Category: Reviews – Concerts

Diverse Soundscapes – Segerstam and Kringelborn with the NZSO

Posted on by Peter Mechen

SIBELIUS – Luonnotar, for soprano and orchestra

GRIEG – Songs

CHRIS CREE BROWN – Icescape

BRAHMS – Symphony No.4 in E Minor

Leif Segerstam (conductor)

Solveig Kringelborn (soprano)

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Michael Fowler Centre, Friday 13th November 2009

It was hard to know what to make of this programme as an assemblage of music – I thought of it as a concert of two diverse halves, the first an exploration of cool, bracing sounds and ambiences from both the planet’s hemispheres, and the second an exposition of one of the greatest of all romantic symphonies. I would have preferred to have heard Leif Segerstam conduct more Scandinavian or perhaps some Russian music, following his and the orchestra’s magically-wrought first-half evocations of music associated with Arctic and Antarctic regions. It’s not that I wasn’t interested in how he would approach a work from the standard Central European symphonic repertoire. But, interesting though the Brahms Fourth Symphony performance was, I would have thought a major symphonic work from Northern Europe (Nielsen comes immediately to mind, though there are any number of works by other fine symphonists from this part of the world) might have been considered a more appropriate companion for music by Sibelius and Grieg, along with Chris Cree Brown’s impressive tone-poem “Icescape”. I remembered the remark “Segerstam is a wild man!” made by Pietari Inkinen during a pre-concert discussion forum at the beginning of the NZSO’s Sibelius symphonies series, and wanted to hear him apply that wild spirit to more music that breathes the same fresh, tingling and rarified air.

Still, in an imperfect world I was content with hearing Luonnotar, Sibelius’s utterly magical evocation of the Finnish creation myth, made all the more mysterious and ritualistic by the use of the composer’s native language, here engagingly delivered by Norwegian soprano Solveig Kringelborn. Her clear, communicative tones and detailed diction helped bring a powerful sense of storytelling to the work (wrongly described as a “song-cycle” in the pre-concert publicity – Luonnotar is actually a fully-fledged stand-alone extended orchestral song). At the beginning, the singer survived a slight “tickle” on one of her opening notes, going on to capture all of the brooding, mystical power of both words and music. Segerstam and the orchestra, for their part, provided her with a stunning evocation of timeless creative impulse, a real sense of something being wrought from nothing – now still and brooding, now urgent and restless, now elemental and declamatory. It was a marvellous performance, and a perfect fillip to the earlier Sibelius festival series – would that we had more directed by Segerstam in this vein (the incidental music to “The Tempest”, for example…)

More did follow, but not from Sibelius – instead, Christchurch composer Chris Cree Brown’s “Icescape” tellingly kept our listening temperatures firmly in single figures with some gloriously rugged orchestral sounds – rasping string timbres and bird-like cries from winds, accompanied by primordial glissandi from the brass and crystalline touches from percussion. Elemental blocks of sound from different orchestral sections contrasted tellingly with both a volatile dancing element and episodes of great stillness, the sostenutos readily suggesting the icy wastes of the Antarctic continent. It was a work where timbral differentiation was as crucial to the argument as was rhythm and dynamics, with some amazing, ear-tingling sounds resounding in the memory at the music’s conclusion.

I wondered whether the bracket of Grieg songs coming after such austerities would merely serve to underline Debussy’s dismissive “pink bonbons stuffed with snow” remark regarding the Norwegian composer’s music. I needn’t have worried – Grieg’s uniquely piquant and richly unsentimental harmonic language (greatly admired by both Frederick Delius and Percy Grainger) is heard to its most telling advantage in his songs, striking even in oft-heard pieces like “Solveig’s Song” from Peer Gynt, and the well-known “Last Spring” (one of two songs that the composer arranged for string orchestra, but vastly preferable in its original form). Singer, conductor and players made this music their own, with many magical touches, the soprano’s affecting “world-weary” tones in Solveig’s Song, the orchestra’s heartfelt phrasing of the strings-only passages of “Last Spring”, and the astringency of the strings-and-wind textures in the Mahlerian “En Svane” (A Swan) which concluded the first half. Only in the more declamatory passages of “From Mount Pincio” did I feel that the singer lacked the tonal reserves to fully “command” the vocal line, though again she shone in the work’s more ruminative, sensitively-breathed passages, and generally won our hearts.

Segerstam propelled the Brahms symphony on its way with little fuss and no intrusive exaggerations – everything was sweet-toned and unhurried, rather small in scale, but with nothing pushed or “hefted up” unnaturally. My notes make ready references to gorgeous orchestral playing from all departments, the whole creating a lovely autumnal atmosphere, with one or two touches suggesting the occasional ‘edge of the abyss” realisation, without drawing undue attention from the shape of the whole. I thought the opening of the slow movement was beautifully done (though it’s music that always gives me goosebumps!), pizziccato strings and winds enjoying the music’s equivocations of regret and resignation that colours whole episodes of this movement. The NZSO strings didn’t disappoint at the reprise of the big, Brucknerian tune, here gloriously rich and deep-toned, while the horns made a suitably baleful impression just before the movement’s close. I enjoyed the timpani’s prominent voicings during the rumbustious scherzo, with the horns this time warm and sonorous in the middle trio section.

