Category: Reviews – Concerts

Handel’s Semele from NZ School of Music

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand School of Music: Handel’s Semele, conducted by Michael Vinten, directed by Sara Brodie

Adam Concert Room, Victoria University, Kelburn Campus. Thursday 23 July 2009

Back in 2001 the Victoria University School of Music staged Semele. It was not this opera however, now produced by the New Zealand School of Music, but the version by John Eccles, the composer for whom Congreve actually wrote the libretto. As the programme notes record, Eccles’s setting was never performed and was not heard till April 1972, at St John’s Smith Square in London; oddly, the notes failed to mention the 2001 Victoria University production, also in the Adam Concert Room.

A few years before, I heard a lecture by the late Professor Don McKenzie, a Victoria graduate of and later lecturer in the Department of English, who became Professor of bibliography and textual criticism at Oxford, and a specialist in 17th and 18th century English literature. He tutored a paper in literary criticism In my MA year; he was about the most engaging and brilliant lecturer I ever had, and I credit the best mark in my honours degree to his inspiration.

McKenzie was also a knowledgeable music lover and the subject of his lecture was English opera, a consideration of the reasons that opera in English did not take root around the beginning of the 18th century, as it had in France with Lully in the late 17th century. His lecture dealt with the case of Eccles’s Semele and its failure to be staged, because Congreve’s libretto was too late for the opening of the new Queen’s Theatre in 1702 and when it was finished and set by Eccles by 1707, a planned production at the Drury Lane Theatre fell through due to certain duplicitous activities by the impresario who opened his theatre with an Italian pasticcio. That was the beginning of the fashion of the nobility and upper middle class for opera in Italian.

McKenzie played recorded versions of both the Eccles and Handel versions, arguing that Eccles had found an idiomatic musical style much more idiomatically adapted to the English language than was Handel’s (it was his only opera in English); he even believed that Eccles version (recorded in 1989) was the more beautiful and successful rendering of Congreve’s text. New Grove Opera declares that the Eccles opera was the finest opera presented in London between the death of Purcell and Handel’s Rinaldo in 1711. If it had been performed in 1707 and a theatre had been ready to encourage English opera as a result, he argued there was a good chance that an indigenous opera in English might have taken root. For example, Handel would probably have written his works in English and his imitators would have ensured that an English tradition continued to flourish.

Handel’s Semele was a good choice in the 250th anniversary of his death; it is presumably considered a good piece for students because of the large number of roles; clearly not on account of ease of performance and interpretation. There are ten main roles and choruses of wedding guests and of Heavenly Deities, many of which are duplicated or even triplicated. There are 19 names in the cast list.

The Adam Concert Room is not an ideal place for staged productions, but it is at least flexible. This time the orchestra was placed in front of the organ, an attractive position (since it focused attention of the charming case and pipe-work of the instrument), while the audience was seated on the other three sides. It meant that those on the sides had an impeded view at times.

The stage was furnished very simply, with a large round bed in the centre, a door between the audience seated on the right and those facing the orchestra, and a stair on the right of the orchestra leading to the gallery (not used by audiences) which encircles the auditorium – it represented the home of the gods. The main prop was a huge white sheet used variously to cover some of the sexual activity that is often suggested and sometimes to suggest a distinction between earth and the realm of the gods.

The wedding guests’ costumes are modern; while deities both great and small were in a variety of seductive gear, hot pants were favoured by several of the female deities.

The orchestra of 24 players, in front of the organ, played with a certain vivacity though there was some rhythmic monotony and I did not find the kind of accuracy that I’m sure I’m right in recalling at many of the productions and concert performances by the school of music of a decade and more ago.

Principals were good, particularly conspicuous the two cellos which had much solo, quasi-continuo work to do. The harpsichord continuo was deftly contributed by Julie Coulson.

The chorus was rarely disposed as a group, a phalanx, as is the default position among less imaginative directors, but were often in an outward facing circle that allowed the audience to hear the three or four voices in front of them much more loudly than the rest. It was just one of the marks that distinguished the direction by the gifted Sara Brodie. The result was an assembly of solo voices rather than a normal chorus; the aural effect was interesting and far from objectionable. They behaved generally as individuals and throughout created visual diversion.

Most of the principals were a good deal less secure at the beginning than later, after the impact of the full house had given them confidence and dissolved some of the nerves.

The leading roles were more than adequately filled, mainly by advanced or graduate students. Michael Gray, as befitted an already fairly experienced performer, was well-cast as a lustful and arrogant Jupiter, though not without a little concern for the welfare of the girl he has identified as a likely target – and vice versa.

His somewhat cynical urge, ‘I must with speed amuse her’, as he realizes how desperate she is, not just for his sexual attentions, but also to be elevated to the ranks of the immortals, with some particularly turbulent orchestral playing, was tempered by a lovely ‘Where’er you walk’ which at least sounded genuine. Juno, like Fricka in The Ring, has the jealous spoiler’s role; that didn’t deny Rachel Day (Laura Dawson sang Juno at other performances) some good moments such as her urgent ‘Hence Iris, hence away!’. Ultimately, manipulated by Juno disguised as Ino, Jupiter accedes to Semele’s insistence; Jupiter has by then sworn to comply with Semele’s demands and is appalled when she asks for him to appear in his true, incendiary form: ‘Ah! take heed what you press’ he pleads uselessly; and she is incinerated.

