Houstoun honours Chopin and Schumann magnificently at Paekakariki

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Mulled Wine Concert: Michael Houstoun (piano) in Schumann and Chopin

Schumann: Arabesque Op 18, Kreisleriana, Op 16; Chopin: Sonata in B flat minor, Op 35; Nocturnes Op 37, Nos 1 and 2; Etudes Op 25 Nos 1, 7, 5, 12

Memorial Hall, Paekakariki

Sunday 8 August 2.30pm

This is exactly the kind of concert I expect to mark important anniversaries of two of the world’s great composers: an intelligent selection of some of the two composers’ most representative and enjoyable music. Naturally, a poll of the audience would throw up many other works that ‘should’ have been included.

That would yield a programme lasting several days.

Schumann’s Arabesque is popular and pretty well-known, but Kreisleriana is less so and that perhaps, I remark cynically, is why it is often rated among his finest piano works; it is certainly one of the most difficult to bring off.

Houstoun’s own note about it advises the audience not to trouble with the literary reference of the title – a novel and other stories by E T A Hoffmann; the subject, an eccentric, passionate musician. If you’re there just for the music: correct. But for many of us, all the connections, literary, artistic, religious, sociological and so on, lead towards interesting insights and help furnish the mind.

The Chopin in the second half may have been the more familiar and delightful to the audience, but personally, Schumann often does just a little more for me. Kreisleriana was the last of his major piano works that I came to know, and live performances have been rare. One first falls for Carnaval and the Fantasia, Papillons and the Symphonic Studies, then the Kinderszenen, and much later, Davidsbündlertänze and Faschingsschwank aus Wien, before the less overt attractions of Kreiselriana start to absorb you.

This was no ordinary performance. Houstoun has clearly lived with it, thought about its manifold moods and worked on its technical problems for a long time, so that it emerged utterly engrossing, emotionally quixotic, kaleidoscopic, unorthodox and often plain beautiful.

The transitions between the vividly contrasted Eusebius and Florestan sections, were so clear, as the journey passed through all the eight pieces from the opening, marked Ausserst bewegt – extremely excitable, or molto agitato – to a slightly more gentle lyrical central section, dreamy, employing themes that speak in the private language of his Schumann’s  two personas as well as of his love, Clara.

The challenge for the pianist is to find a sense of continuity and a connected narrative within each movement, as the tempo, the mood, the tonality, the rhythms constantly change and surprise you. Quite soon I found myself with the words ‘commanding’, ‘authoritative’, ‘multitudinous’ in my head.

So the strength of this performance lay in the pianist’s success in creating and maintaining a feeling of integrity, utter absorption though the half-hour long piece.

The second section, Sehr innig und night zu rasch – very reflective and not too fast – opening with short-lived meditative, rising and falling phrases, followed by a wild Intermezzo in which the left hand is all over the keyboard; then a spacious statement of the main tune, another more rhythmic Intermezzo before returning to the initial material. It is such an extended, fully-formed movement, in several sections, that it’s surprising that it hasn’t been taken out as a separate concert piece.

The fourth movement is marked very slow, its character is rambling and expansive and the slow-paced melody performance was beautifully played.  And finally, it might have come as surprise that a pianist with such a command of the more profound things, could find such gaiety and playfulness in the dotted rhythms of the last movement – Schnell und Spielend – and nothing is more surprising than its simple, vanishing ending.

Though the delicacy and delight of his Arabesque should have prepared us for all of that.

The programme notes, by Michael Houstoun, were illuminating; artists ought to be encouraged to write their own programme notes for there are often matters that they could bring interesting to listeners’ notice. Here, it would have been useful if the details of the movements of Kreisleriana had been listed, with their timings, as breaks between movements and between the sections of each are not always self-evident.

The second half was all Chopin, and details of the Sonata’s movements, and of each Prelude and Etude were given. The second Piano Sonata seems to some commentators like four distinct pieces and I think that is a valid proposition; as little seems to connect them as might connect the four Ballades or Schubert’s two sets of Impromptus.

There was no mistaking the openness and full-bloodedness of the performance as a whole. In the first movement Houstoun’s playing gave full expession to the ebullience beneath its heroic and sometimes lyrical exterior; and it became open and urgent in the Scherzo. The third movement only becomes funereal in its latter stages; earlier, there was grandeur and in the central section a sanguine singing character. In this sonata however, I was left with the feelings both of its disparateness and its being still ‘work-in-progress’ in Houstoun’s hands.

The two Nocturnes of Op 37 make an attractive pair, the first steady, sober, pensive, the second more rapturous and rhythmic.

And four Etudes from the second set – Op 25, linked according to the pianist’s own feeling about their contrasting characters rather than the keys (not that Chopin grouped them by key sequence). The keys were not listed; in the order played: A flat, C sharp minor, E minor and No 12 in C minor. No 7 in C sharp minor is the longest of the group and Houstoun created a seemingly large-scale dramatic scena of it with a fortissimo climax in the middle. Of course, the last Etude, for a reason that rather escapes me, called ‘Ocean’, a flawless, virtuosic tour de force, raised the roof and brought long applause for this thrilling ending to a very satisfying and entertaining recital.

