Orpheus Choir’s first ‘on their own’ concert in 2020 a Gloria triumph

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Orpheus Choir of Wellington

Director: Brent Stewart
Barbara Paterson – soprano, Ruth Armishaw – mezzo
Nicholas Sutcliffe – organ
Instrumental ensemble (Olya Curtis – violin, Karen Batten – flute, Dominic Groom – horn, Toby Pringle – trumpet, Peter Maunder – trombone, Jeremy Fitzsimons – timpani, Thomas Nikora – piano)

Vivaldi: Gloria (RV 589)
Poulenc: Gloria. “reminiscent of a fresco by Bozzoli”
Michael McGlynn: Jerusalem
Holst: In the Bleak Midwinter, arr. Ola Gjeilo (poem by Christina Rosetti)
Rutter: Star Carol
Ēriks Ešenvalds: Stars (poem by Sara Teasdale; tuned wine glasses pitched in tonal clusters, painting the picture of a sparkling, starry night sky)
Handel: ‘Worthy in the Lamb’ and the ‘Amen’ from Messiah 

Wellington Cathedral of Saint Paul

Saturday 14 November, 7:30 pm

The introduction to the programme by the chairperson of the Choir, Frances Manwaring, remarks that this was the choir’s first ‘self-presented’ concert in 2020 – the only other public appearance was with Orchestra Wellington’s 3 October concert in Rachmaninov’s The Bells and Fauré’s Requiem.

And I might as well use her background notes to refer to the task of preparing for the concert under review. “Thanks to the tech-savvyness and innovative thinking of our Music Director Brent Stewart, we barely missed a beat. Rehearsals moved on line and choir members logged in from their living rooms or bedrooms. Physical warm-ups were attempted in unusual places and members of the choir displayed skill and flair as Brent found ways to showcase their talents.”

The delay in writing this review has induced me to modify certain earlier words about aspects of the performance, such as comments about the sound of the electronic organ, and the absence of orchestral parts that are somewhat intrinsic to the full sound of both Vivaldi’s and Poulenc’s Glorias.

Vivaldi’s Gloria
It all became unimportant as soon as the choir launched into Vivaldi’s choral masterpiece with the Gloria in excelsis Deo, making such mighty impact. Sitting fairly close, even the cathedral’s rather unmanageable acoustic didn’t interfere too much.

Each of the twelve sections might average about three minutes and they vary sharply in spirit and religious significance, but the genius of the music remained in full command of choir and audience for the full half hour. For example, the calm (the programme notes ‘introspective’ is a good word) second movement, ‘Et in terra pax’, revealed a lovely balance between men, occupying the centre of each of the half dozen rows of singers, and the twice as many women. But they were not at all unbalanced in their combined impact.

Soloists appeared in the third movement, ‘Laudamus Te’, Barbara Paterson and Ruth Armishaw, both making very striking impacts, contrasting comfortably. Part 6, ‘Domine Deus’ is for soprano, delightful, and a fairly limited orchestra, which again, one missed. Then followed mezzo Armishaw’s solo, singing the meditative ‘Domine Deus, Agnus dei’, punctuated by choir and organ; and she sang beautifully without choir in the tenth movement, ‘Qui sedes ad dexterum’.

Poulenc’s Gloria
Instead of an organ in the role of Poulenc’s orchestra, a small ensemble (eight players including the organ again) appeared after the interval to accompany his ‘Gloria’, which was a late product of his adoption, “in his fashion”, of religion in 1936, following the awful death in a car crash of a fellow composer and close friend.

In the opening phase the ensemble’s sound was somewhat heavy, the timpani particularly so and the three brass instruments were pretty audible, but that’s not too alien to Poulenc’s orchestral score. As for the singers, first impressions were of a soprano section that was strong, perhaps a little outweighing the rest. But the general impact of their performance was one of vigour and conviction.

In the ‘Laudamus Te’ the choir and the brass instruments that opened, in darting staccato rhythms, were well balanced from the beginning, and a quiet organ contributed nicely.

Soprano soloist Paterson emerged in the third section, ‘Domine Deus’, her part being to create a sense of peace, which was also the message the choir. The following ‘Dominus Fili unigente’ is a more lively movement, jocular and quite short. ‘Domine Deus, Agnus Dei’ is the protracted fifth movement, with Paterson taking lengthy solo episodes that could have been heard as mysterious rather than peaceful.

The sixth and last movement, ‘Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris’ opened with slow recitative statements from the sopranos singing without accompaniment, the orchestra joined with a motif that was just a little different from the opening of the ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo’. The choir and the men followed, singing in a prosaic character, often emphatically untuneful. But Paterson didn’t enter till about halfway through the last movement, casting some light but mostly ambivalence on the solo soprano’s message. The basic theme was taken up for the ‘Amen’ at the end which hardly offers a particularly persuasive feeling of hope for mankind, in spite of positive episodes like the ‘Laudamus Te’.

The choir was most successful in handling the frequent changes of tone and spirit, and the ensemble provided as good a substitute for a full orchestra as was reasonable to expect.

Concert fillers
The concert filled the time that a concert could normally be expected to last, with five varied and quite fascinating pieces.

First, a duet by Irish composer Michael McGlynn, Jerusalem, pursuing a variety of harmonies created an authentic impression through the distribution of the female singers around the sides of the cathedral. Then a song by Holst, In the Bleak Midwinter, arranged by Ola Gjeilo for solo voice with the choir entering later. The solo part was sung most attractively by the young soprano Kitty Sneyd-Utting.

John Rutter’s Star Carol, a lively and attractive Christmas song, with men’s and women’s voices taking distinct sections between substantial episodes by the full choir.

Another unfamiliar name was that of Ēriks Ešenvalds, Latvian (born in 1977); look at his interesting biography on the Internet. (Excuse me: I spent a fascinating week in Riga in 1999, catching four opera performances, and lovely ‘Art Nouveau’ architecture, a bit before Ešenvalds got started).

His Stars, to a poem by Sara Teasdale, involved the playing of tuned wine glasses, not strictly a ‘glass harp’, that were played by a number of the women in the front row, “painting the picture of a sparkling, starry night sky”. My notes describe it as evocative and rather moving; I think some men stroked the glasses too. The star was projected on the wall of the Sanctuary.

Finally, another gesture towards Christmas was ‘Worthy is the Lamb’ and the ‘Amen’, with which Messiah ends: a bit unsynchronised at the start, but then it took off, with gusto till the calm lead-in to the Amen chorus which was full of energy.

If these fillers were a bit like that, they were individually worth singing and being heard, and brought a fine concert, splendidly inspired and led by Brent Stewart, to a very successful end.

Another entertaining Shed Concert from the NZSO touching the Weimar era

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hamish McKeich
Shed Series

Kabarett
Hanns Eisler: Kleine Sinfonie, Op. 29
Simon Eastwood: Quanta
Franz Schreker: Kammersymphonie
Erik Satie, orch. Debussy: Gymnopedies Nos. 1 & 3
Kurt Weill: Suite from ‘Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny‘, arranged by Brückner-Rüggerberg

Shed 6, Queen’s Wharf

Friday 13 November, 7:30 pm

This was one of the few concerts, including several from the NZSO, which was not cancelled or changed (apart here, from the order of the pieces) by the effect of the Coronavirus.

Most concerts have come to be ’named’, in a way intended to reflect the character of the music, and this one was Kabarett, German for the obvious English word: the European cabaret scene of the 1920s and 30s, which was a focus not only for composers like Kurt Weill and Hanns Eisler, but also writers like Brecht, W H Auden and Isherwood, Aldous Huxley, and artists Dix, Beckmann, Kirchner. Liebermann, Grosz.

But, not to be too pedantic, not all the music fell within the Weimar era. Schreker’s Chamber Symphony was composed in 1916; Satie’s Gymnopedies were written in the 1880s and Debussy orchestrated two of them in 1897.  The programme’s aim may well have been to suggest the nature of the music that led, with the collapse of Imperial Germany, to what came out of the Weimar Republic, and the mixed blessing of the era of the decadent Berlin scene on the 1920s. Anyway: there’s no reason to be too literal with the name ‘Kabarett’.

Hanns Eisler: Kleine Sinfonie
Hanns Eisler was a genuine, and notable composer of the 20s in Germany. He left Germany after the advent of Hitler and travelled widely in Europe and North America, finally settling in the United States in 1938. His Communist convictions eventually saw him expelled by the notorious McCarthy Committee on Un-American Activities in 1948 and he wound up in East Berlin, teaching at the East Berlin music conservatory, later named after him as the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler.