Amelia Berry as Semele (Rose Blake, her alternate) had a big role, credibly oversexed, and she sang attractively too. Though her report from on high, ‘Endless pleasure, endless love’ was sung instead by Iris, Semele’s ‘Sleep, why dost thou leave me?’ and ‘Myself I shall adore’, exhibiting very different emotions, were heart-felt, and she delivered some rather thrilling, if abandoned, top notes in her aria ‘No, no, I’ll take no less’.

Eventually her insatiable appetite and her Olympian ambition are her undoing.

Her more sedate sister, Ino (Bryony Williams – at other sessions, Bianca Andrew), who was also in love with Athamus, rejoices to be awarded as a second prize to the dead Semele’s bride-groom, and turns out to have an aptitude for sex as eager as her sister’s. Keiran Rayner sang Athamus with some feeling, exhibiting impatience with Semele’s procrastination with his ‘Hymen, haste’; but he’s little more than a plaything of the gods.

Omnipresent was Olga Gryniewicz as Iris, which she sang and acted most vividly, a lively presence throughout the opera. She was given Semele’s aria, ‘Endless pleasure, endless love’ (Congreve had given it to Iris in his libretto but Handel changed it to Semele; this production goes back o the original) which she sang from on high with a gusto as if it was she herself was in the midst of it all. A medium-sized role was that of Somnus, the god of sleep, invoked for somewhat nefarious purposes, sung by Joshua Kidd; he sang his famous aria, ‘Leave me loathsome light’ admirably, with a voice ranging from the hushed to ardent pleading.

As I remarked above, the orchestra sounded a little under-rehearsed though there was much excellent individual playing; the staging was imaginative; the cast was excellently disposed and they moved meaningfully. And the singing, both by the many principals and the choruses, was the thing, a good demonstration of the school’s strength.

On the opening night there was a deserved full house; as the only Handel opera Wellington seems likely to see in his anniversary year, and for quite a while, I hope the rest of the season was well supported.

Contemporary Rites – Xenia Pestova and Pascal Meyer

Posted on by Alan Wells

PESTOVA/MEYER PIANO DUO
Xenia Pestova, piano; Pascal Meyer, piano
STRAVINSKY: “The Rite of Spring”;
DUGAL MCKINNON: “Diktat, Ditty Half-Life”;
CHRIS WATSON: “Coffee Table Book”.

**STOCKHAUSEN: “Mantra”

NZ School of Music Adam Concert Room, 17 July 2009

**VUW Hunter Council Chamber, 19 July 2009

Is ballet music programme music when performed without the ballet? If it is, then is it “about” the dance action onstage, or is it, instead, more “about” the story and images that inspired the ballet’s  scenario in the first place? If so, then Stravinsky (famous for the dictum that music expresses only itself) may, paradoxically, have written one of the greatest tone poems of the twentieth century.

These were some of the thoughts going through my mind as I listened to duo pianists Xenia Pestova and Pascal Meyer playing “The Rite of Spring”. Their two-piano version provided more resonance and weight than the composer’s own arrangement for one-piano-four-hands, edging just a little closer to the power of the orchestra. At times Pestova and Meyer evoked familiar instrumental timbres (the opening bassoon, the dialogues of muted trumpets): at others they created something fresh and new – from washes of piano arpeggios, to sinister stalking rhythms.

Unexpectedly, rhythm also emerged as a crucial element in Stockhausen’s “Mantra”. Perhaps I should not have been so surprised: after all, “Piano Piece IX” began with a premonitory dose of pre-minimalist minimalism. However, in the 1956/61 piece, the regularly repeated chords were readily deconstructed into irregular flourishes at the extremes of the keyboard. In the 1969/70 “Mantra”, by contrast, a measured pulse recurred many times during the work – at one point with acerbic wit, as when Pestova’s peremptorily iterated high pitch “corrected” a “wrong” note written for Meyer’s part.

Pestova and Meyer’s intimate engagement with the piece enabled them to highlight episodes of lush romanticism and snatches of melody. Despite these, and the extended periods of metre, the 70-minute “Mantra” proved an epic marathon demanding concentration, commitment and stamina – and that was just for the listeners. The duo pianists themselves needed all these, plus exquisite coordination – especially in such instances as when Pestova’s microsecond woodblock had to coincide with Meyer’s attack. For the performers not only had the pianos, but also an array of small percussion instruments (woodblocks, tuned crotales), as well as dials to initiate ring-modulation (an electronic effect equivalent to Cage’s prepared piano, bringing the tone colour closer to that of the crotales).