Throughout the symphony a section of the audience had been applauding at the conclusion of each movement (unusual for a Wellington audience), and matters came to a head when the applause after the Scherzo interrupted the conductor’s attempt at an “attacca” with the final movement – Segerstam turned to the audience and pointedly extended four fingers, one after the other, to the amusement (or bemusement) of all concerned. Despite the finale’s big-boned opening, which splendidly carried us through the first gaunt utterances of the Passacaglia theme, I didn’t feel that Segerstam consistently picked up the music’s underlying forward thrust after some of the more lyrical episodes – the result was that the tension sagged towards the end, and the last few pages for me didn’t have that “screwed-up-tightly” quality that surely the whole movement is inexorably moving towards. And the conductor’s agogic pause inserted before the final chord seemed more self-indulgent than logical and organic, in this, the most “connected” of all romantic symphonies.

For me, however, all of this was of little moment – the concert’s first part alone had reaped such ample rewards, I felt richly repaid, and grateful that I had been given the chance to experience Pietari Inkinen’s “wild man” at work with repertoire he knows and loves – even if it was only half-a-concert’s worth!

Shared pleasures – The Elios Quartet at St.Andrew’s

Posted on by Peter Mechen

CHERUBINI – Double Fugue

SHOSTAKOVICH String Quartet No.7 Op.108

TCHAIKOVSKY – “Andante Cantabile” from String Quartet No.1

SCHUBERT – “Quartettsatz” (String Quartet No.12)

The Elios Quartet: Martin Jaenecke , Konstanze Artmann violins, Victoria Jaenecke, viola, Paul Mitchell, ‘cello

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

Wednesday, 11th November 2009

The Elios String Quartet was formed by a group of friends in 2007, who brought to this Wellington-based ensemble a wealth of musical experience acquired in different parts of the world. Together, they’ve developed a beautiful sound, and a closely-knit sense of the shape and flow of musical phrases which seemed today to bring out all the lines and contours of the pieces within the different frameworks of the music’s character. They chose a Double Fugue by Cherubini to open their concert, a work which demonstrated their qualities as a group to a pleasing degree – what emerged from their playing was a sense of line and a feeling for the work’s overall shape, so that you got a feeling during the second part of the threads and contourings of the music illuminating the intricacies of what had gone before. The work concluded with a grandly rhetorical statement, again presented with what seemed just the right amount of gravitas, though with enough buoyancy to lift the exercise out of the realms of its origin as a solfeggio vocal exercise.

From Dmitri Shostakovich’s fifteen string quartets, the group chose No.7, written by the composer in 1960, in memory of his first wife, Nina, who died in 1954. It was here introduced by violist Victoria Jaenecke, who talked about the work’s ability to convey great atmosphere and strength of character in a brief space of time (at roughly twelve minutes’ duration it is the composer’s shortest quartet). The three movements are played without a break, the group bringing out all the first movement’s dry, sardonic nonchalance, a mood which darkens into a Lento of almost unrelieved sadness, the music wandering for much of the time in an ambient wilderness. The finale’s explosions of energy were brought off by the quartet with great elan, the viola attacking the fugal argument with fierce determination, the ‘cello moaning frequent complaints in the face of the other instruments’ sometimes unison scrubbings. As the music gradually loses its aggressive edge, a ghostly waltz steers the course of things towards reminiscences of the first two movements, accompanied by pizzicato notes which gradually dissolve, leaving the sounds suspended in a kind of quiet, enigmatic state of resignation.

After this, the well-known Tchaikovsky “Andante Cantabile” (from the composer’s first string quartet) was balm for the senses – the players brought out a lovely “veiled” quality to the music, suggesting a lightening of mood between the folk-songish opening theme and the dance-like middle section, with the unisons of both violins adding extra emotional “squeeze” before the hushed return of the opening – all nicely orchestrated by the players, and with only a slight touch of unsteadiness in the high violin work towards the end threatening to break the spell.

There remained in the concert Schubert’s unfinished single-movement quartet (called No.12, but otherwise known as the “Quartettsatz”) – the composer plunges us into a kind of “sturm und drang” mood at the outset, here made more fraught by a couple of slightly out-of-tune notes from the first violin, but nevertheless capturing a mood of agitation and desperation before the lovely second subject has its say, the transition between the two essayed with great elan, as are the “sighs” which are shared between the instruments a little later. The players were particularly good at attacking the sforzando beginnings of tremolando passages, conveying both the angst of these irruptions of energy and the contrasting moments of lyricism, the composer in his music “smiling through tears”. All in all, it was extremely elegant and articulate playing by a group from which I hope we’ll hear a great deal more.