His Kleine Sinfonie was written in 1932, just before the Nazi take-over. The first movement, simply called Theme and Variations, is pensive and slow though it starts with spiky trumpets, then staccato flutes and clarinets, but is predominantly thoughtful though shifting abruptly at times from one instrumental group to another: it’s a series of about 20 variations on the theme, which does take root, lasting for almost half of the four movements.

The second movement is Allegro assai, with the word ‘sostenuto’ seeming like an after-thought. Over long periods it is incessant, often led by trumpet, though there were sudden mood shifts to flute, clarinet and saxophones. The third movement, after an abrupt stop and long pause, is called Invention and is quiet and thoughtful, again with isolated winds. It seemed to go nowhere with little variety, then stopped. The finale, Allegro, alternating brisk and slow passages, finishing after a repeat of the movement’s beginning, without ado.

Simon Eastwood’s Quanta had its first hearing in the Royal Academy of Music in London. It exhibited its era with its conspicuous – important – emphasis on percussion, here tuned percussion, xylophone and marimba, perhaps glockenspiel, and roto-toms. A minute or so in, the sounds began to create some sort of repetitiveness or sequence, with hints of a tune or that some more substantial event might be emerging. But none of the conventional shapes, melodic or rhythmic, were about to arrive because what seemed to drive its course seemed non-musical notions suggested by the title that presumably refers to Einstein’s theories. Nevertheless, setting aside musical characteristics of an earlier decade or two, it created an atmosphere and a flow of ideas that, with further hearings were moving in the direction of an interesting musical structure.

Schreker’s Kammersymphonie
Then came Franz Schreker’s Kammersymphonie (Chamber Symphony). Written in 1916, Kammersymphonie was not really ahead of its time since it presents as a heartfelt and almost traditional work, perhaps anticipating orchestral music’s wide use in film. It was the Weimar republic era in fact, that wrecked his musical career: the bad reception in Cologne of his opera Irrelohe in 1924; and Anti-Semitism and right-wing agitation also caused the failure or cancellation of others.

After ten minutes or so of music that flourished engagingly, without succumbing to distinctive melodies, a series of conventional themes emerged: a happy tune from woodwinds, for example, that became an engaging episode that seemed to keep recalling other music of the time.

So I was bemused to run into this description of Schreker’s music in Wikipedia: “…aesthetic plurality (a mixture of Romanticism, Naturalism, Symbolism, Impressionism, Expessionism and Neue Schlichkeit, timbral experimentation, strategies of extended tonality and conception of total music theatre into the narrative of  20th century music.”

But Schreker has become a fairly well-known opera composer with the popularity of such works as Der ferne Klang, Die Gezeichneten and Der Schatzgraber which were getting a lot of performances a few years ago. On trips through Germany in the 90s and 2000s I was disappointed to miss one or the other several times.

Satie’s Gymnopedies, via Debussy
After the interval the music became more conventional, or at least a bit more familiar. Debussy’s arrangement of Satie’s Gymnopedies, Nos 1 and 3. So popular are they that one hears them in various patterns and colours. It’s recorded that Debussy thought No 2 was not fit for orchestral treatment, a typical example of Debussyish finesse. Hardly any remnant of piano sound could be detected apart from a delightful harp at the beginning of No 3 (which Debussy placed first). They could easily have been by Debussy, as their French character was hard to conceal; again, another opportunity for disapproval of the programme by pedants. However, they offered a charming intermezzo in the midst of entirely Austro-German music.

Kurt Weill and Die Stadt Mahagonny
The concert ended with excerpts from Kurt Weill’s setting of Brecht’s libretto: Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny – ‘Rise and fall of the city of Mahagónny’ (rather easily pronounced as ‘Mahógany’: which is in fact derived from the German language equivalent of the tree, Mahagoni). The arrangement was made in the 1950s by the conductor Wilhelm Brückner-Rüggeberg, consisting of Allegro giusto, Moderato assai, Lento, Molto vivace, Largo. A score that includes a range of percussion and timpani, piano, alto and tenor saxophone, banjo and guitar, captured the spirit of Weill’s mocking, ironical tunes perhaps rather more opulently than does the opera score itself, of the late 1920s. That was to be expected from a conductor associated with the likes of Knappertsbusch, Furtwängler, Karajan, with his latter years in Hamburg. It was a good choice with which to end the concert, as it epitomised the essential character of the music of that time and place.

In all, it was yet another of Hamish McKeich’s successful, well-designed concerts that once more presented a range of music that exhibited aspects of ‘classical’ music that genuinely characterised the pre-WW2 era – particularly exhibiting its more listenable and entertaining aspects. Well populated (though naturally far short of an MFC audience), it lost not too many at the interval though still finding its way with well-arranged seating and sightlines.  I am still waiting for the revival of the then National Orchestra’s promenade concerts of the 1950s and 60s that completely populated the floor of the Town Hall with their mix of very popular classics and the more experimental.

Warm response for an innovative “Seen-and-Heard” Kristallnacht Concert at Wellington’s Public Trust Hall

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Holocaust Centre of New Zealand presents:
Kristallnacht Concert 2020

Music – Korngold, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Waxman, Weinberg, Toch, Rozsa, Bechet, Zorn

Excerpts from films with music  – “Robin Hood” 1938 (Korngold), “Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde” 1941 (Castelnuovo-Tedesco), “Rebecca” 1940, and “Bride of Frankenstein” 1935 (Waxman),  “The Cranes are Flying” 1957 (Weinberg), “None Shall Escape” 1944 (Toch), “Ben-Hur” 1959 (Rozsa), “It Must Schwing!” (The “Blue Note” Story) 2018 – various composers and artists

Musicians: Inbal Megiddo (‘cello), Jian Liu (piano), Jenny Wollerman (soprano), David Barnard (piano)
Martin Riseley (violin), Yury Gezentsvey (violin), The New Zealand String Quartet (Helene Pohl, Monique Lapins violins, Gillian Ansell viola, Rolf Gjelsten ‘cello), Dave Wilson (clarinet), Callum Allardice (guitar), Phoebe Johnson (double-bass), Hikurangi Schaverein-Kaa (drums), Daniel Hayles (keyboards)

Concert presenter: Donald Maurice
Speaker, Holocaust Centre of NZ Chair: Deborah Hart

Public Trust Hall, Wellington

Monday, November 9th, 2020

I was surprised to find, upon arriving at the Public Trust Hall a good quarter-of-an-hour before the concert’s scheduled starting time, at least three-quarters of the seats already filled, and the queues still bringing people in – by the time I got my ticket sorted I found myself almost at the back of the hall, and was left wondering how I could possibly get from such a position a reasonably “filled-out” sound that would do justice to the performances.

I need not have worried, because the acoustic of the hall (a place where I’d never previously attended a concert) seemed by some alchemic means able to convey enough brightness, body and clarity of detail, even at a distance, to bring the musicmaking well-and truly to life. It was partly that the performers were such a stellar bunch whose “business” as performers was obviously the expert conveyance of the essence of whatever they were currently playing – but I simply had no qualms throughout the evening regarding any perceived lack of projection, character and personality on the part of any of the musicians. How lucky were both the concert organisers and we, the audience, to be able to enjoy such a “line-up” – and in such a venue!

We had been promised an out-of-the-ordinary kind of presentation this evening, along with the live music-making, one involving both the medium of soundtracked film, and the participation of a jazz combo paying its own tribute to a US record label called Blue Note, founded by two Jewish refugees in 1939, for which many of the great black jazz musicians recorded in the 1940s and 50s after being shunned by the more ‘establishment” record labels – we were able to enjoy a 2018 documentary film called “It must Schwing!” along with those clips from films whose soundtracks featured music written by those among the concert’s “composer roll-call”.

Concert host Donald Maurice began the proceedings by welcoming us to the hall, before introducing the chairperson of the Holocaust Centre of NZ, Deborah Hart. She spoke of the original Kristallnacht events and their commemoration by this concert, her words serving the purpose of reminding us afresh of the on-going nature of oppression fuelled by racial prejudice and cultural bigotry world-wide. She then thanked everybody, musicians and audience members, for their attendance and participation in this evening’s event.

Opening the presentation part of the concert was the music of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, firstly via an excerpt from the 1938 film “Robin Hood” for which he wrote the music (we were treated to the scene where Robin and his adversary, Guy of Gisborne, fight to the death, in tandem with the followers of both men similarly battling it to the end – the “separated” conflicts rather like contrasting individual instrumental lines in an orchestral work with tutti passages!) What a film! – still with the power to engage a good sixty years since my last viewing of it!