Expertly controlled by sound projectionist Philip Brownlee, the ring modulation also offered an escape from the prison of twelve-equal temperament, notably in the form of arresting (all the more so for being sparingly deployed) sliding portamenti on piano sustains. With “Mantra”, Stockhausen had returned to more rigorously formulated composition after a period of experimentation with improvisation and chance: had he followed the precedent set by Markevitch, Ives and Wyschnegradsky and tuned one of the pianos a quarter-tone apart, he would have had even more scope for his procedure of expanding and contracting his intervallic material (a process pioneered in the 1920s by Mexican microtonalist Julian Carrillo).

After having been percussionists and vocalizing actors, Pestova and Meyer further heightened the excitement towards the end with a tour-de-force of rushing fugato passages.

Echoes of Stockhausen’s uncompromising modernism were present in Chris Watson’s “Coffee Table Book” in the earlier recital. Intended as the musical analogue of a pictorial volume (as opposed to the structured narrative of literary fiction), the piece was duly episodic, but retained Watson’s characteristic control of the flow of tension.

Xenia Pestova, a graduate of the Victoria University School of Music and pupil of Judith Clark, has always shown a commitment to contemporary (and New Zealand) music. With Luxembourg pianist Pascal Meyer, this seems set to continue with compositions for two pianos. Dugal McKinnon’s “Diktat, Ditty Half-Life”, with its neatly encapsulating concluding gesture, was the first of a series of miniatures for the duo. I look forward to hearing more.

Sing-along Requiem

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Requiem by Verdi

The Orpheus Choir, enlarged with a massed chorus, conducted by Michael Fulcher

John Wells (organ) and Fiona McCabe (piano).

Soloists: Janey Mackenzie, Annabelle Cheetham, Richard Greager and Justin Pearce

Wellington Town Hall, Saturday 18 July

The Orpheus Choir has been staging a Singalong or Come’n’sing performance of a major choral masterpiece for as long as I’ve been writing reviews – over two decades. It’s always been popular, a wonderful way of meeting unfulfilled singing ambitions.

If the audience was not as big as you’d expect for Verdi’s Requiem (its first performance in Wellington for eight years) , which fills theatres anywhere in the world, it was because so many of the potential audience were on stage singing. The choir totaled nearly 300.

One might have expected a few weaknesses, but the result of solid rehearsal under Michael Fulcher, Friday evening and all day Saturday achieved a performance of energy, clean attack and ensemble and confidence: its very opening pages were highly impressive.

Signs of the times lay, rather, in the fact that an organ (Auckland City organist John Wells) rather than an orchestra accompanied, with sections for solo voices accompanied by Fiona McCabe at the piano. An orchestra would have been better, but it would have added unaffordable cost. (Help came from a subsidized Town Hall rental and from the city’s Creative Communities fund). Both organ and piano were more than adequate and there were many times (the piano with the four soloists in the Offertorio) when their contributions were most satisfying.

The soloists might not have been New Zealand’s top opera voices, but their performances varied from pretty good to surprisingly excellent. Justin Pearce was clearly nervous at this big assignment, but by the Confutatis Maledictis his voice had settled, admirably fitting the sense of that movement.

Professionally experienced mezzo Annabelle Cheetham and tenor Richard Greager (who stood in for John Beaglehole at short notice) were the most polished. Cheetham shone in the Recordare and Lux aeterna. The tenor’s main outing is the aria common in opera aria collections, the Ingemisco; better suited to his timbre were his parts in the Rex Tremendae, the Offertorio.

Janey Mackenzie sang her soprano role very engagingly: she had a successful duet with Cheetham in the Agnus Dei, and then astonished me with her penetrating, high-lying solo, floating above the choir in the latter stages of the Libera Me: there was nothing better than the conclusion with that varied, magnificent, beautifully controlled movement.

NZSO: Melnikov with Brahms, Wigglesworth with Britten

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Sinfonia da Requiem (Britten), Symphony No 90 in C (Haydn), Piano Concerto No 1 in D minor, Op 15 (Brahms)

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mark Wigglesworth with Alexander Melnikov (piano)

Michael Fowler Centre, Friday 17 July 2009

Mark Wigglesworth’s is a name that has been conspicuous on the European scene for a couple of decades: a visit to New Zealand has been long awaited. Alexander Melnikov is younger (though he played with the NZSO in 2001) but his live performances and recordings have already gained him a prominent place among the pianists of our time.

Brahms’s First Piano Concerto has the scale and substance of a symphony which is why it took the place usually accorded to ‘the big symphony’ in the second half; written before he was 25, it has imposing structural strength and speaks with a weight that seems mature far beyond his years; it seems an even more profound work than his second concerto written 20 years later.

Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem opened the concert, and the reaction of several friends after the performance was: ‘How come I’ve taken so long to discover this major symphonic work’. Why indeed, when there are really so few generally accepted great symphonies written in the last 70 years, isn’t it in the regular repertoire? It doesn’t have all the formal trappings of a symphony in the 19th century sense, but it is an extended work though not long in clock time, with three movements of varying mood and shape; interesting things happen, singular sounds arise at every turn, developments that stack up with the most cultivated processes in the symphonic tradition.