A Requiem to die for……

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Requiem for Phillip II

Christobal de Morales – Missa pro Defunctis

Alonso Lobo – Motet: Versa est in luctum

The Tudor Consort

Directed by Michael Stewart

Sacred Heart Cathedral, Hill St., Wellington

Saturday 7th November

The Tudor Consort’s concluding presentation in their splendid 2009 series of musical events was a reconstruction of the funeral music for Phillip II of Spain, a monarch forever associated with the unsuccessful Armada expedition of 1588 sent against England, but whose patronage of the arts during his mere forty-two years identified him more positively with a “Golden Age” of cultural activity throughout the Iberian peninsula during the latter part of the sixteenth century. At the King’s death in 1598, a Requiem Mass written by Cristobal de Morales (1500-1553) was performed, along with a more recent work, the Motet “Versa est in luctum” by Alonso Lobo (1555-1617). Together with an introductory Antiphon, “Circumdederunt me”, also by Morales, these were the works sung by the Consort. The choice of venue was appropriate enough, though I could have imagined an even more evocative ambience wrought by this timeless music at St.Mary’s of the Angels, a more overtly “theatrical” ambience which could then have readily lent itself to some antiphonal placement of different solo voices at various stages of the mass. However, the focus was the music rather than the ceremony; and Michael Stewart’s Tudor Consort voices wove for us a multi-stranded panoply of beautiful sounds throughout the evening, bringing out the telling contrasts between the composer’s use of both plainchant and his own polyphonal settings of the texts.

After the ethereal loveliness of Morales’ opening Antiphon, with the music’s individual strands superbly tuned and balanced by the choir, the starker unisons of the opening Requiem came as something of a shock, creating a real, visceral contrast between the timelessness of the composer’s polyphonic harmonies and the resolutely medieval-sounding plainchant, which was presumably the effect that was intended. Morales employed these dramatic changes throughout the work, revelling in both unities and contrasts by using the “old” chant as a springboard from which to weave his vocal elaborations, long-breathed vocal lines which seemed to span eternities by bringing time to a standstill, everything beautifully sustained by the Consort, with only one or two momentary uncertainties of tuning showing at mood-transitions between paragraphs of texts.

Perhaps Michael Stewart and the Consort might have used solo voices more spatially and ritualistically to create antiphonal effects between celebrant and chorus in places; but one couldn’t fault the character of the actual singing, and the sense of atmosphere created by the sounds of the exchanges. For this nineteen-fifties churchgoer, brought up in the Catholic Latin tradition, it was a chance to revisit long-unheard sound-vistas, none more potent than the thirteenth-century hymn “Dies Irae”, which Morales employs almost in full in its original setting, its principal melody beloved of many more recent composers – I would have added the name “Rachmaninov” to the list of names quoted by the programme note, as the “Dies Irae” was a constantly-recurring motif in the latter’s music. At the end of the hymn, Morales sets merely the last two lines of the poem, the beauty of the polyphonic lines coming like balm to the senses after the severity of the older unison chant. Somehow the applause at the end of this section seemed out of place, even if it was time for an interval.

I particularly enjoyed the Offertorium after the resumption, the singers intoning the plainsong “Domine Jesu Christe Rex gloriae” before unfurling more of the composer’s beautifully-wrought polyphonies, these having a tensile strength whose upward-thrusting impulses emphasised the solidity of Christian faith and belief in heavenly destiny, finding eventual fulfilment at “et semini ejus”. More memory-evocations for me came with the Preface (tenor) leading to the “Sanctus”, Morales creating a rapt, worshipful feeling building up towards long-breathed majesty, as the Heavens and the Earth fill with the Lord’s glory.

The sung “Pater Noster” was another voice heard long ago and brought magically to life here again, its plain, everyman aspect set against the majestic treatment accorded the “Agnus Dei”, its thrice-repeated statements building to a grandiloquence and emphasis that couldn’t help but inspire awe and reverence. Afterwards, the placid, light-suffused “Lux aeterna” brought a measure of consolation, tempered by the imploring energies of the suceeding “Requiem aeternam”, and the sobering declamations of the tenor’s concluding “nunc dimittus”, in which the departing soul is farewelled and committed to the care of the Almighty.

And that was it, but for what was the most telling moment of all – the tiny Motet by Alonso Lobo, whose contribution to the funeral service has forever linked his name with that of Morales, but whose reputation in contemporary Spain stood alongside that of Tomas Luis de Victoria. Michael Stewart and his Consort shaped the work most beautifully, integrating the soaring soprano line with the acompanying textures and allowing the silences to surge softly backwards at the music’s conclusion. Altogether, a richly rewarding experience, and concluding a year of activity and achievement that the Consort and its director can be truly proud of.

Fulcher in Great music at St Paul’s lunchtime

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Ciacona in E minor, BuxWV 160 (Buxtehude); Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue (Healey Willan); Chaconne (Holst); Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582 (Bach)

Michael Fulcher (organ)

Cathedral of St Paul, Friday 6 November 2009

The second to last in the approximately monthly series of 12.45pm recitals was by the cathedral’s director of music, Michael Fulcher.

In his notes to the programme he remarked how his idea to focus on the passacaglia (and its cousin the chaconne) had awakened him to its scope, which he thinks can easily fill four full programmes. There will be more next year.

Nothing could better illustrate the depth and sheer intellectual potential of the organ repertoire than the many works over the centuries that have been built on the renaissance courtly dance in slow triple rhythm. It has not been confined to the organ of course; The most famous of all chaconnes is no doubt that in Bach’s D minor solo violin partita; and then there’s the great finale of Brahms’s Fourth Symphony.