French (and Estonian) choral concert from Cantoris

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Cantoris: Mood

 

Duruflé: Quatre motets sur des thèmes grégoriens, Op. 10; Fauré: Messe Basse; Pärt: Triodion; Fauré: Requiem, Op. 48

 

Cantoris, Orchestra made up of players from Wellington Chamber Orchestra, Wellington Sinfonietta and Schola Sinfonica; Ailsa Lipscombe (soprano), Catherine Conland (soprano), Roger Wilson (bass), conducted by Rachel Hyde

 

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

 

Saturday, 7 August, 7.30pm

 

The plethora of choral concerts this month is most unfortunate – even though the concerts themselves are certainly not!  In the past, Wellington choral conductors met to confer to avoid clashes.  But on this Saturday evening there has also been an earlier concert at the Wellington Cathedral of St Paul, by its choir, performing – Duruflé!

 

Although there is not a complete cross-over in the audiences for these events, nevertheless, all would obtain larger audiences if concerts were more spread out.

 

However, the downstairs part of St. Andrew’s Church was well-filled (upstairs was not open), despite there not being much publicity.

 

The Duruflé motets, sung unaccompanied, began gently. In this first piece, ‘Ubi Caritas’, there were effective close harmonies.  Here, and throughout the concert, the voice parts were distributed through the choir, rather than all sopranos etc. being together.

 

Dynamics were well observed throughout these pieces.  The men opened ‘Tu es Petrus’ with a rather rough sound, but the ending was beautiful.

 

Was Fauré making a joke in naming the next piece Messe Basse?  It was sung by women only. Presumably he was using the word ‘basse’ to mean lowly, humble, because the work was composed when he was on holiday at Villerville, in Normandy. In collaboration with Messager, he wrote a Messe des Pêcheurs, which was sung in the local church, with a solo violin, at a service to raise funds for local fishermen. Presumably the church choir only contained women, or male trebles. It reappeared with some changes, including score for full orchestra, as Messe basse.

 

The choir was accompanied by Heather Easting on the chamber organ.  Apparently at the talk, Rachel Hyde explained that she was aiming for the soloist to achieve a boy soprano tone, and this soprano soloist, Ailsa Lipscombe, certainly did.  The solo was quite lovely, yet blended well with the choir. 

 

The music was antiphonal, and was sung with a pleasing tone and a light touch.  In the last movement, Agnus Dei, there was some flatness of pitch on the top line, but otherwise it went very well.

 

Arvo Pärt is not everyone’s cup of tea, and I must say that the unaccompanied Triodion sent me to sleep momentarily.  Perhaps that was fitting, in view of the title for the concert.

 

The men’s entry at the start was not convincing, nor were the final s’s of words together.  Once the women entered, things improved.  The first of the three odes, ‘O Jesus the Son of God, have mercy upon us’ featured the opening lines repeated at the end. These repeated lines were very effective.

 

The second ode, ‘O most holy birth-giver of God, save us’ was much more assured.  The deep bass sound was impressive. Here, the words and music had greater clarity than in the previous ode.

 

Apparently simple, the odes employed diverse harmonies, and must have been quite difficult to learn.

 

After the interval, what is probably Fauré’s most popular work, the Requiem, was performed.  Heather Easting again accompanied tastefully, supportively but unobtrusively on the organ, along with the chamber orchestra, in John Rutter’s realisation of the composer’s chamber orchestra version.

 

The opening was gorgeous – except for one male voice!  The rest of the Introitus was marred by some other voices standing out, and the lack of vowel-matching meaning blurred sound.

 

The Offertorium’s opening section is for alto and tenor only, and the whole movement is accompanied by violas and cellos alone, playing with excellent tone.  This all went very well, the basses joining in with a full timbre, but a well-sustained pianissimo.  The bass soloist’s entry was very fine, and his singing was rich and characterful. 

 

The Sanctus featured the violins again, and the enchanting harp playing of Jennifer Newth.  The horn entry was striking, but the horn section suffered a little from intonation wobbles. 

 

Nevertheless, overall the orchestra of 24 musicians played well for a mixed group that included several very young players from the Sinfonietta, having an experience of playing important music in a public concert.

 

In the Pie Jesu, Catherine Conland managed a boy soprano sound, though with little dynamic variation.

 

The quiet opening of the Agnus Dei was beautifully sung and played.  Much was required of the tenors throughout this work, and in the main they delivered.

 

Roger Wilson sang the bass solo in Libera Me with suitable gravitas and tone; the whole movement was very fine.

 

The harp ornamented the music beautifully again in the rhapsodic In Paradisum, which gave an idyllic end to a satisfying concert.

 

The concert lasted one and a half hours, including the interval.

 

Martin Jaenecke and Cheryl Grice-Watterson at St Andrew’s for lunch

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Music by De Gant, Debussy, Ravel, Piazolla, Chopin, Villa–Lobos and Dyens

Duo Mosaica: Martin Jaenecke (violin and soprano saxophone) and Cheryl Grice-Watterson (guitar)

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 4 August 2010, 12.15pm

A German violinist (and saxophone player) and an English guitarist both emigrated to New Zealand.  The result is, in part, this delightful duo.  Both players are highly skilled professional musicians, and their relaxed playing, with a few spoken introductions, revealed their enjoyment of music-making. Hearing a guitarist of this standard was quite a revelation.

Their programme spanned the centuries, from the seventeenth (Loeillet de Gant’s charming Sonata) to the twentieth (Roland Dyens).  It included transcriptions (Chopin: Valse opus 34; Debussy: La fille aux cheveux de lin, amusingly misprinted to mean horses rather than hair), a work written for guitar solo (Villa-Lobos: Prelude no.2) as well as Piazolla: ‘Two Tangos’ from Histoire du Tango, played by both instruments. 

The solo featured exquisitely played harmonics; the Piazolla’s tangos were full of atmosphere and colour.