A commission from the Japanese Government on the eve of the Second World War when Britten was in America, the symphony was, in any terms, a strange and naïve response on his part.  Who could have thought a Christian Requiem suitable for celebrating the 2600th anniversary of the imperial Japanese dynasty? Was it some kind of adolescent try-on? One wonders whether, if he had written this music, inspired by the same ideas, but had simply called it an Imperial Symphony, or something, with no religious reference, it would have been happily accepted.

Incidentally, it was commissioned and written in 1940, but rejected as an insult to the Emperor, a year before Pearl Harbour. The programme note’s statement is misleading, referring to its performance – implying the first – at Boston in 1942 (after Pearl Harbour); it was first performed in New York on 30 May 1941 (before Pearl Harbour).

On this occasion at least, its overt character – in memory of his recently deceased parents – was an appropriate reason for the performance to be dedicated to the memory of Seddon Bennington who had died in the Tararuas a few days before. For that, the start of the first movement – Lacrymosa – with terrifying timpani hammerings was powerfully expressive, with alternating cries from bass instruments, then a passage of lamenting underpinned by a funereal tread. First I have to remark how different, and more histrionic, was this performance than those of Britten himself conducting in either of my two LPs: first, the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra (1953) and, much more vividly, the New Philharmonia (1964).

And speaking of recordings, it’s a pity the orchestra hadn’t waited for Wigglesworth before committing a performance to a rather ordinary recording for Naxos a few years ago.

Who knows whether Britten would have approved some aspects of the highly coloured, muscular performance by the NZSO? For Wigglesworth the music was driven by intense emotion that created an overwhelming impact.  The large and virtuoso forces were well used: six horns, two harps, an E flat saxophone, an important piano part. It was in fact the first time, after Our Hunting Fathers of 1936 for voice and quite large orchestra, that Britten had employed the full resources of a big symphony orchestra, and his command is remarkable. I recall Christopher Palmer commenting that virtuoso orchestral writing of this kind – he referred to both Our Hunting Fathers and the Sinfonia – was unknown in England at this time. Whatever else he may have felt about the Japanese, Britten must have assumed that a first rate orchestra was available.

The second movement, Dies Irae, starts echoing the galloping ride to Hell at the end of La damnation de Faust – perhaps he was aware of the omnipresence of the Dies Irae plainchant in Berlioz’s work: it was all highly energised. And at the other extreme; there’s a sleazy saxophone passage, and increasing chaos, hinting at the finale of Nielsen’s Fifth Symphony with its hard hitting xylophone rifle-fire. But Stravinsky is also there.

The last movement, Requiem Aeternam, is dominated by a calm lamenting that suggests a sea-scape such as Britten later created in Peter Grimes, a long, quite exquisitely played passage with harp, flute, bassoon and other solo instruments creating a magical atmosphere that was slowly dispersed as the conductor crept towards a restrained crescendo of calm grandeur.

I hope it left the audience, as it did me, with the conviction that here is a 20th century masterpiece whose beauty and power needs no apology whatsoever.

The programming of a little-known Haydn symphony – No 90 – was an odd move and the 200th anniversary of his death was not really sufficient justification for a work that hardly persuaded us of its unjust neglect, in spite of a scintillating performance. Peter Walls’s interesting programme note made as good a case for it as possible, but even with my strong predisposition in favour of Haydn, I did not find its interest level very great, in terms of melody or of melodic development, falling short in a feeling of musical substance, and of old-fashioned emotional response. The string playing was always piquant and the theme and variations in the slow movement offered attractive opportunities for wind players, though there was the odd fluff in the brass.

But more than anything, it seems to depend on Haydn’s penchant for throwing down false trails. That was its character well before the practical jokes in the last movement where twice a closing cadence fooled the audience into premature clapping. The shapes of phrases in the first movement were teasingly off-centre, and the Minuetto had ended in typical mid-sentence. So we should have been prepared for another, different, game in the last movement, but most of us were not.

When there is so little Haydn being played in his anniversary year (what a contrast with the Mozart over-kill in 1991!), something more indisputably great or really worth discovering was called for; perhaps one of the best London symphonies or a genuinely interesting one from his Sturm und Drang period would have better fitted the bill.

The Brahms concerto was a thoroughly authentic, grandly dramatic reading, not just on the part of the piano but also from the orchestra, which the conductor electrified right from the overpowering first attack from timpani and bass instruments, and through the long introduction that asserted the orchestra’s place as the more than equal partner of the piano.

When Melnikov made his discreet, self-effacing entry after three and a half minutes, it was almost with trepidation, doing nothing to deflect attention from the orchestra’s command of the music’s grandeur. But he was soon contributing his own stentorian double octave scales to the fabric that the orchestra had already described.

That was not to say that the orchestra dominated the scene, for the conductor’s obvious solicitude for the pianist’s careful rubatos and tempo changes allowed Melnikov a full share in the symphonic drama that this mighty canvas pungently unfolds across its fifty minute span. In the several quasi cadenzas Melnikov took his time, particularly in the spacious and lovely Adagio. There, often with beautiful partnering from oboe or horns; his right hand created delicate, luminous traceries, against murmuring strings.