We then welcomed ‘cellist Inbal Megiddo and pianist Jian Liu to the platform to perform Korngold’s ‘Cello Concerto” a thirteen-minute long work itself written for a film “Deception”, and a piece that packs a lot of incident into its brief span. It was made the most of by Megiddo and Liu, who most surely characterised all of the piece’s contrasting episodes, the work’s “singing” quality being as well-rounded as the spikier, more agitated episodes were made sharp-edged and impactful. In a piece so condensed one felt almost cheated when the end came, so glorious here was the music and its making!

Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s “classic horror” contribution to the 1941 film “Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” was then highlighted, followed by a performance by soprano Jenny Wollerman and pianist David Barnard of music in an entirely different vein, the same composer’s “Three Sephardic Songs”, whose text was Labino, an old form of Spanish. The poetic declamations of the first song betrayed its origins, with strongly-focused vocal lines and  ambient support from the piano, while the second song was gentler, expressed with a gentle, folkish walking-gait, and a beguilingly light touch. It was music that seemed to “entice” us into the countryside, the characterisations from singer and pianist creating a distinctively ambient world of expression.

Next we saw two contributions to film from German composer Franz Waxman, who famously wrote the music for the first full-length German film in the 1930s, “The Blue Angel”, but, on leaving Germany went to the US where he wrote many film scores, among them “Rebecca” (1940) and “Bride of Frankenstein” (1945) – the excerpts featured a range of musical evocations, from the romantic to menacing (Rebecca) to downright blood-curdling (Frankenstein)! An entirely different matter was his “Carmen Fantasy” for solo violin, here played with jaw-dropping virtuosity (what can a listener do but desperately cling to cliches when one is stunned?) by violinist Martin Riseley, with pianist Jian Liu hair-raisingly hanging onto the violinist’s coat-tails throughout!

Polish-born Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s music began the second half of the concert, beginning with excerpts from the 1957 Soviet film “The Cranes are Flying”, set at the time of the Second World War, the clips showing sequences with hugely contrasting emotions of love and despair, each conveying a different kind of compelling intensity. We then heard, courtesy of the New Zealand String Quartet, two movements from Weinberg’s Fifth String Quartet Op.27, written in 1945 in the Soviet Union, to where Weinberg had escaped (and remained) after the Germans invaded Poland. First came the opening “Melodia”, music which not surprisingly seemed to express uncertaintly and discord, a ‘cello solo towards the end leading to a kind of concourse of quiet despair. The Scherzo movement was, by contrast, a wild dance integrating quixotic and fiercely desperate passages with fraught unison passages sorely seeking a kind of liberation – very exciting playing from the ensemble, with an “over-the-top” solo violin part fearlessly presented by the Quartet’s leader, Helene Pohl.

Like most of the composers mentioned, Austrian Jew Ernst Toch left Nazi-controlled Europe for the US during the 1930s. He found some work as a film composer, though he also maintained his academic career as a teacher of Philosophy and Music in California, and as a composer of concert music. The 1944 film “None shall Escape” was a projection of the post-war trials of individuals responsible for wartime atrocities, Toch’s opening music there suitably authoritative, but a later excerpt was warmer-sounding, and more reminiscent of Ernest Bloch’s Schelomo. Pianist Jian Liu then played Toch’s Tanz und Spielstücke Op.40, the opening gentle and lyrical, the lines floating, and alternating as if “looking” for one another – the music gradually convinced itself it was allowed to “animate”, though it all remained very spare and unadorned, strange, gnomic music, the occasional impulse apart, appearing to “sit upon” its own character and not give anything away.

All of this was in stark contrast to the music of Hungarian composer Miklós Rózsa, whose fame has up until recently rested on his many film scores, but whose concert music is now achieving more frequent hearings – particularly renowned are his scores for the films “Ben Hur” (1959) and “El Cid” (1961).  We saw the well-remembered opening of the legendary chariot race from “Ben Hur” (suitably Respighi-ish in effect) as well as the dramatically-underlined confrontation scene between Ben-Hur and his boyhood friend Messala, when politics put an end to their friendship!  After all of this, violinist Yuri Gezentsvey and pianist David Barnard played a transcription of Rózsa’s music for the “Love-Scene” from “El Cid”, its sweetness and romance beautifully held in check at first, then allowed to expand and unfold with the utmost feeling – a beautiful piece of concerted playing!

Being  somebody whose knowledge of jazz could be summed up on the back of a postage stamp, I somewhat nervously approached the final segment of the concert, a tribute to the German Jewish refugee pair of Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, who developed a jazz label called Blue Note Records, a company dedicated to furthering the careers of non-establishment (usually black) musicians, such as Sidney Bechet, Art Blakey and Thelonious Monk, and later signing up and  working with Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane and Quincy Jones.  Wayne Shorter called the “Blue Note” pair “The Lion and the Wolf”, bent on realising their vision of creating a platform for musical talent to express itself without prejudice of any kind getting in the way.

A film made in 2018 “It must SCHWING”, reputedly the motto of Alfred Lion, directed by Eric Friedler, made clear, in the excerpts we were shown, the positive feelings of people who were associated with these “glory days” concerning the leadership of Lion and Wolff, the family atmosphere they created, and the fairness with which the musicians were treated. Following this the jazz musicians came together to perform a 1993 work by American composer John Zorn “Shtetl” (Ghetto Life) taken from an album entitled “Kristellnacht”, succeeding it with a tribute to clarinettist, saxophonist and composer Sidney Bechet, playing his 1939 work “Blues for Tommy”.

To my uncultured ears, the playing of the members of the jazz combo was above reproach, the lament-like opening of the music they began with coloured by the character of each of the instruments, the clarinet mournful, the piano philosophising, the double bass dark and resonant, the guitar anecdotal and chatty – the clarinet sounded like a cantor calling the prayers while the drummer at the back jazzed and spiked the rhythms.  Together, the instruments generated a processional quality that I related to Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony (in particular, the “Frere Jacques” movement), before the clarinet suddenly skipped into “swing” which sounded not unike “Ida, Sweet as Apple Cider”! At its swingin’ height the music suddenly dissolved into more and more abstracted realms, with the guitar playing a chiming kind of ostinato, supported by the drums “kicking into” the same repeated pattern, and the clarinet taking up a kind of valediction…….for some listeners I imagined it would have been a truly sentimental journey……

It was left to Deborah Hart to thank us once again for attending the concert, and thanking also the musicians who contributed their services, besides paying tribute to the owners of the Public Trust Building, Kay and Maurice Clark, for their generosity in making the venue available to the Holocaust Centre – appreciative words which were readily supported by all in attendance at this remarkable and heart-warming event.

 

 

Wellington vocal trio delights its Whanganui audience with a “charmer” of a programme…..

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wanganui Music Society presents:
A Concert of Part-Songs
Lesley Graham (soprano),  Linden Loader (mezzo-soprano), Roger Wilson (baritone)
Phillipa Safey (piano)

St.Paul’s Hall, Cooks St., Whanganui

Sunday 8th November 2020

This delightful concert was the second of three concerts I was scheduled to attend and review over three consecutive days – and now, looking back at the three events while writing the notices for this second one , I’m suddenly reminded of Franz Liszt’s description of the Allegretto movement in the middle of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op. 27 No. 2, commonly nicknamed the “Moonlight” Sonata. Liszt called the movement “a flower between two abysses”, which is something of how I feel about this particular concert in relation to the other two on either side of it. It was, in fact an absolute joy to attend, as far as I could discern, giving pleasure to all, participants, organisers and audience alike.

It’s not that the other two concerts weren’t enjoyable in their different ways, with each of them achieving great things in providing their respective audiences with plenty of excitement and deep satisfaction. But this one’s pleasures were singular in that there was a beguiling ease, a sunniness of disposition, a joyful relaxation in the music-making which reflected the programme’s delight in simple pleasures of life and love. True, the programme’s second half charted more varied emotional territory, with the four Mozart Nocturnes for vocal trio dwelling on love’s pangs as much as its bliss – and the real “elephant in the room” which somewhat counters the effusive tone of my warblings above, was Carl Loewe’s setting of the grisly Scottish ballad “Edward” – here, put across by Roger Wilson and Phillipa Safey with plenty of menace, growing horror and blood-curdling relish, the singer’s Caledonian inflexions convincingly adding to the impact of the performance!

The concert was performed in a lovely space, a hall adjoining the magnificent St.Paul’s/St.Mark’s Church in Cooks St. – the hall afforded a clear and responsive acoustic, enabling listeners to enjoy the finely-modulated balances between the three voices themselves and with the piano. Even sitting at the back of the four-fifths-filled hall, I could clearly hear each of the contributions of the individual singers, with the piano a judiciously-balanced partner.

