and Moira Hurst’s clarinet.  The hall was nearly full to hear this enchanting and exhilarating music, which Taddei conducted without the music score, as he did for the Barber also.  The performance was not quite perfect, but for me it was very nearly so.

 

Elgar’s violin concerto is a demanding work, and thus not heard as often as his cello concerto.  It was therefore not surprising that a soloist as young as Feng Ning (winner of the 2005 Michael Hill violin competition in Queenstown and Auckland) used the score.  Taddei had told us that he considered the concerto the greatest of Elgar’s compositions, but that it was Germanic rather than English, with influences from Richard Strauss, and that it was possibly the hardest concerto in the repertoire, with double and triple stopping for the soloist to negotiate.   Despite all these factors, he thought Elgar the most nostalgic of all composers.

 

Feng Ning has a wonderfully warm and sweet tone.  This was a worthy performance of a massive work.   A brilliant first movement began with a very crisp opening, followed by a broad sweep approach, yet with great rhythmic precision.  Delicious woodwind was a feature.  The soloist had a luscious sound, full yet delicate.  Nevertheless, this reading of the work was not as romantic as that on the Elgar/ Menuhin recording I have.

 

There is a nice connection between that well-known 1932 recording of the concerto by the London Symphony Orchestra with Elgar himself conducting, and the 16 year-old Yehudi Menuhin as soloist, since Feng Ning attended a master-class with Menuhin.  After the great man had heard Ning play he offered no comment, but gave the young violinist a hug.

 

The adagio movement was quite magical, the soloist thoroughly in command of this taxing and difficult music; all nuances were in place.

 

The last movement had a wonderful sense of stillness and of the slow passage of time, in the quiet parts.  The concerto uses no percussion, only timpani, so there was little of the bombast one can associate with Elgar.  The orchestra was somewhat overshadowed by the soloist in this movement, but nevertheless, played splendidly. 

 

The orchestra joined the large audience in giving much applause to the soloist.  Applause between movements may irritate some of us, but it is good news.  It means that there are people present who do not normally attend symphony concerts.

 

The concert ended with the release of yellow and black balloons from a net suspended from the ceiling of the hall.   We need not only to congratulate the oldest of the regional orchestras, but to hope and to lobby to ensure that this fine orchestra, with its community functions throughout the southern North Island and the northern South Island can continue its role, and withstand government pressures on Creative New Zealand to cut its funding.

 

A Radio New Zealand Concert interview with the orchestra’s manager, Diana Marsh, the day before the concert revealed that changes to the funding were to be made by Creative New Zealand without consultation with this orchestra or the other regional orchestras.   She explained that the orchestra arranges its yearly timetable around the ballet company’s and the opera company’s scheduled performances as well as those of the Orpheus Choir which require an orchestra.  Around that it arranges its own orchestral concerts, featuring top line soloists and concerts particularly for children.  These are held not only in Wellington, but in cities and towns where the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra seldom or never goes, e.g. Masterton (where this same programme was played the night before this concert), Nelson, Palmerston North.  Its role is therefore to take music to ‘the provinces’ and to provide live music for opera,  ballet, and choral concerts, as much as it is to give symphony concerts in Wellington city.

 

If all the coughers at Saturday’s concerts were to join (as I have) the Friends of the Vector Wellington Orchestra organisation, then the coffers of the orchestra would not only be well filled, but it would demonstrate that people care about this orchestra’s continued existence.

 

Piers Lane and the Doric String Quartet in rapturous accord

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Haydn: Quartet in D, Op 64 No 5 ‘The Lark’; Bartók: String Quartet No 3; Chopin: Nocturne in E flat, Op 55 No 2; Ballade No 3 in A flat, Op 47; Brahms: Piano Quintet in F minor, Op 34

Wellington Town Hall

Friday 10 September, 7.30pm

To the simple music-lover, this looked like the most attractive of the year’s chamber music concerts from Chamber Music New Zealand. Though the audience was quite large, I’d expected to see a bigger house than this. My guess was about 750 customers.

Perhaps the Doric Quartet is not as well known as I thought; it’s getting harder and harder for the casual music lover to distinguish the excellent from the superb from the amazing as more and more groups pour out of music academies all over the world.

It certainly is a pity that human beings are so attached to reputations that are very substantially manufactured by publicity hype or luck, and are ready to allow their ears to be misled accordingly.

But on top of the superb quartet there was Piers Lane, one of the most engaging and musical of international pianists, though not a star in the class of Kissin and Grimaud, Aimard and Uchida, let alone the dozens of brilliant and good-looking youngsters that flash across the night sky, many not to reappear. .

Lane was certainly the biggest draw-card at the 2009 Adam Chamber Music Festival in Nelson, and here he offered us a reminder of how to play Chopin in a whole-hearted way, with all the virtuosity needed yet with immaculate taste and refinement.

He opened the second half alone, with two pieces of Chopin – the concert’s only nod to the two bicentenarians (they played Schumann’s piano quintet in the other series). His Nocturne was broad, confident, in a quintessentially romantic vein; the third Ballade was inspired by similar approach, its several phases colourfully distinguished, giving particular attention to accents within phrases; it was a performance that was of the very essence of the period in which in was written.

Well-known as these pieces are, through recordings or our own struggles at the piano, live piano performances have become rare , not just of Chopin, but rare as a genre: even from the great pianists brought here by the NZSO or the APO.