The surprise was to hear Villa-Lobos’s famous aria Bachianas Brasileiras no.5 played on guitar with the vocal line played by Jaenecke on soprano saxophone.  The tone of the saxophone was somewhat too loud for the guitar at times.  The guitarist used subtle amplification throughout the concert, presumably to match the volume of the instruments better, but it was always tasteful, and apart from in this work, the balance was just right.

The final item, Tango EN SKAI, by Dyens, was a jazz number which also featured the saxophone, and ended the recital in an upbeat mood.

Amici’s beautiful French programme at Upper Hutt

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Upper Hutt Music Society: Amici Ensemble (Donald Armstrong, Cristina Vaszilcin, Gillian Ansell, Rowan Prior, Philip Green, Bridget Douglas, Carolyn Mills)

 

Two Interludes (Ibert), Quintet for Clarinet and Strings (Françaix), Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp (Debussy), Three Pieces for String Quartet (Stravinsky), Introduction and Allegro (Ravel)

 

Expressions Theatre, Upper Hutt

 

Tuesday 3 August 8pm

 

I missed Amici’s concert in Wellington Chamber Music’s Sunday series at the end of May so was delighted to be able to hear this engaging programme in what I repeatedly refer to as the most attractive concert venue in metropolitan Wellington.

 

There was only one change from the Wellington programme – the substitution of Jean Françaix’s clarinet quintet for Ross Harris’s new piece that the Wellington organization commissioned.

 

This group with varying membership, led by NZSO Associate Concertmaster Donald Armstrong, is a particularly valuable feature of Wellington’s musical life, for chamber music is so dominated by the string quartet and the piano trio that audiences have come to feel that all else is inferior.

 

I discovered the truth in my teens when in one of the surprising by-products of compulsory military training an Air Force colleague introduced me to the lovely Debussy and Ravel pieces that feature the harp in different configurations – respectively the Danse sacrée et danse profane and the Introduction and Allegro; the latter brought the present concert to an end. Debussy’s other piece with harp, played here, I discovered many years later. Sadly, while there are many beautiful pieces for string quartet plus other instruments, particularly winds, the harp continues to have a thin time of it.

 

So the Debussy and Ravel pieces were at the heart of this concert and were separated in the second half by Stravinsky’s rarely played quirky, diverting pieces for string quartet which was an adroit move.

 

Violist Gillian Ansell introduced the Debussy nicely, with illustrations of the motifs in the first and second movements, always an excellent way to prepare the mind to follow the course of unfamiliar music.

 

My first thought as it began was how miraculous Debussy’s music still sounds when juxtaposed with most other music of its time and after. Of course the Stravinsky piece is evidence to the contrary, also written during the first World War, but the two pieces in the first half, charming and interestingly written as they were, seemed not to have imbibed much from their great compatriot who cultivated tonality with originality and wit, ignoring the arid, artificial procedures that some contemporaries were alienating audiences with.

 

In the first movement, rather enigmatically called Pastorale given its Boulevard Saint-Michel flavour, these brilliant players gave vivid expression to the spare themes that are innately decorative and contain their own intrinsic development, needing no further embellishment; just an uncanny genius for turning from one to another with ingenuity and an unerring feeling for their relationships. The second movement contains more extended ideas and its discursiveness did offer an ‘Interlude’ of greater repose. The ensemble’s performance, with flute assuming the violin’s usual role in chamber music, made it a brilliantly cut gem where all three players were so in accord.

 

The Ravel was the only piece employing all seven players and it is a pity that such a singularly attractive blend has not become a standard. It is a remarkable, virtuosic as well as perfectly idiomatic piece for all the players, particularly Carolyn Mills strong and brilliant display on the harp; and again, the performance was simply of recording quality, so finely balanced, so together, so lively, graceful, elegant.

 

An encore involving all seven was not easy to find: Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on Greensleeves fitted admirably.

 

Their achievement is no doubt the combination of years of orchestral discipline and a great deal of playing in small chamber groups where they can hear and respond to everything so clearly.

 

The first half was devoted to two much later French pieces, post second World War; they were obviously influenced by their great predecessors, but some way below them in musical profundity and imagination.

 

The Ibert of Escales or the Divertissement is really rather more interesting than these harmless though highly expressive pieces; the second ‘Interlude’, more purposeful, allowed more of Ibert’s liveliness to show.

 

The Françaix quintet was, naturally, a more serious effort, but the character of its raw material and its treatment does not suggest a neglected masterpiece. It was very much a piece that celebrated the clarinet, allowing Philip Green the spotlight with a great deal of entertaining work; in an interesting feature in the last movement, the clarinet departed from the general jaunty pattern to follow a much slower, independent path till a brilliant cadenza led it back to the main route.

 

Happily, the entire performance was so polished and filled with energy that it was possible to overlook the music’s less memorable features. The entire concert was extremely accomplished and hugely enjoyable.

 

 

Farewell Concert for pianist Catherine Norton

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

With Lesley Graham, Daniel O’Connor, Craig Beardsworth, Amelia Berry, Frances Moore, Megan Corby, Felicity Smith, Olga Gryniewicz, James Adams, and Rose Blake

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday, 1 August, 1.30pm

It must have been very gratifying to Catherine Norton to have had  such a line-up of established and emerging singers to sing, as she said in her short speech, songs where she chose the music, not the singers.  These were her favourites.

The programme began with Rossini’s La regata veneziana, made famous by another farewell concert – Gerald Moore’s farewell to the concert platform, when the singers were Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Victoria de los Angeles.  Lesley Graham and Linden Loader’s matched so beautifully, as ever, and they made gestures appropriate to the words.  With a fine, strong accompaniment, this item gave a good start to the concert.