These balances were immediately apparent in the concert’s opening number, a deliciously presented ”Dashing away with the smoothing iron”, the first of the half’s exploration of English, Irish and Scottish part-song settings – I don’t propose to comment on each individual item, but this one’s performance encapsulated all the virtues of the concert’s first half – the overall lightness of touch from all concerned being the framework of strength that allowed full play to the constantly-shifting impulses of emphasis, light and colour along the way of the song, the freedom and spontaneity of it all totally beguiling! “My gentle Harp” was another to impress, with beautifully stratospheric opening work from soprano Lesley Graham and gently-undulating support from the others.

Teamwork was winningly apparent in “Tis the last rose of summer”, with lovely ensembled singing, the restraint from all adding to the glow of nostalgia, reinforced by the piano’s murmuring tones to gorgeous effect. But not only the gentler, more poetic songs came off well – things like the jolly, rollicking “The De’il’s awa’ wi’ the’ Exciseman”, and the “Scottish snap” evident in “The Dance” were given full rein, both tonally and rhythmically, with the enjoyment of it all readily conveyed to the audience. The defiant “strut” of “The Dance” splendidly energised the music, with Roger Wilson’s “hummed” lines adding a rustic touch to the textures, like a “ground bass”.  Finally, Beethoven’s arrangement of “Charlie is my darling” brought the half to a good-humoured close, the performance replete with rhythmic and dynamic detailings which brought it all to pulsating life.

I hadn’t ever encountered the three Shakespeare duet settings that began the second half, the first (“Ye Spotted Snakes” by Frederick Keel) again featuring some beautifully-negotiated “snow-capped” vocal work from Lesley Graham, supported most ably by mezzo Linden Loader, with the concluding reiterations of “lullaby” from the two so very dream-like and ethereal. In the first of Vaughan Williams’ two settings (“It was a lover and his lass”) the composer’s gentle major/minor alternations expressed something so elusively English about the sounds, while the third (“Fear no more the heat o’ sun” from “Cymbeline”) gave each singer solo lines before the concluding “Like chimney-sweepers, come to dust” beguilingly blended the two voices. This was something of a “find” for me for which I was so grateful, both music-and performance-wise.

I’ve already waxed lyrical regarding Roger Wilson’s splendidly evocative and theatrical performance of Loewe’s setting of the gruesome “Edward”. In order to minimise the possibility of nightmare-ridden sleep that night for hapless audience members after being exposed to such ghastly happenings, the musicians finished the afternoon’s concert with some rather more ingratiating sounds which those more susceptible to such things might well have put to good use to “paper over the horrors”!  For whatever reason, we all welcomed this set of four Mozart “Nocturnes”, again all new to me, and perhaps all the more delightful for it!

I loved the comment in the programme notes regarding the texts of these songs – “The rather stylised Italian poems, possibly by Metastasio were translated into equally inconsequential German” – (Pietro Metastasio 1698-1782 was the most famous opera librettist of his time but whose formulaic style of writing soon became out-dated). Mozart’s music transcended the somewhat high-flown, idealised sentiments of the verses, inspiring the quartet of musicians to give finely-honed, exquisitely gradated performances, my notes while listening replicating phrases like “beautifully balanced”, “perfectly focused”, “finely poised” and “deliciously turned” – altogether, a most mellifluous ending to a satisfying and entertaining programme.

Adventurous programming and bold concert presentation from The Capital Band, at Vogelmorn Hall, Brooklyn

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Capital Band presents:
MENDELSSOHN – String Symphony No. 7 in D Minor
JS BACH – The Art of Fugue (with extracts from the Dhammapada)*
HINDEMITH – Einleitung ( from “Nobilssima Visione”)

The Capital Band
Douglas Harvey (conductor)
*(extracts from the Dhammapada spoken/acted by Bethany Miller)

Vogelmorn Hall,
Vennell St., Brooklyn, Wellington

Saturday, 7th November, 2020

The success of The Capital Band’s first concert (reviewed by Middle C in September of this year – see https://middle-c.org/2020/09/a-memorable-debut-by-a-new-ensemble-the-capital-band-presents-works-by-mozart-and-schubert/) augured well for this, the ensemble’s second outing at the same venue, particularly in view of the announced programme’s adventurous spirit, incorporating as it did a “spoken word” performance element in some shape or form associated with the music of JS Bach. It all added interest to the expectation of something “out of the ordinary”, and in that respect certainly didn’t disappoint.

First on the programme was a work by Felix Mendelssohn, one of his String Symphonies. a group of works long considered an epitome of youthful genius (they were written between the boy’s twelfth and fourteenth years). The one chosen for tonight’s performance was No. 7, a work in D minor whose tempestuous unison opening immediately suggested young Felix’s familiarity with the music of CPE Bach. The Band pointed the contrasts at the outset between loud and soft, heightening the drama of exchange between the different dynamic levels, and emphasising the interplay between physicality and lyricism. Though intonation was occasionally a bit scrappy, the basic rhythmic pulsing suggested a well-drilled ensemble at work throughout.

The “amorevole’ marking for the second movement’s andante brought out great delicacy and tenderness in the playing at the beginning, which then contrasted with the second subject’s warmth, the two modes of expression then playfully intertwining throughout the movement. By contrast, the players’ attack at the minuet’s start seemed to practically turn the music into a volatile scherzo, the musicians “digging into” the notes as if a kind of elemental spirit had been unleashed.  The “skipping” Trio, an astonishing piece of invention, seemed to come out of the ether, at once disconcerting by its marked contrast to the “Menuetto”, and gripping with its intense build-up to an abruptly dramatic climax – an amazing sequence!

The finale was no less startling, two assertive chords performing a “ready, steady – go!” gesture which led firstly to madcap racings and chasings interspersed by fugal passages which were dovetailed into more “whirling dervish” sequences by turns wild and furious, then delicate and gossamer, finishing with a spirited repetition of the movement’s principal theme – all highly entertaining and involving, and serving notice that Mendelssohn, for all his fame and reputation, remains a somewhat under-appreciated composer.

One couldn’t say exactly the same about JS Bach (whose music Mendelssohn actually helped to “revive” during the 19th Century), although opportunities to hear the great man’s unfinished composition “The Art of Fugue” in any presentation form come rarely for the concert-goer.  The work has been the subject of great controversy amongst scholars regarding its realisation in performance, despite (or perhaps because of) which it has received any number of recordings featuring both solo keyboard instruments and different ensembles. Here, the Capital Band’s string-players took up the challenge, varying the numbers performing each of the pieces as deemed appropriate for the part-writing and in the interests of variety and contrast.

What gave this performance a particular kind of distinction, however, was the use of a speaker interspersing the movements with quotations from the Dhammapadra, a Buddhist collection of over 400 verses containing “steps of religious virtue”, an anthology of moral precepts and maxims as uttered by Gotama Buddha himself to his disciples. Here the speaker was actor Bethany Miller, a vital and vibrant “presence” by dint of her voice and physicality, all of which was certainly engaging, even if she occasionally lapsed into inaudibility in places through movement that was simply too far-flung.  In general, to me it all seemed to be too much in terms of both speech and movement – I thought the considerable inherent power of her presentation would have been enhanced by fewer words and more stillness. What she did was a “tour de force” – but after a while I began to crave for the “more” that “less” would give…….

The music’s austere strength was fully demonstrated in the Contrapunctus 1 movement which immediately followed the speaker’s opening words, sounds which featured the three notes of a D minor chord and a scale, elements which Bach then proceeded, over the next twelve movements, to subject to what seemed like endless variation, by way of inversions, embellishments, and tempo and rhythm changes. Here, in Contrapunctus 1, individual players took up the fugal entries before others in each of the sections joined in, adding their weight to the sound. This deployment of forces took place in a number of the movements, the solo strings beginning the “lines”, and then being joined by their colleagues (as is generally known, Bach didn’t specify any kind of instrumentation in his score, leaving it for the performers to decide how they would present the music).

The Capital Band string-players bent their backs to what was a considerable task, and generally emerged with considerable credit. I particularly enjoyed the solo-string passages throughout the performance, which were delivered in most cases with beauty and precision. To analyse each movement as played would take too much time and space, but some are worth particular mention, such as the generous, richly-played No.5, slow and stately music which built up to a most satisfying fullness, and the No. 6 which followed, the cello beginning a swinging dotted rhythm, answered by the violin, everything nicely dove-tailed to include the flourishes in the solo lines, all beautifully-focused.

Even when difficulties were made manifest – and especially as in the neighbouring vicinity outside the hall some sort of “party” was contributing, not altogether helpfully, a somewhat Charles Ives-ish effect with musical counter-rhythms at odds with what Bach had intended – our splendid performers seemed not even slightly put off their stride. Though playing with considerable spirit, the cellos found the figurations of Contrapunctus 8 something of a trial in places – to their credit they stayed not on the order of their going, throughout – and then the following No. 9 seemed to have a “false start” and needed a re-launch at a slightly modified tempo, which produced a better flow. Against these tribulations one could set the beautiful cello-playing of Contrapunctus 12, the effect almost lullabic in its serenity, and the excitement of the trio-playing  (violin, viola and cello) of No.13a, with the players right on top of their music – thrilling stuff!