A good recital seeks to awaken its listeners to music that they probably do not know, and this succeeded magnificently. Buxtehude specialists would have known his Ciaconna, a most engaging piece in which the undulating chaconne theme opens on both manuals and pedals. Though its performance, and that of the Bach later, on a large modern organ which emphasizes the weight and diapason opulence, would have surprised the composer, the music seemed to thrive in that climate; and it was further enriched in the cathedral’s long reverberation.

The second piece was new to me, its composer no more than a name. Healey Willan lived from 1880 till 1968, born in England but lived in Canada from the age of 33; his Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue was written for a Toronto organ in 1916. Its three sections are distinct, unlike Bach’s piece that followed, where the passacaglia rather merges into the fugue. The Introduction announced the character of the whole work, serious and noble, enlivened by varied registrations, the building of climaxes through the increasing complexity of interesting harmonies and the opening and closing of the swell box.

The fugue, at its start, served to clarify the dense emotional atmosphere that the Passacaglia had created; Fulcher’s dramatic skill then led the music towards a powerful final climax: his note had warned us to expect an exhilarating piece and that quality was vividly present in the fugue’s conclusion.

Before the Bach, Fulcher played an arrangement of the Chaconne from Holst’s First Suite for Military Band, so well disguised that its original as open air band music would hardly have been guessed. Spacious, grand, with its effective use of the slow triple time.

Fulcher invested Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue, BWV 582, with its elaborate structure and variety of rhythms and colourings, with such a sense of being of today that it might have been the most modern piece in the programme. Its emphatic pedal theme can start to be monotonous in the hands (and feet) of a lesser player, but here the combination of a colourful organ and an organist able to exploit varied registrations, embroidered with sensitive rhythmic patterns made it a splendid finale to the concert, which should induce the audience to watch out for further organ recitals from Fulcher – and indeed the several other excellent organists in the city.  

 

Kringelborn and Segerstam with NZSO

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leif Segerstam with Solveig Kringelborn (soprano).

Karelia Suite (Sibelius); Symphony No 191 (Segerstam); Prelude to Die Meistersinger (Wagner); Four Last Songs (Strauss) 

Michael Fowler Centre, Saturday 31 October 2009

It’s 20 years since I heard Leif Segerstam conducting the NZSO, and the memory is of a highly gifted musician blessed with an eccentric’s sense of humour, enlivened with an intelligence and vivacity that sets him apart in his profession. His notes to his 191st symphony also reveal a fascination with numerology which he applies playfully to several strands of his life. Not that a whimsical delight in numbers is altogether foreign to musicians: Bach was similarly absorbed, at least according a lot of his commentators, and so was Schoenberg.

Segerstam’s own notes about the symphony and certain other matters connected with family dates and word meanings, are both pertinent and impertinent, amusing to the like-minded, possibly irritating to more serious, literal souls. 

What to make of a composer who has already written 230 symphonies buy the age of 65? Why not? It’s only about four a year through his adult life.

His notes are probably intended to be more mocking of ordinary musical analysis than valuable in ‘understanding’ the piece. We must start with an understanding the Rosenkrantz form, recognising the ‘free-pulsative’ style with roots in ‘Wiener Schule [presumably he means the Second Viennese School] seasoned with Nordic nature visions’. He refers to his creation as ‘a gigantic chambermusical happening for large orchestra performing without a conductor’.

After the orchestra had rearranged after the Karelia Suite, percussion-dominated sounds suddenly arose though there was indeed no one on the podium. It took a little while to spot Segerstam at the piano, obscured for me under the balcony, stage left.

As for the music, there was plenty of noise, rhythm, jolly juxtapositions of percussion and strings or woodwinds, or the tuba; monotony was out of the question as was any real attempt to pursue lines of argument or the recognition of motifs, rhythms, colourings.

Musically it suggested Messiaen in the spirit of Satie.

You could tell when a section had ended as a group of players stood to cue the start of the next section: flute and piccolo, or the brass, or the Concertmaster alone; thereafter it was rather chacun à son goût, though the notes assured us that improvising was forbidden except when ‘playing in symbiosis with all others’.  

The common reaction at the interval was of amused bemusement. The word ‘boring’ was not in use though neither was the word ‘masterpiece’.

The concert had begun with a sonorous and slow performance of the Intermezzo from the Karelia Suite. The programme note had drawn attention to the original incidental music for a set of tableaux depicting aspects of Karelian life from which an overture (later to become Op 10) and the three movements of the familiar suite, Op 11, were later compiled. Strange that an era of frantic musical research into the origins of things hasn’t led an Osmo Vänskä or someone to unearth the original music for performance. There were some loving performances: the opening horns, open or muted, suggesting a cold dawn, Robert Orr’s oboe and later, Michael Austin’s cor anglais.

Segerstam is a large Brahms-like figure on the podium whose size seems to be totally absorbed into the music, its soulfulness or its grandeur. The Karelia Suite might have been rather a small ration of his great compatriot for some (me for example), but its quarter hour was worth three-quarters of many another piece of music.

The second half opened with the Prelude to Die Meistersinger, again filled, not with Beckmesserish self-importance but with Sachsish humanity, spaciousness of utterance, nobility. As befitted the conductor’ character, it was both loose-limbed, seeming unconcerned by attention to tight ensemble, but achieving something much more profoundly dramatic through that very unconcern. Segerstam’s success lay in the way he unobtrusively inspired the players (possibly without their even being aware) to discover their individual, and collective, feelings for the music’s great generosity of spirit. The thrilling peroration before curtain-rise created a great longing for just that; which is what our biennial Festival will of course give us once more.