Daniel O’Connor followed with Les berceaux, by Fauré.  A lovely song, with a beautiful accompaniment, it was well performed apart from some harshness on the top notes, which might have disturbed the babies to whom the lullabies might be sung.

Debussy’s Romance showed what a fine singer Craig Beardsworth is.  His French was very clear, and he sang the song exquisitely.  In this item only, I felt that the accompaniment had a little too much pedal.   Otherwise, Catherine Norton’s accompaniments were absolutely first class.

Amelia Berry followed with a very tasteful pair of songs by Ravel.  She demonstrated the moods of the songs well.

Schubert’s Suleika II was Frances Moore’s contribution.  Again, this song gave the accompanist opportunity to make a great contribution.  The voice was well produced, with good tone and clear words.

Daniel O’Connor returned with Wolf’s Auf einer Wanderung.  He got good expression into the words, and the sprightly accompaniment was most enjoyable.

There were a couple of forays into opera; these two, being ensembles, suffered from the lack of orchestra, but nevertheless the extended sequence from Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier sung by Amelia Berry (as Octavian), Megan Corby (as Sophie) and Felicity Smith (as the Marschallin) was very powerful (perhaps a little too much for this acoustic), and came across well.

Amelia Berry followed with a strong but appealing performance of ‘O wüsst’ ich doch den Weg zurück’ by Brahms.

Rachmaninov was represented by Loneliness, sung in Russian by Olga Gryniewicz in very passionate style.

The first half concluded with the other opera excerpt – ‘Mir ist so wunderbar’ from Fidelio by Beethoven, with Frances Moore (Marzelline), Felicity Smith (Leonore), James Adams (Jaquino) and Craig Beardsworth (Rocco).  It was very sensitively sung and accompanied, and made a fitting end to a fine recital.

After the interval, the songs were all in English.  Mostly, the words were clear, but not always. 

Rose Blake commenced with Jenny McLeod’s ‘Tyger, Tyger’ (words, appropriately, by William Blake), to which she gave plenty of drama and feeling.

Megan Corby and James Adams followed with two appealing songs by Samuel Barber.  Adams has a very fine tenor voice, which he knows how to use: powerful when required, but never ugly.  He has great control, and his expression through the words was superb.  His Solitary Hotel was an imaginative song, well performed.

Frances Moore made a good job of David Farquhar’s innovative ‘Princess Alice’, and the amusing ‘Old Sir Faulk’ by William Walton with words by Edith Sitwell was fun at the hands of Rose Blake.

Ending on a more popular note, we had Megan Corby acting and singing superbly in style Song of a Nightclub Proprietress by Madeleine Dring, followed by Gershwin’s ‘Just another rhumba’ most amusingly and strongly communicated by Craig Beardsworth, and Leonard Bernstein’s ‘Maria’ was sung with great resonance by James Adams – a good way to end a fine concert.

The only real detraction from the recital, in my view, (apart from the small numbers attending) was that the names of the poets were not printed, which would have provided extra interest for the listeners.  Song is at least half words, and the writers should be credited.

Catherine Norton should have a fine career, and all music-lovers who have had the pleasure of hearing her accompaniments over the years would wish her well in her studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, in London.

Superb Aroha Quartet in the Sunday Series

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Beethoven: String Quartet Op 18 No 1; Tan Dun: Eight Colours for String Quartet; Britten: String Quartet No 3, Op 94

The Aroha Quartet (Haihong Liu, Anne Loeser, Zhongxian Jin, Robert Ibell).

Sunday afternoon, 1 August

Since its formation about six years ago the Aroha Quartet has gained a place close to the New Zealand String Quartet for its intuitive musicality and virtuosity.  Their previous performances in this series and for Chamber Music New Zealand around the country have left no doubt about their quality and so it was a little surprising to find the 300-seat Ilott Theatre little more than half full: the weather; the Film Festival; too much other music?

The quartet has adopted a new second violinist temporarily replacing Beiyi Xue; she seems to have slipped gracefully into the sound world that distinguishes the quartet.

Beethoven’s first set of string quartets, written aged about 28, show him mature and confident, disposed to make big demands of players, though not departing significantly from the form and musical style of his time.

In some music, played by some quartets one struggles to pay attention to the work of individual players, but the striking individuality of these players sometimes distracted me from attention to the bigger picture. That did not mean any lack of a unified view of the music, of homogeneity, for the integrity of the whole persisted through the perfect command of rhythms and the sense of flow and the meaning of whole paragraphs. Here it was the viola that captured my ear first and at many later stages, but the cello’s alert and lively contributions also stood out. The slow second movement is a remarkable creation and the quartet played it with a rare fastidiousness, with its singular pauses extended to create an uncanny feeling of anticipation, utterly unhurried.

Every movement in fact carried delights and surprises that are not routinely to be found with such familiar music.

Tan Dun’s Eight Colours brought us face to face with modernity; not a particularly abrasive kind, though the first section, Peking Opera, took the instruments’ capacities to extremes, with some use of ‘extended’ techniques like heavy bowing to produce harsh sounds. In the second section, Shadows, the cello and viola brought more comfort with their more lyrical, bowed passages.
The piece was written when the composer was about 28, his first after reaching New York and it reflects both Chinese and Western forms.

The titles seemed arbitrary; I paid no attention to them during the performance and afterwards was surprised that the music had suggested so little of what they hinted at, though the glissandi in Pink Actress might have been diverting. Black Dance did indeed feature a nice little dancing idea, leading to descending glissandi and hard, rapid pizzicato from the viola. Black as in evil or in nocturnal?