There was stillness again for 13b, the speaker’s voice here more effective, making the words more evenly-focused, and the playing (a “contrary motion” version of the theme) allowing the ear to take in the lighter textures more readily and tease out the lines, to near-enchanting effect. And it all came together for the final Contrapunctus 10, with the speaker’s voice again “contained”, perhaps lacking the nth degree of focus at this stage, but with the effect for me indescribably moving, and the music in response reverential at the outset, but quickening in intensity towards the theme’s grand announcement, the playing finding variants of nuance and impulse, the contrast between smaller numbers and the full tutti most satisfying to experience at the journey’s end.

Some consider Paul Hindemith’s music “heavy going”, but I’ve found the key to listening to his music is identifying a particular “sound”, one that’s distinctively “central European” and definitely responsive to repetition, which puts flesh on the slightly dry-boned aspect that his work presents. This work, “Einleitung” (introduction) is actually the opening part of a Suite “Noblissima Visione” drawn from a ballet of the same name completed by Hindemith in 1938 and featuring episodes in the life of St. Francis of Assisi. The composer had been overwhelmed by an encounter with the great Giotto frescoes in a church in Florence, depicting scenes from the saint’s life. Hindemith intended the suite to present the most effective concert-hall music from the ballet, rather than follow any kind of dramatic order.

Right from the beginning of the piece there was captured that distinctive “warm-but-cool” sound characteristic of the composer, the great paragraphs of lyricism securely launched and growing in intensity, the sounds pushing the needle towards the red in places as part of the experience, but easing gently back to each starting-point as the sequences rounded their utterances off, the violas especially distinctive at the music’s end. It made a resonant adjunct to the evening’s journeyings, rounding off in almost ritualistic fashion the sterling efforts of the performers in bringing to life an absorbingly “out-of-the- ordinary” programme!

Remarkable NZSO concert of Bach family music inspired by Vesa-Matti Leppänen, Diedre Irons and Andrew Joyce

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Vesa-Matti Leppänen – director and violin
‘Bach Extended’

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach: Duet for two flutes, F 57
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: Concerto for harpsichord and fortepiano, Wq 43/4 (Diedre Irons – fortepiano)
Johann Sebastian Bach: The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080, Contrapunctus XIV (the last, unfinished fugue)
Cello Suite No 6 in D, BWV 1012, Gavottes and Gigue (Andrew Joyce)
Orchestral Suite No 3 in D, BWV 1068
Chorale Vor deinen Thron. BWV 668

Wellington College, Alan Gibbs Centre

Saturday 31 October, 7:30 pm

This was a very novel and interesting enterprise by the orchestra, partly on account of the venue, the surprisingly spacious hall at Wellington College. In the light of the lack in Wellington of a suitable auditorium that seats between 300 and 2000, apart from St Mary of the Angels and the Anglican cathedral, this space, presumably able to seat around 1500, could be useful for large musical events.

W F Bach from Bridget Douglas and Kristin Eade
While properly dominated by the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, the concert opened with a touch of novelty – a piece for two flutes by the oldest of J S Bach’s surviving sons: Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. The Duet in F, F 57 (F stands for the acknowledged authority Falck). It was introduced with lively comments about the wooden flutes that would have been used in the mid 18th century, by Principal flute Bridget Douglas, with associate principal Kristin Eade; though I didn’t catch and could see clearly whether they were in fact playing early flutes.

It’s in three movements: Allegro moderato, Lamentabile and Presto (based on a Naxos recording by Patrick Gallois and Kazunori Seo).

C P E Bach and Diedre Irons 
Their playing of the first movement was beautifully soft and warm in tone, reflecting J S Bach rather more than do the younger sons, Carl Philipp Emanuel and Johann Christian. The playing was engaging and rhythmically attractive, and though not particularly marked melodically. Then a meandering, unostentatious second movement, showing a thoughtful and perhaps popular character, and the third conventionally brisk.

CPE Bach’s music is more prolific than WF’s and it became widely popular through his long employment in Berlin at the court of Frederick the Great and in Hamburg; but virtually disappeared after his death. However, it has become pretty familiar since the mid 20th century.

The orchestra, with Diedre Irons at the fortepiano, played his Concerto No 4 (his modern authority and cataloguer is Alfred Wotquenne – Wq). Its movements are Allegro assai, Poco adagio and tempo di menuetto, Allegro assai.

The fortepiano was positioned conventionally, with strings, the two flutes again, and two horns (Samuel Jacobs and Euan Harvey). The quiet of the fortepiano among the strings and the brevity of the first movement may have surprised some in the audience, as well as the Haydnesque character of the music though, alongside that (Haydn was about 20 years younger) it was certainly not as remarkable and entertaining as a Haydn concerto. There was a surprising quality in the slow pace of the second movement which without warning shifted to the triple, minuet rhythm. The last movement seemed to be the longest, again with curious rhythm shifts towards the end (my note during the last movement was ‘polite but hardly memorable’), but there were enough little surprises and a broad sense of interesting invention to hold attention.

The rest of the concert consisted of J S Bach.

Contrapunctus XIV
What a singular choice to focus on two of Bach’s last works, the final ‘Contrapunctus’ of The Art of Fugue and the Chorale Vor deinen Thron!

The choice of these Bach pieces seems to have been driven by the idea of death or finality.

The Art of Fugue was itself his last major work, left with no clear indication of what instruments should be employed, and also left unfinished before the end of the 14th fugue, or Contrapunctus, as Bach named them. The instrumentation chosen here was that by Ralph Sauer for brass instruments which created very imaginatively its funereal sense of finality. And it proved interesting in highlighting the singular talents of the orchestra’s brass section, including often strikingly, Andrew Jarvis’s tuba. The players seemed to place singular emphasis on the last unresolved note, avoiding the temptation that one occasionally encounters, to graft a legitimate cadence onto it.

Sixth Cello Suite 
After the interval came two of the most familiar Bach works – the two Gavottes and the Gigue from the last of the six cello suites in the remarkably gifted hands of Andrew Joyce. Though it might have been additionally revelatory if he had also played the Prelude or the Sarabande, this was a superb experience from a sensitive and perceptive cellist.

Suite No 3 
And then the third orchestral suite , BWV 1068: chosen no doubt on account of its Aria  or ‘Air on the G String’ (No 74 in this year’s ‘Settling the Score’ from Concert FM on Labour Day).

However, this was the suite in its entirety, with scrupulous playing not only by strings, but by trumpets and oboes, timpani and bassoon, horns and tuba. The varied overture, showing early signs of its later evolution in the form of the symphony, was quite as rewarding to hear as was the Air that follows. And it’s been a long time since I heard a live performance of the entire suite: including gavottes, bourée and gigue. This was an entirely enriching experience.

‘Vor deinen Thron’ – chorale prelude
It was reputedly Bach’s chorale prelude ‘Vor deinen Thron’, and not the unfinished 14th ‘Contrapunctus’ from The Art of Fugue that was Bach’s “deathbed composition”; reputedly dictated by the now blind composer. It is normally played on the organ but here was an arrangement involving the brass instruments. This performance captured the kind of pensive, neutral character that can be heard in Bach’s music, seeming hardly to seek any kind of tragic, funereal quality. Once again, it was the immaculate performance of these players that was so arresting, perhaps calling on the listener to decide how to feel about its purpose. And so it could have been heard, and seen, as a very different kind of conclusion to a very unusual selection of music by JS Bach and two of his sons.

This was the first of six performances of this programme – the rest are in the South Island:
Invercargill’s Civic Theatre on Tuesday 3 November
Dunedin’s Glenroy Auditorium in the Town Hall on Wednesday 4 November
Oamaru’s Opera House on Thursday 5 November
Christchurch’s auditorium, The Piano, on Friday 6 November
Nelson’s Centre of Musical Arts (formerly the Nelson School of Music) on Saturday 7 November.

I hope the citizens of these South Island cities take advantage of this unique chance to hear this rare and fascinating concert.