The Four Last Songs may well have been the main attraction for many of the audience, and perhaps also, for those whose idea of a symphony concert rests on a starry pianist or violinist, a reason for all those empty seats. The orchestral element had all the nostalgia, languorousness, sense of the past, of the loss that Strauss felt at the destruction of his beloved Germany. But I was not convinced that Kringelborn was the born interpreter, in spite of the prominence of these songs in her performance record. Her lower register was certainly well based and attractive, but there was a slightly troublesome beat around the top of the stave and in pianissimo her top notes had an edginess rather than an ethereal quality. Nor did she produce an interesting, expressive variety of tone such as these beautiful songs lie open to and I found myself unmoved at the end.

However, her diction was clear, particularly in the third song, ‘Beim Schlafengehen’; clarity of diction is not a strength for many sopranos. But my misgivings about this performance holds no implications for other Strauss works; I suspect she would be a fine Marschallin, an Ariadne, a Dyer’s Wife. It was perhaps as well that the cycle ends with an extended postlude that allowed the orchestra to bring it to a close with a glorious, deeply felt, emotional litany.

In all, this concert’s slightly unorthodox programme, and a soloist not much known outside the opera house probably explained the rather thin audience. In spite of that, there was no missing the sustained, rapturous and emotional depth that Segerstam drew from the orchestra in all four works.

 

Silent Love – chronicles of love and loss (Caprice Arts)

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Peter Barber (viola)

Mary Barber (piano)

Annabel Cheetham (mezzo-soprano)

Music by Schumann, Bridge and Franck

Cambridge Terrace Congregational Church WELLINGTON

30th October 2009

This splendid concert took its name from the title of a song by Robert Schumann, “Stille Liebe”, one of the twelve “Kerner-Lieder” written during the composer’s “year of song” (1839-40). Tonight’s performance of the whole set of these songs by mezzo-soprano Annabel Cheetham and pianist Mary Barber was merely one of the pleasures to be had from a most enjoyable evening’s music-making. More Schumann came from the brother-and-sister duo of Mary Barber and violist Peter Barber, a transcription for viola and piano of Three Fantasiestücke Op.73. The second half of the concert featured firstly a full trio of musicians performing Frank Bridge’s Three songs for mezzo, viola and piano, then concluded with another transcription for viola and piano, that of Cesar Franck’s A Major Violin Sonata. I was familiar with Franck’s own version for ‘cello of this work, but the viola transcription was one that I’d not heard before.

This was one of an enterprising set of concerts organised by the Caprice Arts Trust, a series that deserves the widest possible support for the innovative programming and the calibre of the artists involved. In some ways it was extremely pleasant to experience music-making of such immediacy and vitality in an intimate venue attended by a smallish number of people; but on the other hand it was a pity that more people hadn’t got to hear about the concert, so that something more of an audience “buzz”could have been generated (though we did our best to show our appreciation at the appropriate moments!).

Schumann’s Three Fantasiestücke Op.73 began the concert in fine style – is there another composer whose music so identifies its creator within a bar or two, regardless of the work? It’s such a distinctive sound-world, at one and the same time so focused yet equivocally suggestive, the sounds infused with imaginative possibilities.  This was a lovely performance, the viola bringing a richly varied array of nuance to the discourse, the partnership with the piano opening up the composer’s beloved “other realms”, some sombre and deep, some infused with glowing light. The musicians achieved what gave the impression of a seamless flow of sound while realising all of the music’s subtle detailings. Particularly remarkable was the soft playing from both instruments, the phrases able to “speak” with particular eloquence, employing a marvellous variety of gently-expressed tones. Although not note-perfect, the music-making unerringly captured the composer’s uniquely poetic vision of an inner world.

More Schumann came from mezzo-soprano Annabel Cheetham, with Mary Barber again at the piano. The twelve “Kerner-Lieder” owe their name to the poet, Justinus Kerner, whose verses with their strong leanings towards the individual’s oneness with nature brought a ready response from the composer – the opening “Lust der Sturmnacht” (Pleasures of a stormy night) immediately plunged us all into the “sturm und drang” of romantic sensibility, bringing forth exciting and committed singing and playing. I found Annabel Cheetham’s tones a shade raw in such places throughout the cycle, probably exacerbated by the liveliness of the acoustic in a smallish listening-space. But there was so much to enjoy, especially when the music required poetry and graceful utterance, the singer’s committed response able to make the words “sound” so meaningfully, and impart a real sense of story – the sequence from No.4 “Erstes Grun” (First Green) to No.6 “Auf das Trinkglas eines verstorbenen Freundes” (To the drinking glass of a departed friend) in particular featured delightful interplay between singer and pianist, the last-named song a highlight of the cycle, with its ready evocation of true friendship and rueful philosophy, and with the piano most excellently “mirroring” the singer’s heartfelt utterances.