Perhaps the most visible, for the literally-minded, might have been the low-set cello opening of Cloudiness, and the later descending cello phrases that might have described an aircraft descending through cloud.

The second half was devoted to an important work that I had not heard live before. It was written in Britten’s last year, 1975. Robert Ibell who talked a little about it before playing had led me to expect a more tragic or despairing quality, but in spite of references in the last movement to motives from Death in Venice, it emerged as strong and life-affirming, if elegiac and profoundly thoughtful.

In particular, it again offered proof of the striking gifts of the first violinist, Haihong Liu, whose every solo passage illuminated the music so vividly. Though she has not quite the strong musical personality of her leader, Anne Loeser’s contributions matched the ensemble with her acute feeling for style and musical shape.

Certainly there were a few angry moments, as towards the end of the first movement, but much more music that was seriously absorbing and pretty sanguine. Of influences, Britten offers few hints, such is his strength and originality. But the opening of the third movement, Solo, in many ways the heart of the piece, Shostakovich was present, in a sense of disconnection and loss; again, the viola was prominent in carrying a long melodic idea and then an accompanying passage where its powerful cross-string motif actually dominates the scene.

The form was interesting: the scherzo divided to frame the middle movement, so disguising its basic four movements. So the last movement, Recitative and Passacaglia, like the third, is substantial, with important utterances, that again expose the strengths of each individual player. The combination of tonal expression, rich musical content and some kind of reminiscence of string quartet origins suggested nothing less than the world of Beethoven. 

It may have contained two works from the last quarter century but the whole was a concert of very great interest and satisfaction. I only hope one of the reasons for the small attendance was not the programme.

Ludwig Treviranus – Piano Recital at Expressions Upper Hutt’s Expressions

Posted on by Peter Mechen

HAYDN – Piano Sonata in F Major Hob.XV!:23

PROKOFIEV – Three Movements from “Romeo and Juliet”

CHOPIN – Four Ballades

Ludwig Treviranus (piano)

Genesis Energy Theatre

Expressions Arts and Entertainment Centre, Upper Hutt

Sunday 1st August 2010

Upper Hutt-born pianist Ludwig Treviranus, back in New Zealand on a visit from his current study activities in the United States, gave a home-town recital on Sunday at the Expressions Centre, to the delight of a near-capacity audience. After completing earlier studies with Rae de Lisle in Auckland for a Masters Degree in piano performance he went to Florida to take up a Doctorate in piano with Read Gainsford at Florida State University. He’s been a finalist in various piano competitions recently, most notably in both Florida and Tenessee, the latter at the Memphis Beethoven Piano Sonata International Piano Competition. Presently he’s engaged along with his study, in doing an assistantship at the University playing for opera students, giving him, as he says, valuable practice and experience with singers, and widening his focus as a performing musician.

His programme, if standard recital fare for a pianist, provided plenty of scope for his mettle to be tested, both as an interpreter and a virtuoso. Each of the three works brought out significant things in his playing, and indicated that his was a talent with already strongly-etched characteristics, and the ability to communicate these to his audience. Two things I noticed in particular throughout the recital, one of them being his ability to colour the music’s textures at appropriate moments, making for some magically-conceived sequences in each of the works he played; while the other was what seemed like his innate sense of each piece’s shape, and (in the case of both the Haydn and Chopin works) a feeling for how the parts fitted together to make the whole structures seem coherent and well-proportioned.

One always wonders what to expect from young musicians in terms of the approach they might take to performing – whether they’ll take a full-blooded and impetuous “no-holds-barred” attitude, placing great store on the music’s emotional content and opportunities to express the same, or else adopt an overtly “correct” and literal approach, dotting and crossing every “i” and “t” and leaving no stone in the score unturned. Of course, things are seldom as cut-and-dried as such polarities suggest; and Ludwig Treviranus, while certainly not an impetuous, abandoned player, was also no literalist in a dry and correct sense. Occasionally I felt the need for bolder delineation of what he was doing, wanting the contrasts pointed a bit more cheekily in the finale of the Haydn, for example, as well as more adventurous rhythmic terracings in the third Chopin Ballade (that rocking rhythm didn’t for me quite draw the music along as I was hoping it would) – however, these comments are made in the context of many other aspects of his playing giving a good deal of pleasure.

Before playing each of the works on the programme, the pianist talked to his audience briefly about the music and his relationship with it – thus we learned that he felt very close to the slow movement of the Haydn Sonata, and was able to readily demonstrate this affinity with his long-breathed playing, limpid tones realising the music’s attractive melancholy. I liked also the first movement’s unhurried perkiness, the playing bright and sunny at the beginning, but capturing the different colourings of the harmonic shifts without making a meal of them – very unforced and natural-sounding. Only in the finale of the work did I think some of the humour’s earthiness underplayed in favour of urbanity – just as valid an approach, of course, if a tad less engaging.

It seemed from Treviranus’ playing of the Prokofiev “Romeo and Juliet” movements that the pianist knew the orchestral versions well, so colourful, detailed and richly-voiced was his playing of all three movements chosen. The opening Folksong was nicely terraced, bringing out the contrasting dynamics and layered lines in a way that readily suggesting spaces and movement; while the Young Juliet evoked a strong, healthy young girl, more vigorous and physical than elfin and quicksilver, making the contrasting episode of her romantic daydream all the more telling. I liked the way the pianist’s left hand brought out the ‘cello melody, phrasing the ascending theme with great tenderness. Finally, the well-known Montagues and Capulets had all the swagger, tension and clannish arrogance and bravado that one could have wished for, the pianist excitingly orchestrating the textures, and particularly enjoying the heavy brass! Again, the player wrought considerable magic via the music’s contrasting episodes, with the middle section almost wraith-like, the sounds very “interior” after the extroversion of the opening. Using his ear for colour and texture, Treviranus gave the descant melody in the right hand an almost touching quality, its poignancy thrown into bold relief by the return of the dance’s grim menace.