 

I came across a nicely literate, unpretentious description of these two last works by Bach (http://youyouidiot.blogspot.com/2013/11/js-bach-vor-deinen-thron-tret-ich-bwv.html)  

“’Vor deinen Thron tret’ ich’ (Before your throne I now appear), BWV 668, has an interesting story behind it …

“BWV 668 is a chorale prelude, meaning that it is a piece of instrumental music which takes as its main thematic material an existing song. In this case the original music that the piece is based upon is a hymn entitled ‘Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein’, which was originally written by Paul Eber in the 16th century. The source melody (or cantus firmus) was composed by Louis Bourgeois, also in the 16th century. Bach had previously arranged this hymn as BWV 431.  …early in his career, Bach created an organ chorale prelude from this piece, BWV 641, under the original title ‘Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein’….

“What Bach does with BWV 641 is create an accompaniment which is based upon the melodies of the original hymn, but then adds an ornate cantabile melodic line over the top, which I’m sure you’ll agree is rather exquisite.

“’Vor deinen Thron tret’ ich’ actually exists in two different versions. BWV668 is included in the 18 Great Chorale Preludes, and actually consists of a fragment (about two thirds) of the entire composition, copied out by someone other than Bach. BWV668a is the same piece, complete, with slight differences, which was included (under the title ‘Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein’) in the original publication of Art of Fugue, published after Bach’s death in 1751.

“There is a story that was perpetuated by Bach’s son CPE Bach, that his father dictated the chorale directly from his deathbed. This is now considered to be rather flamboyant myth-making, which gave the piece the nickname ‘The Deathbed Chorale’. What is actually now understood to be the case is that BWV668a was a piece that was just lying around (Bach was an inveterate re-worker of old material), which Bach decided to put more work into as he lay dying, meaning that although it was not composed out of nowhere, it was still the very last thing that he worked on, and thus a significant artistic statement.”

 

Admirable Waikanae chamber music from friends of a non-existant Wilma Smith

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Waikanae Music Society
Wilma’s Friends: Martin Riseley (violin), Jian Liu (piano), Nicholas Hancox (viola), Andrew Joyce (cello)

Mahler: Piano Quartet in A minor (the single movement)
Schumann: Piano Quartet in E flat, Op 47
Dvořák: Piano Quartet in E flat, Op 87

Waikanae Memorial Hall

Monday 26 October, 2:30 pm

This concert was to have been given by ‘Wilma and Friends’ – that is Wilma Smith, the former concertmaster of the New Zealand and Melbourne symphony orchestras; she lives in Victoria and was prevented from travelling; Martin Riseley, head of violin at the New Zealand School of Music at Victoria University stepped in, as did cellist Andrew Joyce and violist Nicholas Hancox from the NZSO.

‘Wilma and Friends’ has not been a consistent ensemble in the past: earlier, different groups have appeared at a previous Waikanae concert in September 2017 and there was a different programme at St Andrew’s on The Terrace in October 2017; a piano trio was at the Chamber Music Festival in Nelson in February 2019, and the next month in Wellington; with none of the players heard at the present concert.

These players formed at remarkably congenial ensemble, with admirable balance between piano and strings.

Mahler
The opening piano passages of Mahler’s 16-year-old single movement certainly hint at its orchestral aspirations with its triplet crochets, though it leads to the prominent emergence of Riseley’s meditative violin, though Hancox’s viola often has an equal part to play. Jian Liu’s piano was the perfect accompaniment, moving between the conspicuous and the discreet while Andrew Joyce’s cello always seemed a singular balance between subtlety and the essential of fulfilment.

It’s a sophisticated and imaginative piece that doesn’t outlast its ten or so minutes.

Interestingly, I came across a YouTube comment on the Schnittke elaboration of Mahler’s sketches for the second movement, to the effect that Mahler had left his manuscripts in the archives in Dresden which were destroyed by the terrible Allied bombing at the end of the war. In other words, they’d remained unstudied in Dresden for 35 years. Perhaps copies will eventually turn up in Vienna.

Schumann (not a single one of whose works found a place in Concert FM’s Settling the Score 100, in spite of surprising, quite frequent broadcasts of the symphonies on Concert FM recently) wrote only a few chamber pieces, and the piano quartet and piano quintet are among the best.

This was likewise a lovely performance; the three strings were again in remarkable accord right from the sombre opening in which the piano planted the most discreet remarks. The repeated, contrasting episodes spoke of typical Schumann discretion and genius, and the players knew how to express it, not preparing the audience for Schumann’s unceremonious ending.

The secretive Scherzo too was carried off with a sense of novelty, avoiding any expectation of what a Scherzo usually expresses, just a lot of interesting ppp piano passages leading to the two Trios that are decorated by the fleeting piano-driven insertions of the triple quavers of the Scherzo itself. They again enlightened any non-Schumannesque listener expecting more conventional developments.

Cello and viola take prominent, moving roles again in the Andante and both rewarded attention, and the shift from E flat to G flat minor – not a close relation – might have carried a subtle warning about flawed audience expectations.

It pays to recall Schumann’s literary references to the mythical creations, Eusebius and Florestan, whom he employs in his compositions, and these might illuminate the varied spirits that emerge in each of the movements, particularly in the mostly-Vivace finale.

One of the interesting effects of this performance was to question my normal feeling that Schumann’s piano quintet was more delightful than the quartet.

Dvořák
I had slightly the reverse experience with Dvořák’s Piano Quartet No 2, also in E flat. (Dvořák too wrote a very popular piano quintet – Op 81 which does rather remain a couple of degrees more delightful. Nevertheless, given the fairly limited number of great piano quartets, this one is still among the top five).

The piano is immediately prominent, even emphatic; here, calling for no needless restraint or subtlety. So I refrain from noting that my scribbles might suggest otherwise. Nevertheless, the first movement has frequent, typical Dvořák’s characteristics such as delightfully decorated instrumental parts, countless varied themes; these players exhibited both a singular affinity with the music and a mastery of its playing.  The unusual modulation from E flat to G major might have had, no doubt as intended, the injection of seriousness, of unpreparedness, creating a rewarding listening experience.

In the course of this, something brought to mind a common musicological opinion that pianos and string instruments are in fundamental conflict; Dvořák did not think so, nor do I; after all, he was primarily a string player though also a fine pianist.

Cellist Andrew Joyce created a beautiful atmosphere at the start of the long, Lento second movement, which again evoked a meditative feeling, even a disquiet at times. It is not till after about five minutes that it’s possible to agree with the programme notes remark about seriousness and intensity, but the performance complied then, movingly. I was interested to note that, as with Schumann’s third movement (and this obviously comes from reading the score), there’s a modulation from E flat minor to G flat major, which seems to draw warmth from the music, and one wonders how much attention Dvořák had paid to Schumann’s key shifts.

The third movement, which doesn’t follow the tradition of a Scherzo, though it is in triple time, hinting at the Austrian Ländler, opens with a touch of seriousness, not quite an Allegro moderato, serioso perhaps. Nor is the last movement unalloyed joyousness, with substantial subdued passages, that drew attention to Hancox’s’ viola for example, that gently advance towards energetic episodes; occasionally I felt there was too playful a touch, almost flippancy. But there was still a uniform spirit in the playing that did superb justice to this hugely popular piece (again, commenting on Settling the Score, there was indeed a serious scarcity of great chamber music like this; no Beethoven or Haydn or Bartók string quartets – and no Haydn or Bartók at all).

However, this concert and its splendidly attuned musicians was fine consolation for the shortcomings of Monday’s exposure to the limitations of popular knowledge of and affection for such vast quantities of great music.

 

“Timeless” classics with a twist – latest in the NZSO’s “Podium” Series

Posted on by Steven Sedley

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra presents “Timeless”

Music by Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven

MOZART –  Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 550
HAYDN – Symphony No. 64 in A Major, Hob 1:64 Tempora Mutantur
BEETHOVEN (orch. Weingartner) Grosse Fuge, Op. 133

Hamish McKeich (conductor)
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

Saturday, 24th October, 2020

This was the last concert of a tour of five centres. It was a programme of safe music by Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, nothing to intimidate a conservative audience, though Beethoven laid down major challenges that audiences have grappled with since the work was first performed by the Schuppanzigh Quartet in 1825. The orchestra was reduced to strings two horns, oboes, clarinets bassoons and a flute. There were no celebrated soloists, but the concert provided an opportunity for section leaders to step back while their places were taken by their associates. The marketing people called the concert Timeless, a title neither meaningful nor particularly appropriate, but it was certainly an evening of fine enjoyable music.

The concert began with Mozart’s Symphony No. 40, one of three he wrote in 1738 to raise some urgently needed cash. It is the work of a consummate craftsman, who could knock out three substantial, enduring major works in a few weeks. It is the acme of the classical symphonic style. There are musical questions and answers and then contrasting themes, at times played by strings then answered by the winds. Balance is the hallmark of this music. Written in G Minor, this symphony has a dark melancholy undertone, combined with grace and courtly manners. If there is drama, it is understated, but there are echoes of dramatic orchestral passages from the operas. The orchestra gave the work a crisp, restrained reading, with well judged, unhurried tempi. The large string section produced a beautiful full-bodied rich sound. No flourishes, nor exaggerations, no lingering on the lovely themes. It was an honest, straightforward reading.