After the interval the trio of musicians gave us Frank Bridge’s Three Songs for mezzo, viola and piano (the composer played the viola in the English String Quartet for a number of years), a performance which again worked better in the quieter moments, the singer able to demonstrate a beautifully focused quality in places such as the second song’s setting of Matthew Arnold’s words “Fold closely, o nature, thine arms round thy child”, and the more ruminative utterances of the final Heine setting “Where is it that our soul doth go?”, all deeply-felt and extremely touching, with viola and piano weaving plenty of magic around the voice to telling effect.

Peter Barber described the final item on the programme, the Cesar Franck Sonata, as “jacket-removing music” – he then proceeded to delight the audience, who had been admiring his colourful bow tie during the evening, by revealing identically-hued trouser braces, a nice touch of flamboyance in keeping with the overt romanticism of the music to follow.  As with the ‘cello version of the sonata, compared with the violin’s silvery voice, the deeper-toned viola brought out many differing perspectives to the music, the most obvious being a smokier, more sombre voice resembling that of a maturer, more worldly-wise lover, whose terms of endearment used rather less outward emotional “juice” but expressed more shades of layered meaning and equivocation. Peter Barber negotiated the instrument’s occasional switching between violin-voiced mode and the deeper hues of the larger instrument with great skill, while pianist Mary Barber let the piano-writing unfold so beautifully throughout the whole of the movement, her rich, arpeggiated chording seeming to transcend the instrument’s mere “upright” status.

The second-movement brought forth a big-boned imposing manner, relying more on depth of tone than surface brilliance to generate momentum, an approach that held back from the usual virtuoso pianistic roar, and created a far more detailed soundscape, enabling more give-and-take of musical substance than is sometimes evident between the players. I thought the recitative-like exchanges in the middle section had a very “charged”, almost theatrical quality in this performance, which contrasted beautifully with subsequent outbursts from both instruments, together and separately. The coda was beautifully prepared for, here, less of an impulsively orgasmic virtuoso cataclysm, and more of a roughly-wrought struggle against great odds from which the players triumphantly emerged at the end. Something of that “charged” quality informed the slow movement’s performance as well, some beautiful high work on the viola matched with eloquent lyricism on the piano, even if in places a touch of stridency in the playing indicated the extremes suggested by the music’s expression. Finally, the last movement underlined the “hand-in-glove” nature of the musical partnership throughout, with strong, forthright statements of the canonic theme from both players adroitly giving way to “running” sotto voce passages, beautifully realised. A brief rhythmic mishap at one stage was of no matter, as the final statement of the theme magically stole in and grew like a magnificent double archway, through which the last excited measures scampered, the players at full stretch and the notes a bit splashy, but the ending leaving us exhilarated and extremely satisfied. Great stuff!

Honours woodwind students from NZSM at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Bassoon Concerto in F (Weber), Clarinet Sonata, Op 120 No 2 – first movement (Brahms), Sonata in A for flute and piano (Gaubert)

Alex Chan (bassoon), Andrzej Nowicki (clarinet), Hannah Darroch (flute) with pianists Douglas Mews and Emma Sayers

St Andrew’s on The Terrace; Wednesday 21 October  

The series of recitals by senior students at the New Zealand School of Music continued at the lunchtime concerts at St Andrew’s with three musicians playing bassoon, clarinet and flute.

Young bassoon player Alex Chan won a scholarship to study as an orchestral bassoon player at the Kennedy Centre in Washington D.C. where she was co-winner of the SMI Concerto Competition. She has played with the Wellington Orchestra, the Southern Sinfonia, and the National Youth Orchestra.

Her first sounds, the sprightly dotted rhythms of Weber’s Bassoon Concerto marked her as an already polished professional; with pianist Douglas Mews standing in for an orchestra, she explored with a palpable delight all the nuances of its melodic character. The second movement, Adagio, was particularly engaging and spirited; she was not at all shy about flaunting the Weber’s drolleries, perhaps inspired by Haydn’s proclivities for sly humour. 

Andrzej Nowicki, the clarinetist who won the music school’s concerto competition a few months ago, has started his studies at Melbourne University; he played the second of the two wonderful clarinet sonatas by Brahms – just the first movement: how I longed to hear the rest from this fine musician.

Emma Sayers accompanied both Nowicki and flutist Hannah Darroch, who played one of those charming pieces that the 19th century Paris Conservatoire drew from many of Paris’s elegant and beguiling composers: this one, Philippe Gaubert. Hannah is a contract player in the Wellington Orchestra and co-prncipal flute in the National Youth Orchestra.

This is the sort of concert that none of the regular providers of chamber music ever risks, because of the perceived (probably correctly) conservatism in the taste of the normal chamber music audience, convinced that little other than the string quartet is worthy of their attention.

 

 

 

 

Two string quartets: St Lawrence and New Zealand

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

String Quartet in F, Op 77 No 2 (Haydn); John Adams’s String Quartet; Octet in E flat, Op 20 (Mendelssohn)  

Saint Lawrence String Quartet and the New Zealand String Quartet:

Town Hall, Friday evening 16 October 2009  

This final concert in the 2009 season of Chamber Music New Zealand, was a brilliant ending to the year; and General Manager Euan Murdoch announced the 2010 season, CMNZ’s 60th anniversary year which opens with a concert in the International Festival next March from the great Borodin String Quartet.