One remembered that this movement was really a romantic message to pianist Clara Schumann, who, after Robert’s death in 1856, presumably invited a willing Brahms to continue to be a close friend, helping to look after domestic affairs and the children.

The last movement offered more conventional scope to pianist as virtuoso, running into big romantic cadenzas, adorning pretty wind passages with delicate piano figures, articulated with great clarity; and then relishing the decorative, keyboard-long runs. The orchestra (nearly) always kept in step with the deceptively tricky rhythms, though there were a couple of points when, in the midst of a fortissimo climax involving virtually everything on the stage, I wondered whether pianist and conductor were flying blind, in an aural sense. .

New Zealand Youth Choir: 30th anniversary concert

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Youth Choir, conducted by Karen Grylls, Guy Jansen and Peter Godfrey

Wellington Town Hall, Sunday afternoon, 12 July 2009

Only a few weeks after the 50th anniversary of the National Youth Orchestra comes the 30th anniversary of the New Zealand Youth Choir. It involved a large number of the choir’s alumni as well as the choirs two previous conductors, Guy Jansen and Peter Godfrey.

The Sunday afternoon concert was the culmination of a weekend of celebrations. Entry was free as a result of practical recognition by both the Wellington Convention Centre and City Council of the choir’s remarkable international stature and the kudos it attracts for New Zealand; for example, almost always winning big prizes on their three-yearly world tours; in 1999 at Llangollen they were ‘Choir of the World’.

I am assured that the New Zealand choir was a first youth choir to be formed in the world. It was inspired in 1978 by the then national officer for music education in the Department of Education, Guy Jansen, (is there such a post today?). He invoked the support of Peter Godfrey, then Professor of Music at Auckland University; Godfrey was enthusiastic and the choir gave its first concert in 1979. Jansen conducted it initially and Godfrey took over for the next six years in 1982.

The story goes that British conductor Sir David Wilcox was so impressed when he guest conducted the choir in 1980 that he founded a youth choir in Britain, and the rest of the world has followed.

This concert was in two parts: the first involving the present choir of 50 voices conducted by the present conductor of 20 years standing, Karen Grylls, and the second half, with the choir boosted to over 150 by alumni, the conducting was shared between Jansen and Godfrey as well as Grylls. The present choir began the concert with the ritual Whanau Te Iwi E, at once calling attention both to the Maori and Polynesian choir members and to the whole choir’s deep instinct for the character of present-day Polynesian music. Ferocity combined with the finest care with harmony and ensemble.

Later the full choir sang Hine e Hine, with a lucid solo contribution from soprano alumna Kate Lineham, and the Ka Waiata, and Christopher Marshall’s arrangement of the Samoan Minoi Minoi: they were among the most moving performances.

But there was much else. A chorus by Ugolini (Quae ista est) followed – nothing could have been more different and I must say the contrast left the latter, the choir divided into three parts, sounding somewhat limp. Mendelssohn’s Ehre sei Gott made a better impact, displaying the choir’s discipline and attention to detail. In the second half Professor Godfrey chose two other movements from Mendelssohn’s 1846 German Liturgy which, with the entire choir past and present, were more satisfying than the earlier piece.

Then followed several contemporary pieces: Jack Body’s familiar Carol St Stephen with men and women divided right and left, Schnittke’s Lord’s Prayer, which did not reveal its character fully.

Most striking of the present choir’s performances under Karen Grylls were the Credo from Frank Martin’s Mass for double choir and Norwegian composer Grete Pedersen’s Jesus gjor meg stille (‘Jesus bring me peace’) creating an extraordinary spiritual atmosphere, with the choir spaced out widely across the entire choir gallery. A sole tenor rising from an underlay of softly murmuring women’s voices, and the Norwegian language, provided one of the evening’s memorable moments.

After that Rautavara’s songs were rather bleak, but the first half came to a lovely ending with the Welsh song Suo gan.

Naturally, the whole choir, alumni and all, that filled the stage and choir stalls after the interval created a richer and more opulent volume of sound, the balance and blending of voices wonderfully managed by all three conductors. Dr Jansen conducted his own beautiful arrangement of the New Zealand Anthem; Lotti’s Crucifixus; again took full advantage of the power and depth of the bigger choir, as did the deeply felt spiritual Lord What a Morning.

After the two Mendelssohn pieces mentioned above, Peter Godfrey conducted Lux Aeterna by prominent composer and alumnus David Hamilton, present in the choir’s ranks and Godfrey called on him to take applause. Its ethereal, long sustained lines showed some of the most refined aspects of the choir’s training.

Karen Grylls conducted the two other Maori waiata, bracketing three of Vaughan Williams’s Five Mystical Songs. It seemed a little odd to have chosen as the penultimate items in such a celebratory concert these modest, undemonstrative songs in which the choir, though singing with considerable finesse, really took the back seat behind with James Harrison who sang the substantial solo parts and perhaps behind the colourful and interesting organ accompaniment from James Tibbles.

However, the Ka Waiata did the job of ending in a robust and ethnically apt spirit.

