Vieuxtemps: Viola Sonata in B flat, Op 36; Bax: Viola Sonata (1922)

Helen Bevin (viola) and Rafaella Garlick-Grice (piano)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace. Wednesday 7 October 

This recital was by two graduates of the New Zealand School of Music: it was at least illuminating if not exactly revelatory, an opportunity to hear to greatly gifted musicians who have been acknowledged in other countries before they have been listened to and appreciated in their own country – a rather common experience.

The pair began playing together, as Duo Giocoso, in 2008 while they were studying at the New Zealand School of Music, won a scholarship that took them to Britain where they played both at the Edinburgh Fringe and in a lunchtime concert at St Martin in the fields in London. 

Vieuxtemps was the great Belgian violin virtuoso of the generation before Eugène Isaÿe, a contemporary of César Franck, known mainly for his violin concertos. It was interesting to hear a chamber work, carrying the opus number before his last Violin Concerto – No 5, though there was nothing in it that would have surprised listeners of a generation earlier. Nevertheless it’s a very attractive piece, whose romantic quality found a champion in Helen Bevin’s beautiful, rich viola tone; she and Rafaella Garlick-Grice played its generous tunes with phrasing that was delightfully musical, resisting any temptation to conceal its frank sentiment or to belittle its unpretentious, popular character.

The second movement, a Barcarolle, enjoyed a plain melody that might have looked backwards, but the performance conferred on it a certain weight, especially in the last movement where the viola spends much time on the C string.

Bax’s Viola Sonata was the result of his friendship with Lionel Tertis who was largely responsible for turning the viola into an important solo instrument. The first movement has a recognisable English character where the duo created interest with their instinct for the Bax’s musical personality. The second movement was played with energy, abrupt chords from the viola, but never an ugly note.

In the last movement I felt a certain Irish sentiment which was treated rhapsodically, with thick piano chords and a charming pensive melody given to the viola.  

Though such a programme might not have been a particular draw for a paying audience, we must count ourselves lucky to be able to enjoy these free lunchtime concerts of very worthwhile if less known music; however, I gather that the voluntary organizers and their overhead costs seem not always to be appreciated, judging by the amount of koha left by audience members. There’s always scope for greater generosity. 

Goldberg Variations (Bach, arranged by Cowdery); Piano Quintet in A minor (Elgar)

New Zealand String Quartet and Diedre Irons (piano)

Expressions Arts Centre, Upper Hutt. Monday 5 October 2009 

The New Zealand String Quartet have had William Cowdery’s version of Bach’s Goldberg Variations under their belt for a couple of years though this was my first hearing. 

The nature of Bach’s contrapuntal keyboard writing gives almost equal importance to all four voices as the melodies or themes pass from one to another. 

The first impression of the performance is of clarity of lines; played on the harpsichord or piano the several voices are not nearly so distinct, and I found myself delighting in the individual timbres of the four, almost more striking than in most custom-written string quartets.

In addition to the pleasure of hearing the separate voices was that of hearing the inner voices of the quartet – Douglas Beilman’s second violin and Gillian Ansell’s viola, taking a more important part in the fabric than is normally the case with Haydn or Beethoven quartets.  Many of the variations are for two and three parts while the other instrument(s) stand(s) idly by, and it was a treat to hear Beilman’s warm and fluid playing in many of these. The cello is quite prominent in many traditional quartets but Rolf Gjelsten too must have relished making such prominent statements.

The effect was most marked in the canons and fugues, such as Variation 10 when the theme began in the cello and moved up.

Furthermore, the four instruments could obviously create far more interesting dynamic contrasts than is available on the harpsichord, or even on the piano; and they seemed to highlight the varied rhythms though, as I found later when I refreshed my memory with a harpsichord recording, that rhythm was not as piquant and alert.

It is illuminating to have programme notes that draw attention to the time signatures and the dance rhythms of each variation, though I have seen other sets of notes that are rather more detailed. The work was called by Bach ‘Aria mit verschiedenen Veränderungen’ (Aria with diverse variations) – the Goldberg story is doubtless apocryphal – and it is in fact a compendium of most of the dance forms – German, French, Italian, English – that Bach would have known, and there is always the diversion of working out the exact nature of the rhythm of each variation if the work were to become at all tedious – which of course it doesn’t.  

It opens with an Aria, the statement of the melody very slowly. It seemed slower than it does on piano or harpsichord, but I think that was an illusion as a result of the greater tonal variety presented. The four string players thus seemed to extract more of the melodic beauty from it.

On the other hand, there’s always a price to pay. I later listened to Gustav Leonhardt’s harpsichord recording of the work, expecting to find it dry and colourless by comparison. Not at all: even though shorn of repeats (perhaps because of), I found this more monochrome performance thoroughly engaging, like a musical stroll along a windswept coast. At the hands of such a gifted player, the plucked notes of the harpsichord sharpen the rhythmic character, enliven the pulse and substitute rhythmic vitality for the richer timbres of the strings.  While I’d like to add this string quartet version to my ever-growing desert island, I-Pod collection, I won’t be deleting either of the already loaded piano or a harpsichord versions from it.

Elgar’s Piano Quintet could hardly have offered a more different world.

It’s not a piece that seems characteristic of Elgar for he was not a piano composer; yet from the start, the quintet sounds highly idiomatic, the piano part integrated comfortably with the string quartet.

The players approached the beginning with a rather engaging hesitancy which heightened the emergence of the big, very Elgarian, first movement tune which put its stamp on it. With that and later very conspicuous tunes, it’s a wonder the quintet is not better known.  