The first half belonged to the St Lawrence Quartet, from Canada.

The Quartet in F was the last Haydn completed and though it’s not as familiar as several of those in the immediately preceding sets, it is highly original in character, and in this remarkable performance exhibited qualities that even Haydn might have been surprised by. I suspect that the tonal variety, the pungent expressiveness and the compulsive momentum might have been unusual around 1800. But today, such extremely vivid, and rhythmically and dynamically varied interpretations are almost essential for musicians who want to distinguish themselves from the rank and file.

Certainly, Haydn invites such performance through his pains to avoid the expected, the cliché, the routine, so that the composer’s wit and intelligence found ideal interpreters in these players determined to bring the piece to life in a thoroughly arresting way.

John Adams has gained fame chiefly in the opera house and secondarily the concert hall: he has not written much chamber music. His string quartet, written for the St Lawrence, and first performed in New York in January, shows a gift that will surely inspire other similar commissions. One is impressed by the fecundity of his invention, its profusion and variety and his structural skill in manipulating it; and even more overwhelmed by the exuberance and phenomenal brilliance of the performance that will set a benchmark hard to equal.

Adams’s work was evidence of his genius for creating a substantial and compelling work that maintained its momentum through many moods, marvellously captured by these players.

Adams has moved far beyond ‘minimalist’ style of his early years; he belongs to no particular school and this work was simply evidence of Adams’s individuality and his flair for creating a substantial and compelling work that maintained its momentum through its huge vitality and variety that the quartet .

The New Zealand String Quartet joined the Canadians for a performance of Mendelssohn’s Octet, possibly the most astonishing creation by any composer in his teens. The arrangement of the parts meant that the St Lawrence Quartet, and especially their first violinist, Geoff Nuttall, rather dominated both by the energy and endless tonal variety of his first violin part, and by his total physical involvement; leg-work that even Michael Jackson might have envied.

The other members of the St Lawrence quartet and the New Zealanders displayed comparable mastery if less physically conspicuous.

The fast movements were both spectacular in their ever-changing rhythmic and dynamic expressiveness; it was a revelatory experience, reinforcing the octet’s place as a singular masterpiece. 

(an extended version of the review printed by The Dominion Post on 20 October)

 

 

 

NZSM senior piano students at St Andrew’s

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand School of Music senior piano students: Rafaella Garlick-Grice, Laurel Hungerford, Benjamin Booker, Sam Jury, Ben Farnworth

St Andrew’s on The Terrace. Wednesday 14 October 2009

We have been hearing a series of lunchtime concerts at St Andrew’s by present and former students of the New Zealand School of Music in recent weeks. This one maintained the level of excellence both in the appearance of highly accomplished performers and in interesting music.

Rafaella Garlick-Grice began with a very mature and well-considered performance of the Prelude and Fugue in G from Book II of the Well-tempered Clavier. Varying her posture at the piano from upright to a hunched effort to climb inside the instrument, her playing was virtually flawless, but more importantly, shining with intelligence and engaging with the audience through illuminating every voice in both prelude and fugue, and entertaining dynamic colouring and subtle rhythmic nuances.

Laurel Hungerford’s Haydn Sonata (in C, Hob XVI 35) was just as distinguished, as she demonstrated her mastery and enjoyment of Haydn’s droll devices, the mock flourishes, the irregular phrases and unexpected harmonic and key shifts. You could hear her smiling at the jokes and the teasings; particularly in the somehow featureless Andante which is actually a small tour de force demonstrating how much delight can be created with musical ideas of great simplicity. My pleasure in her playing was hardly affected by her memory lapses in the last movement, though naturally, they somewhat affected her confidence thereafter.

Though he scarcely acknowledged his audience as he took his seat at the piano, Benjamin Booker played Liszt’s beautiful Un Sospiro, one of the Three Concert Studies, with admirable grace, poetic feeling and technical competence.

Liszt’s second Ballade is a different matter; a piece that attracts censure from the more pedantic of his critics. Its structure might not seem very shapely or easy to bring to a performance that convinces the listener of its organic unity, of a credible progression from one phase to the next, but for one easily seduced by Lisztian emotion, it is a masterpiece. Unfortunately, its secrets are discovered only through a rather more experienced pianist, more profoundly immersed in Liszt’s musical world, and the task, bravely tackled by Sam Jury, was a little beyond him. The opening phase with its mystical terrors that arise perhaps from Hades were too earthbound, and the later fearful left-hand octaves failed to do their job; however the sunny passages were beautifully played, and by the end enough of its essence had been re-created to satisfy and to stimulate a search for the several versions in one’s collection of LPs and CDs.

The last pianist was Ben Farnworth who played Ginastera’s Suite of Creole Dances. There are three, utterly different: the first hardly a dance, rather perhaps an invitation to a dance and the last a ferocious, violently syncopated dance. Farnworth did them proud, in turn, with delicacy, romance, bravura, swagger, and extravagant Latin American exhibitionism.

Quite apart from the interest in hearing several talented and very accomplished young piano students, it was a most satisfying programme of the sort we are scarcely ever offered by our normal concert promoters these days.