(An expansion of the review printed in the Dominion Post)

Japan Music Fair with five fine musicians

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Chamber music from east and west, Music Fair of Japan

Ilott Theatre, Saturday 11 July 2009

This was the fourth Japanese Festival which has included a concert by Japanese musicians. These are the result of collaboration between the Embassy, the Asia-New Zealand and the Japan Foundations and the Wellington City Council. Where the previous ones have featured only a couple of musicians, this time there were five, including, almost as the star turn, the principal double bass of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Hiroshi Ikematsu.

Those who saw him performing at a concert at St Mary of the Angels last year will have vivid memories of both his extraordinary skill and musical gifts and his virtuosity as comedian and musical acrobat. Here he took an early Italian soprano aria that has recently become popular – Caccini’s Ave Maria (my first encounter on Inessa Galante’s debut CD a decade or so ago); it merely displayed the way he refuses to be limited by the bass’s low register, competing with the violin’s range by playing beautiful legato lines.

What delighted and astonished the full house even more was his transformation of Monti’s famous Csardas from the normally impossible violin showpiece to the same on bass, with a few surprise comic stunts thrown in: some involving pianist Susumu Aoyagi as fall-guy.

Yet the rest were not merely excellent musicians. Violinist Ayoko Ishikawa, who graduated from the Sydney Conservatorium, acted as MC with a delightful playful manner and a joyous way with her phrase endings as she introduced colleagues and pieces of music.

As well as playing a couple of charming Japanese pieces, she played the Meditation from Thaïs, Saint-Saëns’s Dance Macabre and Libertango by Piazzola, with quite a swagger.

The concert had opened atmospherically – the lights went gently down and from the back the sound of the Japanese flute (shinobue) arose, playing the well-known piece from the Japanese highlands, Amazing Grace and it was taken up by the koto which was ready in the front and played by Lisa Kataoka in a beautiful kimono. She continued at the koto, singing charmingly, and was joined by the other instrumentalists in two other pieces. 

We saw the flute player, Takako Hagiwara, in the second half, also kimono-clad, again emerge from behind us and continue playing as she walked slowly down the right aisle. She played a composition of her own on the shinobue and with pianist Susumu Aoyagi played her arrangement from Carmen which was a most impressive virtuosic display.

Finally, the pianist. As well as accompanying many pieces, a model of discretion and sensitivity to the music’s character, he had opened the concert with two Nocturnes (Op Post. and Op 27 No 2) and an Etude (Op 25, No 11) of Chopin. Somewhat angular without much subtlety in the left hand, but his Japanese pieces sounded idiomatic and he left the audience somewhat overwhelmed by his tumultuous playing of Liszt’s Second Hungarian Rhapsody. 

The concert was free and while the style of music was essentially for popular consumption, we had a line up of superb or at least excellent musicians to demonstrate how a non-European nation with deep traditions of its own, can achieve world class standards and build up very large audiences for classical music.

A lesson that may be pertinent for New Zealand.

Chris Greenslade at St Andrew’s with Schumann, Janáček and Beethoven

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

St Andrew’s on The Terrace – free lunchtime concert

Chris Greenslade (piano). Romances Nos 1 and 2, Op 28 (Schumann), In the Mists (Janáček), Piano sonata in E, Op 109 (Beethoven)

Wednesday 8 July 2009

An interesting programme which I’d thought might have attracted more people. When did we last hear Janáček’s piano music? And I’d have thought Schumann would have brought them in too. But I reveal my prejudices.

There are three Romances in Schumann’s little Op 28 set. Only the second is familiar: a very charming piece that I probably encountered in a piano album when I was young. Chris Greenslade, who studied with Richard Mapp at the Massey University Conservatorium of Music and later at the Royal Northern College of Music and is now based at Waikato, opened his recital with the second Romance, handling it with an intimacy and warmth that raised it above the level of a salon piece; confirmed by the attention he gave to the series of disturbing bass chords in its latter stages. No 1, in B flat minor, is a turbulent piece, of relentless arpeggios that spoke in Schumann’s other voice, and which the pianist captured convincingly.

In the Mists was written during the long, dispiriting years, when Janáček was hardly known outside of Moravia, as he waited for Jenufa to be performed. Greenslade understood the frustration that permeates the four movement suite, explored its personal revelations carefully and he also grasped the sense of the uneasy little chord sequence in the right hand. The second movement is perhaps the most affecting and memorable, and Greenslade shaped its narrow-ranging motif to suggest mystery, interrupted by a passage of clattering confusion. In the next movement there was more openness as the pianist gently drew back the blinds to enjoy the sight of the outside world.

Though marked Presto, Greenslade withheld any precipitate rush to grasp what might merely be a spectre, but dramatized the pauses and hesitations that finally gave way to propulsive bass octaves that seemed difficult to stop.

Beethoven’s sonata No 30 has two short movements, and a third movement, somewhat longer, Theme and Variations, that explores the inexpressible. In scale it seems a world away from the immediately preceding sonata – the mighty Hammerklavier.