The Haydn Symphony No.64, Tempora Mutantur is a less well known work, and even among Haydn’s symphonies it is overshadowed by the later symphonies, and even by No. 45, the ‘Farewell’ Symphony. Haydn was in his early forties when he wrote this symphony. Much of his energy at the time was devoted to operas. During his 30 years of employment at the court of Prince Esterházy he was required to deliver at least two operas a week as well as instrumental works, some of which were recycled from his copious earlier works. The title Tempora Mutantur was written on the manuscript of this work. It is a part of a phrase that means “The times change and we change with them”. It is not clear whether this sentiment is reflected in the music. It is certainly has unexpected breaks, themes cut off by contrasting responses. The focal part of the symphony is the beautiful largo, but the entire work is full of Haydn’s surprises, phrases that are interrupted, quiet passages broken by sudden forte. It is, however, very delightful gentle music. Like the Mozart symphony, this was clearly articulated and well played. Though not a popular major concert piece, it was an opportunity to hear a seldom performed work by a much loved composer.

Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue was written as the final movement of Sting Quartet No. 13 in B flat Major, Op. 130, to follow the ethereally beautiful Cavatina movement. It is an immense double fugue. At the time audiences found it incomprehensible, confusing, and Beethoven was persuaded to write an alternative final movement for the quartet The fugue was published separately as Op. 133. Musicians found it fiendishly difficult to play and audiences were puzzled and bewildered by it. It was like nothing written before. Beethoven, the ultimate master of the sonata form found by then the form constraining. To complete a vast quartet of six movements he wrote a double fugue of over 700 bars of rhythmic violence and often ruthless density of thought1. There are alternate passages of loud, interweaving harsh fugal parts and quiet meditative passages recalling the introduction to the final choral section of the last movement of the 9th symphony. The piece gives the impression that Beethoven, an old man as he thought of himself, was exploring the limits of music. It was music inside the head of a profoundly deaf composer unbound by convention and the boundaries of form. Some felt that there is too much in the music to be contained within the limits of a string quartet, and orchestrated it for a larger ensemble. It was the arrangement by the renowned conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic, Felix Weingartner, that we heard in this concert. He added basses to the violins violas and cellos, underlining the harmonic base of the fugue. Played by a large body of strings, Beethoven’s original piece for a string quartet appeared to be a completely different work, very powerful, very dramatic and quite overwhelming. Hearing this arrangement recently, I thought that much of the subtlety of the piece written for a string quartet was lost when amplified for a whole string orchestra, but in this performance I appreciated the merit of a chorus of strings emphasizing and underlining Beethoven’s quest.

The Grosse Fuge is a challenging and difficult work for both players and listeners, but at the end of this outstanding performance we felt that we had had a deep, moving and rewarding experience. Yet again, Hamish McKeich proved himself to be a thoroughly reliable steady hand at the helm.

Orchestra Wellington and Sistema Orchestra Hutt Valley in varied and colourful concert

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Orchestra Wellington conducted by Marc Taddei with Jian Liu (piano), plus Arohanui Strings – Sistema Hutt Valley

Josef Suk; Serenade for Strings in E flat, Op 6
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No 1 in D flat, Op 10
Rachmaninov: Symphony No 3 in A minor, Op 44

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 17 October, 7:30 pm

This concert was one of Orchestra Wellington’s rather special events, not only in parallel with a rather singular election day that tended to absorb the animated attention of most of the audience before the concert and during the interval, but also sharing the platform of the MFC with another orchestra: the Arohanui Strings. That band was founded in 2010 on the model of the Sistema Youth Orchestra in Venezuela, and is directed by violist Alison Eldredge. It involves about 300 young string players, mainly from the Hutt Valley. Naturally, by no means all participated on Saturday evening.  I guessed there were about thirty promising Arohanui Strings – Sistema Hutt Valley players, eleven first violins and down to two double basses, plus around 20 very small players who found their way across the front of the stage for the later pieces.

Arohanui Strings
The first piece was the commissioned premiere of Alissa Long’s Domino Effect, which involved both wind and percussion players of Orchestra Wellington, plus a few OW players to give body to the string sections. One of the several curiosities was a three-metre long wind instrument that I thought was a kind of didgeridoo; I’m informed: a ‘Rainstick’.

This more advanced group also played an arrangement of Poor Wayfaring Stranger; then the littlies, some around 5 years old I’d guess, formed a long line across the front, some on special, small cello chairs, to join the orchestra playing, and singing, Ode to Joy, Square Dance and Lean On Me.

Audience delight rested with the simple spectacle of very young children evidently thrilled, and a bit overwhelmed, at the experience of playing with grown-up professionals to an audience approaching 2000.

The result of this preliminary episode was to prolong the concert; it didn’t end till about 10.15pm, a mere 45 minutes more than usual; very few left early – even to catch up on the excitement of the election result!

Suk’s Serenade for Strings
The first piece played by the host orchestra was the lovely Serenade for Strings by Josef Suk, who was a pupil of Dvořák at the Prague Conservatorium. It’s his earliest published piece (1892) and today probably his best loved. (I have some recollection of Suk’s Asrael Symphony played by the NZSO a fair while ago; it didn’t overwhelm me).

In the Serenade, Suk picked up Dvořák’s suggestion for something happier and more charming than what he had previously composed; he was probably inspired by Dvořák’s own Serenade for Strings of 1875; though there were several good earlier examples of the string suite or serenade.

I knew Suk’s early work well enough and this experience only enhanced admiration for its touching, ingenious orchestration; the first movement is immediately enchanting with its tuneful richness and warmth as well as its rhythmic variety and individuality, which the orchestra explored so well. The second movement is in changeable triple time, and soon takes root according to the ‘grazioso’ description. I was particularly captivated by the playing of the long and lovely third movement, Adagio, scored interestingly and subtly, moving about with charming thematic and rhythmic variety. It’s been compared with the ‘Dumka’ style that Dvořák had made famous, rhythmically and emotionally various. The last movement is characteristically brusque, with each group particularly firm and clear.

If, like me, you are often led to explore a class or type of music that is presented itself in a concert, there’s a lot of comparably delightful music: some of Mozart’s divertimenti, to start with; Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings in C, Op 48 (1880), which happened to be one of my early teenage experiences from the then 2YC radio (now RNZ Concert), when nothing but entire works were played, presenting no problems for its then large audiences. Then there’s Dvořák’s in E major (1875); Nielsen’s Little Suite for Strings, Op 1 – particularly charming); Elgar’s Serenade for Strings in E minor, Op 20 (once it was second in popularity only to the Enigma Variations); and Holst’s St Paul’s Suite (and the Brook Green Suite is only a little behind it). There’s Grieg’s Holberg Suite, Op 40, echoing the Baroque period of Norwegian dramatist Holberg [born 1684, making him a contemporary of Dryden and Pope, Voltaire and Prévost (writer of the Manon Lescaut story)]. A discovery as I put this list together was the charming, seven-movement Idyll, Suite for string orchestra (you wouldn’t recognise its composer, Janáček!). Even later, there’s Bartok’s Romanian Folk Dances for string orchestra.

Prokofiev Piano Concerto No 1 
The most successful work in the programme might have been Prokofiev’s first piano concerto with Jian Liu, Head of Piano Studies at Victoria University’s school of music, as soloist. Like Suk’s piece, this too was a teenage masterpiece. Prokofiev had played it first in Moscow in 1912, again playing it himself and winning at the St Petersburg Conservatorium piano competition in 1914; to the shock and disapproval of many faculty members on account of its originality, invention and flamboyance. I got the full measure of those Prokofiev characteristics in Vienna in 2014 hearing Russian pianists playing all five concertos at the Konzerthaus with the Marjinski Orchestra under Gergiev. Alexei Volodin played No 1.

After brief blasts from horns, shrill flutes and cracking timpani, Jian Liu opened the piano part at once with brilliant, startling sounds; it might have astonished Prokofiev himself. A singular piece for 1911, before The Rite of Spring, it still catches the ear, as much by its rhythmic and harmonic adventurism as by its unconventional shape. The programme named its three normal-sounding movements but in reality there are many quite distinct parts – eleven have been listed by some authorities. It’s taxing enough for the orchestra and there were indeed slight missteps between piano and others but the general impact was of startling bravura and accuracy, not only from the pianist, and a keen awareness of the virtues of pushing the boundaries of musical composition.