‘Opera for organ’: Wade Kernot in benefit for St Peter’s, Willis Street

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wade Kernot (bass) with Megan Corby, Andrew Glover and Rosel Labone; Kirsten Simpson (piano): Organ Restoration Fund benefit concert

St Peter’s Church, Willis Street, Monday 12 October 2009

The connection between St Peter’s church in Wellington and bass Wade Kernot from Auckland who was runner-up in this year’s Lexus Song Quest was rather obscure. It transpired that the link was June Read, a member of St Peter’s congregation and Wade’s aunt, with whom Wade had stayed during his time in Wellington and who had provided him with great support.

The empty space on the north side of the church’s sanctuary was the other link: the organ alcove which will soon be occupied again by a restored organ. The 1888 instrument had been subject to an arson attack in 2008, and the proceeds from this concert will help pay for its restoration.

Wade’s even greater triumph was to be the New Zealand nominee to compete in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition. He reached the semi-final stage, meaning he sang in both the opera and the song phases of the contest before impresarios, agents, critics, managers, vocal coaches from everywhere. (See note below)

Wade recruited three of his friends to share the singing, with pianist Kirsten Simpson.  

The other three singers did him honour, for each of them exhibited a polish and artistry that was generally well beyond the student level.

Wade took the majority of the work. He began with ‘Sorge infausta’ from Handel’s Orlando, severe, authoritarian; however, in this Kernot’s voice was not particularly well treated by the acoustic, diffusing its power and focus. All his, and others’ singing seemed not to invoke such disfavour from the Anglican gods. For example Beethoven’s amusing, slightly risqué Der Kuss he captured very successfully. His other two arias in the first half were ‘Se vuol ballare’ (Kernot will sing the title role in New Zealand Opera’s production of The Marriage of Figaro next year) and Macduff’s ‘Come dal ciel precipita’ from Macbeth. He handled those sharply contrasted arias with impressive understanding.

In the second half he gave a fine, robust performance of Vaughan Williams’s The Vagabond; then ‘Hine e hine’, in Carl Doy’s rather insipid arrangement, and ‘Ole Man River’ – a splendid rendition.

Megan Corby’s two contributions were Schumann’s (not Schubert’s, as the programme had it) Widmung, and the aria ‘I want magic’ from Previn’s A Streetcar named Desire, in which her top opened out in authentic Broadway fashion.

Andrew Glover prepared me for his show-stopping appearance the next evening as Monsieur Triquot in Eugene Onegin (incidentally, one of the best performances of it that I’ve heard anywhere). He sang one of Rossini’s ‘Sins of Old Age’, filled with dashing wit and precise ornamentation. And there was vivid character in his voice in his performance of ‘Lonely House’ from one of Kurt Weill’s Broadway musicals, Street Scene.  

Mezzo Rosel Labone, who has been accepted by Melbourne’s new School of Opera, sang one opera aria and one New Zealand song. Instead of the advertised aria from Les Huguenots (I assume, Urbain’s aria ‘Nobles seigneurs’), she sang Cherubino’s first act aria ‘Non so piu’ from The Marriage of Figaro. Her second offering was Anthony Ritchie’s setting of the Baxter poem entitled Song (‘My love came through the city…’).

But the real coup de théâtre was to follow. Wade sang as an encore, one of Inia Te Wiata’s favourites, Rangi Te Hikiroa’s version of the haka, ‘Ka Mate, Ka Mate’ (which you’ll find on the CD Just call me happy – the compilation of Te Wiata’s recorded songs, from Atoll/National Library).  

Then, scarcely waiting for the applause to end, he began ‘Bess, you is my woman now’; and a woman’s voice resounded from the rear, singing Bess’s part. She came forward slowly – Aivale Cole (to whom he was runner-up in the Lexus Song Quest). The two continued the duet with an extraordinary rapport both vocally and in spirit: their voices sounded made for each other.

The delighted audience could hardly stop clapping. 

 

Wade Kernot and Cardiff Singer of the World

Early this year it was announced that New Zealand had nominated a contestant for the 2009 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition: he was Wade Kernot from Auckland who was runner-up in the Lexus (former Mobil) Song Quest in April. A few years before, Kernot had won the Wellington Regional Aria Competition.

In June he capped his competition achievements by winning a place among the 25 semi-finalists in the Cardiff contest. Over 600 singers entered for the contest this year from 68 countries. It’s probably the most famous singing contest in the world. 

The earlier stages of the competition are conducted by auditions in 44 locations round the world and 25 are then chosen to sing in Cardiff.

Wade’s career has been distinguished, gaining early stage experience with Auckland’s Opera Factory. He sang in the 2003 production of Boris Godunov for New Zealand Opera and in 2004 he became a Dame Malvina Major Foundation Emerging Artist with the company. In 2005 he won a place at the Australian Opera Studio in Perth.

In 2007 he went to Wiesbaden in Germany to sing in Stravinsky’s Pulcinella and returned to Christchurch for Zuniga in Carmen. In 2008 he was again with New Zealand Opera as DMM/PriceWaterhouseCoopers Young Artist.

In Wellington in 2008 he sang in The Seven Deadly Sins and The Lindberg Flight at the 2008 International Arts Festival, Colline in La Bohème; and for Southern Opera in Christchurch, Ferrando in Il Trovatore and the Speaker in The Magic Flute.