Just because these late works are held in such veneration, it is common to suggest that it is only the Brendels, Schnabels, Richters and Kempffs who can do them justice; but normally capable pianists who steep themselves in the music’s spirit can produce satisfying performances.

Greenslade’s performance, marred a little by lapses in the last movement, was a credit to him. The first movement was not too hasty, allowing space for the drama to develop. It also provided contrast with the much faster second movement, where fast treble passages lost some clarity. The Theme and Variations – Molto cantabile ed espressivo – opened calmly and there were subtle gestures such as a touch of elasticity in the turning of the main, achingly beautiful melody.

Audiences seem to be increasing for this long-standing concert series. Performances of this calibre will help numbers to grow.

Violin Sonatas at Old St Paul’s: Elgar and Franck

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Old Saint Paul’s: Free lunchtime concert

Violin Sonatas by Elgar (E minor, Op 82) and Franck (A major)

Olya Curtis (violin) and David Vine (piano)

Tuesday 7 July 2009

The sphere of classical music seems more populated by immigrants than any other area, whether of the arts in general, education, or the public and business sectors. That was understandable in earlier times when no tertiary institutions offered musical performance teaching. But since around 1970, one would have imagined that the supply of New Zealand-born and trained musicians would have filled the demand. But note, I am applauding, not lamenting, the often more cultivated character of our immigrant populations.

I wonder if there have been any studies to discover whether the apparently high proportion of musicians from other countries in the industry is the result of positions that cannot be properly filled by New Zealanders, or whether the proportion of musically trained and inclined people is simply higher among those who seek to migrate here.

Violinist Olya Curtis was born and educated in Russia and now divides her time between teaching privately and at Wellington East Girls’ College, and playing in the Wellington Orchestra. She makes a valued contribution to our musical life.

The pairing of these two sonatas ought to have been a success. They have characteristics in common, but one is simply much more popular and loved than the other. The programme note pointed to the very marked difference which has led to the comparative neglect of Elgar’s somewhat sombre piece, but it omits the real reason – a reason which it is not fashionable to account for the essential popularity or neglect of music – the presence or not of beautiful, memorable melody.

It was cold in the church and it was tough to open with the Elgar. Olya Curtis tackled it with care and delivered a sincere account, but clearly she had not been won over by it and she simply did not display great affinity with it, its phrasing, not gauging well how to vary dynamics and tempi, or to find a legato expressiveness to make the most of its (limited) lyrical qualities. Those qualities were rather more evident in David Vine’s accompaniment.

César Franck’s sonata found her much more comfortable with its style and with the emotional content of the music and both players managed the technically testing score well until the last movement when there were a couple of slight mishaps.

But generally, Curtis’s intonation, which was a little wayward in the Elgar sonata, was more accurate and the very tone of her violin seemed to have become warmer and more musical in Franck’s beautiful sonata.

Nevertheless, the regular, free, Tuesday lunchtime concerts at Old St Paul’s are a happy feature of Wellington’s varied musical life offering a charming visual setting for music that is always worthwhile and well played.

Diedre Irons and Zephyr blow through Wellington Town Hall

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Quintet in E flat, Op 16 (Beethoven), Wind Quintet, Op 142 (Ritchie), Opus Number Zoo (Berio), Sextet for piano and winds (Poulenc)

Chamber Music New Zealand: Zephyr (Bridget Douglas – flute, Philip Green – clarinet, Robert Orr – oboe, Robert Weeks – bassoon, Edward Allen – horn) and Diedre Irons – piano.

Wellington Town Hall, Monday 6 July 2009

New Zealand audiences still seem paralysed, when it comes to the arts, by an inferiority complex towards foreign performers; and additionally, for chamber music aficionados, by a fixation with the string quartet as the only form worth troubling with.

 

Despite this double handicap, there was a good audience in the Town Hall for a group of world-class NZSO principals plus one of our finest pianists, a group effectively indistinguishable from a number of world-famous chamber ensembles.

The unhappy few who stayed away missed a delightful, entertaining concert.

The Beethoven quintet for piano and winds, modeled closely on the work that Mozart considered his finest creation to date, may not be the equal of his late quartets or piano sonatas, but the scrupulous care with which pianist Diedre Irons and clarinettist Philip Green pronounced the first notes, exquisitely slowly, demonstrated their own reverence for the music. This beautifully paced introduction led to the Allegro which they also took at a pace that allowed its beguiling simplicity to be heard as the small masterpiece it is.

The second movement is one of those pieces that seems playable by a young Grade II student, but whose beauties are only fully revealed by a pianist of this accomplishment, and later by the others, in particular a long episode by Robert Weeks on the bassoon. It was a performance whose understated, gently paced character fully exposed this lovely work’s warmth and poetry.