Nadia Boulanger: Three Pieces for cello and piano, (1915); Brahms: Cello Sonata No 2 in F major, Op 99

Robert Ibell (cello) and Catherine McKay (piano)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace. Wednesday 30 September

The first of Nadia Boulanger’s three pieces is marked modéré. Though it’s the only one of the three in a major key, it is calm, of exquisite peacefulness though written nt eh first year of the first World War. It offered the chance to hear Robert Ibell,outside the orchestral or string quartet clutter, as a cellist able to draw the listener into a sound world filled with delicacy and subtle colours. For the cello part enjoyed most of the melodic character of the piece while the piano, just as engagingly played, decorated the music with a rocking motif and supported the delineation of its graceful shape.

The second piece, ‘Sans vitesse et à l’aise’, had an open air feel, though nothing too lively; Boulanger’s debt to Fauré could be heard in the melody here, elusive, fragile, leaving one seeking their prolongation and perhaps repetition, but French art is distinguished by its reticence and economy of expression and Boulanger was the inheritor of that and its transmitter through her many famous pupils (not all of whom followed all her precepts).

The title of the third piece was just as apt as the others: ‘Vite et nerveusement rythmé’; it was a bit louder and more extrovert, certainly a bit agitated, but it broke off for a meditative phase, and later returned to a quick quasi dance in commontime. The highly attractive and persuasive account by both players, sustained throughout its duration, makes one curious about Boulanger’s other music. It is odd that it is the compositions of her sister Lili, who died very young, which have gained more exposure in recent years.

Brahms’ second cello sonata was probably the main draw-card for this recital; so it was for me in anticipation though, in retrospect, the above experience altered things. In all, this was a highly persuasive, beautifully played performance by both musicians, though I was a little bothered sometimes by the imbalance between cello and piano and felt that the piano lid might well have been down in order to allow the cello its due; it was not such a problem in the emphatic and impetuous gestures.

The second movement, affettuoso, was particularly – well – affecting, shifting between careful pizzicato and dreamy legato, with vibrato that was perfectly pulsed. The rise and fall of dynamics, the long crescendi, in the third movement, building towards dark passionate climaxes, and then subsiding to a divine quietness, was the real Brahms. So was the strong playing of the final Allegro molto.

In two weeks we’ve had recitals by violinist and cello plus piano: look for our review of next Wednesday’s concert by viola and piano (Helen Bevin and Rafaella Garlick-Grice) to complete a set of duos for strings and piano.

Violin Sonata, Op 24 ‘Spring’ (Beethoven); Sonata No 1 in E (Howells); Sonata No 2 in A, Op 100 (Brahms); Sonata in E, Op 82 (Elgar)

Jack Liebeck (violin) and Stephen De Pledge (piano)

Expressions Arts Centre, Upper Hutt. Monday 21 September

Chamber Music New Zealand have been promoting solo piano recitals by Stephen De Pledge, in their main concert series in the major centres, and violin and piano recitals involving De Pledge and English violinist Jack Liebeck in a series of concerts for the so-called ‘associated societies’ that exist in smaller centres.

When the tours were published I wondered why this arrangement had been decided upon in the light of the kind of attention Liebeck has been getting in concerts and recordings in Britain and elsewhere.

Fortunately, the proliferation of chamber music organizations in Greater Wellington makes it easy to enjoy both the piano alone (at the Wellington Town Hall and at Waikanae) and the duo at Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt where different programmes were being presented.

At Upper Hutt the emphasis was on English violin music, with an unfamiliar sonata by Herbert Howells and a somewhat better known sonata by Elgar. Before they began the Howells, Liebeck said a few words about his awakening to English music, and his keen advocacy of it was clear.

The Howells sonata has four connected parts that hardly follow the classical pattern. The opening movement spoke with a rather English voice, to be sure, in reflective elegiac tones which soon turned more lively, though hardly suggesting emotions that would have upset Victorian England (it was composed, I must point, out durng World War I). In the second movement the pace slowed again and my reaction was both to wonder at the insight shown by both musicians and their rapport, and to regret the absence of an anchor in the form of a melody or two.

The music evolved again, rather than making a distinct change, by means of emphatic piano chords into a third movement with rudiments of a dance-like tune. A fourth movement, assai tranquillo, seemed to be the composer’s most natural form of expression for it was here at last that there was a oneness between the music and the spirit of the two players.

I had heard Elgar’s violin sonata a few months ago played by a couple of local musicians; I did not know it well at that stage, and it remained something of an enigma. But in the hands of these two, it emerged as a work of considerable stature, a variety of moods and styles that Liebeck and De Pledge commanded with great conviction, both in the opening flourishes and as it settled into an attractive lyrical character and clearly structured shapes.

The first movement ended with a fine sense of power and authority. The last movement was coloured in the early stages by an ‘English light music’ quality that I find uninteresting, and its conclusion seemed to fall short in a sense of resolution and grandeur. It was the second movement with its two very distinct parts that I found most persuasive as the players exploited it melodic strengths and here, in its gorgeous muted tones, I was conscious of being in the presence of a considerable violin talent.

The other two works were familiar. Beethoven’s Spring Sonata was a delightful start to the concert, demonstrating the violin’s elegance and lyricism and the pianist’s flair for turning phrases in ear-catching ways, pointing to features and emphases that seemed somehow new.

The least interesting, most surprisingly, was Brahms Second Sonata. It was entirely flawless and unexceptionable, but perhaps as a result of the context, it seeming of rather less stature that it actually possesses, the last movement failing to rise to a finale of much consequence.

However, in spite of what was probably a personal response on my part, nothing detracted from the impact of this very fine artist, and enjoyment of the rapport that was always evident between the two musicians.