The concert had begun with Haydn’s ‘Lark’ quartet, one of the most spirited and engaging. Though the first two movements demonstrated the quartet’s extraordinary awareness of the subtleties and the secrets that Haydn planted in each separate part, there were discoveries and revelations, and the surpise of speed in the last two movements. Quartets of this period were show-pieces for the first violin and without undue display, Alex Redington allowed his easy mastery, clear and penetrating, to perform that role, though at the start he created the sweetest, smallest sound. The quartet relished an exquisite languor in the second movement, beautifully decorated little violin cadenzas and long pauses as it changed direction. The last two movements were uncommonly but convincingly fast, creating will-o’-the-wisp effects that light up and then died away. The speed of both movements seemed to raise them into a transcendental state which never settled for a moment.

Bartók’s 3rd quartet is relatively short, but it is one of the more acerbic of the six, as he made his mark among the avant-garde of the time – the late 1920s; jagged rhythms and pithy motifs that suggest Magyar modes and melodic shapes, but avoiding any hint of the late romantic. Though in four sections, there are no breaks and the labels attached to each of the ‘nominal’ movements hardly matter, as Bartók allows each in turn to add bits of a whole to form a remarkably integrated composition. The players’ spiritual sympathy with the music was remarkable, as was their commitment to its time and place, all of which drew lyricism and musical vitality from what can be merely difficult music in lesser hands.

The audience responded to the grand opening of Brahms Piano Quintet with an almost audible sigh of luxury, and even more as the mood dropped to something that took us secretively into its confidence. The unease of one moment was turned magically to gaiety, but nothing lasted long. The quartet, and pianist, were throughout in the most perfect rapport, neither party dominating or out of character with the whole. The third movement, Scherzo and Trio, was splendid, ending almost too thunderously.

The labeling of Brahms as a classicist by scholars has always struck me as the view of those who study the score and its formal niceties, but who don’t bother to listen. Nothing could be more whole-heartedly romantic, expressive, occasionally quixotic in character, than this work and especially the opening of the Finale; reticent, almost wracked with self-doubt. And yet it evolves into the most magnificent, heroic pageant which is gloriously prolonged and entirely envelopes the members of the quintet. An utterly memorable performance.

 

Michael Stewart’s adventurous organ recital at Cathedral of Saint Paul

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Presented by the Wellington Organists’ Association


Praeludium No 2 in E minor (Bruhns); Fugue in A flat minor, WoO 8 (Brahms); Trio on ‘Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr’, BWV 676 (Bach); ‘Wondrous Love’ – Variations on a shape note hymn (Barber); Master Tallis’s Testament and Paean from Six Pieces for Organ (Howells)


Cathedral of Saint Paul, Wellington


Friday 10 September, 12.45pm


This was one of the regular Friday recitals given on the cathedral organ, and it contributed importantly to the plethora of organ recitals all over the city during National Organ Month.


We heard the music director, Michael Stewart, from the rival cathedral up the road, the Sacred Heart, in the very model of a programme for a National Organ Month. It reached into lesser-known territory, but never into the quite large body of vapid music that finds its way too often into organ recitals. Absent was any music from the great 19th and 20th century French school, and for once I did not miss it, such was the pleasure and sense of discovery in the entire three-quarter hour recital.


I don’t recall hearing music by Bruhns before; he was, like Bach briefly, a pupil of Buxtehude who was based at Lübeck. Bruhns was born, a generation before Bach, in the province of Schleswig-Holstein that vaccilated between German states and Denmark, and he became organist to the Danish court at Copenhagen. This piece was the longer of two Praeludiums that he wrote in E minor; I was charmed by several passages, particularly rhythmic flute ostinati. The whole piece, which easily sustained interest through its ten minutes or so, struck me forcibly as more varied and characterful than what I know of Buxtehude; there were many phases that seemed to have been written a lot later than the late 17th century. Sadly, Bruhns died of plague in 1697, aged 31. Its brilliant playing on this fine, colourful organ made it an engrossing discovery.


Bach’s Trio in G on ‘Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr’ is one of three chorale preludes on this hymn that form part of he Clavier-Übung III (‘keyboard practice’: No III being the only one of the four volumes of Clavier-Übung designed for the organ). This too was clearly chosen as a diverting piece for midday with tripping rhythms in triple time, with colourful exercises that involved repeated shifts from manual to manual.


Brahms’s organ music is generally in the shadow of his orchestral, chamber and piano music and songs, but his organ music always impresses me too. This Fugue, without Opus number, written in 1856, began with a careful statement of the tune which slowly gathered strength through the increasing complexity of its fugal evolution. It impressed as an early work, not just for the singularly skilled and inventive writing which never seemed a mere academic fugal exercise or to fall into mere repetition; nevertheless its musical richness and command of fugal techniques had an engrossing, emotional impact.


Samuel Barber’s was another novelty for me, a piece based on a hymn that employed the ‘Shape note’ system, an American notation system that uses differently shaped notes to indicate pitch. A religious tune with a simple, primitive quality, it offered Barber a basis for sympathetic treatment, not through piling on complexity but by elaborating the tune, varying the harmonies and registrations, with imaginative passages in low registers over pedals to create a genuine religious feeling, that Stewart never allowed to be  overwhelmed by the forces at his disposal.


Two pieces from Herbert Howells’s Six Pieces for Organ ended the recital; the first somber and introspective, reflecting that slightly dull seriousness that characterizes some English music; that soon gave way however to robust and interesting reflective passages. The Paean began with the Swell closed, but the volume and richness of registrations steadily increased till the final phase, meandering and suspenseful, created a blaze of excitement towards the end.


It was a splendid programme designed to offer the curious plenty of rewarding discoveries, of the kind we hear too little of; but much more than that, these were all performances that were vivid in their range and imaginative in their combination of stops, rhythmically bracing, ornamented with taste and bravura, played by hands and feet with huge agility.