Merely the idea of all four of the Chopin Ballades being presented on the same programme felt like a real treat – and so it proved here. LudwigTreviranus prefaced his performance with a few words which emphasised Chopin’s storytelling abilities, despite the composer’s stated aversion to titles and to programme music. The pianist judged the opening of the first Ballade beautifully, dark and rich without being too portentous and laden, his hands sharing the melodic lines as the bass momentarily took the lead from the treble, digging into the notes as the music began to surge forward, then relaxing poetically for the introduction of the beautiful second subject. And if the piece’s penultimate frisson of excitement took a while to ignite at the gallop-away, the cumulative effect of the player’s committed energies brought a satisfying inevitability to those final avalanche-like chromatic flourishes.

Dispensing with applause between the pieces was a good idea, as the silences gave a “charged” quality to each transition from one piece to the next. I liked the hymn-like aspect Treviranus brought out in the second Ballade’s opening, and the urgency with which he plunged into the allegro, more organic than rhetorical – he kept the underlying pulse going throughout the piece to its advantage. Again, with the third Ballade, the pianist took a simple, direct line with the opening theme, though he treated us to a treasurable impulse of hushed delight at the very top of one of the phrases, just before the onset of the “rocking” rhythm which so dominates the work. With this I felt he didn’t “advance” the music sufficiently – I wanted a greater sense of growth, of inexorable momentum building up and leading towards that wonderful downward plunge into the swirling waters, out of which grows sufficient resolve and energy to re-establish the theme and conclude the piece. The fourth Ballade enchanted with its opening (a slight mis-hit at one point reminding us that this was a REAL performance), Treviranus capturing the wistful character of the theme to perfection, gathering purpose with each repetition and nicely setting filigree detail alongside simplicity of utterance. Perhaps the growing agitations needed a bit more volatility and temperament, though all was forgiven after the pianist had enchanted us with the opening’s beautiful reintroduction and its ghostly melismatic echo. And there was power and energy aplenty in evidence throughout the rest of the work’s eventful course, Treviranus’ playing bringing out that slightly “off-centre” quality to the music’s surgings leading us up to the final emphatic chords, and giving us a real physical sense of the distance traversed from the piece’s opening.

The home-town audience was treated to an encore featuring more Chopin, the young man plunging into the well-known and treacherously insistent C-sharp Minor Op.10 Etude, one which he would have played perfectly a hundred times previously instead of, as here, mis-hitting the final chord (his rueful look at the keyboard at that point was as treasurable as if he had played the notes perfectly!). It was of no matter – with this recital Ludwig Treviranus had already done himself, his audience and the music proud. One wishes him well.

Christchurch scores at Schools Chamber Music Contest

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Chamber Music New Zealand: New Zealand Community Trust Chamber Music Contest, 2010 National Finals

Wellington Town Hall

Saturday, 31 July, 7.00pm

As well as providing an exciting contest, the annual finals made for a most enjoyable concert and a varied programme of music from young amateurs.  But make no mistake, this was music-making to a very high standard, some of it on a professional level.

Some of the combinations of instruments were unusual.  The first group, from St Cuthbert’s College in Auckland, played violin, piano and clarinet  performing four of the five movements of Stravinsky’s Histoire du Soldat Suite.  The three girls’ handsome red and black outfits were appropriate to their name: Diable.  Sometimes the other instruments were a little too loud for the violin, but this was very competent playing of difficult music.  The first movement March was given a suitably acerbic tone, while the Petit Concert was bright and rhythmic.  The Tango-Valse-Rag incorporated a variety of well-executed techniques for the violinist.  Although there was less clarinet in this movement, her part featured sliding notes, expertly played.  The fifth movement, Danse du Diable, was pretty demanding.  Both A and B flat clarinets were employed in the work.

Another Auckland trio followed, named Alpine Trio; their work was Schubert’s The Shepherd on the Rock.   It was good to have a singer in the finals; something I haven’t heard for years.  Nor have I heard this beautiful work on the concert platform for a long, long time.  Clarinet and voice both performed from memory, and all the musicians were in command of a difficult work.  The fine soprano’s low notes tended to disappear, and once or twice she ran out of breath.  The performance was a little pedantic, and perhaps needed to be more romantic, but towards the end the players seemed to relax and ended with rubato.  Overall, it was a very enjoyable rendering of beautiful music.

The Roseberry Trio, also from Auckland, tackled challenging music that is nevertheless quite well-known: movements 2 and 4 from Shostakovich’s Piano Trio no. 2 in E minor.  The young cellist, Sally Kim, played with great vigour and a robust sound.  She was the only performer on the night to play in two groups, though there were others doing this in the two semi-finals held the previous day.  In reply to my question later, she told me she was 15 years old.  All three players had marvellous technique.  The violin pizzicato was sensational at the opening of the fourth movement, then the cello joined in doing the same, with the piano playing a sombre unison theme.  This work is pretty full-on for all three players.  There were gorgeous ripples from the piano, great attention to detail, and a lovely ending to the work.

This trio provoked great applause from the audience, and in a normal concert they would undoubtedly have come back for a return bow.  The players from these last two groups comprised three from Westlake Girls’ High School, one from Westlake Boys’ High School, and one each from Kingsway College from St Cuthbert’s College.