Rachmaninov’s 3rd symphony has not the same popularity or scholarly respect as the second, partly a result of his need to concentrate on piano performance after leaving Russia following the overthrow of the Empire in 1917. It was written in the mid-1930s, after the Rhapsodie on a theme of Paganini for piano and orchestra; in some ways it’s more radical than might have been expected in the light of the composer’s earlier works. There were moments of ensemble imperfection, but the overall impression was of energy and liveliness, and considerable flamboyance by brass and percussion. I might have exaggerated my feeling that lead to my notes remarking, in the Allegro vivace section of the second movement, that some of the orchestral passages lacked refinement and discretion; were too flamboyant.

In all however, Rachmaninov’s works, like Sibelius’s symphonies and Strauss’s last operas, remained true to his own integrity, imagination and inspiration, and they steadily gain popularity, ignoring dismissal by the more extreme elements of the Darmstadt/Donaueschingen school.

And so, a work like this, that is certainly a masterpiece by one of the early 20th century’s greatest composers, is steadily regaining favour; in spite of perceived structural weaknesses, it generates compelling interest and pleasure, and we were lucky to have heard it under Marc Taddei and Orchestra Wellington in such an enthusiastic and committed performance.

The other event of the concert was Taddei’s announcement of the general theme of the orchestra’s 2021 concert series: “Virtuoso”, with cheap tickets as usual, for those booking early.

 

Dazzling Diabelli Variations from pianist Ya-Ting Liou at St.Andrew’s make an indelible impression

Posted on by Peter Mechen

St Andrew’s Lunchtime Concert Series presents:
BEETHOVEN – Thirty-three Variations on a Waltz by Anton Diabelli in C Major, Op.120
Ya Ting Liou (piano)

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

Wednesday, 14th October, 2020

The Diabelli Variations, or to give the pieces their proper collective name, “Thirty-three Variations on a Waltz by Anton Diabelli in C Major, Op.120” represent in their entirety Beethoven’s final and loftiest thoughts concerning the piano and its expressive capabilities.  It’s both characteristic and appropriate that such sublimity of invention on Beethoven’s part should have emanated from such an unprepossessing source.

Thanks to Beethoven’s somewhat free-wheeling biographer, Anton Schindler, the circumstances surrounding the composer’s involvement with this work became over the years interlaced with fanciful legend – that Beethoven scornfully dismissed Diabelli’s Waltz as “a cobbler’s patch” until the latter offered him a considerable fee for a set of variations,  that the composer was so offended at having been given such a poor theme he wrote the 33 Variations on it to rub the insult in, and that he completed the work in no less than three months.

Leaving aside Schindler’s account, we know that in 1819, the publisher, Anton Diabelli, aware of a musical public craving some escapist amusement in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, approached a wide range of composers that included Beethoven and Schubert with the idea of presenting them all with a waltz-theme of his own invention and requesting from each a variation on the theme. This was to be published as a kind of anthology,  one called Vaterländischer Künstlerverein  (The Patriotic Artist’s Club). At the end of the same year over fifty composers had completed their efforts and sent them back to Diabelli. The exception was Beethoven, who had accepted Diabelli’s invitation, and responded with not just one but a number of variations, quickly completing twenty-three, but then setting aside the work for the Missa Solemnis (he had interrupted work on this for the Variations!) and the late piano sonatas.

Early In 1823, Beethoven finished the set, completing thirty-three variations all told, possibly to advance his own efforts with the previously-published 32 Variations in C Minor, or perhaps even having in mind JS Bach’s Goldberg Variations, with its thirty-two pieces. Whatever the case, the work was published by Diabelli in June of that same year, the publisher actually drawing attention to Bach’s work thus:  –  “……indeed all these variations, through the novelty of their ideas, care in working-out, and beauty in the most artful of their transitions, will entitle the work to a place beside Sebastian Bach’s famous masterpiece in the same form.”

To deal with a work of such proportions, both performers and commentators have proposed various kinds of “signpostings” which give some kind of direction to the adventurous listener, ears awash with the sheer extent of the composer’s inventiveness. Today’s performer, Ya-Ting Liou, suggested in her programme note that the work might be thought of as in two parts, the division marked by the cataclysmic Variation 17 (the renowned pianist Alfred Brendel, famous for his performances of the work, called both this and the previous Variation “Triumph”), a sequence characterised by great energy, physicality and exuberance, and one whose aftermath certainly appeared as though the music had suddenly set its sights elsewhere, the following Variation a dialogue or game perhaps between friends or lovers or philosophers, with the exchanges opening up for us enticing realms of equivocal possibility.

But the work responds to a myriad of listening approaches for both listener and performer, whether “large-scale” or “of the moment” – and from the very beginning Ya Ting’s unhurried, detailed and intensely cumulative approach had the effect for me of “gathering in” both broad brush-strokes and detail, so that while one was aware of the contrasts being wrought between each of the variations, one’s concentration on the overall flow was never unduly disturbed. I thought her abilities as a storyteller were outstanding in this respect – whatever the felicitation of the detail, or the sharpness of the contrasts, we never lost the sense of an inexorable forward movement, from realm to wondrous realm glorying in Beethoven’s invention! If one was occasionally tempted to dwell on the particular character of a fragment or a sequence, one was then “taken” in thrall to the next felicitation, at times almost by osmotic means, completely without self-consciousness!

To speak of “highlights” in such a performance of such a work would be to denigrate Ya Ting’s achievement as a whole – rather I prefer to cite certain moments as enjoyable for reasons tailored to each moment’s particular “character”……thus the first of the Variations, the Alla Marcia Maestoso was rightly made more of a “beginning” than the theme at the work’s opening, spacious, processional and attention-grabbing, with orchestral-like contrasting dynamics in places, an almost Musorgsky-like “Promenade” moment with which to commence the journey proper. By contrast, the dreamy, poetic, very “vocal” line of the third L’istesso Tempo Variation made for a piquantly quixotic commentary, with its discursive bass notes trailing off into thoughtful silences, a discourse which the next variation Un poco piu vivace turned into a lovely series of arched “overthrowings” of festooning detail.

One of the abiding qualities of the playing seemed to me to be the pianist’s quality of taking the music “with her” in those variations requiring an abundance of tone rather than merely “driving” it all forwards – thus in Variation 14’s  Grave e maestoso we all were made to “feel” the tread of those broad, resonant steps which seemed to resemble a large ship’s progress through water, a process that seemed like the unfolding of a vision, the piece’s second half delivered with infinite patience and long-breathed surety – quite a journey! By contrast, Ya-Ting was fully engaged in an entirely different way in the “virtuoso roar” of those two Variations, Nos 16 and 17, which for her signalled a “halfway-point” in the work, the strength of each of the hands by turns given a workout in the two pieces, the results an exhilarating engagement with some strong and scintillating music-making.

The work’s second half contained the music the composer penned after returning to his work to write ten more variations to add to the twenty-three he had written in 1819. No.20’s sudden deep bass, following as it does immediately after the excitingly  festive Presto of No.19 was a solemn Andante, one of the most profound of the set, and which commentator Donald Francis Tovey described as “awe-inspiring”. Here, La-Ting seemed to lose herself in thought, the music taking our sensibilities to “different realms” in a wondrously spontaneous-sounding recreation of remarkable stillness. Of course, Beethoven was “setting us up” for the explosion which followed with Variation 21’s Allegro con brio, sudden, incisive trills in the right hand set against tub-thumping chords in the left hand, interspersed with slower triple time sequences. The hand-passing-over jumps produced some inaccurate landings which merely added to the excitement – who dares, wins!

Drollery took over from rumbustiousness in the next Variation, No. 22, none other than a setting of part of  Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Leoporello’s opening aria “Notte e giorno faticar” (Night and Day I work), music which shared the same two opening notes with Diabelli’s theme. Another explosive contrast then took place with the following Assai allegro, Variation 23, the pianist’s fingers all over the keyboard, generating incredible momentum, while again, maintaining a coherence of inspiration amid the music’s startling contrasts. Obviously I don’t have the space in the course of a single review to do full justice to this artist’s treatment of so many profoundly insightful moments of through-line amid contrast throughout this work – suffice to say that by some alchemic means she took us with her on what seemed like a seamlessly-flowing journey to the apex of the music’s realms of expression, the concluding variations inspired firstly by Bach, then Handel and finally Mozart, the last of which seemed, in  Tovey’s words, like “a peaceful return home”.

To have such an exposition of genius laid out for us so beautifully and far-reachingly in the course of an otherwise ordinary lunch-hour’s duration seemed to me like a miracle – a gift from life’s variety and inexhaustible capacity to inspire and bring joy, brought to us through the sensibilities and skills of a remarkable pianist.