Zephyr commissioned Anthony Ritchie to write the wind quintet which this tour, starting in Invercargill, premiered. Year by year Ritchie’s music has gained in self-confidence, in its handling of familiar forms, patterns and harmonic means, and he invariably writes music that is individual, arresting and beautiful. Attention to the visual or narrative origins of music can be misleading as an approach to ‘understanding’, but Ritchie’s own rather detailed programme reflecting both New Zealand poems and landscapes was there to read. I took care not to read it before listening, but these were indeed the sort of images that arose in my mind, though the folk song, By the Dry Cardrona, had escaped me. Ritchie’s notes were interesting only in an abstract way; for me Copland was glimpsed through the trees and flute sounds suggested Debussy; but these were not influences, let alone borrowings. Though the sounds were complex in themselves, expressed in interestingly shifting tonalities, they made music that was his own and sounded as if it had been conceived as a coherent whole

Opus Number Zoo by Luciano Berio was one of those pieces perhaps inspired by the likes of Peter and the Wolf andBabar the Elephant; each player took turns speaking the little animal fables – and Bridget Douglas’s and Robert Orr’s lines were particularly effective. The words were sardonic and cautionary, momentarily amusing (if I’d been able to catch the words), set to music that suggested Stravinsky – The Soldier’s Tale perhaps – which was mocking and often a clever continuation of the words just uttered; the players extracted all the wit and irreverence to be found in the music which in the end, I have to confess, lacked the substance of a work such as Prokofiev’s.

Poulenc’s Sextet, from the 1930s, was an entirely different matter. A splendid start demands: ‘Look here!’ and the instruments then enter as if the room suddenly fills with a crown of lively chattering party-goers. But the variously sober or sentimental phases are just as entertaining, as Poulenc shows how happy music – written in the depths of the 1930s depression – still has a place in the modern world. It is light music in a sense (like the Overture to The Marriage of Figaro), but cast in unconventional shapes; full of wit, character, colour and brilliantly scored for the instruments, particularly the piano part which Diedre Irons played with such strength and insouciance. The audience clapped long enough to win a repeat of a section of the Poulenc second movement.

(A revision and expansion of the abbreviated review in The Dominion Post)

Mulled wine with Mozart and Strauss at Paekakariki

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Trio in E flat, K 498 (Mozart), Four pieces from Eight Pieces for violin, viola and piano, Op 83 (Bruch), Violin Sonata in E flat, Op 18 – first and second movements (Strauss), Three Russian Songs for violin, viola and piano (Glinka)

Cristina Vaszilcsin (violin), Peter Garrity (viola), Catherine McKay (piano)

Paekakariki Memorial Hall, Sunday 5 July 2009

There’s not a large repertoire for a piano trio that involves viola instead of cello: though there ought to be. For along with the viola’s delicious C string that provides an opulent, legato bass line, the piano can, after all, supply most of the bass quality below that. 

The violin version of Mozart’s Clarinet Trio (Kegelstatt) provides one fine example; unfortunately, the eight pieces that Bruch wrote late in life for the combination, while agreeable, are not in the same class at all; the unpretentious Glinka pieces were at least their equal in simple musical charm.

Though I remember clearly my first hearing of the enchanting Mozart piece, in the record department of a Wellington department store in the 1970s, I have always been disappointed with the premature ending of the first movement whose richness of inspiration seems to me to be worth at least ten minutes. Nothing could have been more ravishing that the warmth of these three instruments in the lively acoustic of the Paekakariki hall, with its very acceptable piano. One of the benefits of the violin transcription is the prominence of the viola, given at least equal status with the clarinet in the original version; Peter Garrity took full advantage of the beautiful writing in the second movement, relishing the extensive passages in its low register.

For the clarinet part, Mozart seeks to demonstrate its tonal beauty as much as the skill of the player – his friend Stadler – and Cristina Vaszilcsin’s violin simply matched the viola’s voice: the two were so at one.

The piano was in equally happy accord, and Catherine McKay’s bell-like contributions in the Finale created such a joyous experience.

Four of Max Bruch’s Eight Pieces for these instruments (Nos 1, 2, 4 and 5), filled out the first half: pleasant, well-made but, apart from the characteristic No 5, Romanian melody, hardly memorable.

The last piece in the concert was another somewhat slight work – Glinka’s transcriptions of three Russian songs – tastefully crafted transcriptions, to which the trio brought the same idiomatic care that they had to the other pieces in the programme. 

The second half had opened with Richard Strauss’s Violin Sonata, a somewhat discursive, richly decorative work, but convincing evidence of Strauss’s ability to create and sustain interest in an extended form.  Violinist and pianist moved readily to Strauss’s late romantic opulence – two thirds of it anyway, as Cristina Vaszilcsin begged the audience’s forgiveness for omitting the sonata’s last movement, suggesting a visit to Greytown where she and Catherine McKay would play it all.

Such a cut would only have been a problem for those who knew it well enough for the sound of the tantalizing start of the Finale to come into their heads at the end of the Andante cantabile. Nevertheless, all would have been grateful for the romantically seductive performance of the two movements, so much at home with the yearning arpeggiated motifs of the Allegro and the seductive Andante with its pretty, Zerbinetta (Ariadne auf Naxos)-like little tune, and ending on a quiet note. The odd blemish in the piano passed almost unnoticed, such was the charm and rapport shown by the two. Nevertheless, it did leave the little question, as we were left rather wanting more Strauss, why its last movement was cut and the little Glinka pieces put in its place.