Next it was the turn of Christchurch, with four Burnside High School students in a group named Sw!tch performing Philip Norman’s delightful Short Suite, on SATB saxophones.  They made a lovely sound; their timing was absolutely unanimous, as were their dynamics.  The characteristics of the five movements were beautifully portrayed; the first jolly and fast, the second slower and thoughtful, the third jaunty and spiky, the fourth sombre, in a minor key, and the fifth fast, agitated and rich-toned.  It was not a great surprise when this group took out the KBB award for woodwind, brass or percussion performance.

They were followed by the Genzmer Trio, also from Christchurch, with two of the three players from Burnside High School.  Apparently the musicians: flute, bassoon and piano, Googled to find music for their combination, and came upon the German composer Harald Genzmer, and his trio for their instruments, composed in 1973.  They were able to locate a copy of the music, and worked on it largely on their own.

A most attractive first movement revealed the excellent balance and ensemble of this group.  While there was not as much eye contact between the pianist and the wind players as there was between the latter two, this did not seem to matter.  An andante second movement and a very fast finale demonstrated all the considerable skills of the performers.  They gave a great account of this appealing work, and made us like it.  It was hard to believe that these were school students: pianism of a very high order from Saline Fisher and very fine playing from Hugh Roberts (flute) and Todd Gibson-Cornish (bassoon) had the audience totally involved.  They were worthy winners of the Contest.

Finally, the Euphonious Quartet (three from Westlake Girls’ High School and one from St Cuthbert’s College) performed.  The girls all wore beautiful yellow dresses and silver sandals (not the practical flat shoes of other groups).  They chose the first and fourth movements of Dvořák’s well-known ‘American’ string quartet.  Euphonious it was, but the performers were perhaps handicapped by playing something so familiar, where any slight errors are more noticeable.

These were two fast movements, putting the players on their mettle.  In the opening movement the viola had some intonation errors.  Other wise, accuracy and tone were good, although the tone was not as mellow as one usually hears in this work.  Dynamics were well observed.   The cellist was exceptional, as she was in the Shostakovich.  The first violin melodies in the fourth movement were played superbly.

After all the competing groups had performed, the winning original composition ‘Mr Gengerella’ was played by its composer, Finn Butler on piano, with Rowena Rushton-Green, violin, and Rosalind Manowitz, flute, performing as ‘Shady Groove’, from Logan Park High School in Dunedin.  This was a very accomplished work, with plenty of ideas and subtleties.

At times the piano was a little too loud for the other instruments, but Finn is certainly a fine pianist, and there was plenty of light and shade.  This is a work that deserves being heard again.  It had complexity, but not for its own sake.  The performers all did well in communicating the music.

As well as speeches from CMNZ president June Clifford, Peter Dale representing the principal sponsor New Zealand Community Trust, Minister for the Arts Chris Finlayson and CMNZ Chief Executive Euan Murdoch, and Julie Sperring of SOUNZ, and presentations of the SOUNZ original Composition award, the KBB Award for the best wind group and the award to the members of the winning group, there was the award of the Marie Vanderwart Memorial Award to long-serving string teacher and chamber music coach from Hawke’s Bay, Marian Stronach (a friend of mine from primary and secondary school and Teachers’ College days in Dunedin).   Euan Murdoch had the pleasure of announcing that James Wallace had decided that very evening that his Arts Trust prize for each member of the winning ensemble should be doubled to $2000.

The judges for the contest were Bridget Douglas  (principal NZSO flute), Wilma Smith (former NZ String Quartet member and former NZSO concertmaster, now in the same role in Melbourne) and Michael Houstoun (leading pianist).  Bridget Douglas spoke about what the judges were looking for in awarding the KBB prize, and Wilma Smith spoke on behalf of all the judges about the main award.  She said that they were unanimous in their decision, and that she considered the level this year better than she had heard it before.  She said the judges were looking for maturity, passion, commitment, good ensemble but also good solo playing, and that the players knew when to bring their instrument forward.  She mentioned ability to characterise the music, phrasing, understanding the idiom of the piece, and communicating it to the audience.  She said they considered that the winning group demonstrated all these qualities.

In interviews broadcast the following day, Michael Houstoun reiterated Wilma Smith’s remark that some of the groups tackled music that was beyond the level of their maturity and life experience: The Shostakovich and the Dvořák were probably particularly in mind here.

As Michael Houstoun said, this was a happy evening.

NZSM Orchestra downtown for major concert with the school’s star teachers

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde (Wagner); Our Own Demise (Pieta Hextall); The Red Violin – Chaconne for Violin and Orchestra (Corigliano); Nocturnes – II Fêtes and III Sirènes (Debussy); Francesca da Rimini (Tchaikovsky)

The New Zealand School of Music Orchestra conducted by Hamish McKeich with Margaret Medlyn (Soprano) and Martin Riseley (violin)

Wellington Town Hall

Friday 30 July 7.30pm

The Red Violin was a 1997 film by François Giraud for which John Corigliano wrote the score; it told the adventures of a haunted violin. From it the composer arranged a piece for violin and orchestra – a Chaconne for Violin and Orchestra and it proved a fine showcase for Martin Riseley. It may have been his first appearance with an orchestra in a public venue since he returned to New Zealand to take up his position as Head of Strings at the New Zealand School of Music.

It has been a few years since the university orchestra performed down-town, at the Town Hall. So this was a very significant occasion, an opportunity to hear two of the school’s most distinguished teacher-performers, with international reputations.

The second was Margaret Medlyn. 

It was a particularly interesting programme that would both challenge a student orchestra, and thoroughly engage an audience.

It was also an unorthodox programme, starting with the Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan. Not the purely orchestral version that many would be familiar with, but with Margaret Medlyn who emerged through the orchestra during the last minute of the Prelude to deliver a ringing, passionate performance of the apotheosis that ends the opera – the ‘Love-death’. There was power without strain, riding easily over the orchestra’s ebb and flow, until the climax, the orgasm if you like, where the orchestra did rather dominate.  I am sure it was an arresting experience for all vocal students from the school to hear one of New Zealand’s finest singers in such repertoire.

The orchestra opened after the hall was appropriately dimmed to create a quasi-theatrical scene, with those famous, unresolved harmonies carefully articulated, well balanced, and with scrupulous attention to dynamics. One could often be forgiven for thinking one was listening to an experienced professional orchestra, in this and much else in the programme.

Next came the piece that won the 2009 Jenny McLeod Composition Prize, Pieta Hextall’s Our Own Demise, for which she offered a ‘programme’ in the form of quasi-political reflection on the curtailment of freedoms through the increasing complexity of society: a latter-day yearning for the age of the noble savage?. I quickly abandoned any attempt to make connections between that and the music, though the purpose of the alternation of spacious, pure harmonies and increasingly dense and complex textures was clear enough. Early, a phase of primitive, elemental sounds –strings tapped lightly with the bow, ethereal percussion – suggested a time of innocence, perhaps a very low level of social life. Later, an apparently aleatoric episode perhaps told of societal breakdown.  Its variety of expression and texture, mood and emotion maintained interest; it was coloured by an occasional almost melodic, consoling episode from the solo violin, then a gruff phrase from double basses and tutti tremolo that suggested swarming insects.

In some ways, I felt the idea lent itself too easily to the temptation to employ too many resources too insistently and too chaotically, and that less use of musical disharmony and confusion might have produced better music. But there was no denying Hextall’s imaginative, highly accomplished piece which the orchestra had clearly worked at very conscientiously.

Then came the Corigliano: a name not as well known here as in the United States where his fairly accessible orchestral music as well as his ‘opera-buffa’ The Ghosts of Versailles, have penetrated public awareness. Ghosts was one of the very few new operas to have been staged by the Met in New York since WW2.

The form of the piece, loose variations on a chaconne (basically a slow dance in triple time) ground bass, announced its attention to musical tradition and though its sounds could have derived from no other than the current era, there were some rhapsodic, unashamedly lovely episodes from the soloist, a striking flute solo, with echoes by other woodwinds, all demonstrating admirable musicality. Later we were treated to an almost hummable tune on the viola.

In short, it is music in the Barber, the popular Copland or later Rochberg tradition, for all of whom the audience mattered.

It achieved its aim of drawing attention to Riseley’s distinction as violinist.

The second half would have been welcome in an NZSO concert: two of Debussy’s Nocturnes for orchestra and Tchaikovsky’s great symphonic poem, Francesca da Rimini. The first was a scrupulous, admirably accurate portrayal of luminous, highly coloured scenes, hardly nocturnal I always feel. Fêtes sparkled with lively rhythms and brilliant performances by wind players, and also by well-disciplined strings (students filled the ranks of both violin sections: guest professionals did no more than enrich the lower strings). Sirènes featured a small and warmly seductive vocal ensemble underpinning more colourful playing.

If the concert so far had impressed by the orchestra’s precision and balance as well as its vitality under Hamish McKeich, Francesca da Rimini revealed some shortcomings. Strings got by very well but slips in the brass suggested less adequate rehearsal. Yet there were fine solos again here, in particular from clarinet and the lovely cello passage that follows. And the final phase built to its tragic, though exciting climax with splendid energy and youthful exuberance.

I must comment on the programme notes, by Frances Moore. More than commonly literate and displaying a wide-ranging musical knowledge, her notes for each of the three standard repertoire pieces – the Wagner, Tchaikovsky and Debussy – indicated an unusual talent for describing in imaginative terms, with a comfortable familiarity with pertinent literary, philosophical and artistic questions, significant musical connections that illuminate both composer and the music.

I was relieved that, though the gallery was closed, the stalls were well filled. It was an event that deserves to become an annual fixture that should get a lot more publicity. I was disappointed to see no acknowledgement of any City Council backing which I would have expected, giving substance to the council’s readiness to boast of the city as cultural capital.

Another interesting lunchtime concert at Wesley, Taranaki Street

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Nielsen: Quintet for woodwinds, Op.43

Whirlwind: Eshian Teo (flute), Jose Wilson (oboe, cor anglais), Andrzej Nowicki (clarinet), Kylie Nesbit (bassoon), Alex Morton (French horn)

Winter @ Wesley; Wesley Methodist Church, Taranaki Street

Wednesday, 28 July at 12.30pm

Whirlwind was the delightful name chosen by a quintet of wind players who performed the last of the Winter @ Wesley series of concerts.

This was a group of highly skilled wind players, who gave a fine account of an attractive work by Nielsen.  It contained plenty of variety, and good opportunities for each player to shine.  The allegro first movement and second movement minuet were fairly short, but colourful.

The last movement featured first a prelude, using the cor anglais (which I recently learned should be translated ‘angled horn’, not ‘English horn’), followed by an adagio theme and variations, in which Jose Wilson reverted to oboe.  A wonderful hymn-like theme, with gorgeous harmonies, was followed by eleven delightful variations, in which each instrument had solos, and ended with a repeat of the chorale.

This was an innovative programme.  It was a surprise to hear the same work played on Radio New Zealand Concert that very night!  The Whirlwind players did not suffer by comparison.